From College-Town Weed Dealer to International Smuggler

His criminal career started with two motorcycles.

It eventually grew into an international smuggling operation involving tens of thousands of pounds of marijuana, shrimp boats, private jets, Colombia, Europe, kidnappings, buried cash and years as a fugitive.

At one point, he says he was helping move loads approaching 100,000 pounds at a time.

But the most remarkable part of the story is how casually each new level seemed to develop from the one before it.

It Started With a $10,000 Inheritance

After his father died in 1969, the family's $50,000 life-insurance policy was divided among five brothers.

His share was roughly $10,000. He used the money to buy a Ford van and two Triumph motorcycles, then headed west to Tucson.

There, someone offered to trade marijuana for the motorcycles.

He accepted.

Each motorcycle reportedly brought him about 50 kilograms.

He sent the marijuana back to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and discovered what he describes as one of the best markets imaginable:

College towns. Soon he was supplying customers around Ann Arbor and other university communities.

Within a relatively short period, he says he had already made $200,000 to $300,000.

Then he was arrested in what he describes as Ann Arbor's largest marijuana bust at the time.

But the case was eventually dismissed after a dispute involving the drug-sniffing dog's search.

Instead of treating the arrest as a warning, he moved south.

From Hundreds of Pounds to Thousands

In Gainesville, Florida, he met people who already had access to marijuana.

The arrangement was simple. They would front him the product.

He would transport it north, sell it, and return the money.

The loads grew rapidly. First hundreds of pounds.

Then 2,500 pounds.

Then around 3,000 pounds inside Winnebagos.

Eventually he began working with a major Jamaican smuggler and says he was moving 10,000-pound loads toward Michigan.

He estimates that over time he handled well over 100,000 pounds of marijuana through that network.

But Jamaica wasn't enough.

He wanted Colombia.

The First Colombian Load

Through a Colombian contact, he traveled to Santa Marta looking for someone capable of assembling an enormous shipment.

At that time, according to his account, even 20,000 pounds sounded almost impossible.

Eventually they found a supplier willing to try.

The first shipment came in at roughly 16,000 pounds.

It was loaded onto a boat on Colombia's Caribbean coast and transported north.

When that shipment reached Ann Arbor, he says he sold the entire load in approximately two weeks.

That proved something important:

The market could absorb far more marijuana than anyone had imagined.

And every successful boat created more smugglers.

Crew members would finish a trip, see the money involved and think:

“I can do this myself.”

The business began multiplying.

Then the Loads Became Enormous

Shrimp boats became one of the preferred vessels.

There were thousands operating in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, which made them far less conspicuous than an unusual vessel appearing offshore.

As the Colombian supply chain became more organized, the quantities increased.

20,000 pounds.

40,000 pounds.

Then plans for 100,000-pound shipments.

His job increasingly revolved around connecting supply, boats and places where cargo could be unloaded.

He considered the unloading location one of the most valuable parts of the entire operation.

Once a reliable location existed, a massive shipment could quickly be transferred and distributed.

He says some unloading locations were valuable enough that they could effectively be sold to another smuggler for $1 million.

The business had grown far beyond selling marijuana to college students.

It had become international logistics.

The $383,000 Suitcase

With enormous amounts of cash accumulating, storing money became its own problem.

At one point he bought 50 acres in Howell, Michigan.

Then he filled a large suitcase with $100 bills.

Total:

Approximately $383,000.

He buried it on the property.

Then nature interfered.

A heavy rain partially exposed the suitcase.

A hunter entered the property and discovered it.

Instead of keeping the cash, the hunter called police.

What followed became a highly publicized court fight.

The smuggler actually tried to claim the money himself.

He says he produced the combination to the suitcase, its receipt and detailed information proving that it belonged to him.

The court still ruled against him.

Eventually the hunter and local government received the money.

More importantly, the buried suitcase attracted attention.

Federal investigators were already getting closer.

A Partner Gets Kidnapped

Another problem emerged from a disastrous hash-oil operation.

According to the transcript, barrels of hash oil had been placed onto one of his shipments despite his objections.

A laboratory was later created to process it.

Then the lab was raided.

People connected to organized crime wanted their product and money back.

His business partner Robert was kidnapped.

The demand was simple:

Return the hash oil.

So he dug up hidden barrels and delivered them.

Robert was released.

By this point, the operation had moved into a completely different world.

Federal agents were investigating.

Organized crime figures were involved.

People were getting kidnapped.

And he was still moving product and collecting money.

Escaping America in a Learjet

Eventually he noticed federal agents watching his Michigan home.

He suspected an indictment was coming.

One day, he saw two men sitting inside a car nearby.

He created a diversion.

His girlfriend would wait with the money while he drove away.

If the surveillance car followed him, she would leave separately.

It worked.

He says he drove his BMW through residential streets at speeds approaching 110 mph, eventually losing the agents.

Then he called his Learjet pilot.

He and his girlfriend put on wigs, drove to the airport and walked past a group of state troopers.

Nobody stopped them.

They flew to Boston.

His cousin, a travel agent, had prepared tickets to several different European destinations.

He told his girlfriend:

Pick one.

She chose Munich.

And just like that, he became an international fugitive.

Europe Didn't Stop the Business

Europe wasn't retirement.

It simply became another operating base.

He lived in Munich, St. Moritz and Amsterdam.

He traveled through London.

He drove into Morocco looking for new supply.

At one point, he says he traveled carrying tens of thousands of dollars stuffed into oversized boots.

When British authorities searched him and his partner, they reportedly discovered substantial cash.

But because he hadn't been arrested for a related offense, he demanded the money back.

They gave it to him.

He then hired a lawyer to get his partner released.

The story repeatedly follows the same pattern:

A dangerous situation appears.

He improvises.

He escapes.

Then he continues.

Living in Colombia

Eventually he settled in Colombia, where he says he lived on and off for roughly seven years.

By then, he wasn't simply transporting shipments himself.

He was helping other smugglers organize loads.

He says he had bodyguards, powerful local contacts and relationships with people involved in Colombia's political and criminal worlds.

On one trip through the desert, he claims he encountered a stockpile containing approximately one million pounds of marijuana.

The scale of the business had changed completely from his first 16,000-pound shipment.

Colombia, however, was becoming increasingly violent.

Partners were murdered.

He experienced shootings.

He was kidnapped more than once.

Held for Three Weeks in the Mountains

One of the wildest episodes occurred in Colombia's Sierra Nevada mountains.

He had brought generators and vacuum-packing equipment into the mountains using a caravan of mules and donkeys.

The trip alone was dangerous.

At one point, a mule carrying cases of beer fell from a narrow mountain trail hundreds of feet down a cliff.

Eventually the group established a work site farther into the mountains.

Then armed men emerged from the forest.

Around 20 gunmen surrounded them.

They demanded ransom.

At first he refused to sign the ransom note.

The kidnappers responded by preparing to execute workers.

He changed his mind.

He signed.

He says he and his group were held for approximately three weeks, guarded constantly by armed men until an associate eventually paid the ransom.

Then, almost immediately after escaping that kidnapping, they encountered Colombian security officials and were detained again.

The transcript makes his life during this period sound less like organized business and more like permanent crisis management.

Why Sweden Looked Like the Perfect Escape

Eventually violence convinced him that Colombia was no longer worth it.

Then he met a Swedish woman.

They fell in love.

Sweden suddenly offered two things he wanted:

A family life—and, he believed, protection from extradition.

Before moving there, he says he actually went to Harvard's international law library using credentials identifying him as a lawyer and spent around a week studying the U.S.-Sweden extradition treaty.

He believed the charges against him couldn't legally be extradited under Sweden's reciprocity provisions.

So he moved outside Stockholm.

He married.

Had children.

And for roughly two years, life became almost normal.

Then one morning he noticed cars parked near his house.

Arrested While Taking His Son to Meet His New Brother

His second son had just been born.

He was driving his older child to the hospital to meet the baby when he realized vehicles were following him.

He entered a roundabout.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

After approximately five circles, the same cars were still behind him.

He pulled over.

Armed officers surrounded the vehicle.

The United States had issued a provisional arrest warrant.

He was finally caught.

He fought extradition aggressively.

He went on a 51-day hunger strike, surviving only on water while his case moved through the Swedish legal system.

Eventually Sweden's highest court ruled against him.

He was extradited back to America.

Facing Life — Then Getting Six Years

American authorities reportedly told him he faced life without parole plus decades of additional prison time if convicted.

Eventually, however, he negotiated an unusually complicated plea agreement.

The federal judge reportedly called it the longest plea agreement he had ever seen.

The result was dramatically better than the potential sentence:

Six years.

He ultimately served time at several federal institutions.

After years of international smuggling, private jets, Colombian mountains, kidnappings and hiding across Europe, the operation was over.

The Most Interesting Lesson

The scale of this story is almost difficult to comprehend.

It began with two motorcycles traded for marijuana.

Then came:

College-town dealing.

Thousands of pounds.

Shrimp boats.

Colombia.

100,000-pound shipment plans.

Private jets.

Buried cash.

Kidnappings.

Europe.

Years as a fugitive.

And finally extradition.

But the most revealing part may be the way success created more risk.

Every larger shipment required more people.

More people created more witnesses.

More money created bigger partners.

Bigger partners brought more dangerous relationships.

And every escape encouraged him to believe he could escape again.

For years, he did.

Until eventually he couldn't.

The operation didn't collapse because there was no demand.

According to his account, demand was almost unlimited.

It collapsed because a business built around constantly outrunning governments, criminals, partners and unpredictable mistakes eventually runs out of road.

Watch the full video here at the Matthew Cox Youtube Channel