Read Cocaina: A Book on Those Who Make It for Free Online

a place where anything can be bought, and as long as you have the right name, the right skin colour, and a solid bank account, there is little to fear — at least from the authorities. With their strong ties in patriarchal and feudal tradition, and a cultural perception that they were out of reach of the law, the regions involved in the marimba boom did at times foster extreme, sometimes reckless, arrogance in young white men from wealthy families. Among los marimberos , this reckless abandon — combined with the intoxicating feeling of riding the wave of the boom — became a sort of brazen disregard, which at times even extended across national boundaries. Juan Miguel Retal, a young man from Santa Marta’s upper class, flew his DC-6 loaded with marijuana to Jetmore, Kansas, where he landed on a five-kilometre stretch after his partner blocked off road traffic by staging fake truck accidents at both ends. Retal was arrested and his bail set at one million US dollars, but he just paid up and flew home to Santa Marta, laughing all the way.
    As early as 1978, however, the marimba bonanza was beginning to subside, once again along the lines of what would later become a pattern. The United States had discovered connections between marijuana smugglers and Julio C é sar Turbay, López Michelsen’s successor as Colombian president, and in an effort to redeem the Colombian government’s credibility after the White House started questioning its anti-drug ambitions, Turbay stepped up military efforts significantly. He launched a drug-eradication campaign, and marijuana crops were destroyed, processing plants bombed, and export boats and aircraft seized. Meanwhile, US domestic cultivation was quickly gaining momentum, as new and more resistant strains of cannabis were being developed. A variety called sinsemilla spread quickly in the United States, since it could be grown just about anywhere, including in small spaces such as balconies, and cultivation manuals soon became widely available. With the coinciding of these events, the Colombian marijuana business lost profits.
    But by now, canny drug entrepreneurs were already aware of the fatal side of Colombia. The marimba bonanza had uncovered a complete and, for their purposes, very expedient system: a finely woven fabric of poverty, racism, impunity, corruption, and petty drug lords that, when combined with the strategic geographical location, was perfect for the production of illegal goods. Colombia, it transpired, was skilful at adapting quietly to whatever whimsical impulse came from the apparently insatiable drug markets up north. During the marimba rush, smugglers had begun weighing, rather than counting, the dollars. Moreover, the emergence of a new army of vigilant drug pioneers, all with noses for profit, coincided with an equally new drug that was just starting to become fashionable in wealthy living rooms around the world. It was the 1980s, a decade characterised by prosperity and yuppiedom, and in the coming years, one product, one city, and one man would come into global focus, and the nation of Colombia — and the rest of the world — would never be the same again.
    THE CITY OF Medellín stretches across a green valley, from the point where the western and central mountain ranges converge into a massive arrow pointing towards the Caribbean. A ring of mountains encircles the city’s downtown skyscrapers, and in the north and the west shantytowns dot the hillsides like scattered shards of broken tiles. The metropolitan area of El Poblado, one of the districts in the south, has a great deal in common with the nicer parts of Los Angeles: SUVs cruise down city blocks lined with lustrous buildings, culminating in a commercial maze of banks, boutiques, and restaurants. Streams of water ripple through the neighbourhood, and here and there coconut trees provide passers-by with just the right amount of shade from the eternally beating sun. Paul Thoreson, a 33-year-old