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Answers by Robert Mazur, Former undercover Federal Agent, Author of The Infiltrator, on Quora.
A: When agents are trained in undercover work, they are forewarned about the dangers they may face, one of which is the challenge by members of the "target group" (subjects of the undercover operation) that may urge the undercover agent to commit illegal or unethical acts that are not authorized. In my case, I was only authorized to commit money laundering offenses. So, if a member of the target group wanted me to sell a kilo of cocaine, I was not allowed to do that, unless it was authorized and, for example, I sold it to another undercover agent posing as a bad guy, so no innocent person was harmed. To deflect suggestions from the target group that I do things illegal or immoral, I played up the claim that I was a money launderer for an Italian/American organized crime group. I explained that I handled millions for my people and that, if they thought I was doing anything that either drew attention or demonstrated I was not in control of myself, they would kill me. So, requests to do drugs, requests to do anything that might draw attention to me were off limits. As I would tell them, "My 'family' (organized crime family) comes before you."
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A: It took about eighteen months to put my cover together. I had previously done a different undercover operation where I infiltrated a global marijuana smuggling organization. When we did search warrants on that criminal group, we found files concerning about 200+ false identities they were building. These were identities that had not been used by that group. One of them was Robert Musella, an identity built from the birth certificate of a deceased young male. After I got that birth certificate, I got a social security number close to my real one that I identified with the help of the IRS. From there I got the help of lifelong friends who were bankers. They helped me to open up bank accounts, get credit cards, get loans in the Musella name that were timely paid so my credit built, etc. Other lifelong contacts of mine helped me establish a prior employment and business history, as well as getting me embedded in real businesses (a finance company, mortgage business, air charter service, jewelry chain and brokerage firm with a seat on the NY Stock Exchange). I kept building parts of this cover.
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A: On one instance I met alone, at about 1 AM, with a representative of the cartel, for a few reasons, including the fact that the cartel had picked up on surveillances and thought that, since there were surveillances being conducted, that I was an undercover agent. I needed to talk my way out of that accusation. During that meeting, my briefcase recorder malfunctioned and the hidden compartment concealing the recorder popped open, exposing it. Luckily, that happened when the cartel rep was opposite me at a table and couldn't see the recorder had flopped into the center of my briefcase. He only saw the top of the lid. It was a close call.