Jeffrey Robinson (edit name/settings)

Born in Long Beach, New York (1945), Jeffrey Robinson started selling freelance articles and stories to small magazines in 1960, several months before his 15th birthday. His first check was for a two-page spread in the comedy magazine Cracked, a poor man’s Mad, for which he was paid $30. At the same time, he began covering high school sports for two home town weeklies, the Long Beach Progress and then the Nassau Star.

While attending Temple University in Philadelphia (BA-1967), he wrote for television and radio, was a staff writer at KYW-TV3 (1965), scripted a popular local children’s show called “Sunny Dee and Snoopy” (1965-1966) and was on the writing staff of “The Mike Douglas Show” (1966), a nationally televised daily talk show.

He continued working in the media during his four year stint as an officer in the United States Air Force (1967-1971). Charged with running a press and public relations office for five generals and three colonels out of Hancock Field, Syracuse, New York, he hosted a weekly television talk show, scripted and directed several film projects, wrote short stories for national magazines and moonlighted as a disc jockey on local radio (WFBL).

When his military obligation was completed at the beginning of 1971, Robinson took up residence in St. Laurent-du-Var, a small village just west of Nice, in the south of France. Using the French Riviera as his base, he spent the next 12 years vagabonding around the world, writing articles and short stories for leading North American and British periodicals.

In 1982, now earning his living as an established freelance journalist and short story writer --- with more than 600 published articles and stories to his credit --- he moved to London England where, he married the former Aline Benayoun of Antibes, France, started a family --- they have a son Joshua Seth and a daughter Celine Chelsea --- and put together a string of British best-selling non-fiction books, including: “The Risk Takers,” “Minus Millionaires,” “Yamani,” “Rainier & Grace,” and “Bardot.”

He hit the international scene in 1994-1995 with his investigative tour de force, “The Laundrymen.” Uncovering the true extent of global money laundering, Robinson revealed how hundreds of billions of dirty dollars, derived mainly from the drug trade, are reinvested throughout the world by otherwise legitimate businessmen, lawyers, accountants and bankers. Still considered the definitive book on the subject, and used in universities and law schools as a text, Business Week described it as "an indictment of governments and banks".

A headline-maker in 14 countries, the book established him as a recognized expert on organized crime, fraud and money laundering. He has actively maintained that reputation for the past 15 years, which led to the British Bankers' Association labeling him, “the world’s most important financial crime author.”

On the back of “The Laundrymen,” Robinson scripted and hosted several television documentaries on money laundering and organized crime, including one for the BBC, and another for Arte in France and Germany. Both films have been shown in the United States.

In 1998, he published a sequel to “The Laundrymen,” titled “The Merger - The Conglomeration of International Organized Crime.” In it, Robinson demonstrated the shocking and disturbing lengths that transnational organized criminals go in order to build multi-national corporations; explained why organized crime is the major beneficiary of globalization; and illustrated how transnational organized criminals have become the most powerful special interest group on the planet.

Five years after “The Merger,” he published another book in this series: “The Sink,” exposing crime, terrorism and dirty money in the offshore world.

Between 1986-1994, he wrote three major best-selling biographies: “Yamani - The Inside Story,” described by the Wall Street Journal as the best book ever written about the oil industry; “Rainier & Grace,” the only legitimate biography ever written about, and with the cooperation of, Monaco’s sovereign family; and “Bardot - Two Lives,” also unique in that it was written with the cooperation of French icon, Brigitte Bardot.

His other non-fiction titles include: “The Risk Takers” (his first UK best seller) which highlighted the high-fliers of City finance, recounting their tales of money, ego and power; “Minus Millionaires,” the off-beat sequel to “The Risk Takers,” in which he told stories about risk takers who had lost fortunes; “The End of the American Century,” which revealed the hidden agendas of the Cold War (writing this book in London, Moscow and Washington, Robinson was one of the very first western journalists to gain access to secret archives in the former Soviet Union); “The Hotel,” stories gathered over five months as a fly on the wall in what is, arguably, the best hotel in the world; “The Manipulators - A Conspiracy to Make Us Buy,” exposing the marketing world’s “hidden persuaders” 40 years after Vance Packard; and “Prescription Games,” an insider’s view of the global pharmaceutical industry, where science and marketing are deliberately kept apart and where, all too often, profit dictates who lives and who dies.

In 2005, he wrote his first “as told to” with his old college friend, and former Secret Service agent, Joseph Petro. It is, “Standing Next to History - An Agent's Life Inside the Secret Service.” Two years later, he ghostwrote Ronnie Wood's autobiography, “Ronnie,” documenting Wood's years as a rock star and member of the most famous band in the world, The Rolling Stones. And two years after that, he published his third “as told to,” written with the last of the great British tycoons, billionaire Gerald Ronson. It is, “Leading From The Front.”

His most recent books are continuations of his investigative crime series: “There's A Sucker Born Every Minute - A Revelation Of Audacious Frauds, Scams And Cons, How to Spot Them, How to Stop Them”; and “The Takedown - A Suburban Mom, A Coal Miner’s Son and The Unlikely Demise of Colombia’s Brutal Norte Valle Cartel.”

Robinson has also written five much-praised novels: “Pietrov and Other Games” (“A fast-paced, yet marvelously complex story” - Nelson DeMille); “The Ginger Jar” (“A gripping spy thriller” - Richard Condon); “The Margin of the Bulls” (“Disgracefully entertaining” - Daily Mail); “The Monk’s Disciples” (“A warmly funny, richly human novel crammed with great characters and wonderful digressions. It’s like going out to dinner with your most entertaining friend and ending up talking till dawn because the company’s so good” - Val McDermid); and, “A True and Perfect Knight” (“An audaciously plotted comedy of errors with a far-from-heroic protagonist, and a comic thriller of considerable skill. The dialogue, too, is a pleasure, with wisecracks to equal Elmore Leonard at his most mordant” - Barry Forshaw).

A major new novel, an as yet unannounced “as told to” that he penned for a major American celebrity, is due out in October 2011.

Robinson continues to write for radio and television, has scripted and hosted various projects in the United Kingdom, including several Radio 4 documentary series, and the much-acclaimed BBC Radio 3 Drama of the Week, “Rossum’s Cyber Cafe.”

He conceived and wrote the pilot for the British crime drama series, “Tightrope” for Yorkshire Television and also completed the pilot episode for a series on financial crime called “Follow The Money.” Other television scripts include “Sister Banjo” and “Notice of Claim.” He has scripted a film version of his biography of Brigitte Bardot, simply called “Bardot;” and a made-for-television movie version of “Standing Next To History,” a dramatic re-telling of the special relationship between the President of the United States (Ronald Reagan) and his Secret Service agent (Joseph Petro), called “Ronnie & Joe.”

Robinson’s magazine credits include Playboy, McCalls, Barron’s, Gourmet, Cosmopolitan, Reader’s Digest, TV Guide, Redbook, True, Ambassador, Diversion, Harper's, Mademoiselle and Time Magazine, among others.

His newspaper credits include The Washington Post, The San Francisco Examiner, The Christian Science Monitor and The International Herald Tribune, for which he was a major contributor of features (1972-1982).

In Britain his feature journalism has appeared in The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Times Magazine, The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph Magazine, The Sunday Independent, the Mail on Sunday, You Magazine, Harper's and Queen, the Evening Standard Magazine, Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire, among others.

A frequent guest on television and radio on both sides of the Atlantic, appearances over the past several years have included NBC News, ABC News, Good Morning America, CNN, Fox News, BBC Breakfast, BBC Newsnight, ITN Evening News, the ITN News Channel, Channel 4 News, CBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Sky News, BBC World, Bloomberg, NBC's Today Show and Larry King Live.

Robinson is also a popular after-dinner and key note speaker in Europe and North America, and a winner of the coveted Benedictine Award, as 1990 “After-Dinner Speaker of the Year”.

In 2007, after 35 years in Europe, he and his wife Aline moved back to New York to be with their now grown up children, although Robinson commutes back and forth to London on a monthly basis.