The Deadly Path: How Operation Fast & Furious and Bad Lawyers Armed Mexican Cartels

Pete Forcelli did what members of the U.S. Congress encourage government employees to do: he spoke up when he saw misconduct within the federal government. But choosing to be a whistleblower almost cost Forcelli his job, his possessions, and his reputation as a law enforcement official.

“In a raw and unflinching account that details his harrowing journey as whistleblower in the Fast and Furious federal scandal, Forcelli shows the public and personal cost of standing up for justice.” —Jonathan Green, author of Sex Money Murder: A Story of Crack, Blood, and Betrayal

Pete Forcelli was a highly respected federal agent in New York City, where he made an impact on violent crime by successfully targeting some of the city’s most violent street gangs by using federal racketeering and continuing criminal enterprise statutes in conjunction with federal prosecutors. In early 2007, he was promoted to a supervisory position in Phoenix and quickly discovered that federal prosecutors were not charging criminals for violating federal firearms laws, even in instances where they knew guns were being trafficked to ultra-violent drug cartels and then used in crimes that were shocking to the conscience.

When those very same prosecutors spoke about possibly indicting John Dodson, a special agent who blew the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious, Forcelli stepped forward and contacted Congress. Forcelli became a whistleblower himself, detailing how federal prosecutors in Arizona not only failed to prosecute gun traffickers, but allowed a man who was making hundreds of hand grenades for the Sinaloa Cartel to continue his operations unabated for years. At that moment, those prosecutors and officials from the Department of Justice came after him, leading to a nearly four-year battle for Forcelli to clear his name.

This book provides his insider’s account of the scandal that stands as one of the worst stains on federal law enforcement.