American Desperado is possibly the most jaw-dropping, event-filled, adrenaline-soaked criminal autobiography ever written.
Like a real-life Scarface Jon was born into the upper levels of the Gambino crime family and witnessed his first murder at age seven. He became a one-man juvenile crime wave before joining an assassination squad in Vietnam. He returned to New York at age 20 to become one of the city's top nightclub promoters, then journeyed to Miami where he became the de facto transportation chief of the Medellin Cartel, and along with a tech-wizard partner, created some of the most sophisticated smuggling technologies ever.
With a hulking 6'6" bodyguard always at his side, and a rural fortress protected by mortars, tear-gas cannons, and a gold-fanged attack dog, Roberts was brutally effective at what he did. To law enforcement, he was known as the "Bearded Gringo," a spectre they could never touch. To United States senators and CIA officials, he was "the guy who can get things done". He eventually formed a clandestine alliance with the US government and in the end found personal late-life redemption.
During the 1980s criminal legend Jon Roberts was the no.1 supplier of cocaine in the US, smuggling over 15 billion dollars-worth. But that is only the start of his extraordinary dark tale. . .
A real-life Scarface, Jon was born into the Gambino mafia family and witnessed his first murder aged seven. To escape a teen criminal charge he agreed to join a US army assassination squad in Vietnam. Returning to New York he became one of the city's top nightclub promoters until he was forced to flee to Miami. There he reinvented himself as the de facto transportation chief of the Medellín Cartel and, along with a tech-wizard partner, created some of the most sophisticated smuggling technologies ever. With a crazed bodyguard always at his side, and a fortress protected by mortars, tear-gas cannons and a gold-fanged attack dog, Roberts was brutally effective at what he did.
To law enforcement, he was the "Bearded Gringo", a spectre they could never touch. To the CIA, he was "the guy who can get things done". With a cast that includes everyone from Jimi Hendrix and OJ Simpson, to General Noriega and Pablo Escobar, American Desperado is the most jaw-dropping, adrenaline-soaked criminal autobiography you'll ever read.
'A TOUR DE FORCE. THE BEST CRIME BOOK SINCE WISEGUY' RICH COHEN
