Word: bennette
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...when Caesars Palace sent a luxurious Learjet to fly Brian ("Bo") Bennett to Las Vegas, he must have marveled at how his lot in life had changed. Only three years earlier the youth from the downtrodden ghetto of South Central Los Angeles was stocking shelves in a supermarket. Now, at 23, he was off on the kind of fling casinos reserve for the highest rollers...
...between bouts at the gaming tables, Bennett would be treated to a free ringside seat at the championship fight between Sugar Ray Leonard and Donny Lalonde. After Leonard won by a knockout, Bennett would receive the champ's satin dressing gown as a souvenir. He would golf with top hotel executives and tip waitresses with $100 gambling chips. His lavish suite would not cost him a dime...
...such hospitality for a man with no visible means of support? Because Bennett was flush with cash. He won and lost thousands at blackjack and craps. He also had a host of buddies who enjoyed the high life as much as he did. They romped through the hotel lobbies, slapping palms and spending freely. They glittered with gold chains and had flashy women on their arms. Like most businessmen, they enjoyed a rowdy national convention. Their trade, however, was illegal. It was the import, distribution and sale of cocaine...
...Bennett's rise to riches is an example of the cocaine trade's devastating impact on the nation's impoverished urban neighborhoods, which are breeding a new, sophisticated -- and violent -- kind of criminal. By offering dreams of wealth, the business has lured some of the best and brightest young minds in the inner cities. To Bennett, an unsophisticated youth with a talent for business, dealing cocaine was a path to success...
...Bennett's view, forming a partnership with Colombia's Cali cartel was a lucrative business opportunity. His main supplier, a drug lord known to him only as "Oscar," was in effect the chairman of the board of a multinational enterprise. Bennett saw himself as chief executive officer of the California subsidiary. He had an associate, Mario Villabona, who had moved from Colombia to California in 1983. Villabona, a protege of Oscar's, amounted to the California president...