George Jung

About George Jung

George Jacob Jung (born August 6, 1942), nicknamed "Boston George", was a major player in the cocaine trade in the United States in the 1970s and early 1980s. Jung was a part of the Medellín Cartel. His life story was portrayed in the 2001 movie Blow, starring Johnny Depp.

George Jung was born and raised in Weymouth, Massachusetts, the son of Frederick and Ermine Jung. While Jung did not excel in academics at school, he was a star football player and was described by his classmates as "a natural ringleader." After a brief stint at the University of Southern Mississippi, he traveled to California where he hoped to get a degree in advertising. However, he soon became involved with drugs. Jung began recreationally using cannabis, selling a portion of everything he bought to continue his habit. In 1967, after meeting with a childhood friend, Phillip Eugene Sadler, Jung realized the enormous potential for profits by smuggling the cannabis he bought in California back to New England. Jung's initial smuggling operation had the drugs being transported via his stewardess girlfriend, who would carry them in her suitcases on flights. In search of even greater profits, Jung expanded his operation to flying the drugs in from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico using planes stolen from private airports on Cape Cod and professional pilots. At the height of this enterprise, Jung and his associates were reportedly making $250,000 a month. This soon ended however, when Jung was arrested in Chicago for marijuana smuggling in 1974 (he was caught with a total of 660 pounds of Mexican imported marijuana). He had been staying at the Playboy Club where he was to meet a connection that would pick up the marijuana. The connection however, was arrested for heroin smuggling and informed on Jung. After arguing with the judge about the purpose of sending a man to prison "for crossing an imaginary line with a bunch of plants," Jung was sent to a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut.

At Danbury, Jung's cell mate was Carlos Lehder, a young German-Colombian man convicted of motor vehicle theft. Lehder introduced Jung to the Colombian Cartel and Jung taught Lehder how to smuggle. The day that Jung was released he was to contact Lehder in Florida, in order to begin preparation. Their plan was to fly hundreds of kilos of cocaine from Pablo Escobar's Colombian ranch to the U.S., where Jung's California connection, Richard Barile, took it from there. George never had a problem with exchanging the smuggled cocaine for his transportation fee. Initially, it was $10,000 per kilo but later it went down to $5,000 per kilo as supply grew. He had a security man that would accompany him to the exchanges where George would give the keys to a car and half the cocaine to his connection and leave. A day or two later they would meet up again and exchange keys to cars. Jung was hesitant to allow Lehder, or any other cartel member to know Barile's identity, as his "California connection" was what gave Jung his edge in the smuggling game and kept others from simply cutting him out.