Lou Valoze and Captain Josh Miller of the Oxford, Ala., Police Department. Photo:
courtesy of Investigation Discovery
‘Operation Undercover’ premieres Tuesday, Nov. 12, at 10/9c on ID/Investigation Discovery with new episodes airing weekly
Lou Valoze is sitting in his car, in the shadows of an Alabama motel where an undercover drug operation is going down.
A confidential informant wearing a wire has gone inside of a motel room in Oxford, just off of Interstate-20, to buy drugs.
In the quiet of the dark, Valoze and a member of the Oxford Police Department’s Special Investigations Unit listen in to what’s happening inside the room. Suddenly, they lose the feed on their undercover transmission device.
“This is a worst-case scenario,” says Valoze, a longtime former federal undercover agent, on the new series Operation Undercover, on ID/Investigation Discovery.
The Special Investigations Unit is ultimately responsible for the informant’s safety, but at that moment, they have no idea what’s happening inside that motel room, he explains in the season premiere, airing on Tuesday, Nov. 12, at 10/9c. “This is a dangerous situation.” (An exclusive clip of the series is shown below.)
Hosted by Valoze, the six-episode series gives viewers a front-row seat to what really goes on during high-risk undercover sting operations.
Valoze knows what he’s talking about. As an undercover agent for 26 years, he helped take thousands of weapons and millions of dollars in illegal drugs off the street and has dealt with the likes of outlaw biker gangs, the Chicago mafia and domestic terrorists.
“I’m very passionate about undercover work,” he tells us. “It’s what I did during my career.”
“In my opinion, it’s the most effective tool that we have in law enforcement,” adds Veloze, author of the 2022 book, Storefront Sting: An ATF Agent’s Life Undercover.
“Whenever you can insert your own asset directly into a criminal organization in real time, it’s by far the most effective way to dismantle that organization.”
Veloze and his crew film real life undercover teams as they take down alleged drug and human traffickers and a suspected drug dealer who sold a teen a deadly dose of pills.
“They allowed us to embed our whole crew with them to give us a glimpse of how they do it,” he says. “It is so exciting to see. These are not recreations. People who tune into Operation Undercover are going to see these cases as they develop in real time.”
Viewers are going to be enthralled with this show, he says. “It’s never been done before. We’re not doing reenactments. We’re going to bring you into the world of undercover, and you’re going to see these cases from start to finish, as they develop.”
Viewers get to see actual deals happening from body cameras undercover agents and informants are wearing, he says.
“You’re going to see the actual undercover transactions, real undercover transactions. Once the case is developed, and they’ve purchased the evidence, you’re going to see the SWAT teams go in, kick doors in, and arrest the criminals. You’re going to see from A to Z how an undercover operation works,” he says, adding: “It’s a rush.”
As Valoze knows more than most, undercover work is risky. “It’s an inherently dangerous business,” he says. “There are so many things that can go wrong.”
He adds: “The danger factor — it doesn’t really end until the bad guys are in handcuffs. You’re going to see this in every episode.”
Besides showing how undercover agents work an operation, Valoze says he is proud to let audiences know just how much they do to keep their communities safe.
“To be given the opportunity to show the public firsthand how there are men and women out there in almost every city in this country who are doing this incredible work and who are doing it with one purpose — that’s why they’re doing it.”
Operation Undercover premieres Tuesday, Nov. 12 at 10/9c on ID/Investigation Discovery, with new episodes airing weekly.
