Agent Falls Worked Organized Crime in NJ, Tampa

From Tampa Bay Times: As an FBI agent who specialized in surveillance, Cyrus Falls worked in a lot of different places.

He dressed up to eavesdrop on bid rigging activity in a tony Washington, D.C., restaurant.

His 16 years in the FBI's Newark, N.J., office monitoring organized crime once took him into abandoned buildings, one wrong move away from a possible gunfight; and to other states as he tailed bad guys on the highway.

In Tampa, where he finished a 36-year career, he dressed like a tourist to watch communist bloc spies exchanging information at SeaWorld, witnessed drug transactions and shadowed remnants of the Trafficante crime family.

For long stretches of time in between, he drank coffee — and waited. In 21 years as an agent, he drew his weapon just once.

Mr. Falls, whose church activity and kindly demeanor earned him the nickname "Reverend" by his fellow FBI agents, died Nov. 20, of congestive heart failure. He was 79. ...

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