Drug smuggler finds the Lord

God's grace has miraculously transformed a notorious cocaine smuggler, a man who destroyed countless lives, into an ardent Christian.

Jorge Valdes said he was pocketing more than $1 million a month in the late 1970s as the US head of Colombia's notorious Medellin cartel, then the world's largest criminal organisation.

His job was to oversee the import of millions of dollars' worth of cocaine into the country and its distribution to unknown numbers of drug users around the country.

At one time, said Valdes, who goes by the name George, the US government considered him the world's most powerful drug dealer. He was in direct contact with presidents, generals, and Hollywood celebrities, he said.

Rolling in it

With enough money to buy any pleasure he wanted, Valdes indulged lavishly, he told Religion Today. He had wild parties, drugs, illicit sex, mansions, private jets, and a fleet of cars. 'You think, 'One woman doesn't satisfy me, maybe two, three, or four will.' I tried everything the world had to offer,' he said.

But 11 years of decadence left Valdes empty, without purpose and hope, he now says. Even money no longer enticed him, and, after he had repeatedly violated their marriage, his wife, Sherry, left him and took the couple's two girls. They later got divorced.

That was all he could stand. Valdes told his Colombian business partners he was walking away from the drug business, and, convinced of his loyalty, they let him go. He said he had never ordered a beating or killing, so no one had reason to take revenge.

Faithful witness

Living on his Florida ranch and developing a horse-breeding business, Valdes began studying karate with Tim Brooks and his wife, Teruko, who are Christians. The Brooks's peace and contentment, despite the fact that they had little money, intrigued Valdes. Eventually, he said, his misery and the guilt for the pain he had caused other people overpowered him.

In 1989 Valdes knelt to pray. 'There is something about these Christian people I want,' he told God. 'If You will help me change and give me this peace and tranquillity (that they have), I'll give you my whole heart. As much as I have lived for the devil in the past, I will do 10 times as much for you.'

'I felt clean on the inside - as though all the dirt of my life had suddenly been power-washed away,' he said.

Brought to book

Valdes' life began to change. He stopped using profanity and slowly rejected pornography, he said. Then his life took still another turn. While on his honeymoon with his new wife in 1990, a US marshal arrested him, and although Valdes had left the drug business several years earlier, he faced 15 life sentences without possibility of parole, charged with conspiracy to import narcotics.

He refused to plead innocent. He accepted the prosecutors' offer to trade all his money and property for reduced time in prison, pleaded guilty, and received a sentence of only 10 years.

Federal agents who had helped build the case against him testified that Valdes' faith in Christ had genuinely changed him.

In prison, Valdes' second marriage failed. He began to study about his new faith, and earned a bachelor's degree by extension from South-Eastern Bible College in 1993, then began working on a master's degree from Wheaton College. He was released on parole after five years.

His children

He set out to fix broken relationships with his children. 'I took all the blame for the divorces,' he said, including the one from his second wife. 'I told them what a horrible human being I was outside of Christ. I was open to them, and that was difficult.' In time all of his children became Christians.

He received his master's degree from Wheaton, has become an adjunct professor there, and went on to receive a doctorate in New Testament studies last year from Loyola University. His book, Coming Clean (WaterBrook Press), tells his dramatic story.

Valdes said he has impacted the lives of foreign diplomats through a Christian ministry based in Washington, D.C.

Walking time-bombs

Yet his primary passion is intercepting young people who are on a path of destruction and death. He heads Coming Clean Ministries in Atlanta, speaking to young people and parents in schools, churches, and community groups.

Valdes, 44, hopes to open a training centre in the city for pastors, teachers, parents, and community leaders. He would like to fill stadiums and preach, then provide a network for follow-up programmes to free people from pornography and drugs.

Even some clean-cut looking, middle-class young people from the suburbs are in deep trouble today. Valdes said: 'I've been around hired killers who don't have the evil I've seen in these kids. (They're) like walking time bombs.' Valdes said he is reminded every day about the consequences of his sinfulness.

In Jacksonville, Florida, 'a young girl came and asked me to dedicate her baby that was born in the toilet of a crack house,' he told delegates at the Inter-national Union of Gospel Missions convention this summer. 'I saw that baby and realised that the consequences of my sin will never leave me until Christ comes again. How many babies are dying in crack houses because of what I did to buy into what the world has to offer? I realised that day that I had to go and share Jesus with people like that.'

Drug smuggler finds the Lord

How God's grace miraculously transformed a notorious cocaine smuggler into an ardent Christian

Rolling in it

Faithful witness

Brought to book

His children

Walking time-bombs

Religion Today

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