"David McClintick roiled Hollywood and Wall Street with his stunning account of high-placed chicanery and cover-up that made Indecent Exposure a smashing international bestseller. Now, after a decade of investigative reporting, he brings us another explosive inside story - a story of clashing wills and multiple betrayals that threatened to destroy one of the United States government's most ambitious undercover operations." "Operation Swordfish was launched secretly in 1981 after the federal government, desperate to stop the narcotics epidemic, devised a fundamental change in strategy. Leaving street-level drug policing to local authorities, the Department of Justice and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration decided to attack the drug barons themselves along their most vital arteries: a serpentine network of banks and corporations through which they manipulated their vast profits. To lure the money, the DEA created a bogus international investment firm in Miami. But to cultivate the trust of the Colombian drug mafia, the agency needed an unusual spy. How Robert Darias, a Cuban emigre and CIA-trained Bay of Pigs officer, led the DEA to the heart of the mafia's tangled and violent network, and how the DEA ultimately "rewarded" him, is a story of deception and betrayal on many levels." "Critical to the operation was Darias's triangular relationship with two singular women: Carol Cooper, a DEA special agent from a small town in Illinois, whose skill at running spies was matched by her talent for bureaucratic infighting; and Marlene Navarro, Paris-educated and multilingual, the alluring North American chief executive of the Colombian drug mafia's enormous financial and distribution syndicate." "As Darias nurtures Navarro's trust and grasps the intricacies of her huge criminal enterprise, Operation Swordfish seems headed for spectacular success that will make the careers of the DEA agents in charge. But when a vicious battle for control erupts among the agents, Darias takes an extraordinary measure to protect himself, a recourse that reveals a web of secrets - secrets of ambition, rivalry, and treachery within the government's own ranks. Overshadowing the internal strife in Miami is the dark savagery of the drug mafia's native Colombia, which entangles Operation Swordfish's deepening penetration of Navarro's network." "Swordfish is a spellbinding story of people under life-threatening pressure, people pursuing ambitions both grand and petty in ways that reveal not only the characters of the individuals but also the nature of the institutions that have shaped them."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved