ricardo ainslie and i'm delighted to be moderating this event with two authors, hipolito acosta, whose book, thank you. [applause] >> the book is titled "the shadow catcher: a u.s. agent infiltrates mexico's deadly crime cartels". to my left is c.a. heifner. [applause] >> the title of his book is "mule: my dangerous life as a dug smuggler turned dea informant". we have a very interesting and lively set of books here and i will start by asking chris how he became involved in the drug business. >> my wife is sort of the american dream brought back. i was a college graduate and had everything going for me but i was living with my pregnant girlfriend at the time and we have a 5-year-old daughter. christmas was two weeks away and we were being evicted. i had no one to turn to and nothing to sell, no options. i turned to a friend who i thought would just give me a loan because he was in the drug business. little did i know he was basically trying to groom me because he wanted -- to didn't look like a typical meal. he loaned me the money and he had his hook in to me at that point because i on