Severance Season 2 is coming to Apple TV+. What you all did five months ago was one of the most painful moments in the history of this company. Our message got out. We're famous.
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You should have left. Severance, new season streaming January 17th, only on Apple TV+. This message comes from Greenlight. Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely, and invest with your guardrails in place. With Greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores, automate allowance, and keep an eye on what your kids are spending with real-time notifications. Join millions of parents and kids building healthy financial habits together on Greenlight.
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Send them to ouramericanstories.com. They're some of our favorites. And now we bring you the story of Dr. George Valdez. He's the author of Coming Clean, the true story of a cocaine drug lord and his unexpected encounter with God. Here's George to tell his story. You know, what's really interesting about my life is that a lot of times in life we believe that only bad things happen to bad kids.
No one can ever imagine that good things can happen to good kids. You know, my story is very, very different. My story starts when I was a young boy in Cuba. My parents were a very wealthy family. My dad was a man of tremendous integrity.
Didn't talk to him very, very much. My mother was everything in our lives and my mother was the one that wanted to leave Cuba. She did not want her children. She was very religious and I want her children to grow up in a home that just did not, was not allowed to worship God because it was a communist country. And my father, on the other hand, he really just thought that communism was not going to affect him. And he was 40 years old, did not want to come back to Cuba because he was just thought that communism was not going to affect him. And he was 40 years old, did not want to come to the United States. And my mother said, well, if you don't want to come, that's fine, but I'm not going to raise my children here. My mother applied to leave Cuba when, I guess in 1962, right after the revolution, which would have made me six years old.
We did not get to leave till October 11th, 1966. And I tell them my life, I look at it in three very traumatic or three shifts of my life, where different occurrences happened that would define the next decade of my life. And the first one was being waked up in the morning early. And my mother saying, get up, get up.
We're leaving Cuba. And I'm, I mean, I'm in shock. I'm 10 years old. My brother is nine. My sister is five.
And I had no idea. So I went to pack some toys and my mother's like, no, no, no, only the clothes on your back. So as I was going towards the airport, I'm like, mom, where are we going? She said, we're going to Miami. We're going to be with your relatives. And I was like, really?
I mean, constantly like looking and like wondering everything is going through my head. Why am I leaving my toys? Why am I leaving my friends? Why are we leaving our relatives?
We get to the airport as we are waiting for our name to be called out. Then all of a sudden, towards the end of just about everybody had boarded. I see my mother and my father crying and my mother coming to me and my father, all I could hear him say was, I'm not going, I'm not going, I'm not going.
I could not understand what he meant by that. But my mother grabbed my hand. I was 10. And she put it with my brother and my sister and she looked at me and said, Jorge, you take your brother and sister to Miami.
I will meet you there one day. And at that moment in time, my father who was just crying, just shaking his head and I'm walking towards the airplane. And I was in complete shock.
I mean, like my whole world had shattered. What was happening to me? What, why am I, where am I going?
Who am I going to go see? Why is my mom and dad staying behind? Well, my dad ended up joining us by God's grace at the last minute. And we arrived in Miami. And you know, we used to live in a house that was one square block in Cuba. We had cars, we had color television in our house. And we went to live with some relatives. And it was a total of 11 of us.
And we went to sleep in the floor, one bedroom, one bathroom, and 11 of us had to go to work or go to school. And at that moment in time, I made a decision in my life. And the decision was, you know, there's no God in the world. God is whoever I make him out to be. My mother's crazy.
Fidel was right when he said that God was only for weak people that needed meaning for their lives. But still, you know, I ended up doing things with tremendous integrity. At the age of 17, I became the youngest employee in the Federal Reserve Bank. I was a straight A student. And I went to school at University of Miami, and and worked at the Federal Reserve Bank full time. And I did that for almost four years. And literally never had seen drugs in my life. Never drank alcohol. I had a girlfriend that I was seated for two hours on Saturday night, and about four hours on Sunday.
And that would be about it. I was just set. My life was defined because my life was going to be I was going to reach the American dream. And the American dream was really defined to me two days after I came from Cuba. When I saw my cousin one day come, and he had this gorgeous candy apple red GTO with a white interior inside.
And he had only been there about a year before us. And I began to say to myself, Oh my God, if my cousin, who just came from Cuba a year ago, has this beautiful car, the day I have a car like this, I'll be somebody. Because at that time I met what I call the pseudo American dream, that American dream that told me George, whenever you have beautiful cars, whenever you have a beautiful woman, whenever you have mansions and cars and planes and all those great things, you'll be somebody.
And I was so focused on being that somebody that I really did not think about nothing else but that goal in my mind. Time passed, and I'm about to graduate from University of Miami. My accounting professor at that time, he came up to me and said, George, I want you to come work for me.
I just moved from Miami. I did not speak Spanish. You can have secretary, office, all those wonderful things that I thought that one day I would have when I own my own business.
And all you have to do is do my Spanish clients for me. And to me was probably the first evidence that there was a God in this world. So I went to work for him. I left the Federal Reserve Bank. You know, my father, again, very conservative, did not want me to leave. He thought I had a tremendous career. And my mother, the other way, was different. My mother was, you're never going to be somebody working for somebody, so do whatever you have to do, son.
And so she encouraged me. And I went to work for that man. And I remember going, the first, I mean, the first job I had was a little grocery store in Miami.
I would say it was about 25 feet wide by 40 feet long. In the middle, just really, really Cuban land, I called it at that time. And I went to work for him.
It's called La Puerta del Sol. And the first day that I went in there, he had a little office set up in the back, a little room in the back of the store. And I go there, and the first thing that I see is a bag. And I begin to count the money. And it was over $100,000. Now imagine, this is 1976, when you could buy a gorgeous home in Miami for $25,000. So I looked at that and I was like, wow, amazing that a little place like this is making so much money. And when we come back, how did that $100,000 land in a bag in Miami?
You're wondering? I think you already know the answer here on Our American Stories. Folks, if you love the great American stories we tell and love America like we do, we're asking you to become a part of the Our American Stories family. If you agree that America is a good and great country, please make a donation. A monthly gift of $17.76 is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters. Go to our American stories.com now and go to the donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming.
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Void where prohibited by law. 18 plus terms and... This message comes from Greenlight. Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely and invest with your guardrails in place. With Greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores, automate allowance and keep an eye on what your kids are spending with real-time notifications. Join millions of parents and kids building healthy financial habits together on Greenlight.
Get started risk-free at greenlight.com slash iHeart. And we return to our American stories and the story of George Valdez. When we last left off, George had gotten a job working with money, with a lot of money, with let's just call it funny money. Let's get back to the story. Here again is George Valdez.
I mean apparently this is definitely not what they taught us at school. So I let it pass and I did my books. I set up the journals. I did all that stuff that an accountant does.
Come back the next Monday. And when I came back the next Monday, I find another bag and the bag has 75,000 this time. I looked around the store. I looked at all the receipts the guy had bought. It didn't add up to about five hundred dollars and I'm like man how the heck is this guy turning this five hundred dollars into so much income.
I mean I was that naive. Third week it was just the the where the road where the rover met the road. I come in again and this time was like 110, 120 thousand dollars and I just I couldn't take it anymore.
And again at the same time nothing wrong would close my mind. So I called him in I said hey Albro let me ask you a question. You know in accounting there's a very basic formula. You buy a dollar worth of product and if you sell it for three dollars you have two dollars profit.
If you sell it for four dollars you have three dollar profit. I mean this guy couldn't even read or write. I said but we have a problem here. Oh the entire month all you've bought is about eight hundred dollars and so far I'm counting almost three hundred thousand dollars. And literally he just started laughing in my face. He said George what do you think?
We're drug dealers. You can imagine how shocked I was. And I told you I was shocked for about 10 seconds. I was shocked for about 10 seconds because that's how quickly I was able to convince myself.
Hey George don't get excited. You're an accountant. You were trained to count money.
As long as you don't break the law and do nothing wrong you're fine. And then again remember during this time there was no money laundering laws. So he looked at me he said look we have currency restrictions in Colombia. We can't take our money there.
So we know that you work for the federal government. Do you know how to open foreign bank accounts? I looked at him and said of course I know how to open foreign bank accounts. He said well how much does it cost?
And so now I knew that you could open a foreign bank account and I had heard that it cost you about seven hundred dollars in green came in. But I didn't want to get involved in any of this because this was just way beyond my means. I mean I was the ultimate nerd.
All I ever did is study and work. I knew nothing about life. I knew nothing about drugs.
I knew nothing about big business. And they're like uh well can you open three accounts for us? And I'm like sure not not a problem. And of course I'm going to give them this really stupid offer and with that offer they're just going to go ahead and leave me alone. So I go ahead and I said ten thousand dollars apiece.
Now remember I knew that all they cost is about you know seven hundred bucks. So I knew for sure that they would tell me hey forget about it there's nothing here to it so uh just good help. Well they looked at me and said can you open three? And so I'm trying to you know portray the big guy that I worked for the government after all so I'm a big shot.
And I'm like not a problem it probably take me a couple weeks. Well you know I think it's one of the the gravest mistakes in my life because I've looked at life I've never looked at life that I can't do something. I always thought well someone's done and I can do it too. And that was the wrong mindset because all of a sudden here they give me right up front thirty thousand dollars. I had never seen money like that in my life.
At that time I think minimum wage was like a dollar twenty and I was making three twenty three twenty five an hour at the Federal Reserve Bank. All of a sudden I see thirty thousand dollars in my pocket. Well it didn't take me long to make a connection head out to Grand Cayman open those bank accounts and my world began to change. And that's something that I talk about crossing lines in life. You know when we cross a line in life it's just so easy to cross that little thin line.
But then it becomes so hard but once we cross that thin line one time then it just becomes easier and easier. And all of a sudden I was opening foreign bank accounts to people managing millions and millions of dollars. You know my world started to drastically change. And then came the second shift in my life.
I went to a party and I saw this federal judge that would give people hundreds of years for any drug offense snorting cocaine. And I said to myself you know what George there is no God in this world and there's definitely no morals. So whatever you do is fine. And then that's where my life just drastically starts to spin out of control. But then again at the same time I'm saying to myself well I'm making a lot of money. I just bought a brand new Mercedes.
I'm going to buy my parents a house and I'm again I'm not doing anything wrong. And it's very important to go back to that era in the mid 70s. Cocaine was not even in the DEA radar. It was not even a thing.
It was something that was for the rich and famous. And I began to justify my actions as we all do whenever we do something that just deep down inside we know is quite not right. So I began to justify my action by saying Liz if rich people want to do this stuff that's their problem. At least I'm not involved with the drug part.
I'm just involved with the money. And I went out like that. Well next thing they did is they asked me to if I was interested in opening a banana import company. Little did I know that the least thing they were thinking about importing was bananas. And I said sure.
I said uh you know if I if you want me to head be the president of the company if you want me to do the whole feasibility study and the whole infrastructure then I gotta be the president. And it was for people it was for them. And these four gentlemen were the group that originally the original group that would one day go on and become the Medellin drug cartel. And they were different though. There were Manuel who was the head of the cartel at that time was a gentleman. He was a man that went to mass every day. He had enormous businesses. He was worth hundreds of millions of dollars in 1976 on coal mines, emerald mines.
And I start doing all the infrastructure for the company and then I went all over Europe to look for a uh a ship that uh we called a landing ship because it had to be something that would have low draft so that would go in low waters. Because all along all they care about was not importing bananas. They couldn't give a darn if we threw all the bananas in the ocean. What they wanted to do was import cocaine. I had no idea totally clueless.
But we went on like that and as I started to get to know these people they started to say to me you know what George we want you to handle all our operations in the United States. Now imagine here's a 20 year old kid I have braces. I've never never crossed any I've never done anything wrong in my life. I had a perfect record.
I didn't even have a speeding ticket. All the alcohol my life did not even fit in a teacup. Being asked to handle all drug operations in the United States for the most powerful criminal organization in the world at this time. No way there was just no way that even thought would cross my mind. But they kept that in a very subtle way in a subtle way till one day I came up with this brilliant idea. So I'm going to say to him I said you know what I know what I'm going to do. Next time that he asked me if I want to do that I'm going to say okay I'll do it but here's the deal. You guys put up all the money and I want equal parts. In other words you're four now we're going to be five. No doubt in my mind no doubt in my mind that they would tell me to just go to hell because it's just nowhere in the world.
This for mid 40s multi-millionaires uh very very powerful people would go ahead and let a 20-year-old punk kid dictate to them that he's going to be co-partners with them and they got to put up 20 percent of his money which at that time would have been each load was costing three four hundred thousand dollars per person to bring in. So I left they told me well we'll think about it and I went back to my hotel and I'm saying well you know what that's wonderful finally got rid of the headache not a problem and I go on and I went went to bed and I was just I had this amazing feeling of relief. In the morning when I went to uh to go to the airport they sent the driver for me and the driver said we got to stop at our manual's office because he wants to talk to you. So I'm like okay uh we're going to stop over there and uh and see what he wants. So when I go over there I'm like yeah Manuel is there anything that you need? Hold on one second let me cut that out this dog started barking here for a second. And you've been listening to George Valdez tell the story of his own life and he talks about crossing lines in life and that first time it's hard but then each time you cross it and we all know it because we've crossed the line or two in our lives it just gets easier to cross the line and then well from that first step he finds himself approaching that job of handling all the drug operations for one of the largest drug cartels in world history.
When we come back more of George Valdez's story here on Our American Story. People thought it was impossible to build a firm lifted booty and flatten and shrink your abs at the same time but we've cracked the code. I'm Carl the CEO of Body that's body with an eye and if you want to lose weight while you firm and tighten even that lower pooch you need the 80 day obsession fitness and eating program. It's 80 workouts you'll make progress day by day. Crazy booty gains, flat tight abs.
We tested it and now it's your turn. There's no subscription needed. You can get this in-home program for less than a dollar a workout and own permanent digital access and if you buy 80 day obsession this week you'll get a second program of your choice free and if you don't see results in your butt and abs in the first 30 days you get your money back no questions asked. So get 80 day obsession this week and get a second program of your choice free go to 80dayobsession.com that's 80dayobsession.com that's 80dayobsession.com Cheap Caribbean is celebrating more than just the new year in 2025. Cheap Caribbean Vacations is celebrating its 25th birthday too. You're invited to join in on the birthday fun and book a beach vacation with more savings. Now through February 3rd you can unlock up to $250 off site wide vacation packages. Celebrate these awesome savings at your favorite beach and book your next all-inclusive vacay at cheapcaribbean.com. Your $250 off is waiting.
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It's so easy. That's cprewards.com. So grab what you need or maybe try something new and get rewarded just for doing your usual shopping and start your year fresh by earning cashback rewards with Colgate Palmolive. Rewards available while supplies last. Limits apply. US only. $1.25 through $3.25.
For full terms and conditions visit cprewards.com. Hello, it is Ryan and I was on a flight the other day playing one of my favorite social spin slot games on chumbacacino.com. I looked over the person sitting next to me and you know what they were doing? They're also playing Chumbacacino. Everybody's loving having fun with it. Chumbacacino is home to hundreds of casino style games that you can play for free anytime, anywhere. So sign up now at chumbacacino.com. That's chumbacacino.com and live the Chumba life. Sponsored by Chumba casino. No purchase necessary. VGW group.
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Save up to 40% at Blinds.com. Rules and restrictions may apply. And we return to our American stories and the story of George Valdez. When we last left off, George had become fully exposed to the world of narcotics, more precisely the world of cocaine, importing and selling it, and then laundering and hiding the money.
Things are about to get even wilder though for this accountant turned drug dealer. Let's pick up where we last left off. So when I went to a meat manual in the morning, he's like, George, come in.
So I went in there and he says to me, you know what? We'll accept. You go ahead and handle all our operations for us. We'll make you equal partners. We need someone like you in the United States. And I'm like, what the hell's wrong with this freaking people? I'm 20 years old. What do you mean they need somebody like me?
I don't even know what the hell cocaine looks like. Handle operation. What does that mean? I mean, who brings it in? Who takes it to where? Who buys this? How the hell does this? And then what happens with the money?
Because at the end, later on in life, we'll find out that the easiest thing was bringing it in. The hardest thing is what we do with hundreds of millions of dollars in the seventies. Now I'm petrified. I mean, I'm so scared right now that I'm like, there's no way to work until these people know. So I'm like, fine. Let me go take care of the, we're remodeling this ship in California. I said, let me take care of the ship.
And once we've done that, I'll come back or we'll meet in Miami and we can go over what exactly it is that you all need. So when I go to California, all along there, the gentleman I had hired to the refrigeration had kept asking me, Hey, you know what? I know that your boat is for cocaine. And I'm like, no, you're crazy. How would this boat be to bring in cocaine when it's in my name?
Am I that stupid? You know, he and I got pretty friendly cause I used to play baseball really well and he had a softball team. And so we became really, really good friends and he just kept kidding me about that. So when all of a sudden I find myself that I'm going to be head of all operations, I'm like, you know what? This guy wants cocaine in California, but let me do the same thing. Let me make him a stupid offer. When he says no, and I can come back to the manual and say, look, I'd like to help you guys out, but I don't have a buyer.
I don't know anything. So I go to Mel and I say, Hey, Mel, you know, all this time you've been harassing me about the boat being cocaine. And you know, now that we're close friends, let me tell you, it is man. In the meantime, I had found out that cocaine in Miami costs 40,000. It was $20,000 in Columbia at that time. And it costs about 5,000 to bring it to the U S 25 and wholesale.
It will sell about 42, 43, a kilo. So I go up to Mel and I say, Hey, Mel, I want to come clean with you. And he's like, Oh man, I knew it all along.
I knew it all along. Uh, how many can you sell me and say, how many do you want? He said, well, how much? I said, 70,000.
It took an act of God for me to not pee in my pants from laughing when I came up with that number. And he's like, that's a lot of money. I said, exactly. We only handle the best quality ever. So he said, well, let me get with my people.
It wasn't about four hours later. He says, we'll buy five kilos. And I'm like, I don't know if I can supply that little. And I'm like, man, at that night, I couldn't even go to bed. I was just in such turmoil. I'm either going to get killed by the buyers or I'm going to get killed by the sellers or somebody's going to kill me.
I didn't believe in God at that time, but I was sort of like, Jesus, just go ahead and kill me right now because you know, man, take away the misery. Lo and behold, I go to Miami and one of their, uh, representatives from that grocery store, uh, his name was Jaime. And I'm like, Jaime, I got this problem. This guy already wants to buy three kilos. Now they want to put me in charge of all this operation.
I mean, like, I don't know what the hell to do. He said, oh, that's easy, man. He wants three kilos. We'll get them to California, sell them to how much? I said 70.
He's at 70. Are you crazy? You sure they're going to pay and I rip you off. I said, I have no idea. I said, I said, man, I've never sold a candy bar in my life.
How the hell do I know if they're going to pay me or not? He said, man, you better act like you can kill each and every one of them because if not, somebody's going to kill you. I mean, I just couldn't sleep for a week.
They took the three kilos. I made 60 something thousand dollars. And then I came back and within six months I was us head of all operations. I was importing over 85% of all the cocaine that came into America. I was 21 years old and I was making between a million, $3 million a month.
Now it's very, very important to realize that's 1977 money, you know, which is a little bit different than in today's money. But you know, the interesting thing for me was that now I knew I was going to be happy. Now I just knew that my world would change and that I would be somebody, that I'm somebody important. I mean, after all now, all our clients were Hollywood celebrity, movie stars.
Cocaine was not even in the DEA radar during this time. So I was not even feeling guilty about doing anything wrong. I had the business. I had the office. I went to the, to my office every morning at eight o'clock like I'd done all my life. I put on my suit and I left the office at six o'clock and I ran the biggest empire and created the biggest drug empire in America and created the most intricate financial web that there was. But why was I miserable?
Why was it that, for example, I remember one time I got a phone call and like George, the Corvette convertible just came out. And I mean, I was like so excited. It was like, you know, it was like, if it was by Bar Mitzvah or my baptism, I put on a suit, I put on cologne. I told one of my bodyguards, I said, Hey, load up a briefcase with money.
We're going to go find my happiness. And we got to a dealer. And also when I get to a dealer, I see that they got three colors and I'm like, what the heck? If my joy is dependent upon one of these colors and I picked the wrong one, how am I going to be happy? So I did what any accountant would do.
I just bought one of each color. And when people would say, well, what's the hardest thing you do every day? George said, well, of course, the hardest decision I make in the morning is what damn car is going to drive. And I looked around one day and I had a million dollars worth of cars. And I just couldn't understand why I was not happy. Well, I realized then I was married to one woman and I'm like, well, I'm a good Cuban guy.
So how can a Cuban guy be just happy with one woman? And I started dating all the most beautiful supermodels in America and I hated them all and could not understand why all of a sudden I hated women, treated them the way I did. I mean, I did not abuse them or anything like that, but just to me, that was just so insignificant when I adored my mother, who was my entire life. And I had the utmost respect in this world. You know, everybody in the world wanted to be like George Valdez. You know, I was considered the most powerful person, well, one of the most powerful in America at that time and no one even knew that I existed.
But I tell people every day of my life, I would lay down in my bed, wake up in the morning, see the mirror, just did not like what I see. Then one of my associates comes up to me and says, we have an opportunity. The government of Bolivia wants to make a deal with you. So I was in Colombia with the pilots and I showed them what the airstrip was and I was going to fly back to Nicaragua because I had a meeting with General Somoza, where we were going to bring some drugs through our corn island and he was going to send it in his refrigerator cargo, ships to us. We landed in Colombia and everything was fine. Then all of a sudden, as we loaded up the cocaine, we spent overnight tied up to a tree at night and we got on the airplane about half an hour afterwards. We lost contact with Colombia because we lost both alternators and eventually we were over the country of Panama about 5,000 feet when both engines just went off and we crash landed.
And it was a miracle that we even lived. And we jumped from the airplane and then a military officer came and I took out $300 and I gave it to him and I said, look, we were looking for cattle ranches and we had problems with the airplane and we crash landed, but all I need to do is, if you can take me to a hotel and he'll take my passports, sign them, and tomorrow I'm going to send someone, I'll have someone come and fix the airplane. He took me to a private office and split us apart and they came in there and it was the head of the DEA, the General Counsel of Panama, and the head of the G2, which was the intelligence division for Noriega. They lined up all the cocaine in a table, they took pictures of us. When I got to Miami, I was charged with heading the largest drug conspiracy in the history of America and given the highest bond ever in the history of America, $7 million.
I was just 23 years old. And you're listening to the story of George Valdez and what a ride he's taking. And then his life literally comes crashing to the ground in a plane in Panama and now he's back in Miami with the highest bail ever posted on a criminal in this country's history, $7 million.
When we come back, what happens next in the life of George Valdez here on Our American Stories. People thought it was impossible to build a firm lifted booty and flatten and shrink your abs at the same time. But we've cracked the code. I'm Carl, the CEO of Body. That's Body with an I. And if you want to lose weight while you firm and tighten, even that lower pooch, you need the 80-day obsession fitness and eating program. It's 80 workouts. You'll make progress day by day. Crazy booty gains, flat, tight abs.
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Void where prohibited by law. 18 plus terms. 2025 is bound to be a fascinating year. It's going to be filled with money challenges and opportunities. I'm Joel.
Oh, and I am Matt. And we're the hosts of How To Money. We want to be with you every step of the way in your financial journey this year, offering the information and insights you need to thrive financially. Yeah, whether you find yourself up to your eyeballs in student loan debt, or you've got a sky-high credit card balance because you went a little overboard with the holiday spending, or maybe you're looking to optimize your retirement accounts so you can retire early. Well, How To Money will help you to change your relationship with money so you can stress less and grow your net worth.
That's right. How To Money comes out three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for money advice without the judgment and jargon. Listen to How To Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we return to Our American Stories in the final portion of our story with George Valdez. He's the author of Coming Clean, the true story of a cocaine drug lord and his unexpected encounter with God. When we last left off, George had been caught with pounds of cocaine in Panama after his plane was forced to crash land in a field. Let's get back to the story. You know, I hired the best lawyers that money could buy.
I hired every name lawyer that you can ever imagine in America. I spent a million dollars at that time. But anyway, it did not matter.
I was sentenced to 15 years in jail for prison, which was the most that you could give to anyone because they didn't have a wiretap. They didn't even have the cocaine. The cocaine disappeared the same day.
Noriega sold that quickly. I go off to prison and, you know, people think that prison will change you. Prison doesn't change people. I went up to prison. I was the same guy I always was. When I got out after five years in change, I went back to the same thing. And really, I look back now, there was no need for it. I was a multimillionaire.
I could spend the money that I had. But it was this thing that they thought they had beat me, but I'm going to beat them in the end. And I went back to the same thing, but something very dynamic started to happen right now. And what happened was my mother found out for the first time that I was a drug dealer. All alone before that, all she thought I was an international businessman because I had a lot of business. When she found out, it destroyed her.
It is the most painful thing I've ever been through in my life, seeing my mother walk into a courtroom and hearing that her baby kid was charged with being this monster, being this most powerful man in America, you know, heading the largest drug conspiracy in the world. She said, son, you destroyed us. But here's the interesting thing about my mom.
And this is a message that I tell to a lot of parents. My mother not one single time would take a dollar from me. My mother, not one single time stopped telling me that what I was doing didn't please God and that I destroyed them. But in the same breath, my mother would say, well, what do you want for dinner tonight, son? Because she let me know that, yeah, I could become a monster.
I could become whatever. But in her eyes, her God was bigger than anything. And in her eyes, her God would change her child. Forty years later, I see this genius of it because I see we get mad at our kids and we kick them out of the house and we find our children making horrible choices. We call it tough love.
And it really doesn't work. We got to be tough, but we got to love. So it's not tough love.
It's tough, but love. And that's how I raised my children. But, you know, and it went like that. And there was not one chance that my mother would not ever stop telling me that. And she's like, son, if I get killed, you kill me. Because what you do doesn't please God. And I'm like, Mom, what God? God ain't real. What was God when we came from Cuba and we were going hungry every day? What was God when you came from Cuba and laid in a hospital dying of throat cancer?
What was God, Mom? And I just left and I went back to my operations. One night, I'm partying in my house with some movie stars and all of a sudden the head of the security at the gate says, George, your ex-wife just dropped your daughter. And I'm like, my daughter? I said, just bring her over. So she comes over. I tell the babysitter that lived with us. I said, go ahead and put her to bed. Make sure she doesn't get out of her room.
And in the morning, I'll have breakfast with her. And I went back to my party. Two or three hours later, I hear this knock on my door.
I said, Daddy, it's Crystal. And for the first time in my life, I began to feel filthy. I began to feel dirty.
And it was the feeling, the more she knocked, it was almost a feeling that you see your baby child, you're going to drown on a boat and you're reaching out and touch your fingertips and you just can't grab a hold of their hands. And I couldn't open the door because if I opened the door, it would contaminate her. I told the woman to get out of my room. They went to get out the door. I said, no, out the window. And when they get out, I went into the shower.
Here's a man that never feared anything in his life. All of a sudden in the shower, I started to shake and I started to tremble. I started to try to scrub the filth off of me, not wondering what the hell was going on in my life. I went underneath my sheets and I began to shake and shimmer.
And when I calmed down and I was dehydrated, I went to get water and I saw my baby girl in the floor crying. And I said to myself, this will stop today. And I didn't know what change meant. You know, and this is what I tell people, when you know you got to make a change in your life, don't worry about what that means. Just know this, if you don't know this, for me, it was simple. If I'm going north, I'm going to start going south.
If I'm going east, I'm going to start going west. And I called my mother in the middle of the night and I said, mom, I'm done. And she knew what I meant. And she's like, God has answered my prayer. I'm like, God, mom, God has nothing to do with this. This is crystal.
This has nothing to do with God. Or so I thought. And then I called, in the morning, I called the head of the cartel and I said, I'm finished. Now imagine the desperation in my life at this point that I knew that most likely I'd be killed within a month. And I just moved over to my ranch. I sold my house in Miami and, uh, and I went to live in my ranch and wait until someone came around.
Didn't care anymore because my desperation was so much that my life just had to find some type of a change. Anyways, I hired this guy to teach me karate. He says, uh, I'm going to teach you about the sword. And I'm like, man, I've done karate a lot when I was younger. And I'm like, man, I'm like, man, I'm really smart. I can't believe I hired this guy. Uh, I love weapons.
He's not going to waste his time throwing kicks. We're going to get into weapons right away. All of a sudden he turns around and he has a Bible and I'm like, I look at him and I'm like, sir, first and foremost, I need to tell you two things. Number one, I don't believe in that book.
Number two, I don't believe in God. And number three, I'm paying you a lot of money to teach me karate. So tomorrow, would you please leave that sword home and bring the real sword?
He got up into my face where I could smell his breath and was the first man that had done that. And I said, uh, well, here's a seven degree black belt. You can start whooping Jesus into me and I will be paying for it. So I'm like, Hey dude, dude, don't get excited. Let's just go ahead and wait and go waste your time. And I said, well, this team room heats up. You can talk to me, read to me, do whatever you want.
It's a deal. And he read to me for almost three years and people say, what did he say that made you come around? I said, really, honestly, absolutely nothing because I was just getting over the butt whooping he had given me to even think about what the hell he was talking about. But it was everything that I saw. You see, I saw a man that lived in a very little world. I saw a man that had a 14, 1500 square foot housing.
He was so happy that I lived in this $15,000 square foot mansion. I was miserable. I wanted to find out about this God that I didn't know nothing about. And I started to study theology and I started, I taught myself Greek. I ended up getting another bachelor's in prison in five, almost five years later, I had started a master's from Wheaton college graduated. Uh, I mean, when, when I was released, I went to Wheaton college and, uh, and finished my master's became an adjunct faculty there and met the most amazing woman on God's earth. My wife of 25 years now, then from Wheaton college, I decided that I wanted to keep going and I wanted to be the best theologian in the world. And I applied to Loyola and I was accepted and I got a PhD in early Christianity and new Testament and ethics.
And I became one of five Hispanics in America with a PhD in Bible. You know, I I'm here to tell the world, listen, the only thing our children need, the only thing I shouldn't truly want is our presence. It costs nothing, but we keep, we keep, and we fall into this horrific cycle of destruction. And you know, like the old saying, Americans are so amazing about sacrificing their health to create wealth. And then they spend their wealth trying to get their health back. And we abandon our family, we abandon our homes, we abandon our wives. And at the end of the day, doesn't bring us a bit of joy.
We're just as miserable as we ever were because there's a hunger within us, inside of us that to me can not only only be filled with the love of God and whatever God might be to anyone. I talk to people all over the world. I don't care what anybody is. I don't care if they're Jewish, I don't care if they're Muslim, I don't care if they're Christian or atheist.
I don't care if they're straight or gay. All I care to tell people is, listen, I just want to tell you a story about me, my story, not for you, not for anyone, my story. My life drastically changed when I fell in love with a Jewish carpenter. So my story is about nothing but falling in love and the fact that there is redemption, that there is hope in this world. And we don't have to sell to that message that, oh, I was a twice convicted drug dealer.
Who's gonna hire you? We're not defined by our failures. We're defined by how we get up from our failures. We're not defined by how much wealth we achieve. I think that we're defined by how many lives we impact. At the end of the day, what I tell people is when the pages of history are written, will history ever remember your name? And if we care that history will remember our name, history will only remember our name until we've impacted the life of somebody else. Not because we have achieved great wealth, not because we're very rich, not because we have not because we have mansions and homes and vacation homes and three or four cars.
If all we do is impact the life of our children so that they become decent human beings that believe in integrity, believe in the word and above all, love others. If I can do that, I've changed the world. And so can anyone listening today. God bless. And a terrific job on the production and editing by our own Monty Montgomery and a special thanks to George Valdez. What a story of transformation. Why we do this show actually is stories like this and the power of God, the power of love to change everything.
George Valdez's story here on Our American Stories. With the best all inclusive vacation deals to Mexico and the Caribbean, booking your getaway with cheap Caribbean vacations means you have more freedom to do your deal. Whether you want to enjoy snorkeling, endless margaritas and more, or simply soak up the sun and sand in a tropical paradise, cheap Caribbean vacations has your deal for that. Plan and book the exact getaway you want at exactly the right price for you by using our exclusive budget beach finder or find a featured adults only all inclusive package to seekers resorts and spas and do your daily cheap Caribbean dot com.
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