The Last Undercover

by Bob Hamer

  One evening, Peter and I sat at one of his tables for nearly a half hour, discussing in hushed tones our next transaction. We laid out the details and the incriminating conversation proved a valuable piece of evidence. The equipment, of course, picked up every word and noise in the restaurant. When I returned to the office and began reviewing the recorded conversation, I realized the device I was wearing also picked up the conversation occurring at the table behind me. The two diners were discussing a money-laundering scheme. I was so focused on Peter I had no idea what was being discussed right behind me—a lost opportunity.

  I sometimes feared I looked and acted like a fed. I would often modify my appearance in some manner—longer hair, unshaven, temporary tattoos, and even the crutch I adopted later in my career. Similarly, in an effort to throw Peter off any “cop” scent I might inadvertently be leaving, I ordered up seventeen kilos of cocaine for the larger purchase. I figured most cops ordered in ones, fives, tens, or a hundred. Seventeen seemed like an odd number for a purchase, and sure enough it threw Peter when I placed the order, as I counted out who was to get what and added up the figures to seventeen. He bought the act and placed the order.

  Back at the office, we started the cumbersome paperwork to have Headquarters send us the “show” money for a seventeen-kilo buy-bust. Unlike on television, the money wasn’t waiting in a neat bundle in a safe. In fact, it was always nerve-wracking to hold off my targets until “my money guy arrived,” or I “liquidated my stock position and the clearing house sent a cashier’s check to my out-of-state bank,” or because “my banker in Grand Cayman is out of the office until next Tuesday.” Greed usually trumped fear, and the bad guys almost always bought the delay.

  Another major problem with any buy-bust involving a large amount of cash is the fact that a team of FBI agents must cover— swarm might be a better word—the buy and effect the subsequent arrest. As a result of our negotiations, I now had in excess of a quarter of a million dollars in a briefcase that I would be flashing at Peter sometime prior to the delivery of the cocaine. As with the previous transaction, Peter was most comfortable consummating the deal at the restaurant. I was only too happy to oblige, making an even stronger case for forfeiture of the property.

  Many FBI agents shied away from drug investigations because of the long and uncertain hours. I made it a point to set up almost every transaction during the day, however, arguing with my dealers that the police were easier to observe in the daylight hours.

  We had initially arranged for the deal to go down at Peter’s restaurant at noon on Monday. As I learned early in my career, drug dealer time is not the same time most of us observe; Peter and his associates were no exception. FBI agents were staked out throughout Beverly Hills on Monday, awaiting the “load car” transporting the cocaine, but noon came and went with no load car. After waiting several more hours, Peter received a call. The load car had broken down somewhere on the freeway and we would be unable to consummate the deal that day. Los Angeles is the second largest city in the United States and its 915-mile freeway system made it pointless to try to locate a broken-down load car. I agreed to postpone the deal until Tuesday.

  But now a personal problem arose. I have a son who loves baseball as much as I do. I had two tickets to see the Angels play Tuesday evening; the seats were located right behind the Angels dugout. Our home was almost one hundred miles from Anaheim. In order to make the game, I would have to drive almost fifty miles to my house, pick up my son, and then drive the hundred miles to Anaheim Stadium. So, to make sure I’d have enough time to make the opening pitch, I told Peter, “I don’t like playing games. I’ll be at the restaurant at noon tomorrow, but if the supplier can’t produce by 1:30, I’m gone.”

  All of the agents regrouped at the FBI office, we returned the money to the safe, and prepared for tomorrow’s buy. No one else knew I had box-seat tickets to the Angels.

  On Tuesday, I was back at the restaurant with agents milling around Beverly Hills. Once again, noon came and went. Finally, at 1:20 PM, Peter emerged from his office. His face beamed. “I just got off the phone. My man will be here in a half hour,” he said.

  “That’s fine,” I said. “But I won’t be here. I told you if he can’t deliver by one thirty, I’m gone. Unlike you and your supplier, I’m a man of my word.” With that, I threw down a tip on the table. I told Peter, “You’ve inconvenienced me enough today. Lunch is on you.” And I walked out.

  I know Peter and his supplier were shocked, but my credibility soared. After all, no cop would walk away from a multi-kilo dope deal because the supplier was going to be twenty minutes late. I knew Peter would call back; he was hungry for a sale . . . at least, that’s what I told myself.

  My son and I made the game, enjoyed baseball up close, and had a great time. Not long after, true to my hunch (and to my relief), Peter called, profusely apologizing for any misunderstanding. He arranged for his supplier to meet me directly on Wednesday at the supplier’s house. How fortuitous! The fact that I placed my son and baseball ahead of the FBI meant we would be able to not only identify the supplier but, if he used his house to “facilitate” the transaction, acquire some more real estate under the forfeiture statutes.

  I have to admit, my refusal to cancel my baseball outing with my son had as much to do with my unwillingness to allow my work to intrude on my family as it did with maintaining an image for my targets. And even with my determination to keep my family as a priority, those dearest to me sometimes suffered because of my job.

  My daughter provides an example both amusing and, in a way, heartbreaking. When she was five, she knew I went to work every day with the bad guys and pretended to be someone else. But she also feared they might kidnap me and send someone home in my place. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know this was what she was thinking; I only knew that when I came home in the evenings, she was a bit standoffish for a while. My son would rush to greet me, but my daughter would take her time. I attributed it to the difference between boys and girls, but that wasn’t her reason.

  In her childish imagination, she believed the impostor would wear a plastic mask—a Halloween mask held on by an elastic band—that looked like her dad.

  “So, he would come home every night and he would sit in this one blue chair we had,” she explained, years later. “And I would walk around behind him before I would give him a hug, just to make sure he didn’t have the string across the back of his head. That’s how I knew that it was really him.”

  I, of course, didn’t get the full story until she graduated from college. The point is, my family made sacrifices I never even knew about. But I knew my son loved baseball, and this was one time my job wasn’t going to interfere.

  My squad mates and supervisor, however, weren’t exactly pleased that I’d missed the Tuesday buy. Wednesday meant another day on surveillance, covering me for yet another deal that might or might not happen. In addition, the dealer lived near Ontario, California—almost sixty miles east of the FBI offices. Still, because Peter was considered a big target and his supplier even bigger, everyone supported me one more time.

  So, the stage was set. The deal would surely go down this time . . . wouldn’t it?

  11

  IMPROVISE TO SURVIVE

  On Wednesday, I met with Onofrio, Peter’s supplier, in a shopping center near his home. I had the funds to close the deal secreted in the trunk of my undercover car. When I met Onofrio for the first time, we spoke briefly and he agreed to take me to his house to show me the cocaine. I was amazed at his boldness and his stupidity. Peter vouched for me and Onofrio was aware that the one-kilo sample purchase went down without a problem, but using his home as the base of his operation seemed naïve at best.

  Because the money was in my car, I thought quickly and decided to have Onofrio drive me to his house, leaving the car in the shopping center parking lot where I assumed agents could keep it under tight security. It also provided me another opportunity to have Onofrio or one of his ass
ociates drive me back to my car to get the money, allowing me to engage others in conspiratorial conversations. It also provided a chance for a surveillance team to follow me more than once, just in case they lost us going to the residence.

  We arrived at Onofrio’s home, a large house in an upscale residential neighborhood that didn’t allow on-street parking. It was neat and well decorated, unlike the homes of the South Central gang members I’d been chasing recently. Onofrio had obviously been successful and now owned some valuable California real estate.

  Onofrio and I were alone, as far as I could tell, which surprised me. He had me sit in his living room while he attended to business in the back of the house. He had yet to ask to see any money, so I assumed I was safe from being ripped, but still his actions differed from drug dealers I previously encountered.

  Within a few minutes he returned from the back of the house and escorted me to the master bedroom. His house was much larger than mine. We walked down a long hallway. As we turned into his bedroom, I saw a cardboard box on the bed. In it were seven kilograms of cocaine wrapped in red cellophane. Peter told me earlier we could do seven, and then after that deal Onofrio would deliver the remaining ten I ordered. I pulled a switchblade knife from my back pocket, activated the spring-loaded blade, and slit open a corner of one of the kilos. I tested the product, using a standard field test kit I told Onofrio I purchased at a head shop in the Valley. Onofrio didn’t question the small hard plastic pouch, no bigger than a cigarette lighter, that contained three clear plastic vials. With the knife tip I took a small sample, placed it into the plastic container, and systematically broke the three vials, watching the substance change color with each broken vial. The small container lit up like a Christmas tree, indicating high-quality cocaine.

  I announced my pleasure with his product and told him we needed to return to my car at the shopping center to retrieve the cash. He gave me an ear-to-ear smile and we both returned to his car. As he was backing out of the driveway and began to proceed toward the shopping center, we both spotted a lone male sitting in a four-door car that screamed “government vehicle.” It was the only car on the street in a neighborhood that prohibited on-street parking. The reason it looked like a government car was simple: it was.

  Onofrio noticed the car immediately and commented on the driver, strongly suggesting he was a cop. Trying to defuse the situation, I said he was probably a real estate agent, and then, practically yelling into the transmitter I was wearing, I said, “The cops couldn’t be that stupid. No cop would sit in front of your house if he was watching you.” I was livid, and to make it worse, my efforts proved futile. Onofrio got on his cell phone and called someone in the house we just left—a person I had never seen or heard—and ordered him to take the drugs out the back. Onofrio called off the deal and drove me back to the shopping center, dropping me off near a phone booth.

  By this time, the surveillance team lost me, and my transmitter was out of communication range. From the phone booth I called dispatch and told them where I was and what happened. I also called Peter, complaining that his supplier called off the deal because of a real estate agent. As hard as I tried and as hard as Peter tried, we were unable to complete the transaction that day. Three days, three attempts—all failures.

  I returned to the “barn” and debriefed. I placed the show money in the safe and assumed that at some point we would indict Peter, but that Onofrio would walk. No-dope conspiracies weren’t real popular in federal court, and without the drugs Onofrio showed me, there was little chance the U.S. Attorney’s office would indict him. I began to worry that maybe my cavalier attitude about taking my son to a baseball game cost us a defendant and the seizure of seven kilos of cocaine. I had to prepare for court the next day. I was testifying in a trial stemming from a previous investigation we’d concluded. The courtroom and testimony meant a suit and tie, none of which were on my all-time-favorites list.

  The next day, during my testimony, my pager vibrated; Peter was calling. During a court recess, I went to a pay phone down the hall from the courtroom.

  The excitement in Peter’s voice came through the telephone. Onofrio had just delivered the seven kilos of cocaine to the restaurant, he told me, and he wanted me to come over right away and complete the deal. I knew there was no way I could walk off the witness stand in the middle of a trial. Peter thought I was a freelance screenwriter who supplemented his income with drug trafficking, a cover accounting for my unpredictable schedule. I told Peter he “jacked me around for three days,” his supplier saw cops masquerading as real estate agents, and I wasn’t about to walk out of a rewrite conference in Culver City for another no-show drug deal with him and his buddies. I would be at the restaurant sometime after seven, I told him. He bought my tirade and agreed to meet me in his office.

  Following my testimony, I rushed back to the FBI offices, attempting for a fourth time in four days to secure the drugs and build a solid case against Peter and his supplier. My supervisor, however, was unmoved by my pleas to retrieve the cash from the safe. He was right when he said I had tied up the squad all week and he had little faith in Peter’s assurances that he would produce this time. I understood the supervisor’s reluctance but still I stormed out of his office, as I was prone to do, vowing to handle the situation “my way.”

  Fortunately, two young agents were still in the squad bay, completing mounds of Bureau paperwork. Everyone else had left for the evening. Knowing that both these men, who eventually rose in the ranks and became two of the finest agents in the FBI, carried the same fire in the belly I did, I asked if they wanted to go make an arrest. They eagerly agreed and we left—without notifying the supervisor.

  Once we got to Beverly Hills, I explained the situation. We briefed in the alley behind the restaurant. I changed into casual clothes as I explained the plan. Both knew this was somewhere far outside the volumes of regulations pounded into young agents at the Academy, but even before I assured them I would take full responsibility for any mishaps, they agreed to help. I really liked these guys.

  I went into the restaurant using the alley entrance. My cover team remained in the alley several hundred feet from the door. Peter met me downstairs and we spoke briefly before he escorted me through a locked metal door and up the stairs to a locked storageroom. Once up there, he walked to a large floor safe and removed the same cardboard box I saw the day before in Onofrio’s bedroom. After opening the box, he allowed me to examine the contents. It was the same seven kilos of cocaine; the knife slits I made on one of the packages were clearly visible.

  I told Peter I was satisfied and asked him to accompany me to my car where he could count the money and we could complete the transaction. He balked at that request, saying, “This is Onofrio’s stuff; God help me if anything happens.” He told me to bring the money to his office. His request made perfect sense from a drug dealer’s standpoint—except I had no money. But I headed for my car, anyway.

  I had just left seven kilos of high-grade cocaine on the table in the upstairs storeroom and had no money to complete the buy-bust. I needed to find an acceptable means of payment—or to convince Peter I found one.

  I returned to the car and my two young cover agents. As I began unpacking my gym bag I explained the plan. They thought I was kidding. I wasn’t.

  For years, I had enjoyed boxing and worked out at a gym where many professional fighters trained for upcoming bouts. I regularly had my head beaten in by guys with world-class skills and some might say it knocked loose a few too many brain cells. However, I had a plan. I placed a pair of ten-ounce boxing gloves in a small gym bag, which would be my proxy for the cash I didn’t have for this evening’s transaction. I looked at my watch and told my confederates to come up to the storageroom in exactly five minutes.

  I began walking down the alley, hoping I could pull this off. As I got to the back door, I noticed one of the cooks standing by the door, holding a meat cleaver—not a particularly auspicious symbol. I entered through th
e caged door and began to ascend the stairs. The door slammed behind me. Once I entered the storage area, I observed Peter sitting next to the cardboard box still on the table.

  I walked toward the floor safe. I knew time was running out and I also knew the door to the storage area locked when it slammed shut. I looked at Peter and using my Marine Corps command voice told him, “I don’t like having the money and the dope together in one place. I just counted the cash; it’s all here. If I’m short, I’ll make it up next time.” I walked to the safe, shoved my gym bag inside, closed the doors, spun the tumbler, and did an about-face. I walked over to the table, picked up the cardboard box, and marched down the stairs before he could say a word.

  My brazen attitude caught him so off guard he allowed me to walk away with the drugs. As I descended the stairs, my cover team awaited. I opened the door and walked out into the alley as they rushed up the steps and placed Peter under arrest.

  The deal was completed. I had swapped a pair of ten-ounce boxing gloves for seven kilos of high-grade cocaine. Final tally: two arrests and two indictments; for the taxpayers, the seizure and forfeiture of the restaurant, Onofrio’s house, and the car he used to pick me up at the shopping center. Seeing a baseball game with my son from seats behind the dugout: priceless!