How The Hells Angels Actually Works | How Crime Works | Insider

My name is Jay Dobyns. I'm a retired undercover federal agent and I infiltrated the Hells Angels. This is how

crime

works

. With all the hatred I feel for me in that gang and from their followers, they can feel satisfied that they passed over me. All the damage from the battle, all those things that happened, the failed processing, all that blood, sweat and tears, passed over me and continued. I was just an obstacle. I was part of the Hells Angels investigation, which we called Operation Black Biscuit, from 2001 to 2003. I responded to an agent on the case. We were both ATF agents.

My fake persona, my name was Jay Davis. The gang members knew me as Jaybird and I introduced myself as an arms dealer and debt collector. The Hells Angels do not have to actively recruit members. They want people who add value to them. I had spent some time as an associate of the Hells Angels, so I met them, let them get acquainted with me, and they invited me to the clubhouse. And the invitation was not so much an invitation but an order. They believed that I was collecting debts and that I was trafficking weapons within their territory.

They then told me that if I intended to continue doing that business, I had to go to their clubhouse and meet their members and basically get them to approve me to continue. I showed up at the Mesa clubhouse and was greeted on the street by four or five Hells Angels. Some had guns, others baseball bats. In Arizona, you can open carry firearms, so I had weapons on display. Some of the members who basically worked as security told me that they can't bring their weapons inside our clubhouse. That is not allowed. And I told them: I'm not taking my guns away and I'm not taking them away from anyone, not even the Hells Angels.

You have people you feel you need to defend yourself from. Me too. If I let them start dictating everything to me, I was never going to finish. And at that moment, one of the Hells Angels shooters came out and put his arm on my shoulder and said, "Look, I make the rules and you guys can come in with your guns in your hands." So from the beginning, from that first critical interaction, I felt like I was winning. The Hells Angels call themselves a club, the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. There are statutes, and within the statutes, the chapter, the group, there is a president, a vice president, a warlord, who is in charge of weapons, retaliation and defense.

When I was associated with the Mesa Hells Angels, which is where I started, their president was Bad Bob Johnston. And he was a highly respected and long-feared Hell's Angel. If he could gain my trust, that trust would project to other members and open doors for me. In the biker gang, you start very slowly. The first step is that you are an associate, that is, you are simply someone who spends some time in the presence of gang members. Once you establish a relationship, the gang will ask you to stay with them. Then after prospecting you will ultimately hopefully make it to become a full member of the patch.

From the date of your prospecting, since it begins, there is a mandatory minimum of 365 days. And that's to some extent how they isolate themselves, because they know that a police officer can't keep up with them and can't keep up with them for that long. Being a fully patched Hells Angel is everything to those members. In this hierarchy, the patches they use and the format of their vests, which are also called cuts, are very important. I was a bylaws marauder for the Hells Angels of Skull Valley, Arizona. Then I had a black cut that had nothing but Skull Valley on the front.

When you become a prospect, you get your lowest point, the lower curved patch. So when I was prospecting, I got a bottom stop in Arizona. When you become a member, you get your top rocker, the "Hells Angels" designator, or whatever the gang is, and your core patch, which the Hells Angels are "death's head." To gain full membership, your charter members must vote for you and you must receive a 100% vote. If a member of that charter votes against you, your prospecting phase continues. There is another rule in the land of prospects: it takes as long as it takes.

The territory is very important for motorcycle gangs. The territory you control influences the amount of money you can earn within that territory. They constantly try to acquire territories from competitive gangs. The rivalry that I became most aware of, or closest to, was the Hells Angels' rivalry with the Mongols motorcycle gang. The Mongols were a motorcycle gang based in California. I was at the 2002 Laughlin River Run, which was a very important race for cyclists in Laughlin, Nevada. The Mongols' base of operations was Harrah's Casino, which was a short drive down Laughlin's main street, Casino Drive, to where the Hells Angels' base of operations was, which was the Flamingo Hotel.

Some Hells Angels went to Harrah's and started poking the tiger and surrounded them, and that was it. And it was every man for himself. I left the Flamingo and police cruisers, motorcycles, cars and police helicopters were screaming down Casino Drive. And I was with another agent, and I turned to him and said, "Well, I guess we know where the Hells Angels went." Because the police response was massive. The Harrah's Casino riot, the Morongo Casino riot, the Twin Peaks shooting in Texas, those biker clashes happen all the time. Normally we don't see it or hear about it until it takes place in a public place where civilians, ordinary citizens, participate.

There were fights where I was present, I knew the rules and I didn't want to blow my cover. But at the same time, I didn't want to see someone get hit, some innocent civilian. He would find the target of the beating and land some legitimate punches. As if he wasn't pretending to throw good, hard, solid punches at the victim of this rat attack. But in essence, what he was doing was protecting the head of that victim. He wasn't going to kill anyone by punching them in the head, but they would have been killed by taking a steel-toed boot to their forehead.

I got a call from a Skull Valley officer: "Go to the clubhouse right now and bring all your equipment," which meant bring your weapons. They told me the Bandidos are coming to Las Vegas. Las Vegas is our territory and they have not requested a hall pass. We hope you shoot them before they lower their motorcycle stands. And here's the kicker: we'll be watching you from a distance. If you don't shoot them, we'll shoot you. I was able to contact the agent on the case, Joe Slatalla, and tell him what my orders were. Joe Slatalla found this group of Bandidos, took them to the side of the road and detained them.

So I showed up at the target location with the Hells Angels watching me, but the Bandits never showed up. In the eyes of the Hells Angels, all they knew is that we sent Jaybird to Las Vegas to kill Bandidos, and damn, he was there, ready to handle his business. I allowed the Hells Angels to see me in criminal situations to hopefully avoid some of those mud checks I knew were coming. In the motorcycle world, a mud check is a test to see if you're going to fuck up your pants when faced with a treacherous situation. That's how they would accurately see me in a narcotics transaction.

He would receive or give narcotics and receive or give money in exchange, all while being witnessed by a Hells Angels, such as an enforcer or bodyguard. What they didn't realize is that the person he was in the transaction with was another law enforcement officer playing the role of a drug dealer. Local police departments, local officers, were not involved in the plan. The police stopped me all the time. The police beat me. I was never as good a biker as the Hells Angels were. They could perform tricks and do all kinds of crazy stunts that I couldn't do.

And traveling in a pack of Hells Angels requires an enormous amount of concentration. You have to trust the person traveling next to you, because he is very close. One person makes a mistake in that conga line of motorcycles and everyone goes down. I was told that when you meet a Hells Angel and put on your sunglasses, you better lift them up and look that person in the eyes. That member wants to see your eyes. They told me that if he had riding gloves, he'd better take them off for me when he shook hands with a Hells Angel.

Never touch the head of a Hells Angel. Never pat them on the back. I made those mistakes and was reprimanded for it. Sometimes they beat me for it. In the case of women, there is a hierarchy that exists within the gang. There are old women who are wives or girlfriends of members and are prohibited. You better not get caught trying to mess with a member's wife or girlfriend, because there's a violent price to pay. But there are also women who pass from one member to another. Members can leave the gang of their own free will and with good reputation.

In essence, they can retire, and when they retire, they are considered good. They still have to give up all of their Hells Angels property, but if you go bad, they will come and take away their share, their vest. They will return the motorcycle to you. In their eyes, that is their property and they will get that tattoo back. I was part and parcel of the process of those recoveries of Hells Angels property. Basically, almost like the police did a search warrant, broke into some guy's house, and took everything that said or looked like it belonged to the Hells Angels.

The Hells Angels operate independently in their bylaws, in terms of how they make money and how they conduct their business. So there are charter schools that run a pretty clean business and aren't involved in a lot of

crime

. There are others who are involved in drug trafficking, arms trafficking, extortion, protection fraud. There is no payday or salary to earn for being a member of the Hells Angels. There is no big universal bank account that issues paychecks. There were members of the Hells Angels that I encountered that sold street drugs and kept those profits in their pockets and kept at least most of those profits.

And then they also have legitimate businesses through which they can push money. The loot and paraphernalia of the Hells Angels alone is a multi-million dollar business. The Hells Angels hold toy drives, hold blood drives, and do community service, and that should not be taken away from them. With those things they make positive contributions to society. Hells Angels parties can be as spontaneous as the blink of an eye. You could be in the clubhouse and the next thing you know, the music is blaring, guests are arriving, women are coming in, and the alcohol is flowing. They could be inside, outside.

They happened in parks, campgrounds. There is a myth that every Hells Angel is a drug addict. There were the Hells Angels who were fitness freaks, who took care of themselves. They ate well. They rested. They didn't drink. They didn't smoke. So rejecting those things wasn't necessarily a false alarm, a red flag against you. I have a tattoo of St. Michael on my arm and St. Michael is the patron saint of law enforcement. It means that good triumphs over evil. There were times when I was pressured, where I would show my St. Michael tattoo and say, do you understand what this is?

I got this when I graduated from rehab. The reason I'm here, the reason you're interacting with me, is because I'm sober, because I have money in my pocket. All those things that you find attractive. When the infiltration investigation I was working on started to wind down, we had two years under our belt, a lot of money, over a million dollars invested in this investigation, and I still hadn't received membership. I still hadn't received my full patch. I was a prospect. To be honest, selfishly, I was trying to speed up the process. So I went back to one of those first statements made to me: What happens if I meet a Mongolian?

They told me it's your responsibility to kill them. So I went to the Skull Valley Hells Angels leadership and said, "I have a lead on a Mongol in Mexico." We found this Mongolian. I dug a shallow grave in the desert and took some Polaroid photographs of the murder. What they didn't know is that it was the ultimate scam. The murdered Mongolian was a member of our task force whom we had disguised, obscured his face in photographs, and then used blood and guts from the butcher shop to create a murder scene, a crime scene. There they made me a member of the Skull Valley bylaws and gave me a cut to wear.

Now, after the fact, they have denied a couple of things. They denied believing it. Okay, I understand. They denied that I had ever become a member. Both sides of that explanation are

actually

true. I was made a member of the Skull Valley charter. They cut me up and told me that he was a Hells Angel and that he was a member of Skull Valley. But I was also told that since I was within the one-year probationary period, an international vote would have to be held to accelerate my membership, which never happened. Our case ended before the Hells Angels voted.

So they are right about that too. I've never tried to hide that. I have never tried to dwell on that or deny it. So, theoperation concluded for a couple of reasons. We had a lot, a lot of evidence against our suspects, physical evidence, thousands of hours of recorded conversations, criminal conversations. In the end, we charged 55 Hells Angels and associates, and 16 of them were charged with racketeering, RICO charges. Some charges were dismissed. Some charges were reduced. In that open source discovery process, the Hells Angels learned that the person they thought was Jay Davis, the debt collector, the arms dealer, the hitman, Jaybird, was

actually

Jay Dobyns, an agent of the ATF.

And the threats against me and my family began to accumulate. The Hells Angels had assassination contracts on me. They were raised for the Aryan Brotherhood. They were transferred to MS-13 through the prison system. So all these people had a murder contract in their hands for me. My family was in danger and, in the summer of 2008, my house was burned down. In the process of this Hells Angels case, I abandoned and betrayed my family. I made this research my priority. Not my wife and children. I was trying to be a great undercover agent and in the process I betrayed my own family.

That's one of the things, is that in this undercover role, I built real human relationships. We don't spend every second in the middle of some criminal activity or doing something violent, treacherous or illegal. I spent time with the members riding, riding casually, without violence or threats, playing pool, hanging out. The members slept at my house. I slept in the members' house. There are human relationships that are built and the human factor can never be hidden. There are people you like. There are people you don't like. It is no different than any other aspect of society. I wrote a book.

It's called "No Angel: My Heartbreaking Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of Hell's Angels." Then, after doing that, and after following the ATF's instructions to defend myself, they finally sued me over the book. I coached high school football at the end of my career and until my retirement, which gives me great satisfaction. That service before self, trying to influence the lives of young people and teach them some football along the way.