Pablo Escobar’s Cocaine Pilot: The Untold Story of TJ Dominguez (Part 2 of 3)

[SPEAKER_00]: Today, on misunderstood with Rachel, you could tell.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what was that first moment like meeting Pablo Escobar?
[SPEAKER_01]: He controlled the f*** trying to get the whole world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's nobody bigger than Pablo.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he says, how much do you charge?
[SPEAKER_01]: I said $7,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: A few of the guys laughed at me kind of like throwing this guy because they're amateurs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm that good.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: They put $1,000 on the strip, $5,000 times $1,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I'm making $5 million a trip.
[SPEAKER_01]: Three or four trips a month, about $20 million a month.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I needed an airport to be able to secure this landing of the ******
[SPEAKER_01]: So I call the authorities, you guys are fed to the watching.
[SPEAKER_01]: They come swarming up in this car.
[SPEAKER_01]: Get out of the car!
[SPEAKER_01]: I pick up my glass, my champagne, I'm waving, I don't want to say goodbye.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got a data on the thing called the age 48.
[SPEAKER_01]: Continuous criminal enterprise.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's life to life and automatic life sentence.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what was that first moment like meeting Pablo Escobar?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the brawny to his house and a whole bunch of people there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pablo's really likable guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously at that point I don't know of this, but he was just very down to earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was there.
[SPEAKER_01]: to talk business.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was his presence like?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like does he feel like a big guy, a little guy, what?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I didn't feel quiet, you know, nice guy, very down there with jeans, blue jeans, tennis, you know, loafers, nothing extravagant.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, like you see in the movies, no Rolex, no gold chains, none of that stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't even know it was public.
[SPEAKER_01]: What was his house like?
[SPEAKER_01]: huge huge I think the first night they inaugurated the house which is the god that introduced me to Pablo I think 500 guests slept in the house you know stadium first for soccer at his house yeah wow you know China had to zoom around the whole thing and everything animals hippos crazy stuff I mean you thought I had mount lines you know
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think this guy took it to another level?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, my gosh.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he didn't need the Rolex.
[SPEAKER_00]: He put it all into the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the problem was I think the second, third, fourth richest man of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Back in the 80s.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: It was in the billions and billions and billions of dollars.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: He controlled the cocaine traffic of the whole world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's nobody bigger than Pablo.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what did he say to you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, he asked me, he said, Diane, to say you were a transporter.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're always looking for transporter.
[SPEAKER_01]: People that actually could fly the airplane without with an airplane.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of guys in the industry that don't need an airplane to fly their amateurs.
[SPEAKER_01]: They abuse drugs before they get into anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're high than a kite.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were really professionals, you know what we did.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he said, I understand that you, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: They call it, so I said, yep, meanwhile I've been doing it for at least.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he says, how much do you charge?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I said $7,000, but that was a joke.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I didn't know that that was a joke.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's got to remember, I don't really know what this goes on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm being paid.
[SPEAKER_01]: a million dollars a trip.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not charging whether you put one kilo or 20 or whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not my business.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna pay the million flat feet.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now he's actually charging asking me how much I would charge per kilo for transportation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I started in the cocaine business as a transporter.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not in the business, I don't sell cocaine, I'm not dealing in cocaine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I consider myself like UPS, that's why for you, door to door service, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't ask what's in the boxes, I don't care if it's cabbage, I just want to know that I'm getting paid in U.S.
[SPEAKER_01]: currency, that's all I really want to know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how do you figure out the math?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'd ask around, and people had given me different amounts of money that people were charging for route.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I didn't really know because it's not like something that I could, you know, ask Google like today how much you charge for a transporting code.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't put it into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I don't have any sources to go like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I'm done just transportation of cocaine with Louise, I go came out and wait for next Friday, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I said $7,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: a few of the guys laughed at me kind of like throwing with his guy you're totally off the scales you know it's not even realistic so they smirk that me like I was some sort of like you know wrong or high on drugs or something I and one guy says to me he says we pay 25 to 35 a kilo so he says you're way off the scale you're not even close so he said you know
[SPEAKER_01]: is their amateurs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm that good.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he goes, you have $7,000 is ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I'm going to tell you one more time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, these guys, their airplanes is held together with bubblegum.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, and they're playing around with a rosary in one hand and a Bible in the other.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't need any of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't want to take any shots at God or anything like a strong believer of faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I came across like, I know what I'm doing, what I'm capable of doing with the tools that let's say God gave me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't need all of this extra stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're really feeling it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm believing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, okay, you're not shaking in your boots like, oh my God, I'm gonna fake it till I make it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You really believe it.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I know that I believe that, but he, I need a hymn to believe it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not the problem, but probably $7,000 that these guys don't want to pay me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the way I look at that, they asked me to come here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I'm going to give myself a tremendous amount of value.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I used a little bit of logic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, look man, it's really simple.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, we can't pay that on money.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, well, look at this way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, cocaine here at your level is less than a thousand dollars a kilo, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I've got an airplane, it's $2 million.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got a boat that I'm going to use, which is $1 million.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, and it's going to cost me 4,500,000 to land the airplane.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I'm going to have $3.5 million into the operation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, and I'm not coming to Colombia, the risk less than what I have already invested.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's not taking into consideration my ass.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's on the seat and my freedom.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, he said, so he said, well, why don't you come down a little bit and we'll come up a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, all right, how about we do $5,000 a kilo.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said you put 700 kilos on the strip that's 3.5 million dollars.
[SPEAKER_01]: My profit margin begins on the 700 hundred and one kilo because the 700 hundred kilos is going to cover my investment.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the other guy looks at me and he goes, you got an airplane and I was wearing a hat that had a sword, my name with a company, I based everything around King Arthur, the night to the round table.
[SPEAKER_01]: round table and there was no head of anything, even though I was at.
[SPEAKER_01]: But so in the sort of King Arthur was Excalibur.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I had a hat that had an embroidered sword and it said Excalibur.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Gigi had on both engines, a sword and you know, that was painted on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the one guy walks up the main, he says, you got an airplane, has got a sword like this one on the engines, and I said, yeah, that's Gigi, the Greg goes, that's my girl.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he turns around, he says to Pablo, give him whatever he wants, this guy's cold.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got a little straighter, you know, my strong value.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as you said, put 700 kilos on this trip, and you said, if you put 650, I'm going to charge it for 700.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's be clear on this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the gentleman over here that brought me to you,
[SPEAKER_01]: which is now he wants a commission.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want that responsibility.
[SPEAKER_01]: You pay his commission.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to have to worry about him and Miami about own him and money.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it will be 5000 kilo his commission comes out of your end.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you put under 700, I'm going to charge you for a base of 700 at $3.5 million.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, so for again, for people listening that don't know anything about this, you're getting $5,000 a kilo and the average person in the business was getting what a kilo.
[SPEAKER_01]: $3,500 got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, so that's a good day.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how much are you now making a week?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because what are you making a million a week before in the marijuana business?
[SPEAKER_01]: I at 700, it's 3.5, I told them my profit becomes after the 700.
[SPEAKER_01]: I say, so put more than 700.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they ask me, how much can you carry?
[SPEAKER_01]: I say to help put 1,000 on there, can you put 1,000?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, yeah, we can put 1,000 on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, okay, let's make it round it off at 1,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, how quick can you go?
[SPEAKER_01]: I say, how quick can you get me, there's some radios.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they have radios there, Ham radios set up, and I always had a guy in Miami, he was paid only to monitor radios.
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't go outside, he didn't go to the movies, he was paid the listen to radio, my frequency, and I called him Q, so I said Q after the James Bond guy, so I said, give me to the radio.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I went to the radios and I called Q,
[SPEAKER_01]: And at that point in United States, I'm known as stingray and then in Columbia they call me cyclone, which means cyclone.
[SPEAKER_01]: It couldn't say the American word stingray, so they call me cyclone.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I get on the radio and I say, hey listen, get Kingfish and get you your ready for dinner.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm on my way back.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I fly back to Miami.
[SPEAKER_01]: They put a thousand on the
[SPEAKER_01]: $1,000 times $1,000 now making $5 million a trip.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And how many trips are we talking?
[SPEAKER_00]: A week, a month, how does that work?
[SPEAKER_01]: A week, one week.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes a little more.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would do maybe three or four trips a month, which is in those days, money, about $20 million a month.
[SPEAKER_01]: And today's one of you'll be, my, I don't know, I'm not a banker, but there's some people that said, you know, anywhere else from make it be 80 to 100 million a month.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how much of that were you pocketing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Was I'm going back in the business to your employees?
[SPEAKER_00]: How did that work?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's really a great question because I have now expenses, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna have to take care of my guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, now I have to do the whole route.
[SPEAKER_01]: I gotta bring in the cocaine from the jungle.
[SPEAKER_01]: to the doorsteps of the Colombians in Miami.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not throwing this cocaine in the water.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I did before and put this stuff in the wrong boat.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do that on the dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I don't have $50 million to pay public for a loss that I can't explain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I needed an airport to be able to secure this landing of the cocaine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a story in itself, because I went to see my, the guy that was, I was my mayor, one of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a custom guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I, yeah, so I say, listen man, I need to hook up in the airport.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need if you get to bring me to one of the guys who goes, yeah, we can go to such and such a location.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know the director of the airport there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll introduce you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he said, OK, fine, let's go set this thing up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I go there, and he says to me, every afternoon or three, four, or whatever, after work, he goes to a little Tiki bar in the Bahamas.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is the custom, ahead of the airport.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, OK, fine, let's go.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're about a Tiki bar, a swimming pool.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he goes, look at that team coming up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, OK, go talk to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tom, that, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'll give him 500,000, half a million dollars for a trip.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he goes, no, you go talk to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I say, what do you mean me go talk to him?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a goddamn, you know, you know, form here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a civilian.
[SPEAKER_01]: God might go, I will do a rest of my ask, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not true with a guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like how do you test the waters on that conversation?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I got hunting my buddy here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wanted him to do that talking.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, he, I'm having an absolute, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Two absolute's later, three absolute's later.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, you know, you can handle this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, no, I can't handle it.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, I want to handle this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the guy goes and he sits in a teaky bar kind of like this right A long horseshoed type of bar.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nobody there at that point.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was three o'clock in the afternoon and No, he's nobody nobody else is sitting in the bar and I walk up to the bar and
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like two stools away or three stools away from this guy and I walk up to the and I kind of clear my throat to make a little noise to see if I can get this guy to turn around look at me and so the good I go on the guy doesn't even look at me because really I'm not sure right so bartender comes over he wanted to give me an absolute you know so I take an absolute and then now two absolute later this guy's still not looking at me so I decided well I'm going to have to just
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, do something here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I pushed my stool back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I walk over to the guy and I say to the guy, so listen, I have a mutual friend that said that I get talked to you about something sensitive.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, what's your friend's name?
[SPEAKER_01]: I said Frankie.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says Frankie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Frankie
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I got a picture of him, maybe you could recognize him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I get a little closer to him now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I reaching my back pocket where I had about $20,000 in hundreds.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's Frank and Benjamin Frank.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, I got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I grab a bunch of this and I start putting it in front of him and me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm putting 100 on top of another 100 and top of another 100.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe $10,000 into this stack and the guy goes, okay, stop, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it that you want to talk about that sensitive?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I say, I want to talk about making you rich.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, making me rich.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, yeah, making you rich.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I take a little stack and I push it in front of him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, what do I have to do for this making me rich, man?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, don't nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's what do you mean nothing?
[SPEAKER_01]: I says, don't want you to do nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's how you gonna make me rich and I do nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I want you to not have got darn thing when I land my airplane full of cocaine in your airport.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want you to do nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go get a cup of coffee and he says, how much is this pay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Half a million dollars, 250 or front, 250 when I leave.
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, how many times someone can you do this, Martin?
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was your guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was it.
[SPEAKER_00]: How long did this last four that you're going back and forth and you're working with Paul?
[SPEAKER_01]: That lasted for quite a while except he started getting really greedy on me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You went from 500,000 to 600 to 650 to 750 to the last thing he said to me, I want a million dollars for every time you land the airplane when I arrest your guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I started getting really stupid greedy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so at that point I was always scouting different locations and it had come to my attention that there was basically like a little broken down bungalow hotel that was up for sale.
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... another buddy of mine had owned uh... it was called hawks nest today striving by the way and uh... it's in cat island of further away but it's okay again and airplane boats right so i buy them the on my airport i mean the hotel for one purpose only and had a strip and had a marina now i got a place for my speedboat and i got my own stripping guess what i don't have to pay anybody for anything anymore
[SPEAKER_01]: and it's like a friend of mine used to say, let's dogs, let's fleece.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to tell anybody what I'm doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, were you nervous that this guy would come back and bite you in the ass for?
[SPEAKER_00]: He actually did come back and bite me in the ass.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: What happened to him?
[SPEAKER_01]: He arrested my guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not doing anything at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had Jack calling me up out of the Bahamas.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, T, you need to get your ass over there right away.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, what was going on?
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, I'm in jail.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, why are you in jail?
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, I mean, locked up over here.
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to come over here now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I fly over there and I say, why is my guy locked up?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, because I understand you've been working the outer islands.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, I'm not breaking the law here, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why am I going?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is my guy locked up?
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, he got us to start spreading the money around.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was really a joke, because now you were resting my guy for not even breaking the law.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're telling me, because I'm not breaking the law here, you're going to harass me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I need that location, because I've got a couple of houses in the Bahamas now, that I use as backup houses.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the event that I came bring in, I'm not losing cocaine.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in the event that something happens, I'm driving the speedbooks back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I always go with another both full of fuel.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'll bring the other speedbooks back and we'll try it in another moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do you get this guy to shut up or get out of the window?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you get this guy to get off your back?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, do you have to kill him?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, what I did was I call some of the smuggler buddies in mind that were at me and other not really ranked high and didn't really have the connections that I had.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I say, guys, I'm going to I'm for free.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to turn you on to an airport.
[SPEAKER_01]: Got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so now I'm giving that guy work and he thinks is coming through me, which in reality it is coming through me, but I got nothing to do with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now he's happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm telling him that I'm giving him work, but I'm doing my own thing over there and nobody knows what I'm doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now let's go back to Pablo for a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how long were you working for him?
[SPEAKER_00]: And was it exclusive to work with Pablo?
[SPEAKER_01]: Pablo, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was exclusive and it wasn't because it wasn't like I signed a contract, I'm exclusively working for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he was giving me more work than what I could handle.
[SPEAKER_01]: And another thing that I did being a pro that I'd like to consider myself, I realized at one point that I was working my GG so much that she needed to go down for getting the props tuned different maintenance on the airplane, so I couldn't go let's say this week.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when that happened to me one time before it actually happened, I started already thinking that I needed to do a copy of Gigi.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got three copies.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had one in the hangar, one being worked on one flying, so I had no downtime.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now when Paul wanted me to go, I would go again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now they did come a problem with Pablo, because
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing these trips for five million dollars.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the first time that I do the one trip, I bring 500 kilos to pop, though.
[SPEAKER_01]: They gave me the cards, which by the way, when they gave me the cards and the amateurs, the bumper was dragging on the ground, because you know, you got 200 or 300 pounds in the,
[SPEAKER_01]: in a brand new car, and you know, when you have that in the trunk, the tailgate's going to go down, and me try to think ahead, I'm sitting there thinking, well, if anybody sees a new car with the bumper on the ground, there's something heavy in that trunk.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's thinking like a policeman, I'm thinking,
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, maybe I should find out what's in that trunk, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, having said that, I decided to let me take these cars, because I didn't think the first time that I loaded these things, where we were going to make it to the destination.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I went ahead and I took the cars and I took them to my car, you know, shop, and I put air shocks in there, and I put a little level inside the glove compartment.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now what I would do is I would load the cards with a certain way, at that point I turned on a compressor and the rear bumper would go up in the car with its level.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now I get them out of a thousand kilos, I give them 500 kilos.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the guy says to me, you guys are like, you know, where's the other 500 kilos?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, where's the rest of my money?
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, that dog bit me once before and that dog's not bite me twice.
[SPEAKER_01]: As soon as I get paid, my five million you get the balance of the money.
[SPEAKER_01]: So okay, fair enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now I'm having to wait.
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll probably want you to go again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said you still owe me from the other two and a half million.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now okay, fine, they talk me to go in again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the math is starting to get a little confusing and I don't have an accounting department, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got three, four trips.
[SPEAKER_01]: You owe me for this, you owe me for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, this episode is sponsored by Balance of Nature.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And was this right at the beginning or is this you already had a relationship with him and kind of knew that the money you had.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so you didn't know whether you could trust him or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it might philosophy at that point, Rachel.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no credit here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I learned that from that behavior and got a long time ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why people get killed in this business.
[SPEAKER_01]: In cocaine, it's not like marijuana.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot less unforgiving.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you're showing misunderstood.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't want to be misunderstood when you're all cocaine.
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll be able to have the money or you have the cocaine.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's no one is some buts in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So at that point, I wanted to keep everything very, very clear.
[SPEAKER_01]: So no, I'm not going back.
[SPEAKER_01]: So at that point, public comes back when they counter offered to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the counter offer?
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants me to start getting paid my five million in product.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now I'm going to collect five million dollars in cocaine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm not looking for that at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because now he's going to put me in the cocaine business.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't want to be in the cocaine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to transportation business.
[SPEAKER_01]: not cocaine business and then the other fact that I have to deal with I'm the guy giving the value to the cocaine cocaine in the States is going anywhere it's depending on where you were at in the level of food chain it was going anywhere it's from let's say 20 grand to like 25, 27,000 wholesale in large quantities right so
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know that I'm not going to take it at that, because I'm the guy giving that value, but in Colombia, the cocaine is at 1,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know that I'm not going to want to give it to me at 1,000, because I want to own the whole trip.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we can have to settle somewhere in the middle there and happy medium.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we agreed basically that I would end up owning 35% so in 1,000 kilos, 350 kilos of mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And wait, so let me understand this as Pablo's asking you to ship cocaine out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does he have the guy you're you're giving it to or that's on you to sell how how does that even work like who the selling.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the selling part.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they have their network which I now know everything about their network and what the house is.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have families here that are
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, real family to go to church on Sundays and they're house sitters and this is a safe house where they would store cocaine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I needed to set up bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had ports of entries which we call windows which is the stuff that I use coming into United States.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the cocaine would sit there just for one night and wait for the following day for me to transport that cocaine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not transporting cocaine at night time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go 9th of 5 when the rush hour traffic, that's the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: with a crash car in the back.
[SPEAKER_01]: In case we have pulled over, you know, so now I have that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I I now have to sit that whole network of which is becoming a huge production, a huge business.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I got a funny story that I like to share with you because
[SPEAKER_01]: now I'm not slowing down because I'm getting paid.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just getting paying cocaine.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's no reason for me to slow down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the problem that I have is, what do I do with all this damn cocaine?
[SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of funny too because this cocaine have an expiration date.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know this stuff, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how to store it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's on ice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, do you look like this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can't advertise on the paper, what do I get, you know, a buyer, so, and I'm gonna be very careful, because there's a lot of factors that come into place, not just getting arrested, getting ripped off like that moving from scar face type stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll rip you on, though shoot, you really quick for like $25 million.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you're life ain't something that important.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now I've got issues where to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I get myself a safe house.
[SPEAKER_01]: This safe house only two people other than me, knew this safe house, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I got this guy, Yale, when Yale is a Spanish term for cocaine, who is a real scar-phase guy, was in the Mario Bolivia, no family.
[SPEAKER_01]: I basically adopted him, even though he was older than me, but I brought him in and cleaned them up, dressed them up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, okay, your job is going to be, it's not a problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: You go take care of that problem, you know, and so, Yale says, I've got a buyer in New Jersey.
[SPEAKER_01]: that it's interesting, and I'm selling quantities, okay, two, three hundred kilos at a time, minimum, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you gotta remember now, I'm still doing trips for Pablo.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now I'm accumulating at 3,000, 4,000 kilos in a house.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I've been mass accumulation because I don't have an outlet for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Yale says to me, I got a buyer.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, okay, now by the way, when I take your card to pick up the cocaine, you don't know what this hate powder says.
[SPEAKER_01]: I take your card, give it to my guy, cue.
[SPEAKER_01]: You, we've sweeped the car.
[SPEAKER_01]: We made sure that there's no transponder in that car.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: No bugs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you've got issues.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, after we're sure that the car's clean, then I drive that car to my safe house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once I had the car in my safe house, then we're going to go ahead and load it, and then bring it back to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have the car, and we're sorting out a trip that I just finished for a Pablo, which is the thousand, plus my 350 and my 350 that I've been accumulating, where Yale says to me,
[SPEAKER_01]: We had a problem and he's like really, really serious.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, well, he says we're surrounded.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, what do you mean we're surrounded?
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, the cops are out there, man, the feds are in the front yard.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, are you kidding me?
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't you walk around with that kind of stuff?
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, they're out, then I'm not going back to prison.
[SPEAKER_01]: He came from prison.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he grabs a new z. And he says, they're gonna have to kill me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, put the team gun down.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, let me see.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I jump out.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a big mansion type home with a balcony in the front with glass doors, french doors.
[SPEAKER_01]: I go up and I look out the window
[SPEAKER_01]: The feds are out there with a blue jacket, the yellow writing in the bag, a crown big Toria cars, they got shotguns and they're in the front of the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Five, six, whatever cars, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, oh shit, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I run back down to where these guys are accounting, the cocaine, and sorting it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, all right, we got a problem in the prom starts here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I'm not the problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think as you flash, that was my ex-prother-in-law.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, get a BU, yeah, you're the weak point here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not you, it's your guy, the guy from New Jersey.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, this is a problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm holding you, I, it's not my, so we start arguing among each other, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I'm not going to jail.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to have to shoot me.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have to kill me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to jail in your United States.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now we're arguing amongst each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, okay, we're going to calm down.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I go to the backyard, I go to the side to the house, to see if they're actually surrounding us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they're still only in the front of the house, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want the hell's going on so I said I can't take this anymore man, so I'm going to go out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the house had a win-wall and the door opening for the garage was at the side of the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't to the front.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, time out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you don't have like a secret area that you could stash all the drugs in if they come in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm making this up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got thousands of kilos of cocaine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you can't hide it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't.
[UNKNOWN]: OK.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good question, but not that.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what happens?
[SPEAKER_00]: You go out there?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's really amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I mean, here we are.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to read the shootie.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what state are we in?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're in Florida.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Miami.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Miami.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what's Miami?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to go out there with the house a difference man, whether we get arrested inside here or out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I can't take the tank train any longer, okay, so I'm going out to you guys, stay put.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I open up the garage door and I grab a broom.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just start sweeping the pavours like non-trailantly, like I want to blend in with the trees, I guess, and become invisible, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not looking that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll just push in the broom, and I get this yelling, it's, hey, you over there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I turn around, and I look at the authorities, all these guys in the middle of the street.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I put my hand on my chest, and I said, who, me?
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, yeah, you get back in the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, what do you mean get back in the house?
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, get back in the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, sir.
[SPEAKER_01]: I closed that garage door.
[SPEAKER_01]: I get goose bumps.
[SPEAKER_01]: I came in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I say, we're not county anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm all gang.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're drinking beer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, my gosh.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not here for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're here for a cross street.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can make the stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's round this out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how many years were you working for Pablo?
[SPEAKER_00]: until they pop me okay so were are we talking five years is that a total of these five years and just summarize briefly your relationship with him during this time it got stronger you got more intimate you longer I knew him well you knew him well enough to have been in a couple of parties that he was attending flew in with a helicopter was there one time when he crashed actually an helicopter
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was really family-oriented, you know, how do you figure that, you know, he had very strong faith in family, in friendship.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pablo is not the ruthless killer that people actually make them out to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I probably would quicker give you a second chance if you lost the trip.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a lot of other guys out there that were really, really ruthless.
[SPEAKER_01]: They just assumed shoot you as it was saying hello to you, like that guy in like
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if you lost with Pablo and you could explain it and he would believe you he'd give you a second shot at you know making the money good now
[SPEAKER_01]: that he killed a lot of people, thousands, maybe hundreds or thousands, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't want to say that some of these people need a killing, but you know what, Rachel, it's a lot more honesty in that business that we were in, than in some of the business transactions that I've said to you with a bunch of lawyers, which are just two-faced hypocrites were there, who you weed out all the garbage, they get shot.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it remains.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know you want to be true to your word right so so when you got found out by the feds had he already been arrested like where are we in in history with how this all went down oh how I went down yeah I get I get done in by the guy told me out of flying jack
[SPEAKER_00]: Jack our boy Jack our boy at this point though was Pablo still doing his thing or had he been arrested.
[SPEAKER_01]: A public in a slow down doing his thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pablo Pablo is alive when I went on down, Pablo sent me a guy to prison because I know all the safe houses.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know all the information that Pablo
[SPEAKER_01]: operation in Miami.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't forget, I'm the guy that's put the air shocks in the cars.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know tag numbers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know people's reps name.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know all of that and then Pablo wanted to be sure of what I was going to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I was going to cooperate and give him all up, what I was going to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they sent me a private detective and a lawyer who got the private detective in.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know when I asked some kid questions, so I was sure at that point that this came from Pablo.
[SPEAKER_01]: and they wanted to know what my intentions were, what my lawyers were, and they wanted to basically get a complete picture of what my intentions were.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to help you, did he want, or he just wanted to make sure you're gonna be quiet?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, look, here's what I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was telling anybody and everybody whatever they wanted to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: My bon hearing, I don't know if you know anything about bon hearing, but bon hearing is usually maybe 20 minutes 30 minutes at the most my bon hearing moments went three days
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, my put I put agents on the stands and it was like a one of my lawyers that I've had many trials that are that are less time than your Bonnie hearing at that point I could talk for a couple of hours just on that Bonnie is three days.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, my Bonnie hearing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh wait, let's spool back for one second How did you actually get caught?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where were you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you know that they were coming that they were on?
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a copy of the end of my indictment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably week to two weeks before he came out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so you knew that they were, okay, and what did Jack do?
[SPEAKER_00]: He gave out a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: I fired Jack because Jack developed a really bad cocaine habit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I'm sitting here early in the morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: The temperatures are maybe 65 degrees and you're bleeding from the nose.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your mouth is full of like cotton.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're sweating.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I told Jack, Jack, you're out of control.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I want to put you in a rehab buddy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I go, if you're gonna do one, I send them up for you to rehab.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not asking you to stop doing drugs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just gonna tell you to slow down.
[SPEAKER_01]: His name was King Fish when we first started, I changed his name to Hoover after the vacuum cleaner, because he could take an ounce of cocaine and disappear this thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: He started going through a kilo cocaine a week, not obviously on his own.
[SPEAKER_01]: He'd go to strip bars or strip joints, whatever you want.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't visit those places.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't like them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like the way they do a woman.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I grow up with sisters.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he go there and he bring ten strippers home with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he threw this stuff in the bed and, you know, he was like, Scarface, that thing, cameras, four or five cameras, filming himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that got totally out of control.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the party level became so high that I didn't want them around me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he ends up getting caught and on his own and then... And then what decides to give you up to help himself?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, is there a moment where like the feds bust in and come and get you or was it more common than that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Two and a half years they follow me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: They went through Europe with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I could tell you some funny stories about what I did to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you knew they were on to you for a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a funny story.
[SPEAKER_01]: I come home, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It follow me with a helicopter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Better fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the cocaine air podcasts that I did, one of the arresting agents has become a very good friend of mine today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he actually was on the cocaine air podcast talking about, he's the guy I did to surveillance on me on my house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they get invested in you.
[SPEAKER_00]: They know you pretty well at that point, I guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's interesting to hear that he stayed in your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, he, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I get done by a whole bunch of agencies, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But this, you know, I drive very fast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got tickets around you in 69 miles per hour.
[SPEAKER_01]: back in those crazy days.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they followed me with a helicopter.
[SPEAKER_01]: He talked about it on the air cocaine thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm driving home one night.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's just fed up with this pressure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I go to dinner.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're at dinner with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are five tables away.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if you matter if I go on an incident and I said, take this bottle of Dom Perignon over to them, tell them that this is not called a cab.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a court.
[SPEAKER_01]: because these guys are using drinking bone farm or whatever, so they send the bottle over there and they obviously refuse it, they bring me the bottle back, I take the bottle of Dom Perignon, I flip it upside down on my champagne holder over here, it was just that crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm coming home one time, they're parked two houses away from my home, surveilling my home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now,
[SPEAKER_01]: But before I go into my house, they had a round driveway circle in the front, plus I had another site driveway to go into the garage.
[SPEAKER_01]: I pulled up on the circle and I was driving a black Ferrari at the time of BB-512 and I get out of the car and I've got the cell phone, most people didn't even know where the cell phone was back in those days and I get out of the car and I see them there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wave at them and I tell them five minutes with my hand and I go like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're looking at me, I'm looking at them, we're not talking silent language, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I walk out with a glass of flute, and I walk out with a bottle of champagne, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I take the champagne, the glass, I put it in the deck of the Ferrari, and I own cork it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I pour, and I'm making all these motions very visible to them, very slow.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I pour the champagne into the flute, I hold it up, I take a sample,
[SPEAKER_01]: I go like this, give him a thumbs up, and then I take another sip, I put the glass back down on top of the deck of the Ferrari rear, and I say to him, I take my watch, I point at my watch, and I say, give me five minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I pick up my cell phone, and I go, hello, 911, what is your emergency?
[SPEAKER_01]: I say, well, ma'am.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't really know if I'm calling the right place, I said, but I live in a very nice neighborhood, quiet neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was walking my dog and as I walk in my dog, I went past this car that does not belong in this neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, well, I kind of leaned in and I noticed these guys have all kinds of shiny objects in the back of the car.
[SPEAKER_01]: They got like all kinds of weapons.
[SPEAKER_01]: They look like some sort of machine guns.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know a rocket launcher.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not talking to the right agency or the right place.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, sir, where are you at?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a cell phone.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they don't know my location back in those days.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, so, man, I want by the second time, I'm walking my dog back, I leaned in a little bit more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Guys really looked dangerous.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do I do?
[SPEAKER_01]: Give me an address and go back in your house and secure yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, ma'am, hang up the phone.
[SPEAKER_01]: I tell them five minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now I'm leaning back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know one thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: These agencies, they think of policemen, like worthless, they don't cross each other's information.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I call the authorities, you guys are feds, they're watching me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Next thing I know, five, 10 minutes later, they come swarming up in this car.
[SPEAKER_01]: Get out of the car or guns on their hand, drawn, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The gun goes like this, when you race this hand, the cop hits the hand down.
[SPEAKER_01]: They see that they actually have guns.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have a lot of these DE guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have ankle gun holsters, and then the one on the back, two guns.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when they see this, the guy tries to reach for the wallet.
[SPEAKER_01]: They kick the guy, now the guys are on the ground.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they are surrounded by guns.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm drinking my champagne.
[SPEAKER_01]: Watching this whole thing go.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're pointing at me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they're on their DNA of screaming going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're now all looking at me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when the guy tried their reach into his pocket, he sees the gun.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gets more nervous.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's the adrenaline thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody's reasoning.
[SPEAKER_01]: He sees guns.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're worried for their own life.
[SPEAKER_01]: He kicks the guy's hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: Guy reaches into his pocket, pulls out the wallet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now they see their actually government.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now about this time, I pick up my glass, my champagne, I'm waving, I don't want to say goodbye.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I go back inside down, so they nickname me, MD, Matt Dobb.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, God, it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was amazing, great story.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's come back to your bond hearing for a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did they let you out on bail on bond, however that works?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, never.
[SPEAKER_01]: The judge said, on limited funds, worldwide contacts,
[SPEAKER_01]: No amount of money this gentleman cannot meet.
[SPEAKER_01]: 10 million dollar bond will be like drinking a cup of coffee.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and he's facing life without parole.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, based on that, the same lovely people that are here, asking for his bond are going to advise them to leave the country and now come back.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
[SPEAKER_01]: So at that point in you, I was in a kangaroo court in a joke.
[SPEAKER_01]: The deck of stacked against me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what were you actually convicted of when you got convicted?
[SPEAKER_00]: How long did that take?
[SPEAKER_01]: I kept getting re-indicted.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, one prosecutor told me I and that you were where every state you flew over.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they can't on the term conspiracy.
[SPEAKER_01]: You enter over a state air air space.
[SPEAKER_01]: You actually can't get indicted over that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got indicted in South Florida, Central Florida.
[SPEAKER_01]: Georgia, I didn't get indicted, Detroit, New York.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then ultimately I got indicted in the Bahamas also.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, and you end up getting 13 years?
[SPEAKER_01]: I've done about 13, 14 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did it in two phases.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what was, what did they end up giving you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why did they end up giving you one?
[SPEAKER_01]: I got indicted for the big indictment.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got indicted on the thing called the 848.
[SPEAKER_01]: Continuous criminal enterprise.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've heard of Rico.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's heard of Rico.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rico's like a kid's kindergarten school, compared to CCE.
[SPEAKER_01]: At the time, the CCE can only be given by the Attorney General.
[SPEAKER_01]: because very few people qualify for a CCE.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you made a mistake and the person got a CCE, which is very easy to beat if you don't meet these requirements, let me give you one for example.
[SPEAKER_01]: If let's say that you have a pilot that's over here under the term CCE, you have to be five direct employees.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this pilot that's just to find like Jack, that's to find against me, and then in my lawyer would say, well, Jack, don't you also fly for Bill Smith over here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I did a few trips for Bill, did you do also a trip for Mary over there?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so now he's not a direct employee, he's a freelance contractor.
[SPEAKER_01]: Under the new law, under the new law, on the A part of the CC, it starts at life, it's life to life and automatic life sentence.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was indicted under the law before 88.
[SPEAKER_01]: Under the law of 1988 or before an A48 started at 10 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: So under the law law, the sentence is crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: People don't understand this, but Reagan changed the law.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, before prior to 1987, 1988, if you've got a 10-year sentence in prison, Rachel, you would do inside prison, actual time, you could be parole the 18 months.
[SPEAKER_01]: You would say, how can you get parole on the 18 month?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you got to do two years and a half more or less, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So now you get six months, half way of house.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's 24, it takes six months off of the 24.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're doing 18 months.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you qualify for parole.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then another two years outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you basically do 18 months in prison or a 10-year sentence.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, under the new law, after 88, you do eight years, nine months.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you do nine years.
[SPEAKER_01]: what used to be only 18 months in prison.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it really became very scary under the, and that the new law actually dragged in me a favor because that I continued smuggling and I got, and I had been popped under the new law.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wouldn't be sitting here talking to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where's Jack today?
[SPEAKER_01]: In West Palm Beach.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's still alive and not in jail.
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, I can't have any contact with the guy that put me in and how would I even know that?
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, I don't even know how I know that, but you know what he's living.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's living.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I came home.
[SPEAKER_01]: The feds came to see me knock them my door and they said to me, I said, what do you guys want with me?
[SPEAKER_01]: And the guy says, when I list that we want to show you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they gave me a list of names.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, do you see all my names on this list?
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, yeah, he says, and anything happens to any one of these people?
[SPEAKER_01]: You're the first door we're gonna come in to see.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, well don't stop just in my door.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, that part of my life is over with and I got nothing to do with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I've moved on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, so I, you know, you don't have to worry about me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I will tell you, I'm not a hypocrite.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, one of these guys, you know, on this list gets hit by a car, I'll go to a little refrigerator, open up a water champagne and sit down and have a great, you know, smile on my feet.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, but am I gonna do any harm to anybody?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I got other things to worry about.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I, now I have a family,
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have that before.
[SPEAKER_00]: When was last time you spoke to Pablo Escobar?
[SPEAKER_00]: What was that conversation?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because he got shot.
[SPEAKER_01]: He got killed.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was shot by actually shot by Colombians, but under the guidance of United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Roberto, I talked to, I used to talk to him on a regular basis.
[SPEAKER_00]: His son.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, the brother, excuse me.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to go back to prison for one second.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I want to get into that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when they finally put the hammer down and said, you know, here's what you're guilty for, what were you going into jail serving?
[SPEAKER_00]: How many years did you think you thought it was time?
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought one.
[SPEAKER_00]: You thought how many years did you think you had ahead of you in prison when you went at the time?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, if you're asking me what I thought, I didn't think I was going to do any time at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: I bought a helicopter to escape from prison.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Jack and those guys,
[SPEAKER_01]: This is hard to get it out there, but Pablo asked me, what is it that you need from us?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, well, I need a pilot.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got the chopper already.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, well, everybody's thinking that I'm going to cooperate or not cooperate or fight.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't give it then what they're thinking.
[SPEAKER_01]: My plan is to follow him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted just to use the chopper to jump over the fence, and I'm going to Columbia, to one of the jungles where I land then.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I said, and I got four problems.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to be taking care of him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it said, what are the problems?
[SPEAKER_01]: One, two, three, four names.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, these are problems.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want my guys to have to face it.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I lead the country, and that Jack was one of the problems.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody along the line said that I ordered a hit on the jug and all that, all that, it's not true.
[SPEAKER_01]: You never killed anybody or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have suggested to somebody that you've got a problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: You stole this.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to have to live with circumstances now by me.
[SPEAKER_01]: OK.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I feel like we're going to have to like there's so much more.
[SPEAKER_00]: So hang on, let me think because George will cut this part out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to think how I'm going to make a cliffhanger.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so just to clarify, you, you were planning all this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got the helicopter before you went into prison knowing.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm about to helicopter while I was in prison.
[SPEAKER_00]: How'd you get that done?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're on the phone?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, how does that work?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I have people, I got lawyers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got people that I'm still in.
[SPEAKER_00]: So everyone's communicating outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you guys can talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a sidebar going over here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I need you to get me a chopper.
[SPEAKER_01]: I bought the helicopter from in prison.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not like for what prison is now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like they tape everything you can.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you can't talk freely.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the phone calls are monitored.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I have lawyers that I have on payroll, you know, that I tell them, in a matter of fact, here's a funny one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fly Bailey, you've heard that name?
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fly Bailey was my first lawyer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got 20 pictures I could show you me in Fly Bailey.
[SPEAKER_01]: I gave after you bail you a whole bunch of money and then I sell this and when the shit hits a fan I don't want a generic lawyer there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want you there I'm not paying you a monopoly bullshit money paying you with a really cash So I said when the shit hits a fan I want to see you there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the shit did hit the fan and he didn't show up but Not a happy camper.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, all right So later on she's show is up and he tells me I've got everything worked out.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna do 18 months total
[SPEAKER_01]: you're gonna keep your business at this point that hadn't even talked to me about accounting Europe.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, what don't have to do for all of this?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, you gotta roll on everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: I never heard that term before rolled on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know for instance vocabulary, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So what does roll mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, you have to cooperate and give up everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: I give up everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, yeah, you're gonna have to like tell the government this guy, did you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, let's be around.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: All that money I gave you, and he said, and you're telling me that I got to be a rat, and he said, I could have done that without you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he said, well, you can't go to trial on this thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's too many, you got too many code of fendons that are going to cooperate, and it's impossible to beat this case.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, well, how come you didn't tell me that before I gave you a goddamn money?
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, because I didn't know the length of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, yes, you do, I told you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a copy of the indictment before the shit hit the band.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then he said, well, there's no way I'm defending this thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, well, then you give him my money back.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he goes, no, I did my part.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're the one, I said, let me explain something to you, have fleeing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, if you don't give me my money back,
[SPEAKER_01]: By a remote control to start your goddamn car every morning, I said, because all my Colombians are out there, so all I got to say to you, have a nice day, I got nothing else to lose.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I walked away and he gave me my money back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, of that, we need to talk about where the money went, where the money is.
[SPEAKER_00]: how you planned this escape with the helicopter, the two-year stint in solitary and getting out of prison and what you're doing now.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want to start with that first night in prison, like knowing you were staying there.
[SPEAKER_00]: What prison was like for you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, listen, I had to face, you know, five, six, seven agencies, I don't even know it was a task force, they call it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I got arrested, Rachel, believe it or not, it was actually, a lot of pressure, awful me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because don't forget, I'm being followed by helicopters, I've got people sitting in front of my house, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm starting to lose control on keeping everything on a tight seal because my wife is asking me, who are those guys in?
[SPEAKER_00]: She still doesn't know what you do.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they don't always start to get really thick, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So now how I covered that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now my mom obviously didn't live with me, so she didn't have any clue.
[SPEAKER_01]: But my wife sees a car over here.
[SPEAKER_01]: She sees a helicopter coming to my driveway and it got so blatantly put out there
[SPEAKER_01]: and a government chopper where I'm looking at the guy's rebands and it's like I'm doing this to him and back and I walked to him in and I walked into the house got a bottle of champagne through it smashed it on the ground 3500 bottle of champagne and I'm like this to the guy and I don't know their peel off so now my wife you know it gets to a point that what's going on here so I say it's really simple you know I got the airplane business and I'm selling
[SPEAKER_01]: and they want me to become a rat, they want me to cooperate, and I'm not going to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't forget, my mom's brother, my uncle, Sean front of a firing squad, I don't do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't hurt people, they don't hurt me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, she's like, you know, now, so that much she knew, and that's how I basically covered it with selling airplanes to people in the South America.
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't put me in any kind of drug business.
[SPEAKER_01]: It puts me close to it, but not in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the hardest thing that I had to do, not getting arrested, that's a whole new game I'm gonna play now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hardest thing that I had to really do is the day I did get arrested, Rachel, looking at my mom walking in through that door,
[SPEAKER_01]: And my mom said to me, tell me son what they're saying about you is not true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for listening to Ms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Understood.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Understood with Rachel, you could tell.
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