Read Online Cocaina: A Book on Those Who Make It by Magnus Linton, John Eason - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Magnus Linton, John Eason
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the boat.
The canoes are now about a kilometre from shore, and the seven men have finally caught enough sardines to use for bait later that day. With their buckets full, they drift across the long groundswells, in the hopes of returning in a few hours with one of two things, preferably both. They paddle in a long, chain-like row, 20 metres between each of them. Leo stands up. The others sit. His canoe is a bit larger, allowing room for three fish rather than two, if luck prevails. ‘It’s also good to have a little extra space, just in case we get the “miracle catch”.’
Leo is 33 and one of the best fishermen in the village, but despite the fact that he grew up during the cocaine boom, he has never had his big break. His matchstick legs disappear into rubber boots, and the imitation Tommy Hilfiger label on his threadbare shorts flaps in the wind under his oversized football jersey. ‘It’s my turn now,’ he says. ‘Many people in the village have already gotten one, but not me.’
Pozón is just one of hundreds of fishing villages that have been turned upside-down since el Pacifico , the Colombian Pacific coast, became the highway for 90 per cent of all cocaine trafficking to the United States. As the Caribbean has become intensely guarded, and the Mexican cartels inherited control over the US market — once held by the Medellín and Cali Cartels — at the turn of the millennium, the poor provinces along Colombia’s west coast have become the hub of modern cocaine production. Today, two key things characterise the jungle regions of Nariño, Cauca, Valle del Cauca, and Chocó: cocaine and fish. The former is increasingly more important than the latter.
Besides two simple roads linking seaports Buenaventura and Tumaco to the inland, the 1300-kilometre coast consists exclusively of dense rainforest inhabited by the descendants of slaves and isolated American Indian tribes. The multitude of rivers — the sophisticated nervous system of the cocaine trade — flow from the western mountain range, down through the jungle, and then out to sea. At the far end, closest to the mountains, are the fields and the paste labs. Further out, usually just a few kilometres from the coast, are the refining laboratories: las cocinas , or ‘the kitchens’. In many of the thousands of estuaries, well-packed boats — simply called ‘go-fast boats’ by the Coast Guard and the US drug squad, the DEA — are hidden, ready for departure to Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Mexico.
Every year around 200 tonnes of cocaine passes through the water outside Pozón, and since the Coast Guard acquired more helicopters, a better radar system, and a faster armada, more and more overloaded boats have been caught as they make their dangerous, high-speed journey to the north. As soon as they are discovered but before the police catch up to them, the smugglers throw their cargo overboard. Once caught, they attempt to convince the officers that they have ‘just been out fishing’, but since these boats are always equipped with four 250-horsepower motors, these kinds of excuses tend to fall on deaf ears. The young men end up in prison; but as the Colombian Pacific coast is one of the poorest regions in Latin America, there is never a shortage of new recruits ready to step in and replace them. They have nothing to lose, and the mafia has jobs for everyone.
‘The drums that come floating in are of two varieties,’ Leo says. ‘Either 20 or 60 kilograms. Sometimes they break, and then the kilo packets drift around freely.’
In the rest of the country ‘miracle catch’ is a slang term for the guerrilla kidnappings of wealthy people, but here it refers to the attractive stuff that may be found in the water. Lucho, a young man from the area, has found goods on a number of occasions and now owns a large plastic boat equipped with two Yamaha motors. Today, all he ever does is surf and look for coca. For him, fishing is a thing of the
The canoes are now about a kilometre from shore, and the seven men have finally caught enough sardines to use for bait later that day. With their buckets full, they drift across the long groundswells, in the hopes of returning in a few hours with one of two things, preferably both. They paddle in a long, chain-like row, 20 metres between each of them. Leo stands up. The others sit. His canoe is a bit larger, allowing room for three fish rather than two, if luck prevails. ‘It’s also good to have a little extra space, just in case we get the “miracle catch”.’
Leo is 33 and one of the best fishermen in the village, but despite the fact that he grew up during the cocaine boom, he has never had his big break. His matchstick legs disappear into rubber boots, and the imitation Tommy Hilfiger label on his threadbare shorts flaps in the wind under his oversized football jersey. ‘It’s my turn now,’ he says. ‘Many people in the village have already gotten one, but not me.’
Pozón is just one of hundreds of fishing villages that have been turned upside-down since el Pacifico , the Colombian Pacific coast, became the highway for 90 per cent of all cocaine trafficking to the United States. As the Caribbean has become intensely guarded, and the Mexican cartels inherited control over the US market — once held by the Medellín and Cali Cartels — at the turn of the millennium, the poor provinces along Colombia’s west coast have become the hub of modern cocaine production. Today, two key things characterise the jungle regions of Nariño, Cauca, Valle del Cauca, and Chocó: cocaine and fish. The former is increasingly more important than the latter.
Besides two simple roads linking seaports Buenaventura and Tumaco to the inland, the 1300-kilometre coast consists exclusively of dense rainforest inhabited by the descendants of slaves and isolated American Indian tribes. The multitude of rivers — the sophisticated nervous system of the cocaine trade — flow from the western mountain range, down through the jungle, and then out to sea. At the far end, closest to the mountains, are the fields and the paste labs. Further out, usually just a few kilometres from the coast, are the refining laboratories: las cocinas , or ‘the kitchens’. In many of the thousands of estuaries, well-packed boats — simply called ‘go-fast boats’ by the Coast Guard and the US drug squad, the DEA — are hidden, ready for departure to Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Mexico.
Every year around 200 tonnes of cocaine passes through the water outside Pozón, and since the Coast Guard acquired more helicopters, a better radar system, and a faster armada, more and more overloaded boats have been caught as they make their dangerous, high-speed journey to the north. As soon as they are discovered but before the police catch up to them, the smugglers throw their cargo overboard. Once caught, they attempt to convince the officers that they have ‘just been out fishing’, but since these boats are always equipped with four 250-horsepower motors, these kinds of excuses tend to fall on deaf ears. The young men end up in prison; but as the Colombian Pacific coast is one of the poorest regions in Latin America, there is never a shortage of new recruits ready to step in and replace them. They have nothing to lose, and the mafia has jobs for everyone.
‘The drums that come floating in are of two varieties,’ Leo says. ‘Either 20 or 60 kilograms. Sometimes they break, and then the kilo packets drift around freely.’
In the rest of the country ‘miracle catch’ is a slang term for the guerrilla kidnappings of wealthy people, but here it refers to the attractive stuff that may be found in the water. Lucho, a young man from the area, has found goods on a number of occasions and now owns a large plastic boat equipped with two Yamaha motors. Today, all he ever does is surf and look for coca. For him, fishing is a thing of the
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