Cocaine Cartels and Economics in Colombia
SUMMARY: Overview taken from Michael Reid’s Forgotten Continent on the history of the cocaine industry in Colombia and its economic implications.
‘Lead or silver’
Enrique Low Murtra wanted nothing more than to leave his job as Colombia’s justice minister to open a law office and return to his previous career as a university teacher. ‘I would like to imagine that vengeance is not eternal. To be exiled, like Scipio, from one’s own country seems to me to be an injustice,’ he said. A gentle, avuncular man who had once been a supreme-court judge, he was still only 49. He spoke softly as the rain pattered down outside his office in a colonial mansion in Bogotá in March 1988. But he would indeed suffer exile – and worse. Two months earlier, on the instruction of Colombia’s president, Virgilio Barco, Low Murtra had signed warrants for the arrest and extradition to the United States on drugs charges of the five leading members of the ‘Medellín Cartel’. They included Pablo Escobar, perhaps the world’s most ruthless and notorious drug baron. Faced with constant death threats, the minister sent his daughter out of the country. ‘Even going for a haircut has become a problem,’ he said. So intense did the threats become that, in July 1988, Barco sent him to Switzerland as ambassador. That did not save him. In 1991, he was back in Colombia, working as he had hoped as a law professor at the University of La Salle. No longer in government service, he had no bodyguards. He was gunned down at the entrance to the university. … Read more
A Shower of Cocaine and Shady Colombians
SUMMARY: I got drunk and did cocaine with a couple shady people in a shady club.
Saturday night I went out drinking with an American guy, a Colombian-American girl, her boyfriend, and a few of her local cousins. We started drinking at Pola Rosa and then moved to Irish Pub. The girls wanted to dance so we went looking for a club.
We paid 10,000 pesos to go into a place offering an open bar, but they ran out of booze just as we got in. It was a hip hop scene packed with 18 year-olds. So we left. At the next club we danced and drank aguardiente. I was quite drunk so I don’t remember why we left the second club, but we found ourselves standing in the street. I somehow met a guy on the street named Silvio. He told us about a club that’s open late, so we all jumped into a taxi and went. Silvio plus our original group of 7.
South London Gangster in Colombia
SUMMARY: This story of John Rowley, a British conman / gangster and old friend of The Mick, includes famous heists, jaw-dropping excess and drug abuse, prison, and an early death.
Alternate Title: Old Prison Pal of The Mick Lives Fast, Dies Young
The Mick first heard of John Rowley in his days as a heroin-addicted thief on the streets of London. Both worked among the criminal underworld of petty crime and bank robberies. The Mick had heard of an established gunman named John Rowley but didn’t meet him until their paths crossed in Colombia.
In The Mick’s words, John Rowley was a conman and playboy who’d charm anybody he met while relieving them of value, then would turn around and spend everything he stole with anybody around him on amazing excess. This story of John Rowley is entirely based on what he told The Mick and what The Mick saw with his own eyes. … Read more
Smuggling Contraband from Colombia
SUMMARY: I smuggled a bunch of contraband into the States from Colombia for my holiday visit. Read how I got and brought Marijuana, Cocaine, Steroids, and Sinalgen (Colombian Vicodin).
Marijuana
I was to arrive in St. Louis just before Thanksgiving, where some of the men in the family always burn one after dinner. It’s usually the same guys who provide the jibber, which I realized as I was staring at a pile of cheap-ass Colombian marijuana on my counter. So I stuffed a fat bud into the pocket of one of the artesania handbags I bought as Christmas presents (which are among the finer products from Colombia, but not this weed). … Read more
Scopolamine in Colombia
SUMMARY: Scopolamine is a powerful sedative commonly used in robberies, assaults, and rapes in Colombia. It’s like GHB but worse. In this post, I tell a few scopolamine stories and discuss the urban legend facets.
Scopolamine, also known as Burundanga, is a powerful sedative extracted from the Brugmansia plant, which is native to Colombia. Scopolamine is commonly used as a central nervous system depressant in patch form to treat nausea, seasickness, motion sickness, and less commonly in treatments of Parkinson’s symptoms and in anesthesia. Scopolamine is starting to attract attention for its potential in treating addiction, specifically nicotine.
Scopolamine comes with a slew of side effects ranging from dry mouth and impaired speech, amnesia, excitement and restlessness, to hallucinations and delirium. In years past it was used in conjunction with painkillers to induce Twilight Sleep, which relieves pain during childbirth while keeping the patient awake. Scopolamine was studied by the Nazis and a few intelligence agencies during the Cold War as a truth drug. In very rare cases, scopolamine is used as a recreational drug for its hallucinogenic side effects. The chemical extract is highly toxic, so non-medical use is dangerous. The prescribed uses call for as little as 330 micrograms. … Read more
The Mick’s Prison Murder
SUMMARY: The Mick participated in murdering a fellow inmate during the first year of his 4-year sentence in Colombian prison. This is the story.
WARNING: There’s graphic violence in this story. Women, children, parents, nuns, clergy – you’ve been warned. If you don’t want to read grisly prison violence, then do NOT click:
Bogota Zombie Bums
Alternate Title: Readers Attack – ‘Get the fuck out’!
SUMMARY: In a response to my second hate comment, I discuss the nature of bazuceros, the degree of drug abuse among the Bogota panhandlers, and my new resolution about some unlucky panhandler that insults me.
My second hate comment, from “Julian”:
Please get the fuck out. dude, seriously, you’re the only piece of walking trash in that beautiful city,
My first reaction to this comment was: Wow, he doesn’t know this city at all!
Or maybe he has a warped definition of “trash”. He may honestly believe that Bogota’s biggest problem is the gringos on work visas teaching English and going to AA meetings. What this city really needs is more drunks and addicts panhandling in the street. That’s where it really gets its charm!
Dumb-ass.
