Book Review: The Betrayal by Robert Mazur
Going after Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel wasn’t enough for Robert Mazur, he went and done it again when he went after the Cali Cartel, headed up by the Orejuela brothers (Gilberto and Miguel) and their partners José Santacruz Londoño and Hélmer Herrera – only this time the stakes were even higher!
After his first book The Infiltrator was turned into a movie of the same name, Robert Mazur or Bob (as he is known as) takes you on an even more unbelievable (but very true) journey as an undercover US agent, laundering money for some of the most dangerous people in the world. The Betrayal details that journey and it is one that those in law enforcement and anti-money laundering (AML) alike, along with the general public, need to know about – it affects everyone.
The epilogue of the book lets the reader know instantly that The Betrayal is definitely movie material but at the same time this is not make-believe and highlights the reality of the grave danger Bob put himself in more than once – those weren’t movie prop AK47s and MAC-10s loaded with blanks, those were real guns with bullets!
One of the standouts and recurring themes of the book is the focus on professional money launderers – for anyone in AML, this is something that should be of particular note. Throughout the book Bob highlights some of the techniques used by the criminals to launder and move funds – one of the schemes described on pages 166-167 of the book was complex and (not to give the criminals credit but for lack of a better word) brilliant.
In between the information of the money laundering schemes, Bob also weaves in details of the characters that he had to deal with in his time undercover and these ranged from informants to people with political connections, not to mention some with access and ties to banks also – and these people were darted all around the world, highlighting that money laundering is truly a global affair.
Bob’s brilliance is not only in his quick thinking in difficult situations and in his dealing with criminals – ones that might get the average person killed for saying or doing the wrong thing if they sniffed something was out of place or character – but also his integrity. With the amounts of money that Bob dealt with and the information he had access to, a lesser man may have ran off with the money a long time ago and lived out a comfortable life but Bob is somebody with the utmost of integrity and it really comes across not only in The Betrayal but The Infiltrator before it.
The Betrayal is a page turner for sure and you won’t want to put it down until it is finished – you will understand exactly why it was called The Betrayal and why that mattered. What makes the book even more interesting is right at the end – Bob takes it to the next level but we might have to wait for a third instalment from Bob for that. In the meantime The Betrayal is a ‘must read’ for all – if you haven’t bought it already go and buy The Betrayal now, you won’t be disappointed.
Links to buy The Betrayal are here: https://iconbooks.com/ib-title/the-betrayal/
Robert Mazur also offers speaking and consulting services. More information is available on his official website here: https://www.robertmazur.com
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