So I visited Montreal this weekend and had a fabulous time; at the hostel I also met a charming young man we shall call Rafaello. Rafaello introduced himself to me by saying, “You are American? I am South American! I am from Columbia.” He then took me salsa-dancing and invited me to visit New Zealand with him. However, I have strong intuitions that Rafaello was a drug lord of some sort, or otherwise involved in illegal activities. I never asked him directly (how do you bring up something like that in casual conversation?) but I have my reasons:
He is from Columbia. Innocent enough, you say.
Despite his notable lack of a job, Rafaello possesses large amounts of disposable income.
He uses this mysterious money to travel the world – Sweden, Russia, China, Japan, Egypt, now Canada. He’s been continent-hopping for about 8 years now.
So how does a twenty-something Columbian man get the dough to travel the world for years on end, considering he really doesn’t *do * anything? Or am I just being stupid and seeing drug lords around every corner? Thoughts? Opinions?
Did he tell you he doesn’t have a job? Maybe he’s the son of an oil tycoon or something.
I’ll tell ya…if someone invited me on an expensive trip to the other side of the world, I’d feel it was within my rights to ask him what he does for a living. In fact, I ask that question pretty early on in most relationships…friendly or otherwise.
Did he sniff huge piles of cocaine and then say, “F&ck Gaspar Gomez and f&ck the f&cking Diaz brothers! I step on those cockroaches!!”? If so, he may have been a drug lord.
Seriously, there are a lot of people in every country that are wealthy from whatever means. It’s a bit prejudiced to jump to the “drug” conclusion. The evidence you cite if fairly week.
Also, I think it would be a Colombian drug lord. Columbian drug lords are the ones that attend a certain Ivy covered establishment in NYC.
Maybe the son, grandson, or nephew of a drug lord. I don’t think drug lords themselves can travel all that freely into other countries. Maybe around South America, but aren’t many drug lords wanted in many other countries?
There are very rich families in the Latin American countries who built their wealth outside of drugs. They have children who literally jet-set around the world. The guy probably gets mistaken for a drug dealer all the time. Some people in that situation get very defensive, others go with it. Like some eye-talians in the US who pretend they are ‘connected’.
If his philosophy on life is “In America, furst ju get da money, den ju get the power, then ju get the wimmin”, he just might be a drug dealer. CUBAN drug dealer.
I don’t know if you’d necessarily call him a drug “lord”. I mean, he could be a much smaller stature dealer, and still have the wherewithal to do all this world travelling. More of a “mule”. Say, how much coke did you snort with this guy? It’ll help if you can put it in perspective like that.
As someone who was born in S.A. and most of whose family still lives down there, I’d agree. The middle class is a relatively small thing there compared to the U.S. (though it’s growing in some countries faster than others). You have vasts amount of poverty, and the entrenched upper-upper classes who’ve been in wealth and power for generations. He was probably born into his fortune, without the benefit of a criminal component (unless you count exploitation of workers, corruption and bribery, etc. as a “criminal component”).
:rolleyes: Yes, every young wealthy Colombian is a drug dealer. I’d like to see how long you’d last on the streets of Colombia preaching that one. I’m sure he finds enough baseless prejudice around the world without you making these assumptions. And anyway, this is what he gets for taking you out and showing you a good time? Guess I better go back to the old right hand; apparently, being nice and charming makes men criminals.
Maybe his dad was rich. Maybe he really does have a job. Have you asked? If it’s important to you, maybe you should. And anyway, as has been said, even if he is involved in durgs he doesn’t have to be a drug lord to have all that money. Harmless (at least relatively so) small-time dealers can build up large amounts of disposable income if they play their cards right.
Why would he spend so much time traveling if he has a loyal base of users at home, where he could make a lot of money? If he were doing all this traveling as part of a smuggling operation, he would probably have been keeping a low profile and taking part in a regular route.
This whole thing just sounds like a knee-jerk reaction to seeing a dark-skinned man with a lot of money. Last I checked, possession of money is legal.
Go ahead, see an evil drug-demon behind every tree if you like. But a few moments of thought and a few simple questions can solve this mystery for you.
