“That is manufactured by the North Koreans,” Paul says. “We
get it from the Chinese, who get it from the North Koreans.”
“So my product is going to be the same, the amount that I'm
going to buy from you?”
“The same. Exactly the same.” Paul nods. “I know you want
the high quality for your market.”
“Yeah, because the product—you know that one of the best
customers, and you probably know that, is the Americans.”
“Number one.”
“It's the number one. They are fucking—they want everything
over there. I don't know what the word is from Spanish. Con-
sumistas? Consumists?”
“Consumers,” Jack interjects, off-camera.
“Yeah, they buy everything and they never stop,” Paul says.
“So everything that I ship is to America,” Pepe says. “Trust me,
when I brought this, fucking everyone was asking me for it. Every-
one.”
Paul and Pepe consider different payment possibilities. First they
will trade the cocaine for meth. After that, Paul says that he is
happy to be paid in gold or diamonds. If they need to conduct
bank transfers, he works primarily through China and Hong
Kong, although he sounds a note of caution. “We just had, in
Hong Kong, twenty million dollars frozen, by bullshit,” he says.
“You need to be cautious. It becomes worse, because the Ameri-
can, he likes to control everything. And they are there, making a
lot of trouble.”
“I say fuck Americans,” Pepe says. “Americans, like you say,
they think that they can control everything, but they cannot. It's
not impossible, but they cannot. We have to be very careful.”
They discuss shipment methods, and how many kilos of each
drug the other could move in a month. Paul owns ships already
picking up loads in South America and traveling to Asia, but he
much prefers to work in Africa, territory he knows well. His cus-
tomers are in Australia, Thailand, China. “We are not touching
the U.S. right now,” he says.