Snow gets bogged down when it covers the personalities dominating the landscape in one era or another. The book presents a seemingly endless number of minor characters, often introduced essentially as lists along with thumbnail sketches of their respective careers.
This is a particularly ineffective narrative device, which leaves the reader with no specific impression of any of Galicia’s narcos, as they all just jumble together. A reader can’t help but wonder if the book wouldn’t have benefitted from a greater focus on a smaller number of major figures.
Snow concludes with an extended rundown of Galicia today, including profiles of the new generation of capos. As Carretero explains, today’s criminal networks are more risk-averse and operate with lower profiles, but Galicia is no less successful in servicing the market for recreational drugs. It has evolved with the times - the longstanding Colombian partnerships have been supplemented by ties to Venezuelan and African criminal groups - and its role in the European cocaine trade remains intact.
In one sense, this is a cautionary tale about the intractability of the drug trade: the crusading magistrates, multiple investigations, billions of euros, and tens of thousands of man-hours dedicated to reducing the region’s drug smuggling have essentially failed, and little has really changed.
But from another perspective, Galicia looks like something of a success story. Carretero reports that the entire region has had approximately 30 drug-related killings since the 1990s, which is little more than a bad weekend in Acapulco or Tijuana. The reduction of the most powerful groups of yesteryear has not provoked the bloodshed typical of power vacuums in Latin America. The ties between criminal actors and local politicians have not turned the latter into frequent targets of violence.
Whatever its drug-induced challenges, Galicia remains a comparatively healthy society. If the Western Hemisphere’s criminal landscape grew to resemble Galicia’s, few would complain.
This article was first published by InSight Crime. Read the original content here.
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