Bloodlines: The True Story of a Drug Cartel, the FBI, and the Battle for a Horse-Racing Dynasty
Written by Melissa del Bosque
Narrated by Cassandra Campbell
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
The riveting and suspenseful account of two young FBI agents in a pursuit of a drug cartel's most fearsome leader, Miguel Treviño.
Drugs, money, cartels: this is what FBI rookie Scott Lawson expected when he was sent to the border town of Laredo, but instead he’s deskbound writing intelligence reports about the drug war. Then, one day, Lawson is asked to check out an anonymous tip: a horse was sold at an Oklahoma auction house for a record-topping price, and the buyer was Miguel Treviño, one of the leaders of the Zetas, Mexico's most brutal drug cartel. The source suggested that Treviño was laundering money through American quarter horse racing. If this was true, it offered a rookie like Lawson the perfect opportunity to infiltrate the cartel. Lawson teams up with a more experienced agent, Alma Perez, and, taking on impossible odds, sets out to take down one of the world’s most fearsome drug lords.
In Bloodlines, Emmy and National Magazine Award-winning journalist Melissa del Bosque follows Lawson and Perez's harrowing attempt to dismantle a cartel leader’s American racing dynasty built on extortion and blood money.
With extensive access to investigative evidence and in-depth interviews with key players, del Bosque turns more than three years of research and her decades of reporting on Mexico and the border into a gripping narrative about greed and corruption. Bloodlines offers us an unprecedented look at the inner workings of the Zetas and US federal agencies, and opens a new vista onto the changing nature of the drug war and its global expansion.
Editor's Note
Crossing the border…
Award-winning journalist Melissa del Bosque has been reporting on the U.S.-Mexico border for over a decade and provides fascinating insight into one of the largest Mexican drug cartels and its infiltration of American horse racing. The truth is more thrilling than fiction.
Melissa del Bosque
Melissa del Bosque is an award-winning investigative journalist who has covered the U.S.-Mexico border region for the past two decades. Her work has been published in international and national publications including, Time, The Guardian and Marie Claire. Her work has also been featured in television and radio on Democracy Now!, MSNBC, PBS, the BBC and NPR. Currently, she is an investigative reporter with The Texas Observer and a Lannan reporting fellow with The Investigative Fund.
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Reviews for Bloodlines
25 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5For anybody who is interested how real police work is done.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the late 2000s, Miguel Treviño led the notoriously brutal Zetas drug cartel in Mexico. When his older brother, Jose, sold a quarter horse in Oklahoma for a record-breaking price, the FBI was tipped off about a potential money laundering scheme that cleaned Zeta drug money by injecting it into the world of quarter horse racing. This book documents the multi-year investigation led by FBI agents Scott Lawson and Alma Perez as they pieced together the money laundering scheme.This was definitely interesting! I really enjoyed how the intricacies of the scheme were presented, and following Lawson as he and Perez made their investigation made sense and was satisfying. Jose's (and his acquaintances') trial was very exhaustively covered--it was interesting, but I felt like it could have been shortened a bit. I definitely learned a lot about quarter horse racing, the FBI and IRS, money laundering, and the cocaine trade. I listened to the audiobook and enjoyed it, though it took me a while to get used to the (female) narrator's voice for male quotes.