How Pedro and Margarito Flores Built a Drug Empire—and Then Betrayed the World's Most Powerful Cartel Boss For years, Pedro and Margarito Flores lived a life most drug traffickers only dream about. They moved multi-ton quantities of narcotics across the United States. They handled hundreds of millions of dollars. They dealt directly with some of the most feared cartel leaders in the world. And then they walked away. In one of the most remarkable reversals in modern organized-

How a Philadelphia Mob Boss Survived the Mafia Wars and Reinvented Himself Behind a Microphone For most mob bosses, the story ends in one of two places: a cemetery or a prison cell. Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino found a third option. Today, Merlino hosts a podcast, gives interviews, and discusses organized crime from the comfort of a recording studio. But long before he became a media personality, he was one of the most feared and controversial figures in the Philadelphia unde

How Albert Gonzalez Orchestrated the Largest Credit Card Theft in History By the time federal agents arrested Albert Gonzalez in 2008, he had helped steal more credit card numbers than any criminal in American history. The number was almost impossible to comprehend. More than 170 million credit and debit card numbers. Banks lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Retailers scrambled to contain the damage. Consumers across the country discovered fraudulent charges appearing on a

How Max Butler Built a Criminal Empire From Stolen Credit Cards Long before ransomware gangs extorted Fortune 500 companies and cryptocurrency fueled a new generation of cybercriminals, there was Max Butler. Known online as "Iceman," Butler helped transform cybercrime from a collection of isolated hackers into a sophisticated underground economy worth millions of dollars. By the time federal agents finally caught him, prosecutors would describe him as one of the most prolific

How Frank Cardamone Built America's Largest Cable-TV Piracy Empire Long before hackers stole streaming passwords and criminals sold illegal IPTV subscriptions online, there was Frank Cardamone. In the early 1980s, Cardamone became one of the most infamous pirates in America—not on the high seas, but in the rapidly expanding world of cable television. To thousands of customers across northeastern Pennsylvania, he was known simply as "The HBO Kid." The nickname wasn't subtle. C

Tom Simon and the Long Pursuit of America's Most Wanted The mythology of the FBI often centers on dramatic arrests—the handcuffs clicking shut, the fugitive cornered, the years-long manhunt finally over. But for retired FBI Special Agent Tom Simon, the job was rarely about the moment of capture. It was about patience. For much of his career, Simon worked in the world of violent criminals, organized crime figures, and fugitives who had spent years mastering the art of disappea

The Strange and Tragic Case of Mackenzie Shirilla On a summer morning in July of 2022, a speeding Toyota Camry left a suburban road in northeast Ohio, crossed a stretch of grass, and slammed into a brick building at more than 100 miles per hour. The crash lasted only seconds. The debate that followed would last years. At the center of it all was Mackenzie Shirilla, a 17-year-old from Strongsville, Ohio, whose life became the subject of one of the most closely watched criminal

What begins as a social media post can turn into chaos in a matter of hours. Across the United States, police departments are grappling with a growing phenomenon known as "teen takeovers"—large, loosely organized gatherings of teenagers coordinated through platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and Discord. While many participants arrive simply looking to socialize, some events have devolved into fights, vandalism, assaults, robberies, and arrests. The trend has becom

In a small storefront office in Berwyn, Illinois, James Keegan sold something more valuable than money. He sold hope. To hundreds of undocumented immigrants living in the Chicago area, Keegan presented himself as a man with connections. He claimed to be a former attorney for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He said he knew the system. More importantly, he claimed he knew how to beat it. For a fee—usually around $3,000—Keegan promised what many of his clients desperat

Most inmates spend their prison sentences counting the days until release. Arthur Lee Cofield Jr. spent his plotting one of the most audacious financial frauds in American history. From a prison cell in Georgia, Cofield allegedly orchestrated a sprawling criminal enterprise that siphoned more than $11 million from wealthy victims, purchased thousands of gold coins, acquired luxury real estate, and funded a lavish lifestyle for associates on the outside—all while serving time

COURTNEY BURGESS TEXTED ME in a panic on the morning of October 21, 2024, stating: “Feds came to my house and tour it up and took all my electronics including my studio equipment.” Despite the horrible grammar, I could sense the panic, and imagined him standing in his home, surrounded by the destruction. Burgess, a music producer who fancied himself a “hit-maker” with three decades of experience in the industry, spent the next several minutes describing how the FBI had confis

IT WAS A MOONLESS NIGHT, three 4×4’s stopped under the cypress canopy. The vehicles’ high-beams hit the swamp and several alligators slithered off the banks into the black waters of the Florida Everglades. Jessica Marie Bell and her female co-conspirators—Aubrey Waldron, Jetta Frake, Jamie Hewitt, and Felisha Leitner—exited the vehicles. They were wearing an array of torn blue jeans, wife-beaters, and cowboy boots. Swamp Witch by Jim Stafford radiated from one of the truck’s

ALL FOUR TIRES OF THE PORSCHE caught air as the vehicle shot out of the building's underground garage. The fire alarm screamed in the distance. The ice lab — located on the top floor of the Sunset Plaza condominium building — was burning. The European supercar hit the asphalt with a thud, Pierre Rausini yanked the steering wheel to the left, and fishtailed onto Sunset Boulevard. The Louis Vuitton duffel bag, containing over half a million dollars in cash, slipped off of the p

THE SLENDER HISPANIC male, veiled in a hooded sweatshirt and dark pants with short black cropped hair, stealthily approached the large beige house—a pistol tucked in the small of his back. It was December 12, 2011, in the city of Arcadia, a wealthy suburban Los Angeles bedroom community, nestled against the San Gabriel foothills. The man slipped around the corner of the three-car-garage, to the single side-door. There he pressed his weight into the door and frame, forcing it

THE TWENTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD slipped his U.S. Passport to the female agent at the Orlando International Airport Customs desk. From behind the counter the stern woman carefully compared the data on the screen before her to Jacob Diaz’s travel documents. Her eyes bounced between the handsome baby faced young college student—a Mexican-American with the uncharacteristic features of an Anglo—returning from Acapulco and the monitor. When the agent inquired if the young man had anything

By Matthew B. Cox THE AK-47 CRACKED, sending a 7.62 projectile spiraling down the assault rifle’s barrel. It briefly traveled through the air, then plunged into the attractive forty-two-year-old blonde’s chest. The round blew a dime-sized hole in her rib-cage as it spiraled through the woman’s upper-torso and tore out of her back, leaving a silver-dollar size exit wound—hours later, forensic examiners with Broward County would locate the mangled bullet lodged in the baseboard

WHEN I PLACED MY GARY SULLIVAN ID on the counter of the pristine Columbia, South Carolina branch of Wachovia Bank in March 2005, I appeared to be just another clean-cut businessman sporting a Rolex in Dolce & Gabbana; conducting a routine bank transaction, removing some cash from one of my many accounts scattered throughout the city’s banks. In fact, I was the U.S. Secret Service’s most wanted fugitive, Matthew B. Cox, one of the most notorious, mortgage fraud con artists of

A CHUNKY EFRAIM DIVEROLI—the real life gunrunner played by Jonah Hill in the movie War Dogs—sat opposite myself, Matthew Cox, and my literary agent, Ross Reback. To be perfectly transparent, I should mention, although I’m a true crime writer, at the time I was also a federal inmate. Like Diveroli, I was sheathed in a hunter green prison issue uniform. There were approximately one hundred inmates and their guests squeezed into the rectangular room; their chattering voices echo

By Matthew B. Cox AT NEARLY 24,000 FEET over Alabama, Schrenker shouted "Four-two-eight-delta-charlie!" into his headset. He was cutting through the freezing January air at 300 mph in a single engine turbo-prop Piper Meridian. "Atlanta Center! This is an emergency! I'm experiencing severe turbulence and my windshield is spider cracking ... Windshield has failed!" At just shy of five miles above the Earth it was a devastating admission. Over 200 Miles away in Peachtree City,

THE SLEEK CURVED BODY of the Gulf-stream G-V cut through the thin Nevada air at nearly six hundred miles per hour and 43,000 feet. Tonight, however, the glossy white private jet's typical cargo of corporate executives and Hollywood royalty had been replaced by a gifted crook and his female companion. A modern day paperhanger—and a major problem for the U.S. Secret Service's war on cybercrime. At twenty-six-years-old John Boseak was the most prolific manufacturer of counterfei

By Douglas C. Dodd and Matthew B. Cox SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE ROUND UP, a pop-country dance club located just outside Tampa's city limits. The place was packed with drunken southern belles line dancing to Blake Shelton's Redneck Girl underneath the disco balls and duhalf naked strippers in Stetsons, seductively slow riding the mechanical bull. My high school buddies and I had been drinking rum and Coke and snorting oxys most of the night. I was 17-years-old and more than buzzed

By Matthew B. Cox SLIGHTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT, Robert "Snoop" George III and his brother Devell Hawkins, pulled to the curb and shifted the metallic blue Mercury into park. Lush palm trees and palmetto bushes peppered the upscale subdivision in Cypress Gardens, Florida. Mediterranean-inspired McMansions with pools and freshly cut lawns lined the streets. A concerto of crickets were chirping in the sticky summer humidity. Despite the frigid air conditioning, the siblings were swea

By Matthew B. Cox EX-DEA TASK FORCE AGENT Donald Nides, placed his Taurus .357 revolver to the right-side of his head. He pushed the steel cylindrical barrel against the soft tissue of his grey temple; then pulled the hammer back until it clicked into the locked position and wrapped a finger around the trigger. It was November 5, 2014, a sticky, grey, Wednesday morning in the Big Easy. The humidity was so thick, it was as if the levees had never been repaired. Inside the sing

By Matthew B. Cox STANDING OUTSIDE THE SUITE, she checked the chambers of the snub-nosed, Smith & Wesson .38 Special, one last time, before slipping it into her Louis Vuitton purse. Her eyes nervously darted up and down the hotel's empty hallway. She took two deep, cleansing breaths and softly rapped on the door of room 921. A Holiday Inn sitting on the hot white sandy beach of Miami Beach, Florida, is as good of a place as any to exchange $1.2 million in cash for 4,000 pou