© 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc.Damn, it feels good to be a gangster. “No one knows who I am on the outside,” he said. Neither his work nor his child are aware of his double life. Now, in addition to doing gang-specific investigative training at law-enforcement conferences around the country, Falco also works a corporate day job. You really have to be a loner to do this kind of stuff.” “It’s a lot of stress on somebody that hasn’t grown up like that,” he said. She knew about Falco’s past life, but hated it, and they recently split after nearly six years of marriage. When he was in witness protection, he fell in love with a woman he met at church they married and had a son, who is now 7. He crashed his motorcycle, landing him in the hospital with a fractured neck and severely torn shoulder.
He served two months in jail for assault, including six days in solitary confinement to protect his cover. When you’re pissed you’re not scared.”įalco’s informant work helped lead to 62 arrests over his three missions, but it came with physical and emotional costs. Internally, you’re freaked the f - - k out,” he said. The whole time, he hid a recorder - often in a jockstrap - to catch members admitting to criminal acts, and endured several close calls during a strip search or interrogation. While his deal forbade him from killing anyone, there were situations in which he thought he might have to - either to prevent the death of someone else or to escape if his cover was blown. He had to carry guns, deal drugs, throw punches and survey rival biker gangs. You have to show that you’re there to back them up.”įalco worked his way up the Vagos ranks, eventually becoming sergeant-at-arms, the club’s second-in-command later, he was the Outlaws’ vice president. I almost look at it like dating,” Falco said. To infiltrate the biker gangs, he had to start from scratch, frequenting bars where members were known to hang out and relying on his street knowledge to chat them up. When his house got raided in 2001, he made a deal to cooperate with the ATF to avoid a 22-year prison sentence. You have to try to win them over.’īefore spying on the bad guys, Falco was one himself, making up to $100,000 per month manufacturing and dealing methamphetamine. His story - first told in a 2013 memoir - is the inspiration for “Gangland Undercover.” After a stint in witness protection, he returned to life as an informant infiltrating two gangs in Virginia, the Mongols and the Outlaws, in 2008.
It’s lonely, too.”įalco (an assumed name) was undercover in the Vagos motorcycle gang in Victorville, Calif., from 2003 to 2006. If you have an education, you can’t take that with you. Your Social Security Card is 6 months old - how do you explain that to people? You have no job references.
“You lose your identity and sense of self-worth,” he told The Post. The 45-year-old spent a year in the program in 2007-08 after infiltrating a deadly biker gang in Southern California. It’s a feeling the real Charles Falco knows well. On last Thursday’s season premiere of the A&E drama “Gangland Undercover,” ATF informant Charles Falco - played by actor Damon Runyan - was living in witness protection, working as a mechanic, and frustrated with his rootless life.
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