Ken Croke - Riding with Evil: Taking Down the Notorious Pagan Motorcycle Gang

This book is dedicated to my four girls: my wife, Angie, and our three daughters, Kaitlyn, Shannon, and Meaghan. Thanks for always believing in me and keeping me grounded in what is important: family. Love you guys!

Ken Croke

To the law enforcement officers who sacrifice in the name of justice and all the victims whose voices were heard because of those selfless endeavors.

Dave Wedge

It is curiouscurious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.

Mark Twain

Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

Friedrich Nietzsche

A s I prepared to head to my first official Pagans gathering, in Long Island, Boston Bob came to me with some news.

Hey, man, Hogman just fucking killed a prospect. Just thought you should know. I heard it from some of the Pagans in the Elizabeth chapter, he told me. They were blowing lines and something happened. The cops are all over it.

No shit, I said, feigning apathy. Inside, I was deeply concerned, if not straight up terrified. These guys did not fuck around.

It was 2009, and I was about to enter the biker world. Boston Bobs words drove home the stakes of the operation. My decision to immerse myself in a dark, chaotic outlaw world of drugs, violence, and debauchery came into sharp focus. I wasnt just looking to break up some half-ass biker club that was selling drugs and stealing bike parts for their hogs. I was about to dive into a full-on RICO case targeting one of the Big Five outlaw motorcycle gangs, and it already included a murder investigation.

I was pretty sure it wouldnt be the last one.

The unique thing about the case is that it was never supposed to go the way it did. I was never supposed to be the undercover agent on it.

Sometimes life throws you curveballs, they say. And sometimes, in this crazy, random world, a broken water heater might be the thing that changes your life.

Heres how it all started.

In 2008, a call came in to the Boston field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives where I was a supervisor.

I live on the North Shore, the caller, Jake (not his real name), said. Theres a guy up here in the Devils Disciples and I think I could make an introduction for you guys.

Jake was a drunk. A really degenerate one at that. He had a rap sheet and knew he could get paid as an informant, which is why he called us. There was always an ulterior motive with those types of guys. Youll see.

We brought Jake into the Boston field office, and because no one in that office had a lot of experience in working outlaw motorcycle gang cases, I was asked to come in. I had gone undercover many times throughout my career, in Los Angeles, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Arizona, Nevada, Rhode Island, New York, and Colorado. Id survived shoot-outs with gangbangers and taken down bomb-making white supremacists. I knew the cost of undercover work, including the mental toll, and I knew the commitment it took not only to make a case but to survive with my life and sanity intact.

I had also done a lot of undercover work earlier in California with the Mongols and the Vagos biker clubs. One time, I was busting a biker named Vago Chuck in L.A. We executed a search warrant on his house and were in his bedroom. We had him cuffed. He was standing there in the middle of the room, and he wasnt saying anything. We started tossing the room, when all of a sudden I noticed the fucking wall moving.

I drew my gun, shocked about what was happening. As I looked closer, I noticed a figure. It was a womanbare-ass naked and covered head to toe in tattoosand she was chained to the wall. She had so many tattoos, she blended into the wallpaper and I didnt even see her until she moved. They were doing some freaky bondage shit.

But with the cuffs now tight around his wrists, all Chuck could do was laugh.

I also got pulled into the infamous Mongols case led by ATF agent Billy Queen, who infiltrated the club in the late 1990s. The agent who supervised the Mongols case involving Queen was John Ciccone. John and I graduated from the academy together, and we were sworn in to ATF on the same day. We were both sent out to L.A. and were roommates for two years. I was brought in to help out on some takedowns and sit in on key interviews in the Queen case.

I learned a lot from that case, and it prepared me well for what lay ahead.

Eric Kotchian, the agent in the Boston office who took the initial call from the informant, was gung ho about the opportunity to get some intel on the Devils Disciples and the Pagans. He badly wanted to do the case and asked me to do some initial undercover work.

Hey, I just had this guy come in, and he was talking about Devils Disciples and patching over to the Pagans, Kotchian told me.

A stocky, easy going agent with a buzzcut, Eric Kotchian joined ATF in 2002 after working for four years as a United States Marshal. We called him Coach, because of his last name. Eric got along well with everyone due to his laid-back personality.

We talked about the structure of the Disciples and how many members they had in Massachusetts. We also knew they were a support club of the Pagans, which meant they backed them up when needed, were involved in criminal activity with the Pagans, and were allowed at some Pagans events.

Lets bring him in, I said. Lets put him on the box.

The box is a polygraph. Before I spent any time on this case, I wanted to see if Jake was full of shit. I also wanted to be sure that I wasnt being set up.

Jake wasnt a patched member of an outlaw motorcycle gangknown in law enforcement as an OMGbut he was a biker immersed in outlaw culture, and the information he was giving us made a lot of sense.

There are many ways to be connected to a biker gang. You can be a hang-around, which is a male known to one or more members who is allowed to party with the club and hang out at their bars and social events. Then theres a prospect, which is a male seeking to join the club. A prospect is like a pledge in a college fraternity, although the hazing is slightly different, as it often involves threats, beatings, and food and sleep deprivation. They are totally submissive to members and must follow strict rules and fulfill stringent requirements if they are to be accepted. Prospecting in some clubs, especially the Pagans, is hell.

Once a hopeful member successfully completes their prospect time, which in the Pagans is a minimum of six months, and passes the gangs background checks and intense scrutiny, they become a patched member. This means they are formally inducted into the gang. Theyre given a special membership patch, which is a gang logo thats worn on their colors. A bikers colors are like a uniform that consists of a denim jacket adorned with their clubs logos and patches, among other insignias. Pagans colors are sacred to the members, never to be touched by a non-member, never allowed to touch the ground or to be disrespected in any way. In the outlaw biker world, club colors are the most important, followed by your brothers in the club, your bike, your dog, and then your old ladythey all used that misogynistic term to refer to womenin that order. It can take years to become a patched member.

While Jake was just a hang-around with the Disciples, he knew, and more important, witnessed, enough that I thought it was worth a deeper look. So we brought him in, and he nailed the polygraph. Truthful through and through.

I was forty years old and a supervisor running a ten-agent unit south of Boston. We were based in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, a rural outpost halfway between Boston and Providence thats known more for farming and cul-de-sacs than for gangs and explosives. We were a dedicated bunch, and we put together strong cases, busting up gun and drug rings in rough southeastern Massachusetts cities like Brockton, New Bedford, and Fall River.