The Reluctant Narco | DEA
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Welcome to True Spies. Week by week, mission by mission, you'll hear the true stories behind the world's greatest espionage operations. You'll meet the people who navigate this secret world. What do they know? What are their skills? And what would you do in their position?

This is True Spies. And it was at that point the deputy director of the DEA said, an undercover agent with the DEA has a life expectancy of six months. You're either dead or we pull you out. This is True Spies. Episode 79, The Reluctant Narco. I think the only reason why I was never killed is because I never had a weapon. And I stood against the wall...

literally shaking with fear. A group of well-connected businessmen have just concluded an important meeting. A venue? An air-conditioned hotel room in Mexico City. Let's take a head count. One Mexican banker, slumped over in his chair, a gunshot wound to the face. One agent of the US government's Drugs Enforcement Administration, similarly indisposed. Two Colombians, one still breathing, just.

And then, quaking with terror against the wall, there's Keith. So I'm in Mexico City. I'm three hours from the airport. And then if I can get a flight, I'm three hours from American soil. All hell's broken loose. How did we arrive at this grisly scene, you ask? Well, let's talk about drugs. Don't worry, this isn't an after-school special.

No, let's talk about the drugs business. Let's talk networking, payroll and asset management. Because if you're talking about drugs, you're talking about money. Lots of it.

More often than not, that money belongs to the powerful criminal groups known collectively as the cartels. The drug cartels handle approximately between $240 to $500 billion a year. They control the cocaine market for worldwide distribution. But what are they spending all that money on? They control politicians, police, government officials.

all through Central and South America. And I didn't realise how much power or influence they had until I was working inside their organisation. Yes, this week's True Spy is intimately familiar with the international drug trade. My name is Keith Boulfin.

I was employed by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA, in the United States to go undercover as a banker with the drug cartels in Mexico and Colombia. And that was from the period of '97 to 2004. Over the course of the last 70-something episodes of this podcast, we've met a lot of spies. However, the vast majority of them have something in common: they actually wanted the job.

Keith Bolfin is the odd one out. A banker by trade, he was dragged kicking and screaming into the world of espionage by forces beyond his control. Threw me in the deep end. No training whatsoever. In the 1990s, Keith was a well-to-do middle-aged financier living in Melbourne, Australia.

you know, three children in a private school living in a suburb and enjoying life and never done anything wrong other than getting a parking ticket.

I grew up in a country town in New Zealand and went to boarding school in New Zealand and then became quite conservative. Worked in the stockbroking industry and then in the investment banking industry and eventually ended up owning my own investment bank, employing 20-odd staff. In short, Keith was good at making money and once he'd made it, he knew how to make it, make more. But his mastery of the mighty dollar would prove to be his downfall

Because when you're good at making money, you tend to make a lot of friends too. Yeah, the relationship I had with Gomez first, that's where it all started. Gomez isn't his real name, by the way. That's one of the aspects of this story that Keith had to, let's say, tweak for legal reasons. I didn't know who he was. I was led to believe he was a coffee importer and he owned coffee plantations in Central and South America.

Gomez fit in well with Melbourne's moneyed middle classes. He rented an expensive house and his children attended private schools. Eventually, he began to put down more permanent roots in Australia. He was looking at bringing money in from London to buy a house close to where the schools were, where his children attended. And I helped him and we developed a friendship.

However, as you've probably surmised, Gomez was not all that he seemed. Unbeknownst to myself, and to him as well, he was being monitored and watched by the Americans and the Australian and Mexican authorities. As it turned out, Gomez had a somewhat checkered past.

He came from a poor family but won scholarships to prestigious schools in Mexico and obviously to a prestigious university and then on to Harvard. But he also had the ability to run businesses, successful businesses and to network with politicians. And the most important business was a fishing co-op on the Gulf of Mexico and he became the general manager of that co-op.

and they used to have their catch and then ship it to Florida. But in between the trays of fish was cocaine. He had obviously become involved in an early part of his career with the drug cartels in terms of assisting them in the shipment of cocaine to the United States through the operation of that fishing co-op.

Those connections would take Gomez to the very top of Mexican society. And then from the fishing co-op, the Mexican government announced that they were going to privatise some of the banks. And he was a general manager of a fishing co-op.

Yet he had the money made available to him to acquire two banks. Colossal amount of money, but he acquired the two banks and he ran those two banks. And according to the US Department of Justice, they were the main washing machines for the cartel's money. Gomez was on top of the world, but the longer you stay on a winning streak, the easier it is to overplay your hand.

When the Mexican government devalued the currency in early '94, the banks and the financial institutions in Mexico needed a financial package, and America came to their rescue and provided funds to the Mexican treasury. Remember, Gomez runs two banks. That's a lot of bailout money coming his way. Put yourself at his loafers. Could you resist the temptation?

So the money was shipped to his private bank account and so he immediately departed from Mexico. Gomez was on the run. He was being sought after by the Mexican authorities and the US authorities on the missing money and then they investigated the banks and they found out it was the washing machine.

For four years, he was on the run. And he went to Switzerland and Spain and then France and then back to Spain, France and to Minning in Republic, then eventually arrived in Australia on a false passport.

Eventually, that false passport would be his undoing. They arrested him here because he was travelling on a false passport and they placed him in prison to be extradited back to Mexico. But not before he'd had time to get friendly with Keith Bolfin. They had been listening to his telephone conversations, videoing his activities, photographing people who he met and establishing his connections.

And then they heard that he spoke highly of me, of my banking ability, and that triggered their interest. Early one morning, before the sun rose above suburban Melbourne, they came knocking on Keith's door. They being the DEA, working in tandem with Australian and Mexican police.

They decided to ask if I would be willing to assist the Mexican and American government in becoming involved with the banking in the drug cartels in Mexico City. And I told them that I would not be entertaining such an idea. This was the wrong answer. And they said, well, you will change your mind. We'll investigate everything you've done over the last 10 years and we'll find something. And which they did.

They said I was involved with a conspiracy to defraud over a valuation on the casino and also a theme park. In this series, we tend to assume that spies are working towards a noble cause. Noble-ish, at the very least. But the fact is, spies are pragmatists above all else. And if an asset is resisting their overtures, they'll stop at nothing to get what they want, even if it means destroying lives.

I was thrown into a maximum security prison and a maximum security unit where there are 20 inmates, 17 never to be released, and three bankers, two Mexicans and myself. The extreme conditions forged a close bond between Keith and the two Mexican prisoners, Gomez and a third man, Gomez's business partner and brother-in-law. Keith believes that this was the authorities' plan all along.

I mean, that was scheduled, planned from the very beginning. The whole thing was engineered so Gomez would feel obligated. He would feel that because of my relationship with him outside, it led to myself being charged and thrown into a maximum security prison. So that was something that he, Gomez, felt responsible for. And that helped to develop that friendship even further.

and cement the friendship, cemented the trust. After three years inside, Keith was finally able to secure his release. But the nightmare was by no means over. The day I was released, because I was a New Zealander,

And I was picked up by a federal police officer who took me to the immigration detention centre. And I was placed in immigration detention centre. And I was told that I would be deported back to New Zealand because I had spent time in a prison. Keith's life, a conservative, cultivated thing, already lay in tatters. The news that there was, in fact, further to fall plunged him into a deep despair.

And if you're thinking that this is all terribly underhanded of the DEA, then you might want to listen to a few more episodes of True Spies, particularly those episodes that deal with recruiting assets. Using leverage and, if necessary, creating it, is all part of the playbook. Then the federal police arrived to interview me and said that if I played ball, they would support my stay in Australia.

This time, he knew that he was in no position to decline the offer. I knew now that I was a puppet. If I didn't play ball, I would be deported. Keith's relationship with his family in Australia is already hanging by a thread. If he's barred from entering the country, he's truly lost everything. So, I was recruited. Keith had a wealth of financial know-how.

And now, in Gomez, he had access to the secretive world of the cartels. If Keith could establish financial links with the major players, become their banker, then the DEA could hit the drug runners where it hurt: their wallets. What they did was, they said, "We'll set up a financial operation in San Diego and we'll look for opportunities in Mexico by using your contacts and we'll see where it goes."

Within days, Keith was flown to San Diego, California, a stone's throw from the Mexican border.

There, the DEA laid out their master plan. I met the team, the supervisor, my controller, the regional director and two other agents. And they had a company called Essex Finance, which is registered in the British Virgin Islands. It had been a company that had been operating for three years. So it had three years tax returns. It was a perfect vehicle to sit and run as a bank.

Under Keith's reluctant stewardship, Essex Finance would become the respectable face of an illicit banking operation, laundering millions of dollars for the cartels. All in good time. The first step? A very important phone call. The DEA asked me to phone Gomez, who was in prison at the time, still in prison. And they could see, you know, how good our relationship was. And Gomez wanted me to go to Mexico immediately.

Gomez was relieved to hear from Keith. He had a favor to ask. And the purpose of that was to go to Mexico, where a payment was made to a Supreme Court judge in order to have the charges against him dropped. And so it was that mild-mannered Keith Bolfin, 50-something father of three, found himself blowing down one of Mexico's dusty highways towards a future he could scarcely begin to imagine.

Hello, True Spies listener. This episode is made possible with the support of June's Journey, a riveting little caper of a game which you can play right now on your phone. Since you're listening to this show, it's safe to assume you love a good mystery, some compelling detective work...

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And I absolutely love all the little period details packed into this world. I don't want to give too much away because the real fun of June's journey is seeing where this adventure will take you. But I've just reached a part of the story that's set in Paris.

And I'm so excited to get back to it. Like I said, if you love a salacious little mystery, then give it a go. Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. Hello, listeners. This is Anne Bogle, author, blogger, and creator of the podcast, What Should I Read Next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week, I take all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next read.

They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately. And I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years, and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment, whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change, or a frothy page-turner to help them escape the stresses of work, or a book that they've been reading for years.

school, everything. You'll learn something about yourself as a reader, and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for What Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and visit our website, whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com to find out more. It wasn't until I jumped on a plane and flew to Mexico and met up with Gomez's team that

that I suddenly saw their weapons and saw how they drove in convoys and met the people that run the financial operations in Mexico. I suddenly, you know, it was like an awakening. It was terrifying. And then you suddenly realise how dangerous it really was. The heavily armed convoy arrived in Acapulco, a resort town 240 miles south of Mexico City. Come for the beaches?

Stay for the bribes. The judge who was handling the case was in Acapulco. So I was taken to Acapulco and I met the judge with an entourage of bodyguards from Gomez's side. The proposition to the judge is, "I pay you X $15 million now and you have the charges dropped. And once the charges are dropped, we'll pay a further $15 million."

Sounds like a sweet deal, no? Especially when you're surrounded by hired cartel goons. But the judge was, if not especially principled, highly pragmatic. He said, "I can't take any cash. Everybody will know exactly, I'll put two and two together. I've dropped the charges, suddenly I've got $30 million. It's too dangerous." Hmm, good point. If only there was some way to disguise those payments.

Could you make the risk low enough to justify the reward? So I suggested that I open an account for him in London, in a numbered account at NatWest Bank, and transfer the funds there. And when he drops the charges, I can transfer the balance of the funds to that account. And then if need be, I can transfer those funds to other bank accounts throughout Europe, to Luxembourg, into Holland, Germany. I can set up a number of accounts. He liked that idea.

By funneling the money through a series of anonymous bank accounts, Keith could arrange the judge's big payday in a way that would be hard to detect without an extremely capable forensic accountant. After the third movement becomes difficult, if not impossible. Of course, it does help if you've got the DEA on your side.

Talk us through the process, Keith. In my case, it was quite straightforward because I had the US government. So I would make a phone call to San Diego. So I have funds at the bank. They would nominate the bank.

and I'd go to the bank and feed the cash through the system and then transfer it from that bank, a wire transfer to a nominee bank account in London or in France, Germany. We used Spain and Portugal and we used numerous countries, Austria as well, and then transfer. So I would transfer to one account, to another bank, to another bank. So I would set up nominee companies.

and eventually the money would arrive at the destination where the cartels wanted their money. See? Simple. But don't get any ideas, okay? So concluded a successful first chapter in Keith Bolfin's later life career change. He'd proven himself to Gomez and as with any close-knit industry, reputation is everything. Soon, Keith was able to begin expanding his client base.

Well, the DEA paid for me to go to Mexico City and to meet the cartel leaders and to meet the people and start the banking process. And that's what I did. But I lived in San Diego and I commuted back and forwards from Mexico City back. But remember, for Keith, this world is still brand new and utterly terrifying.

There's been little in the way of training and even less in the way of psychological preparation.

He's a desperate man, doing what it takes to survive. You could never live in Mexico City for any length of time. It was too dangerous. I was a nervous wreck in Mexico at any time. And it wasn't until I got back to San Diego I could physically relax. I had to be on my guard all the time. Because when you're dealing with these people, you've got to understand they don't trust you. They say they do, but they don't trust you.

So 25% of your time is trying to work out what they are up to. And his criminal clients aren't the only ones who need to be handled with care. You have agents within the DEA who are on the payroll of the drug cartels. Who they are, no one knows. And you also have agents who are jealous of you because you're earning more money than they are. So they set out from the very beginning to torpedo your operation. If that sounds like paranoia to you, well, you might be right.

But in the multi-billion dollar narcotics business, if no one's out to get you, you're not worth dealing with. And the cartels did deal with Keith, but that's not to say they trusted him. Once you get down to Mexico, then you've got to watch because every cartel family has what they call an intelligence unit. And they have security people within their intelligence unit.

And they're normally ex-intelligent officers from Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Brazil, who have worked within military intelligence or police intelligence. So they're very smart and they can smell a mole. So when you're having a conversation with a cartel leader, you know which one is the intelligence officer and you're aware of his ability. So you're constantly nervous, you're constantly shaking, you're constantly in fear.

And you're also in fear that no one within the DEA hasn't passed the information on about you. So every time you arrive in Mexico City, you're watching for reactions from the cartels. You're watching how they react to you because that gives you an indication if they are going to do something dreadful to you. The cartels are renowned for their brutality. In the drugs trade, life is cheap.

And torture is currency. So if they're friendly, don't take their friendliness as gospel. They can be friendly and then shoot you. You've got to be extremely careful. I was a nervous wreck when I got into Mexico City. And every trip, the fear of the unknown, the fear of being exposed. Because if you are an undercover agent for the DEA, what they do to you is frightening. We won't go into detail on that front.

Let's just say that a quick death would be considered an act of mercy. But it's one thing to be afraid, it's quite another to let that fear jeopardize your mission. Remember for Keith, the last shreds of his life in Australia depended on his work in Mexico. Failure was not an option. He began slowly to train himself, to focus his considerable abilities.

to dampen the cold terror that dominated his waking life and left him sleepless at night. I play a lot of chess, so I started to think logically and plan my strategies and say, it's like when you're on the chessboard, you plan your move.

and you look at the opposite player and you're trying to anticipate his moves so you can counter his move. And that's how I started to think. So every time I went to Mexico City and I had a meeting, I went to the meeting place two or three hours beforehand. I'd look for exit strategies.

I worked out in my mind, if this went all pear-shaped, where could I go? Where could I hide? How could I get to the airport? I'd go through strategy after strategy to try and work out how I could get out of the city. It's always a good idea to prepare for a worst-case scenario, but nine times out of ten, prevention is better than the cure. Most undercover police and undercover agents

tend to absorb themselves within the criminal organisation. So what they do, the majority of them will party with the cartels, will drink the girl, take cocaine, party with the girls, end up sleeping with a few girls. But that's where all the mistakes are made. They drink too much or take too much cocaine or fall in love with a girl and as a result, they make a mistake. Keith could not afford to make mistakes.

Now when I went to Mexico City, I purely was a professional banker. I never partied with anyone. I never drank any alcohol. I never took any of their girls. I never went to any of their social functions. Sort of went back to the hotel room and if I had to do some banking, I did it. I did what I was asked to do and did it professionally. I purely was the banker. I never made a mistake.

Even under his straitened circumstances, Heath began to find a little pleasure in his work. He was good at what he did and he knew he could be even better. What the DEA wanted to do was just to bank their money, find out where the money goes. So I had a meeting with the regional director and the deputy director of the DEA and I said to them, "We need to do more. What do you have in mind?" I said, "We need to act like investment bankers."

Not only do we bank their money, but we want to invest their money. So if we can do the investments, buy property, buy shares, buy art, everything they want, educate them on that, like a proper investment bank, then we'll be seen as an investment bank, as investment advisors, and then we can get all the corrupt politicians, we can get a lot more people involved. Narcos deal in cash, but the people they own?

Bent officials, judges, as we've heard already, they're risk-averse. A suitcase full of unmarked notes isn't going to cut it in high society. No, for the discerning bribey, assets are the name of the game.

They liked that idea and thought it was a great concept because then they could have control over these assets. So when the time came, you could seize those assets. So that's what I did. Buying companies, buying property, buying stocks and shares. But then they wanted art. So I had mentioned art previously. And so they wanted to buy art. And of course, they got an enormous amount of money. And we went to the auction house in New York. And that was an incredible situation.

having the money and buying art. It was something I've never done before. Could it be that Keith was beginning to enjoy himself? The most I've spent personally on a painting was $1,000. Here I am talking about tens of millions of dollars. Sold!

But it was a good experience. I actually enjoyed that moment. I enjoyed the whole aspect of it. Don't get too comfortable. Things were about to take a turn for the worse. It started with a name. Miguel.

He was a banker for cartels. And so what happens, you get small cartel families and they have financial advisors, they have accountants, lawyers and bankers. So when you meet them, you have to convince them that you know what you're talking about. And they would question you on how you're going to launch in the money. So once you're able to convince them that you could, they then would arrange a meeting

with the cartel leaders and they would go back and say, "Yes, we've had a meeting with this banker. He's got some good ideas and this money can be laundered." So yes, I think you need to listen to what he has to say. Miguel had arranged for Keith, representing Essex Finance, to meet with an influential pair of cartel leaders. They had $10 million in need of laundering and Miguel had assured them that Keith was the man to do it.

So that meeting was scheduled to be held in Mexico City and we did not know who the cartel leaders were or where they came from. They had no idea. In San Diego, he attended a tense briefing with his DEA handlers ahead of the meeting. You see, Keith was willing to do what he had to do to earn his freedom, up to a point. One thing I refused to do was to take the conversations with the cartel leaders.

The US Department of Justice wanted tapes, but I said to them it's too dangerous. I carry taping devices and get caught with that, I'm immediately executed. Naturally, this didn't sit well with the DEA. From their perspective, they needed those tapes. And if Keith wouldn't do the necessary, someone else would. I was departing from Mexico 8 o'clock the following morning.

This is on a Sunday when I was called in by the DEA to a motel near where I lived. And I walked into the motel room and there was my controller, my supervisor and another agent. And they said, you're heading down to Mexico tomorrow morning. But we are concerned about taping and we need you to tape the conversations. I repeated what I had said all along. I will never do it.

And then they said, "Well, we've got someone who will go with you and take the conversation." And there was a door to the motel unit next door. And that door opened and walked three agents with this guy called Al. Al was an imposing figure, a brash Colombian-American with decades of undercover experience. As soon as he entered the motel room, alarm bells rang in Keith's brain. His business was one of quiet expertise,

Faultless financial professionalism. A bruiser like Al put that image at risk. They said to me, you've got no choice, you take Al with you and you tell him that he is a member of your banking operation. And I argued against that and they wouldn't listen to it. And they said to me, go and have dinner with Al on us and then instruct him tomorrow on the flight down to Mexico.

So, Al and I went off to dinner, but he disappeared very quickly, 'cause he had a date. He didn't want to listen to what I had to say. And then he arrived late at the airport. He was hungover. So when he got on the plane, he slept. So I didn't have an opportunity to brief him or to tell him anything at all. And when we arrived in Mexico City, he simply, after we left customs, disappeared.

It became increasingly clear that Keith's instincts had been on the money. Al's unusually lengthy career in the field had made him complacent. The next time I saw him was five to ten the following morning when I had a meeting with two other bankers acting for a cartel group. This morning meeting would give Keith a chance to figure Al out. Could he really be this unprofessional? If so, he could put them both at risk.

After all, these were just bankers. The second meeting of the day, with Miguel's cartel clients, would be less genteel. With a heavy heart, Keith made his way to the coffee shop, slouching through the heat and noise of the city.

And he came to the coffee shop. I was livid and I just had enough time to say, "Don't say anything about banking. You don't know anything about banking. If you're asked anything about banking, please do not answer it." So the two bankers arrived and they were upset that I had invited someone on to the meeting that they didn't know was coming. Already things were off to a rocky start. But if Al could just keep his mouth shut,

then the unlikely pair might just carry it off. And this is the thing in Mexico, you can't turn up a meeting with someone unannounced. So they were a bit taken back by Al's presence. And they asked him directly, "What is your connection?" Crunch time. Is Al going to listen to your advice? And he said, "I'm a banker. I'm a banker with Keith." That'll be a no then. But there's still a chance that the cartel bankers won't ask too many questions.

This is still salvageable. And then they looked at me and said, "Well, talk us through some of the transactions that you can do for us." I was explaining to them. And they never took their eyes off Al. They just kept looking at him and he was looking at them. They weren't listening to my conversation at all. And suddenly one of them said, "I'm going to ask your banking friend a question."

And Keith, I don't want you to answer it. I knew straight away there was going to be a problem. The bustle of the cafe faded into white noise. The cold eyes of the bankers honed in on Al. Keith could only watch and wait for the other boot to drop. And they said, tell us, Mr. Banker, what you know about interest arbitrage? Of course, he had no idea. And rather than saying, look, I don't know, let Keith answer that question.

He tried to fluster his way through it and of course he gave all the wrong answers. So they said, you're not a banker. And it was at that very point that the waiter turned up with coffee and in Spanish said to Al, would you like some more coffee, sir? And he turned around and said, no, I've got plenty at the moment. And then he had responded in Spanish and they then said, you're Colombian.

We can tell by your accent you're Colombian. So you're not a banker and you're a Colombian. And then they immediately said, this conversation's finished. We're going. And they got up and left. Much like Keith himself, bankers for the cartel are surprisingly risk-averse. Everything has to be accounted for and Al was anything but. And he then panicked. This is a person who has spent 27 years undercover, panicked.

and rushed off to the toilet to smash the recording device that he had, because he didn't want to be caught with that. And he, along with myself, knew we only had a matter of hours to live.

because the word would get out. So we went back to the hotel and we phoned the control centre back in San Diego. I said to them, we've got to leave. We just have to get out of Mexico City. They made us wait until the afternoon meeting, which Miguel had arranged. The DEA had weighed up the risks and found in favour of continuing the mission in spite of Al's faux pas at the café.

So we went to that meeting and I was extremely nervous. Keith and Al make their way to a swanky hotel in Mexico City. The morning's recriminations still linger as the elevator makes its painful progress skyward. They knock briskly on the door of a suite, the room number outlined in gold. Wealth is commonplace in this world, but Keith doesn't feel like a rich man. He feels like prey.

went into the room and Miguel sitting at the desk, he never rose from the desk and he once again was taken back that I had walked in with Al. I hadn't told him in advance. Miguel barely has time to react to Al's presence before his cell phone buzzes on the desk. It's his clients. Miguel said, "My clients are on their way up. They are brothers from Colombia." Remember, Al was Colombian too.

And there was a very good reason he no longer worked for the DEA in Columbia. You see, all undercover postings come to a close. And however they end, the undercover agent is usually exposed. In short, the Colombians knew Al's face. It was shaping up to be a very bad day for business. And Al knew at that stage he would be exposed. And he asked to go to the bathroom.

and he went to the bathroom and caused unbeknownst to us. When he disappeared from the airport, he went and got a weapon and of course he had the weapon on him. Al hid in the bathroom and waited. The Colombians arrived. Al came out of the bathroom. It's all over quickly. The smell of gunshot residue hangs thick in the air. Miguel, Al and one of the Colombians are lifeless on the floor.

The other Colombian is in bad shape, bleeding out from wounds in his shoulder and stomach. And Keith Boulfin is routed to the spot, unable to process the gory tableau before him. It's a good thing too, because there's no time to process anything. The Colombians have bodyguards downstairs. There's no threat of discovery. At this stage, it's a guarantee.

And now his cell phone is ringing. You know, it was this fortuitous that a girl that I knew, Adriana, phoned. Adriana, as we'll call her here, was one of Essex Finance's legitimate clients. For the sake of appearances, the DEA encouraged Keith to maintain business relationships outside the cartels. Now, completely by chance, she was calling Keith for some financial advice. She'd really picked her moment.

Still breathing shakily, Keith saw an opportunity. He asked Adriana how quickly she could meet him. Fortunately, for him that is, she wasn't far away. They arranged to meet in the hotel's underground car park. Keith dresses the dying Colombian's wound to the best of his ability. With the kind of strength that people only summon in times of crisis, he hauls the man to the service elevator. In his other hand, he holds a briefcase containing 10 million dollars.

So the situation of myself in that hotel room, picking up the money, picking up the wounded Colombian and getting myself down the service lift to the basement car park. I don't know how I did it, but I did it. Then dragged them into Adriana's car and then asking her to put her foot down and leave as I explained to her.

who this guy was, because he was mumbling in Spanish. She could work it out fairly clearly herself. As they drove, the reality of the situation began to sink in.

Now, Keith is tearing through the streets of Mexico City.

Thanks to his escape contingencies, he knows his route to the airport. It's a stressful drive. Adriana's mother asks frenzied questions in Spanish. The Colombian groans, slipping in and out of consciousness. Adriana's baby daughter mewls in the backseat, unaware that by entering this car, the course of her young life has been altered forever. By now, word of what happened in that hotel room has reached the authorities. And if the police know,

So did the cartels. I managed to get to the airport. I knew the airport would be bunkered down with cartel people, the corrupt police, the corrupt army, government officials. I know how the Mexican system works. There'd be no way we could even walk through the front door of the airport without being killed or kidnapped. So it was driving around the airport that I noticed the light aircraft.

A small, sleek aeroplane is idling in a hangar on the airfield. Keith approaches the pilot, offering cash from the briefcase in return for a quick getaway. I didn't tell him exactly where I was going, just kept saying, "Go to this destination," and just kept paying him money. And money speaks volumes in Mexico. So he was quite happy initially, and then it dawned on him what was happening.

The aircraft leapfrogs across Mexico, refueling as necessary. The cash keeps coming. Eventually they approach the border. A panicked call to the DEA secures permission to land, despite the pilots' protestations. So we flew into the United States and it was a terrifying experience. The plane eventually touched down in Brownsville, Texas, where Keith and his fellow travelers were met by a squad from the DEA.

Adriana, her mother and daughter, and the wounded Colombian are led away. Keith will never see them again. He's moved to a safe house, guarded by DEA agents. Word has it that the Colombian cartel are looking for him. No surprise, given the carnage left behind in Mexico City. He persuades the DEA to allow him to bank the 10 million. That way, he can't be accused of stealing from the cartels in the event of his capture.

Keith's girlfriend Claudia, along with her three children from a previous relationship, join him in Brownsville. Could this be a fresh start for the man who lost everything? We were only there a week and we went to the shopping mall. So there was Claudia and the three children and myself. And at the shopping mall we bought ice creams for the children. And when the car heading back...

And one of the children saw two guys on a motorbike taking photographs. And then he came up in line with us and then took our photographs and then took off. I immediately knew exactly who they were and I knew we had to move. Keith put in a call to the DEA. The response? Are you sure you're not overreacting? No, we're not overreacting. This is what happened. People just don't ride motorbikes and take photographs.

So they immediately then said, well, they send more agents and they'll plant them. And of course, the house is under surveillance anyway by the DEA. But, you know, I was nervous. Claudia was nervous. We were a mess. Claudia drank quite a bit of wine, so she just curled up in bed. She was sound asleep. It took me a while, but I eventually fell asleep too. A good night's sleep was not on the cards.

and then woke up when these guys were pulling us out of bed and taping me up. Cartel thugs had entered the building. Somehow they'd gotten past the DEA. What went through my mind at that stage is, you know, for a brief second I didn't think we were going to survive. And then the DEA then arrived on the scene. I had it under surveillance. The team came in and took these guys out.

It was a scary situation. More death, more blood. And now Keith's loved ones were at the center of the chaos. There was only one way out.

So I knew that I could never outrun them and I knew I couldn't be protected. So I made the decision, I'll go back. Now, I worked on my insurance, you know, I protected Gomez and I protected certain people in Mexico City. So I worked on the basis that because I protected them, there was a chance that I could survive. Remember, Keith's not a law enforcement officer. He's working with the DEA in the hope that he can live a normal life again one day.

That can't happen if he's dead. So he's been careful. To an extent, he's played both sides. He's never given the US government everything. And in return, he maintains deniability with the cartels. But I worked on the assumption there was a 50% chance I would be executed. So when you make that decision and you accept it, then I went. Unbeknownst to the DEA, Keith set up a meeting with a senior figure in the Mexican cartels.

Let's call him Santiago. And Santiago, I met him. I had to convince him, 'cause he was the head honcho in Mexico City. He was the one that had the influence over other cartel leaders. And I thought, if I can convince him,

then maybe I could survive. The DEA were convinced I was on a suicide mission and they couldn't believe what I was doing. I was walking in to be executed as far as I'm concerned. But I worked on if I did this, then my family would survive, Claudia and her family would survive. That was the best result I could possibly think of. So I had the meeting, I convinced him

and told him exactly how I protected him. And if I was an undercover agent, then his assets would be seized and his people in the United States would have been arrested. They weren't. So there was an element of doubt that I was a DEA agent. I had Gomez, who stood up for me, and he kept vouching for me.

that I wasn't that sort of person. But they said the decision will rest with the Colombians. It's not their decision. They would go in and bat for me, but the Colombians, it was going to be their decision. And they said the Colombians will probably kill you anyway. But you have done the right thing. You've turned up for them. If you give them their money back, it will be simply a shot to the side of the head, but they won't touch your family.

So they reached out to the Colombians. I waited 48 hours, it would have been. Representatives of the Colombian cartel arrived in Mexico. Discussions were underway. And I hardly slept. It was an emotional journey. After what felt like a lifetime, the day of reckoning came. The day they gave me my life back. Two actions had saved Keith's life.

The first was simple: he had banked the Colombians money. The cartel assumed that if he'd been working with the DEA, that money would be frozen. The second was simpler still. Think back to that hotel room in Mexico City. The smell of gunshots and blood in the air. Picture one, two, three still bodies. Let's walk over to Al, our former colleague in the DEA. What did Al do that you didn't? He wore a recording device, of course.

That was the whole point of AL. Car keys, you know, where you press the lock and it starts recording. Press unlock and it stops recording. If you were to, say, reach inside AL's pocket and take that device, you've got audio that proves you were just a bystander to the shootings. As much a victim of the DEA's machinations as anyone. And that actually saved my life, that recording device.

After his close call, Keith stayed on in South America for a while before finally earning enough trust to leave the country. I just couldn't just say I need to go back to the States. I had to sort of spend time there with them.

to prove that I wasn't an agent. So I got involved in the shopping centre, I got involved in establishing a restaurant there for them. And then eventually I was allowed to go back to the United States and I crossed the border in Tijuana. I had to do one transaction.

with a group of lawyers out of New York. And because the DEA were really annoyed with me because I had given the Colombians back their money, which they believed was their money, I had to find out who this law firm was that was involved in laundering and hiding assets of a cartel family in Mexico City.

I was able to get the name of the lawyers and I ended up going to New York and meeting up with that law firm. And I had them involved in laundering some money with the purpose of giving something to the DEA, but at the same time getting back my freedom, not only from the DEA, but from the cartel families. And that's what I did. I did one last transaction. One last job and Keith was out.

The year was 2004. He had spent seven years living in fear. Fear for his life and for those of his loved ones. The trauma he sustained during that time would stay with him forever. That was the price he paid to furnish the US government with some of the names, contacts and bank accounts that enabled the cartel to rake in billions of dollars a year. But look around. Turn on the news. Drugs are still being sold and consumed in vast quantities.

In 2020, Oregon became the first US state to decriminalize the possession of cocaine. Is this a war that any spy, willing or otherwise, could hope to win? Was it worth it? Now, that's a matter of perspective. What's yours? Several years later, Keith wrote a book about his experiences. It's called "Undercover: A Novel of a Life." For legal reasons and to appease the DEA, it's marketed as fiction.

I had to make it fiction and then change a lot of names, which I've done, but they weren't happy, I can assure you, but they allowed it through. So, yeah, interesting. There was a few annoyed people, to be honest.

And when, you know, 60 Minutes and all the television documentaries teams interviewed me and read the book and they all came to the conclusion, this is a true story. I mean, this is... And I kept smiling, didn't respond to that. For the purposes of this podcast, some names have been changed. But Keith assures us that everything you've heard today is true.

Today, he undertakes forensic financial investigations for private clients. After all, nobody knows the game better than he does. I carry out investigations for various people. You know, people who've lost money, they tend to contact me and I tend to help them find it. I'm Vanessa Kirby. Here's a taste of next week's encounter with True Spies.