Smuggling 101: The Ultimate Guide to Roger Reaves' Journey Through Perilous Adventures

[00:00:06] So I'm out rock climbing, but I really wanted to do the intro for Roger Reaves. This guy is amazing. First off, he was the largest drug smuggler ever. He worked for Pablo Escobar and many others. This is all through the 70s, 80s, maybe the 90s. And he has a lot to say about the drug business, all the crazy stuff that happened to him, including 33 years in jail, and the role of the US government in the drug smuggling.

[00:00:36] He also talks about Barry Seale. You might have seen the movie American Maid starring Tom Cruise. There's this amazing scene in American Maid where Tom Cruise is arrested and the prosecutor says, you're going to jail for life. And Tom Cruise says, no, I'm not. Here's what's going to happen. You're about to get a phone call. You're going to argue a little bit with the guy on the other side of the phone, and then you're going to let me go. And then that's what happened. And it was a true story. Anyway, Barry Seale, the movie's about this guy, Barry Seale.

[00:01:04] He was an employee of Roger Reeves, who I'm about to talk to on the podcast. So crazy stories. Roger Reeves, author of the book Smuggler. Check it out. Here it is.

[00:01:22] This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show.

[00:01:38] First off, a lot of people tell stories about you. If you could change the record or correct the record, what is one story people say about you that is just definitely not true?

[00:01:49] I don't know. I'm probably guilty on all charges.

[00:01:53] Nobody says anything much is not true about me, I don't think.

[00:01:57] Now, obviously, you were into planes and aviation, and you wanted your life to be interesting, and you wanted to make money.

[00:02:05] All these things together resulted in, let's call it the career path that ended up with the smuggling, the jail, the book Smuggler, which is an excellent book.

[00:02:16] What got you really started? And again, a lot of this is in the book, but for the listeners.

[00:02:23] Well, let's just start from the beginning.

[00:02:25] I know Apple optioned the rights to the book and to make a series here a couple of years ago, and they got a couple of wonderful young writers.

[00:02:34] And I think they made me out to be more of a Robin Hood than I actually am or a little house on the prairie.

[00:02:41] So they made the pilot, and I didn't think much.

[00:02:44] I said, oh, you better have a little bit more action than that.

[00:02:47] And there was plenty in it, but anyway, Apple just turned it down.

[00:02:52] So I was talking with some of these other—I have a mob of other people that talk into me.

[00:02:56] And I says, you know, if I was going to write a movie, write it, I'd start off with—not at the very beginning.

[00:03:03] I was a little boy on a farm with three mules, my daddy.

[00:03:06] But my daddy died when I was 17 years old, and the church was full of people.

[00:03:11] He was only 54.

[00:03:12] My mother was, I think, 41, and we had a baby just six weeks old, seven little brothers and sisters.

[00:03:19] And we came out of that church with all white people in.

[00:03:22] And out under the oak trees, an old Sand Hill church, was just like a sea of black men and women.

[00:03:29] We called them colored folk back then.

[00:03:31] I liked it even, colored people.

[00:03:33] And the men had their hats over the chest, and they was Masonic.

[00:03:37] My dad was a Mason and a Shriner.

[00:03:40] And those men had their swords crossed as we came out a long way,

[00:03:44] and we followed the casket under it, passed those colored people out into the cemetery.

[00:03:49] It was a terrible, sad time for my life there with my mother and them.

[00:03:52] And when we got home a few miles down the road, there was two wreckers pulling our stuff out.

[00:04:00] We had an old pickup truck and a tractor.

[00:04:02] And there were two wreckers, Foskey's Auto Parts, dragging our stuff away.

[00:04:07] And I pulled up and stopped in front of them.

[00:04:10] That guy was three times big as I was.

[00:04:12] Well, Mr. Rees does just some money on this.

[00:04:14] And we just come and got it.

[00:04:16] So we went out of business, but we were certainly devastated.

[00:04:21] And just one thing happened after another that I remember my mother borrowed $500 to have the tobacco harvest.

[00:04:29] And we went to see old Dr. Charlie Malloy.

[00:04:31] And he says, well, try to get these birth certificates for these young'uns so you can get Social Security,

[00:04:37] but it's going to cost you $500.

[00:04:39] And she said, well, I don't have it, Mr. Malloy.

[00:04:41] He said, well, just write me a check.

[00:04:42] And when the tobacco harvest, I'll cash the check.

[00:04:45] You just tell me when.

[00:04:46] So she wrote him a check.

[00:04:48] She didn't know.

[00:04:48] And he went and cashed it the same day.

[00:04:50] So we had no money to harvest the tobacco.

[00:04:52] Oh, what a mess.

[00:04:54] So this is how I was when I was a young man.

[00:04:58] So in the summertime, I went up to Canada.

[00:05:00] And they paid $3 a day to take tobacco.

[00:05:02] We called it cropping tobacco in Georgia.

[00:05:04] And I'd go up there in Canada.

[00:05:06] And boy, I was young and tough.

[00:05:07] And they had them big draft horses.

[00:05:09] I mean, huge stuff.

[00:05:10] We had a ton.

[00:05:11] And I'd pick my foot up.

[00:05:12] He'd put his foot right behind it.

[00:05:14] And he's blowing on my back all day long as I'm cropping that tobacco.

[00:05:17] I was a straw boss in the field.

[00:05:19] And I made $20 a day, room and board.

[00:05:21] Well, that was just like getting rich.

[00:05:22] I'd come home with $700 after six weeks' work.

[00:05:25] I'd hitchhike up there and back to Canada from Georgia, 1,200 miles.

[00:05:29] And I went to a carnival one night with a bunch of boys.

[00:05:33] And it was 1949 forward.

[00:05:35] And boy, we was having a rowdy time.

[00:05:36] We came down there.

[00:05:37] And we're going down the way.

[00:05:39] It was a huge fair.

[00:05:42] Here was the Hootie Cootie Show.

[00:05:44] And we went in there for our 50s.

[00:05:46] It was this.

[00:05:47] I'd never seen anything like it.

[00:05:49] And we were laughing.

[00:05:50] And we went on down the road.

[00:05:51] And there was a big fella on the platform.

[00:05:53] And he's got five brand-new $100 bills in his hand.

[00:05:56] And for anybody to rouse with my bear and get all four feet off the ground.

[00:06:00] Oh, come on here.

[00:06:02] Anybody got guts enough to get in here.

[00:06:05] What's your name, young man?

[00:06:07] Roger Reeves.

[00:06:08] Anyway, I'll make it short, but I got in there with that bear.

[00:06:12] And I thought I was supposed to fight.

[00:06:15] That bear knocked me off of my feet so fast.

[00:06:17] So like six feet out, laying down, I hit the floor.

[00:06:19] And it was all loose in the crowd.

[00:06:21] Yeah, thank him, Roger.

[00:06:24] And I grabbed the top of that bear.

[00:06:26] And I kicked that bear just as hard as I could and run into it.

[00:06:29] I mean, I about got him off his feet.

[00:06:31] I mean, could you have died?

[00:06:33] Like he could have just ripped your head off.

[00:06:35] Well, he had huge pads on him and a muzzle.

[00:06:38] That thing liked to kill me.

[00:06:40] I mean, he went crazy.

[00:06:42] He ate him.

[00:06:43] My turn now was that man's bed.

[00:06:46] So he threw me in the corner like a rag doll.

[00:06:48] I mean, tore my clothes nearly off of me.

[00:06:51] And that guy came in and put a chain on him.

[00:06:54] And the bear run over to his owner.

[00:06:55] And the chain got hung on something and took part of the tent down.

[00:06:59] And all the people stomping each other.

[00:07:01] And I was hit.

[00:07:04] Anyway, they put me out at the bunkhouse.

[00:07:07] I couldn't even walk.

[00:07:08] So two days later, the boys, it was Sunday.

[00:07:11] And they was going down to the beach, Turkey Point there on Lake Erie,

[00:07:15] the Canadian side.

[00:07:16] So we went down.

[00:07:17] And I hobbled down a pier way out there.

[00:07:20] Yeah, some boys throwing each other off.

[00:07:22] And I threw a couple of them off.

[00:07:23] I didn't want to go in my good clothes.

[00:07:25] And there was three pretty girls on towels there.

[00:07:29] And I tipped my hat as I came by.

[00:07:31] And the heartstopper said, is that a university ring?

[00:07:35] And I said, no, this high school.

[00:07:37] She said, we don't get high school rings here because I see it.

[00:07:40] And I said, you're from Holland, aren't you?

[00:07:42] And she said, sit down here and tells me how you know about Dutch accents.

[00:07:47] I met one person that had that accent.

[00:07:49] Anyway, that's my wife.

[00:07:51] That was 64 years ago.

[00:07:53] And so we've been together ever since and took her down to Georgia and got married

[00:07:57] and beautiful wedding up in Canada and took her to Georgia.

[00:08:01] And we put in 36,000 chickens.

[00:08:03] And I was raised in the back when, boy, I tell you what,

[00:08:06] every time I'd pick up a dozen eggs, I lost a nickel.

[00:08:09] I was going to lose the farm for sure.

[00:08:12] So I started making moonshine.

[00:08:14] Well, anyhow, a fellow came up there.

[00:08:17] I had a sweet water branch behind the house and about to make some whiskey.

[00:08:22] And I went and told my wife, I'm worried that I was going to start making moonshine whiskey.

[00:08:26] And she was ironing the little baby's dress.

[00:08:29] And the tears just fell on the dress, I remember.

[00:08:32] I said, don't do that.

[00:08:34] I said, why?

[00:08:34] He said, against the law.

[00:08:35] I said, yeah, but it's not in Florida.

[00:08:38] 100 miles away.

[00:08:39] It's perfect legal, yes, but here they'll put you in prison.

[00:08:43] Anyway, I started making moonshine whiskey.

[00:08:45] And boy, did I have one.

[00:08:46] So you decided not to listen to your wife?

[00:08:48] Pardon?

[00:08:48] You didn't listen to her?

[00:08:50] Not a bit.

[00:08:51] I needed the money.

[00:08:53] And did she know that you were then going to continue making moonshine?

[00:08:56] Like, was she, you know, aware?

[00:08:58] I was going to lose the farm.

[00:08:59] And I didn't, you couldn't make but $1.25 an hour back there working some trailer plant or something.

[00:09:05] I would have never paid it all.

[00:09:06] So I was just, I don't know, $70,000 in the hole.

[00:09:10] I was just lost.

[00:09:12] And I couldn't, I mean, I owed everybody and my credit was gone.

[00:09:15] So anyway, the fellow that hooked me up finally turned me in.

[00:09:20] I got bigger than he was and he turned me in.

[00:09:23] And the federal agents were waiting on me when I went to it, cold, icy morning.

[00:09:28] And I, oh, big up.

[00:09:30] How did he hook you up?

[00:09:31] Like, who did he hook you up to?

[00:09:33] Pardon?

[00:09:34] Who did he hook you up to?

[00:09:35] How did you get the connections to start?

[00:09:37] Oh, he just, you know, people, you get too big for your britches in a little place like that.

[00:09:41] I was a bigger moonshiner than he was.

[00:09:43] I was making 1,000 gallons a week.

[00:09:46] Anyway, he probably got in trouble somewhere.

[00:09:48] So to get out of trouble, he told on me.

[00:09:50] And I remember he came to the house and it was cold.

[00:09:52] And he said, you better run that liquor, Roger.

[00:09:55] Don't, it's going to vinegar on you.

[00:09:58] Well, what it was, those agents was down there freezing.

[00:10:00] And then they told him, go get him, make him come down.

[00:10:02] So I went there anyway.

[00:10:05] I outrun them.

[00:10:06] And they shot me full.

[00:10:07] I mean, they shot the truck.

[00:10:09] They shot everything.

[00:10:10] I went on by the steel and shot me in the side of the neck.

[00:10:13] Eight of them emptied their guns at me.

[00:10:16] Bullets flew.

[00:10:17] And I went and got in Horse Creek.

[00:10:19] And I had to break the ice to get in there.

[00:10:20] It was ice on the edge.

[00:10:21] I must have swam down that thing until I nearly had died.

[00:10:24] Nearly froze.

[00:10:25] I climbed out on the other side.

[00:10:27] And then it wasn't shortly thereafter that we went out to California.

[00:10:30] I got on the fire department.

[00:10:32] The back of a hook and I had a truck, 108 footer.

[00:10:34] I stayed on that thing for four years there.

[00:10:37] So I'm making some money.

[00:10:38] I was doing a little carpentry, a little painting, whatever you could,

[00:10:42] and on the side and buying and filling that.

[00:10:44] Did you still have money from the moonshine days?

[00:10:47] I didn't have nothing, man.

[00:10:48] I didn't even pay out a debt with the moonshine.

[00:10:51] Well, I still owed money when I got to California.

[00:10:53] I went to work and paid everybody every penny I owed.

[00:10:56] So that was something.

[00:10:58] I worked seven days a week, often two jobs,

[00:11:01] until I got everything paid off.

[00:11:03] And I bought me an airplane.

[00:11:05] I'd learned to fly back in Georgia.

[00:11:07] I wanted to be a missionary aviation fellowship pilot,

[00:11:09] fly the missionaries in and out of the jungle and the sick people.

[00:11:12] But that didn't work out.

[00:11:14] So anyway, I bought one-third of an airplane.

[00:11:17] And I'd take Mari and the babies down to Mexico,

[00:11:20] go moulet, and she'd lay in a hammock and read and potty train the babies,

[00:11:25] and I'd go fish, you know, whatever I'd do.

[00:11:26] And somebody said,

[00:11:27] Roger, why don't you bring some pot back with you?

[00:11:30] And I said, I don't know.

[00:11:31] I never heard of that stuff.

[00:11:33] He said, man, it's the hottest thing since pancakes.

[00:11:36] I said, what do you pay?

[00:11:37] And he said, I don't know.

[00:11:38] I'll introduce you to somebody.

[00:11:39] So he introduced me to a fellow really nice man.

[00:11:43] And I crippled her.

[00:11:44] I didn't realize they were paralyzed.

[00:11:46] But anyway, he introduced me to a person and said,

[00:11:48] I'll pay you $10,000.

[00:11:50] I'm like, what?

[00:11:52] That was two years' work on the fire department now,

[00:11:54] take home about that.

[00:11:56] So I said, throw some of that shit in there.

[00:11:58] And he did.

[00:11:59] It wasn't much.

[00:12:00] A couple hundred, 300 pounds.

[00:12:02] And I flew it back,

[00:12:03] and there wasn't even a barbed wire fence between Mexico

[00:12:05] and the United States back then.

[00:12:07] There was absolutely nothing.

[00:12:09] And I landed out there in the desert,

[00:12:11] and he gave me a sack full of money,

[00:12:13] paper bag, shopping bag.

[00:12:15] And I took it home and took it and tore it up

[00:12:18] onto bed like that.

[00:12:19] And Mari put her hand over her mouth like, what, what?

[00:12:23] Babies grabbed $100 bills, and they were crawling,

[00:12:25] and we just giggled like, this is crazy.

[00:12:29] I took $100, and I went to see a criminal defense lawyer

[00:12:32] that dealt in those type things.

[00:12:33] I found out the best it was there in Los Angeles area.

[00:12:36] And I said, Mr. Lawyer, here's $100.

[00:12:38] I got two-minute questions.

[00:12:39] What would happen to me if I got caught bringing some pot

[00:12:42] back from Mexico in my airplane?

[00:12:44] He said, what's your criminal history?

[00:12:46] I said, I don't have one.

[00:12:47] He said, well, traffic in there.

[00:12:48] I said, I've never had a parking ticket in my life.

[00:12:51] He said, what?

[00:12:52] You work on the fire department?

[00:12:54] I said, yes, sir.

[00:12:54] He said, you'll get probation.

[00:12:55] The worst they'd ever do is give you a year,

[00:12:59] and you'd spend four months raking leaves at a camp somewhere.

[00:13:03] I said, are you right?

[00:13:05] He said, that's all it is to it.

[00:13:06] Nobody cares about that.

[00:13:07] I said, well, I think I have found my profession.

[00:13:09] So I required a little bit more, and that was the way it was back in 1970.

[00:13:13] So I went and bought me a bigger airplane.

[00:13:15] I got a Cessna 207.

[00:13:16] Now, that thing would carry 1,100 pounds,

[00:13:18] and I make $40,000 when I go down there.

[00:13:21] I don't have to do nothing.

[00:13:22] Just fly it across me.

[00:13:23] $40,000 then is like, let's just say roughly.

[00:13:26] $400,000 now.

[00:13:27] Yeah, that's a lot.

[00:13:29] You could buy any house down there in that part of the old San Diego,

[00:13:32] $30,000 a piece at that time.

[00:13:34] So it was more than a house.

[00:13:35] Yeah.

[00:13:36] And so I'd go down about once a week.

[00:13:38] I said, my mama came out.

[00:13:40] I had her and my baby sister come out, and I took her to Disneyland.

[00:13:44] And she said, what are you doing, boy?

[00:13:46] I had my new Cadillac.

[00:13:47] I said, I'm hauling pot, mom.

[00:13:50] She said, what?

[00:13:51] How much are you making?

[00:13:51] I said, I make $40,000 any day.

[00:13:54] I want to go down there.

[00:13:55] She said, what?

[00:13:57] My goodness.

[00:13:58] And said, what would they do if they catch you?

[00:14:00] And I told her what the lawyer said.

[00:14:01] I said, what do you think, mom?

[00:14:03] She said, do you need a co-pilot, son?

[00:14:07] Well, how often were you going down?

[00:14:08] Like how much?

[00:14:09] About once a week.

[00:14:10] And they had enough demand.

[00:14:11] Like they had enough.

[00:14:12] Oh, I could have went every day.

[00:14:14] Why didn't you go every day?

[00:14:16] Well, it took a little plan.

[00:14:17] And it was a long way, a thousand miles down there.

[00:14:19] No single engine plane.

[00:14:20] You got to go.

[00:14:21] And Mario would buy little toys and things for the children and apples and stuff that they

[00:14:25] had never seen.

[00:14:26] I'd load the plane up.

[00:14:27] So I was Mr. Santa Claus coming.

[00:14:29] And every time I'd land, there was more and more children.

[00:14:31] I was so dumb.

[00:14:32] I didn't know.

[00:14:33] I couldn't even hardly land for the children for coming to the plane.

[00:14:37] Oh, my goodness.

[00:14:42] Take a quick break.

[00:14:43] If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it.

[00:14:46] It means so much to me.

[00:14:47] Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast.

[00:14:50] Email me at alcatra at gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed.

[00:14:55] Thanks.

[00:15:05] I did 13 loads in 13 days.

[00:15:07] I had one fellow come down and meet me on a dry lake.

[00:15:10] And he'd bring the stuff down.

[00:15:11] And I'd turn around and go back.

[00:15:14] The strip was only 900 feet of sand on the bend of a little river there in a place called

[00:15:19] Beachy Linnea, north of Mazepan.

[00:15:22] And on number 13 trip right in a row, I had a little going off in my stomach, like ding,

[00:15:28] ding, ding, ding, don't do it.

[00:15:30] That's walking to you.

[00:15:31] And he says, he has a federal.

[00:15:33] It's paid off.

[00:15:33] Nothing, nothing.

[00:15:34] He was such a liar.

[00:15:35] Hair lipped.

[00:15:36] Well, I'm telling you, starving donkeys.

[00:15:39] And so I landed there in that evening and stopped about halfway down the strip.

[00:15:45] And we fueled the plane up.

[00:15:46] And I went to the village.

[00:15:49] There were a bunch of men, 10 or 12 of them walking along.

[00:15:51] And next morning, there were donkeys and roosters crowing, carrying on all morning to night.

[00:15:57] Just at daylight, I went down, brushed my teeth into a little river.

[00:15:59] It was clear, but knee deep.

[00:16:02] And I got in the airplane with this young fellow named Pedro.

[00:16:04] He would tell me where to go over on a highway somewhere.

[00:16:07] They had blocked the highway with big trucks.

[00:16:09] They had their machine gun mounted on top of it.

[00:16:11] And I'd land over one.

[00:16:12] And the highway would be clear a mile or two up there, a freeway.

[00:16:15] And the men would come up with the truck.

[00:16:17] It'd be like a bucket brigade loading it up.

[00:16:19] I'd shake hands all of them with their big hats on.

[00:16:23] And then I'd take off.

[00:16:24] I remember taking off one morning.

[00:16:26] And there was a highway patrolman sitting on the other side over there with the blue light

[00:16:29] on top.

[00:16:30] But he didn't have it on, mister.

[00:16:33] But that morning, I cranked up the airplane.

[00:16:35] And I thought a tire blew out.

[00:16:37] I'm looking over there at my tire.

[00:16:41] And Pedro's going with his elbow, police fear, police fear, Roger, police fear.

[00:16:46] And it dawned on me.

[00:16:48] Well, I just had it up in the thing.

[00:16:49] Engine cold.

[00:16:50] It's dark.

[00:16:50] Well, I didn't want police here.

[00:16:52] So I just put the throttle to the firewall.

[00:16:54] And I went down.

[00:16:55] I only had maybe four or 500 feet in front of me.

[00:16:57] And then there was a little cliff and a waterfall in it.

[00:17:00] Really pretty there.

[00:17:02] And just at the end of the strip, I pulled it right up, put the flaps on, I believe.

[00:17:07] And when I did, it looked like I came into a hailstorm.

[00:17:12] They took two machine guns or AK-40 Sims or whatever it was and just mowed the windows

[00:17:16] out.

[00:17:16] And they hit the tank up above me.

[00:17:18] And the fuel was coming in and my face just blowing back like crazy.

[00:17:22] And it felt like the elevator cables that were cutting to it.

[00:17:25] I had no control on the elevator.

[00:17:27] I found out now that in a head straight up with a stall, that's what happened.

[00:17:32] But I didn't know it at that time.

[00:17:33] And I thought my elevators had been shot into it.

[00:17:36] And I'd been hit two or three times.

[00:17:38] And a bully that hit the stunts and that hold the windshield.

[00:17:41] And it's battered all in my face.

[00:17:43] I had just little pieces of lead in my face all around my eyes.

[00:17:47] And my chest was just full of them.

[00:17:50] And I pulled the power and I crashed straight ahead into that river.

[00:17:53] And the first time it hit, the wings came off.

[00:17:55] And the next time it hit, the nose folded under the airplane.

[00:18:00] And I'm sitting out and knocked out, I reckon.

[00:18:02] And Pedro said, come on, Roger.

[00:18:03] Come on, Roger.

[00:18:04] And I jumped out in the water about knee deep.

[00:18:06] And two of those federales were coming down the runway still.

[00:18:09] And they're still shooting at us.

[00:18:11] And a couple of bullets hit the plane.

[00:18:13] Well, I want to tell you, I am not a violent person.

[00:18:16] Never have been.

[00:18:16] Never hurt anybody in my life.

[00:18:17] But I carry a pistol.

[00:18:19] For survival.

[00:18:20] And nine millimeter Browning.

[00:18:22] It carries 13 shots.

[00:18:23] And I'm a good shot with the thing.

[00:18:26] So anyway, come in.

[00:18:27] I pulled that pistol.

[00:18:28] I had it taped up on top of a radio.

[00:18:31] Now, when the thing's turned upside down, that thing is right in front of me.

[00:18:34] So I pulled that out.

[00:18:35] I didn't shoot at those fellas to kill.

[00:18:37] I want you to know that.

[00:18:38] But I popped four or five shots.

[00:18:39] Shots down their way.

[00:18:40] And the federales went into rocks.

[00:18:43] And I liked the little thing.

[00:18:45] When the rabbit gets the gun, the farmer, he run.

[00:18:49] But that's what happened.

[00:18:51] So Pedro and I went on up.

[00:18:52] And I saw that Pedro's foot was nearly shot off.

[00:18:55] It shot him right through the ankle.

[00:18:57] It just tore the whole heel and all of that.

[00:18:59] Just tore open.

[00:19:00] And it wasn't bleeding.

[00:19:01] It was just white.

[00:19:03] And my toe was shot nearly off.

[00:19:05] It went across the top of my head.

[00:19:06] My kneecap was missing.

[00:19:08] I'd been hit three times.

[00:19:11] And I wanted to go down and follow the...

[00:19:13] He said, no, no, no.

[00:19:15] They'll follow that trail.

[00:19:17] And said, let's go this way.

[00:19:18] So we went up through the cactus.

[00:19:19] We went up the mountain.

[00:19:20] And there was an old, old donkey.

[00:19:22] She must have been 30 years old.

[00:19:24] Long hair.

[00:19:25] It's way back.

[00:19:26] And she was from the village.

[00:19:28] And Pedro knew her.

[00:19:29] Shardate, shardate.

[00:19:30] And he petted the old donkey.

[00:19:31] And we got on him and got away.

[00:19:33] And that's a whole other chapter in my book about getting away and getting out of that thing.

[00:19:38] And how I got doctored.

[00:19:39] But that was...

[00:19:40] You asked me how I got started.

[00:19:42] So after that 13th trip where obviously you got very hurt.

[00:19:45] By the way, did Pedro...

[00:19:47] Did his foot survive?

[00:19:48] Yeah, but he's crippled.

[00:19:50] I went back to see him a year or so later.

[00:19:52] And he was very, very...

[00:19:53] He was not nice to me.

[00:19:55] Oh, no.

[00:19:56] Like I've been ruined.

[00:19:57] And nobody's given me anything.

[00:19:59] And I thought, well...

[00:20:01] I felt sorry for him.

[00:20:03] And do you ever...

[00:20:04] Did you ever follow up?

[00:20:04] Like what happened to him ultimately?

[00:20:06] No, I didn't.

[00:20:08] Later on, I went back to try to get my money for that load.

[00:20:11] And I got arrested and put in prison and tortured almost to death there.

[00:20:15] Oh, my gosh.

[00:20:16] Yeah.

[00:20:17] In that Mazatlan prison in 1974.

[00:20:20] And the worst thing ever happened to me.

[00:20:23] I was in the pool.

[00:20:24] And the guy came up and asked me, was I'm Roger Reeves?

[00:20:26] And I said, nice man.

[00:20:27] He just shook hands with me and put handcuffs on me.

[00:20:29] And they took me right there just like I was.

[00:20:31] They let me go and get on little clothes.

[00:20:34] And they took me to the prison and put me in the little front room.

[00:20:37] And some prisoner with a blackjack took my money.

[00:20:39] So they put me in a room, just a regular room.

[00:20:43] And sometimes they have 18 of us in it.

[00:20:45] And it was some kind of crowded.

[00:20:48] I mean, there wasn't even room to already sit or stand.

[00:20:51] And I thought, well, I'll be out of here.

[00:20:53] I didn't do nothing.

[00:20:55] I wasn't this year.

[00:20:57] Somebody get me out of here.

[00:20:58] And I sat there three days.

[00:21:00] And it was so hot.

[00:21:02] I didn't have any money.

[00:21:03] And sometimes somebody would give me a little something.

[00:21:06] One of the other prisoners, his mom or somebody would come with some food.

[00:21:10] And I had a bottle.

[00:21:12] And I'd give the boy there.

[00:21:12] And he would go over to a spigot and bring me a Pepsi bottle of warm water.

[00:21:19] So then they took me after about three days in that place.

[00:21:22] I mean, it was bad.

[00:21:24] It put us out every morning.

[00:21:25] And you'd slush it out with materials you'd clean a hog pen with that disinfected.

[00:21:32] Oh, it was bad.

[00:21:34] And then they put me in a cell back in the back.

[00:21:36] I guess it was about five foot square and maybe 12 feet tall with a light burning.

[00:21:42] And it was a torture area of the prison.

[00:21:44] And I could hear for several days, you didn't know they'd bring you food and rice and beans at different times.

[00:21:49] They'd bring it close together.

[00:21:50] And it would sometimes be a long time.

[00:21:52] They were trying to disorient you.

[00:21:53] And they beat the living daylights out of people.

[00:21:56] And you would hear them crying and slapping and begging.

[00:21:59] Yeah, chains, chain you on the wall.

[00:22:01] And you next, little bitch.

[00:22:03] You next.

[00:22:05] And they took me out and put my head underwater, like seltzer water.

[00:22:09] And three of them put my head under it.

[00:22:11] And if you take a little whiff of that, I'll guarantee you three of them can't hold you down.

[00:22:15] So I found out to act like I was just that way right before I had to breathe.

[00:22:20] And I survived that all right.

[00:22:23] And they beat me.

[00:22:24] They weren't one inch on my body that wasn't black and blue or yellow and green.

[00:22:30] And they had the paper right in front of me, sign this, and it's all over.

[00:22:34] Well, I knew I'm six years in prison if I signed it.

[00:22:36] So I reckon they could have killed me.

[00:22:38] They almost did.

[00:22:39] So then they took me out there naked and chained me over something barrel.

[00:22:46] And my hands pulled as far as they could apart with those little things like a boat up.

[00:22:51] It stretched me out.

[00:22:52] And he came up there with some oil and buttered my backside.

[00:22:56] And I thought, oh, boy.

[00:22:58] And then he just crammed me full with a big old thumb of hot chili pepper.

[00:23:03] And that was just awful.

[00:23:05] That stuff burned.

[00:23:06] It burned something terrible up in your colon.

[00:23:10] Well, when I quit cussing, I was nearly unconscious from it.

[00:23:14] And they come in.

[00:23:15] I have some kind of little enema.

[00:23:17] They let me wash myself out with it.

[00:23:19] Then they put me back in that cell.

[00:23:21] When I just recovered some, they brought a slim black man that was frozen.

[00:23:27] And he was wrapped in newspaper, frips.

[00:23:32] And he was just like a mummy, wrapped from head to toe.

[00:23:35] All of them was wrapped.

[00:23:36] And they put him on a meat hook and hung him on a bolt on the side of my cell.

[00:23:40] And said, you next, son of a bitch.

[00:23:42] You next.

[00:23:43] Was he dead?

[00:23:44] Yeah, he was dead.

[00:23:45] Of course, he was frozen.

[00:23:46] But they put him in there with everybody.

[00:23:48] He's just a tortured thing.

[00:23:50] And that didn't bother me, not much at all.

[00:23:53] I killed hogs and cows and goats.

[00:23:55] It didn't bother me.

[00:23:56] I would see a man dead man.

[00:23:58] So, but when he started, his head was kind of this way.

[00:24:01] And when he started thawing out, it looked like the tears were running down his cheek.

[00:24:06] Sad, sad things.

[00:24:08] There were hanging dead men in a cell.

[00:24:10] And then his orphases all started opening up.

[00:24:13] And that formaldehyde went running out on the floor.

[00:24:17] Well, I got high from it.

[00:24:18] And I had visions of flying pink pigs with wings on them flying in that cell.

[00:24:25] And I knew I was in danger.

[00:24:27] So, I put my face on that filthy floor.

[00:24:29] There was a half inch, I guess, under the door.

[00:24:31] And I put my lips right up under it, sucked in as much clean air as I could.

[00:24:35] And I passed out.

[00:24:36] And I woke up in the hospital with a doctor.

[00:24:38] He looked like he was really concerned.

[00:24:40] He almost had tears in his eyes.

[00:24:41] He had a respirator on me.

[00:24:43] Breathe, man.

[00:24:44] Breathe.

[00:24:45] Breathe, man.

[00:24:46] Breathe.

[00:24:47] And I was sick for a long time.

[00:24:48] And my wife came down and paid $17,000.

[00:24:53] And before morning, daylight one morning, the guard ushered me out the back door like I was escaping.

[00:25:00] So, I count one of my five prison escapes.

[00:25:02] But it was a payout, really.

[00:25:04] And truly, it was all in on it.

[00:25:05] But he had to act like for the prosecution and all that I had escaped.

[00:25:09] So, that was my introduction.

[00:25:12] So, with that, I decided I had one more encounter with them down there.

[00:25:16] And then I decided I better go to find me another stomping ground.

[00:25:21] And I'd found out that there was seven American DEA agents in on that.

[00:25:26] And they were sent down there to stick the federales on me and told them to stop me, that I had an Air Force of planes and a Navy of ships.

[00:25:35] And I was hauling pot out of there.

[00:25:36] And I was about to truth.

[00:25:37] I got pretty big then.

[00:25:38] So, you were on their radar.

[00:25:39] So, you probably got on their radar.

[00:25:41] Oh, yeah.

[00:25:42] They didn't know how I was getting it in.

[00:25:44] And most everybody was getting caught coming up.

[00:25:47] But I got away.

[00:25:50] I would go down there.

[00:25:51] And just at daylight, I would load up.

[00:25:53] And then I would go to the middle of Baja to a beautiful excluded goat ranch.

[00:26:00] And then muskete trees.

[00:26:02] And they had a runway there that they used to all meet out of there.

[00:26:04] It's 20 miles to the nearest highway at that time.

[00:26:06] And in Atlanta, there's a guy named Juan riding his fast mule.

[00:26:10] And he'd meet me.

[00:26:11] And we'd unload that marijuana.

[00:26:12] It'd be about 2,200, 2,400 pounds.

[00:26:15] And I had twin beaches at that time.

[00:26:19] And he'd put it under the tree.

[00:26:20] And I'd go into Moulet.

[00:26:23] And I'd have him wash the plane, fill it up with fuel.

[00:26:26] And I'd rent a room.

[00:26:26] And I'd have lunch or whatever.

[00:26:29] Just relax.

[00:26:30] They'd end the village of Moulet.

[00:26:32] And then in the afternoon, it was only a 20-minute flight back out to that ranch.

[00:26:38] And I would go there.

[00:26:39] And we'd load the plane back up with the marijuana.

[00:26:42] And then I would take out and go west out of there.

[00:26:45] And there was an island of Guadalupe 200 miles off the coast.

[00:26:49] And I would fly over that.

[00:26:50] And then I would head northwest.

[00:26:52] And it would be about 300 miles out from the west coast of the United States, west of San Diego.

[00:26:59] And I'd put it down low.

[00:27:01] Some of them had salt on the windshield so much I couldn't even see it up.

[00:27:04] When I'd get in there, I'd come up here behind the Santa Barbara Islands.

[00:27:07] They were about 4,000 feet tall, I believe.

[00:27:10] And I'd come up behind them.

[00:27:11] The only thing that could see me when I'd come up was the radar Vandenberg.

[00:27:15] But they weren't interested.

[00:27:16] And I'd go on out in the desert and unload it.

[00:27:18] And I did that for 100 times at least.

[00:27:20] Wow.

[00:27:21] Just over and over and over.

[00:27:23] So that was how I was getting it in.

[00:27:25] And I brought the price down.

[00:27:26] When I started, it was $100 a pound in California.

[00:27:29] And before the season was over, it was $60.

[00:27:32] Now, at this point, you're probably making good money.

[00:27:35] And then after these tortures and beatings, did you consider like, hey, I made some money.

[00:27:43] Maybe now's the time to go clean.

[00:27:46] Yes, I kept thinking that all the time.

[00:27:49] But I kept investing that money with thieves.

[00:27:52] I had people a lot smaller than I was.

[00:27:55] They was lawyers and such, real estate tycoons.

[00:28:00] And I bought all the land, which is now Moreno Valley.

[00:28:06] And I paid for the planning and zoning of that place.

[00:28:09] I'd be a multi-billionaire if I'd have kept that.

[00:28:12] But anyhow, I did stuff like that.

[00:28:14] So then after the last bad encounter in Mexico, I went down to Colombia.

[00:28:21] And I met up with the Medellin cartel.

[00:28:24] And then I made some serious money then.

[00:28:41] You know, here was marijuana, which, as we all know, is practically legal now, more or less, in the United States.

[00:28:50] And it wasn't as big a deal as cocaine.

[00:28:53] And you got tortured, beat, shot at, chased by the police in at least two countries.

[00:28:59] And now you're thinking, okay, I need to make my life a little easier.

[00:29:03] You went to Colombia to be with the Medellin cartel and start bringing in a much more dangerous drug.

[00:29:12] Is this maybe a regret, or do you think this was a good decision?

[00:29:17] Oh, it wasn't.

[00:29:18] None of it was a good decision.

[00:29:19] It was just what happened.

[00:29:21] Yeah.

[00:29:22] You know, of course, looking back on my life, it was a stupid thing to do that stuff and get shot and put in prison for 33 years.

[00:29:30] They gave me 35 years for marijuana here in the United States.

[00:29:34] Most of it was parole and probation.

[00:29:36] But still, they took my property, my home, my family away from me, put the children in foster care until my wife could get back here and get them.

[00:29:44] It was just a mess what they do.

[00:29:46] They kid you over a pot plant.

[00:29:49] How do you think you and your wife survive this in terms of the marriage?

[00:29:54] You know, just because we both are Christians.

[00:29:56] We have faith in God.

[00:29:58] And we love one another.

[00:30:00] And, I mean, I never loved anybody else.

[00:30:03] She hasn't either.

[00:30:04] It's just like, and I was surprised when I got life sentence down in Australia that she didn't divorce me.

[00:30:10] Even the children said, Mom, he's never coming home.

[00:30:12] He's got life.

[00:30:13] And her mom and dad, nice Christian people, said, Larry, we wouldn't blame you if you divorce him.

[00:30:18] And she just sat at the table.

[00:30:20] We sat there, the family, and we hold hands around the table, and I say the blessing, same blessing every day.

[00:30:25] And she said, I just could not imagine another man sitting there saying the blessing for the children here.

[00:30:30] I just couldn't imagine it.

[00:30:32] That was sweet of her.

[00:30:33] So she's a heroine of this family by staying with me.

[00:30:41] And she stuck with me.

[00:30:42] We got, I guess, a thousand letters we wrote back and forth in the 33 years that I was in prison.

[00:30:47] But I escaped five times, and she didn't meet me wherever it was.

[00:30:50] And we lived in Argentina and Brazil and France, Spain, South Africa.

[00:30:54] And then I'd get called, do it again or something.

[00:30:59] So that was a real love affair.

[00:31:02] And she's writing her memoir.

[00:31:04] And when I was working with Apple, the writers wanted her to write, she calls it, The Convict's Wife.

[00:31:12] And I hope she finishes it and gets it published.

[00:31:14] I hope so, too.

[00:31:15] And she could come on this podcast afterwards.

[00:31:18] And so you're in Colombia, and you decide to meet the Medellin cartel and presumably Pablo Escobar or people associated with him.

[00:31:28] And, like, what happened then?

[00:31:30] Like, how did you get started with, and what kind of money were you making with the cocaine runs?

[00:31:35] Start off when we went down there looking for pot.

[00:31:37] And I had a DC-3 in 1981.

[00:31:41] And I was over the Amazon down in the FARC area.

[00:31:46] I landed at the strip, and two jets came down.

[00:31:49] I was eating some boiled chicken under a tree.

[00:31:52] And I'm like, oh, phew.

[00:31:54] And they come in with a machine gun just tearing up that airstrip right there.

[00:31:58] Oh, baby.

[00:32:00] Well, I run, jumped in my airplane because at that time they had never shot anybody down.

[00:32:04] And I took off cold.

[00:32:07] You know what a DC-3 is, but it's a big airplane.

[00:32:10] And at 105-foot wingspan, it would carry, I believe, 45 passengers, 42 passengers.

[00:32:16] So it's big enough.

[00:32:17] So I took off, and they swarmed on me.

[00:32:20] And the cannons roared up under me, and I pushed it over right down close to the jungle so they couldn't get under me.

[00:32:26] And they'd come right upside of my face, and two young pilots, one on each side with their jets.

[00:32:31] And they're trying to take me to go to the Ovencensia military base.

[00:32:35] And I wouldn't go.

[00:32:38] So I'd taken off, and on those planes, you had to put big pins in the struts, the hydraulic struts, so that if they collapse, it wouldn't fall.

[00:32:48] So I'd left those pins in so I couldn't get my wheels up, so I wouldn't make it any time.

[00:32:53] There was a big, big passenger ahead of me, and I thought, I'll land this thing on.

[00:32:56] He had a truck as big as a semi-truck on it.

[00:32:59] And I landed, and boy, that bounced across that, and I got out and took the pins out.

[00:33:04] Well, anyhow, unbeknownst to me, they was announcing this on the radio all over the world.

[00:33:11] I was like OJ LeFar OJ.

[00:33:12] This crew had just been shot down by the Colombian jets.

[00:33:15] The first plane, this is the first plane shot down on Reagan's war on drugs.

[00:33:21] I had friends here that heard it.

[00:33:23] But anyhow, I took off, and then they really did.

[00:33:28] One of the planes had to go away and get fuel, I guess, and the other one just tore the tail up.

[00:33:33] He tore the wing nearly off right back to me.

[00:33:36] He didn't shoot me, thank goodness.

[00:33:38] And I went into a thunderstorm and get away and stalled it and spiraled down and got away from him.

[00:33:43] And then I said, I'm going back and get that load.

[00:33:47] And I was going over the jungle, and I came along the river Guarviere.

[00:33:51] And there was a tall bank there, like it's 20 feet up, and grass for miles.

[00:33:56] And I said, I'll make me a runway.

[00:33:59] So I'd go, and I'd put the plane and big tires down.

[00:34:02] I went five or six times.

[00:34:03] It looked like a runway.

[00:34:04] And I said, all right, I'm going to put it down this time.

[00:34:07] And so right when it got almost stopped, I thought Coppola had his feet on the brakes.

[00:34:13] I said, get your feet off the brakes.

[00:34:14] I don't have them on it.

[00:34:15] And I knew what had happened.

[00:34:16] It was a hard crust, but underneath it was mud.

[00:34:19] And that big plane, it's 30 tons.

[00:34:22] It fell through.

[00:34:23] And when it did, it just did a handstand.

[00:34:25] Just come right up, just right up with the tail standing straight up in the big engines.

[00:34:32] Oh, they're huge radios.

[00:34:33] It was holding that thing off from killing me.

[00:34:35] And the whole nose, I fell in between the seats.

[00:34:38] It just crushed right into me.

[00:34:40] And when it stopped, the escape hatch was right over me.

[00:34:44] I just stepped out and got my satchel.

[00:34:48] Well, I was 11 days in the jungle.

[00:34:50] I tell about other fellows in there.

[00:34:51] They went on down the road and went straight in prisons.

[00:34:54] But I stayed in the jungle for 11 days.

[00:34:57] And my wife heard me.

[00:34:58] I was in a dugout canoe with an Aboriginal man.

[00:35:02] And she said she heard me say she was taking a shower that I said, I'm all right, Marty.

[00:35:07] I'm all right.

[00:35:08] I kept saying it to her.

[00:35:09] So she thought I was dead.

[00:35:12] And so I finally came to, after 11 days, I came to a place.

[00:35:17] I wanted to, where's the airplanes?

[00:35:19] Loma Linda, Loma Linda.

[00:35:21] I said, where is it?

[00:35:22] It's Leho.

[00:35:23] It's far.

[00:35:24] I went about 300 miles and finally got to Loma Linda.

[00:35:27] And it looked like Hawaii, World War II.

[00:35:30] Ship lap boards and buildings and airplanes.

[00:35:33] What in the world?

[00:35:34] And I went in, a pretty lady, how did you get here?

[00:35:38] What is this place?

[00:35:39] You don't know.

[00:35:40] This is Loma Linda, headquarters for Missionary Aviation Fellowship for the Amazon.

[00:35:46] They put me in a cabin with a redhead electrician from Tarts, California.

[00:35:51] And I'd worked for the same electrical company that he did.

[00:35:53] And boy, he was on fire for the Lord.

[00:35:55] So the next day, they flew me out.

[00:35:58] They flew me to the Vincencio military base.

[00:36:00] And a military policeman took my satchel out of the airplane.

[00:36:05] And quite a job getting to Bogota and getting a stamp in my passport.

[00:36:10] That was another chapter.

[00:36:12] So with that, I thought, I went back down and I was trying to get hooked up.

[00:36:17] The fellow that hooked me up with that load said, I got something better for you.

[00:36:22] So we flew to Medellin and went to a high-rise building right downtown.

[00:36:28] And that was so beautiful.

[00:36:30] Medellin, Columbia, green, I mean, emerald.

[00:36:32] And out that place had carpet and had a guy there, ugly man.

[00:36:39] Looked like Winston Churchill or somewhat ugly, Winston Churchill.

[00:36:43] And that man spoke every language you could think of.

[00:36:45] He was brilliant.

[00:36:46] Fernando Cordero.

[00:36:48] And he was drunk.

[00:36:49] But he was a one-ton cocaine ship.

[00:36:53] And he sent me to his wife and said, she takes care of it.

[00:36:56] So we went over to her places in the country club.

[00:36:59] What a nice house.

[00:37:00] And she was so nice.

[00:37:01] And she said, listen, he'll sober up one time.

[00:37:03] And he's got plenty of work as a pilot.

[00:37:06] I was in belief.

[00:37:07] And she called and says, they're having a birthday party over on the Pacific Ocean.

[00:37:12] So we have, I believe, 15 miles of beachfront property over there.

[00:37:16] And we have a place.

[00:37:17] And it says, we were invited to his birthday.

[00:37:19] And everybody in the country that's of any consequence will be there.

[00:37:24] So I called a commercial flight in Panama.

[00:37:27] And then they picked me up in Panama and took me to Medellin.

[00:37:30] Then we was on airline.

[00:37:32] They put us in airlines, these little British shorts.

[00:37:35] I guess they care about 30, 40 people.

[00:37:37] And they flew over.

[00:37:38] And that thing was about as far away from anywhere you could ever get.

[00:37:43] It was south of Panama, I guess, maybe 100 miles, just jungle.

[00:37:48] And when we landed, there was airplanes up on their side and bulldozers,

[00:37:52] million-dollar ones with the exhaust pipes.

[00:37:54] Pipe off where they made that runway.

[00:37:56] That's where they was loading ships and bringing the DC-6s and 7s in there

[00:38:00] to load these ships and planes out of there.

[00:38:04] I was just, so I was on that airplane.

[00:38:07] I met a young couple, a beautiful young couple, and Mario Matilda.

[00:38:12] So she spoke perfect English.

[00:38:15] And he was an handsome fellow.

[00:38:18] And so we kind of made friends coming over on the flight.

[00:38:21] And then when I got off the plane, there was a log house there right on the river.

[00:38:27] And the river flowing fast coming by and bringing mud and clay.

[00:38:33] And then it was going into the ocean, and the ocean turned red.

[00:38:37] And the beach was kind of red from it.

[00:38:39] And I just pulled my shoes off and was walking down the beach.

[00:38:42] And a young woman.

[00:38:44] And she had inexpensive clothes, I will say.

[00:38:48] Very nice.

[00:38:48] But she looked like a poor person that comes from the Marios.

[00:38:52] And she was kind of cute and frail and just innocent.

[00:38:57] The way she's talking to me and just jabbering away in Spanish.

[00:39:00] And we was walking along by the water.

[00:39:02] And I met Mario and Matilda.

[00:39:04] And Matilda said, Roger, Mario says that you're walking with the girlfriend

[00:39:09] of the most vicious killer in Colombia.

[00:39:11] He suggests you get away from her.

[00:39:15] Who was he referring to?

[00:39:17] Pardon?

[00:39:17] Who was he referring to?

[00:39:18] Who was the most vicious killer?

[00:39:19] Her name was Jaime Ordonez.

[00:39:22] He got caught with a ton of coke.

[00:39:25] And he killed 16 judges.

[00:39:26] So I went on.

[00:39:28] And then I was in the bunkhouse that night.

[00:39:30] And I was standing there talking to some men.

[00:39:34] Can I ask, when you're talking to these people and they say,

[00:39:37] what do you do?

[00:39:38] Do you say, oh, I'm here to...

[00:39:40] I'm a pilot looking for work at that kind of place like that.

[00:39:43] All right, yeah.

[00:39:44] Everybody was walking around with their bags of cocaine.

[00:39:47] Try mine.

[00:39:47] Try mine.

[00:39:48] It was just the cocaine.

[00:39:49] About 400 people.

[00:39:50] They had judges there.

[00:39:51] Police chiefs from every city.

[00:39:53] They had stand-up comedians.

[00:39:54] I mean, it was a rock concert.

[00:39:57] That woman flew right into me.

[00:39:59] That man had shoved that one.

[00:40:02] Oh, baby.

[00:40:04] Worth killer at Colombia.

[00:40:05] Anyway, he's like, oh, fella.

[00:40:08] And he was drunk.

[00:40:09] And they got around him and stopped him.

[00:40:12] And so I was thankful for that.

[00:40:14] But then after the next day, the...

[00:40:17] Oh, it was going on, I don't know, for a day or two.

[00:40:20] And then the helicopters, those million-dollar helicopters, and the planes flew away and left us poor folks there.

[00:40:26] I got me a plate of food.

[00:40:28] And I went around behind the place and laying under a shade tree, reading the book MMK, The Far Pavilions.

[00:40:35] And the blood splattered all on me and on the book.

[00:40:38] And I quit rolling.

[00:40:40] And oh, what did happen?

[00:40:42] And I quit rolling.

[00:40:43] I looked, and there was a dog, a white dog with a black face, a black eye around him like the little rascals used to have.

[00:40:49] And he had been shot right in the head, and he would turn his somersets, and that blood was what flew on me.

[00:40:54] But there was a young black man there, and he had been shot right in the femoral artery in his leg.

[00:40:58] And he was really bleeding.

[00:41:02] And there was a white man there, a brown man, and he had the pistol.

[00:41:08] And that young black man took that pistol right out of his hand, wham, and put it right between his eyes and went click, click, click, click.

[00:41:15] It was only two bullets in that gun.

[00:41:18] And so the man walking on backwards, and Spanish is the best thing.

[00:41:21] I said, I'm a doctor.

[00:41:23] I can stop the blood.

[00:41:24] Let me help you because I was a firefighter, and I took off kind of first aid.

[00:41:28] Of course I could have done it.

[00:41:29] He put that gun at me, and I didn't want it going click, click, click.

[00:41:32] So he went on back down there and died.

[00:41:34] And then the people back in that village up under those trees back in the back, all kind of crying and screaming.

[00:41:42] And we had a generator.

[00:41:44] They had a generator there, and they had lights.

[00:41:46] And that night, the lights went out, and the natives went crazy.

[00:41:50] And we thought it was going to kill us.

[00:41:53] Yeah, Matilda had a little pistol, a little .32, and I stayed close to her.

[00:41:59] And the next morning, we stayed all night long buggy.

[00:42:01] We put some gasoline and diesel in some little cans and put a wick in it and had some kind of smudgy blow,

[00:42:07] and all of us stayed together in a wake.

[00:42:09] And those people was, we were afraid they'd come in with the machetes and just kill all of us.

[00:42:13] It was over a wrench that had been gone missing.

[00:42:17] And the guy accused the black man of stealing it and whatever.

[00:42:21] It was all over a $1 wrench.

[00:42:23] Oh, my gosh.

[00:42:23] The next morning, there was cans and limbs and stuff all over the runway.

[00:42:29] And three soldiers was there.

[00:42:31] And they were very mean to us.

[00:42:35] Anyhow, that's the whole thing in my book.

[00:42:37] But with that, I went back to Medellin with Arcali, maybe Medellin at the time,

[00:42:45] and on the same plot with Mario and Matilda.

[00:42:47] And he took me to Envigata and went up.

[00:42:52] We went to one of those guard gates was up, two guys with guns,

[00:42:56] and went on a little road around about half a mile up through the bromeliads and old trees.

[00:43:01] And we come up to, I'm going to say old because everything was old.

[00:43:05] That house was 200 or 300 years old.

[00:43:06] And out in front of it was maybe 40 men, working-looking men with their fedoras on.

[00:43:12] They were waiting to see El Jefe.

[00:43:14] So we just ushered right in.

[00:43:16] And it had been a real, it wasn't a mansion, but it had been a real nice place.

[00:43:21] It's where they called Finkers.

[00:43:22] They're just outside of town where they'd have a few acres.

[00:43:25] And that was somebody rich had built that thing a long time ago.

[00:43:29] And when we went in, the floor was uneven.

[00:43:32] The house, the earth had moved.

[00:43:34] And it was so polished that you could see yourself in it.

[00:43:36] There was a hole in it.

[00:43:37] And a real pretty lady says, be careful with the hole.

[00:43:40] He didn't fix, I mean, they just left it natural.

[00:43:43] And, oh, she was gorgeous.

[00:43:45] I told her, drop-dead gorgeous gal.

[00:43:48] And she introduced me, went right in to see some.

[00:43:51] She introduced me to Jorge Ochoa.

[00:43:54] Opened the door, and there he was sitting there.

[00:43:56] And he got up, shook in.

[00:43:57] He spoke a little English, so we got by with that.

[00:43:59] And he had 12 telephones on his desk.

[00:44:03] Got a big desk and no telephones.

[00:44:05] And he's, what's all the telephones?

[00:44:08] You look like you're in business.

[00:44:09] He said, oh, yes, this is from my dealer in New York, and this one's San Francisco, and

[00:44:14] this one's Seattle, and this one's Chicago.

[00:44:16] When they ring, I know who I'm talking to.

[00:44:18] So he asked me what kind of planes I had.

[00:44:21] And I told him I had a DC-3.

[00:44:23] I had a turbojet, aero commander, and a B-shaped team.

[00:44:27] I said, I can hold on anything you got.

[00:44:29] He asked me about my trips, how many I had.

[00:44:30] I told him I had over 100 trips across the border.

[00:44:33] So he said, well, I have all the work.

[00:44:35] We have all the work that you can do, and we pay $5,000 a kilo.

[00:44:40] And I said, how much did you put in there?

[00:44:42] He said, 300, 500 kilos.

[00:44:44] I figured that's $2.5 million for an eight-hour flight.

[00:44:48] I was anxious to go to work.

[00:44:50] He said, well, let me introduce you to my compadre.

[00:44:53] So the pretty woman went next door, and in came Pablo Escobar.

[00:44:57] Khaki pants, plaid shirt, and the guy about my side shook hands.

[00:45:01] He didn't speak any English, but we got along well.

[00:45:04] And he said, just ask me the same questions that Jorge had asked.

[00:45:07] And he said, we have all the work you can do.

[00:45:09] I said, all right.

[00:45:11] I went and got my plane and went to work.

[00:45:13] That's how I met Pablo Escobar.

[00:45:31] The first flight that you made for him, were you a little nervous?

[00:45:34] Was it exciting because of the money?

[00:45:36] Did everything go off without a hitch that first flight?

[00:45:40] No, it didn't.

[00:45:42] I came in there with a little aero commander, a turboprop.

[00:45:46] It's got small wheels, and it's fast, like a little jet.

[00:45:50] And I landed at a banana plantation, and the runway was clay.

[00:45:54] It was just almost standing water, not quite.

[00:45:58] And so we loaded up.

[00:46:00] And when we took off, the clay stuck to those tires and filled the wheel well up.

[00:46:05] I mean, just filled it up.

[00:46:07] It stuck up there like a rock nest.

[00:46:10] And I couldn't get the tires up.

[00:46:12] Couldn't get the gear up.

[00:46:13] There was nowhere for it to go.

[00:46:14] It was heavy.

[00:46:16] So they had this guy, Ronaldo.

[00:46:19] Oh, he was an ugly man.

[00:46:22] I mean, full-on ugly.

[00:46:25] And he had a Mac 10, little Mac 10 pistol.

[00:46:28] And he sat back on the load in the back.

[00:46:31] And I told him, we've got to stop and get this.

[00:46:33] Well, go back.

[00:46:33] I said, no, we'll be in the same shape we're in.

[00:46:36] We can't go there.

[00:46:37] We've got to go somewhere.

[00:46:38] But I know a place in Belize that I used to refuel my marijuana at a big ranch.

[00:46:44] No, no, Louisiana.

[00:46:46] Because I told him we was going to Louisiana.

[00:46:48] And I said, well, no, we can't make it to Louisiana.

[00:46:50] We'll fall in the ocean.

[00:46:52] Oh, I'll kill you if you don't go.

[00:46:53] He put the gun right up in my head.

[00:46:55] No, Louisiana.

[00:46:56] I said, well, shoot, fool.

[00:46:57] You're going to die, too.

[00:47:00] I knew you wasn't going to shoot.

[00:47:01] Let's go.

[00:47:03] I landed at the farm there in the ranch near Orange Walk of Belize.

[00:47:09] And the boy came out and washed the plane, cleaned the wheel wells out.

[00:47:12] And we sat on the veranda.

[00:47:13] I remember we had a real chicken skew.

[00:47:15] And old Mr. Carter, he treated us good.

[00:47:17] This guy was happy with his death now.

[00:47:19] He's all right.

[00:47:20] So we went on up.

[00:47:21] And I landed at a place that Barry had found for me.

[00:47:25] And Barry unloaded it.

[00:47:27] Is this Barry Seal?

[00:47:28] Barry Seal.

[00:47:29] Okay, we'll get to him later.

[00:47:31] Yeah.

[00:47:31] So that fellow met Barry.

[00:47:33] And I don't know where Barry took him to, but they went on to do whatever was to be done with the load.

[00:47:38] So that's the guy that came and killed Barry later, a couple of years later.

[00:47:43] And he just got out of prison a couple of months ago.

[00:47:46] I guess he spent 40 years in there, 42 years.

[00:47:48] Oh, my gosh.

[00:47:56] And it's a cartoon looking, coming out of that Angola prison there in Louisiana.

[00:48:02] So, yeah.

[00:48:03] Now, do you ever get worried he's going to try to find you?

[00:48:07] No reason for me.

[00:48:08] I didn't do nothing.

[00:48:08] I didn't tell anybody.

[00:48:10] So ain't nobody.

[00:48:11] I'm their golden boy.

[00:48:12] Yeah.

[00:48:13] Yeah.

[00:48:13] They look after me.

[00:48:15] So basically, you bring it to Louisiana, and then Barry and whoever else distributes it to all the dealers around the country.

[00:48:22] Well, Barry didn't.

[00:48:23] Barry would just, he knew a fellow with a runway.

[00:48:26] And he said, won't you land here?

[00:48:28] I can take care of you here.

[00:48:31] Later on, I found out that he was paying Bill Clinton $50,000 every time the wheels touched the ground.

[00:48:37] And did Bill Clinton know what it was for that this guy?

[00:48:40] Sure, he didn't.

[00:48:41] He didn't inhale either.

[00:48:43] Right.

[00:48:44] Right.

[00:48:45] I see what you're saying.

[00:48:46] And this began the, you would just do these, you would put these flights?

[00:48:50] The cocaine years, yes.

[00:48:51] From Columbia to, was this in Mena, Arkansas that you were landing, or were you landing in Louisiana?

[00:48:57] Both.

[00:48:58] Okay.

[00:48:59] And then I, that was Barry's deal.

[00:49:01] I had a spot in Louisiana.

[00:49:03] So I didn't hold that many loads.

[00:49:04] I think I did seven loads.

[00:49:06] And I got above the, above the cloud, above the fog one night, and I couldn't get down.

[00:49:11] And it scared me bad.

[00:49:13] I mean, anybody can get scared.

[00:49:15] Think they're fixing to die for sure.

[00:49:18] And I didn't have enough gas to get to Houston or, well, I might have got to Houston, but it wouldn't help.

[00:49:23] But wherever, it was fogged in from Chicago to Miami.

[00:49:28] So I didn't know what to do.

[00:49:30] So I just, I just came down the glide slope in New Orleans International Runway, straight up midnight.

[00:49:37] With all this cocaine.

[00:49:38] Blind, blind, zero, zero.

[00:49:40] And absolutely crashed on that runway.

[00:49:42] Bounced down that sucker.

[00:49:43] I couldn't see anything.

[00:49:45] You had all this cocaine in the gravel.

[00:49:47] Pardon?

[00:49:48] You had all this cocaine in the plane.

[00:49:49] Yeah.

[00:49:50] It loaded to the chunk of black foot.

[00:49:52] That's true.

[00:49:53] And I sat there off to the side of that runway.

[00:49:55] I walked as a mile one way and while the other, I knew there was nothing.

[00:49:58] We got a little radio that just says, airport's closed, you know.

[00:50:03] Zero, zero visibility.

[00:50:05] So I was a man.

[00:50:08] I didn't know what to do.

[00:50:10] You're sitting on the end and off the runway all night long.

[00:50:14] Or the next morning, daylight came and still nothing.

[00:50:17] You couldn't even see farther from one light to the other, 200 feet.

[00:50:20] And then you could see it wasn't thick.

[00:50:23] It just was there on the ground.

[00:50:25] And I was afraid like a rental car cop or whatever was going to come down that runway and catch me.

[00:50:31] Just anything.

[00:50:32] I was just like nervous.

[00:50:34] Wow, I'm fixing to get a life sentence here.

[00:50:36] If I get caught in this, it'll surely give you life for that.

[00:50:39] But so when it broke up just a little bit, I had an hour or so of fuel.

[00:50:45] I took off.

[00:50:46] I just couldn't sit there no longer.

[00:50:47] And I just zipped just the time I pulled back on it.

[00:50:49] I was back in the sunshine.

[00:50:51] And I went across and I was at St. Timothy Aviation just across Lake Pontchartrain.

[00:50:55] And I circled and I could see the runway.

[00:50:57] It's 3,000 foot paved.

[00:51:00] And Harvey was there and I had a walkie-talkie and I talked to him.

[00:51:03] He said, you can't see anything down the runway, but you can see it straight down.

[00:51:09] Well, I'm about to have some red flashing light for fuel.

[00:51:12] So I just come over and come back around and saw it and dove for it.

[00:51:16] And I got right.

[00:51:18] I landed perfectly.

[00:51:19] And I crawled up there and baby, I had said, that's it.

[00:51:22] I'm giving up these guns.

[00:51:24] I got enough money.

[00:51:25] I ain't going to do this no more.

[00:51:27] Yeah, seven loads.

[00:51:28] That's over $10 million for you.

[00:51:30] Yeah, that's what I had in cash there.

[00:51:33] I told the boy Lito was one that would always take the product in Miami.

[00:51:38] A really nice fellow.

[00:51:39] They killed him too.

[00:51:40] So I told him, I'm not going to do it anymore.

[00:51:43] Oh, Roger.

[00:51:44] No, no.

[00:51:46] See, they was making money by taking it, distributing it for them.

[00:51:49] Because every bag would have a, they were duffel bags and they were locked.

[00:51:52] They would be, I think, 20 kilos in it, 24 kilos, whatever.

[00:51:56] Each one of them would have three rattlesnakes or three horns or some brand on it.

[00:52:00] And those belonged to different people.

[00:52:03] What had happened when Ochoa and four others got together and they said, we're going to make a insurance company.

[00:52:11] So they told the people of Columbia, quit killing each other.

[00:52:13] 10,000 people were killed every year shooting each other.

[00:52:16] One of them would give somebody 40 kilos and say, take it to New Jersey or wherever it'd go.

[00:52:23] And the fellow in New Jersey would be looking, oh, looky here, someone busted in North Carolina.

[00:52:28] That was yours coming up.

[00:52:29] Bang, bang, bang.

[00:52:30] They were just cheating and stealing.

[00:52:32] So he made the deal that, all of them did, but I believe that Jorge Ochoa masterminded,

[00:52:39] that we will insure your product.

[00:52:42] It's worth $10,000 a kilo in Columbia.

[00:52:44] If it gets busted anywhere from the time you give it to us until it gets to your man, wherever you send it,

[00:52:52] we will replace it in Columbia.

[00:52:54] Well, they just got all the pot and all the cocaine in three countries piled up on them.

[00:53:00] They couldn't move it fast enough.

[00:53:02] They just bring it out of Peru to have the Ochoa's bring it up.

[00:53:06] Somebody said they had 100 tons to lose.

[00:53:08] Well, when I'd go in, I just said, when you want me to come back, we waiting on you, Senor.

[00:53:14] I could have went every day and made $2.5 million.

[00:53:17] Just as fast as you could.

[00:53:20] My problem with buying cars, I'd buy cars.

[00:53:23] I'd buy like six cars a week.

[00:53:27] And I'd put air shocks to hold them up level, fill the trunk up.

[00:53:32] New hoses, new tires that wouldn't go flat.

[00:53:35] And in big cars, they would be big Mercury's, Marquis's, and Ford LTDs.

[00:53:41] And just drive those.

[00:53:42] I said, I'd give them to the Glumens.

[00:53:44] I'd park it in a hotel and show them where it was.

[00:53:46] And I said, you owe me $5,000 for that car.

[00:53:50] Oh, no.

[00:53:50] I said, I don't ever want to see it again after it's been to your house.

[00:53:54] I don't know if it was looking at your house, buddy.

[00:53:56] Anyway, they got love in my cars.

[00:53:58] They had a great idea.

[00:53:59] I said, you can send it to New York.

[00:54:01] All the paperwork's right above the sun visor.

[00:54:03] So, ain't no telling how many cars.

[00:54:05] I had two people buying and fixing up cars for me up in Orlando.

[00:54:10] So, I got, so when he said, Roger, please.

[00:54:14] And I said, do you know anybody?

[00:54:16] So, I went to see Barry Field.

[00:54:18] And I said, Barry, would you like a job flying?

[00:54:22] Yeah.

[00:54:23] So, he'd come out to California and I had him take me up flying.

[00:54:27] He rung me out until I was sick.

[00:54:29] I'm sorry.

[00:54:29] I asked you.

[00:54:31] He's like one of them Blue Angel pilots.

[00:54:33] I'm just a transport guy.

[00:54:35] So, anyway, Barry started flying and he would fly.

[00:54:38] I mean, he would go one time right after that.

[00:54:40] But he wanted to be paid first.

[00:54:41] So, I paid him a million dollars a trip.

[00:54:44] And if I, he wouldn't pay the boy, he wouldn't, he would bellyache and moan and groan.

[00:54:48] Not serious, but almost in fun, you know, like.

[00:54:51] And so, I remember one time I got him a million dollars in a box and made it like a gift.

[00:54:58] And it opened it up.

[00:54:59] I was in the grocery store or drugstore and I saw these Stay Free Mini pads, these Tampax.

[00:55:05] And I put that on top of it, right on top of the money.

[00:55:09] He thought that was so funny.

[00:55:11] He made a spot on his mantle piece with Stay Free Mini pads.

[00:55:16] And so, he had lots of humor.

[00:55:20] So, he's now doing these runs and he's doing it every day.

[00:55:24] He's making millions of dollars a day.

[00:55:25] A million dollars.

[00:55:27] And you're doing well too because you're, you know.

[00:55:31] I was making a million and a half.

[00:55:32] Right.

[00:55:34] So, I hired another guy out of California, Jerry Wills.

[00:55:37] And so, I had two airlines running.

[00:55:40] And I bought them three or four of those Panthers, wonderful airplanes.

[00:55:45] I didn't ever know they'd go that far, but they sure will and carry a load.

[00:55:49] So, I had them go in and they didn't know who each other was.

[00:55:52] But the Colombians were sticking each other on them to make them go.

[00:55:56] The other guy did two loads last week or whatever.

[00:56:00] And I had the money just piling up on me.

[00:56:04] And we had a lovely lady.

[00:56:07] I guess he was Ken to Ochoa.

[00:56:08] Her name was Marta Ochoa.

[00:56:10] And she had a little boy about seven years old.

[00:56:12] And I'd meet her every Wednesday at the Rusty Pelican Inn in Miami out on Key Biscayne.

[00:56:19] And she would come with a uniform, a nursery uniform with a stethoscope in her pocket.

[00:56:24] And we'd go over the accounts and what they owed me.

[00:56:27] And so, I remember one night, we sat there over our little drinks.

[00:56:32] And I said, you owe me $7.5 million.

[00:56:35] I'm not going again until I get paid now.

[00:56:38] Giddy-gird.

[00:56:38] No, Roger, only $7 million.

[00:56:41] I'm bull, now it's $7.5 million.

[00:56:43] So, we had a little tough about it.

[00:56:46] She's thinking, remember Monday night when Lito met you or actually met you at such and such of the Holiday Inn?

[00:56:55] And he was in the yellow Cadillac and he gave you two boxes?

[00:56:59] That was a half a million.

[00:57:00] Did you care?

[00:57:01] Oh, no, I forgot that, Martha.

[00:57:03] I'm so sorry.

[00:57:05] So, that's how much money was coming in.

[00:57:07] You forget a half a million dollars somebody gives you.

[00:57:09] That's how I thought that was worth telling.

[00:57:10] Anyhow, she lets Grisaldo have some Coke.

[00:57:15] I think 200 kilos and Grisaldo killed her and garoted her.

[00:57:19] Had the man garoted her and killed a little boy and they wrapped him in plastic and put him in a canal there.

[00:57:24] Oh, I hate that woman.

[00:57:26] That was such a beautiful lady.

[00:57:28] Oh, she was just beautiful.

[00:57:29] Beautiful.

[00:57:30] Just her spirit, her soul were beautiful.

[00:57:33] Martha Ochoa.

[00:57:34] That was how it was going.

[00:57:37] And then, I mean, after that, I mean, at some point, are you ever saying, like, here you've got $10 million, $20 million.

[00:57:44] At some point, and this is a big question for everybody who makes money, like, at some point you say, okay, look, this is really risky in a lot of ways.

[00:57:53] My life, other people's lives, prison.

[00:57:56] I should just stop.

[00:57:58] I got my family.

[00:57:59] We got enough.

[00:58:01] I know it's really hard to say that, but, like, why is that really hard to think or say?

[00:58:06] Well, I've answered it like this before.

[00:58:08] If you was in Las Vegas and you was on a slot machine that was putting out gold coins, gold cougar ends, and you got five watermelons and you got the handle down, and it's just flowing them out on the floor, and you got two guys shoveling them up, putting them in bags.

[00:58:23] When would you turn that handle loose?

[00:58:25] Because you know you're never going to get that again.

[00:58:29] Yeah.

[00:58:29] I don't know.

[00:58:31] I mean, that's a good question.

[00:58:32] Exactly.

[00:58:33] You always say, okay, one more time.

[00:58:35] I did quit.

[00:58:36] And right after that, I got arrested and put old marijuana charges.

[00:58:41] Everybody I knew took testimony against me.

[00:58:43] They charged me with continuing criminal enterprise.

[00:58:46] It carries life in prison for possession of marijuana.

[00:58:51] I was number 41 to ever be charged with that terrible crime in the United States, and John Gotti was number 42.

[00:58:57] I gave up all I had.

[00:59:01] You weren't able to kind of, like, longer?

[00:59:03] You weren't able to sneak away anything?

[00:59:06] Not much, but we had a few coins.

[00:59:09] I had the most expensive coin in the world.

[00:59:12] I had a Brasher de Bloom.

[00:59:14] It's worth $10 million now.

[00:59:16] Of course, my wife had to sell it while I was in prison.

[00:59:18] I was in prison.

[00:59:19] I'm going to be 33 years.

[00:59:21] It's a long time to be gone.

[00:59:23] Yeah.

[00:59:23] And she raised the children.

[00:59:26] And when I got out of prison for the marijuana, I didn't stay in it but about two and a half years.

[00:59:32] The old judge gave me 30 years of parole, special parole.

[00:59:36] So when I got out, I had just gotten home, and I was having breakfast.

[00:59:41] And there was Ronald Reagan's blue eyes right on the television.

[00:59:44] And he said, we have absolute proof that the communist Sandinista government is in the cocaine running business.

[00:59:51] And there's one of my old airplanes sitting on the runway, bellied in.

[00:59:55] And I thought, Barry has done it.

[00:59:59] So that was when that Oliver North found out about it, and he blew the whistle.

[01:00:05] It was messing up his operation there with a little war that was going on.

[01:00:24] So the phone rang, and Barry said, Roger, I'm coming out tonight.

[01:00:30] I'll be there at 9 o'clock.

[01:00:32] And a little French restaurant there in Santa Barbara.

[01:00:35] I forget what it was.

[01:00:37] So I walked in.

[01:00:39] I was nervous.

[01:00:39] I knew he was already talking.

[01:00:42] I'd heard that he might have switched.

[01:00:45] And so I went in, and he was at the back of the restaurant, leaned up the back.

[01:00:50] And I walked up to him.

[01:00:52] I said, Barry, are you wired?

[01:00:54] He said, no.

[01:00:55] I said, well, I'm not going to say anything.

[01:00:57] I said, the EAs?

[01:00:59] He said, all of them.

[01:01:00] There's about 30 people in 20, 30 people in their leather shirts and their johns.

[01:01:03] And you can see them under there, all young men and women.

[01:01:07] And so I sat down there, and he started telling me what had happened, how that he was getting three life sentences.

[01:01:13] I just couldn't do it.

[01:01:14] I couldn't do it.

[01:01:15] I got out on bail, and I went up to see Edward Meese, Attorney General of the United States in Washington.

[01:01:19] And I told him, we're bringing in tons of cocaine.

[01:01:21] He didn't believe me and run me out.

[01:01:23] And I had to go back the next day.

[01:01:24] And so he hooked me up with this cell right over here, Jake Jacobson.

[01:01:29] And we went down and got one and a half tons.

[01:01:32] And I came back to Nicaragua, and I billeted in there.

[01:01:36] And I called, and they told him to ask Pablo to bring another plane up.

[01:01:43] So he flew up with another one.

[01:01:45] You can see it.

[01:01:45] It's a good book called The Kings of Cocaine.

[01:01:48] And it got pictures of Pablo and Barry and all of them.

[01:01:52] Barry took over 1,000 photographs inside the airplane and out.

[01:01:56] He said you could hear the camera click and click and click.

[01:02:00] They had got killed so it wouldn't even have been like killing a mosquito

[01:02:05] if they had found out what they were doing there, that agent.

[01:02:07] Anyhow, the agent came over and says, you know, you can come tomorrow and testify with Barry before a grand jury.

[01:02:14] The only place you're ever going to see your family again is in a federal penitentiary visiting room.

[01:02:19] I said, I believe I'll.

[01:02:21] He said, you can come down first class with Mari tomorrow.

[01:02:23] I'll take you down tonight and change.

[01:02:25] I said, I believe I'll go first class.

[01:02:28] So I went down with Mari and I thought, what in the world can I do?

[01:02:32] She got out of prison.

[01:02:34] What on earth can I do?

[01:02:36] I can't.

[01:02:36] I'm not a snitch, but maybe I can say something.

[01:02:40] Do something.

[01:02:40] So I went to see a lawyer.

[01:02:42] It's supposed to be the best one in town, but his wife, his partner, had just got blown out of his shoes for representing a snitch.

[01:02:49] I didn't know that.

[01:02:50] So the guy was on the treadmill.

[01:02:51] When I told him the story, he said, well, you know, I represent you for $600,000, but I don't talk to snitches.

[01:02:57] I said, I'm not a snitch.

[01:02:58] He said, well, that's what you're talking about.

[01:03:00] He said, you go in that grand jury and you tell them everything you know and you leave one thing out.

[01:03:05] They'll convict you of everything you've said.

[01:03:07] You've got to tell them everything.

[01:03:08] He said, it's like being pregnant.

[01:03:09] You either are or you're not.

[01:03:11] I said, well, I'm not.

[01:03:12] He said, well, I went to see another lawyer and he told me about the same thing.

[01:03:17] I said, well, I can't do that.

[01:03:18] So that night I went to a festival restaurant there in Carl Gables and Barry knew I liked that.

[01:03:23] And so him and his wife, Debbie came in.

[01:03:24] She was looking good.

[01:03:26] And we had dessert together.

[01:03:28] And when it was over, I hugged Barry and I kissed him on the cheek.

[01:03:31] I said, dear friend, they're going to kill you.

[01:03:35] Oh, no.

[01:03:36] Bah, bah, bah, bah.

[01:03:37] Well, I took Mario and the children and I fled to Brazil.

[01:03:40] And a few months later, the same guy that was on that first load of sassin just absolutely murdered him.

[01:03:48] Shot him 50 times, I guess, in the parking lot when he pulled in.

[01:03:52] The judge gave him six months in a halfway house.

[01:03:54] And the prosecution and the lawyers and all said, that's a death sentence.

[01:04:00] He said he should have thought of that before he did this.

[01:04:02] So the judge killed him 100%.

[01:04:05] And I guess they have to kill him to kind of not only prevent him from snitching more, but to show an example, too, that this is what happens if you do that.

[01:04:16] But they killed him, keep him telling on them.

[01:04:18] They're looking after their own eyes.

[01:04:20] And plus, I would have got a life sentence, too.

[01:04:22] So I was in Brazil.

[01:04:24] And when I got the message, I told Mari and Miriam, and they just cried.

[01:04:29] And I was sad, too.

[01:04:30] My friend did.

[01:04:31] But I don't have a life sentence hanging over me anymore.

[01:04:34] So when they did catch me later on, they caught me in Spain.

[01:04:40] They took me to expedition, double expedition to the United States and to Germany.

[01:04:47] Now, what the United States was put some little charge on me that wasn't real.

[01:04:52] But they wanted me for that 25-year special parole.

[01:04:54] They could make me do it all.

[01:04:56] I was in the courtroom.

[01:04:58] The courtroom was full.

[01:04:59] It was up on the third or fourth floor.

[01:05:01] And they had full guards.

[01:05:02] I'd got away from the Spanish police three times already.

[01:05:06] So they had me handcuffed like this and leg irons on.

[01:05:10] But they had to take that off and put handcuffs in front of me.

[01:05:12] And I thought, oh, boy.

[01:05:13] And they took the leg irons off to go to court.

[01:05:15] And four of them standing behind me, four guards.

[01:05:18] And I asked the lawyer, how high are we?

[01:05:20] And he said, you'll kill yourself.

[01:05:21] I said, I'm dead anyway.

[01:05:23] Two of them went to smoke or pee or whatever it was.

[01:05:26] And I bound across that courtroom and jumped on the stenographer's desk.

[01:05:30] She was nine months pregnant.

[01:05:33] She screamed and slid back.

[01:05:35] And I must have been 150 people in that courtroom.

[01:05:36] You could have heard a big sucking sound.

[01:05:39] And I kicked that window out of the courtroom and jumped.

[01:05:43] I was on the ledge.

[01:05:44] And before those guards could come across, and I jumped out.

[01:05:48] And I was 31 feet from the bottom of that ledge to the top of the car that I jumped on.

[01:05:52] It was parked.

[01:05:53] And this roof of that car went to the ground.

[01:05:56] Mario had to pay $4,000 for that old car.

[01:05:59] And I got out handcuffed and ran and got away.

[01:06:03] And the next day, the newspaper said, Spider-Man escapes.

[01:06:06] Oh, my gosh.

[01:06:09] How do you survive?

[01:06:10] Like a 31-foot jump onto a car?

[01:06:13] Yeah.

[01:06:14] Well, I had jumped into those nets when I owned the fire department.

[01:06:18] So I landed feet and butt that way.

[01:06:21] And it cushioned the load right in the middle of the top of that big car.

[01:06:25] But it did run on.

[01:06:26] Went on down to the drive.

[01:06:27] I went to the drive head.

[01:06:28] It was a big thud.

[01:06:32] And then how do you know which direction to run?

[01:06:34] Like, obviously, they're all going to pull out.

[01:06:35] I just ran either way.

[01:06:36] I got about a mile away.

[01:06:39] And a police car came up behind me.

[01:06:40] And a young policeman got out.

[01:06:41] And he hit me in the back with a shotgun.

[01:06:43] I still got a dead spot in my back where he hit me.

[01:06:46] So they put me in jail.

[01:06:47] And they sent me up to Germany, to Lubeck, Germany.

[01:06:50] And I hired a German captain.

[01:06:52] I bought a ship in Holland.

[01:06:54] And we hauled 20 ton loads of ash and marijuana out of Thailand.

[01:06:59] And I paid him.

[01:06:59] And he went home.

[01:07:00] I gave him $400,000.

[01:07:02] He went home, bought him a new BMW and a long cigar.

[01:07:04] And he was bragging.

[01:07:05] And they came, arrested him, and found that $400,000.

[01:07:08] And they said, if you'll tell us who gave you this money, you'll be on by Christmas.

[01:07:12] But he didn't tell them which Christmas.

[01:07:14] He got seven years from his own confession.

[01:07:18] And, of course, when he told, he couldn't back out because there was crew on.

[01:07:22] There was a Polish crew.

[01:07:23] And they said, we'll bring every one of those 12 crewmen.

[01:07:25] And they'll testify against you.

[01:07:27] So that's what they would take.

[01:07:29] So I'd never been to Germany.

[01:07:30] Never made a phone call.

[01:07:31] Never did anything in Germany.

[01:07:32] I said, how in the world am I being extradited to Germany?

[01:07:35] So they loaded me up on a military plane after a year and a half in that Spanish prison.

[01:07:40] Oh, I mean, it was rough.

[01:07:42] And flew me to Lubeck, Germany.

[01:07:45] And put me in the bottom of the prison.

[01:07:47] I mean, underneath it.

[01:07:49] Kept me there four months incommunicado.

[01:07:51] So I couldn't talk to anybody.

[01:07:52] So I had to plead guilty.

[01:07:53] I pled guilty to using a German citizen in an international crime.

[01:07:58] If you rob a bank in Argentina with a German citizen, they can convict you in Germany.

[01:08:04] I'd never heard of such a fool crime.

[01:08:07] So that's what they got me for.

[01:08:08] So I got, I believe, eight years for using a German citizen.

[01:08:12] And they put me right in there with him.

[01:08:14] That the best man went.

[01:08:16] I didn't know.

[01:08:16] Oh, my gosh.

[01:08:18] So after one year, I escaped from that prison.

[01:08:21] And I went through the bars and walked almost all the skin on me and nearly died.

[01:08:25] And jumped on top of a down from the fourth floor down on top of a guard tower.

[01:08:29] I mean, they were some bad people.

[01:08:30] And they was guard towers every 100 feet or so.

[01:08:34] They'd shoot to kill you.

[01:08:35] And so I got away from there and got to Holland.

[01:08:39] How did you avoid getting shot at?

[01:08:41] Okay, well, I'll tell you about the escape there in Germany.

[01:08:46] When I was coming close to the end of my sentence in Germany, I got a job cleaning the offices.

[01:08:52] Well, you had a door that you went in.

[01:08:54] I mean, that thing was like a blank vault where you went through that.

[01:08:57] So I'm not now in the worst part.

[01:09:01] But it was no sweetheart where you went into it full on with guard towers and razor wire and a wall.

[01:09:08] I guess that wall was 15 feet high.

[01:09:11] And catwalk on it and guard towers all along.

[01:09:13] But then in the entrance to the port, they call it Sally Port, was a guard tower.

[01:09:19] And it was inside the office and it was kind of around like a silo on top of it.

[01:09:23] And the guy sat there with a – and I understand that he had a machine gun.

[01:09:28] And it took a few seconds for that glass to open.

[01:09:33] It bulletproof glass there because there were some bad people from the Red Brigade there in Italy.

[01:09:37] There were some top-notch criminals in there.

[01:09:41] I went to the hospital for something.

[01:09:42] I kept thinking that I might escape from the hospital.

[01:09:45] So I kept having things wrong with me.

[01:09:48] They stuck a camera up my butt and said, your intestines are fine.

[01:09:52] Go home.

[01:09:52] Go back.

[01:09:53] And on the way back, it was raining.

[01:09:56] And I saw above the Sally Port, all that razor wire that would just usually just gobs of it up there was missing.

[01:10:04] They were putting another wall up to join right there to the prison string to make it larger.

[01:10:10] And they had huge piles of sand.

[01:10:13] And I guess they were 20 feet tall where an excavator had piled it up just like sand.

[01:10:19] And that was one of them was just right out from that.

[01:10:22] And the wire was gone.

[01:10:24] And I thought, there is a way out of here.

[01:10:26] And it was just pouring down rain.

[01:10:29] So I got somebody to give him a book of stamps to get me a mop.

[01:10:35] No, I wanted a jump rope.

[01:10:37] And I had a mop.

[01:10:38] And he got a rope.

[01:10:40] And I told him, I was going to play jump rope.

[01:10:42] He got a good rope.

[01:10:44] And I cut that rope in two.

[01:10:46] And I cut us, they had heavy mops.

[01:10:50] Cut that in two and put one of the ropes on each one of those things.

[01:10:54] And put that down my pants.

[01:10:55] And when I went in, I cleaned the lawyer's office.

[01:10:57] And I had 20 minutes because the guard went with the guy that went into the computer room.

[01:11:02] And when I went in there, I tore the curtains off the window and jumped up on the table.

[01:11:08] And there was bars, but they were not like real thick bars.

[01:11:12] They were flat bars, and they looked like music notes to make it pretty in the lawyer's office.

[01:11:16] But they were strong, but you could get a little bit.

[01:11:18] So I took that rope and tied the bowling on it and put that mop handle in.

[01:11:24] Turned it, turned it, turned it.

[01:11:26] And boy, them bars came right together.

[01:11:27] I stuck that one down.

[01:11:29] And it came loose and knocked the knuckles off my hand.

[01:11:32] I nearly peed my pants.

[01:11:34] I jumped down.

[01:11:35] I mean, I couldn't even harder breathe.

[01:11:36] It hit my hands so hard.

[01:11:39] Wow.

[01:11:40] Next time I got it stuck,

[01:11:42] and then I pulled the other one apart, and I could get through.

[01:11:45] But then my head went right through, but my chest was big,

[01:11:48] and it wouldn't go through.

[01:11:49] So I pulled my shirt off.

[01:11:51] And then I got going.

[01:11:53] I got right about here with those bars.

[01:11:56] And I'm going like this, and I can't get any further.

[01:11:58] And I have to let all the air out, all the air out, all the air out.

[01:12:02] And I still don't.

[01:12:03] And I can just imagine my head's been rain just pouring on me.

[01:12:08] And finally, I get scooping like this, and it catches a little.

[01:12:12] It just took all the skin off my chest.

[01:12:14] It just skint me.

[01:12:16] And when it got to my stomach, I was all right,

[01:12:18] but then the guards caught my belt.

[01:12:19] And my imp was too big to come through,

[01:12:21] so I had to undo my britches, and they fell off inside.

[01:12:25] And then I fell out six feet in the ground in the section of the prison there

[01:12:30] where they had the nets for soccer.

[01:12:34] Well, at that, there was a little recess in the wall.

[01:12:38] And I guess it was about four or five feet.

[01:12:40] And on that whole side was scaffolding up four floors.

[01:12:44] And beyond that was a little courtyard,

[01:12:47] and then the guard towers and the wall.

[01:12:50] Well, I put my hands on the bricks on this side,

[01:12:53] and the scaffolding on that side.

[01:12:57] And I went up four floors where that guard couldn't see me.

[01:13:00] And when I got up on top, I was above the guard towers.

[01:13:04] And my wife had slipped me $200, and I had that in my shoe.

[01:13:09] I chewed it down until it was just flat.

[01:13:12] And so I laid out up there, and I have asthma,

[01:13:15] and I was wheezing so loud I couldn't catch my breath.

[01:13:18] I was bleeding, skint.

[01:13:21] And I crawled down to the end, 200 feet down, I guess, on that black top.

[01:13:28] I mean, I always looked like shiny white up on top of that black roof.

[01:13:32] But they was looking up from the guard towers.

[01:13:34] And I got right above the sally port where the guard,

[01:13:39] half of a guard tower was sticking out.

[01:13:42] It's kind of like a silo.

[01:13:45] And I lay down there, and I saw a guard coming with his wife and a little boy.

[01:13:49] And it was raining so hard until they had an umbrella up,

[01:13:51] and it was a double umbrella.

[01:13:53] I've never seen a double umbrella.

[01:13:55] It was big.

[01:13:55] And that little boy was between them, about three years old.

[01:13:59] And when she took him to the door, she went to go back.

[01:14:02] And when she got 20, 30 feet out there in front of it,

[01:14:06] I jumped and hit the top of that guard tower.

[01:14:08] Bam!

[01:14:09] He went scared.

[01:14:12] And I went over that wall and hit, I mean, for a long way.

[01:14:16] I don't know how far I was in the air, but it's not little.

[01:14:20] And I hit the side of that sand bank, just like a skier would.

[01:14:25] And I went up to my knees in that sand.

[01:14:28] It went down the side.

[01:14:29] And I ran straight towards that woman, the little boy,

[01:14:31] so they couldn't shoot me.

[01:14:34] And then I got in front of them, and I just, I mean,

[01:14:37] it's the nicest feeling in the world to escape from a place like that.

[01:14:40] That thing was a fortress.

[01:14:42] And I'm just getting it.

[01:14:44] I mean, I am.

[01:14:45] I must have had a big smile on my face as I'm going down there.

[01:14:48] And I come around the corner, and it's downhill.

[01:14:51] And be, be, be, blam, blam, blam, blam.

[01:14:55] I look behind me, and that woman is tearing her car up.

[01:14:57] She's up on the sidewalk trying to run over me,

[01:14:59] and she's knocking over the parking meters.

[01:15:02] Well, I jumped behind some car, and she has to swerve out,

[01:15:06] and she knocked her front fender plumb off.

[01:15:08] And she's looking at me like with a devil face,

[01:15:11] and that little boy's hanging on the front seat.

[01:15:13] I thought, she is crazy.

[01:15:14] I can't go any further this way.

[01:15:16] So there was a wall there and cement.

[01:15:19] And I jumped up to draw across it,

[01:15:22] and it had beer bottle broken all in the top of it.

[01:15:25] And I cut my hands and my arms up,

[01:15:27] something crocious going over that wall.

[01:15:29] And I hit the other side of it,

[01:15:30] and my feet went nearly up to the knees in mud.

[01:15:35] There was a garden, and they plowed that stuff,

[01:15:37] and it rained in like that.

[01:15:39] My shoes and all came off.

[01:15:40] I lost that $200, and here I flopped across that place.

[01:15:45] Anyway, I get quite a story how I get on,

[01:15:48] and I get to Holland.

[01:15:49] That's an egg of a journey that I made.

[01:15:52] Wow, so that's...

[01:15:54] You should have been a stuntman in Hollywood.

[01:15:57] I did it for myself.

[01:15:58] That would have been a career for you.

[01:16:00] That would have been a career for you.

[01:16:02] Oh, I could have been, yes.

[01:16:03] I reckon so.

[01:16:05] Yeah.

[01:16:05] Do you think after all this, like...

[01:16:08] Okay, so we can argue all about marijuana is one thing,

[01:16:12] cocaine is another thing,

[01:16:13] but cocaine has created a lot of problems in society and so on.

[01:16:18] And yes, a lot of higher political figures have been involved throughout the decades.

[01:16:22] But do you ever have some regrets about that choice specifically,

[01:16:27] like running cocaine and all the potential misery that might have caused?

[01:16:33] Listen, if I hurt anybody, I'm sorry of it.

[01:16:36] But let me just tell you a little about cocaine.

[01:16:39] For many, many years, it was a non-narcotic control substance.

[01:16:46] Yeah, like Sigmund Freud was a big user.

[01:16:49] Like there's a lot of famous users in history.

[01:16:52] It just...

[01:16:54] Until the CIA made crack and put it in every city in America,

[01:16:59] nobody cared much about it.

[01:17:02] Read the book, The Big Quiet Lie,

[01:17:04] The CIA and the Crack Cocaine Epidemic.

[01:17:05] They invented it and put it in every city in the black section of town.

[01:17:10] How many people killed?

[01:17:12] Yeah, no, I know.

[01:17:13] I interviewed once Freeway Rick Ross,

[01:17:16] who was the biggest crack dealer at the time.

[01:17:18] He didn't know it was all being funded by the CIA

[01:17:21] and eventually spent a lot of time in jail.

[01:17:24] But yeah, and then the Iran-Contra stuff,

[01:17:26] like a lot of people have forgotten that that's happened,

[01:17:28] but that was a pretty big crime,

[01:17:30] all the way up to either the president or the vice president.

[01:17:33] Like we don't really know who, but...

[01:17:35] It went to the top.

[01:17:36] Yeah.

[01:17:37] You know it did.

[01:17:38] Yeah.

[01:17:39] Absolutely.

[01:17:40] What was that?

[01:17:40] Like they were making money for the Sandinistas,

[01:17:44] but they were trading hostages with Iran.

[01:17:46] Like what was the Iran connection there?

[01:17:47] I really don't know.

[01:17:49] I don't know.

[01:17:50] It was like you'd have to tie yourself into a pretzel to understand that one.

[01:17:54] Yeah.

[01:17:54] But there was some big money flowing,

[01:17:57] and it was flowing both ways.

[01:18:00] Talking about Barry.

[01:18:01] I mean, the CIA was unloading Barry up there,

[01:18:04] some of his old cronies,

[01:18:06] and they justified it by putting a few guns in his plane or some bullets.

[01:18:11] Can you imagine running a war with a little twin-engine airplane,

[01:18:15] taking a few guns?

[01:18:17] That ain't nothing.

[01:18:18] That ain't even a peace shooter.

[01:18:20] That's a slingshot.

[01:18:21] Yeah.

[01:18:22] Or less.

[01:18:23] So, no, it was a scam.

[01:18:25] They was in the cocaine business, of course.

[01:18:27] There's no money in guns,

[01:18:28] particularly not that kind of guns.

[01:18:31] And so, like,

[01:18:32] was it that one scene in the movie American Made where,

[01:18:35] at the end,

[01:18:36] where Barry Seale says,

[01:18:37] Barry Seale says,

[01:18:39] you know,

[01:18:39] here's what's going to happen.

[01:18:40] They're going to,

[01:18:40] you're going to get a call from the governor in a few minutes,

[01:18:43] and you're going to let me free.

[01:18:44] And they all laughed at him,

[01:18:46] but then it happened.

[01:18:47] Do you think that scene's true?

[01:18:48] I know it was true.

[01:18:50] And he called the President of the United States,

[01:18:53] George Bush, Sr.

[01:18:55] He said,

[01:18:56] Barry, how you doing?

[01:18:59] It's not Barry, you know,

[01:19:00] Barry being killed.

[01:19:01] A click.

[01:19:04] Wow.

[01:19:05] Of course it would.

[01:19:06] Well, let me just tell you what that gentleman did.

[01:19:09] I believe the book called The Hothouse,

[01:19:11] the pilot that flew George Bush three times to see the Ayatollah in Paris,

[01:19:19] while the hostages were held in Iran,

[01:19:23] and tell him,

[01:19:24] do not release those hostages under any circumstance until after the election.

[01:19:30] 451 hostages were released.

[01:19:32] Wait,

[01:19:33] I don't,

[01:19:33] I've been 451 days.

[01:19:35] I don't.

[01:19:35] Anyhow,

[01:19:35] they were released the day after Jimmy Carter lost the election and George Bush went in.

[01:19:42] They was holding him politically to hurt Jimmy Carter,

[01:19:46] a wonderful man.

[01:19:49] Yeah.

[01:19:50] Who was George Bush?

[01:19:51] He was the boss of the CIA.

[01:19:53] That's right.

[01:19:54] Like,

[01:19:54] people forget that.

[01:19:55] Like,

[01:19:56] yes,

[01:19:56] he was vice president and president,

[01:19:57] but he got to be vice president because he had been the director of the CIA under,

[01:20:02] I guess,

[01:20:02] Nixon.

[01:20:03] Absolutely.

[01:20:04] And he was,

[01:20:05] he did some terrible things.

[01:20:07] Terrible.

[01:20:08] It wars all over the world because of what they did.

[01:20:12] They can do whatever they want to.

[01:20:14] They don't even,

[01:20:14] they don't even,

[01:20:15] whatever money they spend is never even,

[01:20:17] even accounted for under anything.

[01:20:19] There's no record of it.

[01:20:21] They have unlimited money.

[01:20:23] And now with,

[01:20:24] with all these experiences and,

[01:20:27] you know,

[01:20:27] you spend so much time in prison,

[01:20:29] but you've been able to kind of,

[01:20:31] like you said,

[01:20:31] maintain the relationship with your wife.

[01:20:33] You've met all these people who were in the,

[01:20:36] in the trade,

[01:20:36] including up to Pavel Escobar.

[01:20:38] It's an odd question,

[01:20:39] but what is the kindest thing?

[01:20:43] One of these evil people have,

[01:20:46] has ever done to you.

[01:20:47] What's the kindest thing?

[01:20:50] I don't remember anything kind.

[01:20:54] Like,

[01:20:54] the ones that didn't pay me,

[01:20:57] you remember?

[01:20:58] No,

[01:20:58] they didn't do it.

[01:20:58] And I worked for those people,

[01:21:01] just like a truck driver.

[01:21:03] That's what I was.

[01:21:05] And I,

[01:21:05] you go from California to New York with your truck,

[01:21:08] and you come here to this office,

[01:21:09] and you load up,

[01:21:10] and you go,

[01:21:10] and of course he owns it,

[01:21:11] and you might shake hands with him,

[01:21:12] but I wasn't in bed with him.

[01:21:13] I spent a weekend with the old children,

[01:21:16] and they were so nice.

[01:21:17] Their family was there,

[01:21:18] and a big ranch.

[01:21:20] And I said,

[01:21:21] well,

[01:21:21] now,

[01:21:21] you know,

[01:21:22] I'm getting,

[01:21:24] sometimes $7 million,

[01:21:26] is owed to me.

[01:21:26] What,

[01:21:26] what would happen if I go to prison?

[01:21:29] I said,

[01:21:29] we're honorable people,

[01:21:31] sir.

[01:21:31] We pay you.

[01:21:32] Well,

[01:21:33] they didn't.

[01:21:34] So I didn't,

[01:21:36] I don't see any,

[01:21:37] we had a nice time there,

[01:21:39] but we go out to dinner,

[01:21:40] but no,

[01:21:40] nobody's ever done anything.

[01:21:41] Not one of them stood up for me,

[01:21:43] or sent my wife any money when I went to prison.

[01:21:46] Not one.

[01:21:47] That last group,

[01:21:48] when I got caught,

[01:21:49] I got caught in Australia,

[01:21:50] $400 million of cocaine.

[01:21:52] They didn't pay for my lawyer.

[01:21:55] Not once to my wife,

[01:21:56] nothing.

[01:21:58] Then they started something,

[01:21:59] I was with Nitch.

[01:22:01] It's just like,

[01:22:03] how on earth could you ever face such a thing?

[01:22:07] You know,

[01:22:07] why would they say that?

[01:22:08] Did they want to have an excuse?

[01:22:10] Cover up their own stupidity and their loss.

[01:22:12] They had the one brother of the man that owned it,

[01:22:15] came there and he,

[01:22:16] he called his buddy over to come over to help me unload this big load.

[01:22:20] And they hooked him up in front of a woman.

[01:22:22] They didn't have the money to,

[01:22:23] they didn't have a credit card.

[01:22:24] So they hooked up with that woman working with the DEA or with federal police

[01:22:28] to get them a credit card.

[01:22:29] So I mean,

[01:22:29] it was just a stupidity that they,

[01:22:33] the federal police was waiting on me.

[01:22:35] It was just unbelievable.

[01:22:39] So I bring it to their attention and they don't like it.

[01:22:42] Yeah.

[01:22:43] Well,

[01:22:44] and now out of prison,

[01:22:48] presumably this phase of your life is behind you,

[01:22:52] you know,

[01:22:52] flying planes,

[01:22:53] running drugs.

[01:22:54] I'm assuming you don't do that anymore.

[01:22:56] And what's the future hold?

[01:22:59] Nobody knows what the future holds.

[01:23:01] I'm down in South Africa.

[01:23:02] I'm flying down there.

[01:23:04] I,

[01:23:04] I spend most of the year down there.

[01:23:06] I enjoy it.

[01:23:08] Why South Africa?

[01:23:09] I met,

[01:23:10] I got friends down there and you can live there.

[01:23:13] South Africa is the biggest kept secret on earth.

[01:23:16] Cape town is 25% price of the United States.

[01:23:21] Excellent service.

[01:23:22] Excellent food.

[01:23:24] Wonderful people.

[01:23:25] The kindest people that everybody's sweet,

[01:23:28] nice and kind.

[01:23:29] Shopping malls full of people.

[01:23:31] And I mean,

[01:23:32] a good,

[01:23:33] a good salary down there is four or $500 a month.

[01:23:35] Hmm.

[01:23:36] So I can live like a king.

[01:23:39] Well,

[01:23:41] Roger Reeves,

[01:23:42] author of smuggler.

[01:23:43] Do you think there ever is going to be a TV series?

[01:23:45] Like obviously you would make a great movie.

[01:23:47] Yeah,

[01:23:48] no,

[01:23:48] it's a great book.

[01:23:50] I can't see what I'm showing you,

[01:23:51] but,

[01:23:52] uh,

[01:23:52] let's see if I can punch that.

[01:23:54] Yeah,

[01:23:54] I see it.

[01:23:55] No,

[01:23:55] no,

[01:23:56] we're going to,

[01:23:56] we're going to,

[01:23:56] I'm going to talk all about your book.

[01:23:58] And this thing is 100% true.

[01:24:02] There's not a word.

[01:24:03] There's not exactly.

[01:24:04] And I got 300 or something thousand words here.

[01:24:07] I wrote while I was down in Australia,

[01:24:08] I was in a cage like this with the silence of the lambs.

[01:24:12] And I,

[01:24:12] and I wrote that in there and it dot for dot word for word,

[01:24:15] just like I wrote it.

[01:24:17] And,

[01:24:17] uh,

[01:24:17] I tell all these stories in full in there.

[01:24:20] Oh,

[01:24:20] it's a great book.

[01:24:21] And it's,

[01:24:21] it's a true history of the past,

[01:24:23] you know,

[01:24:24] 30,

[01:24:25] 40 years,

[01:24:25] 50 years of,

[01:24:26] of the drug trade.

[01:24:27] I mean,

[01:24:27] it's very eyeopening and I'm going to talk about the book in the intro.

[01:24:31] Roger,

[01:24:31] I really appreciate you coming on the podcast.

[01:24:33] It's such an intense story.

[01:24:35] And it's really eyeopening how much we don't know about what's going on out there between government.

[01:24:43] And even now like the fentanyl trade and,

[01:24:45] and big pharma and,

[01:24:47] and,

[01:24:48] you know,

[01:24:48] going all the way back to the seventies with,

[01:24:50] with marijuana and cocaine and everything.

[01:24:53] I'd like to put in,

[01:24:54] and you've clipped this in if you will.

[01:24:57] There's a terrible,

[01:24:58] terrible injustice in our society with the prisoners.

[01:25:02] Half the prison,

[01:25:03] at least half the prison,

[01:25:04] prisoners should be released.

[01:25:06] All the people in there from marijuana.

[01:25:07] One state is legal and another one is not.

[01:25:12] I saw such terrible injustice when,

[01:25:15] before I got out,

[01:25:16] I had to go to Oklahoma for a,

[01:25:19] uh,

[01:25:20] parole here that I never got,

[01:25:22] but I'd meet one young man.

[01:25:24] you,

[01:25:25] usually the middle,

[01:25:26] middle cases.

[01:25:27] And I said,

[01:25:28] where are you going?

[01:25:29] He said,

[01:25:29] I'm going to Atlanta,

[01:25:30] Georgia.

[01:25:30] I've got to go for psychiatric evaluation.

[01:25:33] I said,

[01:25:34] what you,

[01:25:34] what'd you get caught with?

[01:25:35] I got caught with two grounds of methamphetamine.

[01:25:39] Why are you going to Atlanta?

[01:25:40] I don't know.

[01:25:41] They just sending me.

[01:25:42] I said,

[01:25:42] I want to take,

[01:25:42] take about three months.

[01:25:43] And he's on that plane and doing this.

[01:25:46] Then I met another young man.

[01:25:48] Where are you from?

[01:25:49] I'm from Albany,

[01:25:50] Georgia.

[01:25:51] I was close to home.

[01:25:52] Where are you going?

[01:25:52] I'm going to Los Angeles for psychiatric evaluation.

[01:25:56] What?

[01:25:57] They sending prisoners back and forth across country.

[01:26:01] They are absolutely,

[01:26:02] if you go up here to,

[01:26:04] I don't know what the name of that prison is there above San Bernardino,

[01:26:09] up in Apple Valley,

[01:26:10] but you can see at least 30 or 40,

[01:26:14] $100,000 van just parked there.

[01:26:16] Nothing.

[01:26:17] I saw when I was in Long Park Penitentiary,

[01:26:19] I saw them when their fiscal year's about it,

[01:26:22] they would have earth movers come and move dirt around the prison for nothing.

[01:26:27] They don't give the prisoners any better food.

[01:26:29] They just waste it.

[01:26:30] Just absolutely ungodly waste.

[01:26:35] And a lot of those people,

[01:26:37] just so many people,

[01:26:39] it looked like that the government is in business to put people in prison.

[01:26:43] Not to help them.

[01:26:45] Just lock them up.

[01:26:47] They need to get these homeless people off the street and not in prison.

[01:26:53] There is something,

[01:26:55] and I hope that Mr.

[01:26:56] Trump goes in,

[01:26:57] can hear this.

[01:26:59] Open the doors and let the people go.

[01:27:01] Put them to work.

[01:27:02] It's just awful what they're doing.

[01:27:05] Yeah,

[01:27:06] I mean,

[01:27:06] I hope they do.

[01:27:07] I hope they do reform it.

[01:27:08] And then,

[01:27:08] it's always unclear,

[01:27:10] like, you know,

[01:27:10] they privatize prisons a little bit.

[01:27:11] Like,

[01:27:12] there are some companies now that set up prisons.

[01:27:14] And that doesn't really seem like a solution either.

[01:27:17] You know,

[01:27:18] I don't know,

[01:27:18] I don't know how they're going to get out of this.

[01:27:20] They shouldn't send those people to prison for what they send them for.

[01:27:24] Yeah.

[01:27:24] They just shouldn't.

[01:27:25] You got,

[01:27:25] you used to do a crime to go to prison.

[01:27:28] Right.

[01:27:29] Not just some little chicken shit thing.

[01:27:32] Good gracious.

[01:27:33] I mean,

[01:27:34] a DEA can go under a bridge and shoot heroin with those bombs and arrest this one for having a little bit and arrest the other one for having it.

[01:27:42] And they're in,

[01:27:44] they fill up our system.

[01:27:46] I like what the French did.

[01:27:47] I just read about,

[01:27:48] they caught a boat with a bunch of,

[01:27:50] I think it had 15 Brazilians on it.

[01:27:53] And I don't know how much cocaine it had on the old boat,

[01:27:55] but it was going,

[01:27:56] going across.

[01:27:57] And the French Navy stopped them.

[01:28:01] They took the cocaine and gave them a letter to give to your boss so it won't,

[01:28:04] so he won't kill you.

[01:28:05] We don't,

[01:28:06] they didn't want them in the French prisons.

[01:28:08] France,

[01:28:08] 15 people for 30 years,

[01:28:10] what they want them for?

[01:28:12] Why?

[01:28:12] They,

[01:28:13] three million more that would do the same thing if they had the offer.

[01:28:17] He's not stopping it.

[01:28:19] Stop it at the store.

[01:28:21] Stop it.

[01:28:21] People using it.

[01:28:22] What in the world?

[01:28:24] Yeah.

[01:28:24] No,

[01:28:25] I agree with you.

[01:28:25] I think,

[01:28:26] I think that's why your story is so important to,

[01:28:28] to get out there,

[01:28:29] just to show what's happened and,

[01:28:31] and to who and how much even our government has been complicit for,

[01:28:34] for 50 years or more.

[01:28:36] So it's,

[01:28:37] it's been a horrible thing.

[01:28:39] I agree with you.

[01:28:40] Oh,

[01:28:41] well,

[01:28:41] thank you.

[01:28:42] I'm from,

[01:28:43] I'm in Georgia too.

[01:28:44] I'm,

[01:28:44] I'm,

[01:28:45] I live in Atlanta.

[01:28:46] All right.

[01:28:48] So go Georgia.

[01:28:49] Did you hear about the,

[01:28:50] I'll tell you a joke.

[01:28:51] Did you hear about the,

[01:28:52] uh,

[01:28:53] Yankees were coming through with Sherman's March and there was an old rebel up on the

[01:28:58] magnet.

[01:28:59] Yeah.

[01:28:59] I'm Yankees down there.

[01:29:00] I'm up here.

[01:29:01] I,

[01:29:02] I'll show you something.

[01:29:05] So,

[01:29:06] Sergeant,

[01:29:06] send a couple,

[01:29:07] Corporate send a couple of guys up there.

[01:29:09] They've been blam,

[01:29:10] blam,

[01:29:11] blam,

[01:29:11] and Yankees come flying off of the mountain.

[01:29:13] He said,

[01:29:14] Captain,

[01:29:15] send a,

[01:29:15] full tune up there.

[01:29:17] Blam,

[01:29:18] blam,

[01:29:18] blam,

[01:29:19] blam.

[01:29:19] Yeah.

[01:29:20] Yeah.

[01:29:20] Damn Yankees.

[01:29:20] And he throws them off.

[01:29:22] Shoot them.

[01:29:23] He said,

[01:29:24] Captain,

[01:29:24] send their company up to take care of that problem.

[01:29:26] And he got on up there and he says,

[01:29:28] general,

[01:29:29] general,

[01:29:30] it's the trap.

[01:29:32] There's two of them up here.

[01:29:35] That's funny.

[01:29:36] That's my only George.

[01:29:37] That's my only Atlanta joke.

[01:29:38] That is funny.

[01:29:40] Well,

[01:29:40] it's true too.

[01:29:42] So,

[01:29:43] well,

[01:29:44] you know,

[01:29:44] again,

[01:29:45] Roger,

[01:29:45] thank you so much.

[01:29:46] I really appreciate it.

[01:29:47] And,

[01:29:47] and thank you.

[01:29:49] There might be a couple of other books that I was in and,

[01:29:52] it's worth reading about this is the,

[01:29:53] the big white lie,

[01:29:55] the CIA and the crack cocaine epidemic.

[01:29:57] And the other one is Kings of cocaine.

[01:29:59] I get a chapter in that too.

[01:30:01] Okay.

[01:30:01] I will check those out.

[01:30:02] I haven't read.

[01:30:03] Well,

[01:30:03] I mean,

[01:30:03] just,

[01:30:03] if you just read,

[01:30:05] you don't have to read all that book cause it's,

[01:30:07] it's that big,

[01:30:08] but they're good.

[01:30:10] Yeah.

[01:30:11] All right.

[01:30:12] Thank you for having me.

[01:30:14] Yeah.

[01:30:15] Thanks Roger.

[01:30:15] Thanks Jay.

[01:30:16] Goodbye.

[01:30:16] You guys.