The Colombian Connection

The adventures of a reporter when she investigates a drug ring.

Collects Bullseye (2017) #1-5. He's a ruthless hitman who never misses, a deadly foe who can turn any object into a lethal weapon! But why is the Marvel Universe's most dangerous assassin heading to Colombia to take aim at a drug cartel? Find out as Bullseye takes charge!

When the Mexican husband of a young Colombian woman disappears, she encounters corruption at every turn. Contacting the only person she feels she can trust, they decide to travel back to Colombia and seek out the help of her long lost brother. Unwittingly they start a chain of events that will threaten their own existence and bring a major drug cartel to its knees.

"Dead Ringer is the true story of the discovery and thwarting of the Italian Mafia's recent effort to join forces with the cocaine cartels of Colombia, as related by three of the case's vital players. Joe Cuffaro is a Sicilian-born member of the Mafia, go-between for Colombian drug lords and the Corleone family in Italy. Leo Fraley became one of Pablo Escobar's top ten smugglers, earning between one and five million dollars per shipment to the United States. Bill Gately, a top U.S. Customs Special Agent, brought the two to justice in spite of federal foot-dragging and inter-agency jealousies. Joe Cuffaro's and Leo Fraley's combined testimony eventually led to the downfall of such as John Gotti of the Gambino crime family in New York, and Pablo Escobar of the Medellin cartel, along with twelve of the highest-ranking mafiosi in Sicily." "Written with the full cooperation of each of the three principals, Dead Ringer is an insider's account of one of the most important and well-publicized drug cases in the history of the United States. Joe Cuffaro and Leo Fraley are currently in the Federal Witness Protection Program."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

He's a ruthless hitman who never misses, a deadly foe who can turn any object into a lethal weapon! But why is the Marvel Universe's most dangerous assassin heading to Colombia to take aim at a drug cartel? Find out as Bullseye takes charge! COLLECTING: BULLSEYE 1-5

Before Colombia became one of the world’s largest producers of cocaine in the 1980s, traffickers from the Caribbean coast partnered with American buyers in the 1970s to make the South American country the main supplier of marijuana for a booming US drug market, fueled by the US hippie counterculture. How did Colombia become central to the creation of an international drug trafficking circuit? Marijuana Boom is the story of this forgotten history. Combining deep archival research with unprecedented oral history, Lina Britto deciphers a puzzle: Why did the Colombian coffee republic, a model of Latin American representative democracy and economic modernization, transform into a drug paradise, and at what cost?

Based on extensive research conducted in Colombia since 2009, this book addresses the connection between land grabbing and agrarian capitalism, as well as the unfulfilled promises of peace and justice. While land remains a key resource at the core of many contemporary civil wars, the impact of high-intensity armed violence on the formation of agrarian capitalism is seldom discussed. Drawing on nearly 200 interviews, archival research, and geographical data, this book examines land grabbing and the role of violence in capital with a particular focus on one key actor in the Colombian civil war: paramilitary militias. This book demonstrates how the intricate ties between armed conflict and economy formation are obscured by the widespread belief that violence is a radical form of action, breaking with the normal course of society and disconnected from the legal economy. Under this view, dispossession is perceived as diametrically opposed to capitalist accumulation. This belief is enormously influential in precisely those bureaucratic agencies that are in charge of peacebuilding, both domestically and internationally. However, this narrow view of the relationship between armed violence and capitalism belies the close ties between plunder and lawful profit, and obscures the continuity between violent dispossession and the free market. By the same token, it legitimizes post-war inequality in the name of capitalist development. The book concludes by arguing that the promotion of radical democracy in the government of land and rural development emerges as the only reasonable path for pacifying a violent polity. The book is essential reading for students, scholars, and development aid practitioners interested in land and resource grabbing, agrarian capitalism, civil wars, and conflict resolution.