The Team House - Assistant Director For Intelligence at FBI | Eric Velez | Ep. 274

Episode Date: April 28, 2024

Support the show here:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Eric Vélez-Villar was named assistant director of the Office of Private Sector in October 2021. The Office of Private Sector, under the FBI Intelligence Branch, strengthens partnerships between the FBI and the private sector. Mr. Vélez-Villar, a retired special agent, had most recently worked in the private sector. Mr. Vélez-Villar started his FBI career as a computer scientist in the San Juan Field Office in Puerto Rico. He became a special agent in 1992 and worked organized crime and drug cases in the McAllen Resident Agency of the San Antonio Field Office in Texas. He transferred to the San Juan office in 1997 and worked public corruption cases and violent crime. In 2000, Mr. Vélez-Villar was promoted to supervisory special agent in the Drug Section of the Criminal Investigative Division at FBI Headquarters. He was detailed to the Drug Enforcement Administration for two years. In 2002, he transferred to the Santa Ana Resident Agency of the Los Angeles Field Office, where he worked organized crime cases before he was reassigned to supervise the Orange County Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). Mr. Vélez-Villar was promoted to assistant special agent in charge of the Los Angeles counterterrorism program in 2004, overseeing three regional JTTFs. Mr. Vélez-Villar was promoted to deputy director of the Terrorist Screening Center in 2006, then returned to Los Angeles as the special agent in charge of the office’s Intelligence Division in 2007. In 2009, he was named deputy assistant director in the Directorate of Intelligence at FBI Headquarters, in charge of the Intelligence Operations Branch. In 2012, he was promoted to assistant director of the Directorate of Intelligence and was elevated to executive assistant director of the Intelligence Branch in 2014. He retired in 2016 and served as a vice president for security at the Walt Disney Company. He also established a security consulting firm. Mr. Vélez-Villar earned a bachelor’s degree from the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico and an MBA from the University of Southern California.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------To help support the show and for all bonus content including:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse-AD FREE AUDIO-AD FREE VIDEO-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseOr make a one time donation at: ⬇️https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouseTeam House merch: ⬇️https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963Social Media: ⬇️The Team House Instagram:https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_linkThe Team House Twitter:https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePodJack’s Instagram:https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_linkJack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21Team House Discord: ⬇️https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6SubReddit: ⬇️https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSampleWant to sponsor the show?Email: ⬇️[e-mail]#fbi #intelligenceBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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Hey folks, welcome to episode 274 of The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy. Dave's out tonight. Dee's back there producing. Our guest on tonight's show is Eric Volez. He served as a career FBI agent, including two stints as assistant directors. And we're really excited to talk about his whole career, a lot of interesting stuff, kidnapping cases, counterdrugs stuff, and then intelligence. So we'll get into all of that. I just want to give a quick shout out to Casa Carabello Cigars for providing the Cigars for this show. You'd find them at casacarabio.com. And please also check out our Patreon. There's a link down in the description. If you sign up for $5 a month, you get access to all the episodes of the Team House ad-free.

And we really appreciate you guys supporting the channel. So with that said, Eric, welcome to the show. Thank you. Cheers. Thank you for coming in. Absolutely. So. Yeah, thank you for having me. I mean, it's our pleasure.

So I'll ask you to start at the beginning with, you know, kind of your origin story. Like, how did you grow up and what was like that pathway that took you towards the FBI? Yeah, sure. Actually, it's an interesting story. It's kind of like my bureau story is a real true. mail room to boardroom type of story. So I grew up in Puerto Rico. My dad was Army, so I'm an Army brat born in Fort Gordon, Georgia. But Puerto Rico is where I call home. And back when I was coming out of high school, it was right around that time where there was a group called the Macheteero

Group, Independence Movement terrorist organization in Puerto Rico. And my dad had gotten a job post-Army working in the FBI as an IA, not an intel analyst. These are folks investigative assistance and so the agents work in their cases. These are the folks that would do a lot of the DMV runs, some of the background stuff to kind of help the agents on their cases. In 85, I believe it was 84 is when happens. The organization shoots a law rocket into the FBI office in San Juan. And it hits right above the office is on the fifth floor, it hits on the sixth floor. But at the time they said, hey, let's beef up the night crew. So it was one guy that did midnight to eight, another guy that in four to midnight and there was a swing shift guy.

And so they wanted to put somebody else on quickly. So here I am. I'm 18 years old. I have no credit. I hadn't worked anywhere. So my background took like nothing to get in. And so my first job is working the night shift in Puerto Rico and picking up confidential trash, you know, doing radio, doing mail deliveries. And that's how I get started into the FBI.

And then from there, you know, at that point, I was studying airway science. I wanted to be something to do with aviation, air traffic controller. I went maybe pilot. But then my first exposure to FBI agents, I remember sitting there was just a kid, and there had been this raid earlier on. They'd taken down this big gang, and some SWAT guys had come up with this one guy was all tatted up, and it was a bad guy. And I'm sitting there in my desk, and there's a chair, and they said, hey, we're going to put

them right here. And they sat the guy next to me, and they had these two big old SWAT guys, you know, all jacked up and and at that moment I went like I want to be that like that's what I want to do and so I change and I start to like my everything I'm studying in school changes and I become an agent in 92 so I've seven years clerical what they called we I was a clerk back yeah and then and then I become an agent in 92 so I mean that's an interesting way to kind of like you said you know graduate up into the organization yeah is that like that's not that's like atypical usually it's like college or law enforcement into FBI. Correct. Yeah, it's not, I mean, there are folks that

start off in the bureau kind of either as analyst or others and then they become agents later on. It's usually, in agent careers, an agent position is usually a second or third career. It's not your first thing you're doing. So a lot of them have a background there. The military, law enforcement, something, accounting lawyers, and then they become agents, whereas mine was, my whole thing was, I started from the organization. I was a GS3. So that's, I was making $11,000 a year. I mean, it's like, Back then, though, for me, I mean, I'm 18 years old, 19 years old, and I'm making 11,000 bucks. That was a lot of money for me, so, but yeah, that's, it's not typical. My path is not, at least back then it wasn't.

So, 1992, you go to Quantico. What's it like going through the training to be a special agent at that time? Man, I tell you, I remember somebody once told me this, and it was the best way to describe Quantico. It was like, it's the best time of my life, but I don't. never want to do it again. So it's every day, I was there 16 weeks. I think they've upped it too. I'm not sure exactly how long it is now, but back then it was 16 weeks. And every day, it's like, you're going to do this. You're going to take this test. You're going to do this whatever. You're going to shoot this many times. And you just get by day by day. And at the end of

the day, you're exhausted and you just go day two. Before you know it, you're graduating. They're giving you a gun and a badge and they're sending you out. But, um, But it's not easy, not meant to be easy. But it's, like I said, best thing I ever did, never would do it again. At the time in 1992, what's kind of like the culture of the FBI? Like, what is it that they're training you to do? I mean, what is the main focus of the organization at that time? Well, when I was coming in, it was around the time, Janet Reno,

the kind of the War on Drug Southwest Border Initiative. And I remember because I was in the FBI, a lot of the agents would tell me, hey, you know where you're going, right? And I go, because you don't know where you're going. When you get Quantico, you open up your letter at week eight, and they tell you where you're going to go. And they go, you're going to the border. Like, you're going to work dope in the border. And I go, how do you know that?

It goes, everybody's, anybody who speaks Spanish is going to go. And being Puerto Rican, I spoke Spanish. And sure enough, there were four of us in my class that spoke Spanish. Two got Macal and two got El Paso. So, yeah, we were in that. That was the way it was back then. So you graduate from Quantico, and that must have been a big moment for you. Huge.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Best shape of my life. But just exciting, exciting to go to Texas, to McAllen, you know, to actually work drug cases. And it was hit the ground running. I mean, you got there. I remember the day I got to McAllen, I get called, like, hey, tomorrow morning, four o'clock, we got an arrest.

It was like that. It's on. McCallon was a very busy office back there, not just drugs, but fugitives, you know, folks that are coming and hiding back in the valley. And so it was a nonstop. And for an agent, it's the best time of your life because you're just, you're arresting, you're involved in a lot of, and we were teamed up with our partners at DEA and Customs at the time,

you know, and others, IRS, others that worked there. But DEA and us and customs, we're all parts of task forces. And all the guys, we all knew each other. It was really cool. It was nice being part of that community. And you mentioned a little bit of it. I mean that Janet Reno was really escalating the pressure on the flow of drugs coming across the border. Can you expand on kind of like what you were seeing, what was going on at that time?

Well, it was interesting because we, you know, we had Title 21 authority, which allowed the Bureau to work drug cases, much like the DEA. So the approach that the Bureau was taking was that, we focused on the large cartels whether they're Cario Fuentes you know what's the other the different you know Caro Quintero Cineu Juan Garcia Abrigo which is Garcia Abrigo ran the the Gulf Cartel so McCallan that's what so for us we had a squad a squad and typical squad is usually you know anywhere 10 12 15 agents we had about 18 agents on our squad and we, the way we did it in McAllen was there was one case, maybe two cases, but you had to link the case to a cartel.

If you could not establish that link, you could not work. It wasn't an FBI case. Yeah, I mean, you only had so many resources, and so the case agent basically ran the case, and then the rest of us supported it. We did surveillance. We did. We sat on wiretaps. We did whatever.

But that's how it was. And that's my first, my first activity as an agent was sitting on wiretaps, you know, like bouncing around, like, you know, supporting cases. And I knew, I said, I'm going to end up doing this for the rest of my life unless I become the case agent, you know. You told me earlier on that it was kind of funny listening to the wires. Yeah. Because you speak Puerto Rican Spanish. Yes.

These guys speak like Mexican prison Spanish. Yeah, yeah. Well, I remember because they set me up. I was in Macon. I just got my apartment. And then it was around Christmas time or Thanksgiving. It was the holiday. And they said, hey, you need to come up to San Antonio.

It was a wire. We're working a Mexican Mafia wire. And the main subject, I believe, was in California. But, you know, the leadership of the Mexican mafia was in San Antonio. We were up on these wiretaps. And, you know, I show up. And it's me. I think I have the four to midnight.

And it's me. And I think we're on four lines. So the other three were San Antonio PD guys. You know, they all grew up. in that area and they know the they know the language you know and so I remember my first call comes in you know you the time we had um cassette players like um you know now it's all digital but back then you had cassette players and we had like three three machines we have to explain all that to our younger audience yeah yeah so we had like three machines and then um the machines of

the original one you take that one out you seal it that's evidence don't mess with it they put a fourth one for me that was because that first call I remember going off and I put it on put the headphones on and they're like, oh, it just goes on and on and it ends. And I take that thing off, my headphones off. And I look around the room and I said, I didn't understand a word these people just said. And I said, I don't know what I'm going to do.

So they put another machine, then I could take it out. And in between calls, I could read, listen, and I would pick things up. Like, for example, like, in Spanish, Mueble, like means furniture, you know, a Mueble in them is a car. you know and the feria is for us some fair and for them it's money and so they i'm like something about furniture and they're going to some fair and these guys sent into a pbbi just laugh and they laugh and laugh the only that made me feel good is that the opposite of thing like

when the the mexican-american agents the agents that were from texas or whatever that kind of grew up with that language spanish kind of when they got sent to porto rico and they sat on portoican wires and they had to listen to like where I came from talk, they say that is impossible. So at least I picked up the language, but it wasn't easy at all. It was pretty, it was very challenging at first. So how did you make that jump then from, you know,

you said you didn't want to spend your whole career sitting on wires? Yeah. How did you make that jump to, you know, working cases? Yeah, well, I mean, like I figured out real quick. I said, okay, so I got to, I've got to open up, I got to start a case and I have to tie it to a large cartel, one of the top organizations. And at the time I was stationed in McAllen, but we had Hidalgo County, and then there were Star County, which is just west. And a lot of dope was coming up through Star County, through Rio Grande City, Roma, Texas.

And I said, you know, I was single, so I figured like, you know, it's not like a 45-minute drive or something. And there's enough work in Macallan. You can stay in Macallan. But I was going to go out to the Wild West, and I was going to go find the big case. And I remember I teamed up with a Border Patrol agent. Juan Garcia's the name. Juanito, we called him.

And he took me under his wing. And I said, hey, listen, I want to make the case. Like, I'm tired of sitting on these wires. I want my own case. And he says, okay. And I said, well, who's the biggest, baddest guy here? Who's the one everybody wants? to that time, there was a guy named La Brouha, the witch.

And he says, La Brouja is the guy that runs here, and he's tied to Garcia-Irigo and this and that, whatever. And he taught me how to become a good agent. And I stayed with him, and sure enough, in fact, I'll talk a little bit when I talk about my intel career, but he taught me the value of intelligence, like how intelligence drives investigations. Like, for example, Juanito, like being Border Patrol, they could come in, I believe it's 25 miles within, from the border, they can get into the ranches, you know, and do what they have to do for obvious reasons. And whenever there was a big load that had crossed, the organizations would celebrate it by having a pachanga.

Pachanga is kind of like a barbecue, you know, fahitas, beer, and they're celebrating. So Juanito had this really smart idea that, you know, when he saw pachangas happening in ranches, you know, He'd just write down the license plate numbers of the cars, the trucks that were at the Pachangas. And so he had a whole list. And so when you're working your cases and you knew D.A had taken down this load or there was a load that was crossed and you're sharing back and forth, then he could piece together like this guy has been at a Pachanga every time this organization.

And that's how he tied it all up. So that's the true meaning of collection, like intelligence collection, understanding like what your gaps are and how he was smart and did that. He taught me all those kind of things. And later on, I used those examples when we started talking about how the Bureau transformed into this kind of dual agency with the Intel mission as well. But yeah, that's how I got in. And sure enough, we got up on one wiretap and we ended up spinning off on three more, four more. We ended up taking down that entire organization, disrupting that entire organization.

Was that a River Witch? River Witch, yeah. River Ridge was a codename we gave it just because La Brouja, which means the witch and the Rio Grande. Valley in the river. So, River, which was Operation River, which was the one that, that, that was, that was my first big case. So how did, how did that investigation progress as you get warrants for these wire taps and start developing the case? Yeah, you, you basically, you know, you, you try to get up on a phone, you know, through the court order, you know, of one of these, these leaders of this organization, and hopefully, because it's hard to, to penetrate those organizations through regular human sources.

You know, they're very close-knit, they're very tight hold. Everybody knows everybody. Like the cars you drive, a minute you're driving in there, they know you're not from here. So getting somebody in is hard. So you have to be smart enough to understand, like, how they're communicating and what phones they're using. And then developing the probable cause to actually be able to intercept that phone with the court. Go to a judge with an affidavit and get that doing. But once you're on the right phone, you're picking up a lot.

And they all talked in code, you know, like each of them had numbers and areas. I remember one time there was, we were on this, and I would go and every day, I would look at the pen registers and see like what numbers. I knew all the numbers. I had memorized every single number. And I saw one number. I was like, wait a minute, this one I don't know. And sure enough, that led me to a house.

and then little by little we started developing some probable cause. But there was one of the interesting things about that case was there was always this rumor that there was somebody that was at the with customs time that, an immigration, I'm sorry, that was allowing the loads to come in. And they knew who she was, but she was very smart about it. And I remember one time I go in and it's like, I said, hey, I asked the translators, like, anything relevant? And I'd look at the stack of notes, you know, summaries.

And I saw one. It said, like, it said, you know, hey, va passar. You know, it's going to happen. And it goes, see, at la una, where we eat pescado, like, where we eat fish. And I knew that there was a port of entry near Falcon Lake. And there was a place where you can eat fish. It was like a restaurant there.

And I went, wow. I wonder if something's going to happen at one o'clock at that port of entry. And so I had been working with the immigration folks, and I said, hey, listen, you know, is she, what is her schedule? She goes, well, she's, she was supposed to be in Rio Grande City, but she asked to work Roma at one o'clock. She takes the one o'clock shift. And I went, I told my boss, it's happening. He's like, what do you mean?

I go, it's happening. Like, they're going to cross and she's going to be there. Are you sure? and I said, I know it. I just know it. I mean, I've been working this case long enough. Something's going to happen. So we had everybody out there.

We had a really cool setup with DPS. And sure enough, man. I remember she requests to kind of start at 2 o'clock or she changes her time. And I went, oh, man, now I got everybody out there. That would be like, what's Eric up to? And then sure enough, a call comes in and goes like, hey, a las dos, like, they changed time too and I knew then sure know I remember I remember we were all we had we had people kind of inside the the customs or the immigration office that could has an

eye view of what's going on there as a lanes would come in and like clockwork man the first car comes in the first car she she enters the tag and you know we we could see that she was in she answers the tag and it's the right tag and we say don't follow that one let that one go then here comes a Crown Vic those Crown Victories, they can hold like 500 pounds of weeds in the trunk. And the Crown Vic comes and she makes this a gesture like she's entering something. But we, the guy in our task force, our customs guy, he said, she didn't enter anything. And we knew that one. That one comes in and then two more Crown Vicks come right, boom, boom, right back there. And we were like,

okay, so everybody hold tight, you know, hold tight, hold tight, but then DPS, you know, they're fantastic. They did the traffic stop, but these guys ran, and all three them took off and jumped in, a couple of them jumped in river, went back south. But we ended up taking down 1,500 pounds of wheat that day, that 500 pounds in each trunk. And then the wire went crazy. That's when it gets really good. What happened? Yeah, they're all pointing fingers. They're all pointing fingers.

You know, what happened? And then the case just goes on. That was the most fun I ever had. You busted a corrupt immigration officer at the same time. Because she ended up getting prison time, obviously, for that. But that's how you had to put the work in. You had to really understand what normal looked like and then what is out of place. And that one call was out of place.

That one call was like, who is this person? Turns out the call that he made was a fugitive that was up north. It had come in and was living in Macallan, and that person had made the call. And so that's all it took was that one break, and then we were able to take down this. But it's a lot of fun. I mean, it shows really kind of how agencies working together, because we had IRS, DEA, customs, we had an OSEDF task force. It was just the best time.

I mean, that was obviously a huge event, but you mentioned that the wire goes crazy. Was there like a kind of culmination of this case? Yeah, yeah. It culminates. We take down the whole organization. Everybody, you know, you want to take the time to identify who all these players are. You don't want to take it down too soon. But sometimes on these wires, you know, it gets risky because you don't want to heat it up. So, like, you're taking down a load.

You don't want to let the dope walk. So you've got to have creative ways of, you know, like we would. Random vehicle stop. Yeah, like Fulfurius, Texas was the checkpoint. So we let them know, like, how. hey, listen, this is coming up, and then they do a search, and then the wire go out, what's going on? It's like, you know, it starts to get the point where you can't do that too often.

Because they know something. It's going to start heating up. And so we calculated the time. I had been transferred to Puerto Rico right before the takedown, and another case agent had taken it up after I left. But, yeah, that was, that was the best time. Do you remember how many people they ended up on? I don't remember.

Dozens, I know. And which organization was this? It was a, the guy that was, running the show was the name with Hector Martinez, but he was tied to the Juan Garcia-Abrigo organization with the Gulf Cartel. Some people might know that if you watch

that show Narco, the one they do, not in Colombia, but the Mexican version, he shows, he's on that and so on. But that was that. I tell people like my kids and stuff, like, if you watch that, that's what my life was like. Because that was literally 1992-ish around there when I got to McAllen. So, yeah, that was a lot of fun.

And then from there you get sent down to Puerto Rico working, you know, gang cases and public corruption. Can you set this stage? I mean, especially because you're from Puerto Rico, can you set the stage a little bit for sort of the political but also the criminality that you had to deal with? Yeah. So Puerto Rico just opened up some, we call them resident agencies

are like sub offices, one in each side of the island, Ponce, Fajardo, then Aguadilla, where I was in the west part of the, island. A lot of gang activity. We were, there was a something called the Safe Street Task Force. Again, everything's multi-agency with POPR, police of Puerto Rico. And we had task force officers that were on our team, police officers that we had brought on our squad. There was a lot of that, a lot of public corruption work, bribes, you know, federal money going into Puerto Rico and then people taking cuts of it and things like that. So it's like they say, the target rich environment,

You know, there was never lack of work. Was the Puerto Rican nationalist movement still kicking at this point? It wasn't like it was when I was. When you started. Yeah, yeah. Not like when it was when I was in the 80s. There was a fugitive that everybody was trying to catch that was tied to the macheteiros. They thought was around our, he was, he was, we were in our A-O-R, but that was it.

That was extent of it. It was, you know, I mean, there was work, but I was focused on, you know, gangs and public corruption stuff like that. Any memorable cases that you worked on during that time down there? Well, there was a case. The biggest case that I worked when I was down there was a case that involved a corrupt mayor that was taking money, federal money that was coming in. He had an architect, I'm sorry, an engineer that drew up plans. And this engineer basically would do the work, but he'd have to pay the mayor 30% of the work. And I remember when we first, that case came in, my partner may rest in peace, he passed away,

but he and I were sitting in the office and we got a call about like, hey, listen, this is a guy. He has some information, you know, about corruption going on. It was late. you know, like, yeah, you know, really, does he really kind of thing. It's like, sure, we'll talk to him. Tell him to come over to our office. And we waited for him, and he showed up. And he was an engineer, you know, and I remember he's telling me about the mayor.

And I said, you know what? There's one way we can make sure this is true. And he says, how? He says, well, we'll go talk to him, but we're going to wire you up. You know, so we got, we got authority to do all of that consent. And I remember because at the time, this is,

so now you're like, watch movies and, you know, all this sophisticated technology. But it was a cassette recorder. Dude, it was as big as that notepad, it seemed like, and it was about this big. And so we ended up going to a hotel room. And then I said, okay, drop your pants because we're going to put it like here on your ankle.

We're going to run the wire up here. We're going to tape it up here. And the man is sweating. He is sweating. You need to relax because you can't go in looking like this, you know? He's like, do I have anything smaller? Like in the movies, everything smaller. No, this is it.

But I said, nobody's, he'll never suspect the thing. And sure enough, he goes in and he has a conversation with him. And he's like, either give me the 30% or you're never going to work in this town again. It's perfect. And that led to just a long investigation where ultimately on video we're, you know, paying. He's paying, you know, the money. It was another huge take down, another good case. And that was, you know, that's important to me because, I mean, I love Puerto Rico.

It's the island I grew up on and the corruption, you know, that impacts a lot of people. You know, when you're having to take money that's meant to go to fixed streets and schools and stuff like that, and then people are stealing it. So that gave me a lot of pleasure work in that, you know, put those guy and guys away. Oh, no, that's awesome. Yeah. And then you get sent to DEA, SOD. Yeah, yeah. So I become a supervisor. It's funny because people ask me, because I spend a lot of time in leadership roles in the bureau, and I would give leadership speeches and stuff like that, you know. And sometimes people say, like, you know, were you inspired by, you know, some particular leader? You know, it's like, what drove you to be kind of a leader in the FBI? And I tell them, like, well, actually what drove me was, I had, when I was, when I was, when I was, you were, you.

was an a I love being a street agent I just loved it I mean you work your cases is a lot of fun and my time in management I would I don't think I was ready for it let I wanted to spend more time in the field but I had I had just built a house and it was on the on the beautiful home was on the cliff right on the water and I was building the house and I'd gotten alone at the bank just like everything else and hurricane I think it was Hugo comes by and it it blows on the whole house is destroyed So the whole top of the thing is gone.

And so when I go to, I go to find the builder, I can't find the builder. The builder is gone. And it turns out the builder was involved in this kind of sort of a Ponzi scheme where he was using money from certain loans to fix other homes that were yelling at him. And so it turns out like I don't, now I don't have any money. The builder is gone and I have to build the house myself. And I just literally would get up early in the morning, go to the concrete place. I'd hire people, like, it was a disaster. And I said, I'm going to go broke because I'm paying this.

I can't afford this. And, yeah, so I did know that if I got a promotion, I could sell my house through the transfer program, the relocation program. And so I said, okay, you know, I'm going to see if there's any jobs at headquarters. And then I'll get a promotion at headquarters. And then I did, and that's when I got my job. And then, sure enough, you know, the reload company buys my house and I'm able to get out from under. So it wasn't like inspired through a book by Colin Powell or anything like that or George Washington.

It was like, I was broke and I did not sell this house. And so, but when I become in a leadership role, when I was at SOD, I didn't really manage people. I was more part of Special Operations Division kind of helping manage investigations that were nationwide. but I really liked when I became a supervisor, I liked working with the teams. I like being part of that and that's when I stayed on, but kind of the trajectory into like leadership roles in the FBI, but it really was more than trying to get from under from a low one. Yeah, not a very glamorous story, like you said,

not inspired by a JFK speech, but it's still a reason. Got you still more. Yeah, exactly. No, it's a hell of a motivator when something like that happens. Could you tell a little bit more about what SOD was? Because I've heard of them before, but I don't really know too much myself. You know, a lot of people don't talk about it. In fact, I don't know how much I can say about it.

I will just say it's a multi-agency organization. DEA runs it. They bring in partner agencies. And they're focused on helping to coordinate large-scale investigations that are across the country, you know. I mean, the types of investigations they're coordinating, you know, have subjects that are in all, like maybe 10 different states. And so what we call, we call herself staff coordinators,

and we basically, you know, helped provide resources, financial resources to these major operations. These are like huge drug trafficking things? They're all drug trafficking cases, big drug trafficking cases. And yeah, and so what I would do is I would support certain offices. My region was the Texas area, and so whether it was San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, El Paso, and I would work with the case agents of those big cases and help them any way I could, you know, with resources and things like that.

But yeah, that was a lot of fun. Again, I had worked with DEA my whole career, so it was kind of neat being able to work with them there. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, kind of like around this time frame, 9-11 happens. Yeah. If you tell us a little bit about where you were and what your job was, you know, and leading into the next thing you got pulled into. Well, so 9-11, the actual date of 9-11, I was in Puerto Rico. I was there doing a training. I was part of DEA's SOD, but I was supporting, I was in a training team going to San Juan.

And I remember the secretary kind of telling me like, hey, there's a plane flew into the World Trade Center. And I went over to the TV and I saw kind of what, you know, what's now where everybody knows, you know, the first tower. And then the second tower hits. And it's like, because we thought like somebody just accidentally took a small plane, you know, we don't know what's going on. The special agent in charge of the San Juan office basically designates us, this team of people from headquarters, like we're part of the San Juan Field office at this point. And so all hands on deck. And we wanted to get back home because, you know, like my wife and kids, you know, I was

worried because, I mean, I didn't know exactly what was going on, but I did know that our house, we lived over near Oakden, where the planes would fly over. our house all the time, you know, and I'm thinking, you know, if they shoot that plane down, like all this stuff's going through head, you don't know. But we, we, there was no flights leaving, and one of the most eerie things I remember was when the first United Airlines flight that left San Juan to go back to Dulles, they let us get on that plane. And so we, you know, blue lighted it all away to the airport and the agents that were on our training team got on that first United Airlines flight back to San Juan. And it was, I'm sorry, back to,

Dulles. The flight attendants on that plane were friends of the many of the flight attendants that passed away because one of the flights originated from Dulles. And so they were going back home and they would come up to us crying, just thanking us for being there. They were very scared, you know, like, as you would imagine. And then when we get to Dulles and we land, I don't know if you've been to Dulles here, I'm sure you have. There was nobody. It was completely empty. It was the most eerie feeling. And the next day, we all were to report to headquarters to the SIOC, which was a, think of it's like a big command post there in the building. And there was a line of people, to SIOC, the entrance of Sioxx.

Syok is designed to be a command post where, you know, you have a large-scale investigation to be coordinated. And one hijacking would have had that place going crazy. I mean, just filled to the top, right? There were four hijackings here. And so I remember lining up, we were all lined up, and then I got to the front of the room, and I said, Eric Viles, you know, SOD, criminal division, and he says, okay, it was pretty chaotic.

He goes, go to room E2. I forget what the name of the room was, and he's like, I said, okay, so I walk right through the center of Syok, and it is like controlled chaos, is probably the way to describe it. Just like every, there's a lot of movement. Everybody's just talking.

And I find room, E2, and there's another guy sitting at the table. And I go, Eric Vles, like, they told me to come here. And he goes, okay, you see that box, all those boxes along the wall. There was a lot of boxes up along the wall. And I go, yeah, he goes, well, those are all letters that people have written to Director Mueller. You need to open them, read them, and see if there's anything of value, tip value in them. You know, somebody could have written and said, you know, hey, my neighbor or whatever.

So I start to open letter by letter. And the one of the most interesting things is like the most patriotic letters you'd ever read. Like there were people, I remember one was like, you know, dear Mr. Director, they all started like that. It's like, you know, I'm a former Marine. I still were size 32, put me in. You know, you don't have to pay me. Everybody was coming together. Everybody wanted to be part of this.

And I always wondered like whatever happened to all those letters because I thought, like, it would be great to kind of put. a book together called Dear Mr. Director and kind of show because I think like the further we get away from that, I mean there's people that are now police officers and government and law enforcement and serving the country that weren't even alive when that happened. Oh yeah. But the further we get away, it's easy to forget like how we came together as a country and how we united. You know, I remember how hard it was to buy an American flag because they were all out of stock.

They were all over the bridges. The American flags everywhere. It was crazy because like I'd come into the sock and I worked at night shift and there would be like boxes of skittles or boxes of Frito-A potato chips or something that people were you know donating so that we because we were working around the clock non-stop how it's crazy how we all came together and But yeah that was that changes because now I go from I get an assignment right around then I get assigned to the LA where I'm working the drug squad a supervisor in Santa Ana and Orange County, but that doesn't last very long. I become a JTTF, a Joint Terrorism Task Force Supervisors. My career transitions from criminal work to national security work. Before we get into that, not long after 9-11, I guess, in 2002, there's a kidnapping case. Yes.

Tell us a little bit about your involvement in that, how that came about. Yeah, that's one of the hardest cases I ever was involved in. I mean, when you work in these RAs, these resident agencies, smaller offices, you tend to work a lot of different types of cases. Even though you may be assigned to one squad that, like my squad that worked drugs, or then became a terrorism task force, if the violent crime squad that had kidnappings, if there was ever a child kidnapping, it was all hands on deck for that. We all worked it. And this was a case that involved a little girl, I think she was six years old, named Samantha Runyon. A lot of your listeners and viewers may remember that, especially people from that area, a little girl that got kidnapped right from her front porch.

And my job was, okay, Eric, you head over to the command post, which was over by Orange County Sheriff's, that set up something near where the little girl lived. And I never wanted to work crimes against children cases. At the time, my daughter was six years old, looked a lot like her, you know. And I mean, God bless all those agents and officers and law enforcement that work those cases. But it's hard to kind of see that kind of stuff. And so my job was, I was, we had, we were going to interview every single person that lived anywhere near that place.

Like, we said hundreds of agents that had been deployed from Los Angeles down to Orange County. And I was keeping track of, okay, you hit this apartment complex, you this apartment complex. I see this apartment office and we're tracking all the leads. So I didn't have to kind of look at any of the images or anything like this. But I remember I was sitting there and there was a guy from behavioral analysis unit from Quantico had come in. And he asked me, he says like, he says, do you think this was post-mortem? And he shows me the picture of her. Messed me up.

That messed me up. Like, I remember how hard that was, you know, because of my daughter. And I remember that, that affecting me in ways I never thought it would affect me. Even as much, and I talk about mental health a lot because a lot of folks are like, especially guys like, you know, I'm not, I can, I can tough it up. But that, that messed me up. And I definitely had to need to get some help and to talk through that because it was tough. It was tough to see that.

That's what messes up, you know, what, and I mean, it's perfectly natural, bothers a lot of guys, a lot of the soldiers we have on here, people who have PTSD. A lot of it is from kids on the battlefield. It's from exactly that. It's hard because, I mean, sometimes, you know, you think, you know, like, I don't want to seek any help or talk to anybody about it, and you internalize it.

Eventually, it's going to come out. You're going to deal with it some way, you know, whether it's through addictions or through some sort of thing. You're going to have a, it's going to be hard for you. And it caught up to me later in life. you know because I held all that stuff in so I do a lot around that area like helping people in that area you know just to talk about PTSD and things like that and cheer my story with them you know helps to open up did you guys run that killer down oh yeah yeah he got the death sentence

um yeah it's tragic you mean tragic Jesus Christ tragic well but I mean like you said I mean thank God that, you know, well, you were one of them, but all these guys who work cases like that. Oh, my God. As you point out, it takes a real toll on the cops. I mean, I remember years ago I went to a conference for police officers and prosecutors who work counterhuman trafficking cases. Yeah. I remember talking to one of the police officers, and he said something that was like so banal, but so striking when you picture his life. Yeah.

He was there at this conference down in Tampa, and he's like, you know, I was just standing out on the beach today, looking out over the ocean. And I thought, damn, it feels good to not have to look at kiddie porn today. It's like, imagine what that guy's life is like and what he's going through. And, I mean, pour one out for these dudes in women who do that job. They're really important people. Yeah, especially the women. A lot of the agents, we're female agents that work those cases. and, you know, they have kids of their own.

They have families of their own. And yet, you know, they were much stronger than me, you know. But, yeah. So that was the only time I really had to work anything like that. Terrorism kept me busy. And so you were a drug supervisor out in the L.A. office. And then that transferred over into the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the JTTF. From folks out there who don't understand that, can you explain what the JTTF is, why that was created?

So it was created post 9-11 in order to form task forces in which you could bring in your state local partners, other federal agencies. They all have their specialties and they all have different things they bring to the fight. And so the JTTF is basically that. And each office had a JTTF and some have multiple JTTFs task forces. And L.A. being as big as it was, they had started one in Orange County. you know, obviously the population of Orange County, and there was a lot going on, and it was done in conjunction with the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

And I remember my boss calling me in and telling me one day, like, hey, listen, starting Monday, you're no longer, your squad is no longer going to be a drug squad. Your squad is going to be a terrorism squad. Wow. And I was like, terrorism, you know, I was like, I don't have work terrorism. It's like, and, and, um, And he says, well, you know how to work task forces.

And that was the difference. Like, because what happens after 9-11, everybody, like, not everybody, but a lot of people transition from criminal work into counterterrorism work. And one of the things that happened because of that is the way we worked criminal cases. We worked always with partners. So, you know, I was first thing I was saying, but who's our CIA person? Who's our partners? Bring them in.

Like, let's leverage everybody's next. expertise because that's how we did it on the criminal side. And so that whole JTTF concept was all around that, and it was a lot of the criminal guys that came in that brought that love, that type of work experience to the table. So to me, it was more about learning kind of the different rules of national security and the guidelines that govern how you do national security investigations versus how you do criminal investigations instead of learn. I want to talk a little bit about like also since we're going down this road in this topic,

the differences between the two because in a counterterrorism investigation, I imagine you guys were doing a lot of surveillance, a lot of watching, when a lot of FBI guys want to make arrests. They want to work those cases and put someone in handcuffs, right? Yeah, it's funny because, you know, don't get me wrong, like an FBI agent is going to do whatever they need you to do. Like if you're signed to work, counterintel, counterterrorism, cyber, whatever, you're doing it. Most of us, I guess I'll say that, at least when I was coming, wanted to catch a bad guy. Right, catch bank robbers.

Bank robbers, like the FBI agents, put the cuffs on the bad guys, put them in jail. There's this kind of instant gratification you get from your work. You know, you're like, and so you're working fugitives and you're doing a lot of that kind of stuff. And even going to case into trial and learning what it's like to go to court. And then you work some of these counterterrorism, these national security cases, and they don't always provide that kind of instant gratification. You're working long-term. A lot of stuff that you're doing is in support of other agencies and things like that. And so it became a bit of a challenge to try to kind of recruit people from the criminal squads to kind of come and fill the JTTF or the terrorism squads.

But, you know, like I said, you've got to do what you've got to do. But yeah, there's a difference. working those kind of cases. You spent some time out there in L.A. working both drugs and terrorism. Yeah. Could you describe like, what's the, from an FBI agent's perspective, what's the criminality scene like

around Los Angeles? I mean, I imagine it's like, it's literally an underworld unto itself, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. Those offices, in New York, L.A., Washington field offices, big office, Chicago, Miami. There's a lot, a lot of work. I think when I started,

in LA, we must have had, I think we had about at least 12, maybe 14 drug squads, like squads of agents that work drug cases throughout our territory. And so you could focus either like on your AOR, you know, sometimes you focus on a particular organization, but yeah, when it came to crime, I mean, and I like that, you know, I kind of like, working in offices where you're busy. Yeah, you're busy. I remember when I got Macal in Texas, when you're in Quantico, there's this whole process in week number eight after you pass your second legal exam. At that point, they figure, okay, it's guys going to make it. You know, you think you're taking your second PT exam and your second legal exam. And so they're, I guess, you know,

is you're comfortable enough now to give you your orders, you know? So there's this whole kind of ceremonial thing where at the end of the day, it's usually a Friday, there's a big board of the U.S. down at the bottom, and you're all sitting like in this kind of stadium-style seating in the classrooms, and our class counselor or whatever would pull an envelope out of a fishbowl kind of thing, and then he'd read the name on the front, and then when they'd call your name, you'd come down, and you'd open your letter and you'd tell your class where you're going, you know and you know Veles I'm usually last but in this case the fish bowl thing you know I think I was like a third or fourth person you know

I remember what somebody got like I don't know Colorado Springs or something like that I go wow that's nice you know and I had you know now I think you're allowed to list them all you can all 56 offices you can put like number one to 56 back when I went through you could pick three offices that you want to go to I wanted to go back to Puerto Rico but they wouldn't let agents go back to Puerto Rico at that time, first office agents, you know. I don't know, just figured, you know, I'm an agent, why can I go back? But anyway, so I picked Miami, Atlanta, and Charlotte. Like, I figured if I could get there, I can get, like, a quick flight to.

And so when I opened my letter, it's like, you've been assigned to the San Antonio Division, McAllen Resident Agency. and like people are like oh you know you're gonna hate it blah blah blah well you had to pin you had to go up and put a pin on the map wow this is really elaborate yeah yeah you go and you put a little pin on the map and i remember looking at the map and i go okay here's texas like i had never lived anywhere like near texas but i was like okay here's texas and here's san antonio somewhere in the middle in this area so i'm looking at that okay so mccallin i don't see anywhere and they're like lower lower and I'm like lower and I'm like lower like I got all the way to the bottom and it was like

I was in Mexico I think I went to Mexico and I kind of went back up and it was like boom and I pinned it there and I was like wow like because you know some people were laughing you know I don't know then I it was funny because there's another poor Rican guy who's like a brother to me named Eric he named Eric as well and he was in my class and he says oh man you're screwed I go So, hey, it can't be that bad, you know? It's like, and so he goes to get his letter and he opens up San Antonio Division Macallan already. And so we both got Macallan.

The best thing that ever happened. I freaking love Macallan, Texas. And it's like the cases that we worked and all there are other people that got these little officers in these Colorado Springs, nothing against them. But like, you know, hey, they were like, hey, can you help us on this case? There's five pounds coming up on a controlled delivery. Five pounds. Like, no, like 10,000 pounds maybe.

You know, that's the kind of stuff we were working. So being assigned to offices like L.A., you know, Macal and Texas, those were blessings for me. I got to work great cases, you know. And one of those cases you mentioned to me was the JIS case. Yeah. The JIS case was a terrorism case. That was after I got, right after I get the JTTF job in L.A. shortly

you know this is 2002 I think so think about it so it's not far removed from 9-11 we're handling thousands and thousands of leads you know everything is run down everything no matter how crazy it

sounds somebody in a crystal ball saw something in L.A. Who is it? Let's go figure out who it's and it was non-stop and so most of them as you would imagine all wash out you know you look out suspicious but nothing And I remember one time, in this case, J.S. case is probably one of the most significant terrorism cases in the country that's ever been worked in the U.S., and yet not a lot of people know about it. I had never heard of it until you told me about it.

And it's because it's anchored by two huge events that occur in this two-week period of time where we're working this case, two major events, which I'll tell you, happen. I remember getting the call. My boss at the time, really good guy, Randy Parsons, he calls me, and I'm having dinner at the time with my wife. and some friends who flew in from San Antonio. And he says, here, can you step out? And he goes, hey, this is a for real. I could tell by the tone of his voice that something was different about this particular case. And this case involved the Torrance Police Department.

Some people may recognize it now when I get into it. The Torrance Police Department had been tracking down some crips that were some guys that were robinson, gas stations and during one of the gas station robberies the guy drops the cell phone the cell phone leads them to an apartment complex and the apartment they find all sorts of stuff al-Qaeda literature a manual called the JIS manual that talks about how they you know and it was a it was a radicalized person up in Folsom prison that had radicalized these guys or this particular guy while he was in prison and then when he got out of prison he went on to build this organization and to conduct

this terrorist attack. And so these guys were originally just a street gang. Yeah. And then in prison, one of them was radicalized with Islamic extremism. Yeah. So right, there was somebody in Folsom prison that was that was radicalizing people that didn't have life sentences that were going to come back out. And so this particular guy, he was coming back out and so he had a mission and it was all described

what he was going to do, how he was going to recruit people, how he was going to conduct the terrorist, how he was going to find his target, how he was going to conduct the attacks, and it was all written down. It was like, wait a minute. So they pick up the guys. Obviously, they pick them up, and both of these guys are now, they are in custody at Torrance, police department. So I go from Orange County up to Torrance, and I remember getting to the command post. I don't know what time it is. It's in the middle of the night. And there's a bunch of stuff, and we're kind of, Like we're really starting to dig into this thing. And we're interviewing the two people in custody.

They're being interviewed at the time. And I remember sitting there and I look up at the screen and there's this on the TV screen, it's like, you know, breaking news. And there's this red bus in London that's got the top blown off of it. So that's the day of the London attacks is the day that we are at the command post. So as you can imagine, the whole focus is on that. The Bureau is focused on that. Like everybody's doing everything they can to ensure that there's nothing else that's going to, you know, what else can we do to help that case?

So we're just plugging away. One of these guys says that there's 12 other members out there. There's 12 members that we said, what? Okay, so we had two and there's 12 unknowns. And they would give us a first name. They would give us like one guy wasn't talking at all who was radicalized by the first guy. The other guy was doing, he was talking, he was talking about these 12 people. And coincidentally, the next morning we had a JTTF executive board meeting.

This is where we brought the leadership of all the different organizations. And so I got in front of them all. And I said, hey, here's what's happening. And so every single person in that room, we divvied out kind of, you know. So L.A. Sheriff had surveillance. LAPD did these particular leads. DEA was helping. NCIS was help.

Everybody was helping. And we divvied out all the work. and we were tracking down these 12 people. We tracked all 12 of them down within a couple of days. Wow. All of them. I mean, because, like, DEA and LAPD had a task force where they knew that city very, very well.

And so they were able to, like, hit their sources and going. But ultimately, we ended up taking down that organization with this too. So the first event is the London bombings. The day that Chief Bratton is up on the podium and he's announcing the indictments and the arrest of this organization who were targeting Jewish LL Air Force, L-A-X, the L-L-L counter and synagogue and some other targets, they, they, he announces this. And on the screen, you see Bratton, and then on the bottom of the screen, you see this big, huge hurricane, and that's the day Katrina hits. So Katrina's hitting as we're taking down the group. So now the whole focus is on Katrina, as you can imagine. So a lot of people don't even know that one of the biggest kind of cases of potential terrorist attack that was thwarted and that was worked in this, you know, how we all came together is kind of forgotten.

But it was, I mean, I slept on the couch up in L.A. like we, whatever sleep you can get. Everybody was working around the clock for two weeks. It was fascinating to see how we all came together. Yeah, I mean, it's also interesting that, you know, given the time frame, that these guys, they want to go after the Israeli National Airlines. Yeah. It seems like there are so many, I mean, if they're Al-Qaeda. Yeah. And Bin Laden's big thing was, you know, attack America.

It's weird that they, instead of attacking America somewhere, they went straight towards the Jewish community. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It had something to do with kind of their radicalized philosophy. The guy that was up in Folsom, you know, he, his views, he was very, you know, anti-Israel, and, you know, that's why they selected those targets. And it was, you know, it was, you know, it was, you know, it was, you know, like, who were these folks? You know, when we, when we found these 12 people, they had been approached by this guy. Like, they said, oh, yeah, you know, he came up to me, wanted me part of this group, he gave me a manual.

They have a JIS manual, and I read it, and I thought, like, I'm not doing this guy. What the hell was JIS, by the way? It's, it's, you're going to catch me here. It's like, Jamal is something that was-Jama Islamia? But not Jama Islamia. It was, it was an acronym of the leader in Folsom had called this organization. So it was something he created. He came up with the name and it was three words, J-I, and we just used that as the initials of it.

But it was not Jamala, it was a separate organization. And so when you rolled up these 12 guys, I mean, How did you find them? I mean, like a guy living with his mom, guy. I mean, what's the... Yeah, we had little... We had little small leads. He frequents this place, like this...

And he's best friends with a guy in a wheelchair. I mean, stuff like that. And we're like, okay. And his name is, you know, whatever, like Tom or something like that, you know. And so, yeah, just good old-fashioned police work, you know, they go. Wow. You know, a guy, some guy in... the wheelchair, blah, blah, bum, and then you know, one by one, everybody, you know, would.

And how did the prosecution go? It went extremely well. Yeah, I think we never went to trial. I mean, they all played out, you know. Okay. And they all got their sentences. But that's the other thing. They weren't screwing around at that.

No, no, no. These were like material support cases. These are like major counterterrorism charges. They all played out. And they got their sentence. That's another reason a lot of people don't know about it because it never went to trials. It didn't get the publicity. But it's a fascinating case, like how that thing developed.

And it shows, you know, just how when we come together as partners. There was never at any time, I mean, I understand that this guy had like Al-Qaeda literature and admired that, had aspirations. But there was no overseas nexus for this particular group? No. That's really interesting. Yeah. There was, yeah. There wasn't an overseas connection for the group, other than the fact that the guy was inspired by some of the folks.

But never, was there any direct contact with somebody? So as you go through this period of time, I mean, we get to about 2008. You're in, oh, well, first let's talk about a terror screening center. Yeah. Yeah. So that's my first job in the senior executive service ranks, the SES ranks. And I was a deputy director there. They recently stood up, and that's the center, you know, the multi-agency center, again,

that handles kind of watchlisting and the whole terrace, you know, that terrorist watch list. I imagine that was a huge headache. That was, it was really busy, you know. And again, it was, we were just standing it up, so we were building all the different protocols. But yeah, again, it's another multi-agency environment. I'm very comfortable in that space. Great people. And I did that for only a year.

I mean, I was there for about a year when I got word about this position in Los Angeles as the head of intelligence for the special agent in charge of the intelligence branch in Los Angeles. And, you know, I was asked if that would be something I was interested in. And I love LA, so I was like, I'll go back to LA. But I was like, I don't know anything about this intelligence stuff. You know, this is kind of after the 9-11 Commission and the Terrorism Reform Act that establishes, you know, the national security branch of the FBI and all this other stuff.

And so I was the first special agent in charge of intelligence in the field. Was that folded under like the Patriot Act? Or was a separate bill? Yeah, it's a it was the Terrorism Prevention Act 2004. Okay, after. Yeah, after, after. But it establishes the role of the executive assistant director of the FBI's intelligence branch. And it sets up the mandate of the FBI's mission to embrace the criminal work that we do,

but also accept our role as part of the intelligence community and how we operate in the domestic environment, and the different regulations and guidelines that guide all of that, but how we work with our partner agencies domestically. And so when I got that job, I knew nothing about intelligence, as you would think of it from the I see, the intelligence community aspect. I mean, are we talking about running human intelligence networks? Human intelligence. I mean, the Bureau is a humint is kind of bread and butter. It's, you know, obviously, through court orders and authorizations we can do, we can collect different ways. But humant is a huge part of it. You know, that's what we do as agents. I remember somebody once said, like, and it's really interesting, like, our role as agents is, you know, how we, how we communicate and we're able to get information from, you know, through building relationships and different things that we do. So it's, it's,

It's interesting because when we move out kind of into this world of this kind of transformation that occurs, even the idea of transforming the FBI left some people with a little bit of a bitter feeling of, because, you know, I mean, I worked the FBI 33 years total. I was just a kid when I started. I loved that organization. And the men and women of the FBI, I mean, I wish everybody could see the dedication of these folks have. I mean, they're regular human beings. They're regular Americans.

And they wake up every day. You know, I just love that organization. And so when you talk about the special agent rank, the 1811 rank, and now you're telling them that, you know, we're transforming. You know, they're like, wait a minute. And so I think when my role, one of the things, because I kind of got tagged as kind like the intel guy, you know, I didn't start off. I told you about my career.

I was like, I started off working drugs, violent crime, stuff like that. But when I got to the intelligence branch and that, that's, that's, you know, that's, side of the house, I think the first thing that I was hit by was the fact that there was a translation problem. There was, like, anytime you're going to transform an organization, a big organization, such as like the FBI or any organization, it's commitment versus compliance. That's a huge thing for me. If you try to transform an organization through compliance, it's going to fail because they're

going to do things as long as you're watching them and you're like, on the other hand, if you spend the time talking to them, letting them understand so that they're committed to it as much as you are. They believe in it as much. Then they'll do it when you're not looking because they feel it's important. That's what they want to do. And I just felt like at that time, we were very compliance driven. Everybody knew they had to do X, Y, and Z, and they had to produce this and that. But nobody, even though we tried, it just had not been enough.

And so my, I said, I'm going to go out to every field office and I'm going to talk to every agent, ever. And I'm going to explain, like, what it is that we're doing and showing them that what we're talking about is stuff that we have done our entire life. When I told you the story about Juanito, and I would use that story to explain to them, like, I had requirements, intel requirements. Where do they cross their dope? Who, you know, who are they sending money to? Those are my requirements. So I would develop sources and I would specifically go to collect that information. All we were telling them now is that you have to understand, like, when you're working your cases and you have certain authorities that you can operate under, that allows you to kind of ask other questions that maybe our partners might be interested in.

That's all we're asking. We're not asking you to stop doing this great work. And so by explaining to them and them realizing, you know, there's almost a lot of, you know, there's almost a lot of, you know, like, well, why did you just say that in the first place? You know, like... So if I'm hearing you correctly, you're saying that the FBI Directorate of Intelligence was like a clearinghouse of information, that everything would come into you guys and you disseminate it where it needs to go?

Not necessarily. The Director of Intelligence was basically... It's a director that basically governed the way that we developed our analytic workforce, so it had oversight of workforce planning development. formalized a lot of those things. Yeah, but we were, yeah, we formalized a lot of that, you know, training, budgets. I mean, it's a headquarters entity. But our field offices are set up so that their, each office has its intelligence division

within the field offices, you know, they call them squads, branches. And so we have that throughout the, and all the, the, the, the, I just established policies and governance over that, and that's kind of, that's the difference. So I did it in the field from a field perspective, but also went back to headquarters and ran the program from the national level as well. So, I mean, during that time, I mean, you say what kind of stuff you were working on, were these like counterterrorism investigations, drug cases? When I was in the D.I. Or like when I was like... When you were working in FBI intelligence?

Yeah, so, no, from the D.I's perspective, we weren't involved in investigations. I mean, the Be Reels divided up. Okay, you were like... We had our own, you know, and, yeah, so we didn't work cases like that. I mean, we worked with our partner agencies. We, like I said, a lot of what you do at headquarters is setting up national policies and guidance and budgets and things like that. But, yeah, my other partner ADs and executive assistant directors that had those responsibilities, you know, work the criminal counter-chairs and cases. And this is about the time that they ask you to be an assistant director?

Yeah, so I get asked to come back to headquarters. I was in L.A. as a special agent in charge. I'm asked to come back to headquarters to be the acting deputy assistant director of the D.I. So there's an assistant director that runs the director of intelligence. At the time, there were three deputy assistant directors. And I'm asked, can you come back for a couple of weeks? I remember my boss in L.A. saying, like, you know you're never coming back. I go, no, they just need me for two weeks.

It turned to be seven years. He was right. I never came back. And I ended up in headquarters because they moved me into that role as a deputy assistant director. And then I got promoted to be the assistant director when director Mueller was there. And then I became the executive assistant director

when director Comey was there. Do you want to tell the story about director Mueller when you almost got yourself fired? Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, you know, I worked for all three directors, and, you know, they all have their different styles. And I enjoyed working for all three of them. Director Mueller, he was, you know, I loved his style because, like, you knew, you knew if you messed up, you knew you messed up.

Like, he would, you, you just knew it. And I liked his former Marine style and, you know, he, you, you, But he was intimidating, I will say that. And every morning we would brief him every morning. And before we brief him, we'd have like four pre-briefs. So they start like $5.50 in the morning. They're briefing me. Then we go to the next person. We kind of go up the chain until we end up in Director Mueller's conference room for the morning briefs.

And you have to be prepared. So like the one thing you don't want to do, don't try to bullshit them. If you're not prepared, he's going to know it. You just prepare yourself, and that's important, right? So every morning I got prepared, and we get there super. So one thing you also knew is like, don't be late. So you can imagine right before his brief, we're lined up, ready to go, all the people that are going to be in the brief, there's all the different assistant

directors, we're lined up in the hallway, and they're waiting for his secretary to say, you can come in now. Then we'd all pile into the conference room, and then his office is in the back, and then he comes in at the time, and he sits at the main chair, and you know the brief goes on the brief starts on and you got to know because he asks very he's detailed questions and so you and so every time you survive one of those things you're like okay you know so I had another live another day and made it through that brief but I remember one time I was supposed to brief him on something that was not a morning brief and it's you know it was

a brief that I was working a special project it was called the director's one of his priority initiatives and I was the briefer okay and so you know director Mueller would sit in the main chair there would be conference room over here to the side here to his right is the deputy director and then right here to the left is that first chair that's where the briefer sits okay and that was my chair and then around the table there are all the other executives and so the meeting was supposed to be at 10 o'clock in the morning I'll make up some of these times just because I don't remember exactly at times but it was 10 o'clock in the morning I'd say and I remember getting there I at 945.

Now, I had prepared this. I probably didn't slap. I mean, I was just focused, because I'm in a brief director, Mueller. And so I get to the secretary, and I just want to let her know that I'm 15 minutes early, but I'll be out here in case she needs me. And before I get even open my mouth to say, like, I'm early, she was like, where have you been? And I go, I was in my office.

I'm just, I'm here early. She goes, this meeting started at 9.30. So it's 15 minutes already. into it. And she had sent an email to my secretary to tell me about the time change, which obviously I didn't even know. And so I see the door and I have finally go like, oh, my God, because I have to open the door. And I could just, I know there's going to be a conference room table. There's going to be a bunch of executives. And there's going to be Director Mueller looking right at me. And I almost didn't want to go in. But I figured this point I'm fired, you know,

okay, my career's over. So I just opened. open the door and it was like, you know, in those movies where like jukebox stopped and everybody just like looks. And here I come walking what seems to be like a mile to get to my little chair right in the front there. And it's interesting because around the room there was almost like this sense of, oh, this is going to be good. Eric's in trouble. This is going to be good. He's going to get flayed right here. And so I get up to the front chair. There's, you know, this case, Here I am. Director Mueller is right here. And as I'm kind of starting to pass out papers, you know, which is, like I said, the guy,

the guy that was sitting on my side, he knew about the project. He already kicked it off. So they already started. He was winging it. So as I'm doing this, he says, Director of Motto says something to me, but I can't, I can't hear him. I don't hear him. I'm like, at this point I'm thinking, like, what's going to happen to me? And so at the time, the general counsel, she.

He says, I don't think he heard you. And then he said, did you hear what I said? And I said, no, sir, I didn't hear you. And he says, I said, you're going to like Anchorage this time of the year. And I said, you do know I'm Puerto Rican, right? And it was, and I would have never said something like that to him. But at this point, you know, I'm fired, right? And I wasn't being disrespectful.

It was just what came out. And he started laughing. like a belly laugh. Like he was really, he thought that was just so funny. And it kind of calmed me down. You know, I was able to get through my brief. Actually, the best brief I ever done, because, you know, I didn't think I had a job after that.

I figured, you know, whatever. I'm going back to work cases, you know, and nailed the brief. And then as I was getting up, he says, hey, just want to let you know it's okay. Stuff like that happens, you know. And he just made me feel real good about it. And it just, like I admired that about him, that, you know, he, he was tough you know he had to be tough yeah um but he also you know he was he was a good guy too you know but that was that was the scariest time that was the scariest thing that ever happened

to me but um i don't know if he remembers that but i remember it um before we're moving on any any other interesting things about you know your time as the assistant director the first time that you want to mention um i'm not really i mean like i said it was It was a time of change and I take a lot of pride and kind of been able to be part of that, you know, try to make sure that we do everything to keep our country safe. But no, I mean, it's, I enjoyed the people I had to rob me, great people. It was a good time. And after that, you left the Bureau and took a job doing security for Disney.

Yes, the Walt Disney Company. Yeah. That was 2016. You know, when you're an agent, any 1811 kind of designation like you can retire at 50 then you're we we were mandatory retire at 57 and so anywhere between that time people are usually leaving and so I was just about to turn 50 and this is 2016 and I'd gotten the job at Disney as head of security for their parks and resorts segment so so I left the bureau on a Friday and I started in Burbank on a month

day. So I went right into that, you know. And I had a huge span of control. So basically anything that was a theme park, a ship, a store, or a hotel resort around the world fell under my, my role as the vice president for that segment. And it was, I tell you, I tell you, man, that's a hard job. because Disney is, I mean, one, they have an incredible security program, you know, because security is foremost, you know, keeping all the guests and cast members safe. But there's like a saying, like, the sun never sets on a Disney park because, like, I would fall asleep, if you call it that.

And then I'd wake up in the morning and I'd just dread looking at my phone because while I was sleeping, Paris was up and running, you know. You know, Orlando and Disneyland and Anaheim, they're, there, but Paris is up and and I look at my phone and it was like almost every day there's it's it's one of these things because the Disney brand attracts a lot of attention from the media sure so you know I was almost like I'm the vice president of de-escalation like I have to like okay try to keep things crisis man yeah from because like for example in Paris you know that there's a you know

there's a train station and Chessie that actually it's a public train station that when you come out of the train station there's there's I mean, I don't know. It's like maybe half a football field from the train station to the gates of the Disney, you know, where you come in. And so people will be coming. They have suitcases with them because they're traveling maybe through up to Germany or something on this train. And then they can't bring their suitcases in so they'll maybe they'll hide it, you know, behind a tree or something like that. And so now you have a suspicious package there.

You've got to run the dogs. You got to. And then if the media picked up on it, it'd be the big story, you know, Disneyland Parish shut down for possible this. and it was these little things like this that could turn into like and so now you're on calls and you've got executives in different parks and you're trying to and I did that for almost four years and it takes it takes a toll I mean that's that's I mean if you think about it we were dealing with Super Bowl level of attendance crowds every day in six of these parks around the world. like every day. Screening, I think there was like 150 million people we'd screen a year coming in through bag check and everything. And so you could just imagine what it's like just because...

And so I could only do that for so long. I did it for almost four years and then I just felt like it was time for me. Were there any like big active threats that had to be mitigated during that time frame? I mean, nothing like you would think of that sense. But like Disney, it's iconic. and it attracted a lot of attention. So it wasn't uncommon that you would see somebody, you know, that would say something or write something and mention Disney, you know.

And then we would take that extremely seriously. Like, what is it all about? So we work with our partners to understand what that threat was. But most of the times it was just the brand that attracted a lot of attention. Right. And I imagine, you know, security encompasses a lot of things, not just terrorism, but like husband beats up his wife in a hotel or something you know something oh yeah everything everything from you know just the crowd control like you know um you know when we

opened the park in Shanghai for example you know it's it you know you would sometimes you would had you know guests who didn't understand like you know for example like you get off a ride you know Pirates of the Caribbean for example you know rides over what do you do everyone else you get up, you walk over here on this side and you exit and next row comes in, you know. But like sometimes they wouldn't get up because they want to do it again. You know, it's like, well, you can't do it again. You know, little things like this and that would cause scuffles. Cultural differences.

Cultural things between them and the cast members and then little things like that, you know. But, you know, there could be just think of, they're like mini cities that are going on. And like I was like chief of police. It's so funny you mentioned that because it's like I'm having flashbacks to when I went to. to it was a theme park. I probably shouldn't even tell this story. But I just bring it up at a theme park with my daughter and my ex-mother-in-law, who is not American,

and she did exactly that on the ride. Oh, really? We're going to ride it again. Yeah. It caused a big scene. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, in the U.S., you're trained. You know, you just get up, you know.

But you're opening these parks in different parts of the world, and they're new to it. But the time it all takes, it all starts to click. Right, right. But, you know, there's different things, you know, the counterfeiting of products or things like that. It just runs the gamut of what you can imagine. Were there any notable differences from you going from being federal law enforcement to now private sector?

I mean, you're not a cop anymore. You don't have arrest authorities. No. But I imagine you have a huge budget. Yeah, well, you know, interesting. Because it's like I did, when I left Disney, I started a podcast of my own called The Humble servant I don't do it anymore but it was it was really it was meant to help people like it people find it out there if they look for it yeah I'm pretty sure I mean

I think I did like 10 episodes maybe and then and then it was like I think my wife at times said you need to do something that make some money like because I started a couple podcasting racket I didn't have like many followers as you had but and I wasn't making any money I was just kind of like it was cool because I got to you know I'd started my own company at the same time but I my company started in March of 2020, right in the middle of COVID. So, like, nothing was happening. So I'd started this podcast.

And it was designed to help public servants, military, firefighters, law enforcement, whatever, transition from government into private sector roles. And, like, some of the complexities with that, like even how they write their resumes and things they talk about, how they talk about, and stuff like that. And, and it's, you know, when you're in public service, Let's say you're a police officer.

I mean, you have a lot of skills that you're learning that are so transferable, so valuable to the private sector. I mean, think about your ability to connect with others, to de-escalate things, to solve problems quickly. Think on your toe. All your experience with JTTF. I mean, all that, you can transfer it. But sometimes the way we describe what we do

doesn't resonate sometimes with like somebody on HR. So I was helping them kind of help them with that. Probably the biggest thing that you realize is that when I was in the FBI, you know, we were kind of like the whole organization was about national security and we were the focus of what we were doing. When you go into the private sector, you know, these companies are, you know, it's shareholder value, it's they're generating revenue or company, you know, and security isn't the primary mission of the walled. It's an important aspect of it. But it isn't what drives it. So you have to be able to integrate with the operational side and the revenue side to make sure that you're incorporating the security to an extent where you could still be a viable business and you can't manage that. But when you, I went from being the guy in the room who knew the most about something because I was in an environment where I was very comfortable with the Intel and whatever I was doing to being the guy in the room who knew the least about something.

the least about what they're talking about. Like the whole Disney culture and the way that they spoke and everything like that, I had to learn all of that. And that transition is hard. But I will say this, because there is this thing where a lot of corporations that are hiring

corporate chief security officers, they don't want somebody right out of government. They want you to actually have time in the private sector, and then they'll hire you. So it's kind of in a tough situation because how am I going to get that experience? you're not hiring me, right? And so I remember

somebody once, you know, I went through my gauntlet of interviews, because when you go through these jobs, you're like, you're interviewed by everybody, like the OGC to the head of finance. And one of them asked me, like, do you worry about your ability to transition from government into the private sector?

He asked me that question. And I go, you know, actually, and he said to Disney, and I said, actually, I would probably be more worried the other way around. Like, I'm more of the kind of Disney kind of, like, I am okay with, like, you know, working in environments where, you know, you have a lot of different team members and, you know, the culture may be different the way they speak.

I have no issue of transitioning here. I think I'm wired to fit really well in this company. It'd be the other way, if you ask me that, that might be where the challenge would come from. But it is a challenge. I mean, you just, you know, everything's different. You know, the way I brief is different. Like, when you briefed Mueller, like, you know, you get to the point. You know, like, you know, here it is.

It's a very, it's very regimented. Boom, boom, boom, when you're hitting everything. Some of these ones called, like, a military brief, you know, I remember doing a, I'll tell you a Disney story, because it's actually in one of my podcasts, and it kind of got a lot of attention. At the time, I was working for Bob Chepeck, who was my boss,

And then Ron Iden, who also was the chief security office, and I was going to brief Bob Eiger on something. And it was an operation security plan for something at Walt Disney World that we put together, and we were going to brief Bob Eiger. And it's kind of cool. You get to brief Bob Eiger. You know, he's not a hard person to brief. He's a very, very nice guy. But I, you know, I studied for my brief, just like I would with Mueller, or any of them. Comey. or Director Ray, you just want to be prepared. And so when I finished my... I remember sitting in front of Bob Iger's in front of me, Bob Chapag is right to his left,

and Chapagic is like looking at me, like, a lot. And I'm looking at Iger, and Chappakek's like, he's just got his eyes locked on me. And I, after the brief is over, I think I nailed it. Like, I walked around going like, I think my wife, she asked, my wife asked me, like, how to go. I said, I nailed it.

It's the best brief I ever gave, only to find out. that Bob Chappick, he wanted to talk to me to give me some feedback on it. And I said, oh, this is going to be fantastic. He said, how great I did. Oh, it's so great that you learn how to brief. No. He said, for content, you get an A. For delivery, you get a C.

And he goes, you get a C because, like, he had a, he, I appreciate that he took the time. He took, like, 45 minutes to kind of give me this feedback. He says, you know, we're in an entertainment company. We're all about we're storytellers, you know. Your brief was very rigid, you know. It's like, it's very, you know, you need to kind of form it in a way. Tell the story.

And he like, and to me it was almost like, what? You want me to get in there and start like telling a story, like, you know, it's like Cinderella or like, you know, like in other words, he's like, relax. He said the way you dress needs to kind of tone down. Like I was dressed like a government person, you know? Like, I came in very formal, you know, because I had been trained that that's how you look. But no, you know, it's like, so I ended up buying like new clothes. I kind of got a little bit more Disney-esque the way I looked and I peered in the way, because he was giving it.

Is that like pink pinstripes? What's the Disney look? It's just like more like, it's like that more modern executive, you know, no tie. You kind of have a nice sleek look. I know what it is. But it's definitely not the way you dress when you walk it into, you know, the director's conference room. It was great feedback, but

it was things like that, you know, where I'm glad he told me, you know, and I was able to transition and change. The next time I had a briefing, you know, I didn't get up there and start tap dancing, but at least I was much more relaxed, you know. And it makes sense. You've got to tailor it to the audience.

Exactly. Exactly. So that's an example of kind of some of the transition's difficulties. That's a great story. But you said that this job did take a, a toll on you and it's like it was high stress. Oh yeah, very high stress, very high stress. High stress, I didn't have no problem in stress. Like I love two-minute drill work. I love that. Stressful environments kind of get me energized, but when you know your stuff, you know, you know what you're doing because you have years and years of experience versus like you're brand new and everything coming out of your mouth is wrong.

You know, like I would say something and people like, what? Okay, I'm not supposed to say that or I would. do something, be like, what? I'm not supposed to do that. And now you're leading a huge stressful environment. Everybody's focused on you. And you just don't, it takes years to learn this kind of stuff, you know, but so, but, but yeah, I actually like being busy. I like that kind of stuff. And so was it kind of a relief when they asked you to come back to the bureau? Yeah, so, um, I don't know if the relief's the word, because remember by this time, I've already, I've left Disney. I've started my company. which nothing's happening.

It's COVID. And I got my podcast going. I really missed the mission part. Like, I'm a mission person. I come from generations of law enforcement. My father was a cop. His father was a cop. And then we'd have, like, four generations of police of Puerto Rico

throughout my entire, like, family. And serving my country and being part of the FBI, and the greater community of public service, like, that was everything for me. No matter how cool Disney was, but the cool thing with Disney was I felt like I was a public servant too because I was keeping family safe. Right.

You know what I'm saying? I'm keeping people safe. But I longed for, like, the fellowship that comes with being part of something like the FBI. And when I got that call, man, like in three seconds, yep, I'll go back in a heartbeat. and I got to experience what most people probably don't get to experience, to go back into an organization,

and to be able to continue that mission that work was like, I can't even tell you how happy I was. In fact, I probably would still be there if it wasn't for the fact that I, you know, I left to start my new company, which is a tech startup company, to help solve, like, a challenge in technology with public partnerships. Tell us about your second stint at FBI, then, you know, what was this job that they asked you to do?

So it was to become the assistant director, what's called the Office of Private Sector. It's like a, it's a smaller strategic arm of the Bureau that really its focus is to build relationships and partnerships with our private sector partners that are all kind of facing the same challenges we are. You know, now with with the way threats have changed, cyber being a huge focus. Is that a lot of a involve also like corporate counterintelligence? like things that involve national security? Not necessarily.

I mean, it could not necessarily. For example, there's something, there's these two huge national programs of the Bureau, the Domestic Security Alliance Council, DSAC, and these are chief security officers from different companies. And these folks, they have to make security decisions every day to keep their companies safe, you know,

and they rely on any information, threat information that we can provide to them, you know? And so we are providing. information to them so that allows them to be able to execute their mission to keep their company safe. But now, I mean, there's a number out there that's been thrown around the 85% of our critical infrastructures owned by the private sector. So the front lines have kind of shifted, you know.

And there is a huge need for us to incorporate, you know, again, through legal means. Like, you know, we're building relationships and we're sharing information that we can share with them, but we have to go from, I always call like, right now we're partners. We've got to be teammates because the folks that are on the front lines now that are in these companies without the information of like, hey, this is a potential risk in a picture of threat. Our entire critical infrastructure is at risk. And I look at like what happened at 9-11, with 9-11 after the commission report, studies came out, and people started to look at the failures that occurred, information sharing between the federal government and the state and local partners was obvious.

How are the police officers supposed to do their job if the national level we have information that they need? And so you saw this entire movement to bring the police departments and state local bias better integrated with the federal side so that we can have better information here. There's work to be done, but it's a big improvement than it was back 9-11. I am convinced that we're kind of heading down a path that some major cyber attack could occur in which when you start to analyze what happened, if there's information that that person, that CISO or that Chief Security Officer could have had,

that could have done something to kind of help protect it, we didn't get it to them. We're going to be figuring out why. It's going to be things like technology. There was an old policy in place. It couldn't do it stuff. We could either wait till that happens, and then we could all, or we could do something about it now.

And that's kind of what my mission is now, is to do something about it. And technology is a huge challenge, like how we share this information. And that's kind of what I'm building my company to help. That's really interesting, like from a public safety standpoint, but also, I mean, a lot of the things, the conversations we've been having

the last couple of years in regards to China, where it's like, how do we do a public private partnership to protect our information, as you point out, protect our infrastructure. That's going to be a critical issue in the coming years, isn't it? It is. And there are great public-private partnership programs in place. You can put them in all in the OSAC, which is the overseas version of DSAC that State Department runs. DHS has an analytic exchange program that they do. There's FBI's doing a lot in the space.

Police departments, NYPD, their Shield program. doing a lot in that thing. Again, the whole concept of moving from partners to teammates. If you're a teammate, then you need to know, you got to be on the same, you know, same playbook. You got to understand and that's where I think where we have room to improve is in that area. I'm kind of interested in like when we, one of the hold-ups, you know, potentially here, I mean, if it's a pending imminent terror attack, obviously there's responsibility to inform people about that. Yeah. But then what do you do when there's other cases where it's classified information or government proprietary information?

Yeah. How do you share that responsibly with the duty to warn that's always going to be if you have information that can help save lives or can help protect, you're going to get that information to them. There are means to declassify information and to get it to a point in which you can protect and, you know, sources and methods and things like that that have caused it to. to be classified that and get to something that where you could actually get that information. When I was in, there was never a time in which there was a potential risk or threat to somebody that we would sit on that. It was like, nope, we're going to get it to them. We're going to follow whatever rules that we have to follow, but you're going to get that information to them. And so there are ways of doing that, you know. So that's never going to be something that's going to stop us from making sure people are safe.

And how long did you do this job before you retired a second time? My second retirement? So two years. Okay. So, and like I said, I would have stayed another year, two, three. I'd still be there. I mean, I loved it that much. I had the most amazing team of folks.

And, you know, like the Bureau, like any of these organizations, is very generational. Like, in my generation, you know, I mean, I'll be 58 next month. So when I retired in 16, everybody that I worked with has, retired, you know, and then new leadership has kind of come in into place, but there are people who worked for me, maybe a couple different levels, maybe in my organization, who are now leading the organization. So I was able to come back and I was able to meet all the new people. Like, and like, I used to know every special agent in charge by first name across all 56 field offices, like, boom, Bob, Michelle, whoever it was, pick up the phone, talk. And then as I left,

Every year I would know like 90% of them. Then I would know 80% of them. By the time I was out six years before I, between the time I left, the first time I'd passed by. And I probably knew like a handful of them. And everybody else was new. So when I came back as assistant director, now I get to meet all of them. And, you know, I will say this. I mean, the Bureau, you know, it takes a lot of heat.

You see it in the media. And, you know, there's times in which it's deserved. I mean, sometimes, you know, our strongest asset is that, you know, we're humans. And because we're humans and we're regular people, we can do our job. But sometimes the weakest length is that we're humans. We make mistakes and things happen. But I can tell you, like, the people that I work with and the folks in the FBI, I mean, especially around 9-11, Super Bowls, weddings, anniversaries, kids, none of that.

You missed all those things because everybody was focused on keeping people safe. Anytime you saw an event, everybody's laughing and joking, everybody's having a good time, there are hundreds and thousands of people that are working nonstop to make sure that you can do that. And that's the people that I, that's the bureau I saw. So when I was like, you get to come back, of course I'm coming back, you know? It's like, why wouldn't I? But they're just the most amazing people.

And then to being part of a community of public service is like, that's the best thing, best thing ever, you know. Yeah, it sounds like you really enjoyed the camaraderie and the culture. Love it. Love it. And I missed it. I really did miss it. You know, so, hey, they asked me to come back and do it three times. Tell us about what you're doing now.

You're fully into the private sector now. Have a couple different business endeavors and companies that you're running. Tell us about those. Yeah, I really have one company. The first one I started back in 2020, that I think made about five bucks. I don't know how much money I made. That one, that's no longer. Now I have a tech startup company called IntelSec.

The biggest challenge that we had, like I mentioned, was kind of our inability to kind of share information with our partners in a trusted environment. Like we know who you are. And so we built a collaboration platform we called SectorNet. We actually launch it next week. So it's super, you know, exciting. It's scary because I don't have a job, so I'll be couch surfing if this thing doesn't work. But I'm convinced that it really is going to help solve a problem that we have in government right now in this area of public-private partnerships.

And so that's kind of the big thing. Like I said, I feel like I was uniquely positioned because I spent time on the corporate security side. And I saw what its life was like there. And I've spent time on the government side that I've lived both of those worlds. And I've led teams to understand what it is that's keeping us from getting to that level of maturity that we have to get to. And that's kind of my mission. Can you talk at all about what that challenge is that you're trying to solve? Yeah.

So, for example, there's information that the government provides to its private sector partners. and, you know, like little advisories that they'll say, here's some malware that you need to be familiar with. So SISA and organizations are providing this to folks. The Bureau is providing information to corporate security programs about threats, you know, the threats of different things that are merging and so on. And this work is actually happening. The challenge is that the way that the information is being provided to them,

because we're on separate technology platforms, you know, the government has its platforms, The privacy has platforms, and the two of them aren't connected, you know. A lot of times, we get sloppy in how we do it. So we may take something and just put a huge distro list on it and send it out. Well, you don't even know if the person who had it is the same person anymore. Right. And so there's a lot of vulnerabilities, and then each of the different agencies that are doing this kind of create their own way of doing it.

Like, you know, we created a portal, and you've got to log in to this portal and read it. But then if you want this here, you created another portal, and an agency created another port. So here you are in the private sector with 15 different passwords and log in check each of these things every day. It's not standardized. And so I started thinking like, how can we make it so that we could all coexist on one platform and that we could then share and know, so we call it, collaborate with confidence. Because we use authentication protocols to make sure when you're coming in, you are who you say you are. And then when you're in that environment, you can talk and you can share information at a controlled and classified level. level. So it's not secret, top secret information we're talking about. This is information that's

already being shared. Stuff that's been cleared to share. Yes, cleared to share. And we're just centralizing and making it super easy for everybody to be able to access that information. And it's so desperately needed. And I, you know, I'm so excited about getting that out there and creating kind of just a better way of keeping our country safe. And you tell me earlier that the website for it's launching next week. Yeah. If you want to tease it out there for people to go and check out when it comes out. We're going to be on the, um, the Azure Government Cloud side. So it's sectornet.us is going to be the way you log in to our website.

And then to become a member of SectorNet to be, which are these different agencies, whether you're a police department, government agencies, or a private sector person, then there's ways that you could request to become a member of SectorNet and be part of that community. So, yeah, so that'll be a big deal for us. And it's like a traditional tech startup.

It's a small group of people, you know, handpicked, that it worked tirelessly to get this done. But, yeah, super excited. That's awesome. I mean, we covered a lot here, but I mean, is there anything that I missed? Any big career highlights or anything's about transitioning out of federal service?

Anything that you'd like to talk about that I didn't ask? Yeah, no, I think we covered a lot. It's been a lot of fun. I do want to kind of put a plug in for... There's a group called the Green Beret Project. and these are folks, a lot of folks in the soft community that are coming together and helping kind of inner city kids around kind of the Dover, Baltimore area. Wow.

These folks, you know, it's a small team of people and, you know, hopefully I can put a link on this. Yeah, we'll put one in there. To actually get people to see the work that they're doing. because one of the cool things about the Green Beret Project is like they won't just find kids that need help kind of, you know, their environments now. You know, maybe their parents are in prison. They're covered, surrounded by crime. And, you know, here these men and women come and they help these kids.

But they don't just like, hey, come over here. We're going to have this barbecue. They stay with them. And they stay with them throughout the journey of not only just helping them get through this adversity. that they're experiencing in their communities, but get them jobs. And they're putting these kids into, you know, companies and work. There's one kid who's applied to be an FBI agent. You know, it's like unbelievable.

And they're doing it just, you know, with limited funding. They're doing it with limited, you know, resources. That's pretty cool. I've never heard of it before. And like I said, it's perfect for, you know, your audience, you know, which, you know, these folks who, you know, they take them to, they do cool things. I mean, we went on hiking trips, on Whitewater rafting, you know, just giving them a sense of kind of like sometimes filling that gap of you're not alone and we're here to help you.

Yeah, yeah. And it's just an amazing, amazing thing that happens. And I just wanted to put a plug in for that. That's so cool. And I know it isn't the intent of the project, but like I really believe that, you know, special operations. I'll go ahead and put a finger on that. I wish they did a little bit of better job reaching out to some of the inner city kids and telling them about some of these opportunities that exist in the me. I tell you, man.

You know, who doesn't look up to somebody in special forces and look up with like, you know, I want to be like you or, you know, if you say it, like, I believe it, you know, that's like, that's perfect leadership right there, you know, and it's like, I just know, like when these kids are around these guys, they're motivated to want to do better and to be better, you know, and so we just need to do more of it. That's really cool. Yeah. Do we have questions for Eric?

We have a couple. From M. Corbin. Thanks for your work. Commitment versus... Thanks for your work. Commitment versus compliance is a very nuanced take. Care to split the hairs

on the militarization of various narcotics organizations and the interplay on spheres of influence and the interplay on spheres of influence that have on them. I kind of... I think I heard two...

Was there two questions? The one about commitment versus compliance? Is that... Yeah, and to split the hairs about... on the militarization of various narcotics organizations. Okay. So on the commitment versus compliance thing, I mean, you can, you know, I didn't make this up.

I mean, if you Googled commitment versus compliance leadership style, it's basically that. It's putting the work up front and creating an environment in which you explain to the folks on your team why this is important, why we're doing what we're doing. Anything, I mean, I think you should lead that way anyway. A lot of times, one of the simple ways of doing something like that is if you have a team and you're going to set your goals and objectives and your strategy, a lot of times the manager sits there and comes up with it. You know, bring your team together. Let's all collectively determine what we're going to do so that now there's buy-in and there's

commitment because we've all come together to say this versus compliance where the leader will do it and say, here's our 10 things we're going to do this year, do it or else. That's the more compliance kind of. You know, for that to be effective, I mean, I agree with you. For that to be effective, I just point out, the boss selling it, he has to believe it himself. Of course. I can tell that you're very passionate about these subjects. Like, these things matter to you.

But that sort of passion is like infectious, too, in the organization. It is. And you can't BS your team either. Yeah. Especially the FBI. They're going to know. Like, you're surrounded by FBI agents. And you think you're going to pull one over on them?

Like, if they'll sniff it out. If they think that you're doing this for the wrong reasons or you're doing it for some, you know, or you don't even believe in it, you're not going to pull it. So you have to be 100% dedicated to the mission yourself and believe it or else, yeah, it'll false. As far as about the militarization of these drug organizations, I don't know how much I could even provide of any value on that. I mean, you can, you know, these organizations, they are going to build arsenals and to try to. to keep up any way they possibly can and they got the money to do it. But you might want to get one of your guests that actually knows a little bit more about that. It wasn't as big of a thing when I was working drugs back than it is it is now.

Back when I was there was a little different environment. We have one from Isaac. In your professional opinion, should private companies like Disney, et cetera, start doing hackback as part of their cybersecurity practices? I don't know if I know what a hackback is. offensive hacking. I can't help either. I'm sorry. That's all right. We have one more. Yeah, no. MMC1. They offered me a job as chief electrician at Disney. I told them I wouldn't, I won't work for no Mickey Mouse outfit. Thanks, MMC. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey.

Hey, you worked for the mouse. I worked for the mouse. I had a good time. Worked out pretty well. Yeah, I had a good time. Well, uh, Eric, I mean, thanks a lot for coming in and doing this interview, man. I hope you enjoyed yourself. I remember when you reached out to me, like, of course I'll do this, you know. It's always sometimes there's some people I reach out to who are like friends of friends, you know, it's a little easy. But like I kind of shot you a message on LinkedIn, like a shot in dark. Yeah, yeah.

And I said, of course. I mean, once I realized, you know, who your main audience is, like, of course. I mean, I just like, I love to be involved any way I can. Yeah, thank you. Anything else that you want to tell people? Anything else you want to plug before we roll out? No, I think that's it. Okay.

Yeah. Next Friday, we're going to have a State Department Foreign Service officer on, a guy who had a lot of experience in Afghanistan, experience with the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, some other hot spots around the world. Actually, our first Foreign Service officer, I think, that we've had on the show. Yeah. And then we'll be back on, is it Monday, D?

The 8th? Yeah. We'll be back on Monday with Adam Gamal. He is the guy who authored the book, The Unit, about an Army Special Mission Unit. I'll let Adam describe all of that. Yeah, he'll be here in studio. We're going to have a black box over his face because we can't reveal his identity, all this good stuff. But it's going to be a really fun interview.

So please join us on Friday and Monday. Eric, again, thank you. Yeah, thank you. And we'll see all of you guys on Friday and then Monday. Take care out there. Have a good night.