The Debrief With MyronGainesX - March 11, 2023


Fed Explains The Biggest US Cocaine Trafficking Organization: BMF


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 45 minutes

Words per Minute

179.22923

Word Count

18,956

Sentence Count

1,621

Misogynist Sentences

28

Hate Speech Sentences

63


Summary

Join us as we cover the rise and fall of the Black Mafia Family, AKA BMF. We discuss the rise of BMF and the fall of it s leader, 6ix9ine, and how it all began.


Transcript

00:00:00.720 And we are live. What's up, guys? Welcome to FEDA. Today, we've got a special episode.
00:00:04.800 You guys have been requesting this one for a minute. We're going to talk about the Black Mafia family, a.k.a. BMF.
00:00:10.080 Yes, and we're here with Angie as well, as y'all know, but let's get into it.
00:00:16.580 I was a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, okay, guys? HSI.
00:00:19.880 The cases that I did mostly were human smuggling and drug trafficking.
00:00:24.920 No one else has these documents, by the way.
00:00:27.220 Here's what FEDA covers.
00:00:28.440 Dr. Lafredo confirmed lacerations due to stepping on glass.
00:00:35.260 Murder Investigations.
00:00:36.220 You see him reaching in his jacket. You don't know.
00:00:38.520 And he's positioning.
00:00:39.180 Been on February 13, 2019.
00:00:40.860 You're facing two counts of two meditative murder.
00:00:44.000 Bracketeering and Rico Conspiracy.
00:00:45.820 Young Slime Life here and after referred to as YSL.
00:00:48.400 This is 6ix9ine, and then this is Billy Seiko right here.
00:00:51.860 Now, when they first started, guys, 6ix9ine ran with me.
00:00:54.500 I'm a FED. I'm watching this music video.
00:00:56.740 You know, I'm Bobby Mahala.
00:00:57.940 Hey, this shit lit.
00:00:58.840 But at the same time, I'm pausing.
00:01:00.300 Oh, wait, who this?
00:01:01.560 Right?
00:01:01.980 Oh, who's that in the back?
00:01:04.160 Firearms and violent crime.
00:01:05.500 A.K.A. Bush IC violated.
00:01:07.360 You're wanting to stay away from the victim.
00:01:09.060 A.K. Bush IC arrested after shooting at King of Diamonds, Miami Strip Club.
00:01:12.220 This is the one that's going to fuck him up because this gun is not tracing him.
00:01:16.640 Well, it happened at the gun range.
00:01:17.760 Here's your boy, 42 Doug, right here on the left.
00:01:19.480 Okay.
00:01:20.380 Sex trafficking and sex crimes.
00:01:22.040 They can effectively link him to paying an underage girl.
00:01:25.060 I'm going to look like this.
00:01:25.980 And the first bomb went off right here.
00:01:29.580 Suspect to set down a backpack on the site of the second explosion inspired by Al-Qaeda.
00:01:34.640 Two terrorists, his brothers, the Zokar, Sarnev, and Tamerlan, Sarnev.
00:01:39.020 When the cartels shipped drugs into the country.
00:01:41.280 This guy got arrested for espionage, okay?
00:01:43.940 Trading secrets with the Russians for monetary compensation.
00:01:47.960 The largest corrupt police bust in New Orleans history.
00:01:52.200 The days of the police are gone.
00:01:53.960 So he was in this bad boy.
00:01:55.360 We're going to go over his past, the gang tie, so that this all makes sense.
00:02:05.220 All right.
00:02:05.960 What's up, guys?
00:02:06.640 Welcome to Fed It.
00:02:07.660 Today, we're going to be covering BMF.
00:02:09.860 Before we do that, guys, introduce you guys real quick.
00:02:11.600 You guys know who this is, but more than likely, you may or may not.
00:02:14.680 Hey, guys.
00:02:15.980 It's me, Angie.
00:02:17.980 Angelica.
00:02:20.020 The one with the accent.
00:02:21.360 The one with the accent, yeah.
00:02:23.680 I don't think I have an accent, though.
00:02:25.620 But you guys think that.
00:02:27.040 So, yeah.
00:02:28.640 W accent.
00:02:31.680 We'll be covering the BMF.
00:02:34.940 They've been requesting this one for a while, haven't they?
00:02:36.660 Yes.
00:02:37.120 Yes.
00:02:37.660 We did.
00:02:38.100 I didn't know.
00:02:38.680 Well, I didn't know what that was, but she thought it was like the regular mafia.
00:02:43.380 Yes.
00:02:43.840 I didn't know.
00:02:44.340 That was the thing.
00:02:44.900 Actually, I didn't know that there was a black mafia.
00:02:48.520 Yes.
00:02:48.820 So, well, I thought it was like a regular mafia.
00:02:51.960 Like, I don't know, Italian mafia or whatever, but it's different.
00:02:54.520 So, yeah.
00:02:55.020 I'll be hitting all the facts, like data, data, data, everything tonight with this video.
00:03:01.780 So, yeah.
00:03:02.640 Cool.
00:03:03.300 Like the video, guys.
00:03:04.060 Subscribe to the channel.
00:03:05.200 And shout out to a supporter, man.
00:03:06.660 We're going to be reacting to BMF, the rise and fall.
00:03:10.380 This is an older documentary from 2012, but it was very well done.
00:03:13.220 And I really wanted to get this one because this one, you know, covers a case extensively
00:03:16.820 with interviews that DEA agents that were involved, aka the Drug Enforcement Administration.
00:03:20.620 So, I really wanted you guys to see this one versus like, I know Stars has one out right
00:03:25.080 now with 50 Cent and I know what 50 is doing.
00:03:27.500 Guys, I am.
00:03:29.040 We've been looking for this documentary everywhere, under the rocks, everywhere.
00:03:34.040 Yes.
00:03:34.860 Yes.
00:03:35.240 Guys, literally me and Angie spent all night, like the past two nights looking for this
00:03:41.660 documentary for you guys.
00:03:42.880 We couldn't find it anywhere.
00:03:44.000 And then it hit me.
00:03:44.800 I knew what it was.
00:03:47.000 I'm confident that 50 Cent, knowing the businessman that he is, he has a book.
00:03:50.540 By the way, out right now, guys, which is really good on Amazon.
00:03:52.440 I think it's a 50 Cent something hustler or something.
00:03:54.700 I listened to an audible good book, but I'm almost certain what he probably did was he
00:03:59.440 got rid of this documentary so that you can't find it in the United States.
00:04:02.440 Because if you try to find it on Amazon, it says unavailable in your location.
00:04:06.220 Or anywhere, because I actually went on a VPN and I couldn't find it anywhere.
00:04:09.480 So, yeah, it was tough to get.
00:04:12.640 Yes, we still got it.
00:04:13.860 But what I will say is, though, shout out to the supporter that sent this to me.
00:04:17.100 I don't want to dox him, but he sent it to me in HD because this documentary
00:04:20.460 is on YouTube, guys, but it's shitty crap.
00:04:23.640 Yes, it's terrible.
00:04:26.520 And we did not want to lower the quality of FEDIC, guys, and to give you guys some
00:04:30.020 crappy documentary in 360p.
00:04:32.160 So we got it here in HD for y'all.
00:04:34.380 I'm super excited for it, man.
00:04:37.660 Yeah, bro, because it was, trust me, we were, well, I ain't gonna lie.
00:04:41.940 It was Angie that spent most of the time looking for it.
00:04:43.640 So she wasn't happy.
00:04:45.140 She was spending most of the time.
00:04:46.160 And she's like, what the hell, man?
00:04:47.360 Yeah.
00:04:47.980 And I know tricks.
00:04:49.200 I know hacks to find, like, you know, videos and movies and shit.
00:04:52.720 Because in Venezuela, they can't get nothing.
00:04:54.640 Yeah, you can see anything in Venezuela.
00:04:56.900 So I know my tricks.
00:04:58.400 And, man, this gave me a hard time.
00:05:01.420 Yeah, this documentary.
00:05:02.660 So shout out to the supporter.
00:05:04.080 So we'll get right into it, guys.
00:05:05.800 So here it is.
00:05:06.900 BMF, right?
00:05:07.720 Here's the Wikipedia page.
00:05:08.880 Black Mafia family.
00:05:09.980 BMF was a drug trafficking and money laundering organization in the United States.
00:05:12.940 The Black Mafia was founded in 1985 in Southwest Detroit by brothers Demetrius, Edward, Big Meech, Flannery, and by 2000 had established cocaine distribution sales throughout the United States through their Los Angeles-based drug source and direct links to Mexican drug cartels.
00:05:29.000 The Black Mafia operated from two main hubs, one in Atlanta for distribution run by Demetrius, and one in Los Angeles to handle incoming shipments from Mexico run by Terry Flannery.
00:05:37.140 Okay?
00:05:37.340 And that's his brother.
00:05:38.880 And, you know, that's an overall of them, guys.
00:05:41.400 We're going to go into how they actually did this in this documentary.
00:05:44.100 That's why I like it so much because it talks about how they ran their drug operation.
00:05:48.220 So let's get right into it, guys.
00:05:50.300 I'm going to go ahead.
00:05:51.240 We can remove that one.
00:05:52.560 And we're going to go right into the documentary here.
00:05:55.060 Again, that's how you all know this shit is exclusive.
00:05:57.860 We're playing it on Windows Media Player.
00:05:59.440 You can't even find this thing on the Internet anymore.
00:06:01.440 You can't play it on Max.
00:06:02.240 Yeah.
00:06:03.020 So, guys, let's get right into it.
00:06:04.740 Guys, let's get right into it.
00:06:34.760 We even went to the extent of contacting Don Sikorsky to try to get to this documentary.
00:06:38.660 The director.
00:06:39.460 Yeah.
00:06:39.920 We tracked down his Instagram and everything.
00:06:42.360 Yeah.
00:06:42.580 And we both sent some DMs.
00:06:43.760 So this documentary was not easy to get.
00:06:46.780 Shout out to, again, once again, thank you to the supporter that got it for us in good quality.
00:06:50.600 Because if you try to get this thing on YouTube, it is absolutely trash.
00:06:54.160 So let's keep going.
00:06:55.380 We're really living a life that you niggas is rapping about.
00:07:05.320 That's another thing.
00:07:06.380 Okay.
00:07:06.700 Blue Da Vinci.
00:07:07.220 This is one of the members of BMF who you guys will find out later what ended up happening to him.
00:07:12.020 Damn, I'm going to tell you, nigga.
00:07:13.100 We living this shit for real, nigga.
00:07:15.360 I'm talking about the million-dollar joints, man, from state to state, man.
00:07:19.100 We really, really doing it.
00:07:20.800 And ask the nigga, if you don't believe it, ask the nigga that you know that you can respect the world that they do.
00:07:26.000 The year was 2000, and hip-hop was on the rise, steadily moving to the forefront of American pop culture.
00:07:38.380 Crews and companies were emerging everywhere.
00:07:41.160 Stars were being born every day.
00:07:43.380 No alarm bells rang when an obscure but very well-funded entertainment company named Black Mafia Family entered the public eye.
00:07:51.140 They were opulent.
00:07:52.380 They were excessive.
00:07:53.140 Known for arriving in lavish motorcade, congregating in droves, and buying out the bars and elite clubs in every major American city.
00:08:02.000 But that was the culture.
00:08:04.060 That was the business.
00:08:06.020 By 2005, their brand had taken hold.
00:08:10.120 BMF was regularly associated with A-list hip-hop acts such as Young Jeezy, Slim Thug, and Fabulous.
00:08:16.940 At their high-water mark, billboards that read, the world is BMFs, could be seen throughout major American cities.
00:08:25.240 Seemingly a testament to their success in the entertainment industry.
00:08:29.080 But by the end of 2005, a sinister shadow was cast.
00:08:33.620 Tonight, two local men are in custody in connection with a major drug investigation.
00:08:41.640 More than...
00:08:42.240 It was not the FBI that did this investigation, guys.
00:08:44.360 It was the DEA, so I got to go ahead and give credit to them.
00:08:46.640 I don't know why they keep saying FBI here, but...
00:08:49.540 FBI, open up!
00:08:50.740 The news was incorrect in this one.
00:08:52.000 The DEA was the lead federal agency in this investigation, and they did quite a bit of work, which we're going to see here in a second.
00:08:56.940 200 pounds of cocaine, 100 pounds of marijuana, and as much as $1.5 million in cash were allegedly found at his home in California.
00:09:07.320 Agents say in this whole operation, they seized 6 kilos of cocaine, 80 pounds of marijuana, and seized more than a million dollars in cash and in assets.
00:09:16.480 We expect to learn more about this operation in the coming days.
00:09:19.380 After years of covert law enforcement investigations, it was revealed that BMF was actually a cold-calculated criminal enterprise.
00:09:26.640 Hiding behind a very public disguise.
00:09:29.580 Over the course of 15 years, the crew had made over $270 million in trafficking cocaine around the country.
00:09:37.000 As the investigation unfolded, over 150 members of BMF were indicted, and the Black Mafia family was named one of the largest domestic drug distribution organizations in American history.
00:09:50.080 There's a reason why Rick Ross in the song Blow Money, Fazzy goes, I think I'm Big Meech, huh, Larry Hoover.
00:09:55.660 Guys, these dudes were out here really selling a lot of drugs and using the music business and a record label as a front for their criminal activity.
00:10:05.320 Boom, boka!
00:10:05.920 So Atlanta, Georgia was their main hub.
00:10:16.260 And just so you guys know, real quick, Atlanta has been a drug trafficking hub for decades.
00:10:22.260 And the reason being, guys, is because, and I'll show you guys this on a map real fast.
00:10:27.340 Actually, Angie, can you pull up Atlanta...
00:10:29.720 Actually, no, hold on, I'll do it because it'll be a little bit easier.
00:10:33.420 Atlanta, Georgia, right?
00:10:34.740 Mm-hmm.
00:10:35.040 If you go on a map for Atlanta, Georgia, I'm going to go ahead and show you guys this real fast.
00:10:43.780 Hold on, go to StreamYard.
00:10:45.680 Okay.
00:10:48.200 Let me go ahead and move.
00:10:50.280 All right, share screen.
00:10:51.220 Give me one second, guys.
00:10:58.480 Right.
00:10:58.840 Here's where Atlanta is situated, right?
00:11:01.900 From a geographical standpoint.
00:11:03.360 Let me show you how drug trafficking works in the United States, all right?
00:11:06.120 So, typically, most of the drugs comes in through Mexico, right?
00:11:10.800 It comes in either through, you know, Nuevo Laredo, Laredo here, right?
00:11:16.920 Or Zapata or Reynosa, McAllen, Harlogin, you know, all these areas here, right?
00:11:21.800 Or it can go more western Texas, such as El Paso, right?
00:11:27.560 And then if you're going to go real west coast, you know, you got Nogales, you got Tijuana.
00:11:33.800 All these are, like, huge drug trafficking hubs, right?
00:11:36.620 To get drugs into the United States, right?
00:11:38.180 Some of the main ports.
00:11:39.060 And then you got San Ysidro also, honorable mention.
00:11:42.520 But most of the drugs, right, comes in, that's going to end up in Atlanta, typically comes here through Laredo, right?
00:11:49.860 Which is where I used to be stationed.
00:11:51.300 Or, okay, in the valley.
00:11:53.760 This whole area of Texas is called the valley.
00:11:55.340 I'm very familiar with South Texas.
00:11:56.540 I spend so much time there, right?
00:11:57.780 I have a, you know, little special place in my heart.
00:12:01.140 Pause.
00:12:01.880 Anyway, so the drugs come into the United States and they're brought to San Antonio, okay?
00:12:05.780 San Antonio is one of the main hubs, guys, okay?
00:12:08.660 And from San Antonio, as you guys can see, there's a main interstate highway here, Interstate 10, all right?
00:12:14.760 And this highway is critical because it gets you to where?
00:12:17.360 Houston.
00:12:18.120 And then also Interstate 35 from Laredo, right?
00:12:20.880 Because from Laredo, you got Interstate 35 takes you to San Antonio.
00:12:25.080 Interstate 35, you keep going north.
00:12:26.760 Where does it take you?
00:12:27.800 Austin, Texas, another major city.
00:12:29.400 And then Dallas, okay?
00:12:31.220 And then from there, it'll take you throughout the entire Midwest.
00:12:35.280 Because 35 goes all the way to, if I'm not mistaken, where's 35?
00:12:40.880 Yep, here's 35 still.
00:12:42.280 Takes you to Minneapolis.
00:12:44.600 All the way up into Duluth, okay?
00:12:46.800 Shit.
00:12:47.780 But the other thing, too, guys, you got to remember, most of the drugs is going to transit here at San Antonio.
00:12:52.520 So if it's going to go north, it keeps going on 35.
00:12:54.640 But a lot of times it goes what?
00:12:56.180 East.
00:12:56.920 And it's going to go hit Houston.
00:12:58.080 Once it hits Houston, the next big destination, guys, is right here in Atlanta, okay?
00:13:07.740 Because Interstate 10 will get you to the other interstates, which will get you into Atlanta, right?
00:13:13.240 But there's obviously a lot of other major cities.
00:13:15.000 Immobiles, another big drug hub, New Orleans, et cetera, Lafayette, right?
00:13:18.240 All these towns are on Interstate 10.
00:13:20.100 But the point is you got to get east.
00:13:22.740 And the reason why Atlanta is so big, guys, is because Atlanta covers the entire east coast of the United States.
00:13:31.280 So once the drug's coming through Mexico, through here, right, we'll follow my mouse, into Texas, into San Antonio, right around here, goes east, bam, ends up in Atlanta.
00:13:40.140 You're in a perfect position.
00:13:41.120 Because from Atlanta, you can take it to the Midwest like Chicago, you can take it to Georgia or southern Georgia or Florida, you can move it into the Carolinas, you can move it northeast into obviously New York, Boston, all of New England, Pennsylvania, Ohio.
00:13:58.440 That is why Atlanta is so critical because it's a perfect transition point from a drug trafficking perspective to get your product into anywhere else on the east coast of the United States.
00:14:08.480 And let's keep, I'll keep it honest with y'all, well, not even honest, this is the truth.
00:14:12.440 Most of America's population, guys, is east, okay?
00:14:16.440 It's actually not west, contrary to a popular belief.
00:14:18.800 Most of the U.S. population is concentrated east, this way, all right?
00:14:23.360 Because you guys got to remember, this is all desert out here in the west, right?
00:14:26.600 Outside of a few major cities, a lot of these areas are uninhabitable, right?
00:14:31.540 So that's how drug trafficking works in the United States from an overall view.
00:14:35.240 But 9 out of 10 times when drugs end up in Atlanta, it comes from Mexican drug trafficking cartels that control Texas a lot of the times.
00:14:43.580 But you're going to see with this organization, they played it a little bit different.
00:14:46.180 But Atlanta is a big transition drug hub.
00:14:48.700 All right, let's get back into the documentary.
00:14:50.100 Hope you guys enjoyed that.
00:14:52.480 A little bit of drug trafficking 101 for y'all.
00:14:55.660 What was that, Angie?
00:14:56.580 That was a geography class to me.
00:14:58.500 Yeah, you go.
00:14:58.980 I don't know anything about the states.
00:15:00.340 Yeah, it's all good, man.
00:15:01.320 It's funny, you were still not able to name three states earlier today.
00:15:03.580 Yeah, but I was struggling.
00:15:05.160 Unlike the other girls, which is hilarious.
00:15:06.620 I was struggling.
00:15:08.560 Yeah, we'll give you a pass.
00:15:09.620 You're a foreigner.
00:15:10.400 You barely speak English, so it's okay.
00:15:14.400 If you go out on the streets of Atlanta today, every street corner's got a guy that wants to commit a crime.
00:15:21.020 Every street corner's got a guy that thinks he's the best drug dealer out there.
00:15:23.940 But, you know, you do have to ask yourself, was there something interesting or different about these guys?
00:15:28.400 These are the guys that were willing to go one step further.
00:15:31.780 They were the guys that were willing to innovate one, you know, one step more than the next guy was.
00:15:39.120 Incredibly self-confident, strong-willed, and, you know, willing to think outside the box.
00:15:46.660 In order to run a big operation, the kind that BMF did, you've got to be a planner.
00:15:51.280 You've got to be a thinker.
00:15:52.140 You've got to be someone who can imagine a future, you know, where your business is growing and where your reach is growing.
00:16:00.200 And most of the guys that you talk to on the streets, they're interested in getting their money today, right then, right there.
00:16:06.460 And these guys, I think, they were willing to think beyond that.
00:16:10.420 They wanted something bigger for themselves.
00:16:12.240 You have these two brothers who came from Detroit, came from nothing,
00:16:16.200 and built, like, literally a $270 million, by conservative estimates organization, employing 500 people.
00:16:23.900 Everybody who's described it to me, who's worked on it, has called it the biggest case they've ever worked on.
00:16:28.480 The whole idea of a black mafia family, it was like a ghost story.
00:16:31.720 Cops told, like you would tell it to your kids.
00:16:33.760 There was just, there was no presence.
00:16:36.320 You didn't see them anywhere.
00:16:37.740 But if you'd ask people on the street, you mentioned BMF, they wouldn't talk about it.
00:16:43.460 So this guy was a former prosecutor, ADA, assistant district attorney.
00:16:46.400 So he prosecuted the lower-level crimes, which ended up helping with the, you know, the big-scale federal investigation later on.
00:16:53.040 And typically, small cases end up turning into big cases later on.
00:16:55.840 So it was very real to the people who were selling drugs and doing drugs, but to the rest of us, we had no proof that that existed.
00:17:02.980 Truthfully, a lot of stuff that sounded like urban legend, it sounded like too big and too much to be true.
00:17:08.260 But that they were...
00:17:09.300 And this guy, Bob Bell here, guys, this is a big reason why I wanted y'all to see this documentary versus the other stuff.
00:17:15.320 This was the actual case agent responsible for taking down this organization.
00:17:19.720 The case agent, guys, is always going to be the most knowledgeable person when it comes to the investigation,
00:17:24.800 because they're the one writing the reports, they're the ones running the sources,
00:17:27.820 they're the ones doing the wiretaps, they're the one writing the affidavits, etc.
00:17:30.920 So the fact that this guy is able to give insight into this case is huge,
00:17:35.500 because not often are you able to sit with the actual agent that conducted the investigation.
00:17:41.240 For large-scale cocaine distributors, moving hundreds and thousands of...
00:17:45.600 See, it says right there, he was the lead investigator from 2004 to 2007 on this investigation,
00:17:50.180 which means he was the case agent in special agent terms.
00:17:52.840 This was, like, back in 2007?
00:17:55.340 Yes, yeah, when they took them down.
00:17:57.280 Yep, they took them down in, like, 05, I think, if I'm not mistaken.
00:18:00.000 In multiple states around the country, from coast to coast,
00:18:03.200 and essentially living like celebrities, or better than celebrities.
00:18:07.640 They were taunting us.
00:18:10.160 You know, it was probably no secret to them.
00:18:12.920 Okay, and this guy, JS, it says, lead investigator of BMF.
00:18:15.460 You guys are wondering, well, hold on, wasn't the other guy the lead investigator?
00:18:18.480 So normally, guys, in big investigations like this, you need something called a co-case agent.
00:18:22.520 And the co-case agent's job is to run the case with you, manage the case with you,
00:18:26.620 because when you've got a case this big that spans several states, several different crimes,
00:18:31.220 you know, multiple defendants, et cetera, complex investigations like this,
00:18:35.060 you need two, sometimes even three agents on board.
00:18:37.600 I remember when I did my Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force case,
00:18:40.960 I had, like, five agents on the case with me.
00:18:42.520 I had a guy from DEA that worked with me.
00:18:44.200 I had a guy from the FBI, I had a guy, obviously, with HSI, and we all worked together,
00:18:48.160 and we were all case agents.
00:18:49.740 And then with HSI, I had two guys helping me from my agency.
00:18:52.640 So big investigations require a lot of manpower, and then you require a lot of coordination,
00:18:57.020 and you need multiple case agents for big cases.
00:18:59.700 So this guy was a co-case on this investigation.
00:19:04.140 Can you show real quick what's the DEA?
00:19:06.300 Because I know from Reiki Bad.
00:19:08.620 Okay, good point.
00:19:09.420 But I didn't know.
00:19:10.500 I mean.
00:19:11.120 Do me a favor, because you got that wiki page open.
00:19:12.820 Can you go ahead and type in DEA into Google, and then we'll share it from your screen.
00:19:16.000 Here it is.
00:19:16.480 Oh, you already got it?
00:19:17.060 Yeah.
00:19:17.320 Oh, you want you.
00:19:18.020 Look at that.
00:19:18.680 Shout out to Angie in the house, already on top of it.
00:19:21.140 Okay, yeah.
00:19:21.660 You know, good question, Angie, because a lot of people might not know who the DEA is.
00:19:24.680 The DEA, aka the Drug Enforcement Administration, is a United States federal law enforcement agency
00:19:28.640 under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution
00:19:32.040 within the U.S.
00:19:32.920 It is a lead agency for domestic enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act,
00:19:36.520 sharing concurrent jurisdiction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, aka the FBI,
00:19:40.260 the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is who I used to work for, and the U.S.
00:19:44.120 Customs and Border Protection, although DEA has sole responsibility for coordinating
00:19:46.960 and pursuing U.S. drug investigations, both domestically and abroad.
00:19:51.320 It was established in 1973 as part of the U.S. government's war on drugs.
00:19:55.200 The DEA has an intelligence unit that is also a member of the U.S. intelligence community.
00:19:58.980 While the unit is part of the DEA chain of command, it also reports to the Director of
00:20:01.920 National Intelligence, the DEA has been criticized for scheduling drugs that have medical uses
00:20:06.100 and for focusing on operations that allow it to seize money rather than those involving drugs
00:20:09.400 that cause more harm.
00:20:10.620 And yeah, that is one of the valid critiques of the DEA.
00:20:13.180 And the DEA, guys, is tasked with investigating Title 21 of the United States Code,
00:20:18.380 and that is the Controlled Substances Act, okay, within the United States Code.
00:20:24.100 So DEA is a very one-mission-specific agency, and to be honest, it's kind of one of their weak points,
00:20:30.760 but that's all they do is work, nothing else but Title 21, aka drugs.
00:20:33.960 Any works along with the FBI, most of the time?
00:20:37.680 Sometimes they do.
00:20:38.820 Sometimes.
00:20:39.440 Sometimes, but the DEA actually is responsible for getting other agencies Title 21 authority,
00:20:44.500 which allows them to investigate drugs.
00:20:46.080 So the FBI have Title 21 authority.
00:20:48.340 My former agency, Homeland Security Investigations, have Title 21 authority,
00:20:51.680 and a couple other agencies as well.
00:20:53.680 But those are two big ones.
00:20:54.780 But I can't tell you how many times we've, like, fought with DEA over drug cases.
00:20:58.420 It happens often where us, the FBI, other agencies fight the DEA for drug cases
00:21:03.280 because the DEA looks at it like, yo, this is our bread and butter.
00:21:05.420 Why are y'all coming in?
00:21:06.060 You guys can go investigate other crimes.
00:21:07.460 Oh, I see.
00:21:07.860 So it happens a lot where agencies fight together.
00:21:10.800 Homeland Security, my old agency, literally, I can't even chronically fights with the DEA over drug cases,
00:21:18.580 especially on the southwest border where you're able to argue, well, they're importing the drugs,
00:21:22.280 so it gives us jurisdiction, but then at the same time, it's drugs, so the DEA has jurisdiction.
00:21:25.640 So they're constantly fighting over drug cases.
00:21:28.260 How does that work, like, when agencies fight?
00:21:30.560 Like, I mean, how does that go?
00:21:33.260 You're asking good questions.
00:21:34.740 So how it goes typically is whenever you have, like, a conflict where you guys are both investigating the same individuals
00:21:41.760 or the same crime.
00:21:42.460 Yeah, like the same case.
00:21:43.240 Exactly.
00:21:43.800 So you got two choices.
00:21:45.240 You can either get with that other case agent, right?
00:21:47.860 Let's say you want a DEA agent.
00:21:49.120 You work at the FBI, and you got a DEA agent that's working in a drug case.
00:21:51.640 You're working in the same drug case, same organization.
00:21:54.120 One of two things can happen.
00:21:55.520 Either A, you can say, go pound sand.
00:21:57.600 I don't want to work with y'all, right?
00:21:59.900 Or what I always did was I said, hey, let's have a meeting.
00:22:03.640 And I meet with that agent, shake his hand, get a feel for him, talk with him.
00:22:07.040 If he's trustworthy and he seems like a good guy, I'll be like, bro, listen, man.
00:22:10.560 Let's work together.
00:22:11.260 Let's work this thing together.
00:22:12.360 Exactly.
00:22:12.980 Like, this is going to be stupid.
00:22:15.180 Let's work it together because there are strengths that I have that you guys don't and vice versa.
00:22:19.220 Right?
00:22:19.380 I'll give you an example.
00:22:20.600 Right?
00:22:21.000 So DEA is fantastic at exploiting telephones.
00:22:24.180 And what I mean by that is they're able to get a wiretap up within days, within like maybe a week, which is crazy.
00:22:32.300 No other agency can listen to someone's phone that quickly because it's a lot of work to get a wiretap up on a criminal case.
00:22:37.780 Right?
00:22:38.360 And they can go ahead and get subpoenas and get returned back, you know, same day.
00:22:42.680 But the problem is that they're kind of limited because they can only investigate Title 21, which means drugs.
00:22:47.440 Right.
00:22:47.720 So I could come in and be like, listen, I got an informant.
00:22:52.240 He's an illegal alien, but I'm keeping him in the country because I have immigration authority.
00:22:56.940 Oh.
00:22:57.620 So I got the informant.
00:22:59.320 Y'all got the ability to work up on the phones.
00:23:02.280 Let's say FBI wants to come on the case.
00:23:03.720 FBI gets a lot of funding.
00:23:05.020 You guys can fund some of the operations.
00:23:06.760 So that's how you kind of come in and use each agency's power to combat the organization.
00:23:11.240 And when you work together, it's powerful.
00:23:13.700 You can't stop it because what one agency lacks, another one can come in.
00:23:17.460 So like the FBI, for example, has a lot of money.
00:23:19.460 You're able to tap into them.
00:23:20.700 Hey, we need to go buy a couple ounces of meth.
00:23:23.360 We need $3,000 quick.
00:23:24.880 Cool.
00:23:25.160 Let me write this memo up.
00:23:26.620 Bam.
00:23:26.960 They get the money.
00:23:27.840 We go do the drug deal.
00:23:28.980 And then we do the drug deal.
00:23:30.460 Right?
00:23:30.720 I'll give you an example.
00:23:31.200 We do a drug deal.
00:23:31.680 And then you see the bad guy using a phone.
00:23:34.540 Right?
00:23:35.660 And DEA is able to identify the phone number.
00:23:37.920 Well, they can use their databases, search it, get within an hour, figure out who has
00:23:42.140 that phone line, subpoenas on the total records, everything.
00:23:45.860 Then you find out they, you know, another guy is going to go and cross into Mexico after
00:23:50.460 the meeting.
00:23:51.180 Well, immigration, we have control the ports.
00:23:53.800 We can figure out what time he crossed, what car he was driving, who he was with when he
00:23:58.060 crossed, et cetera.
00:23:58.940 So all the agencies are working together and using their unique authorities to investigate
00:24:03.540 the crime.
00:24:04.200 Right.
00:24:04.380 But if that's the case, then why agencies will fight?
00:24:07.940 You see, you say that that's very often.
00:24:10.120 So because everyone thinks they could do it themselves.
00:24:12.860 Right.
00:24:13.780 It's that remember you're around a lot of A type personalities, very, very dominant A
00:24:19.520 type alpha personalities.
00:24:20.660 Right.
00:24:21.080 Because that's the type of people that get that job.
00:24:23.120 So they're like, I can do it on my own.
00:24:24.940 Fuck them.
00:24:25.480 Of course.
00:24:25.980 But I mean, it's kind of stupid because if you're lacking.
00:24:29.400 Resources that another agencies has have.
00:24:33.220 Why wouldn't you collaborate?
00:24:35.480 That's a good question.
00:24:36.440 A lot of them are stupid and just bad blood.
00:24:38.820 Right.
00:24:39.060 I had it before.
00:24:39.680 I'll give you an example why it might not work.
00:24:41.600 So when I was in Texas.
00:24:43.480 We have a very bad relationship with DEA when I was working for Homeland Security in Laredo.
00:24:47.440 Right.
00:24:47.980 Very bad relationship.
00:24:49.040 They've gotten into fights.
00:24:50.580 Damn near.
00:24:51.100 Yeah.
00:24:51.400 Bad.
00:24:51.880 Right.
00:24:52.480 I was one of the few agents that had a good relationship and DEA would let me into their
00:24:55.840 building.
00:24:57.200 Like it was so bad where they just didn't want to work together ever.
00:25:00.260 A lot of bad blood.
00:25:01.760 But that'll happen sometimes where the agents that you work with, like the office, they
00:25:06.380 don't like that office and they just don't work together.
00:25:08.540 I was one of the few to kind of come in with an olive branch and say, yo, let's work together.
00:25:12.800 That's cool.
00:25:13.600 But sometimes.
00:25:14.380 They're probably all male.
00:25:15.240 Huh?
00:25:15.660 They were probably all men in the office.
00:25:17.660 Yeah.
00:25:18.080 Yeah.
00:25:18.400 Yeah.
00:25:18.880 Mostly.
00:25:19.440 Yeah.
00:25:19.900 Definitely.
00:25:20.440 Very few female agents.
00:25:21.640 I like my whole time.
00:25:22.800 There was one DEA female agent that I knew.
00:25:25.140 She was a Colombian chick.
00:25:26.720 But other than that.
00:25:28.400 No.
00:25:29.920 But.
00:25:30.520 Makes sense.
00:25:31.560 Yeah.
00:25:31.800 So sometimes it'll be just like a bad relationship in the local area.
00:25:36.320 And like whoever comes into that office just inherits that beef.
00:25:39.820 And they say, oh, well, my supervisor says we don't work with DEA.
00:25:42.160 So I guess I'm not going to work with them.
00:25:44.240 But I broke that because my supervisor was an idiot.
00:25:46.320 I was like, dude, I'm going to go work with DEA.
00:25:48.080 He's like, all right.
00:25:48.800 It is what it is.
00:25:49.620 Like.
00:25:50.060 Yeah.
00:25:50.620 Management might not like it.
00:25:51.600 But like you have a good reason to do so.
00:25:53.240 Because I was like, I'm not going to fucking let these other idiots like ruin the opportunity.
00:25:56.220 We ended up doing a really good case together.
00:25:58.000 That's cool.
00:25:58.700 So.
00:26:00.160 But yeah, a lot of people do.
00:26:01.160 Kind of like the case we watched yesterday of the terrorists where they were together.
00:26:05.420 Yes.
00:26:05.440 The Hezbollah case.
00:26:06.680 The FBI and the local police department and everything.
00:26:09.740 I'm still debating if we're going to drop this one first for you guys or that other one.
00:26:12.800 But don't worry.
00:26:13.500 We're going to drop it very soon.
00:26:15.240 The Hezbollah one.
00:26:15.740 And Angie really liked it, actually.
00:26:17.700 Yeah, I really liked it.
00:26:18.560 Yeah.
00:26:18.720 It's quite interesting.
00:26:19.460 I thought I was going to like it because I'm not familiar with terrorism.
00:26:22.440 But I really like this.
00:26:23.560 It's quite interesting.
00:26:24.360 Yeah.
00:26:24.940 So you guys are definitely going to enjoy that one.
00:26:27.300 But good questions, Angie.
00:26:28.540 We'll go back into the doc.
00:26:30.680 Because you're probably asking questions that like for me.
00:26:32.500 I mean.
00:26:32.900 I already know the answer.
00:26:33.820 So I don't even think about it.
00:26:35.000 Yeah.
00:26:35.240 But I don't know.
00:26:36.580 I mean, that's why I'm asking.
00:26:37.680 Yeah.
00:26:38.200 No, no, no.
00:26:38.680 And I'm also not familiar with like American law.
00:26:41.460 Yes.
00:26:41.740 So that's why I'm asking, you know, like to be on the same page.
00:26:44.040 And I'm glad that you're asking because we do have a lot of international viewers that
00:26:47.320 want this.
00:26:47.940 So, you know, no questions.
00:26:49.620 I'm there for you guys.
00:26:50.500 Yeah.
00:26:50.740 She's asking for y'all, man.
00:26:52.580 So going back.
00:26:53.720 Okay.
00:26:53.940 So, yeah.
00:26:54.160 This is the cocaine agent here, guys.
00:26:56.040 We gave you a lot of sauce there.
00:26:57.400 But let's get back into it.
00:26:58.420 One part entertainment company, one part street crew, black mafia family was an urban dream
00:27:26.400 come true.
00:27:27.460 The combination was so seductive and so lucrative that during their peak, BMF had 400 people
00:27:33.420 on their payroll.
00:27:34.560 And I want to make this very clear, guys.
00:27:36.220 Back then.
00:27:37.220 Okay.
00:27:37.600 You guys might be like, whoa, like what the hell?
00:27:39.860 Back then, BMF was it, guys.
00:27:42.400 Like Jung Jeezy was an A-list rapper.
00:27:45.060 You know what I mean?
00:27:45.620 These guys over at BMF were aligning themselves with some of the top artists in the day.
00:27:50.740 So not only were they a huge drug trafficking organization, they weren't bums when it came
00:27:54.900 to the rappers that they were working with.
00:27:56.700 These are all top tier guys back then.
00:27:58.440 I know Jung Jeezy is relevant now for all my young boys.
00:28:00.700 But back then, oh, man.
00:28:03.020 Doug Motivation 101.
00:28:04.620 You know what I mean?
00:28:05.500 Let's get it.
00:28:06.700 You know, hey, all those ad libs that you guys like see these rappers with now, Jung Jeezy
00:28:11.520 was one of the first ones to do that.
00:28:12.900 It took a lot of ability and leadership skills to hold together all the moving parts that
00:28:41.440 they had going on, just like it does in any corporation or business.
00:28:45.320 They structured it like an organization where they had, like, their top level, the CEO, the
00:28:49.580 COO, the CFO.
00:28:51.240 Then you had your middle managers who managed each one of the different cities in the different
00:28:55.400 states.
00:28:56.460 And then you had your logistics, you know, your couriers.
00:29:00.080 They were a very good crew as far as a drug organization.
00:29:05.860 They were really, really organized.
00:29:07.040 They had a lot of people working for them.
00:29:09.020 They had a lot of people eating off them.
00:29:10.480 There's the caricature and the stereotype of what a gang leader is or what a drug lord
00:29:17.120 is.
00:29:18.260 You know, it's New Jack City.
00:29:19.860 It's Scarface.
00:29:21.580 But the reality of it is you get success through planning, through patience.
00:29:28.400 I think those guys, they had a much more sophisticated view.
00:29:32.460 You see Big Meech with Nelly right there.
00:29:34.000 There's Big Meech.
00:29:34.620 Of what this was about.
00:29:37.340 They didn't say, I'm the drug lord and I'm going to act like a drug lord.
00:29:40.620 They were focused on making money.
00:29:43.260 At the top of the organization stood two brothers.
00:29:46.960 Demetrius Flannery, or Big Meech, was the face of the organization.
00:29:51.880 The press-friendly CEO.
00:29:53.540 Demetrius tended to be more flamboyant.
00:29:56.800 He was more public.
00:29:58.500 He had a bigger-than-life persona, and he liked portraying that.
00:30:02.180 Terry, Southwest T, was the younger brother and had no interest in the attention.
00:30:07.040 Seldom seen, he was the architect of the operation, the planner, the mastermind.
00:30:11.600 Terry was understated, very protective, and very shrewd.
00:30:16.720 Terry, on the other hand, was a businessman.
00:30:19.900 He was every bit as influential and competent as Demetrius, but tended to like to try to fly under the radar and stay low-key and low-profile a little more.
00:30:28.380 Terry was the quiet one.
00:30:30.300 Terry was the brains behind it.
00:30:32.160 He enjoyed his lifestyle.
00:30:33.380 He ran it more like a business than maybe a family.
00:30:38.300 Hey, happy holiday to y'all, man.
00:30:40.580 This is another reason why I like this documentary so much.
00:30:42.920 What you guys are hearing is actual Title III intercepts from the investigation.
00:30:49.580 So you got a conversation here between Charles Parson and his boss, Terry Flannery, okay?
00:30:54.360 Big Meech's brother.
00:30:55.760 And this is from the summer of 2004, Exhibit 2500211, or 25211, U.S. vs. Brian Garrett and Benjamin Smith.
00:31:04.920 What y'all got up, man?
00:31:06.160 Hey, man, I'm trying to get everything together before next month kick in.
00:31:10.580 Man, and I want to get your apartment cleaned out.
00:31:13.520 I was just coming up with a plan, but I need you.
00:31:17.580 Get your apartment cleaned out.
00:31:19.120 More than likely what that is, guys, is him saying, yo, I need a spot cleaned out so that I can go ahead and bring some drugs over to Stash, okay?
00:31:28.380 Because normally when you're doing with drug trafficking, guys, the drugs got to get imported to the United States.
00:31:33.200 Once they get imported to the United States, they need to be brought immediately to a Stash house to be held, to be sold to other local distributors, okay?
00:31:41.100 So, like, let's say you get 100 kilos of cocaine that come into the United States, right?
00:31:44.720 It was described earlier.
00:31:45.840 It gets into Laredo.
00:31:46.900 Their job is to get the hell out of Laredo into San Antonio.
00:31:49.620 From there, maybe five bricks get sent to Houston.
00:31:52.120 Another 10 gets sent to Austin.
00:31:53.680 Another 10 gets sent west to Arizona somewhere.
00:31:55.700 And then maybe another 10 goes into Atlanta.
00:31:59.040 So, it gets to a hub.
00:32:00.540 And then from there, the big load of hundreds of kilos that came from the border have to get distributed and sent to major cities in and out.
00:32:08.260 So, this guy right here is probably very close to the actual smuggling event where he's trying to now figure out a place to put the drugs out.
00:32:17.220 I need you.
00:32:18.440 I don't like fucking with Arnold.
00:32:21.300 I'm going to have to go over to Arnold.
00:32:22.260 You have no choice.
00:32:22.980 Don't judge.
00:32:23.980 That's what you said to me.
00:32:25.020 I don't have a number on him, huh?
00:32:27.100 No, I'm going to tell him to call you.
00:32:28.820 That's who you're fucking with.
00:32:30.440 Oh, okay then.
00:32:31.880 Now, quit doing what you want to do and do what I tell you to do.
00:32:35.300 Yes, sir.
00:32:36.120 Yes, sir.
00:32:36.580 I'm going to call Arnold.
00:32:38.020 All right.
00:32:39.080 Okay.
00:32:39.640 So, as you guys can see, the way this phone call is being structured, what is Terry telling him?
00:32:43.680 Don't call me.
00:32:44.880 Call Arnold.
00:32:46.100 And why is he saying that?
00:32:47.640 He's saying that because he doesn't want to be tied directly to the drug trafficking activity.
00:32:51.560 Call Arnold.
00:32:52.280 I don't want you calling me because that ties me directly into the situation.
00:32:55.980 So, let's say you get busted.
00:32:57.440 Now, there's these phone calls that show that I might have been involved in this conspiracy, etc.
00:33:01.400 And this happens a lot of times, guys, in drug trafficking organizations where the boss has tried to insulate themselves from the criminal activity and tell them, you contact this guy.
00:33:08.640 This is your dude that deals with X, Y, Z.
00:33:11.120 So, in other words, he needs to talk to the stash house operator who is more than likely this guy, Arnold.
00:33:16.300 But this dude can't get a hold of Arnold.
00:33:17.900 He doesn't have the number for him.
00:33:18.920 So, he's calling Terry.
00:33:19.780 And as you guys can see, Terry gets extremely flustered from him calling him.
00:33:23.660 Okay?
00:33:24.020 Because that's not his job.
00:33:24.940 He's not a stash house operator.
00:33:26.380 He's the brains of the organization.
00:33:28.060 This dude needs to know his place and contact Arnold, who is the next leg of the drug trafficking conspiracy.
00:33:35.680 Everybody move like brothers.
00:33:38.160 And everybody from different places.
00:33:39.920 Milwaukee, St. Louis, Detroit, Texas, Atlanta, Cali.
00:33:45.920 You know what I'm saying?
00:33:46.520 Florida.
00:33:47.140 We got people from everywhere in our mind.
00:33:48.980 Everybody move as one.
00:33:50.460 Everybody is prospering in some kind of way, in their own way.
00:33:53.580 Every man plays his own role.
00:33:55.920 And everything starts with the leader.
00:33:57.680 I'm a good leader.
00:33:59.100 So, I got good people that follow me.
00:34:01.240 You know what I'm saying?
00:34:01.840 It's simple.
00:34:15.180 The Black Mafia family was an ambition 20 years in the making, arising from the hard streets of Detroit.
00:34:22.340 Meech and Terry got into the drug game for one simple reason.
00:34:26.240 They no longer wanted to be poor.
00:34:28.180 By the late 80s, Meech and Terry led a small drug ring, peddling crack cocaine at local high schools.
00:34:33.820 And that's not to say that everyone who lives in these neighborhoods.
00:34:36.200 And just so you guys know, Detroit is consistently in the top 10 most dangerous cities in the United States.
00:34:42.560 Literally one of the worst places.
00:34:44.440 Okay?
00:34:44.760 And that happened because a lot of the car factories, you know, Ford, etc. started closing down.
00:34:51.940 And that ended up leaving a kind of a vacuum hole in Detroit where it just led to widespread poverty.
00:34:59.220 It buys into a criminal lifestyle.
00:35:01.380 But in a lot of these neighborhoods where money's scarce, opportunity's scarce, most of those people, if you called them on it and said, how can you allow this stuff to happen right outside of your home?
00:35:11.600 Most of them would turn around and say to you, well, how can you criticize me for this when I have nothing?
00:35:16.020 Terry and Demetrius Flannery grew up in the hardscrabble area of southwest Detroit, right up against the cities of Ecorse and River Rouge.
00:35:25.020 Very blue-collar, tough area.
00:35:26.620 And they grew up on a dead-end street, 1555 South Edsel, a gray, nondescript home at the end of the street.
00:35:36.120 You know, Meech had told me the gas would get turned off in the winter.
00:35:39.600 They'd have no heat in it.
00:35:40.780 And he watched his parents who worked have to struggle through that.
00:35:43.460 I mean, he told me straight up, he's like, yeah, a job at McDonald's wasn't going to cut it.
00:35:47.020 I learned that there was another route for me.
00:35:49.840 He's very unapologetic about that.
00:35:51.480 You get the Flannery's back in the 80s, you get a couple guys who are kind of independent traffickers out there moving kilos and making a buck,
00:35:58.660 but they don't have this monstrous organization and don't have the leadership skills.
00:36:02.700 Okay, according to Forbes, guys, I'm looking at this right now.
00:36:05.720 Detroit is the sixth most dangerous city in the United States.
00:36:09.260 What's the first one?
00:36:10.340 It goes in order, St. Louis, Missouri, number one, Mobile, Alabama, two, Birmingham, Alabama, three, Baltimore, Maryland, four, five, Memphis, six, Detroit, seven, Cleveland.
00:36:22.040 Eight, New Orleans, nine, Shreveport, Louisiana, ten, Baton Rouge, which I'm not surprised that any of those cities are on the list.
00:36:29.000 Yep, yep.
00:36:29.760 It's one of the poorest states in the U.S.
00:36:31.440 Wow.
00:36:31.840 And I also want you to notice Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans, right, as well as Mobile, Alabama, and Birmingham aren't that far from where?
00:36:43.220 Interstate Highway 10, which I just described, is a big drug trafficking highway.
00:36:47.240 So.
00:36:48.820 There you go.
00:36:49.560 As charismatic as they are in 2000.
00:36:54.120 You have reached the Sprint Voice mailbox of 6331.
00:36:59.380 To leave a voice message, press 1, or just wait for the time.
00:37:04.600 Swipe, boy.
00:37:06.640 SOS, they left me in the jungle, man.
00:37:09.400 It's the jungle, all this, huh?
00:37:11.080 If you are satisfied with your message, press 1.
00:37:17.640 The Flinnery brothers were on DEAs and IRSs and other law enforcement agencies radar for quite some time.
00:37:25.580 The Detroit DEA, headed by case agent Bob Bell, had been investigating another drug trafficking crew called the Puritan Avenue Boys.
00:37:34.280 In fact, Demetrius Flinnery was arrested along with a Colombian in Detroit back in 1994.
00:37:39.840 However, there wasn't enough evidence to charge him.
00:37:42.200 So there was information out there for years about the legend and the prowess of the Flinnery brothers.
00:37:47.420 They had become too big and too prolific and needed to be investigated.
00:37:52.100 In a complex case like BMF and tracking down the two brothers,
00:38:07.840 there were numerous vital steps that the DEA took that enabled them to put together a case that stands close to 10 years
00:38:15.080 and involve the efforts of numerous branches of local and federal law enforcement.
00:38:19.340 And it was a logistical nightmare and the only way we were successful was by working together with our account.
00:38:25.520 And those are real photos, guys, of the money seized.
00:38:27.620 You can see what the trap compartments in the vehicle, the cell phones that they took.
00:38:31.000 This was a huge investigation.
00:38:33.080 DEA counterparts, IRS counterparts, and other law enforcement counterparts all over the country.
00:38:37.560 As far as nationwide investigations, this is, you know, the biggest one I've ever been involved with.
00:38:43.700 And we built that relationship up, built up trust, and we shared information seamlessly.
00:38:48.460 You know, my job is putting pieces of a puzzle again.
00:38:51.800 A huge organization that's stretched across the whole United States, you just don't put that together in one day.
00:38:57.760 It takes a lot of time, a lot of man hour, a lot of cooperation with all the federal agencies and local PDs.
00:39:03.880 If at any time anybody wanted to, any law enforcement wanted to take down their part of the case,
00:39:10.120 this case would not have ripened to its fullest extent.
00:39:13.640 With the constant threat of law enforcement, snitching, and violence,
00:39:18.680 Meech and Terry needed unwavering loyalty from their crew.
00:39:23.040 Meech's natural generosity was the greatest reinforcement.
00:39:26.980 It don't make no difference if you the maid or if you the motherfucking bodyguard.
00:39:32.040 Everybody get extras around here, French benefits.
00:39:34.780 I'm driving this tonight.
00:39:36.200 It's going to be like, oh, who is that?
00:39:37.640 That's Blue with the GT cool.
00:39:39.240 Anything that you can do to engender loyalty is going to work in your favor.
00:39:45.240 Companies and corporations do it through incentive programs and bonusing.
00:39:49.380 In the criminal underworld, people do it through relationships.
00:39:53.700 Hello.
00:39:54.980 Going up, though.
00:39:56.460 Going up, though.
00:39:58.280 Now I just call and let you know, man.
00:40:00.740 Pulling over in my truck for about two, three hours now, man.
00:40:04.520 It's crazy, but that's the type of shit they do, though.
00:40:07.100 They ain't find nothing in the truck.
00:40:09.460 They ain't say a shit about the tenant windows, but they claim that they smell marijuana in my truck,
00:40:16.380 and I don't even smoke in my truck.
00:40:18.240 That's terrible.
00:40:19.040 That's terrible.
00:40:20.240 But there ain't nothing in there, so they feel like this is.
00:40:23.420 No.
00:40:24.120 What I'm saying is they didn't smell no weed in there.
00:40:27.600 I do not smoke in that truck at all, B.
00:40:30.220 It's what I'm saying, period.
00:40:31.660 They just probably want to be all on it, because the truck new and the car old, all that shit look new for a young nigga.
00:40:41.060 Probably ain't nothing shooting their name.
00:40:43.160 That's why they do all that shit.
00:40:45.280 Yeah, they talking crazy, ain't they?
00:40:47.020 They talking crazy.
00:40:48.060 I'll rap with you in a bit.
00:40:52.100 You got a robin' ass ball.
00:40:53.660 And they thought they were safe.
00:40:57.160 Little do they know that the DEA caught every single second of that conversation.
00:41:02.700 And the thing is, even though they didn't find drugs, guys, the fact that he called them to say they didn't find shit, et cetera,
00:41:08.340 and I don't smoke weed in my car, but they searched me, that can be used as evidence to show knowledge that, yo, the police are on me.
00:41:14.600 And I guarantee you, at this point, they probably started to be a little bit suspicious that they had searched the car knowing that there's no way that the same marijuana would be there,
00:41:23.900 because clearly they don't smoke in a vehicle used to transport drugs, because that would be very stupid.
00:41:29.580 The police probably will cause to search your vehicle, and that's the last thing they want.
00:41:32.460 So they probably got put on radar, or maybe not, the way they were speaking on the phone, but regardless, the DEA was listening.
00:41:40.220 Then you're going to be a robin' ass crew.
00:41:42.420 If you got a real boss who know how to sacrifice and take the bad along with the good and show his crew how to be men, then this is what you get.
00:41:51.340 Everybody's shining like new money.
00:41:53.040 ...to build loyalty amongst its members by actually putting family members of defendants, organization members, on a stipend.
00:42:00.860 In fact, one recorded call, Terry was talking to a defendant who was getting ready to go in to serve his sentence.
00:42:08.060 Terry offered to pay Benjamin Johnson's wife about $6,000 a month while he was away.
00:42:13.520 $72,000 a year tax-free isn't bad to get by on.
00:42:17.000 They really produce...
00:42:18.000 ...loyalty through reward rather than through the threat of punishment.
00:42:22.940 Their organization gave notoriety to people who felt they were part of something exciting and important.
00:42:28.900 They were very generous with those around them.
00:42:32.380 They provided a lifestyle.
00:42:34.160 A lot of time was spent at clubs.
00:42:35.680 There were a lot of women around.
00:42:37.060 You know, a lot of these guys on the lower level, and they were part of this particular group, BMF.
00:42:41.420 They had status when they walked through the door.
00:42:44.040 That's it.
00:42:44.980 Where's the Black Mopu family at in this motherfucker?
00:42:47.760 In BMF, if there wasn't a written code, there was definitely a spoken one.
00:42:52.620 They were all brothers.
00:42:54.000 They all moved together.
00:42:55.720 Meech preached that jealousy, envy, or the distraction of women...
00:42:59.480 You can see, man, the social proof is real.
00:43:01.980 You can see him with A-list rappers.
00:43:03.500 You can see Trina sitting down right there.
00:43:05.420 He's in the music videos.
00:43:06.680 Got the chain.
00:43:07.280 Got a crew of, like, 100-plus with him.
00:43:09.700 So these guys were flying high back then with the baggy clothes, if you guys remember.
00:43:13.960 That was a stout back then, man.
00:43:15.120 This brings back so many memories.
00:43:16.520 All you young boys don't remember this, though.
00:43:18.060 A woman among the crew members was not welcome at all.
00:43:20.780 We don't fall out over no girls.
00:43:22.680 We hit them all.
00:43:24.460 They hit my hoes, I hit they hoes.
00:43:26.380 The ones that don't want to be shared, then that's your own personal one.
00:43:29.720 Other than that, we ain't falling out over no hoes.
00:43:38.240 From the onset, Meech and Terry proved to be resourceful business partners
00:43:42.460 capable of capitalizing on every opportunity.
00:43:45.400 When Terry was younger, he was a bystander to a shootout,
00:43:49.420 and his right eye was grazed by a stray bullet.
00:43:52.000 Doctors botched the surgery, and he was awarded a cash settlement,
00:43:55.320 so he used that money to establish a legitimate sedan service in Detroit.
00:43:59.280 Ah, that's why he's cross-eyed.
00:44:04.060 The sedan service not only provided a legitimate front to wash the drug money,
00:44:08.880 it provided a discreet method to transport large quantities of drugs.
00:44:12.580 But that actually became sort of the skeleton.
00:44:16.560 That ended up the infrastructure, becoming the infrastructure
00:44:21.240 for which these guys would operate in to run their drug traffic organization.
00:44:25.180 Wait till you guys see this here, how they did this.
00:44:27.060 Really interesting stuff.
00:44:28.380 A much more advanced fleet of vehicles that would eventually move thousands of cocaine.
00:44:34.320 Was that, you found the LinkedIn?
00:44:35.240 I actually found it.
00:44:36.640 Oh, for the LinkedIn?
00:44:37.320 Yeah.
00:44:37.860 Put it on the screen.
00:44:38.460 And they still have it.
00:44:39.680 It's on the screen, I think.
00:44:41.200 It's on the screen.
00:44:42.580 It's right here.
00:44:44.100 No, that's the Wikipedia right here.
00:44:46.260 Shit, I don't know.
00:44:47.280 You got to hit share, and then...
00:44:49.420 Or just put it up in the screen where the BMF thing is.
00:44:52.740 Yeah, I'll keep playing it until you...
00:44:54.540 Okay.
00:44:55.500 Okay, here.
00:44:57.500 Right there?
00:44:58.020 You got it?
00:44:58.420 Okay, yeah, yeah.
00:44:59.080 All right.
00:44:59.700 So what is the BMF...
00:45:00.840 The BMF Entertainment Music Group.
00:45:03.260 What the fuck?
00:45:04.120 This is the discography, I think, and LinkedIn.
00:45:06.840 And you can see here the employees.
00:45:09.780 So Dimitri Flunery, who is the one, the main one.
00:45:13.600 Director at BMF.
00:45:14.820 When the hell did they create this?
00:45:16.420 2003.
00:45:17.540 Oh, wow.
00:45:18.180 Their LinkedIn is still...
00:45:18.880 I didn't even know LinkedIn was around back then.
00:45:20.900 Yeah, apparently.
00:45:22.800 Wow.
00:45:23.200 Okay.
00:45:23.480 I'm trying to find the music, like the songs and the artists and everything.
00:45:28.000 Gotcha.
00:45:28.520 Okay.
00:45:28.700 But, yeah, guys, now you're going to see how they actually ran the operation with vehicles.
00:45:34.500 Across the country.
00:45:39.280 Yeah.
00:45:40.480 Hey, Bob.
00:45:41.120 Did the black car do this?
00:45:43.420 No, the black car, no, it's not.
00:45:46.000 But the gray one left yesterday.
00:45:48.080 All right, that's good.
00:45:50.260 Ask Lou, do they want to go home, or do they want to get in the black car when they get there?
00:45:54.480 He said he'd rather go home.
00:45:55.660 He said he got something they got to take care of.
00:45:57.520 All right.
00:45:57.920 I got him to go home when I have Papa take care of.
00:46:04.340 Did y'all catch that?
00:46:05.440 That was all code word for making a drop, doing another drop back, getting the guy paid, etc.
00:46:12.460 You know, and this is very common, guys.
00:46:13.860 It's not like they're on the phone talking about, oh, yeah, bro, I'm going to drop the drugs off here at this place at this time.
00:46:17.540 No, they use code words.
00:46:19.640 And unless you know exactly what they're talking about, you might not be able to understand exactly what's being said.
00:46:25.380 Prior to the PA boys' take down, law enforcement had perceived the brothers as mid-level traffickers, small-time players in a much larger stage.
00:46:35.660 In the mid-90s, these guys are at times delivering $200,000, $300,000 to individuals who are sending that money down to St. Louis and on to Colombian sources.
00:46:47.060 That's who they are.
00:46:48.480 But as the DEA started to build contacts and sources, an entirely new image was coming to light.
00:46:54.360 What happens is in December of 2003, early 2004, Bob Bell, the other DEA agents, they start contacting their sources to try and get as much information as they can on the Flannery brothers.
00:47:05.880 And, you know, with cases like this, guys, where you're trafficking a lot of drugs, obviously there's going to be money.
00:47:10.440 It's always great to bring an IRS agent like this guy on board to help you follow the money.
00:47:15.060 Because when you follow the money, that will get you to the main top guys.
00:47:18.040 Now they start hearing stories about how Terry's got a mansion out in California, Meech has got places down in Atlanta, they're driving all these high-end vehicles.
00:47:27.460 That's what you're hearing from sources.
00:47:29.460 For years, Terry and Demetrius Flannery attempted to live like ghosts.
00:47:33.380 Going back probably 10 years' worth of income tax return records, there were no records of them ever having filed.
00:47:39.800 Along with that, they each had about at least five or six aliases and had that many different fictitious driver's licenses in several different states.
00:47:51.320 From the mid-90s to early 2000, Meech and Terry went from a $1 million a year business to a $1 million a week business.
00:47:59.840 The only way to achieve that kind of growth in the drug trade is to increase...
00:48:03.740 $52 million a year, guys.
00:48:06.280 And I'm going to go ahead and put the inflation calculator here, but that's probably close to maybe $100 million nowadays.
00:48:12.260 Increase the supply of your product, and that usually means cutting out middlemen and getting closer to the source.
00:48:18.020 When you look at the industry with the drugs and how the movement of drugs come here in the States, the American blacks don't really control that trade.
00:48:25.840 Demetrius Flannery went out to California.
00:48:28.160 He just went out there looking for sources.
00:48:30.080 He hooked up with one of the co-defendants, Wayne Joyner, a California guy who knew some Mexicans.
00:48:37.160 Meech and Terry may never have risen above middle-class dealers had they not met Wayne Joyner.
00:48:42.000 He became one of the Flannery brothers' key people.
00:48:46.440 Wayne Joyner was a drug trafficker from California who had good connections.
00:48:51.900 He knew guys who could do houses.
00:48:53.600 He knew the car guys.
00:48:54.740 He knew the Mexicans.
00:48:55.560 The Colombians were 52 million guys back in 2003.
00:49:06.600 It was approximately 84 million today.
00:49:09.760 The world's major producers of cocaine and war back in the 80s and 90s.
00:49:13.440 But when the DEA started to really hammer the cartels' transportation through the United States and the Caribbean and Florida,
00:49:22.260 then the Mexican trafficking routes became more important.
00:49:24.600 And they started paying the Mexican traffickers to take the cocaine into the United States through Mexico.
00:49:30.280 Eventually, the Mexican cartels took over all the transporting of the cocaine and getting it in.
00:49:35.260 And guys, this transition happened sometime in the, you know, 90s into the early 2000s,
00:49:39.380 where Mexico started to take over as one of the main, you know,
00:49:43.440 drug trafficking routes because at that point, you know,
00:49:46.460 the vice city days of the 80s and the 70s where there were busting Colombian cartel members trying to bring drugs into Miami,
00:49:52.980 they pretty much had run its course.
00:49:55.260 So Colombian drug traffickers had to find a more efficient and safe way to bring it into the United States since South Florida was so hot.
00:50:01.940 And, you know, the U.S. government had become pretty proficient at getting rid of speedboats, smuggling drugs into the United States.
00:50:08.480 Do they still do it today?
00:50:09.340 Of course, but not to the same extent that they did in the 80s.
00:50:11.700 Now, most of the drugs that come into the United States, somewhere between 60 to 80 percent, come in through Mexico.
00:50:18.000 To the United States, about 90 percent of all of cocaine.
00:50:22.220 Securing the Mexican source.
00:50:24.240 And that's cocaine.
00:50:25.340 I was talking about meth and, you know, heroin, etc.
00:50:28.380 All those drugs are typically nowadays are coming in through Mexico.
00:50:32.360 Provided Meech and Terry with almost an unlimited supply of uncut cocaine for a substantially lower price than they could get from any U.S. distributors.
00:50:42.480 They were purchasing at the time for about $15.5 per kilo.
00:50:47.140 And the BMF organization was moving at least 600 kilos a month.
00:50:51.500 This allowed them to literally corner the market.
00:50:58.180 Not every even top level drug dealer in a major city ever gets to that point.
00:51:03.180 You have to have something special to get the trust of the cartels.
00:51:06.480 They expanded their enterprise, establishing hubs in 11 states to unload their product.
00:51:17.640 Terry moved to California to receive the bulk shipments.
00:51:21.960 And Meech moved to Atlanta, which was an ideal distribution hub for all of Eastern America.
00:51:27.160 And there's about 10 different highway routes that you can take out of the city to get out of here.
00:51:33.420 And that route going from Florida all the way up through to New York, Philadelphia, and Boston,
00:51:38.820 you've got to go through Atlanta to get to those places.
00:51:40.980 It's just physically, it's a great place to be.
00:51:44.540 And also, it's a big enough city and already has enough of a drug culture of its own to provide cover for those people who are moving through the city itself.
00:51:52.020 Atlanta was definitely becoming a strategic location for the drug trade, but the culture attracted Meech, too.
00:52:05.000 By the late 90s, Atlanta had become a hotbed for activity for the hip-hop industry.
00:52:10.560 Rappers were playing the streets with mixtapes.
00:52:13.660 And famed producers like Jermaine Dupree, OutKast, Goody Mob, and Ludacris were attracting national attention.
00:52:20.240 Guys, back then, Atlanta was not on the map like that, but Atlanta started to definitely take off in the early 2000s.
00:52:26.600 Krunk took over right around 03, 04.
00:52:29.480 I'll never forget, like, you know, Lil Jon, you know, yeah, all that crap.
00:52:33.680 And Atlanta just exploded on the map and took the, you know, the crown from the Northeast, a.k.a. New York,
00:52:40.800 which is why so many artists back then, you know, people like Nas, et cetera, saying hip-hop is dead, blah, blah, blah.
00:52:45.520 They didn't like Southern rap because back then, Southern rap wasn't as lyrical and didn't tell a story to the same level.
00:52:52.600 It was more, you know, dance music, you know, beats, and not necessarily lyrical content.
00:52:58.940 And this is when Atlanta really started to take over in the early 2000s.
00:53:02.680 Hip-hop as a business has two very distinct worlds, the streets and the boardroom.
00:53:12.000 As it became mainstream, hip-hop started generating more money than anyone expected.
00:53:17.400 With the connection to the streets comes the element of the criminal underworld.
00:53:21.700 There is no secret that hip-hop record labels were being started with drug money.
00:53:25.560 Jay-Z, for example, has always been honest about his previous life and how he left paper bags filled with cash for radio DJs.
00:53:34.340 Meech, too, was captivated with the allure of the music industry.
00:53:37.520 And as he gained more money and power through his ever-expanding drug empire, he set his sights on conquering a new frontier.
00:53:48.020 When the Detroit DEA decided to investigate the Black Mafia family, they knew the organization was going to be tough to penetrate.
00:53:55.560 It was such a tight-knit group.
00:53:57.960 There was no way to get somebody in.
00:54:01.040 We could make buys from the underlings, but as far as getting somebody into the organization itself, it wasn't going to happen.
00:54:09.000 All right, guys, when he says make buys, what he means is you get an informant, buy drugs from a member of the organization,
00:54:14.360 work your way up the totem pole, or try to introduce an undercover agent.
00:54:17.200 But what he's saying is that this organization was so tight that they wouldn't let outsiders in.
00:54:22.200 But early on, Bob Bell and his team got a lucky break.
00:54:25.560 Using confidential informants enabled the investigation.
00:54:29.500 They were able to identify a phone number for a VMF manager named Benjamin Johnson.
00:54:34.480 Shortly after, they successfully got a court-ordered wiretap to listen in on his phone calls.
00:54:39.560 After only a few short weeks, the Detroit...
00:54:41.800 And then from there, they start with someone on a lower level, listen to his phone, identify other conspirators in the drug trafficking conspiracy,
00:54:50.980 and then bam, then they start writing wiretaps for their phones as well and working their way up the ladder.
00:54:55.500 This is how you do federal investigations, guys.
00:54:57.340 Detroit DEA struck gold.
00:54:59.600 A couple of weeks into the wiretap, we intercepted a call, and we didn't have the person's name,
00:55:04.960 but we immediately knew that it was Terry Flinnery by his commanding voice and Benjamin Johnson's respect and deference for Terry.
00:55:11.900 We immediately knew we had Terry and knew we had an important...
00:55:37.900 Bam, and I need you to drive this car somewhere.
00:55:40.620 Why?
00:55:41.360 Because he knows that thing is loaded with dope, and they need to get it up to Detroit where they can sell it for way more.
00:55:46.900 ...to target for the next wiretap.
00:55:49.900 Getting a wire on Terry's phone was the turning point in the DEA's investigation.
00:55:55.120 They had finally infiltrated the inner sanctum.
00:55:57.940 For Meach and Terry to successfully run a nationwide trafficking organization,
00:56:05.360 they needed to establish a protective infrastructure.
00:56:09.080 They set up stash houses in key hub cities, always in other people's names,
00:56:13.940 and usually in mansions and upper-class neighborhoods.
00:56:16.560 There is something that you...
00:56:17.820 In stash houses, guys, are where large loads and large quantities of drugs are stored
00:56:21.960 pending their further movement into the United States to whatever city they are destined for.
00:56:27.940 And also keep in mind, basically this case opened up thanks to an informant giving a phone number, guys.
00:56:33.320 Isn't that crazy?
00:56:34.120 You get for living in those kinds of neighborhoods, and one of them is it's a safe place,
00:56:38.180 not just in terms of keeping it away from the police, but in terms of keeping it away from other offenders.
00:56:42.740 Somebody knows that you got $9 million worth of drugs in your house.
00:56:45.580 They're going to come looking for it.
00:56:47.060 The various stash houses had nicknames.
00:56:49.540 There was the elevator, the gate, the White House.
00:56:52.820 And that's actually really smart for them to store drugs in high-end neighborhoods where the police would never think to look.
00:56:58.480 Most of the time when guys are stashing drugs, they're putting them in crappy stash houses in the middle of the hood.
00:57:02.860 These guys thought a little bit different.
00:57:05.440 And then there was the infamous Space Mountain,
00:57:08.200 the modern multi-million dollar enclave that had a perfect wraparound driveway
00:57:12.880 for limos to deliver 200 kilograms of cocaine,
00:57:16.720 located in the heart of Buckhead, the wealthiest neighborhood in Atlanta.
00:57:20.300 Buckhead residents are snooty.
00:57:22.840 They don't like outsiders, but how a large national black organization managed to,
00:57:27.960 with the flash and the bling and the rims and the cars and the girls,
00:57:32.200 how they managed to do this and nobody complained in a neighborhood where they complain if your dog walks on your curb.
00:57:38.200 Even the day we took everything down, we had more people on our backs about that.
00:57:41.820 You know, we were making noise.
00:57:43.800 But it was like, yeah, we made noise, but they never complained about him.
00:57:47.200 In charge of the stash house was J-Bo Brown.
00:57:50.300 Meech is second in command.
00:57:52.000 J-Bo was really just kind of being the general manager of BMF.
00:57:55.840 That's the guy that was in the picture from the BMF wiki that we just sold you guys.
00:57:59.780 If I'm not mistaken, I think Vlad TV interviewed him.
00:58:03.540 He would be like at the stash houses when the drugs would arrive.
00:58:07.040 Like Meech would never be in the same room with drugs or anything like that.
00:58:10.220 So it's almost like doing some of the dirty work that Meech really couldn't do or wouldn't do.
00:58:14.440 So he was the guy who was really just running the ships for him.
00:58:18.040 Another innovation that the two brothers used, which was not all too uncommon,
00:58:22.420 was sophisticated traps in their vehicles to hide the cocaine and the money as they moved city to city.
00:58:27.820 Wow.
00:58:29.820 When you have cars like this and they want to build secret compartments, how does that work?
00:58:35.640 You have people that sell jewelry for a living.
00:58:37.600 They need to carry around their products.
00:58:39.080 They need to carry around money.
00:58:40.420 Sometimes they have weapons for their personal protection.
00:58:43.660 It varies according to what you want to put into the vehicle.
00:58:46.520 Basically in a vehicle like this, you know, we could take this entire area.
00:58:50.580 We could take that carpet and we can cut it.
00:58:53.020 We can reattach it to a piece of aluminum and both that to a welded enclosure under the vehicle.
00:58:58.500 Then we can make that piece pop open.
00:59:00.120 We can make it motorized up.
00:59:01.520 We can make it airtight.
00:59:02.700 We can make it waterproof.
00:59:03.760 We can make it however you want it.
00:59:05.420 And it will look like there's nothing there.
00:59:06.860 You could take this vehicle back to GM and they wouldn't even know it was there.
00:59:10.420 They had a Lincoln Lemo.
00:59:12.300 They had about a million dollars.
00:59:13.880 It reminds me of Bimp on My Ride.
00:59:16.640 Have you ever watched that show on MTV?
00:59:18.800 Yeah, I remember that.
00:59:19.460 And it was actually popping right around this time.
00:59:21.420 So these guys were basically doing, pimping their rides for drugs.
00:59:26.260 In a secret compartment.
00:59:28.200 And no one was able to find this money until two years later.
00:59:32.160 They can be built that sophisticated.
00:59:34.480 Yeah.
00:59:38.040 Imagine that.
00:59:38.820 They seize the vehicles and they don't find the money until two years later.
00:59:41.800 That's how you knew these guys took their craft seriously.
00:59:45.100 Very sophisticated drug traffic organization.
00:59:47.340 Every vehicle was a moving trap.
00:59:48.980 They were amazing.
00:59:50.640 I mean, I had to admire their ingenuity.
00:59:53.640 They had real strict rules about like nobody who's below this level of management can even
00:59:58.940 know how to open the traps that they had installed in these cars to access the drugs.
01:00:04.320 I mean, which would basically be like, okay, put the car in reverse, turn on defrost, hold a magnet up to the dash and turn on the windshield wiper.
01:00:13.860 These traps were high tech, very sophisticated.
01:00:17.620 Yo, that's crazy.
01:00:18.420 You have to do all that stuff to get it open, man.
01:00:23.640 Electronic, hydraulic, some of them had vacuum pumps in them to try to overcome or thwart drug detecting canines.
01:00:30.760 It would make it difficult.
01:00:31.960 Well, we were able to seize a Hummer limo and notwithstanding the best efforts of law enforcement to find the secret panels, we managed to miss it.
01:00:42.100 I think a year or so later, the man who bought the limo managed to find a million dollars in it.
01:00:46.480 On a trip to L.A. in 1999, Meech's dream of breaking into the music industry became possible when he was introduced to a young, aspiring artist named Parima McKnight, who was rapping under the name Blue Da Vinci.
01:01:06.620 They shared a common vision and Meech took an immediate affection to the young artist.
01:01:12.080 Shortly after, the two founded BMF Entertainment.
01:01:14.800 For the entire lifespan of the record label, Blue Da Vinci was the only artist signed.
01:01:20.380 What we're focusing on right now is Blue Da Vinci.
01:01:24.060 I believe that most labels take so much time off and focus on so many artists that you can never get the realness out of the one artist because you're focusing on 10 or 20 artists.
01:01:37.060 That's why all our independent focus is on what Blue Da Vinci does.
01:01:42.300 If he take off, then we take off.
01:01:44.440 If he don't take off, then we don't want to take off.
01:01:47.540 Seven.
01:01:52.340 And just so you guys know, the reason why he was able to be all in on one artist like that and no other record label can necessarily do that is keep in mind, he had the drug money coming in.
01:02:02.740 So it didn't matter if Blue Da Vinci blew or not.
01:02:05.600 He was just using his stage act and this record label slash entertainment company, quote unquote, to launder the money and not make it look like they're doing other things.
01:02:17.140 So, of course, you know, he could afford to put all his eggs in one basket.
01:02:21.260 Hell, he could go negative.
01:02:22.260 It doesn't matter.
01:02:23.000 The more negative he goes, even the better because he's able to burn through that money and show that is being used in a legit business.
01:02:31.220 The business that they chose to hide behind to use as cover was also an industry that was critical for improving their reputation and providing them with the social capital that they needed.
01:02:52.880 And it created loyalty, it created a mystique, it created interest, and it provided a fantastic cover for them.
01:03:02.140 It was totally realistic.
01:03:04.480 Would you see these guys and say, well, they're part of the music industry.
01:03:07.380 They look the part, they act the part, they understand the culture of the hip-hop lifestyle.
01:03:12.260 It's not like they were trying to open up, you know, a bunch of McDonald's or something like that.
01:03:16.360 And his BMF entertainment thing is more than just a record label, production, somebody who's been with music or just,
01:03:22.880 it's actually a good point.
01:03:23.740 These guys were basically hiding in plain sight, man.
01:03:26.500 And the very industry that they got involved in glorifies this type of behavior of drug trafficking, et cetera, et cetera.
01:03:33.360 Here is the discography.
01:03:35.160 Yeah.
01:03:35.940 I found it.
01:03:36.760 You found out.
01:03:37.380 Most of the albums are from the Blue Da Vinci.
01:03:41.060 Yeah.
01:03:41.200 Like most, literally, 80%.
01:03:43.600 No real record label is going to put all their eggs in one basket and not work on other artists, too.
01:03:48.100 But that just goes to show, they had money to blow.
01:03:50.920 They didn't care.
01:03:51.400 You know, they were making millions selling drugs.
01:03:53.400 Who cares if Blue Da Vinci actually makes hit records?
01:03:55.760 This is really all about going state to state and linking up motherfuckers from the streets, man, from all over.
01:04:04.100 No matter where you're from, no matter what you look like, how fat you are, whatever.
01:04:08.960 You know, niggas that got a little money and a lot of cents, man, we looking for.
01:04:12.560 And start making some of these black dollars happen.
01:04:14.740 One of Big Nietzsche's biggest self-proclaimed legacies was that he unified gangs from all over the country.
01:04:27.660 Crips, Bloods, GDs, BPs.
01:04:30.640 They all stood together underneath his black flag.
01:04:34.480 And we got all type of niggas around here.
01:04:37.860 Short niggas, tall niggas, bald niggas, light-skinned, dark-skinned, braids, dreads, fat, whatever you want.
01:04:44.920 We do it all.
01:04:45.460 We don't discriminate.
01:04:46.580 Matter of fact, after you leave here, you end up getting your teeth on something and coming up with something better.
01:04:51.640 You know what I'm saying?
01:04:52.180 Like a new car, a new house, maybe the kids get to go to school, private school, pay for it, courtesy of the mob.
01:04:58.540 You know what I'm saying?
01:04:59.300 We pay.
01:05:00.760 You know, that's simple.
01:05:02.100 A lot of niggas don't like to spend their money.
01:05:03.840 We love to spend our money.
01:05:04.960 We can't take none of this shit with us.
01:05:07.680 This phenomenon is a testament to how BMF grew.
01:05:11.040 Most guys who want to establish a drug empire, they're going to go off of the stereotype of what you believe you have to do to get there.
01:05:19.120 And part of that is the violence.
01:05:20.860 With daily images of cartel-related bloodshed being broadcast from the southern borders and gang violence running rampant in our own cities,
01:05:30.100 we have an immediate prejudice that the drug trade goes hand-in-hand with violence.
01:05:36.620 Meach and Terry took a different approach to extend their reach.
01:05:40.140 What was that?
01:05:40.560 Will you call this a gang?
01:05:41.840 Like, what's the difference?
01:05:42.820 Yeah, this would definitely be considered a gang.
01:05:45.780 Like, anytime you're committing, you know, criminal activity in the furtherance of an organization,
01:05:50.040 they can label you a gang or you're open to RICO statute-type laws.
01:05:55.520 Upon entering new territories, they presented themselves as businessmen.
01:05:59.820 And through diplomacy, they created alliances with existing criminal entities.
01:06:04.360 They kept their eye on the ball because, you know, you get enough bodies laying around and law enforcement attention is going to come your way probably faster than when there's not that type of activity.
01:06:15.840 In a way, that's what made them so successful because they never engaged in a lot of violence so that the attention was never drawn to them in the way that it might be to another group of people.
01:06:23.720 That smart violence causes issues and police attention, which, you know, will make you get arrested and lose the money.
01:06:32.220 So that was a smart business move.
01:06:33.340 Was a natural negotiator.
01:06:35.860 The bottom line was probably the most persuasive element in BMF's success.
01:06:41.460 With their vast supply, the brothers offered kilos of coke for only 17 grand, $2,000 to $3,000 less than their competitors.
01:06:50.760 Wow.
01:06:51.000 So the fact that they're able to get drugs, cocaine, that much cheaper tells you that they were close to a very potent source.
01:07:00.680 Yeah.
01:07:06.280 All right.
01:07:06.880 All right.
01:07:10.720 Hello?
01:07:12.040 Uncle Doody, wrong phone.
01:07:14.400 Huh?
01:07:15.240 Wrong phone.
01:07:16.220 What up, though?
01:07:17.600 What up?
01:07:18.180 Hey.
01:07:18.860 Did you need a new chip to the new phone?
01:07:21.000 What's this for me, brother?
01:07:22.340 My new check.
01:07:23.160 Which one?
01:07:23.580 The last one I got?
01:07:25.240 What last one?
01:07:26.000 Put it in the chip.
01:07:27.500 The new chip.
01:07:28.580 Which one's the phone that I get?
01:07:30.060 Oh, yeah.
01:07:30.540 I still got it.
01:07:31.200 No, he didn't give it to me.
01:07:32.100 He said he couldn't get a hold of Doug or some bullshit, and I had to leave.
01:07:34.660 You got the old phone?
01:07:36.100 Yeah.
01:07:37.120 All right.
01:07:37.380 You got it on you?
01:07:38.420 Yeah.
01:07:38.800 I ain't got no time on it, though.
01:07:39.800 You told me to bring out the time.
01:07:40.820 Often, while we were intercepting Terry talking on a particular phone, he would be using push-to-talk
01:07:51.000 phones in the background, having other conversations.
01:07:53.620 So, he had multiple phones going at any one time, and then, of course, had a reserve of
01:07:59.260 phones for him and his organization members.
01:08:01.900 So, about the best thing we could do was Terry would transition from one phone to another
01:08:06.700 with the right two-piece and spin to the next phone.
01:08:09.020 And we successfully did that with about three of Terry's phones.
01:08:18.500 The DEA sat back and listened for five months as Terry laid out the foundations of their
01:08:24.260 investigation.
01:08:25.360 It is from this monitoring that we're able to find out information about participants or
01:08:30.660 co-conspirators.
01:08:31.720 We're also able to determine whether or not there is any drug activity taking place.
01:08:36.120 We were able to listen to Terry direct the driver to take some kilograms of coke down
01:08:40.200 to Louisville, Kentucky for distribution.
01:08:42.260 That aided us in conducting a traffic stop and a season of 10 kilos in that particular
01:08:46.400 load vehicle.
01:08:47.280 This case could have ended.
01:08:48.580 And what do I tell you guys?
01:08:49.820 Who did they use?
01:08:50.780 They used the state police to make the stop so it doesn't look too crazy and make it look
01:08:54.600 like it's a one-off event.
01:08:55.560 But in reality, they knew that this vehicle was going to drive these drugs over to Louisville.
01:08:59.980 They were going to intercept it and make it look less, how do I say this, obvious that
01:09:04.500 it was a federal investigation versus just a lucky trooper getting a hit one day.
01:09:08.460 With the wiretap on Terry's phone, DEA had him directing a guy to take the dope down south.
01:09:14.620 They intercepted that car, got the dope.
01:09:16.580 There was a decision made, DEA, IRS, and with the blessings of the prosecutor's office,
01:09:23.680 you know, we're going to take it as far as we can go.
01:09:26.060 You know, we're going to identify all the members of this organization.
01:09:29.200 We're going to identify all the people.
01:09:30.520 And that's smart.
01:09:31.160 Normally, you get that one hit and you're like, okay, we can get them now, but you're
01:09:34.740 not going to get the whole organization.
01:09:36.120 You need to let the criminal activity continue so you can identify the entire organization.
01:09:40.720 So in this case, I guarantee what probably happened was they seized the drugs from that
01:09:43.720 guy, gave him some BS state charge.
01:09:45.560 He ends up getting let loose or whatever.
01:09:47.740 And then they let the case continue to build to fruition.
01:09:51.140 And on top of that, monitor the phones, because you best believe after he got stopped by a trooper,
01:09:55.260 he's making phone calls like crazy saying, yo, the cops stopped me, the cops stopped me.
01:09:58.200 And then bam, what are they able to do, identify other conspirators that knew about that load
01:10:02.100 and they can all go down.
01:10:03.360 Because now you're able to show what they were in the know and they were conspirators
01:10:07.980 in this drug trafficking event.
01:10:09.860 People who are helping them launder their money.
01:10:12.700 And that's what happened.
01:10:13.660 Over the course of five months, the DEA compiled over 900 pages of transcripts from Terry's
01:10:23.540 phone calls, but there was not one phone call between Terry and Meech.
01:10:28.300 Terry used to like to dilute and reconstitute his kilograms, stretching the number of kilograms
01:10:33.580 to increase his profits.
01:10:35.040 While Meech's theory was don't sit on it, move it.
01:10:38.760 And he enjoyed a reputation of distributing very pure kilograms.
01:10:43.120 So on the street, Terry's cocaine was referred to as Moet, not bad champagne.
01:10:48.840 But Meech is referred to as Cristal, top shelf champagne.
01:10:54.880 That's hilarious how the two brothers, one big drug traffic organization, but they had
01:10:59.760 different methodologies of selling their drugs, right?
01:11:02.020 The flashy one is, hey, I want to get the best, you know, give you all the best quality
01:11:05.900 that Cristal, which Cristal was really famous in hip hop back then.
01:11:09.240 And then you got the other brother who's low key.
01:11:11.080 He don't care.
01:11:11.580 He's about his money.
01:11:12.560 I'm going to dilute and stretch the hell out of these bricks and make more money.
01:11:15.480 So very interesting that even their drug trafficking activities were personified by each individual
01:11:23.240 brother's personality.
01:11:24.740 Very unique.
01:11:26.180 A couple of months before we initiated our wiretap in April of 2004, while Demetrius was
01:11:31.160 on house arrest down in the Atlanta area, his underboss, Chad Brown, was going around
01:11:36.080 talking to Terry's customers, saying, Terry's dope is no good.
01:11:40.700 He dilutes it.
01:11:41.900 It's poor quality.
01:11:42.880 You should be buying dope from Demetrius and our side.
01:11:45.940 That upset Terry very much.
01:11:48.420 So Terry took a group of individuals and confronted Chad Brown in a house that was full of girls,
01:11:53.680 his friends, and embarrassed him and was screaming and yelling, waving the gun around, accusing
01:11:59.580 him of attacking Terry's livelihood.
01:12:02.400 Demetrius believed that Terry should have had that conversation with him out of loyalty
01:12:06.260 for his side of the organization.
01:12:08.580 He said, Terry may be my brother, but we're done.
01:12:11.100 And it probably was the reason that we were unable to identify a phone for Demetrius and
01:12:15.900 never successfully intercepted any of his phone calls.
01:12:22.180 We coming in at the top of the game.
01:12:24.240 We got all the cars we want, all the houses we want, all the clothes we want, all the jewelry
01:12:30.020 we want, and all the hoes we want.
01:12:31.680 And we don't need nothing else but to make good music.
01:12:36.200 By 2004, Meech had solidified himself as a public figure.
01:12:40.720 He was actively sponsoring young rappers in and around Atlanta.
01:12:44.520 His father was a musician.
01:12:46.280 He surrounded himself with musicians.
01:12:48.300 I think that he had a genuine love of the rap scene in Atlanta in particular, which was
01:12:53.560 blowing up in a big way at the time, in large part thanks to his willingness to sort of sponsor
01:12:58.500 rappers.
01:12:59.480 He really did think that if he could get one big break on his record label, that he might
01:13:03.860 be able to stop with the illegal stuff.
01:13:07.580 Maybe that's not reality, but that's what he said.
01:13:11.780 Meech pumped excessive amounts of money into Blue's hip-hop career, believing that his financial
01:13:16.860 backing could launch a young rapper into stardom.
01:13:20.280 At a time when most record labels were faltering and budgets for music videos were being trimmed,
01:13:26.100 Meech spent a little over $500,000 on a little-known track, We're Still Here.
01:13:41.260 I want to put things in perspective for you guys.
01:13:43.080 Back then, directors took music videos very seriously.
01:13:47.000 It wasn't uncommon for you to see a music video cost an artist a million dollars, so
01:13:50.880 this was quite a bit of money back then for a small label to put behind an artist music
01:13:55.700 video, let alone an artist that isn't really on a major label.
01:14:00.700 But of course, how are they able to do that?
01:14:02.680 Drug money.
01:14:03.160 That's why Meech didn't care.
01:14:04.000 Instead of getting five artists, put $100,000 a piece into each one of those artists, and
01:14:15.040 you're doing everything small.
01:14:17.300 If you put the whole million dollars or $500,000 behind New Da Vinci, now you got a big project
01:14:24.020 and look big and everything both.
01:14:26.100 But if you just put $100,000 between these five artists and you got a sheet project, nobody
01:14:34.780 may not recognize none of the five.
01:14:37.900 Y'all, BMF in the tent is in the house, you guys.
01:14:40.100 If y'all haven't seen it, you just don't know.
01:14:42.440 The hype seemed to have an impact.
01:14:44.680 BMF's image, street credibility, and apparent success attracted many rising artists.
01:14:49.780 Blue Da Vinci was seen in many music videos with Young, Jeezy, and Fabulous, and he was
01:14:55.160 regularly collaborating with known acts, including Jadakiss and Nelly.
01:15:03.460 Oh, Jadakiss, OG back in the day, man.
01:15:05.540 And these are some of the top artists back in the early 2000s, too.
01:15:08.080 This is before the days of, you know, these fucking weird SoundCloud rappers.
01:15:13.060 You know, this is before Kanye West.
01:15:15.680 This is before freaking Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Wade, Drake.
01:15:21.660 This is way before all these guys, man.
01:15:45.680 Everybody kids around and says Blue Da Vinci was the worst, which is hilarious.
01:16:01.660 Sayin' somethin', nigga, it's a real movement goin' on right here.
01:16:04.180 Young Blue Da Vinci, Young Jeezy, Baby D, and the rest of the motherfuckers that roll with
01:16:08.620 the BMF Entertainment Squadron.
01:16:10.700 There was an intercepted call between Terry Flinnery and his sister, and Terry poured his
01:16:18.060 heart out to his sister.
01:16:19.700 He was very frustrated with Demetrius, very angry over their split.
01:16:24.020 He was very concerned that Demetrius' flamboyant lifestyle was going to cause law enforcement
01:16:29.160 to identify what they were doing and bring heat on the whole organization and bring them
01:16:33.280 down.
01:16:33.560 The irony of it was that Terry's call for being intercepted by DEA.
01:16:38.680 Oh, wow.
01:16:43.020 Boom, Baka!
01:16:44.000 So the low-key guy was the one that actually got everything jammed up versus the one that
01:16:47.760 was out here partying and showing out.
01:16:50.080 They could never get up on his phone.
01:16:51.680 What are you doing today, son?
01:16:53.720 What up?
01:16:54.960 I still feel like I'm on a tight test.
01:16:57.540 When you got pulled up and you gave me a real name, I gave him everything.
01:17:01.480 And you know what he gave me?
01:17:02.860 What's the problem about?
01:17:04.060 That kid.
01:17:05.560 What the kid?
01:17:06.260 About over there, about that other situation.
01:17:09.880 Yeah, that's what they said.
01:17:10.700 They sent the people to the house about that.
01:17:13.000 Yeah, because he went real crazy over there, too.
01:17:15.960 But he was mad because he couldn't stand nothing.
01:17:18.020 That's why he did that, too.
01:17:19.780 All right, so I know what to do for that.
01:17:22.020 Okay, thank you, sir.
01:17:23.660 All right.
01:17:25.160 Red-handed.
01:17:25.860 About the same time, the Detroit DEA was developing their investigation on Terry's side of the organization.
01:17:36.820 Bolton County Prosecutor Rand Sehe was overhearing rumors of the mysterious Black Mafia family's presence in Atlanta.
01:17:43.840 The whole idea of a Black Mafia family was like a ghost story.
01:17:47.380 Cops told, like you would tell it to your kids.
01:17:49.740 There was just, there was no presence.
01:17:51.040 You didn't see them anywhere.
01:17:52.520 But if you had asked people on the street, you mentioned BMF, they wouldn't talk about it.
01:17:56.080 So it was very real to the people who were selling drugs and doing drugs.
01:17:59.720 But for the rest of us, we had no proof that that existed.
01:18:02.060 The Atlanta side of the investigation began on the night of September 7th, 2003.
01:18:07.680 Police were alerted to a shooting after an opposing crew targeted a BMF stash house for a robbery.
01:18:13.580 We had a case.
01:18:14.480 It was a shooting, a home invasion.
01:18:16.700 The people who were in the home actually shot the invaders, moved everything out, dropped the invaders off at the hospital.
01:18:23.100 But they left the key of Coke in the process of cleaning out their house.
01:18:26.160 Their house had a large bank-type vault in it.
01:18:28.620 Could you imagine, you shoot the invaders and you're like,
01:18:32.780 God damn, all right, we can't go down for killing them because this is drug money in here.
01:18:36.340 We can't articulate self-defense.
01:18:38.240 So let's clean the place up, take them, drop them off at the hospital and get the hell out of this house.
01:18:42.400 And then you leave a kilo of Coke in there.
01:18:44.300 Bruh.
01:18:44.960 Boom, mocha!
01:18:47.100 Al's stash house operators.
01:18:48.700 Claimed to be BMF and that's where it started.
01:18:51.000 One of the men arrested at the house was one of Meech and Terry's key financial consultants.
01:18:55.500 It was Doc Marshall and Kenneth Harvey.
01:18:57.920 The two defendants in that case.
01:19:00.200 Doc was very smart with numbers.
01:19:02.520 He was really...
01:19:03.320 So this mess up is what led to this entire investigation.
01:19:07.160 So a botched robbery led to the opening in this case.
01:19:09.900 Crazy stuff.
01:19:11.040 He called the CFO of BMF.
01:19:13.240 He ran all kinds of spreadsheets and reports for both Meech and Terry.
01:19:17.480 Bill Marshall is the kind of guy that drug traffickers need.
01:19:20.460 He knew how to work the financial side of things and obtain loans on cars and homes and to cover up the source and ownership of those items.
01:19:28.280 Without a guy like Bill Marshall, they cannot enjoy the fruits of their labor.
01:19:32.900 The incident was not the first time.
01:19:36.860 And that's the worst guy to flip and turn into a source because he's the one running the money.
01:19:42.140 So he'll be able to point you to all the higher ups because the higher ups are the ones that collect the money.
01:19:46.200 So W for the government, L for the BMF.
01:19:50.060 As if you guys saw, I want to show this picture.
01:19:54.200 It said cooperated in multiple cases.
01:19:56.320 And Doc Marshall had come up on law enforcement's radar.
01:19:59.420 He first came on our radar during a roundup on the Puritan Avenue investigation.
01:20:05.540 We seized a BMW 760, $125,000 car.
01:20:10.320 The vehicle had been obtained through Bill Marshall's business called Exquisite Empire, which was based out of Atlanta.
01:20:16.620 As police searched the crime scene, they found a key notebook that contained obvious drug records of the trafficking organization, including associates' names and phone numbers and straw buyers' identities.
01:20:29.900 That is an investigator's dream, guys, to find the actual ledger with all the notes that show everything.
01:20:35.480 Remember, guys, this is before the Internet age, really, you know.
01:20:38.420 I mean, Internet was around, but smartphones weren't around where you can punch all this stuff into your notepad and have it encrypted and locked.
01:20:43.920 But people had to write it down somewhere and be able to keep track to pay off suppliers, couriers, stash house operators, et cetera.
01:20:49.780 You've got to have your numbers in line to know what's coming in, what's going out, and what you've got.
01:20:54.400 The shooting at Doc Marshall's house was Atlanta's first taste of the Black Mafia family, but it was not its last.
01:21:01.940 Meech himself made headlines two months later for his involvement in a high-profile double homicide.
01:21:06.940 On the night of November 12, 2004, Big Meech was treated in the ER for a gunshot wound to his buttocks.
01:21:15.200 Earlier that night, there was a shootout outside of club chaos.
01:21:18.900 Gosh, Sean, that's what?
01:21:20.500 No!
01:21:22.940 A hot nightclub in Atlanta.
01:21:25.320 One of the men killed at the club was P. Diddy's bodyguard, Anthony Wolf Jones.
01:21:31.320 Wolf was a well-known guy here in New York who was very much a street guy.
01:21:34.920 And Wolf was one of these guys that you really would mess around with.
01:21:38.040 You know, he had a very quick temper.
01:21:39.500 The story goes that Meech was hanging out with Jones' ex-girlfriend, and Jones would not have it.
01:21:46.720 An argument ensued, and then guns got drawn.
01:21:49.420 And then Meech had his guy with him, and Wolf had his guy with him, and ultimately Wolf and his guy lost.
01:21:54.700 Meech was initially arrested for the double homicide.
01:21:57.980 The Atlanta Police Department conducted a search on a mansion they believe to be Meech's residence.
01:22:02.660 They hit this Bel Air Lake house, the White House, which is a Flannery house.
01:22:07.060 They go there looking for a gun that they believe Demetrius Flannery may have used and been shooting at the club down there.
01:22:12.940 Although the murder weapon was never found, a notebook similar to the one seized at Doc Marshall's house was recovered.
01:22:19.780 The Atlanta investigation was heating up, but Meech's murder charges would soon be dropped.
01:22:25.340 No witnesses.
01:22:25.920 Bam.
01:22:27.060 So they couldn't prove the murder, but they ended up getting something even better.
01:22:31.160 Another ledger showing that he's also involved in drug trafficking.
01:22:34.460 Remember, guys, when the police search your home, if they have a search warrant to be in the home and they find other evidence of other crimes, they're able to pursue that.
01:22:42.060 So now they're able to link their brother's ledger to match the two brothers' different ledgers and establish that they both are running a drug trafficking organization.
01:22:53.940 This would come forward, and as Jones was shot from behind, there was not enough evidence to maintain the charges.
01:23:00.500 It was a justified shoot.
01:23:02.040 No matter how bad everybody wanted to get Meech, that was one where the evidence pointed to the fact that they were defending themselves.
01:23:08.740 Jones stepped out of line.
01:23:09.820 Over the course of the next three years, the Black Mafia family's reputation in Atlanta grew more imposing and violent.
01:23:17.940 They were violent.
01:23:18.640 They would walk in the clubs and take over the clubs.
01:23:20.860 They wanted your girlfriend, they'd take your girlfriend.
01:23:22.920 They wanted your car, they'll take your car.
01:23:24.800 There was not a damn thing you could do about it.
01:23:27.120 The gang's numbers swelled, and their ominous presence loomed throughout the city's nightclubs.
01:23:32.160 There were stories of people getting thrown off balconies at bars, punched in the face, and kicked and stomped.
01:23:38.960 That was the reality of BMF.
01:23:41.860 You know, so for every grandmother whose grocery bill they paid for at Publix, there was three grandsons lying in the hospital somewhere with broken bones.
01:23:49.980 Atlanta had become a battleground, and the violence seemed to swirl around BMF and its associates.
01:23:56.340 Often it was impulsive and senseless.
01:23:58.580 But at times, her motives were far more menacing.
01:24:01.920 Oh, I didn't know that.
01:24:15.420 So, I didn't know that the people that tried to kill Gucci Mane, I knew they were associates of Jeezy, but I didn't know that they had ties with Black Mafia, too.
01:24:23.600 But that makes sense.
01:24:27.320 You have a video of him, right?
01:24:29.400 A video of who?
01:24:30.700 Gucci Mane?
01:24:31.200 No?
01:24:32.360 Uh, no.
01:24:33.880 Oh, I thought you did.
01:24:34.700 No.
01:24:35.260 Not Gucci Mane.
01:24:36.140 I got some shit that'll stand you up, and I got some shit that'll take your life in this motherfucker.
01:24:41.400 Nigga, this that 357, nigga, that Trey Pound, nigga, Magum, nigga, with a lot of gunpowder behind each shot.
01:24:49.600 That's that shit that's gonna blow you about four feet back, nigga.
01:24:53.360 I only got six of these shots.
01:24:56.060 I only need one.
01:24:57.280 I only need one.
01:24:57.320 As more and more attention was being brought upon the organization, Meech became openly defiant in believing his hip-hop company could blur the line between art and reality.
01:25:13.320 It's probably no secret to them that we were after him.
01:25:16.680 They thought they were untouchable, and they were taunting us.
01:25:20.700 Blue.
01:25:21.300 Man, this man is gonna fill my business.
01:25:23.180 You need to get down here and talk to this man.
01:25:25.080 I don't know what's going on.
01:25:26.120 I'm trying to count this.
01:25:26.900 I don't know why somebody let him in the room to see what's going on anyway, man.
01:25:30.940 In 2004, he even commissioned billboards in Atlanta, claiming the world was BMFs, a throwback to Scarface's mantra.
01:25:39.560 The billboards was when enough was enough.
01:25:41.880 That billboard was always a bone of contention with the district attorney himself.
01:25:45.640 The fact that they could just be so out there, he was very determined.
01:25:49.580 Imagine you're a big-ass drug trafficker with a billboard trying to show that, oh, yeah, the world is ours, and, you know, we're a music label.
01:25:57.440 And these guys know in the back of their minds that these guys are selling hundreds of kilos of cocaine, man.
01:26:02.220 So that makes them want to get you even more, bro.
01:26:04.920 And so he took the handcuffs off of us.
01:26:07.000 Meech was put under constant surveillance, and an Atlanta-based task force was assigned to topple the family.
01:26:14.140 They used similar strategies of the Detroit DEA and got a wiretap on a low-level dealer.
01:26:19.860 Once the wires were running, they were manned 24-7.
01:26:22.680 I don't believe that we ever came off of them.
01:26:24.560 And then a lot of the agents, Chip Cook, Mike Hannon, these guys would come in when they weren't scheduled.
01:26:29.180 Just to go back through and review, they put the case together.
01:26:31.920 Their diligence paid off, and they were able to spin up several times all the way up to a high-level BMF manager favored by Big Meech himself.
01:26:42.000 They would watch The Wire on HBO, and they would talk about it.
01:26:46.080 We would sit there white-knuckled, the episodes where they would throw all the burners away, and they would talk about, yeah, good things these idiots down here don't know how to wiretap.
01:26:54.960 Or, you know, or they get paranoid and go, let's just text, or they take.
01:26:57.820 Oh, my God.
01:26:58.780 How crazy is that?
01:26:59.780 They're watching The Wire while they're on a wire about to get busted like the people they're watching.
01:27:05.000 Bro.
01:27:05.620 Boom, Bokka!
01:27:06.620 Ha, ha, ha!
01:27:07.900 Call me on this number.
01:27:09.040 Talk about, you know, kilos of cocaine.
01:27:10.940 Be like, hey, did you pick up the trees?
01:27:13.480 You know, I got 50 trees sitting in my car.
01:27:16.320 They gave us a blueprint to what they were going to do every time.
01:27:19.300 As the evidence mounted, the Atlanta task force conducted a series of takedowns on BMF associates and stash houses.
01:27:36.680 Meech had started to see ghosts.
01:27:38.360 He was seeing cars and cops everywhere he went.
01:27:41.060 The heat was on Meech, and he knew it.
01:27:43.420 He pulled his crew out of Atlanta and headed toward Miami.
01:27:46.140 He had a female assistant, Yogi.
01:27:51.480 She disappeared first.
01:27:52.740 Once she disappeared, we knew that this was in the wind.
01:27:54.880 So that's when we decided to do all the warrants.
01:27:57.600 He was ordering everybody out.
01:27:59.300 People were scrambling.
01:28:00.480 It was almost anti-climactic.
01:28:02.040 There was no arrests.
01:28:02.920 We had all the houses, and everybody was gone.
01:28:05.340 Meech had adhered to a strict doctrine.
01:28:07.780 Never talk on the phone.
01:28:09.280 Never be around the drugs or the money.
01:28:11.580 Never put anything in your own name.
01:28:13.740 He thought this code would insulate himself from law enforcement.
01:28:17.060 But now he found himself on the run.
01:28:19.020 A lot of times, the dope never touches the hands of your top-level guys.
01:28:25.700 So sometimes the only way to link them to that dope is to follow the money back to them.
01:28:30.540 The million-dollar joints, man, from state.
01:28:33.160 Nowadays, it's the only way to link it back to them.
01:28:35.680 Top guys in the organization almost never touch the drugs.
01:28:38.280 They just touch the money.
01:28:39.300 And when you follow the money, you find the head.
01:28:41.540 State, man.
01:28:42.380 We really, really doing it.
01:28:44.060 Large sums of cash.
01:28:46.040 But where's that coming from?
01:28:47.020 We caught a break with some of our intelligence and financial records.
01:28:56.700 And that changed people's perception from it's an urban legend to,
01:29:00.540 wow, these guys are actually making millions and millions of dollars
01:29:03.880 and essentially living better than celebrities.
01:29:06.840 I mean, flying around in Learjets, staying in presidential suites,
01:29:10.500 living in multi-million-dollar homes in multiple states.
01:29:14.220 Meech was down in Miami.
01:29:15.620 There was a place he was renting there, this gated house at like $30,000 a month.
01:29:21.560 Every place we stay at, L.A., Atlanta, Detroit, we have homes, our own homes.
01:29:27.380 We don't have to go in and rent shit.
01:29:28.920 We got our own houses.
01:29:30.140 We got our own cars.
01:29:31.180 We got our own homes.
01:29:32.160 We got our own clothes.
01:29:33.080 It was claimed that the funds were legitimately being generated through the entertainment branch of BMF.
01:29:41.840 You don't know all the money that Demetrius Flannery spent in the clubs or on clothes or on girls.
01:29:47.240 But we know from the investigation that was documented, a million-plus in cars purchased,
01:29:53.180 $400,000 in cash for a car, $250,000 in cash for a car, $100,000 in cash for a car.
01:29:59.180 Terry Flannery's house and...
01:30:00.920 And guys, this is in the early 2000s.
01:30:03.200 This is big money back then.
01:30:05.240 On Mulholland Drive, $600,000 in cash through bank accounts to make that purchase.
01:30:11.260 To put a number on it, I mean, millions.
01:30:15.000 Holy shit.
01:30:21.840 And I'm sure they went ahead and looked at, like, BMF's, you know, records.
01:30:26.660 We know for a fact Blue Da Vinci ain't making that much money.
01:30:29.180 They felt that on the business side of things with the music,
01:30:41.980 that that scene is so legitimate that it provides cover for all of these expenditures that you're engaging in.
01:30:49.700 Meech had a fleet of luxury cars fit for a sultan.
01:30:53.760 Rolls-Royce Phantoms, Bentley Continentals, Lamborghinis.
01:30:57.460 Apparently, he maybe had the only white Maybach in the United States.
01:31:02.900 He had one shipped to himself in Saudi Arabia.
01:31:07.500 It wouldn't take an auditor very long to realize that there was way more money being spent
01:31:11.420 than would be coming in through hip-hop.
01:31:14.280 For Meech's 36th birthday, he threw himself a million-dollar star-studded party
01:31:19.660 at the Atlanta nightclub compound, complete with champagne fountains and live exotic animals.
01:31:25.300 That's the part of him I really like.
01:31:28.460 What?
01:31:29.520 Bumbaka!
01:31:30.160 You got an elephant at his party?
01:31:32.480 What the fuck?
01:31:33.680 Yo.
01:31:33.960 What?
01:31:34.820 Talk about drawing attention to yourself.
01:31:36.340 What the fuck?
01:31:37.180 Yo.
01:31:37.800 The Meech of the Jungle birthday party.
01:31:39.700 That's Meech of the Jungle.
01:31:41.240 Yeah, bro.
01:31:42.240 Nigga shit, man.
01:31:43.080 Man, an L for this editor was that watermark.
01:31:46.700 What was that you said?
01:31:47.580 Like, L for the editor of this documentary.
01:31:50.720 Oh, you put it in a watermark?
01:31:52.080 Yeah.
01:31:52.320 Yeah, man.
01:31:53.020 What the fuck?
01:31:53.440 Yeah, it is what it is.
01:31:54.480 I think those were the fun days of Meech, him telling Atlanta he was there.
01:31:58.560 And then came the strip clubs.
01:32:00.860 BMF was notorious for their overindulgence in the nightlife.
01:32:04.140 I was in the clubs at the time when the BMF guys were here in New York where they were spending tons of money.
01:32:10.400 Girls would just pick them up.
01:32:11.860 They would have a payday when BMF came to town.
01:32:14.780 BMF would go out in droves.
01:32:17.120 Each member would get his own $400 bottle of Cristal Champagne.
01:32:21.920 The clubs either alternately loved it or hated it when they came in because they would sell out of champagne.
01:32:27.440 On the one hand, they'd have to deal with sort of the threat of violence.
01:32:30.840 And all y'all dudes out there talking about y'all making it rain, man.
01:32:41.720 We the originators of making it rain.
01:32:46.220 That's a message to everyone else.
01:32:48.020 I've got so much money, I literally throw it up in the air and not even care about it.
01:32:52.900 When we go out at night, whatever we spend, $50,000, $100,000 in the motherfucking club, we can afford to do it because we ain't bring it all with us.
01:33:00.840 A lot of niggas don't like to spend their money.
01:33:05.560 We love to spend our money.
01:33:06.680 We can't take none of this shit with us.
01:33:08.700 None.
01:33:09.040 Ain't no armored trucks pulling up at no funerals.
01:33:11.220 The best relationship and partnership in federal drug law enforcement are a group of DEA agents married up with a group of IRS agents.
01:33:20.340 It's a whole other expertise and full-time job to exploit and uncover the layers of laundered money and items purchased secretly by nominees.
01:33:30.760 Typically, these people aren't going to have anything in their name, which was the case with the Flannery brothers.
01:33:36.320 Absolutely nothing.
01:33:37.720 They don't file tax returns.
01:33:40.020 No assets.
01:33:41.060 So what you have to do is start looking at family members.
01:33:43.360 A house that Terry Flannery had in L.A., his girlfriend, Tenisa Welsh, it's in her name.
01:33:48.360 He sets a company for her out there called Oracle Motorsports.
01:33:51.380 It really doesn't do anything, but he's got all these high-end cars in there, which are his cars, which he's got auto brokers out there that he's feeding money to, buying his cars, keeping them in their names.
01:34:03.040 For years, IRS agent Scartozzi traced the money back to Meech and Terry, continually uncovering more and more people who helped the two brothers to hide and launder their money.
01:34:12.940 Terry had a girlfriend here in Detroit.
01:34:14.560 He had a house for her in Canton.
01:34:15.660 He started looking at how's this young lady buy this house, show she put, you know, a hundred and some thousand dollars down on it.
01:34:21.260 Well, how'd she put that, where'd that money come from?
01:34:24.180 Cashier checks that came out of a credit union.
01:34:26.540 Where'd the money come from to fund those?
01:34:28.780 You know, it's just a matter, you know, again, you just build and build and piece and piece.
01:34:36.260 One unsuspected accomplice to the two brothers was the famed jeweler to the stars, Jacob Arabov.
01:34:42.500 He essentially, of course, is a businessman and is in business to make money.
01:34:47.620 And Demetrius and Terry Flinnery had a lot of money to spend, and they liked spending it on, besides cars and homes, on nice jewelry, very flamboyant jewelry.
01:34:55.980 One watch that Terry bought was encrusted with diamonds.
01:34:58.460 It was valued at about $100,000, in fact.
01:35:00.980 Jacob, the jeweler, extended a million-dollar line of credit to the brothers.
01:35:05.100 To leave a voice message, press 1, or just wait for the time.
01:35:18.660 Swipe, boy.
01:35:20.640 SOS, she left me.
01:35:22.380 To leave a voice message, press 1, or just wait for the time.
01:35:27.740 Swipe, boy.
01:35:30.000 SOS, she left me in the jungle, man.
01:35:32.400 If you are satisfied with your message, press 1 to listen to your message.
01:35:40.280 On October 28, 2005, the long-awaited federal indictment for Demetrius and Terry Flannery was unsealed.
01:35:47.660 25 BMF members were initially charged with a range of felonies, including money laundering, conspiracy to distribute cocaine,
01:35:55.280 and for the brothers, running a continuing criminal enterprise.
01:35:59.180 We had overwhelming information and evidence, and it just kept growing exponentially.
01:36:03.640 In fact, the problem for us really became not, was there enough evidence?
01:36:08.200 It became keeping the evidence organized, trying to determine what evidence to use and what not to use.
01:36:13.760 We had so much.
01:36:15.140 The DEA's case was based on wiretap evidence, both on Terry's and Meach's side of the organization.
01:36:20.800 The IRS had compiled a massive amount of evidence, demonstrating that the two brothers had been hiding and laundering huge sums of money,
01:36:29.040 proceeds from illegal drug operations.
01:36:31.960 Together, the DEA and the IRS had coordinated local police departments from all around the country
01:36:37.800 and amassed enough evidence to demonstrate the extraordinary reach of the Black Mafia family.
01:36:43.340 On initiating the investigation, Frank and myself and other agents went to great pains
01:36:49.640 to try to identify random law enforcement contacts with members of the BMF.
01:36:54.040 And in fact, we were able to identify approximately or more than 500 kilograms worth of seizures from random.
01:36:59.280 This is crazy, guys.
01:37:00.220 Look at all these one-off hits at different dates and times from different agencies
01:37:04.260 that they were able to all link back to BMF.
01:37:06.500 Law enforcement activity and several million dollars with the money seizures.
01:37:09.860 Yeah.
01:37:10.380 So what happens with that money?
01:37:12.180 Where does that go?
01:37:12.780 So after they're arrested and all that stuff?
01:37:15.560 So the agency that seizes it typically keeps it.
01:37:19.220 And then what ends up happening is the DEA can use the evidence from that seizure to link it back to their case
01:37:23.980 to show that there's a pattern of drug trafficking activity.
01:37:26.900 Right.
01:37:27.120 But like, what happens to the money?
01:37:28.640 Like, where does that go?
01:37:29.600 It goes back to the agency that seized it.
01:37:31.880 So they pay for overtime.
01:37:33.740 You know, yeah.
01:37:34.480 Typically, it goes into their treasury fund.
01:37:37.440 They use it to pay for overtime, new equipment, et cetera.
01:37:40.180 It goes back to, well, it depends on who seizes it.
01:37:42.780 If the Fed sees it, it goes to the treasury fund, which goes back to government.
01:37:45.600 If the locals seize it, it goes directly, typically, to the police department or the local city government.
01:37:50.160 Oh, I see.
01:37:51.140 Okay.
01:37:51.380 We knew who the players were as far as, when we know somebody got stopped, okay, we know that that guy was associated with BMF.
01:38:01.120 Now let's backtrack and find out exactly how he was tied in.
01:38:04.560 An analysis would be done of the phones they were carrying and the address books would be looked at.
01:38:09.600 And there would be a common theme in that the names that were stored inside the cell phones.
01:38:14.800 Investigation from there on the vehicles and the titles and the ownership often led to tying those vehicles and those individuals and those seizures back to the BMF.
01:38:24.540 On the lead up to the takedown, tensions were high.
01:38:29.560 Years of hard work had gone into the investigation.
01:38:32.880 They needed to catch Meech and Terry.
01:38:35.360 It was a concern that Terry and Demetrius might get away.
01:38:38.320 They had passports.
01:38:39.540 They were worldly.
01:38:40.300 They had traveled to Europe and elsewhere and had the means to disappear.
01:38:44.100 And if they disappeared, my way of thinking is that the case was a failure.
01:38:48.460 But the marshals doing what they do well.
01:38:50.440 They came up with some information about Demetrius' whereabouts.
01:38:53.660 They actually arrested Demetrius in Frisco, Texas on October 20th.
01:38:59.040 Terry was taken into custody in the St. Louis, Missouri area the day of October 26th.
01:39:04.460 And in pretty short order, we had all 25 of our defendants off the Detroit indictment.
01:39:10.080 And normally, guys, what ends up happening when you've got a big case like this, you want to delegate the arrest to the marshals.
01:39:14.280 You give them the warrant.
01:39:14.980 They go get the guy for you.
01:39:16.220 And then you just kind of come in and be ready with your cup of coffee and interview them when they come back.
01:39:20.160 They do a lot of the legwork.
01:39:21.500 It's one thing to do an investigation.
01:39:23.060 It's another thing to know exactly where your targets are at on the day that you're trying to arrest them.
01:39:28.580 And this is where the marshals specialize.
01:39:30.180 Because they track them down.
01:39:31.460 They arrest them.
01:39:32.060 It's on them.
01:39:32.740 You don't got to worry about it.
01:39:33.720 You just come in and show up after the fact and talk to your subject.
01:39:37.120 Several of the 25 defendants immediately began to cooperate with the DEA, including one of Terry's most trusted managers.
01:39:44.300 This whole death before dishonor, you know, that's all good when the money's flowing.
01:39:48.640 But when the money dries up and there ain't nobody looking out for you, and then you yourself are looking at a pretty long sentence, the way I look at it, it's every man for himself.
01:39:56.860 We're just really trying to motivate niggas and let niggas, you know, know that niggas is really out here getting it like this, man.
01:40:02.980 And it ain't hard to get.
01:40:03.800 This shit ain't far away.
01:40:04.720 All that niggas got to do is get on a real serious grind, man, with a real group of niggas that ain't going to fucking tell, nigga.
01:40:11.620 Another key defendant that turned.
01:40:13.340 Which is hilarious because I think, if I'm not mistaken, Blue Da Vinci ended up snitching on Big Meech.
01:40:17.420 ...was BMF CFO William Doc Marshall.
01:40:21.060 Bill Marshall, not unlike many other defendants in this investigation, began to cooperate, essentially looking for a way to reduce his future prison sentence.
01:40:30.480 He really laid out a lot of the financial stuff of the BMF organization.
01:40:35.380 He really filled in the holes as far as how the straw buyers worked, how they moved money from city to city.
01:40:42.300 His information was very useful going forward, and we went from 25 defendants to where we ended up, which was the conviction of 66 defendants in Detroit alone.
01:40:52.520 With the help of Doc Marshall and other cooperating defendants, the DEA was able to effectively dismantle the Black Mafia family.
01:41:01.680 All in all, 125 members, associates and relatives, were indicted and convicted.
01:41:07.760 Out of the 125 members indicted, only eight.
01:41:11.120 So, a rapper at Sardis, BMF Entertainment, was sentenced to October 30th, 2008, to five years, four months of federal prison.
01:41:16.540 It said that McKnight was used, this is Blue Da Vinci, by the way, guys, because of the fact he had very small hands and can get that last kilogram or two of cocaine out of a stash spot where others could not.
01:41:27.260 Wow, hilarious.
01:41:29.820 Oh, man.
01:41:30.540 Went to trial just two days.
01:41:32.400 But notice how much little time he got, guys.
01:41:34.120 Five years, he probably cooperated.
01:41:35.860 Days before their trial dates, Meach and Terry both pled guilty without cooperation.
01:41:40.580 They were sentenced to 30 years.
01:41:48.020 Matter of fact, he'll be released December 16, 2031.
01:41:51.080 He will be 61.
01:41:52.520 I actually looked him up, guys.
01:41:53.620 He's going to be released here, if I'm not mistaken, 2028, actually.
01:42:01.420 So, it looks like he shaved some time off.
01:42:02.820 I'm on the BOP website right now.
01:42:04.800 I'll show it to you guys here in a second.
01:42:06.380 Both Demetrius and Terry Flinnery and almost all the rest of the members of the organization realized that the evidence was absolutely overwhelming.
01:42:15.660 So, pleading out to 30 years, I suppose, seemed a little bit better than life.
01:42:20.940 Oh, he definitely snitched, too.
01:42:29.360 I didn't know Jacob, the jeweler, ended up getting arrested because of these guys, too.
01:42:33.680 But he just got false statements.
01:42:34.800 But he definitely cooperated to get that little time.
01:42:37.380 All right.
01:42:50.380 So, I'm looking right now.
01:42:51.680 I'm going to share the screen with y'all.
01:42:53.480 He's going to get out May 5, 2028.
01:42:56.320 Demetrius Flinnery.
01:42:58.820 And let me go ahead and move real quick.
01:43:02.560 I want to share screen here, guys.
01:43:07.380 Here he is right here, guys.
01:43:11.820 Your boy, Demetrius Flinnery.
01:43:14.100 54, black, released May 5, 2028.
01:43:17.600 And he's being held right now at FCI Sheridan, which is a medium security federal correctional institute with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp and a detention center.
01:43:27.800 So, with 1,500 plus inmates, almost 1,600.
01:43:31.600 So, yeah, he'll be at home.
01:43:33.220 Where is it?
01:43:33.480 He'll be home very soon.
01:43:34.480 It's in Oregon.
01:43:35.580 Oh.
01:43:35.820 Sheridan, Oregon.
01:43:36.740 Oregon.
01:43:36.900 All right.
01:43:39.720 Let's get back to the documentary.
01:43:41.340 Hope you guys are enjoying this, man.
01:43:44.840 Like the video.
01:43:45.400 Subscribe to the channel.
01:43:46.460 Yeah, it's daylight right now, guys.
01:43:47.700 That's how hard we're grinding right now.
01:43:49.380 The financial judgment in the indictment and what the Flinnerys took responsibility for when they pled to 30-year prison term was $270 million.
01:44:14.940 And if you conservatively convert those dollars into kilos, we're talking about the distribution of between 15,000 and 18,000 kilograms of cocaine was during the life of this conspiracy.
01:44:26.000 And this is one of the largest homegrown domestic distribution organization in the history of the country.
01:44:34.460 I wish I could be there tonight, but God knows I could be there tonight, but one day soon, I'll be there with God's blessing.
01:44:42.260 I just want to thank everybody for coming.
01:44:44.320 I hope they enjoyed it.
01:44:45.520 Don't want to take up no more of your time.
01:44:47.200 Just have a time in your life, and I'll see somebody in the morning.
01:44:50.320 And if you see, like, most collaborators snitch.
01:44:56.000 Absolutely.
01:44:56.960 And it still goes stitches.
01:44:58.520 That's funny.
01:44:59.220 Yeah.
01:44:59.800 So what are your thoughts on that, Angie?
01:45:01.000 Final thoughts?
01:45:02.200 I really liked the documentary.
01:45:03.700 It was good, right?
01:45:04.420 Yeah.
01:45:04.700 That's why I wanted you to see it, because you guys got, like, the actual insight as to how the investigation was done.
01:45:10.360 Not just, like, you know, the history of BMF, but y'all got, like, the details of, like, who was the conspirator, how they identified people, all that stuff.
01:45:17.880 So I really like documentaries like that that go into depth of the actual investigation versus the organization, if that makes sense.
01:45:23.620 But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed that one, man.
01:45:25.680 I'm happy you were able to find it.
01:45:27.240 Sun's out right now.
01:45:27.940 I'm tired as hell.
01:45:28.500 Don't forget to like the video.
01:45:29.360 Subscribe to the channel.
01:45:30.360 Check out Angie.
01:45:30.440 That was Black Breaking Bad right there.
01:45:32.760 On So Angelica with two A's at the end.
01:45:36.160 We'll catch you guys on the next one.
01:45:38.160 Peace.
01:45:41.160 I was a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, okay, guys?
01:45:43.600 H-S-I.
01:45:44.300 The cases that I did mostly were.