Overview

This is a story about Operation Paesan Blues, an FBI Organized crime investigation that began with little chance of success, and ultimately became a successful and internationally renowned investigation. Beginning with a synopsis of the author’s background, his early development as a young FBI Agent, to a day in the working life of an FBI Agent, and then progressing on through to the development and operation of the undercover FBI investigation that became “Paesan Blues.” In addition to the author, who was the lead FBI Agent in the case, the reader is introduced to main subject Roberto Settineri, Antonio Tricamo, various mafia associates, celebrity “cooperating defendant” Scott Rothstein, and several other FBI Agents who assisted in the investigation. This is a first-person account of an FBI investigation that takes place primarily in Miami, with a few brief stopovers in New York and Italy along the way. This remarkable and entertaining story also takes the reader through the difficulties and challenges of initiating an FBI investigation, and the many twists and turns and inevitable administrative roadblocks one encounters while running a high-profile and complex FBI investigation. Interwoven throughout the story are highlights of key bureaucratic changes taking place within the FBI at the time, cultural and policy driven, which the author highlights and explains how those changes had a negative impact on not only the Paesan Blues investigation, but to the entire future of the FBI’s effectiveness and reputation.

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9781538162255

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"As an FBI special agent in charge of the biggest case of his career, author Jerry Hester delivers a riveting insider's account of operation ""Paesan Blues,"" an unpredictable undercover investigation of a shrewd mafioso moonlighting as a wine merchant in Miami Beach with close connections to the mob in New York and Sicily. Hester cranks up the suspense in Mafia Miami by illuminating how the FBI zeroes in on its target with a bit of improbable luck from a Ponzi-scheming South Florida lawyer. --Jay Weaver, federal courts reporter, Miami Herald; co-author of Dirty Gold: The Rise and Fall of an International Smuggling Ring Given the size and complexity of modern American law enforcement, with hundreds of thousands of employees working literally thousands of cases simultaneously, it is inevitable that things will periodically go wrong. In Mafia Miami, former FBI agent Hester recounts how internal agency politics and conflicting agendas nearly let things go awry. Hester lays his story out with all the detail and context of an investigator pulling together his case. He tells how he ended up posted in Miami investigating a major Mafia drug operation, accruing evidence and developing reliable sources, building his case step by painstaking step. He goes on to recount how internal politics and poor human judgment at first provided obstacles then threatened to derail the entire operation. While it's not Hester's intent to malign the (mostly) good work of the FBI, his story does illustrate how, even with the best intentions and the highest character, human agencies are subject to human foibles. For devotees of the true-crime genre, this makes for an illuminating study. -- ""Booklist"" I had the honor of working undercover for the author on several occasions. Jerry Hester was one of the top case agents throughout the FBI. This book is such a fantastic read. From the sunny beaches of Miami to the picturesque villages of Italy, the Mafia and its greedy tentacles are finally exposed by Hester and his hand-picked team of exceptional agents. This international case is one that confirms the strong ties between the Sicilian Mafia and America's Cosa Nostra. Truly a riveting investigation! --Joaquin ""Jack"" Garcia, retired FBI and author of Making Jack Falcone Mafia Miami is the realistic account of a major organized crime case. Starting in Miami, it quickly reaches New York City and Italy. Jerry Hester, the case agent and author, painfully describes the additional challenges his investigation faced in the wake of the deleterious cultural change begun by former FBI director Robert Mueller. --Thomas J. Baker, FBI veteran and the author of The Fall of the FBI: How a Once Great Agency Became a Threat to Democracy Miami Mafia is an engaging book distinguished by a sharp, fast-moving narrative flow that provides readers with a vivid account of a modern organized crime operation and a behind-the-scenes look at the difficulties of investigating it while simultaneously battling barriers thrown up by petty office politics and an FBI undergoing radical and divisive change. It's loaded with scores of fearfully fascinating characters, vignettes of life inside the mob and the Bureau that take place inside the Mafia's Miami Beach hangouts on colorful Lincoln Road, to FBI offices in Washington and New York. There are intermittent stops in Rome, Palermo, and more. It involves anxious interoffice dramas and tense incidences with suspicious and brutal gangsters that could imperil an investigation known as ""Paesan Blues."" Readers will recognize Mafia names such as Gambino and Gotti and be introduced to colorful but callous characters known as ""The Nose"" and ""The Hat."" This is an excellent and timely gangster story that delivers an unprecedented true tale of a historically clandestine world of life inside the mob and the FBI, told by the agent who lived it. It should be required reading for new FBI agents or anyone who thinks they might want to be one. --Dave Scott, BizPac Review Columnist Retired FBI agent Jerry Hester's riveting account of the investigation into 'a high priority Italian mafioso' living in South Florida takes readers inside the international operation. This book is a fascinating look at organized crime and how authorities work to shut it down. --Larry Henry, ""Mob in Pop Culture"" columnist for The Mob Museum in Las Vegas"

"Given the size and complexity of modern American law enforcement, with hundreds of thousands of employees working literally thousands of cases simultaneously, it is inevitable that things will periodically go wrong. In Mafia Miami, former FBI agent Hester recounts how internal agency politics and conflicting agendas nearly let things go awry. Hester lays his story out with all the detail and context of an investigator pulling together his case. He tells how he ended up posted in Miami investigating a major Mafia drug operation, accruing evidence and developing reliable sources, building his case step by painstaking step. He goes on to recount how internal politics and poor human judgment at first provided obstacles then threatened to derail the entire operation. While it's not Hester's intent to malign the (mostly) good work of the FBI, his story does illustrate how, even with the best intentions and the highest character, human agencies are subject to human foibles. For devotees of the true-crime genre, this makes for an illuminating study. -- ""Booklist"" As an FBI special agent in charge of the biggest case of his career, author Jerry Hester delivers a riveting insider's account of operation ""Paesan Blues,"" an unpredictable undercover investigation of a shrewd mafioso moonlighting as a wine merchant in Miami Beach with close connections to the mob in New York and Sicily. Hester cranks up the suspense in Mafia Miami by illuminating how the FBI zeroes in on its target with a bit of improbable luck from a Ponzi-scheming South Florida lawyer. --Jay Weaver, federal courts reporter, Miami Herald; co-author of Dirty Gold: The Rise and Fall of an International Smuggling Ring I had the honor of working undercover for the author on several occasions. Jerry Hester was one of the top case agents throughout the FBI. This book is such a fantastic read. From the sunny beaches of Miami to the picturesque villages of Italy, the Mafia and its greedy tentacles are finally exposed by Hester and his hand-picked team of exceptional agents. This international case is one that confirms the strong ties between the Sicilian Mafia and America's Cosa Nostra. Truly a riveting investigation! --Joaquin ""Jack"" Garcia, author of Making Jack Falcone Mafia Miami is the realistic account of a major organized crime case. Starting in Miami, it quickly reaches New York City and Italy. Jerry Hester, the case agent and author, painfully describes the additional challenges his investigation faced in the wake of the deleterious cultural change begun by former FBI director Robert Mueller. --Thomas J. Baker, FBI veteran and the author of The Fall of the FBI: How a Once Great Agency Became a Threat to Democracy Miami Mafia is an engaging book distinguished by a sharp, fast-moving narrative flow that provides readers with a vivid account of a modern organized crime operation and a behind-the-scenes look at the difficulties of investigating it while simultaneously battling barriers thrown up by petty office politics and an FBI undergoing radical and divisive change. It's loaded with scores of fearfully fascinating characters, vignettes of life inside the mob and the Bureau that take place inside the Mafia's Miami Beach hangouts on colorful Lincoln Road, to FBI offices in Washington and New York. There are intermittent stops in Rome, Palermo, and more. It involves anxious interoffice dramas and tense incidences with suspicious and brutal gangsters that could imperil an investigation known as ""Paesan Blues."" Readers will recognize Mafia names such as Gambino and Gotti and be introduced to colorful but callous characters known as ""The Nose"" and ""The Hat."" This is an excellent and timely gangster story that delivers an unprecedented true tale of a historically clandestine world of life inside the mob and the FBI, told by the agent who lived it. It should be required reading for new FBI agents or anyone who thinks they might want to be one. --Dave Scott, BizPac Review Columnist Retired FBI agent Jerry Hester's riveting account of the investigation into 'a high priority Italian mafioso' living in South Florida takes readers inside the international operation. This book is a fascinating look at organized crime and how authorities work to shut it down. --Larry Henry, ""Mob in Pop Culture"" columnist for The Mob Museum in Las Vegas"

"As an FBI special agent in charge of the biggest case of his career, author Jerry Hester delivers a riveting insider's account of operation ""Paesan Blues,"" an unpredictable undercover investigation of a shrewd mafioso moonlighting as a wine merchant in Miami Beach with close connections to the mob in New York and Sicily. Hester cranks up the suspense in Mafia Miami by illuminating how the FBI zeroes in on its target with a bit of improbable luck from a Ponzi-scheming South Florida lawyer. --Jay Weaver, federal courts reporter, Miami Herald; co-author of Dirty Gold: The Rise and Fall of an International Smuggling Ring I had the honor of working undercover for the author on several occasions. Jerry Hester was one of the top case agents throughout the FBI. This book is such a fantastic read. From the sunny beaches of Miami to the picturesque villages of Italy, the Mafia and its greedy tentacles are finally exposed by Hester and his hand-picked team of exceptional agents. This international case is one that confirms the strong ties between the Sicilian Mafia and America's Cosa Nostra. Truly a riveting investigation! --Joaquin ""Jack"" Garcia, author of Making Jack Falcone Mafia Miami is the realistic account of a major organized crime case. Starting in Miami, it quickly reaches New York City and Italy. Jerry Hester, the case agent and author, painfully describes the additional challenges his investigation faced in the wake of the deleterious cultural change begun by former FBI director Robert Mueller. --Thomas J. Baker, FBI veteran and the author of The Fall of the FBI: How a Once Great Agency Became a Threat to Democracy Miami Mafia is an engaging book distinguished by a sharp, fast-moving narrative flow that provides readers with a vivid account of a modern organized crime operation and a behind-the-scenes look at the difficulties of investigating it while simultaneously battling barriers thrown up by petty office politics and an FBI undergoing radical and divisive change. It's loaded with scores of fearfully fascinating characters, vignettes of life inside the mob and the Bureau that take place inside the Mafia's Miami Beach hangouts on colorful Lincoln Road, to FBI offices in Washington and New York. There are intermittent stops in Rome, Palermo, and more. It involves anxious interoffice dramas and tense incidences with suspicious and brutal gangsters that could imperil an investigation known as ""Paesan Blues."" Readers will recognize Mafia names such as Gambino and Gotti and be introduced to colorful but callous characters known as ""The Nose"" and ""The Hat."" This is an excellent and timely gangster story that delivers an unprecedented true tale of a historically clandestine world of life inside the mob and the FBI, told by the agent who lived it. It should be required reading for new FBI agents or anyone who thinks they might want to be one. --Dave Scott, BizPac Review Columnist Retired FBI agent Jerry Hester's riveting account of the investigation into 'a high priority Italian mafioso' living in South Florida takes readers inside the international operation. This book is a fascinating look at organized crime and how authorities work to shut it down. --Larry Henry, ""Mob in Pop Culture"" columnist for The Mob Museum in Las Vegas"

Author Information

Jerry Hester is a retired Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He led criminal investigations into violations of federal law involving organized crime, narcotics, public corruption, and counter terrorism matters.

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