Greetings from San Diego.

The Money Launderer

In 1988 Martin Suarez was accepted at Quantico to become an FBI agent. He was fluent in Spanish and, with his Navy experience, knew ships and aircraft. So the FBI sent him undercover to infiltrate Latin American drug cartels. One of the amazing things to me was that he was undercover for more than twenty years and only worked out of Miami and Puerto Rico.

So how did he get into the cartels? No one at the FBI had been able to do it before because the cartels were very selective. Martin had to meet with 70 cartel representatives before they trusted him enough to let him in. He also got essential tips from other cartel members whom the FBI had recruited. For instance, at any meeting he should stay quiet and never be cheap. Never wear cheap, unpolished shoes, or re-soled ones. Don’t ask where colleagues grew up or specifics about their operations. Use crude humor. The representatives he met with would test him by asking if he wanted beer. Cartel people always drank Black Label whiskey. And very importantly, when something goes bad, don’t skip the meeting where members analyze what went wrong. Who were the most dangerous people in a cartel meeting? The wives of the other cartel members. They were the most perceptive in sniffing out a rat.

He started by retrieving bales of drugs in Puerto Rico and in the Caribbean waters. He’d transport the drugs to the U.S., and the FBI would make a bust and seize them without anyone suspecting him. By 1991 he’d smuggled $1B of cocaine into the US for the Medellín Cartel.

He soon wanted to graduate into a side of the business where he didn’t have to harpoon bales of drugs out of the ocean. Money laundering was perfect. The task required a financier’s knowledge of banking, a spy’s handling of meetings, and ruthless disregard of the law. Many launderers were highly educated. For instance, the Cali Cartel’s chief money launderer studied economics at Harvard. Somehow Martin and his colleagues managed to go under the radar for many years. Even the DEA didn’t know what they were doing. His FBI unit seized enough money to fund all their operations.

Martin said the most dangerous part of being undercover wasn’t retrieving and transporting drugs. It was carrying around millions of dollars in the trunk of his car. He worried that someone in Puerto Rico or Miami would stop the car, take the money, and kill him.

What surprised me was the level of interconnection money launderers had with corporations and big business. I knew that politicians in Colombia were involved. But I didn’t know that the owners of a large bank in the Dutch territory of Curacao were intimately connected with moving contraband into free trade zones and laundering the proceeds. Cigarette companies like Marlboro, British American Tobacco, and Philip Morris also sold product to money launderers, who then sold it in Colombia to repatriate the funds from their drug sales.

Having a family and maintaining those relationships was a major challenge. Martin didn’t tell them anything. His wife and two sons must have known that he was in danger, but they never knew the specifics. Martin would be gone for weeks and his wife had to hold down the house in Puerto Rico or Miami…without demanding he do his share in raising his sons. That wouldn’t happen in most families these days. Martin regrets how much of his sons growing up that he missed. He couldn’t go to their school or sporting events and had to forego birthdays. He had to constantly lie to his wife and tell her that his work was safe. He must have done all right. One son went into the DEA and the other into the FBI.

Martin somehow survived for more than twenty years of undercover work—even an attempted hit on him in Puerto Rico. In 1996-97 the FBI arrested more than 50 people as a result of the evidence he’d found. He eventually retired from undercover to continue with the FBI in Miami. He won Outstanding Law Enforcement Officer of the Year awards 4 times, as well as a lifetime achievement award.

Martin came down with ALS a few years ago. He speaks slowly but still clearly. He decided to get his story out while the disease permitted him to tell it. Ian Frisch helped him write this impressive book. I highly recommend it.

If you would like to hear my interview with Martin, here’s the link:
youtube.com/watch?v=TAlplh_quQg

Inside the Cartel: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/inside-the-cartel-martin-suarezian-frisch?variant=42859015208994

Lightning

Matt Coyle, Marjorie McCown, and I had a wonderful time at Lightning Brewery. We talked about our books writing and the publishing industry and had many laughs. Thanks so much to Suzanne Delzio and Jim Crute for organizing and sponsoring this fun event. Here are some pictures.

Noir at the Bar

I participated in a great event at the Book Jewel in Westchester. Eric Beetner organized a Noir at the Bar. I was one of several authors who got to read work.

A Free Primer on How to Tell a Story

Would you like a free training manual on how to tell a story? Picking the right story and telling it well are keys to making a sale or inspiring a donation. The primer in the link below divides elements of storytelling into 28 short sections. As a subscriber you can get it for free to download from this link:

https://carlvonderau.com/thank-you-for-subscribing/

Saving Myles

How about a good read for the Fall?

Grab Your Copy!