Kim Bolan
vancouversun.com
American undercover police officer enthralls symposium crowd in telling of his
experiences with ‘international crime syndicate’
VANCOUVER — The Hells Angels are an international crime syndicate who try to cover up their vicious criminal history with their “massive propaganda machine,” says an American police officer who infiltrated the notorious biker gang.
And Jay (Bird) Dobyns said it is surprising that Hells Angels in B.C. have not been declared a criminal organization by the province’s courts, despite attempts by prosecutors to get that designation.
“Yes, it is surprising,” Dobyns said of the B.C. Angels’ court victories.
“These guys are a criminal franchise. They are an international crime syndicate. And if we are just going to go to them for the explanation of who they are, then you are going to get the whitewash. That’s what they do. But their history and their track record and the crimes they have committed and the viciousness of them and the proliferation of their crimes, they don’t get to step away from that.”
Dobyns was the keynote speaker Thursday at the Vancouver Gangs and Guns Symposium for police and educators.
He transfixed the crowd with the gripping story of how he infiltrated the Skull Valley, Arizona chapter of the Hells Angels, escaping a plot to kill him and faking a murder so he would be rewarded with full-patch status.
Dobyns had years of undercover experience with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives when he was called upon in 2001 for the dangerous undercover operation.
He said he wasn’t a biker expert at the time, but had devoted his career to “trying to get myself next to the nastiest guy I could get next to.”
He praised the dedication of undercover operators on both sides of the border, who risk their lives to gather evidence against the worst criminals. He began his presentation by playing a disturbing wiretap of an undercover police officer being shot several times by his underworld associate.
“Undercover work is like any skill,” Dobyns said. “It is a learned craft.”
He described the intricate art of developing his cover story — he became associated with a Mexican biker gang in Tijuana so he would have legitimate biker connections when the Hells Angels came calling.
He played hard to get with the Angels, at first rebuffing their approaches to join their gang. But he eventually allowed them to recruit him into their “program,” spending months as a prospect, running around doing the dirty work of his Angels bosses.
It was a harrowing assignment in which he defied death several times. The closest he came was when a biker named Chico who was suspicious of Dobyns “had put this little assassination team together.” Fortunately there was another law-enforcement agent planted among Chico’s associates who paged his supervisors about the murder plot.
Dobyns finally got his Hells Angels deathhead patch after convincing his associates that he had killed a rival from the Mongols biker gang in Mexico.
Dobyns showed off at the B.C. conference Thursday photos of the bloodied “body” in a shallow grave that got him his patch. And he played video surveillance of the bikers reviewing his photos and being convinced he was a killer.
“It had gotten to the point where these guys feared me,” Dobyns said.
The undercover life was difficult. He described the toll the operation took on his wife and kids, who he neglected for two years.
After the case, the threats began. His house was burned down in 2008.
He published a book in 2009, No Angel: My Harrowing Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels, which became a New York Times bestseller.
Dobyns said the sharing of law-enforcement intelligence and strategies is essential to tackle the Hells Angels and other violent criminal groups.
“That is how the police win — when we cooperate with each other. We share our experiences. We share our successes. We share our failures. We share our intelligence. And that’s how good overcomes evil. That is how society survives.”
kbolan@vancouversun.com
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