The Serpent's Skin: How Mexican Cartels Remake Themselves and Reshape Our World (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798294252649)

The Serpent's Skin is a groundbreaking investigation into the true nature of Mexico's drug cartels-revealing them not as static crime syndicates, but as dynamic, globalized organizations reshaping the 21st-century criminal landscape. From their origins in bootlegging and rural drug cultivation to becoming multi-billion dollar transnational empires, this meticulously researched book traces how pivotal events-like the collapse of Caribbean cocaine routes and the splintering of the Guadalajara Cartel-catapulted Mexican cartels into global prominence.

Unpacking the inner workings of powerhouses like the Sinaloa Cartel, CJNG, and Los Zetas, the book explores how each evolved its own brutal business model, military strategy, and global reach. But it also reveals the unseen hands behind their rise-especially the critical role of Chinese chemical suppliers and money launderers in fueling the fentanyl crisis and laundering billions in illicit profits.

More than a chronicle of violence, The Serpent's Skin examines how cartels have diversified into fuel theft, cybercrime, extortion, and human trafficking-while infiltrating the state, corrupting politics, and providing economic alternatives in neglected regions. It exposes the failure of "kingpin" takedown strategies and argues for a radical rethinking of how to confront this evolving threat.

A chilling yet vital read, The Serpent's Skin is essential for anyone seeking to understand modern organized crime, global illicit finance, and the forces destabilizing entire nations from within.