Kingpin

Abstract

This chapter introduces Colombia's sweet-smelling cannabis as an export-grade product that was abundant from the countryside to interior cities, such as Medellín, and became the global gold standard for pot. It identifies that Colombian kingpins first shipped cannabis northward using American pilots who would land at remote airstrips to pick up hundreds of kilos at a time. It also details how cocaine was brought across by paid smugglers known as mules, estimating that imports of the white powder to the United States totalled six hundred kilos a year. The chapter recounts that the American pot generation found cocaine, which they bought for $2,000 a kilo in Colombia and started selling for more than $55,000 in the United States. It explains how the incredible profit margins of cocaine attracted a motley assortment of kingpins, such as José Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, who was an emerald dealer before he got into the cocaine game.