“Each night is an endless stint of theatrics, during which I’m silently praying, ‘Please God, don’t let them make me.’ Because if they do, I’m dead.”
In this mesmerizing true story, career cop Jerry Speziale chronicles his fast-living years as one of the youngest recruits for the DEA’s task force on drugs—an unimaginable odyssey of undercover intrigue, Colombian kingpins, amazing take-downs, and nerve-jangling narrow escapes.
From the start, the man former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik admiringly called, “a hurricane,” was a highly unconventional soldier in the war on drugs. A barber’s son with a background as a juvenile delinquent, Jerry was never cool and calculated but a loose cannon whose out-there antics got him into the crack dens and shooting galleries of New York City’s meanest streets—and won him the attention of the top brass, who didn’t quite know what to make of their unpredictable rising star. So they tapped him for a DEA narcotics task force, an elite group of renegades ready to take down the powerful Cali drug cartel in South America, and the education of Jerry Speziale, undercover agent, began.
Under the tutelage of Paul Alexander, a sophisticated confidential informant who had once been blacklisted by the DEA, the jeans-and-tee shirt kid from Jersey was transformed into the Armani-clad Geraldo Bartone, the world’s top drug trafficker. As Geraldo, Jerry did things he never could have dreamed of—piloting planes, building landing strips, skippering Cali-owned yachts filled with blinding-white cocaine, meeting the most powerful kingpins in the brutal drug trade, where one false move, one wrong word takes a player out for good. Within a few years, Jerry and the other officers of the task force became the most successful drug unit in U.S. history, arresting dozens of high-level dealers and confiscating twenty-two thousand pounds of cocaine. Riding a wave of glory and success, Jerry had no idea that he would be the one scammed next.
Shockingly betrayed by the mentor he’d come to trust, Jerry saw his life spiral dangerously out of control. The behind-the-scenes brutalities, the time away from his wife and young son, and the relentless stress of undercover life—where how convincing you can be is the line between life and death—all took their toll. Paranoid, sleep deprived, stressed to the breaking point, Speziale nearly lost it all. But aided by the love of his family, he came back from the abyss and was awarded a Medal of Honor.
By turns harrowing and heroic, compelling and inspiring, Jerry Speziale’s story reads like a Hollywood thriller. It’s a white-knuckle ride into a world few people ever see, a descent into the netherworld of Colombia’s deadly drug cartels. And it’s a rare glimpse into the back rooms of justice where the country’s finest put their lives on the line every day, never forgetting their duty…or its consequences.
Jerry Speziale is one of the nation's leading experts on cell phone and wiretap surveillance, narcotics smuggling, and money laundering. He has testified before the U.S. Congress and frequently lectures at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, as well as the DEA Academy and other law-enforcement training centers. He has received numerous departmental recognition awards, including the Michael John Buczek Medal of Honor, twenty-two New York City Police Department Commendations, and other awards, including two DEA Administrator’s Awards, the U.S. Attorney General's Letter of Commendation, the NYPD Organized Crime Control Bureau Excellence Award, and the New York City Special Narcotics Prosecutor's Award. He currently serves as the elected sheriff of Passaic County, New Jersey. His story, Without A Badge, has been optioned by Gaylord Productions for a feature film.
Mark Seal has served as collaborator on ten nonfiction books. His work has been published in Vanity Fair, Town & Country, Golf Digest, Texas Monthly, and other magazines. His column, "Celebrated Weekend," appears regularly in American Way.
“The New York Drug Enforcement Task Force was probably the best unit of its kind in the world, and Jerry Speziale was its star—a ballsy undercover cop with crazy courage.”
—Bernard B. Kerik, former New York City police commissioner
and New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Son
“Jerry Speziale and his fellow officers in Unit 93 typify the dedication and talent found in the best of cops. They paid a personal price for their efforts, but they made tremendous contributions to society.”
—DEA Administrator Thomas Constantine,
former superintendent of the New York State Police
View Chapter
