Carlos Fernández Bácula was a Peruvian diplomat who used his diplomatic status to become a prolific smuggler, especially trafficking in narcotics for the Drug Barons of Europe and their leader Elias Eliopoulos, and smuggling for them to Unione Corse, the Sicilian Mafia, the American Mafia, and various White Émigrés. He had no deep family affiliation or membership with any of these groups, and operated mainly as a smuggler and courier for profit, sometimes even acting as a go-between and mediator between families. Utilizing his diplomatic immunity, Bácula transported narcotics and other illicit items in his diplomatic luggage, bypassing customs inspections. According to estimates by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), he smuggled approximately 1.5 tons of narcotics into the United States between 1928 and 1931. His success is considered one of the early models for the later successes of the French Connection.
Eventually, he would be held in suspicion by; Scotland Yard and Malcolm Delevingne, the FBN and Harry J. Anslinger, the Rotterdam police and Adriaan Hendrik Sirks, various Swiss cantonal police departments, the Sureté Nationale, the Canadian Narcotics Division and Charles Henry Ludovic Sharman, and the Egyptian Bureau of Narcotics and Russell Pasha. Imprisoned in Zurich on charges of trafficking in heroin in 1938, he was living in Nazi concentration camp for "undesirables" when the Nazis infiltrated the membership of the International Bureau of the International Criminal Police Commission during World War II, and Bácula subsequently was recruited by his old friends Paul Carbone and Simon Sabiani to become an Abwehr agent. Their initial plan was to flood North Africa with narcotics, thereby addicting the Allied forces there, and halting their advance in its tracks.
Despite the fact that he had abused his diplomatic privileges, Bácula held a lifelong dream of a free and liberal socialist democracy in Peru, and was an avid member of the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (ARPA). Historians are still researching whether his drug running was a profit mechanism for a failed Peruvian revolution. Bácula, on his part, denied ever having been a smuggler, and claimed that all charges against him were as a result of his association with ARPA, and the US government's desire to control Latin America. When he was interviewed by a United States District Attorney in 1931 about his involvement in trafficking, he claimed he had no need to do so: his family owned a large cotton plantation in Peru which he had a shared interest, and he also owned a dressmaking store in Paris, where his wife was a partner. That dressmaking store, however, was located only a block away from a heroin processing factory that was owned and operated by Louis Lyon.
Early life Carlos Fernández Bácula was born in Lima, Peru, on March 11, 1888. He was the son of a prosperous cotton merchant. On his paternal side, he is descended from Miho Bácula Jugović, a Croatian emigrant from Trpanj who settled in Peru in 1874. Around the time that Bácula was born, Peru was producing a majority of the world's pure concaine, distributed to pharmaceutical companies for use in the medical field. Lima, the capital of Peru, was the cocaine capital of the entire world when Bácula was growing up.
At the age of thirteen, Bácula moved to Germany to pursue studies in engineering. He enrolled in the Institut auf dem Rosenberg in Sankt Gallen, a prestigious and costly boarding school. He continued his studies in Darmstadt and Zürich.
Diplomatic career and criminal activities (1914–1931)
Switzerland and arms smuggling (1914–1924) With the onset of the World War I, he relocated to Switzerland, where he became associated with a French swindler and professional gambler named Louis Lyon, and somewhere in Thessaloniki, the pair interacted with a Greek arms dealer named Elias Eliopoulos. Some time after encountering Eliopoulos, Bácula wound up trafficking in arms himself.
After the war ended, and relying on financial support from his father, he joined the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a junior consular officer in Geneva. In 1923, he became involved in an effort to acquire firearms for his government, an operation that unbeknownst to him, had been orchestrated by a member of the Deuxième Bureau.
Vienna and the narcotics trade (1925–1931) Circa 1925, Bácula assumed the post of Peruvian consul in Vienna. His life in Vienna was one of luxury. He carried himself and presented the image of a career diplomat, addicted to the fashions of the social elite of the city. He dressed in finely tailored suits, wore luxury local watches and timepieces, and on his head, his signature fedora. He acquired a grand residence at Rennweg 3, Vienna, III (a house formerly owned by Gustav Mahler), where he hosted opulent parties attended by members of the local elite and diplomatic corps. He was also an avid, though often unsuccessful, gambler.
His fashion sense, however, is probably also greatly in thanks to his wife Anita, who eventually became a fashion magnate and a partner in Cohen, Salti, and Co., a dressmaking factory on Rue Saint-Honoré.
During this period, he met and befriended a White Émigré named Joseph Raskin, who had fled Russia during the Russian Revolution and settled in France. Raskin, who held a major interest in a pharmaceutical plant in Mulhouse, introduced Bácula to the drugs and narcotics trade. Especially attractive to Bácula was the fact that he could make dozens the more profit moving narcotics than he could moving the same volume of weapons. Bácula officially shifted his primary product from arms to narcotics, which proved both more lucrative and logistically simpler.
Vienna was developing a reputation among drug enforcement officials as a hub of illicit narcotics activity. Its appeal to traffickers stemmed from a combination of factors: a central geographic position, a transient and diverse population, and the economic instability that followed World War I. However, the city’s greatest attraction was Austria’s lenient drug legislation, which imposed relatively mild penalties even for large-scale trafficking. The father of Vienna’s narcotics trade was Viennese pharmacist Ludwig Auer, who legally acquired pharmaceutical products and resold them for illicit export, particularly at first to Thomas Zakarian. However, the majority of traffickers operating in Vienna were foreign nationals. That same pharmaceutical company in Mulhouse that Joseph Raskin owned a majority share was owned and operated, completely legally, by Ludwig Auer. The products coming out of this factory were distributed to a community of smugglers and gangsters known as the "Raskin Ring."
Bácula's diplomatic passport made him an asset to his associates, and problematic for law enforcement, as it allowed him to carry narcotics across international borders without passing through customs. Because international traffickers relied heavily on official identification while traveling, having a diplomat within their network greatly facilitated the creation and acquisition of forged documents. Bácula later acknowledged that Raskin had pressured him to obtain a Peruvian passport, likely to assist in drug transport under an assumed identity. However, Bácula claimed he merely acted as an intermediary, contacting a colleague at the Polish consulate in Vienna to help Raskin secure a new Polish passport, less advantageous than a diplomatic one.
Contemporary problems in the historiography of Jewish drug dealers in Nazified Vienna Despite widespread antisemitic propaganda during the interwar period, records do indeed confirm the existence of several individuals of Jewish heritage and faith who were involved in international narcotics trafficking networks based in or operating through Austria, most of whom Bácula was in close contact with. Among the better-known figures were; Sami Bernstein, Herman Blauaug, and Gabriel Munk. Others included Moses (or Leib) Weidler, Thomas Petrou Zacharian, the Polish brothers Zahnwel and Ajzyk Zellinger, Simon Lamm, Nathan Altmann, Traian Schor, and Josef Raskin. These individuals operated within broader transnational trafficking networks. For example, Hussein El Neannai, an Egyptian merchant residing in Vienna, was implicated in drug transport operations that allegedly moved shipments between Vienna, New York, and Paris, sometimes under diplomatic cover. These were the same operations that Bácula took part.
Contemporary far-right publications, including Arbeitersturm, a militant newspaper affiliated with Austria’s National Socialist labor movement, frequently exaggerated and racialized involvement in the drug trade. One 1933 article, for instance, claimed that Jews were responsible for 30% of the global narcotics trade. In Germany, similar publications asserted a decline in Jewish involvement from 24% in 1930 to 3.6% by 1936. During Berlin police raids targeting alleged drug smugglers and currency violators, 339 individuals were arrested at two establishments on Kurfürstendamm, with 317 reportedly identified as Jewish. Early records of the operation indicated that 76 of those detained had prior criminal charges, while others were listed as political suspects or undocumented foreigners.
The 1928 Manhattan theft (Anslinger's version) In 1928, Bácula's most unfortunate incident occurred while he was attempting to move product in Manhattan. Harry Anslinger writes:"Bacula was a weak sister in this kind of underworld; he was all right as long as others were close by to protect him. But this was not always possible – especially in the jungles of Manhattan. On one of his trips, Bacula was in a New York hotel with 150 kilos of heroin in his baggage which he was attempting to sell. Even in that day, the wholesale value was nearly $400,000. Through a member of the American mob, Bacula sent out 50 kilos to a prospective customer, holding the rest until he received his personal payoff. The messenger arrived back at the hotel shortly thereafter, his head bandaged and bloody. He stated that he had been held up and robbed.Bacula was dismayed at his loss – and suspicious. A few days later a visitor showed up at his hotel room. "My name is Jack Diamond," the caller announced blandly. The diplomat had heard of the American gangster but was surprised at the smiling affability of the tall lean young man who asked if he might come in for a moment. "I heard about vour unfortunate loss of heroin," Legs Diamond said. "I may be able to help you get some of it back. It's a hell of a load of heroin to lose-fifty kilos. Maybe I can get it back for you. I know a lot of guys."The historians Lauren Campbell and David Petruccelli write:"Bácula, in Anslinger’s telling, was “a weak sister in this kind of underworld; he was all right as long as others were close by to protect him. But this was not always possible — especially in the jungles of Manhattan.” Such tough talk was typical of Anslinger, who never missed a chance to burnish his reputation as a fearless lawman in the mold of his rival, J. Edgar Hoover. But his characterization also contained a grain of truth. The kind of violence that characterized Prohibition-era America was largely unknown in Europe..."Bácula, aware of Legs Diamond’s violent reputation and suspecting his involvement in a prior hijacking, nonetheless accepted his offer to help recover the stolen narcotics. Adopting a calm tone, Bácula expressed his willingness to cooperate, and Diamond, appearing indignant, agreed that Bácula had been deceived.