Ron Chepesiuk

the gritty underworld of New York's most famous neighborhood

Gangsters of Harlem

For more than 20 years, the Cali cartel saturated U.S. streets with cocaine, ruining neighborhoods and lives while reaping millions in cash. Efforts to combat the influx of drugs from Colombia were often stymied by the careful organization and execution of the drug trade. Through the use of bribery, terrorist structures, and legitimate business practices, the cartel rose to become a serious threat to Colombian society's fragile stability, while providing over 70% of the world's cocaine to various markets. It took more than two decades and a global effort, spearheaded by U.S. law enforcement, to topple this notorious criminal organization. The rise and fall of one of Colombia's most notorious drug cartels is a story of how organized crime can function at the most sophisticated levels, yet still be taken down by the very forces it seeks to evade. This book vividly examines the Cali Cartel, providing unique insight into the history of international trafficking, organized crime, and U.S. drug policy. Relying on first hand accounts, interviews, and DEA records, Chepesiuk brings the story to life, illustrating how drug traffickers operate and why they are so difficult to stop. In detailing law enforcement's biggest takedown, this book describes how such transnational criminal organizations must be dismantled, and why drug trafficking continues to be an important problem in the United States. The fall of the cartel also provides lessons for law enforcement efforts to combat terrorists and other formidable criminal organizations.

Taking Down Colombia's Cali Drug Cartel

The Bullet Or the Bribe

Amado Carrillo Fuentes, Khun Sa and Raymond Chow are three of the most colorful gangsters of recent times. Carrillo Fuentes, arguably Mexicos biggest drug trafficker, was known as Lord of the Skies, and he pioneered the use of jumbo jets for the mass distribution of illicit drugs into the U.S. Khun Sa was a Burmese War lord and perhaps historys biggest heroin dealer who operated out of Southeast Asia. Raymond Chow, known as the Shrimp Man, is a Chinese gangster that dominated crime in the Chinatown of San Francisco. All three kingpins have impacted crime on an international level. We have all read the news headlines now read the real story of the war of the cartels. Only Ron Chepesiuk could write this book and get the real story. With his experience, meticulous research and ability to talk to those in the know Ron has written a great and thorough investigative book that gives up the inside info on the war for supremacy in the cocaine trade. This is an entertaining and informative read that must be on your shelf if you enjoy true crime tales. Seth Ferranti, author of Gorilla Convict and Rayful Edmond

Amado Carrillo Fuentes and Raymond Chow

Notorious Kingpins

In the 1980s, Colombia was the scene of history's biggest gang war. The epic death struggle pitted Pablo Escobar, the so called world's greatest outlaw, against the powerful Cali Cartel, led by the brothers Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela. The war left thousands of Colombians dead and spawned the term, narcoterrorism. Who got Pablo Escobar and how did the war play out? Author, Ron Chepesiuk takes the reader behind the scenes of the war to the death and investigates a gangland mystery.

The War of the Cartels

Escobar Versus Cali

Crazy Charlie: Carlos Lehder, Revolutionary Or Neo Nazi

J. Edward Lee

Although modern authors continually produce important studies of the War Between the States, the firsthand accounts of those who were in the conflict remain the most valuable tools for understanding. This collection of letters and diaries provides glimpses into the lives of a diverse group of South Carolinians. Among the seventeen accounts are the voices of women, including a Confederate spy; of officers like Captain Obidiah Hardin, who left his beloved Palmetto State to fight and die in Virginia before the war was even a year old; and of common men, like German immigrant Augustus Franks, whose love for his adopted state compelled him to staunchly defend the Confederacy. Collected from the archives of Winthrop University, these remarkable documents give voices and faces to the war as it affected South Carolina and her citizens.

The Confederate Experience in Letters and Diaries

South Carolina in the Civil War

Aroused by gains in civil rights and galvanized by the antiwar movement, radical leaders of the 1960s sought to make revolutionary changes in American society. Partly through their leadership, a generation was awakened by the call for a counterculture. That generation is now responsible for the same social and political structures they so adamantly, and sometimes violently, opposed. How did the sixties affect the counterculture leaders? And what are they doing now? Paul Krassner, Cleveland Sellers, Jane Adams, Dave Dellinger, Bill Ayers, Warren Hinckle, Peter Berg, Noam Chomsky, Tim Leary, Philip Berrigan, Anita Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Erica Huggins, Jim Fouratt, Bernadine Dohrn, Barry Melton, Peter Coyote, and Abbie Hoffman reflect on the seminal events that dominated the sixties and discuss the major issues and problems facing America (and them!) today.

Candid Conversations with Those Who Shaped the Era

Sixties Radicals, Then and Now

Traces the stories of infamous African-American gangsters John "Mushmouth" Johnson, Jeff Fort, and Larry Hoover, describing their pivotal roles in controlling Chicago's underworld, their typically brutal methods, and their powerful personalities.

Black Gangsters of Chicago

The Scotch-Irish began emigrating to Northern Ireland from Scotland in the seventeenth century to form the Ulster Plantation. In the next century these Scottish Presbyterians migrated to the Western Hemisphere in search of a better life. Except for the English, the Scotch-Irish were the largest ethnic group to come to the New World during the eighteenth century. By the time of the American Revolution there were an estimated 250,000 Scotch-Irish in the colonies, about a tenth of the population. Twelve U.S. presidents can trace their lineage to the Scotch-Irish. This work discusses the life of the Scotch-Irish in Ireland, their treatment by their English overlords, the reasons for emigration to America, the settlement patterns in the New World, the movement westward across America, life on the colonial frontier, Scotch-Irish contributions to America's development, and sites of Scotch-Irish interest in the north of Ireland.

From the North of Ireland to the Making of America

The Scotch-Irish

Frank Lucas was the baddest dude on the mean streets of Harlem. His drug gang smuggled heroin from Vietnam to the US in American warplanes and were rumoured to hide drugs in the bodybags of dead GIs. Lucas - whose exploits are to be immortalised in a Hollywood blockbuster starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe in 2007 - is just one of a cast of larger-than-life characters in this chronicle of the history of organised crime in New York's infamous neighbourhood.

The History of the Gangs of Harlem

American Gangster

Gina Price White

Women have played a prominent role in shaping South Carolina's history through active participation in many aspects of the state's development, from securing state appropriations for public libraries to helping to establish the South Carolina Board of Social Services. While many of their achievements have been documented by various organizations, a number of these irreplaceable records have been lost or discarded. Winthrop University, for years one of the largest women's colleges in the nation, strives to preserve these important documents that tell the story of South Carolina women and the contributions they have made. The images in this volume are from the extensive collection of the Winthrop University Archives, which includes the records of the university and state women's organizations as well as numerous personal letters, scrapbooks, and diaries. Within these pages, you will discover the impact that women have made on education, politics, religion, sports, business, and the arts, and learn first hand about their lives and individual accomplishments.

Images from the Winthrop University Archives

Palmetto Women

Scott Wilson

Tales featuring drug king pins, entertainers, hit men, street gangs, con men, corrupt cops and reformed gang-bangers. Read about the most feared man in the entertainment industry, the unlikely alliance between an ambitious gangster and a violent and crazy mobster, and more.

Amazing But True Gangster Tales

Straight from the Hood

Ron Chepesiuk presents a comprehensive and engrossing chronicle of gang and gangster history in Miami, also known as the Magic City. The book traces gangsters that include the notorious smugglers of the Prohibition era, famous mobsters like Al Capone and Meyer Lansky, the Cuban Mafia, the Colombian cartels, the Russian Mafia and the current street gangs that have come to plague Miami since the advent of crack cocaine.

True Tales of Mobsters, Gamblers, Hit Men, Con Men and Gang Bangers from the Magic City

Gangsters of Miami

Dig deep into the annals of crime and one can find smart, ambitious, and ruthless women who have cracked the glass ceiling of the underworld and become notorious in their own right. Noted crime writer Chepesiuk profiles the major queenpins of modern times and how they not only survived but thrived in gangland.

Notorious Women Gangsters of the Modern Era

Queenpins

Nestled just south of the North and South Carolina border lies Rock Hill, a city whose name echoes the voices of the Charlotte, Columbia & Augusta Railroad workers in the 1850s. When the rail crews discovered a stony hill, the name for the area was given. From its meager beginnings as a railroad community, Rock Hill has blossomed into one of South Carolina's largest municipalties. With Charlotte less than 30 miles away, Rock Hill has the unique ability to offer big-city opportunities with the personal touches so characteristic of America's less populous areas.For 150 years, Rock Hill has been honored as a valuable locale in the South. Because the early town centered around the railways, travelers and industry arrived soon after. In 1895 the institution now known as Winthrop University relocated from Columbia, South Carolina to Rock Hill, and the city secured its reputation for being devoted to education. In its lifetime, Rock Hill has been home to many notable individuals, including nationally recognized artists and writers. Its cultural opportunities still abound, both in conjunction with the university and as straightforward community efforts, as well as through various museums, historic districts, and springtime festivals.

Rock Hill, South Carolina

Written with the pace and vividness of a thriller, Narcos Inc also illustrates the similarities between global traffickers and international terrorists and compares the current war on terror with the war on drugs. In this first-ever account of the cartel's rise and fall, Ron Chepesiuk provides a compelling insight into the history of international drug trafficking, organised crime and US drug policy. He draws vivid pictures of the gang's founders and reveals how they built their empire, carving up the massive US market with their rival Medellin Cartel: New York going to Cali, Miami to Medellin.

Narcos Inc: the Rise and Fall of the Cali Cartel

From the time that President Ronald Reagan declared war on drugs in 1982 through today, the United States increased the military's role in interdiction and made illegal drugs a central component of U.S. foreign policy. Despite these actions, international drug trafficking has become the world's largest criminal enterprise and the United States is far and away the number one market for illegal drugs. This book sees the so-called war on drugs as a failure that has actually contributed to a growth in the drug trade. An overview of the U.S. antidrug policy is first provided, followed by an in-depth examination of the major criminal organizations that have been involved in trafficking, focusing on how these so-called hard targets got started, their organizational structure, their operations and how law enforcement worldwide has responded to their growth. The social, political and economic effects of drug trafficking are then explored. A concluding section assesses the impact of U.S. policy on the worldwide drug trade and puts forth what has been learned from this failed agenda.

The United States War Against International Drug Trafficking, 1982-1997

Hard Target

Magdalena Chepesiuk

Since its founding in 1886, Winthrop University has stood as one of South Carolina's premiere state institutions, providing education and opportunity to generations of women and men throughout the state and across the country. Education pioneer David Bancroft Johnson had the unique vision of establishing a school for training female teachers in response to a teacher shortage in Columbia and worked earnestly to acquire the necessary funds from Peabody Education Board chairman Robert C. Winthrop, for whom the school is named. Under Johnson's guidance and care, Winthrop University moved from Columbia to Rock Hill and developed into a university with a national reputation for excellence. Containing over 200 black-and-white photographs chosen from the Dacus Library's extensive archives, Winthrop University explores the school's impressive history, from its founding in the late nineteenth century to the present. This volume allows readers to meet prominent faculty members throughout the college's history, stroll along the picturesque campus with its inspiring architecture and historic structures, such as Main Building, Carnegie Library, and Phelps Hall, to name but a few, view the fashionable uniforms and diverse activities of some of the college's early female students, and relive some of Winthrop's special traditions of yesteryear, like Classes Night, Rat Week, Greek Day, and Halloween Happening.

Winthrop University

'The Bangkok Connection' chronicles the story of Leslie 'Ike' Atkinson, charismatic former U.S. army master sergeant, career smuggler, card shark and doting family man whom law-enforcement agencies code-named Sergeant Smack. His criminal activities sparked the creation of a special DEA unit code-named Centac 9.

Trafficking Heroin from Asia to the USA

Bangkok Connection

Haney Howell

In recent years, a new wave of investigative journalists have become prominent. Some relish being "politically incorrect" (David Brock, author of The Real Anita Hill); others methodically shatter cultural icons (Douglas Frantz's expose of Washington insider Clark Clifford); and still others have revealed such horror as Cold War experimentation on unsuspecting citizens (Eileen Welsome's Pulitzer Prize-winning stories). In their own words, these journalists and nine others (Tim Weiner, John Camp, Marjie Lundstrom, Gerald Posner, Sydney Schanberg, David Burnham, Bryon Acohido, Dan Moldea and Brian Ross) provide insight to their jobs and the role of investigative journalism in American society.

Ron Chepesiuk

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