What I didn’t know was that all this time my dad was smuggling hundreds of kilos of hashish oil from Afghanistan through India using Hare Krishna devotees as mules to finance Kirtananda Swami’s land purchases and building projects at New Vrindavan. In 1977 my father Syamakunda Das went to India with Kirtananda Swami to see his guru Bhaktivedanta Swami for the final time. Bhaktivedanta Swami was close to leaving his body and his disciples had all gathered around to hear his final words. Prabhupada spoke very softly giving simple instructions from his bed.
“Everything is moving under the direction of Krishna. This is Krishna Consciousness. “
Like a bolt from the blue these words hit Syamakunda Das. He took Bhaktivedanta Swami ’s words to heart. He decided to do something big for Krishna. Selling books, flowers, records and incense in airports and parking lots was chickenshit. Pure hash oil (honey oil) from Afghanistan sold for $100 a kilo in Delhi could be broken down and sold for $10,000 a kilo in New York.
In a room of Mrs. Kalaska boarding house just off Connaught Place in Delhi. Syamakunda Das holds his hands above his head as Aziz carefully taped 10 kilos of the precious “honey oil” to his bare chest and back.
“Everything is moving under the direction of Krishna. This is Krishna Consciousness. “
The words keep echoing in Shamakunda’s head as he stares nervously out the window of an upstairs hotel room looking out at the smoky New Delhi evening. Outside on the street a taxi waits. The driver checks his watch anxiously.
Syamakunda Das now wearing the robes of a Hare Krishna devotee lowers his kurta shirt down over the duct tape. Syamakunda Das raises his arms in the air. Nothing can be seen beneath the loose fitting robes.
“Acha, you can’t see anything. Allah ho Akbar!” calls out Aziz
“Hare Krishna!” Syamkunda Das replies. Aziz shakes his head side to side as only Indians do. Shyamakunda Das picks up his suitcase. He walks out the door. Outside the taxi driver opens the door for him. He gets inside. The taxi speeds off into the crowded Delhi's streets heading to the airport. 36 hours later Syamakunda Das walked through customs at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York and hailed another taxi.
Gregory Wayne Detamore aka Syamakunda Das
For the second run Shamakunda Das grew his hair and his beard out and flew into Tehran disguised as an American contractor. In Tehran he would meet with his connection Aziz Ghaznavi. Aziz claimed to be a descendent of Mahamud of Ghazni the first Afghan to sack Krishna’s birthplace in Mathura in 1018. Shyamakunda Das would then don the turban, Punjabi pants and kurta of the Tajik tribesmen. Hiding his ocean blue eyes with mirrored Ray Ban sunglasses and with $50,000 cash duct taped to his body beneath his robes, Shamakunda Das quietly slipped across the border from Iran into Afghanistan in Aziz’s Volkswagen Van.
Once across the Afghan border, Aziz drove Syamakunda Das north into the foothills above Khamzagar. There Syamakunda Das would supervise the processing of the Ganja harvest into pure hashish oil. The “Honey Oil” was over 80% THC and was the color and texture of golden honey. Aziz’s brother would then smuggle the “honey oil” through Pakistan into India. In New Delhi it would be broken down into small pouches. From there Krishna devotees would body pack it beneath their saffron robes as they flew into JFK and LAX. India was not considered to be a source country for narcotics during the 70’ and 80’s and Hare Krishna’s were a common sight in America’s airports where they were usually busy selling books and flowers to annoyed passengers. Most people were anxious to get away from Hare Krishnas for fear of being talked into buying a book or a flower and for years the US customs agents waved Krishna’s monks through without a second thought.
The “Honey Oil” they brought in would be sold in New York and Los Angeles for $120 a gram where it was in great demand to come down off of cocaine. A few drops on the tip of a cigarette was enough to land the plane after a long night on the town. Cocaine was cheap. Getting to sleep it off was expensive though. In the late 70’s and 80’s the price of cocaine was $60 a gram. A gram of honey oil sold for $120 a gram. It was the perfect way to take the edge off of cocaine, much safer than heroin, if you could find it and you could afford it. It was $60 a gram to go up and $120 to come down. The money made from the sale of the honey oil was used to buy land and build temples, ashrams and schools for the children of the Hare Krishna movement.
Initiated Hare Krishna devotees are forbidden to take any form of intoxication but most of the people who joined in the early days did so either while under the influence of LSD or shortly after taking it. The assassination of President Kennedy, RFK Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcom X paralyzed generations of leaders in this country. The people in the US have struggled to find their ball sacks ever since and can you really blame people? If they could get to Kennedy and King, what chance did anyone else have to make a difference? As the 70’s wore on and the Viet Nam War ended, the idealism of the 60’s faded. Most of the hippies went back to work in the offices, the mills, the mines and factories.
The Me generation was taking the stage with cocaine and Quaaludes replacing Ganja and LSD. Krishna’s temples needed money to print books and build more temples, but there was another reason they were willing to bend the rules and to justify Ganja smuggling. In the minds of enthusiastic devotees like Shamakunda Das, Maya’s illusion was getting stronger and it was becoming even harder to break people free from it. People were turning their backs on the hippie movement and plugging back in. They were getting jobs and moving to the suburbs like their parents. Most devotees had been Ganja smokers until Krishna had “saved” them. Some of the more radical Hare Krishna devotees argued that since only Krishna was stronger than Maya and Ganja helped them break free of Maya’s grip the best way to get people to turn away from Maya and to Krishna was to get them to smoke Ganja.
If more people smoked Ganja, then more people would become dissatisfied with the material world and turn to Krishna.
My father Syamakunda was one of the true believers in this jihad for the hearts and minds of America. Heroin was bad karma, and so he settled on “honey oil”, golden colored, highly concentrated hashish oil from Afghanistan. It sold for more than heroin and was in great demand in the United States for people coming down off cocaine during the 70’s and 80’s. After all, to him the Hare Krishna Movement was a Jihad, a holy war to be won for his Guru at all costs. Though selling even soft drugs like hashish was bad Karma, my dad told himself that anything could be used in Krishna’s service and that by donating the fruits of actions to his Guru and Krishna he could escape this bad Karma.
After that first run came a second and then a third. The devotees at New Vrindavan bought most of the farms on McCreary’s Ridge, rapidly expanding to over 3000 acres. After the Palace of Gold was opened in 1979 new members flocked to New Vrindavan. In the early days of New Vrindavan my father, Syamakunda Das was Kirtananda’s right hand man. If Kirtanananda Swami wanted something done he called my father. During the spring and summer Shamakunda Das shaved his head and swung a hammer for 10 hours a day as the buildings of New Vrindavan rose around them. In October would grow his beard and fly to Tehran. During the fall he would supervise the preparation and packaging of the honey oil. From there he would return to Tehran and fly to Delhi. Aziz and his family would bring the honey oil from Afghanistan to Delhi. From there my dad would dole it out to the Hare Krishna mules that body-packed it into the United States via JFK and LAX. In the spring when the snow melted in West Virginia he would return to New Vrindavan to resume construction again.
My dad’s last run was in the fall of 1978, just before the Shah of Iran fell and the Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan. The plan was to buy 100 kilos of honey oil at the source, sell them for $10,000 a kilo and make $1,000,000 off this last deal and then retire. “Let’s pull one last job and retire” has been the plot of countless forgettable crime movies and how so many “how I got caught and went to prison stories” begin in real life. It’s a cliché but unfortunately stereotypes and clichés more often than not turn out to be accurate.
In ’78 the situation in Iran already getting hairy and flying into Tehran with the money was now out of the question. Syamakunda Das had been detained and questioned by Savak agents when he had tried to fly out of Tehran the last time and he had barely managed to convince them to allow him to return to the United States. “Midnight Express” the story of Billy Pilgrim’s nightmare of being sentenced to serve time in a Turkish prison was released that year and after his encounter with Savak my dad was terrified of ending up in a foreign prison. Up until then it had seemed like a game and the risk had not seemed real but after being at the mercy of Savak the reality began to set in. The pressure was starting to get to my dad and his nerves were practically shot by then. He was smoking a ton of grass during the day and drinking heavily in the evening.
They did not want to fly into Tehran again and there was no international airport in Kabul so flying directly into Afghanistan was not possible. So my parents decided on a change of plans. My dad flew to Germany and bought a fully loaded Volkswagen bus from the factory in Wolfsburg, Germany. My mother Olive Moore who had been initiated as Girindra Mohini Dasi then flew to Germany with $100,000 in cash stashed in the diaper bags of my sisters Radha Priya, my brother Syamantaka and my sister Saraswati. My mother was pregnant with my sister Saci at the time and my sister Vishaka and I were still living in the ashram. My mother had never taken part in any of the previous runs and she only agreed this time because Kirtanananda Swami swore to her that the money would be used to build a new school for the children.
My father outfitted the Volkswagen bus with a secret compartment underneath the floor and they stashed the $100,000 in the compartment.
My parent’s plan was to drive from Germany through Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and then Iran. They would then cross the border into Afghanistan and pick up the honey oil from Aziz in Khamzagar. From there they would drive it through Pakistan and finally to India where my dad would hand it off to the mules in Delhi.
If this sounds like an insane plan and an obvious recipe for disaster let me assure you that this part of the plan worked out to perfection. My mother did run into a camel while driving through Turkey and my father had to bribe the camel’s owner to prevent them from being stoned by the villagers and a monkey did kidnap my little brother Shawn and return him only after he was given a ransom of bananas, but aside from that the plan went off without a hitch. My parents and all my brothers and sisters and the “honey oil” made it all the way to India. My mother then flew home with my brothers and sisters and went back to New Vrindavan, West Virginia.
Up till then the plan had always worked perfectly but this time one thing was different. This time one of the mules they brought along was not really a Hare Krishna devotee. The brother of one of the mules had shaved his head, dressed in saffron robes of a Hare Krishna monk and made the trip. While waiting in line the pretender lit up a cigarette and aroused the suspicion of an alert US Customs agent. Hare Krishna’s were a common sight in airports but Hare Krishna’s don’t smoke cigarettes. The pretender was questioned and searched and the “honey oil” was found in his bag. The rest of the mules were taken into custody and one of the mules rolled on my dad. He was arrested at the airport in Delhi as he tried to leave the country. As my dad used to say.
“There is no such thing as a foolproof plan. One fool can fuck up any plan.”
In October of 1978, my father Shyamakunda Das was taken into custody while trying to board a Pan Am flight out of Dehli. He bailed out of an Indian jail, but Interpol was still holding his passport. Shamakunda Das then shaved his head and his beard, borrowed a passport from another Hare Krishna devotee, dressed in saffron robes and flew back into the United States. Apparently, all bald people in saffron robes looked alike to Customs agents. My dad spent the next 5 years on the run in the US before being taken into custody again. During that time, he lived in constant fear of being caught.
With the money he got from selling the last bit of hash oil my dad bought a beautiful piece of land on Stulls Run Creek just outside New Vrindavan. He started to work on building a house for us. Other families from New Vrindavan bought land near us and built homes.There was Chuck and Deborah St. Denis, Kurt and Janet Cleaver, and Dr Nick Tsacrios the community’s physician.
Talavan was for Hare Krishna devotees on the fringe or “fringies”, a place for the “not so spiritually advanced.” Fringies chanted Hare Krishna and didn’t eat meat but they smoked grass, drank beer and occasionally tripped on acid and did cocaine. Rumor had it that some of them occasionally swapped partners. This did not sit well with the more strictly following members who demanded that these “fringies” be expelled from the community.
In the beginning the problem with expelling these “fringies” was that they did most of the skilled labor on the farm. They included the community’s doctor and nurse, not to mention my dad’s hashish oil smuggling operation which was financing the construction of Prabhupada’s Palace.
After the Palace of Gold was built, New Vrindavan's ranks were swelled with new fanatical devotees who were willing to work for free. What really bothered Kirtananda Swami the most about the “fringies” is that they didn’t work for free. They expected to be paid for work. One by one the “fringies” were expelled from the community and replaced by sober, hardworking fanatics who worked for free as a service to their guru, and followed Kirtananda Swami’s orders without question.
For years Kirtanananda Swami supervised the construction of a palatial home to his guru Bhaktivedanta Swami at New Vrindavan. Kirtanananda Swami travelled the world collecting ideas and materials from Europe, the Middle East and India to build a truly magnificent creation. Set atop an enchanted hill rising out of the mist, the colossal black and gold dome is the first thing that catches your eye. As you move closer the sun reflects off the Spanish Gold, German stained glass, and Italian marble that adorn the exterior of the palace. Once inside French chandeliers, Italian frescos, Turkish and Iranian onyx, and elaborate teakwood from Sri Lanka are fused into Kirtanananda’s vision of a perfect symphony of eastern and western devotion.
Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold opened in 1979 and the response was spectacular. It was hailed as America's Taj Mahal. The Louisville Courier Journal stated, "It's hard to believe that Prabhupada's Palace is in West Virginia. In fact, it's hard to believe it's on this planet." CBS Magazine reported, "The magnificence of the Palace of Gold would be hard to exaggerate." The New York Times proclaimed, "Welcome to Heaven.” Visitors flocked to see the Palace of Gold and passionate new devotees arrived in New Vrindavan every day.
After the Prabhupada Palace was built devotees flocked to New Vrindavan. They began to worship Kirtananda Swami as God and he encouraged them to do so. It is said that maya’s last trap for Krishna’s devotee is to think, “I am the greatest devotee.” and very few people can be worshiped as God and not think that they deserve it.
In 1990 after Donald Trump opened the Taj Mahal Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, Kirtanananda Swami invited him to visit the New York temple. By then Kirtananda Swami was under federal indictment for conspiracy to commit murder for hire, kidnapping and copyright infringement. Mr. Trump declined the invitation but did reply to Kirtananda Swami telling him that he had been to the Hare Krishna love feast years before.
“Mr. Trump also told Kirtanada Swami that he got the idea for the Taj Mahal from Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold.
When I was 19, I visited the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City the year it first opened. It was the first casino I ever visited. After growing up around Prabhupada’s Palace and visiting the real Taj Mahal I was not impressed. The Taj Mahal in Atlantic City was tacky, adorned with garish colors, plastic facades and cheap materials. The Taj Mahal in Atlantic City is gone but Prabhupada’s Palace still stands. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that the man who created that abomination would one day become president of the United States or possibly imagine that he would someday inspire the same militant devotion that Kirtanananda Swami had inspired in his followers.
In 1976, 40 years before the 2016 election, the Hare Krishna devotees in New York needed a place to build the floats for their Ratha Yatra Festival of the Chariots parade. After being turned down by everyone in Manhattan the devotees approached Mr. Trump to ask him to use the rail yard that he had recently purchased. They had no money and wanted to ask Trump to let them use the space as an act of charity. Mr. Trump’s secretary told them Donald Trump would never agree to let them use the property for free, but they would not take no for an answer. The devotees left a letter for Mr. Trump and as the story goes Mr. Trump read the letter and said, “Sure why not.” Mr. Trump immediately agreed to let the Hare Krishnas use the rail yard to build their floats for the parade for free. That was 40 years before the 2016 election but maybe Krishna did owe Trump a favor and it took him 40 years to collect. There is that number 40 again. Many Hare Krishna devotees believe it was Donald Trump’s early service to Lord Jaganatha that gave him the good karma that propelled him to the highest office in the land and many Hare Krishna devotees now support Donald Trump almost fanatically. Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel who were appointed by President Trump both took their oaths to defend the United States Constitution were sworn into office with their hands on the Bhagavad Gita. As Lord Krishna said in the Bhagavad Gita “As they surrender to me, I reward them accordingly.”
Tulsi Gabbard, the Author