A unique and unbelievable first-hand account of how one man fought his way to the top of the criminal underworld... and what he needed to do to stay there. As you read this, someone somewhere is buying drugs. Across the globe, millions of people are involved in the brutal, cold-blooded world of drug dealing, but only a small number make life-changing money. Only a few get to the top, make the calls, know how it all works and truly become drugs lords. And even fewer survive. I know because I am one of those drug lords. After thirty years, I've decided to retire and tell the story of how I got to the top of this tainted profession, what's involved in being a serious criminal, the tricks of the trade, the art of the deal and what it really takes to stay alive for so long. This will be my last confession. And I hope you learn something.
"I was a walking bankroll, wearing $150,000 worth of jewelry and carrying as much as $40,000 cash in my pockets. Yet my friends asked: "how are you doing?" I'd sometimes reply, "miserable. I hate every second of my life, and I do not know why." Jorge ValdesAll his dreams for wealth and power came true. Then the nightmare began.As a young man in his twenties with an insatiable thirst for money and power, Jorge Valdes worked his way up inside Colombia's powerful Medellin drug cartel. His key position as head of U.S. Operations brought him into direct contact with presidents, generals, Hollywood celebrities, hired killers and kidnappers. This Cuban immigrant, raised in poverty, was living the high life in more ways than one. His deeds took him from the lap of luxury to the depths of prison and back again.Then an incredible thing happened: Jorge Valdes encountered a person much more powerful than the strongest drug lord, someone who offered something more satisfying than women, drugs, money, prestige and power.Reading more like a fast paced novel of intrigue than a traditional biography, coming clean: the true story of a cocaine drug lord and his unexpected encounter offers an insider's view of the drug industry and the greed that drives it. Told that he would never be anything but a twice convicted drug dealer; today, dr. Jorge l. Valdes, who holds a master degree from Wheaton college and a PhD. In new testament studies from Loyola University in Chicago, is a renowned national speaker who brings a message of hope, forgiveness and the power to change. He has been featured in numerous magazine covers and appeared in many national and international television and radio programs.
Picking his way through Andean cocaine fields, Central American prisons, Colorado pot shops, and the online drug dens of the Dark Web, Tom Wainwright provides a fresh, innovative look into the drug trade and its 250 million customers. More than just an investigation of how drug cartels do business, Narconomics is also a blueprint for how to defeat them. How does a budding cartel boss succeed (and survive) in the 300 billion illegal drug business? By learning from the best, of course. From creating brand value to fine-tuning customer service, the folks running cartels have been attentive students of the strategy and tactics used by corporations such as Walmart, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola. And what can government learn to combat this scourge? By analyzing the cartels as companies, law enforcers might better understand how they work -- and stop throwing away 100 billion a year in a futile effort to win the "war" against this global, highly organized business. Your intrepid guide to the most exotic and brutal industry on earth is Tom Wainwright. Picking his way through Andean cocaine fields, Central American prisons, Colorado pot shops, and the online drug dens of the Dark Web, Wainwright provides a fresh, innovative look into the drug trade and its 250 million customers. The cast of characters includes "Bin Laden," the Bolivian coca guide; Old Lin," the Salvadoran gang leader; "Starboy," the millionaire New Zealand pill maker; and a cozy Mexican grandmother who cooks blueberry pancakes while plotting murder. Along with presidents, cops, and teenage hitmen, they explain such matters as the business purpose for head-to-toe tattoos, how gangs decide whether to compete or collude, and why cartels care a surprising amount about corporate social responsibility. More than just an investigation of how drug cartels do business, Narconomics is also a blueprint for how to defeat them.
A self-help book like no other. From the author of the best-selling Hard Time, and seen on Locked Up Abroad, Shaun Attwood took his business degree to Phoenix, Arizona, where he became an award winning stockbroker and then a millionaire day trader during the dot-com bubble. But Shaun became greedy and lost sight of what was important. He threw raves and distributed Ecstacy grossing $25 million. Before being convicted of money laundering and drug dealing, he served 26 months in the infamous jail system run by the notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Lessons From a Drug Lord is his account of the time Shaun spent submerged in a nightmarish world of drugs and gangs, insect infested cells with food unfit for animas and the lessons he learned from his choices. His teachings will force you to re-examine your life and what is truly important.
Look, Mom... I'm a Teenage Drug Lord is the incredibly wacked out, true story of a teenage genius from wealthy suburbia who stumbles into being the head of an illegal drug empire. Join Lance Green on a roller-coaster ride of parties, police chases and drug deals gone wrong, all while trying to get his schoolwork done. It's Weeds meets Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
This “investigative magnum opus” offers a jaw-dropping history of Mexican drug cartels as it transports readers to the frontlines of the ‘war on drugs’ in Latin America (Los Angeles Times). “A riveting story . . . [from] an incredibly brave journalist.” —NPR The “war on drugs” has so far cost more than 60,000 lives. Hernández explains in riveting detail how Mexico became a base for the mega-cartels of Latin America and one of the most violent places on the planet. At every turn, Hernández names not just the narcos, but also the politicians, functionaries, judges, and entrepreneurs who have collaborated with them. In doing so, she reveals the mind-boggling depth of corruption in Mexico’s government and business elite. Hernández became a journalist after her father was kidnapped and killed and the police refused to investigate without a bribe. She gained national prominence in 2001 with her exposure of excess and misconduct at the presidential palace, and previous books have focused on criminality at the summit of power, under presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón. The product of 5 years’ investigative reporting—and the subject of intense national controversy—Narcoland is a publishing and political sensation in Mexico.
The incredible true story of the decade-long quest to bring down Paul Le Roux—the creator of a frighteningly powerful Internet-enabled cartel who merged the ruthlessness of a drug lord with the technological savvy of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. “A tour de force of shoe-leather reporting—undertaken, amid threats and menacing, at considerable personal risk.”—Los Angeles Times NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • NPR • Evening Standard • Kirkus Reviews It all started as an online prescription drug network, supplying hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of painkillers to American customers. It would not stop there. Before long, the business had turned into a sprawling multinational conglomerate engaged in almost every conceivable aspect of criminal mayhem. Yachts carrying $100 million in cocaine. Safe houses in Hong Kong filled with gold bars. Shipments of methamphetamine from North Korea. Weapons deals with Iran. Mercenary armies in Somalia. Teams of hit men in the Philippines. Encryption programs so advanced that the government could not break them. The man behind it all, pulling the strings from a laptop in Manila, was Paul Calder Le Roux—a reclusive programmer turned criminal genius who could only exist in the networked world of the twenty-first century, and the kind of self-made crime boss that American law enforcement had never imagined. For half a decade, DEA agents played a global game of cat-and-mouse with Le Roux as he left terror and chaos in his wake. Each time they came close, he would slip away. It would take relentless investigative work, and a shocking betrayal from within his organization, to catch him. And when he was finally caught, the story turned again, as Le Roux struck a deal to bring down his own organization and the people he had once employed. Award-winning investigative journalist Evan Ratliff spent four years piecing together this intricate puzzle, chasing Le Roux’s empire and his shadowy henchmen around the world, conducting hundreds of interviews and uncovering thousands of documents. The result is a riveting, unprecedented account of a crime boss built by and for the digital age. Praise for The Mastermind “The Mastermind is true crime at its most stark and vivid depiction. Evan Ratliff’s work is well done from beginning to end, paralleling his investigative work with the work of the many federal agents developing the case against LeRoux.”—San Francisco Book Review (five stars) “A wholly engrossing story that joins the worlds of El Chapo and Edward Snowden; both disturbing and memorable.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
The Cali drug cartel changed the face of organised crime. For over twenty years it pumped thousands of tons of cocaine across the world, laundered billions of pounds in illegal profits and was responsible for untold murders and assassinations. Based in the city of Cali, the three founders brought an unprecedented degree of organisation and planning to the drugs trade and through violence, terrorism, intimidation and bribery they became a major threat to society. For the first time the gang's founders are scrutinised and the efforts that brought them to justice are recreated.
Twenty years after writing Drug Lord, Terrence Poppa decided the information in his book was more important than ever. In an important interview with the Texas Tribune, Poppa explains that ''the Mexico that I wrote about in the book describes the old order of things: Mexico under the PRI. In that sense, the book was out of date, because how drug trafficking operated under the PRI is completely different than how it works today in a new Mexico, under the democratically transformed Mexico...There has been a decoupling of the highest levels of power from drug trafficking now. It's important for people to understand that, so I had to bring the book up to date.''
This is the story of the most successful cocaine dealers in the world: Pablo Escobar Gaviria, Jorge Luis Ochoa Vasquez, Carlos Lehder Rivas and Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha. In the 1980s they controlled more than fifty percent of the cocaine flowing into the United States. The cocaine trade is capitalism on overdrive -- supply meeting demand on exponential levels. Here you'll find the story of how the modern cocaine business started and how it turned a rag tag group of hippies and sociopaths into regal kings as they stumbled from small-time suitcase smuggling to levels of unimaginable sophistication and daring. The $2 billion dollar system eventually became so complex that it required the manipulation of world leaders, corruption of revolutionary movements and the worst kind of violence to protect.
