George Jung is a convicted drug trafficker.  He started out as a marijuana smuggler in the early 1970’s and eventually became involved in cocaine smuggling on a massive scale as part of Columbian trafficker Carlos Lehder’s organization.

In an interview with George Jung, he was asked how he became a marijuana dealer, and how did it happen?  “Well smoking marijuana or most everybody who smokes marijuana deals it in small amounts to their friends, innocently enough.  I think its innocently enough.  Then I begin to see the money aspect of it.  That was the driving force.  I suddenly began to realize that to become an entrepreneur in the marijuana business would make me fairly well off.  And I also liked the lifestyle, my own working hours.  Basically, the whole conception of this came about when a friend of mine came out to Manhattan Beach for the summer in California.  He was attending U-Mass at Amherst and I had a large punch bowl of pot sitting on the table, for anybody to use at their leisure.  He asked me how much it was worth and I told him something like $60.00 per kilo.  He told me that it sold for $300.00 back east in Amherst.  The wheels began to turn and the next thing I knew we were purchasing the $60.00 per kilos and transporting pot back to Amherst making a profit of approximately $200.00 on each one less the airline fare, what have you.  At that time that was a lot of money.”  

George Jung was a very clever man in the drug trafficking world that seemed to run into almost all the right connections.  George Jung was arrested in Chicago with a trunk full of pot and ended up in a federal prison in Danbury.  George Jung said that Danbury was mostly a population of white collar criminals and some major smugglers were in there, but in those days you did very little of your time.  George Jung’s bunkmate was Carlos Lehder, who was from Columbia and acted in a mellow manner.  As time passed Carlos Lehder started to ask George Jung if he knew anything about cocaine and Jung said no.  Carlos Lehder was persistent with George and told him it sold for $60,000.00 a kilo in the U.S.  This sparked an interest with Jung and asked how much it went for in Columbia.  Lehder said it only cost $4,000.00 to $5,000.00.  Jung said “immediately bells started going off and the cash register started ringing in my head.”  “I finally just said I could transport an aircraft in the U.S. and I possibly had a major market for it.

The next step for Carlos and George was to start transporting cocaine back and forth to Columbia.  They started off by hiring two young ladies to fly to Columbia with identical suitcases.  There they would get the cocaine and fly back to the U.S.  Back then it was easy to get through customs because they did not really check luggage thoroughly.  That was the beginning of what is known as the cartel.  The Medellin Cartel.  

Within time Carlos introduced George to a man named Pablo Escobar and the Ochoas.  Basically Escobar was there for supplying.  Carlos and George were in the transporting and distribution.  The Ochoas were in the political aspect of it, taking care of the politicians and authorities as far as protection.  

George Jung is important to Latin America because he started a huge drug trafficking business which has led a lot of followers to Jung’s work.  George Jung had such an impact on people that a movie was made about his life called Blow.