About Simon Mccoy
My Story
Simon McCoy was born in Lambeth, South London, and grew up in Essex—an Essex boy before the Essex girl was invented.
Expelled from grammar school at fifteen, he joined the Merchant Navy. At seventeen he jumped ship in New Orleans and hitchhiked across America during the early seventies—the original gap year.
Married at nineteen, Simon settled down, bought a house and built a small group of businesses in his twenties. The recession of the early eighties changed everything. Convinced the game was rigged, he chose a very different path.
Over the next four decades he travelled the world as a gentleman smuggler, making and losing fortunes, and living a life few would believe. Married twice and the father of two, Simon describes himself as an ordinary man who happened to live an extraordinary life.
The Bolivia Files documents the beginning of his journey outside the law—the choices he made, the consequences he faced, and the people he met along the way.
A practising Buddhist, Simon now lives in the tropics.
Why I Wrote These Books
The world is much smaller than people think.
I know. I went around it three times in a year. Not for the scenery.
After four decades living outside the law, I came to one simple conclusion: people are remarkably alike. Most want to laugh, love, raise a family and be left alone.
Politicians, borders and history books make us look different. Reality isn’t nearly so dramatic.
These books aren’t here to preach. They’re here to entertain, take you behind the lines into a world few people ever see, and get you out safely.
If I’ve succeeded, you’ll close the books feeling you’ve lived a few extraordinary years
without ever leaving your chair.
My Promise to the Reader
These are true stories.
Some names, places and dates have been changed to protect people who never asked to appear in a book. The truth has not.
If I behaved badly, it’s in here. If I got it wrong, that’s in here too. No polishing, no heroics and no settling of scores.
These books aren’t a manual, a confession or a justification. They’re an honest record of a life lived outside the law.
You’re giving me your time. I’ll do my best to make every minute worth it.
Our MissioN
The world is smaller than people think.
I know, I went around it three times in a year. Not a bet. I was moving unofficial goods.
What that taught me, and four decades as a smuggler, is simple:
We are one race, the human race.
Most of us want the same things.
To be safe.
To be free.
To love and be loved.
To be free from pain.
People are great. Governments, not so much.
The differences they get people to focus on, race, borders, background, are real, but they
are not the big story. There is too much division, too much inequality, and too much blindness
to both. It’s all Smoke & Mirrors.
I’ve seen it up close.
I’ve also seen the cost of prohibition, the puritanical attempt to control human behaviour
through force and moral certainty.
It causes more damage than the thing it fails miserably to control.
If these books do anything, I hope they open a window onto that reality.
But that isn’t the main reason I wrote them.
First and foremost, they are true crime memoirs about drug smuggling, prohibition, and
life outside the law, told from the inside behind the lines.
I want you to be carried somewhere else for a few hours. To see places most people never
will, and things they’ll never see. To feel the highs and the lows, the tension and the
release, without leaving your chair.
If, along the way, you see the world a little differently, then that’s worth more to me than
money or accolades ever could be.
Our Core Values
I write true crime memoirs about real breaches of prohibition, drug smuggling and real
people behind them who I loved, worked with, drank and got high with, trusted, and
sometimes shouldn’t have.
No ghosts. No composites. No safe distance.
That was my life.
This is my account of it.
1. Do no harm.
Some names, places and dates are changed. Not to hide the truth, but to protect those who
never asked to be in a book. Some did. Their names are changed anyway.
2. Tell the truth.
If I behaved badly, it’s in here.
If I got it wrong, that’s in here too.
No polishing.
No heroics.
No convenient editing.
And no settling of scores, writing gives you power, and I’m not interested in using it to take
cheap shots at people who can’t answer back.
3. Keep it as it was.
Some of it was funny. So it stays funny.
Some of it was routine. So it stays that way.
Some of it was extreme enough without any help from me.
This isn’t a how-to.
It isn’t a “why not have a go.”
And it’s not a confession written for forgiveness.
It’s a record.
4. Respect the reader.
You’re giving me your time and your money.
That deserves respect.
So the deal is simple:
I tell it properly, with the best editors I can find, or I don’t tell it at all.
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Speaking, Podcasts & Book Signings
Simon McCoy is available for podcasts, literary festivals, book signings and live events, inperson or online.Drawing on the remarkable story behind The Bolivia Files and a life lived between twoworlds, his talks explore life outside the law, entrepreneurship, travel, prison, reinvention andthe extraordinary people he met along the way.Over the years he has spoken at sales conferences, delivered motivational talks andperformed live comedy, including appearances at The Bill Murray. Conversational, direct andnaturally funny, he tells extraordinary stories without a script, a performance or clichés.He presents in English and Spanish.
Book Simon
If you want a speaker your audience will remember long after the event, get in touch.
Podcasts | Literary Festivals | Book Signings | Live Events
simonmccoybooks@gmail.com
Europe (July–November)
Available worldwide (virtual)
