1160: Tegan Broadwater | How a White Cop Infiltrated the Crips Part One

Summary

The Jordan Harbinger Show - Episode 1160: Tegan Broadwater | How a White Cop Infiltrated the Crips Part One

Overview

In episode 1160 of The Jordan Harbinger Show, host Jordan Harbinger sits down with Tegan Broadwater, a former undercover police officer who executed one of the most daring infiltrations into the infamous Crips street gang. This two-part series delves deep into Broadwater's experiences, strategies, and the inherent challenges of undercover work within a highly volatile environment. Through candid conversations, Broadwater offers invaluable insights into the drug war, the complexities of gang dynamics, and the personal toll of living a double life.

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1. The High-Stakes World of Undercover Policing

Broadwater opens the discussion by addressing the intense stress associated with undercover work. He shares a harrowing account of his own physical and mental strain, noting, “My stress level was so high, I was addicted to Hydroxycup” ([00:26]). Unlike some of his counterparts who turned to substances to cope, Broadwater maintained strict discipline, believing that succumbing to addiction would jeopardize his mission.

2. Breaking Down Gangs: Organizational Fragmentation

A significant portion of the conversation focuses on the structural intricacies of the Crips. Broadwater explains, “These guys are making a million dollars in profit. But how much do you think these kingpins are personally taking in?” ([18:59]). He highlights the fragmented nature of the gang, where local sets often fight among themselves, undermining any centralized control or efficiency. This fragmentation makes it exceptionally challenging for law enforcement to dismantle the organization as a whole.

3. Infiltration Tactics: Building Trust in a Hostile Environment

Broadwater details his unconventional approach to gaining the trust of gang members. Despite being white in a predominantly African American gang, he leveraged subtle strategies to blend in. He recounts, “I came in as a guy from South Texas and Austin area where my connection had been busted by the feds” ([27:28]). By associating himself with lower-level members and demonstrating consistent, unsolicited caution, he managed to earn unprecedented trust, even being invited into their personal spaces—a rare feat for any undercover officer.

Notable Quote:

Tegan Broadwater: “I pulled in and he would make an order for some crack cocaine and then they would come over and bring it to him. And then I would hand him the money and we'd make that transaction.” ([28:30])

4. The Ineffectiveness of Traditional Drug Enforcement

Broadwater offers a critical perspective on the ongoing war against drugs, arguing that current law enforcement strategies are more about maintaining status quo rather than achieving tangible results. He states, “We're essentially putting people in harm's way for the benefit, treading water, not seeing it get worse” ([07:15]). The focus on arresting street-level dealers fails to address the root causes of drug proliferation, leading to a cycle of violence and addiction without meaningful progress.

5. The Challenges of Maintaining Cover Without Training

Despite lacking formal undercover training, Broadwater excelled through meticulous research and adaptability. He emphasizes the importance of retaining his authentic personality rather than adhering to scripted behaviors, saying, “I really just had to wing it... I leveraged that in order to get around some of those pitfalls” ([04:34]). This approach allowed him to remain genuine under pressure, avoiding the pitfalls that come with trying to memorize specific behaviors or backstories.

6. Navigating Legal and Ethical Dilemmas

The conversation also touches upon the legal challenges faced by undercovers, especially regarding credibility in court. Broadwater explains, “It's a gang case... people will just know the writing's on the wall, they got to deal with it” ([05:29]). When confronting tactical legal defenses, such as claims that government officers coerced them into drug use, maintaining a clear and consistent narrative was crucial for ensuring the integrity of evidence collected.

7. The Human Cost of Gang Infiltration

Beyond tactics and strategies, Broadwater shares the profound personal impact of his undercover role. The constant threat to his safety, the emotional toll of building and breaking relationships within the gang, and the overarching sense of isolation are recurring themes. He reflects, “It's like jumping out of a plane with a parachute. You're not sure how to work it, but you just figure it out” ([57:34]).

Notable Quote:

Tegan Broadwater: “Everybody lives in their own little tunnel... until there's some kind of benefit for them” ([10:18])

8. Technological Limitations and Operational Security

Broadwater critiques the portrayal of undercover work in media, particularly the unrealistic depiction of technological tools like wiretaps. He shares his frustrations: “I never wore a wire for that reason because I thought that's the most obvious fricking thing ever” ([57:34]). The lack of reliable equipment meant relying heavily on personal skills and improvisation to maintain cover.

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Conclusion

Part One of Tegan Broadwater's interview offers a gripping glimpse into the shadowy world of undercover policing within the Crips gang. From the psychological strains and strategic maneuvers to the ineffective broader drug policies, Broadwater provides a multifaceted view of what it takes to operate deep within such a dangerous environment. Listeners are left anticipating Part Two, where Broadwater promises to continue unpacking his experiences, including close encounters that nearly cost him his life and the complexities of managing internal leaks within the police department.

Stay Tuned: Part Two of this episode will explore further aspects of Broadwater's infiltration, including detailed accounts of high-risk operations and the aftermath of his undercover tenure.

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Notable Quotes Recap:

• Tegan Broadwater: “I didn't have any training, which seems dangerous... I really had to wing it.” ([04:34])

• Tegan Broadwater: “If you have a reasonable view on how things go, then you would at least think that we're working toward getting better enforcement and less drugs that hit the street.” ([07:15])

• Tegan Broadwater: “I'm not in a hurry to make the bust, which probably gives me a little bit more credibility.” ([61:34])

• Jordan Harbinger: “That's smart. So you just show up the courthouse.” ([03:05])

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Learn More:

For those interested in delving deeper into the world of undercover operations, gang dynamics, and effective law enforcement strategies, make sure to listen to Part Two of this episode upon its release. Subscribe to The Jordan Harbinger Show on your preferred podcast platform to stay updated.

Transcript

[Jordan Harbinger]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment.

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

To $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Plan options available, taxes and fees extra.

[Tegan Broadwater]

See full [e-mail].

[Jordan Harbinger]

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, even the occasional rocket scientist, neuroscientist, music mogul or tech luminary. And if you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology and geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults, and more. It'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com start or search for us in your Spotify app. To get started today on the show, former undercover cop Tegan Broadwater, who infiltrated the infamous Crips street gang. We dive into the drug war and how we are not going to arrest our way out of the dope problem. We also explore undercover tactics and strategies, close calls that almost cost him his life, becoming close friends with gang members, building trust, building rapport, and how he dealt with a leak inside his own police department. This is a really good, solid two part episode here that I know you'll enjoy. Here we go, Part one with Tegan Broadwater.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah. Cause that's one of those jobs where everybody says various interviews have been like.

[Jordan Harbinger]

My stress was so high, one of.

[Unnamed Guest]

My teeth started falling out and my.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Stress was so high, blood work said.

[Unnamed Guest]

I was gonna basically die young because my cortisol was through the roof or.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Had no cortisol or whatever it was. My stress level was so high I was addicted to Hydroxycup and it's just.

[Unnamed Guest]

One legal substance after another and that's the stuff they can say on air because they don't want to lose their job or their pension. Like I was on meth. I'm sure that some of these guys probably do get hooked on that stuff.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah, some of them. There's some rogue undercovers, and there's some straight up, trained everything by the book undercovers. I've talked to a number of them, and there's been a bunch of books out there, too. Some of those are also trash. But when I did my research, I figured it was kind of a cop out, no pun intended, to get yourself to do the dope and then get stuck on it. I don't get it. I just thought, man, the easiest way to get in is to just be willing to say, okay, well, then that's fine. I'm going to go down the street, find somebody else to do business with. And if you're really cornered, I just set myself up a little background to where I literally would go show up downtown courthouse every Saturday for a few minutes and be seen with everybody that's standing in line on probation to go take their piss test.

[Unnamed Guest]

Oh, it's smart.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah. And I'd say, well, I'm not going back because of you, because you want to give me some kind of test. And then people can vouch they've seen me there before.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, they'll say, oh, I saw him waiting in line the other day, actually, because I had to take my test.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's smart. So you just show up the courthouse.

[Unnamed Guest]

Hey, Joe, just drink a coffee, go back out the front door, or pretend like you took a piss test. And everybody assumes it was a kind.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Of a mass waiting room. It wasn't literally aligned so I could be there and then walk back to the bathroom or whatever. People would just kind of see that I'm there, but not know what order I'm going.

[Unnamed Guest]

That's smart. That's clever, man. You got a few clever little bits in the book, and we'll get to that. Did they train you to do that, or do you just think about doing that, man?

[Tegan Broadwater]

I didn't have any training, of which that seems dangerous. It's the best and worst part about it, really, is, because I really just had to wing it. But I really did a ton of research. I read and spoke to people about how they did things and everything else. That's why I said it seemed so contrived the way everybody did it, because I don't think there were enough people that are truly trained. You know, the Scott Paynes and the FBI training Programs and stuff like that. I learned from those. Then you have the other guys just go off on a wild hair and kind of disappear and come back and they're addicted to stuff because they were just willing to do whatever to get through the case. I wouldn't have been willing to throw the case away, but I just. Sometimes I was overly creative to a fault where I just had too many little things I was trying to plan. But I leveraged that in order to get around some of those pitfalls that I see everybody else falling into.

[Unnamed Guest]

In fact, almost every ATF and FBI agent has told me that they don't do the drugs and they're cornered. They have ways of fake doing the drugs which they won't discuss on the show because the upside is minimal. We just get a little curiosity bump and criminals find out how people pretend to do drugs.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But then the reason is not just.

[Unnamed Guest]

So that you don't get addicted. I was surprised to find out that the. I guess it's no surprise, being a former practicing attorney, that attorneys go, you're a druggie too.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You did a bunch of drugs with him.

[Unnamed Guest]

And then the jury, if they're a.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Bunch of puritans, will go, you're just as bad as the criminals.

[Unnamed Guest]

How do you remember that? You were high on meth at the time. He made me do it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Not a great look, not a great excuse.

[Tegan Broadwater]

You know, makes defense a little more easy. For sure. Yeah. And it's not just credibility. Again, it's state of mind at that point, like, okay, you did it. Now you're under the influence of something that's been proven, blah, blah, blah, which is why you're even in this.

[Unnamed Guest]

Also, I think it's outrageous. Government conduct is one of the defenses. So he'll say something like, well, this officer made my client do drugs.

[Jordan Harbinger]

No, he didn't. Did you do the drugs?

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, I did, but I did them after him. Well, okay, now it's your word against his. But if you say, I didn't even do the drugs, he did the drugs. He had drugs in his system when we did a test. I didn't have any drugs in my system. Okay, well, then they weren't doing drugs together. One guy was doing drugs and the other guy was pretending to because he's a police officer. But if both of you are high out of your minds on meth that you just baked in a trailer, the.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Gap between you and the criminals starts.

[Tegan Broadwater]

To shrink quite a bit. Yeah, yeah. And especially these days when people don't trust cops anyway.

[Unnamed Guest]

So, yeah, I Wondered about that. I wonder, does it make undercover work.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Easier that people don't trust cops? Cause the criminals never trusted cops.

[Unnamed Guest]

But now if they see you guys all as just as bad as them, maybe it's not as hard.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Well, I imagine it's on the prosecutory end really where that would come out, I think, because when you have cases like mine where, you know, you got these hand to hands and firsthand accounts of things they were saying that were incriminating and mine was, obviously I used a dope, but it was a gang case. So even a lot of the things that they would say incriminatingly to me that were used as evidence were things that I didn't drag out of them, but they just had to challenge my credibility on the stand. Most people plead out when they realize, oh, the dude that I've been hanging out with for eight months is this guy, or however long they've known me, then they just know the writing's on the wall, they got to deal with it. But yeah, the ones that challenge it or their attorneys are going to just challenge my credibility as a person and professionally as well.

[Unnamed Guest]

That makes sense. I want to back up the truck a little.

[Jordan Harbinger]

One of the first things you say.

[Unnamed Guest]

In the book actually is that you can't eradicate the dope. And this is probably a silly question, but what do you mean by that? Isn't that what we're trying to do out there is eradicate?

[Tegan Broadwater]

No. If you have a reasonable view on how things go, then you would at least think that we're working toward getting better enforcement and less drugs that hit the street, less addiction, less issues like that. But I don't even see it that way, unfortunately. I see that you have narcops working their asses off and guys going in undercover, guys going across the border and trying to deal with cartels or anything else so that we can keep the wheel spinning and keep it from getting worse. So I think we're essentially putting people in harm's way for the benefit, treading water, not seeing it get worse.

[Unnamed Guest]

And I don't know if that's working. I mean, I see fentanyl and stuff and fentanyl deaths are down in the last 12 months, which is, I don't know.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Well, that kind of changed the game just because it's so lethal. And you get surprised people that are taking the drugs are ignorant to it or don't care or prefer it. I mean that the people on the street versus people like us who just look at it and be like, oh my, gosh this is gonna be the worst thing. If this laced with fentanyl, then a user's like, oh, no, it's great.

[Unnamed Guest]

The scariest thing about fentanyl is one, how lethal it is, like you said. But two, where it really freaks me out is I see people that I know that are like, hey, my friend's having a going away party. These are not people who normally do drugs. Or it's like a bunch of lawyers or something like that. And somebody just buys cocaine, but they.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Get it from their cousin's friend instead.

[Unnamed Guest]

Of their usual guy and has fentanyl and they're dead. Yeah. And that's scary because certain people who use drugs recreationally like to think, look, man, I'm spending $500 on these drugs. It's for a party. I do this once a year. We don't overdo it. Those people are now dying from drug overdoses from fentanyl.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And the gross truth about it is.

[Unnamed Guest]

People care more when it's like recreational, high performing drug users than when it's somebody who has spiraled out of control for the last five years. Going from a back injury to taking heroin to then doing fentanyl on the street and has been homeless for three years.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It sucks.

[Unnamed Guest]

And people will can send me the nastiest emails they want, but it's true. Society just cares about those people, which is crazy, A shame.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Those are the innocents. Those people aren't even really taking it on purpose.

[Unnamed Guest]

That's a good point.

[Jordan Harbinger]

A lot of the drug users that.

[Unnamed Guest]

I've known because they were college wrestlers and did something weird to their back, started taking pills. After a surgery, their pill prescription got cut off, but they were already hooked on this pain med, so they started buying it on the street. And then when their source ran out, they started doing heroin, which they didn't want to do. They just wanted their doctor to keep prescribing them, but the doctor wouldn't because it's been five years or something and.

[Tegan Broadwater]

They have to act criminally in order to get what they need.

[Unnamed Guest]

And then they're hooked on fentanyl and they're like, what the hell? I was a Division 1 wrestler.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

How am I a junkie now? That's the scariest part of this for a lot of people.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Cause it's easy to say, this is someone else's problem.

[Unnamed Guest]

But as somebody who does exercise every day, I'm like, I would take a pain pill if I slipped a disc.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh wait, I could become a junkie.

[Unnamed Guest]

In about three years through the exact same Process. And it's one of those things where once the consequences become possible for you, it's. It's a much bigger problem now, now we better pay attention to this. It might affect me.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah, that's everybody though.

[Unnamed Guest]

It makes me feel better.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Everybody lives in their own little tunnel and like I said, they'll bitch about politics or whatever until there's some kind of benefit for them, then they'll pick that candidate even if they're a complete idiot otherwise.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, I can't imagine what you're talking about right now. Nevermind, I don't want to get into this. So dealers, you say in the book, never do business from their house. I would be a terrible drug dealer because. Made sense to me, but I probably would have just invited people into my backyard to sell drugs. I'm in the right business.

[Tegan Broadwater]

You are, yes.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But some of these guys had you in their house.

[Unnamed Guest]

So what does that tell you when somebody's like, hey, come on over and you're like, oh, he actually lives here?

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah. It's a super show of trust, obviously, because usually, like I said, they don't invite you to the place where they rest their head. There's too much to lose. Even though essentially it's the one environmental aspect that they can control when you think of it from a strategic security standpoint. But it's also where they're most vulnerable because you see where they live, where you can catch them at any given time on any given day because they've got to sleep at some point and they just don't want to show people that or they just do their business elsewhere so they're not showing off their kids or their girlfriends or whatever it is. But yeah, for somebody in my case in particular, it was a big gesture of trust to say, come over to the house or whatever because typically they would just meet you somewhere, or I'd be parked out in the driveway, hit them up, somebody else would come out and do some kind of proxy handoff type thing or whatever. And so I had done so many of that in reverse that I think they just knew I was extra cautious and just had developed trust by then. That's just one of those big signs to me, like, oh man, this guy trusts me enough to come to his actual house.

[Unnamed Guest]

It seems like a bad idea for them to put their guard down like that. Is that a mistake on their part or is it a business decision to say, I'm going to show this guy that I trust him enough to bring him into my house and might benefit our business relationship?

[Tegan Broadwater]

That's a good question. I don't know if they were motivated by anything other than at that point, they trusted me. So it was laziness.

[Unnamed Guest]

Convenience is straight up convenient. That's what I was wondering. Is it a concerted decision? Like, I'm gonna have my closest contacts over? You see, the Godfather, they invite all the guys to the daughter's wedding and.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It'S like, look, we're social, we're friends. You're close enough to my family. It's my daughter's wedding. It's a whole thing.

[Unnamed Guest]

You're invited. It seems like gangster version of that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is, look, sit in my kitchen while.

[Unnamed Guest]

My wife makes us some eggs and we'll do the deal there. Now you're in the inner circle. But it sounds like what you're saying is the guy was like, I don't wanna drive all the way downtown. Just, it's fine, come to my house.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah. And that's a presumption on my part. They still played the movie role. I'd walk in, they'd close the burglar bar cage and lock it and shut the door, and then he'd sit back on his couch with a couple 45s pointed out like it's some kind of, okay, we'll start rolling on this. But I just attribute it to that. It still was a leap of faith though, on their part. Because they said in practice, even with people that were fellow gang members, they didn't do as much of that. I would say I was the only non gang member that I knew of that was actually in somebody's house wheeling and dealing at that point. Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

Tell me how the Crips do business, because it actually sounds quite a bit like a real business where they open up a test market, they run their guys in there, and then suddenly they go, oh, this is a serious moneymaker. We got to get an experienced branch manager to go run these few blocks. Sounds kind of like that.

[Tegan Broadwater]

It sort of is, yeah. It's sophisticated enough to where you think that they have an appreciable talent to actually run a business, but at the same time, they're street thugs. So there's. These are 25 to 29 year olds trying to do a thing, but they're still street thugs. So in terms, their common sense is a little bit limited because their goals are to support the gangs. They're still so selfish that they're infighting amongst different sets within the same gang and things like that. If they were really that prolific at running a business, then you wouldn't have different sets. Within the Crip organization, you'd have crypts as a whole. They could conquer quite a bit, but they're so fragmented. You just take on one aspect of it and take those down, you have a bunch of people there, then you take other ones down and you can actually get sometimes other sets of crypts to help you infiltrate different sets for the sake of territorial command or whatever.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that's interesting because of course, from.

[Unnamed Guest]

The outside, we think, oh, there's Crips and there's Bloods. Crips are all on the same team. The Bloods are all on the same team. It's like pretty serious business. But it sounds like almost from block to block, it's like those guys don't get along with those other guys, and those guys don't get along with those other guys.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And these guys are doing business with.

[Unnamed Guest]

The Bloods, but those guys won't do business with the other Crips. And it's like, well, what the hell's the point then?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Why wear the blue? Why have the colors? Why have the jersey?

[Unnamed Guest]

Why have. It doesn't mean anything. You're still shooting each other.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah. And the best thing to compare to is again, that common enemy concept is that when there is a threat from Bloods or law enforcement, they will collaborate a lot more because then, you know, hey, this is some kind of threat and blah, blah, blah, and they'll get together and do more in that aspect. But yeah, in terms of just doing the business, they would set up houses. Like they'd have somebody who's got a real estate license and he would set up all these rentals and then put some chicks in there that have an id and they would sit in there and then the dealers would send their crews in and they'd have these mid level guys running the house. Somebody would make a drop under the engine compartment, the hood of the car that's in the backyard. And then they sell that throughout the day. They'd break it up and sell it. They've got somebody that cooks it in a separate place. So they're making all these drops at these different houses. And they put all these little worker bees to go in there and distribute it throughout the day. So even if you hit a house, typical narcotics operations, or trying to even get the gangs through narcotics, which I was doing, you'd knock a house down, you can try to get some intel, but you're still getting low level people. And then you've got somebody that actually is the renter in the home that isn't associated with the people. So the renter is shielded there in terms of prosecution. And then you've got dudes that certainly don't live there. So finding mail and if they have drugs in there but they're not in actual possession, it makes it a real difficult case to make. Each time it was just a pain in the ass for me. I was hitting houses to try to hit the same people three and four times so that I could then call the district attorney's office and say, all right, this case that you have on, so. And so I know that you're going to plead it out because this is how you do it. But there's three other ones, and I think they're attached to some different prosecutors in the same office. And maybe you could create a case out of all these and actually give these people some time.

[Unnamed Guest]

I see. Yeah. It's probably harder to prove you didn't know it was going on when there's three separate cases on your property with different people that you have known associations with.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, we can go and prove this.

[Unnamed Guest]

Or you can stay in jail for six months because we're going to find out that you did this. But, yeah, if it's just one guy did a drug deal in your driveway.

[Tegan Broadwater]

But you find him, he swears he doesn't live there, and I don't have anything to do with this. And then three other times, law enforcement finds you there, three other dates with doping guns in proximity, Then circumstantially, you have something, you know, starts to look.

[Unnamed Guest]

Bad at some point when it keeps happening.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Wow, you have the worst luck, man. You keep getting arrested with drugs and guns near you all the time that are never yours.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Wow.

[Unnamed Guest]

You should probably keep better company. You said the key skills are count and kill. This is probably a dumb question, but I don't care. Is every gang member violent? Because it seems like they have to be. But it also seems like if you want to run a business, shouldn't you find smart people to do it? I don't know.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Well, the tag on that question is profound, of course, but I think no is the answer. But it depends on to what extent. If you work for a company that essentially makes its hay on the back end bullying people into doing business and it's some kind of illegal whatever, and you work for that company knowing that that goes on, there's some culpability that goes on. But obviously there are extremes in how people act in terms of who's the most violent, who's just a kind of a connector. There's Always those guys that I would run into that just know all these fools, but aren't really at a level to where they can just make a perfect introduction in terms of enforcement. A lot of those guys that are the most violent end up either knocked out in prison or running the show, if they're smart. Mike Kingpin was involved in several murders, but was out and had gotten smart and was running stuff to where this dude's never got his hands on anything. So he's running from a ghost. Everybody knows who he is, but he's not driving to houses and delivering stuff. He's dealing with the Mexican connect. Pulling in 250k a week, moving product in this one part of town. It's just pretty unbelievable.

[Unnamed Guest]

Is that his operating capital or is that his profit? 250k a week, that was his profit.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Wow.

[Unnamed Guest]

So these guys are making a million dollars in profit. How much do you think these kingpins are personally taking in?

[Tegan Broadwater]

That's a great question. Because when you talk about how organized the business is, these guys at the top got really smart. There's a reason why you're involved in several murders and you're a strong arm and you're smart enough to be a leader, but you're not driving a frickin Porsche around with 21 inch wheels and whatever, drawing attention to yourself. Sure. So these guys are living in modest houses, driving okay cars and just doing their thing. And the lower on the totem pole you get, the more you see the money being squandered. We had an informant in one of my cases where we ended up paying him like 50k for all of his help. He'd helped us for several months doing this one case and took him two months to spend the 50k. And this is a guy that lives in a rental in the hood. And it was just a shame. He bought two cars that ended up getting loaned out and stolen, and then he bought a kilo and he's. I was like, dude, when you get to that point, you're like, yes, there's a level of sophistication, but ultimately they're not applying themselves to really learn how to run a true business. They just outpower each other along every part of the path and then don't really have that financial responsibility. Unless you're one of those kingpins.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, it seems like these Kingpin guys are.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's almost like they're smart enough or.

[Unnamed Guest]

Maybe they're just violent enough. Shouldn't they be making enough money and going, all right, if I can't buy expensive Things because it puts me on the radar too much. I gotta stash this money and eventually I can retire. I mean, is there any success story of anybody who's just like, worked really hard, made a bunch of money and then was like, I'm gonna go live in the suburbs of Atlanta in a really nice house and pretend I made it all from this car wash?

[Tegan Broadwater]

There has to be.

[Unnamed Guest]

Come on, man.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah, there has to be. And I was, I swore because of the amount of money that was coming in, I swore that when my kingpin went down, that money was somewhere. We were raiding little storage places that we found in associates names. Everything that was completely empty, look, cleaned out. And all of a sudden his wife is starting to deal with these same people at the same level and picking up where he left off. I think. I'm thinking, man, she's not equipped to do this now. And within a couple of months of the roundup because they hadn't even been transferred or completely tried and sent to their long term federal facility, she got whacked. And so I'm thinking, okay, now the money's really somewhere because at one point you thought, well, he's handing her the reins and she's going to continue this business. Then there's still active money somewhere. But when she's gone, that's sitting somewhere. It's not like she handed it off to somebody because she didn't expect to die that night. So I think there still might be some money somewhere. But as you know too, it's difficult. You go do 30 years in fed and then get out and all of a sudden dig up some kind of treasure and then pretend you're going to live an honest living and start with that kind of money. That's also really a sophisticated process.

[Unnamed Guest]

You've got to launder it somehow, but then also not have it be in your name so that when you get out of prison you can access it and it doesn't get seized.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah, that's a sophisticated move. And again, at every level you're talking about something else. And again, this was a big city gang they were trying to infiltrate. So that was their primary method of I don't have to have a job because I'm part of the market here. But it wasn't like some kind of ingenious thing where they're just doing the dope game and somebody at the top is just doing their thing and then stepping out and bugging, taking their winnings and moving to another country or something. It just didn't work like that because they Were all homies still.

[Jordan Harbinger]

All right, time for a little crack break. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Dell and amd. What if the first sign you've been hacked was your own voice reading a script you never wrote? That's what happens in episode six of the Cybersecurity Tapes, a gripping story driven podcast from Dell Technologies and amd. A CEO takes the stage to launch a new AI powered finance app. But seconds into the presentation, things go off the rails. Wrong slides. Glitched teleprompter. A nightmare that unfolds right in front.

[Unnamed Guest]

Of a live audience.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Was it a man in the middle attack? A targeted exploit? Something worse. I really like how the Cybersecurity Tapes podcast takes real world cyber threats and turns them into suspenseful, fictionalized stories while.

[Unnamed Guest]

Actually teaching you how to protect yourself.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's entertaining, yes, but it also makes you realize how vulnerable we all are.

[Unnamed Guest]

To these kinds of attacks and what you can do to stay safe.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Search for the cybersecurity tapes wherever you get your podcasts and check out episode six. It might just save you from learning some of these lessons the hard way. This episode is also sponsored by Factor. If you're serious about making this season count, Factor is your secret weapon. We're talking nutritious meals ready in just two minutes. That's it. Heat and eat.

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[Unnamed Guest]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Unnamed Guest]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

This episode is also sponsored by Progressive Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and a whole lot more. Plus you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance, Progressive Casualty Insurance company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these amazing folks for the show, it is because of my network. The circle of people I know, like and trust. I actually taught this six minute networking stuff and about to pitch to you two three letter agencies that use it in their undercover work to generate connections, maintain connections. I'm teaching you how to do the same thing for free [e-mail] this is an easy course. You can binge the whole thing. It takes a few minutes a day and many of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to this course. So come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. Again, the course is totally free [e-mail] now back to Tegan Broadwater.

[Unnamed Guest]

I think a lot of people are probably wondering how a white dude infiltrates the Crips. How does that happen? Because at first when I heard about your story, I was like, tegan Broadwater.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Not a typical name for a black.

[Unnamed Guest]

Dude, but what do I know?

[Tegan Broadwater]

That sounds kind of Nordic, suspiciously a.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Little bit, but I don't know. What do I know? And then I talked to you on.

[Unnamed Guest]

The phone and I was like, I'm suspecting that this person might actually be Caucasian. And then you said, yeah, not a lot of people expected a white dude to infiltrate the Crips. And I was like, okay, okay, there's a story here.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah, of course. And that's really the beauty of undercover is I think the studying that I did and the cases that I read about and the people that I talked to in terms of how they managed to succeed in cases and failing cases. Everybody kept saying you've got to modify your behavior and try to fit into this group and that group. And it was difficult for me to even get into the narcotics unit to do some of that stuff because I'm just a big white stiff. And we have these poor minority neighborhoods that are having all these crime issues and we need somebody that can fit into the profile or whatever. And I'm like, man, that's just not how it works.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So try talking with a New Jersey.

[Unnamed Guest]

Accent and then they'll trust you. I mean, it seems like it's too tall of an order. Everyone in the Crips and Bloods, do you have to be African American or is it they.

[Tegan Broadwater]

They've made some exceptions. I don't know if it's widely accepted, but again, they have so many sects throughout a lot of those things that you'll find some Hispanic folks, occasionally you find some white folks, but I would say 95, 96% African American. But if I showed up fat, wearing gold and tats all over my face and some missing teeth and maybe some teardrops, I probably could have tried to get an association. But that wasn't my, really my goal. Anyway. I almost got more information fitting in by standing out. Because I thought, I'm not just white.

[Unnamed Guest]

You'Re glowing, I'm white. Yeah.

[Tegan Broadwater]

So I just thought, man, your refrigerator.

[Unnamed Guest]

Light gives you a sunburn.

[Tegan Broadwater]

I came in as a guy from South Texas and Austin area where my connection had been busted by the feds. And I was moving into a new area just because. To get away from the heat, but keep my game going so that it appeared as though I was a big time player coming into a new town. So making these little inquiries were reasonable, but also wasn't making buys from the small time guys. So the easiest way for me to start was to go down onto the blocks and take somebody with me that did fit a little bit more over the profile and say, I'm new to town, but I'm not here to play. This isn't my game. I do powder cocaine. I don't do any hard stuff or whatever, but I'm just hooking my boy up over here. He's trying to get his game going. And I would make it all about him. They'd ask me a bunch of questions. I'm not gonna ask you questions. You have to ask me now. This is all about him. You can ask him the questions that you want. And I pulled in and he would make an order for some crack cocaine and then they would come over and bring it to him. And then I would hand him the money and we'd make that transaction. That way I'm pretending like I'm trying to be the one that's being extra cautious.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I see.

[Tegan Broadwater]

I'm going to fight your cautiousness with my cautiousness, saying, smart. Yeah. I'm actually not ready to do this because my game is way above your head.

[Unnamed Guest]

So are you kind of pretending you're bankrolling this young dude? It's almost like poker, right? So you get a poker player who's pretty good, but he's 25, and then you get some guy, like some tech bro who goes, I'm not that good at poker, but I do have $500,000 and you can use it, and then we split the winnings or however that works. Yeah, that's almost like what you're doing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

With drugs and the person that you're bringing around. Is this somebody that's just been arrested.

[Unnamed Guest]

Before and that's why they're working with you, or is it another undercover?

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah, in this case, it's exactly what it was. It was somebody that was trying to work a case off. Those are really hit and miss. But this was a perfect way for me to get in because then I could be seen at least doing something where everything went without a hitch. And I was also being uber cautious because normally in the blocks that we're talking about, where they called the fishbowl nose, little six square block area, I mean, you white people coming down there to do any business, it was just. It was a gang haven. And the only other people in there that weren't gang affiliated were just trying to make it, but had to live with all this violence and a prostitute hotel at the end of one of the entrances. One way in, one way out. So I just thought, everyone thought it was presumptuous anyway that I even had the plan. My boss laughed. My informant laughed. We're sipping whiskey at each.

[Unnamed Guest]

Really?

[Tegan Broadwater]

He just laughed his ass off. You know, the city council and the chief of police and the mayor, it all said, all right, this is a nuisance. This area is a big problem, and we need to do something about it. And so they started doing all the typical things. Jump outs and writing warrants and hitting.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What's a jump out?

[Tegan Broadwater]

Just driving an unmarked van into the thing. And all of a sudden, you know, 10 cops bail out and just try to grab everybody that's running.

[Unnamed Guest]

And that doesn't sound super effective, but what do I know?

[Tegan Broadwater]

You'd be surprised. And when you're talking low levels, you can get somebody that's got something in their pocket that's running and you end up finding them, they'll give up something.

[Unnamed Guest]

Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah. This is like the Giuliani stop and frisk.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah. You pull up and then you just hop out of the van. When everybody starts running, you're saying stop because you know that it's an active drug selling area. And then people are running. So you have a reason to at least stop them and ask questions at that point. Anyway, none of that stuff was working because there was too much information back in there to where there was too much heat.

[Unnamed Guest]

Why do they call it the fishbowl?

[Tegan Broadwater]

Law enforcement deemed it the fishbowl because every time you went in, we went in too deep. If you're answering calls down there or whatever. Because it was just a super violent area in a generally violent part of town. It was just a really focused part.

[Unnamed Guest]

Where, where is this literally in the United States?

[Tegan Broadwater]

It is in Southeast Dallas, Fort Worth area.

[Unnamed Guest]

I see. Okay.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Every city has a similar area. Fort Worth is what, the 10th largest city in the US and everything is predicated upon the way that the practices are handed down when they started here in la. And once you get through the prison systems, then that's where you accumulate more intel.

[Unnamed Guest]

Wow.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Interesting people that you can put out on the streets and you can take this set and now start a Texas chapter essentially and do that kind of thing.

[Unnamed Guest]

I see. Wow. It all originated here in Los Angeles. I guess it's not a huge surprise.

[Tegan Broadwater]

No, of course not.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Capital, right?

[Unnamed Guest]

So there's regular families living in this area, which is, of course there are because it's a neighborhood. But who lives there? The kids can't walk to school, I assume in a place like this.

[Tegan Broadwater]

No. And at some point people are like, so off put by gang violence, stuff like let them go kill each other. That's fine if there's no collateral damage. The fact is you have people that have been living there for generations and they're old and poor and just trying to make it and they can't just up and move. So it's not as simple as that. And then you've got these kids that are leaving the home and living six deep with an aunt next door, and all of a sudden they get a quick way to make a buck and then they turn into something. But by the time they're in their mid-20s, they be part of the enterprise and it's just bringing this nuisance and danger around. All these other people that are trying to raise kids and do whatever they can. And that's really the motivation anyway. In this whole thing. That's why I swore to my wife, this is going to take me three months, I think, to get through it. I already had my target list. Thought I could get this knocked out in three months and at least make some good cases and get these people out of that part of the neighborhood and clean it up and see if they'll sell the houses off and then leave the people that are just trying to survive. I think it's the misconception about any poor part of town is where the crime is very high. It's still a very small percentage of people who are committing the crime.

[Unnamed Guest]

That's sad.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah. Cause like you said, there's a lot of people who have young kids, and then there's old folks who can't move, and they're just stuck with all these guys who are 25 years old shooting each other. Yeah. And the bullets going through your living room window while you're eating dinner.

[Tegan Broadwater]

It's ridiculous.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah. To say the least.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And these guys are so violent.

[Unnamed Guest]

I mean, you mentioned in the book people are getting executed because somebody sticks a rifle up their ass and fires. And it's just like, super sociopathic sounding.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah. That was one of the guys that was a part of the Crips, but again was robbing other Crips. He was just going against the whole code. So he eventually robbed one of the upper echelon guy's parents.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Geez.

[Tegan Broadwater]

And tried to get them to search in the attic. One of the dads in a wheelchair and everything. Really pathetic scenario. He's just super, super brazen about the way he went about things. And they didn't just kill him. They.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, so he deserved it. Never mind that.

[Tegan Broadwater]

I'm fine with it, I guess.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah. Okay.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Essentially was a gang beef, but you do see somebody that's out on the street. And I would get a lot of it because they're just testing me to just think I was naive in the beginning until they thought that I was some kind of big timer that say, man, I got this kilo 11k. You can get it. And I'm thinking, who just steal that from.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah. Because it says it's too cheap. Is that what that is?

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah, that's somebody that steals your car and then tries to resell it at a tenth of the value just to unload it. No, thanks.

[Unnamed Guest]

You said by the time you were doing undercover work or you wanted to do undercover work and infiltrate the Crips, you had executed 500 warrants. I'm going to assume that's A lot, because it sounds like a lot.

[Tegan Broadwater]

That was part of my motivation to get into the narcotics unit because again, I'd been turned down three times. I didn't get until the fourth time. My interviews went great. I knew all the laws. And so all I could do in order to really get it with the issues that they had and they were looking for a profile is to just outperform and show that I can accomplish this stuff. Anyway, so then I show up and I say, I have six informants on the books. I've done this many buys, you know, I've done this many warrants, you know, So I would do these small time warrants. I got a team that's SWAT certified and we'd go do our patrol stuff. And then after patrol, I would show them where I'd made the buys during their shift. And then we'd go hit a house and then turn everything and find all the evidence and whatever. And they were just small time dope houses that narcs didn't want to hit because they're looking for bigger stuff. But it was a good experience for me because again, it's. We're using Hand me down. What stuff is all expired and trying to.

[Unnamed Guest]

If you get shot, this might just disintegrate. So try to take a shot.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What expires?

[Tegan Broadwater]

Obviously, we didn't take it too seriously. Really? Cool.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

We didn't read the labels.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah, it was obviously not the steel plates, but apparently they replaced all their stuff. And then we took these old, used up helmets and whatever.

[Unnamed Guest]

What's this stain on my Kevlar? Don't worry about it.

[Tegan Broadwater]

It's an old van. Sometimes the van would break down halfway on your way to the location. This piece of junk vans, we didn't have much of a budget to work with, but again, I was just efficient at making either covered buys using an informant or learning how to do a little bit more undercover on a small scale doing little small deals, and then getting into those houses later to build evidence. But just the fact that you can drive a van up and get in the stick and execute a dynamic search warrant, kick the door down and do it was great experience. And that was part of the inspiration too.

[Unnamed Guest]

I'm just imagining you have a bunch of guys laid out in the front lawn with the handcuffs on, and the guy's like, hey, the van won't start again. It's like, call a couple Uber xls.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Get these guys booked.

[Unnamed Guest]

Who's got a minivan at home?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Take the car seats out, bring it over here.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Way more embarrassing, man.

[Unnamed Guest]

Like, why are there so many Cheerios on the floor of this cop car? Don't worry about it. Shut up.

[Tegan Broadwater]

That's practically what it was. Seriously bad. I don't know where they even got it from, but they were like, here, y' all can use this. Because we were doing a good job hitting these places on a regular basis. And the fact I would go in, make buys on Monday, write the warrant, hit the place on Tuesday, do the catch up stuff, and file the paperwork for my next one on Wednesday, and hit another house on Thursday. And to the point where the hood came to me, and my informants were like, hey, they call it task force Tuesdays and Thursdays.

[Unnamed Guest]

I'm like.

[Tegan Broadwater]

I'm like, oh, really? Am I that predictable?

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

Wow.

[Tegan Broadwater]

So that's when we were doing just the small time stuff. But I was just trying to hit as many places as I could. Again, just to. When I go in for my interview, I can say, okay, I've got a couple hundred warrants I've done. And this is the case. This is what we've gleaned from those cases. These are my informants. I've learned how to work them. And I'm not working in a bright white neighborhood just trying to bust TCU kids. I just showed that you don't have to fit a profile necessarily to TCU's college kids. Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

I would imagine busting a college kid is like the rookie job. Like, all right, find some guy who sells weed and also delivers sandwiches. See if you can actually make an arrest.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah, as long as you find ketamine in the sandwich, maybe that'd be a good case.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, my buddy who I grew up with, he used to deliver sandwiches and he would also sell marijuana. So it was like a good gig for him because he's driving around all day and he's got sandwiches in the car. And it's not, like, really suspicious if he's going walking around buildings because he's the Jimmy John's guy, for God's sake.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Of course.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Plausible deniability.

[Unnamed Guest]

So sometimes people would order sandwiches and he'd be like. He'd show up and they'd be like, all right, Mark, we want an eighth and thank you. Got my Hunter's Club, you know, and he's like, of course. He's probably like a lawyer now, actually a good guy. But he told me he got caught once.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And the way that he got caught.

[Unnamed Guest]

Was he had stopped selling weed because he didn't want to run into any trouble. And he Was graduating. He didn't really need the money anymore. He's going to get a real job. That was the plan all along. It is for a lot of college kids who sell weed, sure. And somebody was like, I really need it. I really need it. I really need it. You're the only guy I know. I really need it. And just kept pestering him. And he was like, fine, I can get you an eighth of good stuff. Just tell me where to drop it off. And that guy, he was, like, rolling over on him. And basically, he was a snitch because he had gotten caught doing something else. I can't remember what it is. And so he was like, the rule.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is, if you're in the game, you're in the game because then you're being careful.

[Unnamed Guest]

And he's like. Because he thought about it a lot when he was doing his probation. The reason I got caught was I didn't take any of my usual precautions at all with transportation, vetting, making sure this whole thing seemed legit. And he's like, 2020 hindsight. The whole thing stunk to high hell. I just didn't pay attention because he was, like, done with it and let his guard down fully. And so he's like, when I was actively doing this, I never would have fallen for this particular trick. I don't remember all the circumstances. I thought that was kind of interesting because I suppose it makes sense. Some of the guys that you busted, like the guy who had you over to his house, if he was really.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Thinking, he probably wouldn't have had you over to his house.

[Unnamed Guest]

He would have been like, no, I.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Have these rules for a reason.

[Unnamed Guest]

They're there for a reason. That's a reason. It's a rule. Maybe I don't want the cop in the kitchen. Oh, Tegan's not a cop.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Ah, the one time I make an.

[Unnamed Guest]

Exception, yeah, it's the guy.

[Tegan Broadwater]

And those are interesting because those are a little bit sniffing entrapment when you really are like, nah, I'm completely retired. And you're like, come on, man, just one more time. Just do it. I know you're not doing anymore. I mean, that's a little bit of a different situation. And it wasn't a cop. It was a snitch anyway.

[Unnamed Guest]

But I can't remember exactly, but I think it was a snitch. I think it was just like, okay, well, you're going to be on probation. He didn't try to fight it. This is entrapment. It was like an eighth of marijuana, for God's Sake. This is such a small amount of marijuana. I think a prosecutor would have gone, why am I frigging looking at this? Even in Ann Arbor, Michigan, it's what are we doing here?

[Tegan Broadwater]

But that was a while ago to the 90s. Yeah, a lot of people don't recognize how badly marijuana was looked upon back in the 90s. And you go back to the 60s and there's people doing 20 year stints for a half a pound of marijuana. I mean, obviously the culture has just shifted. Even in places like Texas and Florida, where they'll be the last to get on board, they still don't really enforce a lot of stuff because they don't play unless you walk around with weight, obviously. But you know, somebody like that. And interestingly, the way you describe the college kid is a lot of how these, whether they be gang bangers or just drug dealers in this poor neighborhood fall into the same situation because they'll say, hey man, you know, I'm 19 years old, I'm just trying to make it, I need to get through this. But they can't afford a college. They're just trying to save up to do this. But what's readily available is crack and they can make even more. And it makes you wonder, well, if crack were available in some of the ritzy Moore places, you could do weed and make a little bit. But if you decided you wanted to do crack also, like, there's 200 people around here that would totally buy it from you. Would you do that for, you know, risk the felony knowing that there were plenty of people on your neighborhood blocks that would feed you that money?

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah.

[Tegan Broadwater]

It makes it an interesting thing for an immature kid who just.

[Unnamed Guest]

It's a thought experiment, man. Look, back in the 90s, cocaine was.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Bad, but there were still kids who were from New York and stuff who.

[Unnamed Guest]

Were like, it's not that bad. My parents do it, you know, whatever.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And so you'd go to these parties.

[Unnamed Guest]

With these New York kids, this is Ann Arbor, Michigan, and they would have cocaine. And I was like, I don't want to be anywhere near this stuff. And then when I went and moved to New York after college, I was like, oh, they're not kidding. This stuff is just like everywhere. And there's a lot of casual users.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Even in the 90s, when was this?

[Unnamed Guest]

This is like 2000, 2001, by the time I graduated.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Wow, that's crazy.

[Unnamed Guest]

And New York had a lot of casual users. I worked on Wall street. So guys, I'd be like, I am so tired. I Gotta go buy a Red Bull. And they're like, that ain't shit. Try this.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I'm like, you're a fifth year.

[Unnamed Guest]

Associate at a firm.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Why do you have this in your desk? And he's like, well, try it. And then you'll know why I have it in my desk.

[Unnamed Guest]

Because at 11pm on a Sunday, when you've been working for seven days, it.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Beats Superman, by the way.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, you wanna finish this brief or not, pal?

[Unnamed Guest]

And I'm like, okay. So in Ann Arbor, there were kids.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That were doing it.

[Unnamed Guest]

And I remember my friend Jason was like, I got this cocaine. And I was like, I don't want any part of this. And I was like, where did you get this? And he goes, larry? And I go, we only know one guy named Larry. So which Larry? And he's like, larry. And I'm like the physics major.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The guy who's got like a PhD thing going at Caltech after this. And he's like, yeah. And I couldn't believe it. Because it wasn't like junkies who were.

[Unnamed Guest]

Rolled up in a gutter who were screwing up their lives. It was like, the guy who's in.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Medical school is also the cocaine dealer.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Man, that's so whack though, too. He's really putting his entire future at risk.

[Unnamed Guest]

Dumbass kid stuff where the consequences are just illusory and you can't quite wrap your mind around it. But yeah, it was exactly that.

[Tegan Broadwater]

And he ends up being a felon. Even after you get out, you're still screwed. You can't go back and try it again. I mean, you're done.

[Unnamed Guest]

It's probably really hard to get a job as a tenured professor if you have a cocaine felony on your record.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Even if it was 30 years ago. I mean, it's pretty amazing how punishing those felonies can be.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, that's terrifying because a lot of these guys were perfectly nice, normal guys. They just like to dabble in a.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Little bit of the white powder.

[Unnamed Guest]

And I remember being, like, terrified of the stuff because I grew up in the 80s and 90s where this is your brain on drugs. Any questions? And it's, oh, I don't want that to happen to me.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah, I have plenty of questions.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, I have a lot of questions. But I don't want this guy to answer them because he's freaking me out with his frying pan.

[Jordan Harbinger]

All right, now it's time for me to sling some dope deals on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Audible. People always ask me how I managed to get through so much content, especially.

[Unnamed Guest]

Since I prep for every interview.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm talking two to three books a week, and it's all thanks to Audible. I've got Audible in my ears while.

[Unnamed Guest]

I'm getting my 10,000 steps in running.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Errands, even doing stuff around the house.

[Unnamed Guest]

I don't mess with physical books anymore at all. Audible is just way more efficient. I listen on 2 or even 3x.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Speed, which lets me cover a lot.

[Unnamed Guest]

Of ground without sacrificing quality.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right now I'm listening to Good Inside.

[Unnamed Guest]

By Dr. Becky Kennedy.

[Jordan Harbinger]

She's got this really down to earth.

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Unnamed Guest]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

This episode is sponsored in part by the Defender. You ever meet somebody and instantly know they've been places that calm and chaos? I've driven through a storm and found the sunrise kind of energy. That's the Defender in vehicle form. It's not just a car, it's a statement. And nod to the ones who don't.

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[Unnamed Guest]

A lot of the advice given to undercovers is nonsense. I touched on this at the top of the show. One of the tips is make your.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Car dirty, get an earring. Was it a talk with an accent? And I'm thinking this can't be real. Is this really what people are learning?

[Unnamed Guest]

You said you had no training, so I don't know what's worse that training or no training.

[Tegan Broadwater]

For me, I honestly just what I've learned from the people who are really successful in real long term undercover work, which is different than going to buy something and then make it a buy bust, are that you keep a personality type that is really close to your own. And I think it was just proven of the fact that when I was trying to get in the narcotics unit and I was figuring out how to make these buys and figuring out how to convince people to do what it was, it was just all about leveraging my own personalities instead of trying to memorize 50 different things. And then when they start asking you these 20 questions, you're messing them up because you're trying to remember who you're supposed to be. And all this kind of stuff, it makes it worse.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah.

[Tegan Broadwater]

In an exigent circumstance, I don't want to have to think of A through Z. Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

You want to run under stress.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah. So I want to know that these things are high and tight and I just can worry about A through C and make some strategic choices at that point. And then so I just give myself less to think about because it's stressful. Even in a successful deal or a successful day hangout, it's still stress.

[Unnamed Guest]

If I'm an undercover, I change my name. But I'm still from a suburb of Detroit. I still moved to California. I still did a little bit of time when I lived in New York. Maybe I wasn't a lawyer in New York, but maybe I was, I don't know, working at a bar that I hung out at a lot in New York that's no longer open. Something like that. That way, if I have to recall it or I say, yeah, when I.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Lived in New York.

[Unnamed Guest]

And the guy's like, wait, I thought you said you lived in California. This doesn't make sense. Oh, no.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I lived in New York before.

[Unnamed Guest]

And I don't have to change my story. It's actually my store ages with a little 15%.

[Tegan Broadwater]

And that's when it would even come into play. Because what I found before I got into it, I had everything set up. My backstory is kind of set. I've got these IDs, and I just kept thinking, I don't know when I'm going to use an id Anyway. These people asked to see my id. I'm going to be like, you freaking kidding me? You see my id, Let me See your.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Before I sell you this kilo of.

[Unnamed Guest]

Uncut cocaine, I need to see some identification to make sure you're over 18.

[Tegan Broadwater]

It's interesting because obviously all that stuff gets handled. And there's been scenarios where people have been shaken down and they're in a place where they can't leave, and they've got to recite stuff, and it's just kind of the way you're stuck. So it's necessary. But in general, if you're playing that game, a lot of these guys amongst themselves, I don't really know what this dude's full name is. I know he's this, and I've known him since first grade, but I really don't know his whole name.

[Unnamed Guest]

His name is Jackbox, but I don't know. What if his real name is John?

[Tegan Broadwater]

All right.

[Unnamed Guest]

I never knew that.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah, it's amazing. So. So for them to start asking, that's another way that I got in a lot easier, is when they start giving me the 20 questions, I would immediately just resort to, man, I don't mind entering a little bit, but we're not going here. I'm a professional, and you obviously haven't done this enough to understand how this works. And it doesn't work by me giving you a bunch of information. You don't ask me anything. If you want to do business, cool. If you don't want a business, also cool, because I got other places that I can go do business.

[Unnamed Guest]

I could see the ID thing coming in a little bit. Like, you deliver the information in a way where the person thinks they're clever for getting it. Like, maybe you need to chop a little bit off of a brick. So you take out your ID and he notices it has your fake name on it. And then it's like, oh, his name is Tegan Narrow Water.

[Tegan Broadwater]

I love it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Huh?

[Tegan Broadwater]

I love it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is that a realistic.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah, it sounds like a really creative kind of way to just do something subtly to just bolster your own idea.

[Unnamed Guest]

You leave it on the table when you look at it, and then you take it. Okay. And then you pick your idea up, and of course, he's eyeballing it, but you just pretend you don't notice that.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah. That's the kind of thing I feel like.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

I like thinking through this stuff.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's fun.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The part that wouldn't be fun for.

[Unnamed Guest]

Me is wondering if I'm going to get shot. That's the part that doesn't sound as fun.

[Tegan Broadwater]

I know. I compare it to, like, jumping out of A plane with a parachute. You're not sure how to work it, but you just figure it out. Once you're out of the plane, you got to figure it out. Once I got into the case, a lot of those things that I ran into I couldn't anticipate. But I knew that a lot of the typical things might happen. Somebody's going to brandish a gun, somebody's going to pull a gun on me or whatever, try to search me, they're going to ask the do, dope all those things. I would run through as much of it as I could and try to figure out how can I manage to maneuver through those situations ahead of time.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah.

[Tegan Broadwater]

So that again, I don't get caught flat footed and stutter over myself trying to think of what I'm supposed to say. Because I've thought through a lot of those scenarios.

[Unnamed Guest]

There's a point at which some guy says like brandishes a gun, he says.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You want some of this?

[Unnamed Guest]

And you're just like, whatever fool. And roll your eyes. What are you actually thinking in that moment? Because I would not be thinking, whatever fool, idiot. You know, I'd be like, oh my God, this guy's threatening me with a weapon.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah, well of course you are. And if you're talking about the guy that walked out in front of the car. Yeah, yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

So how do you train yourself to do that without worry like, oh, he might actually shoot me when I'm like, whatever, sucker.

[Tegan Broadwater]

That's why I wonder if a lot of people could do a lot of this stuff. You have to stay cool out. Staying cool. But of course in your mind you're running through scenarios because I'm thinking I'm basically sitting on my piece because it's out of a holster, but sitting under my thigh. But obviously if he's already brandishing something, I'm not going to get it in time. So I've got to start thinking strategically about how I'm going to do stuff. But typically you just want to engage in some kind of conversation and figure out what he wants because again, he's just talking a bunch of bullshit at this point anyways. You're like, again, I'm supposed to be coming in as somebody bigger and better than these guys are used to because I'm new. But man, I've been through this game before and you guys are the novices. So I'm just playing it off like that. But yes, my brain is running through 800 things because again, I'm stuck there and thinking, okay, well I'm Half trapped in this thing. But if I can talk to him, maneuver myself out of the car to where we can be mano e mono, that's great. But then if that's the case and I end up having a piece prepared and he's got eight other dudes that are also standing here, that's also not advantageous to be out of the car. Do you think I'm just going to run over this dude? That's where some of your training does come in, those scenarios where you've run where people are coming up and doing these fake deals at the window and telling you to try to figure out what you're going to do. And you try to shoot somebody and you get wax bullets peltering all over the back of your neck, which don't feel good.

[Unnamed Guest]

Oh, wow, that's a real thing. Wax bullets. I never thought about that.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Oh, dude, they'll leave good old whelps, too. Yeah. You wear protective equipment. They get through the little crevices and.

[Unnamed Guest]

Do some things like paintball, where you're like, I thought I was wearing a protective neck gaiter. Like, no, man, not from five feet away. When the guy hits it five times in a row.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

There was something in the book that I didn't fully understand. So you go and buy drugs, and the guy, I think, is trying to sell you crack, and you're like, no, I don't want to buy crack. My guess was that you wanted to find powdered cocaine, because that's the expensive ingredient in crack.

[Tegan Broadwater]

It's essentially cocaine before it's cooked down into crack. And essentially crack is like a purified high and a really fast high. And that's what went into the poor neighborhoods through the 80s when it was created. But my objective in that instance was to try to move beyond the crack, because what I wanted were the suppliers. So I want. When you come in with bricks of cocaine, you're not buying bricks of crack. You're creating the crack from those bricks.

[Unnamed Guest]

So it's like baking powder, and it's like crap you can buy at the grocery store. Yeah.

[Tegan Broadwater]

They step on it or make it pure, however, they're going to break it down. But my objective at that point was to move past them because you're dealing with crack. By the time somebody's bought it, they've already sent it to a house to cook. They broke it into 100 pieces. And now you're giving it to me. I'm not interested in that. So by not being interested, first of all, culturally, it made sense because you Know, I don't really have a game where people are looking for hard is what they call it at the time.

[Unnamed Guest]

Hard as crack or hardest cocaine.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Hardest crack. And the powder was the cocaine powder. And then my objective again was, you need to introduce me to the guy you get ultimately.

[Unnamed Guest]

Because if you're getting it after it's been cooked, this guy's an underling from the cook who's an underling from the guy who gets the cocaine. You're skipping whatever three levels by refusing to deal with crack, which is gross anyways. But like you said, culturally, it's sort of, you're not a druggie, you're not a user, because you don't want crack, you want cocaine. It's, oh, so he's going to cook it, or he uses cocaine, or his people that he sells to use cocaine so they have more money because crack is just cheaper cocaine, basically, at that point, right?

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah. Well, it all breaks down into. You turn $100 into $1 million pretty quick when you break it down into all those pieces like you would anything else. You sell a car part by part, it's a lot of work. But once you sell it part by part, it's worth a lot more than just buying the car in the first place. So it's same concept, but my objective, again, it was difficult in a drug case. It would be something that I could try to just work straight up that chain. But the problem was for me, that even when I had somebody that was helping me get what I needed, I still had to figure out a way around that to go to somebody else. Because this wasn't a drug case, it was a gang case. So I'm thinking, okay, I've got all these gang members that are all connected and affiliated, and they're doing this business. This guy's kind of doing me righteous. He's getting powder. But I still need to move on to somebody. So I'm trying to find excuses to say, man, I can't trust you anymore, and move on to somebody else who he's affiliated with and still not have somebody get totally pissed off. Because I'm trying to create a case where I'm locked in a bunch of gang members. Not necessarily just, oh, I finally got the dope I want, and we can close the door.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Now, some of these folks think that.

[Unnamed Guest]

If you ask a cop, if they're a cop, they have to answer truthfully. This is like a Hollywood movie thing, right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I remember in the movie Blow, Pee.

[Unnamed Guest]

Wee Herman, whatever his real name is, says, are you a Cop, you have to say yes if you are. If not, it's entrapment and it's a joke. Because that's not true, right?

[Tegan Broadwater]

That's not true. Yeah, yeah, of course it's not.

[Unnamed Guest]

So do you benefit from Hollywood movies, miseducating people?

[Tegan Broadwater]

I both benefit and lose some traction. And the benefit was things like that, because that was still the word on the street. They would ask you. I would ask them. I would leverage that same thing. Are you a cop? You know, you got to tell me. I would say the same thing to people that I was meeting because I had to pretend to be very suspicious, too, because I'm supposed to be the guy. Contrary to that, though, at the period of time which I was doing this was the 2005 through 2008. In this particular case, there wasn't super sophisticated equipment. There was new equipment coming out, but it wasn't super reliable. And so when it comes to the wires you wear and they tape it to your chest in the movies and all this kind of stuff.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Put on a T shirt. That's what it was.

[Unnamed Guest]

That sucks.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah, it totally sucks.

[Unnamed Guest]

Because a tape recorder on your chest.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Can you please do better than this?

[Unnamed Guest]

Oh, that's scary.

[Tegan Broadwater]

So I never wore a wire for that reason because I thought that's the most obvious fricking thing ever. All you have to do is even just messing around, just kind of shove me and be goofing around and figure out that. What's going on here?

[Unnamed Guest]

Oh, hold on a second. Yeah, that's terrifying.

[Tegan Broadwater]

I tried all kinds of other things. They had some things that were on keychains, and I used my phone at the time, and the phone was just had a limited amount of space in 60 seconds, dude. And, yeah, I was literally recording one deal in the back of a car, and it went off like, some kind of alarm. Like it had run out of space on the recorder. And I had to figure out, like.

[Unnamed Guest]

The hell's going on with this damn Nokia.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah, I can't figure this out. I'm thinking, just forget it. I'm not recording this.

[Unnamed Guest]

Oh, God. The modern equivalent would be an app on your phone that says Police Recorder.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Basically beeps when it's not as Police Recorder. Time is up. Oh, what is that?

[Unnamed Guest]

That's just my kid sending me a text message. It's just so sad. The technology is just so bad. It just makes no sense. You mentioned when people are suspicious of you, you just touched on this in the dialogue that's in the book. You ask them questions back. You're kind of flipped the script to get them thinking about their answers. Maybe instead of your answers. Can you give me an example of that? I think that's a good technique to deflect suspicion. And I'm wondering what other techniques you have to deflect suspicion.

[Tegan Broadwater]

It depends on the type of questioning said I've gotten some where they're just rattling off questions. I just say, man, you obviously are a novice. You've never done this before because you don't ask somebody questions like that. If you're really in business to do real business. It's not how it works. Other times, like I said, I would pull up vouching for him and blah blah, you heard about him and everything else. And then I would slow the game down before this guy starts saying, hey man, good to meet you. I'm gonna this and this. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I got a few questions. I want to make sure your source is straight. Have you dealt with so and so before? Because this is where I'm getting to you. That's great. I'm glad you know him. But do you know my guy over here too? I also need to know that I'm connecting people that I trust to you. But careful questioning. I didn't ask idiot questions. Some of the low level folks would ask, let me see your id. Can you prove that you're really who you are? I'm not going to ask you to prove who you are either for doing this illicit game.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Then the idea is your best friend is saying I'm cool and vice versa. So let's do business. I don't need you to have incriminating information on me. I want to do business. In that kind of world, it's ideal to know only so much. So the only way that I really would get great information on these guys is of course to just figure out who they were, where they stayed, and then grab a license plate on my way out. And then to work backwards because I had a little more sophisticated technology to work with in terms of figuring out exactly who they were. Pull up a mug shot. I'm like, okay, I know exactly who this dude is. But even then, it was a lot less of a thing for those guys to be able to just get online, spend 20 bucks and figure out yeah. Who I was necessarily.

[Unnamed Guest]

That makes sense. So it seems like if there's supposed to be that distance between you and the person you're dealing with, giving away too many details about yourself might be an indicator that you're lying and so.

[Tegan Broadwater]

The way cops work most of the time people talk about trade craft from like, man, I think this is just so obvious to bad guys too. Anyway. But most cops are not doing long term undercover work. They're doing short term deals, are going to knock this guy down. If he gives up somebody else, they might go there and then two days later they're knocking everybody down. They just take what they can get. You don't accept no for an answer when you're a cop working short term, stuff like that. Because you only have one shot at this. You're just trying to get it over with. Even if it is a massive deal, it's a massive deal and it only happens once because the serendipitous situation is about to happen. So they're trying to make this deal happen. My whole approach was the opposite. I'm like, I'm happy to walk from this because what they really want is my money. And I say, well, you're not going to get my money until I'm absolutely positive that this is going to work. So the cops will typically just try to push a deal to go forward. And I just leveraged the complete opposite and was the first to say, you know what, that's okay, you can keep asking questions, but I'm done here. I'm not interested. Don't worry about it. You keep whatever you're going to keep and I'll just get out of here.

[Unnamed Guest]

So you're not in a hurry to make the bust, which probably gives you a little bit more credibility, I guess.

[Tegan Broadwater]

It's almost look compared to again in a normal business situation. And you would know this to being the master. The master, master of nothing in terms of relationships and things like that. You don't just walk up and meet somebody and then start pitching stuff.

[Unnamed Guest]

Oh yeah, definitely not the same type.

[Tegan Broadwater]

Of thing really, because it's. That's the human nature part. Because if you knew for sure I was a gold mine and I knew for sure this is the best deal ever, we would just do it. But that's never really the case. But the only way you've determined it's a gold mine is because, man, I've really gotten to know you. I really appreciate what you do. I know you as a person and at least have vetted you from people that I trust with my life to the point where let's do something serious. That's the way they work. I think it's more human nature than anything else.

[Unnamed Guest]

This is a high trust business, the drug game. It has to be because I Can't do a credit check on your LLC to make sure that you are current. I can't get a proof of funds from your banker. There's no third party verification other than, oh, T says you've been dealing with him or you sell good stuff or what? I mean, that's as good as it gets, right?

[Tegan Broadwater]

Yeah, oh, for sure. I mean, that's how you grow, ma' am. That's how you grow business as somebody is Jordan says, hey, man, this guy's good to go. I wanted to introduce him to you. I would just talk to him. I wouldn't even have to ask questions because you're sending them and I trust you, so I automatically will just talk to the guy.

[Unnamed Guest]

You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with a black.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Man that befriends members of the Ku Klux Klan.

[E]

I don't support the KKK at all. I don't support that ideology. But I support people having the right to believe as they want to believe as long as they don't cross the line and hurt people. And to show, to prove that I will stick up for somebody else's rights has also led to people just like that sticking up for mine. I didn't convert anybody. I am the impetus for over 200 to make up their own minds, to convert, hurt themselves, because I've given them reason to think about other things, you know, that make more sense than what they're currently doing. It bothers me a great deal that we call ourselves the greatest nation on the face of this earth. You know, we have to admit that there are some flaws here. I don't adhere to that statement that we are the greatest. Maybe I would bend and say that perhaps technologically we are the greatest. So how is it that we as Americans can talk to people as far away as the moon or anywhere on the face of this earth, but yet there's so many of us who have difficulty talking to the person who lives right next door. This is the 21st century. This racist nonsense does not belong in any century, let alone the 21st. We are living in space Age times, but there's still too many of us thinking with Stone Age minds.

[Jordan Harbinger]

For more on how Daryl Davis convinced 200 KKK members to give up their robes, check out episode 540 on the Jordan Harbinger Show. That's it for part one. Part two, coming out in just a few days here. All things Tegan Broadwater will be in the show. [e-mail] advertisers deals, discount codes, ways to support the show, [e-mail] deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Also, our newsletter, we Bit Wiser. It gives you something specific, something practical, something that'll have an immediate impact on your decisions, your psychology, your relationships in under two minutes. And if you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out. It's a great companion to the show. Jordanharbinger.com News is where you can find it. Don't forget about six minute networking as well. Over at sixminutenetworking.com I am Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn in this show. It's created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Tata Sidlowskis, Ian Baird and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. If you know somebody interested in the undercover scene, police work, drug trafficking, maybe they like stories like this, definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on this show so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time.