Original subtitles

I was looking at spending the rest of my life in prison.

We got you, Charles. You know that. The feds are offering that I go to work

undercover to infiltrate one of the most deadly biker gangs in America.

There's no doubt they want to kill me. What do you want? My life was on the

every single day.

Don't move.

And I'm like, oh, crap.

This is the first time I've shown my face on camera.

Now everyone will know who I am.

I was a drug dealer at the peak of my empire, and I was really,

really good at what I did.

I had a 3 ,000 -square -foot house on eight acres right in the middle of L .A.

I made approximately a half a ton of methamphetamine with a street value of

million.

I was living the American dream.

I woke up at 6 o 'clock.

I don't know what woke me up, but something woke me up.

I spent as much money as I could on my security systems.

I see my worst nightmare.

The L .A. Sheriff SWAT team.

And I think, oh.

So I spring up. I've got the fastest I've ever had in my life.

I have to get to the bathroom where I've left a pound of methamphetamine.

Flushed it down the toilet, jammed as much as I could.

Flushed it, flushed it, flushed it.

And then I come running back out to check the screen.

They are not there now.

Nothing.

So I'm thinking this had to be some meth -induced hallucination. And I go, oh,

crap.

I just flushed down $9 ,000 in methamphetamine down the toilet.

But I say, well, let me check.

Out front.

And all I hear is, Don't move!

I will kill you.

My world was about to be turned upside down.

So I'm handcuffed, sitting on the floor.

They had everything they needed for me to spend the rest of my life behind

I knew it was over for me.

We had guys at your other house.

There was 10 pounds of meth in your kitchen alone.

One of the agents looked at me and said, we got you.

You're looking at 20 years easy.

I knew right away when I got busted, the feds were going to give me the speech.

Charles, I'm going to need you to cooperate with us.

I had two options.

I could cooperate.

Or I could spend the rest of my life in prison.

Got all day, friends.

I mean, I would have traded a billion dollars to get those charges dropped.

There's two types of criminals.

Those that snitch and those that wish they had.

I made my choice.

I snitched on my old drug dealing associates.

When I started working as a DEA informant, I had no idea what I was

myself into.

The cops took everything, so I had nothing left.

I was living in San Bernardino County in a little small house.

Yeah. So one day, I get a call, and it's the Organized Crime Division of San

Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, and it's a detective.

And she says, I have a job for you.

So we decided to meet at a restaurant. I think it was around 3 p .m.

That way it wouldn't be busy. We wanted to make sure we were away from other

customers so they didn't hear us talking.

And she said, I want you to infiltrate the Vagos motorcycle gang.

Okay.

The Vagos are definitely one of the most.

Beard, biker gangs in California.

He was involved in murder, drug dealing, rapes, kidnappings, beatings, just

about any crime you can think of, they commit.

If you cross the Vagos, you're dead.

No other way around it.

Okay. What do you want me to do here?

They wanted me to get inside the Vagos, record, intelligent, find out what their

criminal activities were.

buy drugs, buy guns, find out about murders they've done, then report back

them.

I was shocked to find out I'd be risking my life.

I didn't want to do this.

But when it came down to it, I had no choice.

It was either life in prison or infiltrate the Vagos motorcycle gang.

My life was going to get a hell of a lot more dangerous.

To prepare for the bog of the infiltration, the most important thing

prepare mentally.

I would have to go over my cover story.

I wanted to say I've always had a lot of respect. I've always had a lot of

respect. I've always had a lot of respect.

I've always had a lot of respect. Over and over and over and over.

Hey.

It was an account of you.

Make sure there were no holes in anything I was going to tell them. I

say you guys are bearers. But the bog of the infiltration was an informant.

I had no doubt that they would beat me to death.

I had to treat them like a pack of wolves.

And that means I couldn't act like a bunny.

I had to be an alpha myself and stay in that role at all times.

The cops gave me a name of a bar where the vlogger was hung out at.

I knew that if I made one mistake, any mistake, I'm a dead man.

So when I walked in that bar, I knew that I was on stage and had to have a

perfect performance.

I knew I had the right place.

I was instantly a stranger, and all eyes were on me.

You could sense tension and violence in this place.

I decide to go to the bar, make sure I'm not shaking or anything like that that

shows nervousness.

Thank you.

I could die doing this.

But at the same time, I had to keep that demeanor of being an alpha male.

I look around, and right away I notice three vagos.

All biker gangs wear patches that identify who they are, but people fear

And the vagos are no different.

And I knew this was my chance.

Walking up to him, I felt deep fear, not only of my own safety, but of failing,

and I would be back to prison.

Hey, can I get you guys a beer?

I felt afraid.

You know, you're walking up to people that are killers.

Why are we going to buy us a beer?

I've always had a lot of respect for you guys.

Vagos.

I told him I always respected the Vagos after one had defended me a few years

back in jail.

This is a complete lie, of course.

I always said I would buy any Vago a beer to say thanks.

I had no backup.

I'm an informant. It's just me.

There's no one there to rescue me if something goes wrong.

The fear was pumping through me.

Inside I'm like almost falling apart.

But somehow you have to remain calm on the outside.

Another round.

At that point, I felt like I had got to first base.

Okay. And I knew that I hadn't made a mistake or anything that would throw

off, but still knew I had a long ways to go.

After about an hour of drinking, everything was

going smoothly.

All of a sudden, all hell broke loose.

There was screaming, there was shouting, chairs, tables turned over.

It was a melee.

What do I do? Do I get involved?

If I don't get involved, then the boggles aren't going to trust me and I'm

going to get in with them.

That was cold. You're going to get in a lot of fights.

But don't be around when there's a murder, or you'll be charged too.

This was it. Do or die time.

So as the robbers were fighting this big group, I knew this was my chance. If I

got involved, I knew I might be in with them.

I decided, screw it, and came in swinging.

My willingness to pack them up in any situation, and them seeing that I have

ability to fight, they respected that.

Get this guy a drink!

The Vagas, violence is their friend. It's what they live for. They love it.

love war.

This ain't even my blood.

And just like that, I was in with the Vagas.

Vagas!

All motorcycle gangs, including the Blagos, have a hierarchy.

Everyone has their place and their roles.

In my chapter, there was terrible. A neo -Nazi who loved violence.

And then there was Twist, psychopath and partner to Rhino.

Nobody messed with him. When he came at you, he literally came at you like a

rhino.

Rhino was the personal bodyguard of Psycho, president of the chapter.

until I was a full member of the Vagos.

They're basically a slave of the biker gang.

I would have to work my way up the ladder and prove myself before I could

a full member.

It was just hell on earth.

Every day, every week, every month, it was non -stop, 24 -7.

Let's go.

I could be told at any time, anywhere, to do something, and I had to do it.

They were collecting debt.

They needed to take care of business and hurt somebody.

I had to be there.

There was no choice.

The boggles dealt in fear, suffering, and death, and I hated them for it.

Every night, I would report back to my handler. His name was Special Agent

Darren Kozlowski, or Koz.

Almost on a 24 -hour basis, I'd get three to four hours of sleep and then

all over again.

There was no recovery time.

I always carried a little recorder, so there was no doubt if they found the

recorder on me, they would know what it was.

My life was on the line every single day.

On the ground and give me 22 right now!

If these guys found out I was talking to the cops, they would kill me.

And

I

was sick of their... And I was sick of being around them.

Sick of seeing them. They're violent.

I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in prison.

So I had to do this.

I had to absorb the role.

It wasn't acting.

I wasn't a guy pretending to be a vago.

I became a vago.

I had been with the Vagos for a couple of months.

The Vagos had a weekly meeting. It was called church.

When I pulled up in my vehicle, most of the members were already there, and they

kind of had a scared, panicked look on their face.

I knew something serious had happened.

I just didn't know what.

Terrible guy in the car.

And then looked at me and says, I'm about to tell you something.

But you can't tell anybody I told her, right?

Don't ever repeat it.

He says, Rhino and Twist went out to go rob

this guy of a pound of meth.

That's one guy. He made it through the door.

And Twist shot him dead.

I couldn't believe it.

I was shocked that he was telling me.

This is about as big as a thing that can happen as a confidential informant.

I've hit the jackpot.

This would be something incredible to solve someone's murder and reduce my

prison sentence.

This evidence could be my ticket out of here.

So that night, I called COS.

Terrible. Jess told me that Twist and Rhino killed a guy.

He said we need the confession from the killers, otherwise it's just hearsay.

And you're going to need it on tape.

Do you think you can do that for us?

Yeah, well, I guess I'm going to have to.

And I thought, oh, crap.

Without that confession, I had nothing.

I was working to infiltrate one of the most deadliest biker gangs in America.

And now I had to get a psychopath, meth addict, to confess a murder to me.

I knew if I made one slip up, he would kill me.

And I just had to deal with the fact that I might not live through this.

The following day, I went to go see Twist.

If I'd been an undercover cop, there would have been a team of six law

enforcement officers waiting for a signal if anything went wrong.

But for me, I'm an informant. There was no backup.

I was terrified.

What do you want?

Oh, whoa.

He was just crazy, psychotic.

Kill her.

Relax, man.

You came to say hi.

Come on, hurry up.

Hey. Yeah, sit down, man. Hi.

Yeah.

But then I get to his room and he has two girls in there.

My recorder was stuck to my leg with sweat.

He's not going to confess anything to me. Not in front of these girls.

But I can't leave because that would look weird.

So I just sit in this room for an hour while they took drugs and talk about

gibberish, methamphetamine stuff.

And finally I'm like, hey brother, I'm going to take off.

He goes, let me walk you to the car.

I'm like, man, this is my chance.

I go, hey, are you all right, brother?

And he looks at me like this.

He goes, oh, you heard about that.

I hear things here and there.

And then he goes on to tell me the whole confession, what they were wearing, why

he shot the guy. He said, I told him not to move.

He ran to the door, so I spun around and I shot him.

Good work, bro.

I couldn't believe it.

I've hit the jackpot.

And I remember I got in my car, and I had my recorder still on, and I said,

check me.

I knew I got him. I knew it.

A few days later, Twitch was arrested for the murder.

I knew I had the worst guy, probably in the Vagos Nation.

He was done. He was gone forever.

But it turns out, I was wrong.

I literally have the guy saying he did it on tape.

There was no direct evidence to link Twith to the scene.

So the government was in a catch -22 because if they used my evidence, then

exposed me.

What?

What do you mean you can't?

Twith was released not long after that.

If Twits was let go, he could hurt somebody else.

And at that moment, my mission started to change.

I was sick of their violence, sick of them hurting people.

I had such deep anxiety of failure because I felt this infiltration was so

important for society as a whole.

I wasn't worried about...

getting myself out of prison as much as I was willing to do whatever it took

to help bring these guys to justice.

He twists the rest, causes a shockwave of fear throughout the Vago

Nation.

The boggles were always on the lookout for informants.

Everyone had their suspicions.

That night, one of them walked up to me and said, I know you're an undercover

cop.

My heart jumped out of my chest, and I thought, oh, my God, this could be it.

But at the same time, you have to respond to a wolf like you're a wolf.

If you ever say something like that again, I will stab you in the heart.

And I meant it when I said it.

And he could tell I meant it.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Rhino walks up to me, grabs me close, grabs me in the

crotch at the exact spot where I had kept my recorder.

I thought, this is it. They got me.

This is the place where I have kept my recorder every day that I was with the

Vagas.

Every single day.

Except this one.

I left my recorder in the car moments before.

If they would have found it, they probably would have tortured me, then

me, and buried my body in the desert.

My cover was safe for now.

So about two weeks after the psycho, the chapter president calls me, says, hey

bro, I want to get this weed from this Nazi skinhead.

I want you to do the deal.

Psycho wanted me to drop the drugs off at his house.

Psycho is trusting me to have complete access to his house on my own.

This is my chance to get more information and to put these guys away.

I pulled out the camera the feds had given me a few days before.

and started taking pictures of all the contraband throughout the house.

He had handguns, he had hunting rifles, he had semi -automatic machine guns.

Just about every type of gun you could think of, he had.

As I searched the house, I'm not sure if maybe he planted a Vago just to see

what I would do.

At any time, I felt like someone could pop out of the closet, pop out behind

stack of boxes, and put a bullet in my head.

And it was psycho.

It's me.

We need to talk.

He's never sounded like this.

Now I'm really scared.

Did he know?

Did he suspect me?

When I walked in the bar, the vagos around me, all 15 of them.

Give me 22.

They tell me to get on the ground.

Get on the ground and start doing push -ups.

So I thought, are they going to put a bullet in the back of my head right now?

And I knew immediately what it was.

You got 15 minutes to sew it on.

It was a center patch.

The Vago's patch.

That meant I was a Vago.

For the last year, I've been risking my life every day for this moment.

We went out and partied that night.

Everybody was there.

Everyone was patting me on the shoulder saying, great job, or giving me a hug

and a kiss.

It was like I was a movie star.

After being patched in, I felt a sense of power, almost like you had conquered

the world, and the world was yours for the taking.

For that night, I wasn't an informant. I wasn't Charles Falco.

I was a BOGO member.

A couple hours later, there were two young guys who looked like college

playing pool.

There were two hanging around.

I told them to take a hike.

And one of them looked up like, what?

And then right then, boom.

The two hangarounds started stomping on him and kicking him.

One of the hangarounds picked up a bar stool and was going to

smash him over the head.

And I go, you're going to kill the dude. He's not even fighting back.

I can't be around them when they kill somebody.

The deal would be off, and I'd be back in jail.

It would have been all over right then.

That would have been it.

They were killing this kid right in front of my eyes.

All of a sudden, boom.

Rush of cops came in from every door you can think of.

I couldn't believe it. Game over.

We were bussed down in the West Valley Detention Center, one of the most

jails in America.

We were booked for assault with a deadly weapon and participating in a street

gang.

I became angry with the Vagos.

What happened in that bar just was horrifying.

And I saw the Vagos as a menace to society.

I truly believed that they needed to be taken down.

It had been over a year that I'd been in with the Lagos, and I was willing to do

whatever it took to help bring these guys to justice.

Once we got to the main part of the jail, we were all separated into

tanks.

So I knew I was in one of the most violent.

of one of the most violent jails in the country.

Its nickname was the Gladiator School.

For my cover not to be blown, no one who worked in the jail, no deputies, no

assistant chiefs, anyone would know that an informant was in that jail system.

I'd be treated just like any other inmate.

Every person in that tank was a gang member and was in there for murder.

So these were serious, serious killers.

Being a Vago meant nothing.

All that power and respect I had as a Vago went out the door once I entered

jail.

You want reality to hit you in the face, this place will do it.

A couple days later, first chance I got, I made a phone call to Coz.

Hey, it's me.

Hey, brother.

Listen, I got some bad news for you.

And he says they caught Bernard.

And he's in federal jail right now.

Bernard was an old associate of mine during my meth days.

He was an associate of the Mexican mafia and one of the most powerful men I ever

met.

When I first got arrested in 2001, I gave up Bernard.

I gave up all the information they needed to convict him.

He's now in custody because of me.

As soon as Bernard finds out that I'm in that jail and that I snitched, he's

going to have me killed.

He said, I can get you out with one call. I just need to call the DA.

I said, no, that's a no -go.

And the boggles will know, and it'll ruin the

investigation.

I wanted the investigation to go to the end.

I wanted to see it through, no matter what it cost.

I say, oh, all right.

Bernard knew me really well. He knew that I wasn't a biker, so he would have

known I was a confidential informant.

It was a matter of time before my secret was out.

The clock was ticking.

And they took me down to solitary confinement with

a place you don't want to be.

It's a living hell.

But when it came down to it, it was solitary confinement or death.

The only thing you could hear was inmates screaming.

Screams that I've never heard in my life.

Screams that you didn't think humans could make.

It sounded like demons screaming.

It's like being buried alive.

Can't leave.

After three days, it starts to make you super paranoid.

So you start thinking you're never going to get out of here.

Your mind starts to wander to places that it's never been.

You start becoming lost in your own mind.

That's like an overload.

Your mind starts to play tricks on you.

I got to a point where I thought I would hang myself.

I'd rather be dead than be in here.

Finally, on the seventh day of being in solitary confinement, I heard my door

pop open.

CODS called the DA and informed her that I was a confidential informant.

For the infiltration to continue, charges had to be dropped on me.

But if they're going to be dropped, the only way we could do it without bringing

suspicion on me, was by dropping the charges on the other vaga.

We all were free to go.

I knew my work wasn't over, so I knew I couldn't give up on the investigation

until it was complete.

I wanted to see it through.

A few days after I got out of jail, I get a call from Psycho.

He's calling an emergency meeting.

All the other chapter members were there.

He says, I got a courtesy call from the Mexican mafia.

They say they think one of us is a snitch and they're going to hit one of

A snitch!

I knew that...

Bernard had gone to the Mexican mafia.

I was looking at Psycho, trying to figure out if he thought it was me or

thought it was.

My adrenaline was going through the roof.

I watched his eyes as he glanced at everyone.

When his eyes rested on me, they didn't move.

Did he know?

Did he suspect me? Or was I just being paranoid?

I could feel my heart beating out of my chest. I was ready to run.

I was ready to get out of there.

I was ready to quit.

I get a call from Kaz.

Hey, Charles.

We're coming over.

What? Why?

And he tells me him and another agent are coming to my house.

What do you mean?

It's over, Charles.

It's over.

Now I'm really scared.

I'm like, this is, you know, not going to be good news.

They know who you are.

Kaz told me at Bernard that the Mexican mafia knew where I was. They were coming

for me.

When?

That was it.

Game over.

I knew CODS was going to pull me out.

On March 6, 2006,

700 SWAT team members from all

around the country converged on 66 houses in Southern California.

Besides the L .A. riots, this was one of the biggest coordinated law enforcement

action in L .A. history.

The D .A. and the U .S. Attorney now had enough information to do a lot of

damage to the Vagos.

Twist, he got life for the murder.

Rhino, he turned state's evidence against Twist.

He ended up doing 15 years.

Parable ended up doing 15 years for the drug dealing.

Psycho, he ended up getting one year for the marijuana deal and the assault.

But the Vagos blamed him for my infiltration.

They put a price on his head.

Every Vago member

around the world would know I was the informant.

I knew my world would never be the same.

I was taken into the Witness Protection Program.

U .S. Attorney, and they have dropping all charges on me.

I couldn't believe it.

That was like all my Christmases put together. It was like winning the

I went from a secure hotel to LAX, and I had no idea where I was going.

Prior to becoming an informant, my life was a waste.

But once I started doing something that was good and benefited society, I felt

good inside.

And I think the reason I was able to get through this was I turned over my life

to God.

God has ultimate control of my faith.

That I don't. The Logos don't.

Nobody else does except Him.

So when it's my time to die, it's my time to die. There's nothing I can do

it.

This is the first time I've shown my face on camera.

Now everyone will know who I am.