I Am the Market: How to Smuggle Cocaine by the Ton, in Five Easy Lessons [Hardcover]

Luca Rastello (Author), Jonathan Hunt (Translator)

Book Description

Release date: March 1, 2011

A page-turning account of the international cocaine trade, presented as five lessons in how to move tons of the drug across borders

Forget about cocaine concealed in false-bottomed suitcases or swallowed in ovules resistant to gastric juices. When entire national economies are kept afloat by the money from cocaine smuggling, the quantities these tactics represent are meaningless. When a commodity like cocaine becomes a mainstay of the international economy, grams and kilos are irrelevant. Because what is needed to sustain the market is cocaine by the ton.

Tons of cocaine means ships, cargo planes, and containers: large, cumbersome, extremely tangible, and visible amounts of white powder. So how is all that merchandise moved through harbors and airports? How are customs offices deceived, fiscal checks eluded, police networks infiltrated, and documents prepared to disguise mountains of cocaine?

It’s done with coca made into cubes, dissolved in liquid, hidden in marble blocks or inside electric cables. With friends in the right places. With cocaine smuggled in cranes. With sniffer dogs supplied to the police, free of charge. With money in cash, always. And yes, with willing mules swallowing drugs. But they will be arrested, and that’s part of the plan.

Drawing from years of research and conversations with criminal sources and convicted drug smugglers, with new information on the techniques, methods, and strategies used, Luca Rastello brings us a devastating portrait of the international cocaine trade. Told from the perspective of the formidable entrepreneurs whose tactics evolve and adapt to keep pace with shifts in the global economy, I Am the Market is a masterful exposé of a world we thought we understood—until now.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

If La Repubblica journalist Rastello�s account of today�s cocaine trade has an overly Italian bent, or if his central conceit often distracts�he tells the tale in the wise-guy voice of an apparent composite of smugglers he met�this is still a compelling, credible explanation of cocaine�s clout in the global economy, how and where it is produced, and how it is distributed. For anyone connected to the trade, creativity is key, from expanding the growing areas of the coca leaf to diabolical ways of transporting the drug (as a paste inside electric cable, or by soaking clothes in it for later removal) and moving the cash used to pay for it. There might be a wickedly vicarious thrill to reading this story, but Rastello�s narrator was caught in the end. More important, the trade as an issue can only be genuinely engaged when it is understood, and for that, readers have Rastello to thank. --Alan Moores

Review

“Darkly fascinating . . . this nameless coke-smuggling heavy has a jaundiced eye and a keen wit. I Am the Market is a glass-bottomed boat on what the Narrator calls a ‘sea of cocaine’ . . . Part Smithian-liberal treatise (if only the government wouldn't interfere . . . ), part Marxian analysis (the disenfranchised retaking the means of production . . . ), it presents an astute, jaded look at the political economy, in both macro and micro terms, of one of the world's most valuable substances.” —Brian Thomas Gallagher, The Observer

“Most of the people smuggling cocaine today don't even know they're doing it, especially if the cocaine has been disguised using one of the ingenious methods that The Market describes: dissolving powder in water and trapping it between panes of glass, for instance, or smearing it as paste over a consignment of fashionably crusty blue jeans . . . I Am the Market overflows with this kind of juicy tidbit. The notorious practice of having drug ‘mules’ swallow ovules of cocaine wrapped in condoms, he explains, is usually a diversion technique: While customs officers are posing on the evening news with half a kilo of product seized from some poor soul's intestines, the real shipment of maybe half a ton passes through the airport unmolested . . . Many of The Market's revelations will lend ammunition to anyone who thinks that the War on Drugs is a boneheaded exercise in waste and futility.” —Bruno Maddox, The Wall Street Journal

“Luca Rastello, a longtime observer of the criminal economy as a journalist and think-tank director, allows a very experienced Italian ‘sistemista’—a cagey contractor who transports tons of cocaine for cartels—to explain how it works. Rastello opens the book with a quick overview, and then hands the narration over to the unnamed sistemista. He is brilliant, and his voice, replete with all the bombast, ego, and lust for adventure one would expect of a globe-trotting career criminal, is what makes the book such a compelling and informative read.” —Jesse Singal, The Boston Globe

“A thrilling ride . . . The inside story on upper-tier cocaine smuggling is one that has been begging to be told. This one, the account of an anonymous smuggler known as Mr. Market, told to Italian journalist Luca Rastello, is brazen, defiant and brilliant.” —Tom Feiling, The Telegraph

“This is quite simply the best book about cocaine that we have read in the last ten years.” —Maxim

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber; Tra edition (March 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865479496
• ISBN-13: 978-0865479494
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #525,966 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Poorly Written - Lacks Cohesion and Clarity August 21, 2011

By Christopher A Gorski

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

As a software engineer interested in unorthodox approaches to problems, I thought this book would provide insight into how drug dealers solve the problem of distributing their goods through highly unreliable channels. Unfortunately, the little information this book provided was obfuscated by bad writing, odd and poorly expressed political and social commentary, and a general lack of organization.

Readers not caring about gaining any practical knowledge but looking for an entertaining read will be disappointed by an almost stream-of-consciousness approach that might make even the most superficial reader lose interest. It is as if the author interviewed one or more individuals and merely concatenated their interview responses without doing any editing or reorganization.

I gave this book two stars because there were tidbits of interesting information throughout.

4.0 out of 5 stars A bit less that what I expected January 6, 2013

By Pablo Zavaleta

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Interesting but a little "light" for my liking.

I was expecting a little bit more of "meat"

I bought it to use it as complementary material in my logistics course here in Bolivia (I don't think that it's necessary to mention Bolivia's place in the value chain for cocaine?). Some concepts/ideas where worthwhile but, with reality being what it is, it fell short.

Great as an introduction to the topic (I haven't been able to find any other source as complete as this book).

5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal Book December 27, 2012

By Don (MathCelebrity.com)

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book cuts to the essence of human nature, ingenuity, and outside the box thinking. It also lets the world know what is really going on behind the scenes with respect to smuggling.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing - doesn't deliver as promised January 15, 2013

By R. Ellison

Format:Hardcover

The title of this book is misleading - "I am the Market - How to Smuggle Cocaine, by the ton, in Five Easy Lessons." There is some useful information, but you have to read a lot of overwritten stories about the author or his source and his drug dealer friends that aren't particularly interesting. We know they like to party and have a lot of whores around (one of the author's favorite words). The useful information that I did glean is that big time dealers are ingenious in their skills at hiding lots of kilos in legitimate cargo, like, in the author's case, high quality tiles, granite and marble, and getting it past customs. And the biggest players in the game may be an obscure (to me) tribe of Indians in South America.

2 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing, entartaining, instructive April 18, 2011

By Oliver

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

A very down-to-earth synopsis of current geopolitical map in regard to drugs. It is a short vojage of a creative thinker in one of the most challenging form of market. Highly recommended for a nice leisure reading.