Buying coke Nosy Be

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Buying coke Nosy Be

Drug dealers inhabit a strange world. Do drug dealers have no concept of time? Do they not understand that people who want drugs usually want them right away? Be in the car park, yeah? You try to open the door, but one of their mates is sitting that side, so you awkwardly shuffle around the back of the car and get in the other door. You got my number, yeah? Hit me up. By Melanie A. By Dwayne Jenkins. Share: X Facebook Share Copied to clipboard. Photo by Andoni Lubaki. Videos by VICE. Tagged: Cocaine , drug dealer , drug dealer texts , drug dealer time , Drugs , how to buy drugs , selling drugs , shotta texts , skunk dealer , Stuff , Vice Blog , Weed. Daily Horoscope: October 21, Weekly Horoscope: October

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Buying coke Nosy Be

Saviano is a writer and journalist of rare courage and a thinker of impressive intellectual depth, able to see the connections between farflung phenomena and bind them into a single epic story. Most drug-war narratives feel safely removed from our own lives; Saviano's offers no such comfort. As heart racing as it is heady, ZeroZeroZero is a fusion of disparate genres into a brilliant new form that can rightly be called Savianoesque. The people closest to you use coke. And if not his wife, then his lover—he gives her cocaine instead of earrings, in place of diamonds. Coke makes everything seem so much easier, even the night shift. The people who use cocaine are right here, right next to you. Cocaine helps him cut open six people a day. Or your divorce lawyer. The cashier who hands you the lottery ticket you hope is going to change your life. If not him, then the manager of your condo building who is just about to buzz you. If not them, then the town councillor who just approved the new pedestrian zones, and who gets his coke free in exchange for favors. The architect who renovated your vacation home, the mailman who just delivered your new ATM card. Coke makes him more sociable. The forward who just scored, spoiling the bet you were winning right up until the final minutes of the game. The gigolo you treated yourself to for your fiftieth birthday. You did it together. Coke makes him feel really macho. The sparring partner you train with in the ring, to lose weight. Along with the janitor. The security guard uses it, the one who still combs his hair over his bald spot, even though guys all shave their heads these days. If not him, the engineer you have to invite over for dinner because he might help you get a leg up in your career. The squeegee man with hollow eyes, who borrows money to buy it, or that kid stuffing flyers under windshield wipers, five at a time. The politician who promised you a commercial license, the one you and your family voted into office, and who is always nervous. The professor who failed you on your exam. He feels omnipotent when he sniffs cocaine. Or the gynecologist who nearly forgets to throw away his cigarette before going in to examine your wife, who has just gone into labor. If not them, then the fishmonger, who proudly displays a swordfish, or the gas station attendant who spills gas on your car. The mayor who invited you over for dinner recently. Or the one who uses it is you. What I was about to hear was an exchange of favors. The police had arrested a young man in Europe a few years back. A Mexican with an American passport. He was sent to New York, where they let him stew in the swamp of the underworld instead of in jail. The police would ask him generic questions, nothing specific enough to expose him in front of his gang. They needed him to say which way the wind was blowing, what the mood was, rumors of meetings or wars. No proof or evidence, just rumors. A speech that made the police uneasy. The police officer waited for me in Battery Park, on a little jetty. No hat or dark glasses, no ridiculous disguise. His Italian was full of dialect, but I could understand him. I remember the story perfectly; it has stayed inside me. The liver, testicles, fingernails, ribs. When you hear such words, they get lodged there. Each body part sends what it remembers to the brain. More and more I realize that I remember with my stomach, which stores up the beautiful as well as the horrendous. I know that certain memories are there, because my stomach moves. My diaphragm, that membrane rooted at the very core of my body, creates waves. The diaphragm makes us pant and shudder, but it also makes us piss, defecate, and vomit. Where everything starts. My place of memories, of waste, is saturated. It thrusts itself into places that collect different sorts of memories. Not to betray anyone, but to be able to listen to it again. A lesson on how to be in the world. I nodded without promising anything; I was just trying to understand the situation. Supposedly it was an old Italian boss talking to a group of Latinos, Italians, Italian Americans, Albanians, and former Kaibiles, the notorious Guatemalan elite soldiers. No facts, statistics, or details. Not something you learn against your will; you just enter the room one way and you come out changed. You go in, and when you come out, at first glance you look exactly the same as when you were pushed through the door. But only on the outside. But there was no soccer game on TV in that room, and this was no gathering of friends. They were all members of criminal organizations, of all different ranks. The old Italian gets up. He speaks a bastard Italian, some dialect thrown in, mixed with English and Spanish. I wanted to know his name, so I asked the police officer, trying to sound casual, as if it were a passing curiosity. And everyone around them. All that crap about a better world, leave it to them idiots. To the rich idiots who can afford such luxuries. The luxury of believing in a happy world, a just world. Rich people with guilty consciences, or with something to hide. Sure, he can say he rules for the good, for justice and liberty and all. Who rules, rules. I tried asking how he was dressed, how old he was. The police officer ignored me and kept on talking. I listened, sifting his words like sand in hopes of finding the nugget, the name. I listened to his words but was searching for something else. I was searching for clues. I swear on my life, even if no one believes me. The rules of the organization are the rules of life. Government laws are the rules of one side that wants to fuck the other side. If you risk it all, you have it all, capish? But if you think you gotta save yourself, or that you can do it without jail time, without fleeing, without going into hiding, then let me make it clear right from the start: you are not a man. The police officer looked at me. His eyes were two narrow slits, as if he were trying to see words he remembered all too well. He had read and listened to that testimony dozens of times. Crees en el amor? Love ends. Your heart stops. No love and no heart? Well, even pussies dry up after a while. You believe in your wife? You believe in your children? You believe in your mama? You need to live, vivir. You got to live for yourselves. La famiglia. The people who can give you something get your respect, and the ones who are useless lose it. So what happens when you got nothing to give? When you got nothing left? Really knows. The spic dropped out of school at sixteen; they fished him out of a gambling den in Barcelona. And the way this guy talks, his Calabrian dialect, how could some actor or braggart ever invent that? But this was different; it was like training for the soul. But even if I like you the best, if you got more pussy or more money than me, I want you dead. Rules are rules. And rules are not laws. Laws are for cowards. Rules are for men. Rules of honor tell you how to rule. What you have to do to handle people, money, power. Rules of honor exist, period. They evolved on their own, on and through the blood of every man of honor. How do you choose? How can you choose, in a few seconds, a few minutes, hours, what you should do? The rules are always there, but you got to know how to recognize them, you got to understand when they really count. Men of honor know that everything dies, everything passes away, nothing lasts forever. Journalists start out wanting to change the world and end up wanting to be editor in chief. Each one matters only for himself and for the Honored Society. And the Honored Society says you matter only if you rule. You can choose how, later. You can rule with an iron fist or you can buy consensus. By spilling blood or giving it. The Honored Society knows that every man is weak, depraved, vain. Bonds of friendship are nothing without rules. Every problem has a solution, from your wife who leaves you to your group that splits up. The solution merely depends on how much you offer. If things go poorly, you merely offered too little. You have to know who you want to be. You can do it. Sure, you can do it. But as soon as you turn your back, what happens? As soon as a job goes wrong? Whatever you do outside the rules, you never know how it might end. And you know exactly how the people around you will react. But if you want to become a man of honor, you got to have rules. Things happen to him. Everybody wants three things: power, pussy, and money. Everybody wants money, even though they go around saying they want something else, or doing things for other people. The rules of the Honored Society are rules for controlling everybody. All you can see, you can have it. With cocaine, you can be whoever you want. If you sniff cocaine, you screw yourself all on your own. The organization gives you rules for moving up in the world. You want to lead a normal life? You want to be worth nothing? All you need to do is not see, not hear. But remember this: In Mexico, where you can do whatever you want, get high, fuck little girls, drive as fast as you like, the only ones who really rule are the ones who have rules. If you do stupid stuff, you got no honor, and if you got no honor, you got no power. The police officer pointed his finger at a particularly worn page of his notebook. How to live, not just how to be a mafioso. How to live. You work, a lot. You have some money, algo dinero. Maybe some beautiful women. But then they leave you, for somebody more handsome, with more dinero than you. You might have a decent life—pretty unlikely—or a shitty life, like everybody else. You can climb mountains with rules of flesh, blood, and money. You might win and you might lose. But on only one condition will you always lose, and in the most painful way possible: if you betray the organization. Whoever tries to go against the Honored Society has no hope of surviving. You can run from the law but not from the organization. Your name will be on the list forever. And nothing can ever erase it. Not time, not money. The police officer closed his notebook. That story really stunned me. But it was strange to hear those same words in New York. To know exactly which piece to move and when. I tossed and turned. It was the whole chain that left me perplexed. The source—the old Italian—I trusted instinctively. And also because his speech was delivered at the right time, to exactly the people who needed to hear it. If those words were true, they signaled a most dreadful turning point. The Italian bosses, the last remaining Calvinists of the West, were training new generations of Mexicans and Latin Americans, the criminal bourgeoisie born of drug trafficking, the most ferocious and hungry recruits in the world. My bed felt like a wooden plank, my room like a cell. I went to my desk and started an e-mail. I would write about it, but first I had to understand more. I wanted to listen to the actual recording. Words no one would utter with such clarity unless he were training people. That speech was an effort to bring Italian organized crime traditions into South American organizations. I got a text. The young man, the informer, had wrapped himself around a tree while driving. End of story. Don Arturo is an elderly gentleman who remembers it all. Arturo tells of how one day a general arrived, dismounted his horse, which seemed incredibly tall but was merely a healthy animal in a land of skinny, arthritic beasts, and ordered that all the gomeros —the peasants who raised opium poppies—be rounded up. Burn all the fields: It was an order. Do it or end up in jail. For ten years. Jail, the gomeros all thought, the sooner the better. Growing grain again was worse than going to jail. The gomeros merely lowered their eyes: Their lands and their poppies would all be burned. Soldiers arrived and dumped diesel fuel on the soil, the flowers, the mule tracks, the paths leading from one estate to another. Arturo told how fields once red with poppies were now stained black with buckets of dark, dense diesel fuel, how a foul smell saturated the air. Bucketfuls of stench. He remembers because it was there that he learned how to recognize courage, and that cowardice tastes of human flesh. The fields caught fire, but slowly. Not a sudden burst of flame, but row by row, fire contaminating fire. Thousands of flowers, stems, and roots catching fire. The peasants all watched, and so did the police and the mayor, the women and the children. A painful spectacle. Then all of a sudden they saw screaming balls of fire come shooting out of the nearby bushes. Living flames, it seemed, leaping and gasping for breath. Flaming rabbits, stray dogs, even a small mule. All on fire. There was nothing to be done. No amount of water can put out diesel flames on flesh, and besides, the land all around was on fire. The gomeros who had gotten drunk while dumping the fuel, they too caught fire. They drank cerveza as they worked, and then fell asleep in the brush. The fire took them, too. They howled a lot less than the animals, staggering around as if the alcohol in their veins were feeding the fire from within. No one went to help them; no one ran over with a blanket. The flames were too fierce. The dog dove into that inferno and came out with two, three, finally six puppies, rolling each one on the ground to put out the flames. Singed, spitting smoke and ashes, covered in sores, but alive. They stumbled after their mother, who walked past the people gazing at the fire. She seemed to look right at each one of them, her eyes piercing the gomeros , the soldiers, and all the other miserable human beings who were just standing there. An animal senses cowardice. And respects fear. Fear is the more vital instinct, and deserves more respect. Cowardice is a choice, fear is a state of mind. That dog was afraid, but she dove into those flames to save her young. Not one man had saved another man. There is no right age for understanding. To him it came early, when he was only eight. And he remembered this truth till he was ninety: Beasts have courage and know what it means to defend life. Men boast about courage, but all they know how to do is obey, crawl, get by. For twenty years there were only ashes where poppies had once grown. Then one day, Arturo recalled, a general came. Another one. He ordered the peasants to become gomeros again, Arturo remembered. Enough with grain, time for poppies again. Drugs again. The United States was preparing for war, and before the guns, before the bullets, tanks, planes, and aircraft carriers, before the uniforms and boots, before everything else, the United States needed morphine. If any of you have been in pain, excruciating pain, you know what morphine is: peace from suffering. Maybe you live in the part of the world that is still fairly tranquil. You know the cries of hospital wards, of women in labor, of the sick, of children who scream and joints that dislocate. Those are real cries, the only ones memory cannot forget. Our memory of sounds is fleeting; memories are linked to actions, contexts. But the cries of war never go away. Veterans and reporters, doctors and career soldiers all wake up to those cries. Only chemistry can stop them, soothe them, only chemistry can lessen the pain. At the sound of those cries, the other soldiers all turn to stone. Nothing is less militaristic than the screams of someone wounded in battle. And so the United States, which needed morphine for war, asked Mexico to increase its opium production, and even helped build a railroad to facilitate transportation. How much opium was needed? As much as possible. Arturo had grown up by then. He was almost thirty, already had four kids. So when the general left, Arturo took the back roads and caught up with him. He would sell a portion of his opium on the black market. The general accepted the proposal in exchange for a hefty cut. Old Arturo is like a sphinx. None of his children are narcos. None of his grandchildren are narcos. None of their wives are narcos. But the narcos respect him because he was the first opium smuggler in the entire area. Arturo went from gomero to broker. He kept it up until the s, and that was only the beginning, because back then most of the heroin that made its way to America was handled by Mexicans. Arturo had become a powerful, well-to-do man. But something ended his activity as opium broker. That something was Kiki. After the Kiki ordeal Arturo decided to go back to growing grain. He abandoned opium and the men who dealt in heroin and morphine. From many years ago. So when his children said they wanted to traffic in coke, just as he had in opium, Arturo realized the time had come to tell them the story of Kiki. Arturo took his children outside the city and showed them a hole, now full of flowers, most of them dried. A deep hole. And he told them the story. As a police officer he tracked smugglers, studied their methods, uncovered their routes, arrested them. He knew everything. He hunted them down. Eventually he would go to their bosses and propose that they organize, but under one condition—that they choose him as their boss. Whoever accepted became part of the organization, whoever preferred to remain independent was free to do so. And later killed. Arturo agreed to join. He got to know personally every inch of every access route into the United States: where you could climb over, where trucks or horses could slip through. Groups that manage coke, coke capital, coke prices, coke distribution. This holds for the legal as well as the illegal economy. The prices in Mexico were decided by only a few drug cartels. El Padrino was considered the Mexican czar of cocaine. Airport bribes were getting so high that he was losing lots of money. And they reached an agreement. The Mexicans would get the coke into the United States. He knew the routes marijuana took—the same ones that opium took—and now cocaine would take them as well. More and more money. The Colombians usually paid cash for each shipment. But after a while, El Padrino realized that currency could depreciate and that cocaine was more profitable: It would be a real coup to distribute it directly in the North American market. So when the Colombian cartel started commissioning more shipments, El Padrino demanded to be paid in goods. Escobar accepted; it even seemed like a better deal. If a shipment was easy to transport, if it could be hidden in trucks or trains, 35 percent of the coke went to the Mexicans. If it was tricky and had to pass through underground tunnels, the Mexicans got 50 percent. The Mexicans went from being transporters to actual distributors. Now it was they who would place the coke with the American organizations, with the bosses, area managers, and pushers. Now the Mexicans could aspire to have a seat at the business table too. That and more. Much more. But El Padrino was clever and understood that it was essential to maintain a low profile. Especially with the whole world watching Escobar, El Magico, and Colombia. So he tried to be prudent. To lead a normal life, to be a leader rather than an emperor. And he paid attention to the details, knew that every move had to be oiled, that every checkpoint, every officer in the area, every mayor of every village they went through had to be paid off. El Padrino knew he had to pay. And—most important—to pay before anyone had time to talk, betray, blab, or offer more. Before he could sell himself to a rival clan or to the police. The police were key. Which is why they found someone who could guarantee their shipments would move smoothly: Kiki. Kiki was a cop who could guarantee impunity from the state of Guerrero to the state of Baja California. From then on, entry into the United States was smooth. Caro Quintero practically worshipped Kiki, and often invited him to his home. That the people who work for you will thrive too. They have to want your business to grow. It seemed that Kiki could bribe everyone, could get everything across the border smoothly. After the umpteenth tractor trailer loaded with Colombian coke and Mexican grass made it over the American border, Kiki was taken to Chihuahua. Over 1, acres of land and something like 10, peasants working it. Every protest movement in the world, from New York to Athens, from Rome to Los Angeles, was characterized by marijuana use. Parties without joints? Political demonstrations without joints? Weed, the symbol of a light buzz, of togetherness and feeling good, of sweet relaxation and friendship. And Kiki agreed. Helicopters rained down soldiers, who ripped up marijuana plants and seized what had already been harvested, entire bales ready for drying and chopping. Even the military planes in the area would notify him before taking off, ask his authorization. No one could understand what happened. The Mexicans must have been pressured by the Americans. The DEA, the U. Caro Quintero and El Padrino were alarmed. The two shared a deep trust; they cofounded the organization that held the monopoly on drug trafficking in Mexico. They asked everyone who worked for them, at every level, to investigate everyone in their pay. Because they should have known about the raid in advance. Normally they were warned if the authorities were going to strike, and they themselves would make sure some drugs were found. A good amount, if the police officer responsible had news cameras with him, or needed to climb the ranks. They would meet somewhere far from his office, in one of the nicer neighborhoods of Guadalajara. Kiki put his badge and pistol in a drawer, left his room, and stepped outside. He went over to his pickup, and five men, three near the engine and two near the bed, pointed pistols at him. Kiki raised his hands, tried to recognize the faces of the men threatening him. He was loaded into a beige Volkswagen Atlantic. Kiki was taken to Lope de Vega Street. He knew the house well, two stories, with a veranda and a tennis court. Kiki was with the DEA. His real name was Enrique Camarena Salazar. He started working in California and then was sent to the Guadalajara branch. He got to thinking about infiltrating, because police operations were merely arresting campesinos, dealers, drivers, killers, little guys, when the real problem was elsewhere. He wanted to get beyond the mechanism of big arrests, spectacular in terms of numbers but insignificant in terms of importance. Between and , when a joint task force of the DEA and Mexico set out to eradicate opium production from the mountains of Sinaloa, there were four thousand arrests, all growers and transporters. Kiki was trying to penetrate deeper and deeper into the Golden Triangle—the states of Sinaloa, Durango, and Chihuahua—a vast marijuana and opium production area. And it was true. But they betrayed him. Very few people knew about the operation, and one of those very few had talked. His kidnappers took him into a room and began torturing him. They had to do an exemplary job. No one was ever to forget how Kiki Camarena was punished for his betrayal. So they recorded it all on tape, because they needed to prove to El Padrino that they had done everything possible to make Kiki spill what he knew. They wanted every word he uttered as he was beaten and tortured to be recorded, so they could catch every clue, even the most insignificant shred of information. At that point anything could turn out to be useful. They wanted to know how much Kiki had already talked and who the other members of his team were. They blindfolded him, tied his hands, and then broke his nose and the bone above his eyes. When he lost consciousness his torturers called a doctor. They washed the blood off and splashed ice water on him, until he came to. Kiki wept from the pain. They asked how the DEA got its information, who gave it to them. They wanted names. But there were no names. They tied electric wires to his testicles and started giving him shocks. The tape records screams and thuds, as his body was hurled in the air by the electric current. The screw entered his skull, piercing flesh and bone, the pain was excruciating. When pain takes hold of your body it generates reactions that are unexpected, unthinkable. Pain makes you say exactly what your torturers want to know. But the most unbearable thing that happens when the pain becomes intolerable is the complete loss of psychological orientation. To trust their logic, their nonexistent pity. The pain makes you lose all judgment, makes you blurt out your deepest fears. It makes you beg for mercy, above all for your family. How could you possibly think that someone capable of burning your testicles or screwing a piece of metal into your head would heed your prayers to spare your family? But Kiki begged anyway, unable to gauge the rest. How could he imagine that his prayers were feeding their hunger for revenge, their savagery? They broke his ribs. One of his torturers lit some charcoal, like they were going to grill a steak. They heated a rod until it was red hot, and then stuck it up his rectum. They raped him with a boiling hot rod. His screams are impossible to listen to; no one can keep from turning off the recorder, from walking out of the room where the tape is played. They tell about the policemen who vomited when they had to draft the report on those nine hours of tapes. Asking for names, addresses, bank accounts. But Kiki was the only one. He had organized the infiltration all by himself, with the consent of a few of his supervisors and the help of a small support unit in Mexico. That was the strength of his undercover operation—he operated alone. They sold out to Caro Quintero. It seemed clear from the start that the Mexican police were involved. Testimonies reveal that the kidnapping was carried out with the help of corrupt police officers in the pay of the Guadalajara cartel. Washington also advised the DEA to let it drop and accept what had happened, since political relations between Mexico and the United States were too important to be compromised over some disappeared agent. They sent twenty-five of their men to Guadalajara to investigate. What ensued was a huge manhunt for Kiki Camarena. El Padrino began to feel suffocated. Touching Kiki had probably been a bad move. And the power of money. They had to make an example out of Kiki. Dumped along the side of a country road. His tortured body was still bound, gagged, and blindfolded. The Mexican government lied, declaring that the body, wrapped in plastic, had been found there by a peasant. But FBI investigations on the soil traces on his skin confirmed that the body had been placed there only later; it had been buried somewhere else first. Buried in that hole where Don Arturo, the elderly opium smuggler, placed flowers, that hole where he took his children. It was his way of explaining what his refusal meant. It was his way of entering the fire and carrying out his puppies. Don Arturo knew he had to have the courage of that dog. A story one might think is marginal, which took place on an unknown, insignificant strip of land. Various testimonies relate that in El Padrino convened all the most powerful Mexican drug lords in a resort in Acapulco. While the world was preparing for the fall of the Berlin Wall, while the past of the cold war, iron curtains, and insuperable borders was being buried, the future of the planet was silently being planned in this city in southwestern Mexico. He divided his territory into zones, or plazas , each entrusted to men with exclusive rights to manage his assigned plaza. Whoever traveled through territory beyond their control had to pay the ruling cartel. In this way, traffickers would no longer enter into conflict over control of strategic areas. But subdividing his territory also presented other advantages. Four years had passed since the Kiki story, and for El Padrino, it was still an open wound. Which is why it was so important to strengthen the chain, to prevent a weak link from bringing the entire organization to its knees. If it was no longer a single unit, the authorities could no longer bring it down in a single blow; the politicians could no longer compromise it if they withdrew their protection or the winds shifted. Investments, market research, competition—all these things provided more work and more opportunities. To put it succinctly, El Padrino was staging a revolution, the significance of which the entire world would soon come to realize: He was privatizing the drug market in Mexico and opening it up to competition. There was no fighting, no melodrama, no comedy. They arrived, parked, and took their places at the table. There were few bodyguards and a menu fit for an important occasion, such as a baptism—the baptism of the new narco power. El Padrino arrived after the others had already started eating. He took his place and proposed a toast. A toast with several glasses, one for each territory to be assigned. Glass in hand, he stood and asked Miguel Caro Quintero to do the same: The Sonora corridor had been assigned to him. After the applause died down, they drank. The division was done; the new world created. Like an ancient Roman emperor who summons his heirs and assigns each of his children a portion of his possessions. El Padrino needed to inaugurate the new era with a sovereign gesture, or needed at least for a story like this to get around. So the drug cartels were born that day, and today, more than twenty years later, they still exist. A new breed of criminal organization, with the means and the power to decide prices and influences, either with some new rule or law decided around a table, or with TNT and thousands of deaths. El Padrino would still supervise the operations: He was the ex-cop, the one with the contacts, so he would still be the point man. Relations between the Mexican and American governments grew increasingly tense. At that point the DEA launched the biggest homicide investigation ever undertaken by the United States up till then. The search for the murderers turned into a manhunt. The American agents followed every possible scent. Five policemen who admitted taking part in the plot to unmask Camarena were arrested. Caro Quintero tried to flee. He, who had always bought everyone, paid a commander of the Federal Judicial Police of Mexico 60 million pesos for safe passage. He managed to get to Costa Rica. In other words, you die in some way. It may seem easy to live somewhere far away, to forge a new identity. Yet to live in hiding is a form of torture that inflicts a psychological pressure few can endure. This was the mistake that allowed the DEA to locate the boss, his house, his new life. They went and got him. All they did was kidnap him, they said. To get to El Padrino they had to isolate the entire network that defended him: politicians, judges, police, and journalists. Many of those who had been paid by the Guadalajara clan to protect El Padrino and his associates were arrested or fired. El Padrino was arrested on April 8, A few years later he was transferred to the El Altiplano high security prison, where he is still serving his forty-year sentence. El Padrino and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo are behind bars, but Caro Quintero is another matter: On August 9, , he was allowed to breathe the fresh air of freedom again. Such quibbles were enough to set one of the biggest Mexican bosses free. But he is still wanted for various federal crimes in the United States, and the U. The Americans want to see him behind bars again, American bars this time. The murder of Kiki Camarena and all that ensued represents a turning point in the fight against Mexican drug trafficking. The level of impunity that the cartels enjoyed was revealed: To kidnap a DEA agent in plain daylight, right outside the U. Kiki had been remarkably insightful: He had understood before anyone else that the structure had changed, that it had become much more than a band of gangsters and smugglers. Kiki witnessed the birth of this unstoppable criminal bourgeoisie. He was more interested in the flow of money than in stopping the killers or dealers. Kiki had understood what the United States has trouble grasping even today: You have to strike at the head. You have to hit the bosses, the big bosses—the limbs merely carry out orders. He had also understood that the producers were weakening compared with the distributors. And they asked people to stop doing drugs in the name of the sacrifice Kiki had made in the war against drugs. In California they organized Red Ribbon Week, a campaign that later spread throughout the country. Before he was arrested, El Padrino had managed to convince the bosses to give up opium in order to concentrate on cocaine coming from South America on its way to the United States. Not that marijuana and opium poppy cultivation have disappeared from Mexico. The decisions made during that meeting in Acapulco a few months before El Padrino was arrested helped the organizations grow, but without the guidance and recognized authority of the boss a fierce territorial dispute broke out among those who were still free. By the early s the cartels had started warring among themselves, a war waged far from any media hype, since very few people believed in the existence of drug cartels. The economic crisis may be destroying democracies, destroying work, destroying hopes, destroying credit, destroying lives. But what the crisis is not destroying, and instead is strengthening, are criminal economies. If you look through the wound of criminal capital, all the vectors and movements appear different. If you ignore the criminal power of the cartels, all the interpretations of the crisis seem based on a misunderstanding. In order to understand it you have to look at this power, stare it in the face, look it right in the eye. It has built the modern world, generated a new cosmos. This was the Big Bang. Coke is a performance-enhancing drug. On coke you can do anything. Coke is the comprehensive answer to the most pressing concern of our day: the absence of limits. Always more. Which is precisely where coke intervenes. That sensation of well-being is triggered by a microscopic drop of a neurotransmitter, which lands right in the synaptic juncture of a cell and stimulates it. That cell then infects the one next to it, and so on and so on, until millions of cells are stimulated, an almost instantaneous swarm. Life lights up. The neurotransmitter has been reabsorbed, the impulses between one cell and the next have been blocked. This is where coke comes in. The neurotransmitters coke is most crazy about, the ones it never wants to do without, are dopamine and norepinephrine. The first allows you to be the center of the party, because everything is so much easier now. The second, norepinephrine, is sneakier. It amplifies everything around you. A glass breaks? You hear it before everyone else. A window slams? Someone calls you? Your fear-alarm responses speed up, your reactions become immediate, no filters. This is paranoia; the door is wide open. It is life cubed. That is, before it consumes you, destroys you. Mexico is the origin of everything. In order to understand cocaine, you have to understand Mexico. On the surface Mexico can seem a place of unending and incomprehensible violence, a land that never stops bleeding. But it also retells a familiar story, a story of rampant civil war, because the warlords are powerful and the forces that should check them are corrupt or weak. As in feudal times, as in the Japan of the samurai and shogun or the tragedies of William Shakespeare. But Mexico is not some distant land that has caved in on itself. It is not some new Middle Ages. Mexico is now, here, and the warlords in question are masters of the most sought after goods in the world, the white powder that brings in more money than the oil wells. The white petrol wells are in the state of Sinaloa, on the coast. But if the student were to answer that way he would get a slap in the face and a black star next to his name. Yet Chinese merchants brought opium to Sinaloa back in the s. Black poison, they called it. And since then, Sinaloa has been full of opium. You can grow opium poppies just about anywhere; they grow wherever grain grows. All they need is the right climate: not too dry, not too humid, no frost, no hail. The Sinaloa cartel is hegemonic. In Sinaloa, drugs provide jobs for everyone. Entire generations have fed themselves thanks to drugs. From peasants to politicians, police officers to slackers, the young and the old. Drugs need to be grown, stocked, transported, protected. In Sinaloa, all who are able are enlisted. It manages a significant slice of U. Sinaloa narcos are present in more than eighty American cities, with cells primarily in Arizona, California, Texas, Chicago, and New York. They distribute Colombian cocaine on the American market. According to the Office of the United States Attorney General, between and the Sinaloa cartel was responsible for the importation and distribution of at least two hundred tons of cocaine, as well as vast quantities of heroin, into the United States. Click to play video. Merchant Video. He is the author of international bestsellers Gomorrah and ZeroZeroZero. In his writings, his articles, his books and his television programs, he uses literature and investigative reporting to tell of the economic reality of the territory and business of the Camorra and of organized crime more generally. Since October 13, , he has lived under police protection. He has collaborated with numerous important Italian and international newspapers. Currently he writes for the Italian publications l'Espresso and la Repubblica. His courageous positions have provoked appeals on his behalf from many important writers and other cultural figures, such as Umberto Eco. Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness. Customers find the book excellent, honest, and well-done. They describe the pacing as poetic and courageous. Opinions are mixed on the information content, with some finding it surprising, insightful, and rich, while others say there's too much detail and it's confusing. AI-generated from the text of customer reviews. They say it's an amazing work of journalism and a truly confronting read. However, I still think it's one of the best books I've read in some time and presents a rare glimpse into the world of international narco As a result this first section is must-read material and the author puts on a clinic in how to write fantastic creative narrative non-fiction Its such an amazing work of journalism Customers find the pacing of the book amazing. They also say the writing reflects the character's courage and is poetic. Best reporting ever read. Good work, really a very good job done! Saviano is an amazing character and his writing reflects his courage , force of human spirit and passion to cover the dark underbelly of what's What a courageous person. I could not put it down. Customers have mixed opinions about the information content. Some find it surprising, insightful, and rich with information they haven't seen before. However, others say the book is boring and confusing at times. It is a little refreshing to learn and heard those stories It is a real eye-opener to seewhat types of crimes these drug cartels commit Purchase options and add-ons. It is hard to find, but it is soft, light, almost impalpable—like the purest, highest quality grade of cocaine. It struck such a nerve with the Camorra that Saviano has had to live under twenty-four-hour police protection for more than eight years. During this time he has come to know law enforcement agencies and officials around the world. The result is a truly harrowing and groundbreaking synthesis of intimate literary narrative and geopolitical analysis of one of the most powerful dark forces in our economy. On the one hand, he charts a remarkable increase in sophistication as these criminal entities diversify into many other products and markets. On the other, he reveals the astonishing increase in the severity of violence as they have fought to protect and extend their power. Report an issue with this product or seller. Previous slide of product details. Print length. Penguin Press. Publication date. July 14, See all details. Next slide of product details. Frequently bought together. Get it as soon as Saturday, Oct To see our price, add these items to your cart. Try again! Added to Cart. Add both to Cart. These items are shipped from and sold by different sellers. Show details Hide details. Choose items to buy together. Customers who viewed this item also viewed. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. Previous set of slides. Roberto Saviano. I'm Still Alive. Naples ' Norman Lewis. John Dickie. Next set of slides. Saviano writes in a hybrid style that mixes rants and research, narrative and analysis, novelistic flourishes and confessional musings…. Saviano—who already lives under police protection after writing an expose of the Naples mafia—digs deep into the world of cartels, money laundering, and brutal violence to paint an insanely realistic picture of the drug trade. By reminding readers of the senseless suffering wrought by the cocaine trade, this book makes a powerful case for a new approach. Indeed, when he revisits his work on Naples — the city where he was brought up and from which he is now excluded — his reflections soar into the realm of the poetic. But for me, most important of all is the hope Saviano gives to countless victims of criminal violence by standing up to its perpetrators, especially those from his home country. This is an epic account of how the modern cocaine trafficking business came to be and how widespread, how impenetrable, and how intertwined with international commerce and politics—and our everyday lives—it is. This overview of the cocaine industry will be important for legal and criminal collections. Saviano describes the complexities of money laundering, how world banks help make it possible, and the many ways in which drugs are smuggled: in paintings, handcrafted doors, frozen fish, and more. Throughout, the author provides vivid stories of the lives of well-known drug bosses and their minions. Saviano says he can no longer look at a beach or a map without seeing cocaine, and many will share that view after reading this dark, relentless, hyperreal report. His eventual and surprising conclusion—that cocaine legalization is the only reasonable solution to the problem of trafficking—will generate controversy. Roberto Saviano was born in Naples in Virginia Jewiss received her PhD in Italian literature from Yale University, where she is a lecturer in the humanities. All rights reserved. Was that question for me? I searched for the right answer. It seemed like a university seminar for aspiring bosses. What was this? Read more. Brief content visible, double tap to read full content. Full content visible, double tap to read brief content. Page 1 of 1 Start Over Page 1 of 1. Previous page. Videos for this product Click to play video. Next page. About the author Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations. Read more about this author Read less about this author. Customer reviews. How customer reviews and ratings work Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them. Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon. Customers say. Select to learn more. Readability Pacing Information content. Images in this review. Reviews with images. See all photos. All photos. To dismantle general denial about the levels of popular drug use, the author takes us through a catalog of who in our lives is using cocaine. And I have to admit, when the idea that everyone uses cocaine was introduced, I laughed. I mean, it sounds absurd. No one I know uses cocaine, I thought. Then he takes you through the list of people you casually know, and the people they know, and the people who work at the businesses where those people get their dry cleaning done. And then you realize: I have no idea if any of these people use cocaine. Going through the numbers Mr. Saviano presents, you see that somebody is doing all this cocaine. The alternative is to believe that there's a vast oversupply of cocaine all over the world, being produced and trafficked, but not bought. We know that is not true. So people really are using this drug, and heroin, to the extent the author asserts. It is really tough to internalize, though. And that no one I come into contact with knows anyone who does, either. I comfort myself in thinking that the purchasers of this drug are all those people, those other, vacuous, soulless suburban types who watch tv every night. Of course, I watch tv every night too, but somehow everyone I know is different from these cocaine-purchasers who are tacitly destroying the world. Or propping up the international banking system with liquidity, if Mr. Saviano is to be believed. Its delivery system, innovations in transport, sea shipping, hidden in fruit imports, are interesting as well as plausible. Zero Zero Zero is well-researched and a well-told story. The detailed recounting of modern drug-dealing history is impressive and depressing at the same time. But at the end of it, certain conclusions pull at my sleeves: People do drugs. People always will try to sell drugs to the people who do drugs. Successful sellers of drugs are always murdered. Zero Zero Zero is quite the eye-opener about how heroin and cocaine find its way around the world. No doubt there. But the book never takes a step back from all the blood to analyze the entire system. Demand Demand DemandMr. Saviano details the supply part of the illegal drug business insightfully. It is interesting, though, that he ignores other side of the economic equation: demand for drugs. Maybe the problem is that people do drugs. For it is the demand for cocaine and heroin that spurs all this other illegal activity. Eloquent descriptions of the history and shifts in drug cartels and their methods are informative. It is even skin-crawling at times. But the primary engine of all this destruction is never addressed: people want to do drugs. Is it Mr. Saviano's contention that the fight against this corruption can only take place through supply side attacks? In reading this book, it becomes clear that demand is the only thing can be attacked in this War on Drugs. And yet, demand is not written about at all. It is the cause and the reason for every bloody act described in the book, and nothing is said about its role in stopping the overall system. Victorian Street Gangs Ruled LondonAn historical look at other invasive crime syndicates would have been helpful. After all, there were criminal gangs before. Did they last for thousands of years to continue to feed off the misery of others? They fell. How did that happen? A detailed listing of gory crimes does little to enlighten the reader, and only convinces me more that I should never become a drug dealer. Of course, the rebuttal will be that this is the beginning of a truly worldwide criminal enterprise. If year-old Chinese pottery shards can be found at the Londontown archeological dig in Maryland, United States, globalism has been with us for a very long time. The Cost of TruthRoberto Saviano confesses his personal and emotional journey for this truth-telling, asking himself why would he do this, subject his wife and family to stress and worry, and possible danger themselves. He discusses the reality of being under police protection 24 hours a day for years as a result of his reporting on organized crime in Italy. And yet he cannot stop looking and telling us about it. And his research is thorough. It starts in the Eighties and explains how the Columbian cartels were displaced by Mexican ones, the trans-Atlantic alliances for the shipment of Columbian cocaine, and how American demand for illegal drugs feeds this violent and awful business. I can relate to truth-telling as a role and a duty, but have never made the sacrifices of Roberto Saviano. He must love his country very much to sear truth into its skin at such a cost. Cocaine BankingHearing the hopelessness in the author's words, the reader could reasonably start feeling a little depressed themselves. The story is presented as a fait accompli. There is no going back now, we are all under the thumb of illegal crime lords who are using their cash to prop up post-Great Recession banks and small businesses that require a boost in these economic times. Rather than a catalog of torment, the author could have looked to the weaknesses in the system. Instead, all the reader is left with is stomach pains and a dull wish for death. Aside from that, this blood-dripping tale offers no solution, no hope. So this humble blogger will put up her interpretation for the way forward. Cheer Up, Mr. The book is excruciating in its descriptions of the role of illegal drug profits in a post cash-strapped banking system. The facade of our financial system is held together by the raw cash of illegal drug sales, it argues. I am not in a position to dispute that, and will not bother. Even if true, Mr. Saviano still has reason to hope. See, I know something about these upper class types of international finance and banking. Not as one of them, but better, as one who worked for them. I can assure Mr. Saviano the this current system of reliance on the liquidity of drug money will not last beyond its need. When the international economy gets its footing again, the uber-elites will turn and cut the throats of the thugs whose money they happily take now. And probably keep their money, too. It will be done as it always is, through law enforcement. In exchange for cooperation, banking leaders will be allowed to go on banking, and the drug dealers and producers will be either dead or in prison. American prison. So I do not lose hope, and ask Mr. Saviano that he not lose hope either. In America, the toughest, meanest gang is the middle class. And they always win in the end. The thugs are being used, lured into a belief of their power. Instead, they are like a cat on a bed, preening and unaware they are about to be thrown to the floor. But for the now, for the minute, they think they are in charge. I debated before writing out this balm, believe me, Roberto. Why warn them? Then I realized it didn't matter. They were already dead. More Hide. Thank you for your feedback. Sorry, there was an error. Sorry we couldn't load the review. Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews. Top reviews from the United States. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Verified Purchase. I suppose one can criticize the book for being a bit unwieldy. I could also take issue with Saviano's overarching theme that cocaine is what makes the world economic and otherwise go 'round, as that's clearly an overstatement. However, I still think it's one of the best books I've read in some time and presents a rare glimpse into the world of international narco trafficking. It should be nearly impossible to have anything but great respect for Saviano's willingness to go deeply into worlds few others have ever been brave enough to enter, and to do so to such an extent that he himself has become a target of those he writes about. I can't imagine this book has lightened that personal load any. Perhaps the most effective thing 'Zero Zero Zero' adds to the discussion of this subject is the way in which various organized crime groups have partnered not always successfully or without bloodshed, of course to make the cocaine trade increasingly efficient over time. There are great books on the rise of cartels in Latin America and others including one Saviano wrote himself on Italian organized crime, as well as groups from other parts of the world. I'm not sure there is another book in recent years which connects the dots between them the way this one does, however, and ultimately that's probably its greatest contribution to the discussion. It is a little refreshing to learn and heard those stories. How little did I know that cocaine is really basically penetrating the entire lives of everybody! I think the author hit many right bells about the people who revolve around the cocaine industry. My only disappointment would be near the end! Where things seem to be more murky and good enough to wrap the book up. What I like is the breadth, depth and scalding truth of this work of magnitude. I like the brilliant depictions of the historic figures who include so many who are captured in all their gruesome , deathly real death-dealings and strangely, life struggles that capture one's attention and interest m even when sympathy is impossible. I like the detailed historical sweep and tie-ins with eras of recent and occasionally even ancient history. I like the individuals being shown in their relational family framework, and as they as they evolve, or at times entropize, in their larger cross-cultural identities, some of which involve geographically diverse aliases and disguises. What I do not like are the young people's foolish and uncontrasted , anti-capitalist politics that are shallow and basically unbalanced and mis-ascribed condemnation screeds of a misunderstood economic system mixed up with a political, criminal, philosophical and historical catastrophe that is causative by itself and by the low expectations for human potential that characterize much of the millennial writings by young people indoctrinated rather than educated and enlightened by their studies. I doubt very much that we can change the situation that has caused this incrredibly brave young man's exile from the country he loves most and from a life he had only begun to live when he made the choice to make a difference through the pen instead of the sword. But somehow in here too, I wonder how personal is his appreciation of the poison of cocaine and wther or not he has an exual knowledge of healig and rcovery and sublimation, for he has a vast knowledge of nihilis, injustice, and the worst kinds pf hman savagery. One thing for sure. The wirter-researcher-hero's life he leads is not one of the millions wasted. Riveting and grotesque. This is a gripping ride that opens your eyes to those who wield true power in this world. It is not for the faint hearted or for those who wish to exist within the safe little bubble we believe to be reality. It is gruesome and gut retching in the descriptions of how despicably the monsters, that the war on drags has created, operate. Reading this book is as addictive as it's subject matter and at times is not a pleasant experience. You'll finish it to find that it touched the inner core of your being and you will never look at the world in the same way again. It'll give you the drive that no self help book could ever achieve. See more reviews. Top reviews from other countries. Translate all reviews to English. Report Translate review to English. For those who trust everything their government tells them, this book will be an 'eye-opener'. For those who pay even slightest attention to economic and political goings on, this book, once again, will confirm their suspicions that our entire financial system has become corrupt to the core. As much as I would love to see full legalisation of all narcotics, and end to mass criminality in our society, this is hardly going to happen for as long as we have welfare state. I wish the writer many years of health and prosperity, and look forward to his next book. I wholeheartedly recommend you read his book entitled Gomorrah as well as his other works. This is a very good book well written and well placed it is a frightening glimpse into a world thankfully most of us never see but very sad because it will never change to much money involved and too many powerful people. Libro intatto e perfetto. Peccato che l'ho preso in inglese e l'ho restituito. Arrivato in 12 ore. Grande Amazon. It revealed a dark side to drug trafficking which was compelling to read. It was a philosophical interpretation of this hidden world, that should not be dismissed. The hope in the end was to be more informed as a reader and to suggest ideas for reform, which was insightful. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations. Back to top. Get to Know Us. Make Money with Us. Amazon Payment Products. Let Us Help You. Amazon Music Stream millions of songs. Amazon Ads Reach customers wherever they spend their time. Sell on Amazon Start a Selling Account. 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