BooksReviewA brave and important book that charts the rise of one of the most successful drugs barons of all time and the shocking cost to MexicoJoaquín Guzmán Loera, aka El Chapo (Shorty), is one of the most successful drugs barons of all time and one of the world’s wealthiest people. Anabel Hernández’s forensically detailed account, translated by Iain Bruce and Lorna Scott Fox, of the rise of this “king of betrayal and bribery” over the last two decades reveals the shocking price Mexico has paid for not eliminating him and the other drugs cartels.
Presidents have promised Mexicans a “war on drugs” and tens of thousands of people have died. But in reality the influence of the drugs barons, especially Guzmán, has steadily increased.
Now, says Hernández, there is no part of Mexican society – from politicians to the judiciary – that has not been corrupted by this brilliant and utterly ruthless businessman. As Roberto Saviano writes in the introduction, “everything in Mexico is implicated in the ‘narco system’”. Hernández charts Guzmán’s progress from rural poverty to the head of the Sinaloa cartel, “the most powerful criminal organisation in the Americas”. This brave and important book describes the corruption of an entire country: “Between them all, they have turned Mexico into a graveyard.”
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