Mr. Big was not born. He was invented. The five W’s of journalism are who, where, when, what and why. The only group that might know the answer to the first three questions regarding Mr. Big is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), but if this information is recorded in their files, they are not sharing. We can make some inferences with informed speculation. Mr. Big was created by an RCMP officer, but we don’t know which one. He was first created in British Columbia. The earliest Mr. Big cases were conducted in that province. We know that Mr. Big was created in the late 1980s or early 1990s, but we don’t know the day, month or year.

We can answer the “what” question. Mr. Big is an undercover operation in which police attempt to trick a suspect into a disclosure about a serious crime by convincing him that he is joining a criminal gang.

This brings us to “why.” Almost always, when Mr. Big was used the police were confronted with a brutal murder, a suspect and a lack of convictable proof. Often the suspect had been interrogated but either denied committing the crime or followed the standard lawyer’s advice of “just shut the fuck up.” In many cases the police wanted to file charges, but a prosecutor said there was not enough evidence to get a conviction. In one of these tense and frustrating cases some RCMP officer had a bizarre idea. Why not have an undercover police officer befriend the suspect by pretending to be a criminal? Why not pretend to recruit the suspect into an imaginary criminal gang? Why not introduce the suspect to the imaginary leader of this imaginary criminal gang? Why not call this imaginary crime leader “Mr. Big”? Maybe the suspect could be persuaded to tell Mr. Big about committing the crime. Maybe they could get the suspect to convict himself with his own words.

My guess is that the initial reaction to this suggestion was amusement and incredulity. There were likely jokes from other police officers that the imaginative officer had been smoking British Columbia’s largest illicit cash crop. The other police officers probably mocked the suggestion. No criminal, no matter how dumb, would be dumb enough to fall for that one. But desperate situations lead to desperate measures. Everyone involved was likely amazed that it worked. But because it worked, it was used again. And again. And again.