Auguste Joseph Ricord, nicknamed ''Il Commandante'', (26 April 1911 – 1985) was a French-Corsican heroin trafficker, convicted Nazi collaborator,John Simki

August 2014, Spartacus Educational Publishers Ltd. and one of the founding members of the

French Connection The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Indochina through Turkey to France and then to the United States and Canada, sometimes through Cuba. The operation started in the 1930s, reached its peak in the 1960s, and ...

, a mafiosi-type organisation involved in heroin trade, based in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

in the 1950s and 1960s. An agent of

Henri Lafont Henri Lafont (born Henri Chamberlin, 22 April 1902 – 26 December 1944) was a French criminal based in Paris who headed the French Gestapo during the Nazi German occupation in World War II. He was executed by firing squad on 26 December 1944 ...

, a member of the

Carlingue The Carlingue (or French Gestapo) were French auxiliaries who worked for the Gestapo, Sicherheitsdienst and Geheime Feldpolizei during the German occupation of France in the Second World War. The group, which was based at 93 rue Lauriston in th ...

(French auxiliaries of the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...

), under the

Vichy regime Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its ter ...

, he used part of the funds stolen by the Carlingue during the war to create drug laboratories near

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...

. Heroin was refined there before being exported to the US. On 19 April 1968, Ricord was arrested along with fellow

Corsicans The Corsicans ( Corsican, Italian and Ligurian: ''Corsi''; French: ''Corses'') are a Romance ethnic group. They are native to Corsica, a Mediterranean island and a territorial collectivity of France. Origin The island was populated since ...

Lucien Sarti and François Chiappe for questioning regarding the robbery of a branch of the National Bank of Argentina. The three were released due to lack of evidence. 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. He was eventually extradited to the US, sentenced to 22 years in prison and spent 10 years in jail until pardoned. Ricord returned to Paraguay in 1983 and died of illness two years later.

References

* Contrabandista!, Evert Clark and Nicholas Horrock (Praeger Publishers, 1973). etails 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. MONTGOMER
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
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ricord, Auguste 1911 births 1985 deaths French Connection gangsters Gestapo personnel French collaborators with Nazi Germany Corsican collaborators with Nazi Germany French people imprisoned abroad Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government People extradited to the United States People extradited from Paraguay

References

Further reading