"[8] According to the Oakland Tribune, "In the course of his rise, prosecutors estimate that Ross exported several tons of cocaine to New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and made more than $500 million between 1983 and 1984.
"[9] In 1996, Ross was sentenced to life imprisonment under the three-strikes law after being convicted for purchasing more than 100 kilograms of cocaine from a federal agent in a sting operation.
Later that year, a series of articles by journalist Gary Webb in the San Jose Mercury News revealed a connection between one of Ross's cocaine sources, Danilo Blandón, and the CIA as part of the Iran–Contra affair.
[7] Ross's case was brought to a federal court of appeals which found that the three-strikes law had been erroneously applied and ordered that he be resentenced.
He began spending time with an upholstery teacher at a Los Angeles community college who revealed he dealt cocaine and offered Ross a small amount to sell.
[20] Eventually, Corrales lost his appetite for the cocaine business and retired, at which point Ross became a direct customer of Blandón.
[8] Ross initially invested most of his profits in houses and businesses, because he feared his mother would catch on to what he was doing if he started spending lavishly on himself.
As his distribution empire grew to include forty-two cities, the price he paid per kilo of powder cocaine dropped from as much as $60,000 to as low as $10,000.
Furthermore, journalist Gary Webb alleged that the CIA was sponsoring the operation as part of its effort to finance Contras, giving Ross another level of protection, although this claim has since been disputed.
The memoir, Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography, was released at a book launch with author Scott at the Eso Won Bookstore in Los Angeles on June 17, 2014 to a standing-room only crowd.
[38][39] KCET TV in its review wrote, "(The book) is fascinating for its unsentimental, inside look at his career on the streets of South Central, which started for Ross with car theft and quickly shifted to drugs and the big time.
[42] Ross was a key figure in filmmaker Kevin Booth's documentary American Drug War: The Last White Hope.
The second episode of the first season of BET's American Gangster documentary series was focused on the story of Ricky Ross and his connection to the Iran–Contra scandal.
[44] Ross is featured in the 2015 two-part documentary Freeway: Crack in the System, which details various levels of the drug trade, the Iran–Contra affair, and mass incarceration.
[47] Ross claims his lifestyle and cocaine business, as well as his suspected involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair, heavily influenced the fictional character Franklin Saint, the protagonist of the FX crime drama television series Snowfall.