The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Meet The Man Who Smuggled 100 TONS Of Cocaine For The Medellin Cartel: Career Drug Trafficker Speaks

Episode Date: August 17, 2025

From flying cocaine-laden planes to running massive boat shipments, Luis Navia was a logistics mastermind for the Medellín Cartel — responsible for moving over 100 tons of cocaine into the U.S. and Europe. In this gripping full-length interview, Luis pulls back the curtain on a 25-year career that spanned the height of the cocaine boom, working alongside legendary traffickers like Pablo Escobar. - Surviving kidnappings & near-death experiences in the drug trade - The cartel’s control over coca production in Peru - The evolution of smuggling methods — from air to sea - How a mole inside the organization led to his capture - Life after prison & his book Pure Narco Now a construction company owner in Miami, Luis reflects on his Cuban heritage, the dangers of the cartel world, and the lessons learned from a life on the run. 📖 Pure Narco — Luis Navia’s autobiography: https://a.co/d/e9bGPbg This Episode Is #Sponsored By The Following: True Classic! Upgrade your wardrobe and save on @trueclassic at trueclassic.com/CONNECT! #trueclassicpod BETTERHELP! As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at https://betterhelp.com/connect MOOD! Head to https://mood.com/ and let Mood help you discover YOUR perfect mood. And don't forget to use promo code CONNECT when you check out to save 20% on your first order. Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow 00:00 Introduction: A Life in Drug Smuggling 01:52 Early Life and Cuban Heritage 07:41 Cuba Before and After the Revolution 10:41 FREE PATREON GIVEAWAY! 11:36 Growing Up In The Elite 16:00 Family’s Move to Miami & Childhood in Exile 23:17 This Episode Is Sponsored By True Classic! 25:30 Youthful Rebellion & Early Drug Exposure 32:00 First Steps into Drug Trafficking 45:43 Enter the Big Leagues: Medellín Connections 49:21 This Episode Is Sponsored By Betterhelp and MOOD! 52:35 How the Medellín Cartel Was Formed 01:08:44 Cartel Logistics & Drug Route Expansion 01:22:40 Building Distributions Across the U.S. 01:32:00 Smuggling Innovation: Planes, Boats, and the Keys 01:47:00 Adapting to Law Enforcement & Evolving Routes 01:55:30 Rising with the Northern Valley Cartel 02:06:00 The Era of Massive Freighters & European Expansion 02:19:59 Coke Money, Money Laundering, and New Markets 02:34:00 Arrest, Cooperation, and Prison Time 02:47:33 Lessons, Regrets, and the Future of the Drug Trade 03:02:00 Reflection, Wrapping Up & Book Recommendation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You make a million dollars a trip, but you got to pay these guys. And if you don't pay them, they're going to kill you. I was kidnapped three times. Almost ended up being fed to crocodiles. If I had to do this again, would I recommend this to anybody? No one. Luis Navia is a former top-ranking drug smuggler for the Medelline cartel. In his 25-year career, he estimates he moved about 100 tons of cocaine from Colombia,

into the United States, and Europe. His role was purely as a smuggler he never handled or sold any product. His job was logistics, moving his clients blow from point A to point B. Born to a wealthy Cuban family who immigrated to Miami when he was just a little boy, Luis fell in with the earliest wave of Colombian drug traffickers who were bringing Coke into Miami in the mid-1970s. By the late 80s, Luis had relocated to Colombia, where he worked with all of the major players in the Medellín cartel, including Jorge and Fabio Ochoa and, of course, Pablo Escobar. He was finally busted in the year 2000 in Venezuela, after the DEA and the United States,

The Venezuelan military seized one of his cargo ships carrying 65 tons of cocaine found for Europe. Nobody, and I mean nobody, knows more about the secret world of international drug smuggling than Luis Navia. These days, he's free from prison and running a construction company in Miami, and he's written an incredible autobiography called Pure Narco, what is by far the best book I've ever read about the narco era. Go to Amazon and pick it up. And for a bonus episode with Luis, where he spills the tea.

on all of the famous drug lords and reveals shocking, never-before-told details, go to patreon.com slash the Connect show. All right, you guys, it's very rare that I get to speak with a man of this caliber. You're going to absolutely love him. The pure narco, Luis Navia, right here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell. How do you feel being the son of what the communists and the revolutionaries in Cuba under Fidel? They weren't communist. They were just wanted to overthrow Bautista and everybody that was a part of that oligarch.

You're from that. Your father was right-hand man with the biggest sugar baron on the island. How do you feel now, years later, looking back, how do you feel about what happened? Cuba was the most advanced country in Latin America. You know, the U.S. dollar was equal to the peso. had a fantastic economy. Yes, there were poor people. There's poor people everywhere.

There's poor people here. There's poor people in Germany. It's a Latin American country, but Cuba was very advanced. And it had a high level of professionals, entrepreneurs, engineers, a lot of people educated in U.S. universities because there was a close time between Cuba and the U.S.

So Cuba was on its way to, the glory, let's say. There was a lot of progress in Cuba. You know, TVs were coming to Cuba and American cars and industry. The sugar industry was booming. So you think some of that capitalism? Because there really was a ton of poverty, a ton of corruption under Batista, a ton of criminality, literally. You think, but eventually, though, that would have improved the lives of everyone?

I mean, there's a ton of criminality. There's a ton of poverty in Mexico and Argentina and everywhere here. But that doesn't mean you're just going to make everybody poor. You know, Cuba had a great economy. It was moving forward. You know, you had opportunity to go to school. I mean, discrimination is discrimination everywhere. You're talking back in 1950s.

Okay, but Cuba had the basis from which it could grow into more prosperity. And that was completely eliminated by Castro. Castro just whacked everybody and made everybody poor. Cuba is a complete disaster. I mean, the proof is in the pudding. Go to Cuba, check it out. It sucks. It's like back in time.

It needs a complete paint job. It's never been painted. It's a disaster. It's a disastrous situation where there's no electricity. There's complete blackouts for 20 hours, 24 hours. People are starving. It survives by the money that the Cubans from Miami send it. It has no economy of nothing.

All it exports is doctors to these Latin American countries, which they're calling it a type of slave labor. Fantastic prostitutes, though, I will point out. Oh my God. And yet it's, you know, you get laid in Cuba, you know, you have some, you know, for a pair of jeans. Right. So you think. It's not like Vegas where you pay $10,000.

Right, right. Hey guys, thanks for watching this episode. Do me a quick favor before you move on with it. Drop us a comment. What do you think about this guest? What do you really think? Drop a comment in there for us. And if you haven't already, subscribe to the channel and then hit that notification bell so you get alerted.

whenever we drop new content. All right, back to the episode. So you think given despite all of these problems that, especially economies like Cuba, that basically operate off of one good, which is sugar export, you think if allowed to progress with capitalism over the decades, instead of this violent revolution, you think things would have improved for everybody, even the lower classes? Without a doubt.

Okay. Cuba not only had, I mean, a tremendous sugar industry, which the money that flowed from there flowed into other areas that were developing transportation, the trains, more exports of fruits, tobacco, had a thriving tobacco industry, tourism industry.

And this was back in, you know, 59, 55, 56. When, you know, think about things here right then. You know, think about it. Well, the middle class was thriving. here back then. Cuba, there was almost no middle class. A better middle class than there is now. Now there's no class.

Right. Now, I mean, Cuba is the worst example because it's a total disaster. It's a total fiasco. I mean, everybody should stay away from

that Cuban model because it's proven to be disastrous. People are starving. Look, I'm not defending communism. at all. I just wanted your perspective because, you know, for people... Communism, who's the true communist? Jesus Christ. Yeah. A guy that would sit down and share the bread and share this and share that.

So, communists? There's no communist. China? No. They're more capitalism. We are Russia? They're all capitalists. I don't know of any communists. Jesus Christ, about it. Che Guevada, the revolutionary. That was about it. And they killed him.

And they killed him. The capitalist killed him. Yeah. Yeah. The people who make money in Cuba, I've heard, are the military and the government that basically pay themselves through contracting. Totally. Yeah. The military elite.

That's right. Yeah. Period. Everybody else. I mean, you're not, I mean, it's misery. Yeah. I mean, there's nothing. Okay.

So you are born in 1950. in the last golden era of this capitalist tourism-led, sugar cane-led, Cuba. According to this, it's 1958. No, no, no, no, no. I'm according to Pure Narco, your book, you are, we're not going off one of your fake IDs, sir. All right. Is Luis your real name? according to this one, yeah.

Can I see it really quick? You can see it. Oh, my God. Don't even mention the address. I won't. I won't. I just want to see what a good fake ID looks like in this day and age. I mean, you look like a guy.

You look like a white guy from Florida that owns like a pool cleaning business. Does that mean look like you, dude? Oh, that's so funny. Okay. So your father is, you're a rich kid, essentially. You grow up as a rich kid. Even after the revolution in 59, your father brings the family over to Miami with, you know, almost a million dollars he gets away with or is able to not get seized. And childhood is good.

My dad had offices on Wall Street since the late 40s, 50s. You know, trading companies, Galvan Lobo and Olavar and company, Sarnico Rihonda, trading company, sugar trading companies, largest sugar trading companies in the world owned by Julio Lovo. And, yeah, my dad worked in New York. When we came to Miami, the company had an apartment at the Sherry Netherlands Hotel in New York. We stayed there. Right. I mean, we went to my Uncle Julius's house in the Hyannis Port.

Of course, Uncle Julius was Meyer Lansky's accountant. That's right. So the Meyer Lansky, the mobster, so his accountant was good friends with your father. They became friends in Cuba because when Meyer went to Cuba, he wanted to build a Havana-Rivera, but he also wanted local financing from local banks. And my dad sat on the board of Banco Financero and Banco de Nova Scotia. which Julio Lobo owned Banco Financero. So he met Julius Rosengard, which was Myers accountant.

They became very, very good friends. My dad was never involved in the mafia, none of that. Just the relationship of Julius coming down as the accountant for the loans, and they became very, very good friends. So then. What's up, guys? This month we're doing something special over on our Patreon. The first 100 people who comment on this.

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say on YouTube, we get to go crazy and do it over at Patreon. So once again, take a screenshot of that comment, DM it to us. The first 100 people are going to get a month free, no gimmicks. You don't have to leave your credit card. We'll see you over on Patreon. Patreon.com slash The Connect Show. And so when you guys are now in the States, he doesn't skip a beat. He opens up, you know, another sugar conglomerate with other exiled Cubans.

You grow up in Miami on Key Biscayne, the island. Key Biscayne. Yeah. And that's just, you grow up like a rich white kid, but you're in a Cuban exiled community. Your father's this upstanding guy. It reminds me of like my child. There's so many parallels here. Your father's this impeccably dressed, very well educated, has his life tight.

He just keeps it tight, you know? And you're just not. like that. You were just, you like smoking pot. You liked 70s rock and roll. You were, you liked fucking with the bitches. Excuse my language. That's for our black audiences. Um, you just, you were kind of a rebel. That's just in you. That's just in me. It's, it's unfortunate. My dad was such an administrator, such a straight guy, you know, he woke up at the same time every morning. he worked. I mean, and I was just all over the place.

I knew I wanted to be rich, but I didn't know, you know, it's not like friends of my, I want to be an engineer. No, I just want to be rich. Didn't it occur to you or didn't your parents sit you down and say, son, you can be rich? We are rich. You can, we can get even richer if you just put your head down and take what your father's built and expand it. They told me what to do.

They said, you know, here in America, you go to a good school. You get good grades. That opens the next door. It's all about opening doors. Great door to a great university. And now it's all about connections because you can get a great education anywhere. You can go to Miami-Dade. You can go to the city college.

But if you go to Harvard, you're going to sit next to like the prince of who knows where or, you know, one of the Kennedys. It's all about connections and who's sitting next. So they put me in a great Jesuit school in Miami, which is supposed to open the door to a great university. And they did. They put me in Georgetown University. Yeah, they got you into Georgetown.

That's like some shit that the Kennedys do. Like, you didn't have great grades. You didn't, you weren't Georgetown material. My dad knew somebody that worked at Georgetown University, a professor at Georgetown University, because he was a very smart man from Cuba. And he picked up the phone and said, send them over.

And they said, wow, listen, the only thing is he wants to get into the accounting program. I got accounting. I don't shit about accounting. Well, we'll switch him into accounting next semester. Right now, there's an opening and there's in the Portuguese department. We need somebody. They would have brought a Naurangutan from the zoo and put them in the Portuguese department. Of course, my dad paid full tuition, the whole line.

So they put me in Georgetown University. Yeah. I go to Georgetown, I run into these Ecuadorians. We start smoking pot and going to concerts. Yeah. Yeah, and not doing much studying. My girlfriend was studying at Mount Vernon, which was next to that. She was from the Bucardi family.

Wow. And it was just like a bad focus. I could have been at Georgetown, really taking it seriously disciplined. Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service with my dad's connections. I could have gotten to work for a sugar mill in Brazil to get some training and learn Portuguese. In the Portuguese, I never went to class. You could have been richer. You could have made more money than you ever made in the drug game.

Without a doubt. When all this shit came down and well, Georgetown, I said, okay, so you're back in Miami. Let me hook you up with New England Mutual. Okay. Yeah, just for people, you kind of flunked out of Georgetown. You couldn't hack it. Yeah, and I came back to Miami. And you handled some Coke.

This is important, just as an aside, you got introduced to a little bit of Yale when you were at Georgetown, I believe. Yeah, because I had some friends in Miami. I said, wow, you know, the ounce here is like $3,000 over there. It's $1,200. So I had a couple of friends fly up and bring up nine, 10 ounces. And then I started. $3,000. ounce.

Back then. That is unbelievable. Yeah. But in Miami, it was 1,200. Yeah. So I started doing a little of that, and then later on when I started working with Polly and stuff, I used to get a kilo and send it up to Boston. Nope, not with Polly.

No, with Polly, I never did that. That's when I got back from Georgetown. I continued sending, but then I started sending to my friend. friends that were studying at Babson. And then I would send them like half a kilo, you know, stuff like that. They would ounce it out, gram it out, make money. And then I would send to a friend in, he was at BU, Boston University. And that was before Polly.

That was before I met Bia. This is way before. This is the 70. So at $3,000. $7.6. At $3,000 an ounce, the only people that can afford. afford that Coke are, besides like Hollywood elite, these rich kids that go to these privileged East Coast schools.

So that's kind of how you get your first taste of drug money. And then I started working with 96X, the radio station. That's right. You were down working, you went back to Miami. You're working at a radio station for a while. That kind of goes sideways. I mean, the shit that happens is like I go, well, why? It's like the Magoo, this shit follows me.

I mean, radio stations work off the Nielsen ratings, Nielsen books, okay? The Nielsen company, a rating company, sends out books to people in Miami. Then you get your book. I listen to WMGM, BAB, Bibi's, how many hours a day? Everybody sends in their books and then they copulate all that data. The number one station is Y100. So 96X was always like the last one or second to last. And they were doing good.

But it was owned by Bartel Broadcasting, which that was owned by the chart, I think was a charter corporation on New York Stock Exchange. You know, a New York company I had like six or seven radio stations around the car. So one day, my best friend calls me up and says, hey, I just got this book in the mail. And since my mother has one last name and I have another and my brother has another and my stepfather has another, we got five books in one address. I go, what? And what book is it? Says something about Nielsen ratings.

What? That's crazy. Of all the people in my hand, you got five Nielsen books? Whoa, right away, I went to the station sales manager, not the manager, because the manager was a straight shooter. So he goes, what? Yeah. So I asked for $5,000. I said, I want $5,000.

They gave me some stereo. But we gave my friend, he got all new carpeting for his house, the stereo equipment, you know, all this. And he filled out, his whole family filled out that. They listened to 96X 24-7. So when five different last names in 24-7, that, that multiplies it into a multiplier that just, 96x and the Olson ratings came back.

Number one. Somehow you guys became number one, yeah. So then they found out it was a fraud. And when I found out that the FCC was a little hot and looking at this, I said, let me get the hell out of here. So I left the Ecuador. I go to Ecuador. So I had my friends from Georgetown. So I spend a month in Ecuador while I guess everything's okay.

you know, they did take away the license. The radio station lost its license. All because of you. You're playing a little... Imagine this. So my girlfriend gives me a birthday party. Welcome back party. So it's my birthday party.

I'm sitting there, you know, just sitting back, having a drink, relaxing. And suddenly in through the door comes this girl. And I go, whoa. Like red hair. head curls, beautiful silk dress, watch the diamonds, the jewelry, like just exotic beyond, you know, we're not used to that. You know, we're used to just normal girls or this and that.

I see this exotic girl come in and then that's when I go up to her. We start talking and we really like each other. It's like lust at first sight. And she tells me, what are we doing here? well, it's my birthday party. I'm going to blow out some candles in a while. He says, let's just leave. We can blow the candles out at my place.

And we leave. And that's when I met Bia. And Bia is the one that would change your life forever. Forever. And etch you into truly a piece of narco-trafficking history. A great opportunity, if I would have. You know, let's, I mean, yeah, an oracle situation that it could have played out disastrously or, but I fell in love, in lust. And it was put to me in such a way that it was beautiful.

You know, we got on the Learjet, went to San Francisco. She was dealing with people at a level where there was no criminality, let's say. It was not like, hey, this guy didn't pay in the other. the guy, she had a group of customers out in San Francisco that were ex-hash smugglers. She would bring them 100 kilos and they give her $6.5 million in hundreds. All counted. It's not like Miami where you sold somebody five kilos and he could kill you or not pay for it. And half the money you got was fake.

Yeah. Or it was fives and tens. Yeah. She was selling keys to white, northern California, hippies almost. Do you? That's right. That's right. You. That's right. So, and kilos are, she's selling them wholesale for 65,000 apiece. She's getting them from, she has, you know, through her life circumstances, she's got connects in Columbia. SOS, you call them in the book. Source of sale. I want people to remember that. Because that's who I'm going to, I'm going to reference. Source of supply. Source of supply. I'm sorry. Source of supply. And, and her, her route was taking keys. I think she got him for like 60. And she was.

Not on between 52 and 55. Okay, so she was making like... 40. 10 Gs a kilo just for passing it off. Wow. Taking them to California. What year is this? 78, 79.

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Remember, Carlos Leder was in jail here, and they knew that cocaine was up-and-coming. and was an up-and-coming drug now. The Medellin cartel didn't start with Pablo Escobar. You know, there were players older than Pablo already involved. You know, like Manuel Garcia, was one of them. Pepe Sarmiento, El Bejo Pepe, Evaristo Porras, was, you know, down in Leticia making this stuff. But there's a family, the Ochoa family,

that are well-to-do people. And a few of the kids, I think Fabito and George, they came to school here. They went to school here, university. So they started to realize that there was a lot of profit in this export product. So the Medellin cartel was formed. It started different people sending cocaine to the. the United States, okay, independently.

But then, you know, it was George and Pablo and then the letter, Carlos Lader, when he, you know, bought the island over there in the Bahamas. That's right. When shit started to really snowball. But I remember when the cocaine used to come in, a lot of times, people used to traffic it by swallowing it. Okay. And cocaine used to come in, like for him, for example,

Pepe Sarmiento used to bring it, had a Merlin, and he used to bring in 500 kilos. That was a lot. That was a lot back then. That was a lot. I remember because, you know, Poli used to tell us that, you know, Pepe brought in 500 kilos, and his cut, he had 100 kilos, and then, you know, another group had.

so much. But the Medellin cartel, yeah, it was formed by the Ochoa's Leder Pablo, the Mexican. Gotcha. They were, gotcha, Rodriguez, gotcha. They were the ones that gave it form. That's right. That it was born before, yes. Independent people sending Coke. Yes, I mean, Coke has been being sent for years. But these guys really put it together. And the Ochoa brothers, if you ever meet Hore, he's a very, very, very smart man. George Ochoa has the capacity to be the leader of the biggest government. Government. Yeah.

And an extreme personality that makes you feel very good. He could make a beggar feel good or a rich guy feel good. He's a manoe of a hent, an dung. Yep. That's a dumb. So he was able to, like, you're dealing with a lot of volatile people here. Okay, Pablo has his volatility. Leder had his volatility.

The Mexican was a very strong, straight shooter, violent guy. He was the brazo armado of the cartel of Medellín. Right. He was the armed wing. The military armed, yeah. You don't fuck with them. But they all got together and they consolidated the Cartel of Medellin. And then when they kidnapped Jorge's sister, Martanieves, they formed El Mas,

Mueirae de sequestradores. So that kind of even united them more. Right. And then you had the guerrillas, guerrilla groups, L M-Dicineve and LaFarque, they had to unite against. them too. So there were a lot of factors that, not only Coke exportation, but there were a lot of internal factors in Colombia that united them. He'd them very strong. And, you know, this wasn't as organized as like a Fortune 500 company. Even just according to your book, it's drug traffickers who have their own networks, their own routes, right? But they all kind of share

in the transport and information that involves moving cocaine to the United States. And Pablo, essentially, the Ochoa, as it sounds like, had the distribution, were the first ones to open distribution in a big way in Miami. Is that correct? Yes. Which is the most important thing, because you got to sell it when it gets here. And they were the first ones that started bringing Colombians to the states in order to move product.

Right. The armed, obviously, the, you know, the armed guy was gotcha, right? And his role was in Colombia, because the big rep for the Medellín cartel back then here in Miami was Rafael, Salazar Cardona, which was later killed in Medellin. Right. And he was the guy featured in the first Cocaine Cowboys documentary, Rafo. Rafiko. Right.

Yeah. Did you know him? I met Rafiko. We were in Bucaramanga, and I met under strange circumstances. He was smoking base, and he had a gun tape to his hand. I was with a guy, Lucas Otero, and it was a very brief moment, but, yeah. Rafico is quite a character and very tough, and he's featured in cocaine cowboys, I think, and so on and so forth. But the thing is that, remember, source of supply mostly is coming out of Peru, okay?

So then the Medellín cartel starts making money, and they consolidate all this money into buying most of the production coming out of Peru. So they start consolidating and controlling the product. I mean, cocaine, there's a limited amount. It's just not something that grows everywhere. So they start consolidating this and they start sending most of their planes, most of the use Seneca's to go down to Peru and have their labs. And then they had their first big lab, Tranquilandia. So it was all about controlling the source of supply.

So they were the source of supply. And thus the price. So then everybody went to Medellín. In 1980, for example, all the action was in Medelleging. All the players were going to Medellín. Then there was the Ochoas, there was, you know, Garces, there was Pablo. And then they had their very close associates,

like Fernando Galliano, Kiko Monkada, El Monolopera, Marulo in Pereira, Pablo Correa. You had all these other satellites. Right. These like associates. Right. These almost associates, right.

Every little tiny little region in Antioquia, outside of Medellin, had these junior kingpins, these drug kingpins. You had Monolopera and Marulo and Pereira. Then you had Medellín, which you had the Ochoos, Pablo, and Pablo Correa, at one point, they were those two Pablo's. At one point, Pablo Correa had more merchandise in the U.S. than Pablo. That's a bar. Right. Okay, but you had the galliano, the monkadas,

and they all had their own routes. Yeah. Their own thing, and they're all feeding. But, you know, but Pablo kind of had a piece of everything, and so did the Ochoas. And then El Mexicano had his own product. He had centavo, which was a great product. Right.

So the Coke. He was made, he had more money in all of them put together. The Coke wasn't. same. That's what's interesting about this. People forget it. Cocaine, just even in Colombia, where they make it, isn't just one, it's not like Coca-Cola. It's one uniform product.

Some people got that bomb. Yeah, some people don't care about the quality. I remember the Piedaraitas used to send some real shit, cementing that shit. But then they started to realize to keep a market, you have to have good quality.

The Mexicano came out with a centavo. And then I think it was the Ochoas that came out with the blue boxes. Those were killer. Remember, first they came as football. And for logistical purposes, the transport round is not a good shape. So they started doing boxes. Right.

And that was the old show as it mentioned. This was in 82, 83. Don't think. I was receiving footballs in 80, 81, 80. 82, 83. The boxes appeared around 84. It was the blue boxes. Reina was another mark that was unbelievable, owned by the Mexican.

Right. And so all these different drug routes, most of them still going through the Caribbean. All of them, really, in the early 80s. bulk of it through the Bahamas. Through the Bahamas. And later, that's why Carlos Lelaire became so wealthy because he was the one that really

controlled that. Snowballed it. Just incredible. Billionaire, billionaire. All of these guys were. Pablo was different because Pablo was such a bandito, such a gangster that if

you had a great route, he would come to you and say, but you're moving 500 keys, will take 300 of mine. And usually if you refuse, most people didn't refuse them, but if you refused, you'd end up getting whacked.

Yes. And also, Pablo had his cousin. So Pablo was doing his thing. It was Pablo's playground. He got into politics. So he was playing politician. But while he was playing politician,

he had Gonzalo, his cousin, Cavendia, Cabo, who was the real brains behind the logistics of his operation? So Gustavo was very organized. So Pablo didn't have to worry about money. I mean, he had his money and your money and everybody's money, but Gustavo had a lot of money and he made a lot of money. They both made a lot of money.

But he went off in politics. then later he went off on the war against the government. But, you know, he always had a lot of, obviously, I mean, the amount of money coming into Medellín was incredible. Why do you think that the Ochoas never had to bow to Pablo Escobar? Like, we're never killed by him. You know, there's a bunch of Ochoas, but, you know, a lot of people. You have to know George to see what kind of personality he. is and very smart. And they came from well-disciplined brains, which was George's dad,

the old man, very respected and kind of, they were the ones that were able to keep everything together. And they were very respected. and the brains and the ability to run things the way they did is why they, you know, they got hurt in the sense, you know, Fabito had to do, you know, 30 years in jail. But they, they were the real ones that kept the Medellín cartel together. I mean, Leder, you know, I mean, you know, the whole story, he lost it, and they just had to give them up and send them to the U.S. He kind of did that, the C of extradition was really true.

He just got out. He just got out. I cannot believe they let him out. He had life with no parole. And it's pretty crazy. He's back in Colombia. You know, they gave him a raw deal because he was supposed to be out a lot sooner because he had a deal to testify against Noriega, which he did.

Okay. But they didn't honor it. They didn't fully honor it. So he still had to do a very long stretch. Okay. So against this backdrop, this is how you begin to become this, like, I want to say, this invaluable resource to these drug lords. Your logistics.

You never sold cocaine yourself, not on any massive scale. you never even, when it came to like multi-level, you know, 100-kilow loads, you didn't own any of it. You were just taking a fee per kilo to organize the routes. Logistics. Correct. Okay. So there were a lot of people like me, of course. A lot of people like me.

I just happened to always, since day one, be working directly with. the owners of the product. And one thing that helped me a lot was that, well, from the start, we had this golden goose out in California, Brian, that back then nobody had that. Back then, you know, not everybody was selling 100, 200 kilos a month,

like clean and, you know, 15 million every month coming in. That was golden. So with that reputation, and when I decided to go to Columbia, because, well, you know, we opened up Mexico also. Hang on, we're going to go in order. There's a lot. We're going to go in order. I want to.

What year did you, were you really brought in to the Medellin cartel? With the Ochoa cousins. Well, really when I met Bia, that she worked with Polly, and Polly worked with El Béjobeio Right. So it would be able to be pay. Yeah. And then if you Google him, you know, he's part of the Medellín cartel. He's a main earner, big associate of Pablo. So why do these billionaires need someone like you? Don't, especially back then, someone would say, well, they have the money to pay off everybody, to coordinate everybody. Why do they need to give a piece of every kilo to this independent logistics expert? Well, they didn't give me a piece of every kilo. I was just a very good client. I was a very good distributor for them. Okay, so you had your own, so you owned your own kilos.

No, no. What is the difference between having distribution and owning your own kilos? Pepe Sarmiento brings in 500 kilos. He gives 300 the Poli. Polly gives the 300 to Bia. and that's how it moves. And then Bia gives the kilos to you? To you.

Okay. To the guy in San Francisco. So then who sells it? Where do you fit in? Bia's boyfriend and later, you know, we broke up and she left me the connection of the San Francisco connection. Right. But that's key. That's the golden goose.

Of course. The money. So you have your own clients. Yeah. So that's the key. Having good clients that there's no problems. So why is that? that, why does that, doesn't that mean you own the kilos?

No, you don't own anything. Because you don't buy them up front. You don't buy the merchandise. You don't do a capital investment and you don't send $2 million to Columbia. You just sit here, you receive the kilos. It's your responsibility to send somebody else's merchandise to California. Now that's a big responsibility because if he lose them, you pay them. Can I ask you this?

Why, if you, once you had enough money, wouldn't it be safer? to just say, no, no, I'm going to pay you for these. So to avoid any problems. Number one, they never allowed that. In the beginning, it was very, no, no, no. Right. You're a distributor. Maybe they allowed you to buy into 10 kilos.

But you know what? Then that's their, you're getting into their game. They're the owners. Okay, they're the owners. You're a distributor. You make your money. A lot, a lot of times, I, would tell them I want to buy 10 kilos and then I'd pay for it. So when I received

200, 10 or mine or 20 or mine. Right. But I never got into that. I said, you know what? I'd rather just stay on what I'm doing. I don't want to get into this because you can't control that. When they tell you, wow, the merchant guys got lost in Peru. So do you really know if it didn't or if it didn't? Right. But I never wanted to get into that. But you did find distributors for the product. Yes. I grew the distributor network from just like the guy

in the Hollister Rant situation. I meet this guy from Canada and he's a hustler and I know he's got sales capacity and he wants to get into this game. So he knows some surfers out in California. These hippies that, you know, they

surf all day and then, you know, he's a surfer also and he says, these guys man, the way they, you know, they support their lifestyle and surfing all day is, you know, once a year, twice a year. There's, you know, surfing competitions down in Peru. They go down there and they bring their shit back inside the surfboards. And so, well, they don't have to go to Peru anymore. They don't have to do that. We'll give them the shit here already in California.

Here, take a kilo now. You know, I understand if you lose this kilo, you're going to die. Yeah. Because the people I'm getting it from are those. people. Yeah. So this guy starts out with one kilo before you know he was selling 100 kilos. Wow.

If I would have met you, you are a perfect example of the kind of client I would look for. Oh, I'm flattered. Nice, decent guy that wants to grow a business. Yeah. Not some piece of shit that wants to rip you off. Yeah. Because that's a real pain in the ass. Because, see, the people that were giving me their merchandise,

guys would kill you. And they would. See, so I'm then involved in murder. Right. Okay, they would. Yeah. No. And I told Steve, Steve, I understand.

You're going to give you a kilo. I mean, you can't lose it. Because if you lose it, then you're going to have to go to your dad and get the money. He was a very rich rep for some razor company in Canada, whatever. But you got to pay these guys. And if you don't pay them, they're kind of. kill you. That's why Pauli always told me,

just to work with that guy in California that Bea turned you on to. Don't try to work with any of these local yocals because we're going to have to kill them and then it's a mess. So you have a golden thing here. Perfect. So when you got, this is totally clear now. So you're just

like an emissary, a salesman. You are the brand ambassador for mehine cocaine. One of them. There's a lot of people. Remember, you've got this whole Willie and South situation going on in Miami. You've got other players working for other groups in Miami. You've got a lot of Cubans out there doing five kilos, 10 kilos.

I just happened to have a very good route early in 78, 79, because Bia's sister marries an American guy. who happened to be the number one hash smuggler. So these guys are real professionals. These guys aren't, they're into logistics. They're into buying freighters, buying boats, bringing in Thai stick from Thailand, hash from Lebanon,

going to war-torn Lebanon in the 70s. These guys, they were like my mentors, because these are the real smugglers. These guys know about legit. logistics. These guys would sit around waiting for a trip to come in for months. And they'd have $10, $20 million just sitting around. They wanted to have nothing to do with cocaine. They did it as a favor to be on. And I remember the first time, well, okay, bring us some of that stuff that you say is so popular in Miami. Well, how much? Bring 100 kilos, 100 kilos. Nobody orders

100 kilos just like that. Sure enough, 100 kilos, $6.5 million. And then again, and that, then you become just that. I mean, you don't need a lot to be great. Yeah. And that built it up.

And then everybody wanted to work with me. Right. So then I, you know, I worked with the Ochoa cousins, a Piedra Hittas, a Pablo Correa. Then I started to bring contact and make my distribution network, you know, larger by meeting other people that I

that I would think would make good clients. Right. Like Steve, that, you know, he built up that whole Hollister thing from one kilo. Steve was moving 100 kilos a month. Today's episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. I and everybody I know that goes to therapy,

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Who did you have in New York? What kind of people were they? The Italians. The Italians. Yeah, and we started smuggling with them also. Were they part of a mafia family up there? Yeah. Who were they?

They were an off branch of the Lucchese family. Okay. And they were working out of Hollywood, Florida. Okay. And then I met a very nice guy who worked with them, and he got whacked. How many keys were they taken from you a month? Well, first we sold Joey would buy some keys from us, 50 keys or so, and take them off to New York. but then they started to smuggle for us

and they used to have a pilot Florida Cracker, you know. How was his name? I think it was Bob. That's a Florida Cracker name, dude. He was a, you know, a cowboy type, but he knew how to fly, a great bush pilot. And they had a route where they would go and pick up in Monteria. I would load them up in Monteria.

They would refuel in Jamaica. and come right into Hollywood Airport. Right in. 350 kilos. We used to call that the Toto Gol. Toto goal. And we did that with the Ochoho-Cousins. Okay, so you built up distribution first in the early days.

Distribution, that was key. And then they get word these junior bosses, not, you know, Pablo Escobar himself. not Jorge Ochoa himself, but the people, their associates, they're finding out that this kid, this young Cuban American, has got all these distribution networks in America. So they request to give you their product. Is that it?

Well, it's not that structured. It's just that everybody found out that, number one, that I worked with Polly. And if I was able to work with Polly and survive, that said a lot. Right. Because Poli was very feared. Most of the people that worked with Poli weren't around.

But when Poli went back to Colombia, I worked with his brother. And we moved a lot of merchandise. And it just got word that I was able to move a lot of merchandise in the U.S. So I made a good name for myself. So different groups approached me and I was able to approach different groups. most of the time when you're working with one group, you shouldn't work with another. I was able to work with two or three at a time. One of the few people that have done that.

But maybe that's my personality. I don't know. But I was working with two or three groups at the same time. And who were the- And feeding my different clients. Who were those three principal groups in Columbia? I worked with the Ochor cousins. I worked with Piedraitas.

And then I worked with the Pereira cartel, which was Marulo and Mono Lopera. That's right. Parreira, hottest chicks in Colombia. That's a little, that's a tip. Most people won't tell you. Hotest chicks in Colombia. Yeah, that's the, that's a slept-on. Look, I just blow it up.

Now it's going to be flooded with Americans. Okay, so you built up distribution. The next step is you get into the smuggling, the logistics. I build up distribution and then I decided to buy a Merlin, an airplane, because we decided to start working the Mexican border because I had some friends of mine from California. It says we have contacts with the Guadalajara cartel and we have access to the Mexican border. This was 1985, okay, 1984, early. before Mexico.

So you, in the late 70s, early 80s, you're working with your mentor, Poli, and then later when he flees to Colombia, his brother. Exactly. You build up your distribution networks from California to New York. You're working with these groups in Barajara, other areas of the country outside of Medellin. And at what, and you're a millionaire, by the time you're 20. I think, right? That's when I bought the Sugar Land. Yeah.

Yeah. And you're, instead of buying Ferraris and yachts and whatever else, tigers and hippopotamuses like Pablo, you did exactly what I fantasize about doing with my drug money that doesn't exist. You buy a sugar company. You invest a legitimate, you know, like a real profitable,

I always had that thing about trying to be like my dad and as successful as my dad and as business-like and elegant and powerful in that sense. So with my money, I bought 22,000 acres of Sugar Land. Part of it was leased. Part of it was owned it at a rice mill. We also bought a packing operation in Aruba. And I bought into Lobocaine, which is one of the Wall Street trading cards. companies that my dad worked with. So I had this idea of, wow, I'm going to be legal and I'm going to be honorable and someday get away from the cocaine business. But cocaine business was too good.

I was too into it. I also got into the lifestyle of party when you want and work when you want. And to be in the sugar business, you have to be very disciplined. So did you buy that sugar business as thinking, oh, I'm also going to use it as a front to move Coke? Or you wanted to keep that I wanted to keep it separate. Okay. Okay. So that was around 83 after my dad died. Right.

Okay. But in 82, 81, we already had started a sugar packing operation in Aruba. But going back to the distribution network, I had this great distribution network. So the next logical step is, okay, now let's not only take the product in Miami and distribute it. Now, let's be part of the import from Columbia. Let's offer the Colombians. I can pick it up in Colombia and bring it to the States. There's a lot of money in that.

Plus, sell distributing, so you're more or less vertically integrating your business. So I invested money. I bought a Merlin, which is a very nice turbo prop. I used to keep it in Burbank, California. We started to do some trips through the Mexican border. I would take the merchandise. The Merlin would go down to Columbia, load up, go to, we used a script in Porto Bayerta called La Peña. It was owned by Rafa Caroquitero.

Well, I don't know if it was owned by him, but he gave us permission to use it. Okay, his turf. Right, right. Back then it was the Guadalajara cartel. We used to go to Puerto Vallarta all the time to hang out there. Did you ever meet the... The Jefe de los Hefees? Felix Gallardo?

No. Okay. Never met him. But we worked Mexico at an early start. Not everybody was working Mexico. Everybody was still there dropping in the Bahamas. Right. We were already, you know, taking trips to Mexico.

And then, you know, the Mexicans, my friends who had the contacts with Mexican would deliver it. They either Tucson, mostly into Tucson, because the guy that had that connection with Rafa Caro Quintero was the doc. Right. So we were working that. We were working Bahamas. You know, you got to understand, you know, thousands of kilos moving through here and thousands of kilos moving through here. It starts to add up. Yeah.

And it starts to get complicated quickly. Yeah. And you got to know what you're doing. and but that's what a criminal organization does. You've got to stay on top of it. So now that you've got one plane, what does your price per kilo look like? Like are you paying a Columbia price on a kilo?

No, no. I would just charge a percentage to take it to Mexico and cross it, which was 33% at first. 30% of what? Of the load. Okay. So give us in a mathematical example that what would an average load look like? So let's say you take back then in the Merlin, you couldn't handle a thousand kilos, but let's say you took 500 kilos.

Okay. So you picked them up in Columbia and you're going to hand them over in Tucson. In charge 33, 35%. So of the of the load. So 500 kilos. Yeah. Let's narrow it down to keep the numbers easy, 30%. Okay.

So 150 kilos you take and you hand over 350 to the Colombians. So now you have 150 kilos, not free because I have to pay the Mexicans. I have to pay the Americans that have the Mexican contacts. I have to pay, you know, a lot of expenses. But let's say out of the 150 kilos, 30 kilos are mine. Okay. And then I have all of that to sell also.

Okay, got it. So do you paid your contacts in cocaine? Part of the deal was that I sell it. Okay. So you paid your, and the contacts at the border with Mexico and the Americans who had the contacts? The doc paid them.

The doc paid them. Did they get paid in cocaine or cash? No. At first they got paid in cash because I kept the kilos. Okay. Because it was very valuable to keep the kilos. Okay. And back then the cash was low.

Later on, things changed. Right. And they started getting paid in cocaine. Yeah. So did... So Mexicans grew... That's when they just snowballed. Right.

So you bringing, say, 500 bricks from Columbia and delivering them once they landed in Tucson, Arizona. You would get about 40, let's just say 40 kilos out of 500 is your payment. Yeah. Let's say I had 30 kilos out of mine. but then I had, you know, another 120 to sell, right? Because the Colombians, no, I gave them their stuff. Back then I didn't want to sell anything. But that was a route.

But then remember, I had other situations where I wasn't transporting. I was just receiving, like I was always receiving, you know, 300 kilos to sell from this group. That I had nothing to do with the transport, see? So. Every deal is different. Yeah, every deal is different. There's a lot of money. That became a problem.

Yeah. There's a lot of money happening here. So then, to make a long story short, we were doing great on the Mexican border. The doc has a problem in 87. I feel I'm getting hot. And I decided to move to Columbia for good. And that's when I left the U.S. That's right.

That's right. And I had my Merlin and I left the Merlin in Burbank. And then we started to use the Merlin to go to the Bahamas and also Mexico. And we started an airdrop of Cozumel. And I had a group picking up in Cozumel. So we had, you know, air drops in Cozumel landing in Mexico, airdropping in the Bahamas, landing in the Bahamas, the Italians doing the Jamaica.

thing. So, you know, then what happens is a lot of people are doing what I'm doing. I'm not the only guy. There's a lot of Cubans, a lot of Mexicans, a lot of people doing what I'm doing. It just so happens, I'm one of them. And I lasted for 25 years. That's a difference, you know, I had a long run because I kept such a low profile. I partied quite a bit, but I kept a very low profile. The smuggling, did you organize everything down to, you know, the groups that were picking the Coke that was floating in the ocean when you did the drops? Or did you have contacts in the local areas that had the people? I had contacts in the local areas. Like I had a guy in the Florida Keys, El Gordito, George Cabrera, rest in peace.

He died a couple years. That's what he did. He picked it up. Wow. Then another guy, Patu, an offshoot from the George Cabrera group, we did a lot off a lighthouse off the west coast of Tampa. Wow. Weirdropped the hell out of that. The Ice Customs guy that had my case, Bob Harley, called that the Coke machine.

There was so much coke coming in to the keys. And then when they found out, there was all being airdrop. They called it the Coke. machine. And so you were air dropping with GPS trackers on it? Or how did the boats find it? With those neon lights. Right. Yeah. How many keys are in a load? Air drop load? We were using already. We were using a King 300, a King 350. It's the only plane that turboprop that had the capacity to go

and come back without refueling. So we would put 600 kilos. You couldn't put more than that because the rest was gas. Right. And who are your pilots. Back then we were using Colombian pilots supplied by the owners of the plane. Those those planes weren't mine. Okay. Who

whose planes were they? The kingpins? The Rasmuno, we did routes with Rasmuno. We were also doing routes for Fernando Galliano. The last podcast, I said,

his nickname, and they beeped me is the Negro Galliano. Okay. The black Galliano. Yeah. He worked with Mickey Ramirez. So I was working. First, I started working with Galliano and Mickey Ramirez.

Right. And then I also used that same route later with Raskunio, who, after they killed Pablo, became a very, very powerful figure. He was the head of the Northern Valley cartel. That's right. That's right. And so I worked with him also. Okay.

So if somebody came to you, if Razgunio came to you and said, I've got to move with 600 keys, here's my plane. So you'd only use his plane when you were taking his stuff. Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah. Definitely. Yeah.

I would tell him, listen, I was working with Marulo, and it got to a point that, you know, I was moving so much stuff that my. Marulo says, listen, I'm going to turn you on to somebody that can really, you know, cover that much merchandise. And he turned me on to Rasmuno. Now, when you recommend somebody in this business, you've got to be very sure of what you're doing because if something goes wrong, they're going to charge you. You recommended me that guy. He lost the load you pay. Since Marullo was a very wealthy man, they knew he could pay.

But he felt I never had a loss. I never lost the load with Marulo. So he said he turned him on and then I became very good friends with. Rasguño and we started working together. Okay, so up until before you moved to Colombia, flee to Colombia, I'll say. How much Coke are you bringing in every month in 1987? In 87, between one thing and the other,

between what we were bringing in through the Mexican border and receiving in Miami, you know, 2,000 kilos a month, more or less. Okay. And that's like a drop in the bucket compared to what's coming. Right. And this is, and this is still the time before the, the bar, the big freight ships are moving, you know, multi, multi tons. It's, it's planes that can only take 500 bricks at a time. Exactly. And, but the price of Coke is still very high, even though you guys have dropped the price. The cost started to go down. For sure, because you bring in so much air. I remember selling Coke in

L.A. for $13,000 a key. When I used to sell for $62, 65, I mean, this. crazy and then down to 50 and then but I remember offloading in LA when we were working with Marulo for example I went down to Columbia so we started working with Marulo a certain route with a guy called El Tillo and we we did like in in a matter of 10 months nine months we did like 15 trips with a Cheyenne a Cheyenne 2 then a Cheyenne 4 in Teguimus and, you know, just that, you know, it's a bunch of, a lot of merchandise. And then we used to receive that in L.A. That we used to sell.

Like you, to your own people. Yeah, to my own people. And then working with Marulo and it was just different times. Did you guys realize that did the bosses in Columbia realize that they were almost cutting their own throats by dropping the price? They're sending too much product. And now the price is gone from 60 to 13. No, that part that I sold at 13, that was our cut because we charged 30, 40 percent. And then our cut that we had in L.A., we had to get rid of quickly.

And we decided to sell it 13. But that's because the price was 16 or 17. Right. But the price went down drastically, yes. So did the lords, did the, I'm going to call the top three, gotcha, Ochoa's Pablo. Did they at one point say, okay, we got to. limit how much we send? Not really.

Because then, you know, Cali came into the picture. Everybody started working. I mean, you had the Cali cartel, Medellin Cartel. You had Julio Naser in Barranquilla. And you had Julio Suniga and you had a bunch of people in the coast. And you had this thing's a massive Coke machine, just sending Coke up. I'm just one guy. The thing is that everybody knew me in Colombia.

Yeah. I had very good credit. I just grew and grew and grew. And then I went down there to live there. So I was a Colombian. I married in Colombia. I had my kids. I mean, everything. So I was very integrated into that whole structure. And they knew me from years. Okay. So the answer to my question is, no, there was too much competition for just Medellin to be like, hey, we're not sending any more Coke. They got to just send it. They sent it. All right. So just to get an idea, when I was in Europe, we were selling for $30,000 a key wholesale. Wholesale prices in Europe are now at $15,000 a key. There's more cocaine being produced now than never, ever before. Okay?

Right now you have Brazil as a major, major exporter of the ship, I think second to Colombia. And you got Venezuela in there too. And Ecuador. And Ecuador. Exactly. This is, I mean, right now, the amount of, I mean, new markets are emerging. Before it was Mexico, the Caribbean, air dropping. And then, you know, a few people started going into Europe.

That was, like, amazing. Who were the first Colombians to go to Europe? I think Pablo and his. group and then there was Beto Hittano and the big the the main guy in Europe the biggest guy in Europe was Sito Minian that he was the first Galician he's from Galicia Spain that really blew it up and really started bringing in large numbers into northern Spain but in 87 when you go there, when you go to Columbia in 87, you're still only moving merchandise into the U.S. Yes.

Okay. Yes. I didn't move merchandise into Europe until at the end when I was working freighters. Right. Remember, from starting out with nine ounces, let's say in Georgetown, when I got caught in Venezuela, I got caught with 25 tons. Yeah. And that's the thing. Back, it was the largest, you know, seizure ever. We were moving freighters. I mean, from distributing cars, you know, with Caleditas to California with 100 kilos, 50 kilos, 70 kilos, to buy an airplanes, to air dropping, and to sending boats into Cancun. I mean, into Cancun, we did 44 trips.

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Okay. When you come to Columbia, how do you moved to meveen or where did you move to where did you take your family to you went to borgota why borgota specifically well i mean i already had you know my my brother-in-law's family lived in borgota and borgata was the biggest city it was nice weather i already had an apartment there my apartment was right next door to the american ambassador's house from my bedroom i saw his yard it was a very nice area of borgota and i liked it cool weather and I had family there. How did your side of the business, your operation expand now that you're at the source,

you're living at the source? Expanded tremendously because then, you know, I'm here and both. And then I start, a lot of people start coming to me to feed them merchandise. You know, I had to filter that. But I had my own planes, you know. I kept my planes in Venezuela. So I had two conquests. Piper, Navajo.

The Merlin I had, but then we were doing a trip into Bahamas, and the pilot got scared, and they didn't top it off all the way with gas, and he ran out of gas somewhere over Haiti. So that's part of a reef in Haiti now, in the south of Haiti. But that Merlin did a lot of work. Merlin was a beautiful plane. Okay, so now you're not necessarily using other Kingpin's planes. You've got your own fleet.

No, I got my own, but always using other people's planes at the same time. For example, those trips that we did with El Tio, with Marulo, we were using somebody else's planes. Okay. They weren't even Marulo's planes. They were Vicente Rivera's planes. Vicente Rivera, for example, talk about the start of the Medellin cartel. Vicente Rivera, who was at the start of the Medellín in 70, in early 70s, I mean, Vicente Rivera,

a name you never listened here. And we were using his Cheyenne. Right. Okay. And just people like that. I mean, there's people I know that are still around today that have never been caught. And, you know, like, for example,

there's one person back in 1990, they were doing 6,000, 7,000, kilos up to Mexico. Every month? Every three months. And this was one guy who had a great client. They called El Cantante, who had his hook up in Tijuana. So like him, there were 20.

And like me, there were 50 or whatever. It's a huge, you know. It's a huge business. It's a huge business. One load successfully through of six, seven thousand kilos you could retire on. Oh, yes. So you got to assume. This man's a billionaire.

And he bought these huge shrimping operations off Mazatlan. I mean, and he's around. He's never been arrested. And he got out of the game? He lives in Europe. Yeah. A billionaire. Multi-billionaire.

Yeah. So you think about how many of those anonymous guys, like looking back on it, Pablo Escobar is a stupid motherfucker. Crazy. He's crazy. He's one of a kind. He's one of a kind. And he got, he got sold on this politics. I blame this guy, what's his name? The guy I got him into Pal, Sarmiento, is it?

Sormiento? No, not Sarmiento. Slips on mine. The guy I got Pablo into politics. Gabriel Iglesias. I'd have to look. But he's a senator or congressman. That was the fuck up.

Yeah. Pablo got into politics. Totally. Things got blown. But Pablo's one of a kind. You'll never have another Pablo. And he declared war on a country. He had a tremendous group of cicadios that lived and died by him.

And he was a very powerful man. very smart. And he had great partners. Like later, the amount of money that later made for Pablo and the Ochoas is amazing. You know, this guy goes out and buys an island and there's thousands of kilos. And then you have another, like the Mexican. But this is a very close group. But you have other offices working out there.

Yeah. Officinas, they called them. Yeah, officinas. I mean. So you have the Gulf now, Barranquilla, the northern, you know, Santa Marta. And everybody working in Bogota and Paisas. So there's, so that country, there's. Northern Valley, Beto Renteria.

Bentonteria. Billions of dollars, he moved tremendous amount. Yeah. And he was just one guy. But the famous guys, the guys whose name you know, they're dead and gone, except for the Ochoas and. yourself, everybody else died, usually a bloody death or they're going to die in prison. But the hundreds, maybe thousands of little officinitas that made a cool 100, 200 million and got

out of the game? A bunch of them. That's incredible. There's people that I remember in Bogota, they had a route. We're doing 30 kilos, 50 kilos every month on a route, airplane route, cargo route, you know, hidden. Yeah. to Germany. Nice and easy.

They never did 40. They never did 60. They never did 100. They kept it at a 30. They were doing 35 years doing that. They have more money than you can put in this room. You know, people that have hundreds of billion, a million of dollars. Because, you know, think about it.

Every month, a rutica, 30, that they own. That's theirs. Yeah. Maybe with a partner. Yeah. And that's the equivalent of like just soaking away money every month in the stock market. Just over 30 years, you watch how that compound interest grows. 30 kilos.

10,000 net profit, 300,000 every month. 30 years. That's right. Hundreds, maybe billionaires. And this is just a guy. A guy who you wouldn't even know who the hell he is. Now, did those small little groups, did they have? have front companies? Like, did they, I imagine a lot of them look like you, these real, like,

just humble. Some just bought a couple shops and they just got a hell of a lot of cash. Right. Because they don't want to, they're so smart to keep that golden goose that they're not going to go out and then say, you know, out of nowhere buy car dealerships and yeah, yeah, and then have to deal with that headache. Well, Colombians, they kept it very simple. The Colombians are very astute business people and whatever they're doing. And they must have realized they're like, holy shit. God is telling us something with this cocaine, this shit that you make from raw material that somehow they've made illegal and were able to charge an exorbitant amount. Like this is our, it's an amazing phenomenon. Phenomena. It's a phenomenon. It's a phenomenon. And I can't see it ever

happening in the way it did ever again. And they must have realized. No, no, it was unbelievable. We got to get it while we can. Back in the heyday of the managing cartel, I mean, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing in every week. Yeah. Amazing.

That's when these guys made it in Forbes magazine and all that. But the amount of money was unbelievable. Even for me, it was, I just, but it comes and goes. Okay, so 87. 87 you've got your fleets of your own planes. Do you have your own pilots, or do you use the traffickers pilots? I have two or three pilots.

I have one American guy. And then I have a couple of Colombian guys. And I have the idiot that didn't top off in Bahamas and ended up in a Haitian prison. Now, do you still have your... I could have gotten them out immediately, but I let them sit there for about eight months. Okay.

And all these little anecdotes, you can read in the book. You know what I mean? We want to know how it works. Do you have your distributors still? Now that you're living in Columbia, and you basically are in charge of freight moving the shit for yourself and other traffickers. Do you also still keep your distributors in America or does that kind of go by the wayside?

I started to phase that out because people got hot. Yeah. The doc got hot. Brian died. Scott out of Santa Cruz. He retired. And then I was making money just having good money. Mexican contacts because then from having great distributors, I had great Mexican contacts.

Yeah. Okay? Just so happens that I had the Tio, the comrade, the guy that worked with Nacho Coronel. Then I started working them. And then I had a few of my guys that always received in the keys. Okay. So then I went from, you know, dealing, because I got a little, you know, when Doc got hot and, you know, I stopped distributing in the U.S. and just concentrating on Mexico.

Mexico and air dropping in the, continue air dropping in the keys, but more Mexico. Yeah. Sounds like the majority by the late 80s, the majority's going through Mexico. And in the early 90s, when it got hot, you know, because of the radar. are in Panama. We laid off planes for a while, so we established a new route, which was boats going from Cartagena, refueling around San Andreas and hitting Cancun. At one point, Cancun was the number one receiving point in Mexico for cocaine. At one point, at any given moment there was 30,000 kilos sitting in Cancun waiting to get taken up to Houston, mostly

to Houston. And was it the tourist place that it is now, even back then? Cancun was one thing in the daytime and another thing at night. Okay. But even back then, there was a lot of international people going there and they had no idea that all this blow was going to. Oh, no, no idea. Wow.

No idea. That's amazing. No idea. They were on the same beach they were on. Not exactly the same beach. Two miles down at night, just boats coming into Cancun. Okay. Now we've gone.

Thousands of kilos. That's why. And, you know, we started working Cancun and working with the Mexican Federales that we called Yankees. And then when Amado Carrillo became very big, he had his boss, he gave me. Cancun to Metro. Metro was his boss in Cancun. He was a very vicious guy. And then we decided to lay off Cancun for a while.

Okay. So now we've gone, the evolution of the cocaine trade has gone from smuggling on commercial flight, swallowing, taking some keys on commercial flights, to taking 500 keys on airplanes and air dropping them. And now we're at boats. boats. So this is the next evolution of it. Tell us what kind of boats and what was the route.

How did you get them on? How did you get them on the boats? And how did you get them safely to Cancun? Well, it's amazing. But, you know, we stopped using plane and I go to Razgunia and I said, you know, let's just take it by boat. I go, what are you crazy? Are you nuts?

That's local way? Yeah. It's a loco caron. Okay, what's your plan? Tell me your plan because anything goes wrong, it's on you. I said, listen, let's take them from, let's use the boats that we used in smuggling in the Bahamas, okay? So we brought a scarab. Actually, we bought a scarab with twin Merlin surface drives that's the San Andres, okay?

Tell us what kind of. A scarab is a fast boat, is one of those cigarette-type boats, okay? Right. with surface drives, merlins, we brought it to San Andres. So we had a small boat go pick up the merchandise in the Colombian coast, you know, mainland Colombia, bring the merchandise to San Andres. And then from San Andres, we took that scarab, that fast boat to Cancun. Twice that motherfucker.

Once it had engine troubles and we had to fly a mechanic from Miami. to San Andreas take him out to fix the boat and then the boat continue. And then another time, it ran into bad weather and we almost lost the load. But then we were there in San Andreas with these issues and shit. And then this friend of mine, fresh, who's a local fisherman, local black guy who's fished all his life and he's made his living fishing lobsters in Nicaragua

which was a no-no bringing him to San Andreas selling them to a repacking operation and they sent lobsters that were from Nicaragua that there was a trade ban but they would put made in Colombia a lobster is a lobster and send it to Miami so fresh tells me what are you doing all this shit you know

I've been dealing these seeds all my life, I can take your Coke instead of in one of those fast boats that cost you $300,000 in Miami, we can use my boat. It's basically a center console, 28-foot twin-engine boat. It's a fishing vessel. No, not a vessel. Have you ever seen a center console, a little 30-footer? A fishing boat. Yeah, a little, yeah, a pleasure boat. It's a, it's a center console. Imagine 28, 30 feet. Right.

With twin outboards. I said, are you nuts? You want me to put a thousand? No, we could actually put more than a thousand. Are you crazy? You know what's going to have? They're going to kill you, me, everybody. Sure enough, since we had trouble with the high-powered,

high-tech boats, we gave it a shot. Those can go from, those fishing boats can go from the coast of northern Colombia to Cancun? No, that was step one. One boat would bring it to San Andres. Where is San Andres? That's off the coast of Nicaragua.

It's closer to Nicaragua than Colombia. It's very far from Colombia. Where do they, okay, but where do the Kilos launch out of, where do they launch out of? Nekokli. Nekokli is a part of Udaba in the Gulf, in the Caribbean side of Colombia. Got it. Okay. Just so for because people, we're going to zoom in on a map here, but it's fascinating.

Yeah, if you have a map, you'll see that, you know. So just east of Panama, just east of. Exactly. Right. Okay. East of Panama. So, and then it would take the merchandise to San Andreas, which is just outside of Nicaragua.

I see. Okay. And what kind of boats are bringing the Coke up to San Andreas? Right there, we had a commercial, just small, small, small boats. boat, not a fishing complete boat, but a small little trawler that we bought for somebody and no big deal. What about the radar? Are you worried in 87, 88?

No, no. This is by boat. There's no, nothing's there. Nothing's there. Nothing's there. Not even international military. I mean, no, no, no. Back then, I mean, not really.

We didn't even worry about that. Did he worry about it. So it got to San Andreas and then, you know, fresh used the boats that he used to bring lobsters. And of course, Rasaguno says, listen, if you want to take it in a canoe, you take it in a canoe. It's on you. I said, I'm going to give it a shot. Sure enough, this guy makes it.

How many keys? We started with 600. Then the boats got bigger. And then this guy making these boats in Cartagena, they're called Eduardo, Eduardo. They're famous. they start making them a little bigger, sturdier. Then the Yamaha engines are amazing. We buy every time it was two brand new Yamaha engines.

Not Mercury, not Yamaha. We buy them in Panama. The Panama companies that were selling these engines, selling the SAT radios, there was one company, millions. Elvardogno in Cortajena, millions making these boats. Because then everybody hopped on that bad one. We started it.

Wow. I was in San Andreas and we started it. And then from having trouble with the, you know, high performance boats, these little, and then when they hit bad weather, let's say bad weather was coming, all the coke was wrapped for weatherproofing, right? Right. And they went in tulas, 30 kilos to a tula. The bad weather would come.

They would throw the coke overboard, the tulas, all tied by rope. Boom, boom, boom, boom. So the bad weather, instead of hitting the boat with all that load on it, it would go overboard and then it would compensate like this, the Coke and the boat. Wow. And then when the bad weather was over,

because remember, that boat was carrying the Coke plus the extra gas. Right, right. But at one point, we were sending 1,600 kilos. You got it out, okay. Because they got a little bigger. Right. They were called Los Angeles. Guardsonios re-alzados.

And, I mean, we did 44 trips. 44 back-to-back. Times 1,500 keys. That's a lot of, that's about 20. 60,000 kilos. So, yeah, it's about 30 tons, more or less. Well, 60,000 kilos is 60 tons. Oh, right.

Holy shit. So now you've just expanded your business 100 X. No, back then that was it. That was what I was doing. When we were doing that, that was so, well, the fresh, the guy I thought he had, they wanted him to keep on going. Yeah. They wanted, he had to fake a heart attack and go to Panama. He said, that's it.

I'm stressed out. I'm stressed out. I mean, you know what the logistics is of having these boats, bah, pa, pa, the captains. And he faked a heart attack and went to Panama. We couldn't find him for a while. So how off of one load, what are you making off of 1,500 keys? Well, back then, I kept it simple. I was making 5%, you know, because I had the hookup of who received it in Cancun.

And then I gave it to Compadre who took it to Houston. So I had the receiving, because I never trusted, you know, Mexicans now, they're doing. it all the time. But back then, I didn't really know any Mexicans that were sea worthy. So I had one guy that used to work for me in the Bahamas, who was a fugitive. And coincidentally, he was hanging out in Cancun, penniless. Wow. Peniless. And I said, what? That's perfect. We'll use you. So we used him with another group of gringoes that were fugitives in Cancun. and I know they knew how to, they were seaworthy people. So perfect things came together for me.

Okay, so how much, I got to know numbers. What is, what are you making off 1500 keys? Well, 1,500 keys, 5%, 75 keys. Okay. Let's say you make 75 keys and you're selling them at Houston at $13,000. Yeah. You know, you make a million dollars a trip. Yeah.

Basically, I was making, you know, a million dollars a trip. You know. And you never got intercepted on that route. We didn't. Well, we lost one because we got fancy. And that hurt us big time because out of that, I think, came an indictment. We said, we'll take, once again, we, what worked, we fucked with what worked. And we took a larger boat.

one of those go fasts, and we loaded it with 2000. We dropped off. The first load we dropped off in Cancun. Then the boat continued north to Cayo Alacran to deliver 400 keys to some guys that were waiting to bring it into key west of Cayo Alacran. That was a big mistake. You never do that. You do your first load. You drop off everybody's cool.

Part two. We really screwed up. And that got busted. Okay. Bob Harley busted that load. And an indictment came flying down. That was one of the first indictments. But we did a lot of, we were very successful.

That Cancun route, that Columbia of San Andreas, the Cancun route, did other Colombian Kingsmen copy you? They all started to pop up in San Andreas. At first, it was only me and my partner in Rasmuno, that time. In San Andres. When that started to happen, a lot of the guys from Cali, like Cristancho, I met him at San Andres. And then everybody hopped on that bandwagon.

Wow. Okay. So after that, now maritime smuggling has become the primary means of moving Coke. And it's usually through Mexico. Yeah. Right now they're doing, you know, semi-suburbables, like submarine types. Now, did you was, what year did that start becoming a thing? the semi-submersible subs.

Okay. That San Andres thing was 91. Okay? Then the semi-sermergeable stuff came in after I got arrested or right around when I got arrested, the year 2000. Okay. So they didn't have this in the 90s yet. No. Okay.

So 91, 91, 92. Pablo's on his way out. No, he's dead. He died in 93. 93, yeah. Yeah. So he got killed in 192. But on 91, 92, it's unraveling.

Yeah. There's a war going on in Colombia. Yeah. Yeah. And you're in Bogota, so you're kind of out of the way, but bombs were going off there. In Bogota and in San Andreas. Oh, so they were fighting it out in San Andreas? No, no, no, no, no.

I was in San Andreas because I had this route. Right. So you were living, you would part of the time. You would live part time and whatever new route you opened up, you would have a house there or a base there. Yes. And you would take your family. family, your children, and your wife. Well, my wife, I took her to San Andreas because I thought, well, she's pregnant, and I want her to breathe some fresh air from Bogota, big city.

Yeah. So she came with me to San Andreas, but my daughter was born in Bogota. Right. And then after that, we also started working Belize. Okay. And. Same way with the same boats? Yeah.

Okay. And then after that, I ran into Fresh in Panama. Remember the heart attack? And then my father, he was in Panama. I said, well, I'll work with you, but not there. Let's work Jamaica. And that was, whoof, that was a great route. Tell us about Jamaica.

Well, Jamaica is really nice. Back then, I mean, I lived in Montego Bay. And it was a great route because it was 24 hours. I mean, from northern Colombia to Jamaica, you hit San Pedro Bank and Jamaica. it was a really short ride compared to this long ride, Cancun, Mexico. Right. You know, Columbia, San Andreas, Cancun. But, you know, Jamaica, Jamaicans are rough.

I was going to ask you. They are no pushovers. They are rough, rough, rough. Yeah. We were with the number one smuggler there. So, I mean, I had a great time. I had two villas in Montego Bay in Iron Shores. Yeah.

You know, one for my girlfriend and one for, for, for, for the parties. But, you know, that's why Americans, when they go to Jamaica, I think a lot of them stay in all-inclusives and stay in the compound. But at least back then, it wasn't the kind of place. He'd just go out and just wander away and see Jamaica. No, it was a murderous, murderous place. And Kingston, poof.

Yeah. So how do you meet contacts? How does a Spanish, I know you speak English, but how do you make roots in a total really different place like Jamaica. Oh, because of Fresh. He was living in Jamaica. This is I got a great hookup. Elindio, Liebert. He'll receive any boat. We would send him and let's start. So we started sending trips to Jamaica.

We did very well. When we started a route, we started hitting it. Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, and these guys would, we would send it all to Jamaica. And then Fresh and his crew and Lieber had these Bahamians that would come down, pick Get up in Jamaica, take it to Bahamas and cross it to Miami. Okay. Oh, you were still moving some product through the Caribbean. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. So it seems like these routes are as much opportunity and just who you know. And you're like, okay, I know a 25 years span. Like, I know everybody in the window business in Miami. Obviously. Yeah. The same thing. Business is business.

Right. You know a guy who knows a guy who's a guy who's, over here and he says this, so let's go. Let's use it until... And then over time, you know who's reputable, who's not reputable, who steals, who, and then who's dead and who's alive, of course. Remember, the thing about me is not what I did, is how long I did it for. Right. 25 years. It's a long run. Did, uh, and you, they would know who had your back? Because you're not a violent guy. Always. Okay. Like when I was in Europe dealing with the Russians and the Greeks and all those guys.

One of the Russians told me, Wolf does not eat Wolf. Because... What the fuck does that mean? That means that, you know, you are represented by a very big group. You know, we don't fuck with them. That's why you, you know, I always worked with a very big group because who am I? I mean, that's why I never wanted to get into the ownership of. merchandise.

The ownership of merchandise is, you know, you've got to be a heavy, you know. You have to be willing to kill. Yeah. Very powerful groups. Right. Like at the end, those 25 tons of paramilitaries, a paramilitary group. That's right. I mean, guys had four military groups and had 3,000 guys, armed men, you know.

Right. So how can a guy who looks like a Cuban Steven Spielberg go? So if Russians rip them off, what are you going to go over to Russia and put a bullet in some of it? There's nobody, nothing you could do. That makes sense. And yet, you know, you have to always keep the straight line because a lot of people in my position would maybe go to Greece and talk to the Russians and try to cut side deals and this and that. When they, when the Russians see that, then they smell blood. Then you're fucked.

when they see you're a straight shooter and you're a company guy but when you start offering side deals, that's weakness. And then they will kill you and they will set it up and then they will take it all. And then in the end they will go back to him

and say it was his fault and that. Right. Being crooked in this business, some people say, no, kid, wow, maybe I can make on my own deal with the Russians and they can give me it. The minute you do that,

you open up the door to disaster. You, listen, I'm a straight, I work with them. No, because, oh, can we do that? No. Nada, right, you know. Yeah. Can we buy into the, look, that's a whole different bargain. That you have to go to Columme and talk to them.

Right, right. You don't want to open the, this, this is very tricky. So, you're dealing with the devil. On both ends, you're in the middle here. What's so interesting is they say there's no honor among thieves, but you were, you had honor the whole time. And look at you, you live to tell. That's the only thing that will keep you alive. Yeah.

Being able to sit with somebody, tell them the truth. And, you know, the truth goes a long ways. You can live with the truth. It's very difficult to live with lies. Because, you know, they're nowhere. The truth is the truth. It's boom. It's grounded.

Lies are frivolous. I don't know if you can answer this, but did you ever get a load ripped off where you had to go tell the owners, your bosses, and they had to go clean it up? A load was lost. And instead of going through the whole deal of the Mexicans and this and that I, I, you know, paid it. How much was that? It was a 4.8 million. It was one and there was another one that was less than what was 1.8 and at that point money's just the tool to keep things smooth. Yeah. You know, what am I going to do? And then, you know, go get the Mexican and this and what, what does that accomplish? Speaking of that, I know it varied depending on but no, I was very good.

I didn't lose a lot of loads. practically very little, very, very little. If a load did get lost or what was, I know it depended on whoever owned, you know, the specific merchandise, but generally what is the protocol? If a load gets lost, is it,

is it on you, is it on the Mexicans or is it on them? If you have a tight relationship with the person you're working with and you show them it was lost, then it was legitimately lost for whatever reason, you know, okay, so we'll do it again. Right.

Like, we lost a load with Rosguigno and a hurricane. A hurricane here. Believe me, the captain and his assistant, and the third guy that was on board got worked over. So to make sure it was a hurricane. Right, right. But then they got worked over. Worked over is a very political way to put it. But it's okay.

And then we continued. We did 44 trips. Yeah. Why did that? So finally, after 44 trips, what shuts a route down? Well, in this case, Fresh, who owned the right? He said, I'm stressed out. I'm freaking the fuck out.

I'm out of here. And he had to fake a heart attack because they just wanted to keep them going. And he went to Penal. In today's day and age, the modern. He's dead, by the way. Okay. Unfortunately. Rest in peace.

In the modern era, 2025, what shuts a route down? a huge seizure, I assume, right? Not even that because... Do it again. You do it again. Right. You know, because what are the routes? I mean, a commercial route, a huge seizure.

For example, let's say you're doing a commercial route out of Ecuador with bananas and, you know, they catch, obviously, you're not going to use that same company again and so on and so forth, but that doesn't mean that bananas are no longer top priority in exporting or, you know, food products or stuff like that. But what shuts a route down is, you know, people getting caught and the owner of the route getting caught and then, you know, it's just everything goes to shit. Yeah, yeah. Or like on the border, the U.S.-Mexico border, a border guard who's in pocket gets arrested.

That'll shut that one down. Yeah. But then just find another one. And it's happening at the same time. It's parallel happening with 10 other border guards. Right. So your percentage of getting a load through was incredibly high, 95%. Very high.

Yeah, very 95% I hardly ever lost the load. Okay. Which is good. Now. That creates goodwill. Yeah, no kidding. Now, Professor. El Professor.

There were a bunch of El Provisores in Colombia. Yeah, I bet. I think in Mexico there was one guy they called the Professor. The prof. So during the collapse of the Medellin Empire, the infighting, the bombings, the Pablo losing his mind, killing his partners, the Ochoa's smartest drug traffickers in history turned themselves in and to this day are living off billions of dollars they made. Smartest, most successful drug traffickers of all time. Gotcha is murdered by, he's ambushed by the Colombian military. during this time now collie has an alliance with los pepes who are hired by sebel pablo's former partner's brothers who he murdered

did you have to be really careful about who you worked with i worked with fernando galliano okay and he got killed micky went to talk to pablo and he thought he wasn't going to come back he went to talk to pablo in la catebral Right. So I just eased on to Northern Valley, which, you know, Cali had a very, I mean, Cali lasted a long time, but after Pablo, they went right after Cali. Right. And then in order to kind of cool the government down, Calli said for a while, everybody has to stop working. So I started working with somebody that didn't.

stop working, which was the monoendo, which he was really nuts. And Mickey called me over one day. He says, Senador, because they used to call me Senador. Senator. Regrecese to Wobotta. I'll go to

work, but he'll be to work with the Mono Endo because the Mono will be a matter. He's going to kill you. Yeah. So that was a brief interlude there, but okay, but I, after

Pablo and the Medellegiate thing. I never really worked with Cali. The only guy from, I worked with Ivan Urdinola a couple of times, but I went to Northern Valley. Right. So after Pablo, I went with Razguño. Okay, but you didn't go with

Razgunio until Pablo was dead, correct? Out of your own safety? Like, like, did you have to... We started working with... No, actually, no. 90... I was... Pablo was still, I started working with Razaguno while in the last days of Pablo.

Okay. Okay. But during, it's kind of like, Marulo introduced me. Okay. And Marrulo was still alive. So I started working with. Okay. But basically, except for the very last year, the last days of the Medellin cartel, you basically stayed loyal to Medellin people.

You didn't, you didn't go to a different cartel. No, I was mostly, yeah, I was Medellin. Okay. That's another reason you stayed alive. Yeah. I never really had great contacts in Cali. Never. From day one, since I met Villa,

and she was hooked up with the Ochoas and Polly, and then the Piedraitas, and then Pablo Correa, and then Fernando Galliano, and then Marulo and Monopera, who was Pereira, and Pereira was an offshoot of Medellin. I was always Medellin.

Yeah, okay. So, but now you're, like a girl that's, no, she's got a breakup with a guy, and she's got another guy over here. She's dating somebody else in the wings. So now you're with El Norte de Valle, which if you go watch Narcos, Colombia, Narco's season three,

they explain kind of who these guys were. And your guy over there was a guy named Raskuno. And they are, yeah, in the northern valley, kind of on the west side of Colombia, near the port of Buenaventura, right? When the war broke out between Medellín and Cali, you know, El Valle, there's Pereira. Then there's a little town south of Perera called Cartago. And that's the start of the valley, El Valle, all the way down to Cali.

So Rasmuno controlled Cartago. So he was a filter because a lot of times Medellin would try to send people into El Valle to, you know, you know, fuck with the Cali people. Shake shit up, yeah. And he was always there. He was very strong. Rasmuno was a very strong person,

is a very strong person, and created an empire. Right. And owned Cartago. So since you remember Marulo turned me on to him, you know, back in about 93, 92, 92.

Well, we did all these trips. All these 44 trips that we did was with, Roscoons. Oh, God. So, and he had a great brand called Rolex. Excellent. Good Coke? This is making me want to get high.

I'm not going to lie to you. Would you want, you want to relapse tonight, dude? No, brother. That's gone. You know, just the hangover's too heavy. Even on good Coke? All right, we don't need to be going to do this. The good thing about good Coke is you can eat.

You can sleep and you can fuck. You did. And you don't, you know, totally euphoric. Right. But anything when you overdo it. So, I mean, those days are over. I mean, I'm coming up to my 25th anniversary. Remember, I got caught August of 2000.

It's going to be August of 2025. Yeah. But it seems like yesterday. Right. But to make a long story short, we were, yeah. So I started working with Northern Valley, which became the next. powerful cartel after Cali and Medellin. Right.

Because Cali went right after Medellin. Yeah, right after. That's right. They were negotiating their surrender and by 95 they were locked up. Done. So North de Valle. North del Valle. And those were violent, violent people.

They're like kind of savages. I don't want to sound racist, but they're really, they're really a different breed over there. Yeah, it's got, they had a bunch of, strong, wild, crazy players. They had, you know, Razgunia was, is level-headed. You know, I must admit, he's level-headed. But, you know, you had Don Diego, then you had habon.

Then you had chupeta in there. Chupetta's actually from Cali, you know. But, and then just, you know, shit got kind of crazy there with all these people. And they started a feud among themselves. Okay. So tell us how your business and cocaine trafficking, changed in the 90s after the fall of the Medellin cartel? How did it evolve with North Del Valle and in through like the mid-90s and the late

90s? How did this thing change? It didn't really change. The only thing that changed was the source of supply. But I continued doing my thing. Okay. So what are the new routes in like 94-95 when you're working with North Del Valle? That one.

Cancun. Cancun was it. Cancun was 94, 92, 93, 94, 95. Then 96, Belize, 97 was a slow year. 98, boom, heavy, Jamaica. Okay. And Jamaica, I worked with somebody else. I didn't work with North Elvay. Jamaica, I worked with another group with Papito and with Beto. Now, when do freighters start to come into play? 99. That's when a friend of ours, Sunny Bowie, who lived in Panama, had a freighter company.

And then he used to have his freighters in Panama and so on and so forth. And used to take them and load up rice in Suriname, and then from there go out to Europe. Okay. And is freighters what began the big, big movement of Coke to Europe? Yeah. I assume right. Because that's the way to get Coke across the Atlantic. There's no other way.

Or sailboats. But sailboats, you're limited to 500 or 600. Right. And I have somebody that never got caught, got indicted, but never got caught and did sailboats all his life, and he's living in Brazil like nothing. Wow. But I decided to do freighters, and they contacted. me because I had some connections in Greece.

How did you make those connections in Greece and who were they? Through a friend. This is fascinating. Through a friend. Yeah. Who were these people in Greece? Well, they appear in the book, you know, Elias, Lemos, and the, uh, a Philippe, a shipping, a group that actually did real shipping.

Right. A shipping. A shipping company. Yeah. A shipping, uh, family. Wow. that actually did real shipping. Yeah.

You can't just invent this. You know, you just can't buy a freighter said, I'm a shipper. It's a lot of logistics. Of course. Companies, offices. Yes. You know, connections to refuel, bunk. I mean, so this was a legitimate shipping family for many years.

Right. Very well-known. Yes. Yes. And so, but somehow one of those family members was approached by a guy you knew over there. Yeah. And convinced him to flip. Nick Fishcatoris, Nick Fishcatoris, an Italian mobster, half Sicilian, half Greek, but had his mobster.

This is straight out of a book. This is crazy. This is a, super well-dressed, mobster from A to Z will kill you in a heartbeat. He'll kill you if he's having dinner with you and he gets pissed off. He'll kill you with the fork. And I made very good friends with him. Right. So he turned me on to the Greeks, and we started coming up with, you know, with this, the freighters.

Okay. We bought a few freighters in Europe. The thing is. Who's we? The Mayizo group. Right. The cartel that became the most powerful cartel after Northern Valley. Right.

And where were they from these maisos? People should look these up because not a lot of Americans know who they were. They're from Restrepo Valley, a little town in El Valle around Cali, you know, around. Right. And they used to work for Cali. They were like, they would just guard shipments for Cali back in the day. And then they became, according to this book, you know, they move more Coke than Medellín, arguably, more than Pablo Escobar. Not more than Pablo, because Pablo had many years.

But, yeah, I mean, to move 100 tons into Europe. in a four-year period or a three-year period. That's a lot. Incredible. And that's just what they claim in the indictment. Right. There's another 100 tons. Right.

I mean, super powerful, super wealthy. And these guys had like thousands of cicadios and people that... Well, they had three or four good ones. But they had a paramilitary group. That's what I mean. Yeah, they had like soldiers. They had like an army almost. Two paramilitary groups.

Yeah, one in the Nevados and one in our Vencedores of Arauca. Right. And these are, they're stationed at these little, the beginnings of like these waterways on the coast that helps them. Areas. Areas in Colombia. Araucan and in Nevada, they were in the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta. And how do you have? But their base was Guiana.

Yeah. See, the thing is that the Caribbean is a hot zone. The Caribbean is a hot zone. So the further away you get from the Caribbean, that's why Sonny went down. He got hot with Interpol and he went down. That's when they looked for me because I had these Greek connections. Right. And then I told them, okay, Sunny was picking up in Sudan, but he got hot. So they set up a fishing station,

fishing station in eastern Venezuela, all the way at the delta of the Orinoco River. So that's already out of the Caribbean. So the ships used to come from Greece, go down to Nigeria, to Lagos, Nigeria, drop off some steel, pick up some cassava or something. Go down to Santos, Brazil, drop off whatever, pick up some sherri. and go up the coast of Brazil, then come into the Orinoco River into Puerto Daz. There we would drop off the good crew, the Russian Ukrainians, and hop on the bad crew. All right. And we had a guy.

Who's the bad crew? The bad crew were mostly guys from Bangladesh or Philippines that were hired by a guy that his job was to hire crew members. so for when these ships were doing coke runs. These are freighters. They're working all year around, and they're not carrying coke all the time. Right. Okay.

But these guys, the bad crew, knows that the Coke's on board. Okay. So we offload the Russians and put on the Bengalis or the Filipinos. Now, the Filipinos, they're known for working on ships. Were they easier to flip and corrupt because they're from such poor places? Or did you notice different ethnic? Maybe, but somebody, it's an organization and somebody's in charge of that.

In this case, it was in Duraim. And yes, I guess he was from Bangladesh himself. So he had his trustworthy people that he could hire. Right. It all has to do on trust. He just don't hire, you know. Of course not. And it was his responsibility.

Okay. That was his job, that these people are good. Yeah. Okay, and there's nobody flipping and shit like that. But it's important to know because this is, most of the cocaine today, especially the Coke that moves to Europe, are in these huge freighter ships, and probably those crews know what's going on.

No. Or no. Depends. There's two ways. Frater ships that carry container loads of banana, and the owner of the banana company doesn't know that they've loaded shit on his container. Right.

And then nobody knows. And the captain doesn't know and nobody knows. The only one knows is that somebody at the port that loaded up a container. Right. And he'll be agancho siego. These, no. These ships had certain compartments welded where we put the coke and the crew know about it and everybody. Okay.

Okay. Okay. So, but going back to the Caribbean to avoid the Caribbean, so these come from Greece, and we would do it backwards. Greece, Lagos, Nigeria, Santos, Brazil, up the Brazilian coast, into the Orinoco, then load up steel, and then leave Sidor, leave Puerto Daz, the freighter, loaded with the steel,

go outside the Orinoco River Delta. And when it's a few miles outside the Orinoco River Delta, the fastboats would load the shit on the boat. Then they would hide it in the compartment. But this was at 5 o'clock at night. It's 6 o'clock. By the time it's 7, 8 o'clock, this thing's already out in no man's land. Yeah.

There's no helicopters out there. You can't catch it. It's in the middle of fucking nowhere. How do they get the, when they take the fastboats loaded with the coke and it leaves the Orinoco and they get up to the ship? How do they actually physically get the coke up to the ship? Well, with ropes or whatever, you know, they lower it down the nets. Right. They lower and they they hoist.

And what is the advantage of that having a dirty crew that will help pull the coke up versus just, you know, loading it into a container that nobody knows about? It's two different routes. Two different systems. So one isn't better than the other? No. It's just whatever it is, you're happy to be working and whatever it is, you happen to have your connection. Right.

And this was your guys' connection. I never had a connection. I never had a legal container connection. Right, right. Okay. I wish I did. But this one seems good. This one seems fun. This one.

This is, this works. I mean, it worked. But they're different, they're different routes. Right. Okay. So this was your route. So now the fast boats have loaded up the ship and it's boom in the Atlantic. Just crossing the ocean.

Crossing the ocean. It goes up to northern Spain. Some fishing boats offloaded. bring it into northern Spain, and then when the ship gets to Rotterdam or Amsterdam or, you know, Holland or wherever it's going, it's empty. It's clean. Yeah, and you said also they'll drop it off in Spain,

but sometimes you had the British Channel too, like you sometimes had guys there that you were dropping product off to? Not really. We were doing mostly northern Spain. Okay. So, and the, Your bosses, the people you work for, I was, sorry?

Well, were their names? I didn't really, it was their merchandise. They didn't know I was the one doing that. I wanted to keep that silent. It came out when I got busted, but they knew it was a griego, supposedly a Greek. Okay.

But it was me, and I knew it was them, but I didn't want to mix peaches and apples. I see. So it's the Greek ship. It's your, your operation. And in Spain, in Galicia, Galicia, who is the, in charge of that merchandise when it gets there? The Mayesos had a guy who was in charge of the offload. And he was the... And I didn't have nothing to do with that. You didn't know who it was. Okay. How does that money get back?

I haven't asked you this whole time how most of that money comes back. And were you responsible for any of that? Yes. They wanted me to become responsible a lot of times, but you know, it's very difficult to move money. Money is a difficult thing to move. And it gets back

either physically or through banks or through exchange houses. Money's a whole different ballgame. I never got into money laundering because that's another business. Well, your own personal, your own

personal methods, let's say. Let's say you, there's six million dollars that you made. I'm just making up a number because sounds about right. You made $6 million off a freight that successfully landed in Spain. How would you get your own money? Well, I had good connections and either, you know, open offshore accounts. Those are small amounts, though, you know, six million. I mean, imagine having to deal with 500 million in cash. in Spain. I mean, it's... Think about it.

I mean, the minimum was 5,000 kilos. 5,000 kilos gets sold for 30,000 a kilo. That's $150 million. Okay, so then, you know, and then one load, two loads, three loads, and then you've got 500 million in Spain. You got to bring that back. It's a pain in the ass. It's difficult.

How the fuck do you do that? Well, I didn't want to get involved in that. Okay, so you didn't... Wow. I mean, back in the 80s. You know, I always loved art, so I bought an art gallery in L.A. And I laundered money through an art gallery. And I laundered money through the sugar business.

But my amounts were small because I had to deal with three, four, five, six, ten. But not 500 million. Do you remember you're talking about billionaires? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the meesos, again, these are just small. These are like country bumpkins, dude. I'm sorry.

I love Columbia, but you know what it is. They're country bumpkins. How do they move? Did they physically move? Because actually, they are very, very smart people. Very, very smart people. And on top of that, they have the power of the gun that they, you know, they are smart, very smart. Very smart.

Do you think that $500 million in cash? This is just speculation. That's nothing. But I'm saying, okay, just on a drop across, across ocean drop, worth 500 million. Do you think that cash is physically moving back across the ocean to Colombia, or is a lot of it staying in Spain?

A lot stays and we'll get funneled elsewhere. For example, there's so many different ways. People will receive it and bank it and put it through companies. But it does not all of it go back to Colombia. Right. You know, some of it gets put through offshore circled around.

For example, Mexicans. A lot of this cash that's in the U.S. It goes back to Mexico the same way the Coke came up in tunnels. Forget, you know, 500 million going to an exchange house with 9,000 here, 9,000 here. Just the bulk of the money goes back through the tunnels. So they got a billion dollars in Mexico. They'll put it in a couple of containers and send it to China. The Chinese offload a billion dollars in cash. over there. There's no, you know, cash is cash. And with that billion dollars, they buy this, and they buy this, and they buy cups, and they buy dishes, and they buy knives, and they buy machinery, whatever it is the Chinese build, which is everything. And that gets dumped in the

world and sold. And then they say, put so much in that account, put so much in that account, put so much in that account. Done. Clean. Clean. Wow. This is all, it's just so unbelievable, how complicated, how many people are involved when you're doing $500 million, billion dollars, just try to imagine how many different people from accountants, from the people throwing the coke up on the ship to the lawyers and the front companies in Spain and Europe and all over the world. It's mind-blowing the corruption. No, it's totally. And it's one of the largest businesses on the planet.

Yeah. And everything that revolves around it. And that's why, you know, continuity is the key. How do you make a good route? Well, by staying alive. Because it's not something you just make up. And a lot of the people try to do it. They go to somebody like Razzguino.

He's not dumb either. But a lot of people try to, you know, just invent shit. That doesn't go very far. They end up dead. There's serious problems. I mean, we've all read about those things. But to have a good route, you know, you have to know what you're doing, who's going to handle the merchandise at all times, where it is,

that, dot, dot, that, when it's going to get there. You just can't tell somebody, give me your shit, and I'll have it in Madrid in a month. you know, four months go by and the shit is still, who knows where, no, I don't know where, that doesn't fly. So you, you know, 25 years of doing this. And like I said, it's like when you're born, you're shown the right way

and you see the right things and that stuff sticks to you. And when you're born, you see the wrong shit and you're taught the wrong things and that sticks with you, But when you see what's right now right should be, that's why I said. I was very fortunate to meet Bia. And she had a golden goose that was an American guy that paid the way drug deals should be done.

You give the guy his money and you get the money. I had so many offers from just people in Miami crazy. Hey, give me. No, I stuck to the right way. So these freight loads now. these cargo ship loads that are going to Europe, you've now gone from doing a quarter ton loads to, you know, half a ton loads.

Now it's 10 tons? The most we would put on the ship was five. 5,000. 5,000 quid, five tons. 5,000 kilos. Okay. This is 1999. What did you think?

What was your net worth now? Do you have any sense of that? I know money goes in one hand and then, you know, goes out of the other. But what do you think you're, what did you get a sense of how much money you had made in that now 24-year career? Well, I didn't keep enough of it. That's for sure. I was, I never had a partner and I should have had a partner. Or maybe it's a blessing not having a partner because I'm not, I'm not an administrator.

My dad was. Right. My dad was an administrator. I'm a salesman by nature. I'm a creator. That's why I loads and stuff that I like. But a lot of reckless financial moves on my part, you know, macadamia farms in Costa Rica and this shit and that shit.

I don't know, but, you know, anywhere, $25 million that you may have or you may not have, a lot of it is gone or not. You know, but a lot of money in the hands of somebody that is not sharp as an administrator will be just blown away. Well, you owned a ton of different companies, though, right? Did you own properties and things like that? I had some properties and companies, not really companies to, because when I was involved in this, this took up all my time. Yes, I did have coffee companies in Mexico, latex companies, so on and so forth, but they were nothing like huge international.

And they were locally run enterprises that I really enjoyed, for example, the coffee company in Cancun. I love that. I should have stayed doing that. And that's not me. You know, I should have what? You know, when AIDS hit, I started a late tech. business and I started making condoms.

Wow. In Mexico. So I had this factory in Mexico making rubber gloves and selling and shit and the Seguro Social Mexicans and this and that and condoms. Because that's where my mind was. And those were profitable companies. That wasn't just a place to run money through? I had a partner.

So no. Those companies I had Mexican partners and I wanted to keep it clean because supposedly they did not know anything about what I was doing. The only thing was that they all knew I had some money, and we never needed a bank for any financing. We never needed banks to finance anything. Right. Okay.

With these cargo ship Coke loads, are you still taking 5%? Is that your fee? Or how financially... Roughly. Roughly, in the end, that's what it would work out to. And my partners, the Greeks, they, you know, let's, for example, yeah, there we, we owned, always owned like 100 to 200 kilos. But notice that that's very little compared to 5,000.

Right. But I didn't want to go there. See, people that don't know. It's fat, 1,000 kilos. You know, just to stick to what we know how to do. And if we can get an extra 100 kilos and, you know, then that means that the freight is almost zero to us. you know, 100 kilos, you know, at 30,000 a kilo, I'd give it back to the Columbia's at 25,000. Right.

I didn't want to have nothing to do with selling. So, and then who finances a 5,000 kilo shipment? The meesos. Right, the mesas. That's all, so you're not, you're just using your contacts, your expertise, your route. That's your, what you bring to the table. Yes. That's your value.

Yes. Yes. That's a huge value. It's everything. And if you would have told them, listen, you've got $500 million in Europe and give us $100 million to buy boats. They'd give you $100 million to go buy boats. But then, you know, okay, and where are you going to park these boats? And what the fuck?

I mean, when I got to Europe, my partner, my Greek partner, Elias, takes me to a meeting with this Russian guy. Remember, the Russians that just broken up. Yeah. This motherfucker offers us 50. Russian submarines. Not one. Not two. Fifteen.

And I go, Elias, where do we park it? No, okay, but Elias, that's one, but this guy says 15 and he won't go for one.

I don't know anything about submarines. I mean, we're at 15. We said no, obviously. But that's the kind of shit that was going on after Russia breaks up.

I mean, just, this guy was probably, I don't know, some mid-level guy. Yeah. Offering. 15 submarines. Wow.

What was the biggest purchase that you made in preparation for one of these journeys, one of these Coke movements, Coke smuggling operations? My planes used to, my first plane cost $500,000. My other planes cost a million. And the boat we used was $2 million, the freighter. You know, I would say the largest in. investment was two, three million dollars. Yeah. Yeah. And you would, so you always try to use somebody

else's money, though. Yes, because you can't do it all. And you need good partners and good partners are people that are, you're putting up something. I mean, so those mayes have, having a route is, is worth. It's weight. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Uh, is this your best route at the time? What other routes in 99 are you working? That route sucked. I knew that that was our downfall. Okay. I knew that having freighters, having companies in Europe, having companies in Greece, that I knew that, and I told George the contact with the Mayesos, I said, this sucks. We should do a couple of these, and the paper trail will bring us down.

We will go down. What do you mean by that? The paper trail, just too many people could get Russians off the go-bo and putting these guys on, and then the paper trail. paying the Russians and about too many, too many moving pieces. I told them, you don't need a freighter to get 5,000 kilos across the Atlantic. Do you know how big Christopher Columbus's boat was? It was like 40-something feet. Right.

The pinta and the minta and the Santa Maria and all these. We need to build these super nice, open fishermen, 80 foot, 100 foot, like those realzados that we were using in San Andreas, just four times larger. With three internal diesel caterpillar, a thousand, two hundred horsepower engines. We get four black guys from San Andreas, put them on that boat, and they go across,

and there's no company, there's no cruise, and there's no fueling here and paying big bills and that and secretaries. And when these guys get to northern Spain, they offload the Coke, And they offload them too, and we sink that boat. And we build them in Brazil.

And we keep some in Brazil, and we keep one in Trinidad. And these boats just blend in. It's in a 100-foot open fishermen with three. Nobody knows what inside, because you can't see it. And they're very, you know, more power than what you need. But nobody knows. And now those boats in the open ocean, they don't attract attention? There's nobody there.

and they move so fast. Right. At night, you know, they're here and tomorrow they're here. Right. And they're so low, you know? Yeah. That's just going. Whoever sees it may be a Japanese fishing vessel that's out there fishing for the Japanese.

Right. Destroying the seas. They're probably doing more illegal shit than we are. Of course. They don't care if that fucking thing passes by. And I told them, we got to get away from this shit. Right. having these fucking companies and these freighters,

that's all a bunch of, just load up, 100 foot open fisherman custom made, boom, gone. And we bring back to crew members, we get them papered up and bring them up to the Cape Verde Islands. Right. You know. Well, that's a pretty common route now for Coke going to Europe is passed by those Cape Verde Islands,

just off the coast of Africa. A lot of it, yeah. Yeah. But so you think if you were selling Coke, if you were moving loads today, in 2025, you would prefer that over freighters, big car. Without a doubt. Okay.

I wasn't going to do anymore. I got caught. That's why that plant. But that's a beautiful route. Yeah. You have these open fishermen, move 5,000 kilos a lot faster. And you can get 5,000 kilos in a boat like that. Yes.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I know a lot of the submarines, the semis. I mean, if we put 1,600. on a 34-foot realsado. Imagine a 100-foot open fisherman. I mean, you've seen those sport fishing boats,

those Vikings that are 73, 80 feet. Imagine that whole hall, but without the tower. Right. And just... So how do you pack those things? Do you pack them in Brazil? Like if you were going to make those ships in Brazil, build them, would you also load the Coke in Brazil?

We would pick it up at the same place we were picking up in Guyana. And small boats would come out and feed us. Right. But do you have a contraption that lifts the floor? No, this boat is the open fishermen that is loading, taking the merchandise to load it, you know, two miles out, three miles out. The size difference isn't that much. No, I know, but I'm saying like if somebody boards it, don't you want to have the Coke in a place where they can't?

Oh, no, no. If somebody boards it, there's nowhere to hide it. It's not like a freighter that they can board it and where is it? Right, right. The freighter is like a hotel. I was just thought like a trap, like, you know, in a trap car of something lifts up. No, because number one, if somebody boards that, what the hell is a 100-foot open fisherman with four guys from San Andreas doing it in the middle of the Atlantic?

Exactly. With no fish. And it's not a fishing boat. Okay. No. The idea is just like the go fasts from Bahamas to Miami, nobody boards it. Right. It just, whew-hmm.

Yeah. Okay. So that you're doing that, but across the ocean. And so it's essentially just, there's nobody. There's no, there's no enforcement. Okay. There's nobody. Right.

And then by the time it gets to the border of international waters with Spain and Africa, they're loading it onto smaller fishing vessels. You take it up to the same place, to Galicia. Right. And then you dump it to fishing vessels, right? Yeah. Or go fast and then sink that thing. Right. Well, you know, that's what they do with submarines, the semi-submersibles.

After they offload them, they're gone. They sink them. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah, that seems, okay, so that's definitely a route that people still use, a method that people still use to this day. It's got to be. You know, right now they have submarines, unmanned submarines that are totally done by satellite.

So they're sending shit from wherever, Venezuela or Brazil, in submarines that are, there's no crew. That's unbelievable. 3,000 kilos, boom, gone. And they're sending it either from, you know, western Colombia, south of Buenaventura, you know, northern Ecuador, and these semi-submergibles, semi-submergibles. And also down they're working on submarines. remote control. And now, you know, like Australia is becoming the new Miami. Yes, that's what everybody says.

When they used to bring shit into Miami and then shoot it out to the rest of the country, Australia, you know, is receiving, I mean, they just popped 3,000 kilos in New Zealand. You know, 3,000 kilos is enough to feed New Zealand for 30 years. Yeah. So that's going to Asia, because the, The price of Coke is so cheap in Europe that, you know, it's gone down in Australia. I think the price wholesale is about $75,000, but that's a lot better than $15,000. It's still pretty high.

Yeah. And from there, you go to Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, Singapore. You don't think those executives in Singapore love to drink and get high? Get out of here. And now all those Asian countries have a middle class. too. And so... 300 million Chinese snorting. Wow. That's a lot of noses.

That's a lot of noses. Flat noses. That's where I'd be going if I were working. Australia. Yeah, of course. We've talked to people that have got... Let's call Jesse Fink. Should we call him? Oh, right, because he's Australian. That's right. We need a contact in Australia. I get the hot. Okay, so...

He's a great guy, by the way. Yeah, Jesse Fink, a co-writer of Puranark. which we're about to plug in a second, but before we move on to part two and switch over to the Patreon, we need to hear in a very, very broadly, because I know there's a lot of details to it,

the final load in the year 2000 that got you popped. Finally, after 25 years. Well, the organization got infiltrated. They had a worker. Somebody that should have never been hired. Is this the Los Meisos? Yeah.

Okay. They had a worker that traveled to Miami, and in Miami, boom, they grab his ass, and they read him the riot act, and he flips. So they send him back to Colombia, already flipped. So he starts talking and talking and talking. And he talks about a Greek guy in Europe, a Greek guy, a Greek guy, a Greek guy, a Greek, guy, Greek guy, yeah, Greek guy, and he's got the boats and everything, that, that, that. Oh, and now the Greek is coming to Venezuela because I had, we were going to buy two more ships,

and I had to come with the plans of the ship to see where they're going to build the stash. They wanted to study that. So I go to Venezuela, which I didn't want to. But, and so they're already waiting for the Greek to come in to Venezuela. But finally, no Greek shows up. you know, I go over there with a Mexican passport. But, you know, things got delayed, and I stayed in Puerto Daz a little too long.

And then they spotted me at a few meetings, and they still didn't know who I was. They knew I was in the Greek, and they don't know what the hell I was. So then they grabbed my prints from a glass in a restaurant. And when they ran the prints back, they came back. And this is DEA following you?

Well, actually, it was a joint international task force. It was like 14 nations. The Brits were very much involved. Wow. The Brits were very much involved. Eric Kovinsky was in Baranquilla. They called him. The DEA,

ICE. The Brits, well, they arrested my partners in Paris. The other guys they arrested in England. The other guys they arrested in Rome, in Greece, because they ran the prince and they came back to Luis Navia. And I was wanted on a 91 indictment from the Florida Keys.

Right. So was that from that load of 400 keys, they got intercepted all those years before? Yeah. Wow. Wow. Bummer. So you've been a fugitive. You've been living now in 19, no, the year 2000.

just before your 45th birthday, I believe? Yes. In August of 2000, this is when it happened. You had been now gone from the United States for 13 years, and you'd been a fugitive. You had a warrant out since 95, so for five years. So you're operating as a, you know, still very low-key, but as a fugitive.

Like, they know who you are. I think it as a fugitive since 87. I thought I was going to get indicted with Doc out of Mexico and Tucson. That didn't come out. I was indicted, but I started acting as a fugitive since 87 and living like one. And what was the size of this load? $5,000. $4,600,000 kilos was what was being loaded onto the Swarte.

Right. Sverte is the name of the ship. and you were charged with that and anything else? Well, I was fortunate that, you know, when they found out who I was, they had to call by protocol Bob Harley, the guy who owned me, had my 91 case from the Keys. Because that's law enforcement protocol. And he said, bring him in because I had a lot.

already alluded Bob in Cancun and in Panama when I was there with Sunny Bowie, bring him in. So that's when they closed it down and they arrested me in Maracaibo. And they brought me to the States four days later. I arrived August 19th. They arrested me August 16th. And that was the end of the career. But yeah, it was because somebody was infiltrated. And then they ID'd me and then everything went downhill after that.

They raided that fishing camp and they grabbed like 17,000 kilos plus the other four or five thousand that were going on the Swart day. So it was about 25 tons and it was 25 tons, the end of 25 tons, the end of 25 years. Wow. Yeah, it was. 25 tons. and did they try to put that whole thing on you? Or are they able to do that? They would have.

They said, listen, you know, back in 98, the big cartel leaders went to Panama and started cutting deals with the DEA to establish an air of cooperation. Because nobody wants to do 35 years and they knew everybody was hot and they're businessmen. They're very smart.

And now, that was back in, now there's a big synergy between law enforcement and the cartels. That's why the war on drugs has been lost because there's a war on drug. But the cartels got bigger and the DEA got bigger. Right. Yeah.

We were caught in the middle. But not to get into that. What were we? 25 tons, enough to put you away for easily. And they didn't charge me with that because I said, listen, I'm going to plead guilty to the 91 charge. And just, you know, I'll give you all the information. and debrief on this whole thing that, you know,

you've got a guy infiltrated because it, you know, it wasn't my fault. They were infiltrated. And it's not about whose fault it is. No, we're all in there together. Right. But I am not going to, you know, go to trial on this or anything. I'll play ball with you guys.

Just, you know, I'll try to do the best I can, not to have to do the 35 years. or... Well, you must have been facing life without... For even 5,000 kilos get you life. It would have been life. If I would have fought this thing, they would have just come down on me.

I mean, I just found out recently. Not only would they have hit me with the 91 charge plus this charge, but they were going to hit me with a charge out of New York, which I didn't know about. It's disastrous. Once these people have you...

Yeah. I mean, you can go ahead and do 35 years. I mean, my wife had to go to Columbia to get permission for me to debrief. Wow. Oh, yeah, because I was in jail, but at the same time, my wife was living in Mexico with my kids. And I said, you know, if I have to do the years, I'll do them. I have no choice. But my wife went down to Columbia, met with a few of the people.

And they said, listen, just tell him to debrief, do what he has to do to get out. We're all in the same boat. Did, what happened to Los Maesos? Well, unfortunately, one got killed in a firefight with the army. Uh-huh. Tough cookie. And the other one got arrested in a few months later and brought to the U.S. And he did his time.

And I... Is he still in there? No, I don't think so. He did his time and he's out. Now, how does somebody as violent and powerful and... internationally billionaire, you know, biggest cocaine trafficker in Colombia at the time. How does he get out? Does he also cut deals? Well, he's got very good lawyers and not everybody's case is the same.

Yeah. And you don't really know what they really have on you. See, just because they say he's big, I don't know. You know, me, for example, I was caught red-handed. I had the 91. indictment plus I had 10 or 12 people in the system already willing to talk about me and cooperate against me and then I get caught with this whole thing but the meizos weren't in Venezuela they didn't get arrested so everybody has a different situation and even though somebody may be richer or badder or worse but we all have different situations who is willing to testify against you oh a lot of people the same people that got arrested with me in Venezuela, the people from the Keys from 91,

plus a bunch of other people that, you know, would have just popped up. Yeah, yeah. So it's a losing battle. And thank God, you know, they said, go ahead, let them debrief, no problem. So did you have to cooperate? Like, who did you cooperate against? Well, what I gave was a historical because there was no, pending case, the only case that was pending was the one from the keys.

Okay, and that was so far gone that, you know, basically I didn't know the people that were going to cooperate against me. I just had to debrief about my whole 25-year history and tell them everything I had ever done. Right. Proffering. Yeah. Okay. Yes. I had a proffer agreement. Did you have to turn in all of your assets? Yes, I had to turn in quite a few of the assets and thank God I didn't get hit with restitution. Right. What was the value? Like what did you,

what were some of the things you had to turn in? I'm sorry to open old wounds. Yeah, we lost, you know, the farm in Costa Rica, the different accounts and, you know, right. Certain companies. Yeah. You give up your companies in Mexico, your coffee company. Yeah, that's all gone.

You had to give up cash. They, yeah. Hmm. Did you have any money that they didn't get? Not that I know of. Maybe a little bit. That's a good answer. Yeah.

Yeah, always, you know, and they let you, look, you know, I came out. Did I have a lot of money? No, I mean, I spent years in jail. It costs money, you know, to keep. your family going and the startup and business. And I managed to get involved in a business that's somewhat lucrative, which is, you know, impact hurricane windows in Miami, that I have to work every day. Yes, I have a day job that I'm living off the fat of the land.

No, I've got to wake up early and get to it. So I've been fortunate enough to have my family, my health, and the energy to face a new beginning. Right. But, you know, if I would have had to, I would have probably stayed in. Thank God I got arrested, when I got arrested, and there was that error of cooperation because everybody's cooperating. Now, my cooperation is different than the other guy's cooperation.

Everybody's case is different. That's why you can't compare mine with Mayesos or anybody else. Everybody's got a different case. Do you let the bosses know? Like if I've heard this. So I'm going to ask you because I think it depends. I've heard that really, really high level players like yourself, if they get busted, it's known that you're going to cooperate because you've got to get out.

Do you let the people that you're going to give information on? Do you let them know? Like, hey, I've got to tell them about you. You've got to be truthful. Okay. Number one, the U.S. government knows more than you think they know. You know about a few trees in the forest. They know about the whole forest.

You can't be untruthful. Whatever you do, you've got to be truthful. So you can't let anybody know that you're going to testify against this guy and not this guy and talk about it. You give them the whole spiel. You give them what you know. They ask you this. You answer honest.

There's some things I don't know about. Yeah. There's some things I do. What I know is what didn't they know? I don't think I told them anything they didn't know. Right. For example, in this operation of 25 tons, they had an infiltrated guy in the organization.

They knew more than I did about what happened in 1991. They knew it all. They busted the people. I mean, they know it all. It's just what they want to see is, truthfulness, you're not trying to pull the wool over their eyes, because they will slam you and you will never see the light of day. Oh, yeah.

But the game's over. You're caught. Now you've got to come across truthfully. And they want to see that, you know, at least this motherfucker's reformed. He's not going back to his old ways. That's a big mistake. What was your sentence? 11 years was my first slam, and I did five out of 11.

Wow. How'd you get out that quick? Well, originally when you get arrested, you're up at level 38 or whatever, so you're looking at 35 years. But then, you know, you sign a plea agreement and you start the debrief, and your levels come down. I mean, if you have no violence, it comes down two points. If it's your first time, it comes down two points, you know, for something else. So then it starts going down. But then you have a 5K1.

You get two bites to the apple. Okay, the 5K1 is a reduction before sentencing. So you cooperate with them and you debrief with them before sentencing. So by the time you go to sentencing, by the time I went to sentencing, I was looking at 11 years. I got my 5K1. They gave me two years, so it was nine years. So out of nine, I did five. That's how it was.

Out of nine, I did five. My sentence was nine, 108. Okay. I came in front of the judge with 11. They applied to 5K1. They took off two years, so I got sentenced to 108 months, nine years. So you, after cooperating, you got 11 years. No, that doesn't make any sense.

You get sentenced one time. So you got sentenced to nine years. And you only got two years knocked off of an only an 11-year sentence? I don't understand. There's sentencing guidelines. Yeah. Okay. So when I went in before the judge, I was at sentencing guideline, whatever, 28, let's say.

Right. That's 11 years. Oh, interesting. Okay. 11 years. in 32 months. But that's without the 5K1. So then the prosecutor goes,

Your Honor, he has helped us with this, this, and that he's been cooperating and truthful. We'd like you to reduce it to nine years. I understand that,

but you got caught with enough cocaine to give you a life sentence regardless of never being in trouble before. And I mean, when they put 5,000 kilos on you, Yes, but that's the sentencing guidelines. When you go in, you're looking at life.

But then you cooperate. Right. But I mean, you're saying without the, but the 11 years, was that after cooperating? I'm just astonished. Like, I'm going to go sell keys if I only get sent to 11 years. Don't do that because, don't do that because don't, you know, what happened to me may not happen to you and you may end up doing 35 years. Or the worst part about it is don't think you're going to last 25 years. I hope you do.

But you'll probably die within the first three years. Of course. So let's see. If you get caught with 25 tons, if you get caught with more than 150 kilos, you're going to do 30, 35 years. Okay. So that's my point. 150 and 25 tons is the same. That's my point.

As far as a sentence. That's my point. So you. My indictment said, 150 kilos or more. Right. So the cooperation got you from 35 years down to 11 years. And then you got another two years knocked off right before sentencing.

That's what I'm trying to get to. There's an apple. You get two bites. The first bite is your 5K1. That's a reduction before sentencing. Right. Okay. So before sentencing.

So you go before the judge. I went before the judge and after being a nice guy and everything, they had left me at 11 years. After? No, at 11. Then they applied the 5K1. They took off two years. So I got hammered. This is a reduction before sentencing.

That means that they sentenced me to nine years. But they leave the door open so you can get a second door. bite at the apple. That's called a rule 35. That's a reduction after sentencing. This is a reduction before sentencing. So they leave that door open. Okay. So then you get another bite at the apple, and that's when they took off four. And that's why I did five. Okay. So you're, you went from 35 years. That's what you would have faced if you had said, I'm not cooperating. I'll plead guilty. You would have got 35. You gave up information and you didn't have any, you know, no violence, no priors. So it went from 35 to 11, 11 to 9, and then 9 to 5 years. Exactly. That's unbelievable.

It is. That's so. But understand that it's the only way the business has grown to where it's grown and it's ridiculous. That's what they should legalize this. Right. Because law enforcement sits down with big bosses and they get more work done than they would in 30 years of doing police work. The police work is going to get them nowhere. Right. There's no time on earth. No. There's not enough people on earth. Yeah. Yeah. So this is why, and then this has just blown up to get so big. And there's a synergy between law enforcement and the drug cartels. I tell you, they got to look it up. Barug Vega case. It's when this film producer introduced the DEA, Colombian film producer, introduced DEA agents to the big cartel leaders in Colombia,

and they met in Panama. Money was exchanged, supposedly $115 million. Look at us. It's, this isn't me. This is out there. Yeah. So an era of cooperation was established where Colombians would cooperate. Yeah. Right now you have a El Chapo's son. Of course.

Cooperating. Yeah, the whole family. The whole family. Yeah. The whole thing with Mayo Sambada, El Mayu. Yeah. It was all a cooperation set up. Yeah.

And he's probably happy he's arrested from. living with diabetes in the mountains and he's... I don't sure if he's happy, but... I'm not either. I won't say that because let me tell you one thing. I never thought I would be arrested and I never thought I'd get killed. Wow. Because... Look at how long you'd went for. Yeah, but you think I would wake up every morning and continue doing this if I knew I was

going to get arrested? Of course not. I'd quit. Right. I thought I was invincible. Yeah. If I thought I was going to get killed, I'd stop too. Right. I never thought I'd be arrested. When I got arrested, I couldn't believe it.

But then again, you know, the organization got infiltrated. And that's, they took down the whole organization. Wow. Very quickly after that. Not only the routes, that guy who was a nobody, a nobody in the organization, took down the largest drug organization at that time. Yeah. The routes, the people, everybody.

Yeah. Very quickly. Like within months after you went down. After they busted the 25 tons. Now, when you went, so why is that allowed the cocaine business, the cooperating and the synergy with law enforcement? Why has that allowed the cocaine business to grow so much? No, it grows because. Because it's in demand.

Yes. That's why it grows. Obviously, right? Yeah. That's why it grows. Like right now, you know, they're opening out new routes. When I was around, nobody spoke about sending a trip to Australia. Nobody spoke about sending merchandise to Jordan.

Nobody spoke about, you know, let's send a shipment to India. Right. It was, you know, Mexico, the Bahamas, the U.S., and then Europe. Yeah. But now people are. snorting everywhere. So this is totally uncontrolled. It's like prohibition, you know.

Imagine if they would have never legalized liquor. And you'd have to buy liquor from a guy that made it in his bathtub. But the only way to control something is you have to legalize it. That way you can control it. Then it's in your control. It's a hard pill to swallow. It's the only way. everything else has failed.

Everything. And the cartels have just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. Now, you know, Coke is a limited product. You know, you can actually buy and corner the market, buy all the cocaine. Then there's no cocaine to sell. But that's another different problem. You've got a lot of people in this country that live off that. Okay.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but, you know, What are those people going to do? They're going to go flip burgers at McDonald's? Well, I think it's actually, I think they'll always make more cocaine. I think the Columbia's got to figure out. It's like bananas. You can buy all the bananas in corner the market. Yeah, but then they'll just make more.

They'll make it in Bolivia. They're making it in Peru. You put a big dent. Now, that's a problem because, you know, United Fruit used to do that. They used to, you know, buy all the banana in Central America. a hold, it's a little. But, you know, whoever has to do that nasty job of buying the cocaine for the U.S. I mean, you can't buy the powder. You have to buy the leaf and you can do it through the Department of Agriculture, actually. He's not going to be a very popular guy. Oh, right. You're talking about

if you wanted to legalize it. Yeah. I see. I see. Yeah. It's complex. It's very complex. But that's the only, like, just hearing you talk about 25 years, you got through, I mean, how many loads in 25 years did you lose? 10? Maybe. Maybe. How many runs did you do? Probably over a thousand? 20 a year? Five hundred. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. 500 runs. So, and you lost. At least, yeah. It's five percent. I lost very little. Yeah. So, there you go. There's your answer. It's, what are we going to move on as a society? Like, this cocaine and the war on drugs is just like this brief thing. Drugs have been around for thousands of years.

Cocaine and heroin were around. Opium was around in the 19th century used for medicinal reasons. This is only like a 100-year stupid phenomena that's allowed psychopaths like these Colombians to become unimaginably wealthy. We got to, like, move on as a species, don't you think? Like, this is ridiculous. Look, it's addiction. It's called addiction.

Okay. We're addicted to everything. We're addicted to buying purses. We're addicted to everything. But, like, even, you know, the money that this produces, the problem is the money is badly used. If the cocaine industry existed and the cocaine cartels would use the money in a good way, but they buy more coke and they buy guns and then they get into human trafficking

and they expand into even worse businesses. Okay, so it's money that's being reinvested and that's the nature of the beast. It's bad. But for example. A lot of things are bad, though. I mean, a lot of things are bad. Alcohol is bad. Look, if you legalize this, I mean, you can control it.

Alcohol is bad. It's addictive. It's very bad. But at least you know that the money that the alcohol companies are making are monitored. They just can't go out and buy $10,000. Maybe they do. But you can monitor it. And you have to be able to monitor.

This is totally out of control. You have billions and billions and hundreds of billions of billions of billions. going to places that are disastrous, terrible, and you need to monitor it. Because drugs, even look at the, you know, the mafia movies, you know, the mafia, we're only into prostitution and bookmaking. But then heroin came along and a lot of people got, you know, it's the future. It's too much money. The thing is that you have to, you have to be able to control it.

If not, what's bad today is just going to get worse. So I don't know how. You know, you have companies like the RAND Corporation. You have think tanks that are paid billions of dollars. Let them think about this for a while. But they need this. We need to start thinking along the lines of legalization, decriminalization, and controlling it. Because right now the control is in the hands of maniacs.

And you've got to have a health care system that puts focus on addiction. So it's, yeah, I mean, look, I think of sooner than later it'll come to an end, but probably not in our lifetimes. It'll have to be, you know, we're coming into a total changing of humanity with AI and with what I hope is the end of this fiat currency experiments. we'll go back to a hard money standard. It'll hopefully, like when money was backed by gold, this will hopefully take away power from governments and we'll see a complete decentralization. And what I hope will be just a healthier humanity.

And when you have more healthy people, you have less drug addiction and then you have less demand for drugs. So, yeah, it's pretty much fucking hopeless for now. But for now it is. What an Odyssey. I mean, I've read a lot of narco books, and this is, I just got it yesterday. I bought it yesterday on Amazon.

It's a 400-page book, and I'm already halfway through it. So go get pure narco. Go buy it on Amazon, and where else can they get it? Amazon. Is it cool just to go to Amazon? Amazon's. Okay. Get pure narco.

I mean, this is, Luis, this is one. of the only, you're one of the only voices to actually pull back the thread on how international drug trafficking works. I mean, this was such a pleasure to sit down with you. Do you have anything else you want to say? We're going to switch over to the Patreon now, but I mean, look, you're, is, what are your biggest regrets and what are your, what, what, what, what do you, what, what, what, what you not regret about the game and the choices you made look my biggest regret is um not getting out when my daughter was born okay that's that's a big sin on my part that i got into it i got into it i should have been more responsible but then maybe i wouldn't have gotten into it if i would have been

more responsible right but when my daughter was born i should have my my wife told me you know you've got the coffee company in Cancun. Let's just do the coffee company. We have a great life. No, the greed. So that's my, my regret is the greed. That I handled it in such a way that you can say, yeah, that I had a great time. Yeah, I had a great time.

That I had very bad moments. Yes. But I lasted 25 years and I'm very, I thank God that he's given me the second opportunity. I would not recognize. Look, you can definitely educate yourself and do great in life. If you want to make money, you can focus on making money, and you don't need this to make money. There's a lot of interesting ways to make money. Absolutely.

But just what I did was very difficult. To come up with a route and send a kilo, think about it. You could tell me, send a kilo from here to New Zealand. You'll be on it for a while. It's not so easy. But I could have dedicated that same thing. time and talent to my coffee business, to this, to that. Just don't get involved in drugs.

Don't get it's nasty. And the worst thing is that they're investing the money and even nastier things like human trafficking. So and what do you not regret about it? It was a great opportunity. You know, not everybody has $7, $10 million by the time they're 27. And I don't regret the great time. Or a lot of those, man.

And in the course of all this, you know, I met my wife, who's the real hero of this whole story. The women in the book are the heroes. Yeah, absolutely. And I've been blessed in that sense. And thank God, you know, I've never, you know, veered off. Like I said, you know, I wake up in the morning and I'm happy at what I'm doing. And you live to tell, man, go read this book and you will see just the level of violence and savagery. It's like out of a different time.

You can't believe this just happened 30 years ago. It's out of like the Middle Ages, the Stone Ages, the way that these people would cut each other up and torture each other. And the way that partners turned, like the fact that Pablo Escobar didn't killed you. He killed people the way were way closer to him, made way. way more money for him. And the fact that you were able to operate as you are for so many different groups is, you've got to be grateful that you're not dead. You know, if I have to tell people one thing, stick to who you are.

Don't try to be somebody you're not. If I would have, I stuck to just, I'm not a violent guy. I don't know how to use a gun. I mean, I can, I'm good at logistics, but don't try to be something you're not. because that's not going to work out for you. And I told these people, listen, I'm not a violent guy. I'm not this, I'm not that I'm good at what I do. And they said, we don't want you to be violent.

Right. We got just do what you do. And when there's a problem, you know, you come out with the truth. Yeah. But you stayed true to yourself. I don't even know how I did it. If I had to do it again, I'd say I don't know how. Yeah.

If I had to do this again, I do not know where to start. Yeah. Like I said, I was blessed. I met Bia, and that was like a shining star, and it followed me through because I was kidnapped three times, you know, almost ended up being fed to crocodiles. I don't know. I don't know if I had to do this again. Would I recommend this to anybody yet? No.

I wish I would have had a client like you, though. Man, I tell you, we would have moved a lot of blow. Thank God I'm not from that era. imagine. Oh, my God. Great time, man. No, that's a crazy era, but it just gets crazier. Luis Navia, uh, thank you so much. I am tickled. And once again, pure narco, go get it. I reckon, we, we plug a lot of books on here, but I, I've never recommended a book more highly than this. Uh, and you will continue to do great things, my friend. Uh, so we're going to talk a little bit more on the Patreon. Patreon. Patreon.com slash you,

Connect show. We are talking to the great Luis Nevia, the great Luis Nevia. Go get pure narco, and we'll see you guys in a second. Thanks, brother. Thank you. Thank you, Johnny. It's been a pleasure.