Deep Cover Life With Matt Pitcher

this is things police see firstand accounts with your host Steve gold welcome to the podcast at interviews active and retired police officers about their most intense bizarre and sometimes humorous moments on the job it is I old Ginger face coming at you thank you for being here everybody thank you for um all the all the listening that’s going on all the um binge listening I always appreciate that and thank you for all the recent follows I’m trying to build up the social media around the podcast trying to get the word out I’ve been at I’ve been at the podcast for a while now four years and um have not been the best about kind of getting the word out there so uh the natural growth is has been good and steady but um I’m trying to do a better job at letting people know about so so more people can hear the these incredible stories from the men and women law enforcement and you know get an appreciation for what it is they actually do so I appreciate that appreciate all the uh patreon support we just recently did a live stream uh last week it was really fun um people showed up interacted with us had a great time and that will be um in the future all the live streams will be live and available to everybody and then afterwards they’ll be posted to a podcast um uh like an RSS feed to just patreon and also the the video will be available only to um patreon members so if you really love the show and you always have and you listen to a bunch of episodes and you want to show me uh how much you how much you love it patreon’s the place to do it in the show notes so um today’s uh guest is uh is a great one I’m I’m very excited to ask him a bunch of questions um not just the the big questions I normally ask but the guy’s got uh a really really incredible um career behind him he was uh in law enforcement for 23 years about 15 of those he worked in some type of undercover capacity he worked two very long-term deep undercover cases one embedded with the mafia and the other with domestic terrorists for a total of three years and received the medal of valor for his work without further Ado let me bring on the great Matt pitcher Matt what’s going on I’m not sure about great but I appreciate it anyway ah too late I already I’ve already looked into your stuff my man um so yeah I’ve seen a lot of the stuff popping up you were there was um they covered one of your cases on A&E and you’re kind of um you’re kind of popping off right now which is great especially for like you get out of law enforcement you’re like I gota get some kind of trickle of something from somewhere else um why not if you can if you can make it if you had a great exciting career I mean that’s a no-brainer just package bottle up that magic and let it out you know yeah absolutely like I mean I wasn’t smart enough to do it directly following my law enforcement career I did the whole you know on what now that knee-jerk reaction yeah um and then uh some other people were smarter than me and said hey let me tell you what you need to do and they got on the right path we need those people in our lives I always say that to people that are like hey why don’t you do this I’m like I’m just a dumb cop what are you telling me exactly tell me how to do it I mean you’ve seen the dumb stuff I’ve done in my career I can’t be that smart to do that stuff so I I noticed on you know on Instagram you’re you haven’t been in there all that long and your following getting is is great you’re it’s really building up I mean when you do a career that involves Deep Cover and you’re you’re kind of living another life how long was it before you felt safe to like actually make a social media account to actually put yourself out there you know was it a long time or so what’s today’s date um so I feel in danger at all times yeah and it’s funny because that’s like I get that question nonstop now right um and I don’t know if there’s a specific time like so the last Deep Cover case I did finished in September of 2 well technically the first case finished after my second case in 2014 um I went and keep in mind there was some mental health stuff I just I wasn’t good about talking about it for a long time sure um but then also yeah you didn’t want anybody to know um and you don’t know how people are going to respond to it whether they’re going to be taken back by you or be accepting of the kind of work he did I’m a sovereign citizen I don’t agree with that exactly right yeah that and you know wait so you basically pretended to be somebody else portrayed people who you were close friends with um and now I’m supposed to trust you and be your friend yeah okay yeah it’s a legitimate reaction you can’t argue it too much yeah but uh so I didn’t besides my wife I didn’t tell anybody really anything about the cases they knew obviously you disappear people know something’s up um I didn’t tell anybody about the cases besides yes I did Deep Cover assignments until about 2022 um oh and yeah and social media wise so Facebook I had really locked down I did a little bit of a presence on Facebook because I kept it pretty far locked down I mean it’s still kind of locked down um just because I want to keep in contact with my brothers and sisters who were still back in Charlotte North Carolina and I wanted to um but keep it somewhat safe as I could so I was very picky about who I was friends with yeah and and just be normal right like have a social media account like everybody else is like seeing everybody’s lives yeah exactly like it’s funny because until then you know the only pictures you find of me on social media did not have my real name attached to them yeah because like when you work and that’s one thing that’s terrifying about Deep Cover cases is you know normal undercover work there’s no reason for your picture to be taken you don’t have to worry about that side of thing when you’re you know now becoming best friends with these people and you’re spending 247 with them you can’t sit there and say no no don’t take my picture all the time you’re supposed to be this guy’s best friend and so my picture was all over social media from other people taking it yeah that’s a problem yeah that’s what I’m I worry in the future that I mean I think it may already be this way that that working at case that way which is long run probably healthier not to um but it’s not going to happen anymore because you just can’t I mean thing of facial recognition now yeah super dangerous um yeah and people are there we I was a part of some investigation one of them with a biker biker club and U motorcycle club and these freaking guys were putting stuff on their Instagrams like stolen property and stuff and it was like wow you think you would know better like you’re a criminal like you belong to a criminal motorcycle gang let’s let’s try and use a little Common Sense unbelievable yeah that I mean that is that is is crazy man and you were throughout your um Deep Cover ones were you um married or did was it the same woman you were with the whole time yeah so my wife is you know we talked about this a little bit ahead time she she’s an Angel um legitimately I have no clue why she’s with me um maybe she’s not as smart as I think she is I’m not sure but I uh so when I did the first Deep Cover assignment we had had a six-month-old uh wow and I and I Disappeared yeah and and just prior to disappearing I had blown my knee out and uh had to have ACL surgery from playing football and so she was already taking care of him for the most part for those four months while I got healed a little bit and so I go back to work and then immediately fall into this and well I’m going to be be con for a couple years of course I didn’t know it was going to be a couple years I said be gone I’m not really sure wow the length on this that dude that’s a that’s a crazy thing to wrap your mind around because I mean most women um when they marry a cop they understand like all right there’s going to be screwed up hours he’s going to see some screwed up things he’s going to be in danger like it’s going to be a lot most women probably don’t don’t Bank on he’s going to be a a deep cover informant or um detective and I’m not going to see him for years I mean that’s I mean did you when you started as a copper was this your goal or did you kind of kind of back into it no this was and it I tell this part because it’s hilarious and also shows how dumb I am um I started as a failed actor like so I was going to college and um at the time my parents lived in Wilmington North Carolina which was not far from where I went to college and at that time Wilmington North Carolina actually had a big movie studio and they filmed Dawson’s Creek there right a bunch of movies well I learned that hey you get paid $50 a day to be an extra in a movie and get to be in a movie I thought well that’s a no-brainer that be fun for a kid hell yeah yeah exactly right so I I go to the casting place and the L there are like well have you ever thought about acting and I was like well no but I’m not opposed yeah and she handed me a list of agents and said hey these are the ones that we work with consistently I think you’d be good give them a call so I ended up getting hooked up with two agents who were really cool good people um and at that time you know I was very early 20s late teens early 20s um and they’re like well the one agent who I got close to was like I think you’d have a lot of success out in La we’ already gone up to New York a little bit she goes I think you’d have a lot of success out La would you move out there I’m going to set you up with some people to talk to some other agents and get out there um well you know young and dumb why not so one year I left the college I decided forget I’m gonna go give this a shot I’m gonna uh make my debut if you will so I take uh my mom was nice enough to let me borrow her car drive it the whole way across the country to La I love it um you’re not gonna real you know La is really expensive to live at I heard that I heard Whispers of that yeah so I get out there the only place I can afford is this rundown Motel owned by a family in Compton oh my gosh again young and dumb which I don’t know if the dumb part ever changes but anyway yeah I was at least young white boy in Compton yeah what can go wrong there too right so that’s where I’m staying and Meanwhile my brother’s already become a cop back in wilington and growing up IID always you know I was interested in the CIA becoming a spy until you really start to do some reading there you find out um like police work 99% of it is paperwork and that they don’t really actually do a lot of spying it’s more informant type select few the rest are admin exactly yeah and if you really want to get to do it you better be able to speak a lot of languages um not really my forte either so that kind of was like well that’s that’s probably not gonna happen um my brother meanwhile became police officer in Wilmington North Carolina he’s telling me about the foot chases he gets in and stuff like that and then a little bit about some of the guys that work undercover that he knows and I also um and I forget which book it is but I get to read a little bit about Deep Cover type stuff where you do the longterm undercover cases uh and I was blown away like instantly like that that’s what I’m going to do um meanwhile I’m out in La well there was an earthquake at that time I was out in La at Joshua tree and it shook Compton and I called my brother up that night he’s like heyy what do I do there’s an earthquake and he’s like I think you’re I think you’re supposed to get in the bathtub or something come home yeah that’s horrible advice um so you know we got the Aftershock and I was like well screw it I’m just gonna go outside so I go outside and people start shooting off guns I was like screw it I’m gonna go back inside oh my God by the next day I was like you know what this is not working for me and put into put into cmpd the Charlotte meberg Police Department um literally I think it the very next day and you don’t get hired right away there’s a whole process but put that and took off um yeah and then I think it was one or two months later I got the conditional offer and started the road nice and you’re like that’s my path in from I mean that’s a great place to start too if you’re look you’re looking for Specialties because it’s a it’s a big Metro agency there’s G to be a lot of options for you to take exactly and it was funny when I did my interview with them they asked well do you know what you want to do in an apartment no hesitation absolutely I want to be an undercover in Vice and narcotics I want to be on the SWAT team and I want to be a chaplain and the guy like froze for a second he’s like all right well I get the first two but I’ve never heard the third one thrown in there too well that’s what I want yeah I want I want to eject people from their bodies and give them the blessing exactly right you got to do what you got to do yeah dude that’s beautiful man I love that that’s really cool good friend of mine um Ken Royal was U LAPD copper he’s retired now and he’s on the podcast once in a while he was a chaplain for a while at LAPD and um I think it was a lot I think it was um a lot uh to handle with like the amount of like funerals and stuff that were going on and you know that’s that’s a that’s a I mean it’s a very um worthwhile Endeavor and I’m a Christian myself so I think it’s I think it’s awesome but that that would be a lot if you pulled all three of those off how’s one for three is that pretty good going hey you could be you could be Lo I don’t know where you are now but you could be um if you’re if you’re in a smaller town and they don’t have a chaplain you could be the local chaplain you know they do have one but I’ve actually thought on coming on board that like just volunteering because like right now um because I retired from the agency but I’m still um I’m a reserve just so I can do negotiations as one of their hostage negotiators um but I thought about doing that as well it’s funny you said that yeah dude that’s that’d be freaking amazing that’s awesome what a good way to serve you know yep very very cool so Matt you you get on um Charlotte B Charlotte BG Charlotte mecklinburg um you do some years in Patrol and I definitely want to get into the undercover stuff but when you were when you a young patrolman can you remember the first call you went to that like really got your blood pumping your first hot call so I can tell you the first time I ran blue lights and and you’ll probably relate to this totally is it was a foot chase right guy calls in hey I got one running um 28 Street Graham right I think that was the exact location so I’m not even getting to drive it’s my first night I’m with my training officer on the very first night and so he’s driving but you know how instantaneous you can literally feel the adrenaline just kind of go throughout your body like all right it’s it’s game on it’s time to roll yeah um and so this happens so much of the time and it’s so disappointing you know you get those blue lights on you’re flying that way because it’s one of your boys so you’re going to get there as fast as possible um safely and you get within that half mile and 72 he’s under arrest you know he’s in cuffs it’s over and it’s just that oh man I didn’t even get to make it there yeah you got all those all those chemicals running through your blood yep and then that was the first night the second night with this training officer was probably the next exciting thing and I was getting the drive this night and he had me do a traffic stop uh and all the warning signs that you learn were there I was my second idle on the job so I was able to miss at least 99% of them uh so get out of the car approach the car and I’m trying to do everything textbook you know get that fingerprint on the back sure check the car out really well on the way up and uh he hands me an ID card when I get up there it doesn’t look like him at all so being the smart guy I am or wave to meet my or my fto at the back of the car so he can tell me what would be the logical Next Step instead of saying hey buddy get out of the car right um so he tells me well we should probably go ahead and get him out of the car so we can talk to him and get him away from a moving object yeah sounds like that sounds like solid advice I’ll do that um so I go back up there and keep in mind second night on the job Academy you know we weren’t we were I say militaristic Academy very you get yelled at some nothing like the military though I don’t I don’t want to compare it I mean it’s not they try to make a little bit like boot camp but it’s not nearly as stringent I would say um but we did PT every morning you had to look sharp you had to have creases you had to have your your boots better have been completely polished yeah mine was the same like paramilitary type yeah exact yeah uh so I still had my academ shoes I wore the baits which you know look great I mean baits are very sharp looking shoes y um did I mention it had been raining this night some so I get him to the back of the car and I’m trying you know textbook textbook I got this um I did great in the Academy I should have this down pat I get the way they taught us to hold his hands behind his back when we’re doing a search or patting down for a weapon uh so I mean I’m I’m flying I’m doing great I’ve got this nailed and uh I didn’t tell him to spread his feet though I let him keep his feet pretty close together um this was the last time I ever let somebody keep their feet pretty close together so I go to pad him and all of a sudden I don’t know if he must have just slipped a little bit or something but he kicks me right in my shin pretty good kick and then he takes off running see you later I I literally look at my fto and I’m like he’s like well now usually when we chase [Laughter] him so also I was pretty proud of myself at this point I was one of the faster ones in in my Academy class um I had good speed you know played football for a lot of years that kind of thing so was looking forward to this my fto was you know 20 years older than me um so I should smoke him this isn’t going to be an issue um again did I mention it had rain that night and I was wearing bait shoes with slick so I have my mic pack on of course um so that all our interaction is recorded not video just audio back in that day but we take off running and i’me of my fto no problem I should have this guy in no time and then I slip and I slide and I fall and then sorry about that um and then I found something else that they never had taught us in the academy and that is when you’re chasing a guy and you come to a fence and he goes over that fence how exactly do you get over that fence uh yeah with your junk on and all that exactly my fto no problem you know he does it the way that I then well he caught me right after that how you do it where you just put it like right here on your chest and kind of do the roll and let the the vest take the brunt yep um that’s not how I did it I you throw those feet up above her exactly right it’s just a hurdle it’s no big deal I’ll be fine only I’m not fine and so I slam on the ground again I must have fallen five times in a 200 yard foot chase oh uniforms all jacked up yep my my fto caught him I think he already had the handcuffs on by the time I get there I’m completely humiliated and U he says well this is a great training experience let’s go back and listen to the um the VHS and all that because I mean the front camera records the or the video but then you can hear the whole foot chase all you hear is constantly and then get back up get the whole entire time for for some reason he thought it was also important for the rest of the squad to hear that video of course yeah good training moment to share with everybody exactly so that was my first I would say hot call like where I had the adrenaline going and chasing somebody I love making a fool of myself at the same time it’s classic yeah that’s class like Bill uh Bill Broadway a buddy of mine who came on um he uh when he was in field training they pulled up the guy that for a foot chase and his uh his fto just looked at him said get him like he was the K9 you know you to get out of the car and start running exactly it’s it’s just so funny because you don’t yeah it’s a new world at that point right you know you just not accustom to it yep I remember I remember those feelings too when it’s I remember like the first like the first couple times you go hands- on with somebody like it’s time to Muckle them kind of like yep you know it’s it’s a weird thing to take somebody’s Freedom away and and and like to grab their arms because before you do anything else you gotta you got to touch them you know and just being with the the senior guys that just you know see how they do it they you know they give and I what I gleaned from it was like most guys would give the guy the opportunity and then when they didn’t then it was like full blast it was like they wouldn’t give him a chance it was like bam against the car wrenching arms like you can’t like do this like come on like grab their arm impishly exactly you kind of but that’s really weird to do when you’ve never done it you know what I mean it’s it’s kind of like you feel like like kind of like a you know I don’t know you’re just kind of unsure yourself so I love I love these early stories people have cuz they’re they’re just so funny it’s just everybody goes through it um so Matt you you get broken in how long before you get into detectives so and I always say this with a Cav like detectives I went it was 2007 is when I switched over to Vice and narcotics I was on a street crimes unit though doing undercover and working at forance starting in 2004 I believe it was um so that was my start in undercover well besides being I started in the police in 2000 um I had come up with an idea because like I said I knew from the get-go what I wanted to do so I was like I was fortunate I got to go to the most violent area in Charlotte so I was going to get my opportunities to learn um and I was going to do everything I could could to point myself into Vice of Narcotics and again I don’t condone this this is this was stupid on my part my sergeant messed up by letting me do it um and I always cave it because it was dumb I was I was out of fto maybe six months and this was real big when community policing was I mean I know community policing is still very big but this was when they were using the Sarah Model A lot I don’t even remember exactly what the Cel stood for getting all kinds of money from the federal government for it and exactly exactly so they all they wanted us to come up with these Sarah models so I came up with one and this was you know I know things have changed a lot today but you know how you had the corner dealers all over the place back in the day uh well that was huge in our area so I came up with a s model that I was going to buy drugs from these Corner dealers and a marketer then would come around the corner and pick them up um kind of thing obviously I wanted to buy the dope and I had some buddies that I went through the academy with that wanted to also get foot chases with me and catch these bad guys I mean it’s what we did most nights so we just added the UC element into it um so I did that and that was my first experience into the other Under carer World honestly it’s amazing I didn’t get myself killed the dumb like I had no train there was no reason in the world I should have been allowed to do that or doing that wow uh Good Luck Good Luck over good tactics in that case completely yeah cuz you’re kind of out there in the wind um yeah yeah that’s that’s crazy man um so were you at this point were you were able to like grow your hair out a little bit and do all that or did you have to be on patrol sometimes I had to be on patrol still so I couldn’t really let the hair go I um I went to Goodwill bought some clothes bought the fake earrings that you couldn’t tell were fake uh which I didn’t have my ears pierced at that point like I never I didn’t get my ears pierced until I did it rise some narcotics and didn’t really want to get them pierced then but the one with the first case it was going to be necessary so is what it is right so you your first case was with the the mafia right is Italian mafia so there was Italian mafia I was uh sponsored by the Greek Mafia the Greek Mafia yeah which they to me are beyond the scariest because they’re so much smarter than the rest um they’ll never get all their their whole gamep playay is extortion and political corruption um and that’s exactly what they have had have in Charlotte uh they basically if you want to open up a club or anything you had to do it through them and you had to pay them um to make sure everything went okay that permits went okay uh that you got everything okay that nothing happened to your place really yeah wow and how how did they how did the Greek Mafia get established down there so there was a pretty large Greek population in Charlotte starting back I think it was either 70s or 80s um and give credit what credits do um very smart the way everything came about they started opening up a couple clubs in uptown Charlotte and while doing this you know they also opened up a bunch of restaurants um take this as you will I can tell you no cop ever has to pay in a Greek restaurant and I don’t think it’s because maybe people are over really nice but I I don’t really think that’s the case yeah greasing those Wheels exactly and that also getting into politics and getting close friends in in political places um to get free reign free control so how do they how do they how do you get in so this case actually and I started a case totally by accident and um again something I wouldn’t ever do on purpose I so I blew out my knee we talked about that for a second earlier I come back and especially Vice and narcotics when you come back if you’re gone like I was gone four months so my informant either went to jail or you know moved on to somebody else who could continue to pay them right so I’m kind a little bit starting from scratch except for I mean I had three informant that had been with me early on in my career um but they couldn’t they didn’t have anything at that time I had just started to buy cocaine from a stripper before I got hurt um so you know trying to drown up some business I just called her up and see if she would uh if she would deal with me still and sure enough she would and I’m I set up to buy an eightball right out the gate which an eightball is 3.5 grams for anybody that doesn’t know of cocaine um very small amount it’s kind of we consider testing water to make sure everything is good so I buy this eightball from her and I meet up with her and you know drug deals are normally the most stressful thing in the whole world right everybody’s judging everybody robbery police what’s going to happen um and it’s they’re they’re fast it’s not like drug deals take a long time everybody’s in a hurry to get this done and get out sure so I meet with her and she has me get in her car and she’s got the cocaine in a in a Newport cigarette pack hands me the cocaine and then begins to give me her life story like just the oddest thing in the world not to mention we’re we’re meeting in the richest part of Charlotte um which is obviously not very common for drun deals either right and I just like I’m I’m taking back a little bit trying to figure things out she’s telling me how she’s in school right now she’s going to become a nurse and just going on and on and on I literally have to at one point Hey listen I got I gotta go um I got a thing I got yeah something yeah um I was like you know I I may want a lot more this is just testing and I forgot to men so I knew who her supplier was and that was my real Target her main supplier was a who’s who drug dealer that I wanted really really bad I knew he SS with celebrities I knew he goes up into the Kila level it was everything I wanted um so she was like yeah no problem and in Charlotte we would always call it a yak basically which is you set up to have dinner or something with the drug dealer to talk you know business and have a plan laid out everybody gets comfortable with other one you’re talking about larg amounts you don’t don’t do it for small amounts but if you’re getting ounces to kilo level sometimes you’ll do a yak um so I end up giving her call later on saying hey dope’s good I like it um let’s get together and talk and see about how much we can get on the plate kind of thing and she said sure and she names a restaurant that’s right by where we met this last time in the expensive area of Charlotte I didn’t know the restaurant didn’t think too much paron on yeah exactly might as well so I think it was a day later or two days later we go to meet and we’re at this restaurant and of course I have you know close cover guys around me and all that um and I’m sitting down and I’m waiting for her to arrive and she shows up and my close cover team catches her before I do and she’s wearing a very very oh speaking of which the restaurant I’m at that I’m sitting at is I’m like wow this is an expensive restaurant this is pretty nice so I was taken off by that but hey I’m not going to pay for the meal so what do I care I can thank the city later exactly but um she shows up gets out of the car and my phone’s blowing up before I even see her and she is wearing this extremely nice white dress and she is dressed to the nine and I Glimpse at the text messages coming into my flip phone and it’s I can’t believe you’re on a date you’re using City funds to go out on a date and I’m like you’ve got and I see her and I’m like you’ve got to be kidding me this is not happening right now um so she sits down it takes all the five minutes to realize that yes to her this is a date oh boy and so you know my heart’s like this sucks um so I was like I figured well the case is over I’m gonna when this is over I’m gonna sign warrant on her and then go approach her somewhere and see if I can flip her that’s the best case scenario I got and I’m not hopeful about that like I’m pretty dejected at this Point um and then I decid to have a little fun since I figured well this is all screwed up so she starts asking what I do and I use I’ve always I always use the same close backstory um I always use that I’m an orphan uh just because I want to close off records to anything when I was younger yeah it’s kind of perfect yeah so I go with that and that I’m a trust fund I invested the money and ended up becoming a billionaire um just which was the dumbest thing like I never do that if I thought anything had potential um but I was guess I was just in one of those having fun yeah exactly um well I guess I’m a better liar than I realized because she bought it hookline and sinker and I should have also thought out the fact that well she’s a stripper they have a tendency to really like money and if they see a guy that apparently has a ton of money they’re going to latch on that much harder um and that’s pretty much what happened happened and we get out of that and end up having I have a conversation with my sge and stuff like that and he had the idea like well why do we have to why do we have to end this right away and I had also she also invited me to a party um that I figured you know the other guy I want to get to was G to be at this party how how do your wife feel about this story now oh she laughs about it like the girl turns out to be literally crazy uh but we obviously we brainstorm we decided to bring in another UC to help deal with this because of her attraction towards me so we bring in another female who is my sister um and anytime I am around this girl my sister is there which took a lot of explaining a lot of times while my sister always had to be there but it it worked and long story like the stripper ended up not really caring about being with me she wanted everybody else to think that we were together and for me to think that we’re her I’m with her so that she can get all kinds of money and I can pay for everything yeah sugar daddy exactly so it it turned out to be beautiful for the case because she’s telling everybody all her stripper friends oh yeah I’m sleeping with him so word gets out to you know everybody the Greeks um all the other drug dealers and everything else so oh well he’s definitely not a cop that so that part worked perfect it was a little more tricky later that we had to totally get her out of the picture um that was a little bit complicated and frustrating but we were able to do it um so she then introduces me to a guy named Marcos and it’s Marcos friend of the Greeks is literally how everybody knows him and Marcus first hits it off with my sister really well he seemed to have a little attraction there and then I get to talk to Marcus and Marcus I hit it off and I would end up spending the next two years day and night with Marcos um weird his family yeah oh my gosh that must be so weird dude to like to to live I mean I’m sure a million people have asked you or said this you but to live the double life you know what I mean like like you’re because you how you’re human you’re gonna have you’re GNA like see the good traits in this guy and be like there’s a lot of things I like about this guy you know what I mean oh totally yeah Mark like Marcus and I had a great time together like I mean legitimately I enjoyed hanging out with him uh the case itself 80 to 90% of the time was a blast like the work itself was fun um and one I’m I’m supposed to be his billionaire so all of a sudden the FBI is yeah your Lieutenant is like great thanks a lot I spent so much City money at I’m gonna need a Ferrari and a Benz well see I did I got the driver Porsche I got the driver bins a lot um now they were not City Vehicles those came from the FBI but right seizures and all that yeah exactly but it so that part of it I mean I could not complain I had first legitimately the first time ever in my life I had surf and turf was in that case oh it’s so good dude surf and turf is my legitimate dude I the first time I ever had true surf and turf was at the capol grill in Boston and um you know the lobster tail on top of a a flame andun and I take a little bite of each at the same time with the butter oh my I still think about it I mean it’s amazing it’s incredible yeah exactly like I was just dumb it I couldn’t help but many times think if they knew what a schmuck they’re dealing with right now it would be hilarious I never had anything like this I mean I bought a $1,000 bottle of wine I was actually over ,000 at the one place ow so far out of my element it was Unreal yeah so cool man so where do you go from there so you’re you’re driving flashy cars you you got the girl so marks and I get closer and closer and this is what the an did the TV show on um this case and in particular one night so I’m literally like I mean I’m having Sunday dinners with Marcus and his daughters u i mean we get that close and he’s the one who has to vouch for me like Marcus when I set up well our original plan was U I was opening up two clubs and Marcus was basically gonna be my go-to he was going to sponsor me to the Greeks and that I would pay him and he would pay the Greeks um and everything would be you know blessed and ready to go right um original plan was he had connections to another country and political connections and we were going to bring in 50 kilos of cocaine every other week via my plane from his country that he had the source to bring it in to get it and that we’d bring it to Charlotte and store it in this one club and the other club would be the nice club that everybody would see so the Greeks weren’t just involved in the local politics they were also moving dope and everything no so this is where things took eternally the Greeks did not Greeks would not touch the dope at all and would get pissed um okay I got I got sat down a couple times I got s sat down in this cases once by uh Marcos and once by the Greeks and the Greeks were basically you will not be involved in the dop game there’s the other guy that I told you about um that I originally wanted the stripper supplier well I also ended up getting really close to him in this case as well he was he hung out with the Italians um that’s how crazy this whole thing was and they they warned me a couple times that if he was doing his deals and he was allowed to deal in their club which was what was so dumbfounding but they didn’t have any attachment to him if they’re sponsoring him or sponsoring me they have an attachment to me so I’m kind of belong to them uh but they yelled at me and said you know I will not be involved in the dope game or they will take care of it um and it was not I did not feel Pleasant about how they would take care of yeah so I had I I walked a very thin line on that one Marcos was not good about it he uh and they would get mad at him consistently for it but he also so Marcos was in his 40s that’s say 50s at that time um and you would see him with girls in their young 20s a lot and you would also see them every now and then come up see him and then Dart off to the bathroom and then come back a couple minutes later uh so I knew he was yeah he was giving him candy yeah um so I think he was always on a thin line with them in terms of that but they also had a great deal of loyalty to him um I had heard I I never found out the real reason they were so loyal to him I heard a couple stories that I could never vouch where U he kept quiet for them and basically almost got killed for them so I think that had something to do with it but so that’s one of the stressful thing about that case is I was constantly going down two roads I was with Marcos um pretty much all the time and then sometimes it’ be Marcos um Mikey and I Mikey being the supplier for the stripper and so you’re different so I understand it the right way and everybody’s following they you get into the into the Greeks through the pering and the the sketchy stuff they’re doing there that’s your angle with them but also there’s like it like branches off into like they won’t touch drugs so now you’re dealing with the Italian mafia at the same time yeah yeah or this guy Mikey who’s attached to them uh wow this must have been a lot a lot to process when you’re doing it it was at first but then due to other people got so my interest at that time like my sister was a task force also with the DEA in this case not my real sister the other undercover and I had been doing work PRI prior to this with the DEA and so this was going to be a DEA case when we got the 50 kilos we’re going to come from another country we had a DEA plane lined up we were ready to do his DEA and about two days later uh Marcus calls me says hey come meet me for lunch um he lived in a high-rise condo says come meet me for lunch uh let’s talk to business and get this settled and get things moving which obviously was great to hear so I go meet him and that was the worst lunch uh he goes I mean in some ways it was great but for me a lot of ways it was bad he uh he goes all right we’re going to move on to next steps we’re gonna have to pay some politicians off we have to get this sponsorship with the Greeks soon um and then we can start doing this but we can’t do those things uh we can’t move any of the dope until we have this other stuff taken care of with uh politicians and the Greeks um I get done with him meeting talking about with the DEA what what was said in the meeting and they’re like well we’re out and said you got to go to the FBI they have now they have jurisdiction on this because of the politicians and political corruption um so they make a call and then I end up having to go over to the FBI office uh meet with the FBI and they’re like we’ve been trying so long to get in in Charlotte and have failed every single time and this is our this is our ticket um which I mean at the time I was like oh sweet this is going to be awesome um so we so then it becomes you know FBI case and I’m told at that time you know just stay the course we’re going to start looking for another Deep Cover to bring in um that will be your money man then but we’ll have to go through all the Hoops get everything written up we have to make it a group onek like all you know how it is all the paperwork all that crap and it takes for I I couldn’t even I think it took like six months to get to to have it established as a group one case uh and then another six months to find an agent or yeah an agent to be my money man another Deep Cover uh so and so in that year time was a state of course and just continue to build the relationship and I mean they still funded it uh they used a different pot of money and all that so because somebody’s got to pay for these clubs that you’re oh yeah you’re opening and I mean and this whole time you’re treading water with it just kind of gathering more evidence and making connections and yeah and I mean like I’m with them 247 so I’m constantly spending money out with them um and everything we do so but I mean they you know they took care of the bill when well they took care most of it my department had paid for it for a while um state of North Carolina the SBI was also involved in the case because of some of the on the drug side of things with Mikey and that side um so kind of it did get split up some across the board so so how did how did each prong of this case end so disappointingly in some to me some other people we uh Mikey goes to Brazil and that closes that one off and honestly I believe Mikey got got himself killed in Brazil he was trying to find a new connect in Brazil and I I think he screwed up um because he he kept contact with me while I was in Brazil and then all of a sudden he just stopped and nobody ever heard from him again so not a good sign yeah uh and then with Marcos so I have a horrible night with Marcos one night I mean everything worked out but we go out we meet about 6 p.m. he tells me come pick him up at his condo we’re going to his one Greek Club um well Greek bar club we go there place I’ve been to a million times before um but there were so many red flags this night like when I pick Marcos up he’s extremely quiet which is not his style at all he is always outgoing and talkative he was very non-private about his phone crazy as that is and then yet this night he was making sure I couldn’t see anything on his phone and he was on it a lot a lot of text messages it was almost instantaneous that you know you’re starting to get that bad feeling yeah um so we go to this first Club place I’ve been to 100 times we walk in know the hostess well and we always just go sit wherever we want no big deal um we get there and she goes up I have your seats ready and at that point my anxiety is going up because that’s never happened before is there’s got to be a reason that she would say I have your seats ready um now I’m I’m not particularly happy so it’s on the far side of the bar which I know the bar well right behind me is a curtain that has a little office that’s the surveillance office it has all the cameras in this little office and all this and you can hear everything that’s going on right here um we sit down we each get a glass of wine he which he’s also a big- Time drinker so normally he’s down himself himself left and right he’s barely touching anything he gets up several times with his phone and walks away and is talking on the phone getting text mess still not allowed to say anything he’s not saying anything to me like maybe three words you know and it’s all questions um so I obviously know something’s up but I don’t know what um he takes a phone call comes back over to me and like come on we’re going up town to the other clubs all right so I drive them up we go to What’s called the epicenter and the clubs start on the second floor of the epicenter it’s got like three levels and second level starts the clubs so we walk up the steps get to the second level he says hold on a second he walks away and gets on the phone again um comes back over to me says come on we’re going back to my place and we’ll have a bottle of wine there and talk and at this point I’m like could could you ask him like what’s up with you like you’re acting weird or it wasn’t weird enough that you could do that it was kind of like borderline I probably should have I hadn’t yet though I was just keep my mouth shook just kind of going with it um a smarter man would have probably said something along I gotta go I’m flying out or something like that got out it’s like this again I can’t say this was smart um but so I go to him to his condo and I’ve been to his condo couldn’t even tell you how many times prior to this thousands um he is near the top and you walk into the condo open the door there’s a kitchen to your right you walk past the kitchen there’s a bathroom bedroom’s on the left with another bathroom attached to it living room straight ahead and then balcony pass that um he had always always had his lights on and every door open that’s just kind of the way he he was so we get there we get up to his condo he opens the door and it’s pitch black and that was was I was just like this is it oh man kind of was thinking I I screwed up um and he goes go make yourself comfortable on the couch I’ll get us the wine um I literally walked directly to the balcony and looked down because I was confident I was going to get tossed and I wanted to see where I was going oh my gosh so oh and keep in mind to every door was shut which first time I’d ever seen the door shut in his condo um so go look over the balcony there is a pool about halfway down I thought well maybe I’ll just aim for the pool may it would have still killed me but at least it would have been in water right uh so then I have a seat on the couch he does gets bottle of wine turns on a lamp in the living room um and sits down and he starts drilling me with questions and it’s not a bunch of questions probably like 20 questions just asked different way same way we would interrogate someone right um like where’d you grow up again you know what was the name of that orphanage who are your friends um what was what sports did you play you know what was the what was the orphanage like like he went into that lot then he went into bank accounts well how many bank accounts you have what businesses what did you invest in again when did you do that um oh boy all those kind of things yeah exactly and then several times his phone would go off and he would get like with text messages he would look at it get up and go in the bath or in the bedroom and he did the criminal door open and closing which we’ve all seen where you know you go knock on the motel room door or whatever and they either barely open it and cracked their head out or they slide out the door so that you can’t see in at all like somebody’s feeding him questions make sure you ask him this exactly so that was I knew there were people in there um and this literally went I mean I think we got back to his place and started this around 910 p.m. um eventually I did say I was like man I hang out with your daughters you know we’re all friends like you and I have been together now for a year or whatever Inseparable and we’ve had almost every Sunday dinner together what is going on did I do something did I piss you off are you mad at me you know what’s up um and he was basically showed up said no everything’s fine like with no emotion nothing that helped me at all um at this point do you have anybody tailing you guys no so I had they had told me later on that close cover would be them being in their office or checking in by text message they basically and they’re they’re not wrong I mean I would have liked them to AV word it differently but it was basically we’re uh we’re body recovery oh cool just being honest there’s nothing we can we’re not going to be able to save yeah they could they probably sustain that for as long as you’re going undercover exactly and and it’s more risky to try to tail me and everything else with going to different places and a lot of these places are very you would get noticed in a heartbeat kind of thing right um so I mean it is what it is So eventually I can see light coming in through the window and I’m like oh like and he out just all of a sudden all right you can go and I’ll call you later and that’s it nothing else just you can go I’ll call you later so weird condo were at yeah his condo complex has its own garage I go down to a garage I still remember sitting in the car for a second with the key in the inition and just wondering if I turn this is it going to blow up is it going to be like one of the movie scenes right that how this is going to play out uh and they had gone through my car I know that because my center console was up paper like they didn’t hide it uh um so I I started the car it did not blow up obviously um thank goodness and started to drive to the apartment and um I get a call then from Marcos and he’s like nice job everything checks out um I’ll see you in a couple hours and we met at the strip club we always meet at in the morning and go from there and when I met him he was back to his normal self and says the Greeks love we’re good to go U and so a couple days of that I met one of the heads of the of the Greeks um you talk about an intimidating guy that guy was intimidating like just your old school just I don’t even know how to explain it but you like there was no question he was the boss like he just MAF a second yeah exactly to the tea um just very I don’t even know how to describe I’m trying to think of the right word um but he owned the room like when he would walk in he owned anywhere he was it was impressive give the guy credit yeah damn man let me ask you when when all this is going on this first Deep Cover thing you’re doing how do they make um how do you make time for family is it like kind of like I got to catch a flight somewhere or I’m going to be out of town and then you just go like crash with your family like spend time with them and then recuperate and then go back is that how you do it um well that would have been nice to do it that way there were a couple times that um I’d hang out with my family outside of the area but other than that um the first case I’d get home some like and it didn’t do any good uh between 4: to six o’clock in the morning and then back out um but that was it but every time you go home it’s just so risky like I the second case I just did not do it um so this first case you like literally did not see your family that almost at all no yeah usually if I saw them they were sleeping but at least got to know they were alive um but I did get to communicate with them more in the first case talk on the phone more it wasn’t as bad as the second case second case was just horrendously aw by lack of choice um man that’s got to be so hard the tough part is like anytime you go home or even go to meet him like if you’re getting tailed and you miss it like it’s Dawn and you just gave them who your family is right so it just doesn’t it’s it’s weird and like I talked about this with my wife uh another hard part you know you talk about living the double life well that’s it’s not easy to do and it’s not it’s not as easy as just going back and forth between two different people like you almost just want to stay as this Alter Ego until it’s done um to avoid screwing up towards the end was she getting like is this going to be over soon like were you able to give her any timeline no so when we thought we were GNA have boy this happened to me in both of them uh I’ve learned you don’t ever think it’s gonna end um I literally would get to the mindset let’s just get through today you can’t think you’re going to see your family tomorrow you can’t think you’re going to see a family next month you’ve just got to think about getting through this situation to the next situation uh that’s just way like that was best for my brain anyway that I can’t look at oh if I just make it one more month I’m gonna get to see my family I I just tuned out and basically was like well I’m never gonna get to see him again I just to have that mindset do you think like when you look back at this 20 30 years from now do you think it was worth it giving up that time with your child and your wife to work the casee so I I tell everybody this it’s for my personal life it’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever done to do that to my family is horrendous like if you if you boil it down you you can’t and especially the second case more so even though it was only a year more so than the first case because there was basically no contact and then the things I had to do in that case in terms of I had to be arrested in that case um which made national news um and then my mom had cancer during that case and she lived where we lived in the same town and my wife had to handle everything plus my kid um wow like just unbelievable amounts so it there’s no question the selfish now my wife is the reason I stayed in I almost bailed on the second case um with about four months to go my I didn’t know about my mom yet but my kid who’s been no joke since he was born had basically been the perfect kid uh like when when I blew out my knee he was only you know a couple months old back when I blew it out see he was born in February I blew it out in April um and I couldn’t go up and downstairs and so that night Rd goes um Kaden that’s our son’s name goes Kaden you’re gonna have to start sleeping the whole night obviously he’s only two months old he can’t understand anything say but I need you to start sleeping the whole night because can’t and then he started sleeping the whole night literally that night never had again yeah exactly right and then um in school he was quiet but um he’s always been extremely smart it’s good that way but always in a good mood everything like that everything was always really good with him uh I get a call from R in the second case and I’m on my way to a meeting with with some targets and I she would only call if she felt it was something that needed to be discussed um and because it was my UC phone and so she calls me up and says you know one I’m sorry to call um she goes I debated whether I was going to tell you this or not but I didn’t want you to be mad at me later on for not telling you and she goes Kaden’s all of a sudden having a very difficult time in school and he’s extremely depressed he teachers finally ask as him what’s going on what’s wrong and he said I miss my daddy oh man I pulled off to the side of the road bald my eyes out and I told R I said all right don’t worry about it I’ll be home tomorrow this case is over um and she goes hold up she’s always good about this kind of thing and she goes I want you to think about the outcome if things go wrong and you come home because the reason I got involved with sin case is because they had heard U and I now at this point had solid information that a group was planning to do a bombing at the DNC in Charlotte and she goes if a bunch of officers get killed in a bombing because you bailed out of this case are you gonna be able to live with yourself oh what a pickle yeah so I sat on on road for a minute bald for a while um called her back and said I’m staying in the case um I said and I think I said something like I’ll try to at least stop home for a minute within the next week can see Kaden um which I failed to do but and then I sat there for a little while and then having to recompose myself and go back to being this other person like that was the tricky way that was tricky um brother that is tough I was hating life at that point I like I that case was challenging in every way like you I talked about how I enjoyed the people a lot of the people hung out with in the first case um criminals or not whatever was fun yeah yeah there were maybe two people in this case that didn’t totally upset me the uh person that was my Billy was my best friend Billy was very charismatic to other people but he was a paranoid schizophrenic on cocaine hey Matt yeah goad I want to hear about it sounds amazing but can we wrap up the first one you talked about first with Mar yeah I know CU so yeah get all over so I deal with Marcus for a long time then FBI finds the money man that they want to bring into the picture um that takes a lot longer than we expected just lack of trust they didn’t trust you know bringing a new person in this was not how the Greeks play business um luckily eventually said well they really like me um I proved myself to them if I vouch for this guy fine whatever so we get the money guy in still a lot of phone calls for a while but eventually I’m totally out of the picture they basically said you know well you know how he is he’s a Playboy who wants to go party everywhere else and they used actually the stripper and said he’s got this crazy girl here who won’t leave him alone he’s just tired of it um so you’re gonna have to deal with me and eventually that worked I was able to get out of it yeah I got out of that case August 2011 where I was pretty much I was allowed to go back to the apartment they put me with the DEA um and then they also got that was in that same month that got the warning about the bombing uh for the DNC which was going to be September 2012 and the Intel unit met with me and asked me if I’d be willing to to attempt to embed um or to infiltrate a couple of these groups to at least find out if there’s any truth to the bombing so that’s kind how we switch from one to the did they Greeks end up uh did they end up getting the H the the bracelets or so the mayor of Charlotte ended up going to jail for federal bribes um because we paid them off there were a couple other people arrested that I don’t think I’m allowed to talk about um there were numerous people that should have been arrested that weren’t but that’s I guess when I finish my part of the case that’s not my decision anymore you must have been so relieved at least until the next third sandwich came your way um I got to ask you Matt um we’ve gone over hour and it it’s been fantastic man I’ve love listening to it but are are you willing to come back and do a a part two I love hanging out with you absolutely are you have time for that because I know you’re busy and you’re doing all kinds of stuff I don’t want to leave the the uh listeners hanging and not have you ever come back yeah I will definitely come back man I’d love to have you come back and and just lay out the second case because uh this it’s just so damn interesting man it’s it’s crazy and you’re I think the the most captiv part about it is like you’re like a really good guy like you’re like you’re clearly like a a good dude who like just to sacrifice a bunch of himself to do this stuff and it that fascinates me because it’s like it I’m like I’m like a classic copper I do Patrol I I do you know I’ve been doing law enforcement 17 years now at this point and I’m I’m kind of like I’m no ball of fire and whatever so when I hear about guys that do stuff like this I’m like oh my gosh this is incredible dude you’re like this is like blood money you’re getting here you’re like you know trading parts of yourself uh to get these people and thank goodness people like you do that you know and thank goodness for your wife supporting you like that you know it’s it’s it’s truly incredible because a lot I mean a lot of guys in your position go through wives and have broken families and and don’t and kind of make it out worse for the wear you know they the trade-off wasn’t worth it so I I had a buddy who had started he did a six month actually with a with a OMG with a motorcycle gang um undercover with them and something went wrong and he had end up bailing on it but in just six months he lost his marriage because of it he was part of it like and this was the guy that I you know I idolized when I got to the apartment like that’s who I want to be that’s you know I want to do Deep Cover that’s the guy I want to be um and he is like he and I are still super close he’s a great great guy but he was the one who warned me that you know very easily this will cost you everything um I broke I broke one rule in both cases and I would do it again tomorrow and um you know you’re not supposed to talk about the cases with your family you’re supposed to pretty much have them in the dark that’s you obviously opset right you can’t talk about these things I I basically said if I can’t trust my wife then I shouldn’t number one I shouldn’t be married to her um and none of this is worth it and so I she knew way more than she was supposed to know I told her that I was in the strip clubs that’s pretty much where I lived um you almost got to do that for your conscience you know what I mean like I would have to like I’d have to especially being a Christian guy I’d have to be like listen this is part of my vocation this is what I’m doing I’m it would feel like bad you’d feel bad keeping it from her exactly 100% And if something goes wrong you know and that’s how she find me that just be like yeah I would I can’t do it so I’ve got to trust her enough that she knows she can’t and and it did it made that much tougher on her though but she did it she didn’t tell anybody she was really before I went to Vice and narcotics she did like cmpd wi was one of the founders of cmpd wiv which was for officers wives to be able to talk you know I lost two very good friends who were in my district were shot and killed um while I was there and that’s kind of when cmpd wise can together because you know we were all obviously devastated and so they brought that together um for the wives to be able to talk so they had a support group also um so she went from all that to all of a sudden having cut ties with everybody and not talking to anybody because people want to ask well where you know where’s Matt where because I just I literally one day there and next day disappeared just gone yeah that’s crazy man and are you guys were you living in relatively a nearby area when you were doing all this yeah not not far um that must have drove you nuts too cuz it’s like even just running into your running into your neighbor in downtown Charlotte or something you know what I mean you do it for long enough you’re gonna see people and kind of put your head down that became that became the other struggling part even after the cases was there was no going out um like we went out with friends one time not even in Charlotte but um in the neighboring um city or town and we’re out to eat and we literally just sit down at see somebody walk in that if that person saw me it would be big time trouble so I basically like I get up I don’t even have time to explain so I get up like I’m going to the bathroom get out get into the car and then call my wife and say hey I can’t come back in you guys have a good time I’m gonna have to wait in the car brother that is that is I’d be so pissed off if I you get to one time to go out and be normal and like you know have some cocktails with friends and it’s like no I’ll be in the car have fun y all enjoy oh man you’re a saint man that’s that’s unbelievable Matt um like I said we’re over an hour I want to respect your time uh because I know you can talk for another hour about the the next thing and I have questions I didn’t even ask you yet but um if you’re willing man I would absolutely I’d be honored to have you back on man absolutely yeah definitely we’ll schedule it right away all right brother thank you so much man it it was it was awesome um I’m gonna I’m gonna do the outro and thank the patreon sponsors can you hang on for just a second absolutely awesome the great Matt pitchers ladies and gentlemen wow Matt pitcher um unbelievable I me so freaking interesting uh really really cool I can see why he’s been on TV and why he’s um you know finally coming out of his deep hibernation of social media and starting to blow up uh just just so cool I can’t wait to get the part two out of him um thank you again for that mat so awesome um this is a time in the show when I thank the patreon sponsors the people that keep the lights on if you really love the show and you want to show it and uh you know keep the boat afloat the link is in the show notes I always appreciate that I love you guys who I’m talking about is the Great and Powerful Andy bigs Greg Gad booy adamy Hall everybody the great Chris June Gary Steiner Jake 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