by Terrence E. Poppa
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Product Description
During the last years of his violent life, Pablo Acosta smuggled a staggering 60 tons of cocaine a year into the United States-one third of the total U.S. consumption. Set only miles from the Texas border, Drug Lord is an extraordinary inside look at how drug trafficking really works in Mexico. Based on interviews with Acosta and other insiders, Poppa weaves a tale of the smuggler's rise from humble beginnings, his violent struggle to maintain control over his empire, the treachery and over-indulgence that fostered his downfall, and his grisly death at the hands of the judiciales, the Mexican federal police he had been paying off for years and who turned against him when he was no longer of use.
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Illicit History, 2008-06-15
It is interesting to me very informative. In candle wax traffic to other illicit products. I like the cover as well as the whole story. This book has the lord of the skies, Mr.Fuentes in his coffin as well. For me it is a very special book.
2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
 UN ESCRITOR CON POCO CONOCIMIENTO DEL TEMA, 2007-01-30
quisiera referirme al epilogo la pagina 357 para ser exactos en esta pagina el escritor le llama a mexico un pais que tiene envidia a EEUU por sus logros.... y que por eso los mexicanos traficamos droga.
para el escritor:
By now everyone has accepted that the fact that as long as there's demand,there will always be supply, and that whenever one supplier goes down, another inevitably rises up to fill the void.
SUPPLY AND DEMAND-the bedrock principle of economics- thus ensures that the endless war on drugs will continue until EEUU stop using drugs...
si sabes tanto escritor porque ocultas la verdad?????. benjamin(sinaloense)
6 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
Right on the money!, 2006-10-24
After serving in the Border Patrol in the west Texas area for the last ten years, Poppa's book is the most realistic I have read to date. I get frustrated reading many books, especially when they start blaming the US for Mexico's problems. This books explains clearly corruption in the Mexican system, how it came about, and why it will probably never go away. It also demonstrates how ridiculious our politicians can be in attempting to deal with a government built on and run by corruption.
The story of Pablo is great, but you could just change the name and it would fit many of the other King Pins out there and their lives too. Mexico relishes and charishes Drug Lords as heroes, and that is a fact.
Question? When you have that many millions of people crossing into the United States illegally that have accepted corruption as the way things are done, what will that eventually do to our society?
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
 great read, flawed conclusion, 2006-01-03
In Drug Lord, Terrence Poppa manages to capture all the elements that a book about America's War on Drugs should have: engrossing, multidimensional heroes and villains, clearly-defined connections between the men and women who move oceans of narcotics across the Rio Grande and the larger governmental interests on both sides of the border that profit, one way or the other, from the trade, and guns, guns, guns. Drug Lord was an engrossing read, which I happened to read while touring the Big Bend area of West Texas. The book had such an impact on me that I made a 100-mile detour to visit Ojinaga, the stage where Pablo Acosta made his rise from dirt-poor campesino to mafia kingpin. Although Ojinaga today does its best to disassociate itself, at least to outsiders, from Acosta's legacy (even this pinche gringo knew better than to walk into a cantina and start asking questions), many of the tangible remnants of the bad old days Poppa describes, such as the smuggler's trucks with questionable propane tanks in the bed and houses surrounded by 12 foot-high cinderblock walls, are still readily visible. Although the book succeeds as narrative and will satisfy anyone interested in the drug war, the conclusion that Poppa comes to can be summed up in one sentence: it is all Mexico's fault. True, the Mexican government is rotten to the core, and six years under Vicente Fox doesn't seem to have changed much. But any honest examination of the War on Drugs must acknowledge the fact that Acosta and those who have come before and after him are only supplying a demand created by Americans; if the Mexicans don't sate that demand, then the Colombians will, and if the Colombians don't sate it, then the Cosa Nostra, or the Russians, and so on and so forth. I found Poppa's willingness to foster the blame for an unwinnable war on the shoulders of a country that has lost so much fighting a conflict whose victory will primarily benefit Americans to be a sad and myopic conclusion to an otherwise great book. Readers wanting an equally-engrossing but more balanced read should try Charles Bowden's Down By The River, about the Amado-Fuentes organization.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Great Book, 2005-04-15
I've read the book and it is everything my friends told me it was. In the book Comandante Oscar Prieto is one of my friend's dad. The author gives good detail of the story of Pablo because i've heard a lot of true stories which are in the book, and of course a lot that aren't. I have family in Ojinaga and you still have the same business going on, but a lot of people from the town don't worry about it. I've seen pictures where Pablo just looks like a normal rancher from town. He always helped the people in need for food or money. He always remembered where he came from. That's why people don't remember him as a drug lord but as a person who helped the community and the poor. You will be surprised by how Pablo did his deals to cross the drugs over the border. When you read the book you will picture in your mind everything that is going on just like I did. Believe me, you will visualize.
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