Jeffrey Robinson (born October 19, 1945) is an American author of 30 books.
Born in Long Beach, New York, Robinson is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia (1967). While still at school, he wrote for television and radio, including a weekly children's show, and was on the writing staff of The Mike Douglas Show, 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. Charged with running a press and public relations office for five generals at the height of the Vietnam War, he hosted a weekly talk show, scripted and directed several film projects, wrote short stories for national magazines and moonlighted as a disc jockey on local radio.[1][failed verification]
His magazine credits include Playboy, McCalls, Barron's, Gourmet, Ambassador, True, Mademoiselle, Reader's Digest and TV Guide; his newspaper credits include The New York Times;[2][3]The Washington Post, The San Francisco Examiner, The Christian Science Monitor and the International Herald Tribune.[4][failed verification] In Britain his feature journalism has appeared in The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, Independent on Sunday and The Mail on Sunday, among others.
He moved to the UK in 1982, with more than 600 published stories and articles to his credit[citation needed], to concentrate on writing books. In 2007, he returned to New York and now divides his time between the US and the UK.
Considered "one of world's leading experts on international financial crime"[5][6][7] Robinson wrote his 1995 investigative tour de force, The Laundrymen,[8] in which he uncovered the true extent of global money laundering. The book reveals how hundreds of billions of dirty dollars are derived mainly from the drug trade, then reinvested throughout the world by otherwise legitimate businessmen, lawyers, accountants and bankers. Business Week described it as "[a]n indictment of governments and banks".[9]
Robinson scripted and hosted several television documentaries, including one for the BBC,[10][11] and another for Arte in France and Germany.[12] Both have been shown in the United States.
In 1998, he published a sequel to The Laundrymen, titled The Merger – How Organized Crime is Taking Over The World. In it, Robinson described the disturbing lengths that transnational organized criminals go in order to build multi-national corporations;[13] explained why organized crime is the major beneficiary of globalization;[14] and claimed that transnational organized criminals have become the most powerful special interest group on the planet.[15][16][17]
Five years later he published another book in this series: The Sink, about crime, terrorism and dirty money.[18][19]
Between 1986–1994, he published three biographies: Yamani – The Inside Story, about Saudi Arabia's former Minister of Oil Ahmed Zaki Yamani;[20][21] Rainier & Grace, written about and with the cooperation of Monaco’s sovereign family and reissued in 2014 as Grace of Monaco after the fictionalized 2014 French biopic of Grace Kelly's life; and Bardot – Two Lives, also written with the cooperation of Brigitte Bardot.[22]
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; The Minus Millionaires, a sequel to The Risk Takers, in which he wrote about ‘risk takers’ who had lost fortunes; The End of the American Century, for which Robinson gained access to secret archives in the former Soviet Union to reveal hidden agendas of the Cold War; 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 an old college friend, Joseph Petro: Petro's autobiography, Standing Next to History – An Agent's Life Inside the Secret Service.[23] In 2007, Robinson co-authored Ronnie Wood's autobiography, documenting Wood's years as a rock star and member of the most famous band in the world, The Rolling Stones.[24] In 2009, he published his third "as told to": Leading From The Front, co-written with British entrepreneur, Gerald Ronson.[25]
His treatise on fraud, There's a Sucker Born Every Minute – A Revelation Of Audacious Frauds, Scams, And Cons – How To Spot Them, How To Stop Them was published in 2010.[26]
The Takedown, subtitled "A Suburban Mom, A Coal Miner's Son and the Unlikely Demise of Colombia's Brutal Norte Valle Cartel", was released in August 2011.[27][28][29][30]
Jeffrey Robinson's Criminal Intent – Following The Money, the first in a series of eBooks on dirty money, crime, fraud and corruption was published in 2012.
The second book in this series, Jeffrey Robinson's Criminal Intent – The Swiss Wash Whiter was published in 2013.
Robinson has written six novels:[31] Pietrov and Other Games; The Ginger Jar; The Margin of the Bulls; The Monk’s Disciples; A True and Perfect Knight (under film option); and Trump Tower.[32][33][34]
Robinson has appeared on NBC News, ABC News, CNN, Fox News, BBC Breakfast, BBC Newsnight, ITN, Channel 4 News, CBC, CNBC, Sky News, BBC World, NBC's The Today Show and Bloomberg Television. He has scripted and narrated various series for BBC Radio, including one on radio stars Amos and Andy, and one on American soap operas, "Tomorrow at the Same Time".[35] He also wrote the BBC Scotland's Radio Three Drama of the Week, "Rossum’s Cyber Cafe", based on the Karel Čapek play "RUR".[36]
He conceived and wrote the pilot for the British crime drama series, Tightrope, for Yorkshire Television.[citation needed] He also wrote the pilot episode for a new British series on financial crime called Follow The Money.[citation needed] Other television scripts include Sister Banjo and Notice of Claim.[citation needed] He wrote and presented a training film for financial investigators for the Metropolitan Police in London England titled "The Common Factor".[37] He has scripted a film version of his biography of Brigitte Bardot, 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.[citation needed]
Robinson won the 1990 Benedictine Award as "After-Dinner Speaker of the Year".[38]
