0:03

Welcome to Episode Three

0:05

Hundred and Eleven. Of

0:07

F B I retired case file

0:10

review with Jerry Williams. I'm a

0:12

retired agent on a mission to

0:14

show you who the F B

0:16

I is and what the at

0:19

the I does. Through my books,

0:21

my blog and my podcast case

0:23

reviews were former colleagues. Today we

0:26

get to speak to retired Agent

0:28

Jerry Hester, who's served in the

0:30

F B I for twenty years

0:32

and this episode he reviews his

0:35

Pays On Blues Investigation and F.

0:37

B I undercover operation

0:39

that exposed Italian mafia

0:41

also roberto certain areas

0:43

global crime network with

0:45

the collaboration of the

0:47

Italian National Police and

0:50

surprisingly. The cooperation of

0:52

ponzi schemer. Scott Rothstein.

0:55

The. Miami. United States Attorney's Office

0:57

honored Cherry with an outstanding

0:59

Law Enforcement Officer Other Year

1:01

award for his work on

1:03

the Pays On Blue Investigation.

1:06

After the case review, we

1:08

discuss Jerry's new. Book: Miami

1:10

Mafia F B I Politics

1:12

and how an investigation was

1:15

nearly sabotaged. The book is

1:17

focused on Operation Pays On

1:20

Blues and the investigation of

1:22

Centenary, but it also describes

1:24

how and why Jerry believes

1:27

the F B I internal

1:29

agency politics and conflicting agendas

1:32

affected the investigation. During.

1:34

His barrow career Jerry. Was assigned

1:36

to the San Francisco and

1:38

Miami F B I filled

1:40

offices conducting. Criminal Investigations and

1:43

to matters involving organized

1:45

crime, narcotics, public corruption

1:47

and counterterrorism. He gave

1:49

extensive experience and working

1:51

joint international investigations with

1:54

foreign government officials. Before

1:56

his retirement he manage

1:58

the Miami F. FBI's

2:00

confidential human source program.

2:03

Currently Jerry is an integrity representative

2:05

with the NFL, National Football

2:08

League, and their security department

2:10

conducting and overseeing game day

2:12

security for players and referees

2:14

and monitoring compliance with NFL

2:17

policy as it relates to

2:19

the legalized sports betting industry.

2:22

Now before we get to the

2:24

case review, I want to provide

2:27

an information alert. For those interested

2:29

in an internship with the FBI,

2:32

the FBI has changed the

2:34

application period for the Summer

2:37

2025 Honors Internship Program. And

2:39

yes, I said 2025. If

2:43

you're interested in an internship with the FBI for

2:45

Summer 2024, it's way too late. But

2:49

there's still a little bit of time for you to

2:51

apply for 2025 between now and March 1st.

2:57

So you only have a little more than a

2:59

week to go. The FBI's

3:01

Honors Internship Program is for

3:04

undergraduate students between their junior

3:06

and senior years in college

3:09

as well as graduate students

3:11

pursuing a master's degree, JD,

3:14

or PhD. You

3:16

can learn more at

3:19

fbijobs.gov. In

3:21

your podcast app description of this episode,

3:23

you'll find links to where you can

3:25

join my reader team to keep up

3:27

with the FBI and books, TV, and

3:29

movies. Buy me a cup

3:32

of coffee and learn more about me

3:34

and my non-fiction book, FBI

3:36

Myths and Misconceptions, and my

3:38

two FBI crime novels, Pay

3:40

to Play and Greedy Givers.

3:43

Available as eBooks and paperbacks

3:45

wherever books are sold and

3:47

as audiobooks on Audible and

3:50

Spotify. Thank you for your support.

3:52

Now here's the show. I

3:56

Want to welcome my guest,

3:58

retired agent, Jeff. Very Hester. Hey

4:01

Jerry, how are you? Very good? Thank

4:03

you. Probably. Will I have

4:05

spent the last few days

4:07

reading your new book Mafia

4:09

Miami, F B I Politics

4:11

and how an investigation was

4:13

nearly sabotaged and it was

4:15

Absolutely. I guess the word

4:18

I had to say is

4:20

thought provoking and memory provoking

4:22

because some of the things

4:24

that you talk about and

4:26

the book happened to me

4:28

during my career which. Was

4:30

working white collar crimes. There were

4:32

many times that I was not

4:34

in my head and agreeing with

4:37

some of your observations and assessments.

4:39

but today we're going to concentrate

4:41

on the investigation itself. Where do

4:43

you want to start? Or just

4:45

like to start with how it

4:48

all came about and about what's

4:50

the investigation is named and everything.

4:52

Let's start with my book. Mafia

4:54

Miami F B I Politics and

4:56

Out Investigation was there, he sabotaged

4:59

is about Operation. Pies On Blues

5:01

which was a long term international

5:03

F B I undercover investigation that

5:05

I let out of the Miami

5:07

F B I division beginning in

5:09

late two thousand and six. That

5:11

lasted for three and a half years until

5:14

two thousand and ten. The targets

5:16

of the investigation were members

5:18

of a Sicilian Mafia organization

5:20

primarily operating out of the

5:22

Miami in Miami Beach area

5:24

who are suspected of being

5:26

involved in drug trafficking, money

5:28

laundering, extortion, and other various

5:30

criminal activities. This. enterprise

5:33

stretch from south florida to new york

5:35

and to italy throughout the book as

5:37

you alluded to i also discuss and

5:39

analyze the numerous operational of administrative obstacles

5:41

that i encountered during the investigation some

5:44

of those challenges where the result of

5:46

f b i policies and cultural changes

5:48

that were occurring around that time but

5:50

for now i don't want to focus

5:52

too much year on those administrative challenges

5:55

i think that would take away from

5:57

the meat and potatoes of the invested

5:59

so to speak and how it all

6:01

came about. When we

6:03

think about organized crime, Italian-American

6:06

organized crime, I think about

6:08

of course the Sopranos and

6:10

the observations that I'm aware

6:12

of and have heard from

6:14

agents who've worked this particular

6:17

violation that there really is

6:19

not a deep

6:21

connection to Italy and that many

6:24

of the made members don't even

6:26

speak Italian. But your

6:28

particular investigation involved people that

6:30

did have a direct connection

6:33

to Italy. That is

6:35

correct. One of the unique

6:37

things that we saw in this investigation

6:39

was the fact that ours were Sicilian

6:42

mafia actually from Sicily but they were

6:44

also connected to some of the New

6:46

York families which is not something that

6:49

you saw a lot of at that

6:51

time. Actually they were with

6:53

one or the other and didn't commingle a

6:55

whole lot but in this investigation we discovered

6:57

they did quite a bit. As

7:00

I said, I'm just going to

7:02

focus on the investigation and how

7:04

Paison Bleu's began, how it progressed,

7:06

the twists and turns, the ups

7:08

and downs and how we were

7:10

ultimately successful. Where did the

7:12

name Paison Bleu come from? Very

7:15

good question and I was actually kind of hoping you would

7:17

ask that. This was an undercover

7:19

operation and Jerry as you know, the FBI

7:21

undercover operations, you have to have a code

7:23

name and it has to be two words.

7:26

It sounds simple, right? But it could be very

7:28

difficult a lot of times because the FBI has

7:30

been around for 100 years. A

7:33

lot of code names, good code names are used. So

7:36

you have to come up with a code

7:38

name before you can even get authorization to

7:40

work an undercover investigation. I racked

7:42

my brains over this and basically I

7:44

come up with Paison Bleu's because Italian

7:47

Paison and these Paisonos are going to have

7:49

the blues after the investigation is over. At

7:51

least that's what we hoped at the time

7:54

when I created the name. That's

7:56

how Paison Bleu's the name, how I came

7:58

up with that. I decided to... write

8:00

a book on the Paison Blues

8:02

investigation primarily because when I was

8:05

working this case due to the

8:07

very entertaining and charismatic subjects involved,

8:10

it sometimes felt like I was

8:12

working from a typical Hollywood movie

8:14

script. The main subject alluded to

8:17

earlier was a Sicilian by the

8:19

name of Roberto Cetinari. Cetinari was

8:21

a high priority Italian mafia who

8:24

had been on the radar of

8:26

the INP which is the Italian

8:29

National Police for several years. Cetinari

8:32

I soon discovered was actually living

8:34

and operating in the greater Miami

8:36

area and the INP soon was

8:39

able to provide tons of intelligence

8:41

and information proving that Cetinari had

8:43

many connections to the highest levels

8:46

of organized crime groups in all

8:48

of Italy. Talking

8:50

about the Sopranos, Cetinari reminded me

8:52

of a real-life Tony Soprano. He

8:55

kind of looked like him, tough-looking

8:57

guy, brooding character, very serious and

8:59

reserved but he was also very

9:02

intelligent. Many of the

9:04

other mafia subject involved in the case,

9:06

associates of Cetinari, they also seem like

9:08

characters that you would read about in

9:10

a fiction novel. For example, Cetinari's

9:13

closest associate is a guy by

9:15

the name of Antonio Tracamo who

9:17

was also a Sicilian national living

9:19

in the Miami area. Tracamo was

9:22

Cetinari's right-hand man and he looked

9:24

the part too. Always

9:26

well-dressed in designer clothes,

9:28

dark sunglasses, much like

9:30

Cetinari. Except Tracamo, he

9:32

had a smoothly-shaven bald head on

9:34

top of his bodybuilder type physique.

9:36

We quickly determined that he was

9:38

Cetinari's enforcer. For those of you

9:40

that's not familiar with the term

9:42

enforcer, enforcer is the individual and

9:44

the mafia organization who keeps order,

9:46

discipline and beats people up or

9:48

worse for the group. That

9:51

was Tracamo, he was like a

9:53

bodyguard to Cetinari. And

9:55

at that time, Cetinari and Tracamo, they

9:57

were inseparable. Ironically enough, Tracamo was a

9:59

very serious and very serious person. was

10:01

the polar opposite of Settinari who was,

10:04

as I said, reserved and serious. But

10:06

Takamo, he was gregarious and outgoing and

10:08

he always had this confident swagger about

10:10

himself. You might even say that

10:12

he was cocky. He was cocky. Settinari

10:15

was also on speed dial at

10:17

that time with many other well-known

10:19

mafia players in Miami. People like

10:22

Bobby Arra, Frankie, The Hat Di

10:24

Stefano. These guys were both old-time

10:26

and well-known mafia members who began

10:29

in New York and were now

10:31

living and operating in South Florida.

10:33

In New York, Settinari, he was

10:36

directly connected to individuals like Jackie,

10:38

the nose D'Amico. What a name,

10:40

huh? He was at that time

10:43

the underboss of the Gambino family

10:46

and another interesting character, Gaetano Napoli, who

10:48

was a capo which is a captain

10:50

basically with the Gambino family out of

10:52

New York. The investigation started

10:54

in late 2006 and

10:57

went for three and a half years.

10:59

From the very beginning, it was apparent

11:01

that Pizon Blues was an organized crime

11:04

investigation that had a lot of promise

11:06

with these high-profile targets. But as we

11:08

soon discovered, it would also prove to

11:10

be very challenging. When you add all

11:12

of that up, that combination, what it

11:15

really means is that there's a very

11:17

low chance of success at least initially

11:19

when we started the investigation. High

11:21

priority, high level targets makes it difficult.

11:24

Mainly, we knew it was going to

11:26

be challenging and difficult because I didn't

11:28

have a source also known

11:30

as an informant. I use that term

11:32

interchangeably, source and format. I did have

11:34

a source in the investigation initially when

11:36

I started and Jerry knows this as

11:38

well that any FBI agent will tell

11:40

you that is not the ideal way

11:42

to begin an investigation. Most

11:44

successful FBI cases start out with

11:46

the source, someone who comes forward

11:49

with information about your bad guy.

11:51

This gives you direction in starting the

11:53

investigation to come up with a plan

11:55

and which to hopefully move your case

11:57

forward. I think one of the things that

12:00

I'd like to kind of established

12:02

is transferred

12:22

over from a Counterterrorism and

12:30

I was that was where my interest

12:32

lied. As soon as I got to

12:34

the squad, apparently the INP, the Italian

12:37

National Police had notified FBI Miami of

12:39

Roberto Centenary who was living and operating

12:41

right in our backyard and we were

12:43

not aware of it. FBI Miami was

12:46

not aware of this and at

12:48

that time working through Ligat Rome

12:50

who was providing all of this

12:52

intelligence and information coming from the

12:55

INP to FBI Miami,

12:57

our organized crime squad. So

12:59

this was again a high-profile target right in

13:01

our backyard that no one was aware

13:03

of. Me being due to the squad, even

13:05

though I was an experienced agent, I didn't

13:08

have anything that I was working at

13:10

that time. It was just a timing thing.

13:12

So my supervisor Joseph Cini who I

13:14

mentioned in the book many times, he was

13:16

a friend of mine, he gave me

13:18

this investigation. It was my lead to start.

13:21

So I started it from the very beginning.

13:23

So that's how I came to work

13:25

this investigation. So that's why

13:27

I was basically given the target which

13:29

was Centenary with no informant. Obviously,

13:32

good mafia informants, they don't grow

13:34

on trees needless to say. Eventually,

13:37

I was able to develop a

13:39

couple but it was a painstaking

13:41

and very time-consuming process. But once

13:43

I did have a couple of

13:45

sources in place, I was able

13:47

to determine that Centenary was involved

13:49

in your typical run-of-the-mill mafia style

13:51

activities in the Miami area. I

13:53

noticed right away he was developing a

13:56

stronghold on a couple of boiler rooms.

13:58

Boiler rooms for the... those of you

14:01

who aren't familiar, they're basically

14:03

businesses where high pressure and

14:05

sometimes illegal or unethical sales

14:07

tactics are used. Settinari

14:09

was involved in several of these in

14:12

the greater Miami area and Broward County

14:14

as well. He was receiving

14:16

kickbacks from these owners. He was

14:18

pressuring the owners to give him

14:20

money for his so-called assistance. And

14:22

we also believed that Settinari was

14:24

extorting businesses. His

14:26

favorite hangout in Miami Beach was

14:29

an Italian restaurant on Lincoln Road.

14:31

Believe it or not, the restaurant

14:33

was called Soprano Cafe, ironically enough,

14:35

a very well-known Italian restaurant in

14:37

a ritzy area of Miami Beach.

14:40

Of literally hundreds of times that I was

14:42

out on surveillance there at the

14:45

Soprano Cafe, I saw Settinari received

14:47

cash payments in white envelopes from

14:49

the owner several times. Other

14:52

than him going there on a

14:54

frequent basis, was it a

14:56

hangout for organized crime? It

14:58

was. This was really, I

15:00

called it his office because he was

15:02

there almost every day and he claimed

15:05

to people that he was part owner

15:07

of the restaurant but we were never

15:09

able to confirm that. I think that

15:11

he was just extorting the restaurant, used

15:14

it at his little office area, conduct

15:16

his meetings there with his business associates,

15:18

mafia partners. So we got to know

15:20

the place quite well. How blatant

15:23

to be frequenting a cafe

15:26

that's called the Soprano Cafe,

15:28

a restaurant, yeah. I

15:31

know, you can't make it up. It was really

15:33

funny. Remember, this was 2006, 2008. So

15:36

at that time Sopranos, the show, I think

15:38

it was still going on at that time.

15:41

I know it wasn't too far from that.

15:43

Settinari would come to the Soprano Cafe and

15:45

he would walk back to the kitchen and

15:47

get his own food. He would

15:49

stand at the counter and the cook would

15:51

hand him his food and he'd go sit

15:53

down. He wouldn't pay his bill but they

15:55

paid him. So it wasn't hard to figure

15:57

out that he was being provided payments for

15:59

whatever. business he was doing with him which I

16:01

think was extortion. So the

16:03

sources that we had in place were

16:06

reporting on these type of activities of

16:08

centenary over a period of several months.

16:10

However, I believe that centenary was involved

16:13

in much more egregious type of criminal

16:15

activity and the sources that I had

16:17

in place, they didn't have the relationship

16:20

with centenary or honestly the ability to

16:22

go to that next level and witness

16:24

any other types of these serious criminal

16:26

activities that we suspected him to be

16:29

involved with. Eventually, I realized that I

16:31

needed to try to insert an

16:33

FBI undercover agent into the investigation.

16:36

One who would be more skilled

16:38

dealing with someone as sophisticated as

16:41

Mr. Centenary. But Jerry, as you

16:43

know, using an undercover FBI agent,

16:45

this is difficult, time consuming and

16:48

it can be very risky. Also there

16:50

are lots of hurdles due to the

16:52

extensive FBI approvals that are required to

16:54

be obtained before you can conduct this

16:56

type of activity. Needless to

16:58

say, it's not an easy process. At

17:01

this time, we had the source in

17:03

place. At this point when we're requesting

17:05

the undercover investigation, this is probably six

17:08

or eight months into the investigation. So

17:10

by this time, we do have a

17:12

couple of informants but they just weren't

17:14

real bad guys who could get that

17:17

close to determine the more serious criminal

17:19

activity that we were certain was being

17:21

conducted by centenary. So after a few

17:24

months after we had the approval in

17:26

hand, of course, we were eventually able

17:28

to get an FBI undercover agent introduced

17:30

to centenary. Over much time,

17:33

over much planning and preparation, this FBI

17:35

undercover agent was able to gain the

17:37

trust of centenary. The undercover agent was

17:39

portraying to be a Colombian cartel money

17:42

loner. Remember, this is Miami so it's

17:44

not a stretch. That would be the

17:46

role we would choose. There are a

17:48

lot of those running around in Miami.

17:51

After some time when trust was developed

17:53

between the two, the undercover agent was

17:56

able to engage in a series of

17:58

private meetings with centenary. And

18:00

in those recorded meetings, Settneri by

18:02

now, he's completely comfortable with the

18:04

undercover agent. He began to reveal

18:06

his criminal past back when he

18:08

was in Italy. He discussed

18:11

prior drug deals. He was involved with

18:13

money laundering operations he had been involved

18:15

with. This was the type of activity

18:18

that we suspected Settneri being involved with.

18:20

So now we were rolling. And soon

18:22

in one meeting, Settneri even agreed to

18:25

launder money for our FBI undercover. Remember,

18:27

he thinks he's a cartel member. So

18:29

he thinks the undercover agent's a

18:31

fellow bad guy and he's wanting to

18:33

get into business with our undercover agent,

18:35

which is our objective. The

18:38

Jeep Presidents Day Sales Event is going on now. Hurry

18:40

in your local Jeep dealer for great offers. Now well-qualified

18:43

lessees get a low mileage lease on the 2024 Jeep

18:45

Grand Cherokee Laredo X4 by 4 for $4.39 a month

18:47

for 39 months with $3,909 due at signing. Tax.

18:51

Title. License extra. No security deposit required.

18:53

Call 1-888-925-JEEP for details. Requires

18:56

dealer contribution and lease through Stellantis Financial. Extra

18:58

charge from miles over $32,500. Not all customers

19:00

will qualify. Model customers will qualify. Residency

19:03

restrictions apply. Take delivery by 2-29-24.

19:05

Jeep is a registered trademark. Now

19:09

this was a significant moment in the

19:11

investigation. This is when it kind of

19:13

rose to the next level, so to

19:15

speak. We now had Settneri asking our

19:17

undercover agent to commit criminal activity with

19:19

him. We were now prepared to go

19:21

through with the money laundering deals with

19:23

Settneri, which would be actual physical evidence

19:25

for us. And then

19:27

he drops a bombshell on the undercover

19:30

agent. Settneri asks our

19:32

undercover agent if he has

19:34

the ability to obtain black

19:36

market weapons for Settneri's organization.

19:39

Certainly this was a huge moment in the case. Ooh,

19:42

escalation. That's exactly

19:44

right. Settneri advised

19:46

that these weapons, they will be

19:48

imported into Italy and then

19:50

elsewhere into Europe or Africa. So as

19:52

we said, obviously this is a big

19:54

break in the investigation. And by this

19:57

time, the case had already attracted a

19:59

lot of people. attention from the

20:01

FBI brass. After this and

20:05

the scrutiny from the bosses, it escalated

20:07

along with the quality and the investigation.

20:09

At this point, I was briefing my

20:12

ASAC and my FBI headquarter folks several

20:14

times a week. ASAC, that's my assistant

20:16

special agent in charge. So now we

20:18

had our work cut out for us.

20:21

Yeah, whenever you have a situation

20:24

where there could be a nexus

20:26

to terrorism, especially in these days

20:28

and times in the FBI, then

20:30

yeah, it escalates very quickly, very

20:32

fast. It sure does. It

20:35

sure does. And now we had

20:37

our work cut out for us.

20:39

We had Seton area now agreeing

20:41

to launder money for our undercover

20:43

agent. And now he wants black

20:45

market weapons. So we are moving

20:47

along well. Now we're getting all

20:49

the attention from the FBI brass.

20:51

We're doing well. All we

20:53

had to do now was set up the specifics

20:55

with Seton area, the terms, get

20:58

the overt act, the money changing hands,

21:00

and now we would have real evidence

21:02

to charge him with. At

21:04

this point, that's the planning that we're doing.

21:06

A few days later, when the time came

21:08

for a follow up meeting between the undercover

21:10

agent and Seton area, our undercover agent, he

21:13

calls Seton area over the telephone. He doesn't

21:15

answer. So the undercover leaves him a voicemail.

21:17

He says, Hey, call me back. Let's set

21:19

up that meeting that we've talked about the

21:21

other day. Now at that

21:24

time, we had a court order approval

21:26

to listen in on Seton area's phone

21:28

conversation was called a title three. Most

21:30

of you probably know the title three.

21:32

That's the wiretap act that gives you

21:35

the judicial authority to intercept and record

21:37

phone calls of suspected individuals. Not

21:39

long after our undercover agent left this

21:41

message for Seton area, I received a

21:44

call from our title three room. And

21:46

that's the place where our fellow FBI

21:48

agents are monitoring Seton area's calls for

21:50

us. They told me, Hey, come down

21:52

to the title three room. There's an important

21:54

call that we think you need to listen to.

21:57

This was a common occurrence. It happened all

21:59

the time. Title III guys, they would call me

22:01

and say, hey, we think there's an important call you

22:03

might want to hear, you might want to listen to

22:05

right away, it might help you in what you're doing

22:07

right now. So, I really was an alarm at the

22:10

moment. That was until I actually

22:12

listened to that call, that's the Settinaries call.

22:14

The call that the Title III folks called

22:16

me about was Settinary talking to a fellow

22:18

mob associate. Now, this guy he was speaking

22:21

with, he was an older mentor or type

22:23

to Settinary. So, in the call, Settinary tells

22:25

him that he thinks one of the guys

22:27

he's been dealing with and he's talking about

22:30

our undercover agent. He thinks one of the guys he's

22:32

been dealing with, he believes he's a cop.

22:35

So, Settinary doesn't give a reason why he

22:37

thinks this, he just says that something doesn't

22:39

feel right to him. And in

22:41

the call, the associate tells him, hey, if

22:43

you feel that way, walk away. Your

22:46

instincts have always served you well,

22:48

Roberto. And that was exactly

22:50

what Settinary did. He completely walked

22:52

away from our undercover agent forever.

22:54

He never called him again. So,

22:56

as you can imagine, I was

22:58

devastated. Everyone involved in

23:00

the case was devastated. The undercover agent,

23:02

the investigative team, all the work, time

23:05

and effort, resources seemingly down the drain

23:07

at that moment in time. So that

23:09

was a very difficult time

23:11

for us. I would

23:13

imagine that there's big concern

23:16

too because Settinary was the

23:18

one who brought up the

23:20

buying of the firearms. And

23:23

now that he's not using the undercover

23:25

agent, is he using someone else

23:27

to do this? Exactly. And no,

23:30

your thinking is right on him. That's what we

23:32

did. What went wrong? At this moment in time,

23:34

there was a lot of self-reflection. What

23:36

went wrong? We didn't know. We

23:38

racked our brains for days over

23:41

this. We listened to the

23:43

previous recorded meetings with Settinary over and

23:45

over again, hoping to pick up on

23:47

what maybe tipped him off. We

23:50

never found out for sure. I guess he just

23:52

had good gut instinct. I mean, who

23:54

knows why. At this time, there

23:56

wasn't a lot of time to dwell

23:58

on our missteps. The question now was...

24:00

was what do we do now with

24:02

Centenary now spooked, our options with him,

24:04

they were limited. We couldn't make a

24:07

run at him again, at least not

24:09

for a while. I decided we should

24:11

for the time being divert our focus

24:13

over to Trocamo, Antonio Trocamo, his right-hand

24:15

man. He was vulnerable, maybe we could

24:17

dirty him up, Trocamo that is, and

24:19

try to flip him to cooperate against

24:21

Centenary. I felt it was our best

24:23

option at this point. It was really

24:25

our only option and at

24:27

this time with all of the FBI

24:29

management and headquarters scrutiny, it was

24:31

wearing down on me with all of

24:33

the potential and investigation, the big expectations

24:35

and now with this latest setback, I

24:38

was stressed as you can imagine because

24:40

Jerry you know this, sometimes if you

24:42

aren't making progress in your case or

24:44

you hit a dead end, especially when

24:46

you are conducting undercover operations and Title

24:48

3s and things like that, if you're

24:50

not making progress, FBI management they'll say,

24:52

hey listen, we're going to shut down

24:55

your case. There was a lot of

24:57

pressure. So now Trocamo, he was our

24:59

focus and to keep the case alive, we needed

25:01

to come up with a good plan of approach. We

25:04

knew he was greedy, we knew he was

25:06

not as bright as Centenary, we played right

25:08

into that greed, that was the plan. Our

25:10

intel had told us that Trocamo, he was

25:12

always looking to make a quick buck just

25:15

like any other self-respecting mobster I guess. Legitimate

25:18

money or not, it didn't matter to him.

25:20

He was a risk taker, he did what

25:22

he had to do to make money. Our

25:24

plan was we dangled a new undercover FBI

25:27

agent, different undercover FBI agent. We dangled him

25:29

right under his nose. One

25:31

who was portraying another drug dealer and

25:34

money launderer type, it's Miami remember.

25:36

So that type of character, it's

25:38

always a safe choice to settle

25:40

on when you're working undercover operations

25:42

in Miami. Fortunately for us, that

25:44

dangle worked. It didn't take long

25:46

at all. And soon Trocamo, he

25:48

was helping our FBI undercover agent

25:50

launder millions of dollars of what

25:52

he thought was drug proceeds. Meanwhile,

25:55

we're racking up big federal charges on

25:57

Trocamo as a result. This is all

25:59

good. stuff, right? You have to

26:01

explain to him

26:06

millions of dollars. Where's this Yeah,

26:11

good question too. We don't actually

26:13

give money to the bad guys

26:15

and let them control it. We

26:17

devised a scenario that our FBI

26:20

undercover agents was controlling. Tracamo believed

26:22

that our FBI undercover agent was

26:24

a drug trafficker who needed help

26:26

laundering money. So in a controlled

26:29

situation, we would give Tracamo. At

26:31

that time, we were giving him $250,000 at a time of cash. Of

26:36

course, this is FBI money that we

26:38

obtained through approvals from headquarters, from our

26:40

headquarters folks. The undercover agent would give

26:42

Tracamo directions. Here's this money we need

26:44

you to transport it from point A

26:47

to point B so that we can

26:49

get this money laundered. We can get

26:51

this money back into our hands so

26:53

that we could spend it. That's exactly

26:55

what Tracamo did. And those money laundering

26:57

operations, again, tightly controlled. We had surveillance

26:59

that we even had our SOG helicopters

27:01

out patrolling to making sure monitoring that

27:03

Tracamo was going where he was supposed

27:05

to be. And if he didn't, obviously

27:08

we would take him down because the Bureau is not in

27:10

the business of losing that kind of money. So we did

27:12

it in $250,000 increments. So

27:15

we did four to five of those which

27:17

gave us our million dollar threshold amount. We

27:20

were moving right along with Tracamo, which

27:22

like I said, was all good stuff.

27:24

But remember, Settinari, he was the main

27:26

target in the case. The overall objective

27:28

of the investigation had been we wanted

27:31

to jam up Settinari with the big

27:33

federal charges. He was the big fish

27:35

with the large criminal network. We wanted

27:37

to get him to flip and expose

27:39

his organization, all the high level mob

27:41

guys, the VIPs, the big shots that

27:44

Settinari knew. But now we

27:46

found ourselves down to the level of Tracamo. Nonetheless,

27:49

we soon had a big hammer over

27:51

Tracamo's head basically with the money laundering

27:53

charges. So what was the plan? Good

27:56

question. At this point, we had the

27:58

money laundering. We had also... evidence

28:00

of Trucamo trafficking in counterfeit cigarettes,

28:02

which is a big federal hit.

28:04

So we had heavy federal charges.

28:06

So like you're saying, the question

28:08

now was, how long should

28:10

we continue the undercover operation with Trucamo?

28:12

Eventually, we had to approach him with

28:14

this hammer that we have, right, with

28:16

all this evidence and try to get

28:18

him to cooperate against his boss, which

28:20

was the overall plan at this point.

28:23

But the more pressing question is, if and

28:25

when we do that, when Trucamo

28:27

was faced with these big federal charges, and

28:29

he was looking at about 10 years in

28:31

prison, basically, at this point, when he's presented

28:33

with that, would he agree to cooperate against

28:36

Centenary? Or would he just take the hit,

28:38

not give up anyone and just do his

28:40

time in a federal penitentiary? And Jerry, as

28:42

you know, you go through this at this

28:44

point, and in any case, you're working, you

28:46

have to do a analysis,

28:48

do we really think this guy will cooperate?

28:51

These are mafia people. So a lot of

28:53

times they have no intention, they'll just

28:55

rot in jail. This was heavy

28:57

on our minds at this point in

28:59

time. And this was going on for

29:01

a couple months. And then it was

29:03

about this time in a case when

29:05

out of the blue, I received a

29:07

call from the US Attorney's Office. So

29:09

thinking back, what we've been discussing here,

29:11

do you remember Centenary's many celebrity and

29:13

VIP contacts in Miami that we spoke

29:15

of earlier? Yeah, definitely. He knew

29:17

a lot of people. He knew

29:20

a lot of people, a lot of

29:22

celebrities, not to mention high level mob

29:24

people, a lot of drug dealers, you

29:26

name it. He knew everyone it seemed.

29:29

Well, one of these people, a flashy,

29:31

well-known South Florida attorney, Jerry, this is

29:33

a person you probably remember, a guy

29:35

by the name of Scott Rothstein, had

29:38

just turned himself into the US Attorney's

29:40

Office in Fort Lauderdale. Yes, I definitely

29:42

remember him because I did a case

29:45

review with one of your

29:48

Miami colleagues, retired agent

29:50

Richard Stout, episode 275,

29:53

all about Scott Rothstein.

29:56

Exactly. And Rothstein could certainly

29:58

fill up an entire episode,

30:00

that is for sure. So at this point,

30:02

this is 2009, Ross Dean turns himself into

30:06

the US Attorney's Office, confesses to

30:08

being the mastermind behind the $1.2

30:10

million Ponzi scheme

30:12

that your show with my good friend Rich

30:14

Stout, you discussed a while back. The

30:17

$1.2 billion Ponzi scheme is about to go

30:19

belly up. Ross Dean comes in from the

30:22

cold, as I like to call it, talks

30:24

to the US Attorney's Office, confesses and says,

30:26

what can I do to make this right

30:28

based on his $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme and

30:30

it was right out of a classic Ponzi

30:33

scheme playbook. Now he wanted to cooperate any

30:35

way he could to help himself out. Well,

30:37

what did this mean for the Pied-Zam Blues

30:40

investigation? Early in the investigation,

30:42

I knew that Settinari had telephonic contact

30:45

with Scott Ross Dean and I knew

30:47

who Scott Ross Dean was from the

30:49

very beginning and I knew Ross Dean

30:51

was a big player. But as we

30:53

discussed, there were many high level people,

30:55

celebrities, VIPs, criminals that he was

30:58

in telephonic contact with. So this was the

31:00

biggest break of all in the case because

31:03

Ross Dean had agreed to cooperate with

31:05

the government because he was looking at

31:07

100 years in prison for his fraudulent

31:09

activities. I had Ross Dean

31:11

working as a cooperator in my case,

31:13

willing to help any way that he

31:15

could and help he did. Soon due

31:18

to his prior relationship with Settinari, remember,

31:20

they already knew each other very well.

31:22

We had Ross Dean meeting with Settinari

31:24

face-to-face in recorded meetings

31:26

and in a quickly devised scenario,

31:29

we had Mr. Ross Dean ask

31:31

Settinari at our direction of course

31:33

to help Ross Dean launder money

31:35

and destroy some legal documents. Money

31:38

and legal documents he told Settinari that

31:40

he wanted to conceal from the federal

31:42

authorities due to his recent legal problems

31:45

from the Ponzi scheme. By

31:47

the way, this was all over the

31:49

news nationwide, not to mention

31:51

in South Florida. This was on the news

31:53

nonstop for weeks at a time

31:56

about Ross Dean's Ponzi scheme because remember Ross

31:58

Dean was a very well-known. somewhat

32:00

of a celebrity attorney in South Florida. I

32:03

know he had a lot of political connections

32:05

too. My question then is, if

32:08

this is well known, it's in

32:10

all the newspapers, why would anybody

32:12

want to speak with

32:14

him or trust him and

32:16

how are you going to use his cooperation?

32:19

Great question. And my gosh, at the

32:21

time when this happened, I was very

32:23

happy to have Rothstein working as a

32:26

cooperator in the investigation because of the

32:28

status that our case was at that

32:30

point in time. But I didn't believe

32:32

it would work because what you're talking

32:34

about, Jerry, this is all over the

32:36

news. So what bad guy, what criminal

32:38

is going to have anything to do

32:40

with Rothstein when he knows that he's

32:42

being investigated by the FBI and the

32:44

IRS and every other federal agency because

32:47

of the spondeskine? What are the odds

32:49

of him having anything to do

32:51

with our cooperator? I didn't think it

32:53

was very good at all, but I

32:55

have to tell you Scott Rothstein did

32:57

a very good job. And with the

32:59

scenario that we came up for him,

33:01

he sold it so well. Here's what

33:03

happened after a few meetings, ironing out

33:05

the details. Setneri agreed to assist Rothstein.

33:07

He told them, listen, you're a good

33:09

friend. I'll help you out. I know

33:12

you're in trouble. I'll help you conceal

33:14

your money, which we had told Setneri

33:16

that Rothstein had $10 million that he

33:18

need to clean. We also instructed Rothstein

33:20

to tell Setneri that he had these

33:22

legal documents that were damning to his

33:24

federal case. And he needed someone to

33:26

go get them out of a storage

33:28

unit and destroy them for him. So

33:30

Setneri agreed, but he agreed to assist

33:33

Rothstein for a negotiated fee of a

33:35

million dollars. That was the plan at

33:37

least set in Setneri's mind. So

33:40

he wasn't doing this out of the kindness of

33:42

his heart. A good

33:44

friend. That's exactly

33:46

right. He wasn't doing it because he

33:48

was a loyal friend, which is

33:50

what he's told Rothstein, but hey, I'll help you out,

33:52

buddy. But I want a million dollars of that 10

33:55

million. It's played right into our hands because that's exactly

33:57

what we thought would happen to actually

33:59

go through. with scenario we gave Rostin

34:01

$70,000 in a test run and that's

34:03

generally what you do in money laundering

34:06

operations. You don't just give the entire

34:08

amount, right? You do a test run.

34:10

You want to prove that each side can live up

34:12

to their agreement. Settinari

34:14

laundered the $70,000 in a test

34:16

run at the instructions of Rostin

34:18

coming from us of course from

34:20

the FBI into an FBI undercover

34:23

account and Rostin gave Settinari directions

34:25

to the location of these bogus

34:27

legal documents which he thought were

34:29

real legal documents and

34:31

Settinari went out and obtained these documents

34:34

for Rostin and destroyed the documents using

34:36

a paper shredder and burnt them I

34:38

think at some point. That

34:40

was all that we needed for destruction

34:43

of evidence charges and for the conspiracy

34:45

to launder millions of dollars. You don't

34:47

really actually need him to launder the

34:49

entire amount to obtain the criminal conspiracy

34:51

charges of the full amount of the

34:53

$10 million. In the

34:55

book, I get into a lot of the

34:58

detail concerning the cooperation of Rostin which is

35:00

what Jerry you were alluding to and how

35:02

amazing of a performance it was by him

35:04

when you consider the fact that Settinari knew

35:06

that Rostin was being investigated by the FBI

35:08

and he still agreed to commit these crimes

35:10

for Rostin. It was because

35:12

Settinari's greed finally caught up to him. That

35:15

million dollars sounded pretty good. He'll take his

35:17

chances and his luck run out this time.

35:19

A million dollars is

35:21

an incentive for some people.

35:23

I've never been offered but hopefully

35:25

I know better. That's

35:28

right. Yeah, that's a lot of money. So

35:31

now at this point, we finally had

35:33

real evidence on Settinari and in March

35:35

of 2010, we

35:38

arrested Settinari and Tricamo along with

35:40

two other low-level associates who helped

35:42

Settinari with the money laundering and

35:45

the destruction of evidence. Settinari

35:47

nor Tricamo either one, they never did

35:49

cooperate with the FBI. They

35:52

never gave up any of their fellow

35:54

mobsters or criminal associates. In

35:56

the book, I go into some detail as to why

35:58

I think that they didn't cooperate. For that

36:00

matter in the book, there's a lot

36:02

of other interesting detail concerning the entire

36:04

three-plus year investigation that I hope people

36:06

will find interesting. One

36:09

of the things that I'd love

36:11

for you to talk a little

36:13

bit more about and that is

36:15

your collaboration with the Italian National

36:17

Police, the INP, them contacting the

36:19

FBI is what initiated this case.

36:21

Did they play a role or

36:23

did you continue to interact with

36:25

them during this three and a

36:27

half year investigation? We sure

36:29

did. We sure did. I developed

36:32

close association with the INP specifically

36:34

with an individual by the name

36:36

of Roberto Denunzio who was an

36:38

INP officer. Throughout the

36:40

entire investigation, we were constantly

36:42

comparing notes and at this

36:45

time, when we were investigating

36:47

Settinari, the INP was investigating

36:49

several of Settinari's associates in

36:51

Italy and Sicily. When

36:54

we arrested Settinari and Tracamo here,

36:56

we conducted a joint arrest with

36:58

the INP and they arrested several, actually

37:00

it was up to 20 people,

37:03

the INP arrested in Italy at the

37:05

same time. Throughout the

37:07

investigation, I actually made a couple

37:09

of trips to Italy and visited

37:11

the INP and Italian authorities and

37:13

briefed them on the Settinari investigation

37:15

because Settinari was an important, very

37:17

important person to them. We

37:19

shared information throughout and individuals of

37:21

the INP on several occasions actually

37:24

came to Miami. We hosted them

37:26

here several times for briefings and

37:28

update of the investigation and

37:30

actually took them around and showed

37:32

them where Settinari was living, where

37:34

he was operating and whatnot. We

37:36

had close and very good contact

37:38

and a relationship with the INP.

37:42

If you own a vehicle with less than

37:44

200,000 miles and have an auto warranty about

37:46

to expire or no warranty coverage at all,

37:48

listen up. CarShield has a

37:50

low-cost, month-to-month vehicle protection plan that covers

37:52

more parts than ever. Visit

37:54

carshield.com-slash-audio to find out how you could pay

37:57

almost nothing for covered auto repairs. Drivers who

37:59

have To activate this vehicle protection

38:01

today, we'll also receive free

38:03

roadside assistance, free towing and

38:05

car rental options at no

38:07

additional cost. Get your free

38:09

quote today at carshield.com/audio. That's

38:11

carshield.com/audio. As

38:14

for the results of the investigation, Settinari

38:16

and his two underling associates, they were

38:18

charged with one count of conspiracy to

38:20

commit money laundering an amount of $10

38:22

million and one count

38:24

of instruction of justice. They

38:26

ultimately pled guilty. He was sentenced to four

38:28

years in the federal prison. He actually served

38:31

30 months and he was let out several

38:33

years ago in good behavior. His associates also

38:35

pled guilty to obstruction of justice and they

38:37

were sentenced to 10 months in jail. Now,

38:40

Tracamo, Tracamo was charged with four

38:42

counts of money laundering, six counts

38:44

of trafficking and contraband. There was

38:46

those counterfeit cigarettes we discussed, 250,000

38:48

counterfeit cigarettes. He

38:51

pled guilty to one charge of money laundering. All

38:53

of the other charges were dropped and he served

38:55

18 months in jail. After his

38:57

release from prison, he was deported back to Italy. Now,

39:00

in your book, you also list one

39:02

count of marriage fraud. So I was

39:04

very curious about that. So what's up

39:07

with that? Yeah, that was interesting and

39:09

that's a good pickup on your part.

39:11

When we were going through the

39:13

charges on Tracamo, we actually did

39:16

another background check and had more

39:18

analysis be conducted of Tracamo and

39:20

what he was doing. One of

39:22

our fantastic FBI analysts discovered that

39:24

Tracamo was involved in some marriage

39:26

fraud and we were able to

39:28

prove it. So we used it

39:30

as a hammer against him. So he had a

39:32

lot going on. He was charged with the four

39:34

counts of money laundering, the trafficking of 250,000 counterfeit

39:38

cigarettes and then with the marriage fraud.

39:40

That marriage fraud was instrumental in being

39:42

able to have him deported back to

39:44

Italy after his 18 months

39:46

in jail. Yeah, that was interesting. There

39:48

was so much involved in this investigation

39:50

and so many side stories. What

39:53

was it? I mean, I know what

39:55

marriage fraud is but do you have any specifics

39:57

about he claimed to be married to

39:59

somebody but... you found out he wasn't living there or

40:18

discovered late in the investigation. It's just one of

40:20

those charges we were able to attack on. But

40:23

it was true, he was. He was a part

40:25

of some marriage fraud scam. There's a lot of

40:27

that that goes on in Miami. So no big

40:29

surprise. Well, this is fantastic.

40:31

But I know that there are

40:34

going to be some people who

40:36

are wondering about what happened in

40:38

this situation because you initially went

40:41

after everyone because they were involved

40:43

in illegal boiler rooms. But they're

40:45

now being charged with something that

40:48

some people would think, well,

40:50

the FBI set that up.

40:53

Could you explain to them

40:55

about predication and why during

40:57

your undercover investigation, you can

40:59

put out feelers to see

41:01

if they are interested in committing

41:03

illegal activity? That's another good

41:06

question too with predication. And as you

41:08

know, Jerry and the FBI, we take

41:10

predication very seriously. And throughout my entire

41:12

career, I've been the type of person

41:14

that if there's no predication, even though

41:16

we have information of criminal activity by

41:18

someone, I take the predication very seriously.

41:21

Because a lot of times, as I

41:23

like to say, our job is to

41:25

vindicate people. And I have done that

41:27

before many times and just walked away

41:29

from an investigation because of that. But

41:31

with this case, predication was certainly there.

41:34

We had many times when I directed

41:36

the undercover agents to discuss these types

41:38

of criminal activity with set in area,

41:40

we always gave them an out. They

41:42

would say, hey, listen, you realize the

41:44

same thing with tracamo, especially tracamo. We

41:46

told them, listen, this is criminal activity,

41:48

not in those exact words, but say,

41:50

hey, this is illegal. And we

41:52

could go to jail for this. Are you willing

41:55

to take that risk? Are you okay? And they

41:57

always did. They were more than happy to be

41:59

involved with criminal activity. activity. We always

42:01

clear those hurdles and it's a

42:03

high hurdle to make sure we're

42:05

investigating people who are actually criminals.

42:08

I wouldn't waste time with anything

42:10

just to target someone who wasn't

42:12

really involved with any criminal activity.

42:14

So that is always a

42:16

very challenging thing for us and the

42:18

FBI was to establish that the activity

42:20

that these people were involved with, that

42:23

they were criminals and always give them

42:25

an out. And Seton Area was certainly

42:27

involved in many criminal enterprises. You mentioned

42:29

the boiler rooms. He was also

42:31

involved and he was so many things,

42:33

so many things he was involved with

42:36

that I didn't mention today that I

42:38

briefly discussed in the book involved in

42:40

stolen merchandise. He was also at one

42:42

point, I think he was arrested in

42:44

Miami Beach for waving a gun at

42:46

some poor security guard who he got

42:48

picked off. So Seton

42:51

Area was also known to be

42:53

physical and beat people up and

42:55

threaten people. He's involved a lot

42:57

of things but the areas that

42:59

we targeted were the more

43:01

egregious activity, drug trafficking, money

43:03

laundering and the weapons trafficking.

43:06

But no, good question. That's always something that we

43:08

like to discuss. And then of

43:11

course, you know the rest of Mr.

43:13

Rothstein after his cooperation, he cooperated in

43:15

many other investigations and ultimately, he was

43:17

sentenced to 50 years in federal prison.

43:20

For those who don't understand, okay,

43:22

he cooperated. How is it that

43:24

he gets 50 years? You'll have

43:26

to explain that. Now, of course,

43:28

I want everybody to go back

43:30

and listen to Episode 275 with

43:32

Rich Stout. But to say them

43:34

a little time, explain why he

43:36

still got 50 years if he

43:38

cooperated on all of these investigations.

43:41

Yeah, no, good question. And yeah, please

43:43

have your listeners go back and listen

43:46

to Episode 275 with Rich Stout. That's

43:48

a fascinating story with Scott Rothstein. But

43:50

remember, Rothstein was looking at 100 years

43:53

because of his massive fraud. So that's

43:55

a lot of time to have to

43:57

work off. He was working juggle. several

44:00

investigations when he was in

44:34

the United States Attorney's Office in the Southern District

44:36

of Miami honored you

44:58

and your entire team with

45:00

an outstanding Law Enforcement Officer

45:02

of the Year award for

45:04

your work on this Paison

45:06

Bleu's investigation. So congratulations on

45:09

that. Thank you. Thank you

45:11

so much. I appreciate it and I really

45:13

appreciate the opportunity to come out and discuss

45:15

this investigation. Now I know you

45:17

hinted here a little bit about some

45:19

issues that you had, some things that

45:21

could have derailed the case and I

45:23

can tell everyone who is going to

45:25

have the opportunity to read your book

45:28

that you talk a lot about that.

45:30

Were those setbacks part of your motivation

45:32

to write your book? It

45:35

was something that I thought was important

45:37

to discuss basically with a lot of

45:39

the negative news that you see the

45:42

Bureau involved with these days unfortunately, some

45:44

of the missteps. But in this book,

45:46

I don't really get into the politics

45:48

per se, it's more of politics of

45:51

internally that I discuss how the Bureau's

45:53

culture was changing at the time and

45:55

really as a result of several policies

45:57

that were being implemented at that time.

46:00

that just seemed to change things within

46:02

the Bureau. At the time, I didn't

46:04

know what was going on obviously but

46:06

I did notice that things were changing

46:08

and some of the problems that I

46:10

had trying to work the investigation didn't

46:12

make sense at the time but now

46:14

that you reflect on some of these

46:17

policies that changed the Bureau, I understand

46:19

how that happened. As you can

46:21

tell Jerry reading the book, I'm not

46:23

bashing the Bureau. It's more matter of

46:25

fact from the viewpoint of an FBI

46:27

agent working investigations, my experience in dealing

46:29

with some of those things. I

46:32

would like to be a little

46:34

bit clearer for listeners. So basically,

46:37

a lot of the issues had

46:39

to do with the management and

46:41

their maybe inexperience or

46:43

maybe you could call it

46:46

their motivation for making certain

46:48

decisions that weren't necessarily good

46:50

for the case. You

46:53

definitely read the book. Thank you for pointing

46:55

that out. That is a very good point.

46:57

Yes, and that was in addition to the

46:59

policy changes at the time and the so-called

47:01

culture, because of that culture

47:03

chain, it resulted in having a couple

47:05

of managers that probably weren't qualified to

47:07

be doing those positions as a result.

47:09

Like you're saying, you saw decisions being

47:12

made not for the good of the

47:14

investigation, not for the good of the

47:16

FBI but more for the furthering

47:19

of their career. Unfortunately, that

47:21

was my experience with it. The

47:23

book I talk about how I overcome

47:25

a lot of those obstacles, which makes

47:27

just for more interesting reading and it

47:29

made for a more challenging investigation. But

47:31

your initial question was, I knew

47:34

all along, even back when I was working the

47:36

investigation, I had so many people jokingly tell me,

47:38

God, you got to write a book about this

47:40

when this is over. I never

47:42

took it seriously at the time but

47:44

when the opportunity came up for me

47:46

to write a book about the investigation,

47:49

I just thought that it might be

47:51

an opportunity to throw some of those

47:53

observations regarding the Bureau's changes in as

47:55

well just for more interesting reading. I

47:57

should also remark that you use the true

48:00

name of several people in your book

48:02

and many of them who have been

48:04

on this podcast such as my good

48:06

friend Jack Garcia. But when

48:08

it comes to other people, you don't

48:10

use their true name. Yeah, as

48:12

you'll see, there's probably the majority of them

48:15

I do use true name who are involved

48:17

and help me with the case or I

48:19

mentioned people like Rich Stout, Jack Garcia who

48:21

are great friends of mine and people that

48:23

I work with over the years. Jack Garcia

48:25

as we know is probably, well, he is

48:27

one of the best FBI undercover agents in

48:29

bureau history and Jack and I actually worked

48:31

investigations together. Early in my career, I learned

48:34

so much from him on how to operate

48:36

undercover operations. So a lot of people I

48:38

do mention by their true name who helped

48:40

an investigation and they of course got their

48:42

permission. There are a couple who

48:44

didn't really help a lot and actually were

48:46

obstacles that I use different names for just

48:48

to protect their identity out of respect for

48:50

them. I thought that was the right way

48:52

to handle it. Well again,

48:55

the name of your book

48:57

is Mafia Miami FBI Politics

48:59

and How an Investigation Was

49:02

Nearly Sabotaged. The

49:04

book is officially going to

49:06

be released on March 5th

49:08

but for those listening, it

49:10

is available for pre-order right

49:12

now. I will have a

49:14

link in the show notes

49:16

for this episode for you

49:18

to go and pick up

49:20

your copy and it's also

49:22

available on your publisher's website.

49:24

Yes, it sure is. It's

49:26

advertised on the Roman and

49:28

Littlefield website for early order.

49:30

Roman and Littlefield, that's roman.com.

49:33

Congratulations and a lot of

49:35

people say they want to write a book and they never

49:37

do but you did. Thank you so

49:40

much. I appreciate it. Now we're

49:42

at the point of the interview

49:44

where I like to go back in

49:46

time a little bit and ask you

49:49

why and when you joined the

49:51

FBI. I was always

49:53

interested in law enforcement. I enlisted in

49:55

the United States Air Force out of

49:57

high school and was in a security

50:00

police unit. So I was always interested in

50:02

the law enforcement profession and even if you

50:04

talk to my mother, she has a picture

50:06

of me when I was about four years

50:08

old and I'm wearing a fedora with a

50:11

little jacket and a little play gun right

50:13

out of Hawaii Five-O or something I guess

50:15

but I just always had

50:17

that interest in law enforcement. So the

50:19

obvious career call for me was to

50:22

try to be good enough to work

50:24

for the FBI in the ultimate law

50:26

enforcement capacity and I was very fortunate

50:28

to be accepted into that organization. Once

50:31

you were in the bureau, I know

50:33

that you were in San Francisco and

50:36

then you went to Miami where you

50:38

worked OC and then after this case,

50:40

the Paison Bleu investigation, you moved to

50:42

public corruption? I did. After

50:45

about five or six years working organized crime,

50:47

I moved to a public corruption squad and

50:49

worked there for several years. In

50:51

South Florida, Miami area, there's a lot of

50:53

activity in the public corruption realm that keeps

50:55

you busy. So it was just a challenging

50:57

opportunity and was able to work with a

51:00

lot of good friends of mine who were

51:02

in that unit. That was just something that

51:04

I was interested in doing and as you

51:06

know, Jerry with the FBI, that's one of

51:08

the many wonderful things about it was you're

51:10

able to move around and work different squads

51:12

as we call them, different violations. So if

51:14

you get bored doing public corruption, you can move

51:17

to terrorism or you can move to white collar.

51:19

That was just one of those opportunities that I

51:21

took advantage of. When did

51:23

you retire and what are you doing now? I

51:26

retired in 2018. Currently, I'm

51:28

working for the National Football

51:30

League and their security unit,

51:33

an integrity representative for them. I've been

51:35

doing that for a couple of years.

51:37

I also do some other private security

51:39

consulting type contracting activities. I've been primarily

51:41

most of my time working with the

51:43

NFL for the last couple of years.

51:46

We are at the end of the

51:49

interview and I'd like to give my

51:51

guest the last word. So what would

51:53

you like to say? First of

51:55

all, I'd like to say thank you for the

51:57

opportunity to speak before your audience.

52:00

And something you mentioned a little while ago,

52:02

you said a lot of people talk about

52:04

writing a book and actually did it and

52:06

that is true. If I can write a

52:09

book, anyone can write a book. So I

52:11

would just say for those of you out

52:13

there who have an interest in expressing your

52:16

thoughts or you have a great story to

52:18

tell, I know it seems like a daunting

52:20

experience or difficult obstacle-ridden thing to do but

52:22

if you have the desire, give it a

52:25

shot. It's well worth it. And

52:28

that's the end of the interview.

52:31

In your podcast app description of

52:33

this episode, there's a link to

52:35

the show notes at jerrywillions.com where

52:38

you'll find a headshot and bio

52:40

for Jerry Hester, links to articles

52:42

about the Pazon Blue investigation and

52:45

case-related photos and of course there's

52:47

a link to where you can

52:49

purchase his new true crime book,

52:52

Mafia Miami, FBI Politics and How

52:54

an Investigation was Nearly Sabotaged as

52:57

well as links to FBI Retired

52:59

Case Well Review episode 275 with

53:03

retired agent Rich Stout

53:05

reviewing his investigation of

53:07

Scott Rothstein. I

53:09

hope you enjoyed the interview and that

53:11

you'll share it with your friends, family

53:13

and associates. You can show me just

53:16

how much you liked it by buying

53:18

me a coffee. There's a

53:20

link in your podcast app description

53:23

of this episode or you can

53:25

visit jerrywilliams.com and

53:27

tap on the little coffee cup icon

53:29

in the bottom right-hand corner of my

53:31

website. Don't forget to

53:33

follow FBI Retired Case Well

53:35

Review on your favorite podcast

53:37

app. Now this podcast is

53:39

all about true crime but

53:41

if you're also interested in

53:43

crime fiction once a

53:45

month via my Reader Team email, I

53:48

keep you up to date on the

53:50

FBI and books, TV and movies. When

53:52

you join my Reader Team, you get

53:54

access to my FBI reading resource, a

53:56

colorful list of more than 70 books.

54:00

about the FBI written by FBI

54:03

agents who have been guest on

54:05

this podcast. There's nonfiction, crime fiction,

54:07

true crime and memoirs. You'll also

54:10

get my FBI reality checklist where

54:12

I debunk 20 cliches

54:15

about the FBI and receive

54:17

news about what I'm up to

54:19

and about my FBI nonfiction

54:22

and crime fiction books. I

54:24

want to thank you for listening to the very end.

54:27

I hope you come back

54:29

for another episode of FBI

54:31

retired case file review with

54:33

Jerry Williams. Thank you.