Infamous America - MIAMI DRUG WARS Ep. 3 | “The Two-Headed Beast”

Episode Date: April 7, 2021

Griselda Blanco escalates her wars against her rival drug lords in Miami, primarily through the use of her top hitman, Rivi Ayala. Rivi helps carry out a daylight attack at Miami International Airport that brings more national attention to the growing drug problem in Miami. Meanwhile, Jon Roberts and Mickey Munday revolutionize the cocaine smuggling industry through audacious plans and new techniques. Join Black Barrel+ for bingeable seasons with no commercials : blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Miami drug lord Papo Mejia stepped off the plane and made his way through customs at Miami International Airport. Papo was returning from Columbia, where he and his men had just engaged in open warfare with enforcers sent by cocaine godmother Griselda Blanco. Poppo scanned the airport. He looked for anyone or anything that seemed suspicious. The firefight in Colombia hadn't been his first encounter with Griselda's men. The two drug lords had been at war for over a year. There'd been attacks in Miami, New York, and then Columbia. Papo knew no place was safe when Griselda Blanco had you on her list. Poppo stepped outside from customs.

Miguel Miguel Miguelito Perez, a hitman for Griselda, seemed to appear out of nowhere. Instead of using a semi-auto handgun or an Uzi or a Mac 10 or any of the other weapons that would become synonymous with 1980s drug violence, Miguelito had a World War II bayonet. He wrapped an arm around Popo's neck and started stabbing. Travelers screamed, and cops swarmed the sight of the shocking attack. The drug lord lay bleeding on the cement,

and the hitman ran inside the airport. It was September 15, 1982, and the cocaine wars reached another drug. new level of violence. My relentless sleep problems have always come from an overactive mind. I lay in bed at night with my mind racing from one thing to another, and then, of course, I have a brainstorm about something new. That lights the fire, and then I'm in real trouble.

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And they have a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. Mood.com promo code infamous. From BlackBarrel Media, this is Infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. In this season, we're telling us six-part story about the Miami drug wars of the 1970s and 1980s. This is episode three, The Two-Headed Beast. Griselda Blanco kept a list of enemies she wanted dead.

While it wasn't known at the time, the Dadeland Mall shooting in 1979 that resulted in the murder of drug boss Jimenez Panesso and his bodyguard, was directly connected to Griselda's list. Dade Land proved Griselda would strike any time and anywhere. She wasn't afraid of drawing attention to the drug trade, and she didn't care about collateral damage. In order to cross names off her list, Griselda needed a stable of enforcement. Horaceers. Jorge Ayala Rivera, known as Rivi, became one of her top assassins. Rivie was born in Colombia, but grew up in the U.S. He claimed being raised in America set him apart from a number of other hitmen involved in the drug trade. He was fluent in English and Spanish, so he had no problem going between the Colombians and the Americans

who worked for the Medellin cartel. And in general, he had no problem killing people. Griselda's list was long and never stopped growing. If Rivi or another enforcer killed someone on the list, it was certain that someone else would soon take their place. Griselda set her aim on rivals in the drug trade, people to whom she owed money, and anyone she thought had betrayed her. That's how Papo Mejia ended up on the list.

Papo once served as an enforcer for Griselda, but he wanted to run his own operation. According to Griselda, Pappo betrayed her and stole from her to get started. Whether that's true or not, it's clear that Griselda didn't want Pappo working on his own. He'd set up his operation in New York, where Griselda had gotten her start back in the early 70s. Griselda saw Pappo's actions as a declaration of war. She sent Rivey to New York to make a statement. Within the span of a day, Rivey killed 11 of Pappo's men.

He said he could have killed 12, but he let one go. New York authorities couldn't ignore the similarities between the multiple hits in the city and some of the violence that had taken place in Miami. Like Dade Land, the killings in New York drew national attention to the drug trade. But that didn't phase Griselda. Her war with Papa was just getting started. In the summer of 1981, not long after his successful trip to New York, Rivi headed to the Pan American mall in Miami.

He and his men waited for Pappo's father, Octavio Mahia, to finish his shopping and come outside. As soon as Octavio left the mall, Rivi and his men ambushed him and opened fire. They killed Octavio and fled. A number of people in the trade thought Griselda crossed a line when she ordered the murder of Octavio. While Octavio had been a drug boss in his own right, most people didn't think he was part of the feud between Griselda and Poppo. Some of Griselda's friends turned into enemies. Rivi learned later that Poppo had been at the mall, waiting in the car for his father.

Rivi and Griselda weren't mad that former allies were turning against them. They were mad they'd missed a chance to take Poppo out. Rivi found out where Poppo's newest house in Miami was and planted a homemade bomb. The house blew up, but Poppo wasn't there. Rivi missed again. The explosion in the relatively quiet neighborhood stunned the community, and more calls went out for authorities to put an end to the escalating drug war. Rivey had hit Poppo's people in New York and Miami,

but still hadn't killed his intended target. And now Griselda had to dispatch Rivi and other enforcers to Colombia. The drug trade had always been an international. operation, and the war between rivals in Miami was going international too. Attempts to kill Papo Mejia would have to wait. While the drug war expanded, the drug trade itself was transforming. Smugglers like John Roberts and Mickey Monday did their best to avoid the violence in Miami, while continually discovering new ways to sidestep the American government.

When John Roberts and Mickey Monday started working together in the early 80s, The government's war on drugs was moving into high gear. Multiple government agencies, including the DEA, FBI, Customs, and the Coast Guard, were increasing efforts to stop the cocaine trade between Colombia and Miami. John and Mickey put plans in place to keep their operation as far off the government's radar as possible. One of the earliest decisions was to keep their operation small in terms of people. They believed if they worked smarter and more efficiently than other groups, they could still make a lot of money without letting the organization get out of control.

The more people involved, the higher the chance that someone would talk or do something stupid. Even at their peak, John and Mickey only had about 40 people working for them. Other smuggling operations in Miami had hundreds. Mickey knew gadgets and John knew people. Max Murmolstein was technically still in charge of the operation, but John knew Max would just get in the way. While John and Mickey made their plans, John kept Max happy by bringing him a lot of money and treating him like the boss. In reality, Max was no longer making major decisions. Without Max looking over his shoulder, Mickey got to implement a range of strategies he'd been wanting to try.

He realized that to stay ahead of the government, you need to do this. to know what the government was doing. Mickey, the guy John would one day compare to McGiver, got a frequency scanner, and began listening in on government radio traffic. With the scanner, Mickey discovered the frequencies that were used by government agencies in the area. It was an ongoing job because they would often change

or add frequencies. Mickey then built radios that he connected to voice-activated recorders. When there was talk on one of the frequencies, Mickey was tracking, the recorder would kick on and capture the entire conversation. Mickey would sift through the recordings to find something important. It could be tedious, but it paid off immensely. Mickey heard the Coast Guard talking to the Miami Police Department or the Customs Service

about specific operations they were running against smugglers. That was why Mickey was always one step ahead of everyone else in the trade. He knew what the agencies were doing and where they were doing. doing it. To add insult to injury, Mickey dreamed up a truly audacious plan. He scoped out a large plot of land that was owned by the government. The area had been used in the 1960s to develop and transport material for the space program that was getting underway in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The now abandoned area had multiple roads that would be perfect for runways. The government had fenced off the land, but Mickey simply took their locks off the fences and replaced them with his own.

He could get in and out whenever he wanted. Plains bringing in cocaine would now have a secluded spot with enough runway to land and take off quickly, and the feds would never think to look for smugglers on their own property. In the early 70s, Griselda Blanco changed the way drugs were smuggled into the country by using young women as mules who wore specially designed. designed lingerie to carry cocaine. Now a decade later, Mickey Monday was innovating again. While federal agencies picked off larger smuggling operations one by one, John and Mickey's business flourished. When competitors fell by the wayside, John and Mickey picked up their part of the

trade while still staying small, fast, and flexible. Max Murmolstein threw lavish parties. John Roberts wasn't excited about the parties, but he felt he had to go in order to keep Max happy. The parties gave Max the chance to show off. Max had been known to greet guests outside while sitting on a horse and wearing a Spanish caballero outfit. The parties were also one of the ways Max reminded people that he was well connected. They were generally filled with high-ranking members of the Medellín cartel, including Max's immediate boss, Rafa Cordon. People feared Rafa because he was violent and unpredictable, which might have had something to do with the fact that Rafa regularly free-based cocaine.

But Rafa liked John. They'd get high together and make fun of Max behind his back. Still, John was smart enough to know that Rafa could turn on a dime. Rafa hated weakness and usually made it clear that he was the alpha in the room, especially when talking to women. That's why John was so surprised to see Rafa showing deference to a woman at Max's party. Rafa stepped away from the woman, and John quickly approached him. He wanted to know who she was, and Rafa explained that she was Griselda Blanco. John knew the name, of course, but he'd never met her. Rafa thought of her as a queen, but he told John she was dangerous.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, John approached Griselda. She was surprised by his command of the Spanish language, and the two seemed to hit it off. Then Rafa swooped in and pulled John away. He warned John that starting an intimate relationship with Griselda would be very bad for business. When John came to fully understand that Griselda was behind the Dayland shooting and that some people would link her to over 200 murders, he appreciated Rafa's gesture. At the time, though, John was disappointed. He couldn't explain why, but he was completely enamored with Griselda.

I guess I'm just weak for evil women, he said later. John and Griselda had very little contact in the coming years, despite both being so heavily involved in the drug trade. John's focus remained on the smuggling operation. He was constantly pressed by the Colombians to bring more Coke into America, and along with Mickey, he was determined to make that happen. While Griselda had been a smuggler in the past, she now sat atop an empire, and her main focus seemed to be on maintaining power in Miami.

While John and Mickey saw the U.S. government as their enemy, Griselda saw the rival drug lords as her enemies. Griselda and John represented two distinct aspects of the cocaine trade in Miami, and each was building pressure on the authorities. While John and Mickey set up landing strips on federal problems, property, Griselda continued to wage war against people on her enemies list. Griselda and the hitmen she hired were ruthless. Along with murdering 11 men in New York and blowing up a house, Rivey killed his best friend's

wife to protect Griselda. He'd also accidentally killed the two-year-old child of a target he missed in a shootout. The little boy's father had supposedly kicked Griselda's son in the butt. Though Rivey had tried to kill the father, Griselda thought the death of the man's own child made them even. Neither Rivi nor Griselda seemed to have any remorse about the situation. Another of Grzeldas henchman, a man who called himself Kumbamba, was said to enjoy painting and watercolors. He was also known for cutting up his victims with a chainsaw after he drained their blood. There was very little that killers like Rivi and Kambamba wouldn't do for their boss.

But that's not to say they would do anything. Self-preservation was important, and they had no desire to go on suicide missions. When Griselda told Rivi to stick Papo Mahia like a pig in broad daylight at Miami International Airport, he refused. She made an offer of $500,000, but he wouldn't change his mind. He told her there was no way to escape from a hit like that. He said he'd help, but he wouldn't carry it out himself. Another enforcer, Miguelito, didn't share Rivi's concerns.

Griselda wanted her men to stab Papa with an antique bayonet, and Miguelito volunteered for the job. In 1980, Fidel Castro went back on years of Cuba's closed immigration policy. He announced that for six months, the port of Mariel, Cuba's closest port to U.S. shores, would be open to those who wanted to leave the country. Castro said, those who have no revolutionary genes, those who have no revolutionary blood. We do not want them, we do not need them. In response to Castro, President Jimmy Carter said Cubans who left their country would be welcomed with open arms in the United States

and given access to asylum processing. Castro pounced on Carter's outreach. Behind the scenes, he forced certain groups of people to leave the country, along with those who were genuinely fleeing his regime. He forced dissidents, prostitutes, patients in mental hospitals, and some of Cuba's most hardened criminals to immigrate to the United States. The period became known as the Muriel Boat Lift. During that time, roughly 125,000 Cubans went to America, and many never moved beyond Florida.

Miguel Miguelito Perez, the soon-to-be hitman for Griselda Blanco, was part of the Exodus. While the Colombian Medellin cartel had all but eliminated Cubans from the upper ranks of the cocaine trade, the Cubans still played a major role at the street level. There was money to be made if you were willing to deal, and a lot more money if you were willing to kill. Miguelito was definitely willing to do that. Supposedly, he once told Rivi, if the money was right,

he'd walk up to the door of the White House and kill the president. And now, after a couple failed attempts, Griselda wanted to end Papo Mejia once and for all. She sent Rivi and his men to Columbia. While they were there, they engaged in gun battles with Papo's men and killed several, but they missed their primary target yet again. It was an unprecedented string of bad luck for Rivi,

even as he racked up a body count that looked more at home in an action movie than in real life. Almost immediately after Rivi returned to Miami in mid-September in 1982, he was summoned to a meeting with Griseldo. She'd learned that Pappo was on a flight to Miami that left shortly after Rivis. Griselda wanted Rivi to rush back to the airport to kill Papo Mahia. She gave Rivi a World War II bayonet. Allegedly, Max Mermelstein had bought it at an Army surplus store. When Rivi said no to the idea of killing Papo at the airport,

Miguelito said he'd do it. According to Rivi, Griselaida offered Miguelito $250,000 and a house to do the job. But Migolito needed help. He'd never seen Poppo. Rivi said he'd point out the drug lord at the airport, but after that, Migolito would have to do the hit on his own. The killers drove to Miami International Airport. Rivi identified Papo as Pappo walked out of customs, and then Rivi separated himself from Miguelito. Miguelito made his move.

Rivi watched from a distance as Miguelito grabbed Pappo from behind and started stabbing him with the bayonet. Poppo collapsed and Migolito made a run for it. Travelers screamed as Poppo lay bleeding on the ground. Rivi saw the cops swarm Migolito and take him down. Rivi left Migolito and drove away from the airport. He'd said it was a suicide mission, and he was right. He didn't think Migolito would rat them out, but he knew he'd be going away for a long time.

In fact, it was the last time Rivi saw Migolito. Vrizelda lost an enforcer who was willing to do anything. Even worse, he'd failed at his job. Papo was badly wounded, but he survived the attack. The man seemed to have nine lives. Like the Dayland Mall massacre, the attack at the airport garnered national attention. The fact that it was carried out in a crowded public space,

with a bayonet of all things, added to Miami's reputation as a modern-day wild way. Grizzleda's crew was dropping bodies from New York to Miami to Columbia and bringing new levels of heat onto the cocaine business. But some people in the operation didn't worry about the increased scrutiny. Mickey Monday loved the challenge. He'd never stopped trying to improve the operation. Even when the trade was going smoothly, he continued to work on the group's planes, boats, and cars to make them faster. He'd even come up with a spray to keep canine cops off the scent.

He'd take a solution of alcohol, kerosene, and bits of cocaine or marijuana that he'd blended together and spray it on concrete, telephone poles, truck tires, and other places where there were no drugs. If drug-sniffing dogs showed up, they'd be immediately drawn to those areas instead of spots where coke or marijuana might actually be hidden. But by 1983, customized planes and homemade sprays were not enough. Mickey and John faced a major challenge that required major changes. Griselda was about to make a change as well, one that seemed like deja vu to many people. She was still the godmother of the cocaine trade in Miami, but she was also still the Black Widow.

Most people believed Griselda Blanco was behind the murder of her first husband. Carlos Trujillo. She was said to have murdered her second husband, Alberto Bravo, in a nightclub parking lot in Bogota, Columbia. Now, in 1983, she was having problems with her third husband, Dario Sipulveda. Dario was cheating on Griselda with a topless dancer from Fort Lauderdale. Griselda confronted Dario at Max Murmolstein's house, and a heated argument ensued. The topic quickly shifted from Dario Zubeldarrored.

infidelity to their five-year-old son, Michael Corleone Blanco. Dario said the boy needed to start going to school, but Griselda wanted Michael around her. Dario knew if he wanted custody of the boy, he'd have to act fast. He took Michael and fled to Columbia, where he believed Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers could keep him safe from his wife's revenge. He was wrong. Dario was driving down the street in Medell, with Michael in the back seat when he got pulled over by the police, or at least by men posing as police. They ordered Dario to step out of the car

and then shot him dead while his son watched. Griselda Blanco had ordered the murder of her third husband. Her son Michael returned to Miami to live with his mother. Griselda never seemed to care about angering other members of the drug trade. Rivey suggested she reveled in it. She might not have known it at the time, but that attitude would come back to haunter. The execution of Dario Sepulveda in Medellin angered the wrong people,

and soon the godmother would have too many enemies to fight off. While forces within the Medellin cartel and the Miami drug trade started to plot the downfall of Griselda, the government was making it harder for John and Mickey to do their jobs. In 1983, the U.S. Air Force increased its involvement in America's war on drugs. Air Force radar and spy planes were now being used to help the custom service in the DEA. They were trying to make it impossible for drug planes to fly into Florida. Even some of the most daring pilots got cold feet.

Barry Seal, who was still flying for John, refused to fly for weeks at a time. John and his boss Rafa Cardona came up with a plan to make larger halls on each flight. When pilots were willing to make a run, they'd come back with enough cocaine to create a stockpile. The plan helped them keep the cartel happy for a time, but they knew the situation was untenable. As was often the case, Mickey Monday had an idea. When it was clear that flying planes into Miami, or even right off the coast, was getting too dangerous, he reimagined the airdrop. In traditional airdrops, planes flew in low. and dumped cocaine over a stretch of land,

and a ground crew picked it up. Air drops allowed pilots to avoid landing and taking off again, and they limited a plane's exposure. But the pilots still had to fly into Florida. Mickey developed a plan that allowed for drops into open water, 20 or 30 miles off the Florida coast. Specially sealed packages of coke were outfitted with beacons. Fishing boats were used to track the beacons,

find the Coke, and pick it up a day after it had been dropped. When the boats returned, they just seemed to have been out on a fishing trip for the day and drew little attention. The plan also allowed planes to turn around and head back to Columbia without ever crossing into Florida, or they could pose as tourist flights and simply land at an airport. John and Mickey and various other smugglers were still staying a half step ahead of the U.S. government, but it was getting harder. Plans were more complicated.

They had more moving pieces and more risk. And despite all of Mickey's inventions and advancements, a problem was brewing that neither he nor John were aware of. Miami cops were getting tips from Colombian drug dealers about a bearded gringo named John. Pressure was growing on the police to do their part to shut down the drug trade and the cocaine wars that were tearing up Miami streets. While people like John and Griselda continued to live lives of excess, cracks were starting

to show in the shiny facade. The good times wouldn't last much longer. Next time on infamous America, Griselda Blanco's years of extreme violence and rising drug use and paranoia prompted her to make a major change. The city of Miami and the U.S. government both formed task forces to ramp up the fight in the drug wars, and their efforts produce serious results that hurt the operations of John Roberts and many others. The battle reaches a turning point next week on infamous America.

And members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week. They receive early access and the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. begin at just $5 per month. This season was co-executive produced by Stephen Walters in association with ritual productions. Research and writing by Michael Federico. Original music by Rob Valier.

Audio editing and sound design by Dave Harrison. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com or on our social media channels. We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and be. barrel media on Twitter. And you can stream all our episodes on YouTube. Just search for infamous America podcast. Thanks for listening.