The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Secrets Of The Cocaine Cowboys: Miami Drug Lord Reveals Truth About His BILLION-DOLLAR Coke Empire

Episode Date: August 3, 2025

Step inside the untold story of Miami’s legendary Cocaine Cowboys era with Peggy Rosello – the youngest member of the billion-dollar drug empire. From running stash houses at 14 to handling millions for Sal Magluta, Willie Falcon, and Pablo Escobar, Peggy reveals the truth behind the operations that shaped Miami’s wildest years. In this explosive interview, you’ll hear: -How 18-wheelers carried thousands of kilos across the U.S. -Why Peggy was trusted with $50M+ in cash as a teenager -The rise of the Cuban middlemen who connected Colombians with American buyers -How stash houses were hidden in plain sight -The fall of the empire and the betrayals that led to life sentences This Episode Is #Sponsored By The Following: CASH APP! Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/1ekoiacn #CashAppPod. As a Cash App partner, I may earn a commission when you sign up for a Cash App account. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Visit cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavat Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. You survived the Miami weekend.

Nailed the speech and maxed out your credit card in the name of friendship. Now you've got one hangover, four pastel dresses, and zero reasons to wear them again. Sell them on Deepop. Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. And you at least get some of your dignity, money back. Someone on Deepop wants what you've got. Start selling now. Deepop where taste recognizes taste. We had an 18-wheeler coming from L.A. had 1,200,200 keys. I was taking care of like four or five stash houses, and they each had like 3,000 keys, $50, $60 million worth of coat each house. Peggy Rosello is the youngest member of the infamous Miami Cocaine Cowboys. Originally from Cuba, Peggy was family friends with Kingpin's Sal Magluda and Willie Falcone, who gave him his start in their drug organization when Peggy was just 14 years old.

Peggy's role in the operation was to supervise the stash houses and deliver Sal and Willie's drug money to their Colombian suppliers, who at the time were Pablo Escobar and the Medellin cartel. At just 19 years old, it was normal for Peggy to handle $50 million at a time of Sal, Willie, and Escobar's money. Peggy himself became a young kingpin, making an easy $150,000 a day just selling Coke as a side business. There are many myths and legends surrounding the era of the cocaine cowboys, But here it is, folks, the truth, told straight from someone who played an integral role in this $2 billion a year empire. These days, Peggy is a free man and a legal entrepreneur, and go check out his merch line on Shopify. And for a bonus episode with Peggy, where we talk dirt so juicy we couldn't air it on YouTube,

head over to the Patreon, patreon.com slash the Connect show. We have never, and I mean never, heard from a boss quite like Peggy. Get ready, you guys. the last living voice of the cocaine cowboys, Peggy Rosello, right here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell. Were you born in Cuba? I was born in Cuba. What year? 65. Okay. 1960. Okay. So a few years after Castro. Yes. What was your family like over there? You guys, middle class? Middle class. Middle class. My mom's family, they had farms and animals and planes and everything. So, okay. So then were they going to get all of that?

seized. Oh, they got everything. Castro got everything. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's why we came to to the United States. And did you come to Little Havana in Miami? Straight to Little Havana. It's the most typical Cuban immigrant story. Yes. Wow. And when you guys got here, childhood, was that poverty and struggling? Yeah, yeah. We were struggling. Yes, we were struggling. I mean, we didn't have anybody here. It's not like now that you have people coming from Cuba for 50 years and everybody has a family here. We were one of the first ones.

Right. We didn't have anybody. Yeah. Yeah. Now, you knew Sal and Willie from 12 years old. Yes. How?

Just from the neighborhood? No. My mom used to work at a factory and her best friend was family with Willie and Tabby's mom. So that's how we get to know them.

It was a tight community back there. Yes, yes. Wow. And how old are they compared to you. They're, there are, Tabby's like five years older than me. Willie and South, 10 years older than me. Okay, who's Tabby? My sister's husband. Okay. Willie Falcone's brother. I see. That's tab. I see. So you were, uh, uh, an in-law of them almost. Yes. Yes. Wow. Wow. So you're 12 years old when you meet them. So it's the late 70s, it's like 77.

Yeah, like 70, 75, 76, 77. Okay, so the cocaine is starting to flow little by little at that point. At that point, yes. What's up, everyone? I've heard people complaining lately that they haven't been seeing new episodes of the Connect popping up on their YouTube timelines. Do me a quick favor. Subscribe to the channel and then go hit that alert bell so you get notified whenever we drop new content.

It really helps us out and it keeps you up to date on everything that we're doing. All right, back to Peggy Rossello. Hey, guys, this summer I will be on the road. doing stand-up comedy plus a live episode of The Connect. On August 20th, I will be in San Diego, California. On August 21st, I will be in Chandler, Arizona, right outside of Phoenix. And then on August 24th, I will be in Plano, Texas. That's the Dallas area.

Again, doing stand-up comedy plus some special guests doing a live episode of the Connect. Go to linktree.com slash Johnny Mitchell, or go to micdropcomedyclub.com. and search my name. All three of those venues will be Mike Drop Comedy Club venues. Come out and see me, San Diego, Phoenix, Arizona, Dallas, Texas. We'll see you there.

Were they already in the game when you met them? Kind of. But not as big as they got. But yeah, they were moving. From what I used to pick up, because I used to hang out at the house the whole time, they would buy, let's say, five tank keys and start selling them in ounces,

half keys. ounces and stuff like that. But in 77, 10 kilos is like, it's like a million dollars with a coat. In 77, a key, a key was going for like $50,000. And that's a good price. That's a wholesale. I just got it from Columbia price. And that was a good price at 50 grand. Okay. So they're making money, even as men in their 20s. Yeah. So for people, just a little recap of the history of the cocaine Cowboys, Jorge Valdez, George, who we've had on the show. He was one of the first Cubans to link with like the original Colombian godfathers, who most people don't even know. They're unnamed in history. There were people in Colombia bigger than Pablo Escobar. Yeah. That a lot of people don't know

about because they would fly under the radar. Yeah. Pablo was like a kind of crazy song. But a lot of people, there were a lot of big, big Colombians. But it was, there were families. But it was, they were families. This kind of predates that what we know is the Medelline cartel in the 80s. In the 80s. In the 80s, right. And so they're bringing over the first wave of Coke when it's still hyper expensive. It's still, they consider it niche

as a drug. So Jorge was serving Willie and Sal. He was there, connect, from the Colombians. He was giving it to them. Who were Willie and Sal? like in 1978, who are their customers that are given, they're given ounces to? Is it other Cubans? Cubans, a lot of people that would come from New York, L.A. to get Flake here because it was

cheaper. Right. You know, if here you got, you get keys for 50, over there, you were getting it for 70, 65. Right. Right. Yeah, Jorge found the California route. That was big. Right. Moving keys from here out to Cali. Yes. The culture of selling drugs, selling Coke in Miami, was it born out of Little Havana and the Cubans, or was it like the Colombian neighborhoods

that were really the ones like pushing the culture? Okay, this is the thing. The Colombians had the Coke. They didn't speak English. They would come here. They couldn't talk to anyone. I mean, unless they talk to the Cubans. But the people that were coming in to buy flake with cash money,

were the green ghosts. Colombians couldn't communicate with them. So we were the middleman. So you guys had been here long enough to where you learned English. Yes. Yes. So it was just a language barrier thing. Language barrier.

Yeah. And Colombians are assholes. They don't want to learn English. You know, you guys assimilated faster. Yeah, yeah. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. Yes. And we've talked to several Cubans on the show. You guys really had the accounts. meaning like you had the customers.

Yes, we had the customers. So it was unlikely in the original cocaine cowboys, the documentary on YouTube that Billy Corbin did back in like the early 2000s. The white guys, John something and Mickey Monday. Yeah, Mickey Monday and stuff, yeah. That was a pretty rare exception, white guys working directly with Colombians, right? Right.

Because what they claim in that documentary is that the Cubans didn't have the weight. They were like, we outgrew the Cubans. They couldn't get me 100 bricks. A thousand bricks. Is that true? Yeah, but these guys were already moving early 74. Way before William Sal started. Okay.

Okay. These guys are already doing stuff early 74. Okay. So they were, okay. Okay. So generally, you don't think the cocaine that Willie and Sal were getting was from those guys, the white boys? No, no, not at all.

No, not at all. So it was coming from Columbia? Yes. Which Colombians? We know Jorge, but later on, when Jorge went off to prison, he gave his connect. To William South. Yeah. And then what I think happened, they outgrew that connection, and they started getting stuff from Pablo Escobar.

So they went straight to Medellin? Yeah, straight. Okay. Okay. So you're 12 when you meet him. what's what's childhood like before the drugs for you what kind of kid are you are you a little

bad motherfucker or no no no I was you know I was never they're kind of to get in trouble or be doing stupid things you know I was I liked sports so yeah once I I meet

Tabby and stuff it was all basketball and I used to hang out at their house all the time so like I would go on the weekends And when Willie, Willie and South's friend would show up, I would clean their cars. So between a Saturday and Sunday, I make like $3 or $400. So I'm 12, 13 years old. I'm making more money than my parents.

Yeah, incredible, just for watching drug dealers cars. And did you understand at that age where that kind of money came from? Yes. Even at 12 years old. Even at 12 years old, I knew where the money was coming from. because a lot of the guys that would come by, they would see me. Everybody loved me, you know. Hey, Peggy, whatever.

And they were coming with, like, shoeboxes, like the Nike shoeboxes, and open it up full of money. Hey, Peggy, look what we got. And I'm like, man. Wow. That's, that's. You know, I knew what they were doing. So at a young age, that's what I wanted to do.

Yeah. You know, I grew up in that world. You know, I didn't know nothing else. When did you see cocaine for the first time? I saw what came for the first time when I was like 14 And you knew you kind of got a sense of what it was I already knew what it was

And what kind of high you got from it and everything Where it came from Yes, yes You knew who Colombians were Yes, I knew the whole ordeal Wow Yeah, you had no chance Yeah, I had no chance

Truly Yeah Especially when a kid that age Whose mom works in a factory Right Who witnessed their whole life crumble in Cuba under communism and you see that kind of money

that's really what hooks a young kid Yeah, the money, it's the money. Not the drugs. I never messed with coke. I would do coke once in a while if I go out to a party or whatever But it's not, it wasn't my everyday thing at all. Yeah. You know, I just fell in love with the money. The money was so

so much that you know. Yeah. What kind of Willie and Sal, what kind of men were they? These are two different personalities. And I've heard some things about either one of both of them. Some good, some bad. You know, some people say they were just kind of dumbasses that got lucky. And, you know, but Sal was nicer. Willie was kind of a live wire. Who were they? Okay. To me, since I knew them both, they were both awesome human beings. Okay. Not one was

nicer than the other. To me, Willie wasn't, you know, You know, to me, they were both the same. 100% the same. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So what year and what age did you, did you graduate from Car Washer to maybe putting in work? I started putting it in work like in 80, 81.

So you're about 16 years old? About 16 years old. My, uh, my childhood. Mandy comes up to me and goes, hey Peggy. I know that Sheena's boyfriend, Tabby, his brother, they're bringing in Flake. I know I could move. I'm like, all right, let me see.

He goes talk to Jay because Jay was working for the company. And Mandy knew Jay from Riverside, from high school. So from junior high and high school. So I talked to Jay and I go, Jay, my one of my best friends. He came up to me and he, he could move some coke. He needs tank keys. Like, when can we get it for him? He goes, tell him to come tomorrow with the money.

So I call him and go, hey, come by tomorrow, bring the money. That was my first deal. I moved tank keys and I was making $5 grand on each key. Right there, I made $50,000. I'm 15, 16 years old. I'm like, what the fuck, you know? This is what I want to do. This is what I'm, you know.

Just for passing off a double bet. Yeah, yeah. And when, so, you know, so, you know, you, that was your first account. That was my first account. And the brother, Sal and Willie saw that. Yeah. And said, okay, he's ready.

Yes. And then what I would do since I grew up with these guys, Jay would pick me up like two or three times a week, go by the house. We used to live in 4761, northwest, fourth terrace. Right by Kinloch. I will never forget. Go visit that address, guys.

He'll get a piece of Miami cocaine Cowboys history. And there might be some money. In the walls, in the Caleta. Somewhere. Yeah. Well, Jay used to pick me up to go help him count money. See? Wow.

I was already making money. My boy, Mandy, was moving flake for me. And Jay would come, and I would help him go count money, like two or three times a week. He had a house up in Sunset and Sevent Second Avenue. We used to get there, count two, three million dollars. like two, three times a week. Wow. Yeah.

Okay. So explain the company. You refer to the company. Obviously, Sal and Willie are the bosses. Right. And how many other workers in Miami like you were there at the time? Okay. At that time, the company had like three or four guys that take care of the merchandise,

distribute the merchandise plus pick up money and you had two or three other guys that would just take care of money. Pick up money, count money, and stuff like that. And so you're one of those four guys? I'm one of those guys. You're like a lieutenant.

I've become one of those guys summer of 87. Okay. See, I already knew the business. Jay, with Jay, Jay taught me how to keep the books. Spring weekends, are all about family, sunshine, and evenings on the patio. Before everyone arrives, I stop by my local Total Wine and More to grab a great bottle to share. With such a wide selection and the lowest

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Savings of up to $1 per gallon redeemable with $20 rewards dollars in your loyalty account at participating locations, terms and conditions apply. How to do the numbers. Jay taught me how to do everything. So in summer of 87, Jay gets picked up. He's on probation. When he goes to the office,

they get him right there. He had an indictment from North Carolina. So I take over what Jay was doing. I start picking up. up money, distributing merchandise, picking up loads. So you, but you were already before then, you were already distributing merchandise. Yeah. But it sounds like you were just freelancing, like they didn't let you into the inner circle

until some years later. Right. Okay. So before that, remember, before 87, I worked in L.A. 85, 86, I worked for the company in L.A. Right. Okay. I see.

But I'm 19 years old, 20,000. 20 years old. All I'm doing is picking up, I'm counting money. I used to live with Victor and all the money he brought, I'd count. Just count money. Making five grand a week, just counting money. And I had a client there from Miami. A friend of mine from Miami lived in L.A. and knew a couple of people. And he used to move 15, 20 keys every month for me. So I was, you know, I was doing good. Right. Wow. So you didn't even, you were just kind of on a salary. Right. They already had the, the loads being moved. They already had their people moving it. Yes. Wow.

This is a very, this is large, you know, this is substantial, this organization. I'm ready to, because I used to get homesick in L.A. So I go to Victor, I go to Victor. I'm going back to Miami. I'm going crazy here. And he's like, no, no, no, you got to stay here, help me. So he called Willie, Willie gets on the phone. And Willie goes, hey, don't leave.

Don't leave. I'm going to be paying you more money. You're going to start going to pick up the load. with a fake drug, I go, all right. I'll stay. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so was L.A. the biggest market outside of Miami for you guys? Yeah, for that, at that time, yeah. Okay, yeah. Okay.

How many people do you think, how many out-of-towners, you know, different drug traffickers, were they sending merchandise to every week? Like, how many markets did these guys have? When I was here in 87, picking up loads. and everything, we had an 18-wheeler coming from L.A. With $5,000 keys. Coming from L.A.? Coming from L.A. Okay. They used to leave in L.A., let's say, 1,200.

New York, another $1,200. Chicago, and then the last stop was Miami. Okay. So when I used to pick up the rig here, it had $1,200, $1,200 keys, and I was taking care of, like four or five stash houses. Okay.

And they each had like 3,000 keys, $50, $60 million worth of coat, each house. Holy shit. So. In Miami? In Miami. Just in Miami. Just in Miami.

So imagine, let's say, L.A., New York, another $50, $60 million in merchandise. So you have your fingers on hundreds of millions of dollars at all times. At all times. Wow. Coming from L.A., so by 87 is the work coming through Mexico? Coming through Mexico.

Okay. Since 85, the work we were getting was already coming from Mexico. Okay, okay. So let's put a pin in that. Let's step back a little bit to the early 80s and the Caribbean route, which was still the biggest way, you know what I mean, where most of the Coke coming into America. Yeah, yeah.

Anything was coming from AMI back in the early 80s. Okay. Columbia, they used to bring it on plane from Colombia to Bimini. there they would drop off the coke Bimini Bahamas. Bimini Bahamas and from there they would bring it in speedboats. Right, right. Yeah. And that's where, and you could get thousands of kilos

in a week doing that? Oh yeah. Yes, yes. On a weekly basis. That was on a weekly, almost on a weekly basis. And history tells us that that route was supposedly closed down because why? Because there was the feds just came down so hard

because of the cocaine wars. But what really happened? That route was like, virgin it was good no you know the feds weren't really uh they really didn't know about it who fucked fucked up fucked up that route uh that columbian guy what's his name rafa no the other guy the other guy griselda no no no i forgot his name now he he bought the island the guy that Carlos later. Carlos later. About that island,

was throwing part, and that island, a couple of Americans had houses there. And they're like, bro, this guy is fucking crazy. Planes landing almost every day. Wild parties,

shootings. So he fucked up the route for everybody. So Americans, just civilians, basically alerted the feds, alerted the authorities about this guy. This guy.

And that's how they initially got on this conspiracy. From Colombian to the Bahamas, Bimini, into Miami. Wow. And so that was just, they just stepped up air patrol, sea patrol. Right. Everything, everything. Okay. Yeah. Do you remember getting, in the early days,

Willie and Sal, them complaining about, like, loads getting intercepted? Really? Did that ever happen? Was there ever a drought on Coke? No, no, never, never. So then why do you think they just changed up? up to Mexico? Because really the planes flying

from Colombia to the islands, they were getting intercepted. A lot of the planes. But the speedboats no. No. Okay. So then they said we're going to fly to Mexico instead. We're going to get it from Mexico, straight Mexico.

And when I was in LA back in 86 that I used to go with Victor to pick up the loads, the guy that used to give us the merchandise was Mexican. Friolito. We used to call them frivolito. Like big beans or whatever, frivolito.

And, yeah. Little bean, technically. And that's way before a lot of people knew that the Mexicans were involved in the code business. Yeah. Did you know where, was that coming from Tijuana or from Sonora?

I have no idea. Wow. Wow. Okay. And Willie and Sal, I mean, this is a logistically very intricate operation. What was their price on like a kilo from Pablo? They could be, they could have been, because I remember at one time, I was getting the keys at 11,000.

Holy shit. For me. For me. Yes, that's your price. That was my point. So they already put a couple of points on that. Yes. So they were probably getting that at $4,000.

Wow. So you saw the price go from $3,000. $50,000 to $11,000 in like 10 years? Yes. Wow. Wow. And then back up again to 20, 25. Why did it bounce up back up like that?

Because, okay, this is the thing. When we used to get the merchandise so cheap, like let's say William Sal will get the merchandise that the keys at four or five thousand, they would bring, let's say, three, four, five thousand keys. you sit on it, you sit on the keys for like two, three, four weeks a month. There's no keys, no merchandise out in the streets. But Swilly and South were one of the only ones that were, that time we're bringing keys here. So we would sit on the keys, right?

I would get them at 11, sit on them for like a month. Everybody was going crazy. Jack up the prices to 18. Wow. And people would pay it. Yeah, yeah. That's, were there any other? comparable groups to like willy and sale like any other firms in miami but not as big not as

big as well you're what was their what was their secret why were they able to grow the way they did i have first what i think is they weren't the violent type see they will stay away from violence right you know if you owe them 250 grand they'll just cut you off yeah you know and that's say, you know, fuck this guy. Yeah. You know, why are they going to go after you, shoot at you, try to kill you, and bring heat to the organization?

See what I'm saying? Do you think the Cubans were less violent than the Colombians? Yes, yes, yes. Why do you think that was? Ah. Your charming nature? I mean, I think more than anything,

the Cubans were in the business just for the money. There were so much money, you know? This over the Columbia. That just happened, yeah. It would happen to me. I lost at one time, at one time, $150,000 in tank keys. I didn't go after anybody or, you know what I'm saying? I said, bro, I'm 150 grand.

I make it on a daily basis. Why am I going to heat up the, you know, get your heat? I'll just wait until tomorrow, get my money back. Right. You're making 150 grand a day? Almost, yeah. And that's just wholesaling keys to your client? to my clients.

Wow. Yeah. Coming from where? Coming from L.A. 87, 88, 88, 89, 90, 91. 150 grand. And that's just in your pocket. That's just me.

And you've, okay, so do you, I mean, you're so young when this happens. You're in your early 20s. Are you fucking off the money? Are you, do Willie and Sal show you how to stash it and manage it? Nobody ever showed me what to do with my fucking money. Damn it. They showed you the money.

They showed you the money. They showed me the money. They showed me the money. They showed me their money. They showed me their own books, but they're not telling me what to do with my money. Now they. I was too young. I was too young.

They were buying warehouses, you know, speedboats. Famously, if you watch the documentary, I think it was Willie that was into the speedboat racing. En Sal too. And Sal, okay. All three of them. Right, right. You know, buying a lot of property. Yeah.

But that's just to help them move more coke. It didn't really seem like. And to clean money, too. The money a little more legit. Yeah. Back then, it was easy to do. Were they buying, okay, so they'll tell you that the Miami Skyline was built with drug money. Drug money.

Were you aware of them buying any property downtown? Not really. Huh, okay. I wonder if that's just a rumor. Yes. I suppose when drug money gets washed through businesses and ends up in bank, even if drug dealers don't own the property, that is, it infuses.

It's going into construction and buildings. It infuses the economy. Right. Do you remember Miami thriving during the cocaine era? Yes, yes. Everything was growing, everything, everything, buildings, everything. You remember like the car dealerships,

the restaurants where people roll up in Mercedes? Yes. Yes. Wow. Yeah. Now the- Everybody was happy back then. Everybody.

Yeah. Yeah. But that's what I don't understand. Everybody but that faction of Colombians like Griselda and Rivi and all those cats, right? Like, they seem to be killing everything. Okay, but what was that about? This is from what I know, what he said I used to do was steal coke from her own Colombian people. Say that again?

She used to steal the Coke. from her own Colombians. She would find out when the trip was coming in, where was going, and go hit it and steal the Coke. And say that it got lost or say that it got Jackson? That's why there was so much killing and so much more between them

because she was stealing coke from Colombians, from her own people. So she was the fucking problem. The whole time. Did you see the last series and he said de Blanco, a series that they did? I didn't watch.

It was so bad. watched half an episode. I was like, this is trash. She's hanging out with 20 marialitos. Right. Okay? That came in the 80s, that those guys will kill you

for 500 bucks. Those were the people she would hang out with. You know, we didn't want nothing to do with those people. Okay, okay. I see. So the Mario Littos, that's like Scarface.

That's the Tony Juanana. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So those are the, those weren't the landowning Cubans. Those are the Cubans. You know, a lot of them were criminals, a lot of them were in prison. Came out in the 80s.

That's right. In the 80s. In 1980, my real boat lift. And so that's when you saw this huge spike in violence in Miami? Yes, in Miami. Okay. Like for two years. 80, 81, 82, two or three years, the violence here was crazy.

Yeah. Yeah. Did you, your stash or your, anything with the firm, did you guys ever get hit? Never got hit. We never got hit. Did you deal with Griselda? Hell no. Hell no.

Hell no. I didn't even know who she was I saw the documentary in 2000 that Billy Corbyn did I didn't even know who he said that was I had never heard about her You know Jorge Valdez said the same thing Yeah, who was he said that

Then you see the documentary, you see the series And you put two together She used to steal cook from her own From her own Colombians So did you know about that guy, Rafa Who was basically a lieutenant for Pablo Escobar They say he was the number one Colombian in America. No, no, I didn't know.

Okay. Wow. Yeah. Okay. So that sounds like a... Griselda is kind of a folklore in Miami cocaine history. Right. Because it's a cool story.

It's a cool story. She's a woman. You hear that she killed all three of her husband. She killed or something like that, you know? Right. Right. Yeah. Also, I think the Cubans, I think you guys were more American.

so you committed less violence than the Colombians who came here just to kill and sell drugs and then go back home. Right. So they have no affiliation. Okay, remember the Colombians, they own the Coke. You got bad players that keep the Coke, don't want to pay. So their job here was to get rid of those people. So that's why the Colombians are, you said, oh, the Colombians are violent.

They had to be. They had to take care of business. It was their money, it was their coat. Right. See what I'm saying? Okay, so do you think... I mean, I mean, Cubans weren't going to go be... You're not going to go to Colombia and hit these guys.

The Colombians were... They had their people here. If you don't pay, you're done. Yeah. So that's what you said. Colombians are violent. That was their... That's what they had to do.

Yeah. You know? Do you think the Coke that... Because obviously, William Sal are moving Pablo's Coke by the time. Every week, every month, you know, multiple, multiple tons. I mean, you're supervising stash houses. Like, are we talking like five tons a month, 10,000 keys? Yeah.

Sounds about right. Yeah. It's mind-boggling. Yes. Now is when a load gets intercepted coming from Pablo, who's responding to, coming to Sal and Willie, who takes that loss? That caucus already paid for. So how?

They ship the money down to Colombia before the work comes. Before the work comes down. Okay, so that load's done. Willie and Sal take the hit? They take the hit. It's their loss. That seems unfair. Yeah.

Are Colombians responsible for all of the logistics? Or do Sal and Willie also have to... I'm not going to say that Willie and Sal will take the whole loss probably they'll split it up or, you know. Right, because they're extremely valuable. Pablo needs them. I mean, the keys in Colombia, we're going for $1,000. Right.

$2,000, from $1,000 to $4,000, you know. If they lose a load of, let's say, 5,000 keys, that's shit to them. Yeah, $250,000, who cares? Yeah. They're bringing in a hundred times more than that, you know? Yeah. Do you remember them ever going down to Colombia to meet with the bosses? I've heard about Sal going down to Colombia and meeting with Pablo. Yeah.

I've heard stories, you know, within our group. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So did you consider, did Sal and Willie consider themselves part of the Medellín cartel? Or did they consider themselves their own company, their own firm? Our own company. We consider, we never consider ourselves that being, oh, we're the Medellie cartel, none of that, no. So you had options to go by from the Kali cartel if you wanted?

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Do you think that would have brought heat down? No, no, no. Because I remember we had a, we had, when I was working with Jay, we, we used to get coke. Well, the company used to get coke from this guy named Plana. Plana, which is totally, you know, had nothing to do with Pablo Escobar. So.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you guys could all, you're moving so much. you could almost play the different Colombians off each other. Everybody wanted to work with us. Everybody in Colombia wanted to give us Coke. See what I'm saying? Williams, I could go to anybody and get coke from anyone.

Right, right. Did you ever go down there? No. They never bought you down? No. Right. I was too young. I was too young.

But you're moving to make 150 Gs a day. How many keys is that? You're talking. I'm making three, anywhere from 3 to $5,000 a key. Right. And so, okay, so that's 100 bricks a day, basically. 50 keys, 80 keys. But those are your people.

Those are my customers. Yeah, those are my customers. Right. I used to go and get whatever I wanted. I used to go to whatever stash house, and my boy would come here. For tomorrow, I need 100 keys. So I had a couple of friends of mine from high school that I would help out. So I'll get, I'll go and get 100,

that I know that would be sold right on the spot, and then I'll get like 50 more for my homeboys from high school. Give this guy 30, give this one 10, get this one 20, so they can make money. Right, give them a better price or something. Yeah. Okay, so tell us about the stash houses in Miami. How did you guys before technology, real technology,

did you, were you moving them constantly? Did you have them guarded? Like, how did logistics work? Well, here in Miami, we didn't have him guarded. In Miami, you see a house with a family. Let's say the wife, let's say that's a teacher. And the husband that has a little business or whatever. And the kids that go to school, that's where our stash houses.

See what I'm saying? You see it, you're like, a family lives there, a working family lives there. And inside the attic, up in the attic, they had 3,000 kids. cheese. Yeah. And you're just going to take care of their mortgage every month. The stash houses will get paid $12,000 a month. Plus their rent.

Who would they know to that? So they said 15 grand a month. Yeah. Okay. A stash house. 15 grand a month. All they had to do was sit there, you know? And then let you in when you need to come by.

Right. Okay. Okay. Wow. Were these Cubans? Usually Cuban families? Right. But in Al-Lay, Al-Lay was.

different. The first stash house that I went to L.A. And I'll tell you how the story goes. Okay? I'm living with Victor. Victor had rented a house. Four bedroom, pool, like a mansion.

So we're young. I'm 19 years old. Victor's like 24 years old. Two young kids and living in a big house. And the what's what I don't like about L.A. The people there are nosy as fuck.

They're looking at, and bro, they call the cops right away. I'm telling you. Yeah. Right. And I guess they seem to young guys don't work. Latinos. Latinos. Not mowing lawns.

Yes. But living like kingfins. Right. So Victor goes to me on a, it was on a Tuesday, 8. tomorrow morning Wednesday we got to go pick up 800 keys I go okay I'm down we're going fine I wake up that morning

7 o'clock in the morning I walk outside open the garage turn walk outside look unmarked police car the other unmarked police car

I go fuck I go hey Victor there's two cops bro and that's for us unmarked he goes we gotta go get the keys we can't we can leave that out there. I go, fine, we get in the car, they follow us, like

they don't stay behind trying to, for us not to know that, no, they're behind us, like letting us know, hey, you're on to you, motherfuckers. Bro, I got, I got in the expressway, we lost them. I lose them. We had to

Bakersfield. That's what we used to go pick up the Coke. Wow. Bakersfield. Wow. We had to Bakersfield. We, we, uh, I'm that 405. Yeah. We meet Frijolito.

Hey, opah, Frijito gives us the key, tosses with the YuhLIS, with the 800 keys, we go, we pick it up. Victor gets in the Uha. I follow him. Back to L.A. We get to the Stash House. When I got to the Stash House,

there was already like 3,000 keys in that house. It was a house, and they had a garage that wasn't connected to the house, right? That's where they kept other keys. There was a Mexican there with a fucking AK-B. 47 guarding the fucking coke.

I'm like, what the fuck? Wow. I didn't see that in Miami, you know? I never seen shit like that. And, well, we unloaded 800 keys. We go back, we get to the house. The two cops are there waiting. Wow.

Like, that's how we used to work. Yeah, you guys were given this responsibility. Yeah. Yeah, we couldn't fuck. I mean, people think about, oh, they're the drug dealers, they're doing coke every day, they're hired. In this type of work, you had to have a clear mind. You couldn't fuck up. Did you know the repercussions for fucking up a load?

Like, did you know, I know violence, you guys weren't a violent organization, but did if you, if you felt, asleep with 800 bricks in the truck. You weren't going to get killed. I mean, it's not like the movies you see, the guy falls asleep. Hey, you didn't go pick up the 800 keys, boom, boom. You're not going to get the Samuel Jackson and good fellas. Yeah, bring the coffee to go.

Yeah, but, uh. Well, you did, uh, so the Colombians would never reach out, like go over Willie and Sal to, like, touch one of their workers. No, no, no, no, no. And I had an issue. Now that you're talking about, about Colombians, you know, I had an issue one time I had my own stash house

because I didn't want to go to the stash houses all the time because if you get followed one of those stash houses gets caught is three, four thousand keys. You know, you lose $60 million. So I had rented a house, I rented a house,

a two-story, big house, and I put my cousin and his mom to live there. I would pay him, 10 grand, and I would keep like three, 400 keys in one of the rooms and up to two or three million dollars. I just had cash and coke. So if I needed to go every day or every other day, I would go there, get 50 keys, 100 keys. Then I would go once a week to the big stash house, take 400 keys and take them there and just leave it.

So I wouldn't have to go to where there were 3,000 keys. Right, the mothership. Yeah. So I would pick up money. I would pick up money and we used to have money. I would call one of the guys that worked for the company like once every two, once every two or three days so he could come get the money that I would pick up. Right.

He would come and pick up two, three million, four million dollars like three times a week. So I had one of the rooms I made in an office. So I had my desk, whatever, boom, boom, I used to get there. And then the closet you would open. the closet and I had the keys all stacked up. Yeah. Like 200 of them, right? And they had one of the Colombians that would come and pick up money too.

Okay? They had a Colombian coming to the house and picking up money. I never spoke to the guy. My cousin used to have communication with him. Hey, I have a two million. Come pick it up. The guy would show up, pick up the money, leave, right? So I get to the house.

house one day and I'm like I knew I knew what I had I knew how many keys I had right I count him and I'm missing two keys I go fuck I'm missing I haven't taken anything I come my cousin hey did you get two keys he goes no he goes who the fuck was here I have two keys missing it's not it's not about the money I don't give a fuck about the money two keys and shit for me right it's about the being disrespected right so he goes no, the Colombian was here to pick up money. And I go, did you leave him here by himself? He goes, I probably did. He goes, he took two keys.

He took two keys from us. And he's like, fuck. So he goes to another house that one of the guys works for the company. He went to pick up money. So when he, I guess he got scared on the way over there, the guy's like, what the fuck did I do? When he gets to the house, he's. He tells the guy, hey, I'm not gonna say names,

but he tells the guy, hey, I went to pick up money and they gave me this bag with money and two keys. Strange. Really? So the guy calls Tabby, my brother, inla, oh, this guy came here, he told that he was at a house and they gave him money with two keys, a bag with money and two keys.

And my brother-in-law caused him, and I go, those are my keys. He fucking stole them from me, you know? And he's like, fuck, okay. So I go to my cousin, let's do something. Okay? Because if that guy has the boss to do that, he could send people here and fucking kill you,

kill your mom and steal all the coke and all the money. Right. So this is what we're going to do. Friday, you're going to call him, tell him you have money for him. When he pulls in, open the garage, when he pulls in, I'm going to tie him up and take him to the Everglades. And he's like, oh, my cousin's like sweat. Oh,

You're fucking crazy. I go, we got to do it, you know? And so I let my, I let my brother-in-law know what I was going to do. He's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me see, let me see. Let me make a couple of phone calls. I go, all right. That was like on a Wednesday.

Friday, I told my cousin, I get to the house, I go, call the Colombian. He's like, all right. He goes, hey, I got money for you. What time are you going to be here? He goes, I'll be there like in an hour. Boom, we're waiting for the guy. Like 20 minutes. We're waiting.

Remember my phone rings. My brother-in-law, don't do anything. If you do something, there's going to be a war. It's all been taken care of. Don't do anything. I never saw the guy again. Okay. Okay.

So a phone call was made to Columbia. Yes. And the bosses said, we'll clean it up. Yes. I never saw the guy again. Yeah. So that guy is probably in the Everglades. somewhere. No, the thing is my brother-in-law goes, bro, we can't do anything because he's family

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You can't do it. Go to mood.com and get your gummies, your functional gummies, for the perfect kind of of high today. Thank you, mood. Now, I was going to ask you that if you guys needed, you know, wet work done, something heavy done, could you, were you close enough or Sal and Willie close enough with Columbia to where you could call up and say, hey, send a couple of Indians. That's what they used, Indios. Yeah. Could they do that? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. On their indictment, did they have any bodies? Did the government accuse them of? They didn't start getting bodies until after the indictment.

Okay, let's put a pin in that. The money is so immense. It's so immense. I don't even know where to begin. I have so many questions. Tell us the process of the money coming in, the inventory of the money, the counting of it, where that went.

Okay. And how that got back to Willie and Sal, and then how they shot the money down to Columbia, that whole complicated chain. if you could please. I would pick up money and at least once a month when I had like, let's say, 40, 50 million,

I would tell Sal, hey, I got what I got. He's like, okay, wait for my phone call. He would call me the next day, hey, bring it over. And I would bring it straight to South. And one of the Colombians was already there waiting for the money. Okay, so you bring $50 million to sell? Yeah. And now have you guys already changed it into hundreds? Yeah, it was all hundreds. They only wanted hundreds. Okay. It was all hundreds.

Okay. Yeah. How, what is $50 million in hundreds? You know the U-Ha boxes, the little U-Haxes? You have boxes that you put there, those in hundreds, you're talking a hundred, two hundred grand, two hundred and fifty grand per box. For a box? Boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay, so 50 million, you have to put it in a U-Haul truck. In a van. In a van. In a van. or a car with a with a big, big trunk. Wow.

$50 million, $40, $30, $40, $50 million. And so you're 20, 21 years old driving through Miami? Nothing. Like $50 million. Yes. Wow. And I got stopped a couple of times with Coke. Oh, you did?

Yeah. And to me that was like, license here. What else do you want? Right. Did they find the Coke? No. No, no. One time I got stopped.

I go to L.A., I get a fake license, Louis Mendes. That was my number one license, Louis Mendes. So I had just gotten it. I go to my boy's house. He returns like five keys that were kind of pottery. They had been broken. You know they come in bricks. They were like broken.

Nobody, everybody wanted the bricks. So I go to his house. I pick up like five that he returns. And I'm coming down 836, like, towards the turnpike, I'm hauling ass, motorcycle cop, I'm like, okay,

let's see if this license is good. And it's a fake one, if it's not good. So I go, the guy, you know, I'm here in the car, the guy's walking, I give him the license, he goes, when was the last time you had a ticket?

I go like five years ago, he goes, if that's true, I'll give you a break. So he goes back to the, he's on the fucking thing. I'm like, I'm thinking, what I'm gonna do back up, Because the card, the tag is fake.

Yeah. Fucking license is fake. I go, I'm going to put it in a reverse. Woo, boom, ram his motorcycle. Take off. Hit it. Right. But I go, you know what?

Let me wait. 15, 20 minutes. The guy comes, see him walking back through the mirror. He goes, I go, okay, this is it. He's walking. He's like, have a good day. Nice. But five keys in 85 is really nothing.

and you bail out in a minute. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's, yeah. If you did any time, you'd get parole in a year. Back then, a key, a whole key, you could use it as a personal. And get prevention. Exactly, exactly. A friend of mine, he got caught with the key.

He went to court, this, that. Hey, that's personal, man. I'm a court addict. The guy got probation. Help. I need help. Yes. Send me to narcotics anonymous, right?

Yeah. But 50 million. you can't lose 50 million. No, you can't lose 50 million. You can't lose 50 million. I don't care if your family, you can't lose 50 million. They put their foot down. Yes.

The Indios are coming for you if you lose 50 million. Oh, yeah. There's nothing William Sal going to do to save your ass. Right. Yeah. Right. That's interesting. That falls 50 million lost.

That's the Colombians are coming to get you. Willie and Sal can't help you. They can't. They can't. So it's essentially, even though Willie and Sal are their own firm. They are inextricably linked to the Colombians because if a Colombian is waiting for you, it's almost like they are working for them or whoever they're buying from, whether it's Medellin or Cali or Bolivians, whoever. So 50 million gets dropped

off to Sal and the courier for the Colombians. It's right there. How do they move that money? I mean, I assume a lot of that money is staying in the U.S. to get to get laundered. Right. But how do they shoot the money down to the buy money down to Columbia for the next load? Bro, I think in planes, in planes. That makes sense, right? In planes.

Did they ever work with like Barry Seal? No, were they ever involved in that kind of drama or anything like that? Barry Seal was way, way, way before us. Okay, okay. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Wow, that's insane. What years did you start to ramp things? up, did you feel like, wow, like I, this is, this is becoming, I'm like a junior kingpin.

87. That was your, that was the height. Yeah, yeah. I was making money. In high school, in high school, I was making 30, 40 grand a month in high school. And in 10th, 11th grade, I would get five, five, six keys. I would break them up, cut them. And out of each key, I would get nine ounces.

See? and I would sell the ounces at $1,000. I would have like 30 ounces. I would get rid of those 30 ounces in three or four days. Yeah. So nine ounces is your profit? It's my profit. I would give the keys to my friends at whatever I got them.

Here's five at 24. And the streets, they're 29, 28, here 24. My money was in the ounces. Yeah. When I was in high school. When you were in high school. In high school. And your friends you're given work to

are also in high school? Yeah. Holy shit. Now, were their clients, I imagine these are white collar people back then because Coke was so expensive. Yeah.

I imagine these are... $100 bills. These people used to come and pay with $100 bills, bro. Mostly white people? Yes, white people. Wow. Coming from New York, L.A.

Yeah. Now, how much could, because Coke was so new to the market still, how much were you able to step on it? Like, if you're getting, if the Coke you're getting from William Sal is 100%.

100%. 100%. So then you bring nine ounces out of it with a cup. She was still burning 85. 85%. Yeah, 85% that she was good. Now, by the time you built up and you're making 150 grand a day from 30 or 40, how many other, were you worried that somebody else could get connected with Willie and Sal?

Or was that impossible? Like, could Willie and Sal find another you to keep flooding the streets? Or was that not going to happen? No, no, no, because they don't, I mean, the way William South worked, it was like, they didn't work with strangers. Like people that worked for the company that used to pick up money, move the merchandise,

they were like close friends that they knew a long time ago or family members. Yeah, so everybody was basically family. Yeah, like in my case. Okay, so it's not like a guy who was moving a lot of coke, from you could go around you to get to connect. No, no, no, that wouldn't have. And that's why they call it a cartel

because it's virtually, the supply is virtually controlled. Control. More or less. Yes. Who are some other, do you remember other families that were significant in 85, 86, 87, other Cuban organizations in Miami?

No, I didn't know. I just knew Williams. You guys had it on Smash, right? Yeah. You guys had it in the smash. Yeah. What were the other biggest ethnic groups of your clients that were, you know, coming from out of town? Cubans, too. We had Cubans, a lot of Cubans.

Cubans from New York. Yeah. I heard Alabama was a big market. I heard the Midwest was a big market. In Georgia, one of our best clients was in Georgia. A black guy that used to race cars. He used, that guy used to move, that guy used to move 150 keys in two days. Wow.

We used to take him 150 keys. And in two days, we'd be coming back with the money. And what, your, your price is 11 a key? What do you give it to him for in Georgia? In Georgia, we were probably 20. That's insane. 18, 19, 19, it's like an hour plane ride. Yeah.

But it just jumps 100%? And it's pure. That thing was 100% pure. What we would get was 100. Because they used to up there, they used to turn it into crack. That shit had to come back 100%. Right. If not, they wouldn't fuck.

They wouldn't buy it. Did a load ever come from Columbia? Tell me, a Colombian kilo, what should it look like? Is it a textbook or should it be more rounded and fluffy? At the beginning, back in the early, early like, Let's say, like 79, 80, 81, they would come fluffy, like a football. Yeah. It would be rocks and powder.

Pure. But then they started doing the bricks. Yeah. They got a little more sophisticated. They got it more sophisticated. And it's easier to transport, easier to work with when it comes compact in a brick. Right. Than the footballs.

So after 85, no more. No more supply coming through Miami. No more. The Caribbean, the Bahamas. No more from the Bahamas. So did they, did Willie and Sal, did they see the writing on the wall? Like, did they get, they must have gotten some loads intercepted or Columbia said, hey, this is too hot. Let's just get ahead of this and start going through Mexico.

Yes, probably. Yeah. Now, did you get a sense of who these organizations in Mexico were? I mean, obviously the show Narcos and the folklore and poplar. popular culture says it was the Guadalajara cartel. Felix Gallardo, who, you know, and the people he worked for who later became the Sinaloa cartel, the Tijuana cartel, et cetera.

Do you, did you ever hear? Did I know exactly who? No, but I'm sure it was one of those guys, you know. So Sal and Willie really, even though respectfully I've heard that they weren't the most sophisticated cats, these are just what I'm hearing from, you know, people that were close to them. they had the sophistication to at least be connected with all of the most powerful criminals in Latin America. Yes, yes.

Do you think they set up the Mexican route or was that the Colombians who then said, hey, this is where we're bringing it through? That was probably the Colombians. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So how was young Peggy living in 87 with all this dough? What, what, did you have kids? No, no, no.

I didn't, I didn't have kids till like, 92. Wow, this is exceptional for a young, rich Cuban cocaine kingpin. What, what was life like? Did you get to enjoy any of that or were you just constantly working? No, no, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it, yeah. I had other toys I wanted. Did you have property out here?

No, no. I used to rent. I used to rent. Yeah. Yeah. Did any of the stash houses you supervised with those families living in it? Did they ever get hit? No, they never got hit.

Not one. Not one. They never got hit. And I had a, I was renting, I had an apartment in a Champlainst Tower, which is the building that fell. Wow. That building that fell on the beach. North Miami Beach? Yeah.

I had an apartment there. I had one on Collinson 25th. and I had the house, a house in, um, in, uh, coconut growth. Okay. Okay. I used to move around. Yeah. Basically, I was already staying, staying at the house in coconut growth.

Wow. That, that's where I got picked up. Okay. So, yeah, how does the indictment start? The indictment started by one of the guys that used to bring the load in with the speedboats. Okay. Who was that? That was, uh, Bernie.

That's like, one of the guys that got. killed. Okay, Bernie, who was he? He was the guy that used to, it was him and he used to have like other like other five guys bringing in the, the Coke on speedboats. Was he a Cuban also? Cuban guy. Okay. So the guys bringing it in on the speedboat, um, they're, they're basically, are they independent operators that are working with Willie's up? They would bring Coke for Willie. They will bring Coke for other guys. Okay. So they get caught. They get caught. They get caught. Not bringing Coke for us. They get caught.

Somebody else. Bringing coke for somebody else and then they flipped on William South. What year was that? This was... That they first got caught? These guys get caught like in a... Like in 88.

Okay, so, but that was supposed to be, the Caribbean route was supposed to be done. Yeah. But this was a while back. These guys were already being watched like since 85. See what I'm saying? Yeah.

Since 83, they were bringing Coke. The thing is, they were working with too many people. Right. You know? If they would have stuck just to William Sal, they would have been good. They start working, they want to, they get greedy, they want to bring a fucking load in every day. Right. You know, and that's how shit happens.

And so they kept working even when the Caribbean route was way too hot. Yes. I see. Yes. I see. And I assume Willie and Sal, obviously they're the biggest players. So if you want to roll on somebody, you want to get out of trouble, you immediately tell on that. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. This guy had life, and I think he ended up doing three years. Wow. Out of a life sentence. Wow. Now. So if you're in jail with a life sentence with 30, 40 years, who the fuck are you going to want to go and rat on?

Do you know, are you aware? did the law know about Willie and Sal before Bernie? Or was that the first that they heard? No, I think they already had heard about William Sal. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So tell us about how long were they building the investigation

after Bernie flipped? Bro, they were for like, let me see since since like 85. Oh, so who's years? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. When William South, in 85, when they were in Al-A, in Al-A, they got caught in Al-A

under fake aliases and all that. Okay. So they were already being investigated since 85. Okay. Oh, so between 85 and when did they get arrested? In late, late 91, almost 92. So it was almost seven years of them. Being investigated and people turning on them and all that.

And even their family turned on them. Yeah. Even close friends and family members. Did you know, because you were working this whole time, did you hear about people getting knocked off? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. People getting down? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, all the time. So if somebody got arrested, say, with a load, would you guys obviously change things up? Especially if it's somebody that was close that knew about you guys? Yes. Yes. We would change things up and, you know. Did you have lawyers that would tell you like, hey, this so-and-so is cooperating? Yes. William Stahl had had a couple of attorneys that they would be on a yearly salary,

let's say 250 grand, just to be on top of everything. Yeah. They hear anybody that's testifying, anybody that's talking about them, you know, they would let us know. And this is very relevant because their ability to corrupt people becomes legendary. Yes. So did you have, did they have private investigators? Yes, yes. And I assume probably police on their payroll.

Are you aware of that? Yes. How high up in the police? Well, we had a, we had a sheriff up in Houston. A sheriff in Houston? In Houston. Okay, it's Houston. Houston is by Moorhaven.

You get US 27, it's like three hours from here from Miami. Okay. There's a lot of farmland. And William Sal bought a farm there with a landing street. Wow. So when the load was coming in, the sheriff would tell, it's a small little town, so the sheriff would tell the cops, hey, you guys have the day off, go home. And send all the cops home. Send all the cops home and the plane would land.

Wow. Yeah. That was early 82. Did you ever hear about the law having a file on you during these, you know, after 85? No. No. Okay. I get caught in L.A.

I beat that case But when the indictment came out In 90 Early 90 Late 80 No, it was early 90 When the indictment came out That my name was on it

Louis Mendez A.K. Peggy I mean Sal was like What the fuck Are you doing in the indictment? That's because When I was working in L.A.

A couple of guys they used to move merchandise for the company, went to L.A. There wasn't any flake here. They went to L.A. I saw a couple of them were merchandise. They come back, they get caught. They snitch on me.

Oh, we were getting the flake in L.A. from Peggy. But they weren't using your name. They were using Louis Mendes? Yeah, they were using Louis Mendes, Peggy. Lewis Mendes Peggy. So that's kind of the reason you guys were able to stay free for so many years. is because even after they started investigating you, they didn't actually know who you really were.

They didn't know who we really, really were. They had pictures, I guess, and stuff like that. Right. And I'm not sure you mentioned it, because I think it was off camera, but your case in L.A., you were just dealing with money. Yeah.

And they rated you with like, yeah, like a quarter million dollars or something? Yeah, $250,000. It's funny because I go to the first preliminary hearing, right? Okay, this is, when we get caught in the apartment, that they break in through the door, the cops break into the door,

I'm sitting there, I'm there with a Gus. They handcuff us, right? Boom. Like two hours later, the doorbell rings down, and downstairs, bling, bling, they leave a cop with us. The cop goes, thern, opens the door. It was William,

one of the guys that we used to give Coke to, with another bag with 150 grand. Oh, fuck. The cop opens the door and goes, come on, you're under the grass. And he was with a friend of his, both of you, let's go handcuffed him there. So that's 400 G's in cash.

Yeah. But no product. No product. What did the ledgers say? They didn't know what the fuck the ledger said. Just numbers. They knew it was money. but they couldn't figure out what the fuck it was.

Okay? So when they stopped the Colombian, they get them with the 250 grand. They followed the other van, and they get like 20 keys or some shit like that. So they got like, they got Victor, Gus, William, his friend and me, us five, and they got like nine Colombians.

Okay? So when we go to trial, it's a state case. So it's weak as fuck. So we got the attorneys to put us, hey, we have nothing to do with these Colombians, okay? I mean, so our case is us five, and the Colombians, they're doing their own case, right? So the first preliminary hearing,

they dropped the charges on Gus, on William, and William's friend. Only me and Victor stay, right? So three months later, We go to another preliminary hearing. If I lose that, I go to go to trial with the 12 jurors, right? So I walk into the courtroom and I look, I see this big motherfucking redneck right there. I go to my attorney.

I'm fucked. Look at this. Look at the fucking judge. This motherfucker is going to. And my attorney goes to me, don't worry. Me and the judge, we play golf every Saturday and Sunday and we went to Las School together. Wow. So.

And that's how. How what happens, folks. So I'm there, sitting there, the prosecutor's, bah, pa, pa. So the prosecutor goes. William Mendez was the one in charge of the whole operation. William Mendez is the one picking up money, distributing the cocaine. He's holding for it in the apartment. So the judge goes to the prosecutor.

The apartment that William Mention. was arrested and they got caught. How long was that apartment under surveillance? The prosecutor, he goes, the apartment was under surveillance from 9.30 in the morning till 10 in the morning. The judge goes, you mean to tell me that in 30 minutes you came up with all that?

Boom, case dismissed like that. Wow. The prosecutor got red, red like he was pissed. Wow. Holy shit. See that? That attorney was well paid. Your lawyer was well paid.

Yes. I gave him 40 grand right after that. Wow. And that's just for a state case. For a preliminary hearing. Right. So you guys beat it. Yeah.

The whole thing. Yeah. So that never came up in the federal indictment later. No. No. Okay. So you've now, you're now over 11 years in the game. Yeah.

With, you never taken a loss, basically. Never. Wow. Wow. So it's all the way until what year do you get arrested? When does this, the case keeps building for the feds, right? When does the first arrest happen? The first big sweep. The indictment comes out like early 91. A couple of guys get arrested, which one of them gets killed in a club. Because he flipped. Okay. Could tell us about that real quick? Okay, that was Louis Escobito.

You'll see it in the documentary and you'll see it in the documentary. I have to rewatch it. Yeah, but just for people that haven't seen it, Louis Escobito, is that one of your guys? He used to move Flake for, I mean, he didn't work for the company. He used to move Flake. Okay. Okay.

I used to see him. I used to take 50 keys, 100 keys to him, like every other month. And I knew him. He used to hang out with us. Right. He was good friends with Willie. Okay. And so he flipped?

He flipped. They gave him bond. And it's funny because one of my best friends, Mo, they used to hang around with me the whole time. And I used to help him out. And he's like, he was with Wish, the day he got, Wichy got killed. They were at a club. And Wichy's like, hey, Mo, what's up, eh, you got any? And Mo gives him a bag with Flake.

So they drink and doing flake. So they're in a club in coconut grove. They go, hey, this is dead here. Let's go somewhere else. They leave, they go downstairs to the parking. Wishi walks to the left. Mo walks to the right to get his car. And Mo hears.

Mo goes, then his car is messed up. It backfired. Mo leaves the next morning. He gets to go, hey, they killed Wishi. Wow. Wow. So was that the Colombians? Yeah.

And most seen the guy, moguls bro, Peggy, I saw the guy. The guy was sitting in front of us the whole time. Black shirt, black pants, long curly hair. Right. He was looking at us the whole time. Can you tell, could you see, you being Cuban, Latino, can you distinctly tell a Colombian from a Cuban?

Not really. Sometimes. Sometimes, yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Was that called in by Willie and Sal? I'm not going to say.

Okay. I'm not going to say because I don't know. If I tell you, I don't know. Okay. Okay. So you were never privy, you would never know if they called in a murder. That you weren't that close to them?

Or you just, they just would keep you separated from that? I was close to them to know everything. See? But when it comes to murder, that's very delicate. It's something you don't want to talk about. The less you know, the better.

Right. You know? Right. So. Okay. So he gets killed, but he's already given information. He's already flipped. He's already given information.

So then what happens? Then they had recut, which is he sent the documentary. He was one of the guys that used to bring in coke in the boat. I mean, recut gets caught. He makes bond. He hasn't even flipped. Recut hasn't even flipped. and they put a hit on him.

Awesome. Which he got hit, but they didn't get to kill him. So Rika, he's like, what the fuck? I haven't even flipped, and they already put a head on me. Fuck these motherfuckers. Now I'm really going to flip. Right. Okay.

So, and what does he, what information, how inside is Rika? He's good. He used to bring a lot of Coke from the Bahamas. Okay. So he's now flipping on, you know, has a lot of information to get. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Then what happens? Then, uh, they put a hit on me. The brothers? Sal and Willie? Yeah. Your family? They put a hit on me. Why?

Because I was in the hospital. My baby, Peter was born. I was with my ex-wife. And, um, they, uh, I'm getting the Peter, little Peter's born, right? So it's like, not a, clock at night, I'm getting ready to leave, right? And his mom, Alexa, goes, no, no, no, no, don't leave because I'm scared to feed him, whatever. So I go, I'll stay.

And if I would have walked out that night, they were waiting for me. They were parked right behind my car. Like, when I was going to get ready to open the door, they were going to hit me right there. The Colombians? The Colombians. Which they eventually get caught. The Colombians. This is the thing.

One of the hitmen's, they were going to kill them. in Colombia. For what reason, I don't know. So he needs to get out of Colombia. So he makes a phone call to the cops here. And he goes, say, listen, I need to get out of here. They're going to kill me. And I have information on Willie and Sal on the hits. They brought him over right away. And he turned in Sal's brother-in-law, okay? Who is? We used to call him a Gura, Eddie, Eddie Loscano. Okay, he's, one of the hit men is saying that Eddie Loscano

was the one showing him the pictures of the guys to kill and giving the money. Right. He got life. Eddie Loscano got life. So why? If you have nothing to do, if you're not in trouble, why are you going to put yourself in that situation on fucking murders, bro? You know?

Why would you do that? He got life. Why did they want to hit you, though? Did they think you were already cooperating? Yeah, yeah. I was already going to cooperate. Okay, so let's back up then, because we jumped forward. When did you get arrested?

I get arrested in like late 91, late 91, okay? This is before William Sal. Yeah, before William Sal. I'm in for like three months. I'm already hearing rumors. I'm sorry, before, where were you arrested and what did the discovery show you? I was arrested in Coconut Grove.

I was leaving the house in the morning to the gym like at nine, boom, boom, boom, boom. The day before, I'm at the house, right? And I see, this is in Coconut Grove. It's like a cul-de-sac. You know, not too many cars go by. So I'm out, for some reason, I'm out there and I see a car with two guys come.

And I'm like, damn, weird. They turn back around, they leave. I'm like, damn, that car, I've never seen it around here. So I go in the house, I get my gun. I put it here. I come back out. I'm standing out there like this. The car comes back again.

And I'm like, I was ready to just go boom, boom, boom. Because I'm thinking, bro, these guys are home invaders. Yeah. You know, they're gonna, you know? Yeah. So I'm thinking, when they come back, I'm just gonna fucking shoot at them.

And they're coming back and I'm like, bro, those were two U.S. Marshal. They were already staking out the house. Okay? From the house in front of me. They went to the neighbors, they go, hey, we got an indictment

on Lewis Mendus, this guy's a drug dealer. We need to, you need to borrow your house to stake out that house. And the neighbors told them, yeah, go ahead. Use my house.

Fine. Motherfuckers, and you would have told me that they were staking me out. I would have given you $250,000. Right. And I would have left. And everybody's happy. Yeah.

You know? So that's how I get. Wow. Thank God you didn't. Thank God they didn't bust up. Yeah. Thank God they were U.S. Marshal's. Wow.

And, um. Okay. So you go down. I go down. Willie and Sal find out. Of course. I'll find out whatever. When I get arrested,

they show me a picture of Willie since I'll, you work for you guys, you know, I don't know who the fuck they are, whatever, blah, I'm arrested. I go of them. Well, I'm waiting to get bond.

I'm there like three months. I got my attorney. I got private investigators. So I'm already hearing rumors that, uh, that I was going to get blamed for everything. Okay.

So what, what is, what is the paperwork? What are they, are people, are you finding out through the discovery that people have already. Yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah. Yeah, I get the discovery. I see everybody that's turned on me, that I've given Flay to, all that. And do they have your real name now? And they have my real name. They got Roselo? Yeah, they got Roselsollo already and everything.

Okay. And so I'm like, what the fuck? You know, why am I going to blame for everything? You know, fuck it. So I turned. Hang on, but this is important. This is important. Explain who's putting the blame on you.

from what I found out it was sow that was planning everything okay their their case they their case was yeah we're gonna go to trial we're gonna say we were drug dealers but only till 1985 from 85 which is yeah they were drug dealers from 85 they beat the statute of limitation so they can't get charged they already if five years already went by so they They're like, yeah, we were drug dealers to 85. Peggy took over. So, yeah, Peggy took over. Yeah, we could turn in a house with $3,000 keys and $20 million.

That's Peggy. We know where it's at, you know? And even if you see the documentary, bro, if you see the documentary, you could, Marilyn Bonachea, South's girlfriend, that she flipped on him, you know. She says that she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, but, but, so why, so why, already only a few months into, the jail, did you realize that they wanted to turn you in and make you the fall guy? If they hadn't been arrested yet. Because in prison, you hear rumors before the stream.

And if you ask any prison or that, news travels in prison before it gets to the outside. So I read, you know, I already had a little bit of knowledge about that. Okay. So did, so Sal and Willie, it sounds like they, are you saying that they knew the heat was on them? They were about to go down? They were already indicted. Okay. So they just had them.

arrested yet. They hadn't been arrested. So they were basically going to turn themselves in. No, they weren't going to turn themselves in. No. Hell no. If they their plan is, if they get caught, okay, yeah, we were drug dealers to 85 Peggy's, the one that took over. Okay, so they weren't going to turn themselves in, though.

No, hell no. Hmm. What were they going to do? They're going to flee? They're going to run? Well, they were here. They knew they were looking for them since fucking 85, 86, 87. They never left. They were They were always here. And they didn't want to give up anything.

You know, like they should have retired a long time ago. And because I remember my brother-in-law, like in early 89, he calls me. And he's like, hey, I need to talk to you. Come by the house. I go, all right.

I show up. And I go into the office. And I'm like, what's up? He goes, Willie and Saul, they're going to retire. This is 89. like summer of 89, right? I go, what do I do? Do I start saving my money?

He goes, no, you and me are taking over. And I go, how much are we're going to make? He goes, 90 million a year for you, 90 million a year for me. I go, okay, I'm down. Let's do it. But they never retired. I see.

I see. So, and then I get busted. I hear these rumors. And then I see it. on the documentary on Achaea, Maryland, talk about what Sal had told her. And that's something that I don't think

she's going to make up. Yeah, but that was later. In the moment, you just heard rumors that if they got caught, they were going to blame it all on you. But that's, you know, anyways, feel how you want to feel about it. But how long after that

did you decide to flip? Right after I made bond. I mean, I turned South in while I was in. Didn't you reach out to them? Like, couldn't you have, but was there communication with you guys after you got arrested initially? No, no, no. Okay. Hmm, so you just decided to jump ship.

Yeah. Did you go to your brother-in-law before you did that? No. Hmm, okay. Okay, so you bond out. I bond out. This is, you haven't flipped yet. though. How much was your bond?

250 grand. Okay, so you make bond, you're out. I make bond. Obviously, you're facing life. Yeah, yeah. When I went in front of Morin, the judge, our federal judge, he's like, when I went for sentence to get sentenced, he's like, you're lucky. You have, you have, there's skylines

in the federal system. If not, I was going to give you five live sentences. I can only give you 25 years. So that's what he gave me, 25 years. Is that because you didn't have any priors or why? No, I didn't have any priors. Forget about the priors. Forget about that guy wanted to give me life. Yeah, but how could he not have given you life?

You had. You were charged with tons and John and tons of them. Because of the guidelines, I have no priors. He can't go over the 25 years, I guess. Okay, but hang on. Hang on. I want to make this clear. So you bond out in, this is 1991.

1981. When did you decide to go to the DEA, go to the U.S. attorney? I mean, I already had spoken to them when I was in before bond. Okay. So did you, and you just proffered, you had to tell them everything, the stash houses, the routes? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. So how did it work?

How long? My deal was, if Williams, I go to trial. I testify. My part in the organization, you know, and, and, and this, you know, I had ways to get around. I'm not going to go and turn in five stash houses. You know, William and Sal go to trial, I testify, whatever. Even when they went to trial, when they were going to trial, you know, the U.S. Marshals, they take you down.

They take you down, whatever. So they pick me up and the U.S. marshal goes, hey, William Sal, I want to talk to you. They said, okay, I go, yeah. So they put me in the same fucking cell with William Sell. And they're like, hey, Peggy, don't worry. You know, you got to do what you got to do. Just don't lie. We don't want you to spend 25 years in prison.

And that's how it went. Okay. I still don't understand completely. And I don't think the audience does either. You bonded out after getting arrested. You made a deal with the U.S. attorney. once we catch Willie and Sal. No, Willie and Sal, Sal was already caught.

Okay, I didn't know that. Yeah. So, Sal, they already caught Sal. I turned in Sal. Sal was already caught. You turned in Sal before you got arrested? No. After you got arrested.

No. Well, I was arrested. Okay, gotcha. So while you were in jail. Yes. In the MCC. Uh-huh. Okay.

So did you know where Sal was? Is that how you were able to? Yeah, of course. Okay, okay. So you flipped, they got Sal. How long after this? did they arrest Willie? Okay, the thing is when they, they, they, they

raided Sal's house that they get South, there was this guy there at South's house that knew what Willie was. That guy turned Willie in. Okay. Okay, me, I'm not going to turn Willie or my brother-in-law. I knew where my brother-in-law lived. I knew where Willie

was staying. My thing, my beef was South. Why? That's interesting. I didn't know that. Why, why Sal specifically? Because the thing, the rumors were that I had heard that he was the one that was going to blame everything on me. Okay. Okay.

So fuck it. You know, it is what it is. But Willie and Sal, I'm not, you know, I'm not going to, you know, my brother-in-law went fugitive for 25 years. So he gets caught in 2017. Wow. Where did he run to? He went, he was staying in, in Orlando. That's right.

I think I read about that. Yeah. They arrested him in Orlando under a fake name. Yeah. Was he still married to your sister? Yeah, they're still married. They're here. Wow.

They live a couple of blocks away from my sister's house. How did he, I know we're jumping ahead. How did he get out so fast? They gave him 11 years. He ended up doing six. Is that why? He was an integral part of the organization. But it was already, he was one of the last guys in the indictment.

Like he didn't have too much, too much part in the organization. You know, I mean, he's Willie's brother, but, you know, he wasn't that. So, and it had already been. in 25 years. They just wanted to close the case. So it sounds like the moral of story is run. Run and hide and then they'll just stop giving a fuck about it.

Wow. Did he have to, there was nobody else to tell on so he didn't cooperate? He didn't cooperate, no, no, no. He just pled guilty and that was that. He did a drug program and plus the good time they give you, he ended up doing six. Boy, yeah. He got a sweet deal compared to some of those cats,

huh? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so they pick Willie up shortly after Sal gets arrested. Your brother-in-law is on the run, boom. So they've got the two, they've got the two bosses and they've got you, but now you're bonded out. I bonded out. Now, do

they get bond? Willie and Sal? No, they don't get bond. Okay. So this is the, and they decide to go to trial. Right. So you, facing 25 years. No, I wasn't facing. I had already pleaded guilty to 25 years. Okay. That

fast. You got that move through the system very fast. I pled guilty three months later. I get sentenced. I get 25 years. Okay. So you're already sentenced. Yeah, and everything. So are you already in sitting? I turned myself in and this November of 1992. I turned myself in with 25 years. I stopped doing my time. I'm here doing my 25 years. And you haven't technically the only ratting. the only informing you've done is let them know where Sal was. Okay, so you haven't taken the stand yet? Nothing. I haven't done. I'm sitting on my 25 years.

Okay. And where, what facility? I was in Manchester, Kentucky. Are you on a regular yard? Yeah, regular. Regular yard. Okay, so you're not, you don't have bad paperwork yet? No, I don't have my, it was a medium. Medium. And back then, they don't fuck with paperwork. And if you're Cuban, they don't, they don't fuck with you. Okay, okay, gotcha.

So they didn't get any money or anything yet. Huh? They didn't get any money from you or anything? No, nothing. Wow, so they haven't seized anything from you. Nothing, nothing. Okay, so Willie and Sal, this is their first trial. Right.

This is the one where they end up beating it. Right. Because. They bought one of the jurors or two. They paid off. They pulled some John Gotti shit. They flipped a juror. The head juror.

The head juror. Yeah. Can you tell us how, do you know how that happened? I don't know how that happened. Even to this day. No. I mean, I know about it because I've seen it on the documentary. Right.

And I know how I went because of the documentary. But you don't know how they got somebody. Miami is so small. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody knew who Willie and South was. So, hey, I'm one of the jurors in William South. Bro, you're one of the jurors in Williams and William South.

Hey, wait a minute. Hey, wait, I got a connection. They're going to give you a million dollars if you find them not guilty and you flip some of the other. Miami's so little. And maybe they were a beneficiary of their drug money early on. Oh, hey, you took care of my mother. Right. You know what I mean?

Who knows? So they know they're going to buy the juror. Who knows? William South. I mean, they know, hey, our plan is to buy the juror. Right. So, hey, we're not going to get found guilty. Peggy, fucking testify.

We don't care. So then you guys meet in the holding cell. Peggy, we love you. So just tell on us, get out of your sentence. Get out of the 25 years. Peggy, we love you. you know, just be careful what you get when you go home. You know how stupid people are, you know.

Wow. So they weren't bitter at you? They weren't bitter at all. Yeah, they were happy as fuck. They were like, we're walking out of here. They had the attitude of men that knew that they were going home. Right. Right.

This is some high-level Mexican cartel shit. This is how they operate. Listen to this. Cespionage. Listen to this. Me? When you go to the courtroom for the trial, that they bring the witnesses down.

They would bring me down. Put me with William Sal. You had like five different selves full of guy, full of people, you know? I would walk in, everybody's quiet. I'm there talking to William Sal, whatever. Anybody else would walk in

that was going to testify against William Sal? Everybody, yeah, you motherfucker. Hey, Willie, no, the guy that's going to testify against you, Lord. They wanted, like, to kill him. those guys.

Yeah. Me, I would walk in. Nobody would fuck with me. So Willie and Sal said, hey, he's good. Yeah. And by the way, one of these

bailiffs, one of these jail guards was clearly getting taken care of because they're not allowed to put you guys in a cell together.

Of course. That's insane. I'm testifying against you. How are they going to pay me? Bro, I remember. Like if it was today,

I'm walking down, I'm like, what the fuck? Hey, William Sal, I want to talk. to you. They said, okay, if I put you in there with them, I go, yeah. He said, he why open this up?

Miami, baby. Hugging me. With the sour, hugging me. Peggy, we love you. Peggy, we don't want you to do the 25 years. You know, we feel bad for you, you know, because I was the youngest of the crowd, you know, of the group. Did they apologize? Did you apologize? Yeah, I did. Of course I did. But, you know, yeah, what's done is done. You know, you can't go back, you know? So you take the stand. So I take the stand. Full-ass courtroom.

Full-ass courtroom. What was the jury? What did the jury look like? Were they Cubans and Latinos and a mix? What do the jury look like? Bro, I don't even remember. To tell you the truth, I was so nervous. Because it was surreal, right?

Yeah. All I remember is my ex-wife, when I get back to the unit and I caught home, she's like, hey, Chris was a prosecutor. Chris is telling me what the fuck it's going on with you. Like I was turning a lot of shit around. Like putting blame on other people instead of Willie and Sal. Really? Yeah.

Yeah. So did they, did you get reprimanded? Did they come to you and say, hey, the deal's off? Fuck, no. When I'm in there talking to William Sal, Sao goes to me, hey, Peggy. Because Sal was in the books as, Leshon. Lechon. Lechon. Lechon is like a pig, like a pork, like a fat pork. So Sal was in the books as lechon.

So one of the guys that used to hang out with them and kind of worked for the company was this big guy, well, it was like 400 pounds. So they go, if they ask you who, who lechon is, tell them it's fat George. Wow. Okay. Yeah. So what did you actually end up? telling against them, against Willie and Sal. And I worked for them, that I moved flake for them, that I picked up money, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So it was enough. Yeah. It probably would have been enough to put them away. Right. Did the prosecutor consider you, like, the main witness? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

The prosecutor, they, because I remember my, my, uh, my best friend that used to move flake for me, Mandy, the 150 creams, like, every other month, every month, whatever. While I'm sitting with 25 years, he gets caught. Okay? So I caught my mom one day and my mom goes, Hey, Mandy got caught and he's going to trial. I'm like, fuck.

Bro, a month later, the prosecutor comes, hey, we know about your client that used to move keys for you. He's going to trial. I go, I'm not going to testify. I'm sitting on 25 years You give me 50 more 25 more that's 50 years I'll do the 50

I'm not testifying Could they give you? How can they give you more years? No but that's what I told them You know? Yeah Like telling him I don't give a fuck So he ended up going to trial They didn't take me

Fuck no I told him if you guys fuck with me I won't testify against William South Hmm okay I see So you did have you had the cards Yeah I had the cards Yeah yeah And it's so you were

prepared to do 25. Yeah, I was prepared to do my 25. Or you do 22 if you had good time. Yeah, right. Which is, you know, it sounds crazy, but you can do that. Yeah. It's not like doing 40 or 50. Right.

You can do 20, 20, you know. Did you have money put away? Yeah, I had money put away. Just in that event, did that happen? Yes. But you didn't know that at this point during the trial that the jury had been paid off. No, I didn't know. I didn't know.

Nobody knew. So you were, except for the jury and Sal and Will. Did you feel bad when you were up there? Like, did you feel some kind of way? Yeah, of course. Was there, you know, because your family essentially, like what were the family saying? Were they really distraught at what you were doing?

I have no idea. I have no idea. I know that during the trial, I was with William Sal a couple of times, and I was good with them, so, you know, that's all I cared about. Okay. How many days did you testify?

Like two days. Okay. How long, how many hours was the questioning? Like, like, uh, like, uh, like three to four hours a day. Wow. Just of, hey, back and forth, back and forth. And then the money and this and you have money put away. And then you have money stashed.

The attorneys try to get you, you know, like make you look like the bad guy, you know. So did they have a lot of information? It sounds like you kind of on. pulled the, pulled the curtain back to this whole complicated conspiracy. Right. Like my, my,

me testifying, okay, their case is they were drug dealers to 85. After 85, they retired. My involvement in the case puts them way past 85. Of course. So their defense was,

no, we stopped. That's what their lawyers were saying. Yes. They retired at 85 and they gave the business to you. And they making it look like, yeah, you were the one in charge. You were the one, you were the one, these guys retired in 85, you know. You know, you guys could have put your heads together preemptively and said, hey, you tell on us, we'll tell on you, and everybody takes 20 years.

William and South were offered 17 years and they didn't take it. and then when South gets 125 years then he has all this information to give to the to the government but the government goes fuck we don't care

yeah it's way past they fucked up it's too late they fucked up so they offered him 17 years on the first case on the first yeah 17 years how did you get 25 and the kingpins got see what I'm saying is it because they didn't have enough they felt like they didn't have enough

I plead guilty. I get 25 and William Sal, they're getting offered a 17-year deal. How does, how does, how. Maybe like the forfeiture, maybe they had so many assets to forfeit. The government gets turned on by money. If you have enough that you want to proffer.

Wow. So they were offered 17 and they said, Oh my. They were offered 17 years. They wanted 17 years old law, which they ended up. They would end up doing like nine years, half of that. Because you get parole up from the old law.

17 years, you do half. Wow. But the government goes, no, 17 years, new law. You got to do 87% of the time. You go, no, we don't want to do 87%. We want to do old law, blah, blah, that. That was back and forth. Okay, so they just said now we'll take our chances.

And go to trial. Somehow, but look, they ended up beating it. Yeah, they beat it. They beat it. They walked out of there. Yeah. That almost never happens. And so then if you go watch the documentary, of course,

because on a drug case, it's so rare that two guys, with all these people testifying against him, beat the case. That's when they started looking into the jurors, right? The new U.S. attorney. I think that one of the head juror, Mora, Mora, he had all this money buying boats going out, sheeding on his wife. I think that his wife called the DA

and told him, hey, you know what, this motherfucker, he, he. Yeah, he's taking money. God, that's such a Miami thing. So stupid. Yeah, yeah. I love you guys, but people in Miami are not the sharpest, brightest light bulbs, you know. There's a very good looking town. Not a big thinking town.

That's like out of a bad movie. That's like a trope out of a bad movie. That's so funny. So how long after were they rearrested? that was 96, like 2000. What? Yeah. Was it that long?

Like four years. Like it took like three or four years. Okay. So even though, so in 1991, even though they were found not guilty. No, they were found not guilty in 96. 96. The trial went. Oh, so it took four years to go to trial?

Yeah, it took four years to go to trial. Okay, so you are right. So you were already serving your 25 years sentence. I was already serving my, I'm serving my 25 year sentence. So in 96, that's, even though they were found not guilty, you held up your end of the bargain. Right, and I get my reduction and I go home.

Okay, so after the trial, you just... Three months later, four months later, I go home. Now, when you were testifying against them, were you in, they brought you out of the prison, right? Right. Right. So you were in witness, you were isolated. No, no, no, no.

I was in the building, in the FDC downtown. They had a floor just for the people in the Willie case. Okay. Okay, so you never had to be around population. No, no, I never had to be a population. I did before going to the building. When I was in Massachusetts, Kentucky, I was in population. Right.

Yeah, I was in... But they didn't know that you were getting ready to go do this. Right. Okay, so they get found not guilty, and you get to go home. And I go home. Let's all have a party. That's amazing. Do you guys get together after that?

No, no, no. I mean, Willie, remember Willie had a case from 1979 that he was a fugitive. And the day he got picked up, they found a gun in his possession. So they charged him with a, they gave him a gun charge so they didn't let Willie go home.

Even after he got found not guilty. Even after he got found not guilty. So what did he have to do? Then he pled guilty to the gun. To money laundering, a whole bunch of shit and got 20 years. Okay. Okay. So, really?

Yeah. Even though he beat the kingpin charge. Even though he beat the drug case. Okay. Okay. They were going to take them both to trial on money laundering, all that. But Willie goes, no, I'm not going to go to trial. Willie pled guilty.

Sal went to trial. Hang on, though. After they get found not guilty. In 96. You get to go home. Right. Sal gets out. So will get out.

Willie has to. to stay in because he's held on remand from a gun case, from a gun case in 1979. Yeah, from a drug case in 79. A drug case. Uh-huh. Okay. He was a fugitive in that case. So you being a fugitive, a convicted felon, more or less.

He gets caught with a gun that they did pick him up. Okay. Okay. So where does Sal go? Sal was here in Miami. Sal was living with his mom. Okay. So did they lose a bunch of money when they had?

Why was he living with his mother? I have no idea. But you guys aren't friends anymore. No, no, we're not talking to each other. We're right. And what has become of the firm in 96, 97? I don't know. I don't know if they had people working,

if they moved all that cold. I don't know what happened. Even to this day, you're not sure. Like, do they, there's some other younger Cubans that they gave the business to? Right, right. You don't know? I don't know.

Okay. How long after they get found not guilty on the drug case does Willie have to go away and do his time for the other case? Willie. Willie stays, stays in. It takes like another two or three years before they go to trial on money laundering and all that. Willie pleads out and South goes to trial,

which they found, which they gave him 125 years. Okay, so they recharged him. How long did they, after they, beat the first case, did the U.S. attorney discover that the jury had been flipped? And then they recharged them. It took like less than a year. Okay. So then he was re-arrested?

Yeah. Was Willie also part of that re-arrest? No, Willie didn't have, and from my understanding, Willie had nothing to do with buying of the juror or nothing. Okay. They put all that, they put all that south. So then they go back to trial. They go back to trial.

Willie pleads out. Yeah. To the money laundering. Right. To 20 years. Sal goes to trial. Did they offer Sal anything the second time? I don't know.

Maybe they did. And if Willie played to 20, I'm sure Sal would have could have pleaded to 22. Right. And yet he chose to go to trial again. But this is the thing. In Sal's case, he was being charged with the murders. Him and his brother-in-law, okay? How?

How did they, how this time they were charged with the murders and not the first case? After the, after the first case is when that, the, one of the hitmen's cause and says, listen, my involvement with William Sauer, they were putting hits, whatever. See, so when he goes to trial, he goes to trial with his brother-in-law. And he's being charged with money laundering and with the murders. He didn't, Salle beat the murder case. he was not charged with the murders. He was only charged with the money laundering,

which could, I mean, if the judge wanted to be, you know, could have given him 25 years. The judge gave him 25. 125 years. I'm sure the judge goes, oh, you didn't get found guilty of the murders, but I know you had something to do with it here, 125 years.

Wow. And I guess that's legal for money. They can give you 125 years for money laundering. Bro, the federal government state is different. Feds, they do whatever the fuck they want. Well, that's got to be on the books because if it's an illegal sentence, you can beat it on appeal. He fought and all he did was take 10 years off the sentence.

Wow. So he's cooked. And Sal is in there to this day. Yeah, so I was still there. And Willie is free. Willie is free. And did he get deported? Yeah, they didn't want him here.

But how, so he wasn't a citizen? He wasn't a citizen. Okay. So those guys, those guys came over and just never got their citizenship. Never got their citizenship. I mean, I thank God to my dad that as soon as I turned 18, he's like, you're becoming a U.S. citizen. Passport. Made me do my task, made me do everything.

And I became a U.S. Not I would have been fucking deported. And do we know where Willie is to this day? No. I've heard he's in Columbia. Yeah, I've heard Colombia, Venezuela, you know, but I don't know. I don't know. Wow.

I don't know. And did he have any communication with your brother-in-law? Yeah, yeah. He has communication with my brother-in-law and everything. But he doesn't let anybody know. No, no, no. And he just did a book. Yes.

The last kilo. It's called the last kilo. Did you have, when he got, when Sal had to go back to trial, did you have to go back and testify? No, no, no, no, no, no. Wow. Wow. That's a saga, huh? Yeah.

That's wild. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Sal really fucked himself. Yeah. Really fucked himself. Yeah. Yeah, but to this day, man, they're still moving coke. Not them, but obviously.

Like I was telling you, when I got picked up now in 2017, that I get to the building, my friend goes, oh, this is over. The cocaine business is over. I go, bro, this is never going to stop. And a week later, he's like, hey, one of my friends got caught with 500 keys. I told you this ain't never going to stop.

And these are Cuban guys? Still hustling. Cubans. Still hustling. So new Cubans that come over, relatively new Cubans, are still in the game. Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, I guess we should talk about that and that's how we'll end it. So what did you do from 96 when you got out? I was working. Working. I was working, you know. Of course, in Miami there's always connections. I had connections.

I could have been moving flake, you know. I had, it was easy for me to get flake, you know. Yeah. But I didn't want to. I wanted out of that, you know. I didn't want nothing to do with that shit. And 2017, what were you doing for work? I was working.

I worked for like 10 years for my ex-wife, her husband, that he passed away. He had an advertisement company and a magazine, and I worked for him. I worked for the magazine. Wow. I was making, bro, he was paying me like five grand, four grand a month. Wow. And what is the guy like you know about advertising? Nothing.

The guy just loved that. He met me. Yeah. And people were saying like, bro, how can you, these two guys get along? That's Peggy's, Alex has Peggy's ex-wife. The guy met me, he's like, bro, you are such a nice guy, bro. You just love, you know? And he gave me a job because when my ex-wife got together with him, she's like, I got three kids,

Frankie, Little Peter, and my ex-husband. So in the ex-husband, you better give him a job. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. Yeah. That's cool. So it's funny, you were talking like, but you still, somebody as deep as you were in the game,

you could always make a phone call if you needed to move Flake. And your old customers have now, all these years later, basically become what could be your connects. Right. Right? Guys used to give product to her. And now the guys that having the product from. Having the product.

So, yeah, take us through what happened in 2017. 2017, when I was working for the, for, for, for, uh, we used to go to parties a lot. So I used to go get ounces from this, uh, friend of mine that I know. So you were sniffing. Well, yeah, we were, of course we were partying. Okay. And this is Miami, bro.

There's a lot of people in Miami that don't do coke. I haven't met any, but... They're telling you that they don't do. Okay, so, 2017, I'm getting an absence from this friend of mine that I've known for a long time. So he goes to me, bro, where I'm getting the keys from, the guy doesn't have any more. Can you get me?

See if you can get me a couple of keys so I could keep moving, you know, I'm like, bro, I don't know. All this, he's already recording me with a wire, phone calls, everything. What had happened to him? He just got jammed up and they said, I guess he got jammed up, yeah. He said, hey, I got somebody I can give you. I can give you people.

So that's when I go to my boy's house and he's like, hey, I got four keys that are kind of wet. How do I dry him up? So he's like, so we do it. We dry up the keys like a week, two or three days later I go by his house. He's like, bro, I moved all the keys. They came out good as fuck. You told me, you know, we put them in the oven.

You know, they dried up. I go, bro, as a matter of fact, I have this friend of mine that might need like two. He goes, whenever you need him. Bro, a week later, I call my boy, hey, I got, he goes, come like a four in the afternoon. Come by the house like at four. I get the two keys, drive to his house. I get there. I show him.

He goes, bro, that shit is good as fuck. You know what? I'm going to need five. Let me go get the money. Don't leave the keys here. Take him with you. That's what's the setup. Right.

He knew his house with the two keys. So I go, I leave his house, bro, I get it. I'm getting to US1. That's US 1 and 344. I'm getting to US 1 and the red light gets me. I look, I see a pickup. Another pickup. Behind me, I go, four pickups, those are cops.

This motherfucker set me up. I had a dollar bill with Coke. I opened it up. I went, please. And I go, let's do it. Woo, the light goes green. So I'm driving on US1. I'm driving US 1.

You could either go US 1 or take a shop right and get on the turnpipe, right? So I'm like, ooh, like if I'm going to keep going to US 1, right at the end, I go, whoa. I make a sharp right. I get on the turnpipe. I go, fuck, okay, I'm on the turnpipe. When I get on the ramp that I'm almost finishing the ramp, four more pickups. lined up, I go as soon as I passed them,

the lights, that, so you pulled over or you pulled over? What the fuck am I going to do? It's funny because the cop that came up to the window goes, I know you. We went to school together. We went to Miami

High. You don't remember me, but I know you. I know everything. Let's go. So they brought the dogs and they found the two keys. And the guy's like, bro, I'm like, up two keys and you know and he's like bro for two keys the max you're going to get is is five years and if you cooperate you won't do any time i go no i'm not doing that so

this was the state from uh the state police from uh from homestead okay okay so this wasn't even a dea operation no this wasn't even dea operation that's how much cook there is in miami yeah you're in oregon where i'm from like five keys that's probably you probably got feds involved So they, and it's funny because that same morning, bro, I wake up, I wake up that morning, and my dream was that I was handcuffed in like a thing of grass. And that's how I ended up. Like somebody was telling me, bro. That's that island Cuban intuition.

Yeah. You know, that's your abuelita speaking to you. When I'm handcuffed, there in the turnpike, I'm like, this is the same fucking dream I had this morning. bro. So the guy goes, look, this is not our case. We did the bust, but the feds, they know who you are, they know

you worked for Willie and Sal, and they want the case. They already knew that. They already knew it. The feds were just waiting for me to get busted. They picked me up and they took me to the building. Okay. Yeah. So did they, but they didn't get you on the five kilo conspiracy. They only... It was a five kilo conspiracy,

but they charged me only with two, because they got me with the two keys. Right. You know, but... And you're lucky because I think over five

you can be maxed out to life in the guidelines. Yes. I'm not saying that you would have, but two is a big difference from five. Yeah.

Okay, so... And then you, I think you did, you just put your hand up and said, yeah. I go to my attorney. Hey, bro, what's the deal here? He goes, uh,

minimum mandatory 60 months. I mean, you signed minimum mandatory for 60 months, the judge could give you 40 years. Okay? Even if you sign minimum mandatory 60 months, the judge could say, ah, fuck the minimum mandatory. I'm giving this motherfucker 40 years.

So he goes, either you sign minimum mandatory 60 months or you cooperated. Well, I'm not doing that. I'll give me the paper and I signed for the 60 months. So three months later, I go in front of the judge. There's no, even if you sign the 60 months minimum mandatory, doesn't mean you're going to get it. So I'm standing there.

I'm like, bro, I might get 40 years. And, you know, so I'm sitting there. The judge like, well, blah, blah, talking. And she's like, 60, 60 months, minimum mandatory 60 months. I go, I'm good. Yeah. 60 months, I'm good. When I went back to the cell, there was fucking guys crying that they thought they were going to get three years.

And the judge gave him 9 and 12. Yeah. They were there crying. I'm like, 60 months, I'm good. Yeah. Where'd you go? I went to Miami Lowe right here. Oh, nice.

Stayed at home. That's like a, like a, like a, like a camp. Yeah, yeah. You know, basketball, a weights, everything. As soon as I got there, soon as I got to, to the, to the unit, this Cuban comes. You're Cuban? I go, yeah. He goes, come.

Give me a bag full of food. He goes, we know who you are. We were waiting for you. Give me a bag full of food. And he goes, you don't have to pay me. And I did my time there. I did my four years there. Yeah.

Your reputation preceded you. Yeah. Yeah. I did my four years and that was it. The moral of story, I think, is that Miami's a great place to sell Coke. You can import thousands of tons like Willie and Sal, and they'll offer you 17 years. Yes. They'll let you off with a little catnap. It's a skid bid.

That's what we call. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I mean, you're still on parole. That's why we had to come here to Florida. Now I'm on probation on that 2017 case. I'll be done now in February, though.

Okay, good. They give me four years probation. Good. And I'm not doing shit. I'm not, you know, so I'll do my four years. Like I was telling me my probation, bro, I'll do my four years, you know, fuck it. I'm not going to try to go to their determination. It's a pain in the ass.

I'll be done in February. What an epic. Thank you. Thank you, Peggy. We appreciate you being sitting down with us, being, you know, the last living voice. of the cocaine cowboys. Plug your brand, man. What are you drinking?

What are you? Monaco, watermelon. What is it? Is it? Alcohol? It's alcohol. It's alcohol. It's really good.

Okay. Are you allowed to be doing that? Hell, yeah. As long as it ain't cocaine, I'm good. Okay, great, great. Where can they get it? Where can they find it? Well, they have it everywhere.

They have it in all the stores, 7-Elevens. Is it liquor stores? Wow. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, it's a good brand. So can, is it's a good brand? Is this national or just in Florida?

Right, it's everywhere. Okay. It's everywhere. Great. Yeah. So go find it. If you like to drink, if you're Cuban, everybody, go to,

you look up Monaco. Look up Monaco, man. And this shit, you know, one of these will really fuck you up. I bet it will, man. Yeah. I bet it will. Anything else you want us to check out for right now?

Anything else you want the fans to go check out? No, not. I'm like, you know, everything's... Everything's everything, man. Yeah. It's all working out for you. Yeah. Man, we're going to switch over

and do a little bonus episode. We're going to take a little break and jump over to the Patreon. But I'm honored, man. That was really great. I appreciate you. All right, bro. Peggy Rosello.

Cocaine Cowboys, man. Appreciate you guys.