TO LIVE OUTSIDE THE LAW
My name is Simon McCoy, I am the author of the To Live Outside The Law series of books that recount my real life adventures as an outlaw. If adventure and daring are your thing. If there is still a little bit of the rebel in you. You are going to love sharing these stories with me.
My name is Simon McCoy. For longer than Pablo Escobar, I smuggled Cocaine. I’m an outlaw, not a criminal. I never handled a gun nor dealt with those who did.
Bolivia Two is the first published story of the first trilogy of twenty-five books in the ‘To Live Outside the Law’ series.
The series recounts the smuggling career of myself and partners from the Eighties to the Twenties.
Moving serious amounts of pure Cocaine across six continents, I broke the law and escaped detection. When that failed, I fought and won my freedom.
Caught red-handed with thirty kilos, Rio’s Press branded me as ‘Brazil’s Cleverest Smuggler.’
The night my ‘not guilty’ verdict came down, Rio’s two most murderous gangs joined forces to give me a legendary party.
When British Police declared me ‘British Mafia’ to the Paraguayan Press and my Judge, I had to buy a new one and escape South America’s notorious Tacambu Jail. But it wasn’t all fun and games. I spent nights having to count money and days processing mountains of glittering Cocaine.
If you have a sense of humour and have ever wondered how that gram got to your mirror? If adventure and chutzpah are your thing. If there is still a little bit of the rebel in you. You are going to love sharing these stories with me. Don’t just take my word for it, check it out for yourself.
‘To Live Outside the Law.’ Bolivia Two is Simon McCoy’s first published book in a series of twenty-five. It is also the second book in the Bolivian trilogy.
There are no courses and no ‘Dummies Guides to smuggling.’ Up to now, Simon had got by through sheer balls and luck. This book marks the place where Simon finds his mojo.
He has a method that works consistently, and reliable contacts, to a degree. With his new partner Stephen, a witty man with parallel values, they skate over thin ice with elan. Creating a credible front business, they charm their way into La Paz’s parallel straight and criminal worlds.
You meet a range of characters and situations that put you right there with them. The terror of picking up nine kilos of the world’s best Cocaine in La Paz’s shantytown and driving through the police roadblock on the way down to the city.
The joy of watching fist-sized rocks of opalescent crystal crumble in your hand and flutter down onto a growing pile.
Walking through the security controls in El Alto, the world’s highest airport and Cocaine hotspot loaded with three kilos in plain sight.
While these extraordinary events take place, there are the more everyday challenges of living under the pressure of home and partners half a world away.
In this world so far from South London or Rotterdam with its alien culture and people, the lads, learn as much about themselves as they do about the wider world.
Simon McCoy was born in Lambeth, the heart of London’s east end. He became an Essex boy before the Essex girl was invented. Simon joined the merchant navy after being expelled from grammar school at fifteen. Then he jumped ship at seventeen in New Orleans, hitchhiking across hippy America in the early seventies, the original gap year.
Married at nineteen, he got a mortgage, settled down and built a small group of companies in his twenties. The recession of the eighties unsettled him, and he decided the game was rigged.
Simon spent most of the next four decades making up for lost time, having great adventures making and losing obscene amounts of money and searching for happiness in all the wrong places. Married twice with two children, he’s an ordinary bloke who’s led an extraordinary life. They say it’s the victors that write the history. The ‘Live Outside the Law’ series is his way to buck the trend. A practising Buddhist, Simon now lives in the tropics.
But I am getting ahead of myself; first I had to get in alive. I had chosen my plane seat in Rio only after inspecting the rear toilet facilities thoroughly and with good reason. Aero Lloyd’s safety record had recently hit a deadly speed bump. Last month, one of their 727’s was blown up by terrorist flying from La Paz to Santa Cruz. Narco-terrorists had planted. dynamite in the rear toilet. A one-off or the start of something? Perhaps I was about to find out?
Reviews
“McCoy is funny, he’s smart, he’s articulate. The book is real eye opener, though surely not beyond a little artistic license. If he is the real deal, which no one is going to dispute he lived a unique life. I am hooked and cannot wait to read the next book.”
“This is a hilarious, mind-boggling, fascinating, as memoirs go. His life was colourful which made me want to know more. Highly recommended, whether you particularly care about his subject matter cocaine or not.”
“McCoy deliciously blends the intensity of a life on the edge with comedic respite that shows the frivolous nature of being in such a precarious situation. A fascinating insight into the mechanics of a subculture that came to define latin America in the late 20th century.”
“Reading Simon McCoy’s memoir was like being transported from my living room to a world of adventure, danger, and just the right amount of debauchery. I recommend it for anyone looking to escape the ho-hum.”
