Auguste Ricord
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Auguste Joseph Ricord, nicknamed Il Commandante, (26 April 1911 – 1985)[1] was a French-Corsican heroin trafficker, convicted Nazi collaborator,[2] and one of the founding members of the French Connection, a mafiosi-type organisation involved in heroin trade, based in France in the 1950s and 1960s. After the liberation, Ricord fled the country. He was sentenced to death in absentia.
An agent of Henri Lafont, a member of the Carlingue (French auxiliaries of the Gestapo), under the Vichy regime, he used part of the funds stolen by the Carlingue during the war to create drug laboratories near Marseille. Heroin was refined there before being exported to the US.
On 19 April 1968, Ricord was arrested along with fellow Corsicans Lucien Sarti and François Chiappe for questioning regarding the robbery of a branch of the National Bank of Argentina.[3] The three were released due to lack of evidence.[3]
Auguste Ricord was arrested in 1972 in Asunción, Paraguay. Corsican influence was believed to have been behind the U.S.'s difficulties in extraditing him.[4]: 2 He was eventually extradited to the United States, where he was sentenced to 22 years in prison on federal drug trafficking charges. He served 10 years in prison until being released. Ricord returned to Paraguay in 1983, and died of an illness two years later.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Roett, Riordan (28 January 2009). "Paraguay After Stroessner". Foreign Affairs. Retrieved 14 May 2016.
- ^ Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (Winter 1972–1973). "French-Latin American Connection". BNDD Bulletin. p. 7. Retrieved 25 April 2023.
- ^ a b Hall, Isabelle (22 September 1972). "Heroin, Smuggling Case May Uncover Mystery". Ludington Daily News. Ludington, Michigan. UPI. p. 8. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
- ^ "The Milieu of the Corsican Godfathers". Time. 4 September 1972. Archived from the original on 31 May 2008.
Further reading
[edit]- Contrabandista!, Evert Clark and Nicholas Horrock (Praeger Publishers, 1973). [Details his arrest in Paraguay, extradition, and conviction by two Newsweek reports.]
- "The Hunt for Andre" , Reader's Digest, May 1973 pp. 225–259
- PAUL L. MONTGOMERY Ricord Is Convicted of Plot To Smuggle Drugs to U.S. NYT, 16 December 1972
- Drug use in America: problem in perspective: second report, Volume 1 By United States. Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse 1973
- 1911 births
- 1985 deaths
- Gestapo personnel
- Corsican collaborators with Nazi Germany
- Holocaust perpetrators in France
- French Connection gangsters
- French expatriates in Argentina
- French expatriates in Paraguay
- French exiles
- French people imprisoned abroad
- People convicted of drug offenses
- People extradited to the United States
- People extradited from Paraguay
- Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government
- Nazis sentenced to death in absentia by France