1
[narrator] Bodyguards.
Protection agents. Muscle.
Whatever you want to call them,
these people are on the front-lines
for the rich, famous, and powerful.
Not only do they see it all,
but they deal with it all.
The good, the bad,
the really fucking bad...
and the ugly.
Five stories,
five completely different worlds.
Explore the lives of those
at the top of the protection field.
Seeing what it's truly like
to guard society's elite.
Showcasing the individuals
who have protected
the likes of world-famous
politician, Nelson Mandela,
Hip Hop's royalty,
50 Cent and Lil' Wayne
one of America's most notorious
gangsters, Whitey Bulger,
American ambassadors
under Blackwater,
and global superstar, Justin Bieber.
Buckle up. It's time to pull back
the curtain on the inner workings
of an industry that most people
know nothing about.
Welcome to Miami Beach
where we meet Anton,
one of the most well known
and respected bodyguards
in the business.
Anton cut his chops protecting
50 Cent in his prime
where bullet proof vests were
mandatory and fights were daily.
Gaining respect by getting
shot on the job with 50,
Anton has protected some
of the biggest names in music.
After being on the front line for years,
Anton started his own bodyguard company,
Guardian Protection.
Our story looks at what it takes
to go from beating people up every day
to running one of the biggest
bodyguard companies in the USA.
I did 50 Cent for four years.
In 2005, I left to start Guardian.
Guardian is a full-service
security agency. We do everything.
We do concerts, events, night clubs.
Personal bodyguard work.
That's what we're known most for.
I protected Eve,
she was my first client with Guardian.
Ciara, at the time,
was headlining the Scream Tour.
I was with Ciara for a couple of years.
That lead to T-Pain.
I was with him for a couple of years.
That's when Pain had 13 number ones
in one year, the year of T-Pain
Lil Wayne, Timbaland, Birdman,
DJ Khaled, Keri Hilson,
Future, Gym Class Heroes.
What up? It's Travie McCoy
from Gym Class Heroes.
Guardian got my back. All day, any day.
All the while, while I was
protecting all these people,
I was gaining other clients.
I gained Lil Wayne, so I became
Lil Wayne's bodyguard.
Wayne's getting out of jail.
He was in Riker's Island
That was my first day on the job,
when Wayne got out.
His manager said, "I'd like you
to be his head of security."
And I've been with him
for five or six years.
Through a mixture of me being
in the clubs and on the road,
I was able to get other clients.
Shawn Mendes, Austin Mahone,
Alicia Keys, Pharrell,
Ariana Grande,
the Kardashians.
As I'd get these clients,
I'd work them first
and show them how Guardian does it.
Then I'd go to my pool of bouncers.
And Josh Ponder is my operations manager.
I'd ask, "Who do you think
could be a bodyguard?"
"Oh, this guy, Joe Gable." "Okay, Joe,
we'll teach you how to bodyguard.
Want to be a bodyguard?" "Yeah."
"This is the pay." "Let's do it."
We're probably the biggest company
in the States, as far as protecting...
musicians and entertainers.
These guys, each one of them,
I've hand-picked.
Every bodyguard that I have
right now, lined up,
they were born to protect.
I would build my pool of bouncers
and I'd create bodyguards out of each one.
I'd say, "Get this big, get this license,
shoot this many times, train this much.
We have an alliance
with American Top Team,
and they would train
and we'd build them up.
Then I'd try them with little artists.
"Work with this guy, here."
"How'd he do?" "Good."
Then we'd put them with another one.
Before you know it, now, we've got
23 bodyguards around the world, 24/7,
around those names I mentioned.
My guys are living in their houses.
They're with them 24 hours a day,
365 days a year, around the world.
A lot of guys say,
"I bodyguarded this and that."
They're all full of shit.
They bodyguard a client for one night
and say, "I'm this guy's bodyguard."
No, you walked him to his table.
Anton was wild, man.
He's like, pumped up,
Wrestlemania -type shit.
With 50, confrontation was around at
any corner. You always expected it.
With G-Unit and 50, these guys
are from Jamaica, Queens, New York.
Where they've lived, where they're from,
murder happens every day.
They're already built like this,
so I've got to think like them.
It's difficult, because they said
that I'm not from the hood,
I'm not from there. So, being
around them, I started learning.
I started being like them.
[narrator] 50 Cent got shot nine times,
and right before he blew the fuck up
in the music scene.
Don't get it twisted.
50 Cent was a gangster.
Dealing with daily violence
and drama eventually led
to a bullet entering the flesh
of a young Anton at extremely close range.
In the hotel, it was us, Jay-Z, Missy...
It was a tour, so there were
countless artists in this hotel.
All I heard was yelling
and screaming outside,
and then we ran to the front to check
who was yelling and screaming.
Jay was the head of security at the time.
And Jay goes, "Yo, Anton,
I think something's going on downstairs."
Sure enough, I go out there,
there's a bunch of thugs all lined up.
All I hear is jibber-jabber
going back and forth.
While I'm separating it,
things are quiet,
but then a shot comes around my shoulder
and cracks the main dude in the face.
Now, everyone's fighting.
There's no more talking.
Now, I just do what I've always done.
Fight, you know?
I hear this one guy say,
"Pop the trunk", you know?
I'm not from the hood,
but I know what that means.
Right? So then,
I start chasing the guy.
I'm not the fastest guy in the world,
and that guy was a fucking cheetah,
and he was able to pop his trunk,
turn around, and I just remember
him looking at me, like this,
and just shoot sideways.
I wasn't trying be a hero or nothing.
It was just happening so fast,
that I just thought to myself,
"Get that guy. Just get him,
because he's going to kill your crew."
So while he's shooting,
"Bang, bang!" I'm still running after him.
Then finally... [imitates gunshot]
...I get hit in the leg.
It still didn't register.
But we were all making fun of Anton
on the bus after we found out he was cool,
because he actually ran into a shoot-out,
like, a full-blown shoot-out.
People from our crew,
or allegedly from our crew,
somebody behind me,
would shoot back.
They kept shooting back and forth.
Missy Elliot's bus got shot up.
No-one was in it.
Missy Elliot's tour bus was
shot the fuck up, like, Swiss cheese.
And Missy Elliot is nowhere near gangster,
and she had nothing to do with it.
All she does is dance every night
and "freaky, freaky, freaky".
She's not really
into shoot-outs and beefs.
50 comes walking in and he's like,
"Yo, man, you okay?"
"I'm all right, we've just
got to get you out of here."
Then he's like, "I heard what you did.
When you heal up, you come back."
I was like, "You got it."
You know what? Getting shot is
what it takes for them to know your name.
[narrator] Let's flash back
to the year 2010.
Twitter was in it's infancy.
Instagram had not launched.
And a song called "Baby" by Justin Bieber,
hit radio stations all over the world
propelling the Canadian teenager
on a path to international stardom.
Bieber became one of
the world's biggest stars
right as the time when
the rise of social media
was changing the climate of fame,
and the way fans could connect
with their favorite artists.
Everywhere the young star goes,
cameras follow.
At this point, Justin could be
at the tip of the North Pole
and you could be damned sure
there'd be at least one girl,
waiting to take a selfie with him.
With this constant scrutiny and exposure,
a high-quality bodyguard is imperative.
We met up with Justin's
director of security, Mikey,
at the beginning of Bieber's
Global Purpose tour in Vancouver, Canada.
Mikey is the epitome
of the modern bodyguard,
mixing brain and brawn
to not only keep Justin safe,
but ensure the moving parts
of the world tour run smoothly.
My name is Mikey Arana,
and I've been working for Justin Bieber
for three and a half years, now.
The first time I needed security,
I used this guy named Kenny,
who was actually not really
a real security guard,
he was actually just a boy of mine
who was, like, large.
And we figured he could scare people off
just because of the way he looked.
But after a while,
I needed legitimate security.
[Scooter Braun] We realized
we needed security
when thousands of people
starting showing up at radio stations.
It was a little overwhelming.
We kind of knew
that we needed to step it up.
And then we went to Australia
and we told the Australians
at this Sunrise TV show
that we'd need more security
and they didn't believe us.
Then the kids rioted the streets.
I was at the place where
the crowds were starting to get bigger,
and getting to the place where I felt
like my safety was at risk.
So, you know, it was about time
that we started looking for people
that were on that
next level of protection.
You can describe Mikey as loyal,
professional, humble...
"Selfless" is the best one.
That's the most important adjective
when it comes to this job.
Someone who's selfless, who puts others
above themselves at all times
because they're making
sacrifices every day.
[Justin Bieber] Mikey is... He's a leader.
Being a security guard,
you need to be a leader.
You need to take control of situations
and understand how to communicate,
and he's just the best at it.
I think what we look for in security
is people who have more...
More of this than more of that.
You're not only protecting
someone's body,
you're also protecting
their heart, their mindset.
And you need someone
who can think fast on their feet,
because avoiding situations is more
productive than handling the situation.
The hardest part of the job
would be fighting complacency.
Getting out of the routine mentality
of, "I'm just going to wake up,
I'll get in the car, go to the venue,
do meet-and-greet, do the show.
Just another day.
Or, okay, let the fans get
a bit closer, say hi, and take a picture."
Like I said earlier, nine times
out of ten, the day goes smooth.
You've got to keep a combative mind
that something will happen.
Not "if", but "when".
You've got to keep that mentality.
The main threat? I'd say the unknown.
Because nine times out of ten,
the fans, girls who just want
to be with him, see him,
get close with him, talk
with him, take a picture...
That one time, you never know
what may happen.
[laughs]
It's hard to get used to it.
It's constantly changing,
life is constantly changing.
Surroundings are constantly changing.
Having people that are
consistent around all the time,
with being my security, it just creates
such a safe place for me.
It's needed. It's needed in this world.
It's needed for the world I'm in.
You never get completely used
to it because of the emotions.
You see so many people
with different stories
and the stories may be alike...
They always touch you in some type of way.
The way I think
the security has evolved is
by staying out of sight, out of mind.
Giving him more space as he grows.
Letting him interact more with people
as the fans have grown.
They're more likely to engage him
in a conversation than to grab him
and literally rip him apart.
I remember, when
I first started with him...
It may sound crazy, but...
Three or four little girls, emotional...
They have so much strength
that they'll literally rip his shirt,
take off his hoodie.
And if it's a big crowd,
you can lose him in the crowd.
I'd say the hardest part is just space.
So, having security, it creates space
for me, creates boundaries.
It creates a safe place for me.
But as the fans grown with him,
so has their approach. To be able
to just come up to him
and be like, "Hey, Justin, how are you?"
and engage in conversation.
So it gives him more space, for sure.
As the fans get older and more...
Just know themselves more,
they start understanding how to act
and they actually want to act
a little bit more sane
so that maybe they get my attention.
Because at this point, with your
screaming, it's super overwhelming
and it's hard for me to connect with you.
[Mikey Arana] The most memorable moments
are dealing with the crowds overseas,
especially in South America.
It gets so bad that...
you start thinking,
"How am I going to get out of this?"
Sometimes, when there's
large crowds, and...
It's really uncontrollable,
because over time,
people see other people freaking out
and they start freaking out
and then it becomes this whole thing
where it just becomes uncontrollable.
The strength of people
packed in one place...
They can be five-foot-one girls,
but about a hundred and fifty of them?
They'll move you and three other
big guys with no problem.
That gave me experience,
because you start learning,
or start thinking, about crowd control
before it becomes an issue.
So you see one girl, and you've already
addressed that girl because you know
that if you start putting the line then,
you start creating a system for them
so you there's not an issue with them
afterwards when there's a hundred of them.
Yeah, I would say
me and Justin are friends.
We definitely developed
a special relationship.
He's always been good, a friend,
someone I can count on.
And that's important, as well.
[Mikey] I think just because of the fact
of how I get to see him every day
and respect what he goes through
and vice versa,
he sees what I go through
and has that respect towards me and...
Yeah, great relationship.
After a while, you build relationships
with the people that are around you,
even venue security.
You see them so much
and you build a rapport with them.
[Mikey] The thing that could also go
with the hardest parts of the job
is to be able to maintain
the client and friend relationship.
Knowing when to step in as a mentor,
as a person who you...
you know, grow emotions to,
and when to just shut up
and be an employee.
[Braun] You want someone
who cares about the artist.
They prefer to remain professional,
because that's a true pro,
someone who can really
put their ass on the line for somebody,
but at the same time,
knows how to walk that very grey area.
People get caught up in it, sometimes,
and other times they're not caring enough.
Finding that nice mix of someone
who really understands a person,
gives a shit, but at the same time
can stay professional.
When you find it, you know.
[narrator] James "Whitey" Bulger.
One of the most notorious
American criminals of all time.
Whitey and his Winter Hill Gang
ran the streets of Boston for decades.
Bulger was a violent, vicious gangster,
but it's not the murder,
extortion and narcotics sales
that make Whitey's story special. No.
It's the fact that he was secretly
an FBI informant for over two decades.
What's this got to do with our story?
Well, powerful criminals surround
themselves with powerful associates.
Whitey ran with a small inner circle.
Two, to be exact.
One of these allies was his partner,
Stevie Flemmi,
another ruthless killer
and fellow FBI informant.
The other was Whitey's right hand man,
bodyguard and enforcer, Kevin Weeks.
Kevin worked alongside Whitey
for over 25 years.
Nobody was closer to him and nobody
was more shocked and betrayed
when Whitey was exposed
as an FBI informant.
Kevin's story is one of crime,
corruption, violence,
betrayal, and of course, lots of death.
Whitey Bulger was probably
the premier criminal in Boston
for almost thirty years.
In terms of describing Bulger,
I think the adjectives of "vicious"
and "cold-blooded" would apply.
Highly Intelligent.
Amoral.
Very, very disciplined.
Ruthless.
Not someone I'd want to be
spending a lot of time with.
A clever and vicious criminal.
If you asked me years ago to describe
Whitey Bulger, I'd say he was a friend.
I really looked up to the guy.
Mentor. He taught me a lot.
If you asked me today,
I would tell you I have mixed feelings.
Because I considered him my best friend
and then I found out
that him and Steve Flemmi
were informants for the FBI.
He was one of these people
that lead from the front.
He enjoyed it when it came to
violence and stuff. He enjoyed it.
He wouldn't ask you to do anything
that he wouldn't do himself,
which was everything.
So, when he asked us
to do something, myself,
yeah, I didn't hesitate,
because I knew he would do it.
He was absolutely devoted to Bulger.
He talked about him as being
clever, brilliant, a master manipulator.
He talks about him as if he was flawless,
like he was a criminal god.
When I was 18 years old, out of school,
I started working clubs, bouncing.
I worked St. Patrick's Day, there,
and I had a few fights
and ended up getting hired.
And that's when I met
Jim Bulger and Steve Flemmi.
They used to frequent the bar.
Eventually, he gets picked up as a bouncer
at a bucket of blood called Triple O's.
Triple O's happens to be where
Whitey Bulger conducted
business, upstairs.
You never wanted to be called
upstairs by Whitey Bulger.
He takes him on as a lieutenant.
He's beef.
Whether he's a bodyguard
in the conventional sense or not
is one thing.
He's beef and muscle.
He's there,
he is there for the worst of it.
He's an eyewitness to some of the most
gruesome murders you can imagine.
[Kevin Weeks] I got along
with Jim Bulger great and I trusted him.
Basically, I kind of knew
what he was thinking.
Well, there was a fellow, Brian Halloran,
and he was an associate of Winter Hill.
He was involved in a shooting in Chinatown
where he killed this guy, George Pappas.
And he was grabbed by the FBI
and he co-operated,
he made a deal with them.
His deal was to give up Whitey and Stevie
and other people
for two different murders.
If Halloran had given up Bulger,
as he was trying to do to the FBI,
then Bulger was in trouble
and Bulger's empire was about to fall.
[Weeks] Whitey was looking for
Halloran for a while,
and we finally received word
that he was down at the waterfront.
That he was at this restaurant.
It was called the "Pier" at the time.
Weeks was sent out as the lookout.
They had a name for Halloran.
They called him "Balloon Head".
So, he was going to notify them.
He was posted across the bar,
and at the right time
he was gonna call Bulger.
I was using the binoculars
and saw Halloran in the window.
Jim Bulger was in the hit car
with another fellow,
and I radioed to him
when Halloran was getting up.
And when Halloran came out into the air,
I let him know that he was out.
He got shot right over here.
The car drifted across the street.
The driver was killed immediately,
he was shot in the head.
And Brian Halloran got out of the car,
he staggered towards the back
and he got shot 21 times.
That was the first time I had been
involved a murder with them,
and it was a double homicide.
When the murder took place,
my first murder,
it was kind of surreal.
I came to the realization
that this really does happen.
So I decided, at the time,
that I had committed homicide.
I was involved with it.
There was no getting out.
And at that point, I said,
"If I'm gonna do this,
I'm gonna be the best I can at it."
[narrator] In North America, the term
"bodyguard" immediately invokes a vision
of somebody protecting
a musician, an actor, an athlete.
However, executive protection
is much more than that.
Enter the Shadow Group and Atlas Tactical.
High risk targets,
24/7 life-or-death possibilities.
Welcome to an undisclosed location
in Florida where Shamir Bolivar,
owner of the Shadow Group,
combines skills with Tairon Coronel,
owner and operator of Atlas Tactical
a company that specializes
in overseas diplomatic protection.
War zone protection
is a whole other world of security.
Operating in the most dangerous
countries on the planet,
these guys have experience
in situations where the enemy
isn't some overzealous fan,
but a demented motherfucker
willing to die for a cause.
My name is Tairon Coronel.
Married, 36 years old, father of one.
I'm originally from Cartagena, Colombia.
So, I was born and raised there.
Grew up really poor.
No water, no electricity,
You know, no bathroom,
just a latrine outside.
In Colombia, I was going
to military school in my later years
so I always wanted
to be in the military.
After the attacks on 9/11,
I decided that I needed to do something
for this great country
that has given me so much,
so I joined the Marine Corps.
I went to the recruiter, signed up,
a couple of weeks later I was
at Parris Island, South Carolina
to start boot camp.
My name is Shamir Bolivar.
Forty years old, father of three.
Originally from Brooklyn, New York.
Grew up in the inner city.
I've protected and been
associated with anything
from former President George Bush,
President Obama,
Donald Trump, Lenny Kravitz,
the Wade family...
Growing up in this city,
I was forced to ride the line.
There's a fine line
between being on the good guy's side
or the bad guy's side, I was just
surrounded by a bunch of chaos.
[Tairon Coronel] I knew I'd go to war,
I just didn't know how soon.
My military specialty is 0311,
which is infantry.
So I did that, I deployed to Iraq in 2003.
We were in Kuwait about a month
before we crossed
the land of departure into Iraq.
Every little city, little town,
all the way from Kuwait to Baghdad...
It was just a fire fight.
Dead bodies all over the place.
Burning oil fields, mangled bodies.
The smell was pretty bad.
A lot of it was full of bullet holes.
The dogs would eat
the dead bodies all over the place.
We finally got to a camp in Iraq.
The first day we got to that camp,
we took 43 mortar rounds,
so that was pretty scary.
At that point, I hadn't seen
any of my buddies get hurt,
but that would come pretty soon.
I lost a lot of friends.
Half of my team was killed
January 31st, 2005.
So, I went over there with a team of four
and only two of us came back.
Just one of those things
that happens in war.
We're volunteers,
we were not made to go to war.
We obviously have to understand
that the war... War is not pretty.
But, you know, it is what it is.
I focused on law enforcement
as a career, and got into it
after moving down here from New York.
I was in law enforcement
for approximately 15 years.
In law enforcement, I was able to work
several specialized units.
Narcotics, working undercover,
SWAT officer, work as an operator.
I worked containment.
Specialized operations
where we took down narcotic organizations.
It was like my first venture
into the Miami Vice life.
Time doing dignitary protection
as a SWAT officer,
as a patrol officer.
Presidential motorcade would come through,
we'd help Secret Service out.
I was like, "You know what?
There's some money in this.
This is a very profitable business.
I'm just on the wrong side of it."
We used to ride around Baghdad
with a Humvee,
no doors, no top, it was just... Whatever.
On our second deployment,
they started putting IEDs.
[soldier] Oh, shit!
-[indistinct radio chatter]
-[explosion]
[rapid gunfire]
[indistinct shouting]
[Coronel] So, most of our casualties came
from improvised explosive devices.
You know, you're driving around,
all of a sudden,
you drive over a pressure plate
and your vehicle blows up.
Seeing a vehicle in front of you
completely get turned into
Swiss cheese was an experience
I hope I never have to live, again.
My body has definitely taken a toll.
Half of my left index finger is missing,
if you can see that.
Both of my clavicles are
two and a half centimeters shorter.
My bicep got detached from here
and ended up down here.
It looked like an apple in there.
IEDs overseas are definitely the biggest
killer of U.S. troops and contractors.
[narrator] Diplomatic protection
in Afghanistan during war
is as dangerous as it gets.
Tairon came face-to-face
with a life or death situation
after his vehicle convoy
spun out and crashed.
I got out and went to assess
the situation
and as I opened the back door,
I saw a lady with a broken leg.
As I'm pulling her out, you know,
a lot of people were gathering.
Then, after, I felt somebody
pulling my gun.
So I looked, took a peek back,
and I saw some dude
with his hand out for my pistol.
At that time, I turned around
and put two rounds in him
right above his stomach
and another one on his chest.
It's one of those situations
where you feel bad for the people
but at the same time,
it's either them or us.
I have to come home to my family.
I got to do
what I got to do to stay alive.
After I got out of the Marine Corps,
I didn't even know what I wanted to do.
I got a call from a company
called Blackwater,
I'm not sure if you heard about it.
[narrator] Yeah, that Blackwater.
The notorious security firm
founded by auto manufacturing heir
and ex-navy man, Eric Prince.
Tasked with high-risk security detail
in conflict areas around the world.
Blackwater became
a household name in 2004
after four members were ambushed
in Fallujah by Iraqi insurgents
who fatally shot all four agents.
After the killing,
a mob lit the bodies on fire
and then dragged the charred remains
through the streets of Iraq
behind a vehicle,
beating them with sticks as they went.
Finally, the remains were
hung from a bridge
-while men, women and children cheered.
-[crowd chants indistinctly]
The chilling events sent shockwaves
through American news media,
significantly escalating the war in Iraq.
Blackwater received over
1.5 billion dollars' worth of contracts
during the Iraq War
from the US government,
but these contracts did not come
without controversy.
-[gunfire]
-Between 2005 and 2007,
Blackwater was involved
in 195 shooting incidents.
Negative press became associated
with Blackwater's brash way
of doing business,
peaking on September 16th, 2007
when a team opened fire
on a group of people
at Nisour Square in Baghdad,
killing 17, injuring 20.
The Blackwater guards explained
that the group was ambushed
and the shooting
was an act of self-defense,
but the United States Federal Court
decided otherwise,
sentencing the three men to 30 years
in jail and one man to a life in prison.
You know, we have a bad rap
for some incidents that happened,
but I can tell you that Blackwater
is the only company
doing security overseas
that has a 100 percent record.
You know, we have never lost a client,
ever, but nobody talks about that.
When I was at Blackwater,
I was on two teams.
I was on a team called "TST",
Tactical Support Team.
If they couldn't make it back
for themselves, we had to go and get them.
The other teams I was in
I was with the Ambassador.
So, wherever he went,
I went right next to him.
Whatever the mission.
A lot of people think that
contractors are just out to kill people,
well, we're not.
We get paid to care of whoever
and bring them back safe.
We're not there
to get into a fire fight with somebody,
we're there to have one person
from point A to point B
and then back to point A.
[narrator] South Africa,
a breathtakingly beautiful country,
filled with a tumultuous history.
For decades, the nation lived
in complete racial inequality,
lead by the all-white
apartheid government.
Violence and bloodshed were rampant.
The country was drowning
on the brink of Civil War
and in desperate need of change.
When change finally came,
a national hero was born.
Nelson Mandela,
arguably the most popular
global politician of all time.
Mandela devoted his entire life
to fighting for equality
and democracy in South Africa.
Including spending
27 years behind bars
after narrowly avoiding a death sentence
via hanging for treason.
Following his 1994 inauguration
as South Africa's first elected president,
Mandela immediately set out
to change the fiber of the country.
Mandela commenced the change
first within his office,
merging the previous all-white
presidential protection unit
with his all-black ANC
presidential bodyguards.
This is where our story begins.
Rory Steyn, presidential team lead
and longtime fixture
of the racially motivated
apartheid police,
was forced to work along
Mandela's head bodyguard
of four years, Jason Tshabalala.
Jason was a trained ANC rebel
who viciously fought the old,
all-white government,
and men just like Rory Steyn.
What transpired helped build
the foundation of an entire nation.
Growing up in South Africa,
when I was born in 1963,
was completely different
to what South Africa is today.
Apartheid had had 15 years
to establish itself
by the time I was born,
so when I was born,
everything was segregated.
I went to whites only schools,
only saw other white families
and other white kids
other than, of course,
our domestic workers
when they brought their children home.
We would play with these black kids,
but when we came to school,
they would go to that school
and we would go to that school.
I finished high school in '81.
At that time, it was mandatory
for every white male leaving school,
to do two years of national service
in the South African Defense Force,
as it was, which meant the army.
I really didn't want to go to the army
if I could've avoided it,
so I had opted to go
into the police force.
If you fast forward that movie to 1990
when the then State President de Klerk
announced that he was going
to un-ban the ANC,
release Mr. Mandela unconditionally
and all of that,
I was in the security branch.
The special branch at that time
was like a Gestapo, basically.
The special branch was really tasked
to keeping apartheid alive
for lack of a better explanation,
because they would be considered
the number one enemy.
It would be unlikely to accommodate
them in your new government.
The most brutal unit
that you can ever have at that time.
If you are arrested by the special branch,
you can disappear.
It was the hardcore side
of the apartheid police force.
We went to Madiba and told him,
you know,
Rory is one of the guys
that was in the special branch
and he was allegedly involved
in bombing Khotso House.
"He has been attached to us.
How can we work with this guy?"
Having received my training in the police
and, in particular, in the special branch,
or the security branch,
we were trained in the ideology
and strategy of the ANC,
I didn't buy into the stuff
he was saying when he was
released from prison
about South Africa being for all people,
both black and white,
and we want to build one country,
and all of that.
I have come out with one single objective,
and that is to help and to bring
South Africans together, black and white.
The fact that Nelson Mandela
gave people the opportunity to change
I think it was very much
part of his character
that he gave a person that opportunity
and he was willing to take that risk
in his most inner circle,
to allow someone like Rory Steyn to say,
"You've got the opportunity to change."
We were taught that in those days
that the sole idea of the ANC
as a liberation movement was to just...
sweep all of properly-thinking,
like-minded white people into the sea
and take over the country.
As it turns out,
I couldn't have been more wrong.
Come 1994, when we now
have a new president,
who insisted, by the way, that his staff,
and even his protection team must reflect
the demographic of all of South Africa...
It was very difficult.
It was difficult for us,
because we were the cops that used
to protect the previously all-white
government leaders and we are,
by dint of our constitution,
required to protect our head of state.
Now we've got a new head of state
who comes with his own
security detail, quite rightly.
I mean, they're never gonna hand
their president over
to a bunch of white guys
who were previously their enemies.
I didn't think it was going to be
a perfect relationship from the outset
because of our historical backgrounds,
that different worlds
we were coming from,
the culture we were coming from.
As you can understand,
security is about trust.
Believing in each other, you know,
that we'll cover each other's back.
But for us, it was difficult,
because some of these guys
that we were supposed to work with,
they were the ones who were arresting us.
Who were supporting
the brutal system of apartheid.
And we were asking ourselves,
"How do we work with these guys?
Do we trust them?"
That guy who was formerly my enemy
as a security branch copper...
I was hunting those guys
who we considered to be terrorists,
and they're now my colleagues.
The only way I could learn to trust him
as my colleague is to work with him,
to hurt with him...
It takes time. Trust.
Building trust takes time.
There's no shortcut to that.
We're here for a job,
we're not here to be friends.
We're here to make sure that we conduct
our duties as professionals.
Over a period of time...
the relationship obviously grew
closer and closer.
To see them amalgamating
and working together,
in the beginning,
was quite entertaining, actually.
They used to group themselves
in different offices.
And later on, of course,
they started socializing together, even.
Then they realized that we have
to pull this off as a team.
There are no individuals, here.
We actually had two teams.
We had the main team and the other team.
And Madiba said to us,
he called a meeting to say,
"Look, I want you to work
with all South Africans.
Because I work with all
South Africans, black and white."
[crowd cheers]
And it was difficult for us, initially.
But we understood, as individuals,
that we've got an obligation...
to build a nation.
And we needed to work
with other South Africans.
[narrator] Headquartered
in Miami, Florida,
Guardian Protection works major festivals
and concerts with their personal
bodyguard service and venue security.
During massive festival weekends,
Anton's bodyguards often find themselves
at the same venues where Guardian's
events security division is running point.
Anton and his team had an action-packed
Memorial Day weekend, where their clients
T-Pain, DJ Khaled, Ace Hood,
Keri Hilson and more, all had concerts.
[Anton] I want to cover Best of the Best.
That's the big event.
It's two days, this year.
Every time, every year it's Sunday, but
now they're doing it Sunday and Saturday.
Saturday's gonna be hip-hop, mostly,
then Sunday's gonna be
a more Caribbean crowd.
So, expect a bigger crowd, Saturday,
expect a rougher crowd, Saturday.
Expect more bullshit, Saturday.
But Sunday, you guys already know,
how the Caribbean crowds are.
You respect them, they respect you.
The only problem you're gonna
have is weed. No-one's really gonna fight.
You know, knock on wood, but I mean,
the big concern I have is for Saturday.
We've got some new guys on the crew
that me and Josh interviewed.
I want to test the guy out.
This is also Frank's new one-time venture,
leaving the nest.
We've got to see how he's doing.
This is your first time being requested,
which is awesome.
Ace is performing at Best of the Best.
If it was any other artist,
I wouldn't worry about it,
but I've seen him perform.
You're gonna get tried for being white,
for being a bodyguard.
I'll get tried for telling them
to do something they don't want to.
You've got a temper.
You'll have to curb it, fast.
You've got to be a bodyguarding
on the worst week you could ask for.
Last time I worked with him, there were
eight of us, so it was a lot easier.
But now, he's solely responsible
for his client's protection.
Everything good and bad
that happens is because of him.
We'll see how he does.
I hire guards that go through the bullshit
of getting yelled at by some guy
that you know you'll squash
but you've got to eat it.
-Are your feelings gonna get hurt?
-Absolutely not.
-We're throwing you in the fire, tonight.
-Yes, sir.
[indistinct chatter]
[indistinct shouting]
[indistinct shouting]
-[man] I paid 150 dollars for this, bro.
-[guard] I don't book this.
[man] First of all, I'm a cop.
You'd better back up.
-[guard] Listen to me.
-I'm a police officer, back up.
Back up. I'm on duty.
Back the fuck up.
[Anton] It gets a little cluttered
with the Caribbean crowd
and with a hip hop crowd.
The stages are always cluttered.
They do an okay job, but it's never clean.
You're never gonna walk on a clean stage.
This is where it's gonna happen.
We're gonna see an issue here.
People with VIP bands
should not be going backstage.
Everybody's somebody, especially in Miami,
especially in Caribbean or hip hop crowds.
It's simple. No bracelet, you're not in.
It's chaos, and we're here to organize it.
-I've got to deal with this shit--
-[man] What are you talking about?
What the last twenty people have
been talking about. The bracelets.
[man] Hey, get the fuck off me, man.
Get the fuck off me!
[indistinct shouting]
[man] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[Anton] That covers Best of the Best.
Code blues the number one thing
and people trying to escort people in
without bracelets are number two.
You've got to get out of here.
You've got to go downstairs.
I'm not trying to chase you down.
-I can say no in three languages.
-[woman] That's understandable.
[Anton] You want to follow me around?
We can walk and talk, all right.
I guess this is a date, now.
[Harvey] You're always one ass-whooping
away from being fired.
[Anton] Nine years
as a pro football player
and head of security for Keri Hilson.
[Harvey] I've been with her, now,
for two years, so we have a relationship.
Sometimes she tells me, "Harvey,
I think you were rough with that fan."
-[fan] Oh, my god!
-[audience shouts excitedly]
[Keri Hilson] Yo, yo, yo...
[Harvey] At the end of the day,
if you've got to your show, safe,
you've got on stage, safe, and went back
to your hotel, safe, I did my job.
[narrator] Mikey has flourished
as Bieber's director of security
because he has been
able to keep Justin safe
while simultaneously dealing
with a variety of logistical executions
that ensure Team Bieber runs smoothly.
We join Mikey and Justin
for an inside look at the day-to-day
workings of a world tour.
[Mikey] We took him up
through the underground,
so the crowd doesn't notice.
They're still standing there,
thinking that he's still here.
Cars and buses are there,
all the hype is here,
so he goes underground
and out the other side.
I'm on a group chat right now
with six people,
coordinating where they are.
Chiropractor, trainers...
Yeah, he could ask for one at any time.
So if he asks, "Where's the chiro?",
everybody has to be together.
Hurry up and wait.
Don't forget to take your belongings
that you'll need for him.
A masseuse, her table,
the trainer, his protein and...
He said he wants a chiro and a masseuse
to meet him at the venue.
It's like, "Alright, that's
what I'm already working on."
Before he even asks,
I'm already setting it up
because it's like, "I already know
what you're gonna ask."
-[producer] That's three and a half years.
-Yeah, yeah.
It's like, "He's gonna
want this, this and that."
Then you get a text. "He wants this,
this and that. Okay, already got it."
That's another thing we do,
if it's one of us getting out,
to go to the gym or something,
the paparazzi will come too.
We'll stop, open the doors
and say, "Look, he's not here.
Check, all right?
Stop following. Thank you."
This is not George Clooney,
this is not so-and-so.
You've got young girls between
a certain age and hardcore loyals.
-[producer] Guys here, too.
-[Mikey] Yeah, that's been a trend, too.
A lot of guys, you can see.
Yeah, so right now,
since he's already there,
we'll just basically do a walkthrough.
Learn what the location of everything is,
from the dressing room to the catering,
eventually the meet-and-greet,
where it's gonna take place,
how they've got that organized.
Got to make sure it works
with crowd control.
It's just to get to know the venue.
See where our car is gonna be staged at.
Where the bus is gonna be.
So, nobody through the back of this,
and nobody through this side.
Where do you have him coming in from?
-[organizer] Huh?
-[Mikey] Where's he coming in from?
-This hallway.
-They're gonna wait behind the curtain?
No, the people are coming
in from the opposite.
[Mikey] The opposite side.
[organizer] From the back,
so they won't see.
[Mikey] Gotcha, okay.
They'll go in here, we'll move this,
and then you'll be set already.
Okay.
The first twenty people get selfies.
After that, everybody
has to have their phones away.
Okay. So in, wrap around, out.
Wrap around this way, boom.
[Mikey] Do you have a head count
for how many people, today?
One hundred sixty.
Not bad. We did 250 in Seattle.
[indistinct chatter]
[Justin] That was good! [cheers]
This way.
[Jazmyn Bieber]
Your hands are sweaty!
No, he just put some disinfectant on them.
-[Justin] Here's the elevator.
-Smells good.
[Justin] [imitating Borat]
Very nice! How much?
She's the oldest woman
in Kazakhstan. She's 42.
[narrator] Shamir and Tairon run
their invite-only training program
out of an abandoned prison
in the middle of fucking nowhere, Florida.
The program consists of anyone,
from your modern-day celebrity bodyguard
to special forces operatives
from across the globe.
Phase one, shooting range warm-up.
[Shamir] You want to pop your cherry.
The guns have been
in a case for a couple of days,
couple of weeks,
depending on how much you shoot.
You want to pop your cherry,
zero your weapon.
Basically, make sure that your scopes,
your sights are in-line.
Just get that first couple off.
It's kind of like when you're a virgin.
You might not knock it out of the park
the first time, but once you feel that
moist, tender sweetness, you're gonna
remember it for the second time
and be better prepared.
[instructor] Shooters ready! Targets!
[Tairon] You want to make sure that
your scope or your sights are on track.
We do it from 25 yards or 36 yards.
After that, we go through
some basic drills,
a couple of rounds to the chest,
a couple to the head.
So you do your two rounds. Two, two.
As soon as you grab that pistol,
your support hand comes off the rifle.
[gunfire]
[narrator] Phase two,
principal transportation.
[Shamir] Venue arrival and extract.
What that entails is,
we have a three-vehicle caravan,
first vehicle being the lead vehicle,
second vehicle being the vehicle
that occupies the principal.
The term "principal" is gonna relate
to the person we are hired to protect.
All angles are gonna be covered
by somebody. All right.
Whenever everybody gives the okay,
everything is clear,
the agent is gonna get out.
-Contact front!
-Contact front!
[instructor shouts indistinctly]
[narrator] Phase three, the shoot house.
About the shoot house.
In military terms, it's called "MOUT".
Military Operations in Urban Terrain.
Before you go into the building,
it's got to be clear.
If you're doing a two-man room-clearing,
the guy who is doing the lead is always
gonna have his rifle pointing up.
After that has been cleared,
you either go inside,
nothing's clear, you come out of the room.
[gunfire]
Even if he's got body armor,
it's gonna be right about here.
So right here, he's gonna
be pretty much done.
It's gonna go through the neck,
right on the bottom of the neck,
it's gonna come out through the back.
Incapacitated immediately.
We train so much because sometimes
you're gonna present your weapon,
have your finger on the trigger,
and right before you press that trigger,
you're going to say,
"This is not a threat."
You go into situations
where you're not gonna know
and you have to make the call
in one second or less than one second.
Anywhere you see a target on the wall,
engage it, two rounds.
Call what you see.
Call me right, call me left.
Doorway right, doorway left.
I don't want to go into the tactics
because it's being used
by our guys overseas.
It's just one of those things
that if you're not in the business,
it's best not to know.
[Weeks] The house we're
coming up to, here,
is 799 East Third Street.
This is the house.
We used to call it the "Haunty".
This is where we killed
three people, inside.
Bucky Barrett, John MacIntyre,
and Deborah Hussey,
she was the last one.
They were all buried in the basement.
There was a dirt floor down there.
[David Boeri] Bucky Barrett,
by many accounts, was a very nice guy.
He was a very good safe cracker.
And he had pulled off a heist at a bank...
that got away with a lot of stuff.
A lot of money,
some of it belonging to the mafia,
and jewelry.
Bulger found out about it.
So, a plan was made to shake him down
and Bucky was gonna come
and meet this jewelry dealer,
for lack of a better word,
a guy who was stealing diamonds for sale.
And when Bucky walked in the house
to meet him, that was me.
And I shook his hand and grabbed him
and Whitey stepped out with a machine gun
and basically was taken hostage.
They'd gotten a lot of money
out of Bucky Barrett,
but Bulger decided
he was gonna kill him.
And it was all supposed to be
a shake-down, to let him go,
but Whitey decided to kill him.
So Bucky was killed.
That was the basement where Whitey,
Stevie, Kevin and Pattony became diggers.
They dug holes in the basement,
they put a body in...
In this case, it was Bucky Barrett.
They covered it up, and they put
two more bodies there...
after they put Bucky Barrett there.
Then, you have the case of John MacIntyre,
who was involved with the Valhalla
who was the ship that went over to Ireland
with seven tons of weapons on it.
He didn't realize that he was dealing
with dangerous people
and he got grabbed coming off the boat.
Valhalla, when it docked,
Customs agents grabbed him
and shortly thereafter,
he started cooperating with Quincy Police
and we found out about it
and he was killed.
Then you had Deborah Hussey.
That was Stevie Flemmi's step-daughter.
She was killed because Stevie
was having sexual relations with...
You know.
She knew too much of Stevie's business.
She was an embarrassment to him,
and so Jim Bulger
and Stevie Flemmi decided to kill her.
And she came in the same house
and was killed.
And they were all buried in the cellar.
The final note in that
is that after Whitey had...
After Whitey had strangled her,
they detected that she might
still be alive, and so her stepfather...
with a piece of rope and a stick,
garroted her.
A guy who was a secret FBI informant
who was protected by FBI agents.
Jim's normal routine was,
after he had killed someone,
he would go upstairs
and lay down and take a nap.
I mean, it was like an aphrodisiac
for him, or taking a valium.
He was just nice and relaxed.
And for the next couple of weeks
he was relaxed,
it was just like a stress relief.
Then you'd see it build up in him again.
But killing people relaxed him.
Later on, the house was being sold.
and we had to go back down
and exhume all the bodies.
And it wasn't nice.
One body was only in there
for six months.
So, the smell was pretty bad.
We took them out,
dug them up at nighttime,
put them in body bags and transported
them over to this other place...
that we had over on Hallet Street.
This was a spot that we picked out.
It was real convenient.
It was, maybe, about two miles
from where the house was.
It was all brush, here,
and scrub and trees and stuff,
so it was a perfect spot.
We threw the bodies in there
and covered it with the dirt
from the duffle bags.
Over here, somewhere,
is where I was lying.
I've got a look at the doorway,
the angle, to find out the exact spot.
But...
I was probably lying right around here.
At one point, I had a grease gun,
a machine gun with the silencer on it.
I had the police scanner in my ear
and we were listening to calls and stuff.
Whitey and Stevie walked over there...
Actually, crawled over there,
where the bodies were,
and he wanted to check it out.
So, while I was here on watch,
this kid pulled up
and got out of the car
and started to relieve himself,
go to the bathroom.
We were really quiet. We all just
froze on the ground, just waiting,
and he got back in the car and left.
Jim Bulger came over to me afterwards
and he was upset.
He said I let him get too close.
He said, "There's plenty of room
in the hole. We could put him in there."
So I guess the kid was lucky it was me
that night instead of Whitey,
because Whitey
would have killed him right away.
Eventually, the police came here
and they exhumed the bodies.
[narrator] Hold up. To be clear,
the only reason the cops knew
where the bodies were
was because Kevin exposed them
more than a decade later,
after finding out Whitey was an informant.
More on this, later.
They found three bodies, here,
and two bodies over in the Neponset.
One body over at Tenean Beach.
And... You know.
A lot people got killed back then.
And a lot of bodies got buried.
Back then, if there was no body,
there was no crime,
and that's the reason they were buried.
[Boeri] But I do know,
from the investigators,
that Flemmi and Bulger were concerned
that Kevin didn't have it in him
to kill people.
To me, that's a positive.
[laughing] To be sure.
I think the evidence at trial
and the evidence we were able to uncover
through other witnesses
did in fact corroborate Weeks
in that he was basically an accessory
to a lot of these murders.
He wasn't the actual shooter or killer,
but he was there and he was part of it.
He was a lookout on some of them,
he witnessed others,
he helped rebury bodies.
So, he certainly had a serious role
in some horrific crimes.
[narrator] It's no secret
that the bodyguard business
is a male-dominated industry.
That being said, there are a ton of smart,
tough-as-nails women
who are extremely successful
in the field of personal protection.
Our story takes us to London, England,
where we meet seasoned
professional Jackie Davis
and her team of all-female bodyguards.
In addition to hostage rescues
in the Middle East,
Jackie's experience includes protecting
JK Rowling and Saudi royalty.
Jackie's team shows us
exactly what it takes
to get a client
in and out of a venue, safely,
starting with advanced security
before the principal arrives.
So, advanced work is all about
pre-preparation and planning,
before you bring
your principal to a venue.
You have to look at the choke points
that could be on the road.
You need to know the entrance and exits
where you can have a smooth entrance
or exit for your principal.
It's all about being aware
of what's around the venue.
It's all about being able to get
your principal in and out, safely,
and to look for areas where
a possible attacker might lurk.
So, once we enter the venue,
the first thing we want to do
is find the venue manager,
because he has the local knowledge
of what happens in his venue.
So, we'd go and introduce ourselves
and ask for his co-operation.
Once we're inside,
we're looking at things like windows,
material that's on walls
in case it's offensive,
because some clients
are from the Middle East
and they would find picture of half-naked
men and women on the walls offensive.
The gambling machine
would have to be switched off
if they were the clients coming.
What we're looking for in this venue,
is somewhere for our principal
to have a quiet meeting,
away from a window,
but with the facilities quite close.
Here would be a good place.
We could then cover the entrance
and exits into this place,
including the kitchen door, so that nobody
would be able to get to our principal.
Okay, so we're gonna check the toilets.
Check that there's nobody in the stalls.
We're also going to check...
at the back, to make sure that no weapons
or explosives have been hidden...
in any of the flushers.
This window, here, looks like it's broken.
We'll have to deal with that.
We'd either have to close that or I'd
have to put somebody outside, there.
But the place is clean,
acceptable for the principal
to come in here and use these facilities,
providing there is nobody else in here.
We want to check all of the
entrance and exits
to make sure that we can get our principal
in or out in an emergency, smoothly.
Also, to check if the bad guys
can get in or out behind us.
So, we're gonna go out
this entrance, here.
Brings us straight out into
a smoking area.
So, we probably wouldn't use this
for our principal if they don't smoke,
because they may find the smell
quite offensive.
We're coming round into
a wide-open car-parking area,
which is quite good, because there's
not a lot of places for people to hide.
But we have to be aware of the buildings
that are over the road.
And I can see that that's a garage,
so therefore, we'd be very careful.
We can cover off the road up there,
we can cover off the road down there,
so our principal can have
a smooth drive away.
So, we have a female operative over here
who's covering the kitchen door.
That's to make sure that nobody
who shouldn't be coming through there
comes through there, and she's also
covering this back bar area.
The operator over here,
she's covering the entrance,
and the toilet, so again, we can be aware
of who's coming in and out.
We have another operator
who's covering the window,
so she can see what's going on outside.
And then our other operator is
around here. She's covering...
She's sitting at the bar,
looking like she belongs here,
but she's actually covering
the other entrances and exits
so that nobody that should come near
the principal, gets near the principal.
The venue has now been compromised
and we have to get the principal out.
The back-up female will come up behind,
the front females will go out ahead
to make sure it's clear
for her to get straight out
and into the vehicle.
[Rory Steyn] Absolutely, I was a racist
and thought like a racist prior to 1994
and meeting President Mandela.
I mean, I'm one of those rare white
South Africans that will actually say,
"Yeah, I did vote for the old National
party under apartheid."
Absolutely. I was brought up thinking
that that kind of racist behavior,
in society... The context was normal.
So, yeah, I was a racist, you know?
And I very quickly learned that
that was wrong, and I learned it by
watching President Mandela
change this country.
[Zelda La Grange]
In Nelson Mandela's case,
we had an excellent example
of a person that dealt with
everyone around him
irrespective of the color of their skin,
their wealth status, their position.
He dealt with people
with the utmost of respect.
You have no choice but to change
and to follow that kind of example.
And because his was one
of dignity and love
and caring and respecting people.
It's not easy to undo 33 or 34 years,
whatever it was,
of conditioning
under a particular political system.
When you're 33,
you're pretty much who you are.
But as a 33-year-old,
I started to think, "Hang on a minute,
I've been wrong,
and everything I've been taught
and told and brought up with was wrong."
So, I very easily and very quickly
bought into Madiba's concept
of this new South Africa.
I bought into it entirely,
because I saw it first-hand.
When you work with someone
for a long time,
it's only natural that there's more
of a relationship developing.
A father-son relationship.
I served him in a very specific capacity.
I respected him and I loved him, dearly.
But to call him a "friend", no,
it's a bit too familiar.
He was my President
and he was my protectee
and I loved him like my own grandfather,
but it stopped there.
Nelson Mandela was like a father to us.
-[audience roars]
-[Mandela speaks in foreign language]
And that relationship must not cloud
your judgment, as a professional.
I knew, unquestionably,
that I was willing,
if called upon to do so,
to sacrifice my own life
to protect that
of President Nelson Mandela.
I would have died for Madiba.
Because of what I was trained for.
I was a bullet catcher
I was a professional.
Besides that, I was looking after
one of the icons...
of the world.
Who wouldn't want to die for him?
[narrator] On December the 5th, 2013,
the heart of South Africa stopped beating.
At 95 years of age,
Nelson Mandela passed away.
[Steyn] How did Madiba's death affect me,
and was it a time to reflect?
It was... It's a very strange thing
because our entire nation,
and, for that matter, the entire world,
you know, we're very conscious
of the fact that we had Madiba with us
on borrowed time.
Everybody knew how ill he was
and he was getting older and frailer.
You know that one day, our day will come.
I never thought that something like that
would happen to Madiba.
Even though we were expecting
this announcement at some time,
it was still a tremendous shock
when it came.
But it didn't take long,
and I'm talking about a matter of hours.
During that morning,
somewhere along the line, our grief
turned to celebrating
what was an exceptional life.
-[crowd cheers and sings]
-[reporter] This was a day to mourn
one life lost and to a day to mark
the many lives made by Nelson Mandela.
As much as you expect something like that
to happen, you're never ready for it.
Therefore, when Nelson Mandela
passed away,
people were genuinely feeling the grief.
Even if they they'd never met him,
they personally felt affected.
It was a person that we all looked up to,
a person that had no resentment
despite what he went through.
He was a much better person
than any of us.
[Steyn] We, as the former protection team,
were given an extraordinary honor.
We were called up, all of us
were invited to that ceremony
in the aircraft hangar,
and we were called up, ten at a time,
to stand five on either side
of that casket,
draped in the national flag,
while the ceremonies proceeded around us.
And we were just given
two or three minutes
with our own
private thoughts and memories,
standing alongside his coffin.
It was just one of those
seminal moments in my life.
[Jason Tshabalala]
Mandiba, for us, is an icon.
He's the father of all the nation.
He was able to bring us
together as a country.
Very emotional. Very emotional.
It gave me the closure that I
didn't fully have at the time.
And now, all I've got are all my memories,
filed away here, in the back of my mind.
It was a great five years.
Guys, I'm about as emotionally
drained as I can be,
so I think we probably need
to leave it there. [laughs]
Having a girlfriend was difficult.
I couldn't have one.
You wouldn't touch a woman
for a long time, the way I did it.
You wouldn't drink.
I never smoked, but you wouldn't party.
You wouldn't take
a night off or do anything.
I was a robot for so long that I said,
"This is the way you need to be."
The number one thing you sacrifice
that is the most valuable thing
is time. You can't get it back.
I love being able to protect
and being a part of something
and make money doing it.
It's what I'm here to do.
But then, time goes
and then you start realizing,
"What am I doing all of this for?"
Now you're 37, 38,
and you're thinking to yourself
"When was the last time
I celebrated Christmas?
When was the last time
I ate a Thanksgiving dinner?
When was the last time
I had a girlfriend I could hold on to?"
You miss all that.
It's a sacrifice that you do,
because if you stop doing
all of these holidays,
then you'll realize you're missing it,
but you don't realize because you're
doing holidays, it's just their holidays.
I'm at Bieber's driveway for Christmas.
There's snow on the ground,
Christmas colors everywhere.
I know it's Christmas,
there's presents here and there.
It's not like I missed Christmas.
I was there for Christmas,
but not my Christmas.
So, I think time
is a big thing you sacrifice,
And being a "celebrity bodyguard"...
People who call themselves that
are assholes, because you're a bodyguard.
Your client is a celebrity.
Don't call yourself a celebrity bodyguard,
because you're giving
a glamorous name to it.
By no means is this a glamorous industry.
There's no glamour to this shit.
And that's my biggest regret.
If I could do it over again,
would I have not done it? Maybe.
I've got buddies
that don't have much money,
and they've got a beautiful family,
and kids, and a wife, and this and that.
But they're driving a beat-up mini-van
and... You know what?
They're ten times happier than I am
because they've got to experience that.
To me, the number one sacrifice is time.
You look back at my entire career,
and what I've done.
I've got a lot of memories,
I've got a lot of memories.
I've seen it all, I've done it all.
But I can honestly, genuinely say, not one
of those memories were mine, at least.
I lived 50's life.
I went to his Thanksgiving.
Went to Lil' Wayne's daughter's birthday.
That's something I do with these guys.
I make them come home.
They don't want to come home?
"You're coming home."
Don't end up like me.
Even the guys say,
"I don't want to end up like Anton."
I realized that about a year or two ago,
and it broke my heart.
If you're doing it because you
you want girls
or because you want money,
then you're doing it
for the wrong reasons. Don't do it.
If you're okay with not having
any memories of your own
for the next five, ten or 15 years,
you're okay with living
someone else's life...
then this is something to look into.
You're gonna go days without eating,
days without sleeping,
days without shitting.
You're gonna go months without
touching a woman's arm,
maybe a year, maybe more,
if you do it the right way.
A lot of bodyguards in this industry
do it the wrong way,
and they eat like kings, and they fuck
a different groupie every night.
But those guys are short-lived.
But if somebody was to come up to me
and ask me right now,
"I want to be a bodyguard, what do I do?"
I'd tell them, "Go to school.
Don't do this shit. Don't do this."
[Weeks] Back in '94,
we were receiving information
that there was a grand jury going on
and people were getting called in.
We were getting it from people
on the street that were getting called in
and we were getting it
from law enforcement.
So, Jim Bulger and Steve Flemmi
during '94 were basically on a mini-lamb.
They'd come back for a week,
take off for two weeks.
December 23rd, '94
we got a tip-off from John Connolly
that the indictments were imminent,
that they were gonna try
to round them all up over the holidays.
The building next to it,
that we're coming up to right now,
is the liquor store.
That's where John Connolly came
and tipped me off about Whitey Bulger.
The indictments were coming down,
so he could take off.
Stevie Flemmi and the rest of them.
Whitey was the only one to take off
and the rest got pinched.
Had they stayed and decided,
"All right, they'll take the hit,
they'll plead guilty or whatever",
they might've done four, five years.
And they wouldn't have
known about the killings.
The information
about the killings came out...
because they took off.
[narrator] Everything began
to unravel for Kevin Weeks
after Whitey became a fugitive.
Not only did he find out
that his best friend and mentor
had been an FBI informant
for over a decade,
but he was also arrested
and indicted on 29 charges.
When I was arrested,
I got arrested in '99,
and it had been two years
since it had come out
that Whitey and Stevie were
informants for the FBI.
So, it was a tough time realizing
that your best friend was an informant.
When it came out that he was,
in fact, an FBI informant,
that also helped us
in terms of making a case,
because other people were now
willing to cooperate against him
once they found out he was an informant.
I was saying to myself,
"I'm gonna do a life bit for these guys,
they've been ratting on everybody."
I was brought up
and preached to by them
that you never rat on your friends,
never rat on your enemies.
If you've got a problem,
you take it to the street.
Then I realized that everything
that was taught to me was a lie.
Kevin was incensed to learn
that Bulger had been an informant.
He thought they were simply
bribing Connolly
and they were bribing cops.
Yeah, you know, I questioned it,
we had a relationship.
As far as... We were paying
for information, and I knew about that.
And I knew he had corrupted
members of law enforcement.
I doubted it until I started
seeing the paperwork
and I started reading about
the information they were given.
And I knew it was accurate,
because people that were around us
were arrested for these particular crimes.
So I knew the information was accurate
and that they were informants.
[narrator] Broken by the betrayal
of his best friend,
Weeks decided to make a deal with the FBI.
Kevin admitted to being an accomplice
in five of Whitey's murders,
leading the feds to the final burial site
of the bodies on 799 East Third Street.
Some people make fun of Kevin
for how quickly he turned.
He's been called " Two-Weeks Weeks",
because it didn't take him long
to turn after he was charged,
they had nowhere to go.
It didn't take too many meetings
before I realized that...
A, that he was ready
to "flip", so-called...
Not ready, but wanted to.
Had made his decision,
probably before we met.
When I came back here to get sentenced
I really had no expectations.
I was actually expecting the worst.
I figured I was gonna get 20 years.
I already had four and a half in,
and I figured, you know,
I had another 13 to do.
So, that was the worst-case scenario.
Best-case scenario is,
basically, time served.
So, I had no expectations,
I was prepared to go back and serve out
whatever time I had left, you know?
But when he told me...
The judge said, "Mr. Weeks, 72 months."
He said, "I hope I did the right thing,
and good luck."
I couldn't believe it.
The first thing I thought was,
"I've got a second chance at life,
to make the most of it."
Typically, when a person co-operates,
they get a reduced sentence,
and Weeks was no different.
He cooperated thoroughly
and he testified and in return,
the judge gave him a sentence that is more
lenient than he would have received.
[narrator] After 16 years on the run,
ten of which being on the FBI's
Top 10 Most Wanted list,
Whitey Bulger was finally captured.
He came back to Boston to face his trial
and the state's key witness,
his best friend, Kevin Weeks.
It was a lousy feeling,
to look at the guy and...
The feelings I had for him...
Like I said, I still liked him,
but at the same time,
I was mad at him for betrayal.
It was a lousy feeling, anyways.
It was a lousy feeling testifying, period.
Never mind against a guy
I considered my friend.
My view of it is that
they would have been at great risk,
probably, in proving,
in getting convictions,
in every case that Kevin testified in,
if he hadn't been a witness.
He really made this thing work
for the government.
So, the anger over that,
and of course, self-interest,
led him to a deal.
The deal was an awfully good one.
He said, "Five years, that's nothing."
That's right, five years for five murders.
He wasn't the person that killed anyone
but he was a part of that
and could have been
charged with felony murder.
I can't say we didn't
harm innocent people,
because, basically, we preyed
on other criminals.
We extorted them, shook them down.
People that we killed,
they have families that are innocent,
are extended families,
and it affected them.
The people that were around us
that were criminals that we preyed upon,
I mean, that was the chance
they took, okay?
That's what happens you're
involved in organized crime.
But as far as their families,
you know, children, loved ones,
aunts, uncles, all of that?
We affected them, we hurt them.
And you know, it wasn't a good feeling
when you think back at it,
of the harm you caused people.
[narrator] After another long day
of Biebermania,
the energy has shifted inside the arena.
The venue has been secured,
all staff are in position,
the band and dancers
are all warmed up,
and 20,000 screaming fans
are ready for Justin Bieber.
Before, during, and after the show,
Mikey is Justin's shadow.
Even when Justin can't see Mikey,
he knows his bodyguard,
his friend, will always have his back.
[Justin whoops]
Let's go. Let's go, champ! [whoops]
[talks indistinctly and laughs]
[guard talks indistinctly over radio]
[group cheers and applauds]
[group cheers loudly
and chants indistinctly]
[group grunts rhythmically]
-[Justin] [chanting] Dear Jesus.
-[crowd] [chanting] Dear Jesus.
-[Justin] Dear Lord.
-[crowd] Dear Lord.
-[Justin] Dear Jesus.
-[crowd] Dear Jesus.
-Dear Lord.
-[crowd] Dear Lord.
-[Justin] Dear Jesus.
-[crowd] Dear Jesus.
-[Justin] Get pumped up.
-[crowd] Get pumped up.
-[Justin] Say what?
-[crowd] Get pumped up!
-[Justin] Say what?
-[crowd] Get pumped up!
-Say, "uh"!
-[crowd] Say, "uh"!
-Say, "Jesus"!
-[crowd] Say, "Jesus"!
-Say what?
-[crowd] Say what?
-[Justin] To the middle.
-[crowd] To the middle.
-[Justin] For God!
-[crowd] For God!
[all] Ducks, ducks, ducks, ducks,
quack, quack, quack, quack!
[all cheer]
-You did it!
-[Justin whoops]
[audience roars]
[synth riff plays]
Protecting a client in 2014,
Shamir had to put his training to the test
while coming face-to-face
with active shooters.
Every time I kiss my kids,
it might be the last time.
So I have to be perfect
when I'm out there.
Working that life,
working that career field...
takes a toll on you.
On this particular night...
there were some veiled threats
that would be carried out.
You could be riding in a bus,
they're blasting music,
you literally won't hear a thing.
But what you will hear are the sounds
of rifle rounds coming through steel
and the windows and the furniture
as they're buzzing right through.
I just remember seeing curtains floating
in the interior of the cabin.
It just didn't seem right.
Then I started seeing little shards
and little splintering.
Then you realize.
This happens within, like, seconds.
Your bus is in the fire.
Automatic fire. Automatic rifle fire.
And it's coming from both sides.
I told the,, "Get the fuck down,
everybody in the back."
Everybody started running toward the back.
You hear all types of shit.
It's like a rap video.
But it's real life.
So, I have to discharge my weapon
through a closed window
at two vehicles simultaneously.
So, I focused on the one shooter,
and after several rounds, I was able to...
stop that threat.
As soon as I noticed that
that threat had stopped,
the second shooting stopped.
The shots stopped, they ceased.
But when you talk about fucking
memorable experiences...
I'm here, today.
Right now we're entering the drone area,
which is a 360-degree field that's
constructed from a berm
and it allows us to shoot at all angles
without having to worry about back shots.
So, right now, the scenario is,
we're gonna arrive at our destination,
I'm gonna let the principal out,
me and Derrick, the guy next to you,
and we're gonna walk to our vantage point
and we're gonna meet an opposing threat.
It's unknown, what the threat is.
It's gonna be a live fire exercise.
Sir, would you come with me.
[indistinct shouting]
[gunfire]
[man] Other side! Other side!
Watch your feet!
In, in, in! Go, go, go!
Sir, you bleeding? Are you shot anywhere?
I have to check you, all right?
Principal is out of the kill zone.
[indistinct murmuring over radio]
[man] Chase the vehicle. Chasing it.
[narrator] So, there you go.
An inside look
at what it's like to protect
the rich, famous, and powerful,
as told by elite bodyguards
from across the globe.
Always observing, preparing,
protecting the ones in the watchtower.