The Jordan Harbinger Show
1112: Jay Dobyns | Undercover with the Hells Angels Part Two
Thu, 06 Feb 2025
How did former ATF agent Jay Dobyns spend years undercover with the Hells Angels and live to tell the tale? Listen to this two-parter to find out! [Pt. 2/2 — find Pt. 1/2 here!] What We Discuss with Jay Dobyns: The Hells Angels maintain an extensive rulebook that governs members' behavior, with strict hierarchies and protocols. Breaking these rules can result in severe consequences, demonstrating how the organization operates more like a structured criminal enterprise than just a motorcycle club. Many Hells Angels members live in stark contrast to the glamorized Hollywood image of biker gangs. While some members are affluent, others live in extreme poverty, and children in these environments often face severely challenging circumstances. Undercover agents cannot use drugs or engage in certain criminal activities — even if it would make their cover more convincing — as this would compromise their credibility as witnesses and violate laws they're meant to uphold. The emotional toll of undercover work had a severe impact on Jay's family life. His son would give him rocks as protection talismans, revealing how even young children understand the dangers their undercover parent faces. Successfully compartmentalizing undercover work from personal life is a crucial skill that requires conscious effort and practice. This can be developed by implementing clear boundaries, as Jay's wife suggested with the "dimmer switch" concept — learning to dial down the intensity when returning home and being present with family. This is the second half of a two-part episode. Find part one here! Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1112 And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom! Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: How did Jay Dobyns balance undercover work with family life?
Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger Show. I tried to defend myself. I said, I'm not a light switch. I can't turn this on and off. I have to be on all the time. People that treat what I do for a living like a hobby end up dead. And then her response was, I understand that. But when you come to this house, you better install a dimmer switch and dial that attitude down.
Because if you can't do that, you're not welcome here.
Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. astronaut, national security advisor, or Russian chess grandmaster. If you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about it, and of course I appreciate it when you do, I suggest our episode starter packs.
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If you haven't heard part one, definitely go check that out. We're going undercover in the Hells Angels, a fascinating episode so far. All right, let's jump back into it with Jay Dobbins. You mentioned in the book that a small number of outlaw bikers have a lot of influence over the more restrained guys.
There's career criminals that do nothing but drugs and crime, and they have a lot of influence over the other guys who maybe have functional lives outside the gang. And that drives a lot of the violence and crime. And my very limited experience with... say Hell's Angels in New York City, there's a headquarters there.
And if you go to the convenience store or any of the bars nearby, they're in there and you can say like, oh, Hell's Angels, wow, are you from New York? No, I actually am from California. I just drove here over the past couple of weeks. Wow, how long does that take? Now we do it in five days, but it's exhausting.
You're small talking with them about something they did, but you're not like, so did you bring meth with you? Like you don't say anything like that. And they're perfectly friendly. They don't kick you out of the bar or push you off the bar. Well, it's almost confusing.
Not every Hells Angels patch that I crossed paths with was a murderer or a rapist or a gun runner or a drug trafficker. There were plenty of them that I crossed paths with that weren't actively, at least actively, involved in criminal activity. When I crossed paths with those people who weren't actively criminal, like, I didn't have much interest in them. Like, why?
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Chapter 2: What is the structure and influence of the Hells Angels?
You said, when you become a Hells Angel, everything else about you is now moot. They have a rule book that makes the Division I football playbook look like a pamphlet on buying a jacuzzi. I'm so curious what kind of rules there are. We mentioned never passing a full patches front wheel or something when you're driving, but what kind of other rules are there?
I know there's rules about girlfriends and wives and things like that. Maybe you can give us some examples of the rules, especially if they're weird.
There's pages and pages and pages of typewritten bylaws, things that you can and can't do. One of the things that like stunned me in today's world, and now granted we're talking about 20 years ago when this investigation was active, but nonetheless, even 20 years ago, like written in the bylaws were no rules.
Fill in the blank with the most offensive, obscene word you can use to describe a black person. No fill in the blank in the club. That was written down. It was in their bylaws. And I remember reading that and I was like, man, I get that there's this racist element to what we're doing, but like you guys wrote it down and made it part of the bylaws. No blank in the club.
I was like, OK, like I'm not making these rules. And that was for me, to a large extent, that was compromising because I wasn't raised that way. That's not the mentality I had. Like I was an athlete, like I had spent my youth and as a young adult in locker rooms and on sports fields with people of all different colors, all different backgrounds to say that
There's a rule written down that I cannot associate or be friends with this person now. It was unsettling to me.
What are some of the weirdest rules that almost don't make any sense until you think about it or until you explain it?
One, like a writing rule, and I can't say for certain that this was written down, but it definitely was impressed on me, was that as a prospect at writing with other members, I could not let my front wheel cross that members back wheel. It was a violation of that delineation of status within the gang, at least not without being invited.
If you're riding behind someone and you're behind a member and you're being respectful and he waves you up, come on. Okay, now I've been invited up, but I couldn't do that on my own. I did one time without knowing the rule. And when we stopped for gas, a member came back and said, next time you do that, when I hit you in the mouth, you'll know why.
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