Undercover FBI Agent Exposes Sinaloa Cartel & La Cosa Nostra

thirty years of FBI work that was the highlight of my life what makes a good FBI undercover agent you got to remember you're convincing real bad guys that you're worse than they are you can infiltrate almost any group in the world but do you trust the FBI organization the recent events over the last couple of years it's embarrassing to the FBI we shouldn't be in the news if you tell me that Apple has the computer of somebody who's threatened to blow up Grand Central Station the FBI should get in there somehow it's the preservation of human life we would be here for weeks if we were going back and forth how much similarity does the FBI as an organization have to the mob I'm coaching baseball at night and I'm robbing banks during the day why do they ever trust a new guy because they're all greedy every one of those cases were made because they were greeted to make money how are you staying calm in that moment rather than wait for the day somebody sticks a gun to your head stop thinking about it now [Music] today's guest is Michael McGowan who was a 35 year law enforcement involved in law enforcement 30 of that which was FBI and within the FBI you got out of all the FBI agents out there only 10% ever go undercover of the 10% only a quarter do more than one case 10% of 10% do more than five cases he did 50 cases one of them was Russia undercover Russian mafia another one was the LA cosa nostra three different families undercover for I think six years and the last one was the Sinaloa cartel without Chapo and there's a lot of different stories and his recent book ghost got picked up by Sylvester Stallone and he's turning it into a movie with that being said Michael thank you for flying out and being a guest with us thank you for having me yes and sakes Alan because you just retired two years ago so a lot of your stories are gonna be a good time we're gonna have some stories that are recent some that are older this is a good mixture it is so when did you wake up and say I'm gonna go be an FBI agent what was that like I never did so the way that came around was I grew up in a police family my father my grandfather were police officers my son is now a police officer I didn't think I had a choice that was the family business we were Blue Bloods before there was a Blue Bloods so I knew I was going into police work but I expected to be a police officer and that's what I became right out of college I became a police officer and while I was a police officer we were responding to bank robberies in which the FBI also had jurisdiction and one day one of the FBI agent asked me if I considered joining the FBI you know literally was the first time across my mind and I told him not really I was very happy being a police officer and the next time I saw him he handed sheet with the application and the he also slipped a second piece in which had the salary which was more than twice what I was making as a police officer and I had just had a baby we were just starting our family so I figured I'd give it a shot never expecting to be hired so there was no lifelong ambition to become an agent it just kind of happened and I'm glad it did what did your dad think you didn't did you not tell him right off the bat or family that I'm going was it a secrecy secrecy thing no my father had passed early he was a police officer for almost 30 years he died six months after retirement you were 19 right as is it were you 19 when he passed or I was 19 years old 19 years that's right you were 19 so so when you were 19 when he passed he was a retired cop you become an FBI agent later on in life family do they know yet that you're an FBI agent my family knew I was an FBI agent obviously both my own family and then my my extended family but they didn't know I worked undercover I didn't I didn't think that was a good idea I tell the story that when I was a cop I came home from the midnight shift we had just been married I was from a police family so I understood police work my wife wasn't so I got jumped in a bar and came home with the two black eyes and a separated shoulder and my wife yelled at me for parent League in my butt kicked at work but it really frightened her and we made a deal very early in a marriage that what I did it work stayed at work so once I transitioned into undercover work I didn't want to bother my wife and my kids about what I did so they knew I was an FBI agent but not what I did at work so were you gone regularly kind of like hey you know how Pistone was gone for a long time was was that also with yes you were gone I was gone especially when my kids were young and again you talk about the book that I wrote I wrote the book not for general consumption I wrote it to thank my wife and to explain to my children what I had been doing it was really remoted that was the motive I never intended this to be published or being out in the open I wanted to thank my wife she raised and took care of our family I have three productive healthy wonderful children it's all my wife taking care of them when I was out playing cops and robbers Wow and my kids they didn't understand they don't when they're little they don't know you're an FBI agent they just know you're doing weird things I tell the story that my son was home sick from school he was little seven or eight years old I was working a night I came home went to bed he didn't know I was home I didn't know he was home the doorbell rang I picked out the window and I went downstairs and my son's at the top of the stairs I don't know he's there and I answered the door with a gun behind my back and my son who was seven or eight at the time never told us he told that story years later at Christmastime and I wanted to explain to them because it see me in the basement with a recorder just odd things that kids don't normally see their parents doing or they don't understand and then I'd I'd leave for months weeks there was one case I was gone two and a half years permanently you'd go 20 1/2 years they don't see you at all but bouncing back and forth about once every two months or so during that time my kid he was in the fifth grade he got in a fight in school because another kid teased them his parents were divorced his father was gone so he decided to handle it on the playground it's just a crazy lifestyle so I wanted my wife and my kids to understand because they made the same sacrifices that I was making what was their reaction when they read the book I know I heard they read in less than a week or less than a day some story like that what is it what happened was when I first wrote it for them I didn't realize when you write a book you don't have to write the whole book so I wrote 357 pages and I gave it to my children and my wife at a Christmas I put it under the tree one year I think it was two thousand fourteen or fifteen my wife and my daughter went upstairs that day and came down the following day having read the whole story and not knowing a lot of it so they they were first exposed to it and then it explained a lot my kids all say to me now oh now I get it now I got it so were they crying were they well they were it was actually it was actually emotional because and again for my wife she didn't know the situations that I was involved in which I didn't want her to no she didn't join the FBI she wasn't responsible for what I did but you know to get up in the middle of the night and then leave and not come home for four or five days just the just the family life of an undercover agent is is difficult and again at the end of my career I always had an interest in writing I wanted to try to write something I wanted to do that all my life and so that's how I figured I would try it by explaining to them the people most important me what what I was doing would you recommend the life to other people or now yes you would I would as an FBI agent as an FBI agent I would because number one it's very fulfilling people say to me well you know you wrote a book and a movie blah blah blah thirty years of FBI work was the ultimate that's all I want to remember that was the that was the highlight of my life and the rush you get the adrenaline rush the satisfaction of basically because you got to remember you're an FBI agent you're convincing real bad guys that you're as bad is worse than they are that's not easy so it's a it's a challenge I always like to have challenges in front of me so I was terrible when I first started undercover work there was no training I didn't know what I was doing but I knew I wanted to do it and it's a skill that you can improve upon if you work hard at it and I'd like to think that I worked hard at it but I always wanted the next one and that's why retiring was so hard there was there wasn't a next one retiring was hard very hard Wow of course I mean if you're doing it 30-plus years it's just that side of it you're so what makes a good FBI undercover agent in my opinion there's a couple of things that make some agents perform better than others one is you have to be humble you have to be confident without being cocky you have to be a good listener people miss that when a bad guys talking to you young undercover agents start thinking of their next answer and they don't listen and if you don't listen carefully to what they're saying they're the ones who are providing the evidence not you the more you're talking the less evidence they're giving you so I trained new undercover agents and I actually have list of good traits and bad traits and the the good traits are basically common sense good judgment not getting too high getting too low and you have to be comfortable you have to be comfortable in the environment a lot of people don't want to go into undercover work because they're fearful of not being able to adapt to the group setting that they're in I felt differently you know if you continue to work at this scale you can you can infiltrate literally almost any group in the world got it how different is FBI from your experience versus a CIA agent or is it pretty close on who would who would do well again I don't know enough about the CIA I just know that state federal when you when you meet state federal and local law enforcement officers who also work undercover I can kind of pick them out of a crowd there's a certain it's hard to describe but there's a certain mindset there's a certain skillset that you kind of get used to when you see people you know a lot of times when you're saying this is their part of it that's also acting as well like you know I don't like to use the word acting as I said you don't get take two and undercover work if you make a mistake literally you can lose your life and you can jeopardize an investigation was there every time would that happen to you or now absolutely what situation was it we were investigating a suspected serial killer that we had had contact with an undercover capacity and one of the agents asked dialed a phone and the bad guy heard us talking about our approach to him oh my so we jeopardized and again you know you do that and you call you your friend and people laugh about it or we call it a serial killer and and again not proud of that it happens but that's how important what we're doing is so you make one mistake like that we had already convinced him that we were bad guys but then we made a mistake in the case was closed obviously he actually called the FBI and said don't bother coming back he called the FBI and said don't bother calling back coming back coming back yeah and then what happened to him later on he's still on the street he's still on the street and what year was this was it 20 years ago I mean no this was probably maybe 10 years ago 10 years ago nice still on the streets mm-hmm he's behind you in the grocery store Wow very impressive no not impressive because that's a mistake that what I'm saying with him is the fact that he's still in the streets is impressive for him tonight still not be caught that's what I'm saying by being very impressive on is it so so okay so let's go through some of the stories let's go through some of the stories Joe Pistone are you guys friends where you just know of each other Joe and I are I would call us acquaintances that Joe was just one generation before me so I believe Joe retired a year before I joined so that's there was no overlap in our careers he was just getting out as I was coming in but everybody in the undercover community obviously know Joe's work in New York and he's been kind enough to help me along in my career but again we don't socialize we don't spend time with one another but any good undercover agent will always try to help another undercover agent I don't care what kind of bad you wear if you have the cones to go out on the street and do this I'll help you oh it doesn't matter what it is you guys work together and you understand each other absolutely that's great to know have you ever been the same room with Joe yes I told Joe at the end of the interview I don't know if you remember that I said Joe I feel like you still feel like you're with the mob and he says no I said you talk like a mobster you won't take those glasses off you dress like a mobster what do you think when you say see Joe yeah you seen somebody that was so deep into their life for six years that some of it is stuck no that's a good question because when I watched that interview Joe's answer was the exact answer I'd get you he never once confused his identity he's an FBI agent as I was an FBI agent our job is to collect intelligence and evidence we may look dressed talk act and manipulate them like they do but we're not one of them and people ask me all the time don't you feel bad when you get next to a guy and he goes to jail and no I don't because he put himself in jail at all No zero zero other people may feel differently yeah I'm just telling you my experience I like these guys I mean the mob guys that I hung out of them were the funniest guys in the world but they kill each other they kill each other regularly if they kill each other yeah that's a crime yeah and they do other things that you know they want they want the lifestyle that comes from easy living and then they don't want to pay the penalties when they're caught so that's their decision I never forced anybody into committing a crime that's what they chose to do are you friends with anybody from that life that turned their lives around that got ahold you and you guys are now have a relationship or not at all one of my best friends he just passed away a couple years ago there's a it's one of the cases I work in the Merlino Philadelphia crime family there was a informant named Ron Privett II he's publicly been acknowledged etc he skilled me not an FBI agent informant a bad guy turned informant taught me the ways of the mob and I spent years working with him and learning from him and I had a super relationship with him up until his death a couple years ago so you so he's the lefty to you he's the guy that was kind of giving excited he wasn't an informant had left it wasn't a normal but he was preventing was an informant but he had been he had been in the military he had been a Philadelphia police officer and any switched sides and he became a captain in the in the relay no family and then he decided to get out before we got him and he came on board with us and he taught me literally almost everything about them um some of the things what are some of the things he taught you about the mob well there's a perfect example I showed up one time he was talking about the way I dress he showed I showed up one time and I had on a very nice suit and he looked at me and he said you're an FBI agent they said what are you talking about I said it's a $1,500 suit he said yeah but you got on $8 Sox you gonna JCPenney socks on so you're cheap sore you're an agent you're not a mobster so who would think that what type of socks you wore that's that's a good example of what he taught me it's just it's little things like that that made me get better at what I did listening to him people think of informants and I know there's different opinions of that but they've lived that life they know that life why wouldn't we take that help very interesting that he's paying attention to everything people are wearing $8 JCPenney socks with $1500 suits some of the cases you were undercover in one in cases that seems that's pretty interesting to me is the the the largest heroin you know you guys seize I think it was four hundred million dollars if I'm right with the numbers if not the second largest at the time it's the one article says first biggest another one says second so it's obviously one of the biggest one ever how was that going through that process of experience than that okay in that case the the first heroin case you're talking about was in Philadelphia and I was the case agent I was not the undercover agent because these guys were in Karachi Pakistan and we convinced them to send 50 kilos of heroin into the US and we seized it so I would help develop the storyline they thought they were talking to another inmate somebody in the prison system that there was a relationship with so that case when we seized the 50 kilograms of heroin in 1992 that was iron at a hundred eighty million and we didn't pay a dime for that heroin it was all fronted to us given to us in advance believing that we would sell it and repay them which we obviously didn't and then that left that led to the second heroin case after the debacle with the heroin gone missing there's a second heroin case where we were able to use the original defendant as an informant to make a second seizure which was another 200 million so combined there a total of 400 million between the two so this was a time when you were an agent for seven years and they accused you of taking 180 million dollars after the first seizure yeah that 50 kilograms that I was a golden boy in the FBI that means you can do no wrong so I was a golden boy in a year and a half later the FBI turned around and accused me of stealing it out of the evidence Locker when they did what happened to you were you still working day today or no what I was working at the time and I was told that I couldn't discuss it with anyone including my family that I was to keep my mouth shut while the investigation took place so my own agency thought I was guilty of a horrendous crime how long did that investigation last about four months four months and in after four months do you because I know in that world it's you know you get a scar the golden boy is gone and then everybody's kind of like what if you know what if he is doing something like I tell people all the time I went from Golden Boy to public enemy number one my reputation my integrity was destroyed falsely I know who supported me and who didn't the people who didn't to this day I won't speak to him I was on a SWAT team and on a drug drug squad at the time and the agents on the drug squad and the SWAT team who I worked with on a daily basis supported me a hundred percent while the rest of the office waited for the see which way the wind was blowing it was horrific the FBI you don't make a lot of money everything is your reputation and your integrity and to have that falsely tarnished and never be given it I was later given an exponent I a apology by director free nobody who accused me in the first place ever apologized I mean that's pretty well because in that in the world if you're an FBI did this stripes and the respect you have is the fact that you know I'm all in you can trust me you know when I'm doing that when you take that away from you what is my currency and I got it did you kind of feel like you have to keep constantly earning back their currency from the well people ask me about a lot of people ask me why he didn't quit well I didn't quit because number one I didn't do anything wrong and number two I had a family to raise and all I know is police work so I wasn't quitting and then my father had taught me at a very young age you get knocked down you get up and that's what I did I said to the FBI all right if you think I'm somebody of that character I'll show you and that's when I went and started making those cases and bringing in results but to this day you can tell five years later I'm still pissed off to be falsely acute and that's why I gave every bad guy I never put anybody in jail that I didn't know 110% because I was falsely accused of something so you have to make sure your evidence is locked locked in tight did they finally find the money or no did they finally find a heroin well they found some of it most of it was sold and they arrested another FBI agent who set it up in a way that the finger would be pointed at me so somebody did end up doing the time for 25 years 25 years yes and they know what this is a amongst all your peers everybody knew that it was him that did it they knew after yeah but during the time and after after his what after but there were still people after who still thought I may have been involved yeah and those are the people that you don't want to talk to for 25 years I mean that's pretty obvious you got a lot of pride behind what you're doing so there's a funny story about the one where somebody who was an insider taking trying to sign a six million dollar deal to help the Mafia make money and you found out about an inspector what what happened there that was another mob case that case took place around 2006 2008 the head of the Boston organized crime stream at that time was a guy named Carmen DiNunzio and he was known as the cheese man because he operated a cheese shop in the north end which is the Italian section of Boston mr. Patriarca was the patriarch of family or something like that now that's the earlier one so this is the New England LCN this is the Boston based mob at the time so we had decimated them throughout the prosecution so he was kind of the next in line but he wasn't a brain surgeon so he had he had friends who owned a dirt farm and they had toxic loom at the dirt firm that couldn't be used anywhere and DiNunzio came up with the brilliant idea that he would sell it to the state of Massachusetts to be used in the construction of the Big Dig it's a big construction project up there so we got windham at the FBI heard about it and i was asked to go undercover in that case and pose as a corrupt Massachusetts state official so I had to go to dirt school I didn't know there was such a thing where you have to go learn about dirt there's a lot of things to know about dirt but again getting back to that's what we have to do when we do these things if you're going to say you're a dirt inspector and you're gonna go to a dirt farm you better know to be able to you can talk about dirt so I did my schooling the state at the state of Massachusetts was tremendous giving us an education and resources and I went out and posed as a corrupt state official how was that now is this the time when you pull up with the car and they do what you do with the car because that's pretty crazy I'm just I'd visualize and I'm thinking to myself that's insanity no but what that is and if you looked at it I used the Cesar Millan school of training if I used to love to watch see some along the dog whisperer he would control dogs without them understanding he was controlling them and I took some of the techniques and I would practice on human beings and they're very effective and so when I pulled up that day they're expecting some state inspector and so I borrowed a state truck a huge lime-green truck I had all the gear onto hard hat the boots I drove into the dirt farm and about 100 miles an hour and I just rode around spinning I ignored them for like ten minutes I got out of their truck I went to the bathroom against the tire I didn't wash my hands and I went over and shook their hands and called him by the wrong name and the point being there that they think this is some not but at least they don't think it's an FBI agent and that was my I've made such a strong approach to them I didn't want them to think that I possibly could be there collecting evidence and they bought it how long was that how long was that undercover a timeline on that one that case was quick that was maybe six months or less because it was it was going down the road when they asked me to once they had that opportunity and I jumped in quickly because I had previous experience with the LCN but the office had been trying to make a case for about two years and we made that we made the case from the undercover technique in about ten meetings so what's what's a short case what's a long case I know you said 25 years one time being away from the family well what would be considered a short case a short case can literally be one day a good example and that we talk about a little bit as these murder-for-hire come up when these robberies come up we get information that somebody wants to hire somebody to kill somebody we have to get in quickly we have to try to interrupt that so you may do that I did one or you or you have bank robberies guys want to rob banks and you need somebody to infiltrate the bank robbers before they do it you know we're watching them we're hoping that they don't strike but if we have the ability to get next to them we want to do that I did one bank robbery case where they wanted me to be the getaway driver and I had a secure weapon and in the car and of the day of the robbery I drove the two robbers up to the bank while the SWAT team was waiting and I let him out and I drove away how did they hire you though how did they find out about you again I don't want to give too much to the other side but believe me informants are critical to law enforcement and I'll leave it at that got it but then you got to you got to sell yourself you may get introduced but then they got to believe you're willing to you're a bank robber so this is what I mean about the the double lives you know you're going home at night but this is what Gaston said and I say the same thing I know I'm an FBI agent I'm not a bank robber so I'm coaching baseball at night and I'm robbing banks during the day but I'm not robbing I'm helping the SWAT team arrest them you know so again so the general public isn't harmed how often did you go from a crazy thing you just did helping robbers rob a bank or you know FBI agent catch the robbers to actually go into the game how often was your life from here's the FBI agent undercover hey baby how do you don't let me put you to sleep how I did that happen I tried to as I got later in my career when I started to understand undercover work I built my undercover life around my family life in the sense that I would go to my kids games sometimes I would bring bad guys to the games come on though it just it's there's a way to do it I don't want to like it - into the weeds but there's a way to do it but my wife pointed out to me much later you're missing your children growing up so that's when I took control of my schedule and I would work nights weekends but I'd work around things were important in my family so everything I could go to my family events you know I would try to do that there sometimes you just can't as we all know but first responders law enforcement you don't get to pick your hours but because of the the specialty area I was in I really did get to pick my own if I had to meet a bad guy meet him at midnight rather than six o'clock when the game was so I tried to make up for lost time by doing it so so when you work with three different families you said the Russian mob and then it was a three La Cosa Nostra families and then you're talking about the Sinaloa cartel without Chapel were you the kid were you do in the case of were you the actual undercover agent on these three families the three families I was the undercover agent all three of them all three what was the biggest difference between the way the three families ran all right so my first one was 98 99 that was against Merlino it's called the Merlino Luisi there was a there was a faction in Boston dealing with a faction in Philadelphia Joey Merlino was a very well-known mafia boss I couldn't meet directly with Merlino because I had been in Philadelphia and helped arrest him on a previous case so he would recognize me or we suspect that he would recognize me so I had to dance around that I would deal with the guys in Boston who were getting the their marching orders from Philadelphia that case took about six months and that was in time-intensive you had to be there at their beck and call fast forward - mm I do if case down against the patriarch of family in Rhode Island a guy named Maddy googly immedi he was a captain coming out of prison and we had information he was going to be the boss so I went down just not the case in Rhode Island in 2000 thinking it would take you know a year or two and that ended up being five years straight so there's a six-month in the five years and then cheese man the last one was about a year or less so till in total it's about six seven years pretty much full time with with them culturally it's kind of like being on three different sports teams what's the biggest difference between these three different organizations the patriarchal family was very sharp they were they were looking for law enforcement they were the brightest group we went against they were very hard to infiltrate it took me over two years just to meet the main guy that was a slow methodical approach that we had to take and that's going down there every day for two years not even meeting a guy I finally met him and then we we had ants to investigate further after I developed a relationship with him the other two groups truthfully weren't that intelligent because they led an unknown me into their inner circle DiNunzio the last case he met with me a complete stranger it's unheard of he shouldn't have done it but women at the FBI we don't you know we don't mind we'll take advantage of course yeah and the same thing with the with the Luisi family and the Merlino family i was introduced by ron preventing the informant I spoke so he had he had cachet with them so by him voting for me I was able to work my way into the top level right away and we did a we did a drug case in Philadelphia case we did a drug case in a Rhode Island case and then the bad dirt was the final one the yeah who was the toughest one between the three that it was a Maddy googly many the patriarch er the by far the road ah yeah told me one day he told me one day Mike I'm to you telling me more things that I need to know I hope you're not telling me for the wrong reasons he basically told me he thought I was an FBI agent it was too late it was done he told you this yeah what was your reaction when he said this to you I expected it to come and I just played it off you got to remember these guys grew up around each other they go to grammar school together their families know their family who's the new kid on the block all the time so when things start going south they're not going to look at the guy they grew up with they're gonna look at the guy who last came into the game why do they ever even trust a new guy because they're all greedy everyone every one of those cases were made because they were greeted to make money I presented opportunities in each of those cases to make money for the mob and they'll do it the mob tells you they don't deal in drugs that's a complete myth they all deal in drugs because it's worth it it's a moneymaker all right so if you can make them money they'll interact with you they'll be suspicious of you but that's their Achilles heel were you ever in a moment where you kind of like I could get killed were you ever in bad situation with those three families where was the one story that we tell that in the first case the Philadelphia Boston case we were about six months into it I had already bought drugs from them we have we were buying more drugs and the FBI received information that they had learned my true identity I wouldn't tell me how they learned that which was the right play myself in the case agent argued that we could go back but we would only meet them out in the street where I could be watched and we they reluctantly agreed to let us do that and of course not the first time but the second time I went back they motioned me into the coffee shop the social club with a hung out and I tried to get them to come out and you know we're going to standoff and finally I said you know I got a I got to go inside and you learn as an undercover you have to you can't shoot your way out of situations you got to talk and think your way out of situations so I went into the club very reluctantly I had real bad feelings I knew the two guys behind me were armed there were two guys two goons behind me and I went in where I had been in this place many of times but this day the Bobby Luisi the head guy said Mike we we got to go down in the basement okay and you probably don't want to go down in the basement of a social club so I didn't have a choice I'm not gonna fight my way out of it so I had to think my way out of it I went down in the basement and this is a funny story that very few people believe but those are the days of jukeboxes and as I went downstairs Frank Sinatra's my way was playing on the jukebox and that was the only song I have heard my father sing in my life and he had been dead for 25 years but it was almost like he was saying you're gonna get out of this and it kind of relaxed me and then when they got me downstairs they started to talk about more cocaine so it finally dawned on me they're not gonna kill me and I collected more evidence and I got out of there safely that day they asked them after they arrested them they said what happened that day when you brought him in the basement and they said we thought the FBI was following him as a bad guy and we brought him down in the basement to protect him but I wish they had told me that that day wow they thought the FBI was following you yes and they brought you down to protect you so how are you staying calm in that moment how are you and I know you're telling the story about your father would ya my way in 25 years now but what is and I'm sure this is not the only situation but what are you doing to just kind of stay calm number one you don't you don't try to put yourself in that situation okay you should pick up dangerous signals before it's too late so that's what you have to get better at when you do this now I knew that day when I was outside that day and they started to try to get me inside I should have just left but I was still relatively young undercover at that point and you got to remember FBI agents for the most part a type-a personalities we can get the job done but the older I got the smarter I got and ten years later I never would I would have walked away that day I never would have went in that building you would have never gone in never why not and that's what I trained younger undercut why not do why wouldn't you have gone so I didn't get killed or hurt okay no case is worth an agent getting killed or hurt for if you asked experience if you ask the Joe Pistone that day if I should have gone that building I guarantee you his answer is no same okay but you know once you're in something you have to think and talk your way through it and so what I do in training is I tell agents now rather than wait for the day somebody sticks a gun to your head start thinking about it now what are you going to do all right it's just it's just it's life preservation you have to think these things true I grew up I grew up in a blue-collar environment I grew up with some people who ended up in jail so I wasn't uneasy in those circumstances I I had dealt with guys like them and there's certain guys you got to push at and other guys you got to give them some space and you just have to learn that there's no book that you can write no that's what I'm saying so school in truth there's not really any kind of a training that they put you through his training now there was none when I start okay got it yes it was just you have to get lucky picking a person to do the job and not you the person hiring you back when I first started if you're a cop or you were in the military the FBI thought you could work undercover don't ask me why because those are two of the most regimented professions in the world but they so I got picked to work undercover because I had been a cop got it what's the most vicious thing you saw happen right in front of you you're sitting here like oh my god I can't believe that just happened he had to stay calm the most vicious thing happened me did not happen to me in undercover it happened during the Boston Marathon bombings which I was also involved in just as a agent and I saw a lot of the destruction and carnage from that event which was horrific you were the one to happen yes I mean I was in the city of Boston and responded to the event kind of God but anything with the undercover with mobs did you see anything vicious in front and front me right in front of you I never saw anybody killed obviously I never saw anybody shot anything like that because you really have to people think you go undercover and you just decide ten minutes before you do something we put weeks and weeks and months into preparation so we don't put ourselves in a bad spot so when I went to do something with the mob and this goes for all undercover agents or different cases you set yourself up for the most success in the least amount of risk so if you know there's a beef going on between two families you don't want to be hanging out with them be somewhere else so I would set up my persona that I couldn't be around a hundred percent of the time I was making money doing something else maybe somewhere else you can't if you stick around with them full time you're going to come into these situations during that first case I talked to you about two of the subject got into a road rage incident and killed the guy now if I was driving around in the car with them I would have been at that scene but that's the type of thing there was no reason if you're not there for a purpose to collect your evidence don't hang around with these guys because trouble is gonna happen it's just inevitable so how long was a hell long did you work on the sinaloa case did you say six months as well was that oh that was three years that was three years did you ever get close to El Chapo like were you ever near him or no I communicated with him through actually we would communicate he was the world's most-wanted fugitive he was hiding in the mountains of Mexico at that time so we knew we couldn't go into Mexico we also know he wasn't coming out obviously so we had to deal with his what I called his executive Boyd his attorneys as financial people and we dealt with we dealt with one of his first cousins a guy named Manuel and Manuel became the telephone I was supposed to be the the El Jefe the big shot in Sicily and I was communicating with chapo through Manuel his first cousin who would return come get the message return to Mexico go up in the mountains and then we started exchanging written messages on pesos so that's the that was my communication method but we knew we were we were not going to have a face-to-face with chapo we invited him to come see us in Italy and he thought about coming we were that we called it the escape hatch plan if he wanted to flee Mexico and live in Europe he was communicating with us to do that but inevitably he didn't who was us like who did he think you were he thought that was your mom God ah Sicilian crime family he thought you were Sicilian we left the United States completely out of it if he know that we were doing anything in the United States he wouldn't have had anything to do with us we we presented ourselves as we were looking for a cocaine market in Europe and he was looking for that opportunity at the same time so it maybe thought he was dealing with the Sicilian mob got it and did you do you speak the language or no these know I have trouble with English so how are you convincing these guys but this is it yeah that's a good point what happened was in that case we selected a Sicilian speaking undercover agent a very skilled agent out of Newark division who was going to be the the boss two weeks three weeks before the case he got a private sector opportunity he was close to reap time and he had to take the job he apologized profusely but he had to take the job so we were stuck without anybody and at that point that's at the towards the end of my career I was confident even though I didn't speak Italian I didn't speak Spanish I was confident we could make a case if we did it right and that's what I mean about learning from doing it over and over again you understand what they're looking for so I told them very early on in English that I didn't want to speak to them in Italian because the Italian police were listening to our phones and that would cause them a problem so they appreciated that I would only speak to them in English and directly not on the phone all right but I told him from the beginning I only spoke English because I didn't want them to bring an Italian speaker to the meetings and I had spanish-speaking agents with me and the majority of the conversations took place in Spanish the majority conversation took place in Spanish so what did the lawyer chapels lawyer say to you guys he said what you guys are more disciplined than us yes we were in the middle of negotiating a huge cocaine deal and we had a facility that we used in Florida that was part of our stick and we had a we had a meeting one night we're in the middle of the cocaine negotiations he asked to speak privately to me and another undercover agent and we went outside and he asked us would we be willing to launder money for the Sinaloa cartel now we were in the middle of a cocaine deal money laundering goes hand in hand with that and we said you know let's get this cocaine thing wrapped up and then we'll think about how much money he said just a little bit of money I said how much he said five hundred million to start that's that what they considered a little the money yeah so we turned him down and that's when he said chapo told me to tell you that you're the mole you're the only organization we have dealt with at a more discipline than we are so again we acting like law enforcement we turned down five hundred million dollars worth of laundered money what why did you turn it down because it would have interrupted the drug case that there were too many there were too many logistical challenges to doing that it's something we pursued later in a different way but again going back to the state inspector driving in that truck and doing all it who turns down five hundred million cops never so we you know we had to convince them every day this was three years of investigation every day we had to be on our toes with them until the end when we we actually did get the shipment we ask you a complete curveball question here how how much similarity does the FBI as an organization have to the mob you're trying to set me up so I'll be careful here the the old moat what I call the old mob the real true Italian LCN mob where there was structure and hierarchies it's a chain of command just like the FBI or the US military there is a chain of command all right and you have to understand your position and what you have to do now I'm not making no Association at the FBI is like the mob other than and structure chain of command reporting up the chain so that would be the only similarity between the two that I would say is prevalent in comparing the two I had a John a light-year he was a former Albanian associate of the Gotti family and he said what made the mob work is fear and structure because there was the fear if you cross the line here you don't do it the highest level of fears what you know you're gonna get killed and in structure with the whole levels and hierarchy and you know rituals and all that other stuff was that pretty normal with all the three families that you were working as yes very no you you knew who reported to who and that was the key and that's just like in the FBI you're not gonna get killed in the FBI if you don't do your job but you're gonna you're going to lose your position something's gonna happen this consequences to your actions and that's why the mob was easier to investigate because you couldn't somebody couldn't go wild off the reservation if they decided they were going to do something serious they had to go up three four levels to get the okay and that's what we apprentice that was it the Google iam Eddie's the the really knows the nunzio's we want to get into that decision-making executive level of the crime families because we're dealing with the people who were deciding at the end what's going to be done was there anything you saw that was honorable that they did the only thing I tell people I felt bad about one thing and all the time I did that in the in the Providence case the Patriarca family case Maddy Gogi and many's dad died during the investigation his father was a mobster and Maddy took over for his dad but his father elderly and he passed away and I went to the services as I was expected to do and at the service I was told that I needed to go into the family crypt where they were burying their father and I was brought into the family burial site would would basically immediate family and I had a tape recorder running and I didn't really feel very good that day that was not a day to collect evidence that was a family that was legitimately grieving so I did feel you know I did feel some remorse for doing I didn't have a choice obvious I can't stop and take the recorder off were you upset with yourself a you felt remorse or no no because I think that's human nature when somebody's family member dies I'd like to think you know yeah are they mobsters yes but they also have family and I understood family men but again they choose their path and you know we react accordingly if somebody's not in the business we're not going to go out and find them there's a reason somebody's name comes to the attention of the FBI and it's usually because they're up to no good do you trust the FBI no after seven years you can't have a falling out with them and you had a chip on your shoulder while you did 50-plus cases but do you trust begin let me preface this I know you respect law enforcement cops all of that but do you trust the FBI organization what they stand for yes you do yes overall well the incident that's a safe answer though against the institution the history yeah I respect tremendously I've had differences with individuals within the FBI I've had individuals within the FBI that I think should not have been in the positions that they were but overall 99.5% of all FBI personnel are honorable and do the right thing do you think most directors that are honorable and do the right things or would you say some of them are not that's so far out of my stratosphere there's some directors that I liked there's some directors I didn't care for because of just policy and internal decisions they made the FBI should be under the radar you should not be hearing seeing the FBI in the in the Daily News the reason why I asked that is because you know for me you know unions get started for good reasons the the basic foundation of a union is what hey you're not taking care of employees much you pay them a little bit more guys it's gonna strike two days okay we'll take them up we'll pay you more we want some benefits these people are hurting me they want to go to the doctor okay we'll take care of right and a union becomes what a political machine is what it becomes especially today right okay did FBI get started for the right reasons back in the days with Hoover sure it was good reasons we needed something because it was things going on Espeon whatever you want to call it say the foundation was true do you think it's a little too big and intrusive and trying to get into you everyone your business today word the American citizen is sitting there saying I don't know if I trust the FBI like I did at one point maybe I'd like to think that the majority of the American population trust the FBI they should as I said 99.5% of FBI personnel are doing the right thing that's all I can tell you now the the recent events over the last couple of years it's embarrassing to the FBI we shouldn't be in the news we shouldn't be involved in any political shenanigans either side I'm not telling you you one side of the other anything like that but the FBI is taking a huge beating in the last few years which upsets me obviously I love the FBI we love it - the day I die all right but I'm trying to tell people because I get asked this question a million times now in 30 years I never got asked in the last two years I get asked a hundred - literally you're saying this in 30 years you never got asked you've never that never this has only been literally almost since I retired - you know three-year - okay so if people haven't asked because they didn't know you were an FBI agent no people know people that knew I was an FBI agent he's never asked this question though do you think partly you know how you talk to some folks and you read history of the mob and and for the most part it was very low-key you didn't go around flashing what you did you didn't dress up in fur coats and all these stories very very consistent with most mobs anybody that gets a little too flashy and they say god he got a little too flashy you know the Teflon Don he would get out and walk run and he's nice 2000 $3000 Briony suits and it got a little bit tension to it right do you think Comey did a little bit a little bit of that by getting a little too much attention to the FBI that it shouldn't have gotten I'll never compare Jim Coleman or John Gotti I don't think that's fair to do while he was in on making that comparison because you were in both worlds race don't and it can end and my answer would be no there's no comparison between it - I don't agree with everything director Comey did or has done and especially post his FBI serviced yeah when he was a director he had the support of the rank and file and it was only after the what I call shenanigans whatever you want to describe that when he became more involved in the public discussion I just don't think that's right you know people use the argument against me while you write in a book well I didn't open my mouth for 30 years everything that's in that book you can go into a courthouse and find I never revealed one thing that's not public record the FBI should not be engaged or involved in day-to-day activities especially in this political world so there's a good point so everything you are writing about it's public so there are something that happened that you will never tell us about there's a lot of things you'll never hear from me no that's what I'm saying yes I'll take FBI secrets to my grave that's what I respect then I'm saying but you're saying that is not happening a lot of that is not happening today no I'm not sir I can't speak for anyone other than myself you're seeing happening on TV though when you watch the media and the news and maybe we have more information from the FBI that we should is that kind of well I I would use the I would use if you've noticed the new FBI director director ray who I don't know and I never served under we haven't heard much from him and that's a good thing that's the way the FBI should operate so when you hear everybody wants to know about Comey McCabe and that crowd that's so far into a street agent like myself their head of a corporation we don't have we don't just walk down the hall and pop by head in their office it's two different worlds that's executive management that's the leadership of the FBI but 95% of the FBI is in out in the streets of the country how do you view them how do they view you like is is it similar to military infantry your infantry and then there's the guys that the officers that are you know doing what they're doing is that kind of a you guys are you Joe yes they're there they're at the highest levels of the FBI making decisions that affect the entire FBI in the country and we're doing our investigations in the cities that we work so I was I was more interested in helping defeat crime in Boston than anything coming out of Washington DC it's and are a lot of FBI agents motivated to go out there and become directors one day or no no Undercovers are just kind of like this is what I enjoy doing leave me alone this that's how most Street eight now we call them Street agents who's just doing the investigations people in management want to go up the chain but they're not going to get to the director be the only director that's ever been an FBI agent was Louis Freeh Louis Freeh was by far the best FBI director I ever served under Wow do you think it helped the fact that he was under thousand percent he know he worked not only did he work undercover he was a case agent he was a Street agent he understood our job other directors come from different they come from legal legal firms they didn't have agents perspective now they're very obviously they're very honorable and intelligent people but they haven't been in a squat area and worked a case what you what see the director Louis Freeh was a director in the early 80s he was a director under President Clinton I think we I think he was like 83 to 83 would be Reagan great that's a car team 81-82 yeah no I don't know he was under Louis Freeh was when President Clinton was an often 92 92 got it so interesting yeah 92 to 2000 some somewhere on that long at that time you know just a random question since was still on this topic what do you think should be the government's involvement with people and here's what I mean by you know we're going in a direction right now where it's kind of like you know what what is the cutoff for how much privacy we should have and what is the cutoff for how much protection we should have US citizens where the government knows best for us I asked this question because you know just recently I mean you read about this stuff with this whole thing on Apple versus FBI hey give us the phone information on this terrorist and you know no I don't want to do it because I'm kind of breaking my privacy but you should give it because we can catch the bad guy and you kind of put the CEO of the company in a rough position and you know even the other one with the FBI and I iced you know driver's license photos are now gold mine for them because Washington Post did an article talking about that agents are scanning millions of Americans faces without their knowledge or consent and in represent Jim Jordan says this should not be happening without anybody's consent so what is the fine line between hey give me some privacy versus we know what's best to protect the nation right I'll answer that as first a private citizen and then as an FBI FBI appreciate as a private citizen I'd always be I'd always be concerned about any intrusion into the privacy of American citizens but from a law enforcement standpoint when we go to Apple when now I'm speaking as an F but retired agent when we go to Apple when we go to try to do things if it is in the deterrence of crime and especially in national security or terrorism related matter I'll leave it up to the constitutional scholars how far the the line should be moved but if you don't have access that technology is outpacing law so things that are happening with with technology now the legal system is racing to catch up with and just because something that was put into law in 1950 may not be applicable today we're here on this the sacred day of 9/11 that's when we're speaking to you today okay if everybody goes back to 9/11 and how they felt that day I think you'd have a lot more people remembering what it's like to be under terrorist attack so we have to adjust to the time and the technology that we're currently because the the FBI regardless of what people may think the FBI is not asking Apple to open up something just a peek into some of these book there's a there's a law enforcement reason that's why we get court orders or subpoenas or warrants there has to it's done in a proper manner but we have to we don't want these modern technologies defeating us as a nation but doesn't this start that way doesn't it start with in an honorable mode we would be here for weeks if we were going back and forth on this issue well you know what I'm talking what I say sir so so you know when I say start starts like that again for me I was in the US Army and I did it proudly when the best decisions I ever made hunter first airborne I would have done it ten out of ten times and when I got out I went to the FBI building in LA and I want her to be one and I went out there filled out all the information I'm interested it was a freeze I wanted to be a firefighter and I wanted to be FBI wanted it too there was a freeze on Fire Department on hiring firefighters for five years I was gonna go to El Camino College because that's where they gave you all the basic requirements schooling to take to go be a firefighter I think some of it have to do CPR and some of these other things have to take and I want to be an agent so I wanted to go the route you went we essentially eventually things change I want to the financial services side what I'm asking this is as an immigrant that escaped in Iran to come here because sometimes in Iran they were worried but you know the the government wanting a little bit too much control over the people you know you you keep that as a paranoia of all these institutions are getting a little too big and too powerful you know I can if you look at the world history I can understand that I think you have to concentrate on US history and the checks and balances that we have in place and we continue to have in place if you've noticed a lot of the provisions that were put in place after 9/11 have have gone out of they've been discontinued so there is a and again I'm not trying to say that the FBI does everything perfect we don't we're human beings but this this idea that the government is doing something for the various reasons I can't support I've never seen it in 30-plus years what when you were talking about you know technology is outpacing the law mm-hmm what do you think's a solution for that I think the law has to catch up quickly because it's what we do that well again I leave this to people who are much more in tune with what has to be done but some of the wiretap the the electronic surveillance laws that we operate haven't been changed for 40 50 years the Internet has completely changed the world including the FBI you have to address these emerging technical trends so legally this is some type of balance okay if you tell me that Apple has the computer of somebody who's threatened to blow up Grand Central Station the FBI should get in there somehow that that's a national emergency should-should absolutely got it so it's the preservation of human life that's you know it's just you're making a very good case I'm only pushing on that my appreciation I appreciate your only reason I'm saying this is because you are right we're living in a different time where you know some of the people that the most dangerous criminals today is a 15 year old hacker that knows how to get into systems so it's not the same kind of method of committing crime as it was maybe when you were coming up as an under the patient would have to be completely different FBI so I'm appreciating your perspective I would never have been hired in today's FBI I tell you that because I don't have the background or the skill set yeah I took to the threats that we're facing now it's the threats now versus 30 years ago a completely different what are these a more mainly cyber cyber cyber espionage economic theft it's just it's it's a global world so you as a citizen not as a civilian not as an agent from the perspective of a citizen we the people would you be comfortable on certain cases the government having access to certain phone files with companies or Facebook or Google or Apple or some of those to help us prevent a major disaster from taking place I would have to have a specific example I don't want to talk in generalities but if something involves the preservation of life then there should be law enforcement exceptions to obtain that information it's the same thing there's a there's a statute that we have used we actually used it in the Boston Marathon bombings quarrels versus New York if you look up quarrels versus New York a gentleman named Quarles committed a crime and ran into a grocery store and threw the gun away if I remember correctly he discarded a weapon and the police chased them and they asked him where the weapon was before they provided him as Miranda warnings and that case was upheld through our Supreme Court because the potential harm to the general public outweighed providing him as Miranda warning so there's a loaded gun somewhere in the store that some kid can pick up etc that's what I'm saying on this technology trend we have to be able to get information when there's a clear definition that harm is coming it's just of such a fine line you know it's such a fine line I'll leave that I'll leave that to others sure yeah but you're asking from alarm for and as a as a private citizen I don't even like when Google brings me to a location I don't like that okay I don't like a phone it's being able to say where I am but I understand it but this is where that balance has to come in and in my humble opinion yeah I'm just curious to know I had what do the people have enough saying this to you know where they feel the level of comfort for it to happen and at what point do the people not have access to all the informations to allow the FBI who is not like a Comey that's a public figure maybe a guy that's more low-key to make the decisions no one to have access to information that we don't know about that they never know anything but I think I think that's the responsibility of our elected representatives there's a ones who lately vote for it and we vote for to see who we feel is gonna do the best job in these areas else the American system right and that's why I'm in America believe me that's why I'm in America and for me I am most confident with this system than a lot of other systems out there okay so for me I don't agree with this whole notion of tea pushing for a perfect system because I don't think utopia exists I don't think there's anywhere where unicorns fly and if there is it's only in the movies and cartoons in real life things get pretty ugly at times and some of the decisions we are better off not knowing everything about I mean don't get me wrong I'm not talking about free press let's take it out that's not what I'm talking about but some stuff sometimes it's a little too much information so how was it when Sylvester Stone was a pro approached about the story did you kind of go out that somebody pitch it for you that somebody reach out you how did that take place what happened on that and the book the book had not even been released and without my knowledge or without my advanced knowledge a proposal was sent to his company and from what I understand he jumped on it right away he enjoyed the story I later met with him to discuss it we reached an agreement and we are moving forward on that project moving forward on that project because have you been with the face-to-face have you guys you have and when when should we expect this movie to come out I have no idea that you don't know that's them that's it again this is just something that's why you you mentioned it earlier and I appreciate the opportunity I'm appearing on your show because of this book but what's important to me is the thirty years I did in the FBI and what is Oh whatever happens post FBI happens it's not really an overriding issue for me I think I did what I was asked to do for a long time I did it as well as I could and that's what's important to me this post FBI stuff what happens happens and I'll just enjoy the ride yeah and I heard read somewhere that you are now a consultant to Hollywood when they make movies was it equalizer day you worked on equalizer two equalizer two Antoine Fuqua directed Denzel Washington Pedro Pascal like I tried my hand at that yet and you're coaching Denzel on what to do in certain parts to get him to understand the role you you just bring a law-enforcement side to the to the when they want to when they'll show you something is this realistic well no because a B and C so when somebody asks you a question you're a job but like Pedro Pascal one of the we had to teach him how to properly shoot a assault weapon and the first time he grabbed it it was embarrassing which he admitted but you know he got pretty good at it by the end how was a Denzel working with the Denzel Washington I had limited contact with him he's obviously he's the star of the show so he didn't need a lot of law enforcement the one scene that I did help them with was there was a scene in a you know a dining room where some violence occurred and he's trying to figure it out so I had to show them different things that you look for in a homicide things like that it was just it was just trying something new well you know once again for anybody to give 35 years of their life to protect and serve citizens that's that's an honorable thing to do that's a long time of your life especially I think you had three kids and missing a lot of moments and putting yourself on the line with two and a half years and writing this book for your wife and three kids and her doing what she did for you lots of respect for you doing that because it's not a job many people would like to have I know you didn't you said you recommend other people doing it because you had a great time doing it but it takes a certain level of willingness to serve for a bigger purpose to give 35 years of your life to country and you did that I respect you for doing that and so here's what I would say if you want to go out and read the book is Sylvester Stallone's not going to go out and pick up a script that's yeah you know any book I'm gonna go out to make a movie about it there's a reason for it and there's a lot of stories here that we didn't get into if you want to find out more about the book we're gonna put the link below to go purchase the book called ghost and would that being said again thank you for your service and appreciate you flying out here to Dallas thank you very much thank you for having me anytime

Channel: Valuetainment

Views: 987,275

Rating: 4.751195 out of 5

Keywords: Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, valuetainment, patrick bet david, fbi, michael mcgowan, michael fbi, former fbi, fbi and mafia, ghost book mafia

Id: I6FNHush2Lw

Length: 67min 53sec (4073 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 20 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/malvoliosf]

Why was the killer on speed-dial?

[u/bolanrox]

That's some departed shit right there

[u/Feras_b]

He him him..