Many years ago, I earnt a little extra cash as security at large rock concerts. It was not my scene, and I was frankly just standing around. I clearly remember stopping a suspicious clean cut man in his mid forties, wearing ironed jeans and matching denim jacket... In a stadium of 20,000 long haired students in dirty black t-shirts.
He flipped a warrent card at me an angrily said "drugs squad"
I hoped our boys in blue also had people who could pass for real - and I suspect the same for any local cops hanging around on IRC. They will stand out like 40 year olds in pressed denim.
In college in the early 90's, suddenly a 40 year old mustached guy started showing up to dorm keg parties.
He wore leather jackets, was overly eager to ask for everyone's phone number, and said things like "lets put on some twisted sister and smoke dope".
This continued for a few weeks, then suddenly he disappeared never to be seen again. Coincidentally, at the same time, one of the local dorm weedheads was busted for intent to distribute (even though in his defense he only liked smoking and only sold to this guy because he begged so much).
So, yes. These guys are so easy to spot its incredible. They are meatheads in most cases.
It's probably difficult to recruit teenage goths and turn them into good narcs.
I imagine he was just there to go for low hanging fruit and was not worried about being a bit conspicuous, probably just nab people who can be seen passing little bags full of white powder between people , in a big enough crowd people aren't going to be able to notice everyone around them anyway.
> It's probably difficult to recruit teenage goths and turn them into good narcs.
It's easy. Bust a teenager for possession of narcotics, then offer them a choice between years behind bars, and acting as an informant busting drug dealers.
One of my friends is a 30something county prosecutor, pretty professional in most cases.
He took on the role of interim county drug czar for a few months, which sent him to raves/concerts/etc. We've got a picture of him wearing a "porn star" hat with neon jewelry and a pookah shell necklace; pretty fun to see one of our most professional friends acting out this role.
He flipped a warrent card at me an angrily said "drugs squad" I hoped our boys in blue also had people who could pass for real - and I suspect the same for any local cops hanging around on IRC. They will stand out like 40 year olds in pressed denim.