Luca Rastello | Granta

Luca Rastello

Luca Rastello is a journalist at the Italian newspaper La Repubblica and director of osservatoriobalcani.org, a think-tank and website that specializes in the criminal economy and international relations.

Publications

I Am The Market

Luca Rastello

Translated by Jonathan Hunt

This is the cocaine trade.

This is how it’s done: with hard work and a good system. With coca made into cubes, dissolved in liquid, hidden in marble blocks or inside electric cable. With willing mules swallowing drugs in ovules (they’ll be arrested – this is part of the system). With shipments measured in tons. With money in cash, always. And these are the risks: police dogs, scanners, customs, infiltrators …

And if you do it right, it will make you rich. And if you don’t, you’ll spend your life in jail.

A bestseller in Italy, this is the first-hand guide to living well on the wrong side of the law. Luca Rastello gets the story of the market straight from a convicted smuggler: the true, unbelievable story of an illegal trade that supports economies and destroys lives, and of the war on drugs that makes it all possible.