''Snowblind: A brief career in the cocaine trade'' written by American author Robert Sabbag in 1976 is a non-fiction account about a character named Zachary Swan who turned his hand to smuggling

cocaine Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly recreational drug use, used recreationally for its euphoria, euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from t ...

from

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

into the US. Set in the 1970s before

organised crime Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...

took over the cocaine trade, it is based primarily in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...

and features a variety of colourful characters. Unlike other smugglers at the time Swan concocted a vast array of scams designed both to evade customs officials and protect his 'employees' from prosecution, all of which are highly imaginative and entertaining.

Trivia

Howard Marks Dennis Howard Marks (13 August 1945 – 10 April 2016) was a Welsh drug smuggler and author who achieved notoriety as an international cannabis smuggler through high-profile court cases. At his peak he claimed to have been smuggling consignmen ...

wrote an introduction for the UK 1998

Canongate The Canongate is a street and associated district in central Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. The street forms the main eastern length of the Royal Mile while the district is the main eastern section of Edinburgh's Old Town. It began ...

reprint. *

Damien Hirst Damien Steven Hirst (; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingd ...

designed a repackaged version limited to 1000 copies with sleeve, reinforced mirror hard backed cover, imitation credit card, (in the name of Zacharie Swan), and a rolled up $100 bill hidden in a cut away trench in the middle of the book. All three conspirators, Sabbag, Marks and Hirst hand signed all 1000. 1976 American novels American autobiographical novels Smuggling Novels set in Colombia Novels set in New York City Non-fiction books about Colombian drug cartels Cocaine in the United States Colombia–United States relations Books about cocaine Bobbs-Merrill Company books Works about smuggling {{1970s-bio-novel-stub