Confessions Of A Cartel Hit Man

From Boy Scout to assassin – the true confessions of a cartel hitman At the age of twelve Martin Corona started dealing drugs. After years in and out of prison, he rose through the ranks to become the leader of an elite killing squad for a notorious Tijuana drug cartel. Now haunted by his past deeds, he lives with the fact that he once pulled the trigger on a pregnant woman in front of her seven-year-old child, and accidentally shot a cardinal while hunting down El Chapo in an airport. Martin Corona has been convicted of multiple murders committed during his time as a cartel career hitman. These killings were brutal and cruelly efficient. Corona's gang would cross into the United States from their luxurious hideout in Mexico, eradicate whoever needed to be killed north of the border, and return home in the afternoon. In this book, Martin’s shocking first-hand confessions illuminate his descent from teenage drug dealer to murderous member of the drug cartel run by the Arellano brothers that dominated the Southern California drug trade - and initiated much violent gang warfare - for decades. Martin's story illuminates how a young boy, who played Little League football and was a Boy Scout, became a vicious criminal. Both shocking and powerful, it asks us how someone can inflict so much evil and whether they can find forgiveness on the other side.

The true confession of an assassin, a sicario, who rose through the ranks of the Southern California gang world to become a respected leader in an elite, cruelly efficient crew of hit men for Mexico's "most vicious drug cartel," and eventually found a way out and an (almost) normal life. Martin Corona, a US citizen, fell into the outlaw life at twelve and worked for a crew run by the Arellano brothers, founders of the the Tijuana drug cartel that dominated the Southern California drug trade and much bloody gang warfare for decades. Corona's crew would cross into the United States from their luxurious hideout in Mexico, kill whoever needed to be killed north of the border, and return home in the afternoon. That work continued until the arrest of Javier Arellano-Félix in 2006 in a huge coordinated DEA operation. Martin Corona played a key role in the downfall of the cartel when he turned state's evidence. He confessed to multiple murders. Special Agent of the California Department of Justice Steve Duncan, who wrote the foreword, says Martin Corona is the only former cartel hit man he knows who is truly remorseful. Martin's father was a US Marine. The family had many solid middle-class advantages, including the good fortune to be posted in Hawaii for a time during which a teenage Martin thought he might be able to turn away from the outlaw life of theft, drug dealing, gun play, and prostitution. He briefly quit drugs and held down a job, but a die had been cast. He soon returned to a gangbanging life he now deeply regrets. How does someone become evil, a murderer who can kill without hesitation? This story is an insight into how it happened to one human being and how he now lives with himself. He is no longer a killer; he has asked for forgiveness; he has made a kind of peace for himself. He wrote letters to family members of his victims. Some of them not only wrote back but came to support him at his parole hearings. It is a cautionary tale, but also one that shows that evil doesn't have to be forever.

A Mexican drug cartel hit man reflects on 20 years of killing, torture and kidnapping in the most violent city on earth, Ciudad Juarez."

Perkins, a former chief economist at a Boston strategic-consulting firm, confesses he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business.

Featuring 15 explosive new chapters, this new edition of the New York Times bestseller brings the story of Economic Hit Men up-to-date and, chillingly, home to the U.S.―but it also gives us hope and the tools to fight back. Former economic hit man John Perkins shares new details about the ways he and others cheated countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Then he reveals how the deadly EHM cancer he helped create has spread far more widely and deeply than ever in the US and everywhere else—to become the dominant system of business, government, and society today. Finally, he gives an insider view of what we each can do to change it. Economic hit men are the shock troops of what Perkins calls the corporatocracy, a vast network of corporations, banks, colluding governments, and the rich and powerful people tied to them. If the EHMs can't maintain the corrupt status quo through nonviolent coercion, the jackal assassins swoop in. The heart of this book is a completely new section, over 100 pages long, that exposes the fact that all the EHM and jackal tools—false economics, false promises, threats, bribes, extortion, debt, deception, coups, assassinations, unbridled military power—are used around the world today exponentially more than during the era Perkins exposed over a decade ago. As dark as the story gets, this reformed EHM also provides hope. Perkins offers specific actions each of us can take to transform what he calls a failing Death Economy into a Life Economy that provides sustainable abundance for all.

John Perkins’ controversial and bestselling exposé, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, revealed for the first time the secret world of economic hit men (EHMs). But Perkins’ Confessions contained only a small piece of this sinister puzzle. The full story is far bigger, deeper, and darker than Perkins’ personal account revealed. Here other EHMs, journalists, and investigators join Perkins to tell their own stories, providing the first probing and expansive look into this pervasive web of systematic corruption. With chapters spotlighting how specific countries around the globe have been subverted, A Game As Old As Empire uncovers the inner workings of the institutions behind these economic manipulations. The contributors detail concrete examples of how the “economic hit man game” is still being played: an officer of an offshore bank hiding hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen money, IMF advisers slashing Ghana’s education and health programs, a mercenary defending a European oil company in Nigeria, a consultant rewriting Iraqi oil law, and executives financing warlords to secure supplies of coltan ore in Congo. Together they show how this system of corruption and plunder operates in real life, and reveal the price that the rest of the world must pay as a result. Most important, A Game As Old As Empire connects the dots, showing how the various pieces of this system come together to create the world’s first truly global empire.

Following up on the success of the Adrenaline title Mob: Stories of Death and Betrayal from Organized Crime, Adrenaline Classics brings back the New York Times bestseller (originally published as Killer) that helped pave the way for the latest generation of nouveau-mob stories, from Donnie Brasco to The Sopranos. "Joey"—a journeyman Jewish hitman, numbers king, and loan shark—collaborated with David Fisher (co-editor of the hit Adrenaline title Wild Blue) to lay out the rackets in gripping detail. His story includes detailed accounts of his chillingly "professional" murders of thirty-eight victims. The strong sales of Mob are further evidence that the best mafia stories—and this is one of the best—capture the public's interest. Joey the Hitman's original best-seller status reflects the quality of the writing, the frank intelligence of the subject/writer, and Joey's convincingly matter-of-fact, regular-guy tone. When he writes, debunking The Godfather, "... Actually very few mob members even have Bronx-Italian accents ... a lot of mob people are not very tough, the people we meet and deal with are very ordinary, most of us stay home at night and watch TV, and we only shoot each other when absolutely necessary," you know you're listening to the original Soprano. This edition includes a new afterword from David Fisher, who for the first time reveals Joey's identity and the incredible story of how Joey finally died.