The Last Kilo

From true-crime legend T. J. English, the epic, never-before-told saga of “Los Muchachos,” one of the greatest cocaine trafficking organizations in American history—a story of glitz, glamour, and organized crime set against 1980’s Miami.

Despite what Scarface might lead one to believe, violence was not the dominant characteristic of the cocaine business. It was corruption: the dirty cops, agents, lawyers, judges, and politicians who made the drug world go round. And no one managed that carousel of dangerous players better than Willy Falcon.

Falcon, a Cuban high school dropout who had become a champion powerboat racer and then fled to the U.S. to escape Castro, built an extraordinary international organization from the ground up. Los Muchachos, the syndicate he founded, thrived as a major cocaine distribution network in the U.S. from the late 1970’s into the early 1990’s. At their height, Los Muchachos made more than a hundred million dollars a year.

Willy Falcon and those like him—major suppliers, of whom there were only a few—became stars in their own right. They were the deliverers of good times, at least until the downside of persistent cocaine use became apparent: delusions of grandeur, psychological addiction, financial ruin. Thus, the War on Drugs was born, and law enforcement came after Falcon and his crew with a vengeance.

T. J. English has been granted unprecedented access to the inner workings of Los Muchachos, sitting down with Willy Falcon and his associates for many lengthy interviews, and revealing never-before-understood details about drug trafficking. A classic of true-crime writing from a master of the genre, The Last Kilo traces the rise and fall of a true cocaine empire—and the lives left in its wake.