“Truth is always stranger than fiction. . . A stunning riveting and extraordinary real-life
story of life in the shadows. " – #1 International Bestselling Author Don Winslow The gripping
true story that reads like fiction of how legendary FBI Special Agent Martin Suarez went deep
undercover—and lived a double-life for years—to infiltrate Colombia's most insidious drug
cartels. Martin Suarez a legend within the FBI who specialized in Colombian drug cartels
holds the record for the longest time spent continuously undercover. As his alter ego Manny
Martin followed the unspoken rules of the cartels: He knew the right lingo to use the right
whiskey to drink the right watch to wear the wrong questions to ask. He smuggled over $1
billion worth of cocaine into the United States for the Medellín Cartel and as his cover
deepened he graduated to become a high-level money launderer for the North Coast Cartel. He
helped wash tens of millions of dollars worth of drug money ensnaring himself in a high-stakes
game of cat and mouse while simultaneously exposing the Black Market Peso Exchange the most
insidious money laundering apparatus in the world that involved billionaire bankers blue-chip
American corporations and even the President of Colombia himself. Martin was raised by a
father who served in the military and valorized the nobility of the FBI and Martin stopped at
nothing to allow his father to live vicariously through his son. He wanted nothing more than to
make his father proud—and to be a good husband to his wife and a loving father to his two
young sons. He became a man caught between two worlds—that of an undercover agent who wanted to
rid the world of its evils but also that of a family man who was trying not to lose himself in
this dark brutal underworld that captivated the globe during the War on Drugs. And yet his
worlds begin to collide as danger creeps dangerously close to his doorstep when his cover is
blown and a cartel-hired sicario comes hunting for him. Inside the Cartel is told with the
pulse-racing action of a Hollywood blockbuster. This is the story of Suarez and his time
undercover and how maintaining the trust of hardened criminals can start to tear away at even
the most principled soldier.
