Sometimes, failure is not an option—success is required. When the stakes are that high, you need the very best: a professional with a proven record of results.
Joseph F. O’Brien, PhD, is a nationally recognized investigator, author, and public speaker whose career spans organized crime, counterterrorism, and U.S. national security. A recipient of the U.S. Attorney General’s Distinguished Investigator Award—the highest honor bestowed on a federal investigator—Dr. O’Brien was recognized as the most outstanding investigator in the United States during his service with the FBI.
During his tenure in the Bureau, Dr. O’Brien played a central role in some of the most consequential organized-crime investigations in American history, including cases involving the Gambino crime family and the landmark Mafia Commission Trial. His work helped secure historic RICO convictions that permanently altered the federal government’s strategy for dismantling criminal enterprises. These experiences are chronicled in his New York Times bestselling book, Boss of Bosses: The Fall of the Godfather, which was later adapted into a feature film that aired on TNT and remains widely available.
Following his FBI service, Dr. O’Brien earned a doctorate in criminal justice, focusing his research on the origins, evolution, and global reach of Islamist terrorism. He went on to work internationally as a licensed private investigator and counterterrorism analyst, examining complex cases involving transnational crime, intelligence failures, and state-sponsored violence. His career has bridged the worlds of traditional organized crime and modern extremist networks, offering rare insight into how power, ideology, and criminal enterprise intersect.
Dr. O’Brien is the founder of the Iran Accountability Initiative (IAI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to exposing and countering terrorism and state-sponsored violence. He is currently completing his second book, a nonfiction investigation based on recorded interviews conducted with an American jihadist prior to the subject’s death in 2025. The book examines a decades-long government failure surrounding a targeted assassination on U.S. soil and raises urgent questions about intelligence oversight, accountability, and national security.
With more than twenty-five years of professional investigative experience, Dr. O’Brien combines intelligence, resourcefulness, global law-enforcement connections, and uncompromising integrity to deliver exceptional investigative and analytical work.
Today, he is a sought-after speaker and commentator on organized crime, terrorism, FBI history, and the intersection of justice, politics, and power. Drawing on firsthand experience, Dr. O’Brien offers audiences a rare, unfiltered perspective on how criminal and extremist networks truly operate—and what their stories reveal about the institutions tasked with stopping them.
When only the best will do, Joe O’Brien delivers.
