Famously portrayed by Johnny Depp in the 2001 movie Blow (director Ted Demme’s last film before his death, which went on to raise thirty million dollars in profits and become a cult classic), nowadays, George Jung, ex-drug trafficker and smuggler, is an eccentric older man of 76.
Who, in his own words, has become:
“One of those guys that have to hold on to the railing coming down or going up the steps.”
After having started in crime during his early 20s, this small-town boy would become the primary connection of the Medellín Cartel for its cocaine imports into the United States.
Here we’ll review ten life facts of who was once one of the richest drug lords in the world, only to lose it all and spent twenty years (plus a couple more, recently) in jail.
10 /10 The Youth Of An International Criminal
The man known in Colombian drug trafficking schemes as ‘Boston George’ was born George Jacob Jung to a low-profile couple: Frederick and Erminalia George, of Boston, Massachusetts, a construction worker and a homemaker who quickly moved out of Boston and raised him in the small town of Weymouth.
In his little village, he was a famous football player, well-liked by his peers, and described as a natural leader.
After graduating from high school, he would leave to study advertising at the University of Southern Mississippi, but would never finish that career.
9 /10 He Began With Soft Drugs
Much has been said about the nature (or not) of marijuana as an ‘entry drug,’ but the fact is that it was an entry drug to the world of crime for George Jung.
Though he had already been arrested as a teenager for solicitation of prostitution (the ‘prostitute’ had been, in fact, an undercover cop), his first approach to drug trafficking came from selling to his classmates at college part of the cannabis that he bought for his use.