November 21, 2008
The Land Where Money Grows On Trees, Or Coca Plants At Least
By Revolter
Meet David Murcia Guzman. He's the folk-hero founder of "DMG," the first and largest of the many pyramid scheme companies that have Colombia freaking the hell out recently. In 5 years, DMG grew like crazy, doubling investors' money, etc.. It created hundreds of imitators - and speculation that it was a drug-money-laundering front. Murcia insists that, unlike the greedy banks, his business just shares its profits with its mostly lower and middle class clients. Until now, the Colombian authorities had been unable to pin anything on DMG, but yesterday Panama arrested and extradited Murcia to Bogota, where he will face various money-laundering charges.
Last week, several companies collapsed and some "executives" absconded with billions of pesos. Alvaro Uribe even declared a national emergency after 2 people were killed in the resulting riots. Authorities closed DMG's branches, causing protests in favor of DMG throughout the country. Apparently Murcia has a cult-like following, and he refers to his investors as the "DMG family," like the Mansons did. DMG services 300,000-500,000 of the 2-3 million Colombians that invested in these companies. In a radio interview before his arrest, Murcia dared to talk smack directly to Uribe. "No, Mr. President, that's not the way it is and I hope that you are listening to this. Because if you are going to take arbitrary measures, then allow me to tell you that I also will do arbitrary things. And allow me to say to you that I will also turn the people against the government." Awesome.
Anyway it's all very weird and confusing, but it seems pretty obvious that Murcia didn't create his "economic revolution" without some cocaine money. Yet he also believes that he has leverage. He claimed two of Uribe's sons worked with one of DMG's businesses before backing off the allegations. His well-connected lawyer claims that among DMG clients are the police and "people in government". The DEA has also taken an interest in the case, so naturally Uribe will just extradite him to the US in the middle of the night before he starts naming names.
