ABOUT
Rick Bibbero brings to life his twenty-plus-year adventure as a smuggler, marijuana entrepreneur, and ultimately convicted felon. 90° to Zamboanga is the tale of his life and times, the fun and excitement, the insanity, the relationships, the greed, the consequences and the aftermath stemming from the rise and fall of an international criminal marijuana enterprise.
Rick is one of the true pioneers in the marijuana industry.
Aside from the 25 years of his life in the marijuana business and its aftermath as thoroughly detailed in this book, Rick Bibbero has since worked as a legal assistant using some of the legal research and writing skills he acquired as a jailhouse lawyer. He also has been both a licensed general contractor and real estate agent. In 2002 Rick gained a little more notoriety by winning a contest to design a new license plate for the State of Nevada. Throughout his life Rick has been an avid skier and snowboarder who also enjoys playing golf, pickleball, bicycling, horseback riding and reading. He and his wife have a daughter, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild and today along with their two dogs are enjoying their golden years and as he put it: “We’re living life.”
The common thread woven into every smuggling venture that I ever participated in was literally the Lucky Shirt. This is a picture of me on a remote Mexican beach (circa 1972) wearing The Lucky Shirt. Throughout my 20 plus years as a marijuana smuggler one particular piece of clothing became a superstitious talisman religiously worn by me every time I smuggled and was surely at least partially responsible for the many successful years I enjoyed as a marijuana smuggler. The Lucky Shirt has now been memorialized as The Lucky Shirt Press... the publishing company for 90° to Zamboanga.
"As I was compiling the list, which also included the clothes I would be wearing, I came to realize that inadvertently during each of the previous smuggling trips I had done, I had worn the same dark blue T-shirt each time. I suppose the first few times I wore it was because of its homogeneous dark color with no other markings or writings anywhere on it and because of its breathable light-weight material. This was not the ordinary cotton T-shirt we all wore, but was rather a very light polyester knit golf-type shirt without a collar. The brand was Munsingware and it had a small white insignia embroidered on the breast. As I reflected on this coincidence I had an epiphany, whether real or imagined I was never sure. The common denominator for each of our successes could at least be partially attributed to my wearing this shirt, now named my ‘Lucky Shirt’. Upon coming to this realization, now and in the future, the ‘Lucky Shirt’ would be an integral component of every successive smuggling venture I was to ever participate in."
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Rick Bibbero
90° to Zamboanga (page 40)