The Radar guide to global contraband

This article is from the April issue of Radar Magazine. For a risk-free issue, click here

As a dedicated American consumer, you know where to score the latest trendy junk. But what about prescription junk? Or a kidney? Or a surface-to-air missile launcher? As the nanny state tightens its kung-fu grip on us all, American degenerates are being forced to satisfy their perverse desires abroad. While Radar would never advocate breaking the law, trust us: Whatever it is you're looking for, it's not illegal somewhere.

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1. Start a Casino
Join the burgeoning expat community in sunny San José, Costa Rica, where offshore spammers and online gambling kingpins are living it up beyond the long arm of Johnny Law. Rent cheap office space, hire a couple of nerds, hook up some servers, and watch the money roll in. Just be sure to make nice with la policía. (What's a few hundred thousand colones when the alternative is extradition?)

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2. Stock Up on Meds
Just over the border from Arizona, Los Algodones, Mexico, has one bar, one church, and 250 doctors, dentists, and pharmacists eager to grant your script-writing wishes. Some drugstores even have physicians on staff for a drive-through "diagnosis." OxyContin not curing what ails you? Pop on over to Zurich, where Swiss doctors have been
legally prescribing heroin to addicts since 1994.

3. Get Really High
An acid trip's a daydream compared with the mind-blowing shit you'll experience after licking an Amazonian tree frog. The enzymes secreted through its skin are best enjoyed in the company of experts, like former High Times editor Peter Gorman, who leads psychedelic sojourns into the jungle from his Cold Beer Blues Bar in Iquitos, Peru.

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4. Blow Lines
The world's best Bolivian marching powder is dirt cheap and yours for the snorting in (you guessed it!) Bolivia, a country whose president, Evo Morales, himself once worked the fields picking the U.S.'s favorite South American cash crop. While copping a kilo of the uncut stuff still requires a bit of back-alley haggling, less-potent coca products—coca tea, coca leaves, coca wine—are legally stocked in La Paz's finest boutiques.

5. Bond With Animals
Why hold out for a guy who's hung like a horse when you can ride the real thing? Head to Stockholm, where Swedes have legally been getting intimate with their stabled stallions since 1944. Animal welfare groups, citing more than 200 cases of equine abuse, insist the liaisons are not consensual, but don't be deterred. Just look for a horse whose eyes say "yes."

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6. Violate Copyright
Take a principled stand against making Bill Gates any richer by heading to the world capital of stolen intellectual property. In Ciudad del Este, on Paraguay's lawless frontier, copyright infringers rake in $12 billion annually on stolen software and CDs, most of which go for a buck apiece.

7. Replace a Kidney
Have years of self-abuse ripped your insides to shreds? Fear not. In Shanghai, China, healthy kidneys "rescued" (stolen) from permanently silenced "wards of the state" (executed prisoners) are sold to the highest bidder (you). Organ, operation, and post-surgical stay can all be had for $75,000. Soon, you'll be back on your feet and ruining yourself all over again.

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(Photo: iStock Photo)

8. Score a Foreign Passport
Head to chaotic and teeming Nairobi, Kenya, where "official" diplomatic credentials can be bought for a mere $100. As the Somali Ministry of Foreign Affairs' new special ambassador to China, for example, you'll be able to breeze across borders worldwide, park anywhere you like, and tell cops to suck it when they ask what's in your briefcase (prescription smack from Switzerland!). Use the proceeds from your software pirating empire to bribe anyone who asks how a country without a functioning government has diplomats.

9. Eat Shamu
Horrify the animal lover in your life with a visit to Kujiraya, a Tokyo hot spot where the world's largest mammal is served curried, schnitzeled, and sashimi style—international whaling moratorium be damned.

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10. Build a Harem
Utah's got nothing on Swaziland, where King Mswati III recently took his 13th bride. While a single weekend wedding blitz in Mbabane could land you as many wives, remember to pack protection—this impoverished, landlocked nation has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world.

11. Arm Your Militia
Shop with Osama in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, where secondhand killing machines are bought and sold like cantaloupes. The village of Darra Adam Khel, outside Peshawar, offers great bargains on Stinger missiles and Chinese AKs. Beware of cheap knockoffs and disguised CIA agents.

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12. Accessorize on the Cheap
While dealers of fake Birkin bags cower in New York's Chinatown, top-shelf copies are sold with impunity in the bustling shopping centers of Guangzhou, China, just north of Hong Kong. Having a problem finding Prada's latest? Flip through the counterfeiters' catalogs, which typically feature hundreds of up-to-the-minute models. And don't forget to ask for free shipping.






This article is from the April issue of Radar Magazine. For a risk-free issue, click here