Crime in Sports - #25 - Murder at the Speed of Smuggling - The Recklessness of Ben Kramer

Episode Date: July 19, 2016

This week, we dive into the glamorous world of the 1980's south Florida drug smuggling, fast boat driving, money laundering, tax evading, murderous kind of lifestyles. Our main subject drove boats at over 100 mph, as both a sport, and a lucrative drug empire. His organization made untold millions, while ultimately ending up in violence, one of the most daring prison escape attempts in history, and drawing the attention of the White House. This story has it all. Fun, violence, money, corruption... and extreme arrogance & stupidity.Fire up the speed boat, load up a few thousand pounds of marijuana, and kill your idol with Ben Kramer!!Check us out, every Tuesday. We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman New episodes every Tuesday!!Please subscribe, rate, and review!Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!Head to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Crime in Sports!For merchandise: crimeinsports.threadless.comCheck out James and Jimmie's other show: Small Town Murder Follow us on social media!Facebook: facebook.com/crimeinsportsInstagram: instagram.com/smalltownmurderTwitter: twitter.com/MurderSmall Contact the show: [e-mail] on Patreon: patreon.com/crimeinsportsPayPal: paypal.me/crimeinsports See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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strange, dark, and mysterious stories on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello. Welcome back to Crime and Sports. Yay! Hey, my name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. And can't thank you enough for joining us. We're super, we're very excited for this week. This is a wild story.

Before we get into this story, just want to thank you guys for the new iTunes reviews. So cool. And please, to beg the new listeners and old listeners, everybody, please hit up the iTunes reviews. It's so immensely helpful to us we can't even tell you it takes 30 seconds please especially once you hear this story today you'll be like oh my god that's a that's digging deep so dig deep take 30 seconds please give us give

us your five stars following instructions you know whatever whatever uh references you want a silver-haired middle-aged white man reference you want to put in there or whatever. But thank you guys so much. The latest ones were awesome. The latest ones were awesome. So good. We hope you guys enjoyed Keith Wright last week because I know for a fact probably nobody ever heard of that guy. Right. They had no idea he existed.

That's my favorite part of this is giving people, I can't believe, I can't say it enough, I can't believe the media doesn't talk about this. Enough. Enough. Right. Exactly. But if they did, we wouldn't be here. That's right.

So there's that. But these guys that we have covered in the past couple of weeks, I mean the past couple of months, a lot of them, nobody knows who the fuck they are. They fall through the cracks. Right. And these are the stories I love, like we've talked about before. And we're going to get to, we'll get to the Michael Vicks and the Pistoris and the Aaron Hernandez. And I mean, Chris Benoit.

We'll get to all these. We're going to get to all that. Trust us. There's like a handful of these like heavy hitter, big, you know, everybody on earth, everybody's grandmother knows their name type guys. So we can't just plow them all out in the beginning. We have to kind of spread them out. Plus, what that yeah it's the other thing too do you want to just know the same story you heard on the news a hundred times that you got sick of hearing on cnn or do you want to hear about something different interesting like today's story because this

is one of those i didn't even know this was a sport to be honest with you and on top of that that's the that's what I'm talking about. This is things that nobody knows about. It's not in the public eye and that's why it makes this story so goddamn great. And this story, this story was in the public eye but not so much... This is crazy, this story,

because this is another one of those stories where I'm like, this seems pretty straightforward. Gonna, you know, A to B. It's pretty easy here, alright. And then I get into it and I'm like, holy shit. There's tent to, you know, A to B. It's pretty easy here. All right. And then I get into it. I'm like, holy shit. There's tentacles going from Columbia to the White House, man. It's fucking insane, this whole entire one.

So it's Benjamin Barry Kramer. Ben Kramer. Benny Kramer. Now, we're kind of going to get a two-for-one this week also because there's another guy involved in a good chunk of this who is a race car driver an indie race car driver named randy lanier so he's kind of going to be about 40 of this so you get you guys are getting a two for one here did we say what benjamin does two idiots not yet okay yeah uh ben kramer is a powerboat racer okay i know

you're like powerboat racing what the fuck is that all right now i don't you're like, powerboat racing? What the fuck is that? All right, now, you're going to say that these people, this isn't an athlete, whatever. These guys drive boats. This guy was driving 120 miles an hour on water. That's a fucking athlete. That's insanity. Think about going 120 miles an hour in a car. Most people have never gone 120 miles an hour in a car. Think about going 100 miles an hour in a car. It feels a little squirrely right you're like oh this this could get hairy cylinder it starts to get a bit shaky this even if it's a

fast car you're like okay and that's like it's meant to do that right balanced out these guys they're these are huge giant boats that are barely like they're like skipping a stone and there's so many variables oh one little bit of wind and this thing's flipping over 14 times. Fuck wind. Any boat drives by and chops up the water. Dead. Yeah, it's over. There are so many times where I'm reading this, a race he was in, and it's like, yeah, two people died in this race. People die constantly in this.

This isn't like the NFL where he had some head trauma and then he died 20 years. They fucking die in the middle of it. There's no safety harnesses in a boat either because if a boat wrecks, you want to get the fuck out of it. You have to. Yeah. Even like, you know, boxing,

like how many people have died in the ring? Like four in the last 50 years? Every year. If you get through a race without somebody's boat exploding, hey, you guys did something today. Everybody pat yourselves

on the back. It's a good day. And hitting the water. So in a car, if you wreck, your car flips over, whatever, you're in a safety harness and you slide to a stop. Also, there's a roof. Right, right, right, right. And that's the best case scenario.

In a boat, fucking it's a nut. And the cliche answer is you'd fly out of a boat at 60 miles an hour and you hit the water, it feels like hitting concrete. That's the dumb thing that they say. At 100 miles an hour, you fly out of a boat at 60 miles an hour and you hit the water. It feels like hitting concrete. That's the dumb thing that they say. There's not at a hundred miles an hour, you fly out of a boat. There's no feeling cause you're fucking dead. Not to mention, uh, you can't drown in concrete, which is another problem with the water, which is an issue. So we're not going to talk that much about power boating though. We'll talk a little bit about boats cause this will come in with another builder and it's a whole thing but it's mainly crime this is just a shitload of crime rammed up your asses it's some white trash an hour white trash florida boys pickle fork boat yeah white trash florida

boys made good that's what this is about here i get so ben kramer uh his father his father His father is married to Meyer Lansky's niece. What? The fucking mafia guy? Yeah. So this guy, the father is his first silver-haired middle-aged white man of his life. He totally enables him. He's mixed up in his enterprise at one point. It's a mess.

But the father is good friends with Meyer Lansky. Meyer Lansky, in case you don't know, is the American Mafia's, like, accountant godfather, we'll call him. Right. He was as big as Lucky Luciano or any of these guys in starting up the American crime syndicate. The whole Mafia thing. So he's born in 1955. I could not find an exact date of birth. I saw three different ones.

And I said, I'm just going to say 1955. I know he's born in 55, but the date shifts for some reason. That's how questionable his family is, that they don't even tell when their kid is born. Yeah, it's really... Yeah, who knows? They might have been on the run or something. The man on the lam said he was born here, but that was to throw off the fence. I have no fucking idea.

To make him think he was in a state at that particular time or some shit. Yeah, he grows up in Hollywood, Florida. So, I mean, that's, you know, white trash haven. Gators. That's the taint of white trash down right there. I mean, he sells weed from an early age, too. Of course he does. There's going to be a lot of weed selling in this episode.

And he sells weed from an early age. He's first busted at 17 selling weed. So, you know, he he's good he's right yeah he's a he's a protege yeah a prodigy protege he's a prodigy right he's a prodigy this guy's a protege of his father too his father yeah because his father like i said is joins into this now now to meet up with this in the middle this is by age 17 so we're talking by like 1972 he's busted, okay? In the 70s, everybody had weed, so I'm sure they were a little lenient on him.

Well, the 70s, too, there were some harsh drug laws, but the harsher ones came in the 80s. The whole war on drugs, the Ditter campaign, all that shit. Yeah, the Ronald Reagan bullshit. Thanks, Nancy. Yeah, so let's introduce one of our other players here. There's a few main players. These are the two that are connected here. We have Benramer who just introduced the powerboat racer and we have a guy named randy lanier who i'm going to call bob lanier at some point who is a hall of fame basketball player i'm going to fuck this up at some point because i've never heard the name

randy lanier but i know bob lanier so randy lanier is an indycar driver all right and a successful one actually is as was ben kramer, as we'll see later on, super successful in his business. Just for clarity of anybody that doesn't follow racing, IndyCar drivers are open wheel and NASCAR are the actual, like, bodies on, on.

It looks like a real car. Kind of. IndyCar is like what you see more, actually, the cars look like. It's a lot of Italians. In Europe, going, when they do, like, the street courses and shit like that.

But we also send them around in circles, just like we do the other ones. He didn't start out that way. Anyway, he's born September 27, 1954. He's from Lynchburg, Virginia. Jack Daniels, I think, right? So he's from Lynchburg, Virginia. Moves down to Florida as a kid. This is in the late 60s.

He's a year older than Ben Kramer, so the same thing. Gets into the weed culture right away. They got white trash and the same age in common. Absolutely. They're going to be boys. And it's the same type of thing. Weed gets real into the weed at 14. The whole South Florida kind of weed thing. He starts working construction sites when he's young

and basically he said he had a ponytail so everyone would ask him if he knew where to get weed. So he's never i see stereotypes have been going on for years and years and years he never set out to sell weed literally he said so many people would ask me on the construction site because they were like a lot of square guys but they were like hey this fucking kid knows where he's looking a long hair this idiot doesn't get a haircut he has weight so they basically would ask him so he just went I guess I'll just start

making money off it fuck it they're asking me anyway I want a new car I could just say yes instead of no and they'll hand me money and it's the same transaction

so fuck it I guess I'll just do that you know that's a logical thing to do yeah I don't see I don't see how somebody doesn't do that

it's insane if enough people ask you yeah for anything you're just gonna be be like, how do I get that? Because there's a fucking demand. If people started stopping me on the street randomly

and just saying, do you have cupcakes to sell me? And it happened often, I'd probably go, I should probably just start carrying around some cupcakes with me just in case. And then get a boyfriend and all that stuff. Exactly. And some cats and it'll be wonderful. So Lanier goes to Miramar High School in Hollywood, Florida. Caught up.

He gets caught with an ounce of weed in school in the 70s there. That's a lot of dope. Which is back then too, like in school, whatever. Four quarters is a lot of weed. That's not personal use. And he was a junior and he just went, you know what? I'll just drop out. They're going to suspend me for a long time anyway.

So he just drops out, gets his GED. Fine. He's selling nickel bags to kids at school. Yes. Now, here's when this... Now, both of these guys, Kramer and Lanier, they start smuggling drugs separately and then intersect at a point

down the road. They're like, you're my age, you're white trash, you do drugs? You sell weed. Me too. You have weed? This is tremendous. Let's do this. This is a match made in hell.

So Lanier, 1973, he's about 20 years old. He buys a 27 foot boat. It's a good size boat. It's a good size boat. It's a pleasure cruiser. For him and his friends to hang out on, it cost him 18 grand

that he bought with weed money. Yeah. He's doing all right he's 20 he's like hey construction site $18,000 boat at 20 years old 18,000 in 1973 yeah that's a $40,000 boat now yeah that's you could buy a shitty house for 18,000 you know i mean you could buy a like a tricked out cadillac for 18 grand back then, like a really nice one. Badass car. Yeah, so this is, Jesus Christ. Then he starts smuggling drugs with the boat, right?

And he would bring in about 700 pounds at a time. From where? From the Bahamas he would go to. He gets the boat. He had a friend of his said, you know, it was about six months later, he asked him if he was interested in going to the Bahamas. Fuck yeah, I am on a 27-foot, $18,000 boat.

He said, would you put some grass on your boat when we're down there is the word he used. Would you put some grass on there? So 70. He said, this is Lanier's quote. You know what, too? I'm going to do in their own words for Lanier also because he's fucking fun.

He says some fun shit, and Ben Kramer's not so much of a talker. I like it. He does a lot of action, as we'll see later, but he's not as much of a talker here. This is in their own words for Randy Lanier on this after he got the boat. Quote, about six months later, a buddy asked me if I was interested in going to the Bahamas and putting some grass on my boat.

Seemed like an adventure, so I did it. This guy just with the wind. Yeah. Sounds fun. Let's do it. Sounds fun, sure. He didn't ask you to go camping, bro. You guys looking for weed? I guess I'll start selling weed. Like, that's just, he's with the wind, this guy. He's do it. Sounds fun, sure. He didn't ask you to go camping, bro. You guys looking for weed?

I guess I'll start selling weed. Like, that's just, he's with the wind, this guy. He's just in the wind. I've never been camping before. I'm going to go do that. That's a completely different adventure. Totally different. Would you like to go do fucking, I don't know, anything?

Let's go rock climbing. That's an adventure. What you're doing, sir, is fucking trafficking. That's not an adventure. He's like, hey, you know, he's a kid. He's like, fuck it. I guess everybody was doing it too back then that's the thing in south florida in the 70s because this was before the 80s when everything really tightened up federally right this was just that you just came in i mean people were doing this as anybody's ever seen the documentary

cocaine cowboys which i'm sure a lot of you have because it's such a popular one this is that time these guys actually later on we'll get into somebody who sold them boats that's cocaine cocaine cowboys, which I'm sure a lot of you have because it's such a popular one. This is that time. These guys actually later on will get into somebody who sold them boats. That's cocaine cowboy drug smugglers. I mean, it's, this is what we're talking about. So everybody was doing it. It was wide open. I mean, they all say this quote after quote of people saying South Florida was just wide open back then.

Just do whatever you want. Hang out. It sounds like a fucking good time, honestly, for if you're an enterprising young man. Thanks to them, too. We got an episode out of it, so I'm good. I'm happy with it. This is great. This could be three episodes, honestly.

This fucking one's crazy. So Lanier marries his high school sweetheart at this point, starts a business, a legit business, renting out jet skis. Okay, so that's his thing there. But he's smuggling on the side, obviously. And it's so funny because he has all this smuggling money, and he tells everybody that, yeah, jet ski rental business is killing it i mean we are

crushing the jet ski rental market right now a legitimate business to to wash all his weed money through but he's legit killing it with that shit well he's just no it's a jet ski business he's doing fine but it's it's not he's not later on he's funding a race team with unbelievable and going to my jet ski shop is doing really well literally because that's all he could say it's fucking hilarious um he goes to a miami car show in 1979 and gets into the car thing buys a piece of shit porsche an old porsche it's like all kind of tied together yeah fixes it up starts racing it wow basically racing it gets it

so he races in a 24 hour race at one point after he had done this one of the drivers was sick he ends up on the Ferrari team

racing a 24 hour race holy shit and then Ferrari ends up breaking down on him he doesn't finish the race it's not his fault but he's hooked on car

shit so he loads it with grass and puts it on a tow truck and just drives so now he's into the racing now that's not his fault but he's hooked on car shit so he loads it with grass and puts it on a tow truck and just drives so you know he's he's into the racing now though that's racing and smuggling is what he's all about that's linear yeah this is linear he keeps smuggling well he's trying to break into racing right uh he smuggling more and more and more he works it's funny because all the guys he works with smuggling are race guys mechanics that's so crazy boat people from the powerboat circuit yeah so it's it's these guys all kind of know each

other and they're all in the weed so it's just they're all mixed in together nascar started because of bootlegging moonshine right they would be racing their cars running from yeah running from police and going to mason dDixon line, all that shit. So that makes sense that people that are racers and gearheads and motorheads, they just like to be fucked up. And why else would you want a fast boat? You needed to outrun somebody with drugs in your mind. Exactly.

That's the thing, too. Because powerboat racing, and we'll get into the guy a little later on who started powerboat racing, who was the first guy to really do it and set all the records for speed and build the boats that got faster and faster he didn't do it till the early 60s which is when drug importation became a real big deal so it's like before that they had no need for fast they're like fast boats why go fast right i got a car it's fast right i don't need that now you know now you know why people buy build fast shit, so now we're back to Ben Kramer here. He's smuggling. We're in the mid-70s with him.

Now we're 1977. Ben Kramer. He's been smuggling this whole time. He gets convicted of marijuana smuggling in 1977. He gets sent to prison. He is in prison for three years. So, yeah, he gets a good sentence. Pretty stiff, actually.

Comes out in 1980. Good thing about this for him he comes out with just a ton of colombian drug connections now because he just did three years in there in a south florida jail which guess who's in south florida jails drug dealers haitians and dudes that are bringing shit in on boats dudes who know where to get fucking weed and score shit basically so these two guys in 1982 their pads cross professionally yeah they hook up in 82 all right ben kramer randy lanier uh it's uh by the way i gotta give you this quote of ben kramer because this is there's not a lot of quotes of ben kramer but this one sums up how crazy these racing lunatics were with the boats okay in their own

words this is of this is about racing a boat boat racing at night yeah which seems fucking insane i'm gonna drive 90 miles an hour in the dark on shit i can't see shit i can't see who knows what's there there's no headlights on a boat no so in their own words here we go quote there's a there's tremendous mental pressure. It's like driving down the turnpike at night and putting adhesive tape over your car's windshield. You can hardly see anything. Yeah. Imagine that.

That's awesome. So that's why these guys are smugglers. I mean, we're talking about nerves of steel. They don't get panicked that the Coast Guard might be on. They're like, fuck it, we're going to go faster. Like, they're just not. That's so wild. So, yeah, Frankie the Crime and Sports dog is barking.

So in April of 1982, they make their first run in their partnership here. They bring in 15,000 pounds on their first shipment. On their first? First. This is their smallest shipment. 15,000 pounds? 15,000 pounds. Of weed.

Yes, that's a shitload. How did that boat not sink? Well, it's funny how they start getting in. It's genius the way that these guys are really smart. They really think it out, yeah. Yeah, the smuggling back then was really sophisticated. They have engineers figuring shit out. It's crazy. It's so smart.

And they do this. They bring it from Columbia to Melbourne Beach, Florida. And they use one of Kramer's boats, because that's why he's involved in this. One of Kramer's boats, it's called the Ursa Major. Keep that in mind, because I'll bring that up later. There's a funny little story about that boat that comes back about 20 years later. It's pretty fucking funny. So anyway, they're smuggling.

It grows bigger and bigger with Kramer on board, because now they have better boat equipment. They know what they're doing. And another money another dude with money too he's got now he's got skin in the game to start using faster bigger boats they got a 65 foot wooden trawler thing wow they got uh a fleet of tugboats a 65 foot boat yeah that's it's like a fishing boat that is that's insane to me it's it's a wooden thing and then they got a fleet of tugboats and then they got a bunch of barges that they'd have the tugboats pull the barges oh my god so this isn't playing this isn't like some guy with the lights off got a speedboat hanging in 10 pounds right fucking underneath compartment right they have a

ship with a tugboat yeah with a barge they're pirates that are bringing in weed barge yeah and they stop at customs and they get through this shit this isn't like they're not dumping shit in the in the everglades in a swamp and having somebody pick it up later they're doing this like they've got like the alabama mursk and they're out there loading that thing with weed this is wild okay So Kramer's the ringleader. He organizes everything in this operation. He would set up the purchases in Colombia. He'd bring in other parties.

He'd have other people bring it in on these barges, and Lanier would sell it to distributors. Lanier had the on-the-ground contacts. He'd sell it to distributors all around the country. This wasn't a Florida thing. They had trucks. This was everywhere. They had warehouses. They went to different ports. They didn't just go to florida they didn't just go to

florida no this is the the hiding it is the genius part okay here's what they do they have they hide it in the ballasts okay the ballasts are hard to explain but it's the way they keep the boat from going up and down yeah you can put they run water in these ballasts and they're like kind of like a i guess a big pillow would be a good way to describe it type of thing and you can inflate it and deflate it basically to depending on your weight swell of the boat exactly so that's they hid it in that they made a system so the agents couldn't find it and the lanier explains it the best you're doing in their own words with randy lanier explaining it because you can't explain it any better than this okay in their own words quote the ballast normally had salt water pumped in or out of it to make the barge ride high or low

depending on the cargo on board we welded compartments into the ballast so the weed was underneath the salt water by then there was a whole lot of people smuggling grass in Florida. It felt like winning. I would say so. That is the Indy 500. That's amazing. That's awesome. First of all, it's brilliant. Yeah.

To think of that is brilliant. And then I just love their attitude. It felt like winning. You absolutely won. It felt like winning. You made guys that their job is to find weed. Yeah. And you hid it from them.

We can't find the weed. And they did not find the weed. They couldn't find the weed. You won. You won. And they're getting in tons of weed. They couldn't find the weed. You won. You won. And they're getting in tons of weed. I don't even say pounds.

Tons. Tons, yeah. To 10,000 in their first one. When you've got barges, it's way more than that. Next shipment was 25. Next it was... Unbelievable.

I mean, it went up, up, up. The first one, 15, was just to test out the system. Yeah. You know, you don't want to do it for less than 15. That's not worth it. What are we,

fucking Cracker Jack over here? You know, what are we, fucking Cracker Jack over here? What are we, Jack Roland Murphy going in for a couple of jewels? No, this is no bullshit. They're on the Ursa May. Is that what it would be? Ursa Major? Was that it?

Ursa Major. Ursa Major. Ursa Major is a giant fucking boat, and they're loading it with weed. It's a big, like a, yeah. How does that not smell? That's amazing to me. Go on. It's buried in the salt water and the ballast. And plus, I think the weed was shitty back then, too.

Yeah. I'm sure it was shitty. It didn't smell very good. Like now, if you had 100,000 pounds of weed, you could smell it from Alaska if you were in Florida. Because weed is so good now. 100,000 pounds of weed under that water. Putting it under that salt water is probably good for it, too. Because it probably made it a little moister.

That keeps the moisture, just in case. It's probably quite fucking dry. So they have boats going to ports in New York, San Francisco, New Orleans. I mean, they're going, that's all country. The big ones. South, the east, the west. They are infiltrating it from every direction. The weed would be transferred from the boats in giant bales onto big trucks.

And then they would dispatch these trucks full of weed yeah to warehouses throughout the country that's how they did this so i mean this is like that's how you would import any product that you would import fucking lamp yeah if you were importing lamps or rice makers or you know anything anything this is what you would do you would import it and you'd bring it on a truck and you put it to your warehouse and then distribute it to your location. He's got a legit business. It's a legit business. Of illegal shit.

It's just weed. Yeah. If they would have switched this over to like, you know, fortune cookies, it's fine. Nobody has a problem with this. Or bales of actual hay.

Whatever. But I salute them for doing this because they kept a lot of people having some bud. They created jobs. Yeah. And they bring having some bud. They created the price down. They created jobs. Yeah. And they bring in that much and they brought the price down.

That's what that did. Really? That's what the market brings the price down. Good for you guys. Thank you guys. He actually attributed to the price of weed in America because of how much they were doing. They were doing that much. Yeah.

They sold everywhere from California to Kentucky to West Virginia to Illinois. You name the state. Everywhere. It's wild. Countrywide. Countrywide. Now, so picture this. This is early 80s Miami.

So if you've seen Cocaine Cowboys, that sort of thing, anything on Scarface, this is Scarface. This is that time, gaudy, early 80s Miami, cocaine money, people building sick mansions. These guys are right in the middle of this shit. Unbelievable. Right in the middle. They're making millions. Millions. I mean, they're as rich as any of these kingpins out there.

And that's shocking to me that you're running race boats at first looking for a nest egg to create and the other guys racing indie cars looking for a nest egg to create yeah one year quit that's the millions why are you so goddamn greedy that's the thing and they don't you'll see this is great one of their one of their corporations where do you hear the name of it that'll give you a hint it's just the they cannot stop these fucking people and it's fucking people. And they don't quit either. They keep racing. They keep, they're like riding on the edge. They have to be on the edge.

It's an adrenaline thing. Oh, it is. These guys are obviously, the guy that drives 200 miles an hour. Right. And another guy who races boats that could be dead in an instant too. It's their... They're adrenaline junkies. Yeah.

And smuggling weed is no different. They like to do things that can immediately kill them at any time. Or ruin everything forever. Or break their neck in two seconds. Their whole lives they keep this up, too. So their business is so successful. Lanier starts a race team, his own race team, he starts. Sponsored by weed.

With this money. And that's the thing. He sponsors it. They're like, where do you get all this money? And he's like, jet ski rentals kill him. Those fucking tourists, they come down, and they just want to get in the water on a jet ski. Everybody wants a three-seater. I can't keep enough in stock.

This Sea-Doo, I buy stock in it because they're the most successful company ever. Can't keep a jet ski in the building. So he's this. this i mean that's how successful he is he's this is like you know it takes millions this isn't a like an you know 10 grand or something to throw at it these cars are you have to fix them every race they're broken you have to hire all these fucking people hundreds of thousands of dollars a month it's insane so it's overhead he buys two race cars which is expensive yeah hires a crew chief and instructed the crew chief to hire the best mechanics crew everything no

matter what the cost money is no object he told him wow we're gonna win outbid who you want have to outbid get me the best i mean that's the that's he's there so we need to be the best everything we're gonna smuggle more we're going to race harder everything wants to feel like winning so yeah so Randy Lanier brings in

a driver to help him drive this is another IndyCar driver named Bill Whittington and he was actually very successful throughout the 70s

him and his brother the Whittington Bill what? Whittington? okay brings him in to help him drive is to be one of the drivers because Lanier's a driver

and he's another driver because they run like, they're doing 24 hour races. They're doing these crazy endurance races. Yeah. So, Bill wins,

like Bill won the Le Mans 1979 with his brother Don. That's impressive. Yeah. So he's, you know, whatever. But Bill also,

a fucking weed smuggler. And cocaine too, I think. But not with Lanier yeah just on his own they're in business together racing but smuggling up separately separately smuggle it's a very you know it's a healthy relationship it's like a couple they live together but they shouldn't work together you know what i mean that can get contemptuous so instead we're going to smuggle separately do our own smuggling things no No worries. One business at a time.

One business at a time, but together we race, okay? Lanier was spending as much as the Porsche and Jaguar teams were. On just one race team? Well, as much as each of those teams were. As much as Porsche put into their team, he put into his team. Wow. As much as Jaguar put into his team. So that's the kind of dough.

Those are obviously the biggest car companies, right. And he's competing dollar for dollar with these people. Against them. With weed money. End quote. That's it. I was smuggling, so I just spent as much as I had to. I just got to unload this money also.

They had as much money as they wanted to. That's unbelievable. So yeah, 84, their team does well. Lanier's... Real quick, didn't I let you know how much weed America smokes? wanted to that's unbelievable uh so yeah 84 their team does well lanier's real quick doesn't that let you know how much weed america smokes they're smoking a lot of weed like that's how much weed you can finance race teams that cost millions of dollars and finance it very easily because money is no goddamn object when america smokes as much weed they smoke. And this is from the 70s. There are much more people smoking now.

And the fucked up part is this is weed. The Coke smugglers are making 10 times as much. 10 times as much. They're laughing at these guys. The Coke guys were like, yeah, that's funny. Right. That's hilarious, guys. You need a little race team.

You bring in 15,000 pounds of weed, it's worth whatever. You bring in 15, pounds of coke insanity raw from down there is worth a hundred times 200 times what you paid for you buy the country yeah it's ridiculous so uh yeah their their uh team does very well lanier's race team there's an article in 1984 in the hartford current yes i was looking at 1984 articles from Hartford. Jesus Christ. That says, quote, Little-known Randy Lanier shocked the sports car racing world by winning the Camel GT Championship in 1984. So, I mean, he comes out of nowhere.

Little-known, too. Little-known. Yeah, he was a nobody, this guy. He's a nobody. He's not even like a professional racer at this point. We don't even know what he does. Little-known jet ski shop owner yeah it's crazy and at the same time we have ben kramer who's winning every championship you can win

on powerboat racing he's winning this title that race this time he's a badass power so i mean both of these guys are smuggling together they're crushing their sports yeah they're starting out businesses too they're starting out race teams. They're like, they're entrepreneurs. These are, this is like, this is Puff Daddy. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. This is like, they're starting their own label here.

That's such balls, too, though, to like invade some sort. That's like, that's the equivalent of somebody being some sort of a drug runner and then buying an NBA team and then people just being like, oh, I guess this guy's successful too. It's like what they used to do with Prohibition. How did you buy an NBA team? Nobody questions this at all. No, it's the same as, it's like Prohibition.

There'd be a shitload of questions if they bought an NBA team. There would be a little bit of questions. There's also questions if you buy a boat company that does hardcore government DEA contracts, as we'll get into later on see that's what i mean this gets deep greed is insane yeah this gets way way way heavier than just weed smuggling here guys this is like insane and there's now let's introduce our third character of this whole thing here there's a lot more characters but there's three major ones okay this is the most unfortunate of all of them only at the end because in the beginning this guy is a pimp all right this is like i can't even

describe he's the coolest motherfucker you could ever want to be okay this guy don aranao is his name it's a good name don aranao now he is a raceboat mogul this guy he comes up he's well start to give him the stats here he's born on march 3rd 1927 so he's an older chap than these guys he is ben kramer's ben kramer he's ben kramer's idol all right ben kramer looks at this guy he's everything he wants to be i mean 30 years older yeah and he's rich he makes millions in the construction industry in new jersey in the 50s and they're exactly and there's all these articles going it's so funny because he's dead people are trying to say like well you know he knew these

guys but that doesn't mean it's like no no if you get rich doing like contracting in new jersey in the 50s if you get rich doing in the 80s in the fucking 50s, you're mobbed up. Or at least you're paying guys off and you're not blowing the whistle on anybody. You know the truth about Jimmy Hoffa. You're going with the flow at that point. You're doing favors. You're doing what you can do. So he makes all this money, enough to have like three, four million dollars saved up,

which in the 50s is a lot. Very well rocked up. He knows what he's doing. Good friends with Meyer Lansky. Of course he is. Another Meyer Lansky connection here. 1961 hastily, out of nowhere, just shuts his business down, moves to Florida.

I feel like there's an investigation. I feel like somebody said, that's about enough of you. Yeah. Why don't you take your shit? You have two choices. You can take everything you've built and get the fuck out of here, or we can find you floating somewhere right you're a nice guy you've

done a lot of work for us so i'm gonna give you a chance we really like that building you put up in the garment district it seems like that was the thing like we want whatever you have that little business you have we're gonna take that over so you can get the fuck out of here or you know float or don't get out of here don't get out and you'll always be here that's take a pick either one there's always a fresh hole right so this guy gets down to florida he starts racing these boats for fun this guy don aronau now he's racing he sets speed records yeah because he's building faster boats every time because he wants to go faster and faster the first world record he said set was like 56 miles an hour wow so that's how long ago this was in the 60s.

Very primitive. He's clearly got something to run from. Yeah. Well, at first, this was just rich guys that went out and dicked off. Sounds like it's him going, I've got to get something really fast in case these guys decide to come back down here, and I've got to get to Cuba in a second. He's just hanging out.

No, this is rich. This is the culture down there at the time. There was a few of these rich guys who would buy crazy expensive boats. And this was their way of having... I don't believe it for a second. This was their dick-pissing contest. I'm staying with he's scared. He's scared too, I'm sure.

But, I mean, he gets... And he's living... He's high profile too. It's not like he's hiding out there. He's doing all this shit. He starts a boat company in 1960. A bunch of these companies that are around still. Really it's so funny yeah starts another one in 64 ends up finding magnum marine in 66 which was around for a long time now 1970 he introduces the cigarette

the cigarette boat the cigarette boat now it's a take on the old timey cigarette boats to whatever but it's the most it's the most sought after speed boat there is okay all the rich people with dual v8 motors in them they're fast they're fast all every first of all he sells boats to george hw bush oh god the first bush yeah or any outside of america people not not the last one this one the first one uh 1988 to 1992, George Bush. The one-term Bush. Lyndon Johnson, another former president. King Hussein of Jordan, the Shah of Iran. Wow.

Movie stars, rock stars, you name it. He's building incredible boats for incredible people. He's building rich people, rich, crazy, sick fucking boats. Yeah. Also, it is the top choice of all the drug smugglers. Absolutely. So every one of these, half of these boats that go choice of all the drug smugglers absolutely so everyone every one of these half of these boats that go out they all the articles it basically says half

of these boats that are going out are coming back full of cocaine yeah there's a half the don johnson miami vice with the rolled up sleeves it's those boats this is it this is the whole thing don johnson's chasing after him in a linen jacket fuchsia goddamn t-shirt with no socks on and he's on the fucking hunt for these guys with no socks no socks to be seen baby loafers in linen pants I love it fucking a so everybody thought Aronau is involved in drug running too because he's a fast boat like you you were like I'm buying a shit for a second he's got things to do so did everybody else no one else bought that shit either now jack kramer who was ben kramer's father who myer lansky buddy uh said that uh ben idolized ben kramer idolized don aranao and his quote was aranao was a man's man

and ben wanted to emulate him completely yeah he wanted to be the pimp because also oh we all do he's rich he's powerful he knows heads of state heads of movie studios heads of everything he's mingling with all these people and he's making money off them

making bank he is a playboy too he is banging everything in sight oh I'm sure there's a difference between like he divorces his old wife

marries a show girl the whole deal I'm serious he does the whole that's awesome there's a difference between having Brad Pitt's phone number and then pitt having your number to buy shit from you you know what i mean there's an enormous difference from that yeah you are you are a notch above brad pitt

at that moment well socially too he was hanging out with like him and george bush were buddies they weren't like just you bought a boat for me one time they were like social friends yeah and later on he uses that connection to sell boats to the government. That's awesome. Through a task force that George Bush had set up. Hilarious. So it's pretty interesting. He starts selling...

Don Aronow is famous for selling the Blue Thunder boats to the federal government. These were boats that were supposed to be faster than the smuggler boats to catch them. Because it was pressure on him to do this. And they were shit and they were hilarious they were slow they were hunks of shit smugglers would keep going well and everybody said it didn't matter anyway because the agents didn't know how to fucking drive these boats that's not in your normal federal agent training no you don't go out on the shooting range work on paperwork and then go fucking bounce a boat 100 miles an hour off of the top of waves that's not part of it yeah you know and i got powerboat training i can't do it

i gotta go learn how to operate blue thunder it's gonna be rough so he's he's selling these boats for 150k to 150 000 a pop to the government for these boats so i mean he is he's killing it he is putting it right in the old took us to the government for these boats. So, I mean, he is... He's killing it. He is putting it right in the old tuchus of the government at this point. He's right in the ass. In 84, Ben Kramer buys Aranau's racing team. All right. His boat racing team. It's a company that makes boats and they do racing.

It's the USA Racing Team. Okay. This is going to be a point of contention later and the alleged motive for a future crime all right it's going to come up okay uh on the books kramer buys this racing team for six hundred thousand dollars okay every single account of anybody who knows any of these people said the deal was for 2.6 million dollars 600 grand check two million under the table and cash him. Because Ben Kramer said obviously he can't show that kind of ink, that he has $2.5 million in the bank.

And on top of that, you know, it's just better to do it in cash. Why involve taxes, guys? What are we doing here? Let's skip all that shit. We're smugglers here. What are we doing? You know, come on. And I don't want to value this company too high and have to pay taxes on the shit. That's the thing.

And I don't want to value it too high to where it's going to fuck something up that i finance later i don't want to finance anything i don't want anybody knowing that i can finance that's the yeah he does you want to lay low if you're smuggling absolutely tons of weed into the country on a daily basis so the government at this point says no he's a convicted drug smuggler. We're not buying boats from him. That's kind of a mixed message to send. We're going to buy boats. Oh, these are the boats you smuggled your drugs in? Great. Let's buy it. So he's not upstanding enough, and the government threatens that they're going to yank the contract and basically make that company worthless if this sale doesn't get mixed right so at that point aronau takes the company back and is said to have given him everything on the table the 600 grand the equipment all that but stiffed him on the two million under the table oh shit so now there is just there's a disputed facts of how people are disputed opinions of how pissed off kramer was about this because on one hand he's pissed off because he's a hothead and everybody kramer's accused of multiple homicides

is the way he does business he's a psychopath everybody thinks so he's crazy as he is on the water everywhere awesome he's a crazy person but everyone's going bob iron i was a high profile guy his idol all this shit two million million meant shit to Kramer. Right. Like, he had, when they bust him, they find $20 million in cash. Wow. In cash. Just sitting there.

And he had been laundering, too. So that was just what he had in his fucking pocket change. Yeah. $2 million's dick to this guy. He's going to buy his company and be on par with him, and they're going to be like peers, and then he fucks him and takes his money. Keeps mil keeps his two mil that's the rumor that's what everybody said um yeah so kramer's obviously it took a little bit he's already angry now now a quote from a disgraced a disgraced attorney this is a quote attributed to ben kramer i already hate this by a disgraced attorney

who was a drug lawyer who then obviously was laundering money for everybody uh i think his name was marvin kessler he's a piece of shit he's a total piece of shit he says that kramer said about aronau quote in their own words quote that cocksucker stole my money and made me look like an ass i'll kill that son of a bitch. I'm not fucking afraid of him. And a disgraced lawyer relays that to us. That later does not get admitted into court. I can imagine. Based on lawyer-client privilege from this disgraced fucker,

because he wasn't disgraced yet. It's crazy. So we get into Kramer's racing here. He's killing it racing, Becker. May of 1985, he wins a Miami to New York race with a $500,000 top prize. Wow. Which is nothing to him. Nothing, no.

They spent $300,000 getting ready for the race, literally. He just wants the W. He just wants the W. That's amazing. That's all it is. And it's so funny. Like I said, the quotes for Kramer, the only quotes you can ever find are on boat shit. Where he's like, hey, you know, we had the throttle pinned to the metal and we're just, you know, hoping that the brake didn't come before the fucking thing and we wouldn't break apart.

And we came in ahead of the swell. And you're like, what the fuck does that mean? What does that mean? Tell us about weed, Kramer. Yeah, none of that. Just all like, well, you know, we did lucky today out there. It's really weird. We had glass and no chop and we came in first.

What the fuck? He's a drug dealer who had really smart lawyers who told him, hey, don't talk to the fucking press, you asshole, about anything other than boat racing. Tell them you like boat racing and you drive fast. Otherwise, shut the fuck up. Stick to talking about fiberglass. No shit. So all these top teams are trying to win.

And for a long time there i mean they're putting together this is like a big deal this is the race of the year yeah for a while the rumor was that the fifth member of kramer's boat team was going to be james khan unbelievable sunny corleone himself yeah and i don't think khan ended up being in it but khan and him were buddies and they were like they hang out and all that And that was the big rumor in the paper and everything they were printing, that, hey, James Khan might be in this fucking race, which is funny as shit. Fucking Jimmy Khan. That guy's awesome.

Kramer on the water is just amazing. He wins all these races. A fellow racer of his, Bob Kaiser, said that he was, quote, a very, very aggressive, very competitive guy. This is, he balls out all the time. I just want to win. Smuggling, racing, everything. Now, Bob Lanier, see, I told you to fucking call him Bob Lanier at some point.

Bill, isn't it Bill? Randy Lanier. Randy, Jesus. Randy Lanier in 1985 at this point. He is trying to break into the big time in his sport in racing. He's trying to qualify for the Indy 500 in 85. Okay. But they deem him as not enough experience in open-wheeled racing at the time.

He was racing the foreign sport class, which was a different deal. And they basically told him, season up a little more. This one's a bit too fast for you, youngster. Exactly. So November 11, 1985. This is crazy. Kramer and George Morales on a boat race. Morales is a renowned smuggler.

He gets busted all the time. He's known as the biggest smuggler in South Florida as he's winning race after race after race. He's like, yeah, this is why I smuggle so well. I can drive faster than these cocksuckers. So you can't beat a guy who's used to just running from the law. He knows how to get away. Reckless abandon. They win this race. It's used to just running from the law. Right. You know, he knows how to get away. Reckless abandon.

They win this race. It's a Sam Griffith Memorial Trophy. It's a World Offshore Powerboat Championship. Whatever the fuck that is. I love how you squint and make a grimace as you read that horseshit. I don't know what that is. Yeah, I don't either. Who knows what kind of weird, loosely tied together organizations govern this sort of shit.

There wasn't like, you know, a board or anything. This wasn't legit. No shit there wasn't like you know a board or anything there was this wasn't legit no it wasn't a commissioner's office inspect your vessel sir wasn't a commissioner's office this was a bunch of coked up lunatics going like how much weed you smuggle in last night 20 000 how fast you got 50 yeah but they're just nuts this is in key west uh they win this kramer and morels win it for the second year in a row. So Kramer's a beast. In this race, and this is completely common, this is not abnormal, they don't even make such a big deal out of it. Like, oh, my God, our sport.

They're just like, that's a shame. Hopefully it won't happen next time. Two racers, Dick Fulham and Mike Papa, die in the race when their boat explodes and disintegrates oh my god it just it just bursts it's driving fast he's going 90 miles an hour bouncing off the waves going balls out and then it just bursts into flames and looks like it explodes into confetti that's what it looks like it's like poof and it's gone and everybody's like oh that's sad and they're just like and in the thing that we're talking about they're like you know this happens sometimes with boats literally they're saying happens from too much fatigue on boats over time

at high speeds and some it'll just explode and disintegrate he just said the boat was tired that's what they said you're talking about and everybody was okay with this it was just hard it was its time their interview people are just like a tired boat i mean that's you know sometimes the boat's tired it's called fatigue it explodes every time you go out there you could burst into flames you never know who knows maybe i'll drown maybe i'll burst into flames who the fuck knows but you know hopefully i'll disintegrate hopefully i'll disintegrate you know i don't know why i keep doing it with a hillbilly accent because they're all hillbillies that's why. Except for George Morales, who's some kind of fucking Mexican or something.

I don't know who he is. A Cuban. I don't know. Whatever. It doesn't matter. The rest of them are hillbillies. That's crazy that that's just okay with them. It's totally...

Yeah, just fatigue. They acted like... They weren't like, we need to do an investigation, like when a plane goes down and see what happened. Was it a... No, they were just like, boat fatigue. Literally, just boat fatigue. There's no plane fatigue. No plane.

It's just like disintegrating in the air. There's no car fatigue. No, imagine if you were to go. When a car is fatigued, it rolls to a side. Is that an 85 CRX? Yeah, boy, that thing's been on the road a long time. Damn, that's tired. Oh, boy, let me tell you something.

The bigger the explosion, the more tired it is. So, now, 1986, things start to come to a bit of a head legally for... The noose is starting to tighten with the government around all this stuff. Whittington is arrested. Real quick. Our buddy Whittington. I hate to stop us here. But how do you...

That expresses how fucking crazy these guys are. Yeah. Because that is an option for, in your race, there is an option of just boat fatigue explosion and you're riding against that. They're thinking,

okay, we could win, we could lose, boat could disintegrate in mid-motion. Or we could get tired. We could just be driving and next thing you know, we're vapor.

Feels like winning. That's the opposite. Jesus God. Okay, let's take, oh wait, four, drowning. Sorry, okay, let's go, let's do it.

Let's do it. Let's do that. We'll see later. Fucking Kramer's a lunatic and this is the least crazy thing he does ever. That's psychotic. So,

Whittington, Lanier's driving partner there who had his own smuggling organization. I hope you guys can keep all these parts. Oh, you have to listen a couple of times to get all the characters straight because there's a lot of them. But Whittington, Randy Lanier's driving partner there that he came up with in 84. He is sentenced to 15 years in prison for smuggling himself.

Oh, no. Not good. That's the end of his racing career. Yeah. Now, Lanier at this point is like, oh, shit. He's got to disassociate himself. Absolutely. Because he's smuggling too, and this is his buddy, so he's like, oh shit.

Disassociate yesterday. Exactly, so he says in their own words on Randy Lanier here, quote, I didn't even know Bill was in trouble. We heard rumors for years. It's unfortunate, but I don't think less of him as a person. I just hope people will take me on my driving skills, not whom I associate with. So he's trying to be like, I don't know, poor guy. Shoot, boy.

Hey, you know what? I'm a driver, that's all. I don't know what people do outside of the track. None of my business, boy. That was his take on it. We keep it clean around here. That ain't me. We keep it clean, buddy.

That was his take on it. We keep it clean around here. That ain't me. We keep it clean, buddy. Now, because in 1986, at the same time, Lanier is trying to enter the Indy 500 as a driver. He says, quote, I wanted to win it. So he's serious about this shit. He signs a contract with Frank Arceriero, who's got a race team, I guess a famous race team here.

Lanier would drive the whole IndyCar season for him in this contract. At the time, in IndyCar, it was Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt, people like that that anybody's heard of, even if you don't know shit about racing. Season starts, looking bright, impending doom on the horizon here. A couple weeks before the Indy 500, now Whittington is arrested again for tax evasion and fraud and smuggling. This is what they do. They arrest you the first time, and then they keep bringing waves more charges.

So they end up stacking 50 years on top of 60 years on top of 40 years. This is the deal. And this guy wasn't very good at hiding all of this shit, apparently. Apparently not. He's arrested for fraud, tax evasion, evasion and smuggling quote multi-million ton multi-ton quantities of marijuana wow

so he's doing a lot and he's busted and they know yeah and now in 86 articles start coming out about drug money and racing

because based on him because he's part of the race team he's gonna bring them all down so he doesn't say none of these fucking guys rat

for the most part. Most of them keep their fucking mouths shut, which is really kind of an old school. I give them credit for that. There's not a lot of people who do that these days. Maybe because they have so much money. They're like, I just want to get out of here and spend that money I have buried somewhere. Right. And there's a lot of people's lives riding on this, too.

They've all got families, and they're all being supported with this shit. And they're all mixed up with Colombians. Right. So they know if I say anything, my whole family will probably be dead so maybe i should shut the fuck up right yeah so uh they're all saying that lanier was in an awkward spot with the whittington thing since you know he had a team with him and no one knew where his team money came from because they're all now the jet ski shop is looking especially suspicious at this point it was always a little shady but now it's like, come on.

What's he doing in those jet skis? Give me a fucking break here. But he just denied knowing shit about Whittington's thing here. Good for him. Now, May 22, 1986, Kramer, back on the water here, he wins the open class in the third offshore power boat race of the season. Whatever the fuck that means it's 146.7 mile course going 90 miles an hour on a boat wow that's some shit right there his

average speed was 89.61 miles an hour wow average in 90 that's just screaming really moving 150 miles in a cigarette boat and he finishes 17 minutes ahead of the second place guy. Wow. So, I mean, he's crushing. Yeah. He's just the ballsiest guy out there. Nobody raced like him. Has time to watch a Seinfeld episode on TiVo without the commercials.

Yeah. I mean, and Lanier wins Rookie of the Year honors at the Indy 500 that year. He gets into the Indy 586. He wins Rookie of the Year. He also, ooh, he has a bad He wins Rookie of the Year. He also, he has a bad accident though, Randy Lanier. In August 2nd, 1986 at Michigan 500, he blows a tire

out, hits a wall at 214 miles an hour. That hurts. 214. I don't know what that is in kilometers. East European people, but that's fucking fast. They had to put a metal rod in his leg to put it back together he was a mess that's what killed the ornhardt and he hit it like 140

yeah this is so as the smuggling though keeps going 86 i mean now he's legit he's racing in the indy 500 yeah he starts having thoughts at least he said he did i don't think he did i think he was going to keep going at this yeah he kept saying i should get out of this but then every month he'd bring in like eight million dollars and go maybe a couple more months maybe a couple more i kind of like having that cash so he says in their own words randy lanier said quote each year grew a little more i planned on my last load for the fall of 1986 it was going to be my biggest load then i planned on retiring i told myself i'm gonna get out of the game i just want to race i had a feeling that maybe i could get out of it without being See, it's...

Unfortunately not, sir. Yeah, no. It's a gambling lifestyle because you're... It's the exact same sickness that a gambler has because you're gambling with much higher stakes. You're gambling... Yeah. It's whether or not they're homeless.

This guy's going to be having a home. It's just going to be with criminals. Or it's going to be having a home. It's just going to be with criminals. Or it's going to be with concrete shoes on. And you don't quit. You've got to keep going because it's a gambler's lifestyle. It's a rush. He pushed his luck a little too hard here in 86 because there's a federal investigation starting in southern Illinois.

Lanier ends up getting charged in southern Illinois in the tip of an investigation that grows much bigger. A state trooper for overseas people, that's a police officer that just drives back and forth with a bunch of fucking speeders. The best way to describe them. They're not investigating anything. They're just on the highway.

They sit there with a radar gun and they collect ticket money for the state. He comes across, a state trooper comes across a broken down delivery truck, like a box truck. Oh boy. And walks over to see what it's all about. Full weed, of course. It's delivering weed to a warehouse in Southern Illinois. Yep.

This leads to an investigation, obviously, that leads to everything unfolding and them figuring out the florida connection and you know lower lower down people started flipping and blah blah oh no somebody's sitting up there high on the hog going if it wasn't for that fucking box truck but i mean they're sending out think about how risky this is their whole giant enterprise depends on sending out idiots in box trucks to not get pulled over yeah let's just keep our fingers crossed nobody gets pulled over ever and everything will stay afloat how tenant how tenuous is that organization that's not like you know and it all comes crumbling down with a broken down box truck that's what i mean if you're if your organization if you're making tens of millions

of dollars yet your organization can be brought to nothing to ashes by a box truck breaking down you have not planned well by a flat tire and the driver going down the road to go get another tire yeah that's it absolutely so i mean at this point too uh arano arano had been building boats for Kramer up until this. They were making boats, like custom shit for him to go faster and faster. Arano is his silver-haired, middle-aged white man. That's exactly what he is. He idolizes him. He helps him out.

He brought him into the world. He's building his boats to help him go faster. He sees him as a protege. And encourages him to be a shithead. Well, Arano was the fastest guy ever on the water. Now he sees Kramer as like, this is the new, this is the only guy with the balls that I had. Right. You know, he's got the fucking balls.

Plus, I think they were mixed up in drug smuggling together also because everybody was in South Florida in the 80s. You have to be a fucking idiot not to be. When you love your idol, if you meet him, you try to impress him. Yeah. And his impression is, i go fast and guess what i move a lot of fucking drugs that's the thing a lot of fucking drugs so

indictments come down in august of 86 now not arrests but indictments here a department of justice spokesman said about the organization quote here we have a complete classical drug scheme in which in which as the indict alleges, 11 people conspired for four years to carry out a large scale operation. 11 people. So it's 11 people are named in these indictments. Charges state that the Enterprise had paid for

eight motorboats and 17 properties, including apartment buildings and shopping centers. Wow. And fucking race teams. They don't mention that. But race teams and every other goddamn thing yeah and that's that's when you find out later they they weren't even close no they're with their estimate of shit here and they would over the years keep collecting more and more into the 90s they're still confiscating wow as we'll see uh september 11th 1986 after this is going on, Kramer is still racing.

Wow. He crashes at the Coca-Cola Offshore 212 in Rochester, New York. A mile into the race, their Apache boat hits a wave and just slams into another wave, basically. Slams into it, goes under. Yep. You know, they're underwater. Taking on water, sure. It was a dangerous situation. Ben Kramer, on the crash he says quote i thought i was dead and that water came down on top of me i thought it was definitely

gone this time we were lucky we weren't going as fast and our boat had a little buoyancy as soon as the water pressure let off i just wanted to live wow so i could go to prison yeah fucking ever because that's what's going to happen but wow he this is this is the danger he's living in he's got colombian drug dealers on one side and then his recreation basically yeah is even fucking more dangerous and then the law chasing him for both oh yeah yeah we'll get the law on our ass too why not grab them so october 86 uh they bring in charges against all these people for smuggling 100,000 pounds of marijuana. Wow. Into South Florida between September 83 and June of 85.

On one shipment. This is multiple shipments. Okay. This is several, but this is a tip of what they were doing. Okay. And only a tip of the charges that are going to come. They all get charged in multiple rounds, basically. only a tip of the charges that are going to come they all get charged in multiple rounds basically um so but the kramer is still free on november 7th 1986 because he's involved in a race that

of course kills a man yeah kills a crew the same thing that happened to him where they hit the wave yeah it happened to another crew and they all died um and they were once again were like yes you know you hit the wave and sometimes you go down just choppy it's safer to be a crab fisherman they literally were like it's just choppier than we thought jesus i mean like so some people die when it's choppier than you think oh just way way more dangerous than being a crab fisherman these guys would be fucking sleeping on the crab boat they'd be so fucking bored are you kidding me like jesus are we gonna race the other crab boat or something at least? Tell you what. Let's see who can hit the...

We'll each hit a glacier. We'll see who sinks last. How's that for a competition? Like, they would have to do shit like that. Something. Jump in the... Tell you what. I'm going to take my pants off.

I'm going to jump into the crab vat nuts first. Yeah, this is a disaster. Of Kramer now. Kramer now gets arrested in November for all of this. And it's so funny because people in the boat racing world are trying to act like they're disgraced by it, which is hilarious. Right. They're all doing this. So this guy, John D'Elia, who's a douchebag and a fellow racer, says, quote,

I'm sorry to say he has really put a bad light on the sport. Just like when those pro football players get caught dealing drugs. What are you, 100 years old, you fucking idiot? Somebody put another extra round of duct tape on the weed in the barrel. And it sounded like he wanted to say blacks. Yeah. It's like when them blacks playing football, running around, jumping all high, get caught selling drugs.

It sounds like that. Hilarious. Yeah, he just sounded very redneck-y. But he's acting like they're all above that like i don't know any drug smugglers yeah everyone around you is you asshole put that hatch down don't let the news camera see it you're in miami powerboat racing dickhead so lanier posts bail yeah after this they let him post bail you know you figure he's a famous guy he knows can keep an eye on him. Can I have a little scratch? No. Immediately gets on his boat, takes the fuck off. Really? Goes to the Caribbean. From the Caribbean

he goes to Monte Carlo. He goes around Europe. Oh my god. He goes to South America. He is on the lamb. He's on a tour. He ain't interested. No. He's got shit loads of money and he is not interested. No. He shouldn't come back. He's in Barbuda. Barbuda, Barbuda, whatever.

Barbados? No, it's Barbuda. I don't know what that is. One of those small town whatever islands here. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's early 87. He's fishing.

And Lanier sees a small plane land in a grassy field. That's weird for early in the morning. Planes don't usually land there. And it turns out it was two FBI agents that had found him and arrested him later on in the day they bring him back in no bail this time you know he's a hardcore flight arrest because he's got a shitload of cash and a history of fleeing absolutely yeah he's he's uh they offer him a deal to turn informant but uh he refuses that deal doesn't want to turn informant which, you know, good for him. He's got some kind of something.

They want to seek sentencing under the Super Kingpin Act. All right. Which is, it's a super kingpin law. It's under a drug act of 1984. It's one of those 80s tough on drugs. We will take the kingpins and crush them and all that.

We'll go from the top to the bottom. Exactly. It's one of those just bullshit politician, we're going to be tough 80s bullshit things that they did. They're looking for life without parole. Holy shit. Yeah. That's it.

They're not fucking around with this. It's like 40 years up to life without parole, and they are seeking life without parole. For weed. Yeah. Lanier says in court, quote, a person should, in their own words, quote, a person should not have to spend the rest of his life in prison just for marijuana. I can't agree with him more.

Yeah, I mean, come on, man. I do not disagree with that. He's not bringing in missiles, for Christ's sake. No, goodness, no. You're just bringing weed. That's it. Yeah. You're trying to get some 17-year-old to forget that he goes to high school.

That's it. Yeah. You're trying to get some 17-year-old to forget that he goes to high school. That's it. That's the thing. And getting some dude in his 30s to forget that every day he wakes up just looking forward to the next time he goes back to bed. That's it. That's it. That's it. It's sad.

And this guy's going to go to jail for life. Life? And they're looking for Kramer, him. They're all going to life these guys up. In January of 87, the FBI brings additional charges of smuggling another 150,000 pounds into the U.S. over a different period. So now they're just breaking it up into little areas and really trying to fuck these guys really hard. Of the organization, the DEA officials said that they set up numerous fictitious organizations to launder money through foreign banks. Foreign banks, too.

They weren't fucking around. This was crazy. to launder money through foreign banks. Foreign banks, too. They weren't fucking around. This was crazy. One of their holding companies was called, quote, G. Reedy Holding Company.

Greedy. Yeah, I like it. Greedy Holding Company. That's what I mean. They had a sense of humor about it, too. That sounds perfect. They knew what they were doing. He said the DEA agent said they laundered money in banks throughout England, Panama, British Virgin Islands.

They had Scotland Yard investigating them because of the Virgin Islands connection. Oh, wow. So, I mean, they had international governments looking for them at this point. This is a big fucking deal now. Fed seized the assets, organizations' assets. Lanier's assets alone that they seized. Oh, God. $150 million.

That's awesome. $150 million he had lying around. In weed. For weed. In weed money. That's awesome. $150 million he had lying around. In weed. For weed. In weed money. Think about what the Coke dealers were making. Think about what the Coke dealers were making. It's ridiculous.

Way more than this. And this is what drugs, this is the industry that the government doesn't want to legalize when there's that kind of cash laying around. That's insane. So everybody's in jail. Yeah. They're all awaiting their complete ass pounding yeah we get here february 3rd 1987 uh it's miami 1987 february 3rd one month before hulk hogan body slammed

andre the giant in wrestlemania 3 guys this is the time period we're talking about here aronau don aronau has a uh he's his office. There's a man comes in claiming that his name is Jerry Jacoby. He says that he works for a very rich man and he wants to buy a 60-foot boat from Aronau. So Aronau says, what do you do for this rich guy? Who the fuck are you, basically? And the guy said, quote, I'll do anything for him. I'd even kill for him. And then he turned around and left, which is an odd thing.

Yeah, that's weird. That's a weird one, right? So Aronauow thinks that's a little weird but he has to go he has a meeting at apache boats which is ben kramer's company with ben kramer's partner bob six centi uh he has a meeting with him i guess it's a just a personal meeting they they say they used to meet all the time and shoot the shit they were were old pals here. And they live, all their businesses are on the same street. It's called Thunderboat Row. And it's all the shit that Aronau built. It's all the companies that he built, the companies that branched off of that.

This is where all the racing boats to him, obviously, because that's what happens in Miami. That's how it happens. This guy, his friend, sees this in the rearview mirrors. Some words are exchanged. Sees the guy put his arm out and shoot Aronau a whole bunch of times. Oh, shit. And take off.

So Aronau is shot the fuck up. Yeah. They go and find him. He's shot in the wrist, chest, groin. He's shot all up. A total drug hit, basically. I mean, it's obvious it's a drug hit. Okay.

Jacoby came in to see who he's looking for. Exactly. And get a visual. And the funny part is, the guy who, the guy guy the friend who was going to meet aron out at his house saw the man in the lincoln made eye contact with him said it wasn't the same guy that the that the secretary described as jacobi yeah these are different people so it wasn't even the same guy all right maybe he was just scoping it out to see if he was around

who knows what was going on but this is an hit. This isn't like they didn't get in an argument over a parking space. This is a fucking hit, obviously and clearly. So they're now a friend. This is the Mike Britton. Mike Britton is the guy who saw the witness, the whole thing here. He ends up later on, they bring him into lineups for the guy they want. It's crazy. They have a suspect, and he comes in, doesn't see the guy he saw in the Lincoln,

and they go, we think we got the right guy. Why don't you take another look? Like that type of shit. This gets very shady very fast. Okay, so guys, you really got to pay attention. It gets crazy, okay? Now, immediately upon... Poor Steve Avery.

Oh, poor Steve Avery, boy. Yeah, he's got nothing on this guy here. This guy is... Kramer's maybe even more fucked over than anybody we've talked about. I think he's the guy everybody else would have been out. Yeah.

Except he got fucked, and we'll talk about it. Immediately upon news of Aronow's murder, the vice president's office is calling the Miami Homicide Department because he's George Bush, he's good buddies with Arnaud. And he's saying, does this have anything to do with drug dealers by any chance? Because they want to know if they're going to be embarrassed that a guy that Bush was good friends with

and bought a bunch of boats off of was a fucking drug smuggler. So they want everything. The Miami department has to, they have to make special reports for the vice president's office every day. Wow. That's how involved they are. They want to know every last bit of what's going on so they can get ahead of the spin, basically.

Because, you know, politics. All because of a fucking box truck. All because of a box truck and a little bit of fucking weed, man. Insanity. Good lord. So, obviously, the authorities are interested in this jerry jacoby fellow they can't find him aranao's wife puts up a hundred thousand dollar reward for any information

obviously none none or nothing is forthcoming um apparently before the murder in the days leading up to the murder aranao had made several calls to George Bush, kept talking to George Bush. There's a big rumor that Aronau was going to, that he was in trouble with whoever he was in business with. And he may be an informant. Yes. He was telling people that his life was in danger. He was telling his wife to be careful.

He said he wrote out a letter and he said, instructions, if anything happens to me, do this. And the first thing on the list was call George Bush and let him know this happened. I have nothing going in my life right now where I'd be like, baby, if anything happens, call Obama. If anything happens, call the vice president. Call Joe Biden, please. Call Joe Biden, get Jill on the horn, and let her know that her husband needs to talk to you. You know how it goes. We all want everyone to call the second most highest office holder in the land when we die.

Just in case. So there's so many suspects with the Aronau case. They don't even know where to start. Yeah. Because, A, is it, who knows, business rivals, drug lords? He's selling boats to smugglers left and right? Is it jealous husbands of women he's banging around town? Who is it?

They have no idea where to start. They're like, this is like a... Wow. Open up the phone book. Maybe it's that guy. A million people could hate him. Could be anybody. So we'll take a break from Aronau for a minute.

We'll get back to him. Aronau is cooling down. He's on a slab now cooling okay now in 87 an fbi agent says he can tie the the lanier and mostly kramer enterprise to at least six executions and more but those are the ones he has evidence of uh only one is brought to court lanierier isn't charged ever for that. In July 88, the trial begins. These federal trials take a while. They build their evidence.

They don't fuck around. They're not sitting there for a month waiting. You're there for a year and a half, obviously. July 88, trial begins. Witnesses testify to seeing Lanier give Kramer $100,000 cash at a time in an envelope for deliveries, things like that. They were telling how the money flowed up to the top, how the whole operation worked. Assholes. Yeah, there's underlings that didn't have 60 million cash buried in the Everglades that wanted deals.

I get their motivation, but they're dicks. And they're facing 80 years in jail, 100 years in jail. Yeah, but they're still dicks. They're still dicks. They knew what they were getting. If they know all this information, they knew what lifestyle they were leading. You're a dick. You open your mouth after that, you're a dick. I agree. You know exactly

what you're into, and they're going to fucking hang these guys for it. So Lanier is all teary-eyed in court. The judge was getting mad at him, saying he was,

like, you know... Trying to sway the jury. Yeah, just, he was being shitty to him, basically. Lanier's attorney said, it's so sad how they have to play this card,

because it's just bullshit. Yeah. He said that, quote, Lanier, quote, succumbed to how they have to play this card because it's just bullshit he said that quote Lanier quote succumbed to the irresistible lure of marijuana at an early age it's like he was fucking getting high and eating Cheetos

right to make it sound like he was out he had to go murder women ritualistically he had to it's not Ted Bundy

no he's fucking selling weed they're not off to the fucking LaBianca house. That's what I mean. It's fucking weed. Yeah. And all of these underlings that are testifying, his attorney said, Lanier's attorney said,

quote, proof will show that the federal government has entered into an unholy alliance with a bunch of drug smugglers, which encouraged them to minimize their roles. That's a great lawyer. Yeah. I like that lawyer. They're saying, I didn't do anything. It's all Randy Lanier and Kramer, man. We didn't own anything. I just like turning wrenches and building lawyer. Yeah. I like that lawyer. They're saying, I didn't do anything. It's all Randy Lanier and Kramer, man. We didn't own anything.

I just like turning wrenches and building boats. Absolutely. Now, December of 88, December 5th, sentencing comes around because they're all guilty of everything, obviously. They all get found guilty of all of these. Like I said, there's a drug smuggling, there's fraud, there's tax evasion, money laundering, and there's several rounds of it. So we'll just,

this round. You have to. God damn it. They are the judge, district, U.S. district judge, James Foreman. This is his sentencing quote.

And I, it's a, I have to say it, but it's annoying as shit because it's just bullshit. It's, it's, you'll see here.

Quote, you have caused a lot of heartache and ruined a lot of lives in this country bullshit it's a you sir may fuck off it's not a good fuck off like it's not he didn't even practice that one like the other sodomized like four women that's when you're like you sir may fuck off getting that goddamn jail and never come out but this is like i don't want him to fuck off it's bullshit so they sentence him to life without parole lanier kramer all of them get life without parole man ouch how sick is that he denies emotion this is brilliant and i think it's hilarious yeah this is what wise asses these guys are keep in mind everybody's white yeah everybody is white trash redneck turn millionaire okay they filed a motion to dismiss

the indictment because they claim the drink the grand jury that indicted them was quote constitutionally invalid because there was no black people on i like it nobody involved the case is black he said it's not fair because i didn't have a jury there was no black people on my jury the judge said are you out of your fucking mind you're an idiot can i can i call hr because holy shit that's brilliant honestly i i was fucking impressed with that personally i thought that was brilliant that's awesome but uh so yeah kramer lanier and eugene a fisher who's another co-conspirator received life in prison without parole. They're sentenced under the 84 Superdrug Kingpin Provision

of the Continuing Crime Enterprise Statute, which is just federal bullshit that put people away for longer. Part of the war on drugs horseshit. Randy Lanier said, fucking, this is good in their own words, in their own words, quote, I was willing to do 10 years,

a sane amount, to keep me from doing it again really like that was fine right 10 years would have been plenty life's a little steep right this is a bit stiff fellas okay now here's where the fun starts if it's as if we aren't having fun already yeah this is where if nothing has got crazy yet yeah this is where the fun shit happens okay december 88 they were holding Kramer up in New York, at Raybrook, New York, in a federal prison. He's transferred down to the Federal Metropolitan Correctional Facility in Miami

to face charges. He's got another smuggling indictment against him in Fort Lauderdale, a separate thing from Lanier, and also a gun charge in Miami, which he's already been convicted for. He's coming down for sentencing. He's already rocked up for life. He's already in parole for life, right?

So he's down there. This is great, right? And in this also, too, his father, Jack, is charged in this case. Oh, no. A guy named Sam Gilbert, who's an L.A. millionaire contractor and a big-time crooked UCLA sports booster.

It's like, so more sports shit in here so he's involved he apparently uh laundered you know tens of millions of dollars for this organization here and before this indictment the gilbert guy sam gilbert dies four days before the indictment not even suspiciously really just dropped dead he's like i can't do this he had boat fatigue he just exploded into nowhere He was like, I can't do this. I'm going to die. He had boat fatigue. He just exploded into nowhere. I was going fast for too long, and it just boom, it disintegrated. So, yeah, Gilbert's son, Michael, is also involved, and also the Marvin Kessler, the crooked drug lawyer, is also charged in this case, too.

Good, fuck him. Yeah, good, fuck him. That's the only one in this whole thing that I fucking don't like. Good. So, this is the first case ever where our guy killed his middle-aged white man. We'll get into that. It comes up. So here we go.

April 17th. Holy shit. Jimmy, boy oh boy. April 17th, 1989. And you'll see in a lot of articles it says 1990. It's not fucking 1990. It's fucking 1989 because i dug up la times articles and miami herald articles with the date on them so anybody if you see 1990 not that anyone's

looking this up except for me right but just in case it's not 1990 it's 1989 cox because i looked it up trust me i cross-referenced that shit kramer is 34 years old at this time yep he's in a high security area okay of the prison uh-huh he goes for a walk in the yard there's an early morning there's about a half dozen inmates outside they're playing basketball and cards and shit like that it's an overcast morning yep out of nowhere a helicopter appears in the south sky and lowers into the fucking yard now prison yard it's only the yard's only 47 feet across oh my god so this is a tight squeeze okay so and those blades are like 30 feet yeah so this is a tight squeeze right five on each side it's a small two-seater helicopter it's a bell model 47d-1 in case anybody's a helicopter aficionado because I fucking looked it up. I want to know everything, damn it.

So the chopper lowers into the prison yard. Kramer reaches up and grabs one of the skids and this fucking thing takes off. He has set up a helicopter prison yard escape. El Chapo's got nothing on him. Nothing. That is amazing. Instead of going underground, he's going above ground, baby. I love him.

Grabs onto the skid, Helicopter starts taking off. 007 style. Not quite as slick because it starts tilting to the right because one of the rotors gets caught in the barbed wire on top of the fence that holds the fence up. It teeters. The helicopter crashes into the 14-foot-high fence, teeters in it for a while like a fly caught in a spider web,

and then falls face first into the ground oh no does he die it's no he does not die wow inmates start rushing over some say they were to go trying to help some say trying to escape yeah the fence is fucked up and also maybe seeing if we can fix that helicopter armed guards encircle the area. There's fuel leaking out everywhere also. The pilot is a guy named Charles Clayton Stevens. He's got both his legs are broken. Sounds like a major hillbilly. He built this thing in his backyard.

No, he didn't. We'll find out how he got this. Both his legs are broken. He's got internal damage. Kramer fractures an ankle in the melee here. He twists an ankle. That's all. That's great.

The warden of the prison john clark said quote they gave it a try and they sure made a mess of it which i think is just as simplistic as you can get that's an awesome they gave it a try yeah steven they made it that that that warden's quote would have been entirely different i don't know how that should happen but they apparently stevens the shitty pilot had been taking flying lessons only for about five or six months yeah and needed a little more to maneuver yes i took lessons at a small miami private airport um yeah what he told the people at the at the flying school he wanted to be a crop duster so that's what he was doing there i gotta get low

yeah they're real low can i get how low can i yeah what if there's crops that are coming up about 14 feet high about 47 47 feet apart from each other? They've got barbed wire on top of the corn out there. Yeah, it's weird. Scarecrows are bad out there. Crows, you need scarecrows on barbed wire, let me tell you that. So Kramer's going to be charged with an attempted escape, obviously. Stevens, the pilot, is going to be charged with aiding an escape.

Stevens, turns out, is from Oregon. And the Fa had the helicopter bought under his name in january of this year so this has been going on for months this is april that this happened so this is a very well thought out point excuse me authorities are investigating obviously how kramer can set up such an elaborate plot from prison yeah i like this to clark the warden on this as well you this is what they have contingency plans for helicopter escapes. And he said, quote, I won't tell you everything, but if we have a clear shot at an inmate boarding, we'll take the shot. Awesome.

So he was risking his life in more than one way. Kramer, we'll shoot that son of a bitch. Yeah, and they're trying to figure out where his money is too because they come. Clearly he's got a lot. From Kramer, they confiscated $ 20 million in cash from him wow and they estimate that he had at least another 60 million out there somewhere laundered spent pissed away something so they were like stuck in a hole in florida yeah i mean he could be doing something like you know i don't know having boat mogul shot who knows in the streets yeah who knows so we'll see so at this point we get to june

5th 1989 and mark kramer ben's brother yep is arrested and held without bail at this point because after the investigation there's charges of for helping plot his brother's escape at this point wow federal magistrate said that mark plotted the escape over the phone with his brother bought the helicopter recruited the pilot sent him to helicopter school did everything wow charges of aiding and abetting an escape and conspiracy to assist an escape deputy u.s marshal uh thomas figment testified that ben called his brother from prison in march said he mentioned this is they had codes yeah he mentioned the theme song to mash suicide is painless because at the end they go up in a helicopter yeah with the song which is fucking

hilarious or however that song goes yeah yeah yeah that's it said ben said something about quote the doctor and quote an injury said that ben on the phone said that seven thousand dollars would be needed for an operation to repair something so they're like going over costs wow we need to pay this guy we need to grease this guy yeah we need this much for a helicopter uh so stevens this is the broken legged pilot here made a deal to cooperate he said that mark kramer gave him sixty thousand dollars for a piper aztec uh thirty five,000 for the two-seater helicopter using the Escape, and $34,500 for another plane. Because the plan was, helicopter him out to a small airport where they have a plane waiting to fly him to Colombia.

Where he has connections and money, probably, also. $35,000 is all it costs for a helicopter? This was for a small plane, and this was a two-seater little shitty helicopter. All right. You could put it together in your backyard. Really? Well, not you, but a mechanically inclined person. All right.

You know what I mean. So, not me either. Right. This is not an insult. Trust me. So, he paid for Stevens' helicopter lessons because Stevens knew how to fly planes but not helicopters. Gotcha. So, he had to have that.

A little refresher. Helicopter, they found the guy who they bought it from, said that it was bought in cash, cash money, 35 K, mostly hundreds. So that's awesome right there. It would have been only better if it was enrolled up like one dollar bills like they're doing coke on. So Stevens, the pilot, tells authorities that Mark Kramer, the brother here, threatened him into helping with the escape. that Mark Kramer, the brother here, threatened him into helping with the escape. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Katz said that Kramer, quote, repeatedly told him, don't rip me off, don't rip my brother off.

If you don't go through with it or if you screw it up, we know where your family is. My brother is a powerful and influential person. Oh, shit. So he's threatened him. Also said that Kramer told Stevens that he knew where his daughter lived and all this type of shit. So he said he was threatening Stevens. So where do I sign up? Where do I sign up for this enterprise here?

A police source familiar with Stevens said that Stevens was, quote, a mercenary type who'd do anything for hire. So, you know, who knows who's right and who's wrong. They're all scum. It doesn't matter. They're all fucking jackasses, especially these people that we get into.

They're more scum than... I feel like Lanier and Kramer are having a good time. Yeah. Except for murdering people in their enterprise just smuggling weeds fine but uh so kramer's attorney uh mark kramer's attorney larry rosen said the statement stevens made were after the crash when he was in pain so we can't take those for you know on face value uh rosen denied the attorney here denied that it was even mark on the phone with ben he said how do you even know that was mark on the phone with ben making these plans you don't have any proof just because ben said it was

mark that doesn't mean it's mark on the other end that's a good point he's singing the tune to mash i mean he did say hey mark how you doing but that could have just been code yeah we don't know it's him could have been somebody else same voice same name but come on guys got a point so mark was living at a time was living in a seven thousand dollar a month beverly hills home oh my god in 1989 seven thousand a month so that's a high mortgage the mortgage was being paid by one of the drug rings front companies all right it was one of the one that gilbert the gilbert the la guy was washing the money from there when mark was arrested he was in a one-bedroom in la an apartment he's in an la apartment one bedroom living like a fucking comedian except for us

roommates he's living in fucking glendale somewhere just about to go to an open mic at 8 30 and they bust in the door and take him down fucking some places smells all musty they're like i was gonna go get i need cheese sticks for these guys. So the plan, of course, was to get Ben to Columbia. That never happened here. Ben Kramer, our main guy, is eventually sentenced to 125 extra months in prison for this and a $100,000 fine. 125 extra months? 125 extra months. That's 10 years.

10 extra years. He's life without parole. What's the difference? 10 years for trying to escape? That's crazy. It is. That's a long time in that spectacular fashion

in an amazing way just for the entertainment value never mind we're going to call it a day on that one those Alcatraz guys that made paper mache heads and shit

that's nothing nothing they can grab onto a helicopter skid like some kind of action star you're trying to do it one handed that's amazing that's some action star

shit right there if he was shooting with the other hand that would have been the other 50 cal that's like impossible to shoot so mark gets a uh gets sentenced to 90 months in prison which is stiff plus three years supervised released all they all put appeals they all have attorneys so there's appeals going out they lose all of these appeals they tell them just go fuck themselves yep uh ben kramer in the fort lauderdale case that he was down in florida to begin with four when he tried to escape he receives another 40 years for that um and another five years for the possession of a weapon by a felon down in miami that he had been down there for jesus christ this is a fucking he's just got

time on top of time people are in jail for life, Jimmy. People are dead. Yeah. Fortunes have been lost. It's all over. It's such a fucking... Just everything is so messed up. I mean, the level of destruction in all of this is so... And I feel bad.

I feel bad for all these people. But not nearly. Nearly as bad as I feel for Ben Kramer, the vice president of immunology and ophthalmology units at Genetech Roche in San Francisco. Or Ben Kramer, the history teacher at Springfield High School in Springfield, Illinois, who's also an assistant men's basketball coach

at the Lincoln Land Community College. Don't fuck up, sir. We'll talk about you, too. Yeah, Ben Kramer, the CFO and senior vice president of 10X Capital Management with a master's of finance from the University of North Carolina. He's got it together. Look at him. Ben Kramer, member of the board of directors for the Laramere Humane Society in Fort Collins, Colorado. Oh, he's a sweet man. And an attorney for Gus Johnson and Muffley, practicing in the areas of real estate and business law. the areas of real estate and business law if you need to contact the laramie uh humans humane society it's 970-226-3647 their hours are 11 to 7 p.m don't google them because they'll talk about

this fucking talk about this guy poor little ben kramer the high school freshman football guy on the football players a running back cornerback for the blue mountain freshman football team in Schooley Kill Haven, Pennsylvania. A little 5'8", 140-pound... Chef Ben Kramer, the custom catering in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Chef Ben Kramer at gmail.com if you guys want to drop him a line and explain what a poor son of a bitch he is. Kramer with a K, guys.

Ben Kramer, state delegate for District 19 in Montgomery County, Maryland. Oh, my God. BenKramer.org, if you want to drop the limelight. Last but not least, Rabbi Ben Kramer. Oh, no. There has to be a Jewish guy in here. Leader of the Temple in Munster, Indiana.

There you go, guys. That's terrific. Those people are the people I feel bad for. Yeah. Now, Lanier, he's doing okay in prison. He's in prison, but in 1990, he marries a woman in a Wisconsin prison. How about that? That's nice.

1990 gets interesting for Kramer here. As June 12, 1990, Robert S. Young, a 41-year-old man, is arrested for shooting Don Arno. Arno. Okay. Young has a slew of shit. He's a mess, this guy. Previous drug and murder convictions. He's in prison at this point already for murder.

He's done already. This guy, wow. The feds say he's been a prime suspect for a long time, basically. They've been looking at him. This is really shady here. This is shifty shit. All right. There's conspiracy books written about

this literally conspiracy books because young ran a prostitution ring in the 70s he also got caught smuggling weapons into cuba into cuba into cuba which you know who smuggles weapons into cuba is the cia yeah and you know who ran the cia is Bush. Right. And you know who's involved in all this shit is George Bush. So they're basically saying they set this guy up as a fall guy because whatever.

Which I don't know if that could be a blow to shit. That's clever. There's tentacles everywhere. It's one of those things. He was in a Cuban jail down there

when he was freed by Jesse Jackson. That Jesse Jackson. And some, when he was running for president in 84 and some deal he made with that it's crazy shit um so young's a black guy yeah no he's a white guy he's a white guy and jesse jackson was a political prisoner it was a political thing trying to get

you know whatever jesse jackson gave a shit young was suspected of killing a drug dealer immediately upon returning to the u.s in 1984 1984. And never arrested, though. He's arrested for kidnapping in August of 87, skipped bail on that, in 88 he's rearrested and pleads guilty to the 1984 murder. Gotcha. He goes down for fucking ever, basically. This is when the Mike Britton witness does not pick him out of a lineup.

Oh. There's a lineup there. He's in it. He says, I don't see the guy. And I saw an interview with the Britton guy, and he said, guy I saw in the Lincoln wasn't't in that lineup right prosecutor pulled me aside and said uh you know listen we think we got the right guy so why don't you go take another look and he said i went back in there looked again and said still not there i don't know what you want from me

he said they don't want to talk to me anymore where is the guy because uh you say you got him and i don't see him he saw the killing and they said they just didn't want anything to do with him after that because they wouldn't say the guy that they wanted to say. So it's really shady here. Now, November 1st, 1990, a book comes out called Blue Thunder. Terrible. But guys, okay. Journalists, stop with the wordplay in your article titles and your puns and your horse shit.

And book people, shorten your fucking titles up. It's a synced, shorten your fucking titles up. It's succinct, guys. Listen to this. Blue Thunder, colon, how the mafia owned and finally murdered cigarette boat king Donald Aronoff. Jesus. For Christ's sake.

It covers your whole cover of your book. For God damn it. Now, they don't know shit at this point. Nobody's been convicted of anything. They don't know how the mafia did it. Basically, it's just a speculative book about the mafia because Goodfellas came out there. That's all it is, basically. It's bullshit. It's like know how the mafia did it. Basically, it's just a speculative book about the mafia because Goodfellas

came out there. That's all it is, basically. It's bullshit. It's like, we can find a story. We can find a story. We can sell a book.

Yeah. So at this point, 1991, federal agents confiscate Randy Lanier's brother's home. This is years later, saying that it was used

for illegal activities in connection with the drug organization. Back in the day, the brothers never charged with a crime or anything they just came in and took his home wow i mean that's how shitty the federal government is with these drugs anything back then they made it so the drug shit was a license to put you in jail forever take everything you ever owned yeah if you had anything to do it's ridiculous 1993 the state of florida indicts ben kramer for the

murder of arno now this i don't know how they telepathically figured this out, because the thing is, Young never flips on him. Young never says that he told him to do it. There's no evidence of it, but they charge him with it. He's in jail for life without parole, so they can charge him and just wait to try him whenever they want and see what happens. So what they do is, this is messed up here.

We'll get to that in one second, but in 93 also, Lanier's girlfriend, Maria, his wife at the time, Maria Della Louise Maggi Lanier. Oh boy.

Holy fuck. I'm scared of her. Yeah. She gets sentenced to nine years in prison for money laundering in connection with the organization.

So they're just trying to fuck everybody they can and probably took her house and cars and whatever else she had. October 1995,

Young pleads, the murder trigger man, pleads, finally pleads no contest to second degree murder to spare him

the death sentence. That's what it was. They were threatening death sentence. Also, too, in this deal, he doesn't have

to testify against Kramer. So basically, they're like, we don't even need you even though we have no evidence. How the hell do they get this? It's a totally weak case. death sentence yeah um also too in this deal he doesn't have to testify against kramer so basically like we don't even need you even though we have no evidence how the hell do they get this it's a totally weak case what they do is they keep him in the not in prison where there's like long-term accommodations they keep him in the worst part of the miami or the dade county jail oh jesus three years oh god they deny him medical care, dental care. They keep him in the coldest cell they can.

They give him the worst food pots. They're trying to break him. Yeah. They want somebody to say that that fucking guy, they killed him so they can close it so it doesn't get tied back.

You want out of here? Just talk. So it doesn't get tied back to anybody else. Right. Because who knows? Because also, too, we're talking about drugs

in South America. Bush was knee deep and all the White House was knee deep in trading arms for this one and that one and financing coups and everything else. This is deep shit. They want no part of it. They want the book closed on this Arano asshole. All because of a goddamn box truck.

All because of a fucking box truck, Jimmy. I'm telling you, man. This is unbelievable. It starts with just... I mean, if this was a movie, that'd be the first scene would be a cop, like on a dark night. You'd hear cop footsteps. And then it would open up on him walking up with a flashlight just looking at a box truck. The flashlight pans across the camera.

And then we'd go back to them racing and all that. But we'd start in the middle like good fellas with Billy Bats in the trunk. So, yeah, they keep him there for three years. They break him. Finally in 96, because he's in for life without Pearl anyway, he says, fine, I can't take it anymore in here. Pleads no contest to second-degree murder. He said, I can't take it anymore.

This was after Young had pleaded no contest to and just taken it. He said, fine. Each him and Young both get 19 years extra for this. That's their deal. Holy shit. No contest, second-degree murder. You each get 19 years. Because they have no case. They just torture him until they say yes, and then they go to prison for this. That's their deal. No contest. Second degree murder. You each get 19 years. Because they have no case

they just torture them until they say yes and then they go to prison for it. And they go to prison and now that case is closed and no one has to worry about it anymore and George Bush can sleep at night.

Yeah. So while in prison Lanier gets into yoga and meditation. I would too. He has a total like Kramer's trying to escape on helicopters

and fight murder charges. This guy's like relaxing. He's like namaste. He's painting on canvas now and doing yoga and shit like what are you fucking raking in a sand yoga garden yeah he's just called a model prisoner like it's insane like how zengarden there you go uh 99 uh his money laundering wife there magi lou whatever the fuck. She divorces him in 99. So what do you expect? She got out of prison and was like, you're never getting out.

I got to carry on a life. Life without parole here. Now, in 2008, there's an article about a guy who does these Alaska trips all the time. And the boat he does them on is the Ursa Major. And he takes tourists up on these Alaska trips. major and he makes he takes tourists up on these alaska trips and just in passing they mention that it's really cool too to show everybody because it's outfitted for drug smuggling because it used to belong to the big drug smuggler ben kramer who had it all specially out for drug smuggling so there's like secret and he bought it at like a government auction

or some shit that's what he did and he's doing tours on it now and it's like that's just an extra thing like this is the boat i need for that alaska tour hey cool it was owned by a drug smuggler so this is neat there's a selling point the article is in a travel magazine i found like some weird 2008 northwestern travel magazine yes i'm looking at 2008 northwestern travel magazines god damn it to dig for you guys write us an itunes review please for god's sake I beg of you. I'm going to kill myself. I killed three pens for you today, this week, guys. You understand? Not even pens I'm killing.

So anyway, March 2010, Kramer tries to get his murder conviction thrown out. He's trying to get it thrown out. Why? At this point, what does it matter? What does it matter right but he said he apparently he says that robert young the trigger man told prosecutors right after the whole plea thing that colombian drug dealers actually paid for the aranau hit and not him all right he's trying to say that the prosecutor swept it under the rug and just convicted kramer anyway which is probably true yeah i don't trust any of these

people no i don't trust any of them i trust the government i don't trust any of this there's all also too locally all sorts of corruption. Oh, I'm sure of that. When this case went down, the Aronow shit, dominoes were falling of local politicians. It was a mess. And Florida's a nightmare now. Now. And this is 40 years ago.

Drug-fueled as it could be. So on December 15, 2010, his murder conviction is upheld. Now, he's fucked, Kramer. Because he's got that, he's got all that. October 15, 2014, Randy Lanier is released from a federal prison after 27 years. Lately, this administration, the Obama administration, has been kind of commuting the long, crazy 80 sentences that we got. These crazy, draconian, lunatic drug sentences.

He's writing a bunch of wrongs. Yeah, he's commuting a bunch of these. Like, you've been in jail for 27 years for weed. I think you learned your lesson. So they do. Go on home. They release him after 27 years. He's sent to a Florida halfway house where he's got to spend like three years there.

He's going to be drug tested and shit like that every week but he's psyched to be out he doesn't give a shit I don't blame him at all right I would be too October 19th 2014 Lanier posts he's got a Facebook profile now he's on social media he posts a picture of himself so friend Randy Lanier guys on Facebook and give him some some fucking support yeah because I mean he did 27 years for weed, guys. Yeah. We talk about a lot of scumbags.

Ben Kramer's a scumbag. This guy's not that much of a scumbag. He's murdering people. Yeah. So the caption here, it's Lanier at the beach in Florida

and the caption is toes in the water, ass in the sand, no worries in the world, trees, birds, and cars, no prison bars, life is good today. Don't be a poet,

douchebag. You motherfucker. You canvas painting fuckhead, stop it. We just talked about trees birds and cars no prison bars life is good today don't be a poet you motherfucker you canvas painting we just talked about you being a great person and now you're fucking ruining you know what don't friend friend him and call him a cunt something now friend him it's fine just tell him don't write poetry assholes stop with the poetry and your fucking zen garden speeches yeah tell me some interesting drug smuggling stories how about that so that's where they sit uh lanier is hanging out he works for a museum a car museum a racing museum because he knows he knows everything and he's a famous guy and this is the guy's people i'm sure go in there just asking about drug smuggling florida shit in the

heyday he invented miami vice so I mean, that's that. And Ben Kramer's fucked. Ben Kramer's in jail. They looked at his case, and even with that, he's got murder. He's got other cases. He's got weapons. They're not touching his. He's tried to get it commuted there.

He's not a sympathetic case. No. They look at Lanier, and they're like, it's just weed. It's all weed. They look at Kramer, and they're like, this guy, who the fuck knows. A box truck ruined this guy's life. Yeah. Whereas this guy killed a silver haired middle aged white man. Murdering ruined his life.

Think about this. Any silver haired middle aged white man around him felt the wrath. Yeah. The lawyer went to prison and the other guy got killed. Yeah. So beware silver haired middle aged white men all around the world. There is shit that can happen to you too it can happen to you so I mean that

that is Ben Kramer and for some bit of it too Randy Lanier and Don Aranow and this whole South Florida racing drug mess of an 80s scene wow did you expect that would be all there those reservoir dogs in crime and sports

that's what that was we're doing a power boat race you're like what it's so deep so yeah it's deep as the ocean it's deep as the ocean man it's crazy so i mean that's what we're trying to do here we're getting deep jimmy yeah and that's that's what it is i hope you guys like that yeah it was fun it was fun man it's very it's very intense and uh if you were working filing papers you had a hell of a story you had a hell of a story because it's like deep and long. And like I said, go back and recheck the names and go through it. And it's not 1990.

The escape attempt was in 89, you bastards. And he crashed into a fence. That's my favorite part of it. That's the most amazing thing. Insane. He grabs onto the skid and tries, take off now. Go, go, go. It's like, who does that?

That's awesome, man. But that's just but that's that's the the life that he was leading is just this desperate balls out balls out on the edge that's it pushing the envelope that's that's that man so hope you guys like it hey follow us on our social media by the way guys uh crime and sports at gmail.com at crime and sports on twitter crime and sports stock or facebook.com slash crime and sports uh patreon page if you want to throw us a few bucks for our insanity there's some cool rewards on there for some pens yeah for some pens and some index cards you have no idea guys uh it's

patreon.com slash crime and sports or you can just give us an itunes review because that's free yes and we love them so much so that would be awesome. Next week we have some more wild shit for you. I can't wait. Get back into the mainstream sports next week and get a little crazy. I got some fun shit for you.

Good. It's going to be fun. Why don't you hit them with your social media? I am Jimmy Wissman at Wissman Sucks on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat.

And I'm having fun with Snapchat. W-H-I-S-M-A-N Sucks. And I'm at I'm at fun with Snapchat. W-H-I-S-M-A-N sucks. And I'm at a Tembler Brewing Company in Bakersfield, California this Thursday, July 21st. So if you're in that area, come hang out.

If you're in Bakersfield, knock yourselves out, guys. Do that. And if you are in Bakersfield, I'm sorry. That's not the best place. But I'm coming, so let's party. Get some meth up there for Jimmy. Let's party and forget that we're in Bakersfield yes definitely also too

I do want to thank a person here thank all of our listeners as usual and we have a bunch of new listeners that have just been awesome to us

but I want to thank one person who's not a listener but does our social media for us I want to thank Sarah Hunt she does our social media

for us all of those cool pictures that you see of silver haired middle aged white men and all those memes and all that little funny shit, that's all her. That is not us, guys. We are not that creative. We do

this as basically it. Otherwise, she does all that stuff for us and she makes us interesting to follow for you guys. We just can't thank her enough. Guys, shout out a thank you to her on on social media for making it fun. And otherwise, guys, we hope you had a good time like we did.

Yeah. Holy shit. Please, guys. The wait is over. So far, you're not losing. The only thing you're losing is my patience. Quickly, I see that. The queen of the courtroom is back.

I didn't do anything. You wouldn't know the truth if it came up and slapped you in the face. I see he's not intimidated by anything. I can fix that. New cases. She wanted to fight me. Leave her alone. Okay, so, um...

This is not a so. This is a period. Classic Judy. Did you sleep with her? Yes, Your Honor. You married his cousin. His brother. That's not him. Yes, ma'am.

I would make a beeline for the door. The Emmy Award-winning series returns. How did I know that? I have a crystal ball in my head. It's an all-new season. It's streaming. You can say anything. Judy Justice, only on Freebie.