Snatched: From Drug Queen to Informer to Hostage--A Harrowing True Story

by Bruce Porter

Overview

Snatched is the electric tale, by the New York Times bestselling author of Blow, Bruce Porter, that tells the true story of a woman caught between two worlds, with her life dangling in the balance.

Raised an aristocrat in Colombia and educated in European schools, Pilar transfixes everyone with her charm and her guile. She also falls for dangerous men and finds herself drawn into the highest levels of the cocaine trade.

After two failed marriages and a harrowing escape from the drug life, she settles down to a quiet existence in Florida with her children—until her second husband tries to cut short his prison term by giving her name over to members of a new task force being formed by the DEA. They induce Pilar, now a middle-aged woman, to infiltrate the Cali cartel as the head of a vast money laundering sting.

Named "Operation Princess," the scheme leads to the seizure of tens of millions of dollars, along with some $500 million worth of cocaine and the exposure of hundreds of high-level traffickers, becoming one of the most daring and successful stings in DEA history.

But Pilar plays her part too well. Her success as a money launderer gets her kidnapped and then ransomed by a band of guerrillas in South America—and the US government refuses to negotiate. It's left to her low-level handlers in the DEA to get her back, before it's too late and her kidnappers discover they have a federal agent in their clutches.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250831880
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/19/2016
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Bruce Porter, a former newspaper reporter and editor of Newsweek, teaches at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author of Blow: How a Small-Town Boy Made $100 Million with the Medellin Cocaine Cartel And Lost It All, and he has also written for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Connoisseur, among other publications.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

1 A Knock on the Door 3

2 Miss Colombia 7

3 Arriving in Paradise 16

4 Bogota 24

5 Prince of the City 34

6 Majorca 44

7 Meeting "Boston George" 56

8 Happy Again 66

9 Kingpins 80

10 Tom Selleck Returns 90

11 Bye-Bye, Ernesto 101

12 Operation Princess 124

13 First Pickup 131

14 The Deluge 142

15 Pilar's "Excitement Mode" 157

16 Taking Heat From the Ag 164

17 Joe Blows a Fuse 191

18 Some Really Bad Shit 205

19 So Stupid! 214

20 The Cow Will Be Killed 219

21 What's Wrong With Me? 232

22 Hiding the Weenie 236

23 Do It While I'm Sleeping 258

24 Enter Nixon 263

25 Into the Jungle 275

26 Woo, Woo, Mamasota! 287

27 Homecoming! 293

28 The Verdict 299

Epilogue 308

Acknowledgments 311

About The Author 314

Editorial Reviews

02/15/2016
Porter (Blow) offers another fascinating look at the international drug trade with this account of the dramatic life of a woman he identifies only as Pilar. She’s born in Colombia to an upper-class family; her career as a flight attendant for Braniff airline leads to a fateful 1974 meeting with Ernesto Henao, the first of her two drug-smuggling husbands. Ernesto involves Pilar in his business, and she soon begins swallowing packets of cocaine to transport to Miami. Following a stint in prison, Pilar divorces Ernesto, only to marry Steven Cinnante, his former business partner. She attracts the attention of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and she ends up cooperating with them. Her unique access makes her invaluable as part of long-term intelligence gathering aimed at dealing the South American cocaine trade a fatal blow—Pilar is one of the few informants actually “talking to the kingpins directly about how to handle their currency.” In Porter’s hands, Pilar’s story will easily hook readers from start to finish; the book reads like an action-packed movie script. But the author eschews persuasiveness for pacing, with no straightforward explanation of how he corroborated information that came directly from Pilar or otherwise deemed it credible. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"Fascinating look at the international drug trade. . . . In Porter’s hands, Pilar’s story will easily hook readers from start to finish; the book reads like an action-packed movie script." - Publishers Weekly

"An engaging, improbable true-crime tale that underscores the grandiose futility of the drug war." - Kirkus Reviews

"This amazing true story could have been written for the big screen. . . . the narrative races along like a film script. . . . this entertaining and sad story of a woman doing what she has to in order to protect her family will satisfy fans of Blow, Donnie Brasco, and true crime stories." - Library Journal

From the Publisher

★ 02/15/2016
This amazing true story could have been written for the big screen. Pilar, an intelligent woman, gets caught up in the drug world, tries to reform, is recruited by the U.S. government as an informer, and ends up kidnapped by a cartel. That the narrative races along like a film script is a compliment to author Porter, who also wrote Blow, which was made into a movie starring Johnny Depp. Thanks to Pilar's experience, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) "asked" her to infiltrate a major cartel and assist in their war on drugs. She agreed, mainly because the government promised to pay her a high amount as a confidential informant (CI). However, after she was kidnapped and hidden for three months her CI time came to an end, and she was paid a mere fraction of what she thought she was owed. VERDICT An exciting read. The only issue is there are so many players—both in the drug cartels and law enforcement—that it gets confusing remembering who everyone is. Nevertheless, this entertaining and sad story of a woman doing what she has to in order to protect her family will satisfy fans of Blow, Donnie Brasco, and true crime stories.—Ryan Claringbole, Dept. of Public Instruction, Madison

Library Journal

2016-02-18
Pulpy account of a glamorous narcotrafficker ensnared by her past. Former Newsweek writer Porter (Columbia School of Journalism), whose previous book, Blow (1993), spawned a Johnny Depp film and slightly overlaps this tale, writes in a relaxed, comprehensible style that seems a good fit for the true-crime genre. The author constructs a sprawling, mordant narrative about the drug trade, focused on "Pilar," a noirish Central American femme fatale whose life followed several unlikely, high-risk tangents. As a rebellious, beautiful woman from an upper-class Colombian family, Pilar became involved with the burgeoning cocaine business of the 1980s, marrying two large-scale smugglers and participating in deals that permitted an addictively luxurious lifestyle. But once she'd settled in South Florida and extricated herself from the business, an imprisoned ex-husband "shopped" her to a DEA-run task force. With little resistance, she became a confidential informant in 1991, purportedly turning to the cash-laundering sideline that the cartels required, although her handlers "didn't buy the altruistic bullshit Pilar had expressed as her motivation." Still, the ambitious cops recognized Pilar's value: "Luring big operators out of their lair…that was the fantasy that captured the task force." Porter develops verisimilitude through interviews with major players, who engage in caustic recall about Pilar. Her money laundering setup worked too well, unnerving the feds, who began demanding arrests as well as intelligence. Indeed, every character seems motivated by cynicism: the macho agents seem addicted to the seized funds, while Pilar's scheme resulted in the murders of at least two middlemen. In 1995, as the increasingly complex operation was encountering friction in Washington, D.C., Pilar was kidnapped in Cali, supposedly by revolutionaries. Released after a few months of labyrinthine negotiations and eventually diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Pilar sued the government over their negligent handling of her, only receiving a settlement in 2014. An engaging, improbable true-crime tale that underscores the grandiose futility of the drug war.

Kirkus Reviews