By Matthew B. Cox THE BULKY, SQUARE, armored-truck jolted to a stop feet from the Bank of America branch, located in the center of the plaza—Garda’s iconic red and white logo displayed on its side. Within its bowels was $1.5 million in cash. Fifty yards across the parking lot, behind the dumpsters, a twenty-eight-year-old black male watched from the driver’s seat of a navy blue Chevy Monte Carlo with black rims and black tinted windows. He glanced between the dumpster—the gra

By Matthew B. Cox ''DEA!" GROWLED THE TALL, lean black woman as she approached the crowd of patients meandering outside the pain clinic's entrance. A mixture of nearly a dozen federal agents, state health department investigators, county sheriff deputies and detectives marched in unison behind her. It was 8:00 a.m., mid-November 2008, in South Florida. The agent held up her Drug Enforcement Administration credentials high enough for all to inspect, but she gave no indication

THE MEXICAN, Juan Medina Gonzales, was on time, as usual. He pulled the mid-sized RV to a stop just shy of the house. Karey hadn't expected the RV. Typically, Juan dropped off around thirty to forty pounds of marijuana a week–-once he'd fronted him two hundred pounds—always arriving in an aging Toyota Corolla. But Karey wasn't concerned. The twenty-four-year-old had only been selling weed for a few months. He mostly sold to friends, and friends of friends. Karey didn't consid

IT’S UNCLEAR IF Sebastian Black[1] was wearing one of his signature Brioni suits and suspenders during the long flight to Australia. Nor do we know if the seasoned confidence man drank Sambuca on the rocks–his favorite liqueur–or flat soda. He may or may not have flirted with the attractive flight attendants in first-class. Regardless, when Sebastian stepped out of the Boeing Triple-Seven at Perth International Airport, it appeared he’d pulled off the perfect scam. It wasn’t

THE U.S. MARINES STOOD TAUT at the edge of the gatehouse, the black Suburbans and Lincoln Towncar entered the White House grounds. Inside the Lincoln sat Frank L. Amodeo, the founder of Mirabilis Ventures Inc, a conglomerate of over seventy companies in various industries—including consulting, corporate security, manufacturing, employee leasing and hotel ownership—with 40,000 employees and nearly a billion dollars in annual revenue. At the corporate mogul's mental core he was