Kings of Cocaine

8 hrs. 11 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Authors Guy Gugliotta, Jeff Lynne

Author Guy Gugliotta

Author Jeff Lynne

Narrator Puchkov Dmitry (Goblin)

Description

Cocaine smuggling into the United States was first mastered in the early 1970s by the Cuban mafia that had settled in Florida. In 1976–1979, Colombians—who previously limited themselves to serving as intermediaries—pushed the Cubans aside and took control of the lion’s share (up to 80%) of the U.S. cocaine market. The “Medellín drug cartel era” began—an era that lasted for one and a half decades.

The Colombian expansion triggered a sharp reaction from U.S. law enforcement, which focused its efforts specifically on fighting the Medellín cartel. The “crusade” began in 1984 with the dismantling of several cocaine laboratories in the jungles of Colombia. The Medellín men picked up the gauntlet thrown at them, unleashing real terror against law-enforcement forces and political leaders. Another factor intensifying the Colombian “drug war” was the “cartel war” that started in 1988 between the “old-timers” from Medellín and the “newcomers” from Cali—who were hunted with less zeal, which allowed them to push competitors aside.

Guy Goulotta’s documentary novella was published in the journal «Foreign Literature» in 1991, No. 3, translated by Olga Aleksandrovna Varshaver.