People Are Revealing The Stories They've Heard From Undercover Cops, And It's Wilder Than The Movies

We've all seen movies about undercover cops and private investigators. Spying in cars, wearing disguises, using codewords – the movies have given us a glimpse into the line of work, even if it's a bit exaggerated.

But does all the stuff in the movies actually happen in real life?

In two different Reddit threads, people who knew undercover cops and private investigators are sharing the wildest things they've heard, and it's mind-blowing.

Some of the people who shared stories used to work in the field, too.

Here are 17 of the most interesting stories and tidbits people shared:

1."I've been a P.I. for about 3 years - mostly for disability fraud, no cheating wives or anything. Coolest/strangest thing I observed was a low level criminal (who was supposed to be disabled), who would spend all day going from Walmart to Walmart."

"In each Walmart, he would fill the shopping cart full to the brim with energy drinks (Monster, I think), walk briskly out the door without paying, throw them in his trunk, and take off like a bat out of hell.

At the end of the day, he sold a trunk-load of energy drinks to a corner store, and I videotaped him walking out with a wad of cash.

Definitely not as exciting as the movies, but it was a fun day for me."

–straight_edge_PI

"My father worked for NCIS. He told me about an incident where his guys set up a sting to bust some drug suppliers who turned out to be local police setting up their own sting. They figured it out when they tried to bust each other."

2."My dad did undercover for several years and talked about a meth head that he hung out with all the time and even babysat her kids when she went out to get high. This went on for several months while they were figuring out who the big dealer was and acquiring warrants. He grew a beard, had a fake id, drove an old shitty car. Eventually, they got warrants to bust a bunch of people in the drug ring, and he actually was part of the SWAT team at the time and was part of the group that smashed in doors and arrested her and a bunch of others in the area. He had to wear a balaclava to protect his identity when with the SWAT team."

"He said it was actually really difficult because he had become an important part of those kids’ lives and was kind of attached to them, and now they had no mother and had to be taken to child protective services. I never got to ask him more questions about this before he passed, but I have no idea how he balanced this second life and then came home and acted like a normal husband and father in our family."

–Crom80x

3."I know a guy (retired police officer) who works as an investigator of crooked doctors. He dresses up in disguises and is given a fake name to use. He goes into doctor’s offices and tries to find out if a doctor who is suspected of overprescribing narcotics is legit or not."

"He told me a story about a time he went into see a dentist about a minor toothache and walked outa there with a prescription for Percocet and Dilaudid. He says there are plenty of legit doctors out there, but there are also a lot of careless ones who give into their drug-seeking patients."

–YOUNGJOCISRELEVANT

4."When I first got started in forensics, it was when chat rooms and webcams were taking off – so pedophiles thought they'd be able to figure out who was who on the internet since clearly you'll know you're webcamming with a 40-year-old dude munching on donuts instead of a 14-year-old girl. I was a naive 18-year-old woman who was just getting started in policing, doing some clerical work for my hometown police department, when I heard a couple of people talking about how they were having a hard time chatting up creeps now that webcams were a thing. I told them why not just hire someone to act like an underage girl or boy and coach them on what to say and how to set up meetings to catch these assholes."

5."Our professor was an older cop who was undercover in the mob for 10 years. He was telling us the hardest thing for him was when his mob boss brought his friend, who was another undercover cop, into a junkyard and killed him. He said he came back that night to recover the body."

–Jbpitt13

6."Guy calls me to help catch his neighbor who is knocking over his trashcans at night. We set up a small night vision camera to catch the guy."

7."Not a cop but a guy my mom dated for a long time was. He was an undercover narcotics cop for 14 years during the '70s and '80s with the NJSP. He was Puerto Rican, and spoke Spanish, was an ex-marine, and became a state trooper."

"They utilized his ability to blend in with organized crime in the Latin community. He had to do coke in front of a bunch of dudes during a buy one night, and basically stuck his knife in and blew a mound up his nose. Then he started having a minor paranoia/panic attack that they were going to find out he was a cop.

He was breathing heavily and went out for air, panicking over how to get out of it; one of the gangsters came outside to talk to him; he was ready to run or fight; the guy goes, 'Man, I’ve never seen someone snort that much at once! You ok?!'

He sighed a huge sigh of relief and was like, 'Yeah, I never did that much... I’m having trouble breathing heh heh.' The Guy was really nice, brings him a drink and they smoked a cig. Everyone was joking that he had the heart of a lion to take that much.

He actually felt bad about locking that one guy up when it all went down. Think he said he tried to help him or get a reduced sentence or something. There are other stories."

–MAGIGS

8."Not very exciting, but a guy that worked with me was going to this biker bar frequently to get in with a gang (drug-related). He didn't want to get hammered and do something stupid so he would take his beers into the bathroom with him dump out half and fill it with water."

–ItsTonyDee

9."My father's friend is an undercover officer who spent the last two months in the hospital. He was put in a coma when his target found out that he was a cop. They beat him to death, so they thought. It took the police over an hour to get to him. He had a brain bleed and multiple fractures. The risk those guys take by going undercover is remarkable."

"When he was in a coma, I was sure he was going to die. He made an amazing recovery and is now finishing recovery at home!"

–TRASHYRANGER

10."My cousin was an undercover ATF agent. Anyway, they were trying to bust some guys for illegal alcohol distribution and were building a rapport by going undercover. My cousin doesn't take his ATF badge with him when he's undercover because if anyone ever saw it, he could get shot.

"Anyway, some hot-headed black-and-white cops came over and started harassing them. My cousin couldn't blow his cover, but pretty soon, the police started getting physical, and they beat the crap out of my cousin and the guys he was trying to get evidence from.

They take them all into the police station only to find out that my cousin is ATF. My cousin was pissed because cops aren't supposed to beat people up. He is currently filing a lawsuit against that police dept."

–johnny_tremain

11."Not me, but my best friend when he was a cop. He was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. While working undercover, he got into a situation where the perpetrator wanted to go drinking with him. This left him in a dilemma. He chose to drink and later was able to make the arrest. He wrote it off as a job requirement and was able to not use his work-related drinking scenario as a relapse. He's been sober for over 25 years except for that one night while undercover."

–markko79

12."I worked as a transcriptionist for a while, and I transcribed some tape taken off of body mics of undercover officers working a very notorious domestic terrorism case. It was wild! They would sound like absolute backwoods hill people while talking to their marks, then later, when talking to the other police officers, would sound all business and like a very professional person."

13."A close family friend worked for three years as an undercover homeless narcotics officer in a beach city here in southern CA; he was born and raised in this city, so he fit in perfectly. He didn't cut his hair or beard and wore a colorful poncho sweater every day with two rotating days 'off' for almost 1100 days. He was so good at it he refused several promotions and became known as hobocop around the department and family."

–Rstates

14."I worked plain clothes against theft and drug dealing; once I beat a group of Romanian drug dealers to a pulp instead of arresting them because another local higher-up dealer was present, and I didn't want to tip him off!"

–mrstrid

15."My friend who was an undercover cop said that multiple times he had to let himself be arrested to not blow his cover. Like when a sting was going down or whatever, instead of being like, 'hey, I'm a cop,' he would get arrested along with everyone else."

16."I have a relative that was undercover narcotics. Before he started, we had a family meeting explaining that if we saw him out and about, we were not to approach him and not to say anything to him and a few other dos and don'ts. He will come to you if he's not undercover at the moment."

–IndyEleven11

17.And finally, "I don't think not doing it would have blown my cover exactly, but I did end up at a weird sex party and went skinny dipping in a pool filled with Skittles. Could have reasonably ducked out, but I needed to build rapport with people."

–GayRoth

Do you have any wild stories about undercover cops or private investigators? Let us know in the comments!