Mike Powell served on the Los Angeles Police Department and was a federal undercover operative who infiltrated the Las Vegas mafia. He was the chief investigator for Intercept, an investigative agency owned by Ed Gelb, former president of the American Polygraph Association. He solved cold cases and led the largest federal bust of wire and US Postal fraud ever conducted.

 

Mike was also a personal bodyguard for Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt.

 

As a Los Angeles police officer, Mike worked a plainclothes Zebra Unit for the LAPD that was tasked with tracking down violent criminals in South Central LA’s “Shootin’ Newton.” Newton Division was notorious for many police shootouts including the Black Panthers and Symbionese Liberation Army.

 

Mike and his partner hunted down dozens of felons, including murder suspects, bank robbers, and a serial killer. Mike was involved in four police shootings and received five police commendations during his short career on the force. He retired at the age of twenty-eight due to injuries from an auto accident while chasing bank robbers.

 

Mike then joined the private world of high-stakes investigations, where he investigated a murder in Louisiana for the Gillette Corporation. He went undercover and infiltrated a black-market organization, funneling DOD-restricted military airplane parts to Muammar Gaddafi’s air force in Libya.

 

Mike also investigated a federal judge in Columbus, Ohio, for bribery in an $80 million lawsuit involving Penthouse magazine’s Bob Guccione and Hustler magazine’s Larry Flynt.

 

Finally, Mike was hired to go undercover into organized crime for the federal government in Las Vegas. This case would become the largest federal bust of its kind, at that time.

 

Mike ended his investigative and undercover career after he received several death threats and his home was set ablaze when he and his first wife, Manette, were in it.