The Underworld Podcast - Los Muchachos: Miami's Cuban Cartel

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

In 1980s Miami, amid the glitz, gunfire, and power boats, two Cuban-American friends Sal Magluta and Willy Falcon, built one of the most powerful drug empires in U.S. history. Known as Los Muchachos, they moved mountains of cocaine through a city shaped by Cuban exiles, ambition, and an underworld that blurred the line between loyalty and lawlessness. From funding anti-Castro revolutionaries to working with both the Medellin and Cali Cartel, this is the story of how they rose, ruled, and ran. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Ambition comes in all shapes and size. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. It's 1980 Miami, so you already know. Los Mucachos are riding high. The group of big-time drug traffickers led by 20-something Cuban exiles Willie Falcone and Sal Magluta have arrived on South Florida's Coke scene in a big way, and they are making money hand over fist. Q the Scarface montage, push it to the limit is definitely blasting as the background music to their lives.

As the end of the year approaches, the boys are in a celebratory mood, preparing for their usual festivities. Vegas for New Year's, a couple of weeks skiing in veil, welcome to the good life. When you're working with both the Cali cartel as well as their rival Pablo Escobar, S.K.L.O.K.S. It's a rare feat to be able to work with both the most powerful Colombian cartels at the same time. But Willie and Sal's elite distribution network in the U.S. has put them in high demand with both. Things are going so well that they decide to add on to the festivities by going to the Super Bowl in 1981, heading down to New Orleans on a private jet to catch the game and the parties that go with it. Things are going really well.

That is, until a day before the Super Bowl, Willie gets a phone call. His mother's been kidnapped, and she's being held ransom for $500,000. The Miami underworld is in shock. Falcone is the top of the food chain, someone who does face-to-face meetings with the cartel head honchos. What's more of it, Los Mucachos are known for staying above the fray, not getting wrapped up in petty violence. Falcone pays the ransom and gets his mother back alive, but Los Mucachos are not happy. Falcone wants answers. He hires two private investigators to find out, and it's soon established that there's been a bunch of these kidnappings was happening. Soon enough, the culprits are found. Dirty cops gone rogue. Los

Mucchos eventually raid one of their houses, torturing them until they get an answer. Willie thinks about retaliation, but decides against it since his mother was unharmed and actually treated well. He also figures, some of the other guys who had relatives kidnapped, they'll handle things, and street justice will take its course. Eventually, it does, the cops are busted, and one's body is found floating in a river. But the kidnapping changes things for Los Mucchacos. Willey Falkone immediately hires bodyguards for his family and anyone else in the organization who he thinks needs protection. They had thought they were immune to Miami's ever-grown violence. Los Mucachos had existed somewhat under the radar, ensconced in the safety of their community.

Writes T.J. English, quote, The emergence of Los Mucachos as the primary distributor of Colombian cocaine in the U.S. was, for a time, something that flew below the radar of American law enforcement. The Miami Cubans used planes, powerboats, and semi-tractor trailers to import and transport massive shipments of the product. Los Mucchos, which eventually grew into a network of 40 or 50 narcos, benefited from a culture of secrecy that had been fostered by La Lucha, the struggle to liberate Cuba.

Clearly, their days of being under the radar were now over. This is the Underworld podcast. Welcome back to the Enworld podcast and audio and now visual experience brought to you by two journalists, myself, Danny Gold, and my co-host, Sean Williams, about the world of international organized crime from past, present, and future. Every week, we trade off bringing you episodes based on our own on the ground experience or just some good old-fashioned research. As always, we have bonus episodes at patreon.com slash an overall podcast or on Spotify or iTunes. You can sign up or you can just make a nice donation to support us. Underworldpod.com for merchandise. Some great t-shirts, and you can email us at the Underworld Podcast at gmail.com.

A quick update on the podcast series I produced about the Chicago Mafia, Killing Kurt. It's up to episode four now, I think. You know, it'll kind of cure you if you think the mafia life is about glitz and glamour. It is a dark, dark show. You can listen to it at the Underbelly podcast season three. Obviously, if you're watching this, you'll notice we're doing video. video. People want this, apparently, our guys at Spotify, who when they say jump, we jump, suggested we get into it. So this is what it is. Maybe down the line will incorporate, I don't

know, AI, stock footage, things like that, give you guys more exciting things to look at than my face and Sean's face. But the world is our oyster. You know, if you have any talents in this area, definitely hit us up, especially if you love being severely underpaid. Sean, anything, anything else to add? Yeah, nothing that other than I can promise my life is better than it looks here. I'm not, well, maybe it is.

I'm not recording this under duress and the date today is April 9. So yeah, it took me five years to go over the sound of my own voice, so I don't know, I guess I'll get over this by this time of the 2030 World Cup or something. But at least people can see

my really cool 90s 80s Bocca Jr.'s So that is cool. Ooh, man. Looking good. So, Los Munchos, okay. There's been two big pieces of media on this group in the last few years. The guy who made Cocke and Cowboys came out with a doc series on them for Netflix a few years ago, called the Kings of Miami. It's good.

And T.J. English, who, for my money, is the best organized crime author out there. And someone whose books we've used as the basis for a number of episodes just came out with a book on them called The Last Kilo. Always Buy His Books, Definitely Support Him. That ended up being the primary source for this. episode, which as we'll see, the doc series and the book differ on a few main aspects of the story, and that's because of who their sources are. But we'll get to that in time. Augusto Willey Falkone is born in Cuba in a small town outside Havana in 1955. He grows up on a 60-acre farm that his family owns, but of course that doesn't last long. Castro comes to power in 1959 and then appropriations

start. Castro seizing assets of not only foreign companies, but also Cuban citizens. The Falcone family, like many, decides to get out and are able to leave the country in 1966 and head to the states. From 1959 to 1973, 300,000 Cubans settle in and around Miami. That is a whole lot of Cubans. And, you know, I love a good cafe Conletcha, and Miami does not disappoint in that regard. While coming up, Willie stands out. He's liked by everyone. By the time he's a teen, he's got a good, solid crew of friends, including a guy named Sal Magaluta.

remember the name but despite being smart school isn't for willie south florida even before the coke floods it is going through a massive construction boom there's money all over and willie drops out of high school with a different pal not sal to join the construction in sea but despite being smart school isn't for willy south florida even before the coke money floods it is going through a massive construction boom there's money all over and willie drops out of high school with a different pal not sal to join the construction industry Street, sort of like a young Sean Williams, who I think, what do they call in the UK, Sean? Like a Builders, right? That's, it's so cute. Oh, yeah. Well, I guess we could get into like Chippies, Sparky's and Dunny Divers. But I did the other way around. I dropped out of construction to get into journalism, which is probably dumbest financial move anyone

could ever make. So what I'm thinking about what your pension could look like right now. Oh, what pension? What is that? Like many other young Cubans and old ones, I guess. He and his buds also get involved. in the also booming anti-Castro movement in Miami. Rallies, marches, that kind of stuff.

Willie Falcone, though, makes his presence known, and soon enough, he and his boys get approached by some of the higher-ups in the movement. And these guys aren't what you're thinking in terms of, like, activists, right? They're not college kid kind of nerds. They are serious business, well-known and dangerous. Veterans of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion

when Cuban exiles, with the help of the CIA, try to overthrow Castro and clearly, did not do a good job. We've done a bunch on Cuban organized crime starting in the 50s. I won't get into it too much, but if you want a deep understanding of it, our episode on the corporation and Jose Miguel, that's where you'll find it. Now, these guys have a ton of shady contacts, the older guys, including the CIA, who are trying to stop Castro's influence from spreading to other Latin American countries.

Willie and his pal are called to a meeting at a motel near the Miami airport where they're told that the primary objective for now, is to stop Castro and communism in Nicaragua by defeating the Sandinistas, who were a revolutionary group they're fighting a civil war. And while they have the support of the CIA, they need weapons, and those weapons cost money. Now, those guys have contacts in Honduras to get sizable amounts of cocaine, which they plan to smuggle into the states, sell and then use the proceeds for financing the Contras, who are the ones fighting the Sandinistas.

Willie and his buddy, they are into it. It's not every day you get to walk into a massive cocaine smuggling operation. with no real experience and just kind of get handed the keys to it to do it for a cause you support. I mean, we should all be so lucky. Cocaine, too. I mean, at this point, it's not viewed the way we view cocaine now or society views cocaine now. And when I mean society, I mean like American society, like the Midwest, right, in like suburban towns, not like in Bushwick or wherever Sean used to hang out in Berlin. You know, it's, the drug was not super prevalent in 1976.

It was seen as glamorous. It didn't have this reputation that it does now. Lenn bias doesn't even OD for another 10 years. Actually, this, reading this, just sent me down a rabbit hole in the history of the drug. Like, PBS, there was a piece saying cocaine addiction peaked. It peaks in the U.S. at 10.4 million addicts in 1982, which is like almost 5% of the population. It's like crazy boom industry or terrible addiction crisis. That is great.

Were there 100 million people in the, no, it's 200 million, right? In the U.S. then. Yeah, that is. 200 million. Yeah. That is pretty insane, I would say. It also probably peaks then because crack comes onto the scene right around then, right? So I assume we get a lot more crack addicts and a lot less coke addicts. But still, that is, yeah, that's insane.

I mean, how do they define addict? Do you talking like a cheeky Friday and Saturday night once in a while? We're talking like everyday use. What's the definition here? I don't know. Maybe you want to survey some people down at the studio and ask them what they about that. The plan for Willie and his friends, moving on,

who are both well-connected and well-liked in the young Cuban community was to help distribute that A1 Perigo to young Cuban hustlers to move on the street. And then use those profits, obviously, to finance the anti-Caster ops, which is pretty simple, just classic Cold War shenanigans, you know?

And they get right to business. Willie's crew gets 65 kilos in their first shipment, making 10 to 15K on profit on each kilo. Even with having to give some of that profit to the movement, they're still making some serious cash, especially when you keep in mind, he's only 19 years old. After getting the product, they use their context to unload the kilos all over. They have a friend who owns a nightclub who takes them. Someone knew someone else who owns a beauty salon, he's in. They also know a lawyer who happens to represent the Hells Angels and

it's able to broker a deal with them, and on and on it goes. It's all very beginnings of the movie below. It takes them about a month to get rid of those first 65 kilos, which is pretty fast time to move that. The second load is 100 kilos, and that time, Willie and this pal actually helped reload the plane with the duffel bags full of weapons that are heading to Central America. Yeah, I was going to say a month to get rid of 65Ks is no time at all. And they're just like, what, they're still incredibly young. This is nuts. Grind. Yeah, they got, they got, like you said, they got the hustle, man. These guys, these kids are not messing around. So as they prepare for their fourth load, which is now up to 140 kilos, Willie's buddy has been with them.

him since the start hurts himself. He can't really help out. So Willie turns to his old buddy from growing up that I mentioned earlier, Sal Magaluda, another neighborhood kid. This is a critical juncture in Miami's cocaine era because Sal is a sharp guy who helps really change things. He had come to the U.S. from Cuba in 1961 in Operation Pedro Pan, which is kind of like a hilarious name for an operation to help out Hispanic kids, Pedro Pan.

Like who, I mean, I don't know. It's basically an undercover transport of 14,000 Cuban. kids to the U.S. between 1960 and 1962, sent by their parents who feared what would happen if they stayed in communist Cuba. Sal becomes Willie's most visible partner. They'd grown up together, they went to high school together, they played sports together. At the time, Sal was working as an accountant at a bank after getting his GED because he had dropped out of Miami high school. Willie knew Sal had skills that Willie just didn't have when it came to things like organization, being able to keep financial ledgers,

you know, the sort of money man stuff. This duo forms the foundation for the crew of young Cuban exiles that come to be known as Lois Mucchos. The fourth shipment then takes place in March of 1977, and by now Willing his crew have established a really good distribution network,

which kind of becomes their calling card. They're even surprised themselves at how much appetite there is for cocaine. Around 30% of their clients are buying from out of town, or buyers from out of town, who are taking it to distribution, in other cities like LA, New York, Houston, Atlanta, and more.

On that fourth shipment, they make $2.5 million, which would be more than $13 million today. Now, the documentary series Cocaine Cowboys, the Kings of Miami that came out in 2021, it tells a different origin story than the book by T.J. English. The doc, which is done by the guy I said who did the original Cocaine Cowboys doc, focuses on a different member of the operation by the name of Jorge Valdez. We'll get into Valdez a little later. He's now kind of a YouTube guy who goes on like DJ Vlad and stuff, so I inherently don't trust him, but, you know, still. Well, I mean, I should point out at this juncture that we are, we are doing this now as video.

So I don't know what it puts us. Right, I think. It's what I keep telling myself so I sleep at night. You can trust us. Yeah. He also, he's a witness against Willie and Sal in their later case, which, you know, spoiler alert, massive cocaine dealers that usually get busted. But he provides the sort of origin story that's different from this one. And then his story about the origins is that Willie and Sal start out selling weed,

then they move on to retail Coke, grams, eight balls, and then ounces. And then Valdez gives them their big chance with 30 keys. And later, Valdez gets arrested and sells them as business and suppliers. Obviously, this kind of serves his interest. It makes him look like the kingpin. In T.J. English's book, Willie Falcone is the main source. And that book is the main source for this episode. So keep that in mind.

It also serves Willie's interest to be like, listen, you know, we started out as anti-castro guys and the government was okay with us selling it when it was time to take down castro so you know as is often the case i think with this historical stuff and we do these episodes and organized crime stories especially in general competing sources with competing agendas where is the truth like sean where does it lie it's a it's podcast isn't it it's got to be podcast or or else why why were people who listen to us i don't know anyway willie and sell decided a strikeout on their own without the older Cuban connections who had already set them up in the game.

They think they can make two to three times what they've been making and still give the same amount of money to anti-Castro activities. These guys really do not like Castro. All they need to figure out is one simple thing, a constant supply of drugs. And they do. They manage to link up with the trafficker from Medellin through another Cuban connection. In the first shipment, they hide the drugs in the engine blocks of heavy machinery like Caterpillar or bulldozers, cranes, things like that.

The Cuban exile community, meanwhile, they really understand the need for secrecy. Willing and Sal use that community, their friends, their relatives to store their cash and to help out with other things. They're bringing in carpenters to build secret hidden compartments and normal households that they pay between like $50,000

and $100,000 a month to store the money while also instructing them, like, don't spend this money lavishly, don't draw attention to themselves. I mean, 100K a month to store cash, is pretty good, not a bad gig. And they monitor the home it's by keeping security personnel in cars nearby

or sometimes just buying a house close to the stash house. These guys are careful and they're also not violent. They're actually kind of the opposite of cowboys. Also in 1977, they come up with the genius idea to stamp their cocaine bricks with the name Los Machos after it arrives in Miami.

And after one or two loads, someone kind of realizes this is very stupid, which of course it is. So they stop, but the name stuck as everyone liked. lowest machos, which I kind of do too. Like it just sounds like a really cool Mexican band that does sick accordion solos and wears cowboy hats and Mexican cowboy culture just really is awesome and rules.

That's so cool, man. It's like, it's the best. Can you imagine that good the World Cup's going to be next year? I've got to go. We should actually go. I'm not joking. We should do a special Dan in Guadalajara. I want that guacamole with the little smushed up white bait I had like three years ago.

It's just, I don't know. It's just making me. hungry thinking about it. It's lucky that my laptops not currently resting on, I don't know, a food box on top of my son's high chair, or I'd be thinking about eating all the way through this record, but luckily, oh wait, no, let's carry on. Focus. Wait, where is it, is it all over Mexico? Is it going to be like

in Oaxaca and, or is it just bigger cities? It's in, it's in Guadalajara Monterey and, and CDMX. It's going to be like, and you could do, I've already done all the logistics, you could do two There are two weeks. There are games in each city that you could go to. And I want to do that because I'm turning 40 and I want to make that my big thing. As well as coming to New York because I'm going to make it.

I'm going to rip, milk my 40 if everything's worth. Anyway, what do you think the odds are of the Mexican people in charge of the World Cup, like the Mexican World Cup sort of association wanting to sponsor a podcast that does a lot of episodes on Mexican cartels? Pretty strong. Yeah, I think it will dig into their culture in a way that most podcasts don't and will treat the subject with the care and attention that it needs guys when you're watching it happen or listening. Okay, so of course, of course, these guys, they're not the only ones who realized that selling cocaine was a good way to make a whole lot of money very quickly. And by the late 1970s, Miami is becoming a war zone. There's a bunch of murders all over.

The streets are getting shot up like crazy. This is around the start of the Griselda Blanco era, which we did an episode on a while back, where Colombians are running around just killing people like crazy. The guys, they're somewhat insulated from the violence because it's mostly street level at that point, and they are wholesalers, not just regular wholesalers, the biggest wholesalers. They have a meeting, they discuss the violence, and they decide to mostly keep their own dispensing of violence to a minimum, sort of as a business policy. And speaking of Griselda, they do start to grow concerned because the Colombian connect that they have,

who has become a major importer into Miami is starting to do business with her. And they start looking for a new plug. And one of their guys who was helping them with their taxes introduces them to a different Colombian connect. That guy helping them with their taxes is none other than Jorge George Valdez, who we mentioned earlier as being one of the main sources of that time period in the Cocaine Cowboys Doc series.

Anyway, the Colombian they are introduced to is an old-time smuggler who has a decades-long career of smuggling everything and recently switched to the cocaine business because, I mean, it's the cocaine business. You see the profit margins. He's connected in Colombia and immediately connects them to smugglers in Cali and Median.

Los Mucachos already have some pilots they know from their previous sort of operations, so they get a move on it, and things start flourishing. 250 kilo loads, valued at 15 million, are not uncommon. They've got their pilots landing at secret airships in the Colombian jungle, loading up and coming back to the states.

Is this the Barry's Seale stuff, or was he working for another guy who I'm sure is going to come up in this episode at some point? So I couldn't find a connection between them and Barry Seale, which is interesting. I think Seale was dealing directly with the Colombian cartels himself. So I'm not, I'm not positive on that, but I don't think Seal was working for Los Machosos. Interesting. Hey, how are you? Ready to go for a run? Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us. the intersection of interests that inspires a run crew,

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deeper relief with natural ingredients you can trust to start the healing. When life surprises call for the best, choose Kyrad, a deeper level of care. Shop the full collection on Amazon or visit kurad.com to learn more. The money now is rolling in and the guys are smart enough to know it's time to set up some legitimate financial infrastructure. They buy into some banks, they get adept at money laundering, they get some legitimate business going. This is the era of billions in Coke money being washed through Miami banks and real estate. I mean, everyone knows the mob built Vegas, but cocaine built Miami.

In one incident, that is legendary. The guys show up with 100 million in duffelbacks to deposit in the bank, and you can, again, just cue that Scarface montage. They get into construction, real estate, of course, the clothing business, even a marine boat building company because the guys love powerboating. The boat business takes off immediately

and the guys become fixtures in the powerboat racing scene in Miami. And if you guys have never seen powerboating, definitely YouTube it. It is completely insane. Super high speeds. Boats will flip and catch on fire. I mean, it is for like super insane adrenaline junkies, which the guys are.

They get super into it. They love it. They're even winning national championships. And I'm not just talking about like putting their name and sponsoring teams. These guys are the ones piling the boats, Willie and Sal, just real wild stuff. I think in the documentary, they say that like at one time

two thirds of the boat teams on the circuit, are people in the drug trafficking business. It's basically the Miami drug lord version of, like, Dominican dealers in Washington Heights, like racing up soup to ponds and motorcycles on the West Side Highway. That's hilarious, man. It's just drug dealers, like, making boats go quicker so they can not get arrested.

Gotta have hobbies. Yeah, I mean, it's like, we should do another, like, sport and crime episode soon. I remember the White Bouldier and Highlight episode, that was pretty weird. There's some mad stuff happening in Afghan, football at the moment, linked to, like, crime laws, heroin there. I think, uh, I think I'm going to try and get into that. Ed is, I'm available for assignment in Kabul, in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, FYI. Uh, it's quite a long way from here, but I'm worth it. You are, you are.

By 1978, the boys are importing a thousand kilos a month. Willie and Sal purchased thousands of acres on a property 95 miles north of Miami in the middle of nowhere. They want their own landing strip inland away from Miami in the Keys. They developed the process. They developed the property into being a legitimate farming cattle ranch with thousands of cattle. And they bribe the local deputy sheriff with $700,000 to leave them alone. They also build a shooting range, which would come in handy when they let anti-Sandinista dudes, the contras train there, which they did. They're still involved in a lot of anti-communist activity. They're donating $500,000 every few months to the cause, and really even sometimes trains with the anti-Sandinista rebels because, you know, why not. But with all this

expansion, they need more product. So they take a trip down to Colombia. They go to Cali to me with the cartel there. Then they head to Medellan to meet with a rising narco star, none other than Pablo Escobar. He's not who he becomes, but he's starting to make big moves. They become so buddy-buddy with Escobar that he comes to celebrate New Year's Eve, 1979 with them in Vegas. Soon after, though, Willie and Sal get indicted for conspiracy to distribute cocaine,

though both post-bondin are free to go, so it wasn't too big a charge. The news of the arrest appears on the front page of Miami House. Harold, so while everyone in the titan-knit Cuban exile community kind of pretty much knew what they were up to, now the general public does as well. The case, though, it's not super strong. It's really messy. There's dozens of people arrested. It's all over the place. It also doesn't paint Sal and Willie as these massive kingpins that they both are. Both of them hire top-notch mob defense attorneys and they get the guys a sweetheart deal. Fourteen months in jail, but they're free to remain out on bail until all their appeals are exhausted. They actually do get. They actually do get a good. They're convicted and they're shifting literally a ton of gear a month and they get 14 months what kind of a f-up is that from the cops they didn't really have a ton of evidence on them i mean they were really good at what they did i don't think they got them on moving a ton of product to be honest with you you know i also don't think i mean 79 i could be wrong but there wasn't the super hard focus no i'm pretty sure there wasn't a huge um like like mandatory minimum or anything like

on on federal trafficking of cooking oh yeah yeah yeah i i i'm could be wrong. I don't think I am, though. I think we talked about this. When is the RICO come in? That's later, right? RICO's later. It might be late 70s. All this stuff happens to late 70s, early 80s, but I think at this time it wasn't exactly there. I don't remember the specific year, but it's all around that time. Jorge Valdez is also now facing his own case, and the guys get their lawyer to back his defense. But this time, Willie has a proposition, because he's currently not as liquid as he would like to be. He wants the lawyer to not only represent

Valdez, but also represent any of his crew when they get into legal trouble. And also be a bit of a legal advisor to get a better understanding of the drug and money laws in the states. The proposal is this. They're going to give the lawyer 10 kilos off the top of any load they bring into the states. And the lawyer agrees, which reminds me of that breaking bad quote, you know, about you don't want a criminal lawyer, you want a criminal lawyer.

Isn't that just ripped off Jay-Z? Is that like, I ain't a businessman? I'm a businessman. man. Yeah. I mean, that's, I don't know if it's ripped off Jay-Z, but that's a great line. That's a great Jay-Z line. Yeah.

Yeah. So the lawyer gets to work helping out right away. There's some issue with the Caribbean banks getting a little more, you know, a little more scrutiny to the money they're taking in. So he has them move their money from those banks to Panama, $250 million of it. And, you know, more foreshadowing. But I feel like every drug lord or narco or dealer in the 80s sent their money to Panama. But never really, never really worked out for them in.

the end. In Panama, their money guy is one Guillermo Andara, who oversees their financials and shell companies and all that. And if you don't know who that guy is, I didn't either, or why I'm dropping the name of a random Panamean banker in the episode. Well, he becomes president to Panama in 1989. So we'll get there. Los Mucachos are like shooting stars at this point. Only a few years in business and hundreds of millions of dollars in their pockets. Miami is a wash with cocaine and cocaine cash. It's good. developing rapidly. And Willie and Sal are right in the middle of this boom.

They're donating money to politicians, investing in all types of projects, shopping malls, public parks, startups, everything. They're building five larger apartment complexes, multiple shopping centers, all that. They're also donating to, you know, the community, sports stuff for local colleges and schools, like building stadiums, everything that they can.

Yeah, I'm placing my hand on the Robin Hood claxon over here. Yeah, I mean, they're definitely there. I didn't want to say it. I was waiting for you to jump in, but they're doing it, man. They're doing it in a big way. They also take time to, of course, enjoy the good life as one does when they make a ton of money, trafficking cocaine, or move to Berlin in their early 20s and get really into wearing leather as some podcast hosts do. They're doing a little bit of blow. They're hitting up the best nightclubs.

They're cheating on their wives' supermodels. What one does in that world. And keep in mind, these guys are still in their early 20s at this point. Comparatively, though, they're still somewhat disciplined compared to a lot of the other guys who are making that kind of money at that. that point. So yeah, we're in late 1980, early in 1981, and that's when we get the cold open, the kidnapping, and the realization that the guys weren't different enough to avoid Miami's Coke violence. But they were a little different, though. They were smart. They operated differently. They had an almost unlimited supply, and they didn't care as much about insane

profit margins so they could undercut the competition. Willie explains it, quote, we didn't have no competitors. Not really. You have to understand. Mostly the cocaine business, is based on consignment. At the top, Colombian bosses like Escobar front the product to mid-level dealers, other Colombians, Mexicans, Americans, whatever. Then those people sell up to other dealers are at the street level. That's a lot of pressure because the Colombians, they want their money. That's where all the violence comes in. Somebody is laid on payment or they get ripped off or busted. But with us, we owned our cocaine. We bought it outright from the point of production, in the jungle labs. We never took anything on consignment.

Seems pretty smart. And as a wise philosopher once said, consignment is strictly for live men, not for freshmen, and if you ain't got the clientele, say hell no, because they're going to want their money, rain sleet, hail, snow. So yeah, they're smart guys.

They're making smart moves, but it's the 80s, you know? Ronnie Reagan is coming to town, and he don't like the drugs. He gets elected and starts fighting the drug war hard, putting together a $1.2 billion task force to counter the growing cocaine trade in South Florida.

Throwing together the DEA, FBI, customs, the ATF, the IRS, even some assistance from the U.S. military. All at the same time while these boys are using drug money to fight the commies. Get in there. The guys are estimated at this point

to be making $300 million a year. Willie even gets his younger brother Tavie involved, even though he had tried to keep him out, but it's such a tight-knit family structure it was only a matter of time. Even with that insane amount of cash, though, there are difficult. because the task force and surveillance,

they can't fly their stuff into the ranch north of Miami anymore. So they adjust. They start flying loads to the Bahamas, Aruba, other Caribbean islands. And then they use those speedboats they love so much. Remember, these dudes loved racing speedboats and had a whole speedboat company to bring it into the states. They go down to the Bahamas, they spread bribes around,

they head to Aruba to meet Escobar and set them up with a Venezuelan colonel for some other smuggling operations. The Bahamas works well for a bit, but with the increased pressure on the Caribbean to Florida route from the war on drugs, by late 1983, it's clear they need to look elsewhere. And of course, where is elsewhere? Yep, Mexico. They link up with their bros from the Cali cartel and head to Mexico to meet the Guadalajara cartel,

which we've mentioned a million times. It's a sort of origin story for all the Mexican cartels, the Mexican super cartel, where so many narcos earned their wings, Mayo, Chapo, the Lord of the Skies, etc. The Mexicans by then have perfected. trafficking marijuana into the States. So making the leap into Coke wasn't going to be all that difficult. It was actually going to be much easier because you have much smaller amounts of powder, don't smell like crazy or it's easier to be hidden, easier to deal with.

Sal and Willie are now some of the biggest, if not the biggest cocaine importers, into the States at this time. The next two years, though, multiple people in the organization, Los Machosos, face criminal indictment, including their lawyer. But the inner inner circle seems to be okay. They're definitely nervous, though. They hire a new team of high-profile lawyers that inform them that with the new drug laws,

the government can seize any asset they have, even with no indictment, meaning it's time to sell some stuff off. They start with their beloved ranch that they initially got to have their own private landing strip. But then there's a new bigger problem. And that problem is Pablo Escobar. He's decided it's time to go to war with the Colombian state.

And at this point, Willing him are so close they take their families to Disneyland together. And you don't want to be seen at theme parks, you know, the happiest place in the world with the guy fighting a war against the Colombian government. And you certainly don't want to be in business with him. It's just, it's bad for business to have one of your top partners fighting a little war against the country, you know, with bombing flights and killing politicians. And besides, Disneyland is a happy place, Sean. Maybe it's the happiest place on Earth, so they say. You can't be all about bombing civilian passenger jets at Disneyland.

Is that, that's the one in like Anaheim. I get confused, man. Once in Anaheim went in Florida, I'd been to both when I was a kid. I don't remember much. Yeah, I remember once I was in the, I went on my first big foreign holiday with my parents to the Orlando one. And I had a massive row with my dad in the higher car. And he just kind of stopped on some swampy road and chucked me out.

And I, and drove off. They were like actual crocodiles on the grass. So that was a, that was a real fun, happy family trip. Love these. And probably saying I was right down for my therapist. Love these short. and notes about your life that we have to include here. I'm sure the listeners all do, all do as well. But yeah, I mean, my main recognition of Disneyland or Disney World right now is that

these guys I watched on Instagram who decided to get hammered at Epcot Center at all the different countries. I thought that was a pretty excellent way to spend a day. So maybe we could do that on your next American trip. I guess I should clear up to like another, another mark of how professional and adept the guys were at what they did, how much weight they moved. The fact that they were working with both Escobar and the Cali cartel is insane. I don't think anyone else was able to pull that off. You know, these were guys who were at each other at their throats, I think, at this point. They started off not, you know, friendly competition. At this point, they're trying to kill each other. So that is, the fact that they could work with both them in a world where every little hint of

betrayal ends in many people getting murdered says a lot about how sharp they were and what they did. Anyway, with Pablo in trouble, they focus much more on going through Mexico, where they work with Cali and the Guadalajara cartel. At this point, they're moving 2,400 kilos every six weeks through the border. With a ton of their business now moving into California, the guys then decide they should also move to California for a bit. They leave their wives and kids behind, and in California, they make a big splash. By the summer of 85, the price of a kilo drops from 32K to 19K as part of a strategy by, Willie and Sal to flood the market now that they're moving tons of weight so easily. They start to spin out a bit though, you know, now without the family keeping them intact,

they're partying like crazy, they're getting careless. So careless, in fact, that Willie and Sal and a few of their guys are arrested one night by the Marina del Rey Police Department in charge with possession and distribution of cocaine. But none of the larger operation in LA is hit suspiciously, no stash houses, just some of the apartments where they've been staying. They're actually arrested under false identities, So before the cops kind of wise up on who they really are, they jet back to Miami. But at this point, they are worried about the arrest.

Is it just a random screw up or is it the beginning of the end? It turns out one of the escorts they hired to party with is also an informant for the cops. She saw some coke, money, and guns lying around, and she told the cops, and that was that. I mean, that is a crazy informant job. That's like got to take some serious cuts. Wow, that's like one of the craziest informant jobs I've heard of. on this show. It's also makes sense to get, you know, high-level escorts like that to be informants on

narcos, especially in that time period. Oh, yeah. You know, I'm surprised they weren't more suspicious. I need the money. I'll do it. The authorities are still not aware, the authorities in California, at least, of who they really are, thanks to the fake IDs. Now, this is the part in most stories about drug lords and gangsters where they say, it should

have served as a wake-up call. Does it serve as a wake-up call, Sean? No. No. No. It does not serve as a wake-up call. In the summer of 86, they're still getting 1,000 kilos from Escobar every six weeks to the little islands despite his issues, and they're getting the 4,800 kilos from the Cali guys through Mexico on a similar time frame.

But alas, the DEA is finally onto them after an accountant that they had been using to launder money gets wrapped up in a bank robbery case in Europe, I believe, and offers to divulge some info on narco money laundering. Up until then, the DEA didn't really have much on them, but now they're connecting a whole bunch of dots in the money world. and getting a very good picture of the financial side of the empire. So they start moving in. At this point, Willie and Sal know they're being watched.

They're sort of under the thumb of the DEA. But they keep doing business and the walls keep getting closer in on them. Turns out, one of the LA cops who busted them before when they gave fake IDs is watching a powerboat racing competition on ESPN. What are the chances? Must have been on the Ocho, you know? He recognizes them and he realizes those guys gave me fake IDs. But now he's got their real names.

So definitely, you know, it's not just don't Instagram your crimes. Don't televise your powerboard races. That's the don't Instagram your crimes of the 1980s. I remember one of the first things I did when I moved to New York was watch the Ocho. And I remember so clearly watching professional juggling from Sue Falls, Idaho, which was the coolest thing I'd ever seen in my life. But anyway, yeah, I mean, like, don't Instagram, don't powerboat your, don't televise your powerboat races. I don't know. Is that going to make a cool shirt with that pink and blue neon, like, lettering?

I don't know. Is that our next big money spinner, do you reckon? Anything looks good in that lettering, to be honest with you. You know? Yeah. It's a good. It's a good one. Willie sees what's coming.

He goes on the run. Sal does two, but he only moves to Houston and lasts only a month and then moves back to Miami. But he's on a private island that is highly exclusive, kind of hoping he can hide out there. But as you're going to learn, both these guys are just terrible at being on the run. They might be the worst people that have ever gone on the run. They can hold out like three weeks usually before they give up and go back to Miami. Willie, on the other hand, at this point, decides to move to New York City with his wife and a plethora of fake passports and IDs. He sets up shop at a big apartment on the Upper Side, which I mean, again, if you're going to go on the run, it's a pretty half-ass way to do it.

Yeah, this is like actually one of my pet peeves of all these guys who go on the run. I mean, I'm sure they're going to really care when I say this. But like, just fly to Moldova or Sri Lanka or Botswana. They're very nice places. You could just disappear. And now I'm thinking about this like pink and blue lettering and the kind of Miami Vice stuff. And now I can't get riffraff out of my head. And this is like one of the biggest conversations with my friends when I used to live in Oklahoma.

Is riffraff a bit? Is he doing a bit or is the real deal? He just is. He just is, dude. You got to accept that he just is. I mean, I love the guy, but is it a bit? It's got to be a bit, right? In terms of going on the run, though.

But yeah, I mean, now I guess people just go to Dubai or they hope that there's no extradition treaties in places they go to. Dubai, people are getting arrested now, dude. People are getting locked up from Dubai. But yeah, I mean, go to Caracas. If you're on in America, like go to Caracas, right? No one can touch you there. Or like you said, go to, I knew a guy.

Well, I didn't know. Someone I knew knew a guy who had some tax fraud situations in the U.S. He went on the run to Namibia, you know? Perfect. No one's coming to get you in Namibia. No one. Yeah, you can go surfing on the sand. One more to you.

One more. And they got those cool little, the desert. their elephants, you know. What a life. They've got this hotel there that I really want to go to. It's a cool country. It's a cool country. It's there a lot of time ago. Cool country. Oh, man, I want to go.

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More bad news comes from two of their top lieutenants. They're busted in a Coke deal in North Carolina. The guys are selling off of their assets, they're thinking about getting out. After a year in New York City, too, Willie, of course, moves back to Florida. Apparently, they were also really distraught at the crack epidemic and the role that the Coke that they were bringing in was playing in it. Oh, no.

Or so they say, I mean, not distraught enough to stop moving thousands of kilos of it a month. So, you know, take that again, grand assault. In November of 1988, Sal gets arrested, but he's able to bribe his way out of a local precinct by getting the clerk to fudge some paperwork before the feds can nab him. At this point, I mean, how many close calls do you get before? Like we said, you go to Namibia for good. Then in 1989, Sal and Willie traveled to Panama because, surprise, surprise, they're having trouble getting their money out, which is a big issue since it's where most of their money is.

Their boy, who we mentioned at the beginning, Guillermo, he's just been elected president of Panama with hefty campaign contributions from both Willie and Sal. And he's currently battling General Noriega for control of the country. The Bush admin tells Guillermo. they know he's got a shady pass, but he's got to keep things under wraps now. And if so, the U.S. is going to consider intervening on his behalf and deposing Noriega.

So for the time being, President Elykehimo, he can't hand over tens of millions of dollars to the two wanted drug lords, even if it is their money, which, you know, not good. They're not exactly broke. They've got millions stashed here and there under false names, under floorboards, all that. They've got the real estate and other assets,

but it's a hit, a sizable one. Then, in December that year, the U.S. invades Panama and gets rid of Noriega. The real Manuel Noriega, he's not in a mansion in the Philippines. He's still hold up in Panama. Cue the Van Halen. Willie watches on TV as his Panama and money guy, Guillermo, is sworn in as present to Panama. Maybe their fortune is about to change. By 1991, though, it is looking like game over.

Most of their assets, around $2.1 billion have been seized by the government. The feds are also scouring the prison system for anyone that's worked with Willie and South. and is willing to dine them out. Keep in mind, they're still in business, like looking at making a billion a year, but they know it's about to end. They have their lawyers reach out to the government about a potential deal,

they'll give up $25 million in cash, all of their real estate holdings the government hasn't seized, the location of thousands of kilos in storage, and in return, they do no more than 15 years. The feds reply, they would have to first turn themselves in before any deals could be discussed and that they need to cooperate against many others,

and Willie and Sal turn that down. Then, in October of 1991, they both get arrested at their homes. The raids on their houses bring new charges, though, multiple fake IDs at Sal's, including a fake passport, which is a federal offense. At Willies, they find a bunch of more fake IDs, a small amount of coke, and an unlicensed gun. The feds still don't have massive amounts of, like, you know, cocaine or guns that they've got from the guys, though. So it's a little different from a lot of other narco cases. There's not that much sort of physical evidence. The biggest find at Sal's house is the organization's ledgers, but,

written in code. For months beforehand, Willie and others had urged Sal not to keep them at his house, but he does not listen. He had the notes on a criminal conspiracy, and they found them. The case is one of the largest drug cases in U.S. history at that time, accusing them of importing 75 tons into the U.S. Although I've seen estimates that in total throughout their career, they trafficked in 700 tons, which is a crazy amount, especially for that era. So judging on before what, they might cop, I don't know, two years probation or house arrest for this? A little different now, man. It's going to be a little different now.

One month after that arrest, the DEA hits a stash house location. They'd get from one of the lower-level guys who had kind of flipped. And now there's actual product to show at the trial. Meanwhile, Willie and Sal are behind bars. They're hiring the dream team of defense attorneys while smuggling in a cell phone to keep conducting business through Willie's younger brother who had gone on the run. We mentioned in the earlier he just started working with them. He'd escaped the Dragnet.

Although, how do you smuggle in like an early 90-sized Zach Moore's cell phone, right? It was probably the size of a shoebox. Painful. Alas, the feds already have one of their drivers working undercover as an informant, and pretty soon they're able to roll up the entire distribution network of Los Mucachos shutting down their whole pipeline.

Now, Los Mucchos are always pride of themselves and not being involved in any chaotic violence. We heard earlier how they don't do the consignment thing, which kept them out of those wars, but also they themselves just didn't dispense a lot of violence. They weren't violent guys. They were more businessmen. Here's some insight from a Los Mucachos associate on Willie's thinking when it came to violence.

Quote, whenever we have a problem, someone didn't pay or whatever, his philosophy was, okay, so the guy didn't pay. He owes us five kilos. So we're going to go and kill him. Why? We can't take his body to the bank. You know what Willie would do? He would call the guy and say, here's two more keys.

You go and sell it and pay me back. Yeah, I mean, seem to work better than most of the trigger happy Yahoo's from that time, no? It's just better policy, you know? But now, as the truth. trial is gearing up, things start happening. Four potential witnesses are either shot or if car bombs go off outside their houses. The documentary series makes it seem like it was Willie and Sal ordering these hits, but the book really seems to think it might have been the Cali Cartel operating alone,

since the guys were such an important distribution network for them. It does eventually become clear that the Cali Cartel was doing the killing on behalf of Willie and Sal as the hitman are Colombian Sicarios. Interestingly, Willie's wife is killed during an attempt in riot. when she refuses to give up her purse around the same time, which is a weird coincidence. Later, two more witnesses are killed in the pre-child period. Then finally, in 1995, the trial starts.

The boys are facing a 23-count indictment for co-trafficking, but bright side, no murder charges. The trial takes about four months, and the prosecutors have 80 witnesses with some of them coming from inside the organization. Still, Willie and Sal take no chances, and using their sort of Cuban exile community content, are able to pay off four jurors and one alternate.

They'd given two jurors one million each when they were just prospective jurors, and those two happen to get in with one becoming the jury foreman. So they end up not guilty on every single count, stunning the government who are obviously furious. Honestly, it's a little too suspicious. Like, you've got to throw in a low-level conviction or two, you know? How do we know they paid off these jurors? Where do we get that information?

Well, it's going to come out. You know, it ain't over. If the feds get a phone call from one of the jurors, on the trial who explains how the jury foreman had kind of browbeat the other jurors into voting not guilty. The fed's already suspicious the jury was tampered with, launched an investigation into the foreman. Sal gets clued onto it. He flees a fugitive once again. But these guys, again, they suck at being fugitives as we've learned. So he gets arrested again shortly after and then so does the foreman. And remember, Willie and Sal still had a few minor charges from the raids on their houses.

Willie gets sentenced to 120 months on one of his gun charges, while Sal get sentenced to 120 months on one of his gun charges, while Sal gets convicted of the fake passport and for added charges for jumping bail and get sentenced to nine years. But the reality is, this is not that much time compared to what they're about to face. And what they're about to face in August of 1999 is RICO charges, including obstruction of justice, money laundering, and for Sal, additional murder charges. There's a lengthy trial. Sal gets convicted of a whole heap of charges, though not the murder charges, but he gets maxed out by the judge, 205 years. And he's still locked up today. I think he was an 80x Florence.

Yeah. I think he was an ADX Florence super supermax, but I think he's been moved to USP Allenwood right now. Willie sees that and cuts a deal for 20 additional years added to his previous sentence. He's released in 2017 after serving close to 27 years. When he was released, he was deported to the Dominican Republic. The DR apparently wasn't too happy and he had to leave and is currently in an undisclosed country. Who knows?

Panama, Dubai, Karakis. who even knows. He was in the beginning, or at least the back of his head, if it really was him and his voice in a Rick Ross video from like five years ago, which is like super corny. It's like Rick Ross on the phone with him talking about how they're both drug lords, which obviously Rick Ross, like the rapper Rick Ross is.

It's super corny. So good. So corny. If you're interested in the court trials, which we sort of gloss over here, you know, we don't really have time for it, and we're not big on the back and forth of court trials. Definitely go check out the doc series on Netflix,

cocaine, Cowboys, Kings of Miami. And definitely, as always, if you want, you know, the full, full story, get TJ English's book, The Last Kilo. And actually, all of his other books on organized crime as well, which we frequently recommend probably the best author out there on the subject in general. And, yeah, bonus episodes, patreon.com slash general podcast. Thank you for tuning in to our second video, you know. Hopefully, we did it. People want to look at our, I don't know why people want to look at our faces. Maybe, I don't know.

Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. but probably, probably not. Anyway, until next week. Thank you guys. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business.

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