Nelson Barbosa was born in Havana, Cuba, and immigrated to the United States in 1971 at age fourteen. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration and Management with a minor in Business Law from Chicago Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU). He taught for the Chicago Board of Education before being hired by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 1986, where he worked as a Diversion Investigator focusing on drug-related investigations. In 1990, he became a Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), where he served for 24 years, specializing in counter-terrorism and criminal investigations. He also completed two diplomatic assignments at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia. Barbosa is a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), a certified Criminal Justice teacher in Dade County, and a veteran with honorable discharges from the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Army National Guard, and U.S. Army. He is married and has three adult children.