Benjamin Smith

Then there was always the danger of exposés. Occasionally, state authorities came down hard on journalists or members of civil society who tried to unmask the system.

On one of our trips into Mazatlán we ran into Mexican officials and entered into an agreement with them. We had to pay them $5,000 for protection and from that point on we had to buy our marijuana from them. Then we could land anywhere we wanted to.

He had been looking into the links between the Arizona vice industry and some of the state’s prestigious families. In the subsequent months, thirty-six of Bolles’s fellow journalists teamed up to try to pursue the investigation. They called it the Arizona Project.