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For those invisible heroes
Contents
Copyright Notice
Title Page
Dedication
Note
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
PART I
OPERATION 22 GREEN
1 Getting Inside
2 Punch-Drunk
3 Prospecting
4 The Confession
5 Shadowboxing
6 The Murder Unit
7 Pulp Fiction
8 The Rep
9 King of the Killers
10 Solitary
11 The Son of Anarchy
12 Hawaii
13 Street Vibrations
14 Close Call
15 Disappearing Acts
16 Endgame
17 Vanilla
18 Once Upon a Time
PART II
OPERATION BLACK DIAMOND: BLACK TO BLACK
19 First It Rains …
20 Outside In
21 War Games
22 David and Goliath
23 Dignity
24 A Patchwork Black
25 Black Dawn
26 Masks
27 Raw
28 Gone Hunting
29 Road’s End
Aftermath
Notes
Also by Kerrie Droban
About the Authors
Copyright
Note
The events and conversations memorialized in this book are real and have been largely reconstructed from audio recordings, charging instruments, trial transcripts, police reports, and Charles’s personal recollections, all of which were communicated to authorities in his role as an undercover informant. Although not all of the individuals depicted in these accounts were convicted of the misdeeds alleged, dozens received lengthy prison sentences in connection with these investigations, others pled guilty to lesser offenses, a few were acquitted, and some testified against their own.
The names and identifying characteristics of a few individuals depicted in this book, including law enforcement agents who remain undercover, have been changed.
Acknowledgments
This book is dedicated to the men and women in law enforcement, the ATF and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. Special thanks goes to Koz and S.K., you are my heroes. Thank you JD, Gringo, and Bobby, the true stars of Operation Black Diamond. A sincere thank-you also goes out to Carr, Ciccone, Britt Imes, the United States Attorney’s Office, and the cover teams of both operations, without whose support these investigations would have surely failed.
And thanks, Roger, for having an open ear to my sordid past. Kerrie, thank you for being such a great writer and a good listener. Last, and most of all, without the love and support of my wife and my Lord Jesus Christ, I would never have made it. Thank you.
—Charles Falco
Special gratitude is extended to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and to those deputies, who shall remain nameless, for your important contributions. Thank you to my editor, Rob Kirkpatrick, for his encouragement and faith in my abilities; to my agent, Jill Marsal, who campaigns tirelessly in my best interest; and to my children, who have always been my only light. A nod goes to my writer friends Kim and Linda, who endured endless pages of fight scenes with humor and grace. And thank you Sergei and all those men and women in law enforcement (and those who work with law enforcement) who, every day, sacrifice their souls to give us all a safer future.
—Kerrie Droban
Maybe there is a beast … maybe it’s only us.
—William Golding, Lord of the Flies
PART I
Operation 22 Green
It is not the strongest of the species that survives,
nor the most intelligent …
It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
—ATTRIBUTED TO CHARLES DARWIN
1
Getting Inside
July 23, 2004, Manzana Road, Apple Valley, California
Police found the man’s body spread-eagled facedown in bloody gravel. He looked grizzled, early forties, a tweaker the Daily Press later identified as James Gavin (aka Little Jimmy), a man gunned down “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” One surviving victim, a woman with lazy eyes and skinny shadows, recounted how two strange men opened fire in her living room. One bullet pierced Little Jimmy’s back and penetrated his heart as he fled into the street. Blood spurted from the hole in her own arm and formed dark mosaics on the tile.
Everything happened like flash film, according to the woman, quick hot bursts on a white screen. Sounds amplified, loud bangs, muffled screams, the front door slammed shut like a cough in deep summer. The intended victim had curiously left minutes before the intruders stormed the house. He said he felt “spooked” and set up for a drug rip.
No one guessed the gangland murder had the Vagos’ signature.
No one knew anything about the killer.
No one except me, and technically, I didn’t exist.
Eight months earlier, November 2003, Victor Valley Chapter
San Bernardino County, California, with its thinly populated deserts and high mountains, was home to the Vagos Motorcycle Club, an outlaw biker gang composed mostly of ex-military personnel, known as “violent predators” and dubbed the “largest urban terrorist” organization in the United States by San Bernardino County DA Michael A. Ramos. Intelligence sources warned that the Vagos, known as “the Green Nation,” posed an “extreme threat” to law enforcement. Members had purportedly infiltrated public safety agencies, operating as moles, securing sworn and nonsworn positions, and working undercover to obstruct and dismantle police investigations.
“Can you get inside?” Detective Samantha Kiles1 of the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department (SBSD) challenged me one chilly morning before Thanksgiving 2003. She sat across from me in a room in the department’s Criminal Intelligence Division and warmed her hands on her coffee mug. A petite blonde with an affable smile, Kiles disarmed. Trim and fit, she looked every bit a marathon runner. Fiercely determined, she watched me with the steady gaze of a predator sizing up her prey. At six foot three I towered over Kiles even seated. I had no experience with the biker subculture, had never ridden or owned a Harley. Moreover, I didn’t look like a biker. When I smuggled narcotics for the Bulgarian mob, I blended in as a businessman, clean-cut, sharply dressed, no tattoos. But I faced a minimum sentence of twenty-two years in prison for conspiracy to distribute and manufacture a hundred pounds of methamphetamine, so it was in my best interest to cooperate. And I had already been betrayed by my so-called “loyal” minions.
“You grew up here.” Kiles took a sip. True. And I had already proved my reliability as a confidential informant (CI) for the U.S. Customs and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Newly released from pretrial house arrest, I now had mobility to work more complex cases, not just drug deals or cartels but gangs. I had voiced as much to my “handler” at the DEA, and he had connected me to Kiles.
“I know skinheads,” I said and named gangs where I could easily blend in as a Caucasian male. But more than any other group, Kiles advised, the Vagos terrorized Southern Ca
lifornia.
My poverty-stricken childhood as a white sore in a Hispanic barrio flashed in my mind’s eye. Freedom had one exit and I took it: I became a drug dealer, my life consumed by smuggling large quantities of cocaine from South America to Europe. Money motivated me and I had talent. At the time I justified my activities with my own felonious code of ethics—at least I wasn’t a snitch or a child rapist. And as the drug market evolved from cocaine to methamphetamine, I became a cook, earning half a million dollars a year. As I shuffled from room to room in my spacious mansion with its white walls and fancy leather furniture, I struggled to save the illusion even as my addiction ravaged me. Money blew around me, smacked into the ceiling fans, fluttered into the street like confetti. My expensive cars disappeared, repossessed. My wife left. Sweat drenched me. I paced the halls, slammed each door shut, worried that the shadow people might find me. Without electricity, my house became an inferno.
Foil covered my windows, blocking the sunlight. My life continued without definition, hour after hour of endless monotony. I closed my eyes and hoped no one saw me. Pounding at my front door, loud, crisp shouts: Police. Open up. I raced to the nearest bathroom. On my knees, hands shaking, I flushed drugs down the toilet. Water splashed onto my cheeks. My head clouded with noise. Black-clad bodies crashed through my bathroom door, their raid jackets announcing in bold white letters LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF SWAT TEAM. MP5 machine guns targeted my chest and red laser beams framed my heart, yet I felt sudden relief.
Other federal agencies had launched several unsuccessful investigations into the Vagos. Four or five times the size of the Hells Angels in Southern California, the gang’s violence was legion, and law enforcement had become increasingly alarmed as the Vagos’ penchant for brutal and unprovoked assaults, firearms trafficking, distribution and sale of dangerous narcotics, extortion, loan-sharking, and murder spread from the biker scene into the general population. Like rats, the gang members lived deep in the city’s sewers, foul and deadly. But the government had no interest in pest control; they needed extermination.
“What do I have to do?” I folded my arms across my chest, pumped for the assignment. Kiles briefed me on the Vagos’ history and growth: The club formed in the 1960s in San Bernardino City and spanned twenty-four chapters in Southern California, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah with ten chapters in Mexico (Baja California, Jalisco, and Mexico City). The gang, originally called the Psychos, chose as its insignia Loki, the Norse god of mischief, riding a motorcycle. The gang had no official enemy, no incentive to declare war on rivals like the Hells Angels or Mongols. So-called fence riders, their power derived from their unpredictability and terror campaigns. The club subscribed to the philosophy that it was better to be feared than revered. They were the mafia on wheels but without the pretense of respectability or legitimacy. The Vagos never hid their brutality; they flaunted it. And whether their bravado derived from sheer machismo, raw animal instinct, or jockeying for position in the drug economy, their acts left a staggering body count.
“Get inside, gather intelligence on the gang, identify the club’s leaders, purchase drugs from them, and collect as many illegal firearms as you can,” Kiles said and recited a list of bars the Vagos frequented within a forty-mile radius of my apartment. Members would not be difficult to spot, she continued. Outlaw biker gangs proudly flew their “cuts,” denim or leather sleeveless vests adorned with coded patches that signified a member’s criminal and sexual achievements. They wanted the public to know they were outlaws, so-called one percenters who represented a minority of motorcycle enthusiasts responsible for committing 99 percent of all crime.2
“Look for officers.” Kiles drained her coffee, but when I said I had no clue what officers were, she simplified: “the green patch.” Full-patch members wore a bottom rocker that announced CALIFORNIA and a top arc that displayed VAGOS. The triangular center patch reinforced the “V” of Vagos and depicted Loki. The name Vagos, though sounding vaguely Hispanic, actually stemmed from the word “vagabond”—moving around—and its membership was 70 percent white (the leadership, however, was Hispanic).
“After that, you’ll have to improvise.”
My “pay” for my risk was time, not money. If I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life behind bars, I would have to produce results. Twenty-two years tightened like a noose around my neck. I had no plan, no bike, and no government protection. I had never felt more alone.
* * *
At first, I took Kiles’s lead and hung out at armpits like the Motherlode, hoping to eavesdrop on conversations with bikers as I shot pool and drank beer with patrons. The Vagos’ drinking cheer, “Viva Los Vagos and butt fuck the rest,” thundered through the place. Graffiti on the walls was a strange combination of reality and fantasy, from Grand Theft Auto gaming—a fictional Hispanic street gang in Los Angeles at war with a fictional Grove Street gang. I watched members slam back shots. Stress coursed through me like an electric current. I lived in a dingy apartment thirty miles from the county line with my pit bull, Hercules. Each night I drove in the chilly darkness from my home to the bar, then back home, often stumbling in after three in the morning, dehydrated, hungry, sleep deprived, and anxious about beginning the charade again hours later.
After two weeks of nothing, I formulated a plan.
The Motherlode, situated in Hesperia, smelled rank, a mixture of beer, piss, and puke. Harleys lined the perimeter. Music pulsed like a frantic heartbeat. Dimly lit, hazy from cigarette smoke, cramped with pool tables, a jukebox, and green-tinted walls (in honor of the Vagos), the place buzzed with an undercurrent of violence. Several full-patch Vagos huddled together, beers in hand. The bartender, a rough-looking troll of a woman, slid a cold Bud across the counter toward me with hands that resembled slabs of meat. Green fluorescent lights flickered above the bar. Paraphernalia advertising Vagos’ parties (we called them “runs”) littered one corner. Conversation punctuated the noise like grunts.
My attention focused on an attractive brunette draped around a worn denim-clad biker who looked like something recovered from the trash. Dressed in black jeans, shirtless, with tattoos covering every inch of his arms and a green swastika tattoo across his protruding belly. A grisly handlebar mustache framed his mouth. A green bandanna covered his tightly cropped hair. The number 22 was displayed prominently on his left arm, for the twenty-second letter of the alphabet: “V” for Vagos. The woman glanced at me, and her expression lacked the haunted, vacant look of an addict. Color washed her cheeks. She had glossy hair and teeth. I wanted to rescue her. What was she doing with him?
“That’s Vinny’s old lady,” a tweaker (meth addict) next to me volunteered over the noise. The woman offered a startling contrast. She was clearly a misfit among misfits, strangely protected as the property of Vinny. No random bikers pawed her or passed her around their laps, unlike the tweaker, a waiflike bleached blonde, who fluttered in the shadows like a fly, landing randomly on bikers who cruelly swatted her away. I snapped my fingers at the troll bartender. I had found opportunity: women.
“Can I buy you a beer?”
My heart raced as I approached Vinny’s table. He frowned menacingly at me and left the chilly bottle sweating next to him. He resembled a bull—stocky, spun tight, and ready to charge the gate at the first sound of gunfire. Young, maybe midthirties, he had the hardened look of tough leather. I eased the tension between us through flattery, told him I admired the Vagos, especially after one had defended me in jail. Vinny bought the lie and drained his beer. His girlfriend also approved. She smiled at me and introduced me to her pals at the table: Bandit, Cornfed, Spoon, Truck. They formed a green blur of patches. We exchanged few words. Mostly we stared at each other. The woman smiled. I smiled at her. Truck spread over two seats. I struggled for an opening, something that might connect us. It was a little like being at a table with large blow-up dolls.
Then action broke the awkward silence. Vinny scowled and motioned to a patron seated at the bar. Th
e letters “IE” (for Inland Empire in the Riverside–San Bernardino area) were prominent on the back of his neck. Clearly an outsider. Vinny’s face flushed and he stood without a word, curled his hand into a fist, and slammed it into the man’s temple. The startled gang member fell backward, grabbed his head, stumbled outside with his wife in tow, and climbed into his white Suburban. The sound of tires peeling made my heart race. And then the scene outside played in slow motion as the Suburban plowed through the Vagos’ motorcycles, knocking over Vinny’s in the process.
The kickstand gouged the asphalt. Game on. Just like that, my first meaningful night of Vagos infiltration was over before it even began. As bikes hit the pavement, Vagos emptied the bar like so many roaches and chased the Suburban into the street. Truck puffed to the curb and jotted down the license plate. Sweat poured from his temple.
“We’ll find out where he lives.” He slipped the note into his pocket. Undeterred by the cops’ presence, he added, “We’ll take care of business.” Instinctively I knew what that meant. The Vagos planned to hunt down the gang member, drag him to a desolate place, and show him the meaning of respect. No exchange of insurance information or beating. The Vagos, if they found their victim, likely intended to stomp the driver, demolish his Suburban, smash the headlights, kick in the car doors, break the windows, and gut the engine. There would be no “victim” and no police report, no prosecution. Fear of retaliation by club members would silence him.
Later, sitting on the edge of my bed, Hercules’ head on my knee, I reported the threat to Kiles but knew even as I did that there was little hope her department could stop the certain violence. The victim would become part of the human debris, another nameless figure in a terror war without rules. I realized then that I didn’t want just to report intelligence to Kiles. I wanted to make a dent, to get inside the Vagos’ organization, befriend the leadership, be a Vago.
Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws: My Infiltration of America's Deadliest Biker Gangs Page 1