David "Race" Bannon

Bannon's claims were debunked after his arrest in Boulder, Colorado on January 27, 2006 on the charges of criminal impersonation, computer crime, and attempted theft. The charges leveled against him asserted that he created a fraudulent history of involvement with Interpol and expertise in human trafficking in order to earn fees for consulting and presenting on these topics. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Bannon was paid speaking fees based on his "bogus" credentials; state authorities had confirmed, for instance, that Bannon "had solicited fees in excess of $3,000 for a two-day training course on human trafficking."

In February 2006, the martial-arts-related website Bullshido.net published the results of what the Rocky Mountain News called an "exhaustive dissection of Bannon's published claims", conducted by an attorney in Connecticut. That investigation found no basis for Bannon's own claims and also found strong indications that Bannon had used a sockpuppet identity, a supposed journalist named "Jason Putman," to support his claims.

On April 24, 2006, Bannon pleaded guilty to the charge of criminal impersonation before a Colorado judge. His guilty plea was made in exchange for prosecutors dropping the additional charges of computer crime and attempted theft. According to the district attorney prosecuting the case, Bannon was likely facing fines rather than incarceration.

Bannon is an American confessed fraudster who posed for years as a former Interpol agent. In his 2003 book Race Against Evil: The Secret Missions of the Interpol Agent Who Tracked the World's Most Sinister Criminals, he claimed to have worked in Asia as a Mormon missionary who transitioned into a career as a killer and secret agent: "a 'cleaner,'" said Publishers Weekly in a review of the book, "interrogating and 'eliminating' child pornographers who his boss at Interpol had determined were beyond the reach of other law enforcement agencies."

Bannon held a two-year appointment as curator of Asian art (1992-1994) for the Florence Museum of Art and History in South Carolina, now known as the Florence County Museum.

Bannon was born in Tacoma, Washington and grew up in Spokane Valley, Washington. Married twice, he had one child, Jessica Autumn Bannon (November 29, 1988 – January 16, 2015). She died of a fentanyl-laced heroin overdose. After his daughter's death, Bannon and his wife established The Jessica Autumn Bannon Memorial Film Collection on September 26, 2015 with 1,500 film and television titles. In 2017 the collection consisted of 2,000 titles. The bulk of the collection is housed in the Chester County Library in Chester, South Carolina.

David Dilley Bannon (born David Wayne Dilley; April 22, 1963), nicknamed Race, is an American author and translator. Bannon was convicted of criminal impersonation in 2006. His daughter, Jessica Autumn Bannon, died on January 16, 2015.