The Pretender

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Thank you for buying this

  St. Martin’s Press ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content,

  and info on new releases and other great reads,

  sign up for our newsletters.

  Or visit us online at

  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

  For email updates on the author, click here.

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  To the memory of my father, Asa Paul Ruskin.

  Physician, inventor, professor, always calm, wise, quick to smile, his humor unparalleled.

  Author’s Note

  For self-evident reasons, I have changed the names of all whose security could be adversely affected by revealing their involvement with the FBI. However, I have used the true names of all individuals who are already associated with the Bureau, either through court records, social media, or other publicly accessible sources. Similarly, the names of certain undercover operations have been changed.

  The opinions expressed in The Pretender are mine alone. It will come as no surprise that they are not the opinions of the FBI.

  If quick, I survive.

  If not quick, I am lost.

  This is “death.”

  —SUN TZU (孫子), 544–496 BC

  We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.

  —GEORGE ORWELL

  Marc Ruskin, aka Alex Perez, aka Sal Morelli, aka Edwardo Dean, circa 1994

  Introduction

  At any given time, the FBI has about one hundred full-time undercover agents (or UCs, as we referred to ourselves) in the field. In the 1990s and 2000s, I was proud, very proud, to be one of them. Thanks to the three languages I speak as a native (English, Spanish, and French), prior experience as a prosecutor, all-purpose physiognomy, and the luck of the draw, I had the most diverse case list, the most notorious cases, the broadest experience within the FBI bureaucracy, including overseas, and the most pertinent outside experience.

  Before I signed with the Bureau in 1985, I was a staffer for New York senator Pat Moynihan and an assistant DA in Brooklyn; today, I practice law. I know that of all the tools available to the FBI or any other government agency—no matter the nature of the target (counterfeiter, banker, racketeer, car thief, terrorist), the reams of Big Data at the various agencies’ disposal, the number of drones (armed or unarmed) in their warehouses (stateside or overseas)—the living, breathing undercover operative remains the gold standard for actionable information. It’s true on 24 and Homeland, and it also happens to be true in the real world—and it will be even truer in the future, as criminals and terrorists become ever less likely to trust any kind of recordable or traceable medium. Their expectation of privacy is already approaching zero (and ours isn’t much higher). The National Security Agency (NSA) could announce that it is unilaterally shutting down its entire electronic surveillance operation, or the debate over the constitutional legality of such snooping could be settled in favor of privacy (a political impossibility, at the time of this writing), and the bad guys would still scoff. They know which way the wind’s blowing—and they also know how to employ the newest commercially available encryption technology.

  As the effectiveness of the traditional methods of electronic investigation decreases, the importance of UC work necessarily increases. Even if the NSA does collect every single communication generated in every corner of the globe, where’s the value without evaluation and corroboration? I’m not going to pass judgment on the various drone campaigns, but I know that intelligence developed and directed by people on the ground in the target area is vital for their effectiveness. The absence of that direction is exactly why innocent people are killed.

  One reason legal cases against terrorists are so hard to prosecute is the difficulty of planting undercover agents in those environments. As the FBI’s ill-fated Detroit Sleeper Cell case confirmed following 9/11, reliance on information provided by informants is not and never will be enough. Eager, perhaps too eager to provide a frightened public with successes in the war on terror, the Bureau had relied on a source who may have provided the inspiration and means for the subjects’ plans. Plans to commit violent acts of jihad that may have remained dormant, if they had ever existed, but for the timely (for the Bu) intervention of the source. Informants may not be trustworthy; their information has to be confirmed. In the end, the judge in that notorious case overturned the jury’s conviction because the prosecution failed to turn over to the defense key evidence, including facts casting doubt on the informant’s reliability.

  The bottom line: In the era of electronic surveillance, undercover work is not passé. It is not obsolete. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It enforces accountability. It prevents mistakes. I want readers (and policy makers) to understand why undercover agents are often the most valuable of all the boots on the ground.

  During my long career, I worked many long-term, short-term, and cameo cases: financial fraud, insurance fraud, health-care fraud, public corruption, corporate espionage, La Cosa Nostra, narcotics, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, international stolen car rings, counterfeit documents, terrorism, espionage, the Brooklyn rabbis kidnapping and torture case of recent fame, and many more. About a dozen of these operations were major Group I (long-term) initiatives lasting a year or longer, with large budgets and resources, including teams of special agents and analysts, and requiring approval from Washington. Another dozen or so were Group IIs, also large-scale and expensive but not requiring approval from the very top. I’d have a hard time counting all the cameo jobs, some of which were only one-night stands. Often I had three or four cases going at the same time, switching identities as required, making certain I walked out the door with the correct ID, bling—and frame of mind. Years ago, a clerk in the ELSUR (Electronic Surveillance) unit (which maintains every taped—now digitally recorded—conversation, no matter how brief, and creates official logs for “chain of custody” purposes) told me that he had thousands of entries under my name.

  For four years, I also managed the UC bureaucracy from our covert headquarters in Northern Virginia. Three years were spent working the legal attaché desks in Buenos Aires, Paris, and Madrid. I speak Spanish and French fluently, and have a working knowledge of Mandarin (one reason I was asked to take on so many one-off cameo UC roles). I’ve seen a lot—not everything, but a lot. I want this book to give readers what none of the others in UC work have even tried to do: perspective on the scope and scale of undercover work domestically and around the world; the bureaucratic inefficiencies spawned by the denizens of remote offices and conference rooms that can undermine the best work in the field (after all, we’re dealing with three distinct cultures: management, analyst, and field agent); the increasing importance of UC work in this brave new electronic world. My narrative focuses on just ten or so of the dozens of cases I worked, while referencing others, as necessary. And I’ll allude to cases that did not involve me directly.

  I want readers to understand the kind of men and women who make good UC agents; the training received; the dangers and stresses faced. I have laid out in detail how UC cases are brainstormed, then painstakingly designed and presented for approval, assembled over many months before the first encounter with a target; how a bogus identity is carefully “backstopped” to withstand scrutiny;
the ins and outs of working targets; how investigations succeed, and how they fail. I hope this book will prove to be the definitive narrative of undercover operations.

  Can I reveal everything I know? Almost. Most of the investigative material for these cases is in the public record (as court documents, usually). A few of the “False Flag” cases are still classified. (This book has been vetted by the Bureau, as required by the contract of my employment.) Obviously, I won’t betray active or possibly active sources or operations, but that’s not really a problem, because my cases are closed. I have changed some names and telltale details. I do not reveal any techniques or trade secrets that really are secret. In fact,there aren’t many of them: the perpetrators know and use the same tricks as the investigators. In the burgeoning field of digital and online crime, almost all of the tools are available. The crooks and some of the terrorists are almost as sophisticated as the agencies.

  I indulge in no long rants against Bureau management. Nor is there uncritical praise of the institution. I have no axes to grind. I’m critical when necessary, but I’m not going to shake the FBI establishment to its foundations with revelations of incompetence and recommendations for change. That’s not my agenda. On the contrary, I want to illustrate those attributes that make the FBI the world’s premier law enforcement agency, while simultaneously shedding light on those characteristics that hinder a monolithic bureaucracy’s capacity for change.

  In the foreground throughout is my story, that of a lone undercover agent who served four FBI directors serving at the pleasure of five presidents, first as an eager rookie carrying a pistol and badge, then prime-of-career veteran, then seasoned éminence grise. I was part and parcel of both the “Old Bu” with its G-men and the New-Era FBI, the one born on September 11, 2001: same agency, expanded mission; always a work in progress. I wish it the best, because we need its best.

  1

  Quantico NAC 85-7

  It was midafternoon on a Sunday when I took the exit ramp off I-95 South and steered toward Marine Corps Base Quantico. After passing through the military guard post, I drove along what seemed like a long and winding, desolate two-lane road—or was it just my anxious state of mind? I finally came to a small sign: “FBI Academy.” A right turn, another half mile, and then another guard post, this one manned by uniformed FBI police. My name was on their list, my driver’s license satisfied them, and I proceeded farther down the road. On my right was a series of firing ranges. Then, to my left, the somewhat menacing—and strikingly out of place amid the rolling Virginia woodlands—multibuilding compound that is the FBI Academy. I had arrived for New Agent Training.

  My worst fears—of having unwittingly removed myself from the familiar multicultural world of New York City, only to enter a zone of rigid conformity—were soon confirmed. Seated at a table inside the lobby, along with other WASPy-looking individuals registering and greeting new arrivals, was a tall blond woman with a middle-American athletic cheerleader attractiveness and a Southern twang. She introduced herself as Susan Walton from the New York office (could it be?!) and explained that she would be one of my class’s two field counselors (as in “from the field”: real agents). Yes, I had landed on Mars and would soon be surrounded by androids bent on transforming me into a disciplined, rule-following cog in their well-oiled machine of an organization. And in order to indulge my FBI fantasy, I had resigned from a good job as an assistant DA in Brooklyn—the kind of position that can lead just about anywhere in the legal profession, as more than one Supreme Court justice has proved. My first impressions, of the people, of the culture—fueled by inaccurate preconceptions—would prove erroneous, but it would take a while.

  They don’t waste time at Quantico. That very evening all of us wannabes were sitting in our classroom, dressed in professional attire, staring at Mike, who would be our primary class counselor (as opposed to field counselor; Mike was based at Quantico). A short, lean, hawk-nosed Texan in his midforties, he clearly liked his job and wore his FBI lapel pin with pride. After we were sworn in, Mike got our instruction off to a rollicking start with a lecture on the many ways that we could flunk out of training, and with assurances that some of us would do just that. We were then invited to stand, introduce ourselves, and give a recitation as to why we had joined the FBI. One of the women explained that becoming an FBI agent had been her life’s dream. So dedicated was she to achieving this goal, she had undergone eye surgery in order to correct for nearsightedness. I’ll never forget her—but I didn’t know her long. The following day, she was gone. Disappeared. No explanation provided, then or later.

  Amazing at the time, but it turned out to be the way the system worked. Suddenly, someone was gone, never to return. No good-byes, no handshakes, no tears. We’d return to the floor in our dorm to change clothes for firearms training, perhaps, or gym—and there would be the naked mattress, the empty closet, the vacant air. The effect was chilling, as it was no doubt calculated to be. Failure to make the grade in any area would result in just such a vanishing, but disaster could also strike from the violation of unwritten and unknown rules as well. Here’s the cold arithmetic: Annually, six hundred of the twelve thousand qualified FBI applicants jump through all the hoops and make it to Quantico as a New Agent (exponentially more don’t meet the minimum qualifications). Of the six hundred, another 10 to 20 percent fail to reach the graduation ceremony—four long months later—and receive those coveted Credentials.

  That first night in Quantico, Mike made the significance of the Bureau’s mission, and our role in furthering it, maximally clear. This was 1985, eight years before the first WTC bombing, ten years before the Oklahoma City bombing, sixteen years before 9/11. Yet the threats from international terrorism were already on the radar. The seventies had seen the rise of the Red Brigades, the Baader-Meinhoff Gang, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as well as numerous domestic organizations, such as the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers. Combined with myriad other threats—organized crime, outlaw biker gangs, cocaine cartels, huge financial swindlers—the responsibility was enormous. The FBI was the last line of defense. We were the last line of defense. The public, that is, everybody else, was depending on us: ten thousand FBI agents to protect three hundred million men, women, and children. Mike was deadly serious, and I, for one, appreciated it.

  Mike’s point was driven home a few months later. A few weeks before graduation, each New Agent class takes a field trip to FBI Headquarters for a guided tour and a meeting with the Director. We were seated in the back rows of the special amphitheater used for the firearms demonstration. Tourists decked out in Bermuda shorts and T-shirts, overweight and underweight mom and dads with their gaggles of children, occupied the rest of the seats. The dapper agent who served as emcee fired off some rounds from his submachine gun, and the ooos and ahhhs arose collectively from the audience. Then he made an announcement: “Today we have special visitors. In the back rows, a class of new FBI agents about to graduate.” Immediately, spontaneously, these tourists in their T-shirts turned as one, located our professionally attired group, stood, and clapped. And clapped. Enthusiastically. For several minutes. Those waves of emotion washed over all of us in the back rows, and any cynicism we might have harbored was washed away with it. These fellow citizens believed in us and our mission. Their pride and their reception left an indelible impression.

  Our class was officially designated “NAC 85-7” (that is, the seventh new agent class in 1985) and lodged in Jefferson Dorm, our home away from home for four months—assuming we made it that far. I was in room 1313 (lucky number?), and had the good fortune of having Jesse Ramirez as my roommate–Ramirez … Ruskin: the rooms were assigned alphabetically. Jesse was also a former assistant DA—Kansas City, in his case. He was a short and muscular Pancho Villa look-alike, and we were instant friends.

  Then the first major exciting event of our training: receiving functioning firearms. For a few weeks, we had been al
lowed only “red handles.” These were revolvers with the firing pin removed, featuring red grips, which readily identified them as inoperable and therefore “safe.” Working with the red handles, we learned all there is to know about handling and using a revolver, other than actually shooting a bullet. When the big day finally came, Mike escorted us down a long hallway deep inside one of the academy buildings until we reached the heavy doors of the gun vault, with an exit across the street from the firearms ranges. One by one, we were handed our future duty weapons: Smith & Wesson Model 13 revolvers, “blued” (which means black), with 3-inch barrels, capable of firing a .357 Magnum round. In the future, on the way to the range, we would sign the gun out from the vault, then return it before going anywhere else. No firearms other than red handles are allowed inside the academy buildings.

  The FBI takes firearms training very seriously, and with good reason. Guns are serious business, exceedingly dangerous when in the hands of the poorly trained or ill intentioned. I guess we Americans understand that, if nothing else. Sykes Houston, an agent in Dallas (and direct descendant of Sam Houston), told me years later that the average FBI agent is a markedly better shot than most Texas Rangers. The FBI “Revolver Qualification Course” involved the firing of 50 high-power “+P+” .38-caliber hollow-point rounds within strict time limits, starting with 18 shots at the 50-yard line, 6 prone, 6 kneeling, and 6 standing. That’s 50 yards, 150 feet, with a 3-inch barrel, which is essentially a snub-nosed gun. Years later, my friend Will Godoy quipped during weapons qualification in Puerto Rico that he didn’t care how good he was at 50 yards. It wouldn’t matter. “At that distance,” he said, “I’ll have enough of a running start, they’ll never hit me.”