At Dinner With an Undercover Narcotics Detective

[notneo]

^I don't think all undercovers are that bad but trust me I've seen same pretty bloody obvious ones.... Maybe they were just from the local cop shop rather than part of the normal undercover team doing drug investigations.

 

[phase_dancer]

If cops know who the dealers are, then they're more than half way to a bust in most instances. And it doesn't take an undercover officer to pick them. Narks are still used, whether the relationship is above board or not.

Some years ago, when living in the hinterland of this area, we were sitting in a local pub drinking with friends. Among them was a couple everyone knew and loved. They'd met each other within the first weeks of them both arriving in town. We'd all gone to their wedding.

This setting was some months following the wedding. A stranger walked up to the bar, leaned on one elbow and scanned the room. When his gaze returned to the end of the bar -where we were sitting - his jaw dropped and he just kept staring. He then jumped up and bolted over to us. He pointed at the girl and said,
"That chick is a nark! I just did 7 years in Long Bay because of that bitch"

The couple bolted out the door while the guy screamed and ran after them, before a local mountain man flattened him and he was escorted outside. We never saw the couple or the dude again.

We were completely stunned, but no-one ever got to find out what really happened. And as the couple vanished, we could only assume there was some truth in it.

 

[Cactii]

Yeah undercovers are stupid...how many big time dealers spend their days selling ten packs in clubs?....even the guys who sell a hundred a night at a club are small time. Think of the amount of pills that are going around, times it by ten and u might be close to the count, and most of these pills sold from the comfort of your local dealers house. Only a dickhead sitting on a thousand pills would wind up in a club.

But go ahead and spend our tax money on your stupid quest to win the war on drugs, which they know they cant win, but are to stubborn to be beaten by a buinch of druggos.

Every year the cops come up with a few big token busts against the war on drugs, maybe a couple of thousand pills maybe thirty thousand, probly not even half what is sold in melbourne every month or maybe even weekly (who knows really).

 

[Urbanhog]

but think of this.. a cop could take drugs to befriend dealers/users then deny it at court. any admission made by the dealer or witnesses charged would be nullified due to the intoxication of the person..

or am i wrong?

I am not sure.... I believe I remember a big media tale on some inquiry... and laws passed in some state in Australia... Queensland I believe? I know I may be wrong... but undercovers are allowed to use drugs to catch the mr.bigs? and I was reading a story on the paper about this ex-undercover cop went thru rehab/de-tox program because of the amounts of speed and heorin he used in his undercover actitives and was taking the police department to the court seeking for damages that ended him up addicted to speed/heroin?

I read this really old 1970's book I found at the markets about this ex-FBI or CIA undercover drug cop's life... and was saying when he was setting up big drug deals, and he went training to learn how to roll joints properly... and how to look like that you smoke weed, but you don't "inhale" (yeah right) he said he just simply "blew" the air out thru the joint so the lightened end "glows" as if he is "inhaling" but isn't.

 

[stacyrox]

... well there is something we used to term "bum sucking", or something along those lines, when we were in high school. Basically what this meant was that when you inhaled a cigarette, all you actually did was fill your mouth up with smoke and then blew it out. This was generally done by someone who had only just started smoking.

So it is kinda possible to smoke something without actually pulling all the smoke in.. ofcourse I doubt anyone would last too long before they gave up and just inhaled.

stace.

 

[BigTrancer]

he said he just simply "blew" the air out thru the joint so the lightened end "glows" as if he is "inhaling" but isn't.

It would be pretty obvious to anyone watching that he wasn't smoking I think... plus most people roll such shit joints the coals would fly straight out on to the carpet anyway. hehe

BT

 

[xlene]

I have worked in nightclubs for about 7 years and while cops aren't stupid, it is still possible to pick undercovers while it isn't fool proof it works most of the time
there are only three types of people that are "working in nightclubs" ie. staff "bartenders glassys security" , drugdealers and cops so on the whole if you can ID the staff and the drug dealers usually they are on it, and what is left may be police. usually they travel in groups of two or four however this only really holds up if they are just licencing cops doing the usual check of premises they are there every weekend and they actually watch staff more than patrons "checking responsible service of alcohol but if you are obvious or incredibly stupid they will have a go at busting the odddealer but on the whole they report back to the station that there is blatant drug use on premises and the next weekend there is a preliminary drug investigation.

if they are running an actual drug operation there are usually more than one group of cops in the venue i.e the ones U are supposed to pick plus a group of under covers u aren't spoused to pick as well as a couple of narks that can take drugs and aren't police are usually used to make the inital purchase to see if theres enuff activity to warrant a full scale raid/ bust, arrest

the other tactic the cops have used over the last couple of years is actually getting a job in the club that they are targeting but usually only if the actual club is suspected of dealing
WARRING
there is an entire security company that works in quite a few clubs in sydney that was set up by the cops they hire regular security guards that on the whole don't know that that they are working for a company set up by the police they usually have one sec out of the crew woking the club that is an actual police officer
this is how they busted the underground in 2000.

if your gona get on it you really should be organised and get what ever you want BEFORE hand that way u minimise your chance of getting in trouble.
99% of cops couldn't give a fuck about about you being off your head on drugs or even you giving a couple of "spares" to your friends. they r looking for stupid / greedy/ desperate peeps willing to sell large amounts to people they either don't know or only sort of know through sumbody else
unless of course you are a person that has come to there attention in some way, then on the whole you are fucked and should stop doing whatever you were doing strait away

 

[onetp]

all undercovers wear flanno - fact

ha. thats so true. i used to see quite a lot of dealers get busted when i lived in the cross, and all the undecover cops had flannie tops on.
i even once heard a cop say 'you have the right to remain silent' :D

 

[Urbanhog]

The cops reading this thread could also be laughing at what we think/tales.

 

[fun_lovess]

Im sure this is quite common in clubs and in one in particular im talking about, my mate used to be one of the people who was authorised to deal in the club, for the club, with a percantage of the profits allowed to go back to him. The more you sell, the more you're allowed to get at a reduced price and therefor a bigger profit you can make for yourself. The owners of the club chose people to deal and those little dealers would squeal on anyone unauthorised they saw dealing - like small time dealers who wanted to make a buck in the club that night. But it meant that profits were kept in the club, and the others risked the chance of being paid a visit by a coppa, or kicked out and barred, in not a nice manner.

Anyways, in alot of the cases here, the bouncers know the cops - obviously in some cases the undercovers will give a nod of something and they'll just walk in for free, on other occasions, an undercover would tip off the club prior, or the bouncer who would happen to be mates with an undercover, and tell them they'd be making an appearance that night and the time theyd drop by. (this was obviously in turn for a few 'goodies' for the informer-cop!).
Anywho, the bouncers at the door would notice the undercovers as they'd enter, alert a few of the head honchos chilling in the club and theyd alert their personal dealers to get their asses to the other side of the club - pronto (into some little safe-haven of somesort).

As i used to go to the club with my mate who was authorised to deal for them, when i saw him and a few others quickly make their way from one end of the club to the other, quick-flash, it was almost commical (because i knew wot was happening), as sure enough, a few seconds later, you'd see a few guys enter the club from the stairs, quite straight and immediately start casing the place out! When theyd leave, the headhonchos would allow their dealers to come back and start dealing to the crowds again.

Because of the type of people who own this club, the cops try not to upset the 'balance', so in return for prior warning to appearances from a couple 'crook' cops, the club would give up the dealers who were squealed on by the others giving the cops the choice on whether to pursue them or not, keeping the other coppers happy, and a couple complimentary goodies for the informer/s. But once they leave, the club goes back to earning a little extra $$$ on the side with their little dug-minions.

Just a little insight into the going-ons within 1 particular club i know of.... prob fairly common knowledge to a few, but my 2 cents worth on this thread!

 

[fun_lovess]

Oh, and i also remembered a little thing, back last year when i was in a very prominent club - freo, off my chops chewing a lollypop (it wasnt like an event or anything, so i'd say me and my friend looked a little out of place - more people drinking there than anything id say) and i was a little out of it, looking for my friend when i walked past a guy in a fairly quiet area, not a lot of people there and he stopped me and ask why i was chewing a lolly pop - thinking immediately "shit, im holding 10 extras in my pocket"... [a couple more for me and a few other friends to have later in the night]...i replied with "cos im hungry " and he started asking questions like - oh right, i dont suppose youre sellin any cos i'm not enjoyin myself here tonight, coulda ya happen to hook me up?" and i looked up at him blankly as if i didnt know wot he was talking about and at that time my friend swung by and grabbed me and took me off to the other end of the club.
She thought he looked suss, and so did i - mind you i was mid peak during the encounter so i dunno how valid my assumption was, however.........

HE WAS WEARING FLANNEL!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[dabb]

Just quickly let me tell you a bit about the undercovers themselves. About 40% are female. About 30% are Asian. Of the white males, about 40% are pretty solid fellas (as you'd expect a police officer to be) and the rest are fairly thin. Come to think of it there is one who is a touch too solid.
They generally enter the club in groups of couples as paying customers but let me assure you, the club staff know who they are.

I have come to believe that i know alot about Ds (undercover cops) and what Boomslang says here corresponds exactly to my beliefs, some of the things i say here generalised. My experience is with the ones that work raves in NSW and they do not look like cops at all, alot the males are non-white, alot of the girls though seem to be white. One of the ways you can pick em is that they do often go around in inter-racial couples. Another thing is that they dress 'credibly' very clubber like, they don't stand-out because of the way they dress but i've never seen someone i've thought was a D dressed up in kandi or "out landish" raver dress and a side point they are not really ugly.

The biggest give-away is that they do not use drugs this is something i'm sure of, they can have good excuses for this however which they may 'flag' to the party, i've never seen one pretending to look smashed. As far as behaviour i've seen them chilling in a quite spot, chilling in a spot with a very good vantage point for everything going on around them aswell as somewhat obviously (though again 'giving off signs to the party' that they have reason for this) standing around in the middle casting an eye over whats happening around them. There reactions may give them away, i've seen one go very wide-eyed and fix her gaze on me when i was doing something innocent that looked like i was dealing.

The ones i've come into contact with are far from stupid in the way they act and they way they talk, very natural and friendly, in the story i'll tell below i was very convinced for a fair while they weren't a D. From the convo i had i can tell you they know their facts about drugs such as street-names, other slang, prices, effects etc but if you talk to them you can pick on little hints that they know the facts like they've learnt from them book not picked them up from lots of conversations, phrasing things just a little differently or saying things that normally go unsaid, they also know a bit bout clubbing/raving though the one i talked too made a slip-up revealing they couldn't have done what they claimed (this only slightly raised my suspicion they were a D at the time, i thought they were just confused).

Which brings me to a question for those who have knowledge of undercover operations... Are they armed?

They go in the front, past the metal detectors that are at most parties these days, and i can't see where some the females would hide one in what they were so i'd say not.

myself, who was only sorting a few friends out each week also, is looking at 6-60 months.

I'm extremely jaded as far as Ds go to tell my story which goes against the "they're only interested in the big fish thing" people have been saying, i was at party, very off my chops, and i started talking to this chick, we talked for ages bout random stuff in this time she had convincing things to say to gain my trust and implying she was well into the drug scene anyway then from what shes starts saying it sounds like shes in desperate need to for a certain drug so i *stupidly* say i can get it for her and set off for a one my dealers, in the best stroke of luck of my life my dealer didn't have any so i went back to her and its what she said then that i reliased she was D. I was just gunna go to another dealer but quickly made my excuses for why i couldn't help and though its 4am and shes not high yet she suddenly has to go to track it down herself (why ask me if she could get herself in the first place). She had raised some suspicisions during our chat but as i said i was very high and it was only looking back of the whole thing later i reliased i should of known before what she said after i couldn't get on.

The reason for my bitterness is that obviously my judgement was impaired by drugs, from our chat she could clearly tell i wasn't a dealer, when the subject of the deal came up i made it very clear it was a one off, i would need to go to someone who was a dealer get it then come back, wouldn't make a cent of profit, and i was genuinely just trying to help her out but had the deal gone through i would have been completely fucked. Admittedly it was a reasonable size purchase for a party but it wasn't huge, not a supply size quantity or anything and it was for her and her friend's personal use not to on-sell. It's possible i would of just been tagged and used to track down the real dealers but the fact she wanted to do the deal somewhere quite out-the-way where i could of been arrested alot easier rather than where we were which was obviously more convenient and no less risky.

i am quite certain that there is only one "squad" in sydney. I wouldn't be surprised if they all came together to work ***** and major raves,

I always notice people i think are Ds at the big homebush parties thats not to say there aren't Ds at other parties but they may well operate differently.


I'm interested if others can tell me if my beliefs are anywhere close to being on the mark or if they're drug fueled delusions. If i have a point here though it's that you shouldn't help anyone but people you know obtain drugs at parties, the Ds are good, it is their job afterall and it's not really that hard, if you don't know what to look for you'll never spot one, the guys who look very obvious are much more likely to be undercover security, the ones i've spotted aren't even in the same league as the Ds.

Obviously they would not send 50 police into a club every week just to bust a couple of dealers. They are there to gather information. If you have ever sold a pill to someone in a (the) major night club in Sydney, there is a good chance you have had your picture taken by these people. They target one section of the night club each week, flood it with undercovers and go from there.

The only thing i question from this post is the size and sweep of the operation at this club-night, theres one dealer who's very very obvious and seems to be there constantly and has been for at least a year and then there's two dealers i know, they haven't gone down and i haven't heard anything about their connections going down, one of the two lived with other dealers in a house that had a meth lab set-up (and appalling security as far as keeping this quiet), it was like 6 months ago he dealt, hes now out of the drug scene completely but the lab still hasn't been shut-down.


^^^ Actually i just had an extremely paranoid thought about this, and was wondering if anyone knew anything about the sniffer dog raid i heard went down at Epping RSL on Wednesday night 3/4 weeks ago???

 

[Psychadelic_Paisly]

One time recently i had reversal paranoia... i thought everyone in the club thought i was an undercover cop.... it does your head in....... 8) !!!!!!

 

[VelocideX]

I'm not sure if it was brought up in this topic already (I cant be arsed sifting through seven pages ), but if you ask someone if they are an undercover cop, dont they have to say yes if they are. Its just that whenever I see people buy drugs (I never do, that would be illegal.....), thy always say "Are you a cop?" and vice versa to make sure. If a person walks up to me and says "Got any pills mate?" and I ask if he is a cop. If he says no, and I provide one, is it entrapment? I've always wondered about this.


PS. I'm in New South Wales. I assume laws vary state to state.

The law of entrapment DOES NOT EXIST in australia. It's purely an american invention.

Cops can quite happily deny that they're cops to you for the purposes of trying to get drugs.

 

[Psychadelic_Paisly]

even in american they can deny they're a cop. That isn't what entrapment means.
It is entrapment when a police officer makes you do something illegal that you would would not have previously done.
ie. an undercover puts a gun to your head and says 'SELL ME 1000 FUCKING PILLS MAN!!!' and you do, even though you wouldn't have done so previously if he'd ask normally....

 

[VelocideX]

^ That is not entrapment. That is coercion and is illegal in its own right.

It's entrapment if an undercover entices you to do an illegal act which you otherwise might not do.. e.g. if they try and buy pills from you, and you do it.

In any case, the law of entrapment does not exist in Australia.

 

[wazza]

Covert cop developed drug habit
By Mark Oberhardt
April 30, 2004

A FORMER policeman has been given the green light to sue the police service for failing to prevent him developing a psychiatric disorder from years of drug use as an undercover officer.

In the Supreme Court in Brisbane, Justice Richard Chesterman extended the time limitation in which Mark Lansdowne Russell could bring an action against the State of Queensland for the Queensland Police Service.

In a written judgment released yesterday, Justice Chesterman also dismissed an application by the Government to dismiss the action because it was started outside the limitation period.

The court was told Russell, 37, worked as a covert police operative, buying drugs and posing as a drug dealer, between 1989 and 1991.

It was alleged that during his time as an undercover operative, Russell had to mix with drug addicts, drug dealers and other criminals. He had to assume a false identity and lead a "rootless and risky life".

In his role, Russell found it necessary to consume illicit drugs, particularly cannabis, to gain acceptance in his social and criminal surroundings.

He was medically retired from the police service in February 1996. Russell is alleged to have had post-traumatic stress and adjustment disorders, anxiety, depression and insomnia.

The court was told Russell alleged the police service had not provided him with adequate support to enable him to make the transition from an assumed life as an operative to a uniformed constable.

He alleged the difficulties involved in the transition should have been observed or foreseen by the police service, which should have given him sufficient support and sympathy to make the change.

The court was told Russell developed a psychiatric illness which led to his leaving the police force.

Russell attributed it to the stresses he endured as a police covert operator and the lack of therapeutic support after the end of his undercover duties.

In October last year, Russell applied to have the limitation period in which he could start proceedings against the Government extended to June 11, 1996. The extension was needed because Russell claimed his psychiatric illness had its onset in 1992, which was more than the statutory three years before he began legal action in June 1996.

The Government opposed the application and appealed for summary dismissal of the claim.

In his judgment, Justice Chesterman said a simple version of Russell's case was when, as a covert officer, he became accustomed to smoking cannabis and when transferred to normal duties he had psychological difficulties and stress.

Justice Chesterman found Russell was unaware prior to July 1995 that he had contracted a psychiatric illness, which he may have believed was normal work stress.

The Courier-Mail

particularly interesting is this part: "In his role, Russell found it necessary to consume illicit drugs, particularly cannabis, to gain acceptance in his social and criminal surroundings."

So, undercover's will never consume drugs eh? And it says years of use, so it seems it wasn't a once off. Brings new light to people thinking undercovers don't use drugs *at all*. I wouldn't think down the local club that undercovers would consume to fit in but for the bigger fish, anything is possible. But who knows really? Don't assume anything is the best thing to get from this in regards to undercovers.

link here

 

[stacyrox]

It also states "buying drugs and posing as a drug dealer". So does that mean he would have actually been *selling* drugs aswell? I'd initially assume that they wouldnt be able to sell drugs. Tho if you really wanted to get someone high up, you would have to be pretty believable and it would be pretty hard to 'pose' as a DD for any period of time without actually selling any drugs yourself.

stace.

 

[ozbreaker]

I have a funny story that i hope i'll have enough time to type out this weekend involving myself and my friends brother at an undercover operation at a thing i was at a few months ago. Very amusing as i think we kinda stuffed their night..

 

[UnSquare]

Bleeding Heart

"In his role, Russell found it necessary to consume illicit drugs, particularly cannabis, to gain acceptance in his social and criminal surroundings."

^^^
Poor Russ.
I know how you feel, man.