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Daniel Hopsicker from 1998
By LINDA MINOR Many of Daniel’s readers have asked when Gangster Planet will be released. The answer is “as soon as possible.” Daniel and I started working on the book maybe a year, possibly less, before lockdown. Before that we’d met face-to-face only twice. We had a lot of mutual friends and had communicated through…
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Wallace Hilliard’s Obituary
By Linda Minor After following research about Wally’s life for years, I happened upon his obituary as I was editing material for Gangster Planet. A former associate mentioned in Welcome to TerrorLand wrote to Daniel last year to inform him about the arrest of some Uzbek drug smugglers that Daniel’s research had helped Interpol to…
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Keeping Mad Cow Alive
By Linda Minor—Coauthor of GANGSTER PLANET Daniel Hopsicker taught me a lot during the last four years, as we tried to collaborate in writing his last book. He wanted the book to include everything he’d learned during his careers—first, the career spent making videos about business news and second, the career of writing about drug…
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A GREAT Journalist has passed — Daniel Hopsicker July 16, 1951-August 22, 2023 — R.I.P.
It is our sad duty to inform you that Daniel Hopsicker has passed. He left us around noon on August 22, 2023. May he R.I.P. The world has seldom seen such courage, tenacity and humor all rolled up together. I have been honored to be able to call him my friend. We met during…
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Our Hero and Mega Journalist Needs Your Prayers
Dear Friends of Daniel, Thank you for your support and readership over the years. Daniel has been just an amazing journalist, writer and reporter. We have been privileged to experience his brave, blunt and honest reporting over the past two decades. However, our hero’s flame is flickering. We all have eagerly awaited his forthcoming book,…
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WHO IS VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY?
WHO IS VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY? From a footnote about Ukraine during WWII on (pg 1046): “Around 35,000 Ukrainians, many of them members of the OUN, the Ukrainian nationalist organization, joined the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, who wholeheartedly murdered Jews. A typical operation took place in the industrial town of Kryvyi Rih, where the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police…
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“In a New York minute, everything can change”
I got an email yesterday, from an Amazon customer who hasn’t yet received his copy of “Barry ‘the boys,’” my book about the biggest drug smuggler in American history, and it has prompted me to do something I’ve been reluctant to do: Announce my coming—but not quite yet imminent—demise. My reply to the customer whose…
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The Wolves of Wall Street
The most interesting character among the players of the Sarasota ‘hyena pack’—it’s a professional designation used by law enforcement and financial fraud specialists— is Ramy El Batrawi. Plus, he’s still active. Ramy El-Batrawi has been around major cocaine transactions for decades, yet he appears to have emerged unscathed. He is untouchable and knows it. He…
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Dancing with Mr. ‘D’
Trump, RussiaGate & transnational organized crime In June of 2019 Federal authorities discovered twenty tons of cocaine at the Port of Philadelphia aboard a giant container ship, the “MSC Gayane.” The drugs were found in seven shipping containers. How they came to be aboard a giant 1000-foot long and ten-story high container ship, Bloomberg magazine…