Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws: My Infiltration of America’s Deadliest Biker Gangs

Falco was facing a minimum sentence of 22 years in prison for conspiracy to distribute and manufacture hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine when the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department made him an offer he couldn’t refuse—become an undercover informant instead of going to jail. The bulk of this fascinating autobiography describes in detail Falco’s work infiltrating the Vagos Motorcycle Club, an outlaw biker gang considered in 2003 to be the “largest urban terrorist” organization in the U.S. Falco’s main assignment reads like a synopsis of the book: “Get inside, gather intelligence on the gang, identify the club’s leaders, purchase drugs from them, and collect as many illegal firearms as you can.” Falco describes in almost excruciating detail how he rose in the Vagos ranks from a go-fer to a full-fledged member, a three-year descent into a violent world of drug abuse, Neanderthal treatment of women, and constant fighting that left Falco living constantly “in a state of veiled paranoia,” even after the Vagos gang was brought down by the law. It is Falco’s unrelenting depiction of the stupidity and brutality in the Vagos biker world that makes his story powerful. Agent: Jill Marsal, the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency(Mar.)