Victor Carranza - Telegraph

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Victor Carranza

Victor Carranza, who has died aged 77, was known as Colombia’s “emerald czar” andconsidered himself the principal peacemaker in the violent and bloody “green wars” that

blighted the South American country following the nationalisation of the emerald minesnearly 70 years ago.

Victor Carranza Photo: REUTERS

5:21PM BST 15 Apr 2013

A diminutive, stout, loquacious, gravel-voiced billionaire, he survived at least two assassination

attempts and, although prosecuted for allegedly forming far-Right paramilitary death squads, the

charges failed to stick, earning him the title of Colombia’s “Teflon man”.

While short in stature, Carranza was the country’s undisputed giant of the trade. His emerald

empire in the jungle-strewn mountains of Boyacá, north-east of the capital Bogotá, brought him

immense wealth. But his billion-dollar fortune came at a price: during the 1980s long-running

territorial disputes between mining families erupted into full-scale conflict and thousands of peopl

— perhaps as many as 6,000 — were killed in fighting for control of the business.





In a country where narcotics are the most lucrative export, the spoils of Colombia’s emerald riche

had attracted the attention of drug cartels as a way of laundering money. But then Carranza helped

to broker a truce, and mine owners agreed to settle their differences peacefully in 1991.

Emeralds had been mined in Colombia since antiquity, and were particularly prized by the Incan

nobility. The Spanish conquistadors of the 16th century knew of the country’s fabulous emerald

deposits, but it was only by chance in 1564 that they — literally — stumbled on the hidden treasur

when a horseman was forced to stop after a strange object hobbled his mount; he found a green

rock the size of a child’s fist embedded in the horse’s hoof.

Colombia has since become the world’s richest source of emeralds, much sought-after for their

absence of imperfections and exceptional deep green colour. Carranza was believed to control

nearly half of Colombia’s emerald business which, with exports totalling $121 million last year,

accounts for about two-thirds of the world’s stones.

A near-perfect teardrop emerald can fetch 10 times the price, per carat, of a top diamond. Carranza

one of Colombia’s largest landowners and a “Godfather” figure widely known as Don Victor,

amassed his fortune after discovering his first emerald cache as a boy in the late 1940s. He claime

that he was able to locate the precious stones due to some innate power. “I’ve been fortunate,” he

would say. “The emeralds call me.”

Victor Carranza was born on October 8 1935 at Guateque, a mountain town 50 miles from Bogotá

His father died when he was two years old. “We were left without protection, five siblings and my

mother,” he told an interviewer in 2010. “We had a small farm and we were very poor. It fell to m

to get things going.” Together the six children survived by planting corn and keeping chickens.

When still a boy, Victor’s elder brother found a large emerald rock and set out for Bogotá,

promising to sell it and return with money to buy a small plot of land for the family. He was never

seen or heard from again.

In 1946, when Victor was 11, the government nationalised the emerald mines. “Illicit mining and

dealing abounded. It converted us into outlaws,” he recalled. Determined to find a stone worth eve

more than the one discovered by his brother, Carranza staked a claim to his first emerald seam

while he was still a teenager and started up as a prospector.

From the 1960s he featured in several power struggles for control of the tropical Klondike’s vast

mineral resources. Carranza — according to his biographers — assembled his own illegal





paramilitary militias that were blamed for most of the killings in Colombia’s “dirty war”.

This chaotic Wild West-style state of affairs still obtained in 1977, when the government closed it

emerald-mining operations and invited private bids for exploration rights. With two partners,

Carranza won the right to ply a mine in the mountainous region of Boyacá, but results were slow i

coming. “It was a nightmare,” he told The Sunday Telegraph in 1991. “We couldn’t find a thing fo

three years. We mortgaged our houses to keep on going.” In 1982 they struck it rich, and started

buying out competing concessions.

By the 1990s Carranza was fabulously wealthy and began to extend his holdings outside Boyacá,

buying properties in Colombia’s eastern plains. Maintaining an iron grip on his expanding fiefdom

his notorious private army known as the Black Serpent was reputed to have killed hundreds of Lef

wing insurgents and to have driven peasants off their land. For his interview with The Sunday

Telegraph, Carranza appeared with a Smith and Wesson jammed in his waistband, while at least 1

Uzi-toting bodyguards kept watch at a discreet distance.

In 1998 Carranza was arrested and charged with kidnapping, but after three years in jail he was

freed and the charges were dropped, leaving him free to resume control of his empire.

Latterly, as cancer took its toll, Carranza began to lose his hold on power and the truce he had

brokered started to unravel. He survived assassination attempts at least twice, the last in 2010,

reportedly ordered by a rival in their battle for control of a mine in which both had a stake.

Victor Carranza is survived by his wife, Blanca, and five children.

Victor Carranza, born October 8 1935, died April 4 2013

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