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EL ALTO EMPORT

slightest, no matter how many there are. In fact, the more the better. When there are a lot of them, they relax, thinking that someone else will cover for them. But you do have to look out for the specialists; they never rely on the support of a lazy and incompetent team. They work alone and take all the credit themselves. Even when they get you, they don’t like to reveal themselves; they stay undercover and keep working until they catch the next one, and the next one after that. A lot of traffickers who get caught never even find out that it was a specialist who got them. They think it was a sniffer dog, or a lucky customs search or a tip-off, when actually it was a specialist who pegged them in the terminal.

The normal police and customs people are there just to earn a living, but the specialists are properly trained and actually enjoy their jobs. It’s like a challenge to them and they really like busting traffickers. They have discipline and that’s how they get to the top of their field. In fact, many of them are as passionate about and dedicated to their jobs as I am. We’re in exactly the same business, just on different sides. I think of the specialist as my direct enemy in the airport, like the opposing number on a sports field: to beat him, you have to know who you are up against and how to outsmart him, because you can’t be successful at anything unless you are better than your opponent. The best specialists and drug traffickers think alike. They are looking out for me, and I’m looking out for them. Luckily, I’m smarter than they are and have never been caught by one. Well, there was that one time they got me in Nairobi with the heroin, but I still don’t know to this day if it was a specialist who got me. I eventually got out of that one anyway.

Usually, I can see through their disguises easily, although some of them are very good. I often know who the specialists are because they are too casual; they are trying too hard to blend in. But just knowing who the specialists are doesn’t mean you have won; they can still get you. In fact, if they catch you catching them, then you’ve lost, because only a trafficker would be looking out for a specialist. At the same time, not looking around at all when you are in an airport is also suspicious behaviour.

With all my knowledge of the way this business works, I was thinking about becoming a specialist after I retired, just to keep myself in touch with the industry. I think the best disguise for a specialist