R. Lee Walters, our lead investigator, spent more than 24 years as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) leading a multitude of investigations involving bank fraud, investment fraud schemes, health care fraud, public corruption, violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and many, many more.
His final five years with the FBI were spent as a supervisory special agent with the Operational Technology Division (OTD), first with the Technical Liaison Unit working with some of the leading technology companies in the world, and last with the super secret TacOps-Electronic Access Group, which Ron Kessler wrote, "They are essentially court-sanctioned burglars, as they describe themselves. They break into homes, offices, even embassies to plant bugging devices and snoop into computers. Could be terrorists, could be Mafia figures, and all secret, of course. They will check out the premises for weeks. They'll find out if there are any dogs. If there are, they'll have a veterinarian prescribe the right amount of tranquilizer based on a photograph; they'll shoot the dog with a dart gun and a tranquilizer to put him out. And then at the end, they'll wake him up. They will actually create false fronts to homes or offices and then behind those false fronts, in the middle of the night, they will pick the locks”.
Mr. Walters is one of a handful of agents who were trained on how to defeat any alarm system or electronic access technology manufactured to date.
Prior to his assignment with TacOps, Lee was a certified, technically trained agent and served in the Chicago and Little Rock offices of the FBI wiretapping phones, and planting tracking and listening devices in support of major investigations. As a result of one such operation, a 15-year old cold case murder mystery involving a young teenage female was solved. He was the lead investigator in a two-year undercover operation, Operation Broken Star, which led to the conviction of 7 rogue Chicago police officers and for which he was awarded the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce Excellence in Law Enforcement Award. He was one of the first agents assigned to the Whitewater investigation of Bill & Hillary Clinton and was responsible for the conviction of the sitting governor of the state of Arkansas at the time, Jim Guy Tucker.
Lee has 23 years experience as a firearms and defensive tactics instructor and 14 years in the Special Weapons & Tactics (SWAT) program as an observer and sniper. He was also a member of the FBI’s National Art Crime Team, a team of twelve special agents trained to conduct art crime investigations, and has spoken at length about the team and their efforts to combat art crime in all of its many forms. He spent several years as the team leader of a surveillance squad and was involved in numerous arrests, car chases and operations involving all types of criminal activity investigated by the FBI.
Lee has testified in numerous grand jury proceedings, before federal and state judges, and in numerous jury trials.
Upon completion of his service with the FBI, Lee was a legal investigator for the Complex Litigation Group of the law firm Morgan & Morgan, P.A., headquartered in Tampa, Florida. During the 6.5 years Lee held this position, he worked with numerous relators/whistleblowers to help gather evidence in support of their qui tam filings. Lee prepared dozens of disclosure statements (examples available upon request) and worked with Assistant United States Attorneys (AUSAs) and federal and state investigators nationwide. In the first case he developed when hired by Morgan & Morgan, P.A., Lee worked with three relators from inception to resolution in the United States v. Healogics matter which resulted in a $22.51 million dollar recovery of taxpayer funds. He developed numerous other matters that are presently under seal and being investigated by various United States Attorneys offices across the country.
Lee is a proud member of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI and the Professional Private Investigators Association of Colorado.
