A Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade
A book written by Robert Sabbag in 1976, about the early days of the cocaine trade. Days, when instead of cartels moving the product, individuals did. Based on a real character (I always believed this book was autobiographical), the protagonist in the book is Zachary Swan, an american smuggler, who uses sophisticated scams to outsmart Customs as he plies his trade from Colombia to New York.
Snowblind is practically a how-to book on drug smuggling, especially in its infancy and it's not an activity that I'm advocating. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Swan runs through the early seventies with a silver spoon in his nose. Sabbag's account of Swan's adventures is truly breath taking and written in both a funny and illuminating account that has made it a cult classic. I provide here an excerpt as Swan explains the Duplicate Bag Switch trick;
"Now, here is how it works . . .'
And Swan gave Canadian Jack the Duplicate Bag Switch. Like all of Swan's
flim-flams, the Duplicate Bag Switch is designed not to protect the goods, but
to protect the carrier. The goods are taken care of in the usual manner. The
cocaine is packed in Madeira wood, chosen for its high specific
gravity _ a distinctive physical property of that wood which, after all is said
and done, is nothing more than Nature's way of telling us: it is heavy. When a
Madeira rolling pin or statue is hollowed out, it does not feel hollow. Neither
does it feel suspiciously heavy when filled with cocaine. So whenever he could,
Swan used Madeira. And he used Angel, who was more than a carpenter _ Angel was
an artist, and his work was flawless.
So from the time it is packed, the coke is on its own, protected as well as it
can be. There is no guarantee in the smuggler's handbook that everything
that passes through Customs will not be opened (that is why Sicilians and
Corsicans dealing in hundredweights of heroin go around Customs). The only
thing that encourages or discourages a Customs man from cracking anything he
finds _ apart from the fundamental consideration of the time it requires _
is the carrier. And if the carrier is not a consummate actor or actress (and
often even that is not enough), then he or she is going to need propping up.
Propping up a carrier can be done with coke, or it can be done with a
foolproof smuggle. There are other ways, but the point is that if a carrier
is propped up (confident, unafraid, i.e., not suspicious looking), the chances
are that the Customs agent will not be any more curious than usual. Given the odds on the coke (and
when you mule it, no matter where you put it, those odds conform to nothing
more profound than the law of averages) and taking for granted that there's no
way you can deny it's yours, man, if it's strapped to your back, then the
Duplicate Bag Switch is the perfect scam.
Originally printed in paperback and now out of print, but has recently been reissued in 1998, or '99 as a hardback. My original copy was the most passed around and dog-eared book I ever owned and has somehow disappeared. I highly recommend it if you can find it. You don't need to be pro-drugs to enjoy it, it's a fascinating book. There is also a limited edition copy of the 1976 book, designed
by Damien,and signed by the artist selling for $1925.00.
http://www.the-artists.org/eyestorm/hirstbook.cfm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802135897/vfaircom/104-7552736-9367148