This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. All right, guys, we've got a couple of special guests on the podcast today. We have Martin Suarez and Ian Frisch. So, Martin worked as an FBI special agent for 23 years, and he holds the record for the most time spent continuously undercover, and he has infiltrated criminal organizations across the United States, Europe, Asia, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. And he is a six-time recipient of the FBI's a special achievement award, a four-time recipient of the Department of Justice's Outstanding Law Enforcement Officer of the Year Award, and received the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, and then he retired in the FBI from the FBI in 2011. And Ian has been a writer for the New Yorker, the New York Times, New York Magazine, and Esquire among many other publications. And they combined to write the new book called Inside the Cartel, How an Undercover FBI agent smuggled cocaine, laundered cash, and dismantled a Colombian narco empire. And so, this was a really incredible interview and a really incredible book. I will mention from the beginning that uh Martin does have ALS, and so his speech can be a little bit labored, and he lost his train of thought a couple of times, but it all good. You can still understand what he's what he's talking about, and also Ian would hop in several times give a little bit more color and context to certain things. But there's so many details in the book that we didn't get to in the interview, but we did get into, okay, what made you want to join the military, and then what made you want to transition into the FBI? What did the FBI see early in you that you would potentially be a good person to go undercover? Cuz at the time, they weren't really doing a lot of undercover. They didn't really have a lot of tradecraft in terms of doing undercover work, how he ended up getting into drug smuggling and how that's actually very close to what he learned in the Navy. So, that was pretty interesting. But then, the Medellín Cartel and other cartels, when did he feel like he had their trust? And then we talk about this enormous bust where he was told by the cartels that they needed to smuggle 3,000 kilos of cocaine, which was about half a billion dollars in street value, and how they ended up being smuggled, but then it was taken over by the FBI, but it didn't implicate him. We got into, you know, when to wear a wire, not to wear a wire. When, you know, his his alter ego, whenever he was, you know, infiltrating and smuggling was Manny, but he's Martin. And so, how do you transition from Manny to Martin and and back and forth. You know, he's got a wife and two sons. How did that work out? There were times when he would run into contacts from the smuggling world while he was out to dinner with his wife, right? How do you handle those situations and that type of a thing? Eventually, he switched over from doing drug smuggling to money laundering. It's a different thing, a different part of the process, but still very, very dangerous. We do talk about some times where he felt like he may have been made, where there were some threats against him and it was like, okay, I may have been made in this entire thing. We talk about the wrap-up the the investigation. There were like 50 indictments that were a part of his case, and just the amount of the intel that he was able to garner and gather during this time period was substantial. And then we get into at the end where he's out of the drug smuggling game. He is just He's still in the FBI, but he's not doing the stuff against the cartels anymore. And he gets back from a run. He sits down on a chair on his porch, and then he hears something behind him, turns around, and there's a revolver pointed at his chest, a guy with a ski mask on, and it's a sicario that was sent by the cartels to take him out. Yeah. Yeah, so we get into that. Make sure you stick around for that story. So, guys, without further ado, let's get into it. Marty and Niel, welcome to the show, guys. Uh thanks for having us. Thanks, Kyle. Yeah, I'm absolutely thrilled to have you guys on because I just got done reading your book. And so, this is actually the second undercover book that I've read so far this year. So, this one's called Inside the Cartel: How an Undercover FBI Agent Smuggled Cocaine, Laundered Cash, and Dismantled a Colombian Narco Empire. This was like the easiest acceptance of all time. I get about 25 or 30 pitches for every one person I can have on the show. But, this one's easy. It's like not only do you get to read that book, but you get to talk to two people. So, this is awesome. So, I'm excited to chat with you guys. I want to start the discussion on the book with actually the author's note, okay? This is a work of nonfiction. I have, however, elected to use pseudonyms for specific individuals. These are dangerous people, many of whom are fugitives or out of prison. I'm taking a serious risk in publishing this book. The cartel never forgets. So, first question, what the heck are you doing, Marty? I mean, come on. Those guys are still out there. They say they can reach out and touch you whenever they want. What's wrong with you? Come on. So, this happened the book covers a stretch of six years between 1980, late 1980s, and early 1990s. So, it's been over 30 years. And so, for a lot of reasons, I felt compelled to write this memoir with this fantastic co-writer I have. So, he made it very easy. So, there you go. And this is all true. Uh I surprised to see that there are many stories like this out there. But, I will say, Kyle, I Martin should we be scared? Cuz I was like Dude, like It's a good question. >> of the book just got out of prison. Like he's back in Colombia. He's running for public office. Like should we be scared? And Martin was like The hatchet's been buried. I won the war. We're all We'll be fine. If they wanted me dead, I'd be dead by now. >> Right. It's so interesting cuz whenever I read Pale Horse earlier this year about a guy that infiltrated, you know, KKK and neo-Nazis and different things like that. I I asked him the same question basically, what's wrong with you, you crazy person? And he he literally kind of said the same thing like there If you can say it this way, there is honor among thieves. And like those guys realized they got got. And it's like, "Hey, you know, it's like in poker. Can you really be mad if you get outplayed?" You can be mad if you didn't get the river card that you're hoping for. But if you just got flat out outplayed in the hand, that's a different story. But for you Martin, you obviously didn't start in the FBI. You know, you did have a childhood and everything else before that. But for you, you made the decision to go the United States military route. You joined the Navy. And so let's just talk about, you know, why you decided to raise your right hand and say that you were going to protect this country from enemies foreign and domestic. And then how you transferred into the FBI. So it's more basic than the civilian. And uh my dad and I used to watch a lot of epic movies about the Navy. And he um he admired the naval officers. And then uh we used to watch a lot of uh episodes of the FBI. That was aired uh started there in the 1960s. So he admired them, too. So I wanted to be uh what he couldn't be because of time and whatnot. So I had the opportunity to uh join as they joined then uh to go to Second World War. And so >> And Martin, too, you know, he wanted to follow he wanted to follow in his dad's footsteps. Yeah. His dad was in uh the army in in in World War II, but growing up they idolized the Navy and Martin was like, "I want to be a Navy officer because that was my dad's secret dream." Just like his dad's secret dream was to become an FBI agent. So, Martin allowed his father to live vicariously through him, but Martin rose the ranks of the Navy pretty quick. Within 8 years he became a surface warfare officer. He was he was a big dog. And they almost um wanted him to come stay on and become a captain of a ship, but Martin had had other plans. He wanted to be an FBI agent. Right. And I think it's really interesting. There's a through point of the entire book, which is the relationship with your father. It's like you constantly keep coming back to it. It's like you're you're tethered to that relationship and we'll we'll tease that out a little bit more later. But I do want to read I'm going to be reading several quotes from the book. And guys, just so you know, from the beginning you're just going to have to go out and get this book yourself. There's so many details and stories. We're not even going to be able to cover like, you know, a tenth of them in the book. So, go out and make sure you get your own copy of Inside the Cartel. But let me read this quote here. "My superiors at the FBI thought I was a perfect fit and asked if I would be willing to go undercover. I wouldn't be the first FBI agent to do it, but if I was successful, I would be the first to breach the cartels and make them believe I was one of them. I wanted to be an agent who made the prosecution's case airtight. I wanted to make history. I didn't hesitate." And so, obviously there have been tens of thousands of people that have made their way into and out of the FBI. They've had short careers, long careers, everything in between. Undercover's just a different kind of an animal. And so, I guess from the beginning, Martin, let's just talk about how were you even evaluated for this? And then in the era that you got into undercover, what was the training even like? Because it was fairly early on in in kind of this clandestine, you know, operation stuff via the FBI, wasn't it? Yes. So, I got started really when I got to my drug squad, my supervisor, knowing that I had the Navy experience on ships. He asked me if I was able to take a fast boat from Miami to Bahamas for an operation. And I said, "Of course I can." And I took the boat out there. Uh by the fault that was involved in the other undercover operation, so I uh I was hooked right there. And then I came back and I was asked again to do boat operations and before you knew it, I was negotiating directly And I would say as well that the interesting thing here is identity is probably a word that that comes to mind as you read through the book as well because at some point, you know, you are Martin, but then you became Manny. And so obviously in order to be a good undercover agent, if you don't believe your backstory and if you don't believe that you are Manny, it's going to be hard for you to convince other people to do that. Like even if you're in sales, if you don't believe in your product, it's going to be hard to sell it, right? >> Exactly, right. >> for you Yeah. And so what what was the process like for you, Martin, becoming Manny? Cuz that's not just like, "Oh, the FBI, you know, gave you a clipboard and then here's your name on it and here's all your fake IDs and everything like that." They're like, "Hey, kind of talk with an accent." No, you really, in a way, Martin, had to become Manny. Right. So, Manny was a parallel persona to Martin and everything was the same with the exception of the other part of the acting. But, uh I became Manny through first getting my back story up and the best back story you can have the one you create based on your real persona. As you shouldn't let somebody else create it for you. Cuz you don't know what's in the background of all that. So, you know, got the my alter ego in place and then uh I started working on the cover and by the time I used time I was feeling very comfortable. I never spoke about what I didn't know and that was a strength. And that's a good a huge part of working undercover in the deep capacity for a long period of time is making sure your alter ego isn't too different from who you really are in real life. When Martin went undercover, he was a smuggler, but he was Puerto Rican. His back story was all the same. He lived in Miami. So, when you become this other person, it's 80% yourself. It's just the intention that changes. And sometimes you pick up on behavioral tactics used by cartel men. So, then you can convince them that you are one of them. And that's what Martin was was really good at. He could bring in his street smarts from growing up in Puerto Rico and he could bring in his sort of like high-level operational sort of awareness from the Navy or from being an FBI agent to convince these cartel guys, I'm legit. I'm a smuggler. I'm going to do this for you. And When there's a mirroring, yeah, please. It should be noted that during that time late 1980s the Caribbean corridor was the favorite route for the cartels as opposed to Mexico or straight into Miami. So when I was down there in the Caribbean where I stuck my hand I found a good case. So it was a target rich environment. Yeah, it certainly was and you you know, you've already mentioned that you got into the smuggling game. I'll read this quote from the book. I had become a smuggler less than a year prior. I was the first FBI FBI agent in history to be thrown into a long-term deep undercover operation that targeted Colombia's most most ruthless drug cartels. And so you're going to have to explain this to the guys in my audience cuz most of us just work kind of a normal job. You know, maybe we started a business. Maybe we were for somebody else something like that. We wouldn't have the foggiest idea how to get into smuggling, right? And so here you are undercover. You have good support from the FBI, but there's kind of a little bit of this figure it out on the job like on the job type training thing. But how do you go from Mark Suarez in the Navy to I am literally smuggling cocaine for the cartels? So smuggling cocaine especially in maritime operations and no different from the Navy. So was a an easy transition from the Navy to smuggling because in the Navy you move missiles across the world and you can call that kind of smuggling. The logistics is the same. And danger in is the same and the long hours uh days and weeks and months out there as lonely as struggling as all. It was an easy transition. You should always go with your experience and uh not divert from there. Otherwise, they're going to see you coming a mile away. Well, Martin, tell me about having a source. A source who taught you the ropes of being a smuggler, um the behaviors needed and some of the ins and outs that um make smugglers a specific type of breed. Talk about the source. So, uh as I uh started the movement more to met a source uh through a couple of uh the agents. And this source was a personal pilot at that time or what a few years before I met him. Uh the personal pilot for Gonzalo Gacha, alias the Mexican. He was uh a closest associate and equal to Pablo Escobar. And they got along really well and he formed part of the Medellin Cartel uh together with a few others. So, uh particularly at the beginning and uh So, that source and his wife, his wife was connected uh prior to being married to my source, he was she was married to another pilot who was uh affluent uh rice grower and coffee grower in Colombia, turned into smuggler. and uh he uh and the pilot introduced me to all these uh Colombia connections. He was really, really good and persuasive and effective. And that uh whenever he introduced me, because he did, and she and his wife um they overlooked a lot of shortcomings that I had. So, there's got There is a lot of luck, but a lot of preparation. The best you prepare, the better luck you have. Hey guys, real quick. I know a lot of you guys struggle with getting a consistent workout routine. 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Uh but uh but obviously, you know, you were able to take those connections from your source, and you were able to work those connections in a very effective way. Because it seemed like, you know, maybe I'm rushing the story in my head, but it seems like you gained the trust of the Medellín Cartel pretty quickly because they entrusted you with a smuggling operation of 3,000 kilos of cocaine. And for financial perspective, that was about half a billion dollars worth of cocaine in terms of like street value on the product. So, just just take me through the process of like, okay, how did the cartel test you in order to see if you were trustworthy not just as an individual, but also as like a legit smuggler. And then this also led to the FBI seizure of the cocaine, which was actually part of the plan from the beginning. So, um um it just happened that uh I lost my train of thought with your question. Sorry about that. >> Yeah, no no no problem. And so it So essentially it's I mean I'm I'm trying to think even as like I It's hard to put myself in your shoes, but like how do you get these people of this dangerous criminal empire to trust you one, but then beyond that to trust you with something to at least a CV sounds insane. Half a billion dollars worth of cocaine. Right. So, um there was a lot of preparation and there were ton of cases I don't cover, we don't cover in the book. Uh Einar and I cuz we didn't have enough space but I did a lot of different operations that led these guys led these guys to believe that I was uh kosher and that some these operations were of the nature that we could work with that uh landing cocaine on the streets. So, completing those operations get I got like favors for the cartel. I gained uh their favor and they uh started employing me more and more. Anytime there was a doubt, they'll go to my pilot and his wife and they would uh and I know everything. At that point uh they got to the point where they didn't have to in a in a seat for me because I started getting the whole thing and I could do a all a solo. Uh the purpose of doing it solo is that your source doesn't have to testify. At trial, if you have a good UC or you good undercover to document everything, so he would make the undercover will make the best witness. Also too, Kyle, you have to think about this from the cartel's perspective. They have so much product. They have so much cocaine that they want to get into the US, but it's hard to find good help. It's hard to find people who have technical expertise, who can charge a ship, who can fly a plane, who has the kind of logistical understanding of how to do this type of job. So, they're always on the lookout for people who have this type of technical expertise. And like Martin said, he kind of piecemealed his his skill to them over time doing small jobs here, small jobs here in in a way that creates a honeypot. He wants them to start pitching him. Do this bigger thing for us. Please help us. Whatever. So, then by the time they they they get to the point of saying, "We want you to transport half a billion dollars worth of cocaine." They've already convinced themselves that he's legit and he's doing it. He's not begging them to do that job. And then on the back end, the FBI is continuously building their own set of assets and and and and an operational plan. So, then when that ask does come through, they can go to Martin say, "We got three boats. We got surveillance. We got 25 guys. Here's the plan. No drugs are going to hit the street. We're going to insulate you from risk in terms of being blamed for the seizure. And this is how it's going to go." Basically, the way that this goes down is that these cartel guys are the spectators of a magic trick, but they don't even know they're on the stage. And that's how a good operation in the undercover realm gets done. Well, it seemed as well like in you this came through in the book as well. If you came off as too eager, that's not going to look good, right? So, I I liked how there were sometimes where like, "Hey, you know, I can't do this. Like, I can't do this on this timeline. Y'all aren't my only client." Like that type of a thing. Like, you were being rude, but that's how everybody in a business context, which again, they don't look at themselves necessarily as a criminal empire, they look at themselves as a business empire. That's how you talk to people like a sub or another company that you're working with. But all the while you're doing the smuggling, there's there's always this tension and transition between Martin Manny, Martin Manny. But there was a day and man, when I was reading this story, I literally was like, like it like took my breath away for a second cuz I was able to put myself there even though I'm like the farthest thing from what you were doing. But you were on a date with your wife and you ran into one of your smuggling contacts. And so, you're on a date with your wife and you're obviously on a date as Martin, not Manny. And you run into one of your contacts during Noche de San Juan and Well, you I'll just let you take it from there. Like, I was about to like go go through the story, but you're with you're with your wife, you're doing dinner, you're Martin, and you look up and you see a smuggling contact. Go. So, uh it was a new transition because when I work undercover, I tell my bosses, "I will accept this mission, but it will take time. If you expect me to get into this group uh in a day or week, and then I'm not your man. If you give me 6 months to a year, I will infiltrate." So, when I saw this guy, was a high ranking member of a of the cartel. Especially specifically a Cali, but he had some dealings with Medellin. I was able to slip into money right away because I don't compartmentalize uh like you'll hear a lot of law enforcement uh undercovers uh say that they deal with the compartmentalizing. You have to go into the mission long-term deep undercover. whole You can't be compartmentalizing when you meet these guys, you got to be money. And you have to you have to be money in a way that uh you were money all your life, your 40 years. So they can see it through that if you can't project that. uh Often times you see these uh undercovers don't know that they're projecting a certain uh insecurities or whatever. So because they try to compartmentalize when they get back to their uh base they are forced to reblue reblue these again back to your normal police duties. But uh once you do that, you've been honing this blade for years. Then you go back to your base and you dull the blade. So uh I was lucky uh to be given the opportunity to constantly improve my trade. And I will say to Kyle, I'll just add in terms of in terms of Maria. Maria is pretty badass, right? She is She seems She's kind of the unsung hero of this book in that she completely believed in Martin from day one and never questioned his dedication to the undercover technique. But again, Martin can't tell her all the details of a case. All he could tell her when he started going undercover was, "If we ever get into a situation in public, just act cool. Follow my lead and we'll be good." So when they're on the beach and this cartel guy says, "Hey Manny." And they start talking, Maria hears his accent, knows he's Colombian, and she just sits there and nods. "How you doing? Nice to meet you." etc. etc. And then once he walks away, she turns to Martin and says, "So this is what you've been doing." She's like, "Don't worry. Don't worry. I know not to say a damn thing." And that was you know, that was almost Maria's role within the undercover operation to let Martin do his thing and to trust him wholeheartedly. And that's how he was able to succeed. But Well, her strength was evident as you're reading through the pages as well. Go ahead, Martin. Yeah. Um I was involved in this hey situation other times with my kids and what not. We'll all discuss it in the book, but uh it just so happened to have to be for her for that. You have to uh make sure that uh you don't blow your cover over something so simple. Well, let's go a little deeper into the family dynamic there because you have a wife, uh you have your sons. I'll read a couple of quotes from the book that will help us get into it. "At its core, being an undercover agent is about double-crossing people. This nucleus of betrayal, so inherent to the covert technique, acts like a prism and its refraction hits all aspects of an agent's life. Not only am I betraying the relationships I've built with the drug lords and money launderers, but also that of my own family. Going undercover is a zero-sum game. Justice wins, but everybody else loses." And then there was another quote that, you know, as a father, just like hit me in the gut. "Many years later, after my youngest son became a man, we sat down and watched a televised boxing match together. Somehow we got to talking about that time and he told me, 'The man I loved was never around.' When you're working deep undercover, the bad guys dictate your schedule. It's just how it works." And so, I've seen a derivative of the same quote or the same feeling for people in the FBI, CIA, military, any type of thing to where it's like, "Look, this is dad's job." And it doesn't always work out well with the wife cuz there aren't always wives like Maria. It doesn't always work out well with the kiddos cuz you're you can never get that time back. Uh, you know, kids spell love t i m e as it's said and and all those different things. But but for you, for for your wife, for your children now, just talk about the family dynamic because again, everyone almost everyone in this audience is a civilian. They've never had to be away from their family for long stretches. The longest stretch might be a jiu-jitsu class or a golf outing or something like that. But that just wasn't your life and wasn't your rhythm. Right. Uh, so, this is all due to my wife, Maria. Uh, she uh, was such a not only supportive and uh, and uh, a lot of ways she had to talk her concerns away. But a many of the most of the time. But uh, she knew what that uh, she knew about sacrifices. Her whole family had been in the military. Her dad had deployed to Vietnam four or five times. So, she was used to, uh, having, uh, their loved ones in harm's way. And uh so uh, if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have been able to do this in a convincing way because I was always be concerned about my life at home. And uh you your wife, if she doesn't agree with what you're doing, especially something that dangerous, you have a hard time, and that projects to everybody, uh, your coworkers and your bad guys. Uh, and that, uh, that could be, uh, that could be detrimental to your career and your life. So, Maria made sure never to call me when I was in the streets. She never once called me. And, uh, cuz she didn't want to wanted wanted to me to be distracted. She felt that that any distraction could cause my life. Absolutely. And so, you're in the smuggling game, you're you're dealing with all the things there, but at some point, you decide or the decision was made that we're going to transition from smuggling to money laundering. So, I want to read this quote from the book here. By 1991, I had smuggled nearly a billion dollars worth of cocaine in the United States for the Medellin Cartel. My run undercover in in still stands as one of the most successful narcotics investigations of all time. We had gathered more intelligence, seized more drugs, and started the process of indicating more criminal charges that had ever been done before. No one in the history of the FBI had been able to infiltrate a Colombian cartel smuggling operation, much less break up numerous core groups. My work was set to become the basis of how future undercover agents would do their jobs. But at this moment, all I cared about was staying alive. And so, as you talk about in the book, there were some pretty kinetic situations that you were a part of, just part of the smuggling game, I I guess as it were. But for the audience, if you wouldn't mind explaining, okay, the differences between being a smuggler versus a money launderer. You're all part of the the same criminal enterprise, but just at different, you know, cogs in the wheel, I guess. You know, what are the different dangers with smuggling versus money laundering? What are the different dangers about being made, right? Smuggling versus money laundering. So, um the uh the dangers uh definitely are different between smuggling and uh money laundering. Money launderer is the heart of the drug traffickers, specifically Colombian drug cartels. So, it is the uh heart and engine of that apparatus. So um the the very different threats to each one. If you uh I always told the cartel, "Listen, you guys are hot because we're taking down so many loads. I was the I was becoming the common denominator there, and people started lifting their eyebrows. But my pilot and his wife kept me in there. So, after season the money laundering, I didn't think I could seize another one. Wanting to money launder, and there's different challenges. Money is more important than dope to the cartel because money all the efforts, all the all the work has been done. And so, they safeguard money more than they do the cocaine. Um I was concerned about anybody who knew that I was receiving a million dollar, two million dollars a week. That these their competition or random uh uh robbery, that I would be losing the money and get killed. Because uh these guys once they uh relieve you from the money, they don't want any witnesses for the cartel to track back. So, they eliminate you. So, I would have to be uh I say that I was constantly thinking about that. Everything I did was to make sure I didn't fall in that uh the uh problem. So, uh with smuggling, uh if you get caught by the cops, of course you go to jail forever. But if you get caught with a million dollars in the trunk, they'll seize it, but you won't necessarily go to jail. They have to prove where the money came from. So, that's those are the main differences. Smuggling was tougher in the sense you had to go out there, like I did a few times, uh go out to sea, wait for an air drop, all the logistics that goes into that. And then I created an airstrip in a isolated sugar cane field in Puerto Rico where the where I invited the cartels to land. So, that makes that a lot tougher, all the logistics to do that. When I graduated into money laundering, I felt relieved in that the hard work really um was nothing compared to that of smuggling. But I will add, Kyle, I will add. You know, Martin's kind of downplaying the danger of being a money launderer here, maybe a little bit. When Martin went undercover as a money launderer, he's working for a high-level peso broker for a cartel. This guy kind of coordinates the money laundering side of the business. And again, these cartels sell billions of dollars worth of cocaine a month. So, the amount of money that has to be picked up and processed and transported by Martin during that time is quite frequent. So, when you're smuggling, you might do a big load once a month, once every 6 weeks, once every 2 months. But if you're a money launderer, you're picking up millions of dollars a week across four, five, six pickups every 7 days. So, every day it's non-stop, and the proximity to criminals, the proximity to the streets, as Martin is saying, especially in Puerto Rico in the early 1990s, which had a higher murder rate than New York City at the time, um is quite dangerous because of that proximity. So, as Martin said, anytime you could turn around and some guy is going to blow your head off because he wants to steal your money. Money controls the game, not drugs. Right. So, y'all did a Go ahead. No, I just wanted to add that the the person who wrote that I worked for was a highly placed guy in the Colombian government. And these when I started laundering for him, he um told me that uh "Listen, Manny, I trust you. And uh you came with good recommendation. But I want you to know that I can reach across the world. I have a long arm, and I can touch you on the shoulder anytime." So, that is not like the uh Italian Mafia. They said they're going to kill you, they're going to take your heart out with a spoon, all this. No, they very uh very casually tell you what's going to happen to you without really um getting uh at that level, without getting into the uh uh nastiness of the whole thing. Yeah, well, that's not terrifying at all. Uh but, you know, that you you're talking about the dangers, you're elucidating the dangers of this. And so, there's clearly the uh the hazards of the job, but then there's also the dangers of temptation, right? Because you've seen people and we've heard stories of people that go undercover, and they just can't stop themselves from getting a taste. Whether it's a taste of the product, a taste of the money, a taste of the the largess of the life that they have kind of created around their alter ego or things like that. So, what was the the temptation like for you? Because, yeah, you're you're dealing with product that could be turned into cash for yourself. Obviously, you have the FBI strictures and things like that. But but there's ways to get around everything. But then also, when you start dealing with millions and millions and millions and tens and hundreds of millions worth of dollars, like what is the temptation like? Yeah. Um and you know, I didn't hear much about that in the FBI. Yes, there have been some cases. Uh but when you get selected to go undercover in the bureau, you get all these uh uh tests and whatnot. You have to get this every 6 months, and they delve deep into your psyche. So, you're vetted in that way. And then, um uh I couldn't do something like that, especially for my father, who admired me and loved me so, and my family. But uh I thought I would wear the from the beginning, I we always talked about wearing the white hat. Uh and um the white hat meant that we were going to be honorable, noble, and uh and keeper of above all. Yeah, and I think that for a lot of people, I talk about pre-decision a lot of my show. So, you know, exercising. I don't wake up in the morning and then evaluate in my warm bed when I'm tired, man, am I going to work out today? Well, no, I've already pre-decided. I pre-decided yesterday that I'm going to work out today, so I'm going to do what discipline requires of me. Same thing in a situation like that when it comes to a moral code or a white hat code or a family honor code or something like that. It's like, no, the decision's already been made. We just need to perform the actions now. But there were several points in stories in the book Martin where, you know, again, we kind of get this Hollywood eyes version of wearing the wire and not wearing the wire and the risk of wearing the wire and all the different things. But you kind of had to have a feel of when it was a good time to wear a recording device and when it was a time to wear like, ah, some's off here. I I don't feel good about wearing this device, but that's a that's a, you know, required device if you want to get, you know, the evidence that you need to eventually take these people down even if it's brick by brick. So, how did you handle the when to wear a wire when not to wear a wire? Yes, it's a very personal personal decision. The FBI doesn't force you to wear a wire. Your investigation is taken into consideration, but they use a bunch of weather techniques to gather the same evidence if they can. Although, the undercover the evidence gained undercover is probably the best evidence you can get. Cuz it's hard to impeach an undercover man on the stand. But also, um, you have to, uh, balance when to wear it and when to not wear it. It gets a little Perhaps that's the worst part of the undercover technique. But uh what I always used to do if if I felt threatened, and uh and the seller to this my uh wire, I would then meet the person a a a few times after and then I would uh retrace what we spoke about the first day we met. And uh that worked that well for me, but uh uh I don't know anybody else that did that. They try to get the the best evidence they can at the time, but then they end up not getting any evidence because they were so tight about the wire that they lost concentration on the meeting. If I didn't have a wire, I was flowing free and uh I was uh concentrating on what was I was doing. Well, I will add that there's a huge um kind of benefit culturally based on the wire and and this sort of operation is that men in the early '90s in Puerto Rico especially, but in a large amount of Hispanic cultures carried satchels. And there was like a business code with high-end cartel dudes where it was like you don't touch my bag, I don't touch your bag. It's like a code. So, instead of wiring it up on his chest or something like that, Martin was able just to stick it in his bag, go to a dinner meeting, throw it on the table, and just let it run. And, you know, and that's another indication. And I always like to say this to people like this book is incredible. The story is incredible. And and Martin's um skill level is like you know, bar none. But so much of the success as to what happened was time and place. You know, perfect time, perfect place, perfect target. All the things came together. And even small details like these dudes wore satchels. I mean, that was just that that that was such a um such a a positive sort of thing that allowed evidence collection via the wire. Well, and I've heard said before, luck is the residue of hard work. And so, there's a lot of hard work that goes into those perfect times, perfect meetings, perfect places, and all that kind of stuff. But, it wasn't always perfect. Uh and there were times where you felt like, "Oh man, uh this this might be coming to an end soon. I might be coming to an end soon." And so, I'll just tell you, both of you guys have ruined red Honda Civics for me for the rest of my life, okay? So, every time I see a red Honda Civic, I'm going to think something's going down and it's not going to be beneficial for humanity. So, let's talk about uh the guys that pulled up. Uh you know, this is when you're still in the game, right? You're you're still in the game. The investigation had not wrapped yet. And there were some occurrences that started to happen that made you think, "Geez, I might be I may have been made. They may be coming for me." Yeah, there were a lot of situations uh uh probably 10 or 12 where I thought, "This can't be a coincidence." And uh so, in that case with the red Honda Civic, I remember uh clearly because I can never forget it. But, I can never forget any of the uh iffy moments, the uh moments was that I got full of courage without having a reason to. I should have just let it go and uh not pursue the bad guys, something like that. But, your training and what you're supposed to do takes over. But, in this case, uh yeah, I felt that these people at least know where I lived. I didn't know who they were and then I saw them later, really late at night, a few times. So and uh Yeah, I mean there was one time that Maria had to witness some of it and I felt bad for that, but uh Well, Martin, Martin, she didn't just witness some of it. The guys came up to you with the kids and said, "We're going to [ __ ] kill you." That's not we I mean, Jesus, you know? And then Martin obviously had to whisk Maria and the boys off into a secret cabin in the woods. I mean, you know, you talk about a Hollywood story, but you know, it was it was real and Martin's, you know, Martin's point of view on this and that I can't tell this is a coincidence. That is the the kind of deep-seated inherent paranoia and hyper-vigilance, as Martin puts it, of working undercover. At night, all the cats are black. Right? And that was a mantra that that that Martin lived by towards the end of this operation as danger crept closer to his doorstep. And so you're living you're living this life. You had been doing this for a very very long time. You were very successful at it, but at some point the investigation had to come to a close and it did. So I'll read this quote from the book. In August 1994, shortly after my meeting with US Attorney Gill, the FBI called the investigation complete. I could finally become Martin Suarez again. We're we were done. I never went back to my undercover apartment. I threw all of my doper gear and money laundering garb away. I crushed my undercover phones and turned my wire over to Santo. I would never again need to visit the restaurants, bars, and shady neighborhoods where I picked up money. I did my last switch into Martin and this 2-year saga was over. For all intents and purposes, Manny had disappeared. I erased him. He was a ghost. So, let's talk about the two sides of wrapping the investigation. One, what happened on the legal side with the people that were involved that you were, you know, undercover investigating. And then, gosh, just the relief, I guess. Or maybe it was sad, almost like a little bit of a macabre funeral type of a thing where you had to kind of kill your alto ego alter ego before it killed you. Let's talk about both sides. So, um when the case closed, uh what I don't mention in the book, but Ian knows about it, I was working four five different cases under uh cameo cases as opposed to deep undercover. So, I closed Manny, and then I became somebody else, and moved to Miami and started the continued that undercover work. At times, I had I had uh 11 undercover names, used mostly 10. And I was working operations around the world. I was working in Germany, Poland, Holland Spain Thailand Philippines Japan. So, I was all over the place. So, it was easy to say goodbye to Manny because I didn't have time to grieve Manny, but I loved uh the case, uh the action. I loved my source. Uh Ian Puerto Rico was a good man. Just caught up uh got caught up in the wrong side, but I won I asked them to wear the white hat. He didn't blink. He just jumped on the wagon with me. From that point on, he looked out for me. I could tell cuz uh he didn't do anything to embarrass the bureau my or me. And I'll add Kyle with the case, you know, just to put this into perspective. That money laundering investigation in Puerto Rico resulted in over 50 indictments of high-level cartel targets. And these guys were the people that brought millions of dollars of cocaine through Puerto Rico into the United States and then helped launder the money back to Colombia. But, within this operation, it wasn't just about the amount of money that was seized or the indictments that were secured. It was the intelligence that was gathered. And that's another aspect of of Martin's undercover work is that it's not just playing a role to, you know, secure an indictment to get a conviction. It is trying to understand how the cartels do what they do. >> Right. How do they smuggle? How do they launder? How does this business actually work from the inside? And one of the main components that the US government didn't really have a lot of knowledge about was the money laundering. So, when Martin goes in, the real crown jewel of this case sure was the indictments, but it was understanding that the cartels at that time used what was called the black market peso exchange. And the black market peso exchange was the apparatus that translated American dollars made from drug sales in the US into merchandise that could be smuggled back into Colombia, sold for pesos, and put back into the cartels' coffers. No one had known that this type of thing existed. No one knew that it involved major banks. No one knew that it involved politicians. And Martin uncovered all of that. So, it's funny that when you go back and you trace all of the uh sort of notices and all the education from the Treasury Department, from Customs, from the FBI, from Finra, from the SEC about money laundering. Um, all of this education really started coming out in 1994 when this case closed cuz Martin is the one who uncovered it. He uncovered, just through boots on the ground undercover police work, that this is how the cartels move money around the globe. And members of the State Department had said in the '90s, this is the most insidious money laundering apparatus ever created. And Martin was the person to uncover it. So, it's absolutely unprecedented to that time. Go ahead, Martin. Uh, I, um, first of all, they, uh, the reason why I had some success is because I always chose my cases. I was told the higher echelon cases that would not force me to do unsavory things like taking drugs or beating up somebody or something like that. But, uh, and, uh, uh, when it comes to the, uh, drug cartels, uh, money laundering apparatus, apparatus, uh, sorry, I'm getting a little tired, but I'm enjoying every minute. So, uh the um that system is untraceable. It's, uh, it's, um, it's silent. It's, uh, perfect. And, uh, unless you have an undercover agent inside the cartel, the money laundering side of it, you will never know that it existed. And even if you know that it exists, unless you have an courage and you don't know how they're doing and where they're doing and because it's untraceable and that the best component of the money laundering scheme is that money never crosses borders. Dollars stay in the states and the pesos stay in the in the Colombia. So, it's untraceable if you have no money to go after. Like they say in the states, follow the money. That doesn't work with the Colombian cartel. Absolutely and I mean it's just invaluable the amount of information and intel and tradecraft that you were able to garner. And Martin, you did it. You got out scot-free, no issues, right? You have all your teeth, you have all your fingers, all the things. Oh, wait. Except for there was this one day and y'all do a great job of this. You you ruin everybody's life because they read about it at the very beginning of the book and then they got to, you know, go through the rest of it to get to the end of the story. But there you are. You'd gone on a run because you're a dutiful individual. You got to stay in shape, right? Everybody understands the euphoria after you get done running. Let's go to the quote here from the book. I grabbed a chair, took a seat and kept breathing. But then I heard The voice came from behind me. The venom on his tongue I yawned his tongue unmistakable. When I turned around I knew he was a sicario, a hitman sent to kill me. He wore black gloves and a gray mask, two black marble eyes staring back at me. He raised his arm and pointed his pistol, a Smith & Wesson revolver, at my chest. I could see the bullets in the chamber. He had been waiting for me obscured within a low-hanging row of cap palms. So, at this point, you know, he wants to take you inside because that's part of the thing. It's not just about killing the target, it's about maximum amount of despair. So, the family will come home, you know, wife and kids will be able to discover your body. So, you know, you think it was your former cartel contact Toro that sent this assassin. And as mentioned earlier in this interview, he had previously said, "And Manny, always remember that I can reach out across the world at any time and touch your shoulder." And so, here you are. You've got a gunpoint at your chest. The guy's like, "All right, let's go in the house." You take it from here. The first thing I thought of was I thought of Negro what he said, "I'm touching you on the shoulder right now." Um It was uh pretty uh at first I um I got up from the chair, let raised my arms and uh hands and uh I was going to run. But he made sure that I understood that I wasn't going to outrun his bullets. So um So, I had to sit down and take it for a while, the abuse, the verbal abuse, and the pushing and spitting and all that. Uh on the chair um cuz the whole time I was planning how I'm going to get out of this without getting shot. And that was the whole uh the whole uh thinking at the time. Nothing else but how I'm going to get away. And I thought of a lot of plans, and the only one that I knew was going to work was the one that I employed. And uh I spit in the book that uh I then I had a lot of luck, too. So I I've been a lucky man my whole career, my life, so. And so, you you are you're able to actually uh survive the situation. Obviously, you get into great detail in the book. You know, you you looked for the right opportunity to make the right move. You're able to disengage from him, create some space, and then eventually you're able to make your way uh through that situation and make it out alive. And you know, again, this has got to be kind of like messing with your mind a little bit because it's like I'm finally out, but then to another degree, you're never out cuz this is still very close to the situation. There are people that are still on the outside that can reach out and touch you uh as it were at any at any time. So, just a couple of questions left before we wrap. I'm curious now because you you kept doing undercover as you said. I think you retired in 2011 with uh plenty of accolades that I talked about in the introduction. But, when you look at what's happening right now with the Mexican drug cartels, with cartels uh spread throughout Central and South America, with drugs coming in, again, as a civilian, as a non-drug user, I think to myself, yeah, it makes a lot of sense that we would send Delta Force or Navy SEALs or Marine Recon or somebody in to go dismantle some of these networks and take them out just like we would have tried to do with Al-Qaeda or ISIS or any other group that we've been in conflict with because of the amount of people that are overdosing, the amount of people that are being poisoned with fentanyl in this country. It's not an insignificant number. It is ruining families. It's ruining lives. It's ruining entire communities. The cost to Americans is is substantial with uh the healthcare costs and there there's all kinds of different things. Okay. >> But, I don't know anything. You know a whole lot about this game and everything. So, from your perspective, how is the United States doing on the I guess we can still call it the war on drugs? And specifically, if you had a magic wand and can dictate how we do policy and missions as it pertains to the current cartels, what would you do? Uh the big mistake the administrations engaged in is that they tend to use a a machete when they should use a scalpel. And uh uh undercovers are scalpels and uh they make those fine uh incision, penetrate in a way that nobody knows who they are and they gather a tons of information that you will never gather unless they for example on surveillance or wiretaps or this or that. You can uh go to trial on an undercover case. They use all the techniques and they'll they'll get uh tapes thrown out because you uh they're talking about loaves of bread, not kilos. Well, when the agent testifies, do you uh the undercover agent and he says, "Matter of fact, we called the kilos and this organization loaves of bread." That's it. They have no defense against that. Um So, that's why >> I'll also add Martin, also add, you know, me and Martin I talk about this all the time. And the way Martin put it to me was, "Well, the war on drugs never really started." Right. Right? Guys like Martin were the scalpels that were in there but you can't do much with just one scalpel. I mean, the way Martin and I talk about it, too, especially in the context of now, and you know, President Trump has said a lot about what he wants to do to the Mexican cartels, but if you if you're holding a hammer, everything's a nail. That doesn't work, either. You have to have almost a holistic approach where you have overt tactics and then covert tactics. Like we talked about with Martin's success 35 years ago, so much of that was intelligence work. So much of that was you know, presenting the magic trick, you know? Um too much muscle can can have the opposite effect. But again, it has to be a continuous, ongoing, agreed-upon stance that transcends administration. You can't dismantle a cartel in under 4 years. I mean, this is going to take a long time, but to your point Kyle these cartels are stronger than they've ever been. I mean, you look at the numbers coming in from the UN or the US in terms of drugs that are being transported to Europe or up to North America, it's it's it's ridiculous. It really is. So, to that point, I always ask Martin, do you feel like you had an impact? And Martin says, yes, because what what he was able to do was prove that the covert technique is the best technique. And all it takes is a couple undercovers, right place, right time, right now, to go in and be those scalpels again. And it's the cheapest way to go, too. It's also cheap because >> Yeah, it's paid for with the cartel's money, you know? Right. But also, too, when you do a seizure, you're funding the operation with the cartel's money. All that all that theatrics Martin did, all the boats and all that, cartel paid for that. They were taking bites out of their own tail, you know? So, that's kind of the irony of these sorts of things, too, is that you know, the taxpayers don't pay don't pay anything for covert technique a lot of the time. Right. Martin, if you had to guess, do we have guys currently in with Mexican cartels now? Um I'm not sure. Um the common hours uh versus verse and uh every time they think of Mexico, they think of Kiki Camarena and uh Right. the who got killed, tortured and killed in Mexico. But uh I uh there are too many people uh looking out for their careers instead of employing the best techniques to combat the narcotics drugs. So, when the career people get in the middle, the if they get high enough, they're going to sabotage your case by not approving certain things that if they once sideways, those things would embarrass them and they wouldn't uh get promoted. So, uh yeah, uh uh when I started working undercover, my management were just uh the most incredible people and that they swore an oath and they lived the way that and they stretched the envelope for the American people. No matter if they meant that they had to sacrifice by uh do uh committing a mistake and having to pay for it. They didn't care and they gave me all this loose all this uh rope to hang myself, really, but uh they never stopped me. They always encouraged me to continue. You would be hard-pressed to find that out. All right. Well, let's wrap up with something that we mentioned earlier and it's your relationship with your father and give you a chance to honor your father because your dad you know wanted to you know the military stuff y'all had that in common. He wanted to be an agent but he wasn't and he just you could feel the pride your your father had when you called him and told him that you were an agent that you were a special agent just you could just tell that he was so proud of his son cuz some dads actually come to resent their sons because their sons are successful and you know they're doing the things that that they weren't allowed to do but but a dad that's got his head screwed on straight realizes that you know your point on this earth is that's what legacy is is to set up the next generation. That's that's what legacy is in a nutshell. So let's just talk about your special relationship with your father and how proud he was of the work you did in your career. So my father was a fantastic man. Although he did not accomplish the things he admired, the careers that he admired and I did, he was a much better man than I was and that he never showed any jealousy only support. And that uh he was just such an honorable man that uh his character and integrity uh overshadowed all of my accomplishments. That's what how great he was. That's fantastic. Well, I'm just so thankful that I got to spend this time with you both. I really appreciate the effort that was put into the book and the effort that you you did in your service to this country with the military and also with the FBI. But as of now that's all for me. Is there anything else you guys want to get off your chest? Um I feel blessed um colleagues with Ian um and that he got what I was telling him. And it was so uh, such an easy process and makes uh, a lot of fun. Just doing my job. Just doing my job. I mean the the the the story tells itself and you know, it's been such a a pleasure and an honor for me to be able to be the steward of Martin's story because he's an American hero and you know, finally he's he's agreed to go public with uh, with with what he did for this country. So, the pleasure's all mine. And thank you Kyle for having us. Right. Yeah, very good. Thanks for coming on, guys. Okay. There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with Martin and Ian, but before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost. At Undaunted Life, our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. So, in the show notes, I got a link to Amazon where you can buy your copy of Inside the Cartel. Thank you for listening to this podcast. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive five-star review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email to info@undaunted.life. That's i n f o @undaunted.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go to www.undaunted.life. And as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for our content. The music on this podcast is their song Perpetua, which is off their self-titled debut album on Facedown Records. The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience, keep seeking the lion of Judah. >> Mhm.