Drugs, cartels, mafia, addiction, the FBI, and coercion - this is the untold story behind the tragic decline of football's most gifted and controversial legend.

Maradona was football's ultimate genius - a magician on the pitch whose talent rivalled only Pelé. But off the field, the boy from the barrios of Buenos Aires became entangled in a dark web of criminal influence and personal demons. From the Cali Cartel's attempts to lure him into the drug trade, to the Camorra's grip on his life in Naples; from clashes with the Italian government to Pablo Escobar's sinister hospitality, Maradona's life was a battleground far beyond football.

Battling addiction, betrayal, and exploitation, Maradona's story is one of genius corrupted - a man caught between adulation and self-destruction, whose medical neglect and FBI scrutiny culminated in a tragic end.

Marking the 40th anniversary of Argentina's legendary 1986 World Cup victory, Killing Maradona is a searing investigation into the forces that destroyed football's first 'Golden Boy.'

Across the world, HSBC likes to sell itself as 'the world's local bank', the friendly face of corporate and personal finance. And yet, a decade ago, the same bank was hit with a record US fine of $1.9 billion for facilitating money laundering for 'drug kingpins and rogue nations'. In pursuit of their goal of becoming the biggest bank in the world, between 2003 to 2010, HSBC allowed El Chapo and the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most notorious and murderous criminal organizations in the world, to turn its ill-gotten money into clean dollars and thereby grow one of the deadliest drugs empires the world has ever seen. Just how did 'the world's local bank' find itself enabling Mexico's leading drugs cartel, and the biggest drugs trafficking organization in the world, to launder cash through the bank's branch network and systems? How did a bank, which boasts 'we're committed to helping protect the world's financial system on which millions of people depend, by only doing business with customers who meet our high standards of transparency' come to facilitate Mexico's richest drug baron? And how did a bank that as recently as 2002 had been named 'one of the best-run organizations in the world' become so entwined with such a criminal, with one of the most barbaric groups of gangsters on the planet? Too Big to Jail is an extraordinary story brilliantly told by writer, commentator and former editor of The Independent, Chris Blackhurst, that starts in Hong Kong and ranges across London, Washington, the Cayman Islands and Mexico, where HSBC saw the opportunity to become the largest bank in the world, and El Chapo seized the chance to fuel his murderous empire by laundering his drug proceeds through the bank. It brings together an extraordinary cast of politicians, bankers, drug dealers, FBI officers and whistle-blowers, and asks what price does greed have? Whose job is it to police global finance? And why did not a single person go to prison for facilitating the murderous expansion of a global drug empire? Are some corporations now so big as to be above the law?

You will find a real life, gritty account of drug addiction in the pages of Rocks – One Man’s Climb from Drugs to Dreams.

Set in the leafy suburbs of Joburg in the 90s, and at the height of the Johannesburg Rave Culture, this book brings to life the agonising heartache of the drug addicted Marco Broccardo, and that of his family members including the dirty details of the daily life of an addict – the close encounters with the law, moments of insanity and rock bottom desperation. But amidst all the despair, there is a moment of liberation and hope. Hope that addiction can be beaten through the right decisions and the over-arching idea of love.

This book will take you on a journey – from the despair of being rock bottom to the elation of the mountain-tops of Kilimanjaro.

Analysing one of the most controversial areas in public policy, this pioneering Research Handbook brings together contributions from expert researchers to provide a global overview of the shifting dynamics of drug policy. Chapters tackle a complex and cross-cutting issue from inter and multi-disciplinary perspectives, incorporating political science, history, law and public health into their analyses. Emphasising connections between the domestic and the international, this timely Research Handbook illustrates the intersections between drug policy, human rights obligations and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Integrating detailed discussion of ever-evolving drug markets, a diverse range of policy responses, and political and ideological tensions, the contributors offer an insightful analysis of the regional dynamics of drug control, its historic constructions, and the contemporary and emerging problems it is facing. Aimed at researchers and students interested in drug policy, as well as policy makers and practitioners at different levels of governance, the Research Handbook on International Drug Policy provides a much-needed comparative approach and will prove to be an essential resource for navigating the difficulties surrounding drug policy and control.

Over the past six years Mexico has been consumed by a brutal conflict - more than 35,000 people have been killed and kidnappings have skyrocketed. After barely winning Mexico's 2006 presidential election, Felipe Calderon escalated the battle against the country's drug cartels in an attempt to marginalise the deadly gangs and the corrupt politicians and police officers who enable them. The cartels are ruthless, meting out an awesome brutality where heads are rolled into crowded discos and dismembered bodies are abandoned on busy streets. The gruesome nature of the crimes is at once unbearable and on display for the entire country to see. The narrative of Mexico's conflict is often reduced to the bodycount on the border, but the offensive against the cartels has caused an eruption of violence that is not isolated to one region. The wounds of this war bleed into every corner of the country, staining the very fabric of Mexican life with violence, death and fear. In Heavy Hand, Sunken Spirit, David Rochkind moves beyond simple depictions of carnage to explore the stress and tension left in the wake of such violence and to illustrate how this conflict will impact on and handicap Mexico's future.

Through political and cultural analysis of representations of the so-called war on drugs, Oswaldo Zavala makes the case that the very terms we use to describe drug traffickers are a constructed subterfuge for the real narcos: politicians, corporations, and the military. Though Donald Trump's incendiary comments and monstrous policies on the border reveal the character of a deeply depraved leader, state violence on both sides of the border is nothing new. Immigration has endured as a prevailing news topic, but it is a fixture of modern society in the neoliberal era; the future will be one of exile brought on by state violence and the plundering of our natural resources to sate capitalist greed. Yet, the realities of violence in Mexico and along the border are obscured by the books, films, and TV series we consume. In truth, works like Sicario, The Queen of the South, and Narcos hide Mexico's political realities. Along with these examples, Zavala discusses Charles Bowden, 2666 by Roberto BolaNo, and other important Latin American writers as examples of works that do capture the realities of the drug war. Drug Cartels Do Not Exist will be useful for journalists, political scientists, philosophers, and writers of any kind who wish to break down the constructed barriers-physical and mental-created by those in power around the reality of the Mexican drug trade.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) is an important actor in the American gun debate. While popular explanations for the group's influence often focus on the NRA's lobbying and campaign donations, it receives lesser attention for the mass mobilization efforts that make these political endeavours possible. On Target explores why the NRA is so influential and how we can understand the group's impact on firearms policy in the United States. The book looks at how the NRA both draws upon and shapes historical meta-narratives regarding the role of firearms in America's national identity and how this is part of a larger effort to expand the community of gun owners. Noah S. Schwartz demonstrates how the NRA portrays a vision of the past through events such as its annual meeting; communications such as American Rifleman magazine and NRA TV; and points of contact including the National Firearms Museum. Based on fieldwork in Indiana and Virginia, including participant observation at NRA events and firearm safety classes, thematic analysis of audio-visual material, and interviews with NRA executives and members, On Target sheds light on the ways in which the NRA tells stories to build and mobilize a politically motivated network of gun owners.

In the 1990s, deep-cover police agent RS536 took on the Durban underworld as part of a new organised crime intelligence unit. He rubbed shoulders with drug lords, smugglers and corrupt cops, and was instrumental in busting an international drug ring and foiling a bank heist, among many other dangerous engagements.

But then, as the country’s new democracy birthed a struggle between the old and the new guard in the South African Police Service, his identity and his life came under threat. In this action-packed account, Johann van Loggerenberg describes how, as a young policeman, he worked closely with the investigative team of the Goldstone Commission to uncover the ‘third force’ – apartheid security forces that supplied weapons to the Inkatha Freedom Party to destabilise the country.

He also delves into how and why, at the height of state capture at the South African Revenue Service in 2014, he was falsely accused of being an apartheid spy, a lie that persists up to today. Here, finally, is the truth behind deep-cover police agent RS536.

Forty years after the declaration of the ""war on drugs"" by President Nixon, the debate on the effectiveness and costs of the ban is red-hot. Several former Latin American presidents and leading intellectuals from around the world have drawn attention to the ineffectiveness and adverse consequences of prohibitionism. This book thoroughly analyzes the drug policies of one of the main protagonists in this war. The book covers many topics: the economics of drug production, the policies to reduce consumption and decrease supply during the Plan Colombia, the effects of the drug problem on Colombia's international relations, the prevention of money laundering, the connection between drug trafficking and paramilitary politics, and strategies against organized crime. Beyond the diversity in topics, there is a common thread running through all the chapters: the need to analyze objectively what works and what does not, based on empirical evidence. Presented here for the first time to an English-speaking audience, this book is a contribution to a debate that urgently needs to transcend ideology and preconceived opinions.

This is the first scholarly study in which the production, trade and political effects of opium and its derivatives are shown over many centuries, and in many countries (China, India, Indonesia, Japan, all Southeast Asian countries and some in Europe and the Americas). Starting in the 16th century, slavery and opium became the two means with which the bodies and souls of men and women in the tropics were exploited in western imperialism and colonialism. The first waned with the abolition movement in the 19th century, but opium production and trade continued to spread, with the associated serious social and political effects. Around 1670 the Dutch introduced opium as a cash crop for mass production and distribution in India and Indonesia. China became the main target in the 19th century, and only succeeded in getting rid of the opium problem around 1950. Then it had already been transformed from an "Eastern" into a "Western" problem.

The US-led war on drugs has failed: drugs remain purer, cheaper and more readily available than ever. Extreme levels of violence have also grown as drug traffickers and organized criminals compete for control of territory. This book points towards a number of crucial challenges, policy solutions and alternatives to the current drug strategies.

Since the late 1990s, the United States has funneled billions of dollars in aid to Colombia, ostensibly to combat the illicit drug trade and State Department-designated terrorist groups. The result has been a spiral of violence that continues to take lives and destabilize Colombian society. This book asks an obvious question: are the official reasons given for the wars on drugs and terror in Colombia plausible, or are there other, deeper factors at work?

Scholars Villar and Cottle suggest that the answers lie in a close examination of the cocaine trade, particularly its class dimensions. Their analysis reveals that this trade has fueled extensive economic growth and led to the development of a "narco-state" under the control of a "narco-bourgeoisie" which is not interested in eradicating cocaine but in gaining a monopoly over its production. The principal target of this effort is the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who challenge that monopoly as well as the very existence of the Colombian state. Meanwhile, U.S. business interests likewise gain from the cocaine trade and seek to maintain a dominant, imperialist relationship with their most important client state in Latin America. Suffering the brutal consequences, as always, are the peasants and workers of Colombia. This revelatory book punctures the official propaganda and shows the class war underpinning the politics of the Colombian cocaine trade.

Winner of the 2014 Division of Women and Crime Distinguished Scholar Award presented by the American Society of Criminology Finalist for the 2013 C. Wright Mills Book Award presented by the Society for the Study of Social Problems Compelling interviews uncover why tough drug policies disproportionately impact women in the American prison system Since the 1980s, when the War on Drugs kicked into high gear and prison populations soared, the increase in women's rate of incarceration has steadily outpaced that of men. As a result, women's prisons in the US have suffered perhaps the most drastically from the overcrowding and recurrent budget crises that have plagued the penal system since harsher drugs laws came into effect. In Breaking Women, Jill A. McCorkel draws upon four years of on-the-ground research in a major US women's prison to uncover why tougher drug policies have so greatly affected those incarcerated there, and how the very nature of punishment in women's detention centers has been deeply altered as a result. Through compelling interviews with prisoners and state personnel, McCorkel reveals that popular so-called "habilitation" drug treatment programs force women to accept a view of themselves as inherently damaged, aberrant addicts in order to secure an earlier release. These programs were created as a way to enact stricter punishments on female drug offenders while remaining sensitive to their perceived feminine needs for treatment, yet they instead work to enforce stereotypes of deviancy that ultimately humiliate and degrade the women. The prisoners are left feeling lost and alienated in the end, and many never truly address their addiction as the programs' organizers may have hoped. A fascinating and yet sobering study, Breaking Women foregrounds the gendered and racialized assumptions behind tough-on-crime policies while offering a vivid account of how the contemporary penal system impacts individual lives.

Winner of the British Society of Criminology Book Prize, 2015 Fleetwood explores how women become involved in trafficking, focusing on the lived experiences of women as drug mules. Offering theoretical insights from gender theory and transnational criminology, Fleetwood argues that women's participation in the drugs trade cannot be adequately understood through the lenses of either victimization or agency.

This cutting-edge volume is the first to address the burgeoning interest in drugs and Africa among scholars, policymakers, and the general public. It brings together an interdisciplinary group of leading academics and practitioners to explore the use, trade, production, and control of mind-altering substances on the continent

This book describes the main patterns and trends of drug trafficking in Latin America and analyzes its political, economic and social effects on several countries over the last twenty years. Its aim is to provide readers an introductory yet elaborate text on the illegal drug problem in the region. It first seeks to define and measure the problem, and then discusses some of the implications that the growth of production, trafficking, and consumption of illegal drugs had in the economies, in the social fabrics, and in the domestic and international policies of Latin American countries. This book analyzes the illegal drugs problem from a Latin American perspective. Although there is a large literature and research on drug use and trade in the USA, Canada, Europe and the Far East, little is understood on the impact of narcotics in countries that have supplied a large share of the drugs used worldwide. This work explores how routes into Europe and the USA are developed, why the so-called drug cartels exist in the region, what level of profits illegal drugs generate, how such gains are distributed among producers, traffickers, and dealers and how much they make, why violence spread in certain places but not in others, and which alternative policies were taken to address the growing challenges posed by illegal drugs. With a strong empirical foundation based on the best available data, Illegal Drugs, Drug Trafficking and Violence in Latin America explains how rackets in the region built highly profitable enterprises transshipping and smuggling drugs northbound and why the large circulation of drugs also produced the emergence of vibrant domestic markets, which doubled the number of drug users in the region the last 10 years. It presents the best available information for 18 countries, and the final two chapters analyze in depth two rather different case studies: Mexico and Argentina.

What is more profitable than cocaine, heroin, marijuana or guns? Illegally trafficked cigarettes . . .

Reputable tobacco companies have – for decades – been complicit in cigarette smuggling. In this gripping exposé, former SARS lawyer Telita Snyckers uncovers the dark underbelly of the tobacco industry.

She recounts the instances where big tobacco itself was caught redhanded and explores not only why a listed company would want to smuggle its own product, but also how it was done.

This book analyses the life histories of Jamaican men involved in the UK drugs trade, including wholesalers, street dealers, specialist cooks, cutters, and growers. Employing a life history approach, their autobiographical accounts are examined to provide an in-depth and unique insight of their journeys into drugs and crime.

During 2000-1 in Afghanistan, the Taliban achieved a longtime goal of national and international drug policy agencies: a large, sudden, and unanticipated reduction in world opium production. This cutback provides an unprecedented opportunity to study the dynamics of the world opiate market and ask whether further interventions could effectively reduce the flows of drugs. Based on an extended, multi-national study, the authors construct a new model for the trafficking of drugs and revenues and offer the first account of the world market in heroin and other illicit opiates during and after the 2001 ban. The authors' broader findings demonstrate how robust production, trafficking, and consumption combine to make successful long-term interventions on the supply-side rare exceedingly difficult, though specific policies can impact the organization and behavior of markets. For reductions in both production and consumption, where the cultivation of opium is entrenched in the normal life and legitimate economy of millions of people, international agencies and foreign governments must provide adequate and long-term support to foster both alternative development policies and law enforcement programs.

Exploring the illegal drug issue in international context, this book looks at why harmonization has not already taken place at the European level. It considers the desirability and viability of harmonization, examines the conflict between repressive and liberal drug policies and applies a multi-level governance lens to the issue.

Illicit drug use is an issue that triggers a wealth of debate and concern. Drawing on well-respected authors in the field, this textbook is at the cutting edge of contemporary debates about illicit drug use. Comprehensive in its coverage, the book examines the major theoretical questions, themes and policy debates and presents them in a straightforward, lucid manner. Knitted together by a strong editorial framework and student-friendly features such as study exercises, Drugs in Britain is essential reading for students of sociology and criminology taking courses in this area.