Toby Muse, author: We live in a world that Pablo Escobar could never have imagined'

Toby Muse spent over 15 years infiltrating narcotics labs and traveling through guerrilla camps in Colombia to understand motivations behind trafficking networks. His book Kilo: Life and Death Inside the Secret World of the Cocaine Cartels (2021) examines the emotional lives of a novia of a Sicario and a widow of a narco. Six years after initial publication, it was released in Spanish. Cocaine remains universal as governments change, drug lords fall, and violence stains streets in Sinaloa and Medellin. Cocaine corrupts politicians and police, fuels Wall Street and London nightlife, moves billions through European ports, and creates an unimaginable abyss for countries like Ecuador. The narrative follows a silent protagonist, a bundle of cocaine, from Colombia’s impoverished fields to final consumers. The war on drugs has lasted over five decades, yet cocaine is at record levels, described as a golden age of cocaine with production concentrated in three countries: Colombia,

Read at english.elpais.com