The Last Narco: Inside the hunt for El Chapo, the World’s Most Wanted Drug Lord
by Malcolm Beith
Review by jjares
This is the story of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the Mexican drug lord and leader of the Sinaloa Drug Cartel. Uneducated and dirt-poor, El Chapo worked his way from tending the drug fields to moving drugs to lead one of the largest worldwide cartels. The interesting thing about El Chapo was his low-key behavior. El Chapo built schools and hospitals because the Mexican government did not meet the citizens’ needs. The people loved him because he kept the peace. When there was a problem, he solved it without fanfare.
The government did not know he existed until 1987. First, Guzman learned the ropes by aiding other drug lords to move drugs from Columbia and Mexico into the US. Then, after a few years, Guzman created his distribution system in the US. In his heyday, Guzman was responsible for massive shipments of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana to the US and Europe. Guzman may have been uneducated, but he was an intelligent businessman. He pioneered several unique systems that made him wildly successful. For example, he used deep and long tunnels into the US (90 feet down and 2000 feet into the US) and created distribution cells (workers who didn’t know anyone above the one who hired him). By 2009, Forbes Magazine named Guzman one of the most prominent billionaires in the world.
In 1993, El Chapo was apprehended and sent to Puente Grande prison. He ran his drug empire from prison, but when he found out he would be extradited to the US, he did not want to land in American jails, so he staged his escape by rolling out in a laundry cart. This increased the legend of El Chapo. However, things changed over the years, and the different drug lords began fighting each other. Chapo was from the old school, where he kept the peace and provided for people experiencing poverty. However, as the fighting intensified, Chapo had to fight by the new rules — anything goes.
Here are some staggering statistics; the average narco (person involved with the drug trade) had a life expectancy of 3.5 years. The largest killer of men from 18 to 29 (in Mexico) was drug-related murders. By the year 2000, young men joined the drug trade in droves. They had no conscience, and they murdered or maimed without a thought. By 2009, more than 2900 young people were being shot down yearly in Sinaloa. Life is so cheap in Mexico that someone will kill another for $35.
Another gruesome statistic is that Mexico has little education and poor health care. There are no jobs if one is lucky enough to get an education. Graft and corruption have riddled the system. It isn’t just politicians but the army, the police, the military, etc. This is why illegals keep streaming across the border. The death rate is staggeringly high, and no one is safe.
This book ended before El Chapo was apprehended in 2014. The Mexican government initiated a manhunt for him in 2001, but Guzman had bought off so many soldiers, police, citizens, and politicians that it was almost impossible to catch him. Guzman was clever because he only trusted long-term associates and relatives. However, the government went after Guzman’s associates and relatives to grind down his cartel.
Guzman hid in remote areas of the Sierra Madre Mountains for long periods. However, as more significant cohorts were killed or jailed, Guzman had to take more chances to run his empire. By this time, the other drug lords were after Chapo, as well as the government. His days were numbered. Readers may want to go to Wikipedia to read how Chapo was caught. The author of this book was an American magazine writer who was given open access to leaders to tell the story. He admitted that he closed the account because he feared for his life.
A sobering thought: This author says that one million people in the US are in the drug trade (as of 2010).
