[music playing]
SMUGGLER: Boston is the University
capital of the United States.
There was a lot of rich kids who just wanted to smoke pot.
And it was the perfect market for us.
We felt indestructible.
People were getting high.
They loved our product.
[music playing]
Our business grew and became successful.
We had this big pile of cash, plenty of women.
And we were just having a blast.
[laughing]
And then one night, I met this Colombian guy.
And he told me there's someone I should meet in Columbia.
This guy in Columbia--
He runs an organization, a cartel.
SMUGGLER: --that grows 50 tons of marijuana a year,
and we call him el Padrino, the godfather.
He knows you.
He wants to meet you.
[music playing]
I was 20 years old.
And some godfather in Colombia had heard about me.
And they wanted me to go to Colombia to meet them.
That got me excited.
This was a big opportunity.
Columbia was known to have top quality marijuana.
And here was my chance to get right to the source.
It was dangerous and breathtaking and scary.
But the thing is I'm a high risk junkie.
I need to always push things to the limit
to build something and keep building it and building it
until it blew up.
[music playing]
So the next morning I was in a private plane,
flying into northern Colombia to meet the Godfather.
And he says, come on in.
He looked like someone who was deadly serious,
the mysterious hard wired kind of person.
[music playing]
The feeling that I had was a feeling of distrust.
I'm not sure what's going on here.
I'm out of my element.
We get about 10 miles down the road.
And we get to a military checkpoint.
The godfather handed me the bag.
What's this?
SMUGGLER: And I open the bag.
And I see 50,000 pesos.
And I see it evolving.
And he says to me, I want you to offer
the guard the pesos first.
And if he doesn't take it, I want you to shoot him.
What have I got myself into?
Then I realize, this is a test.
They wanna know if I got the balls to go out
there and actually shoot someone in the head who
doesn't take a bribe.
[music playing]
So I had no choice.
[music playing]
I had the money and the gun.
[music playing]
There were so many thoughts going through my head.
I hate violence.
I've always hated violence.
And I didn't want to shoot him.
So I really hoped that he would take that money.
The guy looked at me.
I looked at him.
I take a deep breath and hand him the bag of money.
[bird chirping]
[music playing]
I could tell that he was bewildered.
I needed him to take that money.
He looked at me and slowly walked back towards the God
house with the bag.
I thought, thank God.
And then I walked back.
And he asked, is everything OK?
And I said yes.
Going on that journey was--
that was the test, right.
He's challenging me to see who's the craziest [bleep]
in the room, is it him or is it me?
[music playing]
And as we got deeper into the jungle, we got to a farmhouse.
I noticed that there were farm workers who were also
carrying shotguns and rifles.
It was clear to me at that point in time
that he was running a very serious operation.
And then as we got over the hill,
I could see down in the valley as far
as my eyes could see the most beautiful
crop of marijuana plants.
[music playing]
I'd never seen so much marijuana in my life.
This is at least 20,000 acres.
[gasp]
This is unbelievable.
This is probably the largest marijuana field in the world.
The godfather explains to me that they've
been growing here for 120 years and distributing
our crop in South America.
And then he got down to business.
The godfather wanted to know is it
possible to move mountains of marijuana
safely from this farm to the US.
Their harvest is 50 tons per year.
And I thought, that's a lot of cubic footage.
It seems insane.
[laughing]
And then he said--
Come with me.
He walked me to this barn.
When he opened the door, there was like floor
to ceiling US currency.
There were just hundreds of bales of cash.
[music playing]
I just looked at that money, and I thought, I love this guy.
And then I fell in love with his project.
Then the Godfather told me, it would
make me feel too rich that I would make $10 to $13 million
a year.
I said, perfect, I've been doing the same [bleep]
on a very small scale.
But I know how this works now.
So I said, yes, and I'm in.
But then he said, once you agree,
you can't get out until I say you're free to go.
I had no idea what kind of impact
that would have on my life.
[music playing]