The Con and the FBI Agent by David Nadolski

Author:David Nadolski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Undercover and Underdressed

TRC Auto Electric, Dorchester, Massachusetts

If Tony was nervous about his new assignment, he wasn’t letting on. He would later tell me he felt very good about what he was doing, though no one from his old life would agree. He told me he finally had a noble purpose and really didn’t want to let me—or himself—down.

I was careful to meet with Tony in a safe location from time to time. For the most part, his reports came in to me by phone and I was recording the information in the form of an “Insert.” An Insert was the name of a specific FBI report form by which investigative case information dealing with observations, perceptions, and routine data was recorded into the case file. Information derived from an informant was recorded on an Insert.

According to Tony, Mello was engaged in a variety of criminal endeavors and meeting with a lot of known criminals during an average workday. He was interested in somehow recovering the stolen Gardner Museum artwork in order to cash in on the five-million-dollar reward being offered by the museum. Mello would make suspicious phone calls from a pay phone located outside TRC.

I applied for and received a court order for a pen register on the pay phone. A pen register operates like a wiretap except no conversations are recorded. The only information a pen register records is the phone number dialed out or the phone number from which an incoming call originated. The length of the call is also recorded. The phone information would come directly into a special room at the FBI office. I then looked for those numbers associated with the time Mello was using that phone. My next step would be to find out who those numbers were registered to. This information had limited value, but if I were to develop probable cause with the pen register, I might be able to obtain a wiretap; however, that would be very difficult for a public phone, so my main purpose was to see if I could determine a pattern to his calling and possibly develop a broader picture of who he was dealing with. An investigator wants as much information concerning the target of an investigation as is possible to obtain. There are multiple ways to obtain information, and I was using two of the most popular methods of intelligence gathering, electronic and human.

The pen register on Mello’s pay phone was the best electronic surveillance method available to me. Electronic surveillance is referred to as “ELSUR.” The best ELSUR, in general, would be a concealed microphone in a room where criminal activity is discussed and/or a wiretap on a phone line used by the subject of the investigation to discuss criminal activity. It was clear to me, however, that this case would rise or fall based upon human intelligence, referred to as HUMINT. Tony was my HUMINT source. He was my eyes and ears inside and outside of TRC Auto Electric. He took

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