In this episode, retired agent Dawn Norris Doak reviews her undercover role in the investment fraud investigation of Joseph LaForte, the founder of Par Funding, which took in money from investors promised high returns to provide cash advances to small businesses that could not qualify for loans from banks. Par Funding then charged the small business owners exorbitant interest rates, and when they failed to make their interest payments, threatened them with bodily harm.
Dawn, an FBI-certified undercover employee (UCE), also talks about why she wanted to go undercover and shares stories from some of her other undercover roles, including the Raleigh, NC, Vision Quest Ponzi scheme.
Special Agent (Retired)
Dawn Norris Doak
03/2003 – 06/2025
Retired agent Dawn Norris Doak served in the FBI for 22. Dawn was initially assigned to the New York field office where she spent many years working undercover. During her career, she took part in over fifty undercover operations, using countless aliases to successfully infiltrate organized crime syndicates, drug cartels, financial fraud schemes, spy rings, and terrorist groups. Her efforts resulted in numerous arrests, convictions, and threat neutralization. Dawn currently holds the distinction of working the most undercover operations of any female agent in FBI history.
She also served in the field as an accessor for the National Security Behavioral Analysis program and, later in her career, at FBI Headquarters as a supervisory special agent (SSA) in the National Covert Operations Unit. Dawn is recognized by the US intelligence community as an expert in non-verbal evaluation, statement analysis, personality assessment, and elicitation techniques. Her work included investigations into malign foreign influence, economic espionage, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and state-sponsored hostile actions. She is an authority in behavioral assessments for matters involving threats to US national security. Dawn is the recipient of numerous intelligence community awards, including the prestigious Office of the Director of National Intelligence Award.
In 2025, Dawn served as a Fellow at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, focusing on the intersection of behavior and disinformation. Dawn is also an Adjunct Faculty member of the FBI Academy and routinely lectures at Columbia and New York University on topics related to deception and elicitation.
Dawn holds a Bachelor of Arts from Johns Hopkins University and a Master in Public Policy degree from Harvard Kennedy School.
The following are news articles about the investment fraud investigation of Joseph LaForte and wife, Lisa McElhone, for operating Par-Funding, a fraudulent investment company:
