Review by New York Times Review
IN JANUARY, AT least nine people were shot to death in Mexico's Guerrero state during a traditional coming-out party for a 15-year-old girl. Many victims of drug-related violence in Mexico ceased a long time ago to have any apparent connection with the trade. In 2014, members of a drug cartel along with local police abducted and presumably killed 43 student teachers for no discernible reason other than they were preparing to demonstrate against the lamentable state of education in their region. According to a PBS documentary broadcast last year, the number of homicides in Mexico stood at more than 164,000, between 2007 and 2014. The combined figure for civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq over the same period was 103,000. In the last decade, Mexico has been the most dramatic theater in a crisis that engulfs countries as far apart as Jamaica and Brazil. The Rio-based research institute Igarapé (on whose international advisory board I sit) has found that half of Brazil's more than 50,000 annual homicides are directly related to the drug industry. Brazil is one of the locations chosen by the British journalist Ioan Grillo for his second book, "Gangster Warlords," in order to impose a narrative on the causes, course and likely future of this inferno that scalds and asphyxiates so much of the Caribbean and Central and South America; the other regions he includes are Mexico (where Grillo is based), Jamaica and the "Northern Triangle" of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. If it were anything other than drugs driving the violence, these conflicts would long ago have been designated civil wars. Grillo quotes Robert Bunker, a researcher for the United States Army War College: "We have this blurring of crime and war. And it doesn't fit either nice model for us. . . . And this is why it's driving everybody bananas. It doesn't fit how the world is supposed to be. So our thinking has not caught up, and our institutions and laws have not caught up." Drugs are not the only cause of this epidemic of killing. Extreme poverty, gross wealth inequality, weak states and corruption, along with a hierarchical culture of machismo, all play a role. But the overwhelming motivation for the butchery is narcotics - or, to be precise, the fabulous profits associated with selling a prohibited commodity for which demand is off the scale, especially in the United States and Europe. For those who believe the violence is the product of some intrinsic aspect of South American culture, the Brazilian case is instructive. In 1982, the homicide rate in Rio de Janeiro was on a par with New York City's, at 23 per 100,000 inhabitants. Seven years later, while New York's had shown a modest rise, Rio's had jumped to 63 per 100,000 inhabitants, a threefold increase that prefaced an even greater blood bath in the 1990s. During those seven years, Brazil had become the central transit country for cocaine heading across the Atlantic to Europe. The Colombian cocaine cartels were desperate to find new sales for their product once the North American market had reached a saturation point in the early 1980s. By the mid-1980s, the astonishing profits accrued from the prohibited commodity enabled the relatively benign criminal gangs that had always existed in Rio's slums, or favelas, to equip themselves with frighteningly potent weapons. These were enough first to challenge and then to outgun Rio's police. Grillo charts the fascinating rise of Rio's oldest and most powerful drug gang, the Comando Vermelho, or the Red Commando. In the 1970s, common criminals from the city's favelas were locked up during the military dictatorship in the Cândido Mendes prison on Ilha Grande, which lies an hour's boat ride from the coast west of Rio. Here they mingled with the guerrillas who had taken up arms against the generals, learning the strategic value of planning, organization and solidarity. Grillo tells the story of William da Silva Lima, a former bank robber known now as "the Teacher," who escaped from Ilha Grande in 1980 and returned to his favela, taking "the Red Commando from the cellblock to the ghetto." The Red Commando used revolutionary terms to describe its activities: Robberies became "expropriations," and a gang became a "liberation group." Once cocaine entered the equation, the Brazilian state was confronted by one of its most formidable opponents in history. AS GRILLO UNFOLDS the complex and often gruesome stories of the drug trade, it becomes clear that this terror is comprehensible. It is the result of ossified policies - chief among them the so-called War on Drugs - that are wholly inappropriate for a globalized world. Grillo and his compatriot, Tom Wainwright, an editor at The Economist and the author of "Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel," belong to a growing band of writers who seek out the testimony of criminals in order to better understand the rational calculation that often underpins the violence. The economic weight of transnational organized crime - not to mention its devastating political and social impact - is so considerable that without this testimony, we simply cannot grasp what is going on. It is an exhausting and often nerve-racking job, but Grillo in particular scores some spectacular successes, notably his long conversation with a gunman for one of Kingston's most notorious or (depending on your point of view) celebrated drug lords, the appropriately named Christopher Coke, more commonly known in Jamaica as Dudus. Grillo's descriptions of a "don system that trains and directs assassins" evoke the wild world of the film "The Harder They Come," the story of a well-meaning country boy who slides into a life of violence. But I wouldn't underestimate Wainwright's contribution. His writing is less passionate than Grillo's, but he brings a fine and balanced analytical mind to some very good research, undertaken largely in northern Mexico. By looking at the drug trade as a business, Wainwright is able to reveal much about why it wreaks such havoc in Central and South America. The issue of violence is not a random by-product of gangster culture. It is central to the industry, Wainwright observes, as the only way "to enforce contractual agreements." To control or police a market like drugs, from which the state has consciously absented itself except through law enforcement, the cartel must be able to wield decisive violence or, at the very least, be able to project a credible threat of violence. Occasionally, Wainwright has to shoehorn his interpretation to fit the conceit: To describe the police as a drug cartel's "regulator," for instance, misconstrues the role of law enforcement in a weak state, where it frequently acts as a competitor or, indeed, an accomplice. But he also makes an important and too often unnoticed link between marijuana legalization in states like Colorado and Washington and what could be a profound policy shift across the Western world. As long as the production of drugs - and the accompanying violence - took place far away in Colombia or Afghanistan, the impact on social stability in North America and Europe was negligible. Now much production of marijuana and, critically, synthetic drugs like MDMA takes place in cannabis grow-ops and labs next door. In the age of austerity, strapped police forces do not have the resources to keep up with this. "Attacking supply networks is ineffective," Wainwright notes. "America has forgone Colombian-style crop eradication programs in favor of legalization." Americans would do well to read both these books. The move toward drug law reform may not be unstoppable, but it is certainly tilting in the direction of a more rational policy. Grillo and Wainwright show how drug violence is not so much senseless but the devastating result of economic calculations taken to their brutal extreme. Wainwright's conclusion is titled "Why Economists Make the Best Police Officers." It is one of the pithiest and most persuasive arguments for drug law reform I have ever read. MISHA GLENNY writes on crime, security and politics. His most recent book is "Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [February 7, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* As best-selling author Grillo (El Narco, 2011) notes early in his book on drug trafficking and traffickers, It is hard for most of us to fathom a business with a markup of 650 percent. And in an industry that nearly spans the globe and is worth billions of dollars, the drug lords Grillo met and interviewed had good reasons to stay in the business, a business that has morphed into true criminality, including theft, kidnapping, extortion, murder, and more, even gaining control over some Latin American city and state governments and causing refugees to seek asylum in the U.S. and elsewhere. In these drug wars, People seem to die for nothing, like the 43 student teachers in Iguala, Mexico, in 2014, whose senseless murders captured the world's attention. Grillo calmly and bravely recounts his interviews with kingpins and their hit squads from Brazil, Jamaica, the Northern Triangle (comprising Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala); and Mexico. The book is chock-full of facts, quotations, and depictions of outright terror. Making it special are Grillo's personal interjections amid the narrative, which serve to humanize this horrific tale as well as ratchet up the tension. Gangster Warlords' final part, Peace?, offers ideas for resolution and avenues for hope even as it states that there are no easy answers. --Kinney, Eloise Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Investigative journalist Grillo (El Narco) presents a comprehensive, if grim, look at four major organized crime groups- Mexico's Knights Templar, Central America's Mara Salvatrucha, Jamaica's Shower Posse, and Brazil's Red Commando-and the men who run them. Few readers will be familiar with the cartels, despite the international scope of their reach and the bloody toll of their violence, which makes this account all the more shocking. Grillo describes the leaders as "a weird hybrid of criminal CEO, gangster rock star, and paramilitary general" and enlivens his characterizations with horrifying statistics: for example, between 2007 and 2014, more than 80,000 people were killed in Mexico by drug cartels and the police forces opposing them. Historical context, such as a survey of Jamaican political and criminal history in the last 50 years, gives depth to the narrative. Sadly, the logical solutions Grillo offers on drug policy reform, including "a huge overhaul in the police and justice systems" in Latin America, are not likely to be implemented anytime soon, so his attempt to end this otherwise harrowing account on hopeful note seems contrived. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Journalist Grillo (El Narco) defines gangster warlords as supervillains running drug rackets who also command militias to rule their spheres of operation in a mixture of crime and war. The violence of these newer crime groups of the Americas is staggering, with over one million murders between 2000 and 2010. Grillo traveled extensively to interview hundreds of people for their stories as he searched for structural and political causes that result in bloodshed. He offers testimonies on four criminal organizations: the Red Commando in Brazil, the Shower Posse in Jamaica, Central America's Mara Salvatrucha, and Mexico's Knights Templar. Grillo's theories emerge through narratives that include gangs, religious cults, and urban guerrillas. Possible resolutions are considered-reform drug policy (e.g., legalize marijuana, provide addiction treatment), build justice systems (effective courts, for example), transform ghettos (build roads, open schools, educate the young). VERDICT This is a vitally important book because, as the author writes, "how we as a society deal with this challenge could determine whether these gangster warlords are a blip in history or get even deeper into our communities and lives."-Krista Bush, Shelton, CT © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
British journalist Grillo (El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency, 2011) risks life and limb to interview gangsters, police, and victims of violence in this harrowing account of Latin American crime syndicates. The author focuses on four criminal hotspots: Brazil, Jamaica, Mexico, and Central America. In each, he describes the impoverished landscape and blood-soaked history of the region, explaining the origins of certain crime networks and the national trauma they have wrought. Grillo has an impressive eye for detail: he writes vividly about pet dogs in Honduran prisons, the piecemeal construction of Jamaican garrisons, and the exact smell of a Mexican mass grave. The author's prose style is levelheaded, but given the warlords' fondness for kidnapping and even beheading journalists, the book drips with suspense. Slowly, Grillo makes his case that gangsters have become de facto leaders and celebrities, as powerful as any security force, and the war on drugs has proven a catastrophic failure. But he also appreciates the difficulty of governing such anarchic countries. "There are certainly some corrupt politicians who should not be in power," he writes. "But in the crime wars, the solution is not as simple as toppling a president. After they are gone, you will still be left with billions of drug dollars, corrupt police, and ineffective courts." Grillo also has a soft spot for many of the people he met, even trained killers. After describing vicious gun battles in the streets of Jamaica's capital, he adds, "crime aside, I find the people of West Kingston to be warm and open, as in the ghettos from Brazil to Mexico. Like many other outsiders who have trekked into these areas, I'm touched by the people's generosity of spirit." Grillo dedicates his final chapter to practical solutions, distinguishing himself from lesser journalists content to sensationalize crime and leave it at that. A striking exploration of the horrors of mass violence in the Western Hemisphere, with the author offering hope that radical policies could provide positive change. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
