FBI Case File Review

  Retired FBI agent Tom Blades and retired Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agent Jim Weber review an undercover case involving a member of the Zetas Mexican drug cartel who wanted to hire someone to kidnap, torture, and murder a drug rival and his child as an act of retaliation. Jim went undercover as a biker willing to accept the murder-for-hire assignment. Tom posed as his associate. At t...

Retired agent Jeffrey Iverson reviews his assignments representing the FBI in Russia and Central Asia. He explores obstacles he and his colleagues faced while assigned as Legal Attaché in charge of FBI offices in Moscow and Legat for five former Soviet bloc countries. Jeff shares stories from his book, In The Belly of the Bear, about his first overseas terrorism case and the counterintelligence ch...

Retired agent Vito Roselli reviews his investigation of a bank robbery conspiracy operated by a violent West Philadelphia crew whose members were responsible for robberies in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and South New Jersey suburbs and the vicious home invasion assault of an elderly couple. One of Vito's subjects, Chris Booker, convicted of multiple violations, including bank robbery...

Retired agent Charles "Chuck" Stuber reviews his investigation of John Edwards, a former North Carolina senator and two-time presidential candidate, who faced charges for an alleged campaign finance law violation during his 2008 run for the White House. The accusations were that John Edwards used political donations to conceal from the public an ongoing extra-marital affair and resulting pregnancy...

Retired agent and BAU profiler Leonard Opanashuk reviews his 2002 investigation of the murders of two young Oregon City schoolgirls, Ashley Pond and Miranda Gaddis, who, within two months of each other, disappeared under mysterious circumstances en route to their neighborhood school bus stop. Len, a relatively new agent with just over a year of experience in the FBI, was assigned the missing schoo...

I teamed up with the Stop The Killing podcast. When the hosts, Katherine Schweit and Sara Ferris, invited me to be a guest on their show, I suggested we review the core principles of America's deadly force policy assumed by everyone who carries a gun, whether they're a law enforcement officer or private citizen. I hope our conversation provides an understanding of what it's like to carry a gun. I...

Retired agent Mark Sewell reviews his investigation of mafia associate Steve Kaplan and Kaplan's operation of The Gold Club, the infamous Atlanta strip club that hosted some of the most recognized professional athletes and celebrities in America. The Gold Club was the largest single money maker for the Gambino Crime Family. Kaplan, mobster Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo, and 13 others were charg...

Retired agent Frank Figliuzzi reviews the FBI's Highway Serial Killings Initiative, a special unit that tracks the victims of serial murderers picked up at truck stops in one jurisdiction, sexually assaulted and murdered in another, and dumped along a highway in a third location. Frank shares how the transient nature of the offenders and the multiple jurisdictions involved make these cases incredi...

In Part 2 of this two-part episode, retired agents Mario Tariche and Raquel "Rocky" Cicini continue their review of Operation RECOIL, the investigation of Cocaine Cowboys Willy Falcon and Sal Magluta, to include their work with key cooperating witness Marilyn Bonachea. This case was memorialized in the Netflix series "Cocaine Cowboys Kings of Miami," during which Mario and Rocky were interviewed....

In Part 1 of this two-part episode, retired agents Mario Tariche and Raquel "Rocky" Cicini review their investigation of Willy Falcon, Sal Magluta, aka The Cocaine Cowboys and others, which resulted in the dismantlement of the largest drug trafficking organization in South Florida and provided the evidence of jury tampering and bribery in the acquittal verdict received in a prior drug case against...

Retired FBI forensic artist Lisa Bailey reviews the FBI's forensic facial approximation program, where she used skulls and anthropologist reports to create sculptures of unidentified individuals to help investigators seeking the public's assistance in solving cold cases. She also reviews the 5-year research project she launched on behalf of the FBI at the University of Tennessee's "Body Farm," whi...

FBI Retired Case File Review Live! was held on April 28 at the Punch Line comedy club in Philadelphia. This episode is the audio recorded during the live event. My on stage guests included retired agent Scott Duffey and his partner retired ATF special agent Terrance Mortimer, who take us behind the scenes of an unbelievable investigation they investigated, involving a nearly 2-decade-old unsolved...

Retired agent Chris Campion reviews the Jaycee Dugard child abduction case, and his time investigating her disappearance throughout the 18 years she was missing. Chris and his FBI colleagues and local law enforcement partners diligently pursued viable leads from the day Jaycee was taken in 1991 right up to that day in 2009, when she was miraculously recovered. Chris also reviews how the FBI helped...

Retired agents Christian Anglin and Craig McLaughlin review Operation Crown Prince, an investigation into Afghan nationals residing in the U.S. transporting heroin into the country and providing proceeds to the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and insurgents as a means of material support for their operations combating U.S. and allied forces. The case was nicknamed "The Great Chicken Caper" as it originated with...

Retired Agent Scott Duffey reviews his years-long investigation of a nearly 2-decade-old rumor about an unsolved racially motivated homicide. The case, tenaciously pursued by Scott, his partner ATF special agent Terrance Mortimer, and the Philadelphia Police Department, resulted in the conviction of Thomas Gibison, a self-proclaimed skinhead for conspiracy to commit murder, ethnic intimidation, an...

Retired agent and former BAU profiler Julia Cowley reviews the murder investigation of 13-year-old Taylor Paschal-Placker and her 11-year-old friend Skyla Whitaker on the rural dirt road near one of their homes in Weleetka, Oklahoma and the detailed BAU analysis Julia conducted to provide insights for investigators about the unknown subject who shot and killed the girls. Julia served nearly 22 yea...

Retired agent Jerome Lorrain reviews the investigation of the murder of Sarah Willard, a 29-year-old escort/sex worker from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Sarah disappeared in November 2019 and the Pascagoula, Mississippi Safe Streets Task Force (SSTF) worked with Detective Lieutenant Shane Bozeman of the Jackson County Sheriff's Office to investigate her disappearance. They learned that a 54-year-old m...

Retired agent John Ouellet reviews his investigation of Stephen Blumberg, the most prolific book thief in the history of the United States. His investigation led John to Blumberg's three-story, 17-room mansion in Ottumwa, Iowa, packed with antiques and 23,000 rare books and manuscripts stolen from libraries and universities in 45 states and Canada. During the trial, the stolen volumes were estimat...

Retired agent Jerry Hester reviews his Paesan Blues investigation, an FBI undercover operation that targeted Italian mafioso Roberto Settineri's global crime network with the collaboration of the Italian National Police (INP) and, surprisingly, the cooperation of Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein. After the case review, we discuss Jerry's new book, Mafia Miami: FBI Politics and How an Investigation wa...

  Retired agent Dennis Cosgrove reviews the Golden ADA investigation, which he opened after an informant provided information about three Russian immigrants who had opened a state-of-the-art diamond merchant center in San Francisco with diamonds suspected of having been looted from the Russian government and smuggled into the United States. The scheme resulted in Russia losing hundreds of millions...

Retired agent Richard Denholm reviews the missing persons investigation of Jessie Davis, the 9 months-pregnant girlfriend of Canton, Ohio police officer Bobby Cutts Jr. Rich led the case as the supervisor of the Cleveland Division's Canton Resident Agency. The disappearance became a national news story. The Starks County Sheriff's Office invited the FBI to provide assistance with interviews of wit...

Retired agent Barry Black was assigned to the Oklahoma City Division where he investigated complex financial crimes for the first half of his Bureau career and was a sniper on the SWAT team, before being certified as a Special Agent Bomb Technician (SABT). In this episode, he reviews two cases, the first a medical supply investment fraud case, which was featured on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries...

In part two of this two-part episode, retired agent Steve Busch and retired FBI attorney Steve Kramer review how, after the success of the Golden State Killer case, they became the co-founders and architects of the FBI's National Investigative Genetic Genealogy (or IGG) team, assisting law enforcement agencies in the identification of suspects, training thousands of investigators, and lecturing al...

In part one of this two-part episode, retired Bureau attorney Steve Kramer and retired agent Steve Busch review how Kramer teamed up with Paul Holes, an investigator for the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office, to use Investigative Genetic Genealogy to generate leads to identify the person known as the Golden State Killer. Different law enforcement agencies spent 43 years trying to find the seria...

Retired agent Steve Bennett reviews a case involving a 15-year-old missing girl who disappeared but returned home after a few weeks. When a relative recovered a piece of paper in Jenny's purse with the name and address of a man living in Minneapolis, MN, police suspected the stranger had something to do with her initial disappearance. After local detectives determined the inter-state aspects of th...