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  • Published: 16 November 2021
  • ISBN: 9781761046605
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 576
  • RRP: $22.99

Pure Narco




How does a young student majoring in Portuguese at Georgetown University in Washington, DC become one of the biggest drug smugglers on Earth? And how does he survive 25 years in the trade – and encounters with some of its most powerful and ruthless figures, from Pablo Escobar to Narcos: Mexico’s Alberto Sicilia Falcón – when he hates violence and never carries a gun?

In his decades in the business, the savvy, charismatic Luis Navia was responsible for hundreds of tonnes of cocaine making their way across the globe. In the process, he became a multimillionaire, but while living as a fugitive spent heavily on a lavish but wasteful lifestyle. All while Luis – torn between guilt and adrenalin – tried to maintain a semblance of normal family life as he frequently veered out of control.

In Pure Narco, Australian author Jesse Fink brilliantly tells this incredible story through the eyes of Luis, his family, and his wife and former lovers – as well as the relentless American law-enforcement officials who finally swooped and brought him to justice. It’s a white-powdered, white-knuckle ride you’ll never forget.

It’s a life story that reads like something out of a John Grisham or Elmore Leonard novel that it’s remarkable it has remained untold for so long.

Careers in the cocaine-trafficking business are usually short. It’s not only a dangerous profession, fraught with the possibility of capture and long jail sentences, but it can be deadly if the cartels get to you first.

Not for Luis Antonio Navia.

For 25 years the Cuban-American smuggled hundreds of tons of white powder for the biggest cartels in Colombia and Mexico, including Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel.

In a profession populated by thugs, Navia’s dress sense and good manners earned him the nickname ‘El Senador’ (The Senator). He refused to carry a weapon.

What made him good at his job was amassing trusted contacts, losing very few shipments of coke, and keeping a low profile. He also maintained a normal family life with a Colombian wife and two young children.

But he was never far removed from the most brutal violence imaginable.

One friend got his head cut off. Another was hit over the head, put in a 55-gallon drum full of cement and dumped in a canal. Navia himself was kidnapped three times and went close to being fed alive to crocodiles.

Somehow through it all he managed to survive and spent two decades fooling the DEA and other law-enforcement agencies.

That was until he came under the radar of Robert Harley, a tenacious US Customs special agent in Key West, Florida, who was determined to bring him to justice.

What followed was an international game of cat-and-mouse that culminated in Navia’s 2000 arrest in Venezuela in one of the biggest antinarcotics takedowns of all time, the 12-nation Operation Journey.

Spanning decades, continents and featuring a who’s who of the drug trade, Pure Narco is a fast-paced adventure ride into the dark underworld of cocaine trafficking, written with the cooperation of a dozen law-enforcement agents from the world’s top antinarcotics forces in the United States and Great Britain.

It also contains insider insights into how the global drug business operates and offers some cogent solutions to the never-ending ‘war on drugs’.

Navia served his time in jail and is now free to tell his tale. His is the rare perspective of someone who has worked on both sides of that war: as a cocaine trafficker and US Government consultant.

This book is a redemption story. Luis Navia, the pure narco, has gone full circle.

  • Published: 16 November 2021
  • ISBN: 9781761046605
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 576
  • RRP: $22.99

About the authors

Jesse Fink

Jesse Fink was born in London in 1973. He is the author of six books including The Eagle in the Mirror, Pure Narco, Bon: The Last Highway and The Youngs: The Brothers Who Built AC/DC. Visit his official website at jessefinkbooks.com

Luis Navia

Luis Navia, born in Havana in 1955, worked for nearly 25 years as a cocaine trafficker for the deadliest Colombian and Mexican cartels until he was arrested in the multinational takedown Operation Journey in 2000. He was released in 2005 and began a new career in construction. Today he also runs his own consulting business for private clients and liaises with the US Government in matters related to antinarcotics law enforcement. He is the co-author with Jesse Fink of Pure Narco.

Praise for Pure Narco

Fink (Bon) tells the gripping story of Luis Navia, a prominent Cuban American drug trafficker in the 1980s and ’90s. Navia’s well-to-do parents fled Cuba when he was a small boy after Castro’s 1959 takeover and settled in Miami. In later years, he had no interest in his father’s sugar trading business and partied in college while selling cocaine. From there he became a narco for Colombian and Mexican cartels, transporting billions of dollars in coke around the world. Known as El Senador for his classy fashion sense, Navia attributes his 25-year successful run to being a businessman and not a killer. But it all came to an end in 2000 with Operation Journey, a multinational drug bust that was the largest in history. In 2001, Navia took a plea deal in the U.S. and testified against cartel members in exchange for a four-year prison sentence. Almost as fascinating as his drug years is Fink’s account of how Navia has since led a wealthy lifestyle in Miami with extended family and friends. Though Navia won’t say how much money he has, Fink estimates he has millions stashed in offshore accounts. Those interested in how the illegal drug trade and law enforcement interact will be rewarded.

Discover more

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Pure Narco by Jesse Fink and Luis Navia

In Pure Narco, Australian author Jesse Fink brilliantly tells this incredible story through the eyes of Luis, his family, and his wife and former lovers – as well as the relentless American law-enforcement officials who finally swooped and brought him to justice. It’s a white-powdered, white-knuckle ride you’ll never forget. https://www.penguin.com.au/books/pure-narco-9780143796275

Article
Writing Pure Narco

Jesse Fink reveals the machinations of writing a book with one of the biggest drug traffickers the world has ever known.