Infamous America - Introducing "Hemingway's Picasso" from Sony Music Entertainment

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

Steve Kough lived many lives. He was an NFL journeyman, a male model, and one of the most well-connected smugglers in 1980’s Miami, the “Drug Capital of the World." Kough collected many souvenirs from his adventures, but his most treasured bounty – a beautiful ceramic, crafted by Pablo Picasso and gifted to Ernest Hemingway at the author’s Cuban home, the Finca Vigia... or so the story goes. Lost during the Cuban Revolution, the artwork resurfaced when Kough took it as a payment for drug run financed by the notorious Pablo Escobar. Kough passed away in 2018, passing the piece down to his son, Stevie, a skateboarding hippie growing weed in California. Stevie feels he needs to complete his father’s mission – of selling this piece and telling Steve’s cinematic life story. So, is the Picasso authentic—or a fraud? Was Steve Kough a big talker or a real deal smuggler? Does any of that matter or is this a story of aspiration, legacy, and difficult love? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stephen Coe had more wild experiences in a short period of time than most people do in their entire lives. He was an NFL football player, a male model, and one of the most well-connected drug smugglers in Miami in the 1980s. Hopefully you've all heard and remember our series on the Miami Drug Wars. Stephen was right in it. And during that time, he acquired a piece of art that became his most prized possession. It was a beautiful ceramic that was crafted by Pablo Picasso and given as a gift to Ernest Hemingway. Or so the story goes. The piece was lost during the Cuban Revolution, but resurfaced when Coe took it as payment for a drug run that was financed by the notorious Pablo Escobar.

When Stephen Coe passed away in 2018, the Picasso went to his son, Stevie, a skateboarding hippie who grew weed in California. Stevie feels the need to complete his father's mission, to sell the piece and tell his father's cinematic story. But is the Picasso authentic or a fraud? Was Stephen Co. a big talker or a real deal smuggler? Does any of that matter? Or is this a story of aspiration, legacy, and difficult love? Here's a preview of the series.

Listen to new episodes of Hemingway's Picasso every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts. The year is 1989. Steve's been doing drug runs for over a decade. For this job, he's been asked to take a yacht to Cuba. He's going to smuggle it to Cuba. He's going to load it up with like refrigerators and satellite dishes and air conditioners, that kind of stuff.

Remember, the U.S., especially at this time, maintains a strict embargo against Cuba. It's illegal for businesses to trade between the two countries. tourism and travel is highly restricted. So goods that we take for granted are really hard to come by. Steve would bring these dry goods into Cuba and bring drugs back to the United States. But this run, it's a bit more interesting than his others. He's going to smuggle art back, all this leftover artwork from when, you know, fancy people left Cuba after the revolution.

I think the idea was they were just going to hang the artwork up on the wall, like it was just the artwork in the yacht. And so Steve could talk that game, that Steve could pretend to be a wealthy yacht owner out for a pleasure cruise, you know? Oh, yeah, I guess we did get sort of close to Cuba there. Did we stray over the international? Oh, God, I hope not.

So basically, Steve would play the dumb yacht owner, a role he could play well. Joseph's Steve had a contact, one of Pablo Escobar's American Connections. And that this art was meant to go to Escobar himself. You know, you use for collateral and things like that in the drug trades. You know, because Escobar is a thing for art. This is common in drug trades, using items of value like cars or art instead of cash.

There's less of a paper trail. In any case, Steve agrees to the deal. That becomes the Cuba run. Sounds straightforward enough. But this is the story that Steve spends hours telling. Literally. There are about 30 hours of tape, and there are lots of stories. The one you're about to hear is probably one of the craziest.

But allegedly, this limousine pulls up, and he described it pretty specifically. It's like a Mercedes-Benz limousine. One of the bodyguards, he's got like an oozy pointed at Steve's midriff. Steve looks at it and looks at the guy, says, hey, is the safety off on that thing? And the guy looks down at the gun, flips the switch, and he says, now it is. And the bodyguard asks him, you know, gestures to the man who's clearly in charge. And he says, do you know this man? And he says, no, but I voted for his brother.

The brother in question? Fidel Castro. As in the longtime socialist dictator of Cuba. Apparently, the bodyguard was protecting Fidel's brother, Raul, who was all so high up in the government. These are just a few name drops Steve has for us. The guards take Steve to what seems to be the basement of an old government building. There are guys down there with, it's just like a giant piles of money, like just loose bills. And there are these guys down there with pitchforks turning over the money like you would a pile of hay so that it doesn't rot.

Apparently, they're all $1,000 bills. Steve is going to smuggle piles of these bills out of Cuba. then they drive him out to the Hemingway Museum, the Finca. Think of Vahia. I can only describe the Finka Vahia, Hemingway's beloved Cuban home, as a time capsule. Imagine that one day you get up and leave your house and never come back. The Finkas like that, preserved in amber exactly as he left it for the last time. It's a pale yellow stucco house with large windows covered in greenery.

On the inside, it's filled with sculptures and animal heads and bullfighting paraphernalia that Hemingway collected himself. It's run like a museum now. In fact, when Steve stood in the doorway, he was greeted by a curator. This curator has to give this stuff over to Steve. The person is clearly, really upset about having to deal with this drug dealer and with what's going on, which is a piece of the museum's collection. His boat's been loaded up by the military, and he gets on the yacht, and he heads back to Florida. Steve collected the piece.

This was Fred and Betty. Steve was meant to trade the piece for payment once he got back to the United States. But then very quickly, the walls fall in around everybody's head. In Colombia, Ascabar's Medellin cartel was falling apart. Carlos later, his point man in the Bahamas, was arrested and extradited to the U.S. in 1987. Escobar himself was on the run until he was killed by an American task force in 93, six years later. In Cuba, Castro executed one of his generals for drug smuggling, allegedly to cover up his own government's involvement. And so, you know, basically every single pillar of this, you know, whole shaky edifice just collapses.

And so Steve is left with the piece.