DEA Agent Almost Shot on Operation | Jack McFarland | Ep. 353

Special Operations, Cobert Espionage. The Team House with your hosts Jack Murphy and David Park.

Welcome to episode three hundred and fifty three of The Team House. I'm Jack here with Dave and our guest

That came a hard time.

So there's plenty to talk about here today, and Jack, thank you for joining us on the show.

Gentlemen, Jack and Dave, thank you very much for having me. Appreciate it.

So, you know, the mandatory first question we asked about the guest's origin story, If you tell us a bit about like kind of your upbringing, how you grew up, and how that eventually took you towards law enforcement.

Sure, I was born and raised just north of Allentown, Pennsylvania Coal Regions Cole Cracker And basically I got into teaching and football coaching when I came out of college, and then I wanted to get into federal law enforcement.

God applied to the FBI. I applied to the DEA and believed or not.

Back in nineteen eighty seven on a ring was president DA came a call, and so I chose I got into a DEA and I never looked back.

After thirty two years.

And I mean nineteen eighty seven, what was the DEA up to at that time? Like what was it sort of like going through your training and I imagine and some of your instructors were probably Vietnam veterans during that time.

We had a remember now DEA came on board in the July one and nineteen seventy nine, and so we have probably only had that particular time at about twenty five hundred special agents. Now since around the late nineties we were up at wards around that fifty five hundred mark or worldwide personnel. So most of the instructing we were not as lengthy. The academy was not as lengthy academy these days, I think since the nineties have been like seventeen weeks. We were more like I think fourteen

To train us.

I remember, like you know, in the nineties, uh, the DEA was looked at like as sort of the I don't want to say cowboys as in wild but but they were the guys who like went out in dishit like compared to other federal agencies. And weren't they the last federal agency law enforcement that like didn't require a college degree?

Or is that not true? Like I'm trying to remember, no, no DA for your degree?

They always okay, masters agreed better if you have it, okay, because we'll that'll do for you. Dave, does that will allow you to come back then either be a GS seven like me coming on board as DS seven or GS nine coming on board if you had that master's or jd degree. Okay, so unlike the Bureau, they were elevens coming on board, I see.

And was the Caribbean Division your first assignment, no believe it or not.

At the academy, when you go through Quantico, you get hired on. You go through Quantico and you get fourteen weeks of training and any your assignment. And my assignment was the Philadelphia Field Divisional office. But I hired through the Allentown resident office that was closest to my house where I grew up, so I went there when I

And that was the height. That's the height of it.

Other groups had a heroin meth and different groups of different other design needs. So the Philadelphia, Allentown in the Philly and I did eight years in Philadelphia. Loved every minute of them. I got my grades in Philadelphia. I met some great people. My my partner, Frank, who I won't you know, he's just an amazing guy.

He was a former New York cop.

New York City Copper detective, and he taught me the ropes. He taught me the ropes and as well as an older gentleman named Bill God rest his soul, he passed away. But I am sixty two, so it's you know, I remember when I was twenty four and these guys were thirty eight.

I thought, oh my.

God, to work with these old guys, you know, what are they gonna what are you gonna teach me?

You know? So it was quite It was quite interesting. It's quite interesting.

And when you were in Allentown and Philadelphia, that was when you got into a couple of shootouts.

Right, yeah, I've I've been. I got up in Allentown and Allentown.

Kind of, I won't say funny when any time it's a browned weapons are discharged, it's not really funny. But you know, Jack and Dave, we were in this parking lot. It was a it was a Pennsylvania State Police case, and the trooper did something he shouldn't have done and he went from being an undercover to basically being an interesting agent. Well, the bad guy didn't think it was funny, so he takes off and the guy there's a trooper

I am a twenty four year old snot nos.

I go to kick my door like Miami Vice to get out of the car.

Well, you know those doors and those old.

Money carlos being sprung back and hit me and sit me across the freaking.

Car looking at me. Go, what what the hell you're doing? Get out of the car.

So guy said, the door knocking. The door knocked me over. So I had to get out of the car. My tell between my legs, and I infected, you know, he cleared the car, infected the arrest in the bag guy, he coughed him and I said, this guy's.

Bleeding and he was pulling blood and he was bleeding. So he was shot.

Yep, tour was okay, though he was okay.

And then there's another one in Philly with the Jamaicans. The Philly one was quite interest me. Now it's a little more extensive viout.

In Philly, we were we were covering a confidential informat a confidential source going in and we were doing a marijuana case that was part of our responsibilities as marri uh positive responsibilities of group threes. And uh So he goes inside and they undercover made the confidential informant and the two bad guys get in an argument on the front lawn. Well, they all pulled freaking weapons and they

So now there's a vehicle.

We don't like to say the word pursuit, but there's a there's a vehicle follow and aggressive vehicle follows.

We're following this van.

We're going through the streets of Philadelphia, Northeast Philadelphia, and we know where they're going. We're gonna try to get on nine ninety five, so we gotta get on nine ninety five. They're heading southbound, so we called our base operator, and our base operator basically says they'll get the highway fill off. How we patrol unit in and they bring them a unit in and Dave and Jack one of the most impressive things I've ever seen. We're traveling southbound

They go to clear the vehicle name and and one of remember one of the how we guys saying bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb, Like what the what the what the what?

So they had to shut it down, bring a bomb squad in and what it was was it was dynamite attached, but it was there was no there was no Nation device. And I don't know what the guy was trying to do, scared to care somebody or whatever. But one was shot, the other guy was taking. Two were taken into custody and h typical, you know, we had to answer questions and I'm here and I have another young guy to go.

What the hell do I get myself?

Is it normal to let the confidential informant carry a weapon or did they have to?

Because it's we said the same thing to the controlling agent because he was in this house, so we were not inside the location and they came out, so we did not search the house for any weapons that the car on the floor may so you see my plight, but he was out of the house, but he sticks it in his pants, so he had under the table and he's like, I know these guys, these guys.

Are gonna come and try to They're gonna try to muscle me.

And guess what, He's like, I'm not getting killed in my own house here, So that's what we're like, you can't do it.

He was blackballed after that though. He was gone. Yeahne was finished. Guy.

Was what was this about the time that you also got you got stuck up and ripped off?

Uh?

That was?

That was?

This is a great one too. This was when I was working undercover.

I was working with a college professor one of our offices out in the Western Port West, just western Philadelphia office. I'm gonna go with West Virginia, okay, and he was a college professor and a chemist. But he knew a guy from Philadelphia who was dealing in bulk. He was dealing in kilos. So we had our office in West Virginia said, we can't do any out On's Virginia with this guy. It's in Philadelphia's the stores. Let's hand it off to Philly. So he hands it off to Philly.

Whatever.

So what happens is we meet first, no problem, We're going to do a kilo of cocaine, twenty five thousand bucks North Philadelphia.

I remember Street, so Throt and all of you I still remember.

So we ended up doing okay, twenty five we.

Agreed upon, no problem.

A couple of days go by, we put another control, you know, another call into the guy.

Are you ready, I'm ready. Okay, We're ready.

So we have about fifteen agents on the street, very tight locations in the Philadelphia North Philadelphia. This dude was believed or not a one of the last pulldouts of uh white guy. I mean most of it was all Jamaican or Patricans, you name it, but not white. He didn't want to move, but he knew all the players up there. So we ended up having a situation where we roll in back back in the day. We learned

Have you go, Lucky? Up the street, he goes into the house.

He goes into the house and he comes back out of the house and I tell the ces to shit in the car. So I go to the trunk of the car. When I pull the trunk of the car, this guy meets me across the street and he's and he's carrying a brown paper bag. So I said, you got it? He's yeah, here and he shows me. As I show, he goes, now there's where's the money? And I'm going to reach for the money in the trunk. That's when I oh, I feel the thirty eight snubnolls

Me your give me your money. I'm like, what do I do?

Jack and Dave, we're trained. Training takes over. I believe in training. I love training. Repetition, repetition, repetition, bam. My hands went up so fast. Dangerous signal. Dangerous signal. Well, let me tell you something. You want to see fifteen federal agent flying down a street.

I'm talking.

They rolled in there so fast that guy didn't.

Have a chance.

He's here. Here's the cars coming in. He sees guys feet coming down down the concrete pavement.

He sees it. He tries to make it for bee line for the house.

Well, in Philadelphia, just like maybe in Brooklyn and the Bronx or whatever, you only have some side.

You have stairs to get inside the house.

Well, he tries to get in the house, and our boys cleaned his clock, the clock. They cleaned his clock. Man puffed him up. And here's the funny part. When my boss came, grabbed me, got me in the car, took me off the location, off the set. The guys who were arresting him. It was the end of August

You're going to see you're looking.

At fifteen years, been one right now and two and then I turned out one killer turned into two kilos. So he was going to ten years right there, it's over five years I ended up getting. You got to get the guy credit. He ate the charge. He didn't, he didn't cooperate, and he got he was like ten ten fifteen years ago. Well you think he didn't get five for prowing a weapon on me? And I thought to myself, you know, I'm twenty five years old. Now I'm thinking, is this the right thing? I should be

So it wasn't good, but I was I was I was fine. I was fine. Hey, guys, it's your pal Jack.

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Well, what happened was when I'm in Philadelphia, I spent eight years a lot of great investigations. Well, one particular investigation by May Real real Yeah please, this one. It

You don't do that.

It's only in the movies you put a you put one hundred of pop and the rest of paperwork in between. You're gonna do yourself heard for that.

You can't. You can't. You can't do that stuff. You can't do it. So bottom line was, we ended up getting a million.

You know how much a million pounds wighs in twenties, A million dollars how much one hundred and twelve to one hundred and twelve pounds, one hundred and twelve pounds of twenty dollar bills, one hundred and felve free compounds.

We busted in and we busted into. There was fifty stacks.

Uh.

There, there's fifty thousand dollars, fifty thousand bills and basically had one hundred stacks.

We did fifty one bag, fifteen other bag.

I still remember the guy's doing it and I was out in a hook for this. Me and my partner Frank, we're on a hook for this money. Like man, we can't. We can't lose a twenty dollar bill. So the bottom line was, we gave the undercovers the money men, excuse me, the money men. Uh, they could play for the event. They played for the defensive line for the full of eagles.

Do you get back that day? Do you recall how much interest the deea got charged?

I don't Jack. That's a great question. I don't know by one of our Madmen officers says, it was pretty extensive. So you got in a twenty four period for every twenty four hours. Back then, this was like nineteen ninety two, maybe ninety three, we did the operation, We did this case, and yeah, we had to get that money back. And I know what was the best the best billing. Now every twenty dollars bill was there, one was missing, one

We had to get it.

We had to get an optimization chronological order sheet from the Federal Reserve.

It's just too much money. Yeah, and and we had to do.

It that way because we had to look like we were traffickers oprahs.

We knew what we were doing. And uh, she bought up. She bought it. Man more reserved. When you roll up with that in your trunk.

I mean it's it's and trust me, we probably had agent personnel on that street. We had air units, we had you know, I don't even give those tracking device at that time. We probably put some like a bird dog or something in it down the bags just in case. We must have had thirty or forty Feds county guys.

It was well. It was well covered, man, well covered. A lot of fun. Thank god, no one got hurt.

Any others who want to talk about from Philly before moving on to the next one.

No, I think we're I think those those uh, I think they stand out in my mind. I mean, I mean, I gotta get kudos. I'm gonna get the coolers.

Of the guys and gals that worked Group three in Philadelphia from nineteen eighty eight to the nineteen ninety six.

I was there with the people. I got to give the kudos. We were such an aggressive group.

I got cruders to my partner, my my I know it's not on an award show, but my my supervisor Rick, he would get us. We would come with these crazy type of scenarios just between the over to cusp.

A little bit. You guys knew to you as former Rangers.

You're kind of like, yeah, we can't do that, but we can do this though, you know, it's it's kind of fine line until you tripping over yourself. And he would get these things approved and man they would work out, and man it was. It was fantastic. And what what a bunch of good people. What a bunch of good people.

We want to take them all federally. We did, We did. Yeah, And what was the next assignment after Philly?

We went down to Quantico or we were giving the opportunity to go to Quantico. Very tough at the time to get into Quantico. And I'm gonna be honest with you. My my former partner, Frank was tight with the number two guy in training named Louke god Rest.

His so he passed away. He was a great guy who was the number two man in training and they.

Were both the tectives together and so in BC in New York and made a phone call and they had they had several openings in the gym with the instructors, so I was able to get into the gymnasium and I encompassed his physical training, defensive tactics, entry training which you guys love, you know, bang bang bangman slamm though, and then also vehicle containments and any type of wrestled and around vehicles.

So we had four.

We probably were with the students the most of the seventeen weeks, or we call it the tactle unit. Yet we have multiple response abilities that we had to We had to do everything from defensive tacks, well what's the defensive tactic? But we used to teach Cob mcgofighting. We had to teach the personal weapons skills fighting. Some people never got hit in their lives.

You know.

I boxed when I was aged from age twelve, middle eight, you know, and all that good stuff. But uh, you would see some of these people and you're like, I mean, we had a guy break his femur femur in boxing. Now you see this, so Jack and Day are like, the hell the guy break his femur? Heavyweight bout heavyweight bout, two big boys going at it, great guys, great guys.

Brad and of course I hate to say, mister Viney he passed away.

He got his mister vine and gets his right foot caught behind his left foot on the rubber matt and and all of a sudden a body shot comes and spun him around and you hear.

This boom busted. I was like, oh, that's crazy.

Yeah, Dave and and and Jack, I'm telling you it sounded like a gunshot. We all fired the twelve gages. It sounded like a gunshot going on, and we all like what you know, very big eyes, like what just happened?

And thank god?

He was good.

He was fine. I mean, we had to get you had to get repaired.

But we were able to graduate him because boxing is like in a week fourteen back in the day, I was seventeen weeks.

Can you imagine going through the training again. No, we got him his gun and.

His badge, and he walked across the stage on his course.

Who breaks a fever? Much less steam, well yeah, less in boxing. Yeah, think about it.

You think to yourself, how that happened.

But when he got his foot plot we saw it coming.

Yeah, and mister Brad and he probably weighed like what two fifty or something like that.

I would say probably yeah, I'll gi give christer. Vin was probably about two fifty, mystery probably about maybe two twenty five.

Yeah, yeah. And and Brad was you know, one of these guys. It was a former ball player, football player and good guy. And and that right there.

It was probably the most tragic event that eyewitnessed in the Academy with my five years there as an instructor, as an agent instructor, because we have we got people going, you know, uh coding, they'd go, you know, CPR, they're heart attacking, or you got guys, you know, National Academy students in the in the in the locker room, paying have heart attacks.

I have a heart attack in the freaking locker room.

Because remember, in the academy, you have DA, you have the FBI, you have the National Academy students who are the National Academy students. They are students that represent local, county, state, and international law enforcement agencies. And you got guys are coming in and they're like, dude, you got to run and you got to do push ups and pt and workout, and they're supposed to be cleared, you know, but sometimes

You go in a place. If not, you're like, yeah, get rid of this guy.

You said that you really enjoyed your time at Quantico, that that was kind of like the most rewarding part of your career.

That's a very good that's a very good question, Jack. Yeah, I really did you know why?

Because we were actually making the next generation of agents and.

They looked upon you.

I mean, we had a we had a pat his name was He's once again he's passed away as well.

Patay was a combat vet, Marine vet in the Battle of Way. He was in back in the day and he was always this you have to be don't smell like booze and make sure you're shaped.

And he was tight man.

He was tight. He was a big man.

He played at Lake University of North Carolina for guard tackle and Pat ran it ran a tight ship. But it was he wanted to exemplify this is the next cruel of people, this is the next body of people that we wanted to train the right way.

You have to make sure, are they driven? Are they confident it? Can they can they? I mean I sound sounds crazy here, but can they can they kill someone? Can they do it? That they have the mindset? So we had to we had to work those people to make sure they can do that. And you know, most of my people, you get fifty in a class, we.

Would probably not lose as much as you guys with rangers would lose or get rate. It would lose maybe I don't know, two, three, four out of fifty because they couldn't shoot, or they couldn't do the pet or some reason why. You know, bad attitude, you know, dismissal because a bad attitude. But most of the time very warning to me. From being a former teacher and a coach, I was able to, like, you know, train them that way. They used to say, I would repeat myself a thousand times.

Rhythm, rhythm, rhythm, repetition.

And I still that.

It's one of the guys. When I didn't see him in years and years and years, he was a former student of mine and he was down in Los Angeles. He got to his first officer of assignment. They got involved in the situation where it was a bunch of gangsters and they all split up, and him and another agent go running after the guy. They get him, and all he said is, I can hear you yelling tough, double lock, high risk search. Cuff double lock, high risk search.

How cool is that? Yeah? Right, how cool is that?

And his name is Mark, and and I said, you know, I didn't do it for to hear my own self talk. I wanted to do it for you guys, know what the heck you're doing. And one of the greatest things I'm most proud. Yes, I had a few people that that got themselves in a little bit of trick bags on the job and they're no longer in the job, or they got in trouble. You can't be with them twenty fours a day. When they leave, it's just can't be.

You just can't do it.

Don't blame yourself. But not one got seriously injured or killed on the job.

That's what I like to hear. Yeah, they're good, they're good to.

Go, right, I mean, I'm sure you have instructed the same way would feel the same way. Or if you guys ever taught and instructors, you don't want to put them in a bad situation.

Would have break broke my heart if I heard that.

Such and such guy blah blah blah because he lost his weapon during a fight or whatever.

So we has to fight constantly, you know, the common guy on the ground and.

Fish and elbows and punches and knees and kicks and maybe stinky sweaty down the pool decks sweating it out. Welcome to da baby, and the Bureau will be up there. No disrespect to the Bureau. They'd up there in the air conditioned gym doing her thing. I know he had Chris Shaw I'm going that. You know his his locker, Chris Wickham's locker was literally down a row from my

And those guys HRT for a moment, you had them on. You had them on.

Yeah, yeah, and he's super die and he HRT man, they're no joke. But remember with HRT, they train train train Wanny evolution after doing an evolution. They are training, train and trained, and God bless the man, God bless you for.

A long time.

I mean, maybe it's a misconception, but like people would say, like HRT doesn't actually do anything. But I mean the last like ten years or so, especially, it seems like they're getting after it quite a bit.

I believe. I believe they are too.

I mean, I mean, I mean you had some situations that they were really kind of getting a bad rap war.

Yeah, yeah, you know the ones, the Ruby Ridge, the one, this one and one that. You know, it all comes down to, you know what, what's your what's your focus? What do you want them to do? How many teams do you have, how many are in a team?

And you know, it's the same thing with us, if I may, if I may kind of trainransition a little bit. Yeah, at what age, we had what we call we had first we had snow cap operations. Snow cap operations where a group of men that would go to all the different schools and then you go down south and you blow up coming doesn't laughs, and you make a ton of money. This is the days back in the when I first imployment in the eighties and early nine and disbanded.

He disbanded. Good guys.

Snow Cap is where they are like Vietnam veterans flying Hughey's done in South America.

Yeah, you got it, You absolutely got it.

And there a hardcore man. I mean, we had one guy in our group group.

Three, named Dick, and I wave the last name because he's he's a he's.

A warrior, man, I'll tell you that.

But Dick, he would love to break the fngs and I think you know what FNNG stands for, Freaking new guys, freaking new girls, you know. And he would come around on pay day when he's back from deployment. He need have a stack of money on him and he'd wipe his brow and he'd go, oh, it's so hot today,

And that was that was something that you know, that was that was dangerous. It was very dangerous.

Uh And a lot of times it came down to too many congressional hearings, too much push going on. And the guys that ran it, I mean they're friends of mine. I mean they were super guys. I mean they they were wonderful people and they know they know their business. But I just want to hire up, sayah, we can't

An long the Fast Teams were super active in Afghanistan also, as she went out, that's kind of like an untold story.

I think, can you can you?

I mean you're probably My sharing with with the with the Fast Team was, as I was in inspections, every time they pulled the trigger, we had to investigate the trigger being pulled.

From Afar, from Afar BECU we couldn't enter into a war zone.

So a lot of times it was very very short and concise a did this be did this, did this, and boom, it goes to the shooting incident board and uh.

It's to get most of the time it's cleared.

So but you're right about that, and they were doing everything your O das were doing.

Yeah, well then they as I recall, they did work with special Forces with with Australian sas a bunch of different units, like.

Because they because they were jointing, right, Yeah, yeah, I mean, and you know, and I know I had.

The opportunity to deal with the most uh excuse me, some of the Australians. They're they're awesome, man, they're awesome.

They come to Quantico and they want to work the houses and and our free time we work with them. And we had you know, different Argentinians coming in and special Forces and it's just coming into train, trains, training, and me personally, I am not a military guy, but I was trained in the ability to teach certain ways of tactics and and and it worked out.

It workd out.

Yeah, And I mean it's it's easy to see how you know, they would start having mission creep or expanding their scope or whatever else. Because when you're in theater, whether you know whether it was when you know it

Right.

Yeah, they were tasked to go after the heroin though in Afghanistan.

Yeah yeah, right, But I mean but you know, if they're sitting at you know, if they're sitting you know, at bogroom with one of the tfs, they'll they'll go knock on a door and go, hey, what are you guys up to?

Is there a way we can get into this or you know whatever.

Like you're you're always like pimping yourself, You're always looking for working those donments.

I I just said, I I never was part of a FAST program. I take my hats off to those personnel that did it. I know a lot of them that did it that were former students that rolled over to you know, the field work and then he went over to the up the.

Farm, I mean the Fast Team Fast program. Yeah.

And you know, I'm not saying I wanted to do it. I said I wouldn't want to do it. But those who did it, God blessed them many.

God bless him.

A good friend of mine, Carson, he was involved with it. And he was this guy Loo looked like Bull from Night Court. And he was a motor scooter man and he was one of the PTA instructors with me in Quantico, the fifth degree black belt in the Great Jiu Jitsu. And he would he would wrap you up like a spider and you you're not getting out of it, dude.

Yeah, just gotta tap out.

You know.

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God bless those guys for doing it. God bless them. Where where did you go after Quantica? Quantico down? Then went down to the was promoted.

I was promoted Jack Dave to Resident Agent in charge the Saint Croix Resident Office in the in the Caribbean Division and the Caribbean Division the divisional office in Grenabo or San Juan. But we have kind of what we call it's a hybrid division, meaning you have territorial offices Puerto Rico, Saint Thomas and Croix. Then you have foreign offices anywhere from Freeport Bahamas all the way down to Williamstead, Cota Saw, all the way down the island, all the

In Puerto Rico.

What kind offices in Puerto Rico where you have You have the San Juan office, you had the aga DA office, you had the Tahardo office at the Punt office, so all around are all around the island in a block. But yet you had a Freeport office, you had a national office. So it was very complicated sometimes because one one hour you're working domestically, next hour you're working foreign.

So it was it was very, very challenging, to say the least, because I had about uh as a boss.

I had about nineteen nineteen weapon carricers down there, very close with the FBI, very close to atf Customs Border Patrol, believe it or not.

And it really worked out, really really did it was.

It was a it was a yeah, a littit challenges took place because you're on a you're on a twenty eight mile wide sem ex give me a twenty mile twenty long, sever a mile wide rock.

You have to think outside the box. And we had to think outside the box there. You really did.

It's just like any mission that you might have been on. You like, oh, this is a normal mission that we've done before. It's like, no, it's it's different. It's it's changed. It's changed because you're on the island. You're dealing with air boat assets. You know, maybe you're hitting the location, hitting the door. Unlike the cities. You know, you're hitting doors, crack crashing doors on the islands. It's it changed, it's different.

On the surface of all of this, you know, an assignment to Saint Croix. Sounds like it's a kind of pleasure tour. You know, this is a really good Yeah, but you know even more.

Than walking to Cove and stay with my wife and I forgot three months and by the think like I gotta get off this rock.

Yeah, do you want. I needed to give the guys rn R to go take dope back to Miami.

To burn dope in Miami because you get rock fever, man, you get rock Fie and everyone knows you, so you have to work outside the box.

Could could you also kind of like lay out like geopolitically, what the situation is down there, because the Caribbean obviously you're there for a reason, they're you know, you described it as a scene of modern piracy.

Uh.

You know we got everything from the cocaine cowboys in the eighties and now we're into the nineteen nineties, you know both like you said, air sea and land drugs being smuggled south to north.

That's that's correct. I mean when I was there, and it just goes back a long time. This goes back a long time. I was there from O one O four four years, running the running the show down there, had great, great coordination with with the troops from uh all our alphabet agencies, but also the Dutch, the French and the Brits.

Think about that because those islands, it's it's.

It's it's funny because people say the America's got the worst islands, the US Virgin Islands, and we got Puerto Rico. You know, I mean, no disrespect, you know, but but you got you got Saint Martin. To the French, you gotta you know, you got you got the A d C's down below with the Dutch, they're beautiful and like, oh okay, and we got these guys. Okay, so we have to take this. But who was our I gotta

Mick.

I'm just gonna go with a guy named Mick. He was the man over into Poland. We were tight with the bricks. They they would bring it, they would bring sea assets, hair assets, and they would think outside the box with us.

The Dutch, in the French, you know, they you know, this guy got with you know, to Chisa Heroin.

Okay, give a ticket, you know, kind of deal, not being disrespectful to them. But that's that's what they would do. Uh, we would go to coordinational meeting. You like this, We'll go to the coordination meetings and we have a coordinational meeting, saying Saint Martin. You know the Dutch style, you know, you have you have the French up top, in the

Kind of kind of true because you meant you've made it. You made a comment or jack, you.

Know, dope going north and money coming south. And that's that's absolutely true. Because when that dope comes off the coast of Surinam, Guyana, not Guyana, Africa, guy guy out the south off the southern cone there and then you have Veniceuela Letting, and then you have Columbia and of course you on the Ecuador so and end. They have to go through the Panama Canal to get into the goal. I mean into into the sea, the Caribbean Sea, and

It's too rough. So they'll run that all the way up until they.

Get around our neighborhood and then they'll break either for Africa or Lisban, Portugal, or they'll keep they'll break over to Puerto Rico, or they'll go up the chains in the TCS or up to the Bahamas. It's an art, man, it's not we used to have. We had to pinned down routes and roots. And I'm still I probably walk in that office today and look at that, look at the board. I'm like, man, doesn't change. So still still happen. Yeah,

They'll don't blow it. They'll blow off.

Uh. Doors sometimes will come out, but that dope has to be trucked through land, possibly getting further caught or seized.

First, you put on the water. You guys been down. I'm sure you have admissions and you look down there, you see you're punching.

You're punching holes of.

The darkness, and you're like, where are we? You're playing at night time, like, where the hell are we?

It's just also interesting, like you know, some of it has to do, I think with how much flight time a single prop plane has on one tank of fuel and where you know they have to land to refuel. And if you look at the flight range or those planes and going just like go on Google Earth and start calculating where they would have to land in that Caribbean, you know, Southern Cone, like, it becomes pretty clear what the drug air fields would have to be.

Absolutely. I mean, you know, one one funny movie and I don't know if you guys ever seen this, but it's fine. I don't really watch the Coffer shows or whatever, but get a chance to watch watch American Name with Tom Cruise.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is based on the based on a true story.

Yeah story, man, it's it's he was a He worked all the alphabets D A, FBI, C A T S.

See.

I he was just knowing us all. And he's down there with the narco. He's hanging out with the narcos, and and honestly, guy, he they know the routs, they knew what they were doing. But that that, you know, to say what you want, you know, laugh at it or whatever.

I think it's funny as hell. But watch that movie. It's true. They'll they'll know.

I mean, they know that the submarine action that's been happening over the last number of years, the submarines or that. You know, these people had the biggest may I say, goonas in the world. They'd be in these little Yola boats. A Yola boat is it's a lowlyon boat with a little I think, I think of gas and I think of water and two guys and they be on the boat with fifty kilos on it in the middle of the freaking Caribbean. Cy like what the coach guard a one ten or two ten with picked himp and go,

Supposedly, it's like hell on Earth on those those improvised mini subs too.

I don't even know.

I couldn't make I couldn't even talk about those, but I bet man, I mean, I couldn't imagine it. But honestly, that's a great question. Have great break break break question and Dave break questions as well. Right, we were always active before I thank Froyd office in the Caribbean division. You had to work with the foreign counterparts because of intelligence.

So tell us about some of the ops. Like in one case, you guys who did like a reverse undercover sting.

Absolutely one of the one of the greatest cases. Man, it was awesome, great thinking. A guy named Joe put this together. I give him kudos, and the guys helped him out amazing. What we ended up doing was we got to approval for this and when we became the best guy, we became the bad guys. The DEA became the bad guys. Meaning when you talk about reverse undercover operation, what we ended up doing was we made these burlap bags,

Fifty piece fifty kilos.

It was it was two byts, it was two pounds of wood, two point two pounds of wood, newspaper wrapped induct tape, and fifty of them stuffed in the burlout bag, stuffed in the burloup. So we had ten of them, and our mission was to fly it in with a Dea plane and we had an offload crew. The crew was gonna come and gonna get these ten. We totally you got ten to get out of the water. Who told them confidential informant, confidential source. We couldn't get any

We ended up had the pane. We have a you like this one.

We used to have a forty two foot go fast boat down there aside to us two my guys with the boat handlings go for it. They could figure they drive that thing around the Caribbean, burned some fuel, need it, must need it, you know, right. So this plane we came in, oh three hundred in the morning, covered darkness, dropped boom boom, ten bailed down, okay, dropping it out,

These guys.

Came off the beach into the water in their little yolos and they covered darkness. Dave and Jack, they were able to locate all ten bail.

When they came off the beach. They had a van. That van was to put them in the van take.

It to a storage facility on Saint Croix because it was then going to be moved over to Puto Ricos the next day more within a day or two. Well,

So yeah, without like I obviously I don't want you to you know, I don't want to get into questions like tradecrafter or your operational security, but like when you're doing something like that for these guys who are like the the offload crews or you know, transfer guys, are they like independents who will work for any cartel that says do this or are or are they part of a cartel's pipeline.

No, that's a great question. That's a great question, Dave. It's mainly going to be who wants to pay somebody to do a side hustle.

That's what it is.

They're looking for money down here, and they they could be doing they could be doing this one week next week. There. I hate to say this, they're they're taking you know, human trafficking off a cargo ship over to Puerto Rico.

Interesting. It's very it's you know, it's sad. It's sad everyone.

I mean, I love. I mean, you come into this in the Caribbean and I always tell people get blue, green water, sandy beaches, blue skies.

It's great and all that it is. And it's very expensive to live healthcare.

So so I would always say living in the third world country and the American flag, it was it was rough. But you know what, I salute the people that work the Caribbean Division, you know because back in the day, and I'll put it in football terminology for the in country agents that are in the Colombian offices and the you know, the the Ghana and the Gregorian offices, they're like the they're like the defensive line then you move into the Central Americas and you move into the Caribbeans.

Guys that are from.

Saint Croix, and we'd be like, yeah, we know them, Yeah, we know Jones, you know or you know whatever, and sure, sure and what we got we got them up.

We got a warm up here for his rest, Like, well, what what do you got?

And they would tell us, so we would kind of formulate a plan with our Saint Thomas office to try to end up sticking this guy not only in the Caribbean, but also hit him up in the Northern District of

They're gonna get off. So you have to take the cases federal.

And we would love to take them federal off another jurisdics like the Eastern just Pennsylvania, so just to Florida, central Middle District of Florida. Uh, just to get them off off the rock. And I'll tell you my people, my guys and gals, they were acist. Man, they were they were they were awesome.

It was it was hard.

It was hard when he came evaluation tied because everyone's going to know, man outstanding because it's it's just.

Not what I had to do.

What I have to do for so so so when they so you know, because I've heard in the past that that whether it's drugs or human trafficking or whatever, that even though there are different parties that are like responsible for that stuff, that they tend to follow the the same paths. And is it because of these like sort of independent agents at whatever way stations or localities it is to just facilitate movement through borders or through through areas well.

May bain thing when you're when you're talking different, you're different talking at different stages throughout right.

Remember, they wall each other other off. They wall each other off.

Okay, if you get caught with it, you don't know, I'm on the next the next leg, right, because we don't we don't want to be we don't want to know one another, we don't want to be that co conspirator kind of stay away from one another. But yet you have situations where you know, as as as adult moves further north in that Caribbean, it gets more and more expensive and and you know it's it's just like

I didn't know. I didn't check them all. I didn't check them all. So and that was going all the way to Montreal. Yeah, we haven't told that story yet on the show, so we should. Yeah.

Uh, but I want to get yeah, I do want to get into that one. But there's also the assassination attempt. Yeah that's right, Yeah, assassination attempt. One one of my agents. I'll tell you what a hard working guy. This guy was, great guy. Former Aty's second airborne guy came Angel His he just uh.

Just amazing.

He's from Saint Croix. His family owns probably the best restaurant on the island that deals with chicken.

You know, you'll you'll love that.

Type of chicken where it's just cooked on the open flame. We used to always called it get the Chicken on a Friday and at and so what happened was we were we were investigating an organization and the organization on the island they were dealing with getting their packages from down south, and they were also going against the the crew over the bbis named the Hawgs Crew. They were

Great guy, well known, just just a tough, tough guy.

What happens is his father is closing down the chicken shack they called the chicken chef.

Well, Angel's father is driving.

The son's pick up the miss the seniors driving the junior's pickup truck. Well, the gangster is they aren't the best intelligence or surveillance. They think it's the officer, the agent, let's call it.

Okay.

As the pickup truck leaves the location, is driving on the left hand side of the road.

Now a picture of the Islands left hand side.

Of the road, but you drive with the vehicle wheels on the left hand side as well, like in the States. So this other pickup truck comes up behind him cover of darkness about midnight. He was going to the dump and throws some trash away, comes around and comes around on his passenger side. Two gunmen, automatic weapons stand up in the back of the truck. Sixty rounds two they counted sixty dolls, sixty rounds, thirty thirty and thirty at sixty rounds thirty rounds, thirty rounds total sixty.

He was hit three times, sixty year old male two two three rounds. The man survived. The only way he survived.

He used to carry a snub nose thirty eight snubnose on his ankle. He fired over the hood of the car at them, didn't hit anybody, and they fled. He survived two three two two three rounds hit him and sixty different doals. That's the USBI. Well, when that happened, Dave and Jack, it created a a firestorm. It created

We were kicking doors. It got so crazy.

It got so crazy that the guys from the bv I were coming over and killing them. And I said, no, no, don't kill them because I need to do a pistol history a rest for because if you're dead, I can't.

I can't take you as a statistics it's a little joke.

It's a little joke. It's a little joke. But if they're dead, I can't. I can't take you as statistic. One in particular case, it's about eleven o'clock in the morning and there's one fella. He had these long dreads. And I get a call at the desk, a boss, Yes, Chris, what's up. You'll never guess who's laying in the doorway in his house? And I said who, and he says, blah blah blah. I said, I gotta come and see this. They had guys dressed in black masks on shotguns. He

And you just sit in Africa and all that crazy stuff.

He goes to run out the door, leaving his girlfriend sitting there watching the price is right. He goes running out the door, him in the back boom boom, and his dreads were flipped over his head. He was crushing in the middle of the door. So great, Now I can't I can't take this guy's stash.

So these other criminal elements were moving on these guys because absolutely.

Absolutely they knew they weren't armed.

We were doing their work for them.

And one particular guy, the main guy, and I'll just say they call him the Godfather.

He was in his He was basically standing in his yard. Now, let's be honest.

The yard is chain League fans with dirt and a little block building. He's on the phone and about right across the streets, boom boom, A K four seven is one. Then they had one of the chests dropped the mike there. He was still on the phone talking talking to his girlfriend. They found them holding the phone still. They went over starts to Bush where there was the case. So when you talk about like, you know, was I worried about

Oh my god.

Yeah, absolutely, because they were out they were just just doing her crazy stuff. Fifty thousand populations, fifty thousand populations on the island, about one hundred murders a year.

Wow, related it's crazy.

I mean one murder, one one particular shootout they had where I would turn to go home and I know my wife in particular times she's at the gym and I know she's finishing up, and I get.

Her on the phone.

I said, I said, worry, you said, I'm at the team. I said, stay there a little bit longer, do some more work on you know, on a stepper olliptical, doing signing out there a little bit longer because they were an investigating and shooting right at the intersection. Yeah, it's like whoa, but you know what we did a man a day to day at a Caribbean man division.

And so around this timeframe also, I mean it's early two thousands. You want to tell us this this kind of humorous story, I guess about the internal affairs investigation.

Ah jeez, Yeah, that that one I talk about because you know, in my I said this earlier. If you're not doing your work, you're you're going to get an internal affair or what we call it o PR officer fresh responsibility. And you know, I was good for my career. I didn't get any crazy stuff late on me or whatever.

And I wasn't I was.

I was any inspection division, but on the mister Meanings side, not the felonies on.

The felony side. So what happens is nine to eleven takes place. It's it's September two thousand and one, nine eleven, two thousand and one. Wife and I are coming back from the in laws from Christmas. And now that's now this is going to be I guess in January of two thousand and two. Well, the t didn't have their stuff all together at the time. They were just fairly new.

They were virgin.

They didn't know what really was going on or how to treat law enforcement and how to treat passengers. And so I do my normal thing. And if you guys don't know what we do, we got to move to the side because we're going to be armed, we're gonna be to identify ourselves. And you know, signed a book in a whole bit in any airport, in any airport.

And then my wife starts to go through regular screening. It's one fella.

He worked for Kmart and he was the head of TSA for that and he basically came up hard on me, and if you know, highly qualified and I and I basically game the tin. I didn't I didn't shove it in his face. I didn't do anything magic. Well, we got through, we got through security.

We get to the plane.

We're going from phillip We're going from Harrisburg to Philly, Philly, down to Saint Croix.

And I said to my wife, I said, that guy's gonna cause me trouble. He's gonna cause me trouble. I just felt in him my bones. I just felt it.

When I looked at the case file, and there was a case file on me, because it is there was a piece of paper eight and half. I eleve a white piece of paper ripped in half and a note on it and said this agent was disrespectful to me. I got I got an investigation on an alley, crazy disrespectful. It must have cost uncle, sound like two thousand dollars to do that to get me cleared with articulous kidd of me. So in my retirement party, I said, I

That's funny.

I there are a few other interesting things that happened, you know, throughout your career.

Here.

Do you want to tell the story about your cooperation with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in tracking the freighter coming in from Venezuela.

Yes, great, great case. Mike.

Mike and Matt were both the case age and I was like a third on it, and we had information that a freighter was coming out of Venezuela up to Philadelphia.

Now we were working very closely.

With not only DEA but also customs on the way, and that freighter was given basically a free reign on a controlled delivery covered by customs. Basically let it move up to Philadelphia to his destination and when it hits Philly, we're going to board the vestment.

And that's what happened when when a vestment was.

Being tracked all the way imagine it from all the way from Venezuela through the Cribean Sea, all the way up past Miami Fami, he's Philly. Well, when we end up hitting it, he didn't get in the continent, we do the container number pulled it out and then they had within two by fours.

The trafficking we're going to the distribution organization, traffic organization.

Had one point one pound baggy stuff, not two point twos have kilos in boards for a total of over one thousand pounds a thousand keys.

Well that that tractor trailer took the trader or fifty two foot what do you call it?

Container cargo cardinal container was going to be taken to Montreal, Canada and handed off to the RCMP and also our office in Montreal at the time, and it's going to be in the cover where you are a driver. The driver is you know, an unwinning driver. He's a professional

We came up.

They came upon a storm and the plane says that we have to veer off. I can't go through the storm.

I got to veer off.

Ground units. You take it, well, the ground unit's form close enough. Like talk about miscommunication. We basically lose the tractor trailer for a period of time. We find that truck stop on the left on the west side of the I guess it was the New York State. Threw a un state eighty seven. We circle back around. He's pumping fuel.

We found him. We found him.

The bird goes and gets more, got more fuel as well, storm passes. He gets back up in the air. We moved back on the interstate. But before going on into the Interstate, I took a ball peen hammer and I smashed a little little red light to make a white light show through it. And I said, there's your beacon, man, and we followed that beacon up the Age State through away until the storm did pass and we got up to the the RCMP or a Canadian border, we how

So that was one of the one of the UH.

It was. It was a great investigation from not just from from the guys down south to customs and US in Philly, but to r CMP international case. You talk about an international case, and that was going to an organization, a bunch of gangsters, UH Italian gangsters up there in Canada.

Dope p se the wood, that's when it takedown to the place. And we were not part of it.

We were not part of it, but it was the RCMP did a great job with that. Organizations is a dyning wite organization.

It's it's kind of I mean, if I understand the concept of the operation correct, I mean, it is fascinating that you guys knew this shipment was coming from Venezuela, tracked up to the United States, allowed it into the United States, drove it through the United States, crossed another international border into Canada, and then let the buy sort of pseudo take place, so that the Canadians could not only seize the drugs, but also arrest this local.

And that's what you call that's what you call it international control delivery, International control delivery. Pretty, it's pretty hot, it's pretty it's it's one of those things that you have to get a certain approval and the higher higher up's got to prove that.

Yeah, because what's the what's the biggest thing that could possibly have you lose? You lose?

Okay, so not a thousand keys a thousand, a thousand keys of coke for the right And people are like, oh my god, you can't do that, you can't do that. Well, trust me, we we let it go. Being like it's on a boat. It's on a boat where it's going to go going into the water. You're gonna push the car to the water, but go into the wall, let it get to port.

And that's when you take it. That's when you ended up taking it.

And if you have to have right information, because if you see those freighters, and you've seen them, you know up in New York and Baltimore and New work up there in Jersey, they're stacked to the gills.

Man, what's what equipment was tough in them.

You got to know what number and you gotta know what Once they start moving all that stuff out, it's like moving chess pieces, like, yeah, you get to the right one and you can run dogs all over them.

Those poochas are gonna are gonna be burned out before they find it.

And and that's and that's basically I keep saying, customers, I'm an old school guy. Customers, how it's Homeland Security, customs and border protection.

God, there's so many other alphabets out there now. I gotta be honest.

I know my normal E A F B, I A T f uh C I A you know, I marshals. So but to do that, it was was quite quite a quite an entertaining feet to say. And as a bottom line, no one got hurt, No one got hurt. That's always we do safety safety safety.

What is sort of like for you guys for your hires, Like what is the.

Risk analysis because you because like you say, you know, whether it's you guys kicking drugs out into the ocean in order for you know, in order to identify the pickup crew or you know, or allowing the shipman to come in. Because we see like the atf Fast and Furious right where they tried an operation and lost track of everything.

So like what weapons? Yeah, yeah, so like that one.

I cannot speak on I do know that was not it was not a good thing, but right I don't not necessarily for you to speak on on that. But you guys are engaged in similar types of operations where there's a certain element of the unknown where you know, if you do lose the eyeball or something like that happens, or if they do something that maybe you know that changes up their pattern of life where it's like this, we didn't expect them to do.

This, and now we don't know where they are.

Like how does that?

What's the risk mitigation type for you guys, for your for your hires, do do like do uh does the you know exact level.

Sometimes get cold feet when it comes to this kind of stuff.

I mean, that's a great that's a great question, David. I mean, you know, it depends on you know what there goes. That was saying risk versus reward. You know, always always err on the side of always err on the side of caution. And I get it with with the higher ups. I became not not that higher up.

But I do believe that I may boast a little bit, I do believe.

That the DA and what we do, training and knowledge and lessons learned, we have seen it and done it. But then again, we've done all kind of trickery stuff and all kind of great things, and and it works out.

I mean, yes, we might lose. I hate to say the word lose.

Yes, you might lose. I'll be honest. In Baltimore, I'm up in Baltimore. I'm first out of the Caribbean Division. Now I'm used to dealing with major loads. I go now from the Caribbean Division as the resonators are, to Baltimore as a group supervisor. Another wonderful group group six sixteen weapons carriers, Baltimore City guys, Baltimore County State guys. And one of the first missions during the week, they want to go out and do a control delivery. Oh my god, I said, okay, well, we want to go

I said, well, what do you got? I got, but you got a couple hundred punds? What do you want to do here?

How much is ten pounds? I'm not being disrespectful to the guys. When I show it up, I was like, what I mean? Because I was used to.

Working with.

You know, it's like you guys, you guys are used to work with the former you know, you know former you know Tier two operators and then you know two or one operators And I was, and they say, yeah, go and teach these guys.

Go work with these guys from the National Guard.

Here. You're like, what you know, You're like, no disrespect, but you know, I'm not saying you're you're dumb and you're dumbin us down.

But it's like, are you sure you want me to do this?

Right?

So I what I what I did for the guys.

I want to see how you're going to operate. I want to see I are gonna operates as a former coach, as a teacher. I want to see how they are going to operate versus my other how we operated in phill Lee and Allentown and down in the Caribbean.

How are you going to operate?

Well, let's let's say it didn't go somewhere because the gentleman in the back missed the eyeball and the crook went out the back with the ten ten pounds of grass, right, and guess.

Who had to write a memo? Oh no, not the boss, not me.

It was a case agent, and then the poort and and the boss there was like what what what I'm like, it's ten pounds of grass, ten pounds of a marawah.

No one got hurt.

Yeah, you know, but that's a great question you had they But honest to god, you try to do all, you take all the all the bull out of it, you try to whittle it down.

You're still gonna get issues. And then you guys know dangers.

I mean, you're you're in the swamp somewhere, you're doing something crazy and you're not supposed to do it. And this guy's old there, you know, doing something you're not supposed to be doing.

It's like, did you see that?

No? I didn't see that. You know you need to cover your six No I missed it. Yeah, well now you guys all killed.

Yeah.

But bottom line with that though, and that's a great, great question. That's the only time and I'm and I'm running up to God, I was for in front of court. Is the only time I was ever used. I was part of dope being lost.

Yeah, was a mirror.

Was a mirror A couple pounds of grass in Baltimore and the guys felt terrible. They felt terrible. Yeah, I said, I said, next week, we're doing it, and we're gonna have remedial training and we're gonna do it again, you know.

And and then they honored that. They they they were honored because I didn't say no, no more, no more, no more, no not doing that. Another uh something else that happened.

I think in the latter part of your career, you were involved in the investigation where there's a helicopter crash where a bunch of DA agents were lost.

Ye tell us, Wow, good, good one there jack yep,

And basically Special Forces five Special Team. Excuse me, I'm going to get the right terminology for you. You are, I'm gonna I'm gonna get my notes here. One second, fifth Group, fifth group. You have to Respecial Forces Group five, fifth Group. And of course you were over there in

Ad and very sad for DA.

If anyone wants to look this up COVERD twenty six and nine we left. Three of our a's were killed and also seven military person were killed because of a c forty seven were shot down. And I mean that comes close to your hearts to guys because of the fact that you know, being for a military and it was during you know, and there was another one night mission and there was an hour long gun fight.

They got up on that bird and it crashed.

We lost three agents, lost three agents, and if I may be, if I may be so as well, this is losing personnel.

You know, there's.

In DA headquarters as are called Wall of Honor, and that Wall of Honors you know in Arlington, Virginia, in our headquarters, and when we came over and from into DEA, we've had fifty four, fifty four DA personal killed and their portraits are on that wall.

Fifty four and that's rough, man, that's rough.

I mean, I know, uh Cia, Dave, they'll like to put the stars up and all that stuff.

And one thing is that you have a situation where you have fifty four just killed. I mean all kinds. I'll be so bold. My roommate in the Academy, God rest his soul. Eugene T. McCarthy. Please look him up. Eugene T. McCarthy.

He was killed February second, nineteen ninety one. He was a number one student in our class, Naval Academy graduate major in the Marine Corps. He was a signed where San Diego office. He was in, of course snow Cap at the time, and his unit got called up for the First Golf War.

Oh wow.

He was a Cobra. It was a Cobra gun chappella company Platoff.

And I shared this with you.

I share it with people because I honor him. I honored it. I honor him very much. And he's it was a book of the New York Kids.

Seventy fifth Precincts a Calgary cemetery is buried in And what happened was was he was running one of the marines coming out of Iraq February two, nineteen ninety one, and as Cobrag was getting in trouble, and that's a gun ship night vision gog was on first first the year or first you know generation nightgggle visions smashes his chopper,

Yeah?

Even though he was not killed on a DA mission, right, but he had raised his hand because he was in the reserves.

He's unit got called up and he went to another hot spot in the OORL to serve a country.

And you know one thing I like to say, is there's a there's an author named Joseph Campbell, you know Joseph Campbell. And I just found this today and I was thinking about it. I said, he once wrote, a hero is someone who has given his or her life to someone bigger than his oneself. Think about that, bigger than his one self. And the hero is with and the book that he wrote about that is the hero with a thousand face of nineteen forty nine, you know.

They give their stuff up for wife and limb man, they do it.

And we've had we've had agents wiped out in five of them, crashed in the amount of Peru. We've had agents undercover, you know, up in your place. Everett Hatcher undercover deal killed. There's a street name after every New York Field Division Office guy. I mean, there was a New York State trooper killed Syracuse guy. I'm not going and down the list, but I want people to realize that this is not a job that's like all finny games and all that stuff. No, man, it's it's it's crazy.

It's absolutely crazy. Let me put a light on a minute. Let me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, please does that help? Is that not well a little bit? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, there you go. Yeah, that's great. That'll do it.

So Jack, tell us a little bit about sort of like your career winding down in retirement.

We're winding down in retirement. So here's a here's a funny one for you. You know, I'm in Baltimore. I'm in Ball, Baltimore, and.

You do your your do your How can I put this?

You do your supervisory supervisory out in the street, your supervisory time in the street, which I did.

I did a number of years in croy Ford and then three in Baltimore.

So I was the boss down the field in two separate assignments for almost over seventy years. Most guys'll get into headquarters about you know, after four years, but I had to do.

It was a long list and I missed where it just started, the program just started. So I had to wait. So I got called in.

I had to go into my former sack, the former boss boss the Caribean.

Division named Roger. He sees my name in the list. He's not like the number.

He was like the chief inspector, the chief operation. I can't ready to remember he was up there though he was a heavy. He calls me, he says, Jack. He says, I see your names on the list. He says, uh, of course, I'd like you to come into the inspection division. And I'm like, oh, man, inspections, as I said, Jesus said, he said, I want you to go to OPR, which our internal affairs. And I said, oh, boss, and I really don't. Don't you want to be doing guys in

So we have a mister mean. We have the Felony squad and the mistermeanor squad.

So I went to the mister Minor squad, which was more of like you go to the offices, you inspect things, make sure all the pencils are.

Counted, all the cars are in order.

But you travel the world. You know it's a little boring, but you travel the world. So I'm thinking, now, you know two things I hate two things. I became a newspaper reporter, writing all the time, and then I became a travel agent.

I'm always on the road. I was gone for you know, fifty two weeks.

I'm gone for Oh my gosh, thirty some weeks for the fifty two weeks on the road inspecting and did it.

For five years. Five years. I clank it out, clean it out and meaning to another assignment. And I learned a lot.

I can tell you every every darn you know, flast of uh you know different settings that there's thirty four of this or thirty that or every Yeah, I mean here you go from it being a gunslinger, so like a in the economy pencils. Yeah, can you know did you sign that in red pen or blue pen? And uh, maybe I shouldn't say this, but we used to have a little we used to have a little game we play and the game when you play with a couple of agent inspectors. Now I remember we were all Boston.

You have a sheet. Yeah, you have a sheet.

You bring the person in and fill your badge, gun, creds, credit card, you know, charge's license, and then a couple of questions Jason. So we used to time ourselves to see would have the who would have the most the fastest interviews done and conducted for that particular assignment.

Just a freaking ward.

Off the the monotony sometimes, you know, it's just like wow, you know, I used to be somebody, you know, Yeah, nice for listening to that story.

But then I went over to the Version division. I finally got out of inspection. I really learned a lot in the year I was there.

If you guys remember the the K the K two and the spice craziness, the Pope Purrida that people were smoking and making this crazy.

Yeah, yeah, I was. I was on ad things for a year and I learned a lot about it. All I knew was it was.

Dealt with the thac of the marijuana and people are smoking freaking potpourri and making them crazy, are jumping out bridge and run around running out no clothes on.

It's like, oh God. So then I finally had a contact in our.

Operations division, the Operations division, and I was able to get out of there and I went to operations and operations was was great. I was in the Mexico, Central America Canada section. Can't stand enough about those guys and gals.

Uh, probably the busiest in.

My opion, the busiest, as I said, we're all busy, but I think I'm just going to say that, probably the busiest in headquarters and raised at the operations division. Then I oversaw the offices up in Canada, but yet helping with the Mexico in the seventh cent time country offices. But my main focus was the office up in Canada, which we have an office in Vancouver and Ottawa. We closed down the Montreal office and they were great people.

Maybe we should try this guy.

Well, let me say, bro, come on and try it, because I might be going to do sixty three years old, but you know we can.

I can still roll a little bit, you know.

And but he just you know, he's just like they don't. They don't get it, man, and and and and the bottom is is the bottom line is that we know what we've done. And that's that's good for me. And I know what I was was part of. You guys know what you were part of. And it's a it's a great feeling. It's a great feeling. We we served this country. We we did right for this country. We did some great things for this country. And some of

Man, they didn't.

They got shot up or we're dealing with ailments or dealing with PTSD because they got a I got the gun in the rib that age twenty five. I think if I would have got that in later in life, I think I've been a little more me.

Yeah. I just like I'm invincent. I can I can deal with that. I'm good. You know, you want to seem I'm good. I'm good. Rip, I'm good, my boss, I'm good. You know.

So do it.

Yeah, I just wanted to be I wanted to make sure because uh you mentioned this before the show.

How did you find out or how did you uh come to email us? I want to make sure you give a shout out.

I'm gonna give a I'm gonna give a shout out to my neighbor, my neighbor. Uh Nick, who's my beat neighbor here. He was the one that said, is you listen to these guys on uh, you know, on the Team House.

I go out of New York City, go Team House. No, let me check Team House out.

So I did, and I said okay, And I did some magic with some guy guy in New York and I did some other things and man, we got you got me on and I and I love it.

I love it. I honor you guys, man, I honor you.

And like I said, I'm not looking All I'm looking for, man, is is to let people know that there's guys like you doing what you guys did, and there's guys like myself who did it, and there's people that are doing it because is not an easy life.

And I'll tell you the spouses. You talk about rate of.

Divorce and alcoholism and crazy stuff on our job. Yeah, trust me, it's it's there, and you got to be really strong and some of these things. I was watching Joe Rogue and he had this one guy on one day and he was an undercover guy and he was all dolled up with his tats on him and then you know, he was he was well spoken, he was doing his thing, and he said, how do you turn it off?

Dude? Man, you just got to compartmentalize. You just can't.

It's just and I like what he said, you know, but it's just like, you know, you could be driving home in a BMW convertible.

I was my g car and Philadel, you have to put that out there. I have to put that out BMW convertible who seized it off?

A kid who delivered a kilo a crack quilo a crack man thirty four ounce baggies kilo.

A crack took his card three thousand miles and I still remember it.

And you're driving home in a BMW can vertical and you're living in Princeton, New Jersey with your beautiful wife and she's working in Manhattan. She's doing her thing, and you know, just the night usually likes at four o'clock in the morning and you just kicked kicked a couple of doors in because it was a round we call them round ups.

And you successfully no issues, you know, you no issues, and you come home and then the thing he's gonna say is, what do you want to do for dinner tonight? Yeah, you're like, oh my god, I don't know. What do you want to go to?

That time place in downtown Perston? What do you want to do? You know?

Yeah, so you guys felt this, some guys felt tell us a little bit about like where you're at today, what you're up to.

Now right right today? You know, I come across different things.

Uh, you know, podcasting I'll do I'll do some motivational talks, you know, the different groups. Uh. I just actually if you got if you got any hooks, man, I just put in for American All American Entertainment Public Speaking Bureau. You got the hooks?

You know that yet me?

I just sent this stuff into them, and uh yeah, I mean I think there's enough in my in my pool bag that I.

Can uh, I can hold it can hold an audience.

I think I think I think, well that's amazing. But you're also just and I mean, it's amazing that you you know, how long you served. And usually like when people tell, you know, when when a lot of people think of the retirement, they're thinking they're counting the days, and here, you know, you wake up one day and hr saying, oh god, you know it's time.

You're like, wait a minute, hold on, you know, really, you know, Dave, thank you very much. And and and Jack, I tell you I didn't like that. I didn't like it. I didn't like it. Yeah, I knew, I knew, you know, I just I didn't like it.

I just people say to me, you know, why don't you move to the next level? Why just you know what?

I was content where I was. I didn't want to, you know, I didn't want to be one of these guys that.

You know, some guys chased the carriage. I don't want to be that guy chasing the carriage. It chases the carrot four PCSS and I got the q s. I qs eyes are like quality step increases for for exempt you know, ext extra exemptional work you get in in the division.

I got one in Philly, one in Quantico, one in Saint Croix.

And and then I just I just felt like I was like done, Like I was like finished. Man, all all of this stuff they put into you, all of this uh great training. Man.

I love traying.

I can't tell you how many rounds, and you know, like eve into this day. I still carry the same weapons I carried the job. I carried my my nine millimeter as my glock nine mm certified to carry it. I carried as I was my backup weapon. My point glock twenty two was the duty weapon. I had to turn that in. I still got a tackle twelve gate shot and I boxed myself. I got an M four five point five six. I've been on those weapons, you know, and.

Trust me, you meet me in person, you see my lives, you'd be like, no ways.

I got a barrelsucker and I called a barttlsluckers because I you couldn't tell me about lots of ten point five millimeter barrel.

I show blocks and range that pushed the round. What are you talking about? Put the man in walking load bam bam, bam, bam bam. You know, and that's yeah work, gunshoot gun good. Yeah, I got gun shoot gun good. Yeah, yeah, I love that gun shoot gone good. You know. But I try to do that.

I try to keep in touch with some uh personnel that I worked with on the job. I try to keep in touch with people that this wold blow away. And I know my wife told me not don't get any of your personal talking, but I'm gonna tell you anyway. Every year, every year, the nineteen seventy nine Marion Colge football seniors, there's eighteen of us. We get together every First Saturday in October football reunion back in near Allentown, Pennsylvania.

That's fantastic. Is that freaking cool?

And every year we give back to the football current football program. It's a private school. I'm a pro co kid from from you know, from first grade eight twelfth grade. I went to private school. My dad was a public school teacher.

And he's like, he's like, you know, I can't send them my kids there. You gonna go to private school. Man.

Me and my myself, my two sisters. This year, our gift which we all present to the team. They have like a they have a locker room called the Blue Room. We are going to give them a fifty five inch color TV. We're gonna give them a drink refrigerator. Drink for drinks, a PlayStation with an extra controller, and Madden Football games.

Kids are are the kids are gonna freaking die. And we we blowed him away every year, one way, every year.

You know. And last year we bought them plates, blue and gold rubberized plates, and and these blue and gold rubberized plates are not cheap from tight and fitness from the forty five and twenty five or thirty fives. They were like wow, because remember Catholic schools.

You know, it's yeah, they're going some that you're playing on them. Yeah yeah, yeah.

So and then one year, my good buddy, we got them this thing called the soundbox. You know what a soundboxes. It's like I'll miniature like speaker. It will blow the socks off, you man. And they take it out pre game.

They put it on the fifty yard line and they played their music.

Yeah that's cool an right cool on you like that and you think that's cool?

And like I said it, like I said, I do miss it. I do appreciate people like you, I really do. And if there's you know, anything I can do for you, guys, don't hesitates.

Tell people where they can find you. Jack. Do you have a website? Do you have a place something.

I am an old school guy. My wife. I just got a new iPhone sixteen for Christ's sake, you know what I mean. I mean I can't give the selling rout because they can all kind of yea, but.

Do you have do you have any social media accounts where people can follow you or anything like that.

I don't. I never. I never was able to.

We were not allowed to go on social media. Yeah in the day, Yeah, I never. I honored that.

All I have is a email that you guys get to me. I will text you my cell number. I will text you. I will not time, I will I'll email. Yeah, you went to number and maybe we can discuss on the side or something.

But you're you're not on LinkedIn or anything.

I'm linked I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. Yes, there's a going I'm on LinkedIn, but you're gonna see LinkedIn. There's no picture, there's no buyer, It's just.

Who I am. I'm not trying to run from anybody. I'm not trying to hunt from anybody. You can to find me. But yeah, that's a good, that's a good. Yeah.

LinkedIn Okay, people reach out, Yes, I really, I really appreciate it. Is Is there anything else I could uh discuss?

I mean I think we covered Yeah, you guys, I.

Did.

I did my homework, Friz. I definite appreciate you guys.

And yeah, yeah really I really appreciate it too. On our on our end, Jack, thanks for joining.

Us on the show, Thanks so much, and thanks Nick for us also for Yeah, yeah.

A listener and he's gonna turn up in Baltimore and he's a solid guy and yeah, he'll trust me.

Now, how does it now?

Are we when will this air? How's it doing?

What we're doing?

What's what goes on?

This is uh going out to our a very limited group of people on our Patreon and it will go live on like YouTube and podcast platforms in the next couple Yeah, it's.

Live right now for our Patreon subscribers. So if you're not subscribing the Patreon, this is what you're missing. Do we have any questions for Jack? Love it?

Man, love it.

We're just gonna see if we have any questions for you from.

Finally, so what you're saying about two weeks? Because no, my boys want.

A couple of days.

This will be out either tomorrow tomorrow night or Wednesday, and what.

Are we what are we looking at?

This? One's number three hundred and fifty three fifty three.

Yeah, I'm gonna put that down three fifty three.

All right, So we have we have one question from uh m corbin. Uh do people who drug traffic do they usually did? They usually always pay with cash or other types of currency.

Man, that's a great way.

I mean, back in my day it was all cash related, maybe some assets, you know, maybe let's trade your car for for you know, for two keys of coke or but nowadays it's it's that fit coin, and it's a whole different game. It's a whole even I ever ran into one of the guys. Uh, this is a good, great question. I ran into some of the guys. One of the guys, excuse me, that was a former when I left Quantico. He came in as a new agent.

I'm like, oh my god, I'm lot man. Yeah, yeah, fascinate.

But the guy to his question, uh, back in my day, money maybe an asset here and there, but other than that, I'm sure I'm sure there is there the bitcoin or crazy other things going on with that kind of In fact, we had a case where there was one that guy gold can gold back in Philly. You get gold for his gop because he didn't have het want to break in and any cash. That's a whole other money laundering angle to it. Yeah, we we did some things with that. Myself and my boy Jeff.

We were pick up We were pick up men for UH in Philadelphia, for a trafficking organization.

We were picking up money and we were of course laundering the money through Philly given with taking our cut and giving him money back to.

A different count undercover count. And yeah, we were pick up boys. So back in the day, while you're quite young, quite young, yes, yes, well thanks Jack, We really appreciate it.

Man.

We really appreciate you coming on, reaching out and coming on. Well, thank thank you. Like I said, if you guys hear of anything, please feel fright.

I consider you guys, friends and solid guys up there, and thank you very very much. And if I need some dinner, I guess and uh, really appreciate it. He's gone in a couple of days. Yeah, it'll hit on your website. It'll be on YouTube in like two days.

Yeah.

Like it's either Tuesday night, Tomorrow night, or Wednesday night followed the next morning on audio. So in the next couple of days for sure.

Okay, So that's d D. Thank you very much, appreciate I'm gonna send it. I'm gonna send it out with my cell number two to you guys, and then, uh, it's up to you. You want to get back you want to get back to No, it's up to you.

Sounds right. Thank your service man, and thank you guys. We'll see all of you guys out there next time. Thanks. Thank you, Jack, Thanks Verving, you touch, thank you Jack, Dog you, Dave, Bye bye.

Nos Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to you for a moment about how you can support the show. If you've been watching it, enjoying it, but you'd like to get a little bit more involved and help us continue to do this.

You can check out our Patreon.

It is patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse, and for five dollars a month you can get access to all of these episodes of The Teamhouse ad free. The same goes with our affiliated podcast eyes On with Andy Milburn, Jason Lyons mcmulroy that one, you will also get all of those episodes ad free. And you support the channel

So we really appreciate all of you guys.

There's going to be a link down in the description to that Patreon page, and there is also going to be a link to our new merch shop, So if you guys want to go and get some Team House merchandise, we got stickers and we also have patches, and I should mention if you sign up for Patreon at ten dollars a month, we will nail you this patch as well,

We really appreciate it, guys.

Thank you,