All language subtitles for The.BMF.Documentary.Blowing.Money.Fast.S01E03.720p.WEB.h264-OPUS.[eng]

[Scott] By the late 1980s,
you had a pretty big void

that needed to be filled
in the Detroit drug game.

This provides Demetrius
and Terry an opportunity

to take over.

I knew this time was coming
sooner or later.

[Meech]
We just kind of outgrew him,

and, shit, we took off.

We buying more
than he was getting.

The more money you get,

the more problems
you're gonna have.

[Roland] Me and Demetrius
was at the Coney Island.

Layton was tearing
Demetrius up.

I'm hearing...
[mimics grunting]

He end up pushing me
out the truck and took off.

[Scott] The only way
to put an end to this

was to leave town.

[dramatic hip-hop music plays]

[Meech] E-everybody move
like brothers.

[echoing] Like brothers.
Like brothers.

♪ ♪

Everybody's shining
like new money.

[echoing] New money.
New money. New money.

♪ ♪

It ain't no other crew
like this in the world,

and never will be another.

[echoing]
Never will be another.

Never will be another.

♪ ♪

[Scott] Demetrius leaves
Detroit in the summer of 1989

and went down to Atlanta.

Terry, on the other hand,
stayed in Detroit

on a full-time basis,
running day-to-day

business operations.

[siren wailing]

[dramatic music plays]

Meech wanted to be bigger
than Detroit.

Even though Detroit raised him

and Detroit taught him
the game,

his aspirations were bigger

than just
controlling the city.

I mean, he wanted
to control the whole--

the whole country.

[Scott] It seemed only natural
that Meech would

gravitate to the Atlanta area.

And at the time, it was
this wide-open territory

where anyone could come in
and make money

working with
the Colombian cartels.

Demetrius sees this
fertile ground to build upon.

[indistinct chatter
and laughter]

[funky electronic music plays]

Atlanta was also known

for a giant party
called FreakNik.

[reporter] No one knows
for sure how many visitors

traveled here for this year's
Black College Spring Break,

but the FreakNik tradition
of cruising

is alive and well
in downtown Atlanta.

[tires squealing,
engines revving]

[Troy]
I was down in Atlanta first,

and I told him how it was,
and it was crazy.

I'm like, "Dawg, you got
to come see this in Atlanta.

You gotta come down here."

♪ ♪

We walking out the club
8:30, nine in the morning,

the sun up,
people going to work.

And still, and they had club
anytime, open 24 hours.

We could go in there,
and we just had a ball.

We used to eat, you know,

smoke weed, play the games.

Then he met 'Tarra.

So a lot of the stuff we did,
he didn't do no more

'cause he was kind of
chilling with her a lot.

[dreamy music plays]

[Latarra]
I met Demetrius at a car wash,

believe it or not.

We were introduced to one
another by my friend Troy

and was just flirting
back and forth and...

...went on a date, I think,
that night.

[Latarra] He would frequent
that nightclub.

And I was a champagne girl,

so he would come
and buy bottles of champagne.

So of course,
that made me happy.

He's a very fun-loving guy,

just full of energy,
sense of humor.

And that just caught
my attention and kept it.

We discussed how Detroit,

it was just
very crime-infested,

and just being poor

and struggling like crabs
in a bucket, you know?

It was just very difficult.

[upbeat music plays]

So Atlanta was a breath
of fresh air for Demetrius.

♪ ♪

[Jocelyn]
Atlanta was a Black mecca.

In Atlanta, the Black agenda
is the most inclusive agenda

on the planet, quite honestly.

So that's why people come here.

This is why companies
come here.

This aspirational tone

was very much
a part of the community.

Meech picked Atlanta
quite deliberately.

He understood
what was happening here.

He had a sense for what it was

that he needed
to give him a necessary cover

for what it was
he's intending to do.

[Troy] Young Black people
were in nice cars,

living in nice homes.

It was beautiful.

Atlanta was beautiful.

[applause]

[person] The International
Olympic Committee has awarded

the 1996 Olympic Games

to the city of Atlanta.

[cheers and applause]

In 1990, Atlanta won
the Olympic bid.

And in six years, Atlanta
had to get the city ready

for the world to come here.

[dramatic music plays]

[crowd clamoring]

And Atlanta
has its challenges,

because this is all happening

at the same time
when cocaine is wreaking havoc

on the community.

Atlanta's to the point
where...

the S-H-I-T
is about to hit the fan.

[gunshot]

[tires screeching]

Red Dog unit was in place.

The Red Dog unit stands for

Run Every Drug Dealer
Out of Georgia.

You're in the projects, man.
This ain't Buckhead.

[Jocelyn]
They instilled a level of fear

in any drug dealer,
small or big.

[Scott] So at the same time

that this was happening
in Atlanta,

the Caribbean cocaine route
had been completely dried up.

[reporter] More money
than ever before in history

is pouring into the hands
of a single group of people,

drug smugglers.

[Scott] The federal government
had choked off the supply line

coming from Colombia, Peru,
Bolivia through Miami.

So most people
in the drug game

look to Mexico
as the next big supply hub.

Meech and Terry needed
to pivot from the Colombians

to avoid going down
with the ship.

[gunfire]

[hip-hop music plays]

♪ ♪

[Wayne] In 1996,
I met Meech in L.A.

We had a car wash
up in Fox Hills area.

We had a mutual friend who used
to come up here all the time.

He was like, "Aye, man, I--
dude trying to meet you."

I'm like, "Dude trying
to meet me?"

He's like, "Yeah, man.
He needs your help."

He brought Meech in.

"Aye, man.
I'm Meech, man, you know?"

He's like, "I've been
a millionaire a couple times

already, but right now,
I'm fucked up."

I was like, "Well, shit,
what's-what's going on?

What you need?"

He's like, "Man, I just
need a plug, you know."

You must have
a-a substantial plug.

Without that,
you-you ain't got shit.

But I told him no at first.

At the time, I was
under investigation myself.

I had basically retired
at that point.

I was f--a forced retirement,

you know, out of--out of fear.

And about three weeks later,
I was going through a divorce,

transmission went out
in my car,

roof was leaking in the house.

I made a decision.
I was like, "Fuck it.

I gotta get some money."

♪ ♪

[Wayne] I was fortunate enough

to meet, uh, Green Eyes
in 1997,

just buying some weed one day.

Green Eyes knew people
who got more dope

than they know
what to do with.

[Wayne] Green Eyes started
bringing in from Mexico.

It was always good.

You didn't have
to test nothing or nothing.

He brought me 1,500 kilos
in one day.

[dreamy electronic music plays]

♪ ♪

That was it. The dam broke.

[laughs] The dam broke,

and the floodgates were open.

[laughs]

At that--from that point on,

he was the plug, 1,000%.

[Wayne] Meech had-had a dream

of being a Costco
or something like that.

He wanted to be a warehouse.

His objective
was to have that many drugs

where people
could just come see him,

ain't had to go nowhere else.

♪ ♪

[Scott] As he was getting
bigger in the drug game,

Demetrius is studying
all of the pioneers

of organized crime in America.

He's learning what to do
from this mix

of real-life figures
and fictional figures.

[Latarra]
Meech is a huge movie buff.

At home, we would watch,

you know, The Godfather,

Al Pacino, Joe Pesci...

[gunshots]

...all of those movies.

[Scott] Take a little bit
of Tony Montana.

Take a little bit
of Alejandro Sosa.

Take a little bit
of Vito Corleone.

He had kind of had
this gangland stew

to mold his reputation
in the shape of

and build his organization
in the shape of.

Never rat on your friends,

and always keep
your mouth shut.

[Scott] He's starting
to envision an infrastructure

for this drug empire
that he's building.

[Wayne] T was in Detroit,

holding Detroit down,
running shit.

And Meech was in the field,
you know what I mean?

Meech was out there
in the field

trying to make it happen.

[Scott]
Going from city to city,

making and building contacts

and relationships for years.

[Wayne] Memphis, Kansas City,

Detroit, Arkansas,

Alabama, St. Louis.

He brought all the players.

He's offering a vision of
avoiding some of the problems

that he had had
in terms of supply

and the speed of that supply
and the amount of that supply.

So he's going
into these cities being like,

"I'm gonna consolidate,

"gonna streamline
the entire country's

"wholesale cocaine business,

"and you're either gonna
be a part of it,

or you're gonna
be on the outside looking in."

[Wayne] They had dreams, man,

but the priorities
are different.

Terry's a gentleman--

fine dining, travel,
good jewelry.

[laughs]

Demetrius is
a gentleman party animal.

[laughs] He gonna party.

He gonna have a--he gon'--

if you can't party, you don't
want to be with Meech.

Meech gonna party.

[mellow music plays]

[Wayne]
We would go to the club,

and-and I'd say, "What the"--

You know, he's buying two
or three bottles of champagne.

He's trying to draw all

the hustlers and the players
to him.

Like, "Man,
who is that over there?

"Man, this dude
popping bottles and,

you know, wearing Versace and,
you know, smoking real good."

And, shit, he got a lot
of good people that way.

[Wayne] Meech was, you know,
baiting people in like that.

And the shit worked.

It worked to perfection.

The next step is Meech told T,

"You need to come to L.A."

[Scott] The plan was,
Terry would establish

a base for himself
out of San Fernando Valley,

where he would
oversee the drugs

that were coming up
from Mexico and the cartel

in semitrucks,

thousands of kilos at a time,

on their way
to a number of stash houses,

where they would
cut up the drugs.

And like the Italian Mafia,

Meech had assigned crew bosses

for each state and each city.

That city's crew boss would
get it packaged into retail

and then spread out
into the street corners

of that particular city.

[exciting music plays]

Terry was working hard
to get the rotation right.

You want money coming,
dope going.

Money coming, dope going.

T was meticulous.

Money gotta be counted
a certain way.

You press the money by hand,

everything in $5,000 stacks.

Ten across and ten down,
that's $1 million.

[Scott] The business model
was working.

And they structured
the organization

like a Fortune 500 company.

The Flenory brothers
were at the very top;

then lieutenants, capos,
governors

of different states
and cities;

and then beneath them
would be soldiers,

guys that were responsible

for doing the-the
boots-on-the-ground work.

♪ ♪

[indistinct chatter]

[Chad] I'm from
St. Louis, Missouri.

It's the Wild, Wild Midwest.

[Chad]
Because I was a loyal person

and I was a great hustler,

I took on the role
of junior boss.

That's how I got
the name J-BO.

At the time,
it was going crazy.

Four hundred kilos of coke
would move a month.

[interviewer]
And what kind of money

does that generate in a month?

I couldn't really add it up.

I'ma just say millions,

you know, millions.

[Yolanda] I was
cleaning houses for J-BO.

And Meech came in, and he's
like,

"Who cleaned the spot?"

I said, "By the way, I'm Yogi."

He's like, "Oh."

He's like,
"Well, what do you do?"

I said, "I clean."

"What are you doing tomorrow?"

"Nothing."

"Be here at eight."

It was like that.

Then I took a bigger role then,

just day-to-day,
"What do you need me to do?"

I'm the best personal assistant
that he ever had, you know?

[mellow music plays]

[Raheem]
I'm from Compton, California.

When I met Meech,
he taught us how to bring

everybody together
and get some money,

you know what I mean?

Your job was your job,
no matter what you do,

as long as you was
doing it for the Mob.

I'm talking about
stacking the product.

I'm talking about
packing the product.

I'm talking about
counting money.

Our whole thing
is built on loyalty.

It's loyalty before anything.

[Stephen] I'm the White Boy,
the one and only Firecracker.

Don't call me the Firecracker
for nothing.

I'ma make it pop.

My role was the muscle.

If shit went down, like,
there's gotta be people there

to damn handle shit
and do shit.

There was a time
we was in the club,

and I had a conversation
with Meech.

He was like, "White Boy,
what do you want out of this?"

I was like,
"I want to be a millionaire."

He said, "I like that."

Meech brought the best
out of everybody, man.

I mean, you put your focus
and everything

towards that bond
and that brotherhood,

it's-it's something you can't
explain or replace.

[Clifford] This was
the first group of men

that became brothers,

that didn't fight over money,
didn't fight over women.

It was a melting pot

of different personalities
and cultures.

Everybody is from
somewhere else different.

You don't get nothing
like this nowhere.

Everybody move like brothers.

Everybody is prospering in some
kind of way in they own way.

Every man plays his own role.

They said that if niggas like
this is shining all together,

being together,
doing shit every day,

then they gonna fall out
over some money,

or somebody gonna rob,
steal, and kill.

I have yet to see that.
All of us get along.

And ain't no other crew
like this in the world,

and never will be another.

[dramatic music plays]

♪ ♪

[Chad] We had a good,
like, ten cities

that we was dealing with.

The money just was coming
from everywhere, man--

millions.

[Wayne] Georgia,

Alabama,

Memphis,

St. Louis,

Kansas City.

♪ ♪

[Chad]
It was like a revolving door.

Two weeks here, bam.

Go down to Atlanta.

Do two weeks there.

Shoot over to Birmingham.

Drop a bag over there,

or we'll pick up
in a week or two weeks.

[singer]
♪ Ooh, baby, I'm gone ♪

♪ Gone, gone ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Gone, gone, gone ♪

♪ Ooh, baby I'm gone ♪

♪ ♪

♪ I'm gone ♪

[Raheem] I'm trying to hurry up
and get the stuff in here

and out of here,
get it wrapped up properly.

You know, make sure
we get the dog repellent

so the police dog
ain't gonna smell it.

We was putting dope
in the floor of cars at first.

[Chad] We ran the cars so much,

they was breaking down,

or the driver
would get pulled over.

And that's when the limos
came into play.

[Scott] They turned
hiding drugs in vehicles

into an art form.

They had mechanic specialists

that would retrofit
brand-new limos

for a number
of secret compartments.

[Wayne] You had
to have the combination

that would make
the spot open up.

Climate control gotta be at 68.

The emergency brake
gotta be on.

The power antenna
gotta be down.

You gotta use
the window button

on the right-hand side,

and then you gotta
blow the horn three times.

See, if you do any of that shit
out of sequence,

it ain't gonna open up.

We had to have people in there

that knew exactly what to do.

[Raheem]
Everybody got they job.

If you fucked up, you
fucked up the whole rotation,

you understand,
not just what you doing

but what the next ten people
down the line gotta do.

[Wayne] That's the name
of the game right there.

It's a trust business.

That shit is just some dope

until somebody can turn it
into some money.

[gunshots]

[siren wailing]

[somber music plays]

[Scott] You know,
every Italian Mob leader,

every major drug organization
in the history of America

took power by violence,

took power by force.

And Demetrius took power
via a vision,

via his-his words,

uh, via a pitch.

[Wayne] At this point,

Demetrius was living
in Atlanta,

and Terry had a good foothold

into Los Angeles.

The vision
is kind of perfected.

The operation is in full swing

and is running like
a well-oiled machine.

They were making
a lot of money.

[Chad] Meech would always say,

"You know what, ole J-Beezy?

"One thing we gonna
be able to do is buy

one of everything
in the world."

[Raheem] I'm not used to being

in no mansions
or none of that.

When I roll up, I'm--
"Damn, he in a mansion."

When I walk in the house,
they-they--

everybody in there playing,
um, video games

and introducing theyselves.

[Cavario]
Meech had a open-door policy

like none I've ever seen.

You know, "Come on, come on,
come on."

Like, "Who's that?
Where'd they come from?"

[laughs]

Like, "Oh, that's the homey's
homey," or whatever.

And he was made
to feel welcomed instantly.

[Yolanda] It's hard to explain,
but to see the effect,

you know,
the love, the respect.

He would often tell me

he's always had the weight
of the world on his shoulders.

He's always been
that protective,

"I'm gonna take care
of everybody."

I was given--
dude, like, there's no telling

how many people
he put through school or,

like, did stuff for
and stuff like that.

Like, I had
my disabled brother,

had cerebral palsy.

Nobody got in the club,
nobody.

Meech put Gabe
before everybody.

You know, Meech had
my brother come with us,

and he traveled everywhere.

[indistinct chatter]

It says a lot to me.

[indistinct chatter]

[Cavario] You got guys
who come from homes

that have been devastated by,
you know,

economics or narcotics,
what have you.

What Meech and Terry
were selling,

essentially, was family.

And that was more
of a commodity

than anything else.

At a point, any of the guys,

they would have
given up the money.

That's our family.
It's my family.

[indistinct chatter]

-[person] Hey, cuz.
-What up, cuz?

-[person] Tell 'em what it is.
-Compton Crip.

Man, he taught us
how to do it for the family.

Everybody eat.
Everybody get some money.

We love to spend our money.

We can't take none
of this shit with us.

None--ain't no armored trucks
pulling up at no funerals.

It don't make no difference
if you

the-the maid or if you
the motherfuckin' bodyguard.

Everybody get extras
around here, fringe benefits.

Everybody travel
from place to place

and kick it with each other,
and every place is like home.

They got Russian Mafias,
Bulgarian Mafias.

They got Jewish Mafias.

Man, what--but what about us?

Man said,
"We Black Mafia Family."

Fuck it, let's go. We BMF.

[laughs] You know what I mean?

And that's how he came up
with it.

And we rolled with it.

[Wayne] Sure enough, it just
took off from there, man.

BMF Mafia Family right here!

[indistinct chatter]

[Wayne] But then when you put
the letters with it,

now the police want to know,
who the fuck is that?

[indistinct rapping]

[DJ] Ay!

[rapper] ♪ I'm the, I'm the
I'm the realest nigga in it ♪

-[DJ] BMF!
-[rapper] ♪ You already know ♪

[DJ] The realest niggas
you'll ever know!

[indistinct rapping]

[Wayne] Now you got a title.

And that's where it kind of,
like, started,

you know what I mean?

That's where some
of the problems were.

Shit, I didn't--
still didn't realize

the-the severity of it
at that point.

[club music playing]

♪ ♪

[Chad]
One night, we was at the club,

you know, drinking my drink.

I look down, and in the crowd,

I see, like, five guys,
different races:

white, Asian, Black,
all of them.

They all doing the same thing:

drinking their beer,

looking at us like this.

Law enforcers,
they always drink beer.

They was on a job, bro.

From that point on,

I knew it was problems.

[upbeat hip-hop music plays]

♪ ♪