Seven days later, Joaquin, the leader of the Sinoloa drug cartel, sat grim-faced on a chair before the veranda of a manor on the outskirts of Vincent Gray Lake in Mexico, his long legs crossed.
On the table in front of him was a glass of whiskey, and he clutched in his hand a "Queen cigar" that cost over 7,000 US dollars, his entire face shrouded in white smoke.
The cigar was expensive because it was adorned with gold leaf and Swarovski crystals, and it was produced in limited quantities each year, making it quite elusive.
But for someone like Joaquin, money held little significance.
Money, that rotten thing!
One winter, when the firewood had run out, he took a stack of US dollars from the money box in his bedroom and threw them into the fireplace to warm up.
That night, he burned a total of two million dollars.
The house was filled with the smell of money.
But over the past ten days, he had lost no less than 1.2 billion dollars.
