The Team House – Ep. 400
"The FBI Bomb Tech Who Chased Terrorists Worldwide"
Guest: Steve Lazarus (Retired FBI Bomb Technician, Author)
Host: Jack Murphy
Release Date: March 7, 2026
Episode Overview
This episode features retired FBI agent and bomb technician Steve Lazarus, whose decades-long career spanned the Counter Gang Squad, narco and domestic terrorism investigations, bomb forensics, and overseas deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Steve discusses how he infiltrated militia groups in the 1990s, responded to major terror events like the Boston Marathon bombing, worked high-stakes war crimes investigations in Iraq, and ultimately led the FBI’s render safe (nuclear) unit. He shares insights, war stories, and the real-life inspirations for his crime novels, while reflecting on the culture of law enforcement, the evolution of threats, and what America gets right—and wrong—in the fight against terror.
Steve Lazarus: Background and Path to the FBI
<div style="font-size: 14px; color: #858585">(04:19)</div> **Early Life & Military Service** - Grew up as an Air Force brat; dad was a B-52 pilot, moved around frequently. - Attended East Tennessee State University briefly on a football scholarship, then enlisted in the Air Force (1983). - Initially worked as security police (now "security forces"), leading large teams responsible for base and nuclear security, but found the role “miserable” and underappreciated. - Sought more “operator” roles: “If I was going to be in an organization, I wanted to be the operator … not, you know, one of the appreciated support people.” *(07:43, Steve Lazarus)*Transition to the FBI
- Applied to both FBI and DEA; FBI responded first.
- Took a significant risk, leaving the Air Force as a captain with a family of five to join the FBI in 1997. (08:32)
Early FBI Career & the Domestic Terrorism Beat
<div style="font-size: 14px; color: #858585">(12:16)</div> **First Assignment – Atlanta Office** - Assigned to a combined squad handling domestic terrorism, international terrorism, and foreign counterintelligence (unusual today). - Focus: Infiltrating militia groups at the height of the 1990s militia movement. - Primary method: Developing confidential informants (“sources”) by frequenting gun shows.On Informants and Militia Infiltration
- A memorable informant, Luke, was recruited by the Georgia Civilian Militia as their “security officer”—ironically tasked with keeping out “snitches.”
“Probably about 20% of the people who were in that militia were on somebody’s snitch list.” (15:00, Steve Lazarus)
- Militia groups, he says, were riddled with informants: “If you went to a meeting, if you look to your left and look to your right, at least one of those guys was a snitch.” (16:46, Steve Lazarus)
- Plots ranged from bizarre to deadly serious; most were foiled before launch.
Notable Cases: Militia Plots & Informant Tradecraft
<div style="font-size: 14px; color: #858585">(26:26)</div> **The Buford Dam Plot** - Georgia Civilian Militia leader, a loud ex-con with a thick Jersey accent, hatched a doomed scheme to destroy an earthen dam (structurally improbable). - “The statutes talk about terrorist plots and conspiracies—they just say there has to be a plot. It doesn’t say there has to be a good plot.” *(28:54, Steve Lazarus)* - Result: Militia leaders served years in prison; movement deterred by frequent infiltration and prosecution. <div style="font-size: 14px; color: #858585">(30:27)</div> **CI Luke: The Ideal Informant** - Met Luke at gun shows; recruited him because he was a “wannabe cop”—motivated by a desire to help, not money. - Description of 1990s FBI tradecraft: using a Nagra wire recorder with reel-to-reel tapes, physically strapped to the informant. - Years later, Luke’s daughter contacted Steve to say how meaningful the work was for her father: > “He talked about the good times, just the way that you treated him and how good he felt and how much it meant to him to be able to contribute something.” *(35:28, Steve Lazarus)*High-Profile Investigations: Eric Rudolph & Atlanta Terrorism
<div style="font-size: 14px; color: #858585">(36:01)</div> **Tracking Eric Rudolph** - The notorious Olympic Park and abortion clinic bomber; spent years as a fugitive in remote Appalachia. - Steve spent weeks searching the woods, manning command posts. - Upon capture, Steve was tasked with seizing Rudolph’s clothing and swabbing him for evidence. > “The next day it’s a picture of me and my buddy… with a paper bag marked evidence. And everybody sort of postulating in the news about what that might have been. It was his underwear.” *(40:21, Steve Lazarus)*- Rudolph never showed remorse, pled guilty only to avoid the death penalty, now in federal supermax.
Challenges of Domestic Terrorism Investigations
<div style="font-size: 14px; color: #858585">(43:19)</div> - Domestic terrorism cases are difficult to prosecute because suspects have the full legal protections of American citizens (“all the encumbrances”). - Terrorism statutes require only the existence of a plot for prosecution, not its plausibility. - “For everyone you hear about, there’s dozens and dozens—if not hundreds—that have been stopped.” *(44:24, Steve Lazarus)*Narcotics & Criminal Networks: The Evolution of Tradecraft
<div style="font-size: 14px; color: #858585">(44:56)</div> - Transferred to narcotics squad in Atlanta, then gang squad, handling street gangs, biker gangs, and traditional drug trafficking. - Example: Taking down a drug trafficker who possessed 30 stolen identities—illustrating the limitations of law enforcement technology in the pre-biometric era.“You just can’t pretend to be three different people anymore.” (52:59, Steve Lazarus)
9/11 and the Paradigm Shift in Counterterrorism
<div style="font-size: 14px; color: #858585">(54:06)</div> **At Quantico on 9/11** - Overnight shift from narco to counterterrorism: “I had spent my last day on the drug squad at that point.” *(55:33, Steve Lazarus)* - Assigned to build the FBI’s presence at Atlanta’s major airport; recounted frenzy and profiling in the surge of fear post-9/11. > “I was investigating flying while Arab—or, you know, flying while having dark skin.” *(57:07, Steve Lazarus)*Ongoing Improvements
- From overzealous screening (nail clippers, grandmas) to more pragmatic, intelligence-driven security: “We got better at … not only the intelligence … but also profiling people who present a much clearer danger.” (61:24, Steve Lazarus)
- FBI’s Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC) in Huntsville, AL serves as a “red team” to defeat evolving vulnerabilities in airline security. (62:05)
Overseas Deployments: Bomb Tech in Afghanistan & Iraq
<div style="font-size: 14px; color: #858585">(70:12)</div> **Becoming a Bomb Technician** - Trained to investigate and reconstruct explosive incidents, not just disarm bombs. - Deployed as part of the Combined Explosives Exploitation Cell (“SEXY”—a backronym), a two-man FBI/military EOD team, to bombing scenes throughout Afghanistan (2008, 2011). - Collected forensics (DNA, fingerprints off bomb fragments, bombers’ remains), linking attacks to terror networks. > “Our job was to prepare these reports and gather evidence such that … we could put this thing back together for somebody to see if we could attribute it to someone.” *(73:58, Steve Lazarus)*Case: Italian Casualties on Route White (Kabul, 2009)
- Six Italian soldiers killed by a massive, military-grade TNT car bomb—largest loss for Italy in the war; Steve emphasizes the real, personal cost of the conflict.
- Bombers themselves were almost always poor, drugged-up, unskilled youth; the prime targets were always the skilled bomb-makers.
Munition Buybacks and Massive Demolitions
- ISAF buyback program to destroy captured enemy munitions and keep them from being used in IEDs: “The biggest shot we probably did was about 7 or 8,000 pounds of net explosive weight … that was seven or eight thousand pounds that didn’t make their way into a roadside IED.” (85:13, Steve Lazarus)
War Crimes Trials and Nation-Building in Iraq
<div style="font-size: 14px; color: #858585">(90:10)</div> - Assisted with building Iraq’s war crimes tribunal cases against Saddam-era regime figures; unique insight into the interplay of American and Iraqi legal systems. - Sat 10 feet away from Saddam Hussein on the first day of his trial: “He was absolutely defiant … right to the gallows.” *(94:12, Steve Lazarus)*- Sharp assessment of the immense cultural and structural hurdles of “gifting democracy” and building rule of law in Iraq:
“Here we come, big dumb America again. Like a bull in a China shop saying, congratulations, Iraq. In this case, we bring you democracy. Right. What the hell’s that?” (95:25, Steve Lazarus)
- Discussed enduring issues with military and bureaucratic hierarchies in Arab institutions.
Boston Marathon Bombing (2013): Forensics and Response
<div style="font-size: 14px; color: #858585">(103:04)</div> - Arrived on scene hours after the bombing, coordinated a team of 30+ bomb techs over a weeklong evidence recovery operation. - Forensic details: pressure cookers, backpacks, toy car switches, homemade explosives and shrapnel. - Used massive, multi-agency efforts to rapidly identify the bombers (the Tsarnaev brothers): > “We were feeding it to investigative teams... and the same thing was done with the explosives, the same thing was done with the backpacks. All that sort of came together with … video surveillance.” *(103:04, Steve Lazarus)* - Helped clear houses and scenes during the Watertown manhunt, using bomb robots on suspected locations.FBI Render Safe Unit: America’s Nuclear Bomb Squad
<div style="font-size: 14px; color: #858585">(115:26)</div> **Role and Readiness** - Selected to lead a team specialized in rendering safe nuclear or radiological devices—effectively the “nuclear bomb squad.” - Explained the logic: “The resulting detonation would be worse than the loss of life of a bomb technician.” - Scenarios included both nation-state and improvised devices, often focusing on cargo container threats to US ports. > “Likelihood is low, but the consequences are so high that you have to have a way to deal with that.” *(124:03, Steve Lazarus)*Life after the FBI
<div style="font-size: 14px; color: #858585">(126:20)</div> **Post-Retirement in Abu Dhabi** - Spent seven years as an independent contractor, training Emirati intelligence officers and providing leadership development. - Noted sharp socio-cultural divisions and different attitudes toward military and policing professionalism in the Gulf region.Author’s Journey: Crime Writing Informed by Real Life
<div style="font-size: 14px; color: #858585">(134:01)</div> **Inspiration and Process** - Began writing detective fiction during downtime in Abu Dhabi; drew from real-life cases and experiences. - “Call Me Sonny,” “Finding Sonny,” and “Killing Sonny” (upcoming) follow a down-and-out ex-FBI agent-turned-PI ensnared in organized crime plots—reflecting the gritty realism of the author’s law enforcement career. - Steve’s wife (then girlfriend) was his first and toughest editor: “She said, I like where you’re going, but it kind of sucks… She reeled me in.” *(134:33, Steve Lazarus)*- Seeks to blend behind-the-scenes law enforcement detail without turning the novels into “field manuals.”
“I try to provide… just enough backstory to make people kind of understand or have a little bit of a deeper connection, a deeper association with the people.” (140:35, Steve Lazarus)
- The series will continue with protagonist Bryce Chandler beyond the trilogy.
- Books available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and stevelazarusbooks.com.
Assessments of the FBI, Past and Present
<div style="font-size: 14px; color: #858585">(127:47)</div> - Strongly criticizes politicization and lack of experience in current FBI leadership, expressing concern over weakened counterterror and counterintelligence capabilities. - “I think it’s a testament why you need serious, experienced people in these jobs. I don’t think the guy that’s there right now is the guy … [he’s] in over his head." *(127:47, Steve Lazarus)* - Fearful that depletion of specialized expertise leaves US more vulnerable to threats (e.g., from Iran or IRGC sleeper cells).“The FBI is not doomed… we need a tweak, not a redo… if we get the right serious people into the Bureau soon… we can make it what it needs to be again.” (151:40, Steve Lazarus)
- Laments the politicization of the Bureau: “We try so hard to be nonpartisan and apolitical and we just follow the facts. We’re cops. That’s what we do… They hated to see the Bureau get dragged into a political circus.” (152:44, Jack Murphy referencing Steve’s view)
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
- On informant penetration:
"Probably about 20% of the people who were in that militia were on somebody’s snitch list." (15:00) - On militia bumbling:
"The statutes… just say there has to be a plot. It doesn’t say there has to be a good plot." (28:54) - On the post-OKC era:
"The public only hears about the Tim McVeighs, not the dozens of plots stopped." (22:05, paraphrase) - On 9/11 impact:
"I had spent my last day on the drug squad at that point." (55:33) - On bomb forensics:
"Our job was to prepare these reports and gather evidence … see if we could attribute it to someone." (73:58) - On career reflection:
“If you can identify your best NCOs and especially your best senior NCOs from the GET go, that’s really— you’ve done most of the heavy lifting.” (102:56) - On FBI culture:
“We are not cops. We are investigators—and investigate things that if people knew … they would not sleep at night.” (129:46) - On the bureaucracy in Iraq:
“The defense platform could not be the same height or higher than the government’s … it had to be that much taller.” (95:25) - On his novels:
“I try to provide… just enough backstory to make people kind of understand or have a little bit of a deeper connection, a deeper association with the people.” (140:35)
Key Segments and Timestamps
- Early Life, Air Force, FBI Entry — [04:19–08:32]
- Domestic Terrorism & Militia Infiltration — [12:16–22:43]
- Buford Dam Plot & Informant Tradecraft — [26:26–35:51]
- Eric Rudolph Case — [36:01–42:51]
- Difficulties of Domestic Terrorism Cases — [43:19–44:50]
- Narcotics & Gangs — [44:56–54:06]
- 9/11 Response & Airport Security Evolution — [54:06–65:57]
- Bomb Tech Role in Afghanistan — [70:12–83:08]
- IED Forensics and Buybacks — [83:08–86:28]
- Saddam’s War Crimes Trial — [90:10–102:56]
- Boston Marathon Bombing — [103:04–111:42]
- Render Safe Unit (Nuclear Bombs) — [115:26–126:20]
- Abu Dhabi Contractor Years — [126:20–133:46]
- Becoming a Crime Novelist — [134:01–147:01]
- Reflections on the FBI (Current State) — [127:47–153:22]
See Also
- Steve Lazarus Books: Amazon, Website, Instagram: @SteveLazarusBooks
- Podcast Newsletter Sign-up: Team House Podcast Kit Join
Summary prepared for those seeking to understand FBI tradecraft, the evolution of domestic and transnational threats, and the human side of America’s fight against terror—on the frontlines and in the aftermath.