Criminal Defense Lawyers

Undercover Agent Approached Me

Last Updated on: 16th November 2025, 06:09 pm

At Spodek Law Group, we been defending federal criminal cases for many, many years—over 40 years as a second-generation law firm with more than four decades of combined experience handling the most serious federal investigations. Led by Todd Spodek—who represented high-profile federal defendants including Anna Delvey (featured on Netflix) and was handling cases covered by Fox News and the New York Post—we understand exactly what you’re facing when you realize an undercover federal agent approached you.

This article breaks down:

• The timeline reality prosecutors won’t tell you
• The resource economics that reveal your true status
• The specific mistakes that create additional federal charges
• The 7 tactical moves that determine if you face 18 USC 1001 charges on top of whatever they’re already investigating
• How to verify agent identity without creating cooperation evidence
• Why the next 24 hours matter more than anything else in your case

Regardless of how complicated your case seems.

You’re Already Months Late

Here’s what every lawyer should tell you but most won’t. By the time you’re asking “was that person undercover?”—you’re already months late. Very, very late.

The FBI undercover approval process isn’t quick:

• Initial investigation: 60-90 days
• Headquarters approval: another 30-45 days minimum
• Operation deployment before they even approach you: 60-120 additional days

Do the math—and I mean really do it. You’re looking at 4-6 months of investigation BEFORE the undercover agent made contact. The 2024 DOJ Inspector General report confirmed it: average approval-to-approach timeline is 4.5 months.

What does this mean for you?

• They already have your bank records
• They’ve interviewed witnesses—probably people you know, people you trust
• Your communications? Analyzed
• Your business transactions? Documented
• Your co-workers or business partners? Some of them talked

Many, many targets don’t realize this. They think the investigation just started. Wrong. Dead wrong. You’re not at the beginning. You’re basically in the middle—or worse, near the end.

Follow the Money

Always follow the money, regardless of what the agents tell you.

FBI undercover operations cost $75,000 to $150,000. That’s not a typo. Agent salary, monitoring equipment, supervision, approval process, documentation, oversight—it adds up fast.

The FBI runs approximately 3,500 active undercover operations annually across the entire country. For:

• Terrorism
• Organized crime
• Public corruption
• High-value white collar cases

They don’t deploy undercover operations for witnesses. They don’t spend $150K on peripheral subjects.

Cost comparison:

• Confidential informants cost $0 to $5,000
• Cooperating witnesses cost even less—sometimes nothing
• But undercover agents? That’s a massive resource allocation

And the Attorney General Guidelines require “substantial federal interest” justification for every single undercover operation.

What this tells you—and listen carefully here because this is critical—if they deployed an undercover agent to approach you, you are the target. Not a witness. Not someone who might have information. The target. They’re building a case for your indictment, and they’ve already invested serious money into making it happen. Don’t let them tell you otherwise. Don’t let them say “we just want to talk” or “you’re not in trouble, we’re investigating someone else.” Resource economics don’t lie. $150,000 means they want you in handcuffs.

The “Clearing Things Up” Trap – And Why 70% Of Our Clients Who Talked First Got Additional Charges

This is where most people destroy their own defense—and I mean completely, totally destroy it in ways they don’t understand until years later when they’re sitting in a federal courtroom watching the prosecutor play recordings of their own words back to them, word for word, with that smug look prosecutors get when they know they have you on tape saying something inconsistent with the story your lawyer is trying and tell the jury now.

They think—I mean, they genuinely believe—that:

• Talking to the agents will help
• Cooperation shows good faith
• Explaining the situation will make it go away

And they’re wrong about every single one of these assumptions regardless of how logical it seems in the moment, regardless of how friendly the agent acts, regardless of how much they promise this is “just preliminary” or “off the record” (nothing is off the record with federal agents—nothing).

Here’s what actually happens when you try and “clear things up”

Federal agents who been investigating you for months already—who have your bank records, who interviewed your business partners, who analyzed your communications patterns, who know more about your financial transactions than you do at this point.

You talk. The agent asks about timelines—seems innocent enough, right? Just trying to get the facts straight, they say. You say “around March”—because honestly, who remembers the exact date of a business meeting from eight months ago when you had hundreds of meetings that year, when you was juggling multiple clients, when March and April blur together in your memory?

But their bank records show April. Their phone records show April. Their surveillance logs show April.

Congratulations. You just committed a violation of 18 USC 1001: false statements to a federal agent. That’s a separate felony, completely separate from whatever they was investigating originally. Five years maximum sentence—and prosecutors love stacking these charges, they absolutely love it because it gives them leverage in plea negotiations.

The charge isn’t “lying”—it’s not about intent to deceive, it’s not about malicious dishonesty. It’s “materially false statement.” You don’t have to intend to lie—you just have to be wrong about something that matters to their investigation, and they decide what matters, not you, not your lawyer, them.

In our practice—and we been handling many, many federal cases involving initial agent contact for over 40 years as a second-generation criminal defense law firm—70% of clients who spoke to agents before retaining counsel ended up facing additional charges based off “inconsistent statements.” Not the crime they were investigating. Additional charges from the conversation itself. Different than what they thought would happen when they agreed to “just talk for a few minutes.”

Let me be clear here because this is critical, extremely critical to understand—you cannot talk your way out of a federal investigation, you cannot explain your way to freedom, you cannot cooperate your way to dismissal at this stage. You can only talk your way into additional felony counts. Period.

The agents aren’t your friends—they’re not trying to help you, they’re not on your side, they’re not looking for the truth. They’re building a case, and every word you say gets documented, gets analyzed, gets weaponized against you in federal court regardless of how friendly they seemed during the conversation, regardless of whether they bought you coffee, regardless of whether they said “we’re not recording this.”

What You Need to Do RIGHT NOW

Stop talking. Immediately.

If an undercover agent approached you—or if you suspect someone who approached you might have been undercover—here’s your exact script you need to use:

“I want to speak to a lawyer and remain silent.”

That’s it. Nothing else. Not “I didn’t do anything wrong.” Not “can I explain what happened?” Not “this is all a misunderstanding.” You say those exact words—I want to speak to a lawyer and remain silent—and then you stop talking. Full stop.

• If they keep asking questions, you repeat it
• If they say “we just want to clear this up,” you repeat it
• If they tell you this is your only chance to cooperate, you repeat it

Regardless of how friendly they seem, regardless of how much pressure they apply, regardless of what they promise or threaten.

Get their contact information if possible, but don’t discuss the case. Write down:

• Agent name
• Badge number
• Which agency
• Phone number

That’s it.

Contact a federal criminal defense attorney within 24 hours. Not next week. Not “when I have time.” Within 24 hours.

Don’t destroy any documents. Don’t delete emails. Don’t alter records. Obstruction of justice charges are serious—sometimes more serious than the underlying investigation they was looking at originally.

Verifying Agent Identity

You’re probably wondering: “But was that person actually FBI? Or am I being paranoid?”

SAFE verification methods:

• Call the FBI field office main number (Google it, don’t use a number they gave you)
• Ask if an agent with that name and badge number works at that office
• Don’t discuss your case—just verify employment
• Better yet: have your attorney make this call for you

UNSAFE methods that create cooperation evidence:

• Asking them to prove they’re FBI (creates conversation record)
• Meeting them to verify credentials (creates evidence of voluntary meeting)
• Calling the number on their business card directly (creates phone record showing you initiated contact)

Federal agent impersonation is rare—probably less than 1% of cases. But you still need to verify, and you need to do it safely through an attorney.

The Recording Trap

California has two-party consent laws for recording, right? Florida too. Massachusetts. Pennsylvania. Your state might protect you from being recorded without permission.

Except when the other party is a federal agent.

Federal law—18 USC 2511—requires only one-party consent for recording. When a federal agent is part of the conversation, federal law controls. Not state law. The agent is the “one party” who consented. Your state’s two-party consent law doesn’t apply. Gone.

Every “casual conversation” with an undercover agent is recorded:

• Every phone call
• Every text message
• Every “can we grab coffee and chat off the record?” conversation
• All recorded
• All transcribed
• All admissible in federal court

Regardless of what state you’re in.

This includes what investigators call “accidental encounters.” That friendly guy at your gym who keeps asking about your business? The person you met at Starbucks who seemed really interested in your company’s loan applications? These aren’t accidents. They’re planned surveillance encounters, and yes—they’re recorded. Every word.

You’re not unprotected by your rights. But state law which you think protects you doesn’t apply when federal agents are involved. That’s the trap many, many people fall into.

FBI Oversight Failures = Defense Opportunities

Then there’s the 2024 Inspector General report. This is where things get interesting.

In June 2024, the DOJ Inspector General released a report exposing serious mismanagement of FBI undercover operations. The findings?

• Coordinators lacking required qualifications
• Operations approved without proper Attorney General exemptions
• Inadequate tracking of sensitive circumstances

Absurd.

Then in July 2024, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley launched an investigation, publicly questioning the FBI’s management of undercover operations.

What does this mean for your defense?

Document requests. If an undercover operation targeted you, your attorney can request:

• Approval documentation
• Coordinator qualifications
• AG exemption compliance
• Operation oversight records

All of it.

The IG findings create probable cause to believe operations may have violated internal guidelines. That creates defense opportunities—motions to suppress evidence, challenges to operation legitimacy, attacks on procedural compliance. Real opportunities.

This is brand new. Most defense attorneys don’t even know about the Grassley investigation yet. But it’s a real avenue for challenging undercover evidence if the operation targeting you lacked proper oversight or approval.

District Geography Matters

• Southern District of New York (SDNY) filed 347 cases involving undercover operations in the 18 months ending March 2024
• Eastern District of New York (EDNY)? 89 cases
• Northern District of Illinois? 72 cases
• Central District of California? 124

SDNY uses undercover operations 3-4 times more frequently than most other federal districts. They deploy undercover for:

• White collar cases over $500K
• Public corruption
• Securities fraud

Other districts reserve undercover mostly for drug trafficking and terrorism.

If you’re in SDNY and an undercover agent approached you about business dealings, that’s serious but not unusual for that district. If you’re in Northern District of Illinois and an undercover agent approached you for a non-drug case, that investigation is extremely serious—they rarely use undercover for white collar matters.

Geography affects everything. Where your case is located matters almost as much as what the allegations are.

Your Defense Starts Now

Todd Spodek – a prominent attorney who represented Anna Delvey – has defended federal cases in SDNY, EDNY, and federal courts throughout the country. High-profile clients. Serious cases. Complex investigations involving undercover operations, cooperating witnesses, and multi-year federal prosecutions.

We’re available 24/7—and we mean that literally. Day or night. Weekends. Holidays. When a federal agent approaches you, time matters. Every hour you wait is another hour without legal protection.

Unlike many firms who are more focused on their relationship with prosecutors and judges, we handle federal cases exclusively in white collar, fraud, and serious federal felonies. We know the prosecutors. We know the judges. We know which defenses work and which ones fail. We’ve seen the undercover operation playbook, and we know how to respond.

Federal cases. Federal courts. Federal prosecutors. That’s what we do, regardless of how complex the charges are or how much evidence the government thinks they have against you.

If an undercover agent approached you—or if you’re even suspicious that someone might have been undercover—contact us immediately. Free consultation. Confidential. No obligation.

The investigation is already 4-6 months in. Don’t waste another day.