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Feds Can't Find Body Buried By Undercover Agent
By
Ben Yakas
Published Oct 6, 2010
Modified Oct 6, 2010
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Oct 6, 2010
Modified Oct 6, 2010
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Earlier this month, motorcycle club mayhem almost broke out when seventeen members of The Pagans were busted in a plot to attack and vanquish their arch-enemies, the Hells Angels (with homemade bombs no less!). The gang was taken down thanks to undercover agents who infiltrated the group, including one member who rose to the rank of Vice President of the Long Island chapter. But no good undercover operation comes without a little bit of compromise.
Kenneth (Hogman) Van Diver, a different VP with the club, told his unidentified federal agent that he and a fellow Pagan had killed a man and buried the body, which resulted in some complications. Van Diver said that he and Pagan Tracey Lahey had shot a man in 2009 over a drug deal, and buried the body near a rented home in upstate Swan Lake. "We believe the agent was given a test to see if he would do it and whether he would tell anybody about it later," a source told the Daily News.
By February 2010, the land where the body was buried was being sold, and the agent was forced to go back with the two to exhume and rebury the body elsewhere, similar to the Billy Batts situation in Goodfellas. When they got back upstate, Lahey informed the undercover agent that he had previously cut off the victim's hands, feet and head to avoid identification, referring to himself as a "surgeon." When feds finally searched for the body where the agent said it'd be, they found two boots, towels and rotting garbage, but no body. Hopefully this missing body won't turn up later only to explain that everything that had occurred had happened in purgatory.
Tagged
hells angels
kenneth van diver
missing body
motorcycle clubs
the pagans
undercover
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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