NJCS 03: From Felon to Founder: The Rise of the Growfather, George Martorano

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“And that’s where I met Pablo Escobar. Pablo was sending loads [of weed] so big, he said, ‘That’s it.’ He went to planes and cocaine. And then I went to Jamaica and started doing my own thing. They had weed and nobody to sell it to. That’s the worst thing you could tell me. Because now I want you going after me.”

So begins the jaw-dropping life of George Martorano, the Growfather—a man whose journey took him from teenage weed runs in a ’52 Chevy, to the jungles of Colombia with Escobar, to surviving five years in solitary fighting off rats and Somali pirates.

In this episode, George and the founders of Little Leaf Labs (Michael Folietta & Christopher Capurso) share tales of smuggling, family secrets, and how a legacy forged in South Philly’s immigrant grit became a legal cannabis empire in New Jersey.

From near-mythic family legends—like the time his grandfather killed a priest and fled Sicily—to the launch of the Growfather brand, this is the story of redemption, resilience, and reinvention in America’s cannabis industry.

In This Episode:

• 00:00 – Meeting Pablo Escobar & the Medellin Connection
• 03:15 – The Sting: Arrest, Six Passports, and $20,000 Cash
• 06:45 – Surviving Prison: Solitary, Rats, and Somali Pirates
• 10:30 – The Growfather Emerges: From Legacy to Legal
• 13:20 – Little Leaf Labs: The Brand’s Birth and Mission
• 16:00 – Family Roots: South Philly, Immigration, and Root Beer
• 20:00 – The First Smuggling Run: Teenagers, Trunks, and Mexico
• 24:30 – Conspiracies and the 32-Year Sentence
• 28:00 – Coming Home: Redemption and Reinvention
• 31:00 – Building the Growfather Brand in New Jersey
• 35:00 – Legacy, Lessons, and Looking Forward

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