George Artin

George Artin was born in Baghdad in 1941, with his parents buying him his first bicycle when he was young. In 1967 Artin travelled to Europe where he set an endurance record in Paris when he cycled for more than 129 hours without eating or sleeping. The following year he was one of three Iraqi athletes who were selected to represent their nation at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. He was their only representative to participate in the cycling events, competing in the road race at the Games.

Artin later became a Mexican citizen, with his life taking a dramatic change for the worse. By the 1990s he was running a global people smuggling scheme, with more than 1,000 people from the Middle East entering the United States illegally. He used his own travel agencies that he had set up in Cuba and Ecuador to smuggle hundreds of people across the border from Mexico to Texas. Artin charged tens of thousands of dollars to arrange counterfeit documents and transport to get the individuals into the United States. He was arrested in 1998 and sentenced to 13 years in prison, dying behind bars in November 2001.