Locked In with Ian Bick - I Hunted America's Biggest Drug Traffickers in the '70s — Here's What It Was Like | Lewis Rice

Starting point is 00:00:00 Frank was in San Diego. We went to San Diego, spoke to him, me and the A-WSA about the case, the defendants, he knew them all. Did business with him. He was cooperating, so we had the marshals bring him back, and he testified. We got him ready to testify. But that was controversial also, because a lot of the old-time agents that were involved in Frank's case that led to his arrest didn't want Frank to get any break from cooperating. That's Lewis Rice. He spent 26 years with the DEA, working undercover and investigating some of the biggest drug traffickers in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Along the way, he took on international cartel cases, worked with notorious drug kingpin Frank Lucas as a cooperator,

Starting point is 00:00:47 and eventually became the youngest special agent in charge in DEA history. I represent a group of agents that came into the Drug Enforcement Administration in the early years when the agency was first started in 1973 by then President Nixon. And when you think about it, you know, what was going on in the country during the 70s? In the 70s, we had an unpopular war in Vietnam. We had African Americans fighting for their civil rights to be treated equal. We had an economic crisis in New York, the legendary caption of the Daily News when President Ford told New York City basically dropped dead. And we had a heroin problem, and New York was ground zero for heroin. And with all that going on, the president created the Drug Enforcement Administration, a new agency to focus in on narcotics.

Starting point is 00:01:51 And during that time also, you had the narcotic related corruption. You had the Knapp Commission, which was looking at police corruption. You had the stories about Serpico and the narcotic-related corruption. But the city was devastated because of heroin. And it was a risk to create a single-mission agency to just focus on narcotics because of the corruption factor, the danger factor, and a lot of these guys weren't going to jail. But knock on wood, 50 some odd years later, the DEA is strutely. DEA is strong, they're doing valuable work around the world, and they're highly respected.

Starting point is 00:02:30 Yeah, it's probably one of the agencies that have the least amount of scandals, I would say, too. They do, and the reason is they do a lot of training, you know. They hire selectively, and they do a lot of in-service training, and people really believe they're doing the right thing. And they're always going to have problems, you know, they're always going to have people that, for whatever reason, you know, maybe take money they shouldn't take or take shortcuts and get into trouble, that's a part of life. But for the most part, for the work that they do, which is all dangerous work. And when you think about narcotics work and all law enforcement agencies, narcotics enforcement is a specialty assignment that police departments rotate into and they

Starting point is 00:03:15 rotate out of. And why they don't do it permanently is because of the danger. And the corruption factor, but DEA is a single mission agency going after the highest levels of the drug traffickers, and they do it well. Where did you grow up, Lewis? What was your background? So I grew up in New York City, Queens, one of the five boroughs. I grew up in the projects in New York. My dad was a, I say, a proud Harlem detective, spending 20 years with the NYPD, mostly in a

Starting point is 00:03:48 25 precinct, which is East Harlem. And although I adored my dad, I did not want to go into the police department at that time, because there was a lot of tension between African-American males and the NYPD. And what put me in the path to go to DEA is my friends. You know, we were all teenagers, we'd go to hang out with the girls, we'd go to parties. We had a tradition that every Easter Sunday we'd get dressed up in our best outfits. We get on the train and take the F train to Coney Island and go to the Himalaya and the Cyclone

Starting point is 00:04:27 and meet the girls and hang out and have a good time and just have fun. You know, we'd snap on each other, make fun of each other, make fun of each other's parents and what good, wholesome fun. But when we started to get into high school and graduate from high school, a lot of the teenagers went to Vietnam and they came back and they still wanted to do these fun things, but they were addicted to heroin.

Starting point is 00:04:56 So I wanted to get heroin. And when they got heroin, they became addicted and died, overdosed or lived unfulfilled and unproductive lives. And not only were they personally devastated, but their families were devastated. And to see the hurt from their families, you could feel a hurt in the community. When DEA was formed in 73, I said, that's a mission that I can understand. I can go after because in my head, I'm saying I'm going to go after the people that destroyed my friend's lives. The parents were devastated because as parents, they were supporting the civil rights leaders of the day. And as a parent, you say, well, I'm not going to benefit, but my child's going to benefit.

Starting point is 00:05:40 And then your child gets involved in heroin abuse, becomes addicted, gets arrested, lives unfulfilled lives or overdoses. and you're just devastated. It's hard to recoup when you have a child that has a problem in overdoses. And so I said the DEA mission is a mission I can identify with. Do you think if you didn't see that firsthand your friends being affected so negatively by drugs, you would have maybe chose a different path? I probably would have. And because the path I was going into was probation and parole.

Starting point is 00:06:11 Oh, wow. I said, you know, I want to be a parole officer. I want to help people. And even in law enforcement, my whole goal was to help people to bring people together. So that was, I was gearing more toward probation and parole. I want to help people. That was I was geared towards. Do you think you were born with that?

Starting point is 00:06:29 Or is that something your dad instilled in you? I think something that my dad instilled in me because he was, he was a proud New York City police officer, even though the police were the target of a lot of abuses, he would tell me about how he was helping people in the community. how people were happy to see him on the street as a police officer because they knew that a woman, you know, going into a tough neighbor was going to make it from the subway station into her apartment building without being accosted by L.A. negative elements in the street. So he always saw himself as doing a good thing being the police, you know. Was your mom in the picture? My mom, yes. She was Department of Social Services. So she was a caseworker helping people also. But my parents separated when I was 11 years old. And that was devastating to me because my dad was my superhero.

Starting point is 00:07:22 He was Superman. You know, I just really adored my dad. But I continued on, went to school, went to college. I was fortunate to have some great internships at college. And, you know, you have Father Chandler, who's the president of St. John's University now, which is where I graduated from in Jamaica, Queens. and Bill Janet Check, who was the former chairman of the board of trustees, when I was a member of the board of trustees, they're doing some great work at St. John's because I got involved in the criminal justice system through the internships. You know, I interned at Rikers Island, you know, as a teenager.

Starting point is 00:08:00 I interned at the federal detention headquarters, which is the federal prison in New York City on West Street in 12th Street in New York City and also the Community Treatment Center, which was the federal halfway houses in New York City. So I got to see firsthand the criminal justice system, people coming in off the street, and it was just an education. You know, I remember being in the working in the receiving room in Rikers Island, and it was C-74. And so this is probably 1972, 73. It was a new facility.

Starting point is 00:08:36 And C-74 was created for youth between 16 and 19 or 20, and so they had younger correction officers in there. And I'll never forget working in the afternoon shift in the receiving room where we interview the arrestees as they came into Rang of Zal. And let's say the bus from Queens came in and you'd see these young guys, you know, shackled, handcuffed, waist, legs. And, you know, this is not TV now. I left an impression because I'm a young man also

Starting point is 00:09:10 and these guys are around my age, you know. And let's say the bus from Brooklyn came and just came in. And Queens, the bus had came in maybe an hour or so ago and the Queens guys had came out of the street clothes, and they were into the prison jumpsuit, and guys would recognize each other, and they'd call each other by the street names, like it was a joke,

Starting point is 00:09:31 and the captain would say, get them. And the correction officer would grab the guy and bring them in an area, and you'd hear, you know, screaming and whatnot. And, you know, I'm 18, 19 years old, like, what's going on in here, you know? And I guess the captain, and saw my reaction, so he would want to talk to me after the shift, and he said, you know,

Starting point is 00:09:55 something, I don't want these young guys thinking that this is a joke. You know, I want them to think twice before they commit crimes out here, that this is not like going to summer camp. You commit a crime in here. You go to Rikers Island. You're going to see your buddies. You're going to slap five and have a good time. But then also, as the correction officers, would tell me that they understood what the captain was trying to do, and the captain really wasn't into corporal punishment, so they would take the guys in the cell out of the captain's eyesight, and they'd tell the guy, whisper, tell him, screams, you know, scream, keep screaming.

Starting point is 00:10:33 So the guy would keep screaming, so the captain would think they were, you know, giving this guy, teaching him a lesson and whatnot, so both aims were accomplished. The captain was getting a message to these young guys that, hey, Coming to jail is no joke. I don't want you to get used to coming to jail like you're going to summer camp, you're seeing your friends and this, that, and the other thing. I want you to think twice before you commit these crimes on the street. So it was I was going to school.

Starting point is 00:10:59 I was learning about criminal justice, which was a new program at St. John's University, but I also was seeing it as a practitioner. And that was because of the strong internships at St. John's University. And I got to the Drug Enforcement Administration again because of a career day at my school. It was a special agent from the DEA at a career day, along with the personnel specials. We call them HR now, but it was a personal specialist, HR specialist. And she was talking about the requirements to become a DEA agent,

Starting point is 00:11:32 and the agent was talking about what agents actually do. And in my head, I said, well, I can identify with this law enforcement admission because I'm going to be going after the people that had put heroin out there and got my friends addicted. you know, and I signed on, and I was fortunate. And I joined DEA 21 years of age. How many people were in the DEA at that point? Probably, I think there was a little over, a little over 3,000 agents, you know. And when I say agents, this is like a global agency doing a possible mission.

Starting point is 00:12:07 You know, compare with the New York City Police Department at that time in the 70s may have had 33,000 sworn loans. enforcement officers, and we're talking about 3,500 around the world, you know, but doing a very, very good job, a very effective job working in cooperation with state and local police officers, targeting the highest level of the traffic. And the DEA's focus was not low-level guys. I mean, they'll work against guys that are on the street. And when I say low-level, if you could see the guy selling drugs on the street, he's a low-level guy. They want to go with, DEA goes after the guys that are supplying that location, supplying other locations, making significant amounts of money. Guys that when they get arrested, people are surprised that they were involved in drugs

Starting point is 00:13:01 because they want to distance themselves actually from being perceived of being involved in drugs. That's the focus of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Did they have an academy ready to go back then? They did. They did. They did. They did. did. So when I came on in October of 1974, the Academy was in Washington, D.C., but it wasn't scheduled. They didn't have one scheduled until January of 1975. So when they brought me on in October, I swore into the special agent. I didn't even have a car. I was on the train, taking the train into Manhattan from Queens, going into the building, assigned to an enforcement group. In the enforcement group back then was a group of about 12 to 15, mostly agents, maybe you have a police officer's sign, but mostly agents.

Starting point is 00:13:51 And these were the men and women that were interviewing informants, following leads on surveillance, some working undercover. So I got to see these men and women in action. I got to read the reports. I got to feel the culture, how they talk to each other, how things are going, and whatnot. and I got a sign to a supervisor, a guy named him of Frank White, that if anybody ever writes the story of federal narcotics enforcement, he'll have a whole chapter.

Starting point is 00:14:24 He was just a legendary figure. He had the Silver Star Medal from the war in Vietnam, and he just was attracted to develop and pursue major, major, dangerous felons. and the more dangerous the situation was, the more he came to figure out how we're going to take these people down. He's just a legendary. You talk to anybody that knows federal narcotics or knows the history of it, they know Frank White's name, and they speak of his name and all. So I'm just fortunate to work in his group.

Starting point is 00:14:59 And when I say work in his group, I was assigned to the group. I'd go there every morning from Monday through Friday and talk with the agents, read the cases. they'd get to know me, I'd get to know him, them. And he looked at me that, hey, you're part of this group. You're going to be part of our team. When you go out into the academy in January, you come back in March after eight weeks. You're going to be assigned right here. Because, you know, they were looking at me at 21 years old, a baby face, no facial hair.

Starting point is 00:15:26 They figured who would ever make this guy as a law enforcement guy, let alone a Fed, you know. So were most agents at that point when the agency just started recruited from other law enforcement? so they had experience, they weren't just taking every 21-year-old out of college? No, 21 out of college was very unusual, you know. Primarily DEA, when it was staffed in the 1973, when it was put together, was either former police, narcotic investigators, and I'm not saying not police officers. They were looking police people with narcotics background,

Starting point is 00:15:59 that detectives, you know, that worked and knew how to investigate, ask questions, conduct surveillance, And they were also looking at former military, guys that had some experience with weapons and defensive situations and life-death situations and military and wanted a similar career on the streets of America and going after dangerous drug cartels. Because back then, I mean, these guys, you know, they were challenging law enforcement at every step, you know. Now, you didn't have any law enforcement experience, so was eight weeks of training enough? For you?

Starting point is 00:16:37 That's a good, good question. It was for me, on one hand, there was a discussion that I learned about whether they were going to accept me or not. He says 21 years of age. He's a baby. He doesn't have any law enforcement investigative experience. But what swung it in my side was they knew my dad was an NYPD detective, and they knew he was a Harlem detective.

Starting point is 00:17:03 And so they said, well, he's got that influence. from his dad, you know, and let's face it, in law enforcement, the NYPD, they're the rock stars, you know, they are the rock stars. They set the tone. They handle volume, they handle danger, they handle complexity, they handle large events, and they handle them well, you know, and why do they handle them well? Because they practice and they train. Every now and then, something goes awry, but it doesn't go awry because they don't care. They practice, they train for these large events. And so when, and that's why the city is well managed today. It took a while to get to that point, but it's a well-managed city where you can feel safe and comfortable. Things

Starting point is 00:17:44 happen, things happen everywhere. But for the most part, New York City is on focus to, you know, bring crime under control. And so they brought me in with that in mind to work with the law enforcement team and to, you know, learn about narcotics enforcement and learn how to be a DEA agent, working very closely with the state and local police. And at that time, working undercover. That was a key element to work undercover. There were a lot of African American drug leaders. They were operating in the inner city. New York was ground zero. And the only way you can infiltrate these organizations was by working undercover. And when I say working undercover, I'm talking about TV work undercover.

Starting point is 00:18:32 We tell a guy, come over to the Hilton Hotel and meet me in the suite. No, you had to go into the neighborhood. So you had to go into the neighborhood where you didn't know anybody, where everybody's watching you and they're eyeing you up and down and they're making an assessment. Is this person legit? Is he not legit? Can we just BS him and rob him and take his money?

Starting point is 00:18:55 Can we tell him we are drug dealers and we're not drug dealers? And so you had to have some confidence about you, had to have some inner swagger about you also to meet the test. And knowing that, you have a surveillance team out there, but the surveillance team is going to come in after the fact. So if something goes wrong, you're the person that's going to get hurt right away. Do you remember your first undercover case? I do.

Starting point is 00:19:21 I do. I remember doing a lot of undercover before we got to that first case. because what you find out quickly is, especially in New York, everybody said they had drugs, but they didn't have drugs. They wanted to get your money, but they didn't have drugs. And so as an investigative agency again, with DEA, you'd want some information from giving your phone number or have surveillance seat, a license plate number of the guy who the person's driving.

Starting point is 00:19:52 Why? Because with the phone number, you get the subscribe information. You know who that phone subscribed to. It may not be subscribed to this guy, but you got an address to go to and see who comes out of that address. License plate number may not be in this guy's name, but again, you got an address to go to. And then you go to those locations, you see what's happening around those locations. And so you're an investigator. So you know, and you know also if we do do a deal with this guy and he becomes a fugitive, we got places to look for him.

Starting point is 00:20:23 And so you get all that investigative information. And then, you know, you meet, negotiate, try to pick a place where you can get white, black, Hispanic, male, and female in. Because that's way your surveillance team can get in there. You don't want to go in an area where it's going to be difficult to penetrate, but sometimes you have no choice. You know, sometimes you can't draw these guys to that type of place. So you really got to think in advance. How you start is how you're going to end. And so you try to have a meeting where you can get maybe an agent in there walking around

Starting point is 00:21:06 with a dog walking around jogging, just walking around in the area and whatnot, observing. Sometimes you can. Sometimes the neighbors are so tight that anybody, that's not born and raised there and their family's not born and raised. It's going to draw suspicion, especially when the neighborhood knows they're doing the drug deal, when you're talking to thousands of dollars. So all of that comes into play. These guys are not stupid.

Starting point is 00:21:37 They're watching and they're trying to figure out, but what happens is money. Money is the terminated. People see money and they convince themselves, uh, it's got to be a right. He's got the money. want to get the money. And so, you know, I had an old boss that said money will make the blind sea. And there's a lot to be said to that. Just so just going in and saying you have the money ready to purchase drugs? Well, to say it, but do you really have it? Oh, to show it to the individual. Show it. They want to believe that you have the money, you know. But you got to be careful with

Starting point is 00:22:11 that also because you don't want them to rip you off. And that's why the investigation becomes in is so important. You're not going to see an agent meet somebody on the street. You're not going to see an agent meet somebody on the street unless they know exactly or give that person money, let's say, for drugs to make a drug buy unless they know exactly who that person is, okay? Because you want to know as this person, what's his name? Has he been arrested before? What has he been arrested before? If you find that he's been arrested for armed robberies, probably not a drug deal because criminals specialize, okay? So probably he's telling you what you want to hear so you can bring the money he can take it. Okay. So you want to know if he's been

Starting point is 00:22:53 arrested for drugs before and sales, how did that sale go? So you don't do something similar that's going to trigger him that, hey, I got locked up when I did something like this before, you know. But the key with all of these investigations is the informant. That's the key. You're not going to go in cold. Somebody's going to bring you in. And if that informant is strong, you're not going to get a lot of questions, okay? Because people trust that informant. If that informant is weak, then the deal might not go because people will figure, this guy don't know people in that area.

Starting point is 00:23:33 Why would they be trusted? Why would they trust him? So you're not going in there by yourself, somebody is bringing you in there. Because you realize, these are federal felonies, you know? And there's a lot of prison time. I mean, back then in the 70s, and I was buying heroin, eighth of an ounce of heroin, you know, a little over four ounces, $10,000. That's $10,000, 1970 money.

Starting point is 00:23:59 It's a lot of money, yeah, on the street corner. So these were not like guys selling a little bit of personal use. These are guys selling distribution amounts of heroin, okay? And so you got to be, you got to do your research to know who you're dealing with. have they been arrested before? How did that case go? Who are the police officers? The agents had arrested these guys before? Because you want to talk to them. How did the case go? Because there's always going to be things that are important to know from an undercover perspective that never make it to the written file. You know, in terms of mannerisms, in terms of locations,

Starting point is 00:24:37 you want to be able to take advantage of all that. The key is you're a criminal investigator. You're not just going out there because somebody says they got drugs. That's kind of like TV sometimes. It makes it seem easy, and that's when something's too easy. It's easy to get hurt, too. How would you get the informants to begin with, though? Are they tips from the NYPD or informants coming straight to agents that they think or know? So great question.

Starting point is 00:25:05 So as a new agent starting out at the academy with nothing at 22 years of age now, with a senior partner, we'd have guys, you know, call them. in from jail and want to give information. And usually the guys call in from jail, they can give great information if you can get them out. And so nine times of the 10, you know, me as a young guy, oh, let's get him out. See, no, no, we ain't getting nobody out. They got to do it from here, okay? You got people that write the prosecutor's office and says, you know, I'm ready to cooperate now. You know, I want to reduce my sentence, you know, and then traditionally is you arrest somebody and they realize you got them,

Starting point is 00:25:47 and they don't want to go back to jail, and they want to cooperate. Because everybody you arrest, you're always going to have the conversation. Will they cooperate? And a lot of them do, you know. And then you go back in that way. Because the goal is to get that person's supplier.

Starting point is 00:26:06 The goal is not to go down, but to get that person's supplier. And again, not the people that are visible to everybody in the neighbor, the people that are not visible, the people that dress nice, the people that deliver the package and look at various levels, the people that provide help in money laundering, the people that provide help in buying, let's say, vehicles, the people that provide help in lestash locations, get everybody involved in that drug conspiracy and then take them down.

Starting point is 00:26:36 Did the individuals that you first arrested in the beginning of your career, did they even know who the DEA was because there was a fairly new agency? Yeah, a lot, a lot of them did. Word traveled quickly. I spent, I spent after a lot of back and forth, I wound up getting a pretty good informant who had been arrested back in the 50s for federal narcotics. And all his, all the people he knew were prior federal. rest ease. And, you know, one case in particular, we spent probably about eight months, you know,

Starting point is 00:27:21 making drug buys from about eight to ten people. And I'm telling them a large amount drug buys. Again, you know, $10,000 wants, and it would always be at least two buys, okay, because you'd, because back then, everybody went to trial in the 70s. No matter what the evidence was, you had photographs, you had fingerprints, you had eyewitness testimony, recordings. People want to trial anyway, you know. Why is that? Because there were no minimum mandatory. And they figured a good defense attorney could come out and create some type of drama going to trial. And, you know, maybe somebody, a juror would believe it. You know, the jurors, again, this is the 70s. This is Serpico, this is NAP commission, this is, you know, police abuses and whatnot and want to give

Starting point is 00:28:15 the maybe defendant the benefit of the doubt. So everybody's going to trial, you know, and so we had to be 100% sure when we were doing these cases. And the case in particular, we spent about eight months, arrested about 10 people. We had a, you know, brought them down to the Southern district and rained before the magistrate, and I watched them one by one get released in the Romer Kogonists to come back for a trilateral date. And I guess the magistrate could see my expression that I'm seeing all these guys walk out that it actually gave me large amounts of heroin on several occasions. And he called me into the chambers. afterwards and he told me that, you know, he said, I just want to let you know that, you know,

Starting point is 00:29:10 the people of this country respect what you're doing, but I'm under strict restrictions, rather only to hold people that show or give me the appearance that they're not going to make it to trial. He said, I'm not judging the guilt or the innocence. I'm not saying what you're doing. Arresting these people was not important. It's only, will they show back in trial and what's presented to me, I'm going to let them out. And they let him out, you know. But one of the guys in particular was a guy that had been arrested twice previously by the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics,

Starting point is 00:30:00 which were two predecessor agencies to DEA. He was arrested by them and convicted. And he walked out of the courtroom, posted bond to come back. And he was on federal parole at the time. And his attorney, and you've got to be marvel at sometimes defense attorneys, his attorney said, Your Honor, my client has been arrested for the last, has this eight-page FBI rap sheet. he's been arrested by the feds for the last 30 years.

Starting point is 00:30:38 He's even currently on parole in this building now. I've talked to his parole officer and his parole officer said he's never missed an appointment. He said nowhere on this eight page 30-year rap sheet do you see a mark of him being a fugitive. And he told him the magistrate, he said, in fact, he is a champion. when it comes to reporting the court. He let them out. And then the champion became a fugitive. Was it just common to be that laxed in the federal system back then?

Starting point is 00:31:17 Because that wouldn't fly in today's world. They're not letting someone out that's on parole and violates like that. It was a different era in the 70s. I mean, when the organized crime control bill came in later on in the 80s and it became truth in sentencing and you had the guidelines, That's what everybody started to cooperate because people knew that there's nothing the defense attorney can do for you, okay, except take your money. Your best deal is going to be with the government. And a lot of these guys are making deals with the government.

Starting point is 00:31:47 A lot of them, you know. So he went on the run, what happened? He escaped. He became a fugitive. It was, I ran into the defense attorney in the Southern District one day, and I asked him, what happened to the championship? He said, you know, just one of those things. But they caught him about three or four. Let's see, I went to Philadelphia.

Starting point is 00:32:15 They caught him about 10 years later, 10 years later. Did he leave the country? No, he just, the best kept secret sometime was to become a federal fugitive. He had a small number of agents, and at that time, DEA was responsible for their own fugitives. That responsibility was shifted at some point to the U.S. Marshals. And so let's say you've got 3,000 agents globally. You have a very active heroin situation in the United States of America. You know, you have the pressure to go after the guys that are dealing drugs now.

Starting point is 00:32:46 You don't have time to chase fugitives. So that was like the best kept secret to become a fugitive because who's going to follow you, you know? But the government realized that also and gave that responsibility to the marshals, that they have a full-time responsibility to try to locate these fugitives. Did the DEA have a most wanted list when you first started? They did, yes, yeah. Was there anyone notable that people would know today? Yeah, there was a guy by the name of Frank Matthews was on there.

Starting point is 00:33:12 You know, he was a major, major drug dealer in New York City, operating out of Brooklyn and really 21 states in the Eastern Seaboard. He's been the subject of several DVD documentaries on YouTube. and, you know, he escaped. You know, he posted bail, got arrested in Vegas. I think the bail was like a million dollars, and he was extradited back to Brooklyn. They dropped the bail from a million, I think,

Starting point is 00:33:45 $325,000 cash. He posted cash bail never to be seen again. And that was 1973 predated the formation of DEA. But, you know, of course, when DEA was formed, that was the number one future of people looking for. You know, and people speculate. He was killed. You know, he was just able to escape.

Starting point is 00:34:11 No one knows what happened to him. But there have been several YouTube documentaries trying to figure what happened to this guy. And you may even see a major motion picture about his story pretty soon. I got one of the funniest scam texts the other day. The guy texts me pretending to be from some government agency and tells me I have an outstanding warrant that needs to be handled immediately. Which, considering my history, is probably the one scam that has a chance of getting my attention. So I'm reading it like, wait, what did I do now? Then he tells me that if I don't take care of it immediately, the police are coming to arrest me.

Starting point is 00:34:45 And I'm thinking, buddy, I've actually been arrested by the federal government before. I could promise you they do not send you a courtesy text first, although I wish they did. That's the thing with scams, though. They're trying to get you to panic before you have time to think. Somebody you don't know suddenly needs money. There's some huge emergency, and you have to act right now. That's why I use Cash App, because having security built into the financial tools I use actually matters to me.

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Starting point is 00:36:00 within 14 days. Terms apply, download Cash App today, and make your money work for you. Visit our link in bio. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank, banking services provided by cash apps bank partners. Visit Cash.app slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. What was the actual success rate of conviction back then since everyone was going to trial? How successful were you guys un-convicting. We were pretty good. And another thing about DEA is they pride themselves on a conviction. You know, if you got out in the courthouse back then, probably 70% of the cases were drug cases, you know. You had the Southern District in New York, you had the Eastern District in New York, and had special narcotics court in New York. And all of them wanted the DEA cases.

Starting point is 00:36:52 Why? Because they were well-investigated. The reports were thorough. And, and, and, and, and, and, And DEA did a lot of analytics. You know, they talked to witnesses, they did surveillance with photographs. They debriefed people, and they wrote extensive reports. And they're working very closely with a prosecutor. That's the joy of the Drug Enforcement Administration. That when you open up a case, you're working with the U.S. prosecutor, the Assistant United States Attorney.

Starting point is 00:37:20 And so that Assistant United States Attorney that you're working with is going to pursue that case if these people get arrested. and go to trial, so he or she is going to be comfortable on the front side before they issue warrants with all the evidence that you have, that they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these people have committed these crimes. What's it like to physically work a case back then with all the evidence and, you know, write-ups and paperwork? Are you guys just shifting one box, you know, from the office to the U.S. Attorney's Office?

Starting point is 00:37:51 How does that work? It was exciting. I mean, we'd go down to the U.S. Attorney's Office. We talk about the developments in the case. We'd let them know we're going to meet with the person on this day. We're going to try to set up another buy. We're trying to try to identify the stash location. What the surveillance have seen that the undercover didn't see.

Starting point is 00:38:10 The undercover is talking to the main guy, having that conversation. But the surveillance is on the outside, let's say, at a bar, the restaurant, or the after-hour joining, when the meeting's over, they're following the principles to see who he's now talking to, you know. if you're fortunate enough to get a wiretap, they're seeing who they're talking to over the phone, who else is involved in the case that the undercover never met. And so it was strictly a team operation and a lot of fun. And my favorite part of these investigations were sitting in the courtroom with the AUSA when the defendants went to trial.

Starting point is 00:38:49 Because back then, like I said, everybody went to trial. Not so much now, but back then everybody went to trial. With no computers or anything, how does that work? We had to write everything by hand. And then just one copy of everything? Yeah, yeah. Write everything by hand. It took a long time.

Starting point is 00:39:05 You couldn't be lazy. You know, you realize that as a federal agent, somebody can go to prison on your word. So you had to be 100% correct, you know. And what I enjoyed about the early days was Eastern District, Southern District, that all the advice to the agents don't help us with the case, tell us what the person said or what you heard, okay, which was music to my ears. Because coming out of a community where people were suspect about the police, I wasn't going to shade what somebody was saying or not.

Starting point is 00:39:45 And the U.S. Attorney's Office said, we didn't want that. We don't want you to try to help us with the case, okay? that builds credibility into the law enforcement officer. And DEA is set up as an agency like that where they have their own internal review. A team known as the inspection team would come in from Washington. They review the cases. They talk to the prosecutors. They want to make sure how are the agents testifying, you know, are they going at the highest level of the traffic to making sure that we're making progress in our goal? How are they perceived in the community? We'd rather do it right then do it wrong. And so you feel good that you're proud of a team like that, that it's not just

Starting point is 00:40:29 get the guy, no, you got to get them right, okay? It does us no good to flake somebody, and the system was not set up for that. Okay, the system says, hey, if the guy did it, let's prove he did it. If he didn't do it, then we can't just flake them. We're not going to do things like that. How much time would individuals get after getting convicted? Usually the charges were possession would intend to distribute narcotics, 21 U.S.C. 8, 41. And usually that was a charge up to 15 years. And depending upon the level, I'd say usually they get 10 years or more, you know, even for first defense. But they didn't have the mandatory minimums like you were saying.

Starting point is 00:41:16 No, not in the 70s, you know, not in the 70s. not in the 70s. But we made some good cases like that too, though, because it's different. When I was in Philadelphia, we had a problem with the drug gangs there, taking over parks and locations. But we were working so successfully

Starting point is 00:41:33 with the Philadelphia Police and the district attorney's office that when we would go out on these roundups and we'd take 30, 40 people off at a time, the criminals would ask, is this feds or is the city? Because they knew, with the feds, we were doing pre-trial detention.

Starting point is 00:41:50 We were indicting these guys beforehand. We were going to the judge with the indictment to make a case that they not get released. And so we locked them up on a Tuesday. They weren't getting out until the case was over, maybe eight years later. And so what happened, though? The community saw the effect.

Starting point is 00:42:11 The community saw this is not the guy got arrested Tuesday. He's out there on Wednesday. He's gone. Okay. And so the community started to feel that we can maybe trust law enforcement a little bit more. Maybe we can provide evidence to law enforcement because we see they're winning. Okay. People want to go, people that live in neighborhoods, they don't necessarily want to be big snitches and all that other stuff, but they want to live a life where their kids can go out and have a good time. They want to live a life where their grandkids can go. They want to live a life where they don't have to look over. their shoulder when they go home.

Starting point is 00:42:49 I can tell you times that we would go up in the Harlem. Back then in the 70s, there was no reason to go to Harlem unless you were buying heroin. You look at this file footage of Harlem in the 70s, especially in the wintertime, you had the steel cans with the fires and the woods and people trying to get warm. You look at the abscesses on the drug addict's arms. But we were a plain closed operation, okay?

Starting point is 00:43:17 the cars we had, we were cars we were seizing from drug dealers. So we had Mercedes, we had Porsches, we had the Lincoln Continentals, but they might as well be police cars because people getting thrown against the cars and handcuffed and put in. But when we go up, let's say, Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass up into 118th Street, 119th Street, you'd see black women in the window clapping. And why were they clapping?

Starting point is 00:43:47 Because they knew we were going to take these guys out of here. They couldn't come down in the street to say that because people would say, hey, hey, what are you supporting law enforcement? But they had kids. They had grandkids. There's nobody that has a kid or grandkids that wants your kid to be subject to go and become a drug addict. What about the drug dealers that were big in their community, maybe had a family or were supporting it financially too?

Starting point is 00:44:11 You're always going to have that, you know, and that's an individual family decision. and sometimes people turn a blind eye. But I think there's a lot less of that now. And, you know, you remind me the old agents would tell the story about this guy, Herbie Spurling. Herbie Spurling was a Jewish connection between the Italian mafia and the black gangsters in Harlem. And the agents tell the story where they went into Herbie's house. They locked up Herbie, and they had locked up Herbie's mother in her room. And they told Herbie that, Herbie, we locked up your mom for a violent,

Starting point is 00:44:45 of federal narcotics laws, but, you know, we could do some things if you cooperate. And the agents tell the story that Herbie didn't bat an eye. You look the agents right in their face until my mom can do our time, you know. But that's in 1970s. You don't have any more Herbie Spurlings, you know. I mean, we arrest guys, and I say, we like I'm still there. But guys get arrested in Brooklyn. Before you take them to the DA headquarters of Manhattan, they're ready to cooperate.

Starting point is 00:45:13 They're ready to cooperate. Nobody wants to go to jail anymore. Those hardcore guys gone. I believe. The last guy we had like that, gangster we had in this country was Gotti. You know, he signed onto that life. He got life in prison. He was going to do his life in prison.

Starting point is 00:45:31 Nowadays, everybody wants to cut a deal. It's sort of like their business people. It's like, this is not really a bad thing. You know, I need to cut a deal. You know, I got caught. Now, what's my next move? How do I mitigate this? I cut a deal.

Starting point is 00:45:46 So it's become acceptable now, you know. Well, and then they can get the TV deal or the podcast or social media and talk about it after. Exactly. But that's a good message when I used to go into the schools and talk to these kids that, you know, we were doing a lot of work up in Harlem. There was a school up there widely. The principal asked me to come up there and talk to the kids. kids. It was like May. School's going to be out in June. And she said, hey, God bless the principal. I want to see the same group back in September. I took a couple of people with me.

Starting point is 00:46:27 We went to talk to the kids. And as soon as she said, I got people from the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration, half dozen eight kids got up and walked out, you know. And, you know, It was, it got my attention, you know, because sometimes you get caught in your own environment with your own family and friends, and you think, you know, you know there's a different life, but you think everybody's looking at things the same way. But a lot of these kids saw what the drug guys were doing is what's wrong with that, you know. But they're kids until they know better than they realize what's wrong with that. But what do we do?

Starting point is 00:47:05 We came back and we talked to these kids about aiding, and abetting. We told these kids that you live in the neighborhood, people are selling drugs. Okay? If somebody would come to you and ask you, where can I get this? Coke, heroin, whatever, ecstasy, tell them you don't know. Now, you may know because you live in the neighborhood. You're not doing it just out, but you know. I said, because the problem's going to be, you say, well, yeah, you can get it from the X. They go to X, they buy some heroin, ecstasy, cocaine. Okay. Okay. So X that sold them is going to get charged, right? But then you're going to get charged too.

Starting point is 00:47:44 Excuse me. And the kids, oh, that's not fair. That's a fair. You may not think it's fair, but it's 18 U.S.C., aiding and a betting. And it's going to be a jury question. And the jury may think that, well, this person wasn't culpable. Why are we going to charge them? But what they're going to do is probably go back, put $1,000 in your hand and say, thank you.

Starting point is 00:48:06 Okay? And you're going to say to yourself, I made $1,000, not because I sold drugs. I made $1,000 because I knew the guy in the neighborhood. So now you're motivated. Well, yeah, this guy's got it. This guy's got it. This guy's got it. And they're going to go back, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Starting point is 00:48:24 And you're going to get charged with all that. Oh, it's not fair. I said, this is a good discussion I have. That's why you need to stay in school if you don't think it's fair and they change the laws. But what we're telling you now is how to handle yourself. when school ends so you come back because the teachers are concerned about you. They know your good kids, but they know your kids. And then you can rationalize in your own mind that, hey, I'm not selling it. I just know the people that sell it. So I'm just telling them, I'm just providing

Starting point is 00:48:52 their service. But according to the federal government, you're aiding and abetting in a criminal sale. So say no. What was the main source and supply of drugs in the 70s in New York City? No, the mafia. The mafia. The mafia. The, the, the, through the French connection, the mafia, through the black agents for the distribution. When I came on, they had a special operation run out of New York called Broadbase,

Starting point is 00:49:18 where they brought in African American agents from around the country to go out in the fire barrels and buy heroin. I mean, that's how much heroin was in the city. And New York is always going to be the capital for everything, fashion, entertainment, communications, but it's also a capital of crime also. But with the heroin

Starting point is 00:49:36 in traffic, you also had the violence because you had people physically addicted, hitting grandma, taking her pocketbook, you know, breaking into cars, taking radios and whatnot, creating a lot of crime in the street. You know, the media would write about it. Politicians would say we're going to lock these guys up and they pass the laws where we can go out and get these guys to try to bring the violence down where there's always going to be a drug issue where a decision, a person makes, should. I should I not. That's always going to be the case. But you try to take the violence away from it

Starting point is 00:50:11 and you try to give young people the opportunity to become adults before they make that decision. You don't want them to ruin their lives getting into something special like heroin that's physically addicted. That's what's called Schedule I. So Schedule I got it because there's no legitimate medical use and that's physically addicting. So something that the kids were using, you know, on the weekend to get high. And, you know, now they wake up in the morning and their body's craving it. They're nauseous. You know, they can't concentrate.

Starting point is 00:50:43 They're shaking and whatnot. And so now they need it not just to get high. They needed just to stabilize, you know. And then you become a wreck because you don't have the money. So you start committing these BS crimes and whatnot and just spiral out of control. Where was the mafia getting it from? Overseas, first connection. You know, that was the French connection, France, importation, and the mafia was dominated by crime.

Starting point is 00:51:11 But are those cartels that are supplying them? Cartels came in later. Okay. You know, and we were focused in the 70s on heroin because of the violence. Cocaine was there, but there really wasn't, we really were not encouraged to do major cocaine cases because the violence wasn't there. So we were focused on heroin. Once we got the heroin, sort of like, and didn't eliminate it, but got it down to a level where, you know,

Starting point is 00:51:42 you could still go outside and not be hit in the head because somebody's going to take your money because they were heroin addict. Then we started focusing on the cartels. There was no way to just take the head off the stake in the beginning, like at the ports or however. We were there. We were there. And again, the law enforcement has a lot of powers,

Starting point is 00:52:03 but you have to have evidence. You can't just say, well, I think this has happened and then go take everybody's luggage or seize the plane and whatnot. So you need that information. But you had customs at the ports. That's why you have people overseas. You have people overseas working out of U.S. embassies,

Starting point is 00:52:23 D.E.A. agents in source countries and in transshipment countries. How are they disguising it in the 70s? The drugs? Yeah. For the importation, car parts, furniture parts, sometimes body carry, let's say out of Columbia with the mules and whatnot on the plane.

Starting point is 00:52:43 So very ingenious ways. And usually everyday items and whatnot to get large amounts. And then sometimes private planes, you know. I mean, I was assigned to Jamaica, the island of Jamaica. And, you know, you'd have the planes come in there loaded up with marijuana. and, you know, buzzing to Texas or Atlanta and dropping down. But landing in Jamaica, you had 80 illegal airfields, you know. But you look at the cost of living.

Starting point is 00:53:14 You look at the U.S. dollar to the Jamaican dollar. You look at the Jamaican police were paid. And so was Taylor May for corruption with the narcotics guys. Was there one mafia family that was leading it or was it all kind of spread out? No, you know, a lot of, a lot of, I don't want to say to politics, but a lot of the drug trafficking is tied to people in power, you know, to actually have a plane, touchdown, load up with bales of marijuana, and take off, you know. But, you know, with every organization or every group where there's money to be made,

Starting point is 00:53:57 you're going to see certain people take leadership positions and say, hey, you have to go to us if you want to do business here. And that's what a rivalry comes in. Because some people say, yeah, I'm going to go through you. Then other people say, no, I'm not going to go through you. I'm going to go through myself. Because all these drug guys have egos. They're human beings. They have egos. There's jealousy. They have fallouts. And then they have turf battles. And sometimes with the battles, innocent people get hurt. How are you seeing the money laundered back in the 70s? Real estate agents through banks, you know, looking the other way. A guy comes in with a suitcase full of bills, not asking, well, where did you get the money from?

Starting point is 00:54:44 No, you just take the money and put it in the account and wire it to a country where they can go travel and get it. I mean, back in the 70s, we didn't have the tight systems that we have now, but we learned. You know, we learn with the Patriot Act, 326, know your customer after 9-11. Banks are required to know where the money's coming from. You don't just take money. You know, where's the money coming from? You can't travel out of the United States with more than $10,000. You know, there's a customs form that has to be generated and whatnot because people want to

Starting point is 00:55:19 know where the money's coming from because they know that money in illegal activity, it's a lot of money, and it'll cause people to do things. that they shouldn't do, you know. And so we live in a for-profit country, and you want people when they abide by the rules to take advantage of that and elevate their standard of living, but you want to make sure that they're not undermining the economy also, because it sets up a false economy.

Starting point is 00:55:49 No, I'm sure there's a lot of cash bus back then too. Yeah. And like stash houses when you have drugs and cash. Yeah, still to this day. Still to this day. And, you know, the agency goes back with sometimes, you know, there's a focus on the cash more than the drugs. Sometimes there's a focus on the drugs. But you got to look at, you got to look at both because the people that are at leading these organizations are doing it because of the money.

Starting point is 00:56:16 Okay. And so when you take out the incentive for the money, then maybe the risk is not worth it. Because the minimum mandatory is the risk are very high, you know. But there's always somebody that thinks that the little riskier than, you know, a little smarter than the other person, you know, at one point, Vegas or places where a cash is king and whatnot are places to launder money. Any places that handle large amounts of money, drug guys figure that's a paradise for them, you know.

Starting point is 00:56:49 I mean, you hear about the legendary arrest where people have suitcases filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know, or they have so much money. that they can't even count it. I could tell you, when I was assigned to Miami, we'd go out in the morning, make the arrest, and then when you make the arrest, and you bring the guy back, then you want to see people going to cooperate.

Starting point is 00:57:16 So it was a long day. So you may start the arrest at 6 o'clock, 6.30 in the morning, but you know, you're up at 4 o'clock to get to the location. As soon as daylight hits, seizing money, seizing drugs, counting, and by the end of the day, you're counting the money. So six to six to the 11. So you're up 17 hours and you're counting money. But, you know, you're counting small bills. Everybody's counting by hand. You put the money inside the safe, non-narcotic safe in the office, right? And then the next business day, it has to go to the bank. And what is the

Starting point is 00:57:54 bank? Do they count it with the money counters. and it's always going to be off. Because we're counting by hand, the money counters, and any time it's off, it could possibly be an integrity issue. So that has to be reported to Washington. So then they take a case number. So then the leadership team from Washington comes down and they're doing the interviews and everybody was around the money

Starting point is 00:58:18 to see if there's a corruption and stealing money. We were seizing so much, seizing so much money, in Miami, we couldn't do that anymore, because they'd be down there all the time. So finally, the policy became that instead of counting the money at the time of the seizure, you take all the cash, you put it to the evidence envelope, you seal it, and you write on it undetermined amount of cash.

Starting point is 00:58:51 Now, you say to yourself, wow, you know, somebody could say that, hey, nobody knows how much money it is. Maybe I'd take something in my pocket. But it was a calculated risk that you just could not continue operating because you had all these miscounts, had all these miscounts. It just shows you the volume of money sometimes. You know, I remember talking to once I left Miami and talking to people there in the leadership,

Starting point is 00:59:22 is that's what scared him the most about Miami. There's all the money that was down there. You know, the boxes, every, every arrest, you know, is hundreds of thousands of dollars. You know, these are that major, sophisticated, the Pablo Escobar type cases. This is like the normal, normal case. The guy's got 300 kilos of Coke.

Starting point is 00:59:44 It's just like another day in Miami. I mean, Miami, back in the 80s was you go to a nice hotel, Fountain Blue, Hilton, whatever. And you talked to the concierge, a sooner or later, you'd get a couple of kilos of cocaine. And it was just plentiful there like that, and along with the money. Well, was it like the first time you saw a lot of money,

Starting point is 01:00:05 you know, thousands of dollars in cash? It was, you get socialized to see it because you know this is drugs and money. So it's not like it overwhelms you. You expect to see it. Just like when you see the pictures of large, amounts of heroin or cocaine, you expect to see it. And it says to yourself, you're operating at the right level.

Starting point is 01:00:27 You're operating at the right level. But again, the goal with DEA is to identify, investigate, and arrest major traffickers involved in importation, manufacturing, distribution of narcotics. And if you could do that without any drugs, then you're headed again. Okay? So it doesn't always have to be drugs. I mean, the case I had in New York where the Hollywood's American gangster was our key witness, we had no drugs, we had no money, we had large amounts of deliveries that were recorded,

Starting point is 01:01:08 photographs of manate and quinine, which is used to cut heroin. But the jury was not going to see large amounts of heroin. They weren't going to see large amounts of money. But we had a prosecutor who was going to socialize the jury to have them understand that if you're used to seeing that, you're not going to see that in this case. These are people that are operating at the highest level, okay? And we're going to prove to you to witness testimony that they were involved at the highest level of drug trafficking. You're not going to see that. People at the highest level, they know what the penalties are.

Starting point is 01:01:41 They don't want to be associated with a lot of money. They don't want to be next to a lot of money because people would ask them, you know, well, What is your really job? We don't know you to have a job. How do you have that all that much money? They just want to be independently, let's say, wealthy. Now, the American gangster case you were just referring to that, so with Frank Lucas? Yes.

Starting point is 01:02:02 What year was that in? The movie was in 2007. My time with Frank was 77-78. So that was before you moved on to a different office? Yeah, the movie was after I retired. Yeah. No, no, but your time with Frank. That was in New York.

Starting point is 01:02:21 In the 70s. Yeah, in New York when I was in New York. Okay. Yeah, it was shortly after Frank got arrested and he was cooperating. The New City Police Department had a case where, again, they had a witness who had got locked up for confidence scheme. This guy, it's just a fascinating case. And it just goes to show you the United Nations. aspect of drug dealing, okay?

Starting point is 01:02:52 The file title, because all cases have a file title, was Hyman Lieberman. Hyman Lieberman was a guy who owned a hardware store on Avenue A, the Lower East side in the city. There was a guy by name of Joel Merling, who was a Canadian, who was able to get access to large amounts of manate and inquiriting. I had a truck driver who knew what he was doing. They go to Canada drive the manate inquiring from Canada to the Lower East Side to Lieberman's store.

Starting point is 01:03:30 They had another gabber name of Patty Pollock who knew all these Harlem drug dealers. And Patty Pollock would arrange for all these guys to get large amounts of madame and equiney so they can mix it with the heroin. and but the city had spent a year and with their witness the confidence man asking the city would ask them ask these guys what the hell are they doing with all this man out of coin and these guys who shut them down and say hey don't worry about what we're doing on just give it to us and here's this money okay but they knew it was heroin so the city just they brought over to the

Starting point is 01:04:13 defense. And at that time in DEA, we had a group of senior agents in the Eastern District of New York, a group of senior agents in the Southern District of New York. And we had a pretty aggressive prosecutor. And the prosecutor said, you know, I'm going to charge these guys with heroin distribution. He said, in the theory of the government's case is going to be all these guys, about 12 of them, okay, have been previously arrested in state court for narcotics distribution. Okay, number one. Number two, manite and quinine are the essential diluents used to cut heroin. I think manite is a baby laxative and quinine is helps treat malaria, right?

Starting point is 01:04:59 And number three, they're paying for this stuff 10 times a normal amount, okay? And so the federal prosecutor, the AASA was comfortable. He said, I can charge them federally, you know. But again, this is New York City. In New City in the 70s, we're going to get a Brooklyn jury because the Eastern District of New York, and they're going to say, well, where's the beef? And so I said, you know, let me see what I could find out. And I was able to find out that Frank was cooperating.

Starting point is 01:05:34 And at that time, there were three. prisons in the United States where protective witnesses were. One was in New York, one was on the West Coast, San Diego, and I forget what the third one was made in Chicago. Frank was in San Diego. We went to San Diego, spoke to him, me and the A-WSA about the case, the defendants. He knew them all. Did business with him, swapped heroin from Manai, Quina, and this, that, the other thing, he was cooperating, so we had the marshals bring him back, and he testified. We got to ready to testify. But that was controversial also because a lot of the old-time agents that were involved in Frank's case that led to his arrest didn't want Frank to get any break from cooperating

Starting point is 01:06:22 because they said, hey, this guy claimed that we stole $300,000 when he got arrested in Teaneck, New Jersey. And because he made that claim, some guys didn't get promoted. Some guy's careers went south and they had that taint on them and they said we never took this guy's money and It tends to you know you believe the the agents Because of what was going on during that time again. You had Serpico you had Prince of the City You had the Nat Commission so everybody was focused with law enforcement New York Narcotics related corruption the leadership of the office when they found out that this arrest was taking place

Starting point is 01:07:11 and there was hundreds of thousand dollars in Teaneck, New Jersey, went out to Teaneck. And they told these guys, about 15 of them, stand single file, and I want the guy in back to search the person in front. These guys pushed back on this. He said, no, no, no. The environment where we're living in now,

Starting point is 01:07:34 you guys automatically are going to be accused of stealing money. So we want to say that we had everybody searched out there and there was no money. And so they did that. And these guys didn't like that, but they realized that the leadership was looking out for them. So they did that. And they didn't have anyone. So now years later, when Frank wants to cooperate to get a benefit to reduce a sentence, these guys weren't happy with that.

Starting point is 01:08:00 You know, it was very, very controversial. They weren't happy with it. But again, we needed him as a witness. And we were going to do everything we could to make sure he was telling the truth. And that's an important part of being a narcotics investigator. You don't want people just to tell you what you want to hear. You want them to tell you the truth, and you want to have the philosophy that we had with the Eastern and Southern District when I started. Don't help us with the case.

Starting point is 01:08:32 you want these guys to know that if we find you're lying, everything goes out the window. That means you're not going to get any benefit, okay? And everybody knows you're in reforming. What's the point? We don't need you to help us with the case. We don't want you to flake anybody. We don't want you to try to read into that. We're wrong to this guy and you could do something to help us.

Starting point is 01:08:57 That's not the goal. That's not the goal. The goal is only the truth. And if we don't have it, you just don't have it. You just don't have it. And that's so important. And that's why the DEA has an internal unit that comes in from Washington to investigate, you know, just to automatically look at the office.

Starting point is 01:09:17 They interview every employee in the, let's say, the New York office around the country. They talk to our external partners in law enforcement. They talk to the prosecutors. They want to know how to people are testifying. Are they prepared? Are they telling the truth? They want to know the investigation at the highest level of the traffic.

Starting point is 01:09:38 Not easy guys that everybody can see on the street. You know, they take, it's a serious mission that you have the power to take somebody's freedom, you know? We don't want you to lie. We don't want you to help us with the case. That does nothing for criminal justice in the long run. Does nothing at all.

Starting point is 01:09:57 Do you think the juice was worth the squeeze in a case like Frank Lucas? you know, giving him a deal to get these other guys? Yeah, it's just, I'm from the school. Don't hate the player, hate the game, okay? It's just the way it goes. I mean, when we're investigating these guys, these guys are public enemy number one.

Starting point is 01:10:18 They're going to life in prison, no parole, you know, you know. But once we get him, then we try to make him, have the guy cooperate, then he's our best friend. You know, then we're defending him against the system, and, you know, he's a guy that took a wrong turn. And, you know, and I tell people, if you met Frank, you couldn't help but like him. It was a big guy, but he had an easy smile, great personality. If you sat with him, he'd make you laugh.

Starting point is 01:10:52 He'd tell a story. And, you know, when he went to trial, Joe Lewis was, you know, on his side, sitting on his side. side. His girlfriend in the 70s, when I knew him was Billy Mays, Willie Mays, the legendary baseball players, stepdaughter, she was drop-dead gorgeous, and people just like Frank, you know, and he was so successful from jail. I mean, the case I had was the only case he testified in. But prior to that, he was able to, you know, talk to over 100 people, and they all committed federal drug crimes and from a guy that's in prison because people never believed it would cooperate. They never believed he would cooperate.

Starting point is 01:11:43 Why do you think he ultimately decided to? He didn't want to stay in jail. Do you think that just got to him? Oh, yeah. None of these guys. I mean, when you're dealing with the top, the top is used to certain lifestyle. They used to, you know, they're not used to hard work. You didn't want to go.

Starting point is 01:12:01 And again, you know, it gets to be where he's a business guy, you know, okay, what's my move now? Okay, okay, so my move now is I'm with the feds, okay, we got this street code, but do I want to sleep in the cell or do I want to go home and sleep? Maybe I want to go home, you know, because I've seen a lot of these guys when they're young and first starting out. Hey, maybe they'll go to jail and do a couple of years, you know, five, ten years, you know. They get older now. You're in the 40s, you know. Usually on the federal side, you're in some prison where it's going to take you two days to get there. Okay.

Starting point is 01:12:41 So maybe the first year you got a girl, she travels the two days to get there and she sees you year one. Year two, I mean, our life's going to go on. You know, our life's going to go on. And this is the only reason that, you know, the only way you can get out is, is, is, is, is, is, is information. And then people rationalize. And he's saying, well, maybe I turned over my life, you know. But you, you look at, you look at the mob, okay?

Starting point is 01:13:11 You look at all these major, major leaders, you know, that the indictment had their name on it, United States of America versus X. X said, you know something, I'm making a business decision. This is no longer about abiding by a code. This is making a business decision. What's my next move? Okay, so what are you telling me I have to do? You talk to the lawyer?

Starting point is 01:13:36 I'm going to pay this lawyer hundreds of hundreds to thousands of dollars. Or do I take that hundreds to hundreds to thousands of dollars and try to live a different lifestyle where I'm out of the limelight? And if I go into the program, the marshals claim to fame is that they've never lost to protect the witness. Now, it's restricted. You've got to listen to what they say, but they'll tell you they never lost to protect the witness. So their job is to keep you alive. And so you abide by your terms and testify honestly.

Starting point is 01:14:11 They're going to keep your life. And then you have your money. So people nowadays made a different decision. So once he decided to cooperate, does he go? right into witness protection to keep him safe? He was in witness protection. He was in witness protection in the jail. So those three facilities, he went out.

Starting point is 01:14:28 But he was, he was able to convince people that what they were saying about him wasn't true, okay, because he never took the witness stand. But then in my case, he took the witness stand. Okay. And you could have pin drop in there, you know, when he took the witness, Jan. Because people couldn't believe it. And the word was getting out there, you know, that he took it. But he was, they also knew he had a lot of contact in the street and he still had people that were loyal to him, you know, that would say, you know, well, Frank said he didn't do it, he didn't do it. You know, you better not say anything negative about him, you know. Now, you were still a fairly new agent at that point, right?

Starting point is 01:15:16 Very new, yeah. Yeah, like five, six years in. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Five or six years had a major case because I work with some great guys, you know. And I mentioned to you before my group in New York City in the projects. It was like the United States, United Nations rather, because we had black, Hispanic, Italian, Irish, Jewish, Asian, all working together. And the team I was with Frank was the same.

Starting point is 01:15:49 The only thing we didn't have on that team was a woman. And it was early 70s and whatnot. We should have had a woman, but we didn't have it. But yeah, I was a young guy, but I was working real hard. You know, I had to establish a good reputation, you know, working in New York, working a lot of undercover work. So all those guys got convicted that Frank testified against? Yeah. How much time did they get?

Starting point is 01:16:12 Well, the top guy got 15 years. Guy by name of Lira Butler. Several guys pled guilty beforehand. The guys like Merling, Lieberman, Pollock became a fugitive, and five or six guys went to trial and they got convicted. So the sentences ranged from five years to 15 years. Did you ever talk to Frank again after? Frank Lucas?

Starting point is 01:16:40 Yeah. He called me. He called me. He called me. probably 20 years later 20 years later I'm the head of the New York office

Starting point is 01:16:54 and the secretary young lady she didn't really know who he was he said I have Frank Lucas on the phone wants to talk to you and I said really so she didn't know who he was and so I'm wondering what does he want to talk to me about

Starting point is 01:17:10 you know so I got on the phone and he said you know I just saw you on TV the other day, and I just want to say, you know, I'm proud of you know. He was older than me, you know, but yeah, I did. I did. I did. I did. I did. I did. Did you ever have to write letters on his behalf or speak at the sentencing reduction or anything? I went to a sentencing reduction. It took two hours before Judge Irvin Ben Cooper in the Southern District of New York. And remember, if you go back to the news daily papers in the 70s,

Starting point is 01:17:51 narcotics trafficking, whether it was corruption, whether it was murders, whether it was overdoses, they were leading the daily papers in the 6 o'clock news. And so there was a lot of interest in this. And plus he was the major guy. And he was kind of flashy and flamboyant. So it took two hours for the judge to give him basically time served. So I want to see that because I was I was voting for him, you know, but like I said, he was a character. He had the 30 years in the state of New Jersey, 40 years in Manhattan with the feds,

Starting point is 01:18:27 and totaled to run consecutively 70 years, and he got time served. But then he had one more case left in special narcotics. It was a murder case, and he had three witnesses against him. So I asked him, you know, when he got time served in the federal case, how he felt. I said, you did the impossible, man. It was like 70 years, you're going to be coming home. But he wasn't happy. I said, well, I got this case in special narcotics.

Starting point is 01:19:00 And said, okay, it's a murder case. He had three witnesses against him. And he just said, you know, he used some colorful language. But basically he said, everybody in Harlem's going to say I didn't. Everybody's in Harlem's going to say I did. And he had three witnesses. One witness refused to testify. Second witness changed his story on the stand and said,

Starting point is 01:19:27 I do not see the person that killed him in the courtroom. And Frank was here. And the third witness went straight on with him and said he did it. And the jury found him not guilty. Oh, wow. And he walked out. And he walked out. Were you ever worried that he would get back into selling drugs, or did you think he was done?

Starting point is 01:19:46 You know, our relationship with witnesses, you know, you kind of hope the best of them, you know, but, I mean, you don't get that tied to them like that. I had moved on in my career. He worked with another team that was still in the Eastern District Conspiracy Group and had a team that re-arrested him, you know, after a while. I mean, I think his brain was just so. wired at that time to commit another felony and he couldn't really be, he thought maybe being in jail was a blip and whatnot. Then he went back in for like 12 years, you know. Where did you go after in the late 70s after that case? Jamaica, Jamaica. And did that come across your desk or did that you put in for that?

Starting point is 01:20:28 I put in for it. I put in for it. It was a very popular assignment. people thought, oh, you don't want to go there, they don't like, you know, they don't celebrate Christmas and this, then, the other, but inside the agency was a great assignment. And when I got there, Jamaica, people the best. I mean, the best, the best. I mean, I could drive from my apartment in Kingston on Saturday morning, the Ocho Rios in like an hour and a half, you know, and the beautiful weather, the outdoors, the cold, culture, the food. It was just a fantastic place. And also, you know, being, it was the first time in all-black country, you know. I remember being at one of the cocktail parties that the ambassador gave at his house and the DCM, the deputy chief of mission, who's the number two guys,

Starting point is 01:21:29 wife said to me, you know, how does it feel to be a black man in a black country? And, you know, it's kind of like, like what kind of question is that? But I said, it felt great. It felt great. I mean, everybody that you saw, for the most part, looked like you. You didn't really know them of conversations, but just psychologically, it just felt great. And you see people doing great things, handling the problems of the day.

Starting point is 01:21:58 you learn about different. That different is not wrong. It's just a different way of looking at things. You also learn the power of the U.S. government. You live in the U.S. You grow up in this system. Okay. You go overseas, you realize that people look up to the U.S. government.

Starting point is 01:22:20 You know, they look up to the U.S. government. They want to get that visa to come into the United States. I remember having a conversation with the, the deputy chief of crime in Jamaica. And the Jamaicans were well educated, and they followed what was going on in the U.S. to the International Miami Herald. And he said, Lou, we knew democracy worked in your country

Starting point is 01:22:46 when the Attorney General, and at that time was John Mitchell, he said, went to federal prison. He said, because the Attorney General in Jamaica would never go to prison, no matter what the evidence was. you know, so we knew democracy worked. So they were a big proponent of democracy and fairness. And they really, really, you know, and they appreciated me being there having that relationship with them.

Starting point is 01:23:11 You know, it was just a great experience. And again, as an American, you take a lot of things for granted. During that time, you had electricity problems. You come into a room anywhere in the U.S., you flip the lights, which the light comes on. Not so in Jamaica back then. You flip the lights, which may be an electrical outage, not coming on. Okay?

Starting point is 01:23:33 Anywhere in the U.S., you turn to force it, the water comes. Not so much in Jamaica. All the embassy houses had a water tank and had a generator because of the electricity and because of the water, things that you just normally take for granted. And so I've always been a big person that was always big on people traveling outside their comfort zone and realizing that how other people handle problems and issues and things that come up, and you sort of understand other perspectives and looking at things, you know. So it was just a great experience for me to go to Jamaica, even working with the police.

Starting point is 01:24:12 What was your objective in Jamaica? To stop drugs from coming into the United States. And what was the main drug? Marijuana, marijuana, you know. And again, you learn about national security. over there also because you have all the federal agencies working in Jamaica, you know, in the embassies around the world. And narcotics is just one of them. And where we are public enemy number one, you know, there are national security issues, you know, that countries are concerned

Starting point is 01:24:42 about the United States is concerned about. Do you have a good story from your time in Jamaica? Oh, a lot of great stories. Just Jamaican people were just super, just super, very social, We had a guy come in from the United States Custom Service back then to train their narcotic detection dogs at the airport. He came in on a Sunday, picked them out, we got some dinner, put them in a hotel, pick them up the next morning, take them out to this beautiful area where the narcotic dogs are. They're going to train. This is like maybe like 9, 8, 3, 9.9. 930 in the morning, right? We're there, and we get out there, and the table on the beach is filled with liquor, ice.

Starting point is 01:25:36 So he's looking at me because, you know, he's coming in from Washington to train the dogs and what's going on. I'm looking at him, and I talk to the command. He said, oh, you know, because Jamaica's a big on socialization, which is, which Americans sort of get used to also that, yeah, we're going to do the work, but we need to. need to socialize first. So they're ready to let's let's drink. And so you don't want to be a bad host and whatnot. This guy's looking at me like, hey, you know, what do you have me coming out here for this? This is like a party. I can't. I'm not for this. And I'm looking, I don't want to be

Starting point is 01:26:14 a bad host with the Jamaicans because he's got to leave. I got to stay. So I said, hey, you know, we didn't even get it. We didn't even have a chance to eat yet. It's a little too early for drink. No problem. SUVs come up, drive us to an area where they're going out and getting the fish in the ocean and frying it up and eating. We spent a couple hours there and went back and eat. But the socialization was a big thing in Jamaica. It was sort of like, whatever you need to get done here, you're going to get done. We want to get to know you.

Starting point is 01:26:50 We want to get to know what's going on in the United States. We follow your country. We follow what's going on. And I would never have had that understanding just working in the U.S. Okay. But you work overseas and you realize the power that U.S. embassy, that local people in the neighborhood look at that embassy is, you know, you get a visa.

Starting point is 01:27:14 You go to America. America is a place where you work hard, you can make it. Not going to be easy. Get punched in the stomach and knock down a couple of times. but America's a place that's still now that, hey, you can do it. You know, the job opportunities are in America. They weren't overseas. Overseas, when I was in Jamaica, you'd have a person with college-educated.

Starting point is 01:27:39 She may be checking people in at the hotel, college-educated job. Whereas in the United States, you get a college-educated job, you're going to, you know, pretty significant salary, pretty significant positions. and the opportunities are a lot more in the United States. So a lot more in the United States. So it was nice to get that connection, you know, how important it is to just be connected with people. You know, to me, life's all about the relationship.

Starting point is 01:28:10 It's all about the relationship. And we need more people to stop and work and talk together and look at, we all want the same thing. And we saw some of that during 9-11. You know, when we woke up that morning and everybody knows where they were that day, and the whole world changed. Because this was something that the terrorism that we'd watch on TV, we'd say, oh, boy, I feel sorry for those innocent people.

Starting point is 01:28:37 The hotel was bombed. And then we went about our business. And then, you know, as New Yorkers or in the Pentagon, in Pennsylvania, said, this is happening here. And then we realized that these guys are focused on making it happen. kind of changed the way we did business and how we thought about things. You know, so it's an eye-opener, and that overseas aspect is always a strong and important aspect of DEA with those relationships.

Starting point is 01:29:08 And we get, you know, we get a lot of help from local police, not because we're paying them, but because they believe in what we're doing, you know. What can we do for? maybe sponsor a trip to the U.S., you know, where it can come, they can bring their kid and do some traveling and do some training and whatnot to let them see the U.S. because maybe they can't get a visa, you know. Were the drug traffickers getting extradited to the U.S.? Or were they getting tried in Jamaica? We want to try them in the U.S. I mean, the Jamaican courts, the laws were not sufficient enough to handle them.

Starting point is 01:29:44 I mean, the federal laws are really designed to go off to the highest-level traffickers. and what these guys fear is a U.S. indictment, okay? Because they know what a U.S. indictment, and not much you can do with that, you know. In the home country, maybe they kill the police officer, maybe they kill a prosecutor, or threaten the police officer or the prosecutor. In the U.S., they know the only thing that's going to do is fast-track the case. Okay, so what these guys fear the most is a U.S. indict. because they know they're coming, sooner or later, they're coming.

Starting point is 01:30:22 And until they come, they're going to have that pressure, you know, that this could be the day, this could be the day, that the money can do nothing. They get the target, their names on the U.S. indictment, other countries are looking at that believe in the extradition, and that's what these guys don't want. How many agents were stationed in Jamaica at the time you were there? No, it was just two of us. So how do you make that pick of an impact with just two? It's a liaison position.

Starting point is 01:30:53 You know, it's helping the guys in the U.S. facilitate their cases. So we'd have guys come in from the U.S. And we'd tell them, and not only just two guys, but we're assigned to the embassy and we had diplomatic plates. So every time we go to the airport, they see us with somebody. They know that guy's involved in the drug business. They know exactly what he's doing. But all the drug business.

Starting point is 01:31:20 Back then, they'd go to the hotel. They'd tell a lady, when he picks with the phone in the room, you pick up the phone in the room, okay? But what we tell the agents, make your own reservations. We'll meet you at Rook's Cafe in the Grill on Tuesday. We meet them in Tuesday, dressed down like a vacationer and have that conversation. So there's ways of getting around it.

Starting point is 01:31:46 And there's ways where, yeah, you want people. people know that, hey, this is an official visit. So it's not so much we're being operational, but we're working with the Jamaican police, the JCF, Jamaica Constabulary Force, and the JDF, the Jamaican military, Jamaican Defense Force. So working closely with them, encouraging them to help us out on specific cases and investigations and to understand, you know, where the U.S. is going in this international drug trafficking. So it's making friends now that's going to hopefully last for years. So it's not so much a number of people.

Starting point is 01:32:27 It's having them understand and adopt to help us and then go back to their agency where they know who the players are and they have the resources to help us. How long were you in Jamaica for? Two years. Then I got promoted to go to Miami. Okay. So you went right from Jamaica to Miami? get to Miami.

Starting point is 01:32:48 Yeah. And what was your role in Miami? I was a first-line supervised, which I tell people, the toughest job in DEA, bar none, first-line supervisor in an active force, where you have 12 to 14 people with badges and guns, access to large amounts of money for flash rolls, you know, millions of dollars,

Starting point is 01:33:07 they want to get on the street, they want to lock people up, they're ready to roll. And this was Miami in the 80s, where, you know, I've always said when my impression of Miami then when you landed they gave you a kilogram of coke and a nine millimeter because everybody had large amounts of coke and and and and and and and and and and guns you know it was just a crazy crazy crazy crazy you know I mean

Starting point is 01:33:33 unbelievable you know we were going through it but when you reflect back I mean the challenges were just overwhelming I mean the the Southern District of Florida I think they had like a five-kilo limit. And this is five kilos going back into the 80s. So if it's less than five kilos, they wouldn't do it. You know, I remember we arrested a bunch of guys on a Friday afternoon. And so we called the narcotics division in Florida, the U.S. attorneys of us, to alert them that we're coming down there because they got a whole bunch of paperwork to do also.

Starting point is 01:34:10 And the secretary response was, you could. You had to do this on a Friday afternoon. You couldn't do it because she'd have to stay down there and type all the stuff. And so I'm in there from Jamaica by way of New York. And that during that time, we had, you know, large transfer of supervisors around the country. And so you had a lot of New Yorkers in Miami there. And we're all looking at each other. Like, this is a different beat in Miami than New York.

Starting point is 01:34:40 York, you know. The place was beautiful, well-manacured, grounds, cocaine out-of-control crazy. So we were working relentlessly to try at the airport, working with customs. We did some internal security cases with customs inspectors that were facilitating large amounts of cocaine getting into the airport. It was just crazy, you know, just crazy. You know, just crazy. Now, as a supervisor, are you boots on the ground or are you just running operations from the office? So that's a good, good point. So technically you're supposed to just be running the operation, which means you go out there also,

Starting point is 01:35:21 but you're not working the undercover and all other stuff. There's always some unique circumstances where you may do that. So we had a unique circumstance where the Customs Authority came to us and they had one of their customs employees that was on the take in Miami. They knew I had been in Jamaica. They wanted me to work with, worked the investigation. So I worked undercover in that situation where I met the guy in Miami,

Starting point is 01:35:49 agreed to, you know, bring in a, I was going to bring in a kilo of Coke, two kilos of Coke for him from Jamaica. So then I had to go back to Jamaica, get on the plane from Montego Bay. He already gave me the, the location where the customs inspector

Starting point is 01:36:08 would be the line to go through where we just passed me through. When I got back to Miami International, I did that and then they locked this guy up, you know. So there was a corrupt inspector. Yeah, custom inspect. But to have the meeting in Miami to set this thing up, you know, I'm neat dealing with another guy. I mean, these are not like what you see in, you know, sophisticated cartel guy. He's like normal, like Miami senior citizens, when we had those leather bags,

Starting point is 01:36:40 everybody used to wear those whole those leather bags. You got a 9 millimeter in there and whatnot, you know. But facilitating large amounts of cocaine, you know. It was just crazy the amount of cocaine in Miami, and the amount of people involved in the cocaine business. Was it violent in the 80s in Miami? Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's where they had the famous Dayland shootout, you know,

Starting point is 01:37:03 because the Colombians were coming in, and they were getting a foothole in Miami, in the U.S. through Miami, but they were operating in Miami like they did in the home country. You know, I mean, we're not used to shootouts in malls. I mean, we have stuff happening in malls, usually a bunch of kids running through doing crazy stuff, but not shootouts.

Starting point is 01:37:25 I mean, they were doing shootouts at everywhere. Shootouts, killing people, you know, that's what draws the attention. So the drugs will always, draw the focus of the U.S. government, but the violence will take it up a notch. The violence will cause special task forces to put that under control. Because, again, the country always wants citizens to be able to travel and not have to look over your shoulder. Okay?

Starting point is 01:37:53 They want you to be able to travel with your children, grandchildren, young nieces and nephews, and not have to worry about they're going to get hurt. So if there's violence attached to the drug situation, that's going to be a special focus. And when the Colombians came into Miami in the 80s, there was a lot of violence. What about towards law enforcement? Was there violence towards you guys? Not necessarily. You know, you usually, that usually happens where you have guys that are not really that sophisticated in the drug business, okay? Because the older heads would tell them, let's get you a good lawyer. You do nothing to advance your case by trying to target the agent or the cop or the prosecutor.

Starting point is 01:38:41 The young guys that kind of spin out of control sometimes and look at this thing as pride or maybe felt they're disrespected would probably maybe try to do a violent act against law enforcement. But that's, they never win. In fact, what they'll do is they'll fast track it and they'll get to shut that. quicker. How long were you in Miami for? Two years. You love the two-year stints. Was that normal? Well, you know, I left New York in, when I leave New York, in 82, and then I returned in 94, so 12 years. And that 12 years, I was, a lot of places, two years, two years, Jamaica, Miami, Washington, Philadelphia was there the longest, four and a half years, you know, in Philadelphia. That was before you went back to New York?

Starting point is 01:39:37 Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But, yeah, it was a lot of two-year stance because during that time also, the FBI had made a push to take over DEA. And in fact, you know, about seven of the top leadership positions in DEA were filled by former FBI senior executives. And so the thought was they were going to, you know, soften DEA to merge it up into the FBI. But that never happened. But then the FBI model was, you know, supervisory training, supervisory mobility, you know. And, you know, agents like people in any kind of job, they read what's going on, what the policy is, what the program is.

Starting point is 01:40:26 And it sort of became that if you're a supervisor, you're going to have to be ready to take a move and definitely take a move into Washington to go to headquarters where policy has made. And so people realize that rather than have, let's say, the career board, which selected all supervisory assignments, send you somewhere, maybe I'll volunteer. So people would volunteer. So you knew that when you were about two years in place, three years tops, you're going to get moved. So you may not want to move. Wife may have to leave a job.

Starting point is 01:41:00 Spouse may have to leave a job. Kids leave school. Hey, you signed up for this career. This is what it is. So maybe you volunteer for something. How did you find local cops treated you in DEA at working? Good, good, good. I think local cops were a best ally.

Starting point is 01:41:16 You always hear about the rub between the feds and the local cops. And some of that's true. But I think if you talk to the local cops for the most part, they'll tell you the DEA guys get down and dirty with them, you know. They need some help on a Friday night at 9 o'clock. The call from DEA is where you want us to meet you, you know. We're not trying to push them off until Monday morning, you know. I feel like the TV shows and movies depict that, like with the DEA.

Starting point is 01:41:42 Yeah, the DEA guys, the mindset is it's narcotics, you know. So you've got to be, expect the unexpected. That's what the DEA model was. expect the unexpected. And you've got to be ready to rock and roll. You're not going to be a success, DEA, Monday through Friday. You've got to be able to roll out with the local police. And you can't tell them, well, I got this to do.

Starting point is 01:42:08 No, everybody got something to do. We're on a hot investigation. We need your help because you guys have a role in some expertise that we need. And the DEA philosophy was to always encourage that. When you have a career like this, how do you even have a personal life as especially when you're moving cities every couple years. It's tough. It's tough.

Starting point is 01:42:28 When I started with DEA, the adage was if DEA wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you a wife because real men chase drug dealers. So when I started, it was tough. I mean, I was 21 when I started 22, turned 22 shortly. So I wasn't married. But I'd watch these guys that were married, have kids. you know, that was the wife's responsibility. But then I would see also when they would retire, you know, within six months,

Starting point is 01:43:01 a lot of these guys would be divorced because the wife would say, hey, for 25 years you weren't around, now you're home every day trying to direct traffic. That ain't happening, you know. And I guess as things evolved, and I guess if there was a good thing about having the FBI influence on DEA, It's a well-known organization. They studied the business principles of management and leadership. They brought in the physical fitness training. They brought in encouraging people to go back to get advanced degrees.

Starting point is 01:43:39 And so they professionalized the agency to some degree. Why did you go back to New York? Was that your plan all along? Yeah, I love New York. I mean, I'm a native New Yorker from Queens. when you're talking about crime, New York said, we had the rivalry between New York and L.A. and New York and Miami and the leaders there, we would all go back and forth.

Starting point is 01:44:04 But they know it's New York, like Frank Sinatra says. You know, if you make it in New York, you're making it anywhere. So I always wanted to go back to New York. I tell people, still to this day now, if the head of DEA is going on the hill and talking about the five top cases worldwide in the agency. Two, maybe three of them are coming out of New York City. How did the drug game change since you left and came back? Not so much under cover. They don't want to talk to anybody they don't know. They use electronic

Starting point is 01:44:35 equipment to communicate and be back and forth. You got to realize I'm part of this thing also. You have attorneys that were part in the narcotic divisions and the attorneys become defense counsels. They can read the play of the government's motions. They know. who's cooperating and whatnot. So people are hands off. So it's changed a lot where people will cooperate quicker, I believe, if they get caught because they know the penalties are serious. And they also know with DEA, unlike local police, that when DEA arrest you, they've been investigating you for at least six months. Okay? They've been working with a federal prosecutor. that authorize the arrest that says to themselves

Starting point is 01:45:23 and to the agents that this person please is not guilty. We're ready to go to court and charge them. So they got a pretty good solid case and their conviction record is extremely high, you know. So you got a lot going in your favor when you approach somebody. So people are more likely gonna cooperate to try to reduce it.

Starting point is 01:45:43 But it's a, it has changed in terms of people going to trial all the time, you know. I mean, people don't want to go all the trial or time because sometimes they realize also, you know, the judge is going to hear all the evidence and the judge is going to be saying, why is this guy wasting their money's time going to trial with all this evidence? And the judge is not going to be happy, you know? And then, you know, the defendant's going to say also if he's thinking, you know, the jury's going to hear all this stuff. Maybe, maybe I take the lawyer's advice and try to cut my law. You know, try to plead whatever and whatnot, but not waste everybody's time. But it's changed dramatically because of the sentencing.

Starting point is 01:46:29 What about the drugs between the 80s and then the early 90s when you came back? What changed? Good question. So it started with heroin, right? That was the number one focus. Then we went to cocaine. And the same routes that we used to pursue the heroin, we went with the cocaine. We weren't doing the cocaine in the beginning because of the violence factor.

Starting point is 01:46:50 But then we got crack cocaine. So really destabilized the inner cities, right? And then you had the ecstasy with the raves. So we were doing all that stuff too. And then the oxy cotton, now these guys are dealing with now, and the fentanyl. You know, I remember fentanyl back, you know, the early 90s when I was in Philly and fentanyl, just the small amount they could be on a safety pin is enough to kill you, you know. But people are using that, you know,

Starting point is 01:47:20 now to cut the high of heroin. You know, it's just nuts, you know. And the scariest thing is for kids unwittingly to get something with fentanyl. That with another friend and the friend's taking Valium or whatever and whatnot, but the Valium is laced with fentanyl. So the kids not really looking for fentanyl. They're looking for Valium, but it's Valium.

Starting point is 01:47:50 Valium laced with fentanyl, and they kid overdoses. So that's a lot of these overdose deaths, that the kids are not actually going out for fentanyl, but all the drugs are laced with fentanyl. So to some degree, the guys that are selling these drugs locally on the street, they don't know what the hell is selling, you know? Because they're killing people,

Starting point is 01:48:11 and once somebody dies, you know, the government's not, you know, look in the other way anymore. They're looking at, well, who supplied that person, You know, where did they get the drugs from? And so now you've got a murder charge on your hands. And so it's got a little, you know, little crazy in the drug world now. Were there a lot of overdoses in the 90s?

Starting point is 01:48:38 No, no, no. I mean, there were a lot of, let's say, drug-related murders or drug-related robberies, overdoses. To be an addict is risky behavior, right? And so there was a certain point where somebody would overdose behind a bad batch of heroin, and there's a certain amount of group that would say, well, stay away from that guy. He's selling that stuff that people overdosed on it. But then because of the risk of behavior, there would be another group of addicts that would say,

Starting point is 01:49:12 well, I want that same thing. I'll just cut it a little bit more and whatnot, so I'll survive. So it's that risky behavior then it's not going to happen to me. It's not going to happen to me. What was your role going back into New York in the 90s? Just a supervisor still? Yeah. Second of a supervisor.

Starting point is 01:49:31 I ran the, I came back the second time. We ran the Drug Enforcement Task Force, which is the oldest and largest task force throughout DEA. It was formed, D.E.A was formed in 73. The task force was formed in 1970. It was the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs then, which is a combination of New York City detectives, New York State Troopers, and DEA agents. What was a memorable case from that time? Well, when I came in there, we had, I came in on the heels of a corruption scandal.

Starting point is 01:50:03 We had two New York City detectives and the state trooper had been arrested for narcotic related corruption. There was a lot of turmoil, a lot of anxiety in there, a lot of stress. Police Department's response traditionally to corruption is the transfer people. So, you know, some people got transferred that had nothing to do with nothing. And so it was a lot of morale issues going on in there when I got there. So the primary goal was to, you know, try to calm things down so people can get focused on the outside as opposed to low morale inside the building. And how do you guys accomplish that?

Starting point is 01:50:47 Talking, talking, talking, talking to the leadership of the police. talking to the leadership of state police, talking to the agents, the cops, the troopers, let them vent, let them talk, and have them understand the limits of what we're going to do. But then at the end of the day, understand that, hey, we've got a drug problem in the city, man. You know, to some point, we've got to realize

Starting point is 01:51:13 that some things may have happened, you may like, you may not like, but we got to focus on the state. outside now. We can't, we can't keep, you can't keep talking about something that you can't change. It already happened. Maybe your best friend got transferred, your best friend had nothing to do with nothing. It's not fair. I got you. I'm with you. But the reality is sometimes things happen in life like that and maybe, you know, your best friend will be back here. Okay, your best friend is out now. Maybe it's a little timeout and whatnot and your best friend wasn't involved in anything,

Starting point is 01:51:49 but maybe your partner will be back in about two years. But the bottom line is this is in New York City. We've got a drug problem in here right now, you know. I mean, the amount of cases that these guys do is unbelievable. I mean, totally unbelievable. That never make the papers. That never make the papers. The amount of arrest, the amount of drugs that sees.

Starting point is 01:52:11 It's just another day. I mean, the level of activity in that building, where DEA headquarters is in New York, it's just unbelievable. And the spirit of camaraderie that these guys have. I mean, the public has no idea, because, you know, we don't really have the press machine with a small number of agents were focused on, you know, investigations as opposed to the press. But let's say within the Department of Justice, within the law enforcement network,

Starting point is 01:52:44 people know and respect the work that DEA does around the country, Around the world, around the world. People know, if you want to know what's going on in country, XYZ, talk to the DEA agent assigned to the embassy because he or she knows what's going on. And why does he or she know what's going on? They're talking to everybody. They're talking to the officials.

Starting point is 01:53:05 They're talking to the local people. They're talking to the business people. And when you talk to everybody, people tend to talk back to you and you can figure out what's going on and how you can get things done to benefit the United States of America. When the sentencing laws started to change in the 90s,

Starting point is 01:53:23 do you think that impacted the drug business in the drug game? Big time. Big time. Put truth in sentencing. So now it's no zero to 15. You know you're going to do the sentence gallery. You're going to do 12 years and five months, you know. And then you know the mitigation is if you, you know,

Starting point is 01:53:40 mental capacity or you cooperate. So you can kind of figure out, you know, where you stand on that. But yeah. And then you've got a different generation. You got, you know, every generation, every parent wants their kids to have a little bit easier than they had it, right? That's human nature, right? But at the same time, the kid loses maybe his desire to hustle to get out there to get punched in the jaw and get a punch back. So you've got people that don't want any adversity.

Starting point is 01:54:10 And when they have adversity, it's the end of the world. so people don't want to, you know, be locked up. I can't blame them, so they cooperate. But when you see guys that are mob bosses, when you see guys like Frank Lucas and Nikki Barnes cooperate, these are like public enemy gangsters is number one. So if they're cooperating, why would somebody else not cooperate, you know? And I should say, I mean, I talk about Frank's cooperation, you know,

Starting point is 01:54:43 They testified, and some people know, some people don't know, but the goal is not to put that out there. The only reason that got out there is because when Frank started doing his own interviews, he started saying he was out there because the agents were corrupt, you know, and the agents who were trying to get a message to him said, Frank, you know, don't go down that road. And then he eventually, you know, stopped saying that, you know, because a lot of people got hurt. You know, people think sometimes that law enforcement where there's one big, happy family, and somebody makes an allegation of brutality or lying or corruption,

Starting point is 01:55:20 and nobody investigates it. No, they, they, I mean, they investigate it, you know. And then while they're investigating, which may take a while, nothing happens for that person. That person may be up for promotion. That may be person up for a highly visible transfer a new assignment, nothing happens, you know. And then there are certain people will always think, well, something must be true.

Starting point is 01:55:46 We just couldn't prove it because it was an allegation. So it's not like law enforcement has an allegation, so we don't worry about it. No, no, they investigate these things. So to launch that investigation, and sometimes these guys know that too, they want to, you know, they did what they did, they got caught, but they figured this is my way of, trying to get back at the guy, I'll just make an allegation, you know, and they're going to investigate it anyway because they can't just throw it away, you know. So, you know, that's added pressure that's on top of agents that somebody's going to accuse them of something they didn't do,

Starting point is 01:56:24 and they know their own agency is going to look at it, you know. Did you enjoy moving up in the ranks in the DEA, or did you enjoy more just, you know, being on the streets and working? I enjoyed every assignment I had. I enjoyed moving up. And what I told other people about moving up is that we need people to move up because when they're reading these investigations, they can help with getting to the ultimate goal. When this allegation is made against an agent, they know this is something that normally happens when you're trying to do the right thing, or this is something happened because the guy was lazy and wasn't paying attention. So I enjoyed, you know, I came on at 21 years of age, you know, so my thing was I'm going to stay as long as I can and try to go as high as I can, you know. It was hectic, though, moving, you know, constantly moving, constantly moving.

Starting point is 01:57:21 But what I found is that the higher I went, I knew a lot more people. I understood how a lot of jurisdictions handled cases and events. and my experience level helped me, as opposed to if I just stayed in New York, my whole career, New York's a big place. I would have known a lot about New York. I would have known all the key players like that that are in New York City. But we've got a global organization. I wouldn't know how things operate differently in an embassy.

Starting point is 01:57:53 I wouldn't know why these policies were formed, because once you're in headquarters where policy is made, a policy comes out and not knowing all the details, you can kind of, figure out why this policy was made. And people, because the agents were looking so, boy, they got nothing to do but make this restrictive policy. So it's not like that. Something probably happens someplace in the world. They can't tell you about it now,

Starting point is 01:58:20 but now they're putting this in place so it protects you as an employee, but it also protects the agency also that this doesn't happen again. So, and you gain your perspective. So if you're going to be a leader in a global organization, you have to move around. I mean, it's convenient if you can stay in one place. But if you're going to be a leader of a global organization, you want to be able to know what's going on globally. You want to be able to travel there. You want to be want to live there.

Starting point is 01:58:50 You want to be able to talk to the people. How high did you end up making it in the DEA? The Special Agent in charge of New York Division, which I'd like to say is, well, it's a flagship of DEA, you know. and it's one of the senior positions in narcotics law enforcement in the federal government. How old were you in what year was that? 1997, so I was 44, 44 coming out of Detroit. Was that considered young to be in charge of? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:59:23 I was the youngest. But I was the youngest when I started. Yeah. So if you're youngest when you started, you're probably going to be youngest. If you're hitting these promotions when you're, should at the right time. But then you look at my experience, you know, I've been all over the country, you know, and that inner stress of leaving, going to a different place, different place, but learning about the narcotic trafficking in these different places, working with the

Starting point is 01:59:54 various police agencies in these different places, meeting people in the private sector in these different places. So all that experience is helping me as I'm getting up to the top. What was your role as the agent in charge of New York? Well, making sure that our investigations were appropriate at the highest level throughout the state, you know, because we covered a whole state of New York, from Buffalo down to New York City. And also, you know, on the drug prevention also, you know, making sure we get out to community, making sure the community knew who DEA is, what we do and how we're trying to help the community also. Not just one function of enforcement, but also working with kids. How did politics affect the DEA in your job?

Starting point is 02:00:46 You know, it's a political agency. It was created by the Nixon, Democrat, Republican. I don't see much change because the agents know what they need to do. So it's sort of like if the Democrats are president, the Republicans are the president, The agents got the badges, the guns, they have the equipment. They're working with the prosecutors. They know who the targets are currently and whatnot.

Starting point is 02:01:08 We know what our mission is. What about on the mayor side? Does that affect it locally in a place like New York? It can through the mayor's responsibility with the police. So it can. But generally speaking, in law enforcement, because there's a tradition, you know, people want to work together. And so no matter who the mayor is, the local police chief in the precinct, you know, he wants to help, you know, because he's got guys assigned there. We've got, we've got 100 detectives in the DEA task force.

Starting point is 02:01:44 And then we've had 100 detectives since 1970. So 70s for 50-some-odd years. So there's strong relationships there. So you may not know, but you're trading on that relationship. And the relationship usually is, what do you need to get done, you know? And so that's a great question. So we have agents coming in from around the country, right? And the NYPD is the NYPD.

Starting point is 02:02:06 They walk in with that swagger. They own that town. And sometimes the agents, it's, oh, man, these guys, like they think they own this place. And, you know, this is our house and go back and forth, go back and forth. And I would tell the agents, what they do own this place, on the city. I said, let me ask you. I said, come into the city this weekend, okay? Bring your family.

Starting point is 02:02:28 Just have a good time. You'll see they own this plate. They're everywhere. Everywhere you'll look, you'll see the man in blue, okay? And if you don't see the man in blue, there's probably plain clothes guys. They own this crazy city known as New York, okay? We will need them way before they ever need us. I said, the only thing I'm concerned about with, I could call them Monday afternoon, okay, the local precinct.

Starting point is 02:02:56 And I tell them I need help tomorrow morning, okay, at about 6 o'clock in the morning. And the only thing they asked me, do you want a quiet assist or do you want uniform? They don't ask me, tell me a little bit more about the case, where does the guy live, how long you've been investigating it, let me get back to you and see if I have enough people, none of that. I said, once they do that, their relationship's damaged. I said, so all this other stuff, work it out, man. Work it out. And they work it out. And it's a good education for them also.

Starting point is 02:03:31 Because, I mean, New York City detectors, what, about five, six thousand of them? I mean, sometimes that's more than a lot of police departments, you know. And you can stay a detective from third to first grade and make, I think, an inspector salary. And what did they give, you know, that knowledge of criminal justice, knowledge of law enforcement, and knowledge of the neighborhood. Now, knowledge of the community, you know. And police are successful. Law enforcement is successful because they work real hard, yeah.

Starting point is 02:04:04 But they get a lot of information, okay? And the goal with information is not to bring it back to people where everybody knows who's given information. The goal is to get that information and then work off it, where you don't bring it back to somebody told you something, you protect that person, but you can make sure that you can make progress in the investigation. And that only happens when people trust you. So you have to be a trustworthy person.

Starting point is 02:04:34 But the NYPD, I mean, they had a rock stars, a law enforcement. These guys work real hard. They train real hard. They handle all type of spirited moment investigations and arrests. They got a great sense of humor, you know. What do you think was your toughest challenge? as the special agent in charge? Toughest challenge.

Starting point is 02:05:02 I don't know. I mean, toughest challenge. Trying to make sure that these guys and women were safe when they went out there. Okay? Narcotics enforcement, very dangerous. A lot of shootings,

Starting point is 02:05:38 a lot of threats. threats. Some people play by the rules. Some people don't. Sometimes people don't read the danger signals that they're in because they believe in, you know, getting to that next level. And so trying to make sure that people were safe when they did their job, which means that maybe we got to take another step, okay? Agents got his game plan. He wants to go out there. He wants to take a quarter of a million dollars, they're going to meet at this location. You know, maybe we need some more manpower, you know, okay? Maybe we need one more meeting to make sure that this is the right guy we're dealing with

Starting point is 02:06:23 as opposed to we should be dealing with somebody else. And then trying to get people to understand that so they don't think we're trying to rain on their parade because it's an intoxicating situation. I mean, first of all, you got type A personality. They're all in plain clothes. You make your bones in there by locking up drug dealers. So you want to lock up drug dealers. And you want to lock up major drug dealers and whatnot.

Starting point is 02:06:52 But sometimes you can miss some warning signs. And maybe this guy is not really that major as he's pretending to be. Okay. And maybe if we go out here now, we're making ourselves a little higher. a risk for maybe a ripple for somebody to get hurt. You know, so it's trying to always be a teacher, not rain on everybody's parade, but at the same time realizing there's going to be some risk out there, always going to be some risk.

Starting point is 02:07:28 Because we can plan that we're going to do this, we're going to do this, we're going to do this, what we can't plan for certainty is that the defendant's going to do this, do this. The defendant may do something completely different, and then we've got to react to it. So we always have to have enough manpower out there. A lot of times you'd say, okay, it's a high-risk situation if I'm going to give money for drugs. That's high risk. You may say to yourself, it's a low-risk situation if I'm just going to have a drug conversation. Maybe, maybe not, okay?

Starting point is 02:08:05 You don't know what that informant's been doing out there in the street. You don't know what that informants told them about you. You don't know if they believe the informant or not. Maybe they think that they're going to rip you off. Maybe the informant is, think it's just going to be a meet, but maybe it's going to be a kidnapping. So it's always thinking about what could happen and thinking about it from a position that I'm not going out in the street, you know, but I care about you guys. And so that's where my position would come in. I get to let you do it.

Starting point is 02:08:42 Something goes wrong. You're going to get hurt. Okay. I'm not going out there, and I'm a little concerned about this, and I want to make sure you go home to your family today. Okay? So understand that I'm not trying to make this impossible, but I'm seeing something maybe that you're not seeing, okay?

Starting point is 02:09:03 And I don't want you to get hurt, because I always said that to myself. I never want to be in a situation when I became a supervisor that I have to explain to somebody's spouse that their loved one was killed, knowing in the back of my head that we were sloppy. I never want to be that guy that straight face. You know, it's one of those things, unfortunately,

Starting point is 02:09:27 who would be there for you and your family, this, then, the other thing, knowing that we were sloppy, knowing that this shouldn't happen. I said, I don't want to be that guy. So I'd rather somebody get pissed off to no end, then, hey, yeah, we need to take one more step. Because once we're out there, we're out there. Once we're out there, we're out there. And if this guy's legit, we'll get the money,

Starting point is 02:09:53 we'll get the opportunity to meet him, this will happen. But if it goes wrong, I want to know in my head we did everything to present it, to prevent it, because I'm the supervisor. So you could get hurt, but it's my responsibility. Because when things are going wrong, the agent gets hurt or the cop gets hurt, looking at the supervisor.

Starting point is 02:10:15 There's an operation plan. Let's look at the operation plan. Does that make sense to the operation law? Okay. Did we do background checks on these people? Okay. Were they arrested before? What were they arrested for?

Starting point is 02:10:28 How did the rest go? All they arrested before, they were arrested for a strong robbery. Okay. The arrest for a strong robbery. on robbery. Now they're talking about they have access to 100 kilos of cocaine. Come on. I mean, does that make sense of you? Who's the informant? Is the informant done stuff before? That's resulted in us making arrest and seizures? You know, is the informant credible? We want to know all this stuff, okay? And then once, and these are good training techniques. Because once you drill down

Starting point is 02:10:54 into an agent, that person's, hopefully, or detected, that person's going to go off the ladder also, and he's getting taught also the questions he needs to ask. Okay, because my role is under the best of circumstances, somebody may get hurt, but I don't want them to get hurt knowing we were sloppy. No one we were sloppy. That would, that's something that never happened with me. Because I would, I don't care if they weren't happy that I canceled it,

Starting point is 02:11:26 because usually it's canceled it. You need more something. So if you get more something, then we're going to do it. But if you're not going to get it, we're not going to do it. So you're not going to make me feel that, oh, you're going to be mad. Let me sign off one. And then somebody gets hurt. I said, well, who's the boss here?

Starting point is 02:11:40 I'm the boss. Let somebody else may sign off it. That's fine on them. I'm not signing off on it. So are you reviewing every operation that comes across? No, no. At some point I was in my supervisory, but I can especially in charge, no. But that level under me and under them knew that that's their job.

Starting point is 02:11:58 And then they have to report to you of any mishaps or anything in general. Yeah, if something goes wrong. Yeah, because if something goes wrong out there, I'll ask. Let me see the operation plan. So they know it's better be tight because they're signing off on it. It better be tight. It better make sense. You know, our job is not just to, we can get the money.

Starting point is 02:12:19 That's easy, okay? We can get the car. We can get any technique or tool that we need to show that we're in the drug business, we can get. We can get a line of credit in the bank that says we have $10 million. All that stuff is easy. We need to make sure this is a real drug deal. That's what we need to make sure.

Starting point is 02:12:39 We ain't doing that if it's not a real drug deal. So you may think he's a real drug deal, but is he? Are you BS in him or is he BS in you? How long did you stay in that role for? The sack? Yeah. A little less than four years. Is that normal amount of time?

Starting point is 02:12:57 Yeah, it depends. I mean, I was a sack in Detroit for, for her. a year, just about a year. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's interesting, too, because when I went to Detroit, you know, the guy in charge knew I was in New York. I knew I wanted the job in New York. He knew the guy who was retiring. But he sent me into Detroit, and then he called me when he told me I was going back. I said, I thought it was out of it. He said, no, he said, you did a good job, you know, in the task force with the troopers and the cops. He said, but I wanted you to cut your teeth as being number one.

Starting point is 02:13:38 So I sent you to Detroit. He did a great job there, and I need you back in New York. Did you retire from New York? I did. How old were you? That was that 47. Was that like a forced age to retire? No, no.

Starting point is 02:13:54 The retirement is 25 years, any age, mandatory. 57, but they have some kind of program now. I think you can ask for a year extension, they get approved by the head of the office and whatnot. But again, it's narcotics enforcement. You know, it's a specialty assignment. The stress is unbelievable. And it's a young man's game.

Starting point is 02:14:18 It's a young man's game. The worst thing in the world is to be a place where you realize that, I don't say your best days are over, but you've had a good run. You know, it's time to move on and do something different. And I was eligible to retire. You know, financially it made sense for me to retire and then see what I can do something else.

Starting point is 02:14:39 But to start as a basic agent and to end up running the largest operation in the world for DEA enforcement operation, and I'm a native New Yorker, the mission accomplished. How did it feel to retire? So great. Mixed emotions. Let me take that bad. Mixed emotions. Mixed emotions.

Starting point is 02:14:59 You know, it's stress, unbelievable, but every day I had a good feeling driving down the west side highway coming into the building, you know. And the last day I was there, the deputy administrator happened to be in New York, who was in New Yorker also, and who I knew in the 70s. And he walked with me through the hallway just to see who was in a hallway just to say goodbye to people. And I could, I could only do it for about 30 an hour. The tear started coming down my cheek. My, you know, great, great memories. What do you think you missed the most about it? The people, just super people.

Starting point is 02:15:49 I mean, people that, you and I sitting there here now, we get a call tomorrow. We're going through that door. And hopefully we're going to be successful, but we're going through that door, you know. I need to meet you November 22nd, 136th Street and Amsterdam Avenue at 5 o'clock.

Starting point is 02:16:11 We don't talk between now and then we're going to meet there unless you call me, you know? Just people dependable. The brotherhood, unlike no other. Unlike no other. You travel the country, X, Y, Z. These guys are right at the airport to pick you up, make sure everything you need to get done,

Starting point is 02:16:27 you get done. A brotherhood like no other. You know, this is just a special, special brotherhood and sisterhood. Now, you've lived pretty much your whole career already post career, because it's been, what, 25 years almost since he retired? 26 years with DEA, 25, coming up on 26 years retired. Wow. So what's that like, having that perspective?

Starting point is 02:16:52 It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. I still get to see these guys. I mean, they still invite me to. to the office, which I like. For like trainings?

Starting point is 02:17:05 Yeah, trainings. They're doing a special operation. The guy in charge, I should give him a shout out, Frank Tarantino. He's the associate chief of operation. So they reorganized DEA. And so six of the offices in the Northeast Corridor report to him. But before he was in that position, he was the special agent in charge. And he's a guy that's steep on history.

Starting point is 02:17:30 steep on connecting the retirees with the office. So he'll invite me back to the office when they're doing special things or give me a heads up on something. So it's nice. And I told him it's a place. I started at when I was 21. We were on West 57th Street

Starting point is 02:17:48 and 11th Avenue. In the Ford Lincoln Mercury building, we had the 1718 to 9th floor. There's a I think an Audi dealership there now, 1718, 19 floor was DEA. and that are on 17th Street and 10th Avenue, in a nondescript building right near Chelsea Market. But when I go in there, and I've been retired over 25 years,

Starting point is 02:18:14 I always walk in the employee entrance. And they like to see me there. I told them I just can't go in the visitor entrance. They say, we don't need you to go on the visitor. Come on the employee entrance, you know. And what's fascinating, is the relationship between public safety and business success. Erwin Cohen, who purchased the Chelsea market back in the late 90s,

Starting point is 02:18:44 that was the worst area of the city. He will tell you, it was an old Nabisco building burned out. He bought it for cheap. He said, once he knew DEA was moving in on the corner of 17th and 10,000, He said he knew, he's all real estate genius. He knew the mere dynamic of several hundred guys with badges and guns going in there every day, there'd be few incidents in the neighborhood, the papers would write about it, property values will go up.

Starting point is 02:19:16 The Chelsea Market is one of those landmarks. If you have visitors coming to New York City, you just got to walk through. It's a city amongst itself. Before he passed away, he interviewed everybody that wanted to open up a business. and primarily food, but I think NBC's got a production unit there, and I used to do some filming there. But he made sure when he interviewed people that there were decent people. And when I say decent people, I'm not talking about, you know,

Starting point is 02:19:47 they weren't convicted felons. They had good energy. He said, Lou, I never want anybody in there with bad energy. He said, the people around, they don't smile and I don't rent to them, you know. And that place, have you ever go to, I don't know if you've been there, but you've got to go to Chelsea Market. You got to go. Got to go. It's just one of those fantastic places.

Starting point is 02:20:07 That's New York City. The energy level, indoors, the food stalls, people moving around, the shops, it looks like organized chaos, but it just works, you know. What about when you see the technology and everything that's changed? Oh, it's amazing. I mean, we were operating. We didn't have cell phones. We had cell phones. We had beepers.

Starting point is 02:20:28 Beepers. and the big radios and whatnot. Amazing what they do now. But with all that technology, even though we talk about AI, it still goes back to that human relationship. The basics. Yeah, because you've got to be able to look at somebody. You've got to be able to understand the nonverbal communication.

Starting point is 02:20:47 You've got to be able to get close at the appropriate time. And you've got to be able to convince people that they can trust you, you know, that they can trust you because it's all about getting information. And it's not about exposing things. people. And you'll find out, like in most relationships, when people feel that you have their best interest at heart, they'll go over the wall for you. They'll go over to wall. They won't disappoint you. You know, they won't disappoint you. And we need more to bring people together. But these are great organizations. And, you know, they have their turf battles and fights and you got your egos

Starting point is 02:21:21 and whatnot. But it's like a family. And you got good leadership in the family. He says, okay, we got that out in the open, the American public has a drug problem out there. I remember one of the old bosses when I first started in New York, because New York's always a tough place. It was about morale, morale, morale, morale. He had all hands meeting at several hundred agencies. He said, look, I don't hear about this morale stuff. He said, some of you guys are not happy with the person you married at home, and you're talking about morale. You're going to come in this building, and they're going to be 700 people you don't even know you're supposed to have great morale. The American public has a drug problem. You guys are equipped. You have the tools. You have the resources to help with it.

Starting point is 02:22:08 I don't want to know about this morale. Get out there and help the American public. That was it. People started to realize that, hey, we're not always going to get along. We're always going to disagree. You pick your spouse. You disagree with your spouse. But it's not the end of the world. We got a greater mission, you know. I mean, the damage, the, the damage, that a family has when their loved one overdoses. You know, I mean, you always will replay that in your head. Could I have did something different? Should I have did this?

Starting point is 02:22:38 Should I did that? What I do? You blame yourself. I mean, you're never the same. And so we're trying to prevent that also, right? And we're trying to get them to live full lives, you know? And with this fentanyl, that's the mistake, you know? Well, you think you're taking a value, you know?

Starting point is 02:22:56 and it's laced with fentanyl. That's the scary part. So you don't want to scare people so that if you use this, your arm's going to fall off and all the other. People are too smart for that. And then you lose your credibility. But you've got to realize that do you really want to take that risk? You know, you've got to ask you to say, do you really want to take that risk?

Starting point is 02:23:17 Maybe not. Do you think America will ever be able to fix a drug problem? And if so, how? I think we have fixed it. I think by realizing that it's not a war because of the war there's a beginning and there's an end. We understand that there'll always be a drug of choice for a generation, right? But we realize also we have to do education, we have to do prevention, we have to make it a high penalty for those that are making lots of money for it,

Starting point is 02:23:49 but we have to make sure that people don't want to use the drug. We have to make sure that people understand the consequences, you know, because if you give people the right information, we have a lot of smart, talented people that make the right choices. You don't want to overdo it, but you don't want to underdo it. But let them make choices. And you've got to realize, in the best of circumstances, people are going to make mistake, you know, but you just don't want this as a one chance. You make a mistake and then you die. You know, you don't want that. What do you know now that you wish 21-year-old?

Starting point is 02:24:23 your 21-year-old self knew when he first joined the DEA? Oh, boy, that's a good question. I think what I wish I knew that is that you just got to continue to believe in yourself, you know. You're going to make mistakes. Mistakes are not the end of the world. Most people are going to be rooting for you. They're going to be people rooting against you, and they're the haters. But don't concentrate on that.

Starting point is 02:24:58 because whatever you do, they're going to be the haters. People that won't look in the mirror and celebrate somebody else's success and figure out maybe that's a role map for me. They just want to hate. So just stay focused and help the people that need to be helped. And mentors, keep with the mentors. I've had some great mentors, some great mentors.

Starting point is 02:25:19 And usually mentors are going to tell you to do maybe additional things and people don't want to do additional things. And the worst thing is, is to have a mentor, and they ask you to do something additional, and you don't do it. But if you have a mentor, and if you don't have one, then you need to seek one out. You don't just lay around and say, well, a mentor is going to come to my desk. Go find a mentor and stay with that person, because most people want to tell you what they're doing. They want to tell you what worked for them and whatnot. And to me, that was so helpful for me, having some mentors.

Starting point is 02:25:56 and realize you can learn from every situation. You know, I've had great bosses, but I have some terrible bosses. But terrible bosses I've learned from what not to do. Oh, my goodness, what was this guy thinking? I know not to do that because you feel the impact on it, you know. And really the leadership, because the leadership from an agency that's led in Washington to globally is so critical. because if people get promoted, they get promoted in the field,

Starting point is 02:26:29 and the field knows that these people are not doing a core job, that just creates a lot of morale issues and whatnot. So people need to get promoted based on a system of merit and accountability because then people say the system works, that you don't have to know somebody in particular, all that also always helps, but that you're doing such a good job that, we read it and we can understand it and we can put you out there and promote you and others can look up

Starting point is 02:26:58 and say well this is why that person got promoted because they did this they did this they did this and and and you got to put the working you know uh you got you have to realize that once you get the job it's not put your feet back and you're there you still got to grind man you still got to grind you still got a grind. You still got to grind. You celebrate your successes and so let's get back in there. Let's get back in there. We don't want to just get complacent and whatnot. We got to keep looking for that next opportunity, you know, stay focused. Well, Lewis, I appreciate you taking the time to come out here today. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you today. Thank you. Yeah. Same to you. All right.

Locked In with Ian Bick - I Hunted America's Biggest Drug Traffickers in the '70s — Here's What It Was Like | Lewis Rice

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