BY ADAM GOLLNER
ILLUSTRATIONS BY MAT BROWN


FIVE WAYS TO SMUGGLE DRUGS WITH FRUIT

1. LORD OF THE SKY—Fruit hunters can get so spastic about the objects of their desire that they’ll break laws to procure rarities. Some of these fruit smugglers end up in prison or being surprised by government officials who raid their greenhouses with attack dogs and machine guns. While researching fruit smugglers, I learned that part of the reason for government crackdowns on fruit smuggling in recent years is that massive quantities of drugs come into North America inside fruit shipments. In the 1990s, the Juárez drug cartel headed by Amado Carrillo Fuentes brought in tons of drugs each month on fruit-carrying 18-wheelers and 727 airplanes (for which Fuentes became dubbed the “Lord of the Sky”).

2. GO FOR DATES—Richard Stratton spent eight years in prison for running a global marijuana-smuggling ring. He’s written about the drug trade in books like Smack Goddess and Altered States of America and for programs like Showtime’s Street Time. His method of choice was dates. His proudest moment involved bringing 15 tons of Middle Eastern hash into America inside cartons of Iraqi dates. Despite intense scrutiny by customs officials, he managed to get the hash in. USDA inspectors, however, seized all the dates—because they were harboring pests. As Stratton puts it, “The infestation rate was too high.”

3. COLOMBIAN BANANAS—Bananas have a storied legacy as psychotropic accessories. Everyone from Donovan to the Dead Milkmen smoked banana peels. In 1997, seven Chiquita banana ships were stopped containing more than a ton of cocaine. Notorious Colombian drug baron Alberto Orlandez-Gamboa had shipped hard drugs into New York within sewn-up banana skins. In 2005, he was given a 40-year jail sentence. Around the same time Orlandez-Gamboa entered his guilty plea, another Colombian banana outfit was busted: Kristel Foods had $35 million worth of coke stashed in their banana crates.

4. KING OF THE TRAILERS—Fruit trucks carry more than drugs: They are also used to smuggle human immigrants across borders. In 2007, immigration agents in Huixtla, Mexico, were tipped off by the smell of human sweat when searching an 18-wheeler full of bananas. They found 94 people hiding among the fruit crates. The bust revealed that Carlos César Ferrera, the “King of the Trailers,’’ had been overseeing a network of hundreds of trucks carrying human cargo. Ferrera would approach truckers and ask whether for a fee of $5,000 to $10,000 they’d be willing to carry what he called a “heavier load of bananas.”

5. FRUIT PULP—If whole fruits feel too sketchy, you can always try processed fruits. Cans of passion fruit are a preferred option, as are juice boxes. In November 2004, a shipment of Hit fruit-drink cartons containing $1.7 million of liquefied heroin was seized in Miami. In the summer of 2007, police uncovered $38 million worth of cocaine at the Port of Montreal. When I heard the report on the radio, I turned up the volume, certain that fruits were implicated. Sure enough, the reporter then mentioned that the drugs were found in buckets of frozen mango pulp.

Adam Gollner’s new book, The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce, and Obsession, is out now from Scribner. For more on the fruit underworld, visit www.thefruithunters.com.


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