Jonna Mendez broke a record for the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) as a keynote speaker at the 35th Annual Global Fraud Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, this past June. Her memoir, “In True Face: A Woman’s Life in the CIA, Unmasked,”
sold out at the ACFE’s bookstore within an hour — the first time that’s ever happened at an ACFE Global Fraud Conference. The line of people eagerly waiting to get their copies signed by the former CIA chief of disguise snaked around the
Las Vegas Strip’s Aria Hotel and Casino’s convention center exhibit hall, and it seemed doubtful she’d be able to get through all of them. But she signed every last one with time to spare a bit of wisdom to some of the many female fraud fighters who
queued up for her autograph.
Like her record-breaking book sale, Mendez blazed trails and defied the odds throughout her 27-year career in the CIA. Her memoir delves deep into the life of a woman in one of the world’s most formidable intelligence-gathering agencies. It wasn’t an
easy path to traverse. From an openly misogynistic boss to a rivalry with one of her male colleagues, Mendez pushed past all of it to rise through the ranks. She started out as a low-level secretary hired because her first husband was an agent, but
she found her footing as a clandestine photographer, then later as chief of disguise, where she created convincing costumes to conceal the identities of her fellow agents abroad in hostile territories across the globe. Mendez tapped into the expertise
of Hollywood movie special effects and costume design to create the perfect camouflage to hide spies in plain sight and make quick getaways undetected. In later years, she and her late husband, Tony Mendez, wrote books together detailing some of their
operations, including the book “Argo,” which described the daring 1980 rescue of six U.S. diplomats from Iran. The book was later adapted into a movie that won an Academy Award in 2013.
Fraud Magazine caught up with Mendez after she’d finished signing her sold-out books for a discussion on what women in the anti-fraud field could learn from her career in the CIA. She also discussed the art of creating disguises and the differing
goals of fraud examiners and those who work in the intelligence community.
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