Confidential Source Ninety-Six

The Making of America's Preeminent Confidential Informant

By: Roman Caribe, Rob Cea

Narrated by: Rick Zieff

Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

A harrowing journey inside the hidden world of drug cartels by one of the top criminal informants in US law enforcement history.

The men he put behind bars know him as Roman Caribe or one of the dozens of other aliases he has used undercover. His handlers in the DEA, ICE, and FBI know him as Confidential Source Ninety-Six, or CS 96, named for the year he confronted the sins of his life atop a massive drug distribution ring and flipped, becoming law enforcement's secret weapon.

In Confidential Source Ninety-Six, Caribe tells the extraordinary story of his transformation into America's most successful informant in terms of total narcotics seized - from the years of trafficking cocaine and marijuana across the US for a terrifying drug lord, eventually becoming that man's number two, to his decision to defect and trade sides. In his first mission, Caribe set his sights on his onetime boss's brutal operation. In his next, he broke all protocol and made a daring foray into the notorious Fuentes Cartel, where he took down a family that was smuggling tons of drugs across the US-Mexico border.

As Caribe launched his career as a confidential source, finding his faith and seeking to finally do right by his stoic wife, Inez, and his four children, his marriage became stressed in new ways, the risks to his family unimaginable if he made a single mistake on the job. He found himself looking over his shoulder every day, knowing that with each drug ring or kingpin he destroyed, he made another dangerous enemy. For as long as he continued the high stakes work, he would survive on the cunning of his tradecraft and his ability to improvise in the most terrifying circumstances.

Unfolding in Southern California mansions, makeshift DEA trailers deep in the redwood forest, drug fronts in Spanish Harlem, fast-food parking lots where kilograms of cocaine and heroin change hands, and around the dinner table where Caribe began mentoring at-risk youth to help them avoid the mistakes he made, Confidential Source Ninety-Six is the epic saga of one man's quest to redeem himself and a thrilling look at the law enforcement battle that rages in the shadows of our nation.

©2017 C. S. 96 (P)2017 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"It is hard to imagine a more dangerous job than being a high-level confidential informant.... [T]hey are integral to law enforcement in solving crimes, seizing narcotics, infiltrating gangs, and preventing terrorist attacks. This book takes us into a world of darkness, danger, skullduggery, and betrayal that few people could fathom, much less believe. It is a wild ride; certainly not for the faint of heart." (Robert Mladinich, former NYPD detective, author of From the Mouth of the Monster: The Joel Rifkin Story and coauthor of Undisclosed Files of the Police: Cases from the Archives of the NYPD from 1831 to the Present)

I just can't believe this is a real story.

I think that this is fiction masquerading as non-fiction. This book sounds very similar to another book that I have listened to. It sounds all to stereotypical. Another "drug kingpin" who really didn't want to have anything to do with selling drugs. Who, only after he gets busted decides he can't stand his partner. His partner that is equivalent to the lowest scum on earth, yet this is the guy that enabled you to have all of the money that you know have. Oh and lets not forget the wife that doesn't want her husband to involved with selling drugs either yet doesn't seem to mind the lifestyle that drug dealing provides for her and her children. This has to be fiction and stereotypical fiction at that. There is nothing here that you haven't already seen and heard 100 times already. Do yourself a favor and skip this one.

nailing the drug peddlers

Great preface to start the book, but too few drug bust stories to make a six hour listen worthwhile.