Photographer's Dangerous Double Life

Sept. 29 -- For more than 30 years, Baruch Vega has worked behind the lens, photographing fashion models in exotic locations.

But he also claims to have led an astonishing double life, working undercover and risking his safety to help the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration arrest some of South America's most notorious cocaine traffickers.

It was a scary yet lucrative sideline. During his 30 years as a government informant, Vega became very rich, caused the U.S. government great embarrassment, and ultimately lost everything.

"I brought in 114 individuals — the biggest. The biggest. Nobody else was doing it," Vega told ABCNEWS' Primetime.

The DEA won't confirm Vega's figures, but officials do admit that he helped arrange the surrender of several valuable drug dealers, among them Orlando Sanchez Christancho, who was for years responsible for smuggling 30 tons of cocaine a month into the United States on behalf of Colombian cartels.

"He used his contacts, his access with high-level drug traffickers to mediate their surrender on different indictments," said Tom Raffanello, head of the DEA's field office in Miami. Vega was extremely useful, Raffanello said.

"DEA agents can't just go in and knock on the door of Orlando Christancho and say 'I'm the mail man, would you like to go to America?' It took a Baruch Vega to infiltrate,"said Richard Sharpstein, a Miami-based lawyer well-versed in the undercover drug world, who represents one of Vega's DEA supervisors.

Money From Misunderstanding

It all began by accident, Vega said. One day in the 1970s, an acquaintance who was arrested for drug trafficking came to Vega for help. Vega said he called an old friend who worked for the FBI.

"He says, 'Let me research, let me see what I can do,' " recalled Vega. "Next day he called me up, he says, 'I found out that the guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He's going to be released.' "

Vega's acquaintance and his associates believed the photographer had helped the guy get out of jail, even though Vega had nothing to do with it. Nevertheless, he says, he was summoned to Colombia, and was offered an "incredible amount of money" as a reward.