George Jung
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George Jung (born in Weymouth, Massachusetts) was a major player in cocaine importation in the United States in the 1970s and early 80s, a part of the Medellin Cartel. He was somewhat inaccurately portrayed in the movie Blow.
He started out as a marijuana importer in the 1960s, importing hundreds of pounds of the drug from Mexico, taking off from Puerto Vallarta and landing in Palm Springs, California in dry riverbeds. Though his enterprise grew to the point where he was making up to US$100,000 per month and using professional pilots, he was eventually arrested in Chicago after being turned in by an associate. "Some people were movie stars, and some people were rock stars. Me? I was a pot star," he has said.
In prison in Danbury, Connecticut, his bunkmate was Carlos Lehder, an American of Colombian descent with some expertise in cocaine. Together, they used their respective areas of knowledge to hatch a plan to import cocaine from Colombia using small planes.
Upon release, they went into action, using Bahamanian airstrips as stop-over and refueling points, spreading bribes around to grease their way and ensure protection. By the late 70s, Lehder's plans became more grandiose, and as he schemed to build a massive transport empire on a private Bahamanian island, he began to shut Jung out of his operations.
By this time, however, Jung had married into the Colombian end of the drug cartel and developed strong connections there as a personal friend of kingpin Pablo Escobar. After he was closed out of Lehder's ballooning enterprise, he was able to take a more modest line of independent smuggling directly through Escobar, operating in much the same manner as before. In this way, he made more than $100 million.
He was later arrested in Massachusetts in 1987 with several hundred kilos of cocaine. With his family, he skipped bail, but very quickly became involved in another deal, where he was betrayed by a pilot of his acquaintance. During this time, Carlos Lehder began cooperating with the government against Escobar, Jung and many others. With Escobar's approval, Jung agreed to testify against Carlos Lehder and was set free. After working for some 'clean' jobs, he began to work in Marijuana business again. In 1994 he was arrested in Mexico with only several ounces of Marijuana, but faced a 10 year mandatory sentence. He is scheduled to be released in 2015, at age 72.
External link
- Boston George Jung (http://www.georgejung.com/) official website
- Interview (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/interviews/jung.html)