Tim Lewis, a retired Criminal Investigator from the California Highway Patrol, is now in his 23rd year of LCI Services Law Enforcement Training.

July  31^st, 2003, Tim created LCI Services for the purpose of providing high-quality training courses focusing on sophisticated organized criminal groups and their operations, with a special emphasis on the understanding of these criminal organizations, their common crimes, investigative techniques, and their prosecution. Tim has provided training to tens of thousands of personnel from local, state, and federal law enforcement agency officers, investigators, and special agents from throughout the United States, Canada, and Southern Pacific including insurance agencies and private investigators. Venues include local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, law enforcement associations/industry, and private facilities. Tim has created training courses never offered before to law enforcement with a realistic approach conducted for impact learning. The following is a partial list of established training courses by Tim Lewis and LCI Services, which have been ongoing classes throughout the years:        

LCI COURSE	HOURS
Rolling Surveillance™	40 hours
Rolling Surveillance II™	40 hours
Undercover Field Operations™ with Cover Team Response Techniques	40 hours
Chop Shop Investigations & Criminal Sophistication™	32 hours
Store Front Operations, Major Vehicle Theft Investigations,  and Informant Management™	32 hours
Major Vehicle Theft Investigations and Organized Crime™	32 hours
Informant Management	16 hours
Methods of Latent Printing & Crime Scene Processing™	16 hours
Myspace.com an Internet Investigations course™	8 hours
Myspace II – Inside Covert Investigations™	8 hours
Investigating Online Auction Fraud™	8 hours
Crimes of Deception™	16 hours
Busting Brothels™	32 hours
T.O.P.C.A.T.T.I.™ (Training, Organization & Preparation for Combined Auto Theft Task Force Investigators)	120 hours
I.O.C.C.R.A Conference™  *Annual (Investigation on Organized Crime and Criminal Related Activities)	40 hours
Serial Killers and High Profile Homicide Conference™	40 hours

Experience

Tim Lewis has served over twenty years with the California Highway Patrol, where he started in January 1983.  He spent the first 6 years (1983-89) of his career working road patrol (Primarily surface streets) in the East Los Angeles area. During this time, he served as a Field Training Officer, Officer Safety & Physical Methods of Arrest (OST/PMA) Training Instructor, the ELA station area gang expert, Drug Recognition Expert (DRE), and was a court-qualified expert on the use and influence, sales and transportation of drugs and narcotics. He was selected to participate in cross-assistance programs with the East L.A. Sheriff’s station and the L.A.P.D.’s Southwest CRASH gang unit during Chief Darryl Gates’ “Operation Hammer”.

Tim transferred to the Riverside area station, where he worked another year    (1989-90) in field patrol. In late 1990, he was selected to the Riverside area’s Special Investigations Unit (Felony Car). He was responsible for investigating crimes involving the sales and transportation of drugs and narcotics, clandestine drug labs (manufacturing of drugs and narcotics), freeway violence (Freeway shootings, firearm brandishing, certain sex crimes and Assaults), vehicle theft, fraud, and chop shops. He formed the area’s first warrant entry team. He was responsible for the training of this unit and the execution of many search and arrest warrants. Tim was involved in many major criminal and high-profile case investigations including a three-month assignment to an Oregon FBI Taskforce focusing on a Romanian Organized Crime Family operating in several states.

In 1994, Investigator Tim Lewis was selected to the Riverside Auto Theft Interdiction Detail (RAID), a Multi-Agency County Auto Theft Task Force, where he remained for three years. Tim was involved in many chop shops and major criminal case investigations involving Organized Criminal groups. He was responsible for the successful yearlong investigation and prosecution of a well-known Organized Mexican criminal group running a sophisticated vehicle theft operation – money laundering scheme, as well as trafficking in drugs/weapons and witness intimidation. The group had been previously successful in avoiding prosecution on several past criminal cases (by allied agencies) through witness intimidation and insufficient evidence.

Tim was one of several key investigators in the largest Outlaw Motorcycle Gang vehicle theft case in the history of the Riverside and State of California, dubbed “Operation Outlaw”. A unique case that involved the criminal networking of the Mongols, Vagos, Hessians, and Hell’s Angels. This yearlong, deep undercover, case ended with 73 search warrants, of which 42 were served along with 35 arrest warrants of high-ranking members within the four outlaw biker gangs, including the National President of the Vagos, National Vice President of the Mongols, and many other chapter presidents, vice presidents, officers, members, and associates. Tim testified before the grand jury, as an expert, to several locations, in “Operation Outlaw”, which had been utilized for Chop Shop related activities. He also testified, as an expert, to the chop shop activities, in a separate case, involving the co-founder of the Hessians OMG, which ended in conviction and a prison sentence.

Shortly after “Operation Outlaw”, Tim became the lead case agent in another major vehicle theft case investigation involving former KGB agents and other co-conspirators (ROC: Russian Organized Crime & La Cosa Nostra, including well-known celebrities). Additional crimes included; money laundering, fraudulent documents, Etc. This case was dubbed “Operation Krasny” (Operation Red). This case involved his utilizing two high-profile Confidential Informants (also former KGB agents who were federally prosecuted along with Richard Miller of the FBI in the 70s). This case would be carried over to his next Task Force assignment.

In 1997, Tim was assigned to the Foreign Export and Recovery team (FEAR) in Southern California, and received federal cross designation with the United States Customs Service. While assigned to this State/Federal task force, he brought “Operation Krasny” with him to continue the investigation, which later merged into “Operation Subterfuge” becoming more complex with many more criminal co-conspirators, additional Organized Criminal Organizations, and high-profile individuals. “Operation Subterfuge”, a four (4) yearlong major Organized Criminal case investigation involved the networking of known and suspected members and/or associates of Russian Organized Crime (including former KGB Agents), La Cosa Nostra, South American Organized Crime, Iranian Organized Crime, Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, Hollywood Drug dealers, and South Los Angeles street gang members all in association. This case involved numerous high-profile individuals, and involved crimes such as Auto Theft (grand theft), Operating Chop Shops, insurance/document fraud, perjury, extortion, arson, money laundering, drug sales, and weapons, carjacking, robbery, home invasion robberies, and conspiracy to commit murder. The case consisted of over 40 large 3” binders, in excess of fifteen thousand pages of reports and documents. The case concluded with the arrest and prosecution of the Iranian Kingpin and his high-level co-conspirators.

Other Chop Shop, vehicle theft, and fraud activities, including other crimes, he’s investigated, involved additional criminal groups such as the Nazi Low Riders (NLR) and local indigenous criminal organizations. Tim has conducted thousands of hours on surveillance of these criminal individuals and criminal groups.

During his assignment with FEAR, he worked and assisted with many criminal cases involving professional auto thieves and Organized Criminal groups responsible for the export of stolen vehicles and insurance fraud. Other duties included port and freight forwarder searches and special border and airport operations.

Also in 1997, Tim became a member of the Soviet Organized Crime Intelligence Team (S.O.C.I.T.) for four years.

In July 2001, Tim returned to the RAID task force (Riverside) where he remained assigned until his retirement in July 2003.

Tim has investigated thousands of chop shop related activities which resulted in more than three hundred chop shop cases that ended in arrest and prosecution. He has authored more than one hundred search warrants and assisted many others to this date with their writings of search warrant affidavits involving Drugs/Narcotics, Illegal Clandestine drug labs, firearms, vehicle theft, and chop shops. He has handled the many aspects of working sophisticated criminal cases which included working in an undercover capacity; buying and (reverse) selling stolen vehicles and property. He has worked many informants with success. He has participated as lead investigator and assisting case agent with six long-term career cases involving high profile sophisticated organized criminal groups. He has studied the history and culture of these criminal groups and learned to speak the Russian language with previous knowledge of the gypsy language. Tim has attended many law enforcement training classes in the past dealing with the various organized criminal groups, their operations, and structure.

Tim has testified many times as a Court Qualified Expert in the field of Drugs & Narcotics sales and influence, and Vehicle Theft & Chop Shop Operations in the Municipal and Superior courts of Los Angeles including: CCB downtown, Downey, and Airport courthouse, amongst others, and the Riverside Superior Court.

Tim has more than 33,000 hours of surveillance and counter-surveillance experience from both sides of the spectrum; as a follower of criminals in criminal cases and while being followed by law enforcement utilizing counter-surveillance tactics in training. His experience extends to private investigations surveillance contractors in civil cases, though not for the defense.

He quickly identifies the mistakes, made by law enforcement, and provides solutions through the techniques taught. He has 41+ years of experience with planning, organizing, and conducting surveillance operations at various levels.

He has more than 22 years of teaching advanced surveillance courses of 40 and 80 hour blocks on a full-time basis. He has more than 20,000 hours of classroom instruction to other law enforcement professionals, including insurance and private investigators.

Rolling Surveillance®   Creator/Instructor

Tim Lewis is the creator and lead instructor of Rolling Surveillance® and Rolling Surveillance II® training courses. Over the past 20 years, he has successfully articulated the reasons why these techniques are safe and successful. Tim has focused on (from his experience in both law enforcement and athletics of more than 53 years combined) individual and team discipline, chemistry, patience, and responsibilities for success and safety. Included in this unique training, which has never been done before LCI Services by any other LE trainers, was to conduct this training in the real world where real things happen and where there is a criminal theme for realism. During this training there may be outside distractions, as in real-life situations, keeping the importance on techniques, goals, safety, and objectives during the training to better prepare and equip officers with better field decisions, better focus, understanding, knowledge, and safety. This unique training provides the officers with real situations to implement their techniques. These techniques (proven to be the safest approach and successful over the years) include but are not limited to: foot surveillance, mobile follows, and public transportation switches, with a wide variety of set-up situations, identifying Counter Surveillance (CS) by street level and sophisticated criminals with special response techniques to counter surveillance both on surface streets and freeways.

These LCI techniques have changed the way many law enforcement agency surveillance teams and individual detectives from the U.S. and Canadian law enforcement agencies alike, now conduct the surveillance operations.

Rolling Surveillance® and Rolling Surveillance II® (Trademarked and copyrighted through the Library of Congress) are the leading surveillance training programs for Law Enforcement in the U.S. These surveillance courses are proven the most advanced and effective surveillance courses available in the current day. The views of a handful of the many attendees may be seen on the LCI Services testimonials page located at:  https://lciservices.com/testimonials/

From July 2003 to the present date, Tim has created and developed LCI Services as the Nation’s leader in Law Enforcement training for the subject matter presented, with unique courses never before offered, and structured in a way never before implemented. Many training companies and advanced training academies are now following this direction.

Tim has provided assistance with reviewing movie scripts (Short Film “Chop Shop” from 2007), and providing direction for numerous pre-trial reviews of case investigative reports for attorneys involving chop shop arrests and investigations. He has assisted by consulting with investigators from throughout the U.S. on major investigations and approaches and identifying reasons for certain criminal behavior (with solutions) during their investigations. He has conducted TV interviews such as “Gangland” episode: Snitch Slaughter.

LCI SERVICES STAFF

Tim Lewis (Ret.) / C.H.P. – Inland Division
Founder / President / Instructor

Julianne Lewis
Training Administrator / Strategic Communications and Technology Director / Role Player

Jay Stayner (Ret.) / Corona P.D.
Course Assistant / Role Player

Robert Reza (Ret.) / CA. D.O.J.
Assistant Instructor

Dave Taylor / Albuquerque PD, NM
Assistant Instructor

Steve McKiernan (Ret.) / C.H.P. Sgt.
Course Assistant / Role Player

Tim Casorla (Ret.) / Denver County Sheriff
Course Assistant / Role Player

Chris Maes /  Albuquerque PD, NM
Course Assistant / Role Player

ROLE PLAYERS

Norbert Moll / Murrieta P.D.
Gerardo Pachuca / L.A.S.D.
Art Gamboa / Laguna P.D., NM.
Nick Andre / Palm Springs P.D.
Zabatka Colbert / Phoenix P.D., AZ.
Steve Walsh / Albuquerque PD, NM
Israel Rodriguez / Las Cruces P.D., NM
Duane Minard (Ret.) / Riverside County Sheriff’s Office
Michael Melikian / Tulare Police Department
David De Anda / Phoenix P.D., AZ.
Bradford Knights / Peoria P.D., AZ
Thomas Dorsa / Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, TX
Thomas “Blake” Farris / Las Vegas Metro, NV
Monetta Dardanis / Las Vegas Metro, NV.
Derek Aragon / Commerce City P.D., CO.
Dale Kreller / Howard County P.D., MD.
Duane Pierce (Ret.) / Howard County P.D., MD.
Anthony Medrano / Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, NM.
Art Peterson / Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, CO.
Joe Obechina / Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, CO.
Rick Turcaz / Las Vegas Metro, NV.
Jeff Worth (Ret.) / Santa Fe P.D., NM.
Pete Herrera (Ret.) / C.H.P. – Border Division
Joseph Giannone (Ret.) / Las Vegas Metro Police Department
Apryl Soapes / Orange County Sheriff’s Department
Fred Montaldo (Ret.) / Phoenix P.D., AZ.
Rick Braughton (Ret.) / Peoria P.D., AZ.
Jeff Maijala / Washington State Patrol, WA.
Al Huerta (Ret.) / Riverside P.D.
Eric Steffes / Kent P.D., WA.
Matt Pasquan / Seattle P.D., WA.
Beth Davis / Phoenix P.D., AZ.
Matt McMillen / Washington State Patrol

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
~Theodore Roosevelt