Inside the Cartel

For more than two decades, FBI Special Agent Martin Suarez lived a life few thought possible: he went undercover inside a Colombian drug cartel.

Known as “Manny” to the traffickers who trusted him, Suarez smuggled more than a billion dollars’ worth of cocaine into the United States (all of it eventually seized), laundered millions, and came face-to-face with the organization’s most ruthless enforcers.

Suarez shares his experiences in Inside the Cartel (Dey Street Books), which came out out Sept. 16. Written with journalist Ian Frisch, the memoir reveals the personal cost of Suarez’s double life — how he balanced terrifying assignments with being a husband, father and son, and what living on a knife’s edge did to the people he loved most.

Now diagnosed with ALS, Suarez is finally telling the story that defined his career and reshaped his family’s life. Equal parts high-stakes thriller and intimate family portrait, Inside the Cartel offers an unprecedented look at the sacrifices of going undercover.

Below, Suarez and co-author Ian Frisch reflect on the scariest moments, blurred identities and what sets the book apart in a candid Q&A with PEOPLE.

PEOPLE: What was the scariest moment you had undercover? What were your odds of making it out alive?

Martin Suarez: To this day, I can still feel the hitman’s gun pressed against the back of my skull. It was 1994, and I had been working deep undercover for six years straight. I had just closed my case where I had posed as a money launderer for the North Coast Cartel [of Colombia]. The indictment had just been unsealed — and I was the only person not charged. That gave me away.

The cartel’s money boss, [known as] “El Toro Negro,” sent a sicario [hitman] to kill me. I had never thought that I would be found, but I was wrong. As the assassin told me to get down on my knees, I thought I was a goner. But I kept my family in my heart, and told myself I wasn’t going to die that day. 

PEOPLE: When you’re undercover for months at a time, does it change who you are? Did you sympathize with the cartel members — and ever feel like you were one of them, and not law enforcement?

Suarez: I always kept the moral imperative of my job at the forefront of my mind, but when you’re working deep undercover for months or years at a time, your personality changes. The push and pull of Martin and my undercover alter-ego, Manny, was ever-present, and it bled over into my family life.

I always operated best when I did not compartmentalize my two personas, but rather was both Martin and Manny at the same time. And while that produced the best results with my cases, it also weighed the heaviest on my psyche.

And I did sympathize with some of the cartel men. As someone who grew up in Puerto Rico in the 1960s, I knew what poverty could do to a person’s moral compass. But I always reminded myself that they made these decisions, and it was my job to take them down. 

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PEOPLE: What type of person gets into undercover work — and why were you one of these people?

Suarez: My foray into the undercover world was one of timing and opportunity: Right place and right time.

In the 1980s, The War on Drugs was in full swing, and the FBI was willing to try risky covert techniques to break up the cartels. As a former Navy officer, I could chart a ship and fly a plane. On top of my technical skills, I was a native Spanish speaker, and had Puerto Rican street smarts. I was the perfect man for the job, if I could keep my wits about me. Which, it just so happens, I could. 

PEOPLE, to co-author Ian Frisch: What distinguishes this book from other “cop goes undercover” books?

Ian Frisch: The vast majority of undercover memoirs end up being an anthology of the author’s best cases—a “greatest hits” type of book. I didn’t want to do that here. Martin’s early-career cases against the cartels were high-stakes and cinematic enough to fill multiple books, but while his swashbuckling adventures as a smuggler and money launderer were captivating, what makes this book special is the family narratives that underpin it: how Martin balanced being a supportive husband to his wife, a present father to his two sons, and a noble son to his own father with his life as an undercover agent.

PEOPLE, to Frisch: What detail (a smell, a sound, a line) from Suarez’s undercover life still lives in your head?

Frisch: “Tsst, tsst, tsst.” For the rest of my life, whenever I hear that sound, I will picture the hitman emerging from the bushes and pointing a gun at Martin’s head. 

Inside the Cartel: How an Undercover FBI Agent Smuggled Cocaine, Laundered Cash, and Dismantled a Colombian Narco-Empire (Dey Street Books) is available for purchase.

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This article is republished from
people.com
on 2025-09-23 15:36:00.
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