A review by lpm100
ZeroZeroZero by Roberto Saviano
2.0
Dated information repackaged as though it's not.
Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2020
Lots of things to think about this book, which was in DIRE need of an editor.
**The book is a babbling, unfocused disaster. The author is so busy trying to write with the Hunter-Thompson-style "tough guy" prose that he forgets to try to bring across the information in a way that is easy for the reader to follow and absorb.
**None of this information is particularly new (for instance: one of the dealers in this book--Helmer Herrera-- has been dead since 1998), and there have been books such as "Freakonomics" and "Dreamland" that detail the business aspects of the drug trade. (And let's be clear that that is what it is -- a business.)
We all know that when there is an avalanche, there was that first snowflake that caused it. But that particular snowflake is less important than the initial conditions that were such that one snowflake could cause so much damage.
Well known scenario: There is a country that has weak law enforcement, into whose vacuums the cartels step. And then that leader gets killed, and someone else tries to take his place. (p. 276)
-Who didn't know that the drug cartels are a gigantic game of King of the Hill? (There is one on top, but there are always people under him that are trying to find a way to be number one when he is arrested / killed / displaced by some other means.)
Again: Are all the details as important as the initial conditions?
**This author tries to make us believe that he has gone undercover and found so much sensitive information that he had to go into hiding, but it appears that all of this information is public knowledge. (Every one of these things was able to be looked up on Wikipedia. And a lot of the cartels that were mentioned in this book have gone out of business as of the writing of this book--which is referencing a lot of events from 20 and 25 years ago.)
-Who didn't know that the prospect of having a job of the president is what makes a company get maximum mileage out of vice presidents?
-We also knew that the best way to contaminate your law enforcement is to put them up against drug cartels, who are better funded, better organized, and have their own survival on the line.
-We know that drug cartels don't allow their own members to use what they sell. (Talk about actions speaking louder than words.)
Is any government anywhere a match for the levels of organization of drug cartel businesses?
*Could* any government anywhere be a match for it?
**********
As a service to readers of this review (and as a way to go back and summarize / organize what I have read), a one sentence synopsis of every chapter.
1. Waffle that tries to burnish the authors Tough Guy Credentials/tone.
2. The tragic story of Kiki Camarena shows how important Mexican cartels have become.
3. Skirmishes between Mexican drug cartels.
4. Mexican drug cartels slaughter lots of innocent people to assert their authority in various Mexican provinces.
5. Drug cartels have their own military forces, often composed of ex-military personnel of this or that country.
6. Vicious killings of rival cartel members by Los Zetas.
7. Cocaine distribution networks at street level.
8. Details of the drug trade in Colombia.
9. The Italian diaspora/ mafia as a mechanism to connect the European drug trade to the South American.
10. Representative profiles of 2 cocaine managers.
11. A convoluted chapter on the convoluted process of money laundering.
12. Drug czars step into the vacuum created by political instability resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union.
13. Cocaine can be shipped by sea, and it is an EXTREMELY logistically complex process that requires PhD engineer levels of planning.
14. African morass and weak/corrupt governments make Africa an ideal place for (European/ South American) drug traffickers, and it is all brokered by Nigerian criminals who make use of abundant and low-valued/low-priced African life as mules.
15. Scattered and bizarre thoughts about living under police protection. (Which is for his work on the mafia and not the drug trade.)
16. The drug war as seen through the eyes of a drug-sniffing dog.
17. A documentary about drug gangs made by a photojournalist who paid for his documentary with his life.
18. Various stories, including those of Griselda Blanco (an extremely ugly and psychotic female drug trafficker worth 2 billion) and Sandra Avila Beltran (another female drug kingpin).
19. More babbling about what a Tough Guy he is because he does "investigative" journalism on the topic of drugs.
**********
The tragedy of this ridiculous farce is that these cartels only exist because drugs are outlawed. In terms of human lives it defies belief: 164,000 people killed *just* in Mexico from 2007 to 2014. More than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined--almost half as many as have died in Syria's never-ending Civil War.
Some of this morass is the special case of Central / Latin American: They have had difficulty running governments for a very long time. And political instability and gangs stepping into the vacuum created by problems that the government was incompetent to solve are present even in books-written-a-half-century-ago that describe the events of a century ago. (James Michener's "Centennial," a book that has nothing to do with drugs.)
The cartels themselves have a lot of strange features. Some of them are religious movements. Some of them are nationalist. Some of them are leftist.
Anything, I guess in order to give ideological window dressing.
Verdict: I can only weakly recommend this book:
1. The information is too dated, and takes too much effort too fish for;
2. There are other, better-edited books that do a better job focusing on the business aspects of the drug trade with a minimum of prattle.
Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2020
Lots of things to think about this book, which was in DIRE need of an editor.
**The book is a babbling, unfocused disaster. The author is so busy trying to write with the Hunter-Thompson-style "tough guy" prose that he forgets to try to bring across the information in a way that is easy for the reader to follow and absorb.
**None of this information is particularly new (for instance: one of the dealers in this book--Helmer Herrera-- has been dead since 1998), and there have been books such as "Freakonomics" and "Dreamland" that detail the business aspects of the drug trade. (And let's be clear that that is what it is -- a business.)
We all know that when there is an avalanche, there was that first snowflake that caused it. But that particular snowflake is less important than the initial conditions that were such that one snowflake could cause so much damage.
Well known scenario: There is a country that has weak law enforcement, into whose vacuums the cartels step. And then that leader gets killed, and someone else tries to take his place. (p. 276)
-Who didn't know that the drug cartels are a gigantic game of King of the Hill? (There is one on top, but there are always people under him that are trying to find a way to be number one when he is arrested / killed / displaced by some other means.)
Again: Are all the details as important as the initial conditions?
**This author tries to make us believe that he has gone undercover and found so much sensitive information that he had to go into hiding, but it appears that all of this information is public knowledge. (Every one of these things was able to be looked up on Wikipedia. And a lot of the cartels that were mentioned in this book have gone out of business as of the writing of this book--which is referencing a lot of events from 20 and 25 years ago.)
-Who didn't know that the prospect of having a job of the president is what makes a company get maximum mileage out of vice presidents?
-We also knew that the best way to contaminate your law enforcement is to put them up against drug cartels, who are better funded, better organized, and have their own survival on the line.
-We know that drug cartels don't allow their own members to use what they sell. (Talk about actions speaking louder than words.)
Is any government anywhere a match for the levels of organization of drug cartel businesses?
*Could* any government anywhere be a match for it?
**********
As a service to readers of this review (and as a way to go back and summarize / organize what I have read), a one sentence synopsis of every chapter.
1. Waffle that tries to burnish the authors Tough Guy Credentials/tone.
2. The tragic story of Kiki Camarena shows how important Mexican cartels have become.
3. Skirmishes between Mexican drug cartels.
4. Mexican drug cartels slaughter lots of innocent people to assert their authority in various Mexican provinces.
5. Drug cartels have their own military forces, often composed of ex-military personnel of this or that country.
6. Vicious killings of rival cartel members by Los Zetas.
7. Cocaine distribution networks at street level.
8. Details of the drug trade in Colombia.
9. The Italian diaspora/ mafia as a mechanism to connect the European drug trade to the South American.
10. Representative profiles of 2 cocaine managers.
11. A convoluted chapter on the convoluted process of money laundering.
12. Drug czars step into the vacuum created by political instability resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union.
13. Cocaine can be shipped by sea, and it is an EXTREMELY logistically complex process that requires PhD engineer levels of planning.
14. African morass and weak/corrupt governments make Africa an ideal place for (European/ South American) drug traffickers, and it is all brokered by Nigerian criminals who make use of abundant and low-valued/low-priced African life as mules.
15. Scattered and bizarre thoughts about living under police protection. (Which is for his work on the mafia and not the drug trade.)
16. The drug war as seen through the eyes of a drug-sniffing dog.
17. A documentary about drug gangs made by a photojournalist who paid for his documentary with his life.
18. Various stories, including those of Griselda Blanco (an extremely ugly and psychotic female drug trafficker worth 2 billion) and Sandra Avila Beltran (another female drug kingpin).
19. More babbling about what a Tough Guy he is because he does "investigative" journalism on the topic of drugs.
**********
The tragedy of this ridiculous farce is that these cartels only exist because drugs are outlawed. In terms of human lives it defies belief: 164,000 people killed *just* in Mexico from 2007 to 2014. More than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined--almost half as many as have died in Syria's never-ending Civil War.
Some of this morass is the special case of Central / Latin American: They have had difficulty running governments for a very long time. And political instability and gangs stepping into the vacuum created by problems that the government was incompetent to solve are present even in books-written-a-half-century-ago that describe the events of a century ago. (James Michener's "Centennial," a book that has nothing to do with drugs.)
The cartels themselves have a lot of strange features. Some of them are religious movements. Some of them are nationalist. Some of them are leftist.
Anything, I guess in order to give ideological window dressing.
Verdict: I can only weakly recommend this book:
1. The information is too dated, and takes too much effort too fish for;
2. There are other, better-edited books that do a better job focusing on the business aspects of the drug trade with a minimum of prattle.