"Drug Lord is the real thing. Raw. Immediate. Indispensable." -- Don Winslow
"The drug smuggling business goes on, the slaughtered dead pile up, the U.S. agencies continue to ratchet up their budgets, the prisons grow larger and all the real rules of the game are in this book, some kind of masterpiece." -- Charles Bowden
Also available from Barnes & Noble and wherever books are sold.
TAKE A LOOK at this new and important book by former federal drug agent David Regela about our lawless border with Mexico, now undergoing a virtual migrant invasion along with the usual massive smuggling of dangerous drugs. The author came […]
El zar de la droga es la biografía de Pablo Acosta, narco mexicano que contruyó uno de los más poderosos imperios en la historia del narcotráfico mundial. También es la historia de la corrupción, violencia sin límite y opulencia del […]
Donald Trump wants to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, and he vowed to do so if he became president of the United States. The wall, he argued, will stop the flow of drugs into the country […]
This book came about because of the kidnapping of an American newspaper photographer by a Juarez drug trafficker, a brutal and unprecedented event that caused an international scandal and brought about the downfall of one of the major drug traffickers […]
This book could function as an owner’s manual for the Mexican drug cartels. Here we find the first good description of the plaza — that arrangement where the Mexican government seeks a partner to supervise all criminal activity in a […]
TAKE A LOOK at this new and important book by former federal drug agent David Regela about our lawless border with Mexico, now undergoing a virtual migrant invasion along with the usual massive smuggling of dangerous drugs. The author came to the border just as drug trafficking exploded with the arrival of tons of Colombian cocaine. He stood his ground against a seeming wall of smugglers who took advantage of our poorly guarded border to bring in harmful drugs. Regela arrested many of them, sending them off to jail to serve often long sentences. Against the Wind is an exciting account of his work, and an eye-opener about the ever-worsening state of our border with Mexico.
From the Amazon book page for Against the Wind:
Pablo Acosta and Amado Carrillo-Fuentes have become infamous . . . but the agents who risk everything to stop the drug lords remain in obscurity. Now, Agent David Regela exposes the shocking truth about the real enemies in the war on drugs.
As a new federal agent for the U.S. Customs Service, David Regela was eager to help stabilize the situation along the southern border. On the front lines in this lawless territory, his survival depended on quick reflexes and even faster thinking. At any moment, he might be in an Old West–style gunfight or deep undercover within a multimillion-dollar drug operation.
During his career, Regela’s courageous contributions resulted in several noteworthy successes. Award-winning journalist Charles Bowden (Down by the River) names Regela the only undercover agent to get close to Amado Carrillo-Fuentes, the fabled Lord of the Skies. Regela also interacted extensively with Mexican warlord Pablo Acosta.
But success came at a price. Corrupt, self-serving agents within various U.S. agencies benefited by perpetuating the war on drugs, and Regela became the target of an unethical internal investigation designed to arrest him.
He would have to choose between his career and his integrity.
Regela’s fascinating account provides an inside look at how the war on drugs has created a killing field along the border today. Against the Wind is a must-read for citizens seeking to be more informed about this volatile region.
[AMAZON]
El zar de la droga es la biografía de Pablo Acosta, narco mexicano que contruyó uno de los más poderosos imperios en la historia del narcotráfico mundial. También es la historia de la corrupción, violencia sin límite y opulencia del infernal mundo de los narcotraficantes.
Acosta convirtió a Ojinaga, Chihuahua, en el mayor depósito de cocaina del mundo occidental, desde donde abastecía la demanda de toda la Unión Americana. El zar de la droga revela los orígenes de este poderoso delinquente, su ascenso, contactos, métodos de intimidación, forma de operar y sus crímenes.
El zar de la droga es un reportaje periodístico absolutaments cierto e impresionante que a usted lo estremecerá.
LO QUE DICEN LOS PERIODICOS INFLUYENTES DE EL ZAR DE LA DROGA
Get the Spanish version from Amazon.com
“Terrence E. Poppa es un periodista de primera línea que ha examinado a conciencia los testimonios de traficantes agentes de narcóticos y policías, para documentar el ascenso y la caída de uno de los mas célebres narcotraficantes, Pablo Acosta.” —Wall Street Journal
“Poppa ha causado conmoción con su descripción de las convenciones utilizadas en la industria del narcotráfico. Ha penetrado sus secretos.” —Dallas Morning News
“Poppa es un talentoso narrador con clara visión para el detalle. Indagó en la realidad del tráfico de drogas . . . y nos cuenta lo que encontró.” —Albuquerque Journal
“Terrence Poppa ha realizado un increíble reportaje de investigación. Esta es la verdadera frontera: cruda, sangrienta, siempre cambiante y siempre intrigante. La historia de Poppa lo estesmecerá . . . y todo en ella es la verdad.” —Elaine Shannon, autora de Desperados, Los narcotraficantes latinoamericanos, los legisladores estadounidneses y la guerra que Estados Unidos no puede ganar.
Donald Trump wants to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, and he vowed to do so if he became president of the United States. The wall, he argued, will stop the flow of drugs into the country as well as impede the illegal entry of people across the border. Whether Trump is right or wrong about the need for a wall is a matter of fierce debate that will only grow in intensity now that he is president.
What cannot be disputed, however, is that there is a huge volume of drugs coming across the border, no different than in the past. There is also a greater influx of people coming now from all parts of the world than ever before. Who are these people? What is their motive for entering the United States?
Another matter than is beyond dispute is that smuggling activities related to drugs and people are controlled by organized crime groups, and to some extent organized crime is controlled by agencies of the government of Mexico. Read more »
This book came about because of the kidnapping of an American newspaper photographer by a Juarez drug trafficker, a brutal and unprecedented event that caused an international scandal and brought about the downfall of one of the major drug traffickers of the time.
Until the kidnapping, I didn’t have much interest in the subject of drugs. Drug trafficking was part of the background noise of the El Paso-Juarez region where I worked as a reporter. It was low keyed even in its violence; it did not draw too much attention to itself. My journalistic work, which had begun for the El Paso Herald-Post in 1984, focused primarily on reporting on a political movement in northern Mexico that was challenging the entrenched one-party system that had ruled Mexico since 1929. Juarez, the largest city in the state of Chihuahua, was the scene of what today would be called a “color” revolution — a democratic movement that used tactics of non-violent resistance to achieve its goals. Such a revolution was unfolding only ten blocks south of the newspaper, just on the other side of the Rio Grande. Read more »
This book could function as an owner’s manual for the Mexican drug cartels. Here we find the first good description of the plaza — that arrangement where the Mexican government seeks a partner to supervise all criminal activity in a city. And how to maintain discipline by killing everyone connected to a lost load lest a traitor survive. And also the history of the shift of power from Colombia to Mexico, when American efforts hampered the pathways in Florida and made Mexico the trampoline for cocaine shipments into the U.S. markets.
I remember in the mid-nineties paying fifty dollars for a copy of Drug Lord in a used bookstore in El Paso and being damned happy to get my hands on it.
Terrence Poppa was a reporter for the El Paso Herald-Post. In the eighties, he captured the rise and fall of Pablo Acosta in Ojinaga, the border town across from Presidio, Texas. By that act, he wrote the history of the key moment when flights of cocaine from Columbia entered the Mexican economy. He interviewed the players, got down their life histories and made the indelible point that the people written off by their own country as ill-educated bumkins were creative and were turning power on its head in the nation. Acosta’s slaughter by Mexican comandante Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni, with the help of the FBI, ended this kind of access. Since then, becoming famous and talking to the press — which Acosta did — has been seen as a fatal decision. And since then, the Mexican drug industry has become a source of thirty to fifty billion dollars of foreign currency a year for the Mexican economy — second only to oil, and now the oil fields of Mexico are collapsing. Read more »
White Goddess is the title of Chapter 21 of Drug Lord, and it is about Pablo Acosta’s addiction to crack cocaine, an addiction that he was unable to shake off and that contributed to his downfall.
Pablo Acosta had been using cocaine off and on for some time, but until 1984 he had only snorted it. Though he was by then a big-league marijuana and heroin trafficker, even he at times had trouble getting enough cocaine for personal use. In desperation, he would call Sammy Garcia from Ojinaga with a coded message that his help was needed. “Traeme dos novias vestidas de blanco—Bring me a couple of brides dressed in white” was coded language instructing Sammy to bring two ounces of cocaine. Becky had her own source in El Paso, so getting Pablo what he wanted was never impossible provided he was willing to wait a few days.
In 1984, one of drug lord’s brothers introduced him to crack cocaine smoked a la mexicana—crack laced cigarettes. They were made by pulling out strands of tobacco from the end of an unfiltered cigarette, then using the empty end as a shovel to scoop up a fraction of a gram of powdered crack. After twisting the end into a wick and tapping the cigarette so that the powder settled into the tobacco, Pablo would pass a butane lighter underneath the cigarette to vaporize the powder and then take a long draw. Within seconds the drug was circulating in his brain, bringing with it the feelings of supra-humanity he had begun to crave. Read more »
The following are highlights from a DEA report entitled The Pablo Acosta Organization, a report based primarily on investigations carried out by U.S. Customs Service agents in the Presidio, Texas, area:
There has been a continuous increase in the trafficking of Mexican heroin, cocaine, and marijuana into the United States from Mexico over the last few years. Many fields of opium poppies were found and destroyed in Coahuila and Chihuahua in 1984. However, the production of opium is expected to rise in 1985. Mexican opium is converted directly into heroin in Mexico and is usually smuggled across the southern border.
There has also been a noticeable increase in the smuggling of cocaine through Mexico, with significant quantities of cocaine produced in South America crossing the southwest border, and although the largest worldwide marijuana seizure to date occurred in the state of Chihuahua in November 1984, it is believed that there are major quantities still available. The amount of marijuana seized along the U.S.-Mexico border has more than tripled in the last year. Recent seizures of very high-grade marijuana tops suggests the existence of very large stockpiles still in Mexico. Read more »
May 29th, 2023 