With heavily tattooed arms, a motorcycle vest, red bandana, and long goatee, Jay Dobyns fit the stereotype for the kind of person who would hang around the street-hardened bikers of the Hells Angels Skull Valley Charter. He would peddle T-shirts for the one-percenter motorcycle club, run errands at ungodly hours, and eventually break bread with individuals who wouldn’t think twice about taking a baseball bat to someone’s head.

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Two years in, and the Hells Angels had no idea that Dobyns, who was close to getting his patch, was an undercover agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The patch is sacrosanct to the Hells Angels. After a shootout between the Hells Angels and the Mongols, a rival biker gang, “We found Mongols cuts in vents, stuffed in trash cans, and some were floating down the Colorado River,” Dobyns said. “As far as the Hells Angels and their patches, we didn’t find a single one. The Hells Angels don’t take off their patches for anyone.”

Becoming a patched member of the gang is no easy task — and Dobyns had already done a lot more than simply run errands for them in his attempt to be welcomed into the gang.

At times, he even had to participate in assaults, getting a taste of the vicious world in which the Hells Angels reside.

In 2002, a shootout between the two gangs at Harrah’s casino in Laughlin, Nevada left two Hells Angels and one Mongols dead and gamblers diving for cover. Mongols gang members attacked a Hells Angels member in 2005 at a Toys-for-Tots charity ride at a Chuck-E-Cheese in San Diego, stealing his Hells Angels attire. In 2002, members of the Mongols and the Hells Angels had a confrontation at the Harrah's Laughlin Casino in Laughlin, Nevada, that left three bikers dead. Mongol Anthony 'Bronson' Barrera, 43, was stabbed to death and two Hells Angels – Jeramie Bell, 27, and Robert Tumelty, 50 – were shot to death.

“My reaction was to fight my way to the victim and take control of the victim, throw my punches, both maintain my cover and protect my persona, and protect the victim from any life-threatening battle damage,” Dobyns said. “It’s one of the elements of tradecraft.”

For the Hells Angels, it was hardly enough.

In 2002, the rift between the Hells Angels and their legendary rivals, the Mongols, hit a boiling point. The two gangs were involved in a big-time gunfight at the Harrah Casino & Hotel in Laughlin, Nevada. It was the event that led to Dobyns going undercover.

Dobyns wanted to get a good idea of where the Hells Angels stood against the Mongols, especially with what had happened in Laughlin. “I asked the president of the Skull Valley Charter what I should do if I come across a Mongol,” Dobyns said. “And he said to me, ‘It’s your job to kill him.’”

As time passed, Dobyns sat on the incriminating information from the charter president, continuing to gain more trust with the gang members, all while a series of homicides happened in his wake. One of the murders was particularly brutal. The Hells Angels beat a woman to death in their clubhouse, wrapped her body in a piece of carpet, and cut her head off in the desert.

It was a pivotal moment in the investigation. Dobyns decided it was time for the Hells Angels to see how far he was willing to go to show his devotion and loyalty. If it worked, he was in. If it didn’t, he was dead.

“We took a living, breathing member of our task force, got a Mongols cut, dressed him up in the vest, and brought in a homicide detective to create a crime scene,” Dobyns said. “We used makeup, animal parts, animal blood, and dug a shallow grave. Then we duct taped his hands and feet and threw him in the grave.”

Angels

The elaborate ruse needed to be properly documented in order to convince the Hells Angels leadership that it was real.

“I asked the homicide detective to make it look like the victim had been beaten with a baseball bat and shot in the head,” Dobyns said. “Almost Hollywood-style. We photographed it. We took pictures of the crime scene, and we took the bloody mongol vest back to the Hells Angels leadership.”

Dobyns showed the vest to the charter president, the vice president, the sergeant-at-arms and one another member of the gang. “They were either going to believe me, or I was going to get a baseball bat to the back of the head or razor wire to the throat,” he said.

Harrah

Fortunately, the president didn’t have any plans to dispose of Dobyns. In fact, quite the opposite: They hugged him, kissed him, and welcomed him into the gang.
Convinced that Dobyns had just savagely murdered a Mongol, the gang wanted to immediately get rid of the fabricated proof. “We went out to the desert and burned all the evidence along with the Mongol cut. They helped destroy the evidence of the murder we exposed them to in order to cover up the crime.”

Dobyns now had his patch, but his time in the Hells Angels was coming to an end.

The investigation, code named “Operation Black Biscuit,” concluded with ATF executives citing that it was too dangerous to continue — even though Dobyns argued that they should let him stay and work the case. Regardless, he remains the first law enforcement officer to successfully infiltrate the cold and callous world of the Hells Angels.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nine members of the Mongols motorcycle gang have sued Harrah’s Entertainment, claiming the company’s Laughlin hotel-casino failed to provide adequate security during a 2002 biker rally.

Two Hells Angels and one Mongols motorcycle gang member died and at least 12 people were injured after a brawl involving guns and knives inside Harrah’s Laughlin casino.

In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on Wednesday, the Mongols are seeking unspecified damages for injuries suffered during the melee and for causing “anguish, despair and emotional distress.”

A Harrah’s spokesman said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit says hotel security knew the Hells Angels would be at the rally in Laughlin, a Colorado River resort town about 100 miles south of Las Vegas near the Arizona border. The lawsuit also says hotel security should have known that there was a high probability the Hells Angels would attempt to harm members of the Mongols Motorcycle Club.

“Harrah’s employees witnessed numerous Hells Angels coming through the doors with guns, knives and various other weapons in hand ready for use,” the lawsuit states. “Plaintiffs did not observe hotel security personnel … attempt to stop the Hells Angels or ask that the weapons carried by the Hells Angels be left outside or to completely disarm the Hells Angels.”

The plaintiffs in the case were listed as Southern California residents Alex Alcantar, Davey Camargo, Benjamin Leyva, Enrique Munoz, Roger Pinney, Walter Ramirez, Jesus Rodriguez, Raymond Santos, Benjamin Silva.

Authorities have made one arrest in connection with the brawl. Calvin Brett Schaefer was arrested in April 2002, but was later released and charges against him were dropped in July 2002.

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Investigators have said they are continuing to review videotape of the fight and are sorting through a list of potential defendants in the case.

Schaefer, a member of the Hells Angels, has since been arrested in Arizona as part of a two-year undercover federal investigation into gun and drug trafficking as well as murder-for-hire.

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Thirty-six arrest warrants resulted from that investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Schaefer was charged with two counts of possessing a firearm and two counts of possession of methamphetamine.

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