Publisher Description
In this riveting and relentless nonfiction thriller, award-winning investigative reporter William C. Rempel tells the harrowing story of former Cali cartel insider Jorge Salcedo, an ordinary man facing an extraordinary dilemma—a man forced to risk everything to escape the powerful and treacherous Cali crime syndicate. Colombia in the 1990s is a country in chaos, as a weak government battles guerrilla movements and narco-traffickers, including the notorious Pablo Escobar and his rivals in the Cali cartel. Enter Jorge Salcedo, a part-time soldier, a gifted engineer, a respected businessman and family man—and a man who despises Pablo Escobar for patriotic and deeply personal reasons. He is introduced to the godfathers of the Cali cartel, who are at war with Escobar and desperately want their foe dead. With mixed feelings, Jorge agrees to help them. Once inside, Jorge rises to become head of security for Miguel RodrÃguez Orejuela, principal godfather of the $7-billion-a-year Cali drug cartel. Jorge tries to turn a blind eye to the violence, corruption, and brutality that surround him, and he struggles privately to preserve his integrity even as he is drawn deeper into the web of cartel operations. Then comes an order from the godfathers that he can’t obey—but can’t refuse. Jorge realizes that his only way out is to bring down the biggest, richest crime syndicate of all time. Thus begins a heart-pumping roller-coaster ride of intensifying peril. Secretly aided by a pair of young American DEA agents, Jorge races time and cartel assassins to extract damaging evidence, help capture the fugitive godfather, and save the life of a witness targeted for murder. Through it all, death lurks a single misstep away. William C. Rempel is the only reporter with access to this story and to Jorge, who remains in hiding somewhere in the United States—even the author doesn’t know where—but has revealed his experience in gripping detail. Salcedo’s is the story of one extraordinary ordinary man forced to risk everything to end a nightmare of his own making.
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“Highly recommended. I am surely biased, having lived in Cali starting right about the time most of this story winds down. But Rempel is a great storyteller. I read these 325+ pages in a period of a little over 24 hours. It really gives a sense of the level of corruption in Colombia, although this is changing and this country has a great future. The other big impression I have is how this history repeats itself – the Medellin and Cali cartels, and now how drug traficking is centered in Mexico. The Cali cartel was relatively benign compared to Medellin and the Mexicans. The success of anti-narcotics authorities will be temporary, as suppression of traficking in one place only moves the activity elsewhere (note how one of the key DEA agents in this story is now the head of the Phoenix office). None of this will end until cocaine is legalized or it somehow falls out of fashion among mostly American and European consumers.”
—
Glenn (5 out of 5 stars)
