Rusty Young

Rusty Young (born 1975) is the Australian-born author of the international bestseller Marching Powder, the true story of an English drug smuggler in Bolivia’s notorious San Pedro Prison and the bestselling novel, Colombiano, a fact-meets-fiction revenge thriller about a Colombian boy who sets out to avenge his father’s death.

Rusty grew up in Sydney, and studied Finance and Law at the University of New South Wales. He was backpacking in South America when he heard about Thomas McFadden, a convicted English drug trafficker who ran tours inside Bolivia's famous San Pedro Prison. Curious about the reason behind McFadden's huge popularity, the law graduate went to La Paz and joined one of Thomas's illegal tours. They formed an instant friendship and then became partners in an attempt to record Thomas's experiences in the jail.

Rusty bribed the guards to allow him to stay and for the next three months he lived inside the prison, sharing a cell with Thomas. After securing Thomas's release, Rusty lived in Colombia where he taught the English language and wrote Thomas's story. The memoir, Marching Powder, was released in 2003 and was an international bestseller.

Following the success of Marching Powder, Rusty was recruited as a Program Director of the US government's Anti-Kidnapping Program in Colombia. He was part of a team that trained local police, military and SWAT teams in kidnapping response and hostage rescue. At the time, Colombia had an average of eight kidnappings a day. It was a role fraught with danger and Rusty lived part-time on a military base, drove a Level III armoured vehicle, communicated with colleagues via encrypted radio and changed houses in Bogotá a dozen times. He kept this work completely secret.

Through police and army contacts, Rusty was able to interview special forces soldiers, including snipers and undercover intelligence agents, about their work. He also interviewed captured child soldiers from the two main terrorist organisations – FARC and Autodefensas. The former soldiers, some as young at twelve when they joined, described in great detail their reasons for enlisting, their hatred of the enemy, their gruelling military training, their political indoctrination and their horrific experiences in battle. Once Rusty had earned their trust, they also opened up to him about gruesome tortures they were forced to witness or participate in.

These interviews, along with Rusty’s extensive in-the-field knowledge about cocaine trafficking, formed the factual setting and background for his novel Colombiano, a fact-meets-fiction revenge thriller.

Colombiano was published in Australia in August 2017 and was the highest-selling Australian fiction title that month. It will be released worldwide in 2018.

In 2011, Rusty co-founded the Colombian Children’s Foundation of Australia, which helps rehabilitate and resocialise former child soldiers. Currently, his house in Bogotá is the charity’s headquarters. Ten percent of his royalties of Colombiano will go to the foundation, which has almost 200 former child soldiers under care.

Rusty also fronts the documentary Wildlands (2017) in which he interviews notorious characters formerly involved in the cocaine trade, including George Jung – famously played by Johnny Depp in the movie Blow – and, more terrifyingly, John Velasquez or “Popeye”, Pablo Escobar’s right-hand man and one of the deadliest hitmen in cartel history.