TORONTO – When ATF agent Scott Perala got into the backseat of a car in a Florida parking lot to make a gun and drug buy, he never expected the dealers to turn on him.
ATF agents track the sale of alcohol, tobacco and firearms in the U.S.
Perala was deep undercover in 2010 when he went to purchase two AK47s along with a variety of prescription pills. He had $2,000 cash on him for the transaction.
The dealers handed him a bag of Oxycodone pills when he entered the vehicle and as he began to count them out in the back the two men in the front pulled a handgun and an AK47 on him.
“It was three inches from my head… that barrel looked like a cannon,” Perala recalls about the AK47.
A hidden camera Perala was wearing caught the entire ordeal.
In the video released Thursday, the men can be heard telling Perala not to touch anything before telling him to close his eyes.
Perala flees the car as a shot is fired at him.
He takes cover before firing back as the men drive away.
The suspects, Jeremy Williams and Beaver Duncan, were captured after having a shootout with responding officers near a daycare.
Duncan’s loaded handgun was found inside a fence at the daycare a year later.
According to ATF supervisor Joe Lenczyk, when an agent is working deep undercover they aim to make these deals in public places.
Many law enforcement officers were nearby watching and listening as Perala was making the deal.
Lenczyk said that although extremely dangerous, deep cover operations build the strongest cases.
Looking back, Perala has a positive outlook on the near-death experience.
“It’s worth it to me if they’re off the street,” he said.
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