← Living The Next Chapter: Candid Conversations with Authors and Writers for Readers Searching for a New Read
Living The Next Chapter: Candid Conversations with Authors and Writers for Readers Searching for a New Read
E706 - John Schachnovsky - Beyond The Badge - CRIME, JUSTICE, AND THE FBI IN THAILAND
00:49:14
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- [00:01]
John Shack
The US Is always good. I'm always the US The US I'm always a federal law enforcement officer, sworn law enforcement officer. So overseas, an important thing to understand is we don't have any arrest powers. There's no law enforcement powers overseas. So I don't have the ability to make an arrest even if it's an American. I can't put handcuffs on somebody in. So that's why I need the rogue Thai police. They're the ones who make the arrest. The one thing we do have overseas is we have the same thing most embassy employees have, which is diplomatic immunity. So when you travel overseas to work a full time job, before you can begin to work, you have to send your credentials overseas and the embassy goes to the Department of Foreign affairs for whatever country you're in and they make sure that you have the diplomatic powers that you need, a diplomatic immunity which we, that's a, that's a whole other podcast. But you have diplomatic immunity. Now I, you have that in the country you work in. So I couldn't fly and go to Japan or go to England and have the same ability that I had. I don't have the diplomatic immunity that I would have. Now that being said, agents do travel. When I was working in San Francisco, I did an overseas trip to Turkey to work a fugitive case. Now when I was there, they don't transfer diplomatic immunity. But as long as the Turkish police, for example, and here, the Thai police, if they accept you, you're there. You're there mostly on an advisory role, but you're not going to be probably doing the kind of things you would do with the immunity you have, but you have a limited immunity you given to you when you travel. There's certain, you know, gets kind of in the, in the weeds on things. But when I'm here permanently, I do have the kinematic community. So in case something happened, unfortunate thing happened. I am covered by that while I'm here, everybody.
- [01:36]
Podcast Host
Welcome back to Living the Next Chapter. It's the author podcast. You get to meet people from around the world and some pretty interesting people that I would never have the opportunity or pleasure to meet other outside of a podcast. John's here today and he, he has some very interesting stories, very interesting background. He's joining me from the other side of the world from where I am, which is pretty cool as well. And we're going to learn a lot about his background, his book, his author journey, and he's got some stories. John, welcome to the podcast. Glad to have you on the, on the show.
- [02:13]
John Shack
Great to be here. Thank you so much.
- [02:14]
Podcast Host
Excellent. John, I'm on your website. It's beautiful. I love how everything's laid out here. There's a lot about your background. I like to start with this right off the bat. John, tell everybody where you are. First of all, joining me from. And a little bit of your background. Sure.
- [02:31]
John Shack
I'm talking to you now from Bangkok, Thailand, other side of the world, literally. So we say we're 12 hours different from where you are now. I've been here now for pretty much 17 years with a. We'll talk about it. But a one year break in the middle there. I spent the last part of my career in Thailand. I am a retired FBI agent. Started my career in the US Working for the US Border Patrol for a couple of years. Worked for one other agency, the Commerce Department as a special agent for them. But that was my first few years. But most, the bulk of my career I spent with the FBI, starting in San Francisco, California after the Academy graduated San Francisco. And then about eight years into my career, around 2008, well, 2006, I kind of decided I wanted to be in Thailand with the FBI. In 2008, I made that happen and started my journey in Thailand with the last, pretty much 10 of the last 11 years of my career I spent out here in Thailand and I retired back in 2019.
- [03:34]
Podcast Host
That's amazing. Okay. There's so much that I, I need to know. I've heard you on other shows talking about this and again, I'm just thrilled to have time with you. I have a special spot, John, for anyone who serves their country like you've done. I've grown up with that kind of in, in my family's background, people that I know and my parents have known that have served in different aspects. But we've always been raised to respect people like you that do so much amazing stuff and put yourself out there for us. So I just want to acknowledge that. Thank you for, for your service and what you've done for your country. Just, it's, it's a, it's outstanding to meet people like you.
- [04:20]
John Shack
Well, thank you for saying that. It's. I always look back and think my, my father served in the US Government as well. And, and I always felt that same way, which is probably not one of, probably the reason why I ended up where I, where, where I did in the government. But I appreciate that I can say that it was such a great job and I enjoyed every minute of it. That, that a lot of days it doesn't feel like a job. It's just such a great. I loved my career so much, but thank you for saying that.
- [04:42]
Podcast Host
Yeah. Now the tr. I'm very curious because there's so many different branches and so many different people I've talked to on the show. The training you have to get to where you serve in the FBI. Like, there's the Hollywood version we see of what, you know, they try to make it look the way they do, and some of it's maybe close, but a lot of it's just not. So for people who don't understand kind of the training that it takes that's maybe different from like the Border Patrol that you had and other elements that you've done, how does the training differ for the FBI kind of compared to some of the other things you've experienced in your career?
- [05:22]
John Shack
Sure. Great question. I. So the Border Patrol, I mean, so I. I was a hockey. Ice hockey player in college who was a. Not a focused individual on what I wanted to do. I played hockey. I was in a fraternity house. I can do all the. I live one of those college lives that you do see in the movies, but. So I didn't really know what I wanted. So I. When my. My dad kind of suggested law enforcement, I knew I didn't want to sit behind a desk all day. I knew I wanted to do something else. And he said, well, look into law enforcement. And I did.
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Podcast Host
And.
- [05:52]
John Shack
And I went to the Border Patrol. That was a very. That was a job that made me from a. And I use this. I use this term, a kind of a punk college student. To a man, Border Patrol Academy is very militaristic. I had friends in the Border Patrol who were former Marines, former military, and they had the. What. What they would say the esprit de corps of, Of. Of. Of a military person. I did not. It took me a little bit of time to shine your boots and shine the brass on your uniform. And it was a lot of running with the flag and a lot of militaristic. I mean, obviously you learn the job, but. But that was much more as a harsh environment that we were in for many months, four or five months. The FBI Academy. For me, after the Border Patrol Academy, FBI academy felt like graduate school. It was definitely very. A lot of physical. A lot of physical physicality, lot of firearms. But the day in, day out rigor of the FBI Academy, they treated us very, very well. I mean, they definitely, you know, you had kind of the. I'm not going to use the word hazing, but a Lot of the. Getting you ready for the job and, you know, making sure you're the right person to do it. Shooting physical activity. But the academics, the learning the law, learning how to do the practical exercises was much, much more professional, when I would use that term, than militaristic. And it was, you know, four or five months at the FBI Academy. A lot of it is. Some of the. I've seen some movies, you know, the Silence of the Lambs is an old one where she's in the academy. And that's pretty. They filmed it there, so it's pretty realistic. It was. It made you ready. I will say about the FBI is what they'll. What I believe is that the application process for the FBI is so long and so arduous and background checks and polygraphs and physical tests and multiple interviews and written tests that I believe when you get to the FBI academy, they know that there's. That you're somebody they want there. Their goal in the FBI academy is not to wash you out. It is to make sure they mold you into being an FBI agent. They've already decided from their massive background investigation and checks to get you in the application process. They decided we're somebody, you're somebody we want in the FBI. Now let's mold you there. Not so much as let's make sure you can. You know, let's make sure we. We pick the right person. Their background investigation, so good. They picked the right person. But the FBI Academy is amazing. And what they do there also is. You don't have to have. I had experience in law enforcement, but they take people from all walks of life, accountants and lawyers who don't know how to shoot a gun yet. So their shooting program is so good, they'll make a person who knows the law but can't shoot a great shooter. If you're a former police officer who wasn't really into the rigors of academics, or you were somebody who needed more help in the law, then they turn around and make you a. You know, you learn the law like you're in law school. So everything is very professional, very well done, and you come out of the academy ready to go.
- [08:39]
Podcast Host
Interesting. And probably the other side of it, I would think, too, beyond the physical stuff, is the mental preparation to do what you did in the FBI. Well, how do. How do they. How do they kind of navigate that for. Because everyone's coming from a different point of view, a different background. How do they kind of train you mentally to do this kind of work?
- [08:59]
John Shack
I mean, one of the Things they do. And I think the hardest part of being in a law enforcement office, not just FBI, being a law enforcement officer, is no matter what you do in the classroom or with textbooks or being taught, you just how are you gonna be ready for the first time you have to knock on a door and interview somebody. And that's. That's the hardest part is you get, you know, it's all great, a sterilized environment. So the FBI has what I consider to be the greatest asset to any agency. We have a thing on the academy grounds called Hogan's Alley. What Hogan's Alley is, is a small city that is built for the purposes of preparing agents. There's a bank, there's apartments, there's a movie theater, there is a pharmacy, There's a little town, there's. And what you do is you spend many, many hours on practical. Is a section of the FBI. There's law, there's firearms, there's physical activity and there's practical exercises. And that's where you spend days in this small city working on arrest warrants, search warrants. And what the FBI does is they have actors who are paid to be criminals, to be in that town, and they assist you. So when you leave the academy, you've done everything in the environment you're going to be in. I didn't have that anywhere else. I don't know of any other academy in the world that has the Hogan's Alley, which is this area where we trained. I mean, and. And to be team. So they put together a team of four or five from our class. And you guys are going to be a search team today. And you prepare the search warrant, you write it, you get it approved by a judge, you know, obviously, but you get it approved by your. By your instructor to make sure you did it the right way. Then you go serve the search warrant, you make arrests. If you have an arrest warrant, you do all those things over the course of the months you're in the academy. So you leave the academy having done. Now it's actors and it's fake, but it's a city and it's people and you've done it. And we have interview. You have interviewing class, FBI, some of the best interviewers in the world. And we have interviewing where there's actors who you're interviewing all the time and they're told to give up the information, not give it up. If you do the interview the right way, they're taught to give the information up. If you don't do it the right way, they Won't give the information. So I believe that as far as mentally, I believe you're mentally ready to go because you've done all these things as far as mental side of the being ready to, you know, put your life on the line. Border patrol, FBI, the firearms instructors take you through the process of not just shooting a gun, but the process of putting your life on the line. We have defensive tactics where we work, learn how to do, subdue people things. So if you've never done any of these things, I mean they really take, I mean most people in the FBI academy have some experience that they're going to use there, but they have that one piece and they need the rest of the pieces. And the FBI make sure you have all those pieces in place.
- [11:44]
Podcast Host
Okay. And I guess the other side too, and we're going to get to you now going overseas is the people side of this. You're dealing with people at all different parts of your, your, your, your job and what you're doing. The people side of how, how to deal with people, how to talk to people, how to, how to help people, but also how to get the information you need to do what you need to do. The people side of that is did they take you through training on, on that as well?
- [12:12]
John Shack
Yeah, I think the best they can do with, with the interviewing techniques and how do you interview and they teach you classwork on that. Then, then I mean there is part of it. No matter how much they train you, every FBI, every, every FBI agent is on probation for the first two years of their career. Those first two years most offices are going to have make sure that the new agent trainees who come out and become probationary agents, because in the academy you're called a new agent trainee and you come out and you're a probationary agent, which means you're on probation for the first two years. For those first couple of years, they're making sure that you're seeing everything you can see. So if a bank robbery squad needs assistance, you go. Even though, even though I was first assigned to the narcissistic drug drug, drug. I was on the Mexican organized crime and drug squad when I first got out of the academy, but it didn't matter. You're on probation. You're told that if another squad needs help, if you're a probationary agent, you're going to go help because they want you to see everything. So you know, the first time they make an arrest, they're going to have you go do the interview. They first time you're Going to go do some witness interviews. You go to interviews. So no matter how much they train you, it is going to be your first two years. You're going to be nervous a lot, but you're going to have everybody has a senior agent who is their training agent, who make sure they walk them through the process. If you're interviewing somebody, they're in the room with you after. Afterward, they're giving you some good feedback on what you did right, what you did wrong. So I think the academy prepares us for as much as they can, but nothing like most jobs, nothing's going to prepare you for the first time you actually put handcuffs on somebody who isn't an actor in the academy, you know, that kind stuff.
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Podcast Host
So.
- [13:39]
John Shack
But they do, they, they, they prepare us for that. They get us ready for the, the putting life on the line. They get you ready for interviewing, they get you ready for it all. But, you know, the first time I actually went in the door on a search warrant, you know, I knew it wasn't Hogan's Alley anymore. I knew I was actually in the real world. And it was, I mean, for my benefit. I had a great first two years. I succeeded and moved on. But I mean, you know, are there examples of people that get out in the field and just can't do it and they have problems and they have to be kind of watched and do some people not finish their career with the FBI because of that? Sure. But the FBI does their best to make sure once they get you through the application process, they know that you're somebody who will succeed.
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Podcast Host
Yeah, that's good. That's a good, that's, that's encouraging. Now, like, I always kind of associated FBI with, within the US As a Canadian, that's kind of my view. I think that all. Everyone that serves. Sure, you might travel here and there, but you primarily just work out of the US but that's not correct. You. We have branches of the FBI then around the globe. Is that like, I don't know what we can talk about, but no, of course.
- [14:41]
John Shack
No, no, it's fine. This is fine. No, I mean, the, the, the first answer I'll give you is that don't just because you're a Canadian. Most Americans don't know that we're overseas. So the only. It's not just Canadian. Okay, good. I mean, I'm in America all the time saying, I don't understand why you're overseas. And I'm like, well, all right. So second of all, as a Canadian, understand not just the FBI, so you being Canadian. Some. Some of my closest partners in Thailand were the rcmp.
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Podcast Host
Yeah.
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John Shack
So every. Most countries have a branch of their national, usually national police force who then have a cadre of agents who are stationed overseas. Some have more, some have less. FBI. We have about 280 FBI employees worldwide covering around 70 countries or in. Sorry, in 70 countries. Covering about 180 countries. Which means when I say that. Just clarify. When I was in Thailand, I covered Thailand and Myanmar and Laos. So some agents are stationed in a country but have jurisdiction over multiple countries. So we have 70 offices, but they cover more than just the 70 countries that they're in. So yes, we are overseas and I can briefly tell you what we do overseas. So we are overseas mostly. The number one of these pretty much three main reasons or four main reasons we're overseas. Number one, the main reason is if an FBI agent in the US has a case that has some kind of connection overseas. So I will use Thailand as my example because that's where I was. If there's an agent sitting in New York City who has a case where one of their bad guys made a phone call to Thailand, if they sent an email to an email address in Thailand, they sent. They have a bank account where they hid funds and those funds were hidden in a bank in Thailand. Any connection, the list goes on and on. We can talk about more later. But any one of those connections will. The case can't stop there. We can't as FBI just say, well, the case is out of the country. Case, the case is over. So my job here in Thailand was to. That agent would contact me and say, hey, John, I got a connection to Thailand. Help me out. Who is this person calling? So my job is to work with the local police here, the Royal Thai Police mostly, which is the federal police force here, and figure out, hey, I have this phone number. And the same way in the US I get a subpoena and I try and find who the phone is. If the call is from New York to la, we get a subpoena and we see who the calls to. Here, the Thai police assist me, find out who that person is. Do we believe it's enough of a lead where I should go interview that person? The agent in New York says, yep, that's good. I need you to talk to that person. They Royal Thai Police. And I will go find that person, talk to them. And that goes from investigating banks, investigating. So my first job is to assist agents in the US who have case with connection to Thailand. Number two is if the case wasn't open in the US There are specific crime types that I am able to start a case myself here. Those are a few. The two main ones that we do in Thailand or we discuss as worldwide is number one, counterterrorism. So if a terrorist attack happens overseas and an American is injured or killed or American property is damaged, then the FBI is allowed to open a case that our Congress has given us years ago extraterritorial powers to open cases overseas. Second one we do in Thailand is child sex trafficking where men will travel overseas to abuse in Thailand, abuse Thai kids and we can open a case there with no predication. With no predication in the US now why is that? Why does that matter? Because for federal cases in the U.S. you have to figure out where are you going to charge that case. It's called venue. You need to see where am I going to. If a case happens in Chicago, you need somewhere, what court do you take that to? So that's most law enforcement, you have to. Whereas if a crime happens, there has to be somewhere that you can legally take that case. Once the arrest is made, where does that go in the courts? So overseas, how do you do that? So there's, you know, there are some crime. We take Washington D.C. and those things. The main argument is so Congress is given the right for overseas investigations to charge those in the US for certain crime types. Like I said, terrorism and child sex trafficking are two big ones. Most other crime types think well how it's cybercrime. Well, cybercrime is usually easy to charge in the US because most cyber crime will touch the US somehow, be it the server, if it's, you know, we have between Meta and Google and all those and Yahoo, there's some touch happening to the US So those are the two main ones that we looked at where I can actually open a case overseas with no connection to a case in the US and then lastly we also do two more. Actually one more is the same way that if a US based agent has a crime in Thailand, if a Thai cop has a case in the US as a Thai citizen in the US they'll contact me and I'll be the middleman between the Royal Thai Police and an agent in the US So the same way that they help us here, I can help them get help assistance in the US and then lastly we do capacity building training. So we do a lot of training here where new techniques depends where you are in the world. Thailand, we did a lot of training here on new techniques on things we can assist Them with. So the reason for that is because we'd like our foreign partners to handle investigations the same way we handle them. So for example, evidence collection, it's much easier for me to go to a court in the US and process and input evidence to the case if the Thai police collected the evidence the same way we do it. So that kind of thing, we try and get the Thais to be kind of on the same page we are when it comes to certain techniques.
- [20:08]
Podcast Host
Wow. All right. The other side then about dealing with people is you're dealing with another culture. So that's another level on top of everything else. Now, John, you stand out, I would think in your, in your, in Thailand, like you're noticeably the people looking at you're not from around here. So how do you operate and do what you do with freedom and mobility, to go and do whatever without drawing a lot of attention to yourself as well in that environment.
- [20:41]
John Shack
First, I will say that some places I might stand out a lot. Thailand is the most visited. Bangkok is the most visited state in the world.
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Podcast Host
Okay.
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John Shack
For tourism, number one, no, close second. I think number two might be Istanbul. But I think that last year 30, 25 or 30 million people visited Thailand. If you walk out, we're in December now. If you walk outside right now during the holidays, the high season for travel, I could probably walk around in my, where I am, where I live in kind of an expat area and not see a Thai person for a few minutes. So I mean it's really traveled. But that being said, your question is very important because the place that I go now as a retired, you know, expat is maybe less Thai centric. But when I was with the FBI doing cases, we'd go to parts of the country and parts of the city where no, there aren't many, many western looking faces. Now that being said, everything I do is with the role of Thai police, right? So if I do anything, I have a Thai police officer with me. That's one thing I think that I didn't have too much of an issue with. I do speak Thai well enough where I, if I did need to do something solo, which I didn't do a lot, but sometimes I would do it by myself. My Thai counter probably say, John, that's something you can do by yourself a lot of times that's if I need to go interview an American, I need to interview somebody who might be a tourist, whatever. Usually the Thai police are there, but if not, if it's just I needed to do it quickly I might go to somebody and say, look, you know I'm with the FBI. I know it's weird that I'm talking to you in a foreign country. If you want a local police officer here, I will contact one, but are you okay talking to me? And they would say sure, no problem. Usually it's a no problem. That didn't happen a lot. But the culture question is good because a lot of it really isn't the concern about talking to people's part of cases. It's working with the Thai police that is the important. You're in a foreign country, it's how do you begin, you land here, your first time here and how do you build rapport? How do you. That's an important part of the FBI academy. Building rapport. Rapport. We turn that and how to build rapport when talking to a interview, interview subject or someone you want to get to assist you in a case. That building rapport skills you learn in the academy and you learn as an agent for your first few years in the field. That's the kind of stuff you need to also use to talk to foreign police officers. It depends where you are. I mean in Thailand the FBI and the Royal Thai Police have had a very, very long tradition of working together. So when I got here, I didn't have to reinvent the wheel. When I got here, we already had good relationships. There's already a, a good number of Thai police officers that our office, the FBI office work with more often than others. And you kind of learn to find your group of officers who are your are people you go to for different crime types. The FBI has a, has a training program called the FBI National Academy. What that is is not just for, you know, I went to the FBI Academy as a new agent trainee. At the academy there's a whole separate class called the national academy which 70% of those that go, it's about a seven week class. Most people that go there are American police officers. So American officers who are going to be executives, chiefs of police, lieutenants, captains, they are selected by FBI people in the field in America to go to this national Academy. It's an advanced training, it's very well respected. If you look at many, many chiefs of police throughout America, if you look at their resume, it'll say FBI National Academy graduate. So we also send foreign police to the same academy. They have to speak English obviously. So we, but we all over the world, we nominate and send. Like I said, About 70% of those classes are American based law enforcement. About 30% are international and we sent, over my years here, we've sent, you know, 20, 30 officers, you know, a couple year before I got here, there's at least 100. I mean I've been here, I was here for 10 years. But before I was here we sent many. There's now about a hundred or so current active duty Royal Thai Police officers that went to the FBI National Academy. And as you can imagine, as you can imagine, we send them back to the FBI Academy, they come back and they're our best friends. So a lot of our close and we make sure to find the right people, make sure there are people in different segments of Thai police that come from counterterrorism, come from white collar crime, come from, you know, different violent crime sections, SWAT team members. So we, if we have a problem, we can go to any area of the Royal Thai Police to assist us. That's a big part of our, our network here. Are those FBI National Academy graduates as well? If you ask a legal attache, which my title was called legal attache overseas, if you ask any legal attache, they'll probably say the same. A lot of their close contacts are folks they sent back to the National Academy.
- [25:11]
Podcast Host
So your jurisdiction does that travel with you like it covers you in all these different places. It's typically you'd see in like the US this officer covers this area and they can do limited to this specific geographic space is where they can work. So.
- [25:28]
John Shack
Right.
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Podcast Host
So you can do be in the US and in Thailand you cover.
- [25:32]
John Shack
The US Is always good. I'm always the US The US I'm always a federal law enforcement officer, sworn law enforcement officer. So overseas an important thing to understand is we don't have any arrest powers. There's no law enforcement powers overseas.
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Podcast Host
Okay.
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John Shack
So I don't have the ability to make an arrest even if it's an American. I can't put handcuffs on somebody. And so that's why I need the Rolog type police. Okay. They're the ones who made the arrest. The one thing we do have overseas is we have the same thing most embassy employees have, which is diplomatic immunity. So when you travel overseas to work a full time job, before you can begin to work, you have to send your credentials overseas and the embassy goes to the Department of Foreign affairs for whatever country you're in and they make sure that you have the diplomatic powers that you need. A diplomatic community which we, that's a, that's a whole other podcast, but you have diplomatic community now you have that in the country you work in. So I couldn't fly and go to Japan or go to England and have the same ability that I had, I don't have the diplomatic immunity that I would have. Now, that being said, agents do travel. When I was working in San Francisco, I did an overseas trip to Turkey to work a fugitive case. Now when I was there, they don't transfer diplomatic immunity. But as long as the Turkish police, for example, and here, the Thai police, if they accept you, you're there. You're there mostly on an advisory role, but you're not going to be probably doing the kind of things you would do with the immunity you have. But you have a limited immunity given to you when you travel. There's certain, you know, gets kind of in the, in the weeds on things. But when I'm here permanently, I do have the diplomatic immunity. So in case something happened, unfortunate thing happened, I am covered by that while I'm here.
- [27:06]
Podcast Host
Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. That's a lot of groundwork, which I love. And I just, I could have a 12 hour podcast just talking about this stuff with you. I want to get into how you've now retired from this role and now you're into writing and sharing stories from, from, from your background and stuff as well, which is incredible. So the book is beyond the Badge. Can we talk a little bit about the process of the book? The readers that are here too, I want to encourage and inspire them to come and support you by buying the book. So tell us the idea behind the story. Beyond the Badge.
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John Shack
Yeah, I mean you'll most, I mean, I think you turn on the news nowadays and you see a lot of FBI agents who are on TV as talking heads. So FBI just sometimes don't shy away from the press. Some of our colleagues and other agencies would say the FBI likes the press. So it's always a joke about other agencies saying the FBI. There's always a joke that says when you go to one, you see any kind of crime scene, you always see an FBI jacket. Sometimes it isn't an FBI agent. They just put a jacket on somebody else in the camera. This is, we get, we get picked on sometimes for being press hungry as a joke. But maybe, maybe it's true, I don't know. So, but no FBI agent really decides during their career, I'm gonna write a book. It's not part of what we do. But my last few years in Thailand working with the FBI, you know, I would always tell stories and just, you know, people knew what I did for work and I couldn't tell too in depth the story. Because a lot of this stuff is, you know, not, you know, someone's not secret, some's classifieds, whatever. But I would tell stories I could tell, and I would more often than more than a few times someone say, you should write a book. And I remember in one ear out the other year, I'm like, yeah, sure, right. Who does? I write a book? What are you talking about? And then as I got closer to the end of my career, I thought, I don't know what I want to do when I retire. I knew we were going to stay in Thailand. My son was in school here. We love the international school. We thought, you know, we're settled here, maybe we'll at least finish. I knew when I retired, my son had a couple more years to go before he graduated from high school and go to college. So I knew we'd be here. Maybe I'll look for a retirement job in Thailand. Maybe I'll do some consulting, which I did those things as well. But a couple years ago, I said, maybe I'll look into writing a book. Didn't really happen. And then when I retired, I retired in November of 2019. And if you remember, we're coming really close to an important event in the world, which is Covid.
- [29:22]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [29:22]
John Shack
And for those who don't know, the second country to get Covid. Covid outbreak after China was Thailand. That is because many, many Chinese. So in February, January. February of 2020 is around the time of Chinese New Year, which is a mass exodus in China. People going on vacation for Chinese New Year. One of the main places a lot of them go to for vacation is Thailand. So thousands and thousands of thousands of Chinese came to Thailand, and some brought Covid. So that was this. We were the second country to get it. So covet hit here pretty early on. So everyone's home. I thought, what am I going to do? And I know remembering back then, some people baked bread, Some people did certain things. I said, you know what, Let me start the book. So let me sit down at a computer and begin writing. And I began writing, realizing that it's not going to be easy. So even though I began in 2020, now in 2025, through a lot of stopping and starting and having to remind myself about when you start writing about cases, you realize I got to go back and research my cases again. This happened 10 years ago. So over the course of. Of a couple of years, I researched my cases, remembered what I did on my cases, did that, and then I started writing. And it started once it started And I got to kind of. I know you have some readers and some people who write on here as well. Once I got to a good skeleton idea of what the book was going to be, I knew I wanted, I knew I wanted to write about my background a little bit, but I wanted to talk cases and what I did in Thailand and why I did it and how some of my greatest cases and I, you know, I probably had a list of 25 cases I could talk about. I wheedled it down to, whittle it down to about 11, 10 or 11. And I knew I had that then it was okay. Then I started rolling and that was, that took a couple of years. And then the important thing is the FBI has to approve any manuscript written by an agent. So I knew eye contact. Once I realized I started getting beyond, you know, 10 pages of writing, I said okay, let me reach out to a couple of other agents. I listened to a couple other podcasts out there that FBI agents were on and I reached out to them on LinkedIn or found them some way and I said can I just pick your brain on what'd you do? And got some really good advice. Helped me move along even quicker. But then they also said, hey, you got to contact this pre publication office at headquarters and run it by them. So I called them before I got to in depth and said okay, before I write this whole book and you tell me you can't do this, can you send me. And they have, it's great, it's a great office, they do a great job. They send you a document on. These are the things to stay away from. These are the things you definitely can't talk about. So I knew before I started what I could and couldn't talk about when I finished the book. Then I sent the final draft to them and that's about. I got a letter saying it's going to be about seven months. So seven months, six, seven months. They were a little faster about about five, six months they got back to you and they send you back to corrections. Now luckily for me, I really, some people don't ahead of time contact them. They just do a book and then send it in and they have like your, in school when you were a kid, red marks everywhere. I only had a couple of red marks. I had to change so that that was fine and they made sense and it's okay. And they did such so little change that I felt I was worried. They send it back to you when you're reading it thinking and they don't tell you when a. Where the pages are, you just read it looking for red marks. And I was like, all right, page 100. No red marks yet. No. So it was near the end of the book. They made a change, so. Which was great. So that was it. And yeah, I mean, that's, that's my journey. It really was from not thinking I would do a book to deciding I wanted to do a book. And look, some people write books and they're still working. I know it must be very difficult. I had the luxury of a Covid for a while and then b, I'm retired now. I did, I did do a couple of consult. I've done some consulting. I now work. I'm on the board of directors and advisors for a risk management company here in Thailand. But none of that takes up a ton of my time. So I have had time to write and edit and do all the things you need to do to get a book out faster than maybe some people can.
- [33:14]
Podcast Host
So you mentioned other FBI agents helped you in your process of writing. Let's flip it around. Maybe there's someone listening to this conversation and they're in the exact same spot you were when you started writing. Some advice. Can they reach out to you as a fellow agent to.
- [33:31]
John Shack
Oh, my God, absolutely. I've had. Yes, I've had some. I've been on a little bit of social media and I have a lot of friends still in the FBI and retirees we talk to all the time. So a few of. I've might have lit in the. Lit a fire under a couple of them. So I've already had a couple of phone calls and how'd you do? What'd you do? Everything like that. So, yeah, I mean, obviously any agent can reach out, but anybody, period. I mean, I, I love the process of. I've actually had a few people reach out to me. No one not in the quote unquote business. I've had a couple of people not FBI. I had a parole officer in the US who saw me on LinkedIn and reached out to me and asked me a question about how I did it. So, yeah, I'm absolutely. I mean, for me, it's, it's, it's not that complicated. As far as the number one piece of advice I tell people is just sit down and start writing. And I don't mean for me, I couldn't just start. I mean, I think I started writing and I got about 10 pages and I realized, no, no, no, you need to do. And then once again, this is. I'm sure. Full time authors think I'm crazy because obviously there's a way to do it, but when you're making it up as you go along. I started writing, just typing like on the page, you know, starting write it like a story. Then I realized, no, you need an outline. So you really need to, you know, storyboard this as I guess as they say. So I realized. So I had the, whatever chapter 11, whatever chapters I have, I had the chapters decided on. Then I sat down and said, okay, when okay, chapter one is going to be this topic. And my book is mostly the first few chapters are my life. How I got in the border patrol, a little bit on the border patrol, how I got in the academy, FBI a little about the FBI and my first stint in San Francisco where I worked. I have a little bit about 9 11. Yeah, I worked the 911 investigation a little bit. There was some connection to San Francisco. I discussed that, I discussed a couple of cases I worked on. But then I get into the meat of it, which is that, which is, which is Thailand. So I was able to say what will I discuss about my pre Thailand stuff. And then in Thailand I knew I wanted to discuss, you know, Nam in Thailand, you know, getting the culture shock and how do I ingratiate myself. And I did that. And then once I got that then I felt, I found, I found that, okay, I got my background, I'm in Thailand now, do cases and I kind of did it where it's. I would do a chapter on counterterrorism and the chapter is what does the FBI do with counterterrorism overseas? And here's an example of a case I did with counterterrorism in Thailand. I have a chapter on fugitives. How do we handle fugitives overseas? And this is a case or two, couple cases on I captured a fugitive overseas. How do we do white collar crime overseas? Okay. And then I. So that's kind of how I broke it down where more or less crime type based by chapter. And that's what I decided to do maybe would people would do it a different way. That's for how I thought it would flow logically. But definitely my advice would be sit down, start writing, get an outline, get an idea what you want to write and then don't, don't waste too much time changing the outline. Oh, maybe I'll put this here. Once you have a good outline, start writing. Just start writing. Yeah, then you gotta get. And then once you get to 50, 80 pages then you can be like, okay, how do I feel about it right now and then you can make some changes. But, you know, it's really, really daunting to begin writing. And then once you do it, it's great.
- [36:34]
Podcast Host
All right, let's. Let's kind of think about your ideal reader for your book. Who do you have in mind?
- [36:40]
John Shack
Everyone in the world. Everyone in the world. It should be. It should be at school. No, I'm kidding. You know, my. So I. People ask me why I wrote the book.
- [36:50]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [36:50]
John Shack
And I tell them there's three reasons. Number one is I want to shine a light on the FBI overseas. There's about 14,000 agents in the FBI, about 250 total personnel overseas. We just. There's many, many books written, movies, TV shows about the FBI. There's so little written about what we do overseas to the, to the point where most people have no idea we're even overseas, let alone what do we do. So I really wanted to shine a light on that.
- [37:19]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [37:19]
John Shack
Very important to me. Number two, and this, I mean, most people don't know unless you're in Thailand. The Thai police do not have the best reputation. Like a lot of countries similar. There's discussions about corruption here, which is corruptions and corruption in all police forces. But Thailand's had a little bit of a tough reputation for some corruption. Not being amazing at their job sometimes. And in pop culture here, in some of the soap operas they have here, which is a good medium, a TV show, they call them Lockhorns. They're big TV shows like they do nightly soap operas on our primetime that people watch in the news, in movies. A lot of times the police officer is either comic relief or part of the problem. And it is what it is. It's just one of those things. I mean, we have the Keystone Cops in America. And, you know, you have what, you know, what's the. The Andy Griffith Show. I'm dating myself. You know, his deputy was not very good.
- [38:11]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [38:12]
John Shack
You know, you have. But we also have a lot of great police shows in America and great police. Some of our heroes are cops in American TVs and movies. They don't have that in Thailand. So I wanted to also shine a light on the good work of the roll Thai police. There is like, like anywhere there are some bad apples. But the people that I worked with day in, day out were some of the best partners I've ever had. Great police officers, hard working, awesome. And I wanted to show them as well. The third reason, which is very personal is my son is now 19 and in college in the U.S. but beforehand, when he was in Thailand, he was very, very young. And every once in a while, when school was out or what have you, he'd come into the office to see me. Well, when some. When your child comes into the office, you have to be there, and you're sitting behind a desk. So my son only saw me at work behind a desk. So his friends heard, God, your dad's an FBI. That's so cool. They would say. He'd say, desk all day. I'm like, cole, I'm only behind us when you're here. So the third reason is I wanted my son to actually know what I did for work. I needed to show him. Your dad did not say behind it. He was only behind us because you were there. I couldn't leave you alone. So that's jokingly but true. I always say I want him. And now he's at an age now where his friends in the US because he spent almost his whole, whole life in Thailand, his friends in the US Also find what I did for work kind of cool, which is nice to see. But finally he's realizing, oh, I guess what you did is kind of cool. I'm like, cole, forget you guess. Read this book. I've told you, read the book. So those are the three main reasons I wrote the book. So you know who I want to read it. I think that most people are interested. I know true crime is a really big genre of books. I mean, for me, it's part memoir, part true crime, part history, because these are all older cases. And I've had people tell me, I mean, I discussed Thailand a lot. It's part travel book. I mean, if you're interested in. If you're somebody who likes to travel, especially you've been to Thailand, want to go to Thailand, and you want to learn more about this part of the world, a lot to do with that. So I think it. I mean, not that, you know, when I first started writing it, it was, I want to do a book about my cases in my life and what I did and the FBI overseas. But I've had people, some pre readers look at it, some people making some writing some reviews for me before the book launch. They've all got back to me and they've got a lot of feedback on, wow, this is really. Is a kind of true crime. Wow, this is a cool memoir. Well, I had no idea about Thailand, so I think it covers the gambit of true crime memoir. I wouldn't call it a travel book, but definitely you learn a lot about Thailand And I. I have a chapter on. I said at the start of this podcast, I covered Myanmar and Laos. I have a whole chapter on Myanmar and Laos. So really, I think if you're interested in any of those things, it's. It's. It's for you.
- [40:49]
Podcast Host
All right. Yeah. I just love talking to you, John. There's so much I just. I'm loving this.
- [40:55]
Podcast Co-Host
Can you share with us a story
- [40:57]
Podcast Host
from the book, something that we're going to read, give us a little taste test of what's coming for us as readers, to kind of hook us in? Is there anything you can share with us, the story?
- [41:06]
John Shack
Sure. I mean, you want. You want a total. Like a teaser to make you want to buy.
- [41:11]
Podcast Host
I want a teaser.
- [41:12]
John Shack
Come on, I'll give you a teaser. Okay. My teaser is. So I'll set the story up and then make you want to buy the book. So one of the cases that I worked here. Where. Okay, so one of the cases I worked here, the Thai police went out and they identified an individual in Thailand, in Bangkok, who had a fake passport. It was a foreigner using a false passport. They stopped the guy, verified he had a fake passport. Pretty easy to tell it was fake. They asked him where he got the passport from. He didn't want to be in trouble because you get in Thailand, you get deported. I'll assist you. Here. Here's the. Here's the. Here's where I. And he tells him where he got the passport. The Thai police do a few. A little bit of investigative work, and they get a search warrant to go to a guy's house. They go to the guy's house. I'm not part of the case yet at all. They go to the guy's house, and they knock on the door, and the guy answers the door, and he says, how can I help you? They said, hey, can you show us your passport? They knew this is probably the guy they're looking for, but. So they. He says, come on in. They go into a house. They walk up the stairs. A handful of Thai police follow the guy upstairs, and they. He goes to a safe to get his passport out. He reaches into a safe, back to the officers, reaches in the safe, pulls out a handgun, turns, fires, shoots one of the Thai police officers in the stomach. He collapses. All hell breaks loose. They get the guy in custody, and then they start to search his house. They search his house, and they find many, many, many fake passports from all over the world. That's where I come in. It's a Friday afternoon. I'm actually Picking up my son from I think a play date after work and after school for him. I'm at a table in some friend's house. My phone goes off the application they use here, not WhatsApp. They use a thing called line. Line application. I get a line text from a friend of mine, a police officer. Hey John, the Thai police just did a hit a house. They got a bunch of fake passports. Can you, I'm going to send you a few American passports. Can you go through your contacts at the embassy to verify if any of these are fake, what are real? We want to verify what's real, what's fake. I'm waiting. No problem. Send them to me right now. I'll get my contact at the embassy to do it. Five minutes go by, ten minutes goes by, then I get a phone call. Same cop, John hold off on their passports. While they were searching the house, they opened up an industrial sized freezer and in the freezer they found black plastic bags. They opened the plastic bags and they found multiple cut up body parts.
- [43:23]
Podcast Host
Oh come on.
- [43:25]
John Shack
So now John, we need your help identifying who this person is. We have custody and who was his body in the, in the bags. There's your teaser.
- [43:34]
Podcast Host
Oh chapter on that. Come on.
- [43:37]
John Shack
There's your teaser. So that is. So that's one of my case. I work where I will tell you that. So at this point you're going to say why are they asking you? Because you're an FBI agent, they're in Thailand, you have no idea who this guy is. So one of the things that we would do with the Thai police and many of my cases in the book are this way are one way we get involved is if the Thai police ask for our assistance. So in the US if there's a case in Los Angeles where it may not be your federal jurisdiction, but the LAPD says we need your help. The FBI will always say yes. So this is a case where the Royal Thai police said look, due to the forensic ability of the FBI, we just need your help. And I said absolutely. So for the next 72 hours I helped them identify the body and the bad guy. And now I'll stop again. There's your teaser. Please buy the book. It's a good chapter, a good case,
- [44:27]
Podcast Host
a two part teaser. And if you don't buy the book, John's gonna set up a van outside of your house just to keep an eye on you and wonder why you haven't bought the book yet. Because like I mentioned John before we started for the listeners that there's been a van parked outside my house that says TV repair or something. And we both joke that, you know, the FBI, FBI uses pizza trucks and stuff.
- [44:48]
John Shack
And I will not guarantee it's not the FBI, but it's not me.
- [44:51]
Podcast Host
Okay? It's just not you.
- [44:52]
John Shack
Not my doing.
- [44:54]
Podcast Host
Called in a favor.
- [44:56]
John Shack
I'm not speaking for any other law enforcement agency in the world. I didn't do it.
- [44:59]
Podcast Host
It's a little intimidating interviewing somebody that knows how to interview people. So that just makes me, I have to sit up straight, make sure I'm doing this right. So, John, I love having you on the show. Really inspiring to hear your stories and to have a book now that gives us like a behind the scenes. I have some real stories not made up in Hollywood type stories. And I just, I love what you do. And again, I'm just thrilled to have time with you. Talk about your website, John, before we go, because I want to send everybody to you to grab a copy of the book and to share it as well. Where do we go?
- [45:33]
John Shack
Okay. Yeah. So, well, the book is called beyond the Badge and the subtitle, which because there's a few other beyond the badges out there, which I realize later on it's beyond the badge. Crime, justice and the FBI in Thailand. It'll be on Amazon on December 9th. It's going to be worldwide on Amazon. My book launches in Thailand on 13 December. If anyone's in Thailand, you're welcome to come to the book launch on the 13th, but you search up John to john schack.com, j O-H-N-S C-H-A c-h.com Instagram is John Shackauthor also Facebook John Shack, Author. But all those places, that's where I am. Those are the kind of Facebook, Instagram and then I have the website. The benefit of having the last name of John Shaknowski is there's only one in the world. So if you can't figure out either of those and you Google me, you will find my sites and places there. So it's not, luckily it's not John Smith, but you Google my name, there's only one in the world. So that'll pop up. You might see a little. I'm an ice hockey player too. There's some ice hockey stuff on the Google searches, but other than that, it's my book stuff.
- [46:34]
Podcast Host
Okay, good. Well, it's nice to know that an FBI agent can verify that you have your only name in the world. So you already know that information, which
- [46:42]
John Shack
I already know that you know that
- [46:44]
Podcast Host
there's too many Dave Campbell's. So we got.
- [46:46]
John Shack
Right.
- [46:47]
Podcast Host
So.
- [46:48]
John Shack
Yes, that's right.
- [46:49]
Podcast Host
That's good. John, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for taking us behind, beyond the badge or behind the badge and giving us some kind of context about what you do and who you serve. So much great information talking to you. And again, I'm just. I'm just so thankful for people like you who serve and want to help and the fact that you would even go to another part of the world and help from that place, it's amazing. So thank you for making time to be on the show and for sharing your stories with us. I really appreciate you being here.
- [47:20]
John Shack
I had a great time. This was really good. You're a great interviewer. So I tell you that right now. I love your podcast. It's really good. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. This has been a great experience. Thank you so much.
- [47:29]
Podcast Host
Awesome. Everyone. All information for John in the show. Notes, as always, that you know how we do this. I'm asking you when you buy the book, not if, but when you buy John's book, leave a great review. Let other people know why you love it so much so that more people will fall in love with John's book and bring more people to John. Because everyone needs to grab a copy of this. It's mandatory. Everyone, you need a copy. So, John, thank you so much for doing this.
- [47:54]
John Shack
Thank you.
- [47:58]
Podcast Host
Hey, thank you so much again for pressing play.
- [48:01]
Podcast Co-Host
As you've heard, great guests on the
- [48:03]
Podcast Host
show, and one thing you didn't hear
- [48:06]
Podcast Co-Host
in this conversation is what?
- [48:07]
Podcast Host
What did you not hear?
- [48:08]
Podcast Co-Host
Think about it for a second.
- [48:10]
John Shack
That's right.
- [48:11]
Podcast Co-Host
Not a single solitary commercial for a mattress or a supplement or whatever you call it. No.
- [48:19]
Podcast Host
Why?
- [48:20]
Podcast Co-Host
Because we don't want to break up
- [48:22]
Podcast Host
the conversation with commercials.
- [48:23]
Podcast Co-Host
So the fact that you're still here means that you are a fan of the show, I'm assuming. So if you want to help to keep the podcast going and to make me feel really happy, all I really care about is coffee. Okay. I just got to be honest. I love coffee.
- [48:39]
Podcast Host
I'm drinking one right now. Starting to get cold. I need. I need to warm it up.
- [48:44]
Podcast Co-Host
Helping us with our buy me a coffee link over at Living the next chapter.com and also in the show notes,
- [48:49]
Podcast Host
helps kind of keep the lights on around here.
- [48:52]
Podcast Co-Host
Remember, I'm doing this for free. I. I'm paying for everything, so I would love to have a little coffee donation. You know, even five bucks kind of fills up my cup. And I would love to enjoy a coffee from you. So if you're interested. Again, thank you for listening, but you can use our buy me a coffee link and fill up the cup. Thanks for being here.