The Con and the FBI Agent
An Unlikely Alliance
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- $24.99
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
While FBI Agent David Nadolski risked his career, his informant, Anthony Romano risked his life to quash one of the biggest armed robberies of the twentieth century.
During the 1990’s Boston was a world leader in arts, culture, higher education, and medicine. It was also a world leader in organized crime.
In this exciting account, former FBI supervisory special agent David Nadolski tells the story of an unlikely alliance between two diametrically opposed people—the con and the FBI agent. While investigating a break-in at the Stone Library in Quincy, MA that houses the personal book collection of John Quincy Adams, the FBI gets a call from prison inmate, Anthony (Tony) Romano, requesting to meet with the case agent on the burglary. Romano provides a helpful tip that leads to the apprehension of the thief and the recovery of four priceless, historically significant books. Recognizing Tony’s potential, Nadolski begins to cultivate a relationship in hopes of recruiting Romano as a criminal informant.
Nadolski recruits Romano to play a very dangerous game—infiltrate the Merlino gang, controlled by Carmello Merlino, a career criminal who specialized in bank robberies, armored car robberies, and home invasions. The Merlino gang also became suspects in the largest art theft in history which took place at the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston and remains unsolved to this day. Romano, a former armed robber, agrees. With sights set on the Loomis Fargo Armored Car Company money vault, located south of Boston, the Merlino gang gets to work. Little did they know, Romano, at great personal risk, was a wearing a wire and recording their planning sessions.
After two years of being joined at the hip and learning to trust each other unconditionally, special agent Nadolski and Romano run a successful criminal investigation and undercover sting operation to catch four dangerous criminals poised to launch one of the biggest armed robberies of the twentieth century.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Retired FBI agent Nadolski debuts with a fascinating account of how he worked with Tony Romano, a criminal informant, to foil what would have been "one of the biggest armed robberies of the twentieth century." Nadolski first met Romano in prison, where Romano gave him a lead in the 1996 theft of rare books from the library of John Quincy Adams at the Adams National Historic Site in Quincy, Mass. After a successful arrest and retrieval of the books, the two teamed up again after Romano was released on parole. Romano had information on gangster Carmelo Merlino's plan to rob the Loomis Fargo vault facility in Easton, Mass., of $20 million. Nadolski and Romano worked side by side for two years using secret recordings and undercover agents in an effort that led to the police nabbing Merlino and three associates just hours before the heist was to go down in 1999. The result was long sentences for four hardened criminals and a new life for Romano, who went into witness protection and assumed a new identity. Nadolski does a fine job dramatizing the high-stakes operation while evoking the camaraderie and humor shared by cops. This is a must for anyone who has ever wondered how the FBI puts together cases using informants.