Welcome to “In the Chill of the Night”, Episode 17 with special guest Lou Valoze, former ATF Agent and long-term undercover agent.
Join George and Ray as Lou takes them on a trip down memory lane, from his “lost in space” years in college, to a paper-pusher job that bored him, to the ah-ha moment when he knew where he was headed – toward a “runnin and gunnin” law enforcement career of outstanding public service and personal highs and lows.
Lou provides a very candid look into how he went from “grasshopper” to “Master PO” in the undercover arena. He shares some of the good, the sad, and the ugly – things that worked well along the way and some not so much.
He’ll share some stories that are “pure gold” – literally – and some that are SNL funny – at least in its heyday. Like how he was selected to infiltrate his first “outlaw biker” gang and how his first run turned out – “hey man was that 1 down and 4 up”? Oh, and how in a Cecil B. DeMille type takedown in a strip club - he unintentionally launched the beat-down of an undercover colleague as he was getting ready to call in the troops.
Lou did it all from, small buys to big buys, and small fries to large guys. As he matured in his roles, he perfected and embraced the Undercover Storefront Operation – he wrote a book about it: Storefront Sting: An ATF Agent's Life Undercover.
Now imagine if you will, a cross between the storefront magnate extraordinaire Sam Walton and a young tough MMA Fighter of Italian heritage - that’s Lou Valoze when it comes to the storefront sting.
He gravitated to the storefront operations for – pardon the pun – the bang for the buck. It was a place for buying more crime guns and kilos - check out on register 5.
A way to get more guns and drugs and criminals off the street in the shortest time possible. Lou is candid about what worked and what didn’t and some of the very hard lessons learned along the way. Listen, understand, and learn.
A man who just could not say no to a new and more challenging assignment – even when he told his colleagues, his family, and his friends he would - after they pleaded with him to slow down.
He admits that he was a man possessed. If he was searching for the Maltese Falcon for undercover operations, he found it in the many awards he received along the way – best gun case – best outlaw biker case - best drug case.
Spoiler alert: Lou is a guy who doesn’t hold back – he will tell you things about himself that will make you sad – it has to do with keeping one's priorities properly aligned – but you will have to tune in in order to learn the three Fs he feels are the keys to a life well lived – the ones he will tell you he learned too late.
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