Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels

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From the author of El Narco and Gangster Warlords, a searing investigation into the enormous black market for firearms, essential to cartels and gangs in the drug trade. Guns from America reach more than 130 countries, and inundate Mexico, with over 200,000 guns every year crossing the border and arming the drug cartels. In this groundbreaking new work of investigative journalism, master of reportage Ioan Grillo delves into the enormous black market for firearms in the Americas: he travels to gun manufacturers, strolls the aisles of gun shows and gun shops, hangs out on Baltimore street corners, talks to federal agents who have infiltrated gangs, and visits the ATF gun tracing centre in West Virginia. Along the way, Grillo lays bare the many ways that guns slip through the legal cracks and into the hands of criminals, fuelling violence among Mexicos powerful cartels and beyond. At a time when debates around gun control are rife, this gripping expos draws a startling a connection between guns and the global drug trade, revealing them to be key accessories in our epidemics of addiction. Praise for Ioan Grillo Grillo is a breathtakingly intrepid reporter, diving in where police fear to tread, seeking out men who wouldnt hesitate to kill him Mail on Sunday Tenacious, riveting, hair-raising reportage Financial Times Dogged, impassioned and courageous reporting ... There is no doubting his expertise, his compassion or his grit Daily Express

Reviews

Ioan Grillo is one of the bravest and most thoughtful journalists in the world. If you want to know whats really going on, you have to read him and especially this excellent book -- Johann Hari, author of LOST CONNECTIONS
Leaving no stone unturned, Ioan Grillo casts a wide net into understanding the web of firearm culture and complicity; an increasingly important work of journalism both heartbreaking and impossible to put down -- Matthew Heineman, Oscar nominated filmmaker of CARTEL LAND and A PRIVATE WAR
Ioan Grillo is one of the best reporters covering the cartels, crime and carnage south of the border. In Blood Gun Money, he traces the drug-gun pipeline that runs straight from that violence to the beating heart of America. It's even weirder and bloodier than the fiction -- Don Winslow, author of THE CARTEL and THE BORDER
Written in a gripping narrative style and with details gleaned from firsthand reporting, Ioan Grillo has written a vitally important book about the gun underground that those in the know call the Iron River -- Jon Lee Anderson, author CHE GUEVARA: A REVOLUTIONARY LIFE
Praise for Ioan Grillo * --- *
Grillo is a breathtakingly intrepid reporter, diving in where police fear to tread, seeking out men who wouldnt hesitate to kill him * Mail on Sunday *
Dogged, impassioned and courageous reporting ... There is no doubting his expertise, his compassion or his grit * Daily Express *
Grillo has done sterling work on the front lines ... His portraits of gangster societies living beyond law or even reason are starkly persuasive * Spectator *
Excellent ... Incredible stories litter the book ... An urgent look at a terrible, endemic problem -- Toby Muse * TLS *

Author Bio

Ioan Grillo is a contributing writer at the New York Times specializing in crime and drugs. Based in Mexico City, he has also worked for Time magazine, the History Channel, CNN, Reuters, The Associated Press, and Esquire. He is the author of El Narco, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and Gangster Warlords, a New York Times Book Review Editors Choice and a Guardian Book of the Year.