FBI Case File Review

Retired agent Frank Runles reviews a Labor Racketeering investigation where union management for Laborers Local 91 in Niagara Falls, New York, was charged with RICO and convicted of operating as a criminal enterprise. We also discuss interview techniques and deceptive language analysis, which he taught at the FBI Academy. Frank served in the FBI for 25 years. Check out episode show notes, photos,...

Retired agent John Morrison reviews an ecoterrorism case involving a member of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) who firebombed the mink research offices and destroyed laboratory facilities at Michigan State University in 1992. The subject of the investigation, Rodney Coronado, was also responsible for the arson and destruction of mink research facilities at Washington State and Oregon State Unive...

Retired agent T.C. Fuller reviews a Crimes Against Children investigation where his subject was added to the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted list. The fugitive was the second preferential sex offender the Bureau ever placed on the list. A tip from the America's Most Wanted TV show led to his arrest. T.C. also talks about his memoir, Painting Over Rust: Stories From a 20 Year Odyssey. He served 20 years...

Retired agent Scott Payne reviews his undercover role in the investigation that resulted in averting a mass shooting at a synagogue by a copy-cat white supremacist who said he wanted to do something similar to the June 17, 2015 massacre of church attendees in Charleston, SC, only bigger. Fortunately, the person he asked to get him a gun was UCA Scott Payne. Scott served in the FBI for nearly 23 ye...

Retired agent John Tamm reviews his tenure on the Boston Division's Justice Task Force and the investigation and conviction of former agent John Connolly for racketeering, obstruction of justice, and bribery related to his handling of informant Whitey Bulger and Stephen Flemmi. Connolly was sentenced to ten years in federal prison. A Florida jury convicted Connolly of second-degree murder for the...

Former agent Chris Tarbell reviews his investigation and takedown of the billion-dollar, cryptocurrency-based drug underground marketplace "Silk Road" and the arrest of its founder. The investigation, code-named Operation Onion Peeler, resulted in the largest seizure of bitcoins to date. Chris was also the lead investigator on several of the Bureau's most complex and cutting-edge cybercrime cases,...

Retired agent Cory McGookin reviews the investigation he led targeting the Latin Kings operating in the city of Aurora, IL and "Operation First Degree Burn," a cold case multi-agency task force which resulted in the nation's largest ever cold case murder takedown. Thirty-one Latin Kings gang members were convicted of 22 murders going back two decades. Cory McGookin served in the FBI for 20 years....

Retired agent Tom Simon reviews his investigation of Las Vegas couple Perry and Rochelle Griggs for orchestrating a prison Ponzi scheme. While serving 8 years in federal prison for securities fraud, Perry Griggs started another scam, where fellow prisoners and their families were the victims. When Griggs was paroled, he and his wife disappeared. A national fugitive manhunt ensued. CNBC featured th...

Retired agents Jim Lewis and Renae McDermott review their 1999 kidnapping case where a mother and her two children were kidnapped for ransom and held for four days before they were located and rescued by the Miami Division SWAT team. In addition to the safe return of the family, the spectacular work of the investigative team and detectives from the Sunny Isles Beach Police Department, with assista...

March is National Women's history month and this year's theme is, "Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories." So I'm republishing Episode 264: History of Women in the FBI, which celebrated the 50th anniversary of the modern-day female agent.   In this encore episode, active and retired agents share personal stories from their FBI careers, historical details about Director Hoover's initial rejection,...

In part two of this two-part episode, retired agents Phil Torsney and Tommy MacDonald review how, during the unresolved fugitive investigation of James "Whitey" Bulger, they altered their investigative strategy by focusing a public media campaign, including a national 30-second Public Service Announcement, on photos they had acquired of Bulger's female companion, Catherine Greig. Bulger had served...

Retired agents Phil Torsney and Tommy MacDonald review how they were selected for a special assignment in Boston to work the unresolved fugitive investigation for James "Whitey" Bulger, a long-time FBI Top Ten Fugitive and Boston organized crime boss who had been in hiding for sixteen years with his girlfriend Catherine Greig. Bulger had served as an informant for the FBI for several years. His FB...

Retired agent Debra LaPrevotte explains the difference between oligarchs and kleptocrats, breaks down the indictment of former FBI SAC Charles McGonigal, and reviews the Nigeria OPL 245 oilfield license bribery case. The investigation involves two major oil companies charged with paying government officials to license natural oil resources originally gifted by former Nigerian military ruler Sani A...

Retired agent Kyle Vowinkel reviews the 2013 Alabama bunker child abduction case, known as the Boy in the Bunker, one of the FBI's greatest hostage recovery operations. January 2023 marks the 10th anniversary of the crisis event, which took place from January 29, through February 4, 2013 in Midland City, Alabama, when a man boarded a school bus, killed the driver, and took a five-year-old boy host...

Retired agent Rob Chadwick reviews Director Mueller's Strategic Execution Team (SET) training initiative. SET spearheaded the transformation of the FBI from a law enforcement agency into an intelligence driven and threat focused national security service and was the largest training program in the history of the FBI. The generation of agents and analysts working in the Bureau, on or shortly after...

Retired agent Neil Herman and retired NYPD Detective/Lt. Kevin Hallinan review the three-year crime spree in the New York metropolitan area that culminated on October 20, 1981, when 11 members of the Weather Underground, a radical domestic terrorist group, carried out a Brink's armored car robbery at the Nanuet Mall in Nyack, New York. Using high-powered weapons, the terrorist group stole 1.6 mill...

Retired agent Michael Byrnes reviews the tragic 2017 quadruple murder of four young men in Solebury, PA, specifically the human remains search and recovery operation conducted by Philadelphia FBI ERT to assist local law enforcement officers. Mike oversaw team members from FBI, state, county, and local agencies as they identified and processed 6 separate excavation sites, ultimately recovering all...

Retired agent Jonathan "Jonny" Grusing reviews his investigation of former FBI informant Scott Kimball, who has confessed to being a serial murderer. Grusing worked with the BAU, the FBI's profiling unit, as a field coordinator and with numerous law enforcement agencies to bring homicide charges against Kimball and recover three of his victims from remote, mountainous areas. The details of Kimball...

Retired agent Richard Stout and investigative journalist Bob Norman review the case against Scott Rothstein, who convinced hundreds of wealthy investors to pay millions of dollars for fake legal settlements in the fourth largest Ponzi scheme in US history. In addition to economic fraud, the case also covered other illegal activities, including bank fraud, public corruption, organized crime, illega...

Retired agent Diane Harsha reviews an exploitation of children case where a man posed as a potty-training expert to take nude photos of a toddler for sexual gratification. Diane also talks about working in a small resident agency (RA) satellite office and the importance of relying on local law enforcement partners. She dedicates this case review to former colleagues from the Moniteau County Sherif...

Retired agent David Kamel reviews his investigation of two investment fraud cases while under the added pressure of indicting the white-collar crime subjects before his impending mandatory retirement date. The first case discussed was a multi-million-dollar advance fee scam involving multiple international victims living in Germany, Australia, and Nigeria who were defrauded by a retired Army colon...

Retired FBI profiler Mark Safarik reviews a family annihilation case that he conducted a behavioral analysis for during the investigation and provided expert testimony during the subsequent trial. The subject murdered his wife, their three young children, and his mother-in-law. Mark served in the FBI for 23 years, 12 as a senior member of the FBI's elite Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) and an exper...

Retired agent Anthony "Tony" Velazquez reviews a police corruption case involving three anti-drug police officers and a US Customs inspector who used their law enforcement positions to steal drugs and cash from drug traffickers operating along Miami area smuggling routes. During Tony's 1996 undercover operation, officers from the Hallandale Police Department in Florida accepted bribes to protect u...

Retired agent Oliver "Buck" Revell reviews the FBI Dallas Division's investigation into allegations of dirty tricks made during the 1992 presidential campaign primary involving the campaigns of President George H. W. Bush and candidate Ross Perot. He also discusses the important but precarious role of the FBI when investigating criminal matters with serious political implications. Buck Revell serv...

Retired agent Mike Gibeley reviews his undercover role as a firearms dealer working with Edward McLarnon, who was plotting to illegally purchase weapons to carry out a plot to murder government officials in New Hampshire and his ex-wife's husband. Mike served in the FBI for nearly 24 years and was an FBI certified undercover agent for over 20 years, working undercover operations across the United...