What it's really like to work for the DEA

Mike Vigil

Former DEA agent Mike Vigil (left) burning two tons of cocaine in Colombia in 1984.

Mike Vigil sat on the sofa as he waited for the negotiation to start.

He had a few hundred dollars taped to his ankles. Carrying cash that way tended to discourage the drug traffickers from checking the amount too carefully.

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Then, something unexpected happened.

One of the drug traffickers he'd been set to meet stormed out of a back room and pressed a sawed-off shotgun against his head.

"Anything could have set that thing off," Vigil told Business Insider. "I had that thing pointed at my head for about 20 minutes."

Vigil wasn't actually looking to buy drugs. It was 1976 and he was a new undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent working in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The drug traffickers didn't know this - they were just angry that Vigil's informant's brother had ripped them off.

Vigil talked to them and the situation eventually cooled down. The police intercepted the drug traffickers when they left to rob the informant's brother's house.

It wasn't the only dramatic incident in Vigil's 31-year career with the DEA.

Vigil, the author of "Deal" and a contributor for Cipher Brief, points out that not everyone at the DEA does undercover work, so his experience isn't universal. However, he recently spoke with Business Insider about his time as an undercover agent.