Thomas McFadden

This is a fascinating account of inside the La Paz jail (Bolivia) where the lack of money forces inmates to create their own economy. This incredible system allows prisoners to obtain most creature comforts, just as it creates inequalities, engendering a multi-tiered society with its rich and poor.
McFadden is quick to remind us, however, that this bought quasi-freedom is extremely precarious and prone to the whims of politicians and the guards who will not hesitate to take away privileges show more and even torture.
Finally, the description of the drug trade and the industry it creates is a sub-theme which is can be quite eye-opening.
McFadden comes across as an intelligent, if misguided, individual; not particularly likable but hopefully smart enough to have reformed his way. show less

True-life account of British drug smuggler, Thomas McFadden, who gets busted in Bolivia, and finds himself in the utterly weird San Pedro prison. A jail run largely by the prisoners, where you pay an entry and exit fee (poorer inmates find themselves stuck even after their release date) and where there's a whole micro economy. Wealthy prisoners buy a cell in the 'luxury' area of the jail; those with little means realise they need to generate an income to survive - prisoners open cafes, ply show more any trade they have or act as menials to earn a few coins from the Mr Bigs.
McFadden soon realises the packets of cocaine he swallowed won't garner him any money, since the prisoners are busily engaged in producing their own...always paying off the guards and police, some of whom actually bid for a posting here with its vast potential earnings.
Everything is available for a bribe...McFadden has a night on the town with a police minder; he finds a girl and has her to stay; he starts arranging prison tours for backpackers.
But life is not all sweet, as we read of dangerous areas full of crazed base smokers, the unpredictability of the authorities, who after happily allowing some activity for a bribe will just as suddenly turn on the prisoners. McFadden gets beaten up, witnesses 'prison justice' on a trio of gang rapists...and starts using cocaine himself. Even the prison cat is addicted. Even the sniffer dogs are kept eagerly at their job, not by treats but access to the subsances they find...
Probably not a book I'd have picked for myself - was given it- and it's an eye-opener, even if you have limited sympathy for the lead character. show less

Marching Powder is the true account of Thomas McFadden, an English drug trafficker whose luck runs out whilst trying to pass through the airport in Bolivia with cocaine hidden in the spires of his suitcase. We follow his journey through his incarceration in one of the most unbelievable prisons to be found in all of South America, where most facilities are ridiculous in their own right. San Pedro is a place where children and wives live with their incarcerated fathers and husbands, where the show more best drugs on the continent are manufactured and smuggled out through the same women and children, and where capitalism and wealth rule daily life and their ability to survive.
This is a disturbing yet wildly captivating story of a world that doesn't seem plausible when you compare it to the prison systems that can be found in North America, or Europe even. I look forward to the movie that will be coming out in 2010 with Don Cheadle as Thomas. This is sure to be as big if not bigger a hit as Midnight Express was in the '70s. show less

Like other reviewers I am in two minds about "Marching Powder". There is the astonishing story of the notorious La Paz prison in Bolivia and how you need money to buy a cell or food but at the same time we have as the narrator a particularly unsympathetic character.

Thomas McFadden is a drug trafficker who gets caught when a corrupt Bolivian official decides to rat on him and finds himself in La Paz prison. At least we think the Bolivian official is corrupt, as for all we know, Thomas is an show more unreliable narrator. Anyway, Thomas finds he needs to hire a prison cell and buy his own food at the prison. He also manages to make prison stays a tourist attraction, which is how he meets his co-author Rusty.

It's probably not a huge spoiler to say Thomas eventually gets out of prison but I couldn't get overly excited about it for him. What was very good about "Marching Powder" was Thomas's very frank depictions of life in La Paz Prison, where convicted child sex offenders are quite openly killed in the prison yard, prisoners are just as openly taking drugs and the corruption of the prison officials. show less