Cocaine Cowboys: Reloaded (2014) - full transcript

Ladies and gentlemen,
I'm Mayor Randy Christmas,

of Miami, Florida.

The film you're about to see
is a stunning expose

based on fact.

It concerns a vicious attempt
by organized crime

to take over
the entire state of Florida.

But for the alert
and courageous work

of Florida's
law enforcement agencies

and the integrity

of its governmental
administrations,

this threat might
have been made good.



I take this opportunity
to issue a warning

to the people
of every state in the nation.

It could happen
in your state.

We are dedicated here
in Florida to the belief

that it will never
again happen to us.

[Roberts] My name is Jon Roberts.

I was born in New York.

I lost my father
when I was nine.

My mother when I was 13.

My stepfather threw me
out of the house when I was 13.

My sister tried
to raise me,

failed miserably
because of me.

I went to see my uncle,
and my uncle took me in.

First he had me
collecting money



because he was a loan shark.

So he put me
with one of his guys

who also happened to be
the driver for Carlo Gambino.

And my uncle said, "Don't worry,
this guy will take care of you."

Some guy owed
my uncle money.

We kidnapped him,
we threw him in an apartment,

and the guy that I used
to do it with me

was strung out on heroin.

I said, "Look,
I'm going home to sleep,

you watch this guy."

Well, he ends up
shooting up and OD-ing,

so the guy he's watching
just opens the door

and walks into the street,

because my friend's
dead on the floor.

He ran to the police.

The police came,
and you know,

they got me
and they put me in...

At that time they had a place
called the Tombs in New York,

which was one
of the original jails.

And they came
around to the Tombs

and they made people offers.

If you go to Vietnam
and you leave

with an honorable discharge,
your charges will be dropped.

I said, "Okay, that
sounds like a good deal."

And I signed up for a year,
and they interview you.

And they said,
"Look, we're going to give you

advanced training.

We're going to send you here
and we're going to make you...

You can do some crazy things
if you want in Vietnam."

And what it was for was,
it was 101st Airborne,

and I got to like it,
because I had a bad mentality,

and I ended up
staying there 4 years.

I got blown out of a tree.

I got a metal plate
in my head,

and you know, I don't want to get
into stories over there

and shit like that,

because everybody
has a story, so...

And when you come back,
and you can't do anything,

it's like,
what am I trained to do?

And I lost everything.

My uncle, he said to me,
"You and I are going

to make a lot of
money together,"

and we opened
a restaurant there.

Opened it? We bought it
or took it from somebody,

if I remember,
back in my childhood.

And it was called
Alice's Restaurant,

and then we went into
nightclubs and we opened

about four or five
nightclubs.

It became very big
and we were doing really well.

One day they just
came in, the police,

and they told us
that our partner,

they had found him out
on the Long Island expressway.

And he had been killed

and he had like
11 bullet holes in him.

So, who knows
what happened to him?

The best thing that
I could think at that time was,

"Just let me get away
from all this heat,"

so I moved down here.

And started
into the cocaine business.

[Buchanan] I think there's something
about the location here.

It's at the end of the map,
the bottom of the map,

the jumping off place.

People who are running
away from each other

or from the law or from their
own personal demons.

Eventually if they run long
enough, they come here.

[Man] The City of Miami area
was very, very quiet,

and it was just
a very pleasant place to live.

[Roberts] Miami
back then was the South.

It was like Alabama.

There was no money here,
there were no big buildings.

Downtown was pretty barren.

Miami Beach,
it was a lot of old people

just sitting around
in rocking chairs

on South Beach waiting to die.

It was a whole different world
down here back then.

[Man] I'm an old South
Florida boy,

and one of the few that's
that old, I was born here.

I was in the
import business,

doing some exporting,
but mostly importing.

[Roberts] Back then the city
was like a virgin city.

[Man 1] South Florida was
vulnerable to penetration

by drug suppliers.

[Man 2] Florida is a drug
smuggler's paradise.

It was wide open back then.

It was wide open.

[Man 1] 1200 miles of coastline,
much of it remote,

deserted, thousands
of rivers and bays.

Nobody even knows
how many islands offshore.

[Man 2] The pirates operated
here in the 1700s.

During the Civil War,
gunrunners would run

the Union blockade
in from the Bahamas.

Rum runners used
the same technique.

[Munday] This city has always
had something coming in.

[Man] In the 1960s, this was
a jumping-off place

for soldiers of fortune,

who ran commando raids
into Cuba.

Several dozen miles
south-west of Miami

is a military training camp
located on 40 miles

of Everglades swamp land
for Cuban refugees

who are planning to return
to the island to fight.

These guys had been
trained by the CIA,

had gone
into the fishing industry,

and they were making
a very good living.

The change in 1975
was precipitated by a lobster.

There was a law changed
in the Bahamas

which prohibited Cuban exiles
based in Miami from fishing

in Bahamian waters
for the spiny lobster.

It put out of work tremendous
amount of fishermen.

[Man] Obedio Perez
sold his gold watch

and ring last week
to feed his two children.

He expects the bank
to foreclose on his boat

before month's end.

Francisco Gado's boat
is taking on water

from lack of use.

He says it might sink
before his next payment.

More than 1,000
other lobster fishermen,

a majority of them
Cuban exiles,

have not left these
docks in six weeks.

[Diaz] They had their boats,
they had their knowledge,

they had the training.

That's when we started seeing

the mother lode method
of transporting marijuana.

The fishermen were acting
as intermediaries,

and the go-fast boats

would bring them
into the coast.

At that time everybody
in Florida was smuggling pot.

And you could drive
in with a boat, stacked up,

[Munday]] pull up to the dock
and unload it.

Nobody said a thing.

There was no defense
of the border to speak of.

[Woman] There were thousands
of fishing boats in this area,

hundreds of thousands
of pleasure boats.

Many of them capable
of the run to the Bahamas,

with another ship
on a marijuana

delivery cruise out
in the Gulf Stream.

[Munday] If they thought
there was a problem,

they'd just throw it
overboard.

They would order 40,000 pounds
and they'd send out 50,000.

And they'd only have
enough boats to carry

the 40 and they would
throw the stuff away.

You could be out in a boat

and find bales
of marijuana floating.

The proverbial square grouper.

You would get guys
who would go over,

unload the ship, and they would
get their dentist

or their attorney
or their doctor,

because forevermore
he could tell

his grandchildren,
"I was a smuggler."

[Man] South Florida has become
the drug smuggling

capital of the United States.

No other place in the
country even comes close.

The first marijuana
trip we made,

we found through
a guy who was a fireman.

He had a twin engine plane
called the Piper Aztec

that he would fly to Colombia.

He offered us, if we would
go down and pick up

1,000 pounds, $50,000.

I really wasn't thrilled about
the amount of money it was,

but I said,
"Well, at least it gets

our foot in the door."

And we did it. And it was
a fiasco from one end

to the other.

We ended up having
to throw it all away.

They didn't have an alternate
where we came back to.

There was a sentinel police
officer sitting on

the road that they wanted
to land on.

They used a used airplane
radio on an old battery,

and they didn't realize
the battery was dead.

From that trip,
our very first trip,

with all the problems,
we took it as a lesson.

From then on in,
we'd have one, two, three,

four alternates.

I ran into some Jamaicans,
went down to Jamaica,

physically looked
at the place.

For Jamaicans it was...
The pot wasn't really good.

We made one trip,
brought back 700 pounds,

but this time we brought it
back to our place.

People that I knew, they were
all calling the ground crew.

They were all my friends,
and the vehicles were mine.

I tried to control
everything.

It got to the point
where there was

so much pot here
that you couldn't sell it.

It was too cheap.

Got down, it was like
$230 a pound,

and what you had
to pay for it,

and you figured your expenses
and everything,

and the chances
that you take, legally.

[Man] Big seizures
used to be measured

in hundreds of pounds.

It is not unusual
now to catch a ship

with 30 or 40 tons
of marijuana.

[Munday] For the same
amount of money

that you would make
on 40,000 pounds,

you could bring
1,000 pounds of cocaine

and make the same amount
if not more.

When they were sending,
like, all this pot,

they would send
a few kilos of coke.

[Man] As for marijuana,
the police might be able

to stop it.
But as for cocaine,

the police have
no real answers.

[Roberts] In the beginning,
it was very small.

[Munday]
Because it was so expensive.

[Roberts] And they would
bring them in a suitcase.

[Man] In the last year,
cocaine seizures have doubled.

More than a quarter
of all cocaine seizures

in the United States were
at Miami International Airport.

While we were filming
a routine day,

agents got another one.

Five pounds of pure cocaine
were hidden in the bag.

U.S. Customs said the seizure
was worth more than

$1,000,000.

[Roberts] When I first
came down here,

I really had no idea
what I was going to do,

and I worked with
a guy training dogs.

Agitating the dogs
and letting the dogs hit

a sleeve and bite me.
And doing that,

I met a Cuban man
out in Hialeah,

who became very notorious,
very famous down here,

and his name was
Albert San Pedro.

He was in the
drug business.

It was obvious.
I got him a really bad dog.

His name was Sarge.
He was a German Shepherd.

And this dog was crazy.

I mean, absolutely nuts.

And his stash was
under the doghouse

on the side of the house.

He would lift the doghouse up
and he had a cement pad.

And in the cement
pad he had a safe.

And this dog would sleep
on this pad day and night.

And this was
his way of stashing it.

Eventually he was
my main supplier.

He would front me
a quarter of a pound,

and he would give me
like three or four days.

And then I would go
and bring him the money back.

[Woman] Shortly after midnight,
Hialeah businessman

Alberto San Pedro was arrested
again at his palatial home.

So far he stands accused
of conspiracy to commit murder,

drug dealing
and corruption.

San Pedro brags

he controls the majority of
the Dade County Commission,

its mayor and no less than
15 judges.

No mention was made by
any of the council members

or Mayor Raul Martinez
of the San Pedro affair.

[Man] There is no organized
crime group

that's going
to challenge the Cubans.

In Miami, the Colombian
drug organizations

stepped into that market.

[Man] Worried Colombian
authorities say

they are now seeing
increased coca planting

as Colombian traffickers
try to take over all phases

of cocaine production.

[Diaz] it was very clear to us
that the Colombians

were already getting involved
in the distribution area

here in the States.

The Colombians realized
that they were giving up

a large portion
of the profit to people

they really didn't have
to give it up from.

They didn't need
the Cuban as a middleman.

And they just bypassed
the Cubans completely.

That toehold is what sprouted into

the crazy 1980s here in Miami.

These people didn't have
a pilot or plane.

They asked if we'd be
interested,

and I'm trying to be
really, really, really careful.

You have to be careful
of who you meet,

who you talk to.

You might be the police officer
on undercover,

because that's really
starting to roll at that time.

We set up an appointment
to meet these people,

and what I did was,
I bought the most expensive

portable tape
recorder I could find.

And I went to a bunch
of different locations.

And what I found was
the best place

of all was a bowling alley.

I mean, the noise,
the people, the clanging.

The reason
I'm doing this is,

if I'm meeting somebody,

and they're trying
to record our conversation,

I wanted to make sure
there wasn't

going to be much recorded.

And when we got
to the place,

I had three
of my friends outside.

We all have radios.

There was no cell phones
at that time.

There were,
but they were like this big.

When we came out

from after the meeting
I told them that

we'd have to make a decision
and we'd get back to them.

And I had my friends
follow the people home,

just to make sure
that they didn't go back

to the DEA building,
the FBI building,

U.S. Customs or whatever.
And then we sat on them

for three days to make sure
that they were

who they said they were.
These people that turned out

to be Rafa and Max.

They threw a number at us
that was more than agreeable.

$3,000 apiece
or a kilo in your terms,

and they wanted
to move at least 400,

a gross of $1.2 million.

I just transported.

I took it from them,
gave it back to them.

Give me money,
I'll go again.

I wasn't worried
about them,

because I had no intentions
of ever stealing from them.

I had no intentions
of ever cheating them.

All I wanted to do
was make money.

And money we made.

Sunny and Rico
at the same bar.

How lucky can a girl get?

Laura.

[Mooney]
My name's Toni Mooney.

I was born
in Miami, Florida.

After I graduated
high school,

I met somebody named
Shelton Archer,

and he was a photographer.

And he came up to me

and told me
I should be a model.

He had a Limey accent.

He said he would like
to photograph me

at the airport.

He had a plane.

I ended up going with him

to his plane
in Lantana Airport,

and he shot
photographs of me.

Most models have to struggle,
and I must say,

because of Shelton,
I had a fabulous,

very beautiful apartment.

He went out and bought me
a Mini Cooper.

I had a maid, everything.

Cash is a whole
lot better than plastic,

and Shelton always seemed
to have plenty of it.

And if he didn't he went
and got more.

He was a photographer.

I mean, he seemed
like it to me.

Of course,
it was a little strange

he was living in Colombia.

Then he told me
he had a job for me

in Santo Domingo.

I didn't realize I was going
to know him so well,

but we had a plane crash.

The first leg of the trip,
he woke me up and told me

he wasn't sure if we were
going to make it.

We ended up crash
landing the plane.

We were there like,
seven days.

We didn't have any water.
We were licking

condensation off the plane,
and it was quite a mess.

Finally, the coastguard
came and rescued us.

The Bahamians apparently
had been looking for us,

but once they found out
Shelton's M.O.,

the Piper plane
and all that,

they just didn't
go pick him up,

because he had been convicted
of drug smuggling there.

When they finally
picked us up,

they believed my story that

I was just really
catching a ride,

and they let me go
and they detained him.

I flew to Miami,
and I was working

on a shoot with a girl,
and she told me

that she had somebody
for me to meet.

A friend of mine
fixed me up with her.

He was a lawyer.

He was dating
this really beautiful girl

who was a model for Ford.

And he said, "You know,
she's got a beautiful friend,

and she lives in West Palm,

but she works in New York,

and I'd like
to introduce you to her."

And that's how I met her.

Her and her boyfriend
kept telling me,

"Don't do this and don't drink
in front of John and don't..."

You know, and I was like,
"Whoa whoa whoa.

Wait a minute here.
I don't even want to go."

And then we opened the door
and there's this guy

with this face, you know.
He looks so mean,

and actually I found out
he wasn't.

He was a wonderful person.

I remember
sleeping on the couch,

and Jon bringing out blankets
and covering me up.

The next morning I woke up.

I was on the couch.

He told me he'd like to take me
to see his racehorses.

And I loved horses.
I grew up with horses.

So I said, "Okay."

When I was growing up,
it was just myself,

my brother and my mother.

And Jon really put our
family together in our eyes.

And we really
adored him.

I mean, there wasn't anything
he could do wrong.

It's like a dream,
you know.

You can have
anything you wanted.

Jon made everything
all right.

He was a pretty magnanimous
person back then.

Everything
was hunky dory at home

and everybody was happy and...

But then things changed
when he met Shelton.

[Roberts]
I was selling at that time.

The Cubans
didn't have big supplies,

so I had to search out
other people.

This girl, who I happened
to have been seeing,

knew an English guy who was
a pilot for these people

from Medellin.

So she introduced me to him,
and he said,

"Well, I'm going to hook you up.

I can take you to these
Colombians that I know,

and this guy can give you
whatever you want."

And I'd heard stories
like that many times,

so I just said,
"Sure, whenever you're ready,

let me know."

And we drove
to Sunny Isles, Florida.

And we go into this house.

It was about
five or six Colombians there,

all like, loaded to bear.

When I say "loaded,"
they were strapped.

They had pistols,
machine guns,

and they were
all standing around.

And at that point
I realized this guy is serious.

This is for real.
I meet this little guy,

he can't be more than
5'4"or 5'5".

And he introduces himself
and he says,

"My name is Rafa."

And he's telling me,

"I'll give you
whatever you want.

And if you've got
some money,

I'll front you twice
the amount of money

that you come with."

And I said, "Well,
you know, show me something."

He takes me in his back room,
he pushes a button,

and a whole wall
opens up like this.

And I had never seen so much
cocaine in my entire life,

just sitting
behind this wall.

I said, "Okay, I guess
you can help me, man."

I said, "Give me a day
and I'll put together the money,

and I'll be back."

The next day I came,
he had an American guy there,

and he introduced
this American.

He said,
"This is my compadre.

I'm not in town a lot,
but whatever it is you need,

this is the man,
he'll take care of you.

And don't worry about it.

He's 100 %."

And the man
he introduced me to

happened to be this man,
Max Mermelstein.

Jon introduced me to Max.

I thought
they were going to open

a shoe store together
or some story like that.

[Roberts] Rafa came to trust
Max because Max was married

to a Colombian woman.

She was the cousin
of Pablo Escobar,

the woman Max
was married to.

So they had a bond
with Max.

Max seemed like
a very nice guy back then.

It seemed that way, anyway.

[Roberts] One Sunday,
Max had a party out there,

and I went out to his farm.

The next thing
I know here comes this guy,

and Max says,
"This is my transportation guy.

You're going
to work with him."

He's got like two ATCs,
these three-wheelers,

and he says, "Max,
I brought your ATCs back."

And he takes them
off the truck.

He says, "That one runs
about 90 or 100 mph now.

That one over there
runs around 80."

So Max says,
"I'm telling you, these guys,

these are the shit, man.

We don't have any more.
This is who you'll work with."

So the guy
introduces himself.

His name is Mickey Munday,

and he's like a redneck
from Florida,

that's been here
his whole life.

[Munday] I want to say
I didn't like him.

The first time I meet Jon,
he's driving

this black Mercedes, two-door,
that's got drug dealer

written all over it.

He just looked like
somebody that I don't want

to have anything
to do with.

I think he was okay.

He had a big race boat.
He was involved in racing.

Do you remember
the show MacGyver?

That's this guy.

He could do stuff
that just was incredible.

And Max had me
working with these guys,

and he sent me to Colombia.

[Man 1] Medellin, Colombia.

Right now there is little
or no cocaine enforcement

activity here.

[Man 2] This city only has
a population of about 50,000,

yet there are about

50 airplanes
parked at this airport.

[Man 1] The dealers control
much of the countryside.

[Man 3] This town is completely
dedicated to narcotics.

Rafa would introduce me
to the people

he was working with.

We met, you might say,

the elite of the drug business
from Colombia.

And it would be the Ochoas--

[man] Here lives
a man believed to be

one of the most
powerful cocaine

traffickers in the world:

Fabio Ochoa.

This is his ranch,

and he is treated
as a hero here.

They were a huge
name in Colombia.

There was no secret
about them.

[Man 1] Fabio Ochoa is considered
by many as a godfather

of the business.

[Man 2] Some intelligence officials
have charged that

you and the members
of your family

are the biggest cocaine
traffickers in the world.

I know nothing of lies
being told.

This doesn't interest me.

I am well known by all the
horse breeders in the world.

My life has been honorable,
and I can tip my hat.

[Munday] This was Pablo Escobar.

[Man] Mr. Escobar by any measure,
has to be considered

the John Dillinger of the
cocaine trade in Colombia.

[Munday] And this is Carlos Lehder.

[Man 1] Carlos Lehder is wanted

by the U.S. authorities
for drug trafficking.

[Man 2] He stated cocaine
was the atomic bomb

and he was going
to drop it on America.

[Man 3] The cocaine traffickers
have more power and money

than the government.

You make it sound like
they had an office

the size of this with computers
and they got 40 secretaries.

It's just a bunch of bums
down there.

[Roberts] Most of these Colombians
came from really

poor, poor families.
And when everybody in this country

got into cocaine, it was
just like they struck gold.

The Beverly Hillbillies,
that's basically what it was.

The Colombians have farms,
fincas they call them,

just filled with cocaine down there,

because they just
kept producing it.

They call this the
Valley of Orchids.

Flowers are a principal export.

So is cocaine.

More than 20 tons a year.

For this valley is the cocaine
capital of the world.

[Roberts]
And it was a whole process.

It was like
a factory working.

Campesinos - peasant farmers -

support their families
by processing the leaves

into coca paste.

It was a matter of survival.

I mean, there were
no other crops

that would grow
in that environment,

and at that altitude
in those mountains.

[Man 1] The farmer lives off
the coca plant,

and without it,
there is no point in living.

[Man 2] Without coca,
we would have to die.

[Man 3] The coca paste is then
taken to processing labs

to be made into cocaine.

One popular route
is this one,

along the Amazon River.

And in going down
the river in a longboat,

the guys in the boat
would stand up,

and they would
hold the bags of cocaine,

and I remember them
shouting, "Coca-roca."

And showing it off
right there.

This is what we have.

[Man] There are just
too many coca fields,

too much money,
and too many traffickers.

[Munday] At first I thought
it was all their stuff.

But once you get to the point
where you're unpackaging it,

they're all marked different.

It didn't all belong
to somebody.

Maybe 50 belonged
to this guy,

10 to that guy,
5 to this guy.

They would all pool
their stuff and send it up.

Going down
the freight yard,

when you get the train full,
then you leave, you know.

That's what they were doing.

[Man] The ships and planes that
smuggle it in come to Miami,

and then the coke spreads

all over
the Eastern United States.

[Munday] We bought
some property in Lakeland,

built two runways there,
put up a couple of barns

that were really hangars.
They looked like barns,

but when you'd open up
the hayloft door,

you would see that
it was shaped

to the tail
of an airplane door.

I would use a five, six,
eight-year-old family car.

[Roberts] And we would
load 300 pieces.

And we would put
air shocks on the car,

so that the car wouldn't
fall to the ground.

And we would use a tow truck
to tow the vehicle back.

[Roberts] They would bring
them into Miami.

I personally liked to go
when there was a big moon up.

I call them
the "Smuggler's Moon."

The moon sitting right there,
and it's real big,

because we landed
with no lights.

There was a night, looking
at an alternate,

where I watched some guys
come in off Route 27.

They didn't know I'm there.

I'm listening
to everything they say.

I have night scopes
and goggles. I'm watching,

and I could have been
the man to seize them.

They came in, and there
was a ball of fire.

I thought it was
like an atomic bomb.

I've never seen a flash.

If you took a flash camera,
went right up to your face

and went click, it would
not have been as bright.

It blinded me
because the nights go bloons.

And the guy's on the radio,
"Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

We're dying, we're dead,"
and then boom!

Right in front of me, [MIMICS PLANE]
it was one of these things.

It was an avo.

They didn't know
they'd put the power wire up

since the last time
they'd been out there.

He hit it
with the top of the nose,

went over
the top of the airplane,

took all the antennas off
and chopped the tail right off.

And his friends
all hauled ass.

And so did he,
and left a little thing

in the plane that I took.

A whole lot
of little things.

It was a rather
worthwhile night,

for all I did was go out
there to look

for an alternate.

[Roberts] Mickey's operation
was a very sound,

very good operation,
although it was limited.

[Munday] They wanted us
to go more often.

Bigger airplane
or something.

And that's when we purchased
a Cessna Conquest.

We paid $980,000 for it.

In cash.

How do you like that?
You try that one today.

We'd made one trip with it.

[Roberts] Sometimes you just
get bored, I guess.

In that particular trip,
I went up there,

not to unload it
or put it on the truck.

We were just hanging out.

[Munday] The pilot knew he
was going to have a problem

when he could see
the lights out

of Tampa on the horizon,

which meant
he was too high.

If he could see
the lights of Tampa,

that meant that they could
see him with radar.

[Roberts]
Next thing I know, wham.

These cars start
flying by. Police cars.

Here comes a chase plane.

[Munday] First they were chasing
him with the military airplanes.

Here come my guys,
who had the cars up there,

flying into the restaurant,
"What's up, what's up?"

"We got to get out of here,
we got to get out of here."

[Munday] And the military
realized that it wasn't a threat,

and by then they'd called in

the U.S. Customs.

[Roberts] Cops are everywhere,
all over this stuff.

Everybody is going
to go out the door.

You don't throw
nothing away.

You throw everything away.

First the co-pilot
would go out.

Fifteen, 20 minutes later,
the pilot would go out

and would leave
the plane on autopilot

and give it
to the Bermuda Triangle.

And nobody believed that
I lost the load, and I said,

"I lost it, man. These guys
will tell you I lost it."

And he said, "Well,
why isn't it in the paper?

Show us the article
in the paper."

You know what I mean?

When it first happened,
of course, they don't.

There's nothing
in the newspaper.

And you needed
to bring them proof,

but I couldn't prove it.

I had no way to prove it.

Man, they came flying
to my house

with machine guns
and cruise killers.

[Mooney] I remember my brother
and I were out on the porch,

and these two guys
drove up.

Rafa came. They get out of
the car with guns.

[Roberts] "You fucked us.
You took our load."

And of course me,
I go right over,

get in his face
and start screaming,

"Get off my property,
blah, blah, blah."

Colombians were actually
afraid of this woman.

[Mooney] Next thing I know,
Jon comes out of the house,

my brother comes out
of the house,

and they both have
weapons drawn.

And standing there
with a laser shotgun and--

She didn't give
a shit who came.

Rafa could bring
six, seven guys.

And she was a big girl
and Rafa was only like 5'5",

and she was
looking down at him,

screaming and screaming.

Of course,
there I am, screaming.

"You ain't coming
in my house today."

It looked like
they were going to have

a gun battle right there.

"What are you, crazy?

For this amount,
why would I take your load?"

I could have ripped them off,
but I didn't do it.

"Are you nuts?
I'm working tomorrow.

I'm doing 1,000 tomorrow.

Why wouldn't
I take your 1,000?"

Five hundred kilos compared to
what I'm bringing every week.

It just wasn't worth it.

[Munday] it wasn't until the next day,
and then I started reading

about all the stuff being found.

[Roberts] And that's the proof
with the paper,

because when you hand them
the article,

"480 kilos Busted
in Yeehaw Junction."

And of course they realized
that we weren't stealing it.

Okay, here's my 480 kilos.

We have to get rid of it.

"It's not our problem,
it's your problem."

But without the paper
you had no proof.

Unfortunately,

we lost a
$1 million airplane

and they lost
whatever it cost them

for their part,
so they write it off.

And we wrote it off too.

[Roberts] Rafa was crazy
like that, and I guess it was

because he did so much coke
he would get paranoid.

He was just a little guy
that was kind of crazy,

and you had to be
a little leery of him

because he would get high.

He'd smoke the shit.

He would take like half of
the tobacco of the cigarette,

put cocaine in it,

a little tobacco back in,
and smoke it.

One time, a trip
was on for Saturday,

and some kind of
problem had come up

and I needed one more day.

Max was out of town,
so I get to Max's house,

and I go on into
the dining room.

Rafa is there, sitting at the
head of the dining room table.

I thought it was marijuana,
but it turned out not to be.

A circle about this big
and about that high.

And he's using
like a credit card

or something
to keep it in shape.

What it is is tobacco
from a cigarette.

There has been
so many cigarettes

that he actually
has a pile of tobacco this big.

And he's had that
much to smoke

that there's that much tobacco.

And I'm going, whoa!

And he's like, drooling.
And the people

there are all scared
to death of him,

because he could say
something and somebody

would be history, and I go,

and I go...
And I don't speak Spanish,

and I've got to try
to tell this guy

who was higher than a kite,
that we needed one more day.

I ended up having
to get Max's son,

which I really
didn't want to do,

because the kid was only like,
14 years old,

to translate for me,
and then make sure that

somebody there would call,
because I don't want to send

my plane the next day
and there's nobody there.

But he was
in one of his binges.

And those who knew
had to be afraid of him.

It's amazing. Here was a guy
who made so much money...

Rafa really controlled
almost every kilo of coke

that came into this country

through the people
from Medellin.

There was nobody
higher than him

for the Medellin Cartel
in this country.

He was a little Napoleon.

I often wondered
how much money somebody

who had been fairly sharp
could have possibly made,

instead of some guy
who was a drug addict.

Mickey then started
to do air drops.

I built me a small boat
factory to play with,

and we decided to do
Colombia up to the Bahamas,

air drop it to boats.

[Roberts] And they had beacons
that they would drop,

and they would be able to know
exactly where the load was,

because there would
be a frequency

that would send back
to where it was.

The middle console
would open up.

They'd put holes
in the middle of the boat,

and you would fill them up.

[Munday] And then
bring it in with boats.

Sometimes I would run what
we call the front door.

The front door would be
the entrance at Haulover.

We would call it a front door.

You can't say, "Why are
you coming in Haulover?

We say, "You're coming
in the front door."

It's a code of sorts.

At the Haulover Inlet,
I rented an apartment

on the 12th floor
in the north-east corner

called the Harbour House,

which has a spectacular view
of the inlet.

And I put a young lady there,
and I