Summary

Delving further into the perspective of law enforcement, Quinones recounts the efforts of a narcotics team in Portland, Oregon, left exhausted and frustrated after struggling to catch up with the Xalisco Boys’ innovative new point of sale. Unlike traditional drug dealers who sold from a house or a street corner, the Xalisco Boys sold from their cars, making surveillance laborious and concrete busts difficult. Keen to the patterns of narcotics officers, the Xalisco traffickers also “learned how drug investigations worked: prosecutors prized cases with large quantities of drugs… As camouflage, these Mexican heroin guys used just-in-time supplying, like any global corporation, to ensure they had only tiny quantities in their cars or apartments” (69). Also similar to that of a global corporation was the Xalisco Boys’ marketing expertise. One addict told Quinones confidently that the dealers were the typical depiction of drug pushers, giving away...