ABOUT VINCE

Career Overview

Vincent P. Pankoke is a 35-year law enforcement professional, first starting his career as a municipal police officer on the Richland Township Police Department in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.  There he worked his way from patrolman to Crime Prevention officer, doing fraud investigations and instructing at the police academy.  

In 1987, he was recruited to join the FBI and served as a Special Agent until his retirement in 2014.  His first four years were in the Milwaukee Division and the remaining 23 years were in the Miami Division.  While in Miami, Vince was assigned to one of the Bureau’s premier Colombian drug squads, which specialized in wiretaps and undercover operations. 

During his time on the drug squad, he received multiple U.S. Attorney’s Office Awards, the 2002 Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force 20th Anniversary National Award, the 2000 Colombian DAS Director’s Award, and was a 1996 F.B.I. Director’s Award Finalist.

Career Case Highlights

Vince also served on Miami’s enhanced SWAT team which took him on several extended deployments to the Caribbean, the Kenyan Embassy bombing and the Waco Branch Davidian case. After the 9/11 attacks, he was tasked with forming a squad of agents to exploit the cell phone records of the 12 hijackers that were living and operating in South Florida. The squad’s exploitation of these records gained critical intelligence as to the hijackers’ movements, funding, and associates after arriving in the US. They are also credited with helping to identify the Hamburg cell and funding sources from the Middle East.  At the conclusion of their final report, Vince took an assignment to the Undercover/Backstopping group. He became a certified undercover agent where he managed, supported, and served as both as a primary and supporting undercover agent on a number of high-profile cases both in the US and Europe, including the Wall Street Sky Capital stock fraud case as depicted on the television series, American Greed.

Retirement & the Anne Frank Cold Case Project

After his retirement, Vince was recruited by Dutch National Police colleagues to become the Director of Investigation for the Anne Frank Cold Case Investigation, which was featured this past January on the CBS news program, 60 Minutes. His role included coordinating the investigative effort into solving the mystery surrounding the circumstances of the raid in which Anne Frank, her family and friends were captured on August 4, 1944. Pankoke developed a cold case team protocol including recruiting subject matter experts, team member selection, identifying investigative initiatives, directing archival research, applying modern investigative techniques which included profiling, testimonial reconstruction, and most importantly for this presentation, artificial intelligence.

At the conclusion of the investigation in 2021, Vince assisted noted Canadian author, Rosemary Sullivan, in the writing of the detailed story about the cold case team’s investigation, The Betrayal of Anne Frank, by Harper Collins International.  The book was published in over 20 languages and continues to be on the best seller list in many countries.  