Baruch Vega - King Of The Snitches

At the height of the drug wars, Baruch Vega won the trust of American cops, Colombian cartel bosses, and coked-up hit men. Was he the ultimate spy or the ultimate con man?

- Zeke Faux

I. THE RAID

When the FBI showed up at the door of his penthouse in Miami Beach, fashion photographer Baruch Vega was drinking merlot with a group of models, stylists, and assistants. The group had just returned from two weeks of shoots in Puerto Rico and Cancún. They were preparing for another in Jamaica the next day.

It was March 21, 2000. Vega was 50 and feeling like he’d hit his prime. Trim and tan, he owned a nine-seat Hawker jet and was a fixture at South Beach’s trendy restaurants—always wearing a tight black T-shirt and surrounded by beautiful women. He was thinking of trying to make one of them his fourth wife.

But this fabulous life was actually a cover. Although none of his four daughters or his fashion friends knew it, Vega was a freelance spy working for the U.S. government. He’d insinuated himself into the social circles of Colombia’s cocaine kingpins. And even as he provided information to the U.S., Vega was also running a con. Between photo shoots, he’d talked some of the world’s most dangerous drug traffickers—including a former gunman for Pablo Escobar— into agreeing to pay him more than $100 million.

Vega had the narcos convinced he was close with corrupt members of the all-powerful U.S. government “Blitz Committee,” an interagency task force, and could, for a price, make their legal problems go away. As far as the cartel members could tell, Vega was legit. Once they paid him, the rules of the drug war seemed not to apply. Men wanted for murder were waved through customs. Criminals and Drug Enforcement Administration agents visited strip clubs together. One known trafficker threw a party on a yacht in Miami to mark the millennium. Another went to Disney World.