George Jacob Jung, nicknamed Boston George and El Americano, is an American former drug trafficker and smuggler who was a major figure in the cocaine trade in the United States in the 1970s and early 1980s. Jung was a part of the Medellín Cartel, which was responsible for up to 85% of the cocaine smuggled into the United States. He specialized in the smuggling of cocaine from Colombia on a large scale. His life story was portrayed in the biopic Blow, starring Johnny Depp as Jung. Jung was released from prison on June 2, 2014, after serving nearly 20 years for drug-smuggling. On December 6, 2016, Jung was arrested in Placer County for violating his parole. He was arrested while giving a speech in San Diego.
Biography
Early life
George Jung was born to Frederick "Fred" and Erminalia "Ermine" Jung in Boston, Massachusetts, and raised in Weymouth, Massachusetts. Though Jung did not excel academically, he was a star football player and was described by his classmates as "a natural leader". His first arrest was by an undercover police officer, for solicitation of prostitution. After graduating in 1961 from Weymouth High School, Jung went to the University of Southern Mississippi. He studied for a degree in advertising but never completed his studies. Jung began recreationally using marijuana and sold a portion of everything he bought to break even. In 1967, after meeting with a childhood friend, Jung realized the enormous profit potential represented by smuggling the cannabis he bought in California back to New England. Jung initially had his stewardess girlfriend transport the drugs in her suitcases on flights. In search of even greater profits, he expanded his operation to flying the drugs in from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, using airplanes 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 ended in 1974, when Jung was arrested in Chicago for smuggling of marijuana. He had been staying at the Playboy Club, where he was to meet a connection who would pick up the marijuana. The connection was arrested for heroin smuggling, however he informed the authorities about Jung to get a reduced sentence. 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 the Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury.
Medellín Cartel
At FCI Danbury during his marijuana trafficking sentence, March 1974, Jung's cellmate was Carlos Lehder Rivas, a young German Colombian man who introduced Jung to the dominant and powerful international drug-trafficking Medellín Cartel; in return, Jung taught Lehder about smuggling. In April 1975, when Jung and Lehder were released, they went into business together. Their plan was to fly hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Pablo Escobar's Colombian ranch to the U.S., and Jung's California connection, Richard Barile, would take it from there. Jung had a security man who would accompany him to the exchanges, where Jung would give the man the keys to a car and half the cocaine, and then leave. A day or two later, they would meet again and exchange keys to cars. Though only the middle man, Jung made millions off the operation. He came up with the idea to steal single-engine airplanes for his transportation and charge $10,000 per kilogram, with five planes going from Colombia to California, carrying 300 kilograms per plane: this equated to $15 million per run for Jung. In the 1970s Jung was earning $3 million to $5 million per day. To avoid the need of laundering his earnings, he kept his money in the national bank of Panama. By the late 1970s, Lehder had effectively cut Jung out, by going straight to Barile. Jung continued to smuggle, however, reaping millions in profits. In 1987, Jung was arrested at his mansion on Nauset Beach, near Eastham, Massachusetts. With his family in tow, he skipped bail but quickly became involved in another deal in which an acquaintance betrayed him. Under Escobar's approval, Jung testified against Lehder, the latter recently extradited, and Jung was released soon after.
Most recent incarceration
After working some "clean" jobs, Jung began working in the drug industry again. In 1994, after reconnecting with his old Mexican marijuana smuggling partner, he was arrested with of cocaine in Topeka, Kansas. He pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiracy, received a 60-year sentence, and was incarcerated at Otisville Federal Prison, in Mount Hope, New York, then was transferred to Federal Correctional Institution, La Tuna, in Anthony, Texas. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website, Jung was most recently serving time in the Federal Correctional Institution, Fort Dix, New Jersey, with a scheduled halfway house release date of June 2, 2014, though he completed his halfway house and was fully released from custody on November 27, 2014. Two years after his release in 2014, Jung was arrested for a parole violation on December 6, 2016. Sources close to Jung said in an interview that he had been arrested for making a paid promotional appearance that had been arranged by his manager, but not cleared by his parole officer. According to statements on social media from his current girlfriend, Ronda Clay Spinello Jung, Jung was released from a halfway house on July 3, 2017; thus completing his punishment for his 2016 parole violation.
Jung's relationship with his daughter was at the emotional core of the film, Blow. After being released from prison in 2014, he began patching up his relationship with Kristina Sunshine Jung but "it has since fizzled, in part, he says, because his daughter can’t forgive him," according to a local newspaper interview.
