All language subtitles for Cocaine Cowboys Reloaded (2014)

Ladies and gentlemen,
I'm Mayor Randy Christmas,

of Miami, Florida.

The film you're about to see
is a stunning expose

based on fact.

It concerns a vicious attempt
by organized crime

to take over
the entire state of Florida.

But for the alert
and courageous work

of Florida's
law enforcement agencies

and the integrity

of its governmental
administrations,

this threat might
have been made good.

I take this opportunity
to issue a warning

to the people
of every state in the nation.

It could happen
in your state.

We are dedicated here
in Florida to the belief

that it will never
again happen to us.

[Roberts] My name is Jon Roberts.

I was born in New York.

I lost my father
when I was nine.

My mother when I was 13.

My stepfather threw me
out of the house when I was 13.

My sister tried
to raise me,

failed miserably
because of me.

I went to see my uncle,
and my uncle took me in.

First he had me
collecting money

because he was a loan shark.

So he put me
with one of his guys

who also happened to be
the driver for Carlo Gambino.

And my uncle said, "Don't worry,
this guy will take care of you."

Some guy owed
my uncle money.

We kidnapped him,
we threw him in an apartment,

and the guy that I used
to do it with me

was strung out on heroin.

I said, "Look,
I'm going home to sleep,

you watch this guy."

Well, he ends up
shooting up and OD-ing,

so the guy he's watching
just opens the door

and walks into the street,

because my friend's
dead on the floor.

He ran to the police.

The police came,
and you know,

they got me
and they put me in...

At that time they had a place
called the Tombs in New York,

which was one
of the original jails.

And they came
around to the Tombs

and they made people offers.

If you go to Vietnam
and you leave

with an honorable discharge,
your charges will be dropped.

I said, "Okay, that
sounds like a good deal."

And I signed up for a year,
and they interview you.

And they said,
"Look, we're going to give you

advanced training.

We're going to send you here
and we're going to make you...

You can do some crazy things
if you want in Vietnam."

And what it was for was,
it was 101st Airborne,

and I got to like it,
because I had a bad mentality,

and I ended up
staying there 4 years.

I got blown out of a tree.

I got a metal plate
in my head,

and you know, I don't want to get
into stories over there

and shit like that,

because everybody
has a story, so...

And when you come back,
and you can't do anything,

it's like,
what am I trained to do?

And I lost everything.

My uncle, he said to me,
"You and I are going

to make a lot of
money together,"

and we opened
a restaurant there.

Opened it? We bought it
or took it from somebody,

if I remember,
back in my childhood.

And it was called
Alice's Restaurant,

and then we went into
nightclubs and we opened

about four or five
nightclubs.

It became very big
and we were doing really well.

One day they just
came in, the police,

and they told us
that our partner,

they had found him out
on the Long Island expressway.

And he had been killed

and he had like
11 bullet holes in him.

So, who knows
what happened to him?

The best thing that
I could think at that time was,

"Just let me get away
from all this heat,"

so I moved down here.

And started
into the cocaine business.

[Buchanan] I think there's something
about the location here.

It's at the end of the map,
the bottom of the map,

the jumping off place.

People who are running
away from each other

or from the law or from their
own personal demons.

Eventually if they run long
enough, they come here.

[man] The City of Miami area
was very, very quiet,

and it was just
a very pleasant place to live.

[Roberts] Miami
back then was the South.

It was like Alabama.

There was no money here,
there were no big buildings.

Downtown was pretty barren.

Miami Beach,
it was a lot of old people

just sitting around
in rocking chairs

on South Beach waiting to die.

It was a whole different world
down here back then.

[man] I'm an old South
Florida boy,

and one of the few that's
that old, I was born here.

I was in the
import business,

doing some exporting,
but mostly importing.

[Roberts] Back then the city
was like a virgin city.

[man 1] South Florida was
vulnerable to penetration

by drug suppliers.

[man 2] Florida is a drug
smuggler's paradise.

It was wide open back then.

It was wide open.

[man 1] 1200 miles of coastline,
much of it remote,

deserted, thousands
of rivers and bays.

Nobody even knows
how many islands offshore.

[man 2] The pirates operated
here in the 1700s.

During the Civil War,
gunrunners would run

the Union blockade
in from the Bahamas.

Rum runners used
the same technique.

[Munday] This city has always
had something coming in.

[man] In the 1960s, this was
a jumping-off place

for soldiers of fortune,

who ran commando raids
into Cuba.

Several dozen miles
south-west of Miami

is a military training camp
located on 40 miles

of Everglades swamp land
for Cuban refugees

who are planning to return
to the island to fight.

These guys had been
trained by the CIA,

had gone
into the fishing industry,

and they were making
a very good living.

The change in 1975
was precipitated by a lobster.

There was a law changed
in the Bahamas

which prohibited Cuban exiles
based in Miami from fishing

in Bahamian waters
for the spiny lobster.

It put out of work tremendous
amount of fishermen.

[man] Obedio Perez
sold his gold watch

and ring last week
to feed his two children.

He expects the bank
to foreclose on his boat

before month's end.

Francisco Gado's boat
is taking on water

from lack of use.

He says it might sink
before his next payment.

More than 1,000
other lobster fishermen,

a majority of them
Cuban exiles,

have not left these
docks in six weeks.

[Diaz] They had their boats,
they had their knowledge,

they had the training.

That's when we started seeing

the mother lode method
of transporting marijuana.

The fishermen were acting
as intermediaries,

and the go-fast boats

would bring them
into the coast.

At that time everybody
in Florida was smuggling pot.

And you could drive
in with a boat, stacked up,

[Munday] ] pull up to the dock
and unload it.

Nobody said a thing.

There was no defense
of the border to speak of.

[woman] There were thousands
of fishing boats in this area,

hundreds of thousands
of pleasure boats.

Many of them capable
of the run to the Bahamas,

with another ship
on a marijuana

delivery cruise out
in the Gulf Stream.

[Munday] If they thought
there was a problem,

they'd just throw it
overboard.

They would order 40,000 pounds
and they'd send out 50,000.

And they'd only have
enough boats to carry

the 40 and they would
throw the stuff away.

You could be out in a boat

and find bales
of marijuana floating.

The proverbial square grouper.

You would get guys
who would go over,

unload the ship, and they would
get their dentist

or their attorney
or their doctor,

because forevermore
he could tell

his grandchildren,
"I was a smuggler."

[man] South Florida has become
the drug smuggling

capital of the United States.

No other place in the
country even comes close.

The first marijuana
trip we made,

we found through
a guy who was a fireman.

He had a twin engine plane
called the Piper Aztec

that he would fly to Colombia.

He offered us, if we would
go down and pick up

1,000 pounds, $50,000.

I really wasn't thrilled about
the amount of money it was,

but I said,
"Well, at least it gets

our foot in the door."

And we did it. And it was
a fiasco from one end

to the other.

We ended up having
to throw it all away.

They didn't have an alternate
where we came back to.

There was a sentinel police
officer sitting on

the road that they wanted
to land on.

They used a used airplane
radio on an old battery,

and they didn't realize
the battery was dead.

From that trip,
our very first trip,

with all the problems,
we took it as a lesson.

From then on in,
we'd have one, two, three,

four alternates.

I ran into some Jamaicans,
went down to Jamaica,

physically looked
at the place.

For Jamaicans it was...
The pot wasn't really good.

We made one trip,
brought back 700 pounds,

but this time we brought it
back to our place.

People that I knew, they were
all calling the ground crew.

They were all my friends,
and the vehicles were mine.

I tried to control
everything.

It got to the point
where there was

so much pot here
that you couldn't sell it.

It was too cheap.

Got down, it was like
$230 a pound,

and what you had
to pay for it,

and you figured your expenses
and everything,

and the chances
that you take, legally.

[man] Big seizures
used to be measured

in hundreds of pounds.

It is not unusual
now to catch a ship

with 30 or 40 tons
of marijuana.

[Munday] For the same
amount of money

that you would make
on 40,000 pounds,

you could bring
1,000 pounds of cocaine

and make the same amount
if not more.

When they were sending,
like, all this pot,

they would send
a few kilos of coke.

[man] As for marijuana,
the police might be able

to stop it.
But as for cocaine,

the police have
no real answers.

[Roberts] In the beginning,
it was very small.

[Munday]
Because it was so expensive.

[Roberts] And they would
bring them in a suitcase.

[man] In the last year,
cocaine seizures have doubled.

More than a quarter
of all cocaine seizures

in the United States were
at Miami International Airport.

While we were filming
a routine day,

agents got another one.

Five pounds of pure cocaine
were hidden in the bag.

U.S. Customs said the seizure
was worth more than

$1,000,000.

[Roberts] When I first
came down here,

I really had no idea
what I was going to do,

and I worked with
a guy training dogs.

Agitating the dogs
and letting the dogs hit

a sleeve and bite me.
And doing that,

I met a Cuban man
out in Hialeah,

who became very notorious,
very famous down here,

and his name was
Albert San Pedro.

He was in the
drug business.

It was obvious.
I got him a really bad dog.

His name was Sarge.
He was a German Shepherd.

And this dog was crazy.

I mean, absolutely nuts.

And his stash was
under the doghouse

on the side of the house.

He would lift the doghouse up
and he had a cement pad.

And in the cement
pad he had a safe.

And this dog would sleep
on this pad day and night.

And this was
his way of stashing it.

Eventually he was
my main supplier.

He would front me
a quarter of a pound,

and he would give me
like three or four days.

And then I would go
and bring him the money back.

[woman] Shortly after midnight,
Hialeah businessman

Alberto San Pedro was arrested
again at his palatial home.

So far he stands accused
of conspiracy to commit murder,

drug dealing
and corruption.

San Pedro brags

he controls the majority of
the Dade County Commission,

its mayor and no less than
15 judges.

No mention was made by
any of the council members

or Mayor Raul Martinez
of the San Pedro affair.

[man] There is no organized
crime group

that's going
to challenge the Cubans.

In Miami, the Colombian
drug organizations

stepped into that market.

[man] Worried Colombian
authorities say

they are now seeing
increased coca planting

as Colombian traffickers
try to take over all phases

of cocaine production.

[Diaz] it was very clear to us
that the Colombians

were already getting involved
in the distribution area

here in the States.

The Colombians realized
that they were giving up

a large portion
of the profit to people

they really didn't have
to give it up from.

They didn't need
the Cuban as a middleman.

And they just bypassed
the Cubans completely.

That toehold is what sprouted into

the crazy 1980s here in Miami.

These people didn't have
a pilot or plane.

They asked if we'd be
interested,

and I'm trying to be
really, really, really careful.

You have to be careful
of who you meet,

who you talk to.

You might be the police officer
on undercover,

because that's really
starting to roll at that time.

We set up an appointment
to meet these people,

and what I did was,
I bought the most expensive

portable tape
recorder I could find.

And I went to a bunch
of different locations.

And what I found was
the best place

of all was a bowling alley.

I mean, the noise,
the people, the clanging.

The reason
I'm doing this is,

if I'm meeting somebody,

and they're trying
to record our conversation,

I wanted to make sure
there wasn't

going to be much recorded.

And when we got
to the place,

I had three
of my friends outside.

We all have radios.

There was no cell phones
at that time.

There were,
but they were like this big.

When we came out

from after the meeting
I told them that

we'd have to make a decision
and we'd get back to them.

And I had my friends
follow the people home,

just to make sure
that they didn't go back

to the DEA building,
the FBI building,

U.S. Customs or whatever.
And then we sat on them

for three days to make sure
that they were

who they said they were.
These people that turned out

to be Rafa and Max.

They threw a number at us
that was more than agreeable.

$3,000 apiece
or a kilo in your terms,

and they wanted
to move at least 400,

a gross of $1.2 million.

I just transported.

I took it from them,
gave it back to them.

Give me money,
I'll go again.

I wasn't worried
about them,

because I had no intentions
of ever stealing from them.

I had no intentions
of ever cheating them.

All I wanted to do
was make money.

And money we made.

Sunny and Rico
at the same bar.

How lucky can a girl get?

Laura.

[Mooney]
My name's Toni Mooney.

I was born
in Miami, Florida.

After I graduated
high school,

I met somebody named
Shelton Archer,

and he was a photographer.

And he came up to me

and told me
I should be a model.

He had a Limey accent.

He said he would like
to photograph me

at the airport.

He had a plane.

I ended up going with him

to his plane
in Lantana Airport,

and he shot
photographs of me.

Most models have to struggle,
and I must say,

because of Shelton,
I had a fabulous,

very beautiful apartment.

He went out and bought me
a Mini Cooper.

I had a maid, everything.

Cash is a whole
lot better than plastic,

and Shelton always seemed
to have plenty of it.

And if he didn't he went
and got more.

He was a photographer.

I mean, he seemed
like it to me.

Of course,
it was a little strange

he was living in Colombia.

Then he told me
he had a job for me

in Santo Domingo.

I didn't realize I was going
to know him so well,

but we had a plane crash.

The first leg of the trip,
he woke me up and told me

he wasn't sure if we were
going to make it.

We ended up crash
landing the plane.

We were there like,
seven days.

We didn't have any water.
We were licking

condensation off the plane,
and it was quite a mess.

Finally, the coastguard
came and rescued us.

The Bahamians apparently
had been looking for us,

but once they found out
Shelton's M.O.,

the Piper plane
and all that,

they just didn't
go pick him up,

because he had been convicted
of drug smuggling there.

When they finally
picked us up,

they believed my story that

I was just really
catching a ride,

and they let me go
and they detained him.

I flew to Miami,
and I was working

on a shoot with a girl,
and she told me

that she had somebody
for me to meet.

A friend of mine
fixed me up with her.

He was a lawyer.

He was dating
this really beautiful girl

who was a model for Ford.

And he said, "You know,
she's got a beautiful friend,

and she lives in West Palm,

but she works in New York,

and I'd like
to introduce you to her."

And that's how I met her.

Her and her boyfriend
kept telling me,

"Don't do this and don't drink
in front of John and don't..."

You know, and I was like,
"Whoa whoa whoa.

Wait a minute here.
I don't even want to go."

And then we opened the door
and there's this guy

with this face, you know.
He looks so mean,

and actually I found out
he wasn't.

He was a wonderful person.

I remember
sleeping on the couch,

and Jon bringing out blankets
and covering me up.

The next morning I woke up.

I was on the couch.

He told me he'd like to take me
to see his racehorses.

And I loved horses.
I grew up with horses.

So I said, "Okay."

When I was growing up,
it was just myself,

my brother and my mother.

And Jon really put our
family together in our eyes.

And we really
adored him.

I mean, there wasn't anything
he could do wrong.

It's like a dream,
you know.

You can have
anything you wanted.

Jon made everything
all right.

He was a pretty magnanimous
person back then.

Everything
was hunky dory at home

and everybody was happy and...

But then things changed
when he met Shelton.

[Roberts]
I was selling at that time.

The Cubans
didn't have big supplies,

so I had to search out
other people.

This girl, who I happened
to have been seeing,

knew an English guy who was
a pilot for these people

from Medellin.

So she introduced me to him,
and he said,

"Well, I'm going to hook you up.

I can take you to these
Colombians that I know,

and this guy can give you
whatever you want."

And I'd heard stories
like that many times,

so I just said,
"Sure, whenever you're ready,

let me know."

And we drove
to Sunny Isles, Florida.

And we go into this house.

It was about
five or six Colombians there,

all like, loaded to bear.

When I say "loaded,"
they were strapped.

They had pistols,
machine guns,

and they were
all standing around.

And at that point
I realized this guy is serious.

This is for real.
I meet this little guy,

he can't be more than
5'4" or 5'5".

And he introduces himself
and he says,

"My name is Rafa."

And he's telling me,

"I'll give you
whatever you want.

And if you've got
some money,

I'll front you twice
the amount of money

that you come with."

And I said, "Well,
you know, show me something."

He takes me in his back room,
he pushes a button,

and a whole wall
opens up like this.

And I had never seen so much
cocaine in my entire life,

just sitting
behind this wall.

I said, "Okay, I guess
you can help me, man."

I said, "Give me a day
and I'll put together the money,

and I'll be back."

The next day I came,
he had an American guy there,

and he introduced
this American.

He said,
"This is my compadre.

I'm not in town a lot,
but whatever it is you need,

this is the man,
he'll take care of you.

And don't worry about it.

He's 100%."

And the man
he introduced me to

happened to be this man,
Max Mermelstein.

Jon introduced me to Max.

I thought
they were going to open

a shoe store together
or some story like that.

[Roberts] Rafa came to trust
Max because Max was married

to a Colombian woman.

She was the cousin
of Pablo Escobar,

the woman Max
was married to.

So they had a bond
with Max.

Max seemed like
a very nice guy back then.

It seemed that way, anyway.

[Roberts] One Sunday,
Max had a party out there,

and I went out to his farm.

The next thing
I know here comes this guy,

and Max says,
"This is my transportation guy.

You're going
to work with him."

He's got like two ATCs,
these three-wheelers,

and he says, "Max,
I brought your ATCs back."

And he takes them
off the truck.

He says, "That one runs
about 90 or 100 mph now.

That one over there
runs around 80."

So Max says,
"I'm telling you, these guys,

these are the shit, man.

We don't have any more.
This is who you'll work with."

So the guy
introduces himself.

His name is Mickey Munday,

and he's like a redneck
from Florida,

that's been here
his whole life.

[Munday] I want to say
I didn't like him.

The first time I meet Jon,
he's driving

this black Mercedes, two-door,
that's got drug dealer

written all over it.

He just looked like
somebody that I don't want

to have anything
to do with.

I think he was okay.

He had a big race boat.
He was involved in racing.

Do you remember
the show MacGyver?

That's this guy.

He could do stuff
that just was incredible.

And Max had me
working with these guys,

and he sent me to Colombia.

[man 1] Medellin, Colombia.

Right now there is little
or no cocaine enforcement

activity here.

[man 2] This city only has
a population of about 50,000,

yet there are about

50 airplanes
parked at this airport.

[man 1] The dealers control
much of the countryside.

[man 3] This town is completely
dedicated to narcotics.

Rafa would introduce me
to the people

he was working with.

We met, you might say,

the elite of the drug business
from Colombia.

And it would be the Ochoas--

[man] Here lives
a man believed to be

one of the most
powerful cocaine

traffickers in the world:

Fabio Ochoa.

This is his ranch,

and he is treated
as a hero here.

They were a huge
name in Colombia.

There was no secret
about them.

[man 1] Fabio Ochoa is considered
by many as a godfather

of the business.

[man 2] Some intelligence officials
have charged that

you and the members
of your family

are the biggest cocaine
traffickers in the world.

I know nothing of lies
being told.

This doesn't interest me.

I am well known by all the
horse breeders in the world.

My life has been honorable,
and I can tip my hat.

[Munday] This was Pablo Escobar.

[man] Mr. Escobar by any measure,
has to be considered

the John Dillinger of the
cocaine trade in Colombia.

[Munday] And this is Carlos Lehder.

[man 1] Carlos Lehder is wanted

by the U.S. authorities
for drug trafficking.

[man 2] He stated cocaine
was the atomic bomb

and he was going
to drop it on America.

[man 3] The cocaine traffickers
have more power and money

than the government.

You make it sound like
they had an office

the size of this with computers
and they got 40 secretaries.

It's just a bunch of bums
down there.

[Roberts] Most of these Colombians
came from really

poor, poor families.
And when everybody in this country

got into cocaine, it was
just like they struck gold.

The Beverly Hillbillies,
that's basically what it was.

The Colombians have farms,
fincas they call them,

just filled with cocaine down there,

because they just
kept producing it.

They call this the
Valley of Orchids.

Flowers are a principal export.

So is cocaine.

More than 20 tons a year.

For this valley is the cocaine
capital of the world.

[Roberts]
And it was a whole process.

It was like
a factory working.

Campesinos - peasant farmers -

support their families
by processing the leaves

into coca paste.

It was a matter of survival.

I mean, there were
no other crops

that would grow
in that environment,

and at that altitude
in those mountains.

[man 1] The farmer lives off
the coca plant,

and without it,
there is no point in living.

[man 2] Without coca,
we would have to die.

[man 3] The coca paste is then
taken to processing labs

to be made into cocaine.

One popular route
is this one,

along the Amazon River.

And in going down
the river in a longboat,

the guys in the boat
would stand up,

and they would
hold the bags of cocaine,

and I remember them
shouting, "Coca-roca."

And showing it off
right there.

This is what we have.

[man] There are just
too many coca fields,

too much money,
and too many traffickers.

[Munday] At first I thought
it was all their stuff.

But once you get to the point
where you're unpackaging it,

they're all marked different.

It didn't all belong
to somebody.

Maybe 50 belonged
to this guy,

10 to that guy,
5 to this guy.

They would all pool
their stuff and send it up.

Going down
the freight yard,

when you get the train full,
then you leave, you know.

That's what they were doing.

[man] The ships and planes that
smuggle it in come to Miami,

and then the coke spreads

all over
the Eastern United States.

[Munday] We bought
some property in Lakeland,

built two runways there,
put up a couple of barns

that were really hangars.
They looked like barns,

but when you'd open up
the hayloft door,

you would see that
it was shaped

to the tail
of an airplane door.

I would use a five, six,
eight-year-old family car.

[Roberts] And we would
load 300 pieces.

And we would put
air shocks on the car,

so that the car wouldn't
fall to the ground.

And we would use a tow truck
to tow the vehicle back.

[Roberts] They would bring
them into Miami.

I personally liked to go
when there was a big moon up.

I call them
the "Smuggler's Moon."

The moon sitting right there,
and it's real big,

because we landed
with no lights.

There was a night, looking
at an alternate,

where I watched some guys
come in off Route 27.

They didn't know I'm there.

I'm listening
to everything they say.

I have night scopes
and goggles. I'm watching,

and I could have been
the man to seize them.

They came in, and there
was a ball of fire.

I thought it was
like an atomic bomb.

I've never seen a flash.

If you took a flash camera,
went right up to your face

and went click, it would
not have been as bright.

It blinded me
because the nights go bloons.

And the guy's on the radio,
"Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

We're dying, we're dead,"
and then boom!

Right in front of me, [MIMICS PLANE]
it was one of these things.

It was an avo.

They didn't know
they'd put the power wire up

since the last time
they'd been out there.

He hit it
with the top of the nose,

went over
the top of the airplane,

took all the antennas off
and chopped the tail right off.

And his friends
all hauled ass.

And so did he,
and left a little thing

in the plane that I took.

A whole lot
of little things.

It was a rather
worthwhile night,

for all I did was go out
there to look

for an alternate.

[Roberts] Mickey's operation
was a very sound,

very good operation,
although it was limited.

[Munday] They wanted us
to go more often.

Bigger airplane
or something.

And that's when we purchased
a Cessna Conquest.

We paid $980,000 for it.

In cash.

How do you like that?
You try that one today.

We'd made one trip with it.

[Roberts] Sometimes you just
get bored, I guess.

In that particular trip,
I went up there,

not to unload it
or put it on the truck.

We were just hanging out.

[Munday] The pilot knew he
was going to have a problem

when he could see
the lights out

of Tampa on the horizon,

which meant
he was too high.

If he could see
the lights of Tampa,

that meant that they could
see him with radar.

[Roberts]
Next thing I know, wham.

These cars start
flying by. Police cars.

Here comes a chase plane.

[Munday] First they were chasing
him with the military airplanes.

Here come my guys,
who had the cars up there,

flying into the restaurant,
"What's up, what's up?"

"We got to get out of here,
we got to get out of here."

[Munday] And the military
realized that it wasn't a threat,

and by then they'd called in

the U.S. Customs.

[Roberts] Cops are everywhere,
all over this stuff.

Everybody is going
to go out the door.

You don't throw
nothing away.

You throw everything away.

First the co-pilot
would go out.

Fifteen, 20 minutes later,
the pilot would go out

and would leave
the plane on autopilot

and give it
to the Bermuda Triangle.

And nobody believed that
I lost the load, and I said,

"I lost it, man. These guys
will tell you I lost it."

And he said, "Well,
why isn't it in the paper?

Show us the article
in the paper."

You know what I mean?

When it first happened,
of course, they don't.

There's nothing
in the newspaper.

And you needed
to bring them proof,

but I couldn't prove it.

I had no way to prove it.

Man, they came flying
to my house

with machine guns
and cruise killers.

[Mooney] I remember my brother
and I were out on the porch,

and these two guys
drove up.

Rafa came. They get out of
the car with guns.

[Roberts] "You fucked us.
You took our load."

And of course me,
I go right over,

get in his face
and start screaming,

"Get off my property,
blah, blah, blah."

Colombians were actually
afraid of this woman.

[Mooney] Next thing I know,
Jon comes out of the house,

my brother comes out
of the house,

and they both have
weapons drawn.

And standing there
with a laser shotgun and--

She didn't give
a shit who came.

Rafa could bring
six, seven guys.

And she was a big girl
and Rafa was only like 5'5",

and she was
looking down at him,

screaming and screaming.

Of course,
there I am, screaming.

"You ain't coming
in my house today."

It looked like
they were going to have

a gun battle right there.

"What are you, crazy?

For this amount,
why would I take your load?"

I could have ripped them off,
but I didn't do it.

"Are you nuts?
I'm working tomorrow.

I'm doing 1,000 tomorrow.

Why wouldn't
I take your 1,000?"

Five hundred kilos compared to
what I'm bringing every week.

It just wasn't worth it.

[Munday] it wasn't until the next day,
and then I started reading

about all the stuff being found.

[Roberts] And that's the proof
with the paper,

because when you hand them
the article,

"480 kilos Busted
in Yeehaw Junction."

And of course they realized
that we weren't stealing it.

Okay, here's my 480 kilos.

We have to get rid of it.

"It's not our problem,
it's your problem."

But without the paper
you had no proof.

Unfortunately,

we lost a
$1 million airplane

and they lost
whatever it cost them

for their part,
so they write it off.

And we wrote it off too.

[Roberts] Rafa was crazy
like that, and I guess it was

because he did so much coke
he would get paranoid.

He was just a little guy
that was kind of crazy,

and you had to be
a little leery of him

because he would get high.

He'd smoke the shit.

He would take like half of
the tobacco of the cigarette,

put cocaine in it,

a little tobacco back in,
and smoke it.

One time, a trip
was on for Saturday,

and some kind of
problem had come up

and I needed one more day.

Max was out of town,
so I get to Max's house,

and I go on into
the dining room.

Rafa is there, sitting at the
head of the dining room table.

I thought it was marijuana,
but it turned out not to be.

A circle about this big
and about that high.

And he's using
like a credit card

or something
to keep it in shape.

What it is is tobacco
from a cigarette.

There has been
so many cigarettes

that he actually
has a pile of tobacco this big.

And he's had that
much to smoke

that there's that much tobacco.

And I'm going, whoa!

And he's like, drooling.
And the people

there are all scared
to death of him,

because he could say
something and somebody

would be history, and I go,

and I go...
And I don't speak Spanish,

and I've got to try
to tell this guy

who was higher than a kite,
that we needed one more day.

I ended up having
to get Max's son,

which I really
didn't want to do,

because the kid was only like,
14 years old,

to translate for me,
and then make sure that

somebody there would call,
because I don't want to send

my plane the next day
and there's nobody there.

But he was
in one of his binges.

And those who knew
had to be afraid of him.

It's amazing. Here was a guy
who made so much money...

Rafa really controlled
almost every kilo of coke

that came into this country

through the people
from Medellin.

There was nobody
higher than him

for the Medellin Cartel
in this country.

He was a little Napoleon.

I often wondered
how much money somebody

who had been fairly sharp
could have possibly made,

instead of some guy
who was a drug addict.

Mickey then started
to do air drops.

I built me a small boat
factory to play with,

and we decided to do
Colombia up to the Bahamas,

air drop it to boats.

[Roberts] And they had beacons
that they would drop,

and they would be able to know
exactly where the load was,

because there would
be a frequency

that would send back
to where it was.

The middle console
would open up.

They'd put holes
in the middle of the boat,

and you would fill them up.

[Munday] And then
bring it in with boats.

Sometimes I would run what
we call the front door.

The front door would be
the entrance at Haulover.

We would call it a front door.

You can't say, "Why are
you coming in Haulover?

We say, "You're coming
in the front door."

It's a code of sorts.

At the Haulover Inlet,
I rented an apartment

on the 12th floor
in the north-east corner

called the Harbour House,

which has a spectacular view
of the inlet.

And I put a young lady there,
and I paid her to live there,

paid for the apartment.
And whenever we did a trip...

She has an unbelievable
set of binoculars,

and of course she has a radio.

When you got inside
the Haulover,

there was another boat.
And the guy in that

was a policeman
that I grew up with,

so he could listen
to the police radios too.

But I told him, I said,
"Take your family, go fishing,

have a good time.

People get used
to seeing you there,

just like a sand bar
that you can go swimming on.

It's a whole lot of fun."

And he's of course looking.

He'd go north
on the inter-coastal.

About half way
up around the corner

there'd be another
little boat fishing there.

He was the burner.

If there was ever a problem,
they would burn the boat.

And everybody would call and say

there was children in the water.

The police have this thing...
Something like that.

They drop everything,
and this is an emergency.

And that would suck anything

if we thought
there was a problem.

Fortunately, I never
had to use this guy.

I never had a problem.

From there, we were going up

to the entrance
to Maule Lake Marina,

which is about a quarter mile
north of there.

On the corner, there was
another friend of mine

who had a tire store.

He's sitting there fishing.

So he can see up and down
the inter-coastal,

and on the canal going back
into Maule Lake Marina.

I paid these guys.
"Go fishing, have a good time."

When they got
into Maule Lake Marina,

I had a sport fishing boat
that I'd taken in on trade.

I had several slips
that I rented.

I parked the boat there,
and I or somebody

would spend the night
and watch the boat.

If nobody bothered the boat,

then the next day
my tow truck would show up,

with a work order,
and a trailer.

He load the boat on the trailer,

and he would take it
to the warehouse.

The boat would go in there,
because I owned the warehouse,

the warehouse, the warehouse,
the warehouse.

I didn't have to worry
about anybody seeing me,

because I owned it all.

And then we would go
in the back,

open up the compartment,

and load the stuff
into the cars.

I spent money.
Nobody else would do this.

These guys came in, and they
would go to a boat rent,

because it didn't
cost them nothing,

and then they'd be
caught at the boat rent.

What are you doing?
Where are you coming from?

"You know, well,
I'm just out fishing."

And they'd have
a bottle of Coca-Cola

that said, "bottled in Nassau."
I mean, dumb.

To make sure
that there were no dogs,

I would take some
marijuana or some cocaine,

and I would put it in the
blender with a little alcohol

and just leave
the blender on for an hour,

until there was nothing.

I would wear out
blenders doing this.

And then I would mix it
with a little bit of kerosene

and put it in one of those spray

like weed bottles
or bug bottles.

The idea was to spray like,
the concrete thing

around the telephone pole,

or the big tire that was
on the tow motor.

Things where,
if the dog alerted to it,

there's no way
there could be any drugs.

The dog would go alert to a tree

or to an old tire
that's sitting there.

I tried to tell Max every dollar
bill that ever came to Colombia,

they should have sprayed it,

so that every piece of money
had cocaine on it.

Every airplane
that came down there,

every piece of freight that
went out and needs to go in,

they hire somebody
to supposedly spray for bugs.

So everything that came out
of Colombia would alert,

and that would be
the end of the dogs.

And the drugs
were everywhere.

[man] Millions of Americans
use the illicit drugs.

[Roberts] Everybody started
using cocaine.

Cocaine was the in thing
back then.

It was a chichi thing to do.

[man 1] It was really done.

[man 2] Every day about 5,000
take their first dose or toot.

As many as five million snort,

shoot or smoke cocaine
every month.

[man 4] The American public thinks
it's neat.

[man 5] It's a very, very
seductive drug.

It's almost like a woman.

It is probably the closest thing
one can have to an orgasm.

[man 1] It's exciting.

You can just stand still
and go 90 mph.

[man 2] We're analyzing
cocaine samples now

that were purchased
for $50 to $100 per gram

that are 95% pure.

The death rate
in Dade County at about

two per week from cocaine.

[man 3] Each month brings new efforts
to fight the white line fever

that spread from Miami
to Denver to San Francisco.

[man 4] Cocaine seizures
in Florida are up 700%--

--one of the biggest
and most controversial

drug investigations
ever in South Florida.

[woman] Customs seized
an Avianca 747

at dawn
at Miami International.

The daily flight, having
just arrived from Bogota.

2,500 pounds of cocaine
hidden in cut flowers.

[man 1] We went from having cases

of a kilo
or two kilos of cocaine,

to 1,000 kilos,
which is a ton of cocaine,

to 10,000 kilos,
which is 10 tons of cocaine.

[man 2] There were boxes of it.
3,600 pounds of cocaine.

Drug enforcement agents
said it was worth

$950 million on the street.

The shipment was bound
from Medellin, Colombia,

the cocaine export
capital of the world.

Shipped aboard this
Tampa Colombia Airlines jet.

Customs agents were called
to the scene, shotguns ready,

fearing that
the cocaine smugglers

might still try to take
the drugs by force.

The regional commissioner of
customs, Robert Batard, said,

"Somebody is going
to die for this."

It is a big cocaine bust,

certainly the biggest in the
history of the United States.

Every case was bigger than
the last one, and a new record.

[man] I remember the days
I'd bring into the office

an ounce of cocaine,
and four or five agents

would gather around
the table and say,

"Look how much dope
is in there."

Right now, we seize
1,500 pounds, 2,000 pounds,

and it's just one more case.

[woman] The demand for cocaine
in the U.S. is seemingly insatiable.

[Burstyn] When I first arrived here,

we had businesses like
t-shirt shops on the beach,

where you could buy suntan oil
or little stuffed alligators.

Then suddenly, Mayor's Jewelers

becomes the largest seller
of Rolexes on earth.

[woman] The economy skyrocketed.

[man] And that's very, very hard
to understand on any basis,

except that you have this
enormous inflow from Colombia

of drugs that are paid for and
wholesaled in the Miami area.

[man 1] They call it dirty money,

and there's plenty of it
in the drug business.

[man 2] It's what that cocaine money
is buying besides drugs

that is having the most
impact on South Florida.

[Munday]
People went out and partied.

[Burstyn] That spawned
a huge nightlife industry.

Women wore
phenomenal clothes,

and there were some
really awesome nightclubs.

[Burstyn] With cocaine, you
have unlimited hours to party.

So we had some
incredible nightclubs

built inside hotels.

The full service
48 hour package.

[Roberts] The Jockey Club,
Turnberry,

the Palm Bay Club,
the Cricket Club.

[Burstyn] You'd walk into
the clubs and you'd see people

with diamond rings, Rolexes,
multiple bottles of $500 wines

and champagnes at the tables.

We would be outrageous.
You know, who cared?

Do you know what I mean?

Like, you do anything
you want to do.

For example, if we
wanted to go to dinner,

at that time The Forge
was the best restaurant here.

I used to play jokes,
like there'd be a guy

at another the table.
And I'd see him drinking

a bottle of champagne,
and maybe he didn't have Dom

or maybe he had something else.

I'd send the most expensive
bottle of champagne,

and tell the waiter, "Go bring
him this bottle of champagne."

These guys would be
looking around like,

"Where's the champagne
coming from?"

And I'd do it to two or three
different tables.

It was like, "Who cares?
It's $1,000 or something."

And all these guys go like,
"What the hell's going on here?

How is this guy up here
sending all this shit around?"

But the best of all clubs
was definitely

The Mutiny in Coconut Grove.

It catered almost exclusively
to the drug traffic.

If you were a prostitute,

you were in prostitute heaven
at The Mutiny.

There's nothing wrong
with chasing young women.

[Burstyn] It was like sailors
coming into port,

except instead
of just shore money,

these sailors had
$50,000, $100,000

in their pockets at all times.

They didn't believe
in credit cards.

They were turning
over 200 rooms

in 5-hour increments,
24 hours a day.

Multiple visits every day
by the Miami Police Department.

Of course, there weren't
a lot of arrests.

The most frightening part
of the cocaine...

A dilemma that we have...

The amount of that
illegal money.

Those billions of dollars in profits

that are being channeled
into legitimate businesses.

Civic leaders openly recognized

the community has a fix,
if you will,

on the legitimate
goods and services

that cash from
the drug industry is buying.

Oh, yeah.
I love to go shopping.

The most shopping I did
was at Keeneland's.

I bought racehorses.

[Roberts] My biggest thing
was the horses.

[Mooney] Instead of dropping
$10,000, $20,000 shopping,

we dropped $100,000
on a horse.

[Roberts] I had 40, 50 horses
at a time. Racehorses.

You know what they cost
a month to feed?

$50,000 a mo-- Just for
the horses, just to feed them.

Forget about the guys
that took care of them.

[Mooney] I remember my first time
I went to Keeneland's,

we took a Learjet up there,
my girlfriend and I.

Jon said he was going to get
my credit okayed there.

"Toni, no problem.
You're Jon's girl.

Whatever you want.
Will a million be okay?"

And I was like...

"okay."

And you know, if you wanted
to send your kid to college,

no one cared
if you paid cash.

[Munday] There wasn't a problem
with spending cash.

[woman] There are other
signs of changes.

Buyers are putting
more cash down on a car.

And they notice payment
that's more likely to be

in cash now
instead of by credit card.

[Roberts] I had a turbo Porsche.

I had a Mercedes back then,
the 6.9 was the hot car.

You know the old Mercedes,
the gull wings

where the doors
open in the air?

I put $200,000 into that car
and never drove it one day.

I had three Cigarettes
hanging in the backyard.

Two cougars.

I had mountain lions
living in my house,

and I had
a full time carpenter,

I had a full time mechanic
for my boats.

I had a mechanic
for my helicopter,

I had a pilot
to fly the helicopter.

And I used to gamble.

I would sit on a weekend

and I'd bet $100,000
on a football game.

And I had a guy who used to come
every Monday to my house,

and he'd know if I won or lost,

because his job was
to go around the house

to see what was broken,
the walls, the TVs,

and just fix everything.

And that was all he'd do.
It didn't matter, though.

It was never like,
"Oh, oh,

I don't have enough money
to buy this."

How could that be?

[man 1] it is estimated that
more than $80 billion

filters through the
underground economy each year.

Money the IRS
might never see.

[man 2] Look at the homes.

Look at the yachts.

Look at the cars.

Look at the jewelry sales.

And I think you'll find that
Scarf ace is not a myth at all.

The old days when Jesse James
would rob a bank in Oklahoma,

he'd get on his horse
and ride to Kansas

and stay there for eight years.
But not here.

Here, somebody made a score,
get a Rolex,

buy a Ferrari,
build a big house.

I had a house,
and it must have been worth

half a million dollars
back then.

[Mooney] The property
was very beautiful.

[Roberts]
I think I had ten acres.

[Mooney] Automatic gates.

Five acres was unbuilt on,

the other five
was where the house was.

One side a guest house,
one side a maid's quarters.

We put in a huge waterfall.

And then I found
the security guy,

and he came out
and he decided to put cameras.

Little birdhouses
with cameras

on every inch
of the property.

And then he said, "Well,
we can even go a step further."

In each corner of the house,
I had tear gas launchers.

There were holes in the house
and you could shoot.

It would shoot out
into the cars

from each corner of the house.

And I had like a remote control.

You pushed a button
and all the powder

goes all over the whole yard.

And I remember when we
tested the first one,

it sent up a cloud.
It looked like Hiroshima.

All my dogs and cats
were sick for like a day,

and it worked.

[man] Real estate
is an increasingly

popular way to hide money.

Launderers pay cash and
don't argue about the price.

I started buying property
all over the place.

I bought property
in Lion Country Safari,

Wellington,
Delray Beach.

[Burstyn] Tens of thousands
of properties

purchased by drug dealers.

[Munday] A couple of houses.

[Roberts]
We bought a boat company.

[Munday] Property where
the boat shop was at.

[Roberts] We bought apartments.

[Munday] Lots of warehouse space.

[Roberts] We bought 480
acres of land up in Tampa.

[Munday]
A great deal of real estate.

[Kimball] If you were to go and buy
a million dollars worth of land

in some remote
county in Florida,

nobody at Internal Revenue
would receive any report

that you made this transaction.

[Roberts]
We bought one other building

so we could make it
a radio room.

[Burstyn] Drug dealers would
come in and buy 8, 10, 15 houses.

[Munday] In one place
in South Miami,

I owned practically
the whole neighborhood.

I had $24 million
in real estate.

Not only are millions of
Americans addicted to drugs,

many banks are addicted
to drug money.

Cocaine trafficking
and the money, the money,

almost ruined any morality
in this community.

[man] When you're dealing with

hundreds of millions of dollars,

it's hard to keep
the government from noticing.

So drug profiteers
need to find a way

to turn their dirty money into clean,

non-traceable dollars.

It's called money laundering.

There are various estimates
about the amount of money

being laundered
through Florida.

And right now we could say
there's probably

over $20 billion being
utilized in the Florida banks

as illegal drug money.

Have you ever seen a city
with so many banks?

Are you going to tell me
there's that kind of industry

and business in this city?

Please, come on.

[man] Banks popped up
almost overnight,

along the stretch of road
named the Brickell Avenue.

Drug traffickers
in the Miami area

try to set up their own banks.

[man 1] You usually need
a cooperative bank officer

willing to take a bribe.

[man 2] South East First National,
biggest in the state.

A number of branch employees
are suspected

of taking bribes
to help drug dealers.

[man 3] In South Florida
it was no problem,

because bankers
were a dime a dozen.

Bank presidents were in rooms
for days counting currency.

[man 4] --six and yeah,
this makes a thousand, right?

And taking a bit off the top.

We created the market
of banks charging 5%

to convert cash into deposits.

I don't believe
that has ever happened

anywhere in this country before,
and probably nowhere on earth.

[man] According to charges filed
by the U.S. Attorney's Office,

the gang deposited $70 million

in the Landmark
First National Bank.

Landmark Bank employee
Delores Aaron

is accused of helping
the drug dealers

hide the money
in special accounts.

Two other bank employees

were implicated in the scheme.

Of the $70 million
allegedly put into the bank,

only $6,000 has been
recovered by the government.

Agents say this is a big case,

but they also say it is just
a drop in the bucket

when compared to all the other
drug money schemes

they suspect are underway
in South Florida.

Miami has become the Wall
Street of the cocaine trade.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Miami

had a cash excess of $4.5 billion,

and literally
no place to store it.

It had to be distributed
to other banks

across the country.

Cash is still being
shipped out weekly.

The surplus cash in the
Miami area constitutes

half of all the cash,
surplus cash,

in the entire country.

[man] Even the law itself
has been compromised

by the incredible profits.

Everybody had a price.

[man] You can't have major
operations like this

without the corruption of police.

[Roberts] I happen to notice
this lieutenant

that worked in North Bay Village.

I approached him one day
and I said,

"Listen, I want
to unload some boats

behind the North Bay Village
Police Department.

Do you think we've got
any problem doing that?"

And he was wide open
to the idea.

He even went to the point
where he said,

"I'll tell you what,
we'll have two patrol cars

and we'll throw it in the back
of the patrol cars

and drive it
wherever you want."

And he got two or three guys
in the police department.

They put up
crime scene tapes,

and we'd have trucks
backed up to the water,

and then they'd
throw the shit in.

"See you later, man."
And they just waved good-bye.

[woman] Two North Bay Village
sergeants and a corporal,

Officer of the Year
Sergeant William Risk,

Sergeant Fernando Ganden, and
Corporal George Stephaloras,

face drug conspiracy charges.

[Buchanan] Some policemen
with their red Porsches

would crash
in a one car accident

and they'd be found to have
cocaine in their systems.

Early this morning,
a Miami officer was involved

in a high-speed chase.

When the Metro car tried
to stop the vehicle,

the Porsche accelerated
and outran it.

The Porsche was traveling
at least 100 mph.

The driver then got
out of the car and told police

that he too was a police officer
with the City of Miami.

Police found $1,180
in $20 bills under his seat.

The department's
internal security

will undoubtedly be
looking into

why this officer was running
from other police,

and what he was doing with
all that money in the car.

And indeed, there are
probably countless more

police officers
that didn't get caught.

The entire criminal
justice system

was riddled with bribery.

There is now
no bigger business in Miami

than the drug business,

bringing with it
international intrigue,

uncontrolled violence,
corruption,

and what appears to be
a breakdown in law enforcement.

[Burstyn] When you couple
police corruption

to corruption of lawyers
and corruption of judges,

you have no law.

My first real exposure to,
I guess, the drug world.

Within months of
getting in homicide,

I realized that
about a dozen of my peers

in the homicide bureau

are under investigation
by the FBI.

The FBI says it has
prosecutable evidence

that members of the
Dade County Homicide Squad

are partners
with the dope dealers.

When I arrived in homicide,

it was the tail end
of the cocaine cops.

This was a group
of homicide detectives

who had been involved with
a human narcotics distributor

by the name of Mario Escandar.

Seven Dade County homicide
detectives have been

subpoenaed today
by a Federal Grand Jury--

For the homicide bureau
itself it was just devastating.

I mean, all of a sudden,
your entire top level of

experienced personnel
are going to jail.

The cocaine cops raises
a number of chilling questions

about Dade County
law enforcement.

These folks who got indicted

were the most experienced
homicide investigators.

So all of a sudden,

we became the senior
detectives in the bureau,

and that is what you call
real on-the-job training.

I met Al Singleton
when I came up to homicide.

Singleton always wrote about

the rest
of the detectives there,

and he was in a squad.

They had a special squad
for a short period of time,

called the Specialized
Homicide Investigation Team.

A S.H.l.T. squad. it was a special
homicide investigative team.

It was assigned to work
these Latin drug cases.

Crime changed.

There were a lot of dead bodies
that were young Hispanic,

young Latinos--

And then what really
said to me that we were

in a different time,
was Dadeland.

[man 1] The first public shot
in the cocaine wars.

[man 2] July of 1979
at Miami's busy

Dadeland Mall
shopping center.

[Buchanan] It was like high noon

in the busiest shopping
center in Dade County.

[man 2] At 2:30 in the afternoon--

[Davis] And here's this big truck,
party time truck. It pulls in.

Nobody would pay
any attention to that.

These fellows get out.
They go into a liquor store.

The next thing you know,
there's a bit shootout going on.

[man] Several Colombian assassins
fired machine guns

and other weapons
into a liquor store,

killing narcotics dealer
Herman Jimenez

and his bodyguard.

Also wounded were the store
clerk and a stock boy.

[Buchanan] The assistant
medical examiner came.

I asked him how many times

the chief target had been shot,
and he said,

"I stopped counting.
He's like Swiss cheese."

[woman] The gunmen
fled the liquor store,

still firing at cars
and shoppers.

[man 1] And they sprayed the entire
parking lot of that mall.

[man 2] They said, "Someone
out there has got a shotgun

and they're shooting."

You could hear shots
like popguns.

[man 3] And then they flee and
they leave this truck behind.

[Singleton] A secondary scene,
which is where I was assigned to,

is what has become
known as the war wagon.

[man] The war wagon left behind

by the machine gun
wielding killers.

This truck is a floating armory.

[woman] Police found the van
fully equipped with guns,

bullet proof vests
and ammunition.

[man] Metro police
don't have a vehicle

equipped like this one.

[woman] The van was marked "Happy
Time Complete Party Supply".

Officers say
the name of the firm

and the phone number
are fictitious.

When I saw the war wagon,

when I saw the amount
of weapons that were there,

when I saw the amount
of preparation,

that said to me
we were in a different game.

[man] Detectives say the war
started on April 23rd,

a gun battle broke out between
the occupants of two cars,

racing around south Dade.

Two cars are shooting it out,

and then the police
cars gets involved

and they start shooting at
the police car. The car crashes.

These people, before they
got here a few weeks ago,

were probably riding horses
in the mountains of Colombia

shooting at each other.
And now they were

in these expensive new cars
shooting it out on the turnpike.

[man 1] The Black Audi pictured here
was owned by German Panesso.

Inside the trunk, police found
the body of Amy Suskin,

another top figure
in a Colombian drug family.

Police say Suskin
was killed in retaliation

for the murder
of Panesso's maid.

Metro police say
the war is still on.

[man 2] Every day in 1980,
police say

has become just another day
in Dade's city.

The rate of killing here is
accelerating

faster than
any other area in the nation.

The efficient work
of a gang the police

called the Cocaine Cowboys.

[Munday] --as they call them
The Cocaine Cowboys--

[man 1] For some reason,
American society

has always had this fascination
with the free-wheeling,

high-sticking,
gun-toting outlaw.

The cocaine cowboys are as
romantic as they are deadly.

[man 2] Cocaine has always been,
always been a violent business.

[man 3] The rip-offs are becoming
part of their job hazard so to speak.

If someone steals
50 pounds of marijuana,

that's a $10,000 deal.

But when someone doesn't
pay for 20 kilos of cocaine

at $50,000 a kilo,

you're talking about
$1 million deal.

[man] They will hesitate
at nothing to fire on people

if even suspect they were
gonna try to rip them off.

They were so many
shootouts in Miami.

Numerous machine guns
are on the highways,

the turnpike, US1,
residential streets.

[man] In broad daylight

on Dade County's crowded
Palmetto Expressway,

a suspected drug dealer
has just been shot

by machine gun
wielding assassins.

This looks like
one of those scenes

you might see in Vietnam,
you know.

[Potter]
Unlike other crime groups,

the Colombians
will shoot family members,

and will fire
into crowded places.

Poor people that were
standing there and kids,

anybody would just
get chopped up.

[Buchanan] They just would kill
everybody in sight.

[Potter] Beleaguered South Florida

law enforcers said
that Colombian assassins

don't seem to care if there
are innocent victims,

as they bring to Miami
a type of violence

it has never seen before.

Near the Miami stadium,

a 3-year-old boy
was shot and paralyzed

when assassins
killed his father.

A 14-year-old girl
was murdered.

At high noon,
a Colombian cocaine dealer

was shot in a crowded
pizza parlor

after the killers
ordered lunch.

When they found a young
Hispanic person dead

the police
automatically assumed

it was cocaine related.

Sometimes you'd read
in the paper,

wow, you know,
like I know this guy.

You know, he's like
got murdered

or he got arrested for it.

[man 1] More and more
Colombian traffickers

bring their incredible
brand of violence here.

We have had kidnappings

and machine gun murders
in broad daylight.

[man 2] It was just unbelievable.

You hear the shots,

but they miss him,
and they got this one.

[man 3] All of a sudden, I heard
a number of shots about 10 or 12.

And I was just out
walking my dogs.

And all of a sudden I heard
all this shooting going on.

The shots woke me up.

And I heard the bullets
over my head,

and I hit the ground.

That's the kind of stuff
you see on television.

You don't see it
in real life.

[man] Four shots
in broad daylight

in full view of several
stunned witnesses.

But this was real life.
That was really going on.

[Buchanan] At the Doral,
the beach police

had an undercover
drug buy going on.

Five people were shot,
including their own informant.

They shot their own
informant by mistake.

Gunfire, wounded bodies,
people screaming

and the people at the Doral
did not panic.

A lot of them thought they were
just filming Miami Vice.

[man] Police usually have no idea
who the Colombians are.

They all had
half a dozen identities.

The criminals use an astounding
number of false IDs and aliases.

And a lot of these
Colombians claim to be

from Puerto Rico,
but they couldn't spell it.

[man] invariably they are here
with phony ID,

frequently posing
as Puerto Ricans.

Sometimes detectives can't
even identify the victims.

Traditionally,
the homicide investigators'

hardest case to solve
is the "who done it."

In Miami we had,
"who is it?"

It's very hard to find out
who killed somebody

if you don't know
who got killed.

Of course, if you
happen to be illegal

coming in across the border,

fingerprints don't help you much
because there's no records.

[man] Police also have
a hard time enticing

witnesses and informants
to work with them.

I don't have any idea
what's happened.

They may not be able to say
very much in English

but they'll know how to say,
"I want an attorney"

or "I don't know."

We're dealing with crimes
which have

international repercussions
and for which

the men that work
at local police department

in the United States
are not trained to deal.

[man] Four bodies left
in the trunk of a Chevrolet.

One of the victims was an
informant for the DEA.

All of the victims
had been tortured.

[Buchanan] People that say Miami
was on the ragged edge of anarchy

were probably right.

And I know that in many ways
I contributed to it.

Many people would have
been a lot happier

if Arthur McDuffie had
remained a traffic statistic.

[man] He was a black insurance man
named Arthur McDuffie.

And he died
after an altercation

with Metro Dade Police.

The officers involved

were charged with
a cover up of the incident

only to be found...

[woman] Not guilty.

So say we all--

[man 1] What happened
after that is history.

Three days of riots,
18 people dead.

[man 2] We are human beings,

and we want to be treated
like human beings.

And then came
the Mariel boatlift.

[man] The trauma
of the Mariel boatlift

is one of the most dramatic
influxes of immigrants

in such a short period of time

in one place
in American history.

The first boat arrived
on April 21st, 1980.

The Carter administration
met the crisis with confusion.

[woman] On May 5, shortly after
President Carter's

"open arms, open heart"
statement,

71 Cuban-Americans obtained
a U.S. customs clearance

for the freighter Red Diamond
to sail to Mariel, Cuba.

[man 1] The Carter administration
said the Cubans were welcomed,

that we might be able
to handle 3,500 of them.

The result was, they came
unhindered, night and day.

[man 2] They are called
Marielitos.

As they left Cuba,

Castro called them "escoria,"
which means "scum."

[man 3] Fidel Castro himself
publicly stated,

"I have flushed the toilets
of Cuba on the United States."

He bragged about it.

[man 4] With one full swoop,
Castro rid Cuba

of thousands and thousands
of undesirables.

[Buchanan] For all of the decent,
hardworking refugees

who came here
to make new lives,

there were also the deadliest,
most ruthless criminals

that have ever been unleashed
on any country in the world.

[man] There are among those
people murderers, rapists,

child molesters,
dangerous individuals.

We first noticed it
with their shoes.

The kind issued
by Cuban prisons.

There was a prison
on the Isle of Pines

that had 2,000
hardcore prisoners.

One week later, there were
only about 20 prisoners

left in that prison.

What about the rest?

They were walking
on the streets of Miami.

[Buchanan] Wouldn't it
be nice if we could take

everybody off death row,

everybody in prisons and jails

and mental institutions
for the criminally insane

and send them all
off to some nice place

where they'll be welcomed
by some unsuspecting community?

[man] Castro put a good one
over on us.

There are a lot of criminals
who came over

in the Mariel boatlift.

I have never seen people
like that in my life in Cuba.

They do not
respect anything.

They do not respect
law and order,

they do not
respect kindness.

You know, they were public
enemy number one in Cuba.

Guys who were violent criminals
under a communist regime

in which it was not easy
to be criminal,

when they came here then
they became super criminals.

[man] They have been described

by the Director of the
Federal Bureau of Prisons

as among the most
dangerous criminals

he's ever dealt with in his
23 years in corrections.

We're dealing with
a serious problem here.

And consequently our homicide
rate doubled that year.

I knew we were
in deep trouble.

[man] When the refugees
were pouring in,

the crime rate shot up 89%.

[Buchanan] The crime rate soared,
women were being snatched

off the street,
raped and murdered.

[man 1] In 1978, the city
had 15 reported rapes.

But in the first
seven months of this year,

the figure has reached 59.

90% of the persons arrested
in those cases were refugees.

[man 2] Murder remains
the number one cause of death

among Mariel refugees.

It amounts to roughly
about 48% of our homicides.

[Buchanan] People were being
gunned down in bars

just to see
who is more macho.

Two men argued over
a lawnmower repair job

and in the classic Wild West
Matt Dillon tradition,

one man challenged
the other to a gun draw.

Cars were careening
through the streets

looking for the hospital
because they had

two or three wounded people
in the backseat.

[man] Mrs. Louise Thompson
lost her 17-year-old son Michael

as he refused
to give a stranger

the end of his cigarette.

In return, he got shot
with a .357 Magnum.

And they would
see a car they liked,

and they'd kill whoever
was in it and take the car.

[man 1] The man who rammed
several metro police cars

yesterday injuring
one officer before he died

was identified today
as a recent Cuban refugee

from the Mariel sealift.

[man 2] Many of the Mariels
who left Cuban jails

worshiped the African idol Xango.

They feel Xango rescued them
from Castro's prisons.

And others still relying
on pagan rituals

called Santeria before they
commit their crimes.

Buying potions in shops
called Botanicas,

potions they believe
will protect them from police

and make them
invulnerable to bullets.

[Buchanan]The police didn't know
about Santeria.

They would go to a house
on some routine call

and they find a cauldron

with human leg bones sticking
out of it and human skulls.

Even the dead
aren't safe in Miami.

[man] It's now a community
is straining to cope

with the influx of more than
100,000 Cuban refugees.

We don't have resources
for the refugees right now.

We definitely have no monies
for regional social services.

We don't have
any resources.

And there was not a single soul
at the federal level

or in the judicial level
who appreciates the fact

that the system
we have in this country

is set up
for human beings,

not for people who are not even
members of the human race.

[man] So the Freedom boatlift
is ending in controversy.

There are those that say

it's been a needless burden
on our country

and it should have been
stopped long ago.

[woman] Why should one community
in the entire country

pay for the federal
government's error in judgment?

The state of Florida
has no navy, no air force,

no immigration service,
no customs unit, no radar,

no CIA, no foreign service to
deal with foreign countries.

The state has no way
to prevent such new arrivals

nor a way of returning them
from whence they came.

Jimmy Carter has six more
weeks to serve as president.

He has been big
on human rights.

To protect the human rights
of the people of Miami,

he still has time to arrange
an exodus back to Cuba

for these undesirable Cubans.

Airlift them to our
naval base at Guantanamo,

open the gate,
and let these Cubans

be returned to their sender.

Good night.
May the good news be yours.

We have narcotics
related homicide,

then we have
Mariel related homicide,

and then we have
these riots.

That just created
the perfect storm

for a homicide investigator.

Dade County
has suddenly become

the murder capital
of the United States.

Dade County, Florida,
has recorded

more than 560 homicides in 1980.

[Davis] In no time at all,
we had bodies on the floor,

we had them stacked up.
It was a disgrace.

Well, it's pretty bad. In fact, it's
probably the worst I've ever seen.

We rented a refrigerated truck.

They had rented this
refrigerated trailer truck

from Burger King
for the overflow of bodies.

It already had 27 bodies in it
that had come in that day.

[man] South Floridians
are now buying guns

and owning more guns
than ever before.

[Burstyn] We had huge expansion
of gun ranges.

For a relatively small community,
we had 60 or 70 gun ranges.

I certainly never traveled anywhere
in Dade County without being armed.

There's no question
about that.

I always had a gun.

I wouldn't sleep well
without one.

I've had a couple of the Dade County
circuit judges attend my course.

One of the judges wanted
the firearm under the bench.

Civilians are killing as many

suspected criminals
as the police are.

[man] Citizens have killed 30 of the 43
felons killed in the act of a crime.

For South Florida a spiraling trend
called "justifiable homicide."

- Move or stay and fight. Is that it?
- Basically right.

Violence is being
answered with violence.

[man] From the housewife to the
businessman, cocaine cowboy,

and even the attendant
on the corner pumping gas,

we are all living
in an armed camp.

It was really dangerous
to be on the street.

I wouldn't go out by myself
at night if you paid me.

[man] ls the public adequately
protected right now?

No. I mean, that's obvious.
We cannot control crime.

How many good old
fashioned who-done-its

have you solved this year?

Probably not more than four.

We've had had no success
whatsoever to date

closing a Columbian murder.

We are totally overwhelmed,
outmanned, outgunned, out-financed.

And it's just shoveling
sand against the tide.

Dade County is losing.
Miami is losing.

Right now, no question, hands down,
they are definitely winning the war.

[woman] We're losing the battle.

I mean, we're just
flat out losing.

[man] There was an article that
appeared in Time Magazine,

"Paradise Lost," about Miami.

It recites the problems
that plague South Florida.

Crime, drugs, refugees.

[Singleton]
The Paradise Lost Time cover

seemed to kind of define Miami

as the most violent city in
the nation at the time. And it was.

And as Miami got slammed
by the media, tourism dried up.

[man 1] And everybody thought
Miami is finished.

[man 2] The bottom-line has been
the scaring way

of businessmen
and investors.

[man 3] Business is bad
and as long as new stories

continue to stream
out of Miami

about crime and refugees,
it won't get any better.

With all this going on
in South Dade,

what are the police
doing about it?

I wrote up the concept paper
for CENTAC,

sometime around
December of 1980.

CENTAC stands for
Central Tactical Unit.

[man] CENTAC which combines
the efforts

of a drug enforcement
administration,

metro homicide and organized
crime bureau units.

That brought together the monies,
resources of the federal government,

of DEA and customs, with the
knowledge of local law enforcement

and state agencies.

There is a publication
from DEA

that brings CENTAC
back to "The Untouchables."

"The Untouchables" was
a CENTAC of its time.

That kind of aura gave
the officers in CENTAC

that feeling of being elite
within an elite.

[man 1] It was the earliest
Miami police taskforce.

[man 2] Raul Diaz was the Lieutenant
in charge of CENTAC.

When the opportunity for CENTAC
came around, first I asked Al.

He was Lieutenant at the time
and I worked for him.

My relationship
with Al was special.

An outstanding
homicide investigator.

He's a cop's cop.
He's a solid cop.

And it was someone
who had no idea

what the hell was going
out there in narcotics.

[Singleton] He became my mentor.

Best way to describe Raul
is very innovative investigator.

I'll let it go with that.

[Buchanan] He felt
the pulse beat of the streets.

He knew what was going on.

His strength was knowing people
and dealing with informants.

[Diaz] We would talk to them in
a language that they understood.

"You come here
and you do these things,

we're going to arrest you,
or we're going to kill you,

or we're going to make
your life a living hell...

unless you talk to us
and cooperate."

It's all in the delivery,
if you will.

And not the physical delivery,
verbal delivery.

They were among the
busiest people in Dade County.

Al Singleton
and the CENTAC team.

[woman] The purpose of CENTAC

is to solve drug related
homicides involving Latins.

[Diaz] The goal
of CENTAC 26 was to

get rid...

of those people who were actually
participating in the homicides

and those who were
ordering these murders.

The top people... Most of the people
responsible, we never get.

[Diaz] We came up with a list
of about 20 people.

And what we did was
target these 20 people.

This place had no lack
of Latin career criminals.

Our number one person
was Amilcar Rodriguez.

And the reason for that was
because he was a suspect

in about 20 homicides. And in three
days, we had our number one target.

[man] Their biggest catch so far
is Rafael Leon Rodriguez,

known as Amilcar.

He is an alleged cocaine distributor
for five Colombian families.

Amilcar is charged with
a double murder in Dade County,

and is accused of trying
to kill police on two occasions.

The arrest of Amilcar
was essentially based upon

informant information that Raul Diaz
had prior to the homicide.

We found out that he was
known by several names.

As we started showing his
photographs to people in the street,

we came up with something
like 14 or 15 aliases.

This man had a MAC-10, MAC-11,

a Smith and Wesson model 59.
This guy had 148 rounds.

[man] The Columbian assassins are
partial to the MAC-10 machine gun.

The MAC-10 fires in bursts
of 16 bullets a second.

[Kaye] They all have guns.
They all carry guns:

automatic pistols, 14 shot clip.

My homicide detectives had
72 rounds among all 12 of them.

[man] And here you're expecting the
policeman to go in and do his job

and he's carrying
a shot revolver.

It was decided that since we were
going to be facing these folks,

that homicide should be allowed
to carry semiautomatics.

Horse shit.
We'll take it one step beyond.

Let's get authorized
for machine guns.

So CENTAC, when we went
operational, we had machine guns.

[man] I was born in Cali, Colombia,
July 5, 1957.

I arrived in the United States,
you know, July 5, 1969.

I was known as a car thief.

One of the biggest car thieves
in Chicago and then,

after the 80s', I was known to be
an assassin for the Cartel.

I went to Chicago
to live with my father.

He worked for
General Motors.

I went to a Catholic school,
where I learned English at.

I was a mechanic, with my dad.

That's where I learned
how to break into cars.

I just started
with a group of guys

and we started stealing cars,
selling them to chop shops.

Between $200
and $500 a car.

We used to steal five, six, a night.
It was three of us.

So we were making good money.
Better than working for my dad.

We were in the restaurant
eating breakfast,

and three Colombians came in.

One was Cruz Gonzalez,
and he asked, "Who was favorita?"

We asked him why.
What he was looking for.

He said, "I'm looking
for the guy who stole my car."

So I just told him, I said, "I'm that
guy you're looking for. I'm Rivi."

He says, "You stole my car,
and I want my car back."

I said, "You can't have it back
unless you gave me $500,

because it belongs to me now."
He started laughing.

And he said, "You got some balls,
you know that?"

I said, "Yeah, I heard that before."

And he asked me
if I'd ever been to Florida.

I said, "Yeah, a couple of times."

He asks me if I've been to Miami.
I said, "Yeah, with my dad."

He asks me, if I could drive
a truck for him to Florida.

I said, "Sure. Do I get paid?"
He said, "Yeah" that he would pay me

$5000 if I drive the truck.
Told him "Yeah, no problem."

He asked me if I had a driver's license,
I said, "Yeah, I got six of them."

And we drove the truck. We're driving
smoking weed all the way down.

And we stopped halfway
because I got curious

what was in the box.
It was full of boxes.

We pull over, and I opened
one of the boxes,

and it was full of guns,
used guns.

Shotguns, revolvers,
automatic pistols.

So for now, we just started
driving at speed limit.

When I got to Miami,
they paid us and he says,

"Look, I got
some things going.

Maybe you guys could,
you know, work for me

and make some more
money in Miami.

If you could stay at Miami."
I told him, "Doing what?"

He said, "Just delivering dope
and picking up money.

Maybe once in a while
push somebody around."

We decided to stay
for a couple of weeks.

So when he told me just to
watch one of his stash houses,

that was the first time
we were working with people

that were in the drug business.
But later on they were pussy cats.

After we learned our own... the trade
and we learned how to use guns

and we met different people,
they were nobody.

They were pussy cats, boy scouts.

Cruz had an ex-military,
an old man.

As soon as I met him,
I liked the guy.

And he started telling me he was
in the military for so many years

and he was a demolition expert.

So I started asking him a lot of
questions about explosives,

and automatic weapons.

So I went into the next room
and got one. it was a MAC-10.

I said I want to know
how to take it apart, clean it.

We started going to the Everglades,
shooting our machine guns.

I learned.
I got pretty good at all this.

From the first day
I had a MAC-11 in my hand,

I knew that was my favorite
choice of weapon.

Then he says, "You want to learn
how to use explosives?"

I said, "Yeah."
He said, "You got good nerves?"

I said, "Pretty steady."

He says, "We have some dynamite
coming from Texas in a few days,

I'm gonna teach you
how to make bombs."

The next day the dynamite
arrived with the detonators.

He took four sticks of
dynamite and detonators.

He started just going through it,

you know, basically
showing me how to do it.

About two hours later,
he says, "Can you build one?"

I said, "I think so."
So I did.

I said, "The only thing that it needs
is just to plug it to the battery

and to the timer."

He said, "Can you do that?"

You know, I mean,
my kids are sleeping.

In the next room, my wife.
And he went, "Just try me."

I said, "Sure, how much time
do you want out of it?"

He said, "About 30 seconds.
Go ahead."

And I did.
We let the clock run.

He was sitting in front of me.

About 10 seconds went by, 15...

He says, "You know in another
10 seconds it's gonna go off."

I said, "I know.
Do you want me to shut it off,

or you want to shut it off?

So he smiled,
and he put a plug on it.

Then he says,
"You're good at it.

Just make sure
that when you're doing it,

don't be on drugs, don't drink
because you'll blow your kids up."

A couple weeks went by and we
were in a night club, in Miami.

Flaco came in.

He says, "Look, you know,
we need to get out of here,

because there's going
to be a hit here.

You need to get you people out.
Those people on your right...

And six Colombians laughing
and drinking fire water.

You want to spray that table.
The whole table.

And I said, "All right, I appreciate
it. I said "Let me get my guys."

I went back to bathroom,

and I told him,
I said, "We got to go.

There's going to be a shootout here."
He says, "Just give me a minute."

I walked out.
Well, during that time,

Venegas had stopped
at the same table, by accident,

and told the guys to leave

because there was
gonna be a shootout.

So he screwed up the hit.
It was just an accident.

I found out he knew
one of the guys at the table,

so he was just looking out
for his friend,

told him to leave because it was
going to be a shooting.

I was outside.
Venegas came out.

Behind Venegas
everybody is coming.

They started pushing each other out.

Flaco came on his motorcycle.
He was really pissed off.

He said, "You guys
fucked everything up.

I should have
never told you nothing."

I said, "Yeah, we did it, man,
you know, it was an accident."

He says,
"Well, you're in trouble, man,

you know you're in trouble
with my boss.

The boss wants to meet you."
I said, "No problem."

So we get in the car,
we got on I-95...

And on the way,
I'm telling him, I said,

"These people
aren't gonna kill me, are they?

He says, "I don't know,
I don't make no guarantees, man."

We have fucked
something up here.

I mean, they talk about
killing six people.

So you know
there ain't no pussies here.

So we drove to a Holiday Inn
on I-95, in Miami.

I looked, and four guys
got out of a car.

I Said, "Oh, is that them?"

He said, "That's them,
that's part of them.

That's more to your left."

And I look,
and there was four other guys

on the other side,
getting off the car.

I approached
the older guy who was there.

He says, "Are you Rivi?"
I said, "Yes, I am."

He says, "Come with me."

I got on back of a car,
and in the backseat there was a lady.

And she asked me.
She said,

"You the one who fucked up
the hit last night?"

And I said, "In a way I did."

And she told me, "I'd been after
these people for months,

and this is only the first time
that we got sight on them."

And that I had fucked it up.

She says,
"Well, I'll tell you what.

You find them
and we call it even.

I'm interested
in the two brothers.

The other four
we were just gonna hit

because they were sitting
at the table."

I said, "You were gonna kill
four other people just to kill two?"

She said,
"That's the way I do my things:

Get everybody out of the way."

I said, "Wouldn't it be easier
just to kill two?"

She said, "No, it would have
been easier to kill all six of them.

Spray the whole table instead
of walking up to one a piece."

That surprised me, you know.

I mean she's talking
to murder like...

So I told her, I said,
"Just give me a week,

I'll find these people."

So when we got back
to the hotel,

I told the guys what happened,
and Venegas was there.

And I said, "What happened?"
I said, "Look,

we're in deep shit
with this lady.

If we don't find this people,
we're gonna have to haul ass.

Because they're gonna come after,
they told me in so many words."

He said, "He's a friend of mine,
I know him."

I said, "You know him? So you can
get a hold him?" He said, "Yeah."

I said, "if you can get
a hold of him,

then we got this under control."

He said, "Yeah,
we can get hold of them.

One, the older one."

I said, "That's what we need, one.

To hell with the other one."

I said "Do this.
Let's go to a pay phone

and beep him,
and set up a meeting for tonight.

And we're gonna kidnap his ass

And we're gonna turn it over
to this other people."

He beeped and the guy answered.

He set up a meeting
at the Ramada Inn back parking lot.

He told him that we had some guns
and some explosives for sale.

Sure enough the guy came in.

By 8 o'clock, it was already dark.

He's talking,
laughing with Venegas.

I'm behind a tree.
And Venegas opened the trunk,

I came out behind the tree,
I put a gun in his ribs,

"I've been looking for you."

So the guy says,
"I owe you nothing."

I said, "No, you don't.
Someone else needs you.

There's a lady looking for you.

Her name is Griselda Blanco."
He turned white.

He said, "You want me to meet
her in couple of hours?"

He started shaking.

So about an hour later, they arrived.
They took him.

The next day I'm at home.
It's 4 o'clock in the afternoon.

She comes to my house.
My wife was frying fish,

so she just knocks and comes in
like she owns the house.

She says I love fish, so I told
my wife to fry her fish.

She's eating, telling me
how they killed this guy

and chopped him
up into little pieces

while we were having dinner.

I said, "What are you talking about?
You shot this guy?"

She said, "Yeah, I shot him.

And then Tulio and Cubamba
cut him up

and put him in a small box,

and wrapped him up like a gift
with a little bow on top,

and we left it a couple blocks
from here, on the Turnpike."

I said,
"In my neighborhood?"

She said, "Yeah, we were heading
south to come and visit you,

so we figured it was
a good spot to drop him off.

We dropped him off
in Turnpike."

I said,
"You guys usually do that?"

She said, "Yeah."
She likes it.

She likes us to cut people up
and just throw them like that.

[man] CENTAC is also hoping
to untangle

the drug organizations
of Griselda Blanco,

a flamboyant woman nicknamed
by the Colombian newspapers

La Madrifia or Godmother.

[Singleton] Well, we can't say for
sure exactly when she was in Miami.

Probably '78.
We didn't know where, obviously,

because she was a fugitive.

And we knew
she was a multi-kilo dealer.

[Ayala]
She was the biggest back then.

She was Godmother
of the cocaine trade.

Bloody, dramatic,
took no prisoners.

[man] She is suspected
of up to 15 murders

and now is in hiding.

[Singleton] 1979, '80, '81
and '82, those were the years

where she did her killing
in Dade County.

[Diaz] In the very, very
Latino culture,

it's not usual

that a woman would be the head
of her own organization.

So I figured that she had
to have been one mean lady.

She's considered
a very dangerous woman.

She will pull the trigger herself
if given the chance.

[man] Police say Griselda Blanco

began years ago
as a bank robber,

then entered
the drug trade working

and killing
her way to the top.

The role of Griselda Blanco
became very, very prominent

in what we were calling
the cocaine wars.

[Singleton] The first homicide
of note that she was involved with

was Dadeland,
which of course was July of 1979.

Police believed the Dadeland
shootout was simply payback

for another incident,
here on the Florida Turnpike.

The infamous highway shooting

where people
were going down the highway

shooting at each other,
those two killings are linked.

Three months before Dadeland,

two carloads
of Colombian traffickers

got into a high speed
machine gun shootout here.

When police finally stopped
one of the two cars,

they looked in the truck
and found a body,

handcuffed and strangled
to death.

Police believe the victim,
Jaime Susco,

was ordered killed
by German Jimenez,

the man who died at Dadeland.

[man 1] There are many people
who paid the price

because they fell out of favor
with Griselda Blanco.

There was an infamous case
linked to her.

[man 2] Police suspect
in November 1980

during morning rush hour traffic,
near a Miami airport hotel,

the Godmother's assassins
killed a woman

named Graciela Gomez.

Graciela Gomez ran afoul
of the Godmother.

Not a good thing to do.

Grizelda was jealous of her, because
she was an attractive young female.

[man] informants say Gomez
had stolen some cocaine,

and had a romantic fling
with the Godmother's lover--

[Singleton] --It might
have been something with--

Both fatal mistakes.

She was in a Corvette,
northbound on Red road.

Stopped at a red light.
Griselda's hitman, Cubamba,

and this guy named Zapata,
they were following her.

And she knew they were following her.
She recognized them.

[man] As Gomez drove in her Corvette,

shots were fired
from a passing car.

The shots missed.

[Singleton] She got afraid,
and she jumped out of her vehicle,

went to a vehicle
stopped in traffic

in front of her, pleading for help.

This couple, man and wife,

allowed her to get
in the backseat of the vehicle,

not knowing what was going on.

[man] As the astonished couple
watched in horror,

the assassin walked up
to their passenger window,

pushed them aside

and fired point blank
into the backseat.

Shot through the window,
killing Graciela

in the backseat of this couple's car.

[Potter] Then they walked
back to their car.

They didn't run
back to their car.

Witnesses said they walked
back to their car.

[man] The couple meantime
scrambled from the car

to escape physical harm.

But there was
an emotional toll.

[Hawkins] The wife felt the gun
to the back of her head.

She came very close to death.

That's not the kind of thing
that you expect

at 7:30 in the morning
to have to deal with.

I recall that the wife

just never could really
get over it.

I think they even relocated

and moved out of Miami
as a result of that.

It just showed how brazen
these assassins were,

and the traffickers
were in Miami.

They thought they could do
anything in the town.

And in many cases they did.

[man] The search
for the assailants continues.

It is hoped fingerprints
and eyewitness accounts

will lead to the two men.

And they were like brazen,
ha ha, you can't catch me.

It works in a way
like the Wild West.

I guess that's why they call
them Cocaine Cowboys.

[man] Bob Kaye, Dade County's
chief prosecutor for homicide,

has his own definition
for a cocaine cowboy.

"He is a Colombian,"
Kaye says,

"usually an illegal alien
who is in South Florida

either to smuggle drugs
or to settle a score."

Police believe
all of these people

are in and out
of Miami regularly.

I represented
quite a bit of them.

They used to come in to my office,

like they used to drive like
a caravan of Mercedes Benz.

You know, people with guns...
You know, you wonder...

They were like, like rolling
probable cause on the street.

There was a rogue cast of
characters involved with Griselda.

- She had an army with her.
- She had Paco.

[Singleton] Paco Sepulveda.

- Diego Sepulveda.
- [Ayala] Toto.

[Singleton] Carlos Venegas.
Alonso Ayala.

- [Ayala] Hugo.
- [Singleton] Guillermo Velazquez.

- [Ayala] Cubamba.
- [Singleton] Manteco.

- Diego Escobar. Oscar Mario.
- [Ayala] Jaime Bravo.

They would do
whatever they were told to do

but they were
mainly enforcerslhitmen.

Basically, security.

Riverito... He became Griselda's
most favorite enforcer.

She had enemies.
Some who owe her money,

some who had kidnapped
her kids in Colombia,

some of them have
flipped on her, ripped her off.

She don't forget or forgive.
She will get you.

Sooner or later,
she came after you.

The list was specific...

the people that she wanted
to get killed. All hits.

You know,
it's a very long list,

and it had a price
for each person.

Oscar Piedrahita
used to work for Griselda.

He used to be in charge
all the exportation for her.

But one time came
that he kidnapped

one of her kids,
Oswaldo, in Colombia.

And he demanded $5 million, cash,
for returning her son.

I think she gave him
$1 million dollars,

and he released the kid.

Well, he disappeared.
When I started working for her,

she mentioned the guy,
on the top five.

And she said,
"if you ever find him,

I want his ass,
I want you to kill him."

And every day I used
to read the newspaper.

And I'd read The Miami Herald

and I came to the obituaries.

There was a little article

about a kid who
had drowned in a pool.

They were having a wake
in their home on Miami Lakes

and in the bottom of the article,
it said Oscar Piedrahita,

the father,
and the address of the house.

I started thinking,
"it's too easy."

So I got in my car,
drove up, I called Griselda

and said,
"I think we need to talk."

I explained to her,
and showed her the article.

It might be him,

but I need somebody to show him
to me if he's the right guy.

She said, "I got somebody
who knows him really well."

About 5:30, 6 o'clock,
we went to the address.

She's with me.

Dario is driving,
she's on the passenger side

and I'm in the backseat.
We got three different cars.

Chicho is in one of them
with Manteco.

He's the one that's
going to point him out.

So we drive by and we see all
these people outside the door,

outside in the front lawn.

We went around the block
and I got out of the car

and I spoke to Manteco
and Oscar and Chicho.

So they ask me,
"How do you want to do this?"

I said, "it's real simple.

Everybody's crying,
everybody's hurt,

just pull up to the front
and ask for him.

When he comes out,
just hit him."

They double back
and they go and park and--

Pull up in front of the house,
and Chicho asks for him,

There was a lady.

She said, "Yeah, hold on
a second, let me get him."

He comes out
a few minutes later.

He went around to the driveway.
And when he did,

Chicho's machine gun
was out there, next to the car.

Everybody just was screaming...

And then we just went
into I-26, and went home.

Made the newspaper
front page and stuff.

[man] When assassins killed
Oscar Piedrahita,

they put more bullets
in his garage door

than they put in him.

It was sad
the way he had to die,

you know, at his son's wake.

But he chose that
when he messed with this lady.

I could have got him later,
2 or 3 days later,

but that's not
that what she wanted.

It was kind of sad, you know,
but business is business.

Miguel Perez and Nestor Garcia were
dope dealers. They were partners.

Griselda's youngest
kid, Oswaldo.

He fronted them some dope
that was $250 an ounce I believe.

They start jerking him around,

because they just thought
that he was so young.

They didn't realized
who was behind the kid,

and they jerked him around.

Finally they just told him
that they wouldn't pay him,

to go fuck himself.

He just figured,
"Well, fuck him,

you know,
he ain't gonna find me."

But he figured wrong.

Oswaldo went back to his mom
and told her. I was at her house,

when he was telling
her the story.

Griselda told me,
"Find him and kill him."

So I started questioning
Oswaldo about it.

Tell me where you met
this guy.

He says, "He told me
that he works at a drug store."

"Where?"
He said, "Somewhere in Kendall."

I said, "I get back
within a few days."

So I grab a phone book.

I start to looking through
all the drug stores in Kendall.

There's a whole bunch of them.
There's just too many of them.

I went back to him.

I said, "Do you remember anything
else about that drug store?"

He said, "Yes,
it's near a police station."

So I went to a private
investigator friend of mine.

And I asked him,
"Do you know a drug store

or a police station
that is near a shopping center?"

He says, "There's one, you know,
US-1 and 200th Street."

I said, "No, that's too far down."

He says, "There's another one

on Kendall Drive,
near the turnpike."

So I went to that one.
This is the first one I went to.

It was 107th
in Kendall Drive,

and I saw the police station was
right behind the drug store.

And it was
a Cuban drug store.

I believed I was in the right track,
so I went and got the kid.

I said, "Did you meet him near here?"

He said, "Yeah, I met him at
the Chinese restaurant right there."

I said, "That's his
drug store right there."

The next day we set up
surveillance in the drug store...

All day, with the kid
to show us him.

I was almost giving up,
that it was the wrong store.

I was just getting
in the car to leave.

I had a sniper rifle.

I was taking it apart.
And then he says,

"That's him right there."
I said "Who?"

He said, "That BMW.
That's him right there."

He pulled up in front of the
drug store with two other guys.

So he went into the drug store.

I was telling him
he had to come out.

Well, about a half
an hour later he came out.

Then he started walking,
football shorts.

It was an old Chevy Impala.

When he reached
into his shorts pocket,

and he took the key out
and he turned his back on me,

he must have been not even
five yards away from me,

where I was parked at.

I shot him in the back,
sprayed him.

I just started shooting
from the lower back

all the way up to the head.
Then I crossed him,

from left to right.
And then he dropped.

Well, nobody knows nothing, because
I was shooting with a silencer.

But Toto, this idiot,
pulls out a .45,

and puts a bullet in the guy,
but with no silencer.

I mean, we got a police station
in the background.

The police station was
right behind the drug store,

so then we picked up
a little heat there.

We made it off on Kendall Drive,
going East.

We got out of the car, put a cover
on the car. We switch cars.

[man] Approximately,
5 minutes after 3,

the victim, identified
as a Nestor Garcia

went to get in a vehicle
which was parked

in the parking lot
of a shopping center

at Kendall Drive
and 117th Avenue.

And there was a volley
of shots fired at the car.

I start to think about the
way I did it, you know.

It was just like
run a tape in my mind.

A friend of mine
came over, and he said,

"Man, it's just business."

He said,
"I know how you feel,

I felt like that too

the first time I did one
but it will go away.

The second one,
you won't feel like that."

Sol looked at him,
"Are you sure?"

He says, "Trust me,
I've done over 50."

And it stuck in my mind,
it's just business.

From there it was
just business.

[man] Nestor Garcia
was killed in Kendall.

A couple months later
they determined

who his partner was.
That was Miguel.

[Ayala] Miguel Perez heard
that Nestor got killed.

He went into more hiding,
because he knew he was next.

And the kid, he told me that if
I was gonna find the other one,

I said, "You have
to give me some help here."

He said he didn't know
where he lived.

So I only know
that he owns a boutique.

I said, "Where?"
He said, "The Omni."

Miguel had a shoe shop
in the Omni shopping mall,

in downtown Miami.

[woman] The Omni International
shopping mall...

[man] Latins have made
the plush Omni complex

their unofficial headquarter.

[Ayala] First I went
to the Omni. Everyday.

I had a description
of Miguel Perez.

Something caught
my attention in the boutique,

and I walked in there.

There were three Cubans talking.

That's what caught
my attention. The Spanish.

I went to a pay phone
and I called the kid.

I said, "Describe this
Miguel one more time."

He described him
to the teeth, you know.

I said,
"I think I found him."

He actually
located him there.

Miguel Perez
came out of the boutique,

and went towards the elevator.

So there it is. Let's go.

We got into the elevators.
He got into the elevator.

I was right behind him.

They were going to kill him
in the Omni shopping mall itself.

I was gonna do him. I was gonna
stab him with an ice pick.

I couldn't make no noise.

Even the silencer makes
noise down there.

Somebody else got
into the elevator.

It was a police officer.

So we went a couple floors up,

and he walked
into a restaurant.

When he came out,
his bodyguards were with him,

so we let him go.

He went to the parking lot.
He got in the passenger side.

The bodyguard was driving.
So we followed him up.

He got on the I-95
and then he turns into US-1.

We were right behind him.

There were three of us.
Three cars.

Finally we came to US-1
and Le Jeune Road, 42nd avenue.

The light was green.

I thought we're gonna make the light,
but I said, "Just wait.

If he gets stuck at the light,
we'll hit him here."

This is the intersection
of Le Jeune Road and US-1.

[Ayala] The problem was,
when I crossed the street,

to our right was a police car.

And we're looking,
and we had no silencers.

I had a MAC-11
and the other guy had a MAC-10.

So we said we just got
to do it without the silencer.

He had the real tinted windows,

so we all rolled down
at the same time.

We fired.

[Singleton] They essentially
machine gunned him to death,

right near a rolling
intersection.

And he died on the scene.

[Ayala] As soon as we fired,
the light changed green,

and everybody is looking.

And we just, like it was
not our business,

we just got in gear and drove
like everybody else was driving.

A couple of blocks down
we dump the car...

We jumped in another car,
and went home.

A quiet residential area
in Kendall tonight

became the scene
of a grizzly mass murder.

We received a call about
5:45 at the complaint desk.

An anonymous call
indicating that there had been

a homicide at this address.

They call it the Kendall Six.

Six people were killed
in a town house.

[man] The bodies were found inside
a newly built three bedroom

town house here
at Kings Court,

a luxury residential community
on Kendall Drive.

Four men, two women,

The original target
was Nicolado.

He was the cousin of another
guy... They called him Chino.

They got killed at a home,
in Miami Lakes, by Rafa.

And he was in a war,

trying to bang his cousin.

So they put him on the list.

He didn't do anything to Griselda,
but since her and Rafa

were so close together,
business associates,

she made it her business.

[Singleton]
It was her people who did it.

I'm convinced
that Griselda had it done.

I don't know exactly
who was present.

It turns out that when
they went to their home,

one of the guys
that lived there,

the night before,
had a little party.

And there were five
other people in the house.

There was an additional woman
and an additional three men.

But once they were in there,
there was no turning back.

In any case like that
of the Kendall Six,

the quad group or whatever,

usually you have
one intended victim.

You've got four, five people
or two or three people

that were just at the wrong
place at the wrong time.

So everybody got killed.
All six people.

I mean, the six people,
they were tortured and killed,

including like a maid.

That murder showed what police
were worried about most.

And that in going
after a target,

the assassins are willing

to take out everybody
in the room.

That happened a lot
in Colombia.

Now it was happening in Miami.

[man 1] The Medellin newspapers
knew all about the victims,

days before American law
enforcers identified them.

[man 2] We do know that
there are six victims.

Four Latin males
in their 20s and 30s,

and two Latin females
in their 20s.

The police still have not released
how the victims were killed.

The four guys got shot,

and the two women
got suffocated.

They wrapped
them up with tape,

so they suffocated.

And there was a baby
that was left alive.

There was no harm
done to the baby,

but it was taken
from the home,

not to leave him there
with the dead bodies.

I seem to recall that

it was Rivi's sister
that took care of that baby.

[woman] Detectives have
few leads to the little boy

police are identifying
only as Andres.

At this point, the priority is
attempting to find the child.

[Ayala] Well,
it made big headlines.

[Casuso] Six people dead
and a baby missing?

Yeah, that was like
front page stuff.

We are hoping that
if in fact he was abducted,

as they realize that he's
only 13 months old,

that he can't identify them,
that he can't talk--

I was contacted by someone
about the problem,

you know, the baby.

I told the person
who called me,

"if you get arrested
with this baby,

you're gonna get charged
at least, at the minimum

with kidnapping,
if not the six homicides,

because the baby was like
the only clue they have."

[Graveline] Perhaps they'll
drop him off somewhere safe,

and we'll be able to at least

get the safe return
of the child.

The next day, there was
a call from Colombia

to the Miami police department,

telling them
where to find the baby.

They found him in a mall,
sitting on a bench.

You know, that's also another
crime that's never been solved.

[Ayala] I was getting ready
to go to New York

to do some work up there.

There was two cars
in the driveway:

a station wagon
and a Corvette...

One of my Corvettes.

And I was loading
my luggage

into the station wagon
to go to the airport.

And my son got into the car,
in the station wagon,

and opened the switch and put
the lever down. And the car,

the station wagon rolled over,

and my daughter got caught
between the two cars.

Broke her pelvis and ribs
and legs and stuff, you know,

I rushed my daughter
to the hospital,

and I called Griselda
I couldn't make it to New York

because of what happened.

Well, she said,
"Don't worry about it."

"Oh, yeah", I said, "Well, you
come to the hospital

and they ask for insurance
and all that shit?"

Back then I didn't have
all the money that I wanted.

So I told Griselda.
She said, "Don't worry about it.

You work for me.

When you work for me,
this is all included."

It's just not the money,

the help that she did,

you know, I never
forget that, you know.

I just liked the lady.

I was on my way to New York,
and I got careless.

We had two machine guns,
a Mac-10, a Mac-11,

several guns with silencers.

We put everything
in one suitcase.

I did this.

And we got to the airport,

and they drop me off fine.

Chucho's wife went in with us

and Chucho was carrying
the suitcase,

but it was pretty heavy.

You could tell it was heavy.

I went up to the counter
and I spoke to the girl,

told her that we have
a reservation

for a flight to La Guardia.

She went to pick up the suitcase.
And it was so heavy,

she's like, "Oh, my God,
what's in here?"

I said, "Just clothes
and books and stuff."

So she called somebody
to get it, put it on the belt.

When the guy did,
I looked at him

and I had seen him
when I walked in.

He was no airport worker.
And I told Chucho,

"We got to split up."
The guy is a cop,

the girl is a federal agent,
and I don't see any more.

So I just stood there,
you know.

It's impossible
they could get all of us.

So somebody is got to make it.

So I told Chucho,
"You go left,

I double-back, and Tulio,
you go right."

So I grab the ticket
and I turn around.

When I turn around,
like when I hit the doors,

she came up,
with another guy.

She said
she is with ATF.

She said, "You got
to come with me."

I said, "For what,
am I under arrest?"

She said, "Yeah, you are."

I was gonna run. There's
nowhere to go, you know?

And I didn't have
my gun with me either.

So I said,
"All right, let's go."

So they put me in this room.
I said, "What's the problem?"

And she says, "Your luggage."

There was a big table
in front of me,

and the suitcase is opened.

And they got Chucho
in there too.

"Is that your suitcase?" I said,
"No, ma'am, it's not mine."

Both the machine guns were out,

and the clips were outside
the machine guns,

but the bullets
were still in it.

I could've just gone for them.

They booked us there and then

they took us
to Brevard County jail.

Our bond was set at $150,000 each.

The next day
Luis Casuso showed up.

He had a big reputation
for representing Colombians.

[man] Colombian traffickers
have so much money,

they can easily make bond
after being arrested.

The testimony that you heard
is just basically

a scare tactic to get the judge
not to lower the bond.

[man] Cardona was freed on bond
lowered to $1 million.

She and two sisters
fled to Colombia

and are now back
in the cocaine business.

[Ayala] When he walked in,
I already knew who he was.

And he said that he was here
to represent both of us.

With the Colombians,
you get paid in cash.

And there was always cash,
100 dollar bills.

And the amount
depends on the case.

It's sort of like a myth
in Dade County,

you know, people walking in
with like sacks of currency.

$1 million weighs
about 20 pounds.

A shoe box, snicker bar...

Just wrap it up,
like it was a gift,

put it in the backseat.

Now you open it, count it in front
of him, you're on your way.

Whatever he's got to do
with that money, he does it.

And he used to come
into my office

and like put guns
on my desk.

He knew pretty much
what's going on.

I'm his lawyer,
he's telling me about stuff

that I really
don't want to hear

because, I mean,
if he's trying to impress me...

He's not doing that.

Sometimes I asked him,
"Have you seen so and so?"

And,
"Well, are you're looking for him?"

I say, "Hell, yeah,
I'm looking for him."

"No, I haven't seen him."

I don't want to hear about it,

you know,
I don't want to hear,

"Oh, we killed
this guy here, there,"

it was like, I used to
cut him off, you know?

He said, "All right, you know,
I want to put a motion

to have this thrown
out of court,

but first I got
to get you guys out."

We had a bonds man.

They had bought a house,
and they were putting

their house up as collateral,

But only for one of us.

I said, "Look, no. We came in
together, we leave together."

The bond man says,
"I was ordered to get you out."

So I said,
"Chucho, I'll be back for you.

I get you in a few days."

So I got out
and I told Griselda,

"I got to get Chucho out."

"But who is he?"
I said, "He's my best friend."

"Well, it's on you.

You took him,
you get him out."

I had that money,

But I had
that money laundering.

She wasn't paying his bond.

She was not getting him out,

because he was not part of
the crew yet. Not officially.

So he got pissed off.

So his wife...
She was staying at our house

most of the time with my wife.

And she was just talking crap,
you know,

making threats
that if he wasn't out,

she was gonna go to the FBI,

and she was gonna snitch
on everybody,

and that she had a little book
about all the killings

that Griselda had ordered,

and all the killings
that I had done.

Well, I said,
"You know what?

This is very delicate stuff,

you know, keep your mouth shut
and just chill out.

He's gonna come out.

If he don't come out,
we'll break him out,

but just chill out."

She said, "You tell your boss

if you don't get my husband
out by this week,

I'm gonna go to the FBI."

I was keeping track
of her already.

Anywhere she went,
somebody would follow her.

If she got near a police station,
she was gonna get it.

I went to Griselda,
and I told her.

She said,
"Well, you should have just

killed her right there then."

I said, "Yeah,
there was no other choice

but to kill
my best friend's wife."

I told her that Griselda wanted
to talk to her. We went to a hotel.

We were at the bar drinking.

I couldn't just bring myself...
To shoot her myself.

So I asked Oscar, you know,
and some other guy,

and they said, "No, man.

I ain't doing that."

We started to drive home.

Normally I usually drive,
and I threw the keys to Oscar.

I said, "You drive,
I'll get in the backseat."

Well, when she sees
this she says, "What's up?

You're gonna get behind me

so you can shoot me
behind the head?"

lsaid -.
, No' no: “Q

I just don't feel
like driving."

She says, "Bullshit,
I know you too well.

You don't let nobody drive.

Something's up."

I said, "Nothing's up."

She said,
"Well, if you're gonna shoot,

make sure you hit me right here
behind the head."

So I said,
"if you want, I'll drive."

She said, "No, don't worry
about it. I ain't worried."

We got about a half a block
from the house, and she was killed.

Her body was dumped
near our home.

I go home and the car
was full of blood and stuff.

The bullet went right
through her forehead

and came out the windshield.

So it was a mess.

So I put a cover on the car.

We always had covers
for our cars.

The next morning, I got up,
and I got a call from her.

I said, "it's done."

"All right."
Chucho's been calling the house.

But I told my wife to tell him
I wasn't at home.

So after 5:00, he called again,
I answer the phone.

He asked me
where was his wife at.

I said, "I don't know,
I haven't seen her."

He said, "You sure
you don't know where she is at?

I said, "No, I don't.

I saw her last night,
she was going out somewhere."

Then he says,
"I saw her on TV."

I said, "What?"
He said, "I saw her on TV."

[man] At Coral Way
and 132nd Avenue,

the body of
an unidentified woman

was found near the roadway.

"You killed her!"

I said, "I don't know
what are you talking about."

He says "You killed her,
you did it."

He said, "I'll get with you."

That's the last time
I heard of him.

Carlos Nossa,
we called him Manteco,

mantequilla, butter,
because he was real white.

He had green eyes,
looked American.

We were just like brothers.

Griselda didn't like him
too much.

She used to comment
that he was real greedy,

that she didn't trust him
too much.

That's one of the reason
they never knew where she lived.

I was the only one
that knew where she lived.

I was called that afternoon
to her house.

Griselda said,
"Were you at the Omni?

Did you run into somebody?"

I said,
"Yeah, I did, I run into Cacheton."

Cacheton was one of her customers.

"And what did he say?"

"He had a really important job
if I wanted,

you know,
a hit, a double hit,

worth a lot of money,
a lot of lot of money.

More than I'd ever made."

And she said, "Do you know
if he talked to anybody else?"

I said, "I believe so.

I caught him
talking to Manteco."

She said, "Well, guess what?

The hit that he wants you
to do is me and Dario.

That's what he wants."

Probably he was in a lot
of debt with Griselda.

And she said, "You got
to take care of both of them.

If you cannot take care,
let me know

and I'll send my crew to do it.

Manteco was my best friend.

Kill my best friend.

To this day,
I don't have no proof

that Manteco really
was gonna carry out the hit.

I doubt it very much,

because I'm worried
too much about friends.

But with her,
all she needed was a doubt.

It was harsh
especially with my daughter.

My stepdaughter, Lisa,
she was 9,

so she had a little more sense
than other kids.

She'd see guns,

she'd see guys coming
to the house with guns,

and she started
asking questions.

It wasn't easy.

A lot of the money
that I was making

I was giving
to my mother-in-law.

I set an account in Panama,
and put money away for my kids,

because I never thought
I was coming to prison.

I figured
I was gonna get killed.

That's what I used to go to bed
every night thinking,

"Maybe it's tomorrow.

I get into a shootout
or I put my guard down

and somebody's smarter than me

and I get shot
in back of the head,

sitting in a restaurant..."

Which almost happened,
several times.

That's why I used to live it
to the fullest

because it might be
the last day.

Papo Mejia, he used to be
an enforcer for Griselda.

Apparently he ripped her off,
and he went on his own,

and that's one thing that
she didn't forget or forgive.

She was at war now.

[man] There is a feud going
on right now

that would put the Hatfield's
and the McCoy's to shame.

[Ayala] She was losing
a lot of people,

so she asked me
if I could get some more help.

She said, "Make sure

that they know
what did they get into.

Don't bring me two,
like Manteco and Chucho."

I left that alone.

I said, "Yeah, I got a couple
friends up there in Chicago,

they're Marielitos."

They don't play around.

She said,
"That's just what I need."

And I mean,
they had a reputation,

you know,
very, very dangerous people.

One of them, Guillermo Foralis,
they call him Pepe.

I talked to him and I said,
"Why don't you fly down here?"

He came down, and I said,
"You got more friends?"

He said,
"Yeah, I got another one."

He sent me Miguel Perez.

"We were in prison
together in Cuba.

And we did a lot of shit in Cuba."

I said "Well, you think
he'd be able to kill somebody?"

He said,
"Yeah, he's done it before."

Miguelito? Yes.

This is a picture
that was taken of him

shortly after he arrived here in
1980 from the Mariel boatlift.

[Singleton] He just was a thug.

He was one of
the scariest guys

I've ever really encountered
in my career.

He was more
physically intimidating.

He was bigger than Rivi,
stronger physically than Rivi.

He's the kind of guy
that you look at,

you think to yourself,

you know, this guy
could snap at any moment,

and go off and probably just
snap your neck.

I felt it would be fun
that I had two more guys,

two Marielitos and a Cuban
and she said,

"They are your crew
and you're responsible for them."

[Singleton] Miguelito
essentially worked for Rivi.

Once he got down here,

he proved himself
to be reliable and ruthless

and they used him pretty much
in everything they went on,

Johnny Castor homicide...

[man 1] The victim is a 3-year-old,

appears to be a Latin male
with multiple gunshot wounds.

They were aiming
for his father

[man 2] but missed,
and they killed the child.

Shot, just because he happened
to be sitting next to his father,

who was Colombian

and a target of
some of the cocaine cowboys.

Miguelito was present for that.

[man] As well as the execution
style murders

of a man and woman
6 months later.

[Singleton] The Lorenzo
double homicide,

where the kids
were left on the scene

with dead parent bodies,

and Miguelito was definitely
present for that.

The fact that a baby
would be left

crawling on his mother's
bloody body...

I can't think of anything
more horrid than that,

I really can't.

[woman] Miguel Perez, he is
believed to have been involved

in not only those murders,

but another one at
a soccer field in Miami Lakes.

[Buchanan] These soccer-field murders
took place about a month apart.

The body was found
right here within 15 yards.

His car was parked
right in this lot.

Unknown Latin subject walked
up to him in point blank range,

shot him in the back
of the head.

It's turned out
to be Edgar Restrepo.

This was our
second soccer field homicide

in as many months.

They were commonly referred
to as Pele 1 and Pele 2.

I thought that was
kind of coarse,

but just turned out to be
another Griselda Blanco hit,

as was the soccer field homicide
a month prior.

Turns out both murders
have been committed

by Miguel Perez, Miguelito.

[Buchanan] Those out there
at the scene of one,

the policemen said,

"Soccer fields are now
an unsafe place to be."

But I think all of Miami
was an unsafe place to be.

[man] Another was shot
at the airport customs facility

by a man on a motorcycle.

Two guys came on a motor scooter
and shot him down.

So, you know,
welcome to Miami.

[man] A third was murdered leaving
at crowded department store.

[Singleton]
The Octavio Mejia homicide,

who was more commonly
known as Monomica.

When Mejia left the shopping mall,

they ambushed him.
He was shot numerous times.

[man]
Another suspected victim of

Griselda Blanco
and Paco Sepulveda.

[Singleton]
The Marta Gomez kidnapping--

--shot her point blank
in the back of her head.

But a little bit too low
and she survived.

This is just one more,
you know,

skirmish in the Griselda
Blanco-Mejia conflict.

[Ayala] The war
was picking up again,

and this time
it was in Colombia.

[man] In Colombia, a lot of blood
has been spilled in feuds

between the drug families.

A war that has left over 100 dead,

some of them,
innocent bystanders.

There was a lot of killing
going down there.

[man] Medellin, Colombia,
where it is common to have up to

12 killings a day.

It is home for many of
the assassins and victims,

who end up in Miami.

[Ayala] I was in Colombia
looking for Papo.

Rafico answered the phone,

talked to somebody on the phone,
then he says,

"We know where he's at."

I said, "Who?"
He says, "Papo.

It's about an hour from here."

So we got our weapons,
got our cars...

We drove by the Aldo Cafe.

It was about ten of them,
it was about ten of us.

We killed about three of them.

It went on for about an hour.

[man] Over the three-day
Christmas holiday,

there were 35 murders here.

In the outskirts of town,
during a January weekend,

the bodies of 11 murder victims
were found in garbage cans.

I come back to Miami
about 2 o'clock.

They want to see me
in Miami Lakes.

It's really important.

So I get up there,
Miami Lakes,

to Max Mermelstein's wife's
boutique,

Cristina Fashions.

I walk in there.
The whole group's there.

Griselda, Dario...

So I asked them
what was going on.

She said that Papo Mejia
was in the next flight to Miami,

but behind, an hour difference.

"We were wondering if you could
go get him at the airport."

I said, "No, not at the airport.

That's a suicide mission,
I don't do suicide missions.

I'll get him outside."

And then she said,

"No, I want him to get hit
inside the airport."

I Said, "No."

She also offered me
half a million dollars.

She reached
under one of the tables,

and hands me a bayonet,
16 inch bayonet.

I believe it was Max
who bought it

in one of
the U.S. army stores.

It was all rusted, all old.

She wanted him
stabbed to death,

just because he's a pig
and his nickname was The Pig,

they wanted to kill like a pig.

I just went along.

I said, "Fine, but I ain't gonna
go in there and do this."

So she said,

"Well, we got somebody else
that's gonna do it."

I said, "Who?"
She said, "Miguel Perez."

I told Miguel, I said,
"I want to go with you,

I want to ride with you
in the car to the airport.

I want to go
to the airport with you.

Once we show you him,
target, you're on your own."

[Singleton]
The stabbing of Papo Mejia,

Papo of course being an arch
enemy of Griselda Blanco.

[Ayala] Papo Mejia got a cast
from his knee to his ankle.

He was looking everywhere.

I guess he was looking for his
enemies, he was looking for us.

[Buchanan] And as he walks
out from customs,

a man came up with a bayonet
and bayoneted him several times.

It's insane, really,
and obviously it turned out

that way because
he was caught.

We were in the car,
was driving back with

Dario, and I told him.
I said,

"I told you this
from the beginning."

He said, "You think we should
worry about Miguel talking?"

I said, "He ain't gonna talk,
but he's in deep shit now."

[Singleton] I don't know
of any other organization

to be attributed
to the number of homicides

that go back to Griselda.
I just don't.

The caseload and the cocaine
wars was unbelievable.

I had never worked
so hard in my life.

This is what keeps us going.
Cuban coffee.

[man] Drug traffickers
have more manpower

and equipment than police.

[Singleton] And we were
constantly going to scenes,

constantly going to cases,
constantly going to trial.

[man] They know they're
fighting a losing battle

because they don't have
the personnel or equipment

to stay on top
of drug traffickers.

If they had asked me
how many people you need?

I couldn't even tell them
how many people I needed.

[man] There are just too many
homicides and so few cops.

And many cops
got fed up with it.

I've had it, I've had it.

I've been here 10 years,
I've buried eight cops.

It's all right if somebody
pulls gun on you and shoots you.

Everybody's all choked up for
three days till they bury you,

throw a bunch of dirt over you
and let's go on.

[man] I plan on getting out
in December.

I hit my 10 years
and I'm gone.

And when I leave
South Florida,

I don't care if it breaks off
and floats down to South America.

Because I really
don't care anymore.

[Singleton] He said, "Screw this,
I'm out of here," and he left.

[man] Twice the normal number
of policemen have quit

the Miami Police Department
this year.

[Singleton] And there was
a rush to hire cops

to fill these vacancies.

[woman] Both Metro
and Miami police departments

are making a major push
to fill the vacancies

left in the wake
of record resignation rates.

Metro has even hired
an outside firm

to help boost
minority recruiting.

It used to be we just took
the top of the barrel,

now we're taking the entire
barrel as far as applicants.

A lot of people got hired
to be police officers

that, under ordinary circumstances,

would not have been hired.

Back in July of 1985,
a triple homicide investigation

began when three bodies
were taken

outside of the Jones Boat Yard,
on the Miami River.

[woman] Three bodies floating
in the Miami River,

in what appeared to be
an almost routine homicide.

Two nights prior,

there was a boat right here
being offloaded,

200 kilograms of cocaine.

Six uniformed individuals
raided this boat,

and there were six off loaders
on the boat.

They all six jumped into the Miami
River, where this Marina is.

Three of them survived,
three of them didn't.

Three of them drowned,

and they surfaced
like 2 days later.

It didn't take long
to determine

they were involved
in trafficking,

them being Latin, being traffickers
that became a CENTAC case within a week.

Back in 1985,

a very common crime
was robberies

and rip-offs
by police impersonators.

We assumed
that was the case here.

That just some people
bought some uniforms...

They're drug rip.

We got a telephone call
from detective Louis Alberti

that said he had a uniformed
officer on his department

that had information
regarding this case.

So about 11 o'clock one evening,
we went over there

to speak with this officer,
Armando Estrada.

It became very obvious,

very quickly,
that the information

this officer was giving us
was so obviously erroneous,

that it was transparent that
he was trying to throw us off.

It was at that point
we both knew instinctively

that we had a case
of police corruption

as opposed
to police impersonators.

[woman] Allegations of
unprecedented corruption

within the Miami
police department.

We experienced the largest
police corruption crisis

since the Serpico days
up in New York.

[Singleton] We hated it.

The last thing you want to do is
have to investigate other cops.

But it's got to be done,
it's got to be done.

[woman] Seven police officers
were arrested.

Some accused of causing
the drownings on the river,

ripping off drug dealers,
plotting to kill

or intimidate witnesses
to their alleged crimes.

A few months later the scandal
broke wide open.

Rudy Arias turned
from defendant to informer,

confessing his crimes

and naming upwards
of 60 other cops

he claimed were also crooked.

[man] Two new indictments
are expected this month

in the River Cop's case.

And more indictments
are expected after that.

The River cops
are trying to break down

the door to make deals.

Rodolfo Arias
has reportedly proved

to be an excellent witness.

He has given information
on dozens of other cops.

[woman] Eighteen former
policemen charged,

four becoming
government witnesses,

two going into hiding,

eight pleading guilty either
before or during their trials,

one convicted,
and another still facing trial.

In the meantime,
20 more former police officers

are under investigation
by Miami,

Metro Dade or FBI agents,
facing possible charges

in either state
or federal court.

The charges were
unbelievable, shocking.

The most shocking case
I had ever even heard of.

Murders,
creative disposals of bodies,

witness intimidation,
laundering huge sums of money,

extortion, drug dealing,

hundreds of
kilograms of cocaine...

And they were
all police officers,

who were accused
of doing this.

There was no law and order
whatsoever.

We have to start taking the war
on drugs very seriously.

If we don't, we're gonna have
something like domestic Vietnam,

where we're either gonna
fight the war and win it,

or we're just
gonna give up.

They're gonna wait
until some senator's daughter

or some congressmen's nephew
gets kidnapped.

Because they think
that he had something to do

with passing some law
that is not beneficial to them,

and then
what are we gonna do?

[Paula Hawkins] We need to have
a great backlash at home,

that the governments that are
involved in drug trafficking,

they should be sanctioned.

And we should all make
a great effort to isolate them

from the civilized world.

[Ayala] Paula Hawkins...
She was making a lot of waves

during the cocaine wars,
when Reagan was down here with Bush.

Max started this,
showing the paper to Griselda,

about Paula Hawkins
making the speeches

about the drug trade
and this and that.

We were at Max's house
and Griselda's says,

"I want to kill this bitch."

I said, "Who would that be?"

She said, "This bitch, Paula."

I said, "Paula Hawkins?
She's a senator."

She said,
"Yeah, I want you to kill her."

I said, "Me?
No, I won't do that."

She says, "I'll pay you good."
I said, "I don't care."

That's too much heat.

She gets killed...
There ain't no place for us

to hide once you
kill the senator.

She asked me if it could be done.
I said, "it could be done.

She's another person.
It could be done."

She was gonna have
a speech in New Orleans.

It was about 3 weeks away
for this speech.

In Colombia,
it's a normal thing everyday,

but in the United States
we had never discussed

the killing of a president
or senator... No. Or a judge.

Just lawyers.
We talk about that every day.

Well, Max kept pushing.

"Yeah, you know,
Rivi should do it.

Rivi is the guy,
he's a good marksman,

this and that..."

I started telling Griselda...
I said, "if this is done,

your business goes down
the drain.

There's no place for you
to hide, nowhere in the world.

They're gonna chase you
for the rest of your life.

They're chasing you now,
but this is nothing compared

to what you'd get into.

Well, I talked to Griselda,
I talked to Dario.

I got some sense into them,
I said, "Leave this alone,

it's not good for business."

I think this is
one of the gravest problems

facing us internally
in the United States.

[man] You're gonna have
to quit treating this

national problem that we have
here in this area,

as a local problem,
and put the resources

and money and people and agents
in here to cope with it.

They were getting fed up
with especially

Vice President Bush in Miami,
and all that.

[Bush] For those that come in here
with their automatic weapons

and their Learjets and their
boats all for petty cash,

kind of cost of doing business
because the profits are so big,

put them away, find them,
catch them, arrest them.

The town had enough, the
federal government had enough.

They brought in
the task forces,

they brought in
the cavalry.

They were bringing in
the state troopers

to patrol the streets in Miami.

[man] I would hope and pray
that these people

will get the maximum
death penalty,

to make an example
to the rest of the drug culture

that's happening around Florida,
that we won't tolerate.

There should be
no mercy on them.

[man 1] The Navy loaned
two of its radar planes.

The Army has loaned
helicopter gunships.

[man 2] The war is being
waged in the Atlantic.

Ships and planes,
part of Hat Trick,

to stop drug trafficking.

Operation Hat Trick is the
D-Day of our war on drugs.

[man 1] Military ships and aircraft
with narcotics agents aboard

tracked suspected smugglers.

[man 2] It's expected to please
law enforcement officials.

They've been trying for
a long time to get more help

from the military
in the war on drugs.

[man 3] Any smuggler
who's going to enter the coast

of the United States now,
is now gonna be

somewhat apprehensive that
he may not make a go of it.

[Reagan] Arrests in the area covered
by the task force are up 27%.

Drug seizures
are up about 50%.

So there was just too much police,
and a lot of heat on TV.

Since she had business
in California too,

I told Griselda, we should
just leave for a while.

She said, "Yeah, that's
a good idea, plus you know,

we're opening up
a new route to California."

Now that we know,
you know, in hindsight

that she left the area
back in around 1984,

clearly the homicide rate
went down in that time period.

The efforts here
by the drug task force

has officials in other
parts of the country

say now they've got increased
problems with drug smugglers,

moving cocaine
through other places,

places away from Miami.

[woman] The Colombian network
is spreading to Los Angeles,

where police say
cocaine seizures

are bigger than ever.

Faced with the fact that
the whole organization

had relocated to California,
and I'm a Miami agent,

I had to convince my superiors
that it was worthwhile for me

to investigate a case
in California.

You know,
I said if I ever get her,

I'm gonna give her
a kiss on the cheek.

[Roberts] What Mickey brought
was only part of it.

And I never would let Mickey
know if I had anybody else

working, because I did
try other people also.

We were working with Barry Seal.
He was another group.

[man] Barry had been a TWA pilot,

and a Vietnam War pilot
before that.

[Roberts] Barry was,
out of everybody,

the best pilot
that I ever saw in my life.

[man] And he drifted into
the Colombian cartel market

as a delivering specialist.

And got himself
involved in guns,

money and drugs,
through flights

in and out of
Managua, Nicaragua,

where he enjoyed the protection
of the president of Nicaragua.

Barry Seal had the most
incredible operation I'd ever seen.

I'm not a drug smuggler.

I say, "Prove it."

[Roberts] Barry was fearless.

1,000, 1,500 kilos of coke
was like a joke to him,

and it was not a problem.

Barry worked
out of Louisiana.

He'd work
on the drop of a hat.

He didn't care.
He'd get in his plane,

and he'd go down there. And he'd
throw 1,000 kilos on the plane,

and he'd come back to Louisiana.

He landed at a regular airport.
He had a warehouse.

They had ramps in the back
that would open up,

and you could drive
vehicles into them.

You could put tons
on these vehicles.

Barry got busted on a load,
and didn't tell anybody.

He cut himself a deal,

as a federal
confidential informant.

They would let him go
and they would install cameras

on the inside of his plane.
And they wanted him to film

an actual loading,
bring the coke back here,

and the film back here.

And he agreed to do this.

The Army brought
in the truckloads,

the duffel bags full of cocaine.

And they were loaded
on board the aircraft

by the Cuban
and Sandinista soldiers.

And he had some great shots.

[man] Barry Seal was able to snap
pictures during the mission

of a leading international
cocaine trafficker,

Sandinista government
officials and soldiers,

loading cocaine onto the plane.

Top Nicaraguan
government officials

are deeply involved
in drug trafficking.

And on national TV,
President Reagan

held up this picture,
and said, "Here's Pablo Escobar,

loading a plane with cocaine."

[Reagan] This picture secretly
taken at a military airfield

outside Managua,
shows Frederico Vaughan,

a top aide to one
of the nine commandantes,

who rule Nicaragua,
loading an aircraft

with illegal narcotics
bound for the United States.

The pictures were
produced by Barry Seal.

[man 1] He has thus become the key
witness in South Florida's

most important drug case.

[man 2] Seal also told a President's
commission on organized crime

how easy it is
to smuggle cocaine.

My initial experience
was with marijuana,

but I soon moved into cocaine
because of its ease in handling,

and its profit structure.

That's when the heat started
to come to Escobar and to Ochoa.

Not from the Colombians.

The Colombians
didn't give a god damn.

But this government who was
giving Colombian money,

started to put heat on them
down there.

[man] Seal is already cooperating
with drug agents in Miami,

where he is a key witness
in one of the most

significant investigations
in South Florida history.

Meantime, there are still
unanswered questions

in the Baton Rouge
investigation.

[Burstyn] There was a judge
out in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,

who just kind of
didn't like the fact

that a federal judge in Miami
was going to be the final

arbiter of Mr. Seal's fate.

A federal grand jury
in Baton Rouge

has been investigating Seal's
activities for 15 months.

Today's indictment charged
Seal with conspiracy

to possess and distribute
462 pounds of cocaine,

with a street value
estimated at $168 million.

In return for Seal's cooperation,

the Justice Department
will allow him to plead guilty

to the charges in today's indictment,
and receive

what amounts to a slap
on the wrist.

I've reached exactly
the type of settlement

that I wanted to reach.

Whether they're happy or not,
you'll have to ask them.

And despite numerous pleas,
thatjudge in Louisiana

refused to drop a 6-month
house arrest order,

which was a totally
meaningless order

in the scheme of things.

It was speculated that
this judge knew,

or should have known,
that, by publicly ordering

where this man had to show up

and at what time he had
to show up and leave,

he was issuing
a death warrant for him.

And certainly,
that's what happened.

The exciting thing
in life to me

is to get into
a life-threatening situation.

Now that's excitement.

The Colombians told Max,
"This guy is a rat,

and we got to take him out,

because he is talking
and telling everything on us."

Max came to me
and Max said, "Look,

the Colombians
want to pay $250,000

to whack this guy
and kill him.

I know your friends from New York .
Get the guineas..."

They call them spaghetti boys...

"Get the spaghetti guys to come
and whack Barry Seal."

I flew to New York,
spoke to my uncle.

My uncle said, "Okay, I'll get
you two guys tomorrow.

Take them down
and show them where to go."

I called Max, I told Max,
"Don't worry.

Everything is done, Max."

We spent about 2 days
there in Louisiana.

We showed them
where Barry Seal lived,

the hangars where he
worked at the airport...

We showed these guys everything.

The whole time I was there,

not one time
did I see Barry Seal.

About a week later,
my friends told me,

"Sorry, whoever whacks this guy,
he's going to get caught.

He's walking with an entourage
of government people.

There's no way

you're gonna be able to whack
this guy and not get caught."

Max went and told Rafa,
and Rafa flew off the handle.

"That's it for you guys.

You guys ain't going
to work any more

because you can't knock
this guy off," you know?

"I can't.

I had nobody else,
what do you want me to do,

go get some guys on the street
to knock him off?

There's nothing I can do."

Max fell out of favor
with the Colombians

because he couldn't
whack the guy.

Max tried to blame it on me.

For a while, the Colombians
were really mad with me.

I mean, mad to the point
where we didn't even work.

I was really afraid
at that point,

that I was gonna
get whacked myself,

because I couldn't do
what they asked.

Rafa came to my house,

and he came with
Fabito Ochoa.

Fabito was my friend.

I hung out with him,
we ran together.

And Fabito said, "Man,
my family is really mad."

I Said, "Why?"

He said, "Can't you
whack this guy for us?

You don't understand
the problems he's gonna make."

And I said, "Fabito,

whoever does
it is gonna get caught.

There's no way that
it's gonna be done, man.

If you're gonna do it,
you're gonna have to get Indians

to come from down there
and I'm telling you upfront,

they're going
to jail for this."

When I told Fabito that,
that was enough for him.

He went back there,

and he smoothed it out
with his family,

and they decided with their
own stupidity as always,

"We'll take care
of it ourselves."

And they did.

[man] Last night,
Seal's luck ran out.

We was shot to death

outside a Salvation Army
halfway house in Baton Rouge,

where he had been
sentenced to spend the night

for 6 months
as part of his parole.

Seal had refused to enter

the government's
witness protection program.

The hit got farmed out
to Kubaba

who did of course go out
to do the murder.

Four Indians...
They put them on a plane,

they took them to Louisiana,

and they must have put
a hundred holes in this guy

outside the halfway house,
and they got caught.

Five Colombians
basically are caught

fleeing from
Barry Seal's homicide.

They stuck out like
sore thumbs in Baton Rouge.

The FBI and the Drug
Enforcement Agency tonight

are trying to learn
who ordered the assassination

of one of the government's
most important informants

in the war on drugs.

[Burstyn]
He did have a federal judge

in effect unwittingly
facilitate the execution

of a leading federal witness.

[man] Insofar as we've been
able to ascertain,

all the proper jurisprudence
and legalities were carried out

in the entire investigation
concerning Mr. Seal

and any involvement
he may have had with--

[Burstyn] And there's been
a lot of speculation

about that because of Mr. Seal's
involvement with the CIA

and the Communist
Nicaraguan effort,

and what he knew,
might have known.

And it certainly closed

a major chapter
in the cartel prosecutions.

The Drug Enforcement
Administration believes

Seal was assassinated
to prevent him from testifying

here in Miami,
against a suspected

high level Colombian trafficker,

whom the U.S. is trying
to extradite from Spain.

[Mooney]
Max getting in trouble...

That was the beginning
of the end.

Max had the bad experience
with DeLorean,

because he was the one
that gave DeLorean

the coke that DeLorean
got busted with.

This past year,
auto maker John DeLorean

was arrested on drug
trafficking charges.

DeLorean had said then
he was trying to raise money

to bail out
his struggling company.

Local dealers say that

DeLorean has become
the Edsel of the '80s,

and will sell only
as a collector's item.

Max knew he had a problem.

He should have smoked it,
but he didn't.

He didn't think
it was coming to him.

How could he get away with it?
He couldn't think that, you know,

"Hey, I gave this guy 400
and some kilos,

and these people are going
down like flies, and I'm okay.

I'm the one that gave it to them.
Nothing happened to me."

He had to know that there was
a problem coming from that.

[Munday]
And then they arrested him.

That was the last
we saw of Max.

[Roberts]
I got like millions of dollars

buried in garbage bags
in my lawn.

That night,
I'm out there with a flashlight,

digging up bags of money,

because I'm afraid
they're coming.

And I lived on the Everglades.

Ijumped in a canoe I had,
with like, I'm not exact,

$6 to $8 million,
threw it in the canoe,

paddled to the other side,

and buried it
in the Everglades,

thinking they're coming
to my house.

Nobody came.
Nothing happened.

Nobody thought it was
gonna be any problem.

Mickey and everybody said,

"Well, I haven't seen
any problems

with the last plane
that landed, you know?

Everything seemed to be fine."

I said, "Okay, well,

then let's just keep going
till we find out."

Jon said there was
no reason to be worried.

We thought Jon was so smart.

That's really
the truth of it.

I remember September 20

for the simple reason
that I couldn't sleep.

At that particular night,

I was working with Mickey
and his crew.

And because I couldn't sleep,

I decided that I would
go to a radio room

that we had set up here in Miami
to monitor the incoming planes.

The last trip that we were on
was to be the last trip.

We decided to get out
at that point,

because we had made
enough money.

Why keep taking a chance,
taking a chance?

Sooner or later,
they're gonna win,

you know, and they did.

It was a regular trip.

The only thing
that was unusual,

and that should have
given it away,

was it was real quiet
on the radio.

Of course, they know that
we listen to everything.

To tell you the truth,
I looked around when I drove up

because I was still
paranoid for Max,

and I saw nothing.

Nothing at all.

[Munday]
Everything went as usual.

[Roberts] The plane landed, I was
like, "Oh, man, another good trip.

I'm going home.
I feel great."

[Munday] And as soon
as the airplane landed

and we went in the barn,
they showed up in helicopters

and all kinds of people jumped
out with guns everywhere.

[Mooney] It was a simultaneous
bust, Tampa with Miami.

[Roberts] They came in there,
all in black,

and with these
night goggles and masks.

It was like, I said,
"What? Am I back in Vietnam here?

This is nuts."

[Munday]
I went out the back door--

--and what am I, gonna
shoot it out with you guys--

--after a small confrontation
with one of the guys.

"Get on the floor
and shut up."

"Yeah, all right."

And they looked at me
at first, and I'll never forget,

"Roberts,
what are you doing here?"

I said, "I guess I fucked up."

He said,
"You fucked up, man.

We would have
come to your house later.

But what are you doing,
you made it easy for us."

I said, "I couldn't sleep, man."

He said,
"Well, that's too bad."

And when I got downtown,
I heard on the radio,

"They are shooting.
there's gunfire, bang...

There's all kinds of war."

I said, "What's going on here?
Is this involving me?"

"That's your plane,
that's your farm up there.

There's gunfire,
they are shooting."

[Munday] They were running all over,
they were shooting guns.

"Your friend is
shooting at us."

"My friend?" "Mickey."

[Munday]
I tried to burn the airplane.

Mickey had a flare gun.
And around the plane,

there were gasoline tanks,

which were used to refuel
the plane to get out of there.

[Munday] I pushed one over--

[Roberts] Well, Mickey wanted
to escape, so he shot the flare gun.

[Munday] I hit the swamp.

And I watched the show
all day long.

[Roberts]
They couldn't find him.

And they were chasing him
through the woods all night.

[Singleton] Max Mermelstein
becomes a witness

and wants to talk about,

among other things,
murders in Miami.

We're going to
debrief this guy--

[Palombo]
And quite frankly, at first,

I didn't believe
75% of what he said.

It was just
too outlandish.

I introduced myself,
and he goes,

"We have met before."

I go, "What are
you talking about?

We never have met."

And he reminded me that we had
gone to his house in Miami Lakes

years prior seeking consent
to search his house.

And he told us
to go pound sand.

Yeah, it's a small world.

Can you state your name
for the record, your full name?

[Mermelstein] Max Mermelstein.

Max rolled over on all of us.

[man] As I understand it,
from 1981 to 1985,

you worked full time
for the cartel,

and imported massive
quantities of cocaine

into the United States.

How much cocaine were you
personally responsible

for importing
during that timeframe?

[Mermelstein]
During that timeframe,

between 55
and 56 tons of cocaine

went through my hands.

Between 55 and 56 tons.

I told Jon.
He didn't listen to me.

I told him from day 1,
that Max was weak,

that he will
snitch on us later,

you know, down the road.

That's why I wanted
to kill him so bad.

But they wouldn't let me.

[Mermelstein] For the most part, I
report directly to the Ochoa brothers.

Did you ever meet
the Ochoa brothers?

[Mermelstein] Oh, yes, sir.

[man] And Escobar was
the other name you mentioned.

[Mermelstein] Pablo Escobar, yes.

[man] Pablo Escobar.

First piece of information
you gave to government

was that the Ochoa brothers
and their organization

had a contract that means they
were offering money to kidnap

andlor kill Barry Seal.

It was relayed to me directly
by Fabio Ochoa Junior

and Rafael Cardona, along with
Pablo Escobar, personally,

to either kidnap him
or kill him.

I wasn't asked to do this.
I was told to do this.

The government had no idea

and, honest to God,
if it wasn't for Max Mermelstein--

[Munday] --I don't think they
would have ever caught us.

[man] He filled in the gaps.

[Roberts] They knew nothing
of where the farm was.

They knew nothing of our trips.
They knew nothing.

Max was like family.

I never figured
he'd do what he did.

The came the next day
and they busted our gate

and seize the house.

[man] We were able to seize
property in value

of $130 million
into Florida area.

[Roberts] And Max made the
indictment against Mickey and me.

[Mooney] When I'm reading
the indictments, I'm also

just like, "Holy shit."

I didn't realize that he was
actually working with the cartel.

I didn't know Rafael
was in the cartel,

I didn't know any of this.

I mean, I'm not saying
I didn't know anything,

I'm just saying that
nobody realized the magnitude

of what Jon was involved in.

You get on a trip when
you're making so much money,

that you were just so powerful
that nothing was gonna--

It wasn't going to happen.

[Ayala] Everyday I talked to her,
she said, "No, you know,

you were wrong,
he is not a rat."

I said, "He is working
for the police.

That's why I'm not near you.
Because you're going to go

to jail, but I ain't
going with you."

"Oh, come to Los Angeles."
I said, "No.

I'm all right over here."

[Palombo] We located a small
house that they had rented.

We knew that she was
in the residence,

so we covered the back
and the front, and in we went.

I went upstairs
and found her sitting in bed

reading the Bible.

And I just walked up to her.

Obviously I had
my weapon drawn.

She was pretty startled.

You would never think
that she was

a violent homicidal maniac.

I said, "Hola, Griselda."

And she said,
"No Griselda. Me llamo Betty."

lsaid -.
, No' no, In

And then I gave her
a little kiss on the cheek,

as I promised I would
to the agents,

many, many months earlier.

[man] Police are saying
she may be responsible

for as many as 200 murders.

They arrested her at home.

Days later,
they arrested her kids.

Everything crumbled for real,
you know?

I'm just looking now
for myself.

Everybody is in prison,
except me.

And they're looking
for me now.

Around the 15th of December,
I was just laying low.

Next thing my brother is
knocking at the door.

He says, "The police
are downstairs."

I said, "The police?
What they want?"

He said, "They're downstairs."

I followed him downstairs. They had
a four black flatbed trucks.

They were picking all my cars.

I had two Corvettes,
a Porsche and a Supra.

They were picking them up,
in the flatbed.

So I yelled to the guy.

I said, "What the fuck
are you doing with my cars?"

When the guy turns,
he's got a Windbreaker.

It said on the back,
"Special Agent, DEA."

I said, "No, never mind.
Don't worry about it.

They are not mine."

I went back inside the house.

I had a kilo and a half
for my personal use.

So I flushed
the kilo cocaine down the toilet.

I threw the silencer
on my gun...

And I throw it over the water,
because I live in the bay.

I put the gun back.
It's a .45.

Also, one car they left behind.
This one when I met my wife,

and she had a Mazda.
They didn't touch that car.

I said to my brother,
"Let's just go and get arrested.

Fuck it."

So we went down the elevator.
We get out, it was dark.

Nobody around.
So we got into the car...

I start driving.
I ask my brother if some--

He said,
"No, nobody is behind us."

We get to the airport.
A cop pulls up.

He was a short guy, 5'6", you know?
He screams my name.

"Jorge Ayala.
You're under arrest."

I pretend
I didn't hear him.

I keep on walking,
but he's scared at that time.

They already know who I am.

He didn't wait for back up,
he just wanted to be hero.

He screams again.

"You, with the red Windbreaker."
So I turned.

I said, "Are you talking to me?"

He said, "Yeah, you,
you're under arrest."

I said, "For what?"

He says,
"We'll let you know later."

So I started laughing.

I said,
"Go fuck yourself."

I ran, and the dog
caught up with me.

They took us into custody
to the county jail.

And ever since then,
I've been in custody.

After Max cooperated,
pilots started cooperating,

ground crew guys
started cooperating,

and everybody
was testifying

and cutting deals
to get less time.

I had now become
the main focus

because I was the one putting
the coke on the plane for him.

They were going to give me
like 30 years.

I mean, you didn't have to be a,

a rocket scientist
to figure out it's time to,

you know, blow dodge and get
the hell out of here and--

I went for a bond hearing
and they said,

"You're not getting a bond,
forget about it." And that was that.

About a week later,

Dick Gregory comes
with two FBI agents:

this guy Joe Walsh,

who is heading up the case,
and another agent.

And they said,
"Look, we really want Munday."

Because he embarrassed them
by shooting his flare off

and all this other...

and they think he was trying
to kill him and everything.

So I said:
"if you give me a bond,

I'll help you get Mickey."

I go to Mickey's brother.

And I went without telling them
that I was going.

I snuck out again
in the disguise

with another thing,
and I tell Mickey's brother,

"Listen to me,
you got to work with me,

I'm never going
to lead them to Mickey,

but they have to believe
for the next month or two months

that I'm going
to get them Mickey,

and you have to be able to work
with me to do this

because I need time to get
all my shit together

because I'm getting
out of here.

And I'll help Mickey
with whatever he needs."

Because Mickey needed papers.

He was a fugitive, and he knew
I can get him papers.

"In a week
I'll give you every thing,

the documents you need
so Mickey can live

as a different person."

So Mickey's brother goes
to Mickey and Mickey says, "Great."

"He knows you won't give
him up. Let's do it."

[Munday] It took, may be a week
or two weeks.

I mean, I'd to get
myself settled in.

Fortunately,
they showed my picture

from the driver's license.

I'm funny looking,
but that was really a bad picture.

Well, I had it arranged

that I was going to meet
Mickey's brother.

I made a phone call,
with the FBI listening.

"Hey, what's up?

I'm going to meet you
tomorrow over here at Denny's.

Okay, we'll meet at Denny's."
So I meet him.

He knows they're following me
and everything. And we talk.

And now I have a bug,

and they're recording all this,

and everything is going fine.

I go back to them.
And this guy,

"Good, you're working with us."

He says, "Well,
I'm going to tell you.

I will find you wherever
you are if you take off."

"Why would you think
I'm gonna take off?"

"Because Max tells us that
you're full of shit.

You're not going to cooperate,

you're going to take off."

I'm thinking to myself,
Max is finally doing

something correct here,
you know.

But I'm not going
to tell them.

I dragged it on with meetings,
and them following me,

and following him to nowhere.

The last time they were
going to get him, I said,

"He is going to have
his brother here,

and you guys
are going to get him."

And the plan that I had
with Mickey's brother was

to pull over and meet a guy
who has the same description

as Mickey, and when
they met that guy,

that's when everybody
was going to close in.

It worked, man.
They converged on Mickey's brother

and this other poor guy,
who didn't even know

what was going on.

And they said,
"You, we got you."

And I'm looking. And Joe Walsh,
"That's not Mickey Munday."

And they went crazy, man.
They came and they grab me.

I said, "What are
you talking about?

I did everything
I was supposed to do,

and now how am I going
to get Mickey for you?"

And that was
a my way out, right?

That I try to cooperate
but this is what happened.

And they said to me,
"We should lock you up now."

I said, "Why?
If I was going to take off,

I would have taken off.

You guys told me you'd
help me, I tried to help you.

My trial is coming in Tampa,

I will be there
for the first day in my trial."

I said, "You guys
better help me."

"okay."

First day of my trial came,
I was history.

I left Dodge so quick,
like three days before my trial.

I was in Colombia.

I had all the money in Panama,

plus I had money in Colombia,
and money wasn't a question.

So, they send a plane.
I got on a plane.

I went to Colombia, and for
about a week it was all right.

I lived on a farm out there,
one of Rafael's farms.

It was great,
I had servants,

I had, you know, women,

you know, whatever,
great food, I had a cook.

And then all of a sudden,

I remember waking up
one morning,

and they said,
"Hurry up, get in the car."

We pulled out, and all of sudden
I heard: [MIMICS GUNFIRE]

When I looked around,
everywhere there were

just government guys
firing at the car.

And Rafael's guys are firing back
at the government cars.

And we got out of there,
and they took me to another farm.

And this went on for weeks.

It was when the
American government

put so much pressure on the
Colombians, because they said,

"We're not going to give you
any more money"

that they were trying to like,

sort of make a half-ass
attempt to crack down.

[man] Another
law enforcement approach

involves greater cooperation

between American
and Colombian authorities.

We need to get
the State Department active

in letting every country know
where drugs are coming from,

and that we're going to assess
our relationship with them

based on what they are
doing to clean up those drugs.

[Roberts] And the war
started in Colombia,

and I went from one place
to the next.

I finally told Mike,
"I can't,

this is crazy.
I should have just stayed in jail."

Everyday there is a guns
going off, machine guns.

I had friends in Mexico.
And I went to Mexico

and they told me,
"You become a Mexican citizen

and no problem,
you'll live here."

So I lived there for while
and that was great.

For some reason, the government
had a bug up their ass.

The guy started with
"The 10 Most Wanted of America."

They put
a picture of me up,

and they started offering
everybody rewards to get me.

I knew that was
the end of my time

because, you know,
they were offering money,

and Mexicans
didn't have anything.

And I knew it was
only a matter of time.

They put me
in this jail down there

and gave me a chef,
they give me three cells,

they built refrigerators,
they let me build the gym.

And I stayed there 11 months
fighting the government

and eventually
obviously I lost

and the government
brought me back.

And we made a deal
and they gave me 15 years,

which to me was,
you know, I thought,

well, I thought,
I was going to get five

but, you know,
it's a little bit of a dream.

And I remember
the day he was,

you know, sitting in the chair
crying like a baby

that he had to leave
everything he loved.

[Roberts] I have nobody
to blame but myself, nobody.

Time to go, you got to go.

[Burstyn] As drug merchants
were being prosecuted,

convicted and imprisoned,
a remarkable thing happened.

The businesses that they
frequented and supported

started drying up
and closing down.

All of the night clubs
dried up,

car dealerships
started to go broke.

Jewelry shops,
and that collapse

created new opportunity.

The economy of Miami was kept
together by speculators

who had made a lot of money
in the drug trades.

If you were a car dealer
the sales went from

20 million a year to 60 million
a year for 10 years,

you've got an extra

half a billion dollars
kicking around.

Cocaine brought
a lot of money to town.

[man] 92 multinational
corporations have moved

their South American
headquarters

to places like Coral Gables.

[Potter] I think what drew other
Latin American investment here

was the relative safety
of the American banking system

and this is the closest point

in the United States
to Latin America,

so it became a banking center
for that reason.

[man 1] They prefer South Florida
as a place to spend,

relax and to do business.

[man 2] Miami is trying to become
an international city

and it's broadening
its economic base

in international banking.

[man 3] Miami is in the middle
of an explosion.

A lot of that money
was cocaine money too,

but I'm not sure
that those two are linked

as one following the other.

It built half the city.

It built the high-rises,
it built the scrapes.

I'm going to work one day,
and I come onto Interstate 95

which gives me a beautiful view
of all of downtown Miami.

Look at this and we counted

22 construction cranes
on the horizon,

where we could see.

And I said,

I wonder how much
of this is drug money.

The drug trade saved Miami
in a lot of ways.

If you look out at the skyline,
a lot of this real estate

was bought and paid for
with drug money.

The drug trade certainly
put Miami on the map.

[Singleton] There is probably
no analogy to Miami

in the '70s and '80s,

other than maybe
Chicago in roaring '20s.

The place took
on a new cache.

And it's also Casablanca

because you had
international intrigue.

[Potter] It became a new
Casablanca, kind of a place

where you can come
and be near danger

but not get hurt.

[man] Suddenly Miami
seems exotic, glamorous,

even a trifle dangerous.

It just had everything.

[Potter] Along came
the TV show Miami Vice.

The city leaders
were mortified

after the Colombian drug war
and Mariel and all that.

But now there was going
to be a TV show

that could look at all that.

[man] The issue is tourists,
and whether watching this show

will make them
less likely to visit

Miami Beach in South Florida.

But what their
TV show did actually

was it glorified Miami.

No earth tones,
everything was in magenta

and aqua and beautiful colors

and it made an
attractive place to come

and all of a sudden Miami
became a top draw again.

We have seen
a resurgence in tourists.

We've seen that change.

South Beach for example
is undergoing a major change.

And modeling agencies
setting up on South Beach,

South Beach explodes
as a destination.

In one of America's most famous
and feted beach resorts,

it is suddenly
spring time again.

[man] Miami Beach is back.

Its broad wide sands
a playground once again.

[woman] It's used to be
just old people,

bad neighborhood,
it was a bad neighborhood.

And now it's so nice.

[Potter] And so in a very
odd way over the years,

it might have
actually helped tourism.

This is a weird place
in that regard.

[Buchanan] I think
we could had a renaissance

without so many people
having to die for it.

I could have lived without it

and so could a lot
of other people have lived

without the enormous
contribution of money

to this community.

It was too much
collateral damage.

I still love Miami,

but I think I love it more
for what it was

before the cocaine wars.

I mean,
at what price is skyline?

How many people have to die
for a shining skyline?

It wasn't worth it,
too many people died for it.

CENTAC 26
was extremely successful

and I think it was
in its success

that it found its end.

Well, Raul, he was CENTAC 26
and when he left,

it was devastating.

I left CENTAC
as a result of not one,

but many investigations,
in which I was a subject.

Involved in allegation
of some type of impropriety

with an informant.

I was placed under
investigation by

I guess every agency
under the sun in Dade County,

because of allegations
that were made against me

by people whom
I have put in jail.

He was definitely the heart
and soul of that squad,

there's no question
about that.

I was cleared
of any criminal wrongdoing

in all the investigations.

You know, I was told that
one of the main problems

I had was that I had
casted a shadow upwards.

I lost faith
in the department and I left

and I became
a private investigator

and you know, thank God,
things have been very successful

and I feel very good about it.

I came back here
'cause I had to come back,

I had no choice.

And when I first got out,
I'll never forget,

I went into the Surf comber,

and the first morning I woke up,
I remember going to the beach.

I was laying there and here comes
this girl out of the water

and as she is walking
out of the water,

I see she's got no top on.

And you got to realize,
I'm in jail now

11 years or something
and I'm looking at this girl

with no top on
and I'm saying my God,

I got scared,
I ran back to the room

and I wouldn't even
come out of the room

for like a day, I was so like,

what happened,
the whole world

has changed here,
you know.

You know, a lot of people
I know that you know,

they're not around anymore.

My friends that
we grew up together,

they're all dead.

They got killed.

[Munday] What I lost out of this
thing was of course almost 9 years

and I'm still on paper,
still having to report in.

Do I regret anything?

Sure, we messed up
a lot of people.

A lot of my friends because
of the business we got into.

They lost a lot of time,
went to jail.

I think the biggest thing
that I've lost

other than the time was when I--
went away as a fugitive,

I met a really
wonderful young woman.

And because of this
I lost her.

I've never met anybody
quite like her before.

And maybe one day
I'll get lucky enough

to find something
but I don't know.

That was what
I missed the most.

But then the other way
to look at it was,

I'd have never met her
if I hadn't had this problem.

If I didn't have my son,

you know, maybe
I'd look to ways

to screw the government again.

But now they're so far
advanced in everything,

you know, I don't want
to go back to jail

or so -- you know,
it's a whole different trip now.

At the time it was an
unbelievable adventure.

We did things that you
couldn't even imagine

that you could do.

We'd go and see.

It will take me a month
to get all that shit back again

but it's just not worth it.

Mr. Perez you have three
counts of first degree murder.

No bond.

A lot of these Mariel criminals
that were arrested

in the early and mid 1980s

got sentenced
to 10, 15, 20 years.

They're starting
to get out now.

[Singleton]
Given the right provocation,

who knows
what he might do again.

I get a call
from a gentleman

who wants me
to polygraph somebody.

We meet a few days later
and he says,

"Are you Nelson Andrew,

you used to be
homicide detective.'

'And I'm yeah, he says,
"You don't remember me?"

I don't know.

He says,
"I just got out of jail,

I did 15 years
because of you.

He's out.

He's out.

It's scary.

I went to Miami I pleaded guilty
to the three murders.

A life sentence on each case
to be served concurrently.

I've been here ever since.

[Singleton] When he flipped
and told us chapter and verse

about all these
different homicides

and how she ordered them.

Then she was done.

She was essentially
our John Gotti.

And Rivi was our
Sammy "The Bull" Gravano.

There's certainly
nobody more deserving

of the death penalty
than she is,

she should be on death row.

But, I take a little bit
of comfort in the fact that

at least till I retire
she will still be in prison.

I can't say
for how much longer,

but she will be
still be in prison

as long as I'm a cop.

[woman] Griselda Blanco, a,
I should say was 69-year-old

mother of four,
seen here in one of her

many, many mug shots
as of yesterday she is dead.

Gunned down
by a motorcycle riding assassin

as she stepped out
of a butcher shop

in Medellin, Colombia.

She might have been
behind as many as

200 executions
in Miami, in New York,

and in Irvine, California.

[Mooney]
She had so many enemies,

it's amazing she lasted
as long as she did.

[woman] This morning
Cocaine Cowboys hitman

Jorge Ayala
was back in court

hoping to get his
prison sentence reduced.

[man] The judge has denied us

the ability to have
a hearing on this issue

as to whether or not
the state attorneys office

has reneged on its agreement
to recommended parole

for Jorge
after 25 years in prison.

Commitments made to Mr. Ayala,
have not followed through.

I don't know
whether it's the notoriety,

the Cocaine Cowboys,
whatever it is,

they are putting on Jorge,
but he honored his agreement.

He put himself and his life
and his family's life at risk

by standing up
to the Colombian cartels

to testify against them
back in the '80s and '90s.

And now that
they're done with him,

and because supposedly
he made some phone calls

or had some
phone sex conversations

with some state
attorney secretaries.

Now they want
to throw him to the wolves

and let him die in prison,

because of some phone calls

that were made over
20 years ago.

You know, everybody
needs to get over that.

Jorge deserves to get
the benefit of the bargain.

He doesn't deserve
to die in prison.

He's atoned
for what he has done.