Former Mongols Leader Exposes ATF Informants, RICO & the Hells Angels War

One of the big things I really track to meet the Mongols is that the Mongols are very militant. But I wanted it to be like, "Hey, I joined the Mongols and it made my life better." But the reality of what I saw, it wasn't that at all. He was bolstering the membership to go to war with the Hells Angels and that ATF agent had walked up in. And you know, they're out Mongol hunting, they're trying to kill you guys. A cop went to the Hells Angels casino, which were all on ATF agents work and said, "Hey, your buddies are surrounded by Mongols, they need help." Not as many people know that the biker of the victims in this case. And the instigator was the informant. They get to have these interagency collaboration units where you get paid extra. So do you think they want everything to be cool? What do you think they're going to say publicly? Hey, we've been wasting your taxpayer money to follow a bunch of groups that really not doing illegal stuff. Justin Deloretto, aka Mooch, is a former high ranking member of the Mongols 1% biker club. You've seen this guy all over the internet before. Today, he's here exposing secrets about life inside the infamous Mongols motorcycle gang, including their ongoing war with the Hells Angels and the federal racketeering case that nearly wiped them out. Most importantly, Mooch debunks the many myths and falsehoods surrounding 1% biker culture and reveals how the federal government, especially the ATF, are actually the ones responsible for creating the criminal activity inside of these biker clubs. He's got a new book you should check out called The Ride of My Life, available anywhere you get books. We'll leave a link to that in the description below. This is the most accurate account of what the 1% biker world is actually like. It's Mooch from the Mongols right here on the connect with Johnny Mitchell. He was out bad, and so the rest of the chapter decided because he was going to take over on our entire my chapter. And so when he left out bad, the rest of the chapter says, well, or when he was just out, the rest of the chapter said, well, we want to step out until he can come back. And I really pushed for them to be in good standings, like when you're doing wrong, they weren't quitting. They were a family, so to speak. And they saw that as a way to get rid of me. So they put them out in bad standings and sent me a text and said, hey, you know, these guys are out bad, you can't hang out with them anymore. And these guys I'm lifting weights with, I'm doing what you're due to with, like riding with all the fucking time. And they said, well, I don't post pictures and stuff. I'm just going to be honest with you guys, like these are my dudes, you know, and I'm not even that tight with them anymore, because I moved, but it was more the principle, right? And I was like, yeah, man, like I'm going to keep hanging out them. I didn't even wrong. And they said, well, then that means you're out bad. So they essentially said, you know, he fell on the sword and left with his dudes. And they sent a text out that said, hey, Mochus moved on with his life. There's no ill will. But he was, I was still out bad, which we because it meant no contact. So what is being out bad and tailed them? So back in the day, out bad was, you fuck somebody's old lady. You robbed from some like, you know, you did some dirty and it was on site essentially. I mean, no, I was out looking for you, but you weren't in good standings. That's for sure. And you know, you can see ex-members can wear club shit. Couldn't have you have tattoos had to get covered. Nowadays, I think in most clubs, it's so watered down, like said, for example, if you left the club before you've been in for 10 years, you're automatically out bad. Well, I don't have ill will towards a dude like that, right? He didn't do anything bad against anybody. And so there's started being all these other like caveats to it. For me, I'm sure there's models that don't care about me now because I'm doing this stuff like this, you know? Even though, you know, I talk highly of the club still, but just the fact that, you know, I'm talking about club stuff, but there's no like personal ill will. I don't think anyone's trying to beat me up. There's no one looking for me. I covered my tattoos even before I was out bad because I had Mongols really big on the back of my head. And I just, man, I had it my whole life. I had used to have a middle school with a middle finger. And then, you know, and I'm working with judges and probation officers. I'm like, you know, because I'm working with kids that are on parole probation. And it wasn't conducive to my life. And I also, I was retired, but I didn't want to like represent something. I'm not because now I'm going to go out there. People are going to see that. And whatever I'm doing is going to reflect the club. I mean, even if it's positive stuff, which I'm doing. So I just felt like it was the right thing to do. And people have upset about that too. But, you know, you can't play. People always find a reason to get upset. Are you allowed to be speaking publicly? You are now. But if you're a member of the Mongols, are you allowed to speak publicly on podcasts and things? Or is there kind of a vow of yeah, I've seen this. Yeah, no, you can't talk to any sort of like, well, anything publicly or any sort of journalists or anything like that. Now, the caveat is, right, a national leadership gives you the approval or there were some times when Little Dave was a president. He went on some some show, like he did the leasing, showing stuff. But it's something I asked to be discussed about it on. And we have to say, like, what's the point? Right? Why are we going to do it? Let's say outcome. So yeah, generally, it's really discouraged. Okay. So the Mongols, how are they structured today versus like the hell's angels who each chapter kind of operates autonomously? Yeah. So, you know, the angels are more a corporation, so to speak like a franchise, right? And then they take to get national stuff completed. They have, you know, each chapter gets devoted or whatever they have different meetings. The Mongols are a top-down leadership, which are like most major clubs, right? So you've got a national president and then what we call the mother chapter, which is like the club's governing body. And then something that I kind of put into place as a club grew was we'd have a regional representative that wasn't necessarily like a president of the area, but he was the go-between, between mother chapter. He was one making sure that everyone's following the bylaws. And, you know, if there's any issues or what company events are coming up, so it goes to that. And then from the regional person, then it goes down to, you know, chapter president and then along down the line. And so it's a very structured, like when we were working on a truce with the hell's angels, we would have these sit-downs with them and they'd say, okay, well, we got to take it back to our all members, or, you know, our president's meeting in three months or whatever, where from the Mongols, little Dave could say, hey, hands off angels, if anyone touches them, you know, you're going to get trail kicked out, whatever. And it's like a light switch, right? Boom, boom, boom, we got to follow the rules. And so the structure was quite a bit different. The downside to that is racketeering, right? And navigating that, since the Mongols got that big racketeering charge in 2008, learning from that and navigating like what kind of things constitute criminal leadership, even if we don't feel like we're doing criminal stuff. And so, you know, for the angels, are protected for that, to the most, to some extent, right? And where is the national president, or the national governing body located? Southern California. They've always, so the club started in Los Angeles and Montobello and then national leadership, but it's always been in the Los Angeles area, all these. And are there international chapters? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So when I, when I first joined the in '07, there was like Oklahoma and some other out of state chapters, but they're really, I think, I think that was it, honestly. They tried Canada a couple times, it didn't work out, ended up doing Mexico. But over the years, like when Doc was still the president, no seven away, he was opening up chapters in other countries. I ended up overseeing that of country chapters and a lot of them weren't meeting our standards, weren't falling the rules, and we shut a lot down. But like I helped start Australia. They're really big in Thailand. Not super big in Europe. I think they restarted there, but Thailand are big in Australia. They're really big. Thailand. Yeah. Yeah. I was out there. I went out there and met a lot of them and it was really cool. Shocking. I'm trying to picture small time and dressed like cellos from Los Angeles. Yeah. Yeah. Like you think, I'm sure you've seen on social media like that Japanese culture of like where they do the rock building or the car scene or the bike scene. It's kind of the same thing. It's at least tied dudes with the Wolverine or thorough good boots and the 501s. Yeah. Yeah. So they don't discriminate at all, racially. They do in the fact that any old school 1% club doesn't allow African Americans in other countries are different to this extent. Like I know some, there's some black Hells Angels in Canada. There's definitely black moguls in Australia. But generally speaking, especially in the United States, that's like the one race that still is. And you know, I grew up as an anti-racist skinhead. So something I always like try to figure out like the deal is the way it's always been explained to me is the United States prison politics. Like if you're a mogul and you go in and you have to go with your race, like how that split up. And in most most state prisons and then federal, you know, the whites and Hispanics sometimes generally roll together or close to the same side. So it wasn't as much of an issue. Yeah. For sure. But it's weird because you grew up as an anti-racist skinhead. But when you go to prison, a lot of those skinheads are at least overtly racist or, you know, follow strict racial separation. Yeah. That's been a challenge for that scene, right? Like, you know, you live the streets with your moral ethics and your values and fighting these dudes. And then you go in there and that's how it's supposed to go. And I'm sure you've interviewed enough people to know that you really can't stand up too much on that scene, right? Like if you want to survive. But in that regard to though, at least in federal prisons, there's what they call the biker car where all the clubs hang out. So you're not as set, you know, hooked up like that. And in California where it's based, would you say the club is growing currently or contracting? I think it's still growing. I think clubs everywhere are growing. Like, like, say, when I joined, there was one or two out of state chapters. And now they're, you know, I was kind of in that era that just started the overlap of the growth where before each national club kind of had their own region, right? Like the outlaws were in Midwest, you know, the south and the banditos were in the south and midway. You know, there were every, you kind of knew what big club is where. And nowadays, pretty much every club is everywhere. They share states. And a lot of it probably is internet, right? It plays a big role because there's more exposure to what you get to see it. You get to meet people. You can talk more to any events or coming up. But I think that biker culture has gotten a lot more popular between, you know, sons of anarchy and popular media, but it's not the early days of like this is some subculture like, you know, right? And so I think it's gotten a lot more popular and a lot more people are leading into it. Yeah, it's a lot more commercial. Absolutely. That's a great way to put it, which kind of makes it less outlaw. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Ironically. And it's funny too, because, you know, especially with social media, it's a big piece is that a lot of it becomes image, right? And so I talk about this often, you know, back in the day, there's that local tough guy in here, hey, I heard so and so join this club. And you're like, that makes sense, right? That was the guy was fighting again, you know, whatever. The guy that was always on the fringe of society, you know? And now I know people get mad when I say it, but it's true is that almost every club will take any person that's willing to like say they have to prospect whatever if that person's willing to do that. Maybe once you have won't take them, but this one will. And so there's a lot more members because, you know, no one's turning and you know, oh, you don't have what it takes. So you're not the right fit. No one's turning people away. And the downside of that too is, you know, if you came, say you come, like I came from the skin at world or say you came from the street gang, right? You can, you likely have some confidence in who you are as a person. You know how that world works. And you really don't have much to prove to anybody, right? Like, I know who I am inside, whether I'm, I'm not saying anything tough or special, but I know what I'm capable of, what I'm not. And so I'm not trying to prove anything. There's a lot of these guys that have never come from that life. So they put that vest on and they're the ones, do you know who I am? They're the ones that are starting to shit. They're the ones that are scared to beat us or shooting people like, it's just a roleplay, right? And it comes, like I said, it's commercialized. And so it's really gotten into this like identity roleplay piece. That's a, it's, I mean, I think it's been a negative effect on a club life, but it's definitely something that's happening. And I think that's a lot of why there's so many people out there. Could it be because you have to pay dues as a member? Could it be that they're accepting anyone and everyone because they want to make more money? Yeah, I mean, that's a part of it for sure. You know, that'd be hard to deny. Every, I don't know what every other club pays for dues. You know, I've heard crazy stuff. I know for the Mongols, the big piece was like, we had our chapter dues, which, you know, would help keep the clubhouse up or if we're going to go on a run, it would pay for our hotels. Or, you know, it was essentially going to go back to the members. We're throwing the party right. But then we also paid up to national and that money supposed to be for, you know, big national runs. But and then into legal defense. And after the racketeering stuff, a lot of the times it was hard to pay for a member's like say a member in California goes out and shoot somebody and we're all paying for it. Now the club is supporting someone that's doing legal activity, right? So the legal defense stuff kind of was fizzling out because we were getting trouble for doing it. And so, yeah, then you start wondering, well, where's the money going? How much is it? Like when the Mongols for 10 years were fighting that racketeering case and a trademark case. So we knew where the money was going. But a lot of the other clubs, yeah, you're inducing money to something and you can come, you know, the inherent risks that come with that too and they're inviting in the politics. But, yeah, that that could definitely be part of it is more members equals more money, right? How much are dues? A normal member. For Mongols, it was about $50 a month for your chapter and 50 to mother chapter. So nothing crazy. But how many Mongols are there in the United States? That's a tough one, man. I would say maybe 11 to 1200. Stop very many. Yeah, but see, people make these very over exaggerated guesses, right? Like if you see 40 bikes on the road, people are gonna say it's 100 because it looks big, right? But if you've been in a room with 300 people, it looks like 800, right? So I think unless you've like sat there and actually counted and seen it and you have some, because some can perish in, it's easy to think it's a lot more people. Or you're on the internet. So Hitler's chapter here, chapter there. But you know, most chapters are somewhere between four to eight members. Some states only have two or three chapters. So yeah, I think that's probably a pretty realistic, pretty realistic number. When I joined, there was probably closer to four or 500, you know, and there was times in the late 90s where there were down to less than 100. And to get in or to join to become a member, kind of what are they looking for in this day and age? Yeah. So that's changed too. So, you know, back in the day, you would hang out for a long time or want to get to know each other. And I get a lot of people who hit me up on social media that are like, "Hey, I want to join a club," right? What should I do? And my advice for the most part is hang out. The longer you hang out, no matter what anyone's telling you is happening, you can see it, right? You can start seeing what the time requirements are, what the commitment level is, who's doing what, how they treat each other, how they treat their prospects, how they treat your ladies. So generally, you'll start in that hang-around period, and you'll spend time getting to know everyone they get to know you. And then the traditional ways you start putting prospect, you're asked to prospect, or you ask them if you can prospect. And that generally, every club is a little different on that, unlike the timelines for Mongols, it was minimum six months, I think the angels are a year. And that's the minimum, right? If you're not making an advance or you're messing up, then you'd take longer. But, you know, back in the day, it was more like a pledging, right? Like it reminded me of fraternity stuff because they'd make them do silly stuff, or then, you know, eventually got to the point, like, at least when I was able to start changing some stuff, it's like, "How are we going to get these dudes to join a club that say we're old shot-colors or down dudes or whatever, and say, "Go climb this tree and you're underwear," or whatever silly stuff they did back in the day, right? So to me, the purpose of prospecting was teaching them the program, right? Learning how to act, learning how we run our program, understand the rules, following the rules. And of course, there's some of that, you know, big time is helping out with security. There's some of the go-for-stuff, right? Like, "Hey, go run this, bar time at the clubhouse, make sure you got cigarettes for the members." But generally, so to speak, it got to the point where prospect, you're asking a prospect to do something and you should be asking yourself, "What are less than are they learning from this?" Right? You don't want to embarrass them in front of other people, like back in the day, same thing, or boom, push-ups, or doing silly dances at the bar. So I think that shifted quite a bit. But a lot of clubs, like, I'll just be honest, I never prospected. I was handed a patch because I started a new chapter. And a lot of clubs as the growth happened and expansion, not everyone has prospected and have to prosper. And so some people come right in. And I think, you know, I see this stuff a lot where people say that everyone should prospect because so many people quit clubs, you know, if they prosper, they earned it. But man, the 15 years I was in, I saw guys that didn't prospect that are still in. I've seen guys that prosper, and were great prospects. That left, like, I don't think there's any sort of method of, like, what the purpose of prospecting is or how to maintain them. And what are some of the by-laws of the club? And is criminality forbade in those laws? Yeah, absolutely. So, so long as have the five commandments. And the main one's like, you can't do something that's going to get your brother arrested, right? You can't steal from each other. Kind of, to me, it's like a ethical man's shit, right? Don't steal from each other. Don't mess with the brothers and what wife or girlfriend, you know, did that typical stuff. But they have the rule of you that you can't do something that's going to get somewhere else arrested. And you can't use your patch for a personal game. So, so just like if some guy owes a brother money, he can't get members to go around with him to get it, right? And then those are just the commandments. Then there's a constitution, which is like the club's national rules. And then each chapter has by-laws. So we're talking like a lot of rules to be in the club. But yeah, so like when Little Dave took over an away, there was a rule that everyone had to have visible means of income. Because you know, the same thing we want to show the public and Jeff, definitely the government that this isn't a major criminal organization. Even if there has been members that have been caught doing personal stuff, no one's making money and paying up, right? No one's not taking a chunk of whatever anyone's doing. Yeah. And so that's discouraged, getting in barfights is discouraged. I mean, we, the Mongols are very militant. So it's like most members wouldn't just walk up and hit someone. There's a protocol and a chain of command and a big piece to that too. I mean, I'll be a little off talk to a big piece of that is the way you present yourself in public. And that's part of the militancy, right? Like if we go out and every time the models with a bathroom, they go in groups of two and there's guys standing over here and guy watching the door here and you're sitting across the room, you're less likely to want to go up and start shit, right? If they're we're at the ball or we're drunk and we've got our backs turned to someone, then you're always going to get that fat boy or the drunk guy. It's like, oh, you guys think you're tough or slamming magic. And so I think the way we carried ourselves also prevented a lot of problems. But that also to get people into that structure and that program, you got to have rules, right? Everyone shows up together. Everyone leaves together. We don't stay at the bars later than two. We don't stay on the parking lot after bars close. Like all these little things that from years of experience realized that this will deter issues. And when you fly and stuff like that, boom, there's another rule, you know? And how do people who break the rules, how are they punished? So Mongols, one of the big things that really track me the Mongols is they have a rule that no members allowed to fight each other. So there's nothing to brothers can't sit down and discuss. Now that's not a shield, right? Can I walk up to do it and call a bitch or something and not expect to get punched. But we don't use physical violence in the form of enforcing rules. There generally is a monetary should be to find depending on what it is. Or if it's a higher rule, then you could you could reprospect. So you'd lose your top rocker. So the patch, you know, the Mongols have a top rocker or the center patch on the bottom. When you start prospecting, you just have the bottom rocker. If it say you're doing a 60 or at six months prospecting around that three month part, you might get your center patch and not to end at your top. So when you get in trouble, it goes backwards. You could lose your top rocker and you're back to being a prospect. And if you really violate the rules, you can go all the way down to bottom rocker prospect, which means you're doing another six months before you learn your patch back. And then if it's an egregious like something in a commandments, then you just get kicked out. And like the chapters you ran because you opened up a bunch of them. Yeah. You were really active in your your peak. How many members in an average club were involved in criminal activity? Man, even nationally, even in other chapters, less than a dozen that I can think of. And that's no BS. Like here's part of it is that obviously if people are doing illegal stuff and to make money, right, they're not letting everybody know. But if you're around people long enough, you can figure it out, right? I would say less than a dozen for what I've seen. In my regions, I don't think we really ever had any because here's the other part too, is you attract the way you act, right? And that's people always ask how I was able to start these chapters. And I'd say I never really recruited what I did. I was going to go out and be who I am. And I like mine of people like they maybe they'd see the structure and they were using the military and are like, man, I've always missed a structure. I want to have some structure. But you know, we're out there with pretty women or smiling, we're being respectful and polite. And like mine of people get attracted to that, right? And that's what I've always kind of told some of these other clothes respectfully is that if you're only going to these dive bars and like I had a no math rule in my policy, no math policy in all my nations because or my regions, because to me, you know, we're not a lot of club. I can't tell people they can't do to some extent. But if it's something that I know is going to negatively affect your life, which means you're going to, it's going to make you a bad brother, right? If you're able to pay your dues, show up to all the meetings, go to work because we also have one of my region had to work out three days a week. So if you're able to get your work outside and your pain, your dues, your active, man, I don't care what you're doing, right? But meth is one of those things where it's like how recreational can it be? And we've all seen it long enough. That not only does it affect the member, but it undermines the brotherhood in the chapter because now people are lying, they're stealing, you know, potentially could be start snatching. You know, there's just so many many things that go along to it that I think were such a negative in the chapter. And so people like that weren't following and trying to follow the club or didn't have interest in the chapters we were at. So as far as the criminal activity goes, we really like attracted people that we were doing like minus stuff. So the way we modeled it is what brought people in. So then why does the ATF and FBI, why do they spend so many resources and time and manpower to try to put a case on you guys? To be a solid question, a lot of layers to it. I would say initially 60s and 70s clubs were doing legal stuff, or maybe probably more 70s and 80s. And that was probably part of it. That's when it started. I think from what I've seen nowadays is the ATF, it's probably been about the same six to eight officers this whole time, right? So they likely found a unit that they could do what they want in. They got to have less oversight, do have their own ideas or own visions, they get funding for it. And another big piece is they're visible, right? Like there's a newspaper article that say Mongols did this, people say, "Oh, I've seen them," right? When you talk about street gangs and stuff like that, most people don't know what that looks like. But you say, "Hell's Angels." Joe said this and knows what that means. So if there's a newspaper where I'll say, "Hell's Angels are busted for drugs." People are like, "Oh, yeah. Let's get them off the streets because they see them." So I think the visible piece goes a long way with it too. And then the violence, man, you know the public violence, like once a lot of fun happened and then the clubs start shooting each other and gas stations and the more that happens and especially in our social media and the news or it's in the public, it's in the news all the time. They can justify going after them because people are going to say, "Yeah, let's get rid of them." Like these guys are bad news, right? But when it comes to like the old stuff of like drugs and criminal organization or the mafia on wheels, I'd like to think that myth has been this proven. Or maybe it was not a myth. It was a myth. It was true then. But I'm saying, people have gotten away for it so long that at least a lot of the law enforcement that I know or we've talked to since like doing podcasts and stuff will pretty openly admit that most clubs aren't like dealing drugs or doing like major stuff like that. Did you have any federal informants or undercovers infiltrate your chapters that you opened? Yeah. It's time. Both. So in 2007 and Oregon, I started the first chapter in Eugene and then we started in Portland. And you know, we started with like five guys and all the clubs there didn't want us to be there. And so we were somewhat at a rush to get membership, right? And there was an old school biker dude that I knew from another club that was really interested he was hanging around and it turned out he was a state or a city informant. He was going to pay four random month to be an informant. And then the other one was a federal informant for the ATF and he was getting paid around the same through four random month. Now these were guys like the federal one. He was down in Northern California and got busted for, you know, I don't believe it was some like drug stuff or my stuff. And instead of just manning up and doing his time and taking his consequences, he decided to get paid and start telling all people. So he moved up to Oregon and he started being a bouncer to bar where we hung out and you know, he was like a big guy. I was in an MMA and stuff and looking back is not the one I would ever bring in now. Like we didn't really get along with him. But we needed people and he was a big tough guy, you know? And then the other one, the one that was for the city police, same thing. He was another club. We got busted seal motorcycles and they got big like hit with us pretty big heavy charges and he decided to start telling on people and then he eventually got paid for it. And so me being naive, I was 25 years old, right? So and I'm coming from the punk rock scene. So when I got into a bike or scene, I read every book I could about it, same thing about punk rock and skin. And you know, again, we talked earlier off air, but it pre-internet or the early emergence of internet. But a lot of information wasn't out there. So what I knew about undercover is what I saw in the movies, you know? And these informants, you know, had no meth rule. But this one of them over here who's doing meth and both of them physically have taken a rehab before. I was doing couples family counseling with them like these guys were the ones we were discouraging from criminal activities. So the last thing in my mind was like all these guys are feds, right? And it was before I knew anything really about this informant program. Because I didn't, you know, I was like, they can't be here doing all this illegal stuff if they're trying to bust people for stuff. And the frustrating part is what I saw is that the one that was for the ATF, the other clubs didn't want us there. But we were, you know, I was trying to keep the peace. We would have to sit down and keep things, you know, the political aspect of it and try to keep things peaceful. And he would go up and punch one of them or whatever. Like he was instigating stuff. Right. If you think about it, if you're getting paid for a random month, you can't go to your, your handler and say, hey, they're not doing anything, right? And so they start stirring the pod and I have the paperwork on it. So I'm happy to share it. But though, though city one, he's always told me because he got busted, it's doing bikes back in the day, right? So you go, hey, man, I got this guy that can stamp VIN numbers. So we can start taking, taking bikes, we can change the VINs. And then we'll sell them. We'll put the money in the chapter. Well, it was already red flagged for me, right? Because now it's not me and him doing something illegal together. You're trying to get everyone involved. But I also know there's no money is stolen by these days, everything stamped like where you're going to sell. You know what I mean? It's like, they didn't even see him worth it. So I was telling them no, but his handler who ended up being the victim of my crime, who was a law enforcement officer from when I got caught before, wasn't very truthful. And so he, he had said, this was an in-person conversation with me in the informant, but the paperwork had said that he called and the officer was witnessing the call. And I said, yeah, yeah, let's do this. So it was like, they were instigating this stuff. So they could, a, the informant can make his money. But then these officers who are on these cases, they want to validate it, right? They don't want to say, oh, yeah, we spent all this money on this and they're a man other than they're like frappinies. Maybe they do some recreational drugs in the weekends and maybe get in bar fight. But no one wants to hear that. Right. Yeah, because they might not get their budget the next day. Absolutely. Budgeting's a big piece to it. And then you've got this informant who might go to jail. If he's working as an informant to work his time off, there's paid, right? That's right. So he's doubling up. Now that goes away. He might have to go do something. Absolutely. Everything on it is his, it's all for his benefit, right? He's not there because he wants to be like, hey, I want to help society, right? I want to keep these criminals off the street. He wants to keep his paycheck going. He wants to keep himself out of jail. So you think he's going to be honest or truthful? Right. And you were saying off air too, you know, there were instances where the ATF would basically entrap other brothers into selling drugs or selling stolen cigarettes when it wasn't even their idea. Absolutely. And so my initial thought on the process of this when I was learning and I was growing up is, again, from movies, right? We all think that the good guys, the cops, they go undercover and they realize that these guys are some secret criminal organization. They watch it. They get involved and they bust them. And so that's, you know, that would make sense, right? You know, you know, the risks when you're doing that stuff. But the reality of what I saw, it wasn't that at all. These guys would come undercover. They'd spend several years going to the parties, doing the drugs, hanging out with the women, doing all the fun stuff, riding the bikes. And then at the end, they're bustin' people for stuff that again, they weren't really doing. So I had told you off air and this was all in the paperwork from black rain, if anyone wants to look. So I'm not bullshit. And is that one of the first things they did is they found some of the younger members that were either laid off or had low-paying jobs and again, a box of untact cigarettes. And again, you know, young me would never think that's slap on the wrist I would think, right? Don't realize it's a federal crime. And he'd say, "Hey, man, my buddy, he's fell off a truck, right? My buddy got these. He goes, "Why are you selling your friends and split it with me?" Well, you might know that's illegal, but that doesn't mean you've been doing that forever or you're, you know, that's your gig, selling still one stuff. Or there was times where he would, one of those undercover agents was like, "Hey, man, some dude, some dude, or I owe some dude money. You might go drop in a software and I'll give you, you know, a couple hundred bucks." Well, yeah, I'm sure you're not like, "K, I wonder what it is." You got to know it's illegal, but that doesn't mean that you're living. That's what you're doing that you're inherent criminal, right? Yes, certainly an ongoing criminal conspiracy. Absolutely. And then the big one they did, and they've done this with a lot of different organizations, is they call it street theater, where the ATF agent, so when I was in Denver, Colorado, I'd just joined the club. They'd have swat me with all other clubs. And there was a guy who was introduced to me by now, and I was in an informant, who was a member. And this guy was a hang around at the time. And he had like Jerry Curl here, it was like an islander looking guy. He didn't look the biker part at all, right? And asked a lot of questions. And again, I didn't really, like I said, I wasn't doing crazy shit, so I wasn't really thinking like, "I wonder if this guy's a snitch." But there were still some red flags, you know? There was a bar fight that night, and he showed up right after what happened, and you know, trying to act like he was there to help, but it was just like, "This guy's kind of weird, but he wasn't in my state." So, it's like whatever. And so I moved on, but I kind of remembered him. About six or eight months later, and I've been arrested, got out on bond, or I beat my case, I got out, and then I moved to San Diego, because I was on non-association, I was supposed hang out at the club. So I just said, "My charges that I got found guilty of for misdemeanor." So I said, "They're not going to extradite me on misdemeanor, right?" And so I'm just going to go to San Diego, stay in Mongolia. So I was at a party there, and the dude walks up, and now he's full-patched member, and I recognized him, you know? And he goes, "Hey, what's up, man? I've been meaning to talk to you. You want to step outside for a minute?" And he goes, "Hey, I'm going to be in Oregon soon." And like, anything you would do even with visiting friends, or like, "Hey, let me know what you need in your town. You need to ride somewhere, you want to go to dinner." So I was like, "Well, I don't know if you need anything." I said, "Where are you going to be?" And he said, "Portland, or are you gene?" Well, that was my first red flag, because those were about 120 miles away from each other. But those are the two cities we had chapters. I think if you're up there for work, I'm not going to know what city you're working. And he goes, "Cool." And I go, "Yes, let me know if you need anything." Actually, I could use some backup, what do you mean, he goes, "I could use some guys for a deal. I'm doing." And he goes, "I don't remember the number specifically, but I'd say you said it was some like a thousand bucks." He goes, "I'll pay each guy a thousand bucks, because I'll give you the foreground right now." And you get the guys, and I go, "Nope." And I turn around and walk off. And he goes, "Brother, I'm talking kilos." So I went right to my chapter president, I said, "Hey, this isn't right, because like we had said a little bit off air too, and I'm sure people have heard before, like, if you're doing illegal stuff, you're not telling some guy you just met, right? You're not going to rope in people you don't know." So it was a huge red flag, and so I called my twin brother, who's in Oregon still, and I said, "Hey, if this guy calls, like, don't talk to him, here's what he's going to ask." And then we're at a funeral for a member that had been killed, and this guy comes with my brother. He says the same thing. So now we go to the national president, and the national president says, "All right, like Several years have come by of hearing this stuff about I this was the last straw. We're going to throw them out as soon as we get to the cemetery we're going to pull his patch. So he did the cemetery. He doesn't show up. There's feds everywhere, you know, doing surveillance and all that. And two days later operation, black rank includes and we all get raided. And in the paperwork, it says that moot member mooch out of the ATF agent and we actually had to push up the raids because now, you know, it was at risk. But, but so he was a full on ATF agent. It wasn't like he was a snitch. Yeah, there was three of them. It was, I want to say there was maybe there was four total and then each had a girlfriend. That was ATF agent. So there was eight of them, right? But the three or four, they were full patch members. But one was in Vegas and through in the other three were in California. So they spent all of that time three or four years, man, just getting into the club, making, making it a part of their identity. Yeah. And it was all in the life. So we were getting club tattoos like that in federal informant. We had in Eugene. Well, actually, both the informants in Oregon, we're getting club 10 1% are diamonds, Mongol heads, like they were living the life. But then on the flip side, they were doing the selfish stuff to justify whatever mission they were on. There was a different format. But one of the things that really discourage about that ATF stuff is so they were doing those little things, right? But then the big piece was they were doing the street theater where they'd say, okay, like they try to do an Oregon. Hey, need these three guys for backup. And what they meant was they go, they get a hotel room and it's an undercover ATF agent and he's selling either confiscated or fake drugs to an undercover DE agent. So already in my mind, that's not even a real drug deal, right? Those are federal agents putting on a show. But then when they ask for support, they'll pay you, say they gave you that thousand bucks and then they hand you a pistol. Because one member didn't bring one and he said, I'm good. And they fought it in court saying, oh, that meant he had his own. If you were a felon, they would hand you body armor because it increased your charges. And then you get charged with carrying fire armor facilitation of drug deal, you know, wearing body armor facilitation of drug deal. So you get hit with these major federal charges. And people listening might think, oh, you might be able to fight that. But you got to understand this is under a racketeering indictment, right? So when you're under Rico, right, me and you might have some of the smaller charges, but we can get sentenced the same as everyone else because they're racketeering. So say we go to the jury and we try and say, hey, we were just there to support a friend. We weren't carrying guns. But the other people in this Rico had shot a guy over here who was doing this. How do you think your jury is going to look at you? So fighting these cases is very, very challenging. And so when these feds have such a high conviction rate is because people take plea bargains. You can say I could fight this and look at 25 years from found guilty or they'll go, hey, sign this and you can be on three or you know, whatever it is. And so a lot of these guys, the feds get away with it because no one's really fighting it. And is that entrapment? Is entrapment even a real thing? Or is that just kind of somebody, somebody won once once in the history of the criminal justice system, a defendant fought it under entrapment. And then we all think that that's like something that the government has to worry about because it doesn't seem like they give a fuck. It seems like they can they can do that. They can lie. They can set you up. They can, I mean, the gloves are kind of off. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, they're allowed to do drugs. You know, they'll say in those books, right? Like if they someone says, hey, man, do this coke to prove you're not a cop, right? Or whatever they say. And then I read that it's in the books all the time. And first of all, I'm in that club long enough that no one has ever done that from what I've seen, right? Let's test him to see, you know, and also in most people at party, they don't want to give your shit to you if you don't want it, right? Right. But these guys will do it. And then they'll have to fill out. They allegedly fill out some waivers. Say, you know, it was that or I get I was out the case will over if I didn't do it. And, you know, so they're out there living the lives and having a fun. But yeah, so, you know, that type of stuff starts happening. And then you start seeing the reality of work like an entrapment piece to me. I think it's fictional at this point. And maybe that's just from my experience. But I won't use the correct wording. I'm sure. But from what I've been told from attorneys and everything else is that entrapment would be me talking to something that you had no inclination you would ever do. Like, they maybe you're the most straight-laced person. And I talk you into doing something with me. The way they get around it in these cases is, well, hey, I asked this guy to go drop off an envelope. And he didn't ask what it was. He knew was illegal. So he did it anyway. Or yeah, he wasn't opposed to protecting me during this drug deal, right? So even though they suggested it and they started it, it's something that they could say, oh, he likely would have done it with someone else anyways. And so it's really hard one to fight, right? And no one was like, hey, dude, I don't know. This is illegal. Maybe I shouldn't do it. Yeah. Did you know of any brothers actually beating cases? Especially in the federal court, like George Christie, famously, you know, like several murder I'm trying to see no of the models. I know because I joined in '07 and those big raids were in no way. Everyone I know that was involved with that was convicted. Or took plea, all they all took plea barks. Not one model ended up taking it to trial. Okay. So tell us about that big O.A. Rico case. So that was because of those undercover ATF agents and in all the informants. Doc Kavasa was a national p at the time who was doing illegal stuff. I don't think he started off doing it. But after Loughlin, he became the president. He was bolstering the membership to go to war at the house angels. So he was bringing in a lot of neighborhood street gang guys, a lot of them doing my ride bikes at the time. And some of these guys were doing stuff they did from the streets. Right? So found out this chapter selling drugs or this chapter is doing whatever their neighborhoods used to do. And so he was they were paying up to him or he was making money off of it. And so the 100% racketeering is right. They were paying their way up. On top of that, you know, we talked a little bit off air, but because there was so many neighborhood street gang members joining that were either kicked out or, you know, dropouts or whatever. There was a lot of beef with, you know, the Mexican mafia and these other organizations down there. And so, you know, there was gun sales going on between these guys. And then obviously there was shootings back and forth. And and then on top of that, you think these undercover guys, A, they're getting the information from that stuff. But B, they're busting everyone else for stuff that they're not doing. So they had this small group of people that are probably doing legal stuff. And the bad part is one of them was the national boss at the time, right? But then they also were like, hey, let's broaden the scope and get, you know, and we want to show that we got we busted 80 members. We want to show this was the biggest bus there's ever been. And so that's what they end up doing. And in the paperwork, they even said that that case cost tax pairs. So many millions of dollars, they didn't think they can do a case that big anymore. And at the end of the day, because so many people took plea bargains, there was very few large sentences, you know, a lot of those guys are back in the club now, you know, most of them went in a couple years, got out, spent other couple years on paper and also the station and came back to the club. So it didn't put any dent like that's my thing. I guess what this to is all of the media attention from it actually made the club more popular. And the club at that time. So they tried to legally, they tried to take our trademark. This was like the first time they've ever tried to do it. But it was illegal for about a year to wear anything that said Mongols or the center patch. And cops were legally allowed to pull you over and take it off your back. And I mean, there was incense and I'm breaking in a cars, taking stuff because they could see it. There were rating houses. If you had a model on your motorcycle, they were able to take it. So, you know, that's what we fought for over 10 years, that little they fought to show how unconstitutional it was. Did you guys end up winning that? I assume. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We did. What was weird about that case is it ended up being, you know, several different superseding indictments. And then there was no Vic. I mean, there was there was no plaintiff, right? There was like the Mongol nation, but there was no individual. So the Mongol nation did get found guilty of racketeering, but that, but they found that you can't get, they can't take the trademark. But so then the, the Mongols were fined $500,000. But there was like no one was going to prison over it. No one was going to be on probation, right? Like it was kind of this weird thing that they hadn't done before. And the big piece of it was trying to get away with taking our trademark. Because if they can do it to the Mongols, who do you think they're going to do it to next? The next thing, you know, it's going to be legal to wear a patch. Now it's illegal to wear gang colors or, you know, whatever. I mean, we've seen this now. They're doing in Australia. They just started doing it in Germany. I believe Canada is coming up with some similar laws. And thankfully, since we have a constitution, it's a lot harder to do. But the Mongols is an LLC, right? Like technically, it's incorporated as a company. And the hard part with that was duck avasos moved it from collective membership marks to his LLC. And like, so he had shotgun production, where he was selling T-shirts at his book. And he had signed a plea bargain. And part of it was he had signed over the rights to the patch. So part of what we were arguing was no one person can have the rights to it, right? He did he might have transferred it to his name, but that technically wasn't legal. And it didn't hold up. So the judge initially, you know, granted the injunction, but then we go back to court. She found more information. She actually really upset. It was a very unconstitutional. And the government had lied to her about what was going on. And so the membership marks went back into a collective membership and ended up being safe. But it was like the several long year battle. And at least a year of it, we weren't even allowed to wear patches. So we had T-shirts said black and white nation. Because so many people have been busted and all this stuff going on, I bet that we were down to probably 200 members nationally. But we got her patchback. And now we're in the news all the time for fighting the patch case. You know, now we're we're on Lisa Lane, we're doing like this positive stuff where people are seeing it. And man, membership just started going through the roof. Now the rides that you guys take, especially in big open places, Nevada, California, is it true that you have to let the rivals know the Hells Angels, the Vagos, whoever if you're riding through their territory? Is that is that real? Yes and no. So not to rivals, I would never tell them where I'm going to be. But if it's a club like when the Mongols and Banditos were on good terms, if we had some members that were passing through Texas, we'd probably give them leadership a call. So because the point of that is we don't want to go Bandit or someone get a call, say, "Hey, there's Mongols in the gas station." Instead of sending them sending down people to say, "Hey, are you here hanging out? What are you doing?" And oh no, we know they're already passing through. It saves everyone ahead. It's less stress. You know, so it's like the courtesy cordial stuff. If it's one member and he's like riding home, maybe we wouldn't, maybe we wouldn't. If someone's out there at work, we definitely would. So it really just depends on our relationship with that club, what state it is. The big thing for the Mongols is, anytime I was in a state or near a chapter of the moguls, I'd have to let them know I'm there. Like if I went on vacation in Las Vegas, even if I wasn't wearing clothes stealth, I still gotta let the chapter know. But for the same reason, right? Someone's gonna call and say, "Hey, there's this guy down here," says he's a mogul, or has a mogul tattoo, and they'd be like, "Oh, yeah, yeah. That's Mucci's that you're visiting." And so people don't have to mobilize or go figure things out. And then, you know, when those things happen that, you go, come to the gas station, "Hey, what are you doing here?" Two alpha males there, even if we're cordial. You know, that might not always go well. So it actually is another way to like make sure that things are chilled, and we maintain peace. Because even though I think the drug dealing and the criminality, the organized criminality is exaggerated, the violence has been real, you know, among these clubs, between these clubs. Like the big shootouts you hear about, you know, that one, I think it was down in Louisiana, or. Florida was a recent one. Yeah, I think there were several in Texas recently. For sure. But there was Laughlin, Nevada was one of the first big ones, 2001, the Angels models in a casino, public casino, like that was the first big one that actually set off a lot of those undercover investigations. Right. That was when these, even though now it comes out, there were several undercover ATF agents at the casino when it happened, and some conspiracies that potentially some of those instigated it. But on record that they were there, right? So they were already keeping an eye on it. But once that happened, that gave them justification, and again, because all the media, it's all over the news, right, people are saying either, "I don't, I'm not scared. "I'm not comfortable going to casino now." 'Cause one of these guys started to shoot each other. So that was the first big one, and then there was the big one here in Laco, which was a crazy one, because that was definitely an instigated, and it's been proven now, it was definitely instigated by informants. And I'm gonna have the numbers incorrect, 'cause I don't remember exactly what, say nine people were shot. They found out that six of them were shot by law enforcement. So these people weren't even shooting each other. So law enforcement knew ahead of time about this meeting. It was called the Confederation of Clubs, and every month or every other month, all the clubs get together and sit down and they talk about politics, helmet laws, or legislation. There's no club actual clubs talk, but it's like everyone getting together and discussing, working together, but it's a political movement. And the bandits were going to the one they always go to, it happened to be at that Twin Peaks. And there was another club here that was having some issues with the bandits, and knew that them showing up with the Texas Rocker was gonna be an issue. And now it's been proven that there was an informant within that group. So on the way to the meeting, that informer said, "Hey, let's stop at hardware store and grab some tools." So what's that telling your membership? What's gonna happen, right? But law enforcement knew beforehand, so the night before they went up and they not only set up cameras all around this point, which never notified the restaurant, but then they had snipers on the roofs. And so when the bike, the other club came in, and there was a little standoff, and the informant or one of the guys in the other club hit the bandito, people start fighting, the cops started shooting. And I mean, I know some of the members who were shot, or friends were shot, that didn't have guns, I weren't involved in the incident. And so many of these dudes that got killed were killed by cops, but then the headline says, right? Biker shoot out, nine dead, and it only came out because Jake, he's a bandito out of Dallas, was the only one to actually take it to trial. So what they did, too, is they came in, they arrested everybody there. Even if you were in a Christian club, mom, pop club, if you were at that COC, they blanked a rest at everyone with the same charges for everybody. And what was it, attempted murder? - Yeah, probably, they probably just threw the kitchen sink out. - Everything, yeah, it was everything. And a lot of it was like, you know, the group, like as a group, right? Like, and so they threw everything at it, and kept a lot of these guys, a big piece of it, a lot of these guys, you know, that full-time jobs, families, and they kept them in jail for several weeks. A lot of these guys were losing jobs, you know, and they're facing some crazy charges that were put in jail for a long time. And Jake took it to trial, was found not guilty, and they dropped the charges and everyone else, 'cause they realized that the way it was done, and when the information started coming to light, I don't know who they would've been able to find guilty for it, you know? - Well, they had it on camera. They were filming themselves. They had a mean camera, and then they had all the ballistic evidence of what bullets killed who, and it was almost all of it was from law enforcement. - So it sounds like almost speaking of Waco ironically, it sounds like-- - Very similar to that. - The David Kuresh, all right? Like, the law enforcement just starts squeezing before anything even happens. - Yeah, I mean, there's some pictures and videos of the other club, like kind of shooting towards the crowd and stuff, but there was really no like, two members shooting at each other. It was a fight happened, or a gunshot happened, and then they just started shooting. A man shooting at everybody. - So it was basically like a massacre. - Yeah, 100%. And then it got more public. The district attorney got fired. People had to stand down. But still, you know how this stuff works, right? Like there's the initial headline. The follow-up doesn't get the same type of media coverage. - Of course not. - So everyone knows about Waco and this biker shootout, not as many people know that the biker were the victims in this case. - Wow. - And the instigator was the informant, yeah? Like, he pulled out a gun or something, or? - Well, I mean, I know what I could actually prove is he stopped to get weapons, which would have instigated it anyways. Now, I've heard he was also the one that had to gun out, but I can't confirm it. But either way, they were there to instigate. Say, for example, he was in leadership, and we're gonna go down there, and I don't care what these banditos say, we're gonna do this, right? Like, they were riled up when they got there. - Yeah. - So, you know, but that one's more of the caveat. When we start talking about the violence, that was like the second major one I guess was getting at, but since then, and I don't know, I'd love to say it's just 'cause of social media, but it is just more prevalent in general. And I at prevalent in general, and I think it's also 'cause the clubs are growing so much and going into other closed territories, but it seems to be happening a lot more, right? Public shootouts, shootings of gas stations, already events. And that's the one thing where I can't deny, right? I'll openly admit that I really don't think, at least from my experience, that clubs aren't doing inherently criminal stuff as far as making money. In fact, it costs so much money to pee in a club. You're paying dues, you're going on trips, you're spending gas in your hotels, you're taking time away from work. And there's no financial gain to being in a motorcycle club, but when it comes to illegal pieces of violence. - With the Mongols, I mean, their reputation precedes them, right? Did you know of any shootouts that your own chapters got involved in? - Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting mist from Mavily New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Just plump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new grippy setting mist from Mavily New York. - Maybe it's Mavily. - There will be times where've been shot at. There has been times where things escalated quickly. There was never anything I was involved in where we had planned to go attack a shoot of people. But for example, I was in, when I was in the Vagos, 'cause I was in the Vagos for two years before I went to the Mongols. And we were at a big national run in Las Vegas and it was like the Harley drags. And the Vagos had just started a chapter, restarted a chapter in Arizona and the Hell's Angels weren't super happy about it. So there's Hell's Angels there. Everyone kind of just, there was side looks, but no one was paying attention. But the Vagos, way different club now. Like when I was in, they weren't as big, they weren't as organized. And at that time, I kept thinking this is kind of weird 'cause they're thinking there might be some issue, but half the group just left. And so the Angels waited 'til there was a smaller group of guys and we're getting ready to leave. And an angel comes up, says grabs the guy there as a rocker and goes, "Hey, my boss wants to talk to you." So the Vagos do what most people do that they don't have experienced that stuff as a group of them, right? And then some angels stand around them. I remember looking at my brother going, "This doesn't look good, right?" So we kind of took a step out of the circle and I looked back and there's guys in cars, we'll drive fools and it's like, "Fuck, do you like?" We were told not to bring weapons. I'm a felon so I couldn't bring, oh yeah, I'm not anymore by the time I was. I couldn't bring gun anyways. And most folks from out of state. And some like, man, this looks bad. And then I look over to prospects as a saddlebag open, a Hell's Angel prospect and he's handing pistols to members. And I look at my brother and we look at this older Vagos and I go, "Tude, look what's going on." He goes, "Yeah, if they start shooting, we're going to charge 'em." I was like, "That's our plan. That's great." And then law enforcement came in on horseback and helicopters and it got broken up. So things like that happened. Yeah. And the hard part is, the risk for that is relatively high these days, right? Like, I feel like in my era going to the pumpkin skin, I'd seen you getting fistfights. Where's Case scenario? Maybe someone got hit with a bottle or stab. But there wasn't shootings really, you know? And we think even the gang scene that's gotten way worse than it used to be. And I don't mean like in a good, done control way, I just think, back when I was talking about how people play in a role, right? I don't like it and beat up. I don't think anyone does, but I'm not scared of it, right? Too many people are scared to get punched in the face. And so their first reaction I'm gonna shoot. And for an example, in Illinois, we used to be really close to the outlaws. And so they got to know us really well. And I have a lot of friends in that club that are great, dude. So I'm not trying to disparage the club anyway, but that region I was in, they were fun to hang out with, but these weren't people I'd like invite over in barbecue or like, you know, it was quick ride, stop by, say a little, have a drink, all good times. But that was where it stopped, right? And they would meet my guys and they used to say, "Well, hey Mocha, how do you get all these big, big, strong guys that they don't know anything about, a lot of people that don't know anything about you just, I think that means you're an MMA fighter, right? So like, oh, you guys are all MMA guys." And I was like, "Well, 'cause I meet guys at the gym." And I thought, you know, I'm not just going to the same bars, but when I first moved out there, they had said, "Yeah, there was only one small hell's angel chapter in that area." And I remember tripping me out 'cause they were like, older guys, they weren't real tough looking dudes. And you know, coming from the West Coast or San Diego, like, whether we liked angels or not, they were very formidable enemies, you know? And so I had to mention it and they go, "Yeah, every now and again, we run into each other, we get a fight at the gas station." Or whatever, a fist fight. I was like, "Fist fight," and I was like, "Oh, yeah, yeah." And I was like, "And then we go on the way." I was like, "Dude, this is like Disney Land." Like, don't be wrong, I didn't want to get in the fight, but I was also like, "That's the worst that could happen." - Right. - But as we got closer with them, and they saw that our guys trained and all this stuff that when we did have issues, they were too scared to get beat up. Some people were pulling guns at all the time. - So you're saying the Mongols are tougher than most of the other clubs? - I'm not saying that. What I'm saying, 'cause there's definitely some badass dudes in all clubs and all the regions. In that area where I was at, We had to talk for a chapter for sure, but. As a club is a whole, I wouldn't be able to say that because there's a lot of, you know, really bad gangs are down as dudes and the angels, I know the outlaws have, like, because the cultures changed there too, where instead of it being like older beer belly dudes, there was a lot more dudes that came from the punk rock and hardcore scene or dudes that grew up in crews or gangs that, you know, they're not scared to fight. And a lot of those, and nowadays too, like I said, I had that region in my rule in my region where everyone had to work out three days a week. And it wasn't necessarily for looks either. There was all the positive health benefits working out, right? But also, I remember early years of the club thinking, man, we just sit around on a bar stool and talk to each other, like you get to know someone way more if we're doing jujitsu together, we're at the gym working out together. And on top of that, the positive piece came, man, if we're sitting around drinking, next hearing, talking shit about somebody, bad mouth, and so there was all these positive effects where everyone was happier, they were in the shape, you know, we were spending time together, but it was doing positive things, and it was this positive influence. And I noticed that culture shifting a little bit more too, where a lot of the guys that grew up like I did from the hardcore scene of joining clubs, they were into working out too, or training. And so there's a lot of big and shaped guys that I'm out of fight in all clubs at this point. It's not that old school like, you know, the beer-bellied long hair biker. Right. The big white beard. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's one thing to a positive impact I think I had in that club was that when I first started coming around motorcycle clubs, all the, every club, all the old school guys would be like, hey, welcome to the nightmare, you're going to lose your old lady, you're going to lose your job, you're going to death or jail. And I was thinking, as more people are coming to me wanting to join, I was like, man, I mean, you went to high school and you were my close friend, I'm like, hey, yeah, come on in, let me ruin your life, you know, or I didn't want people to go, yeah, my life was great, so I started kicking it with mooch. I'm like, I just wanted to take that on, like that, right? And so having these workout rules and no meth and phetomines, like, and at least in my chapter, you know, I'm a mental health therapist. So I got these alpha male gangsters when presenters tell me how they feel, you know what I mean? But I wanted it to be like, hey, I joined the Mongols and it made my life better. Not I joined and it made it worse. And a big piece of that too was, like I said, I didn't want someone to come in and it ruined them. And a lot of times old friends would hit me up. I actually just had this discussion with a friend the other day where he had called me back then and goes, dude, my lady left me, I got fire for my job, my eyes will join the club. And I said, fuck off, dude, I go, come to me when you're in relationship, your pain, your bills, you're in your house, I want to see you have your shit together because if you come at me when you're low, your life gets better, you're out, right? And it also, there's so many personality traits in there, right? Like, how are you going to show up to meetings? How are you going to pay your dues? How can I depend on you if your family can't, if your job can't? And so I think that piece too, whereas like now these get a lot of people that work, you know, it is the people you surround yourself with, right? Reflex who you are. And so these guys are having jobs and are in good shape. And, you know, outside of some recreational party, no one's like a drug addict and no one's, you know, we're not allowed to get drunk at bars, we don't stay out late. The other part too is everyone, like in my region, everyone had to be polite in public. Like, I hated walking into a bar and heads hang, fuck these guys are here, right? Or, hey, no patches, you guys are not allowed here. I loved when I walked into the neighborhood bar, like, what's up guys? And my big thing is, you know, you go into those bars like that or they say they don't know you. And you know, we walk in with 12 monols. It's intimidating. I understand what it looks like. We've all been there to one side or the other. But what I liked is most time when we left people say, man, I wouldn't fuck with those guys, but they were great, right? That's the reputation I try to switch over to because you want to be liked by the public, man, a) those are your jury members, right? But just as an individual, I don't want to be that guy that's hated everywhere it goes. Oh, here comes Mochigan, you know, like, I'm just for people to remember younger days going to parties, but he's here, you know what I mean? And so it's like, that was a big positive shift. And I think I see that shifting in some clubs, at least that shifting more too. When you were in a position of power, so you're the regional manager? Yeah, there's a regional boss regional boss representative. Yeah, how many different territories were you overseeing? So I started, I've always been a chapter president because I've started a different chapter. Well, not always, but for the most, I started as a chapter president. And then once we just developed this regional representative program, I oversaw the Northwest. It was Oregon and Washington and then Northern Idaho. Around that time, I started helping out and then overseeing a lot of the out of country chapter. So there was Canada. I helped start that Australia chapter, Thailand. There was a chapter in Brazil. I was looking at like kind of overseeing and Germany. And so there was a big, you know, there was a lot, that was a lot on my plate. Yeah. And then I moved to the Midwest and, um, man, I've never been like in that crave for power type guy. Like, I feel like I fell fell in those positions because I was good at it. But anytime I had a chance to bring someone else up or take something off my plate, if the right guy for the job came along, I'd pass it off. So say I started a chapter and I was the president, but after six months, I'm like, hey, so someone's social wrong for pee. He's going to do better out because I've been the same guy no matter what. I can sit in the same room in the same circle and I'm going to say the same thing. I have the same voice. So the title doesn't mean much to me. And so when I moved to the Midwest, my brother took over the Northwest or another member took over Washington. Um, and so I oversaw a lot of different areas been out at the same time. I ended up like the out of country stuff. I shut down a lot of chapters out of the country and then another member from California started helping out with out of country stuff. So then I had Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee, or like my main ones. And you know, when I just as an example about how things grew. So I went out there to kind of just focus on Jiu-Jitsu. Um, it was kind of, I wasn't retired from the club, but you know, there was no out, there was no models in Illinois. And it's like, maybe this would be, I was already in for over 10 years and I was kind of burnt out. I was wanting to take the step back. And when I moved out there, there was two members left in Kansas City chapter. That was it for all of Missouri. There was no none in Illinois. There was one or two chapters in Indiana. And it didn't take long before, you know, friends of friends were reaching out. I was hanging out with just dudes from the hardcore crew from called BDC that wanted to be Mongols. And these were dudes I was already partying with. And I started thinking, man, I, you know, I was trying to take a step back, but would it be selfish of me not let them bring them in from it. So then I got wrapped back up into it. And by the time I left that region, we had three full chapters and four chapters in in Missouri, two in Illinois, and five in Indiana and two in Tennessee. Wow. So my time there, things grew. And Emma saying I was responsible for all of it, but I helped out with a lot of it, you know. So with having that power, were you ever, was ever a situation where somebody, an informant, an ATF agent undercover came at you trying to entrap you the way they did with George Christie. You know, I feel like that happens to me very early on. Like when we started Oregon, like the cops didn't want us in Oregon, there was that task force was ATF and local law enforcement in Eugene didn't want us there. And that's when those those informants were there. That's why when I was in California that ATF guy was targeting me. But I think like I didn't see it as much by time I got to Midwest. And I'd like to think it's because a lot of the law enforcement guys that follow motorcycle clubs, you know, they're regular. It's like most people did you'd say, Oh, did Steve cook up their Missouri like, oh, yeah, man, I've heard of Steve. I know someone to know Steve. And a lot of these guys I think saw, especially like one little Dave took over, for example, that he was cutting down on the criminality. He was the way he structured around the club was keeping people out of trouble. And I think I would like to think that some law enforcement was supporting that right or the biker gang in the best of years. And so I didn't see it so much in the Midwest after that. But also like I said, I wasn't doing crazy legal stuff. Like I heard a podcast recently about some dude that said he was with the Department of Justice. Someone's retired and that that he said, yeah, everything was cool here until the vice president of the Mongols, which wasn't even my title moved here. And then also the methamphetamine scene exploded and you know, this made up stuff. But I'm thinking, man, I'd been there for seven years. Never been arrested for any of that stuff, right? None of my members have ever been arrested for any of that stuff. So I think there was kind of the narrative from local cops as far as like federal law enforcement and any biker gang investigators. You know, we were staying out of trouble. And I think if you're a leader that keeps your guys out of trouble, you're likely going to be under less scrutiny. Yeah. Yeah. That's like if you ever heard of Mexican cartels. Maybe that's the reason. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So what did you end up going to jail for? 'Cause you did have small cases here and there. Yeah. So I had a juvenile felony at 16 and then I right after turning 18, I worked with four assault after 18, I got a assault felony and then I had about four misdemeanor assaults. But this is all before going into the club. And actually, I've told people before the club kept me out of trouble because as a youngster, you know, I was up trying to prove myself. I thought I was just social justice where you're fighting Nazis. I'm going to punch shows and I was getting arrested a lot. And thank God it was pre-internet, pre-self-hounds. Back then, if you got arrested for fighting, you probably got caught on the scene, right? Yeah. Like, or I have an identical twin. So sometimes it wasn't hard to figure out like, oh, it was the twins. But for the most part, it wasn't this like cameras everywhere. You know, um, so because we were fighting a lot. But when I joined the club, wearing that patch, what any decision I made was going to affect everyone else. On top of that, I know how hard the law enforcement didn't want us there. So I went out and got a bar fight. A.M. likely going to get locked up. B. My put risk for the brothers. And so it really provided this extra step where I had to start thinking, like, is this worth it? The other piece to it is when I joined the club, I stopped drinking because I was in leadership. We were going out in public a lot. I wanted to make sure that I was, you know, aware of my surroundings. That was always on point. Um, so the club kept me out of trouble where I got arrested, which is crazy is we were, you know, like I told you before, the local clubs in Oregon didn't want us to be there. So it was kind of this cold war, right? A lot of rumors going on. Now I know there were some formats, uh, stirring things up with law enforcement. So there's all these threats going back and forth. And a newspaper article had come out that said, you know, back when the news was newspapers, the thing, and the headline on the Sunday paper was, "Moggle war coming," or "Biker war coming to Oregon." And so everyone was on high alert, right? Everything's jacked up. Um, and the main club there in Oregon, Wayne Memorial, percent of clubs called the Gypsy Jokers. And, uh, I was in Salem. That's where their headquarters are too. And so this newspaper article came out on Sunday. And I think this was Monday. I, my parents lived on 140 acres and they had a house up on the hill. I mean, my little, maybe my twin brother lived in this little house down below. But quarter mile drive, we half mile driveway, three no trespassing signs. Like you wouldn't just show up out there, right? Mm-hmm. So I'm going to pick up truck head in the Portland and buy myself and I'm driving down my driveway. And it's all black SUV comes up with Washington plates, tinted windows. It sees me and it stops and we're both kind of just staring at each other in the lane. I couldn't see. I saw there was two people in the color but I couldn't see who they were. And my first thought was going to be reasonable. Maybe they're lost. Right. And so they can we kind of sit there for a minute and I'm failing. So I'm not carrying down or anything with me either. So I wasn't super confident. I was just walking up on them. So trying to figure it out and slowly they kind of turn around. They go back down the driveway. And so we're at the end of the driveway. And if you go left, which was a way I was going to go, that would be north. It would take me to the interstate five so I can go north. They turned right. And in my head, I really know bullshit. I can remember the moment where I go, am I going to regret taking it right right now? But I was curious. I didn't want to leave. Seven see me leave. And no now no one's there. Like, you know, I didn't know. I was wanting to figure it out. And I was like, maybe I'll just fall into the interstate, probably realize it was something that was lost. Don't be deal. So I get behind them. And I noticed now they're looking back at me or kind of getting freaked sketched out. And then when we get to the interstate, which is about five mile drive, by the time I get to the interstate, now they're going north. So now I'm like, well, that's weird, because if they knew where they're at and they were going north, they wouldn't do the way. The minute we get on interstate, they try and ditch me in and out of traffic. And so like now I'm following what got this old chase going. And all of a sudden they jump over for like three lanes of traffic. They take the exit and the gypsy joker clubhouse was there. And the gypsy joker clubhouse was down through a neighborhood and on a cult of sack. So you wouldn't accidentally go there, right? So they go to the gypsy joker clubhouse. Well, I didn't want to fall down the dead end by myself. So I sit across the street watching them and they crack the window out just enough where the guy in the shotgun position points his finger out the window and does this. Now I can't see him, but I see his hand. So I'm sitting there. I start calling some of the other Mongols. Hey, man, I don't know what's going on, but obviously these guys are and went from my wonder who they are to these guys are enemies to some extent, right? They're at the clubhouse or the club that's supposed to be after us. This guy's doing finger guns at me. He's got Washington license plates, which the hell's angels are in Washington and the jokers from Washington. So it was all these red flags. So the car they finally leave and they get back on the interstate and now they start heading back south. And I thought maybe they thought that they lost me since I was sitting across the street and then move. And so now I'm thinking, where are they heading back to my house? Why are they going back south? So I get back in the car and they drove over 60 miles to Eugene from Salem. And in the meantime, I had been calling ahead to some other Mongols. My twin brother was in a car behind me trying to catch up and then I had two Mongols and Eugene getting cars and I said, just sit off the freeway when we pass you jump in. And the goal was if they're not going to let me get up and see look in their window. Maybe these other cars they wouldn't recognize can we can at least figure out who these guys are what they look like. So we pull into Eugene. So 60 miles been like over an hour, right? I'm following these guys. And they come in the middle lane. I pull it behind them. Another car pulls up next to them and then one of our hangarounds gets in the front of them. So essentially we boxed them in, right? As soon as we did that, they hit their, they hit a siren. And I was still so dead set dude that I was like looking around for the siren, you know? And then also they jumped over two lanes to take the exit. And when they did the car that was next to him pulling from in the slam down his brakes to try and slow him down. So then they hit their lights. So then I go, fuck these are fucking cops. So everyone else took off. But in my head, I'm like, we didn't do anything like, you know what I mean? I follow these guys. So a cop was making a finger gun. Yeah, it was an ATF agent and a Eugene police detective. And these are the same. So when I before I said that there was a victim on my crime, these were the two handlers of the two informants. Okay. And when my house got rated, we had the only house where every door got kicked in. And those were the two dudes that did it. But there's a million overlaps. But anyway, so yeah, so I got, they got their lights on. So I start using my signals to show that I'm going to go into this parking lot. So that ATF agent a few months before head walked up to us that club the free souls that were cool with them. But at the time they were supposed to be beef. They were having this big national run. And so there's not going to be any models here. So we made it a point to go bar hop. And that's just because we're young. It's stupid to make a presence, right? And the ATF agent had walked up and a, you know, they're out Mongol hunting. They're trying to kill you guys. We have this credible, you know, we have to let you know that there's a credible threat. We were asking you guys to stay at the hotel, which we didn't. But that's why I knew we was. And because it's first time I've seen an ATF agent in real life. And from movies and shit, I thought it was going to be some military looking and like, right. And there was this fat dude with new balance shoes. And so I knew it. So then I was like, I wonder if this is that guy, you know? And so we pull into a parking lot and he pulls in and they're facing me. And I'm just sitting there waiting for someone to get out. Now where I was fucked as I was wearing leather gloves and I had two phones next to me because I, you know, I didn't know what was going to happen. And I kept him and he's going to walk up and talk to me or because I assume that's who it's got to be. The reason they say they didn't get the cars that Eugene Detective sometimes went undercover or he like walked into a bar. I was at once, right? And he want me to be able to recognize him. So no one comes out. So we're kind of doing a standoff. And then I look in my mirror dude and I've got like 30 cops around me, guns out, get out of the collar. I was like, fuck about to get beat up or shot. So they pull me out of the car. They handcuffed me. And the sat, he walks up and he's smiling. He's laughing. And now I only know from the discovery because I took this to trial that one of the cops obviously their cars record, right? And he said, over recordings, they turned the radio up or allow one reality. He walked up and he says to me, what was that man? And he was laughing it off. And he was like, Oh, we were going to see how far you've followed us. See if we run out of gas and came calling a game of cat mouse. It was like joking about it. And eventually you got to point it goes, man, I know you didn't do anything wrong. We're going to cut you loose in a minute. But man, your Nathan, he shouldn't have swerved at us. And you know, I was going to be like, yeah, he shouldn't because I didn't want to acknowledge any who was there. So I was just nodded and dude, I'm starving. There's a quiz nose across street. My, they never realized my twin brother was there with the people in his car. So they were across street and my aunt was there filming with the camcorder. And I think, okay, I see my family, you know what, like come get out of here. Next you know, I'm in handcuffs. I'm in the back of this car. No one's telling me why. And they got a lot like police motorcycle in front behind us. And they're taking me to the police station like I'm a fucking president. And I'm still not tripping. You know, I was like, I couldn't imagine what I could get arrested for in this. Right. What's your charge? Yeah. And so I get handcuffed. I sat there forever. And normally when you're another rule from the models of it is you don't talk, right? You ask for an attorney. And I should be everybody's rule anyways, dude. That's the law enforcement's rule. Why shouldn't anybody else? And do you guys have attorneys per region? Like do you guys have attorneys on? We kind of used to, but again, with that Rico thing, it kind of got sketchy. And then some chapters do or maybe I, you know, maybe I worked with attorney enough that I could recommend it and turning. But I didn't. And so the two co-defendants, they just both voired up. They didn't do the interrogation. And I don't know. It was a good move on my end. But at the time, I was just thinking, what's the risk? Right. I want them on tape saying, this is a game of cat mouse. And again, I didn't think I was risking anything. So I do the interrogation. And I got this cop to admit that it was, it was fun and games, game of cat mouse and all this stuff. And so again, I'm like, I'm about to be out of here. And then they, they were charging here going to jail and I go for what? And then he said, first he goes, attempted assault. Well, first he goes, I don't know. And he goes, probably attempted assault. And it's kind of smirked, right? As I jails were overcrowded as fuck at the time. They weren't holding anybody for as cool. I'll be out in the morning. No, we do. So I get, I get puts, you know, put in a jail. And then in the morning, I go to court. And instead of going into the room with all the other inmates, they put me in a cell by myself. And I see my co-defendants walk by a pale white. And I'm like, well, I can't be good. You know, they slide my indictment under the door. And I had attempted kidnapping of federal agent. It's a conspiracy to commit kidnapping of federal agent. I'm lawfully used to a firearm, eight felonies total. And bail bond was set at 1.5 million dollars. And then I had a bond reduction hearing. So it went down to one million dollars. So I sat there the whole time, right? And it ended up being almost three months. And I fought it. And this was one that point, too, where again, I was young and naive, where I knew Cobb's lie. But I didn't think they'd blatantly make stuff up, right? And this ATF agent takes the stand. And that moment where he had walked up his laughing and stuff, but he had turned the radio up. He goes, this was me screaming out of 'cause I was in fear for my life. Our guns were on buckle. We thought they were trying to run us off the road. And I was like, dude, what the f, you know, thankfully, my attorney was a really good attorney. And this was federal court. This was all state charge. Okay, okay. But it was against law enforcement. I got you. But thankfully, my attorney, like, he wouldn't film to the direction it would take for them to get to the clubhouse because they were saying was all act, they didn't even know they're in front of the gypsy yoga clubhouse. Like, you know, all this type of stuff. And the jury found it all pretty not credible. I'm on force inside. But I was found guilty of reckless driving, which is a misdemeanor and menacing misdemeanor. So here, the plea bargain they offered me was two years. And because I was in county for so long, I was like, really thinking about it 'cause I was like, dude, this is, I'm losing my mind. Dude, I was on 23 and a half hour a day locked down the whole time. And I was like, man, at least prison. I can, you know, you're laying county. Yeah. Lane county, Eugene org. Yep. Yep. So, and this was during, like, budget crisis. And the one, there was that federal budget crisis because of the timber loss. There was all sorts of political moments, too, going on, right? Mm-hmm. Some of the paper every day, the guard would take me out of my cell to wash me wash myself on the news. So, you know, I was, I'm looking at some serious prison time. I get found not guilty. I get found guilty. The misdemeanors, well, the judge was not a big, wasn't very sympathetic to my case. And she sent me to five years felony gain probation and one full year in county jail, which is the max you can get for misdemeanors. So, I get sentenced to a year in county jail. I go back. I think I spent two more days before I got kicked out and put on road crew because they have a thing called the, you know, sentencing guidelines or the matrix, right? And the matrix essentially, this jail is so crowded that what threat are you to, but what's your charge present to your threat? And if, when it's reckless driving, so they're not going to keep me. So, I'm looking out my window and there's all these cameras, you know, newspaper people everywhere, reporters and someone goes, I bet this is for you, and I was like, right, no way, dude. And sure shit, they made this big news thing that they had to kick this big mongolier out early. Yeah. And a small town sensationalism. Yeah, man. And a small piece that I've, that is really important. So, I don't want to forget it too, is during my trial, they had at least 15 cops in my, in during my trial. I can front of the jury. And my attorney had, you know, objected to it, and they were in 15 cops in the courtroom in uniform as like security, which you imagine how that would influence the jury, right? Because mongoliers, you can't come there wearing a mongol patch in there because it's influencing the jury, right? And so they're in there doing that. And so we ask the jury to leave and we question and they say, oh, well, we have credible information from an informant, which again, now, I don't even know who they are, that they're gonna try and bust mooch at a jail. Now mind you, dude, I was looking at it, I thought it was only a couple of years. And so they believe this shit. So they were so convinced that then they put the jail on lockdown because someone wrote a motorcycle buy and they said there was a spiss his package, that they were gonna bust me out of like this with some old Western movie. But they, everything they could to influence the jury and put it in the paper that there's this big, crazy mongolier that's this big risk, the society, that tried to run kit cops. I'll try to kidnap some cops, you know? So it was, I mean, it was obviously a huge thing. And so when I got out like said, I was on non-social probation, which means I wasn't allowed to hang out my twin brother. I fought that, but so lost. And I kept getting caught hanging out at the club. So I said, fuck it, I moved to San Diego 'cause I said, oh, they're not gonna bring me back, you know? But I was there eight months and black rain hit. And everyone I knew there was busted. So then I got busted and went home at it. So every time I went back was like for two, somewhere two to three months at a time and it was all 23 and a half hour day locked down. So you just go back for like probation violence, essentially. - Yeah, but I probably four or five times, which is when I finally won the last time, the last time I was there, 2008, the guard said, hey, I came back and he goes, man, I lost a bet. I go, what do you mean? And he goes, you don't belong here, dude. I bet these guys you wouldn't come back. And I remember looking around and nothing against the people that were in there, but I was like, I'm not doing illegal shit. I'm not, you know, I was not addicted to drugs and I wasn't, you know, robbing people. And that's really when I got out is that's really what motivated me to go back to school. 'Cause I was like, I need to have some sort of future, man. Like this revolving door of jail is not benefiting anybody. And thankfully, like I started as a drug and alcohol counselor or going to school for that because I figured that's something you can do with the record. And you know, I've tacked shoes on my head and everything. And then I love fill out a psychology. So it's kept going. And at the final year of my master's degree, I started doing internships and was offered an internship at the Oregon Youth Authority, which is what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a therapist for the kids to do authority. So I do the interviews, I get hired. And they give me an address to where I gotta go for training, I don't think anything about it. I'm all excited, you know. I drive to the training and it's the Oregon State Police Academy, dude, in Salem. And I pull in and I text my wife. And I was like, I know I'm a little cocky, but someone in here got to know who I am. Like this can't be. And unbeknownst to me, as soon as I get out of the car, I walk by this cop and full uniform. Turned out was the Oregon State Chief's beliefs. And he was mad dog of me. And, you know, still, I'm like, dude, I'm here to be a therapist. Like, how much trouble can I get in? Halfway through the day I get pulled out. Are you infiltrating? Why are you here? They had this, turn this whole narrative that, I went to school for eight years and spent 150 grand so that I could go to the Oregon Youth Authority and recruit people from my gang. 15, 16 year old kids that don't ride motorcycles. So I got fired. Air laid off from his internship. But I sued him and I won. So now I'm graduated from school. I just won this lawsuit. Mongol leaders who's the state of Oregon and every newspaper. And I was like, you know what? It might be time to leave. And so that's what ended up, I moved out to Illinois. - And then you started opening up chapters and kind of the rest is history. - Yeah. - It's really fascinating. Like, we all know, thanks to the internet, like it's all kind of coming out about how much of a lie everything has been since like the last hundred years. And when I look at the hear more and more stories from one percent clubs about these completely bullshit fabricated, made up cases that the government's put on them. You know, and you think about the propaganda. It's like, and part of it's your fault. Like you put that image out. - 100% I'm almost hatching the back of my head. - Right, right. But it's really just a fraternity where people want to look cool. It's just an identity. - Absolutely. - You know, 100%. And you know, like, I joined a motorcycle club 'cause I love riding motorcycles with party with my friends. But there was that sense of belonging, right? I'm an identical twin. You know, I got into punk rock and skinhead 'cause it was an identity. I joined a skinhead gang 'cause that was, you know, I had the community. - Right. - So, and I'm not saying any of that's a positive, but that's what drew me to it. But it's the idea of hanging out with like mine to people, man, you know. We get to be on our bikes and party and have fun. And I can count on this guy. I can disguise my brother. That's what draws everyone into it. People don't go, I'm gonna join this so I can be a super criminal. And I'm gonna make all this money and do that. And that's where, like you said, the lies and the n. That's where I don't comprehend it. Like, I didn't understand during my trial. They didn't want Mongols and Oregon. What they don't understand, right, is how I went to prison. My brother, someone else is gonna be the president. And it's still gonna grow. But to them, they have this old school mentality of, oh, it's mooch, he's doing all this. So if we got him, even if he didn't do this, but we're gonna justify lying about it to get him busted, now we won't have Mongols here. And, you know, with Mongols and Mexicans, they bring drugs and they're gonna fight, you know, like their whole narrative was built off of, let's just cut the head off the snake. But like they learned in black rain, or they should, anyone should know by now is, no one person, like little days, no international pee, guess what the Mongols are still there. Like, no one person has that much effect on club life. Or on gangs or anything, really, like, I think about O'Choppo and all this stuff, right? People get busted, someone else takes this place. - So why are you guys a 1% club? Knowing that what we know now, that the 1% clubs are not inherently criminal organizations, we're not formed for that reason. Like the Mafia, for example, right? They just happen to have tough dudes, a lot of them were funding the outlaw lifestyle through crime, right? Like George Christie said, like, in his heyday, he said maybe like, out of 10 dudes in a chapter of the Hells Angels 4 would be, like, career criminals. - Yeah, and some of those, like you said fun. Like, you want to spend more time on the road with your brothers, right? You want to go to all the parties. You want to make sure you can hear all the club houses having a full-time job, especially back then. It was difficult, right? - So some guys, sure, got involved in stuff to pay to keep going on the road, or to not have a full-time job, especially in George Christie's area. Like, that was a big thing. They were counter-culture, they're outside of society. And they would, hey, they had no moral obligations or ethical dilemmas about it. But it wasn't that they were trying to be organized criminals. They were like, yeah, man, if I sell a little bit of this to be a little bad, that funds my lifestyle. - Exactly. So, what makes you 1%? - So this is controversial. My answer is going to be controversial because I get it a lot. As you know, everyone knows the old adage that how the 1% started. And there were the group that got kicked out of the American racing motorcycle. So they were saying we're the one, you know, the 1% was the ones that caused the problems. And so those 1% are clubs or the outlaw clubs were outlawed as far as they weren't affiliated with the racing organization, right? They weren't sanctioned clubs anymore. Law enforcement took that as, they're the 1% that don't follow rules. And you know that era too, again, we talked about the counter-culture of the anti-society and stuff like that, or outside of society. To me, what 1% means nowadays is you're a member of one of the dominant clubs. And when I say dominant, the regional club that oversees, you know, that has like Banditos in Texas, sort of, you know, outlaw is an Illinois. Like those are the 1% clubs, you know. In my mind, there's like six to eight of them. They've been here since the 60s. They have their region. And they're the ones that they call the dominant club, right? Like they have support clubs or one other clubs want to start up. They generally have to ask that club for permission. Another club want, like who do you call when you travel through? You know, those types of things. To me, that's what the 1% are club is nowadays. That's what that means is you're the top tier of motorcycle clubs. I don't think that has anything to with criminality or anything like that. I mean, they can't anymore. We've talked about it for a while. Like you really, you have such a spotlight on you that how much and everyone has cell phones and informants and the laws. I mean, how criminal can you be if you want your club to exist? Right. So to me, it's more like they were, it's a top tier club. Being a 1% or like, here's something else controversial, but it's usually from Trump dropouts. But in my opinion, I don't call myself 1% anymore. To me, to be a 1% or your member of a 1% or organization. When you leave that, sure, do I still live, I live the same life I've always have. But that to me, that didn't make me 1% or because again, then you're going back to saying 1% or means that I'm outside of the norm and I'm doing this criminal shit. And to me, being 1% or to me was as a member of 1% motorcycle club. Like I no longer wear 1% or pendants or rings. Or you know what I mean? Yeah. So when you leave the moguls, you, how does that work? I mean, I know there's various ways to leave, right? You can be bad. You can get your rocker ripped off. There's a few ways. And what's kind of funny, too, and this goes back to these false narratives is when I had told even close friends that I left the club, they're like, I didn't know you could do that. And blood and blood. Yeah, and I know, you know, there's that old narrative from back to the day, but for me, what's funny is what people don't realize is, as long as I was in leadership, I saw more people quit than join, right? Like as, and people, where people that think make mistakes or don't understand fully, is the early generation of motorists, like the early Hell's Angels stuff. These guys were in the early 20s dog. They got married in careers. And they were, most of them, like if you look at our archives and he has like all those old history of these guys, most of them, the original members and stuff, they were in for five, six, seven years. They became adults and things changed and they can no longer, you know, just be out on the bikes with the boys all the time. And so, you know, as, as that has progressed, I think it's a challenge. It's hard to stay in a club your whole life if you are also doing positive things in your life. If you're working with family and kids, it's really hard to balance that. And, you know, I have a podcast called Patch Podcasts where a lot of it as we do is look at the mental health effect that has on club life because when you're in it, your blinders are on your 110%. We all, I mean, I was, we all, you should be, right? If you should be in, if you're all in, you should be all in. But a lot of people will have left the club. It took a while, but when they're out, they realize, dude, I was neglecting my time with my kids. I was like, every weekend you're gone. If you really don't bring yourself in another tool, a lot of events, except for maybe the parties. And it's like, man, I wasn't spending time with my wife. I was, and when I was home, I was so distracted. Man, my phone, you know, I was in leaderships. My phone's blown up 24/7. I was always on my phone. And so be able to maintain that lifestyle for that long. Very few people can do it. And so a lot of people leave. Who are some of the legends? George Christie is a legend. Yeah. So it's a live that for like decades and decades. - Yeah, never. - And now he's out bad. - You know, he's out bad, right? - Yeah. - You know, Taco Bowman from the banditos or from now laws, I'm sorry. George Wade, some of those early banditos, there's a lot, when you think legends, it's more like, 'cause we know from leadership, like what did they do as a leader that changed the face of club life, right? Every club, and I won't say his name 'cause he's still active, but every club has the super gangster, right? They got it, he's been in 40 years, but you still like, you can see in his eyes that do his about the business, you know what I mean? And there's those legends, right? But when you think like, when I think legendary club members, I think of guys that like made it like George, came and made a name for himself and was it, I pitted me of a great member, or he pitted me of a great member, you know? - Great honor. - Yeah, yeah, for sure. But, you know, he cared about his membership, he brought his family members and like, you know, and guys, here's the other part to his back. When I first joined, I had so much respect for the old school members, A, 'cause I love the history, I love to hear the stories. The more club culture has changed, longer I was in, I was less and less original members after old school members left. Nowadays, with politics and all the drama I've seen, because the clubs change so much that if you're a nuisance or you're a threat, you get thrown out in bad standings, right? So if you, when I first joined, the legend, dude, I was talking about, he said, "Hey man, if you wanna stay in a club, don't get involved in politics." As a new member, that made sense. But for someone that cares about my club and the well-being of my club, why would I not voice my opinion? Why would I not stand and say, I don't think this is a good move, I don't think this is right. Now, it's a, you know, we vote on it, and then the president makes his decision. And if there was times, like me and Dave would disagree on a topic, but once he said, "Hey, here's what we're doing." Okay, I mean, but I would always voice my opinion. So how can you stay out of politics if you care about, especially if, like for me, I started chapters. I was in charge of regions. How do you stay out of politics, right? Like, I go, okay, yeah, yeah, that's fine. Or when I have to sit down like, I did all the sit-downs with the bandits and were at the outlaws and a lot of the major clubs, like, how do I stay out of politics, right? And so I look at it now, and this is gonna sound disrespectful, and I guess it is, but the people that are still in, that all that guy's been 40 years, all I can think of is, maybe he was, I'm sure he was a great member, but at this day and age, he's a guy that sits in the back of the room and won't raise his hand. And I don't have a lot of respect for that anymore because how many people get kicked out. And so to go back and answer a question about leaving the club is, after Black Rain, a ton of people quit, right, tons. - Black Rain was that big, the big raid. - The away, the Rico indictment. - The club got super small, you know, at the, right before that, you know, the Mongols were having that issue with Mexico Off, he had said, or what the hell's angels, lost a lot of members. And so I think Doc's first rule was, well, I said how Doc was running both of the numbers, he was bringing people in and he would tell everyone, just give me five years, give me five years. So he had a rule that if you five years member, you can retire leaving good standing. Well, a lot of us that stayed in after all that, didn't, you know, saw so many people quit. And you know, when you're in and people quit, even if it's for good reasons, like I'm very guilty of it, but when people quit, you see it as they're leaving you, right? That's not what's, it's it for the greater good, it's not for the brother, they're leaving you. And obviously outside of that, I know how crazy that is. But when you're in, that was the blinders you have on. And so we all changed the rule that you couldn't leave the club and you couldn't retire unless you've been in for 10 years. Now the caveat to that would be leaving the club. So, you know, say someone's on parole for the next five years. Well, I'm not going to make him be an actor. Remember, he's gonna get in trouble, right? Or the guy that's going through a divorce or custody battle. And now he's a single dad and he's got to work two jobs. What kind of brother am I going to be if I say, yeah, you can't leave dog, you know? So there's those leaving and good standings or retired. So good standings is kind of your out retired. Do you get to keep your, at least in the long list, you get to keep your patch club tattoos. They can still attend parties and so are their patch when they ride even. Out is you don't have the club stuff, but you can still talk to members and see people. And then out bad is you're not allowed to have any communication with any member. And if a member is caught having communication with someone out bad, they get kicked out too. So you're out bad, yeah. Even though you didn't do anything to merit that, it sounds like, yeah. So you can't ride, you can't ride with your patch on anymore. You know, I can't, I don't have my patch. I get sent it back. And so when I had set off air, I had actually, I saw the riding on the walls. I was likely going to get pushed out. Politics were changing. And here's another big thing too for me, man, is the morals and values of the under the new leadership didn't align with mine. And now that, you know, I was in a position, I was very grateful to be in position where I could kind of build a program following the club's rules, but based more off of my vision, getting people to work out, no meth, like those weren't national rules. Those were in my regions. And when they started taking those things away, or here's the other thing, is an organ when we started, you know, we had one chapter. And then we had two. We were still small. So we always ran as Oregon was like the organ chapter. And then as we got bigger, I always ran it. Like we go to national and we'd all say together and there would be compliments by everyone's like, oh, the organ program because we were always together. And if Portland chapter had a party, everyone better go. But some of the newer leadership, which actually also the older leadership for Dave, but these different leadership styles started being more focused on chapter by chapter. And I think a lot of that is that inherent like Southern California gang culture and neighborhood culture. But my chapter is better than your chapter, or we have beef, not like they're gonna fight, but we don't like this chapter. There's all the shit talking. Oh yeah, they got a function, but I don't like those guys. I'm not gonna go. And it's sort of, to me, that's undermining the brotherhood of the club and it's undermining leadership, you know. And so seeing the new, the person that took over, the way he was doing things and it was like, no longer were things unified. It was like, well, you just say a through guy to my chapter or disciplined him and he called to this guy, he would go, okay, just go over to that chapter. Well, you know that, how that's gonna go? As him go his chapter and say his opinion, now we don't get along or whatever. So there was just like the seeds of like they were undermining the brotherhood. And so it wasn't aligning with me anymore. And another big piece is I was doing this sit down with these clubs, right? And so I was really close to the banditos. We were tight and in, I don't know, get the year wrong, but probably around 2019, little Dave, a bunch of the Hispanic members of the national leadership of the banditos had wanted to become Mongols. And they sat down with the leadership. And so little Dave was asking me and some of the state reps are opinion on it. And I was against it. I didn't think it was a good idea at all. But I had been talking to these bandos in Texas. And before I even knew about this, I'd asked him about, I had some friends that were out in that Odessa area. And I was like, hey, would you ever be willing to have some Mongols in Texas? Like cordially, right? We're trying to cool. Well, the Southern shit's going on and what I don't know about, right? So when it happens, a lot of it looked like I knew about it or that I did it, which, I mean, whatever. It's a nature of the game. But it shifted my relationship with the banditos. And Illinois, when I had moved out there, I cordially had told them I'm moving out here from my life goes to school, I'm new in Jiu-Jitsu, I have no interest in starting chapter here. Now, I'll never box myself in the chorus, I'm not going to, but I really did. I have no interest in starting a chapter there. And so when we started our first chapter there, I called it St. Louis, Missouri, out of respect for the outlaws. Now, I had started talking to them a lot about wanting to do a Southern Illinois chapter. Do we all part together, hang out together? The only thing that was going to change would be the riding on our patch, right? Didn't see it being a big issue. There was some conflict with it, but it might have been on the work out. But I'd always given them my word that I have no interest in ever starting Chicago. I know their history there. But they were running out of Lake County, Indiana. But again, Little Dave or National P at the time, due to some other people that were in his ear, talk to him and say, "Hey, since we're doing Illinois, we're doing Chicago." So it looks like I go back in my word. And I would, if I was still under Dave, Dave would have explained to the outlaws when we were having sit-downs that, this is what Mooch is called. I'd never had the power to make a call like that, ever. That's a national leadership thing, and that's like a president thing. But this new leadership, when the outlaw started, we're having issues trying to have sit-downs, the new leadership said, "Oh, yeah, we didn't approve Chicago. That was Mooch and Dave." Oh, yeah, we didn't do Texas. That was Mooch and Dave. I'm still an active member, man. The FBI just come to me and said, "There's a credible threat on your life. There's members of the outlaws are trying to kill you." And my own club is saying, "Oh, yeah, Mooch did that on his own." Did you really have a credible threat? Yeah, yeah, they, so things were getting really, really tense there for a while. So just like in Oregon, right? I started the chapter, the model was there when the local clubs there didn't want us. They've been there for a long time. So I started St. Louis. There was no models in the area. There's a lot of old school clubs. And then we started Illinois. You know, that law's been there since the '40s. And so it was a direct threat to them or disrespect to them, right? Because I didn't get their approval. I had worked on it, I tried to, but calls were made and it ended up being what it was. So how'd you squash that or how'd you get that? It's still not washed. No, and that's kind of the thing, too, is one of the reasons that I decided step aside is, this is more twofold is there was a member named Tug who was, he was the regional or the Southern Illinois boss of the outlaws when I first moved out there. And he when I got real close, real close. And he ended up getting thrown out of the outlaws for I believe drug use. Which if that's true, that's crazy. 'Cause that's true to the law of drugs. But he had kept wanting to say, well, hey, I want to be a mogul. Let me be a mogul, I'll build a mogul. And we still got a long way at the outlaws and we had an agreement. We wouldn't take each other's ex members. So I was like, hey dude, especially if he really did have a drug problem, I wasn't gonna bring him in anyways. But this was a good way for me to be like, hey dude, I'd love to, but we can't. Well, the pagans were expanding by now. They're getting bigger. There are certain more areas. And they were one of the only clubs that would allow ex outlaws or ex one presenters to come. So I did tell them, by then, there was a guy who did you get to with that was a regional boss for the pagans, it was helping expansion. And I put the two of them together. And part of that was selfishly as well, where now I know the outlaws knew there's all this talk of them attacking us and all this stuff. Some thinking, well, hey, if another club they don't like starts here, now they're gonna be fighting on two fronts. It wasn't the best move in the long run, but that's where my mindset was at. And so Tug ends up starting the pagans in Southern Illinois. And so we have a run plan say us a Saturday where we were in a pagans and models were gonna get together and we ran around and showed that we were united. And Friday night for the run, Tug it murdered, shot like 12 times in front of his house. And this was like, where was this? Southern Illinois is about 20 miles from my house, and so supposedly, well, I know who the guy was, but there was an outlaw running around to him where we got tug and mooch is next. Now, whether that was really a credible threat or not, who knows? But somebody just got murdered, and he's saying that they did it, and now he's saying we're gonna get mooch, so some informants tell the feds, and you know how that goes, right? Do they ever catch the guy who committed the body? No. No. And then what was that over, you think? Him leaving the outlaws and going to a rival club is, well, at least that's on paper that there is knowing tug and knowing more backstory, he was involved in a lot of different things. So, honestly, my full belief in the OBS is I really don't think the outlaws did it. I think it was convenient for some members to take credit for it, but I don't think they did it, and I really feel like they did. They probably got caught, too. But I really, he was involved in some other stuff, like I said, he was into some drugs and other stuff. So are you going to stay out of Southern Illinois, though? No, I mean, I go back, I mean, I stayed there. That's not why I left, but there's nowhere that you're kind of lying low, like there's no territory where like explicitly, it's dangerous for you to go. There's probably so much dangerous for me to go, but I mean, I don't get where I want to go, man, and I mean, I mean that with all due respect. I know tough guy, I know bad ass, but I'm also, you know, you see me all over the internet on podcasts, all stuff, I'm going to live my life. And especially from, dude, I left that world, like one of the things like said, so the banditos, obviously when we were in the clubs, it was beef because of all the Texas thing. When I left, I called one of my friends, it's in the national, and he goes, hey, dude, any beef we had with you was got left when we left the club. To me, that's respectful because say, you're in hell's angel, I'm a mongo, and when we're at it, we fight in each other, right? But now we're not. And it's like, what am I holding, hold a grudge against you for what you did when you're in your club? You're supposed to do that, right? You did what you were supposed to do when a club, yeah. But there are some people and some clubs that still hold an issue over it. And I guess that just is what it is. Like, like I said, I know I made some mistakes. I'll own them. So so now that you've been out for a couple of years, like on a high level, just looking at what the 1% landscape looks like today, right now in 2026. Who do you think is the strongest 1% club in America? Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting missed from Mavily New York. Gel to miss technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue, just plump, dewy hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new grippy setting missed from Mavily New York. Maybe it's Mavily. Man, that's really tough because there's so many. So you know, I would always say to this day, still the hell's angels are going to always be the well most well known for sure, because from the early decades, even now, I mean, I have friends that know about clubs and they might even see a mongo go, there goes a hell's angel like people see a pack of bikers are hardly on a group somewhere in patches, they go, those are hell's angels, right? So I think as far as popularity goes or name recognition, that's always going to be the hell's angels. I think, you know, with media coverage and stuff, the models are starting to be a pretty well known name. Like when I joined the models in Oregon, no one knew the hell we were to, like, I remember like some of the locals would hate to the free souls, no, you're here. I'm like, no, who? What now? They were like, who are you guys? I mean, they people thought we were made up club. But I guess it depends. So it's like it by region, right? Still like, there's big clubs that are still dominant in their region. Who's the most? Who's the club that's like coming up? The Vogue is probably, you know, I think, you know, the Mongols were that club, and then with their little, they've gotten thrown out in the politics and leadership change, not that they lost members over it. But, you know, if I was going to join and I'm seeing this stuff going on, I might not. And I think the Vogue is, a lot of people went to the Vogue was instead. They have very similar culture, a lot of Hispanic members, a lot of punk rock members, and the same area, which is like the Southwest. That's sudden California is working. Okay. I mean, they're all over now, but yeah, that's where they're like where they started and where they're strong at. So I would say, as far as like the strong started growing, the pagans are showing up everywhere, but they're, they're doing it like outside of traditional norms, like they're, you know, taking X members from other clubs or don't quote me on it, but I'm pretty sure that they had said that they would take a former law enforcement in some areas. They had passed over guys from the iron order. And I'm cool with pagans. I'm not trying to say I'm badmouthing, but as they're growing, a lot of the other one percent clubs don't show the respect to them that they used to because the pagans were a very formidable legitimate one percent club. And with their growth, you know, it's like with anything, you're sort of going to states who've never been in. How are you going to bet who it is? You know, who do you think is the most criminal? Like, who do you think really is like the most, the most real outlaw, like catching the most cases, committing the most murders? Man, that's so hard to say because they're really, I mean, they're really isn't as far as I mean, you really can't, right? Like to say before, as you're going to wear a patch, you really can't be that criminal. There's probably individuals out there that are some downsteads, but as far as like who's the most gangster club, I would say like who? Well, again, it's kind of regional. Like the models moving it to Texas, it wasn't a walkthrough. There's been shootings back and forth ever since. You know, that laws and models were not shooting at each other for a while. Angels and models still are at war with each other. So it's like, was that right? Yeah, oh yeah. So I would say that, you know, in this, if you're a part of one of those big five one percent of clubs, there's likely an enemy and you're not just getting pushed around. Well, they shot that pagan leader to death with silencers and broad daylight in New York. That was wild, right? The guy we had on here who talked about it, he was, he said that there was rumors that he was trying to recruit blood members into the pagans. Have you seen that on the west coast? I mean, we talked about that a little bit, but do the models do that with like, Soranios or anything like that? Yeah, but I wouldn't call it recruiting. So what I'd say is like, so there's a big crossover now from the punk rock hardcore scene, like you guys over in the hardcore crews or whatever, going to motorcycle clubs. And it starts because, you know, four or five of your friends do it. And then, oh, hey, the dude from FSU, they join and then, you know, younger guys are looking up to that. They start getting the scene and then, you know, those are like youth cultures. You start to grow out of it. Now you're riding a bike. So it's like a natural progression. And so Southern California, it's been set to the gang. Their stuff is so predominant. Oh, yeah. I know guy from that neighborhood. So I don't think it's necessarily recruiting. I think it's the cultural where you're at. But I think it's that next logical step, right? Like I'm growing out of this. And this is still you still have the community and the brotherhood and standing up for something and the representing something. But you're also, it's almost like I don't want to call it retirement from gang stuff. But it's almost like, you know, it's a step in different direction. Right? You're like, hey, I'm not, I'm not, you know, doing the neighborhood shit all the time now. Less risk of getting a trouble or getting hurt. But it's still a risky lifestyle. And you're still doing similar stuff. Right. So I think it's, you know, depending on the region, I think it's more natural that say a guy came from the bloods and he, and now he's in, he's in a columnist homies or his homies want to hang out. Yeah. But I don't know. I haven't seen it be intentional. Yeah. Ironically, the 1% clubs have become kind of what the crypts and the bloods said that they formulated to actually do, formed to actually do, which is to give a sense of brotherhood and protection. It was supposed to be like a positive thing. Yeah, yeah. That's why it took you William's start of the crypts was like it was supposed to be like a neighborhood. Family, right? Family. Defending your neighborhood. Exactly. You know, for your neighbor, making sure that other people aren't coming in and doing illegal shit or ruining, you know, right? Exactly. Family. Yeah. It was supposed to be like a protection for the neighborhood. And something that was positive. And they did have positivity at the beginning because that was, that came about after the Black Panther era. But of course, we saw that that quickly introduced money to any sort of group, right? Yeah. And money and power. Yeah. And it's going to corrupt anything. I mean, we don't even know. For all we know now, that could have been a CIA sign up. Just like we know that a lot of rap music, gangster rap music was, was, had the CIA behind it to divide the community. The crack epidemic in Los Angeles in the first year. Oh, that's the most proven, you know? Yeah. So why wouldn't they? Right. Right. And even from what I've seen a motorcycle close, I said for a Laughlin, for example, there's a lot of pretty good, well, theories out there that the hell's angels are right there. Casino, the models were at theirs. Now there is a lot of tension because the models had just moved in in Northern California. They were no longer talking. They didn't care for each other. But they had both had gone to this event every year, stayed at these hotels. For whatever reason, some hell's angels decided to stay. The Mongols just stayed at a different hotel this year to be away, even further away. There happened to be some hell's angels there. With some looks, but no big deal. A cop went to the hell's angels casino, which were all on ATFings work and said, Hey, your buddies are surrounded by Mongols. They need help. The informants were on the floor talking about this. Mongols are over there harassing the the angels. So the angels get on their bikes, run over there, attack the Mongols. Boom, Laughlin happens. So it's like pretty not a crazy conclusion to jump to to say that law enforcement is instigating these things for various all sorts of like we talked about being able to sustain your own unit, right? Do your own thing to get the funding to have these national coverage. They look, and here's the other part too, when when they try to take our patch a little, they've came up with this thing, the save the patch initiative. And at this point, the banditos were on board. Like the angels, we were working on this truth with the angels. The outlaws were like, we were all working together because they wanted to say to, Hey, if they can take the Mongols patch, they can take ours. And that's a direct threat to law enforcement and the government is if all these 1% are clubs are working together. It's not a threat as in other, they're going to be super criminals. It's a threat of the scheme even harder and harder to make right. They're not fight. Here's the thing when we talked about this earlier. The last thing that 1% are still doing that you're able to call them criminals is these public, the public violence. Right. If they're getting along with each other, there's not going to be public violence. What is left for law enforcement to say, Hey, here's why we need to shut them down. It's like a mini false flag. Yeah, it's It's how we know now, World War One, two, Vietnam, everything going on in Gaza. That was a false flag. Israel instigated October 7th as an excuse to go in and basically try to commit ethnic cleansing. When the government, when the ATF provokes a shooting in Waco that kills nine people, that's a mini false flag, to justify budget and propaganda and the cycle continues. And keep in mind to you, where a lot of people don't understand is these biker gang experts, they get paid extra to be experts. They get paid to testify as trials as biker gang experts. They get paid to go to trainings, right? They get paid to go to your, to the other agency and be like, yeah, here's what we know. No, they want to come on podcasts and keep pushing the propaganda because they get that's they're and again, we want to talk about identity that becomes their identity. They're the micro game. They're the undercover that infiltrated the biker gangs. I'm that guy that infiltrated the biggest undercover ever. You know, we have the most busts. It goes to ego identity and fun and money. Totally. Can you imagine spending six, three years of your life undercover for motorcycle club and saying, damn dude, oh, we did it as party and I barely saw any legal shit. Yeah. I'm an alcoholic. Yeah. I ruined a lot of lives by sending people to prison and taking away from their wives who I sat dinner, had dinner with and hung out with their kids on holidays. Yeah, man. They weren't bad. They were good people. Just mentally, psychologically, they're not going to admit that. No, we're these guys are the bad guys. We were just we need you guys need us. We need the money. We need the guns. We need the body armor. Like, we need the funding. Well, I think the public pretty well knows that the government's wasting our tax money. Absolutely. But I think the cats out of the bag now, well, buddy, I've had so much fun talking to you, man. It's been great. You wrote a book. Please plug that. We have a lot of Biker fans that watch the show. So I'm sure they would love to hear about it. Yeah, yeah. Check it out. It's called The Ride of My Life. It's on Amazon Barnes and Noble. Anywhere you want to get it. And it really talks about the early years from punk rock skinned touring and bands to how I got a motorcycle club is what that life was like. And then getting out and becoming a therapist in this kind of that full circle. A lot of details in it and it's really great feedback. And then on top of that, I have the patch podcast where we talk about we have, it started out as a goal to show the public and members that it was me and a former house angel are sitting down together with the host to show like how much we all have in common. If the name of the top rocker was different, we'd all be getting along. And then it really turned into this arc of the mental health aspect being a club has. And then also there's this huge community of people that spend whether it's law enforcement, whether it's army gangs, whatever, you spend, say, 10, 15, 20 years of your young adulthood with a certain identity and developing belonging to something and you leave. There's this big question of, what do I do next, man, you know, who am I? What's my purpose? And so we really focus on that and really help, you know, people find their meaning in life and where the direction they want to go and then move on to positive things. So that's the patch podcast. It's been dope. Awesome, man. Go check all that out. Mooch. Appreciate you, dog. Thanks a lot for that. All right. Take care, guys. Peace. [MUSIC PLAYING]