May 2023
Second Edition of 550

THE THEATRE OF COCAINE WARFARE

From freelance hit squads and cocaine collectors breaking into harbors to grenades used for intimidation and a soundproof torture container.

Cocaine ripdeals and other conflicts caused a series of gangland killings among the new generation of Dutch multi-ethnic organized crime networks.

In this underworld war, many victims are errand boys — followers who have carried out an assignment for money or to belong. With 1 kilogram going for up to 40.000 euros on the street, the profits from smuggling cocaine have fueled the brutality.

For many immigrant youths in the Netherlands who feel marginalized and rejected by society, turning to organized crime can provide a sense of belonging. From their perspective, here, they are not the victim but the aggressor. This is why the underworld, with its own rules and opportunity to make a lot of money, gets a significant following. They are willing to take on various high-risk jobs with the ambition of climbing the ladder within the underworld hierarchy.

The author used a wide variety of sources to assemble a new seamless photo series portraying the Dutch underworld.

Specifications - Hardcover. 26x20 cm. 136 pages.

June 2023

NEW YORK CITY, MID-2000s

From the margins of New York City comes a collection of once-forgotten and never before seen work by legendary street photographer, Boogie. Designed by Igor Milanovic and edited by Pouria Khojastehpay, this 216-page hardcover book portrays the raw and uncensored life lived beneath the glow of the neon skyline of 2000's era New York. Bold and vivid, the black and white images of NYC's up-and-coming gangsters down and out addicts hit you in the face like a brick of cold concrete. Wild smiles and cocked revolvers gleam in the flickering fluorescent-lit hallways of the projects as you're taken by the hand through New York City's hustling underbelly by Serbian-born Vladimir ''Boogie'' Milivojevich. 

''...In the beginning, there’s this distance between you and them… but eventually, the lines blur. It becomes your life. Then It takes over. It’s so hard to snap out of it, man. So hard...''

Specifications - Hardcover. 27x20 cm. 216 pages.

‘’Sometimes I feel like we are pawns in a game.
God whispers in one of my ears while the devil speaks to me in the other.
I try to do good but something stops me.‘’

Since the summer of 2018, photographer Federico Vespignani spent a few years with a group of kids from the Barrio 18 gang in Honduras and watched as they grew up within this imaginary border, becoming look-outs and then soldiers.

Surrounding the hill is an imaginary border and the kids from the neighborhood will tell you “La Dieciocho controla.” Their presence permeates every aspect of life in the hood and for some, the barrio is everything. Gang membership is a grey concept in Cerrito Lindo - it is just a part of life in the hood. It is the place you were born, where you are from. It is what they live, and outside of these blood-drawn borders, death waits.

Some of the portrayed in this book have lost their lives, some ended up in jail, some found god, and others left to look for something else.

The photographer Federico Vespignani (1988) is an Italian photographer and cinematographer. Since 2015 he has covered organized crime and environmental issues in Central America.

Specifications - Softcover. 112 pages.