Max Mermelstein
Max Mermelstein was an American drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel in the late 1970s and early 80s, who later became a key informant against the organization. In the words of James P. Walsh, the U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles CA, Mermelstein "was probably the single most valuable government witness in drug matters that this country has ever known." He became a "weapon for the government". He is reputed to have smuggled 56 tons of cocaine worth $12.5 billion into the United States.
Early life
Mermelstein trained as a mechanical engineer at the New York Institute of Technology and married to a Puerto Rican woman named Gladys. Mermelstein moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico with his wife, where he worked as chief engineer for the Sheraton Hotel. Mermelstein and his wife separated soon after, as she returned to her ailing mother, but not before Mermelstein learned some "street Spanish".He was also an armorer in the National Guard and knew how to handle explosives after having taken several demolition courses.
While working for the Sheraton Mermelstein met a Colombian woman - Cristina Jaramillo -- and the two were soon married. After accepting a job at the Princess Hotel in Freeport in the Bahamas, Mermelstein began his first limited criminal activity by creating an "underground pipeline" to help smuggle his wife's Colombian relatives and childhood friends into the United States.
Working for the Medellín cartel
One of those "friends" he helped to smuggle into the US was, -- "a five-foot three sociopath" -- who had a taste for basuco cigarettes which is an amalgamation of tobacco and cocaine byproducts stuffed back into cigarette shells. After Mermelstein returned to Miami with his family to work as chief engineer of the Aventura Country Club, he was awakened by a drug-fueled Cardona on Christmas morning 1978. Cardona insisted that Mermelstein drive him and his roommate back home after a cocaine-filled afterparty. Mermelstein agreed, and on the trip, Cardona and the roommate argued after Cardona accused the roommate of stealing. In a rage, Cardona shot the roommate to death at close range. Fearing for his own life, Mermelstein continued to drive until they stopped to dispose of the body at a road shoulder. They then returned to Cardona's apartment where Cardona told Mermelstein, "You work for me now."In 1979, still fearing for his life and the lives of his family, Mermelstein started working full-time for Cardona, who had become the cartel point man in the United States. Working mainly for Jorge Luis Ochoa through Cardona, Mermelstein not only became intimate with the operations of the dominant drug smuggling network at the time called the Medellín Cartel, but vastly improved it. He was responsible for managing the logistics of drug shipments to the United States which included arranging flights, locating drop points, and scheduling deliveries.
Mermelstein traveled extensively to Colombia where he engaged all the leaders of Medellín Cartel including Pablo Escobar, Jorge Luis Ochoa, Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha and Carlos Lehder. He spent most of his time with Cardona and the Ochoas. Together they worked on transportation routes and developed new packaging technique allowing cocaine to be dropped into the ocean in waterproof packaging.
In the late 1970s, the Colombian drug trade was still in its infancy but after just a few flights, Mermelstein was a multi-millionaire. Within six years, he turned a multimillion-dollar-a-year mom-and-pop cocaine industry into a multibillion-dollar-a-year trade.
Because of his unparalleled success, Mermelstein was present at high-council Medellín Cartel meetings and was the only American ever allowed to sit with the cartel leaders. Other honors bestowed on Mermelstein included a Medellín invitation to the baptism of Cardona's youngest son, which was attended by all the cartel leaders.
Participation in Barry Seal's contract murder
After fellow drug trafficker Barry Seal agreed to testify against Jorge Ochoa, the reputed leader of the Medellín cartel, Seal was "marked for death." Wanting an American to supervise the job, the other members of the cartel turned to Mermelstein, the one American they all trusted. It was during this time that Mermelstein was offered $1 million to kidnap Seal and $500,000 to kill him. who spent just two years and 21 days in jail and received a $250,000 bonus for cooperating with the government on one drug acknowledged on the stand that he helped plan the contract murder of Seal in Louisiana.Mermelstein stalled on the assassination attempt as long as possible, but pressure from both sides became too great. Federal prosecutors say it was the investigation into automaker John DeLorean's alleged cocaine-dealing charges on which he was ultimately that led them to Mermelstein. As a result of the DeLorean sting and investigation, an American pilot who flew for the cartel in California turned informant and led law enforcement agents directly to Mermelstein.
Mermelstein's arrest
In 1985 Mermelstein was arrested while driving near his home in Davie, Florida. In addition to $20,000 in his glove compartment and a.22-caliber Walther, the federal government confiscated $1.2 million in cash and property owned by Mermelstein at the time of his arrest. Fred Friedman -- a former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Mermelstein in Los Angeles -- said "When they arrested him, he was driving his Jaguar, and it was like something out of Miami Vice. The agents surrounded him, and they said it seemed like he had known that he was being surveiled the previous week, and it almost appeared to them like there was a sigh of relief, like he knew it had to happen."Turning informant
Later, at Mermelstein's home, law enforcement authorities found an assortment of weapons and $250,000 in cash under his bed. Authorities collected a good deal of incriminating evidence from another drug trafficking informant in California regarding Mermelstein's activities. With the cartel refusing to provide his million-dollar bail, coupled with facing a long prison sentence, Mermelstein decided to turn informant and make a deal with the US Customs the predecessor to Homeland Security Investigations.Witness protection program participation & testimony
Unprecedented family relocation deal
, founder of the Witness Protection Program, agreed to an unprecedented thirty-family-member relocation, making it the highest single relocation cost for one witness in the history of the WITSEC. Out of an approved thirty members, sixteen elected to enter. This was the first time the government agreed to protect an entire family group to maintain a witness.Mermelstein lived under the alias Wes Barclay and worked as chief engineer for the Westgate Vacation Villas in Kissimmee, Florida.
Mermelstein's court testimony
Mermelstein began providing testimony in the indictments of Carlos Lehder, Rafael Cardona Salazar, Pablo Escobar, Jorge Luis Ochoa Vasquez, and also testified against the three Colombians charged with the murder of Barry Seal.Mermelstein testified at the trials of former kingpin Carlos Lehder and deposed former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, among other witness duties while in WITSEC from 1987 until his death in 2008. His testimony, among others, led to Lehder's imprisonment.
Mermelstein's testimony helped bring down the Medellín Cartel's distributors in Miami. In 1985, after he turned informant, a three million dollar contract was placed on his head, which remained until his death in 2008. Mermelstein provided testimony to grand juries in New Orleans, Miami and Los Angeles.
As a direct result of Mermelstein's testimony, indictments were returned against Fabio Ochoa Vasquez, head of the Ochoa family's operations in Medellín; Pablo Escobar Gaviria, infamous Colombian drug lord and narcoterrorist who headed the Gaviria drug family, and Rafael Cardona Salazar, the elusive drug kingpin who headed the cartel's operations in the United States. Together, the Medellín cartel families are believed to have grossed an estimated $7 billion a year in the United States.
A great witness
"Mermelstein is unbelievable as a witness," said Al Winters, a New Orleans federal prosecutor. "I don't know how to express it in any way other than to say I've been doing this for a long time, and he's as good a witness, both in recall and quality of information, as I've ever run into. His connections within the Medellin cartel are the highest." Mermelstein was able to take ledgers written in shorthand unique to the cartel and translate the confusing scrawl into evidence of cocaine sales approaching 2,957 kilos, worth $56 million, said Richard Gregorie, chief assistant U.S. attorney in Miami."The real drug war is run through informants, and top-level ones are treated like kings, at least before they testify. Max Mermelstein, the most important witness against the Medellin cartel, drove his handlers nuts with his imperious demands, but he was treated with kid gloves because he was so important to the government. They housed him in a secure location called "the submarine" that had no windows and was situated under a U.S. District Courthouse. When I interviewed Mermelstein in 1987, he demanded that I buy him a speakerphone and a Mont Blanc pen. I bought him the speakerphone."
Justice Department officials said Mermelstein provided narcotics investigators with some of the best intelligence data on the cartel and its methods. Mermelstein testified at the trial of Manuel Antonio Noriega that the U.S. government has paid him $255,900 in rewards and spent another $414,345 on living expenses for him and his family in exchange for information about former associates in the drug business.