Kyle MacLachlan is bent over, wearing a bright yellow raincoat, as Lana Del Rey plays softly in the background. He lifts his head up in a jerking motion, revealing a pile of white powder on a mirror next to a straw. His nose and upper lip are covered in powdery residue, as he then slips on a pair of black sunglasses before picking up a microphone and walking off.
This is the kind of scene you may have come across if you have been following the award-winning actor on social media of late. Fret not, MacLachlan hasn’t entered his midlife crisis cocaine era (it was corn starch), but instead has been creating a series of silly, slightly surreal videos to promote his new podcast Varnamtown.
Described as “a real-life Twin Peaks in North Carolina”, this years-in-the-making project is not just another jump-on-the-bandwagon celebrity podcast. Made in collaboration with Joshua Davis, a New York Times Bestselling journalist, it delves into strange goings-on in the titular sleepy backwater fishing town in Brunswick County, North Carolina. Think S-Town meets odd angling-based scam tale The Paddlefish Caviar Heist, albeit more playful.
MacLachlan was told about Varnamtown by Lynn Betz, a mutual friend who had moved there, and about how in the 1980s the town (population of around 300 at the time) effectively did a deal with the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar that allowed him to use the it as a shipping and transport hub for his trade. “I went down there and met some of the characters, and I came away with a real curiosity about what happened,” says MacLachlan. “I said, ‘We have to pull this apart and figure out what’s real’.”
MacLachlan contacted Davis, who saw the potential in this untold story. “In the national media it seems completely unknown,” he says. “It doesn’t seem like people really paid attention outside of Brunswick County. But a DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] agent told us that in his first year there he captured more drugs than the entire Washington DEA office had captured in seven. It was like, whoa, why aren’t people paying attention to this?”
Varnamtown became the busiest port of entry for illegal drugs in the US, as Escobar and his crew realised that operating from somewhere small and discreet was better than the bright lights of ports such as Miami. “The influx of cocaine was coming into south Florida but when the DEA cracked down on that they started looking for other places,” says Davis. “They had learned their lesson: Florida is heavily populated so why not go somewhere that’s not?”
When the actor and Davis arrived – and once the residents got over asking why Kyle MacLachlan was in Varnamtown – a number of idiosyncratic characters and outrageous stories appeared. Central to this whole narrative is Dale Varnam, also known as crazy Dale – who claimed to have brokered the Escobar deal.
Varnam – a common surname in the town – lives in a sort of junkyard mansion called Fort Apache. “He has basically built an entire full-size town inside the walls of his compound,” says Davis. “It’s bizarre. It’s full of all sorts of elaborate stuff, like Hollywood paraphernalia mixed in with massive murals of drug-running operations. There is a main street, a jail, a pharmacy and a bar. But there’s nobody there – the place is just filled with chickens. There’s also a particularly aggressive turkey that, according to the DEA, is classified as an attack turkey. Kyle and I definitely felt like we were being pursued by a turkey.”
Elsewhere the two podcasters speak to local residents, former dealers – including one who keeps accidentally revealing his real identity when he is being recorded – law enforcement and several characters at the heart of the incident. Another strand is about two brothers who were best friends but ended up torn apart. “This influx of cocaine precipitated a betrayal that feels almost Shakespearean,” Davis says of the brothers. “It’s one that still hits me in the gut.”
The Twin Peaks comparisons of a small town filled with odd characters, crimes and strange goings on is not lost on MacLachlan. “That was immediately apparent,” he says. “Everybody was real friendly with each other, nice and cordial, like we’re all just getting along in this world; you’re the law enforcement and I’m the criminal but we can get together and have a barbecue. There are a lot of eccentric characters there for sure.”
The idea of an entire town being to varying degrees complicit in one of the largest drug operations in the US may seem far-fetched, but for much of the population the arrangement offered stability and security when it was needed. “Dale felt that it was an opportunity to bring a lot of money into a town that was suffering,” MacLachlan explains. “The shrimp trade is a tough business and at that particular time it was in a depression. He was saying: ‘I’m giving this opportunity to the people around me, I’m helping my community by bringing in this money. Or at least that’s what he was doing to people who were on his side. If you were not on his side then things didn’t go as well.”
The amount of money paid to unload one drug shipment was the equivalent of six months’ wages to some people. “There was a large group of people that were appreciative that they could earn a living,” MacLachlan says. “That was never an opportunity for some before.”
While many residents simply used the money to buy a home or start a business, the effects of all that cash began to spread in more toxic ways. “It went everywhere,” says Davis. “Local law enforcement was getting paid off. The numbers that were involved – there were massive amounts of money going to buy off law enforcement.” Not everyone was entirely happy about that. One lone wolf resident does seek to bring down the whole operation, and things get messy along the way with busts, betrayals, and an informant who turns against literally hundreds of people.
As paranoia grew in the community, so too did Varnam’s compound. “He’s got a huge wall built around it and when the DEA first arrived to investigate him, they saw that it was guarded by men with high-powered rifles and shotguns, and cameras everywhere – it was kind of like a rural Scarface,” says Davis. Except the cameras were just spray-painted pieces of plastic with cheap electrical wire going nowhere. Just like Varnam’s fake jail and pharmacy inside Fort Apache, it was a facade.
With so many wild characters and stories floating around, a big part of Davis and MacLachlan’s job has been figuring out what is myth and what is fact. “We basically recreated the DEA investigation,” says Davis. “And we present the conclusion that Kyle and I came to. I have been amazed by the depths of emotion and drama in this sparsely populated, yet tight-knit, community. It’s a story full of characters – there are probably more eccentric characters per capita in Varnamtown than any other place I’ve been.”
Varnamtown is available now on audio streaming platforms.
This article was amended on 16 February 2024 to remove a reference to Joshua Davis being an Emmy-winning journalist.
