Valuetainment - The King of Miami Dr. Jorge Valdes Tells All - Behind NETFLIX Series 'Cocaine Cowboys'

00:00:00.000 Only you can break your word, and the day you do, you're nobody.

00:00:04.300 And that's what made me, at the age of 23, laying the floor of a pandemic in jail, being tortured to death.

00:00:09.020 Where I bled for five years thereafter, because I was not going to break my word.

00:00:12.880 No, we're drug dealers.

00:00:14.440 They just told you.

00:00:15.320 I mean, just like that, we're drug dealers.

00:00:17.260 We sell cocaine.

00:00:18.160 You would think I'd be shocked, and I should have been.

00:00:20.520 But immediately, my mindset was, well, you're an accountant.

00:00:24.720 You know, that's what you were trained, to count money.

00:00:26.520 We are not defined by our past.

00:00:28.640 There is hope.

00:00:29.680 There is faith.

00:00:31.140 There is a God that forgives.

00:00:33.520 You'll pay the consequences of our choices, but you can be different.

00:00:38.960 So if you've seen the Netflix special, Cocaine Cowboys, my guest today is Dr. Jorge Valdez,

00:00:45.080 who from 1977 to 1980 was the number one cocaine salesman in the world.

00:00:50.980 95% of cocaine that was sold in Miami was him.

00:00:53.620 But he's got an interesting background.

00:00:55.080 One Cuban immigrant hooks up with Pablo Escobar, who was going to school.

00:00:59.800 He was going to be somebody.

00:01:00.740 He had a big GPA.

00:01:01.680 He went to University of Miami.

00:01:03.140 Then he starts selling drugs, makes a million to three million a year.

00:01:06.440 In 1990, $60 million.

00:01:08.600 He lost confidence to get away from the life.

00:01:11.320 Then that leads to later on him becoming a doctor, PhD.

00:01:15.140 Very, very interesting story.

00:01:16.600 With that being said, Dr. Valdez, thank you so much for being a guest.

00:01:20.540 Thanks, Patrick.

00:01:21.140 It's my pleasure.

00:01:21.780 And I've got to compliment you on your suit, man.

00:01:23.300 Thank you.

00:01:23.560 You look amazing.

00:01:24.020 You look very good.

00:01:24.800 Well, I've seen you.

00:01:25.980 I've been following you for a while.

00:01:27.220 So, I saw your suits, and I just wanted to dress appropriately.

00:01:30.500 Well, I know.

00:01:30.940 You took it to a different level.

00:01:32.240 I mean, I'm here.

00:01:33.260 My assistant, Caroline, said, there's a man, Jorge Valdez, who looks very sharp in the office today.

00:01:39.580 I said, well, that's what I was expecting.

00:01:41.240 Anyways.

00:01:42.160 Okay.

00:01:42.500 So, before we go through this stuff, there's a lot of different things I want to know.

00:01:45.780 But for the audience that doesn't know your story, why don't we start from the beginning,

00:01:49.420 and then we'll go into some questions.

00:01:50.760 So, here's the interesting thing.

00:01:52.820 I came from Cuba at the age of 10.

00:01:55.140 My parents were very well off, but I had a mother who was very religious.

00:02:00.540 She wanted us to have nothing to do with communism.

00:02:03.620 And my father was a very wealthy man, 40 years old.

00:02:07.500 He did not think that Fidel was going to impact the rich.

00:02:11.440 You know, that's how they thought.

00:02:12.560 He didn't think he was going to impact the rich?

00:02:14.500 Right.

00:02:14.780 He didn't think that it was.

00:02:16.100 Basically, because, you know, Fidel's first agenda was, I'm going to go after the Americans

00:02:20.260 that have taken all this stuff from the United States.

00:02:22.680 I mean, from Cuba.

00:02:23.400 I never paid for it.

00:02:24.180 Yeah.

00:02:24.260 So, anyway, so we, my mother said, no, we're leaving.

00:02:29.260 I'm taking my kids out of the United States.

00:02:31.280 I mean, out of Cuba.

00:02:32.160 And it was very strange because, you know, I didn't know any of this was going on.

00:02:36.240 Right?

00:02:36.480 I'm just a little kid.

00:02:37.360 I'm playing baseball in the streets.

00:02:38.840 That was my passion.

00:02:41.040 And, but that date, she wakes us up at five o'clock in the morning, well, four o'clock in

00:02:45.860 the morning, and she's like, get dressed.

00:02:47.880 We're leaving.

00:02:48.680 What year is this?

00:02:50.000 1966.

00:02:50.720 Okay.

00:02:50.880 October 11th.

00:02:52.260 And Patrick, I'm there like, wear what?

00:02:55.840 He said, just put on underwear, pant, socks, shoes, shirt, and belt.

00:03:02.480 And that was strange because, you know, we're going a lot of family trips and we pack stuff

00:03:06.540 and she's like, no, just what you got on.

00:03:09.420 So, you know, we, back in that generation where you really don't question your parents

00:03:13.440 at all.

00:03:14.960 So we headed out to the airport and I was in a trance.

00:03:17.640 And then, of course, at the airport was the most traumatic.

00:03:20.060 I said that my life shifted in like three cataclysmic moments.

00:03:23.480 The first one was that day because as we're about to, our name be called, my mother gets

00:03:29.860 called and she finds out they're not going to let her leave.

00:03:32.220 And they said they made a mistake, but her father was a very, very big figure in Cuba

00:03:37.440 years back.

00:03:38.220 And she was very vocal about, you know, her anti-communism stand.

00:03:43.740 So.

00:03:44.340 She was or he was?

00:03:45.780 No, she was.

00:03:46.580 My mother.

00:03:46.780 She was also vocal.

00:03:47.780 When you say vocal, what does that mean?

00:03:49.120 In other sense that, for example, one of the things that Fidel did is, let's say your

00:03:52.920 son, all of a sudden, when he gets to be 12 and you're living here in Boca Raton, he's

00:03:58.440 going to take your kids from your house and he's going to send them to California.

00:04:01.000 And he's going to send some kids from Texas to your house.

00:04:04.960 Why?

00:04:05.880 Because as we're going to school, they have what they call the pioneers and the pioneers

00:04:10.200 like the Boy Scouts, but it was their way of indoctrinating the youth, right?

00:04:13.940 Into the communist ideal.

00:04:15.720 So if I go home and I tell my mom, like I would, what I learned in school, right?

00:04:20.760 There's no God.

00:04:21.840 That's just a poor excuse for the poor.

00:04:24.320 And my mother gives me hell.

00:04:26.240 Well, it stays there.

00:04:27.200 But if I come home and I'm living at your house and your wife tells me that, oh, that's

00:04:33.220 a bunch of BS, and I go back to school and tell the teacher, your wife will be the jail.

00:04:38.000 Got it.

00:04:38.840 What a way.

00:04:39.940 So he broke up the family.

00:04:41.340 So he was breeding snitches and how to break up families.

00:04:44.540 Oh, I mean, the first thing he did as far as snitches was every block had a snitch.

00:04:50.520 Every block had what they call the committee that reported everything that went on.

00:04:54.960 Just somebody sat on her chair and rocked and took notes of cars coming in, whatever was

00:05:00.320 going on.

00:05:01.140 So that's what he did.

00:05:02.600 And my mother said, well, before my children turn 12, I'm taking them out of here.

00:05:07.160 And, you know, my mom was born with a silver spoon in her mouth.

00:05:11.100 Her dad was, you know, her dad at age of 16 went to the independence to fight with Maceo

00:05:16.300 against Spain and came back a general and highly decorated.

00:05:19.760 Till this point, the military base where he's from, Fidel Castro, still named it after him.

00:05:25.720 That's how much of a big figure he was, like one of our founding fathers here.

00:05:30.020 So my mother, of course, she would curse out the committee.

00:05:34.240 She didn't give a damn about anyone.

00:05:35.300 I said, my mother was five foot, man.

00:05:37.560 If she had been 5'4", she'd be a terrorist.

00:05:40.460 Strong personality.

00:05:41.500 Yeah, unbelievable.

00:05:43.180 And so she's like, we're leaving.

00:05:45.300 Well, she doesn't get to go.

00:05:47.620 And my father said, well, if you're not leaving, I'm not going to leave.

00:05:50.740 So my father comes to me.

00:05:52.340 I'm 10.

00:05:53.220 My brother's 9.

00:05:53.960 My sister's 5.

00:05:55.180 My mother comes, grabs my hand and says, George, you take your brother and sister to

00:05:59.200 Miami.

00:05:59.640 I'll see you one day.

00:06:01.300 And that, to me, like my whole world rocked.

00:06:04.300 Because my father's like, I'm not coming.

00:06:06.080 He eventually, he did get on the airplane as we were boarding.

00:06:08.860 And so we went from living in a house that was one square block.

00:06:12.860 Each kid had a car, you know, very well to do.

00:06:15.720 To 11 of us living in a one-bedroom apartment in Miami.

00:06:18.380 Well, we had to write down what time we were going to piss because everyone had to go to

00:06:22.480 school and work.

00:06:23.780 So all of a sudden, when I got to Miami, what was my first cataclysmic moment?

00:06:28.300 All this stuff about God that my mother's been telling me, mom, you know what?

00:06:33.760 What they were teaching me in school was right.

00:06:35.600 There ain't no God.

00:06:36.320 This is all BS.

00:06:37.440 If we're coming from Cuba to be with God, and this is God's joke, you know?

00:06:42.620 Well, and so I grew up until many years later, a diehard atheist.

00:06:49.160 And then the next day was when this drive in me awoke.

00:06:55.760 I encountered my American dream.

00:06:58.700 What was that?

00:06:59.340 My cousin, who had been there about a year, year and a half earlier, comes to visit us.

00:07:04.400 And he has a candy apple red, white interior, GTO.

00:07:11.600 Man, Patrick, he was like, this is it.

00:07:14.520 The day I get that, I'm going to be somebody in America.

00:07:17.520 Yeah.

00:07:18.200 But, you know, my father was a man of unbelievable principles.

00:07:21.880 You know, my father, we had no food to eat.

00:07:24.800 You know, we'd get two raw eggs and this powdered milk that they give us that.

00:07:30.200 Till today, I'd take milk and I'd want to vomit.

00:07:33.000 And that's all we would have till dinner time.

00:07:36.540 And dinner time was rice and beans.

00:07:37.960 He's making 85 cents an hour, minimum wage, doesn't speak English, 40 years old, three little kids, rent $80.

00:07:46.320 I mean, we're literally going through hell.

00:07:48.640 Well, I find out that my friend has lunch at school.

00:07:52.360 And, man, to me, it was a big discovery.

00:07:54.140 I couldn't wait to get home and say, hey, Dad, Dad, I found out my buddy, he has lunch.

00:07:59.720 He has a sandwich.

00:08:01.360 To me, a sandwich is like now having a three-pound lobster.

00:08:04.680 And he's like, you know, the old generation, didn't he speak much, you know, kids were meant to be seen, not to be heard.

00:08:11.260 So he just nods his head.

00:08:14.120 And he's like, I said, he tells me he gets food stamps.

00:08:18.820 I said, Dad, do you know about food stamps?

00:08:21.900 And he's like, nods his head.

00:08:24.500 I said, well, why don't we get food stamps, Dad?

00:08:27.020 He's like, son, because that's for poor people.

00:08:30.780 And I looked at him, Patrick, and he was like, holy crap.

00:08:34.420 We're not even poor yet?

00:08:35.940 You mean we still got to climb our way out of wherever that's called to get to poverty?

00:08:40.140 I said, Dad, we're not poor?

00:08:43.620 He pointed a finger in my chest and said, no, son, we don't have any money.

00:08:47.680 People that take money from the government are poor and they stay poor.

00:08:50.880 You figure out how to get up early and help feed your family.

00:08:53.980 I was 10 years old.

00:08:54.940 I weighed probably 90 pounds.

00:08:56.980 And at 530 in the morning, I've been getting up ever since that day.

00:08:59.700 I'm 65 today.

00:09:00.660 to help feed my family, to deliver newspaper.

00:09:05.440 I was so skinny.

00:09:06.400 I couldn't even ride my bike.

00:09:08.100 The papers would flip me over.

00:09:09.800 I had to walk until I got rid of enough newspapers.

00:09:13.100 And we did that.

00:09:14.440 But tremendous principle.

00:09:16.480 You know, my father was, there was one thing that he taught me that still resonates with me today.

00:09:23.260 I was 65 and I, you know, told to my children over and over again.

00:09:28.460 And to me and my brother used to look at each other and go, man, there goes a damn broken record.

00:09:32.580 He would come up to us.

00:09:33.560 I don't know where he said, son, in life, you have no control whether you're dead or alive.

00:09:39.600 No control whether you're sick or healthy.

00:09:42.460 No control whether you're rich or poor.

00:09:44.740 And I'm like, no shit.

00:09:45.980 I can figure that one out.

00:09:47.600 He said, the only thing you have absolute control, son, is your word.

00:09:51.940 Word or word?

00:09:53.480 Word.

00:09:54.180 Only you can break your word.

00:09:56.080 And the day you do, you're nobody.

00:09:59.500 And that's what made me, at the age of 23, laying the floor of a pen and a man in jail, being tortured to death.

00:10:04.460 Where I bled for five years thereafter.

00:10:06.520 Because I was not going to break my word.

00:10:09.060 But I had clear lines, you know.

00:10:12.820 I didn't do, by the time I joined that group that went on to become the Medellin Cartel.

00:10:18.600 Because here's the interesting thing.

00:10:20.100 There was no Medellin Cartel.

00:10:21.680 Okay?

00:10:21.860 So I've seen a lot of the interviews.

00:10:24.560 Jorge Cho finally came out and said the same thing.

00:10:27.700 There was a group of families that controlled the drug trade in Colombia.

00:10:31.660 And that group, the Americans said, hey, if we bundle them up and call it the Medellin Cartel, we have one enemy.

00:10:38.960 And who seems to be the head?

00:10:40.560 Pablo.

00:10:41.060 But the truth of the matter is, neither Pablo was the wealthiest, neither Pablo was the richest.

00:10:45.700 There were people so much more powerful and wealthier than no one's ever known their name.

00:10:49.800 Come on.

00:10:50.200 And see, and here's what's interesting about it.

00:10:52.740 When they came to me about cocaine cowboy, the producers, I turned them down three times.

00:10:58.760 Three times.

00:11:00.400 For numerous reasons.

00:11:01.760 But mainly two main reasons that I always had.

00:11:04.220 And that is that some mother sits there and watches this show and says, hey, it's glamorous.

00:11:10.320 It was exciting.

00:11:11.220 But because of you guys, I buried a child.

00:11:14.040 Or worse yet, some kid drops out of school and says, I'm going to become like Silent Willie and become a drug dealer and become rich.

00:11:20.760 It ain't going to happen.

00:11:21.900 It's never going to happen.

00:11:22.740 So I was always hesitant of that until the last time when I told them, you tell the bad with the good, and I'll do it.

00:11:30.340 Because the interesting thing is, no one, see, every story that you hear, narcos, all of them, what do they start with?

00:11:38.080 Pablo Escobar.

00:11:39.180 Well, Patrick, there's a whole big world of enormous drug trafficking before Pablo Escobar even surfaced out of poverty.

00:11:47.240 So the number you hear about is the fact that Pablo, at his peak, was worth $20 billion.

00:11:53.200 I don't think so.

00:11:53.980 By no means.

00:11:54.900 By no means.

00:11:55.620 By no means.

00:11:56.400 So who would you say was bigger than Pablo?

00:11:58.400 Well, there was numerous ones.

00:11:59.960 There was a guy named, nicknamed Negro, who Pablo killed.

00:12:03.440 And he was much, much wealthier than him.

00:12:07.260 Gacha was much wealthier than Pablo.

00:12:09.180 The thing with Pablo was, he was not the wealthiest or the most powerful.

00:12:14.200 He was the most ruthless.

00:12:15.400 If Pablo killed you, he would kill all your males in your family.

00:12:20.360 And he had no respect for human life.

00:12:24.920 No respect for human life.

00:12:26.300 Zero respect.

00:12:27.040 Human life meant nothing to him.

00:12:29.440 But, and that's what ruined the business.

00:12:31.940 And because the group that I got enlisted to, it was only four and me, five.

00:12:37.580 It was five of us that controlled 95% of all the cocaine that came to the U.S.

00:12:41.660 That group was very different than all this group.

00:12:44.340 See, I told this to people, real simple.

00:12:47.740 I'm going to give you the script for Pablo Escobar, for Gacha, Sal, Willie, Chappell.

00:12:55.240 The same script.

00:12:56.620 Poor kid, got out of school, joins the life of crime, becomes powerful, lives a lavish lifestyle,

00:13:04.320 kills people, goes to jail or die.

00:13:06.700 That's the same script.

00:13:07.440 Put whatever name you want on it.

00:13:10.620 Put the same name.

00:13:11.780 They're all the same identical script.

00:13:13.840 That's not my story.

00:13:15.920 And that's not the story that I ever wanted to tell.

00:13:18.900 See, yeah, I was poor because I came to the United States and we lost everything.

00:13:22.760 But I was the youngest employee in the Federal Reserve Bank at the age of 17.

00:13:26.600 You know, I was an honor student.

00:13:28.360 I went to school full-time and I worked at the Federal Reserve Bank full-time.

00:13:33.340 I went to school at the University of Miami full-time on scholarship.

00:13:37.060 And I had, I'd never done drugs, didn't drink all the alcohol by the age of 20 that I drank,

00:13:42.780 fit in a teacup that size.

00:13:43.880 Get out.

00:13:44.140 Till today.

00:13:45.160 No, I love my wine today.

00:13:46.920 Okay.

00:13:47.340 So, you know, I do.

00:13:48.360 She's validating that.

00:13:49.500 Exactly.

00:13:49.840 She's validating that.

00:13:51.220 But, you know, I can tell you what I did for four years every day of my life.

00:13:56.840 I got up at 5.30 in the morning.

00:13:58.980 I was at the bank at 6.30.

00:14:00.500 I worked till 3.30.

00:14:01.660 I got home at 4.00.

00:14:02.560 My mother had dinner.

00:14:03.800 I leave the house at 4.30, 4.45.

00:14:06.600 I had my first class in Miami, 5.30.

00:14:09.940 I leave at 10.30.

00:14:11.140 I go home and I study till 2.30.

00:14:13.040 I did that every day for four years.

00:14:16.460 So, your mom eventually came to Miami.

00:14:17.960 Yeah, my mom eventually joined us about seven months later.

00:14:22.260 Seven months later.

00:14:23.080 So, you were 11 years old when she came to Miami.

00:14:25.640 As a matter of fact, right before I turned 11 years old.

00:14:28.040 I was still 10.

00:14:28.860 So, you're now, you're going to school.

00:14:32.500 You're an honor student.

00:14:33.680 You're very systematic.

00:14:35.840 You have discipline.

00:14:36.860 Your mom and dad have taught you strong values.

00:14:39.320 Mindset of you're not poor.

00:14:41.060 Mindset of standing up for yourself.

00:14:42.620 Don't be weak.

00:14:44.320 You're strong, respectful.

00:14:45.640 All of these things your parents have taught you.

00:14:47.560 So, your trajectory at this point is what?

00:14:50.420 Who is Jorge Valdez going to end up being at this point?

00:14:54.600 I had a clear vision.

00:14:56.340 I would graduate from Miami at 20.

00:14:58.620 I take a couple years to work, saving up money.

00:15:01.300 I go to law school at 22, 23.

00:15:03.480 I graduate from law school at 25 and I'm going to be a millionaire at 30.

00:15:06.300 Because if I'm not a millionaire, I'm a nobody.

00:15:08.340 That's how you're seeing it.

00:15:09.020 And that was my whole world.

00:15:10.360 And nothing would deviate from that.

00:15:12.660 I had a little girlfriend that I would see very, very seldom.

00:15:15.820 And if we ever went, ever, we hardly even went to a party.

00:15:18.860 Went to a party and I smelled pot.

00:15:20.940 Now, remember, this is the 70s.

00:15:22.760 Which is like, pot is like alcohol.

00:15:24.860 Flowers.

00:15:25.520 Yeah.

00:15:26.000 I, I, I, I, I gotta leave.

00:15:28.500 I'm a federal employee.

00:15:30.420 I can't, you know, are you crazy?

00:15:32.520 Got it.

00:15:32.880 Yeah.

00:15:33.060 I got this for you.

00:15:33.880 I didn't have a traffic ticket.

00:15:35.720 I didn't have anything in my life.

00:15:38.320 And, uh, and that was the whole thing.

00:15:41.560 And, uh, and then.

00:15:43.620 So I'm going to be a lawyer by 30 millionaire.

00:15:45.620 This is what I'm going to do.

00:15:46.240 I'm going to be a lawyer by 25 millionaire by 30 is what I'm going to be doing.

00:15:48.640 Because if I'm not that, I'm nobody.

00:15:51.860 Okay.

00:15:52.340 So your identity sink or swim.

00:15:54.580 That's it.

00:15:55.000 I'm not playing small.

00:15:55.760 I'm going to go do something big.

00:15:56.740 And this is a million, 30 years old in what?

00:15:59.340 70s?

00:15:59.800 Like, uh, early, early 80s?

00:16:01.620 76.

00:16:02.180 No.

00:16:02.540 76.

00:16:02.720 Okay.

00:16:03.000 Yeah.

00:16:03.380 So, so, okay.

00:16:04.200 So now what happens where you get introduced to this life?

00:16:07.160 So I, uh, at 76, my accounting professor, uh, he had left from a mission.

00:16:12.820 He was a partner, a person in Waterhouse, came to Miami and this speaks Spanish.

00:16:16.300 So he's like, Hey George, if you come work for me and do my Spanish clients, I'll give you

00:16:22.300 secretary office, everything to start your business.

00:16:26.080 And to me, that was like heaven opening up because I wanted to be on my own.

00:16:29.880 I mean, I thought I had a heck of a future of the Federal Reserve Bank.

00:16:33.120 Me and the vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank office were the only two that they paid

00:16:37.080 tuition to go to the University of Miami.

00:16:39.360 Everybody else had to go to a state college.

00:16:41.960 So when he tells me that, my mother, my father, very conservative.

00:16:48.320 You're crazy.

00:16:49.240 Stay with the bank.

00:16:50.040 You have a hell of a future.

00:16:51.300 My mother, you'll never be nobody working for somebody.

00:16:53.540 So, you know, my mother was everything in our house, like most, uh, Hispanic mothers.

00:17:00.080 And, uh, and I resigned and I went to work for him.

00:17:03.000 And the first client that he gave me was a little grocery store in Miami, like a little

00:17:07.300 strip, uh, joint and not, uh, not a strip club.

00:17:10.920 Strip joint.

00:17:11.920 Slightly different.

00:17:12.780 No poles.

00:17:13.320 A little different.

00:17:14.160 You know, like those shopping centers in Miami, right?

00:17:15.940 Totally get it.

00:17:16.360 I mean, like, I don't know, 10 feet wide, 15 feet wide, 40 feet, uh, deep.

00:17:21.200 And, uh, it was a little grocery store.

00:17:23.760 And I go there Monday.

00:17:24.820 I'm supposed to go every Monday in the morning, a couple hours and pay me a thousand dollars.

00:17:29.880 Right there, I'm going to be rich.

00:17:31.200 A thousand dollars.

00:17:32.380 I mean, I'm making, minimum wage is 85, 95.

00:17:35.140 I'm making 350 working for the bank.

00:17:37.120 I'm a big shot.

00:17:37.900 You know, a thousand dollars for three hours.

00:17:40.720 Oh man.

00:17:41.680 So I go there and they have a little office in the back and I go and I see this paper sack

00:17:47.200 and he had like a hundred and some odd thousand dollars.

00:17:51.520 And I'm like, wow.

00:17:53.540 I look around, no way this grocery store produced that.

00:17:56.800 I thought, well, maybe they haven't made deposits in a year.

00:17:58.980 I don't know.

00:18:00.120 No clue.

00:18:01.600 Zero clue what's going on.

00:18:04.080 Do my accounting.

00:18:05.660 Go to the bank.

00:18:06.620 They pass it to a hundred thousand dollars.

00:18:08.800 Boom.

00:18:09.140 Show up next week.

00:18:10.440 Seventy five thousand.

00:18:12.020 And I'm like, no, there's got to be something wrong.

00:18:15.140 So the only thing I could think of, there's a shelf and I'll never forget it had a can of

00:18:20.220 Campbell's soup and it was dusty.

00:18:22.520 It's been sitting there for a long time.

00:18:24.320 So I'm going to go and I'm going to put a V on top of that can.

00:18:27.600 I want to see if this can sells because I'm coming back next week and now I'm like,

00:18:32.160 getting a little suspicious.

00:18:32.860 What a thing to do.

00:18:33.800 But think about this now.

00:18:34.940 Now, suspicious that something's going on, the least of them all, if they gave me a hundred

00:18:40.260 choices, I would have chose cocaine as the hundredth of the choices.

00:18:43.860 Got it.

00:18:44.340 Of what was going on.

00:18:45.460 Remember now.

00:18:46.200 How were they as people?

00:18:47.060 Just regular people?

00:18:48.040 Yeah, just regular.

00:18:48.980 Yeah.

00:18:49.240 Regular Colombian.

00:18:50.680 Pretty wild, you know.

00:18:53.000 I remember one time he got mad at the wife.

00:18:54.920 So the wife gets out and gets a big old piece of ham and throws it at him at the store

00:18:58.660 and then he takes out his gun, shoots the ham and puts it back in the counter.

00:19:01.660 I'm like, well, these people are a little different than I am.

00:19:06.480 You're 20, 21 at this time.

00:19:08.060 No, I'm 20.

00:19:08.680 Okay.

00:19:09.160 Got it.

00:19:09.360 I'm 20.

00:19:09.860 It's 1976.

00:19:10.840 I just left the bank.

00:19:11.880 And so do my accounting, go back, and the next week when I come, there's another hundredth of

00:19:20.940 I'm like, no, I need an explanation.

00:19:23.220 And I never forget it.

00:19:24.140 I called him in there and said, oh, bro, let me give you a little accounting lesson.

00:19:28.800 You see that can of Campbell's soup that's still there because I put a V on it and it

00:19:33.160 hasn't gotten nowhere.

00:19:34.280 It still has the V.

00:19:34.880 Well, if that can is a dollar and you sell it to one for $3, you have generated $3 worth

00:19:42.880 of income and $2 worth of profit.

00:19:46.260 So here's the problem.

00:19:47.800 I've deposited close to $300,000 and yet the receipts for all you bought don't add up to

00:19:54.160 $1,500.

00:19:56.500 What gives?

00:19:57.860 You think that they would like come up with some, they looked at me and they're like,

00:20:02.180 oh, yeah, this is nothing.

00:20:04.880 No, we're drug dealers.

00:20:06.540 They just told you.

00:20:07.580 I mean, just like that, we're drug dealers.

00:20:09.380 We sell cocaine.

00:20:10.660 Now, let me go back.

00:20:12.120 At least they're honest about it.

00:20:13.060 Yeah.

00:20:13.540 In the 70s, in the 70s, cocaine does not have the stigma that cocaine has and should have

00:20:19.740 today, right?

00:20:20.820 In the 70s, it was for the rich and famous, the Hollywood celebrities.

00:20:24.700 I mean, you could buy a gorgeous house in Miami, four bedroom for 40 grand and a kilo

00:20:29.280 of cocaine was 60 to 70.

00:20:31.340 So who had this, right?

00:20:33.820 So they're like, yeah, we're drug dealers.

00:20:37.820 And by the way, we've been meaning to ask you, we know you work for the government.

00:20:42.280 Do you know how to open foreign bank accounts?

00:20:45.380 And I'm like, yeah, I happen to know.

00:20:48.760 And they're like, how much?

00:20:49.980 And I just threw a number for the heck of just getting, stop this conversation list, go

00:20:54.640 on, move over.

00:20:55.380 And I said, $10,000.

00:20:57.760 And it was $1,500 of what they cost.

00:21:00.200 And they're like, can you open three?

00:21:03.920 Now, immediately, I added up three.

00:21:06.220 I'm going to make about eight grand profit.

00:21:08.380 You know, three of them, $24,000, three bucks an hour at the bank.

00:21:12.920 Think about making about $1,000 a month.

00:21:15.240 You know, like this is 25 years worth of labor.

00:21:18.100 And they're like, I'm like, sure.

00:21:20.960 And I did.

00:21:21.800 And I began to open four mega.

00:21:24.200 And so this is what's really interesting.

00:21:25.920 I tell people I had drawn a line that I wouldn't cross for nothing.

00:21:30.100 But all of a sudden, the fact that here's these people that couldn't even hardly read and

00:21:35.160 write, and they're making ungodly amounts of money.

00:21:38.320 And here I am, busting my ass, working, honestly, going to school, no sleep.

00:21:44.460 And I'm barely getting by.

00:21:46.860 And it's like, so we come up with excuses, right?

00:21:50.380 I'm only going to do it one time.

00:21:52.240 Okay?

00:21:52.560 I'll open this company.

00:21:53.760 And that gives me the money to go to law school.

00:21:57.140 Now, we're great at justifying it, right?

00:22:00.800 I tell people, listen, nobody drinks a gallon of vodka the first time.

00:22:03.520 He's going to die.

00:22:04.600 You know, no one shoots an ounce of heroin.

00:22:06.460 You start with a little.

00:22:07.960 And then you come up with a good excuse, because that's how we are.

00:22:10.480 We're wired to justify all of our actions.

00:22:14.180 And immediately, the first way I just, when he told me there were cocaine dealers, you

00:22:18.660 would think I'd be shocked.

00:22:19.920 And I should have been.

00:22:20.860 But immediately, my mindset was, well, you're an accountant.

00:22:24.880 You know, that's what you would drink, to count money.

00:22:27.140 There's no money laundering laws.

00:22:28.700 You're doing nothing wrong.

00:22:29.920 Just the customer.

00:22:30.860 Just immediately.

00:22:31.540 Just another customer.

00:22:32.200 What they do, that's their problem.

00:22:33.680 They go to jail, that's their problem.

00:22:35.360 Yeah.

00:22:36.200 Hey, I'm providing a service that I paid all those years to work for.

00:22:40.420 Yeah.

00:22:40.500 Yeah.

00:22:41.360 And it did.

00:22:44.420 And I started to open foreign bank accounts.

00:22:46.480 And I started what was considered by the government the original web of the most sophisticated

00:22:50.940 money laundering, because immediately, I started to become friends with ministers of finance

00:22:55.320 in countries all over the world.

00:22:58.080 I'm barely, I'm not even 21 yet.

00:23:01.040 I have braces.

00:23:02.220 I look like a nerd.

00:23:03.420 If you look up nerd in the dictionary, bang, there was my picture.

00:23:06.840 That's how I looked.

00:23:07.720 I mean, it was like, I look back.

00:23:11.580 I mean, there's a picture.

00:23:12.500 I have a picture when I started with a cartel with a yellow jersey from my high school.

00:23:17.780 And I'm like, so I started making this money for them.

00:23:23.780 And shortly thereafter, and this thing escalates.

00:23:27.380 So this is like towards the end of 1976, 77 coming on.

00:23:32.440 And it begins to escalate really, really fast.

00:23:38.860 So within a month, within a couple of months, they come and they tell me, we want you to

00:23:43.980 meet our boss.

00:23:45.720 He has a business proposition for you.

00:23:48.540 And I'm like, okay.

00:23:49.520 So I meet him, and this is the guy that was the original head of what would become the

00:23:56.620 betting cartel.

00:23:57.400 This is the guy from who a lot of all these people came from.

00:24:01.740 And he's like, hey, we're interested in starting a banana import business.

00:24:08.500 And we want to buy a ship, and we want to start bringing bananas, and we want to, you

00:24:13.180 know, I mean, and here's the interesting thing.

00:24:16.180 He and his partners, they were business people.

00:24:19.860 They had tons of business.

00:24:21.520 They wore a suit.

00:24:22.700 They talked like you and I talk.

00:24:24.520 This is not what you would think that you see Pablo and all his sicario, that type of

00:24:28.820 thing.

00:24:29.100 No, this is what, I mean, he owned the largest construction company in Colombia.

00:24:32.800 He owned the largest coal mine, the largest emerald mine, airlines.

00:24:37.560 So I'm thinking that he's proposing a legitimate business.

00:24:42.180 I mean, he's like, well, we want you to be the president.

00:24:44.840 And I'm like, sure.

00:24:46.200 I said, look, I want equal partnership or, and $7,000 a month.

00:24:52.520 Well, $7,000, that was like a fortune.

00:24:55.280 They look at me and they're like, no problem.

00:24:58.020 I'm like, shoot, I should have asked for more.

00:24:59.320 And we flew out to California and we bought a big old landing ship, you know, and those

00:25:07.300 were those big cargo ships where they would go up to the shore, the military, drop a hatch

00:25:12.740 and they offload equipment and stuff like that.

00:25:15.380 And little did I ever imagine what the real intention was with the banana company.

00:25:20.840 And it shows how it wasn't bananas.

00:25:22.860 So we buy this ship and I'm in California and we got to refurbish it to do refrigerate

00:25:28.600 it.

00:25:29.340 And when I'm out there, the guy that's doing the refrigeration for me starts harassing

00:25:33.940 me.

00:25:34.160 It's like, hey man, I know that's a cocaine boat.

00:25:36.920 And I'm like, dude, you're wrong.

00:25:38.700 I said, look, you think I'm stupid enough that if this is going to do something illegal,

00:25:42.680 I would have my name on it?

00:25:43.900 And I was that stupid because I had no idea.

00:25:47.300 And he's like, no speculation.

00:25:48.780 You're not zero.

00:25:50.240 Because they didn't talk like you would think the stigma.

00:25:53.860 These were business people.

00:25:55.380 We talked about feasibility study.

00:25:57.300 We did feasibility study.

00:25:58.420 We did financial statements.

00:25:59.580 We did all this stuff that you would expect.

00:26:01.940 I mean, try to tell any one of those goos today, let's do a feasibility study.

00:26:04.960 They'll look at you like, what the hell is that?

00:26:06.420 You know, how much money?

00:26:08.040 Here's a bunch of cash.

00:26:08.880 So, anyway, so I come back to Miami and I tell the guy that started me with the partners,

00:26:18.460 right?

00:26:18.920 The guy that was, this guy that was always hanging at the grocery store, which was the

00:26:22.860 boss of the two owners of the grocery store.

00:26:25.860 And I said, hey, you won't believe this, man.

00:26:28.540 These people keep thinking that, that this boat is for cocaine.

00:26:32.340 And I keep telling him no.

00:26:33.340 And he's like, man, you know, you can make a lot of money if you find a good buyer out

00:26:37.120 there.

00:26:37.320 And I'm like, dude, I don't want nothing to do.

00:26:39.020 I say, be stupid of you guys to get me involved in that when I'm handling all your money.

00:26:43.320 Now, I'm depositing half a million dollars a month.

00:26:46.840 1976.

00:26:47.940 It's a lot of cash.

00:26:49.680 And kept at it.

00:26:51.680 So, one day I bid.

00:26:53.400 He's like, hey, take three kilos out there.

00:26:56.560 You don't have to do nothing.

00:26:57.860 We'll send it out there.

00:26:59.580 Send it to your guys and see what happens.

00:27:01.080 Well, one thing led to the other.

00:27:03.480 And this is where I tell my second cataclysmic moment.

00:27:06.100 I go to a party.

00:27:07.200 Now, my circle of influence has changed, right?

00:27:09.800 No longer my other deadbeat buddies.

00:27:12.420 You know, I tell my son, my generation, people say, oh, wow, incredible.

00:27:17.360 You work full time, went to school full time.

00:27:18.940 So did all my friends.

00:27:20.520 That was our generation.

00:27:21.960 You know, we all wanted to get ahead.

00:27:23.700 We all had families.

00:27:24.760 You know, because back then you married early and we all had responsibilities.

00:27:28.380 So, I go to a party now.

00:27:31.180 Now, those are not my friends anymore, right?

00:27:33.720 Now, I start in the circle of their friends, the rich, the famous, the musicians, the auction promoters.

00:27:43.120 Big, big names back in the 70s.

00:27:44.920 And I go to a party and I see a judge strung out on cocaine.

00:27:50.820 A judge?

00:27:51.800 A judge that gave people hundreds of years for cocaine offense.

00:27:56.000 And I looked at him and I'm like, man, there's no God and there's just no morals in this country.

00:28:02.980 Wow.

00:28:03.220 Because this group that started what would become the main cartel, nobody did drugs.

00:28:09.420 They're like, hey, this is for the idiots to make us rich.

00:28:15.380 So, I'm like, it leads to another, and they're like, we want you to handle all operations in the United States.

00:28:21.340 When I said no, when I said yes, I would, right?

00:28:24.920 But here's the deal.

00:28:26.580 I said, I got to be equal partners and you got to put up my part because I ain't got no money.

00:28:32.280 Needless to say, I said that sort of like, just leave me alone.

00:28:35.560 You know, because here's this powerful people having a 21-year-old kid telling them he wants to be equal partner and they got to finance him.

00:28:43.600 And he has no idea.

00:28:44.440 I don't even know what cocaine looks like.

00:28:46.060 Never seen it in my life.

00:28:48.080 And they're like, let's think about it.

00:28:51.360 I'm like, good.

00:28:52.100 So, I'm headed back the next morning back to California.

00:28:54.740 And when the chauffeur comes to bring me up, he says, Don Manuel wants to see you.

00:28:59.340 So, I'm like, okay, maybe we forgot to talk something about it.

00:29:01.660 Because we would talk literally like you would with anybody that works for you in another city running some operation.

00:29:07.700 And there was his other partner.

00:29:11.440 And, man, he was stoic looking.

00:29:14.380 I mean, it's like, and I'm like, oh, man, we didn't forget to talk.

00:29:18.100 I'm dead.

00:29:19.300 I was stupid.

00:29:20.060 What the hell?

00:29:20.500 Look, you know, I insulted the hell out of these people and they're going to let me know really quick what they think about it.

00:29:25.340 So, they look at me and they're like, we discussed it and we agree.

00:29:28.560 We'll let you handle all our operations in the U.S.

00:29:30.920 Now, what the hell does that mean?

00:29:34.000 I don't know what cocaine looks like.

00:29:36.280 How do I bring it in?

00:29:37.880 Who am I going to sell it to?

00:29:39.620 Well, I knew those guys in California.

00:29:41.760 What am I going to do with the money?

00:29:43.300 How am I going to get it to California?

00:29:44.660 How am I going to get the money back to Colombia?

00:29:47.260 All of that.

00:29:48.380 For a kid that never broke the law in his life.

00:29:51.320 Now, I'm no more just handling money as an accountant that I'm trained to be.

00:29:55.000 I'm going to handle this big, large operation.

00:29:57.680 And think about it.

00:29:58.560 Now, if you saw Cocaine Cowboy in Netflix, you see there was a big operation in Miami called Operation Video Canary.

00:30:05.600 Operation Video Canary, they arrested every drug dealer that there was in Miami, right?

00:30:10.180 They were all selling grams out there, like Silent Woolley, who literally, like the producer said, I handed him, or the prosecutor said, I handed him the keys to the kingdom.

00:30:18.220 They were selling grams at a disco for years.

00:30:22.820 My name never came up.

00:30:24.940 And I was bringing in 800 kilos for two years.

00:30:27.580 800 kilos.

00:30:29.080 A month.

00:30:30.000 I was making a million to $3 million a month.

00:30:33.740 We were doing anywhere between $50 and $80 million a month.

00:30:38.240 Almost a billion a year.

00:30:40.100 In 1977, 78, money.

00:30:45.820 It's a lot of money back then.

00:30:48.520 What is life like at that time?

00:30:50.380 Well, needless to say, you know, it's like the young athletes that signed the big contract that broke all their lives.

00:30:57.580 I was the same.

00:30:58.140 No different, right?

00:30:59.200 But I invested a lot.

00:31:01.520 But I bought jets, mansions, Rolls Royces.

00:31:06.200 I had every known car you can imagine.

00:31:08.780 And I dated some of the most beautiful women in America.

00:31:11.260 And I said, and I wrote a blog that I said, I'm 22 years old.

00:31:17.100 I make a million dollars a month.

00:31:19.620 I have mansions, jets, helicopters, million-dollar car, and I want to die.

00:31:26.620 And I want to die.

00:31:27.860 And seeing that's the message that I wanted to get across to a lot of people, I think they did a really good job in Cocaine Cowboys.

00:31:33.060 Because the thing about it is, see, Patrick, I thought that once I reached my American dream, which is not what the American dream is, the American dream is the World War II generation that worked their butts off to have a job and a decent retirement, one house.

00:31:50.300 They had marriage problems, but divorce was not an option.

00:31:53.220 You know, they hated the war like all of us.

00:31:55.840 Serving was an honor.

00:31:57.160 They'd rather be an hour early than a minute late.

00:31:59.400 That's the American dream.

00:32:00.480 Our American dream is just a false.

00:32:03.580 It's the fact that you have this hunger within you, and society is quick to tell you, listen, when you do this, you're going to be happy.

00:32:12.780 When you date this gorgeous model, look at it on TV.

00:32:15.220 Well, listen, I woke up next to them.

00:32:17.480 They don't look the same in the magazine as they do when they wake up out of bed.

00:32:21.500 You're supposed to be happy.

00:32:22.860 Everybody's telling you you're God.

00:32:24.640 You know, you did a video that I liked a lot when you talk about how people are constantly wanting people to like them.

00:32:30.480 You know, and it's interesting that we live in a world that that video, you didn't get as many views as some of the other mafia videos when that video had unbelievable message to me.

00:32:42.460 It did because it's so true, right?

00:32:44.960 We're constantly wanting people to praise us.

00:32:47.900 We want why?

00:32:49.160 Because we're miserable and we need affirmation.

00:32:52.760 See, and instead of people saying to me, listen, George, you're the scum of the earth.

00:32:56.840 No, it didn't matter what I did.

00:32:58.940 You're so, you know, you're the best to hang out with.

00:33:02.420 You're this, you're that.

00:33:03.600 So at that time, when you're making a million to three million a month and you guys are doing a bill a year, what does your mom and dad think you're doing?

00:33:11.580 So see, that's the thing.

00:33:12.960 My mom did not have no idea what I was doing.

00:33:16.500 Did they ever come to your matches?

00:33:17.760 They thought, well, no, they, oh yeah, but they thought that I was a legitimate businessman because we had, we had cattle farms.

00:33:25.420 We had business that they could see.

00:33:27.600 We had construction company.

00:33:28.880 I took my father to Columbia a couple of times to see the house that I bought, which was a big old development that we have built.

00:33:35.080 So they saw that.

00:33:36.860 And this is the, this is where the problem comes with Sal and Willie.

00:33:40.660 So my dad is best friends with them, with his father forever, since Cuba.

00:33:48.760 Every day after dinner till they all died, they would visit each other's house for coffee.

00:33:54.840 To me, they were like my parents, loved them to death.

00:33:57.600 Well, so Sal, I lost track with Sal because they dropped out of high school.

00:34:02.600 I kept on going to college.

00:34:03.680 And every time my dad went to his parents' house, he was like, hey, tell George to give me a chance.

00:34:09.500 Tell George to give me a chance.

00:34:10.140 Because, of course, my dad, being a typical Hispanic, he's bragging about his son, how his son is doing so well, how his son is driving a road, you know, all of this stuff, not knowing really what his son was doing.

00:34:22.340 So I was afraid that we're going to tell my dad when I give him a meeting.

00:34:27.900 You know, I was afraid that, hey, you know, let me talk to him because sooner or later he's going to spill it.

00:34:35.020 And then, you know, my parents, it would destroy my parents, which eventually it did.

00:34:38.260 And it's the greatest regret of the many regrets that I have.

00:34:41.860 You know, people tell me it's like, don't you miss that life?

00:34:46.940 Well, you have a jet?

00:34:49.280 I don't.

00:34:50.000 I sure as hell I miss mine.

00:34:51.520 Of course you miss it.

00:34:52.740 You miss the thing.

00:34:53.580 I don't miss it.

00:34:54.360 Tell me, hey, do you miss having a 747?

00:34:56.000 No, I never had one, so I don't miss it.

00:34:57.440 You miss the thing that you had.

00:34:59.220 But the thing is that none of that gave me the joy that I have today because today my joy is not in that thing.

00:35:06.800 My joy is in me and who I am and who created me.

00:35:12.780 So in that time when you're doing these, by the way, very insightful.

00:35:17.280 And I love the fact that you're sharing that with the audience because sometimes messages can come across as being glorified and young people look up to.

00:35:24.680 And so I'd love to have that kind of accolades, the cars, all this stuff.

00:35:27.880 And I don't care if I need to live the fast life.

00:35:30.000 But going back to it, during that time while you're doing business with all these different types of folks, who are you negotiating with?

00:35:36.940 Who are you dealing with?

00:35:38.400 Political people?

00:35:39.260 People, celebrities, billionaires, you know, are you doing dealings with Pablo?

00:35:45.240 Are you doing dealings?

00:35:46.300 Who are you dealing with at that time?

00:35:48.060 Pablo is not even in the picture yet.

00:35:49.540 Okay.

00:35:50.100 Pablo is even surfing until 1980, 81.

00:35:52.960 I'm in jail when he surfaces.

00:35:53.980 So I'm dealing with, literally, we paid for the presidential campaign of the president of Costa Rica.

00:36:01.260 Moje, a million dollars.

00:36:02.880 I'm dealing with Somoza in Nicaragua.

00:36:05.960 We're spending half a million to a million dollars a month in bribery right here in the U.S.

00:36:11.280 Two things we couldn't bribe.

00:36:13.540 An appellate judge, DA, or FBI agent.

00:36:16.760 You couldn't bribe.

00:36:17.500 Could not.

00:36:18.020 Why not?

00:36:18.620 Because they just won't take it.

00:36:19.900 And it wasn't much that we would ask him.

00:36:21.340 Now, I'm not saying that there's not some that will take it.

00:36:24.160 But I'm telling you, as a whole, and it's not like, I'm going to go up to DA agent, and so how does bribery work, corruption work?

00:36:31.800 Real simple.

00:36:32.740 Everybody knows somebody, right?

00:36:34.840 And your circle becomes very, very big.

00:36:37.300 So if I know you know that federal judge, right, like one that we tried to get to, who was an appellate judge, to rule on my behalf when I had all the rights to win.

00:36:47.220 I had the best lawyers in the world.

00:36:49.120 I had a million dollars with the lawyers.

00:36:50.200 But, so I said, hey, all I want is a fair verdict.

00:36:55.400 I'll pay a million bucks.

00:36:57.060 So it's not like a stranger coming to Patrick, the federal judge.

00:37:00.340 It's the guy that Patrick hangs out with all the time.

00:37:03.480 So everybody has somebody.

00:37:06.160 So at the state level, politicians, politicians, it didn't matter who it was.

00:37:11.760 We had no need to buy the president of the United States back then.

00:37:14.660 But I guarantee you, if we needed to, we could have.

00:37:18.320 Because think about a million dollars a month in 1977, 78.

00:37:23.200 You're talking about what, eight, nine, ten million dollars now?

00:37:26.120 Yeah.

00:37:26.760 You know?

00:37:28.440 Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

00:37:31.460 Sure, sure.

00:37:32.220 And when you, you can get to people, and basically all we needed from people, what was gold for us was information.

00:37:39.740 That's what was important.

00:37:41.120 We were not looking at, hey, he's in jail, get him out.

00:37:44.060 That was easy.

00:37:45.300 You know, at that time, you can do that very cheap.

00:37:48.200 Are you also living the life where you're hurting people?

00:37:52.080 Are you guys having to collect?

00:37:54.580 Are you also living the life where you have to harm?

00:37:57.280 Is there, you know, murders taking place?

00:38:00.220 Or no, that wasn't your world?

00:38:01.740 Not at all.

00:38:02.920 I'll give you two examples.

00:38:04.660 One example were, it was a big test for me.

00:38:08.820 My godfather, the guy that started this group, where Pablo and all of them come from, he's 93 years old today.

00:38:14.840 Still around.

00:38:15.620 Still around.

00:38:16.120 Good for him.

00:38:16.640 Never, never had a bodyguard.

00:38:19.640 Even during the worst killings in Colombia.

00:38:21.820 And he was on the list to be extradited twice, right?

00:38:24.800 Never had a bodyguard.

00:38:27.360 One time, I asked permission to knock somebody off.

00:38:31.300 And I'm not a killer.

00:38:33.300 You know, I grew up, I was a nerd.

00:38:35.700 You know, I didn't grow up on the streets as a street kid.

00:38:39.240 But you wake up every day, and they tell you, hey, Patrick says you're going to put a contract on your life.

00:38:45.760 And Patrick's going to put a contract on your life.

00:38:47.500 And I know that I can wipe out Patrick in two seconds.

00:38:50.460 Right?

00:38:51.300 So I asked him.

00:38:52.140 I said, Manuel, here's the deal.

00:38:54.040 This guy keeps threatening me, and he's out there asking people, telling people he's going to kill me.

00:38:59.780 And at any given moment, any human being can be killed.

00:39:02.400 Right?

00:39:02.600 I want to get rid of him.

00:39:05.660 And this was his response.

00:39:08.160 No.

00:39:09.240 He says, a million dollars we bring back and make any day of the week, a life we can't bring back.

00:39:16.500 I'm like, but the life you won't get to bring back is mine.

00:39:20.380 And he's like, you do what is right before God, and you'll be okay.

00:39:24.440 And this is one of the founding members of the cartel, the Medin cartel.

00:39:27.080 And this is the guy that said to me, if you have to carry a gun to deal with someone, you have no business dealing with that person.

00:39:32.940 So here was one test he put me at the beginning, at the very beginning.

00:39:36.320 He tells me one day, he says, hey, there's this guy, Oscar, that owes me $90,000.

00:39:43.160 I want you to go collect it.

00:39:44.280 So, you know, I get a couple guys.

00:39:47.300 We're going to go collect the $90,000.

00:39:49.560 I never asked me that.

00:39:51.480 We never had to do that.

00:39:53.220 Everybody we dealt with, we've known for ages.

00:39:55.920 You know, we're doing all this.

00:39:57.560 We're doing millions of dollars on a handshake.

00:40:00.260 So I go see the guy.

00:40:03.260 He opens the door and ushers me.

00:40:07.040 And I call him up.

00:40:08.320 Hey, I need to see you.

00:40:09.260 Come to my house.

00:40:10.280 That was a little weird.

00:40:11.740 So I go to his house and he says, look, I got ripped off.

00:40:16.100 And look, it takes me to the refrigerator.

00:40:17.920 His wife was about to give birth, had nothing in the refrigerator, no milk, nothing.

00:40:22.040 He says, just tell Manuel that the minute I, my wife gives birth and we find an apartment, I'll give you the deed to the house.

00:40:31.700 I got ripped off, but I want to pay my debt.

00:40:34.440 So I looked at the guy and I told the guy that went with me, go to the car and bring me, you know, I call it un fajo, which was $10,000.

00:40:40.800 So he comes back and I give it to him.

00:40:43.640 I said, listen, man, forget about the debt.

00:40:45.720 The debt you can pay us, pay us.

00:40:47.100 But in the meantime, here, just go buy stuff for your baby and your wife and get yourself settled and you'll never hear from us again.

00:40:53.820 I called my godfather and he's like, did you collect?

00:40:56.960 I said, well, I got bad news for you.

00:40:59.340 I said, not only did I not collect, but you owe me $10,000.

00:41:01.760 And he's like, so I tell the story.

00:41:04.240 This was his words.

00:41:06.100 That's exactly what I wanted to see you do.

00:41:09.860 Total different people than the scum that came after.

00:41:14.080 And it's very, very sad because I say to people, what's one of the reasons why Pablo Escobar got killed?

00:41:19.060 Well, real simple, because of pride and ego.

00:41:21.940 I mean, do you think that he needs to kill this one guy, a negro, who's a really decent guy because the guy at a Christmas party said, hey, Pablo's got all the fame, but I got all the money.

00:41:33.500 And Pablo kills him.

00:41:35.460 He hasn't assassinated.

00:41:37.100 The guy doesn't die.

00:41:37.900 And then he's at the clinic and this guy's got a lot of power.

00:41:41.800 And Pablo walks in with all his goons and kills him himself in the clinic.

00:41:46.040 So very different from the world.

00:41:48.960 But all of this is beginning to surface while I go to prison.

00:41:53.440 See, in 1978.

00:41:55.460 So when I gave Silent Willie a chance and what it was, basically what it was is when I meet with him to tell him, listen, stop talking to my father.

00:42:05.360 And I'm like, he's like, come on, man, give me a chance.

00:42:08.100 I said, well, OK, how much you want to buy Coke?

00:42:10.880 How much do you have to buy?

00:42:12.460 And he's like, $20,000.

00:42:15.080 And I start laughing.

00:42:16.140 I want to pee in my pants.

00:42:17.760 $20,000, dude.

00:42:19.340 Think I sell grams?

00:42:21.920 $60,000 is a kilo, man.

00:42:23.580 And nobody's selling one kilo.

00:42:26.280 So I'm like, all right, let me see if I can never give you a chance.

00:42:29.940 I'll try to work out, but right now we're committed.

00:42:31.420 And even the cartel, even this group, right, they didn't want us to sell much in Miami because they felt that, listen, don't poop where you eat.

00:42:40.980 Our market is California and New York.

00:42:43.580 That's where all the fame and all the glory and all the celebrities, you know, that were our customers.

00:42:49.560 Just think about any famous singer in 1975, 76, 77, 78.

00:42:54.880 They bought from us.

00:42:56.480 So I said, let me give you a chance.

00:43:00.940 Well, two months later, I had just bought a brand new, I think it was a 450 SL Mercedes Convertible in German.

00:43:10.120 I was going to pick it up.

00:43:11.700 And in every load, one of the things that we did, see, if I tell you, like, one of the things that I wrote is called the Narcomaster Journal.

00:43:20.980 And basically, the way I built that empire is no different than the principal I used to get my Ph.D., which is the hardest academic achievement in America, and no different than building a multimillion-dollar national and international company as a twice-convicted drug dealer.

00:43:35.600 Same thing.

00:43:36.780 Well, one of them to me was this win-win.

00:43:38.660 Again, I felt that if I approached the world with a win-win, then nobody would be my enemy.

00:43:45.140 So, for example, and this took on later on, became more important.

00:43:49.220 So I'm bringing in 800 kilos.

00:43:52.840 You're Pablo.

00:43:53.780 You're Gacha.

00:43:55.220 You're Frank.

00:43:56.960 Kike, whoever.

00:43:58.500 And you say, because it's a small world, right?

00:44:01.820 Especially in Madrid.

00:44:02.860 Yeah.

00:44:03.040 Hey, man, George and Manuel, they're bringing those left and right.

00:44:07.060 You know what's going to happen?

00:44:08.220 Sooner or later, they're going to knock me off or tell on me.

00:44:13.560 Like, I was just reviewing your show for the first time in history.

00:44:16.340 As Pablo Escobar was doing with the DEA for years.

00:44:22.220 On people.

00:44:23.660 Under a presumed name.

00:44:26.460 So, if I tell you.

00:44:27.900 Meaning Pablo was cooperating the entire time with the DEA.

00:44:31.160 Yeah, but, you know, he wasn't doing it to cooperate because he believed in law enforcement.

00:44:34.860 He was like, hey, what's the decent way for me to get rid of Pat?

00:44:38.220 I just found out that Patrick is bringing in a load on such and such day.

00:44:41.460 So he gave him a name.

00:44:43.000 And with that name, thinking that maybe he'll get credit one day for it, right?

00:44:46.780 Or they'll come to his aid.

00:44:48.640 Well, good luck.

00:44:51.060 So, but if I say all of a sudden, okay, Manuel, let's divide that load in half.

00:44:55.760 400 kilos is us.

00:44:57.440 And then let's take, among three of the biggest guys, then, divide the other 400 kilos.

00:45:02.800 150, 150, 100.

00:45:04.780 Then what happens?

00:45:05.960 Instead of being jealous and wanting to knock me off, what are they doing?

00:45:09.020 They're rooting me on because I'm bringing in their stuff.

00:45:12.040 Everybody's got their own routes.

00:45:13.480 That's why there was no cartel.

00:45:15.280 Every group had their own pilots, their own bankers, their own buyers, their own distributors in the U.S.

00:45:21.440 They had their own assassins.

00:45:24.320 So it was not like it was this one harmonious group, right?

00:45:28.920 So with that said, Manuel, in this one specific load, we're supposed to deliver 30 kilos to this one guy.

00:45:38.980 And when my guy that would do the distribution calls comes to find out, we had codes.

00:45:46.840 So when I called you, I knew you had to talk to me in a certain way.

00:45:50.460 But the idiot, the agent or whoever he was, is like, well, how many?

00:45:54.860 And who sent it?

00:45:56.520 So my guy is like, hey, I'm just looking to rent an apartment.

00:45:59.000 It hung up.

00:45:59.940 Back then, you know, there was no way to trace those brick phones.

00:46:03.620 So lo and behold, I have 30 kilos left.

00:46:08.200 Now, I'm leaving for Europe the next day.

00:46:09.940 So I'm like, shit, let me see what Sal can do.

00:46:13.680 So I called him and I said, hey, you want a break?

00:46:15.680 He's like, yeah, yeah.

00:46:17.360 I said, all right.

00:46:18.400 I got 30 kilos and you have a month.

00:46:20.160 Because I called the guy in Colombia and said, look, you almost got us busted.

00:46:23.200 So here's the deal.

00:46:23.920 I charged him $7,000 for the transportation.

00:46:27.240 So I said, the best I'm going to do with your 30 kilos is I'm going to take my $7,000.

00:46:32.620 Out of your cocaine at wholesale, which he was paying $18,000.

00:46:36.160 So I'm going to take, you know, three kilos to pay for your freight.

00:46:39.760 And then the rest of it, I'm going to dump it in a dumpster.

00:46:42.220 You come, I'll tell you where it is.

00:46:43.180 Go get it.

00:46:44.060 He said, oh, no, please, please don't do that.

00:46:45.520 You ruin me.

00:46:46.480 I said, so here's the best I'm going to do.

00:46:48.080 I'll buy him at what you paid for in Colombia, $18,000.

00:46:51.920 And I'll pay you when I come back.

00:46:53.780 Well, it only cost me three.

00:46:56.180 I was charging seven, but it only cost me three.

00:46:58.160 So now I had $60,000 of cocaine for $21,000.

00:47:00.880 So I called Sal, and he's like, we can't handle that.

00:47:05.780 And his partner, Willie, I don't know if you saw the series.

00:47:08.380 Everybody keeps calling him dumb.

00:47:10.400 But he's like, oh, I can do it.

00:47:12.080 I can do it.

00:47:13.860 And a month later, when I come back, they had the money.

00:47:16.660 So they did.

00:47:17.860 And they start, and every load, they start bringing in cocaine.

00:47:22.580 So at the end of 1978, Sal comes to me and says, hey, there's this captain in the Bolivian Air Force that's working with the Bolivian government, and they want to deal with you directly.

00:47:34.860 So I go meet with him, and he's like, I can give you cocaine at wholesale in Bolivia, which we're paying $18,000.

00:47:43.800 Because at this time, Colombia is not producing any cocaine.

00:47:46.580 All the cocaine is coming in paste.

00:47:48.940 Colombia is crystallizing it, right?

00:47:50.760 It's all coming in paste, all already crystallized from Bolivia, Peru.

00:47:55.460 He said, I can give it to you at $10,000, and for each kilo you buy, I'll give you one on credit.

00:47:59.760 So at this time, Colombia is not the producer.

00:48:03.240 You said it's coming in from Bolivia and Peru.

00:48:06.060 So this is what, 78, 77, 78, 79.

00:48:11.940 So I don't know when Colombia started producing, probably in 1980, 81, which is how Pablo got started, right?

00:48:21.240 Pablo would just go out there.

00:48:22.780 He'd be sent by one of the bosses, hey, go bring 40 kilos or 30 kilos.

00:48:28.180 That's how ancient that was.

00:48:29.700 They would drive it, you know, across the borders into Colombia.

00:48:33.320 So, and he was, one thing he was, he was sharp, and he was a risk taker and a hustler.

00:48:39.680 So it didn't take him long to get power and to get money.

00:48:42.760 Was he a tough guy?

00:48:43.140 Was he a tough guy even pre him going into cocaine?

00:48:46.300 See, I never dealt with him until after I got out of prison afterwards.

00:48:50.800 So I never had any relationship.

00:48:53.660 And all our conversations were by phone because this time I can't leave the United States when I got released.

00:48:57.920 And he, of course, can come to the United States.

00:48:59.780 So, but, you know, all the stories that I hear from people that were real, real close to him and that know him, yeah, he was a tough kid.

00:49:08.400 He was a street hustler.

00:49:09.580 I mean, he grew up on the streets stealing tombstones and reselling them, you know.

00:49:15.000 And it's sad because his mother was a schoolteacher that everybody loved.

00:49:17.700 But, you know, it's very interesting because how can we not have drug cartels?

00:49:26.240 In essence, the United States multinational created a lot of the cartels.

00:49:31.300 Why?

00:49:31.920 Because I'll tell you one specific incident.

00:49:34.140 And like that, multiply them all over Latin America.

00:49:36.860 So we went to Colombia.

00:49:38.980 Now when we're going full blast.

00:49:41.080 And later on, and we said, okay, so here's the deal.

00:49:44.400 You're growing bananas.

00:49:45.720 Yeah.

00:49:46.280 How much they're paying you an acre?

00:49:48.120 I said $10.

00:49:49.380 And we don't have enough.

00:49:50.840 U.S., you know, Uniplast, United States Banana Corporation, all of those companies, they come and they buy.

00:49:57.000 And when they don't need no more, they tell us to stick it.

00:49:59.120 And we don't even have roads to take it to Medellin, the city.

00:50:01.900 Yeah.

00:50:02.340 So we're barely living.

00:50:04.540 We're dying.

00:50:05.140 You know, our lifespan is not very much.

00:50:08.260 So here comes the big, bad drug dealers.

00:50:10.820 Right?

00:50:11.260 And we say, hey, Patrick, $10.

00:50:13.460 No, we're going to pay you $100.

00:50:14.860 And we're going to build you roads because we don't give a damn about your bananas.

00:50:17.900 We'll build you roads so that you can take some of the bananas back to the city.

00:50:21.520 And we'll build you a hospital.

00:50:22.560 And we'll build you a school.

00:50:23.660 And you're going to grow cocaine.

00:50:25.700 So what are they going to do?

00:50:27.240 Who is the immoral person here?

00:50:29.780 You know?

00:50:30.340 And that's what happens in all Latin America.

00:50:33.680 We don't want to end up in war on drugs.

00:50:35.940 That's the biggest joke in the world.

00:50:38.120 War on drugs.

00:50:38.740 Cocaine is 70% of the overdose problem in the world.

00:50:42.320 And it's all the money on the war on drugs.

00:50:44.500 You want war on drugs?

00:50:45.400 Go out to pharma.

00:50:46.760 And 72% of all overdoses in America.

00:50:49.720 So we don't want to stop it because it's a big thing.

00:50:52.640 And I'm not saying this in a negative way to the many agents, like the ones you had in your show,

00:50:57.220 that are honest people that are really out there risking their lives to try to make this a better world for everybody.

00:51:02.420 I'm not saying that.

00:51:03.060 I'm talking about the big, big level.

00:51:05.200 I'm talking about those that pull all the strings and do all that they do.

00:51:10.320 And, you know, and the crush on that level is huge.

00:51:13.120 Huge.

00:51:13.940 Anyway, so with that said, you know, they come in there and they start growing the banana.

00:51:21.300 So I meet with the captain and he makes this offer.

00:51:24.180 I go back to Manuel and he's like, no, I don't want you involved in any of that.

00:51:28.960 I'm like, why not?

00:51:30.260 And he's like, because those people are animals.

00:51:33.880 Think about how Colombian tells those people further down south.

00:51:36.640 He said, look, my nephew went out there to make a deal.

00:51:40.640 And after I paid a lot of money, they sent them to me cut in four pieces in a box.

00:51:44.600 Wow.

00:51:45.540 He said, they don't play games over there.

00:51:47.140 And he says, and why do you want to go over there?

00:51:50.520 You know how we're bringing in the cocaine?

00:51:52.800 Miami International Airport.

00:51:54.240 Two customs.

00:51:56.100 That simple.

00:51:57.020 800 kilos every month like clockwork.

00:51:59.820 Who are you paying off?

00:52:01.060 Customs agent.

00:52:01.840 Two of them.

00:52:02.760 What are you paying every time?

00:52:03.920 We started paying him $2,000 and when I did the last payment in April 79, before I went

00:52:09.720 off on my trip, I paid him $7,000, $5.5 million I paid him.

00:52:15.280 These guys were genius.

00:52:17.700 There were two brothers and they lived in the crappiest little house in Miami, drove the

00:52:24.160 crappiest car that you've ever seen to the last payment that we ever made.

00:52:28.960 To the $5.5 million.

00:52:30.560 Yeah.

00:52:30.740 I mean, they made with us.

00:52:32.500 I mean, think about it, $800, we're paying anywhere between, we started paying $3,000

00:52:40.100 a kilo, $3 million a month for two years and it went from $3 to $6 million.

00:52:48.440 So they made, I don't know, $60, $70 million.

00:52:51.620 Just the two brothers.

00:52:52.820 In 77 and 78.

00:52:54.300 What happened to them?

00:52:55.440 I don't know because I went off to prison and after that.

00:52:57.920 Never heard of them.

00:52:58.400 My guy, they disappeared.

00:53:00.700 So I'm the only one that knew them, right?

00:53:03.820 And someone that was close to me.

00:53:06.000 But when they went to try to make contact, we had a number, right?

00:53:08.560 Because what happened every third Thursday of the month, we would put an airplane, we

00:53:12.400 would take this big diesel caterpillar engine, right?

00:53:16.980 Hollow them out.

00:53:18.000 Put a 55-gallon drum that would hold 115 kilos.

00:53:21.040 And load that up with grease and then we would bring it to Miami.

00:53:26.360 They would call me.

00:53:27.840 I would call them on Wednesday.

00:53:29.560 I would give them a code.

00:53:31.200 And on Thursday morning, they knew, when I gave them that code, they knew where I had

00:53:35.800 left that Wednesday night at U-Haul.

00:53:38.420 And that Thursday morning, they would give me another call and I would pick up the U-Haul

00:53:44.140 with the empty hollowed-out engines that looked like they had been sent to Columbia to be rebuilt.

00:53:50.020 Caterpillar.

00:53:50.640 And that's how we did it for ages.

00:53:51.860 I didn't come to the Bahamas and all that crap that people were doing.

00:53:54.140 At that time when you're going back and forth, are you feared?

00:53:56.240 Are you respected?

00:53:57.120 Are you admired?

00:53:58.360 How do other people look at you?

00:54:00.380 Oh, tremendous admiration.

00:54:01.700 Admiration.

00:54:02.280 And tremendous respect.

00:54:03.240 Not fear.

00:54:04.020 No, because there was no need to fear anybody.

00:54:06.240 I mean, they knew that I had this enormous organization behind me, but why is there to fear?

00:54:13.340 We're not killing anybody.

00:54:13.800 No one's dying.

00:54:14.200 No one's getting killed.

00:54:15.000 Nobody's dying.

00:54:15.020 Nobody's getting killed.

00:54:15.880 Literally, no one's getting killed.

00:54:16.980 When did people start dying?

00:54:18.340 Think about it.

00:54:18.860 People start dying with the cocaine cowboys with that shooting at the liquor store in Miami

00:54:23.200 in De La Moe, 81, 82, when the Mario Boatlift came to the United States.

00:54:28.080 And some of those guys, I mean, good guys came, but Fidel emptied out the scum of the earth.

00:54:31.740 125,000, yeah.

00:54:33.380 I mean, think about it.

00:54:34.180 And this, every, every criminal organization in the world has been in a federal prison, right?

00:54:40.100 Everyone.

00:54:41.420 The only one ever in history to take over two United States penitentiaries, Lewisburg and

00:54:46.900 Atlanta, were the Cubans from the Mariel.

00:54:49.440 Now, how?

00:54:50.500 They were in lockdown since the first day they entered the penitentiary.

00:54:53.920 I know guys that would tell me that they would walk by those guys and they would take,

00:54:58.280 chop a finger and throw it at them.

00:54:59.440 I mean, and you know what's funny?

00:55:03.740 They were highly literate.

00:55:05.720 They could read and write because in Cuba, even if you're in prison since you're nine

00:55:09.780 years old, you're going to learn how to read and write and do math.

00:55:12.260 But they were like animals.

00:55:16.600 And they came and they took over.

00:55:18.700 They started working.

00:55:19.540 That's when things started to really change.

00:55:23.160 What's your opinion on Jimmy Carter at that time?

00:55:25.100 Because it's, there's a, if you have any, because it's a link to that.

00:55:29.040 Yeah.

00:55:29.280 You know what?

00:55:29.800 I don't have any opinion about, no dealings or anything.

00:55:32.800 Look, we are dealing with the CIA.

00:55:33.940 Okay.

00:55:34.400 I mean, even before our cocaine, there's another world that nobody stepped into, which

00:55:39.800 is the Cubans that went to Cuba on the Bay of Pigs that were the big pot smugglers in

00:55:44.340 Miami, you know, but nobody ever messed with that.

00:55:47.160 Right?

00:55:47.420 Because again, there's no violence.

00:55:50.940 It's, it's, it's a good old boy business and nobody's getting killed.

00:55:55.180 Nobody's cheating anybody.

00:55:56.520 You know, you're doing everything on a handshake and everybody's honorable.

00:55:59.840 And that's what was sad.

00:56:01.180 First time you went away.

00:56:01.880 How did it happen?

00:56:02.400 First time you went away.

00:56:04.280 So what happened is as I make that deal with the Bolivian and I just, okay, we're going

00:56:08.140 to do it.

00:56:08.920 So I'm going to Columbia to show the airstrip to the pilots.

00:56:14.640 And as I'm going, I made, so we show him the airstrip and I called Sal who was in Bolivia

00:56:20.760 at that time.

00:56:21.460 And he told me they screwed you.

00:56:23.000 And I'm like, they screwed me.

00:56:24.580 And he's like, yeah, all they have here is the cocaine you bought.

00:56:28.100 I had sent a million, 300,000.

00:56:30.040 I had bought 130 kilos.

00:56:31.600 So anyway, I got on the airplane because I'm going to go straighten it out.

00:56:36.140 And I'm just 22 years old.

00:56:38.780 I'm going to go tell the generals that overtrored government that you can't screw me.

00:56:43.700 That's how crazy you become, right?

00:56:45.640 That's how power goes to your head.

00:56:47.500 And you think you're invincible.

00:56:48.680 That's why everybody gets caught.

00:56:50.340 So I go down there and they apologize.

00:56:53.380 And I look, we had a short, we had the problem.

00:56:55.120 But after this load, when you send the plane the next time, we'll give it all to you on

00:56:59.540 credit.

00:57:00.680 Perfect.

00:57:01.400 I had a meeting with Somoza I had to get to because I had arranged to bring refrigerated

00:57:05.760 containers full of cocaine with diplomatic seals on them.

00:57:10.080 And I had to make that meeting.

00:57:11.800 Now, this is 1979.

00:57:13.000 This is March, April 79.

00:57:15.600 The beginning, no, March.

00:57:17.260 And there's no airplanes from Bolivia to Nicaragua like now, you know, maybe once every

00:57:22.920 three weeks or two weeks, something like that.

00:57:24.720 So I'm going to get on the airplane because, I mean, nothing's happened to us, right?

00:57:27.440 I'm God.

00:57:28.200 I mean, nothing.

00:57:28.800 What can happen to me?

00:57:30.060 Nothing's ever happened to me.

00:57:31.580 So we get to Colombia.

00:57:33.440 We land in Colombia.

00:57:34.300 My God has a heart attack when he sees me in the airplane.

00:57:37.340 I mean, here's the guy that handles all operations in the United States inside the freaking airplane.

00:57:41.560 You know, with not only with drugs, but it could blow up.

00:57:45.040 It could do anything.

00:57:45.900 Anyway, I assure him that nothing can happen.

00:57:49.540 We refuel.

00:57:50.720 In the morning, we head out to Nicaragua.

00:57:53.180 Halfway, one alternator goes off.

00:57:55.580 So when one alternator goes off, we have bladders inside the airplane, right, to give us the distance.

00:58:00.020 I'm like, hey, keep going because what we're going to do is return to the jungles?

00:58:03.840 I mean, what the heck?

00:58:04.740 How are we going to get a piece there?

00:58:06.540 Literally, we know that the second, 15, 20 minutes later, the second alternator will blow.

00:58:10.780 And now we're over Panama, and we had no way to get the fuel out.

00:58:14.340 And at 3,000 feet, that airplane just went down.

00:58:18.320 If you see the pictures of the airplanes like that.

00:58:20.700 And when I, we jump off the air, first of all, we thought we were dead.

00:58:25.420 No, we're alive.

00:58:26.580 We jump, I mean, because we got 200 gallons of diesel inside this airplane, and we got cocaine.

00:58:31.520 We got all this stuff.

00:58:32.300 And the head of the pilot said to me, take the flare gun, blow it up.

00:58:37.480 I'm like, are you out of your mind?

00:58:39.100 That's $7 million in there.

00:58:41.520 And he's like, it doesn't matter.

00:58:43.820 Get rid of the evidence.

00:58:44.960 I'm like, listen, in Latin America, I buy everybody.

00:58:49.080 Well, I made the mistake of not telling the guy when the military came.

00:58:53.560 I couldn't reach it.

00:58:54.120 I mean, I had a briefcase.

00:58:55.240 I always kept $200,000 in a hidden compartment underneath those old Samsonite hard shells.

00:59:00.320 Of course, yep.

00:59:00.800 So I should have just said, hey, here's $20,000.

00:59:04.180 Make sure nobody touches the airplane.

00:59:05.840 But I give him my passport.

00:59:07.320 And everybody has a passport so they can stamp it.

00:59:09.180 Thinking he was stamping locally, little did I know he had to call Panama.

00:59:12.160 And when he did, and explained what happened, next morning DEA were there and were arrested.

00:59:16.940 Attorney General comes to see me.

00:59:20.180 And before he opens his mouth, I said, look, I only have two questions.

00:59:25.520 I don't want to give you some bullshit story or nothing like that.

00:59:28.180 How much to buy the cocaine, how much to get out?

00:59:30.700 And he's like, Noriega just sold the cocaine, $250,000 for you to get out.

00:59:36.540 I'm like, here's a number.

00:59:38.920 And we have a contingency plan.

00:59:39.940 Here's a number.

00:59:40.480 Call.

00:59:41.120 Give this number.

00:59:42.140 Just say this exactly this way.

00:59:44.160 The next day you'll have the money here.

00:59:45.420 Sure enough, he comes and tells us, OK, you're leaving tomorrow.

00:59:49.080 They're going to take you down to Panama City.

00:59:51.040 We were on the border with Costa Rica.

00:59:52.520 So my plan was originally we're going to offload this.

00:59:55.500 I'm calling Costa Rica.

00:59:56.600 I just paid the president a million dollars.

00:59:59.340 It's easy to cross over to Costa Rica to I can get another airplane to take it to the U.S.

01:00:03.640 So they said they're going to rough you up a little bit, make it look good for the DEA.

01:00:09.760 So they take us and they have this big conference room and literally four chairs on the back, nothing else.

01:00:17.080 And they bring this little kid, Patrick, he could have been 100 pounds soaking wet, maybe 5'4", handcuffed to his feet and his hands.

01:00:25.980 They slammed them on the floor and then they took a broomstick and they inserted that thing up his anus.

01:00:31.280 And then blood just splattered all over the place.

01:00:35.940 And when that happened, the two pilots who I had told made the mistake to tell him, hey, relax, take it easy.

01:00:41.100 I already bribed the attorney general.

01:00:42.760 Not only do they tell the DEA, hey, he is the biggest drug dealer in the world this time.

01:00:48.160 He just bribed your attorney general.

01:00:50.100 So the only guy that can get me out now is running for his life.

01:00:52.660 They take us and they put us in a dungeon for 20 some odd days and they torture us day and night.

01:00:58.120 I piss blood for five years thereafter every time I went to a bathroom.

01:01:02.500 And, you know, it's funny.

01:01:04.060 I tell people the interesting thing about it is physical pain.

01:01:09.060 And I tell this to parents, too.

01:01:10.700 Listen, don't beat your kids all the time.

01:01:12.640 The time you beat them, beat them one time and make it memorable.

01:01:15.320 But pain goes away.

01:01:17.300 And it does.

01:01:19.540 But what starts playing on you is your mind.

01:01:21.800 And we're in a dungeon, literally condemned.

01:01:24.560 They wrote a book about it called La Modelo.

01:01:26.540 And we're handcuffed day and night.

01:01:28.840 No food, no water, no bed.

01:01:31.260 A thraw against the wall.

01:01:32.920 So there were like cells like this.

01:01:34.740 And they would just take a fire hose and they would just shoot water and clean all that thraw.

01:01:40.640 Well, you imagine all that excrement all over the way.

01:01:43.540 Luckily, after the second, third day, we had nothing to eat.

01:01:45.680 So we had nothing to poop.

01:01:46.900 So we're in good shape.

01:01:48.500 But, yeah, it's your mind.

01:01:50.380 And I see this guy across from me.

01:01:52.900 And we made up our mind that there's no way we're going to talk.

01:01:56.140 We're going to die here.

01:01:56.940 And that's just there is.

01:01:57.720 There's just no way to live with the shame that you're a rat.

01:02:00.620 And there's this guy across from me.

01:02:02.640 Been there about six months for a pot.

01:02:04.140 And he was licking the bars.

01:02:05.920 And I kept telling my partner that was there.

01:02:08.460 I'm like, you know what?

01:02:09.560 We got to do something, man.

01:02:10.580 But I can't lose my mind in this freaking place.

01:02:13.540 And it's getting to that point.

01:02:15.600 We got to make him kill us.

01:02:17.320 And we draw the plan.

01:02:18.860 We're going to threaten Noriega.

01:02:20.800 He's going to come.

01:02:21.640 He's going to kill us because there's nothing over there.

01:02:24.080 And we're done.

01:02:26.220 So I did.

01:02:27.680 I told the last time they came.

01:02:28.840 I said, before you come in here.

01:02:30.020 Because they would come in and just beat us until we passed out.

01:02:32.160 I mean, they took electricity to our testicles.

01:02:34.160 He jumped that high, passed out.

01:02:36.260 And I said, before you come in here, let me tell you this.

01:02:39.900 Tell Noriega to kill us.

01:02:41.120 Because if he doesn't and we get out, I'm going to get his wife, his kids.

01:02:44.700 We're going to rape them in front of him.

01:02:45.900 And then we're going to kill them all.

01:02:46.980 You told him, man.

01:02:47.720 Yeah.

01:02:48.040 I never killed anybody in my life.

01:02:49.260 But I'm sure that definitely was going to do it.

01:02:52.120 You know, the bastard comes in there laughing the next day.

01:02:55.420 I mean, like it was a joke.

01:02:57.360 Well, it was probably a joke to him, you know.

01:02:59.560 But he's like, hey, don't get mad at me.

01:03:02.460 I didn't rat you out.

01:03:04.040 And second of all, you paid the wrong guy.

01:03:07.240 Well, that was the clue that he wanted money.

01:03:09.560 I said, well, how much?

01:03:10.520 He said, $250.

01:03:11.600 And I'm saying to him, man, they only have one going rate in this country, $250.

01:03:16.620 I paid $250 for four.

01:03:18.220 We're only two now, man.

01:03:19.340 I mean, you know, give me a little discount.

01:03:21.320 Same thing.

01:03:21.920 We're given the same story, the same deal.

01:03:26.060 The next day, he comes and he's like, two days later, he says,

01:03:31.200 get ready.

01:03:32.820 They're going to get you ready.

01:03:33.860 And I'm going to take you to the airport.

01:03:35.840 We're going to take you to the airport.

01:03:37.020 They put us up in this room and they took a fire hose to clean us out.

01:03:39.900 We had blood all over.

01:03:40.860 We looked like, like hell.

01:03:44.080 And we're going.

01:03:45.380 And he gets us tickets.

01:03:46.660 We had tickets to Costa Rica.

01:03:48.760 And we're sitting at the airport.

01:03:50.900 They left.

01:03:51.880 Took us left.

01:03:52.720 All of a sudden, 20 Interpol agents come.

01:03:55.540 George Valdez, I said, I don't know him.

01:03:56.880 I said, well, we do.

01:03:57.620 So they got us, threw us inside an airplane to Miami.

01:04:01.300 Got to Miami and I was charged with heading the largest drug conspiracy in the history

01:04:04.560 of America in 1979, April something.

01:04:08.300 I had just turned 23 years old.

01:04:11.120 The government asked for a $7 million bail.

01:04:14.300 Now, in 1979, a murderer, genius murderer gets $50,000.

01:04:18.460 I'm like, $7 million?

01:04:20.160 They had the decency to reduce it to $2 million.

01:04:24.780 I'm like, I don't have a traffic ticket.

01:04:27.340 I'm a college graduate.

01:04:30.260 I have nothing in my record.

01:04:32.620 Little did I know that my attorney was ratting me out.

01:04:36.340 And that's how they knew.

01:04:37.200 And that's how they went after us.

01:04:38.760 And one of those judges, he was driving.

01:04:40.900 He got busted.

01:04:41.820 And then he traded for me.

01:04:44.800 So I hired the best attorneys in the country.

01:04:47.580 And I mean, and I had, I had the greatest chance to win the trial because there was no evidence

01:04:53.860 against me.

01:04:54.780 Noriega sold the cocaine.

01:04:56.080 I'm arrested in Panama.

01:04:58.120 There's no wiretap.

01:04:59.340 Till this day, till this day, there's never been a wiretap on me.

01:05:03.660 There's never been a compromising picture with anybody on me.

01:05:06.740 That's according to the United States government.

01:05:10.180 Till this day.

01:05:11.920 So what happens is I hired the best lawyers in the country.

01:05:16.620 In our defense, I even hired a guy that was a state judge that became a federal judge whose

01:05:20.860 brother-in-law was an appellate court judge.

01:05:23.060 I hired Marty Weinberg out of Boston.

01:05:25.320 A million dollars.

01:05:26.000 $100,000 to tell me whether he would take my trial or not.

01:05:28.700 I hired Alan Dershowitz.

01:05:30.660 I hired Shelby Heisman.

01:05:32.320 I hired them all.

01:05:33.420 Anybody who was anybody we'd hire.

01:05:34.580 A million dollars in 1979.

01:05:36.740 And our final argument was real simple.

01:05:41.740 This was my attorney's final argument.

01:05:44.100 Because they tried to indict me in the Southern District of Florida.

01:05:47.660 No indictment.

01:05:48.640 Went to a grand jury.

01:05:49.440 Middle District, no indictment.

01:05:50.780 Northern District, no indictment.

01:05:52.280 Making Georgia, which I've never been in my life.

01:05:54.400 Making Georgia out of all the places.

01:05:55.800 Never been in my life.

01:05:57.180 The guy that was with me had a case pending from three years earlier when he faked his

01:06:02.560 death.

01:06:02.900 I mean, the guy shows up in the courtroom and says,

01:06:06.100 Oh, Mr. Rosenthal, welcome back from the dead.

01:06:08.600 He said, Your Honor, I'm only the second Jew to come back from the dead.

01:06:12.660 The guy was a riot.

01:06:13.780 The guy was an unbelievable guy.

01:06:15.780 I mean, big ties to the mob.

01:06:18.020 Anyway, Harold Rosenthal.

01:06:21.760 They take me to the Middle District of Georgia and said that I was partnered with the guy which

01:06:24.840 had only met him a month earlier.

01:06:26.640 So our final argument is, my client is a drug dealer.

01:06:30.440 My client is the biggest drug dealer in America.

01:06:33.000 That was my final argument.

01:06:34.440 But my client has a constitutional right of venue.

01:06:38.680 And you cannot just take him and try him where he's never committed an offense.

01:06:45.180 Try him in Miami.

01:06:46.940 Or try him in Colombia.

01:06:48.180 You know, try him in Colombia.

01:06:50.120 Didn't matter.

01:06:50.880 And I mean, we spent another half a million dollars on the appeal and ended up losing.

01:06:56.980 So I went to jail for five years.

01:06:58.420 They gave me 15 years, which is the most they can give you on a conspiracy charge at that

01:07:01.960 time.

01:07:02.680 I went back to prison and I had a blast in prison, man.

01:07:06.020 You had a blast in prison?

01:07:06.580 Oh yeah, I walked in there.

01:07:07.500 They had a big old cake for me.

01:07:08.600 Welcome home, boss.

01:07:09.480 And I'm like, hey dude, don't.

01:07:11.260 Thank you for the cake, but don't welcome me home.

01:07:13.000 This shit is home to me.

01:07:14.740 Yeah, I mean, I knew a lot of the people there and, you know, I bribed everybody.

01:07:18.360 So I, I mean, I had a girlfriend in there, a legitimate girlfriend because, you know,

01:07:22.580 prisoners do have a lot of girlfriends that are, they call them girlfriends, but they're

01:07:25.400 actually boyfriends.

01:07:26.500 No, I had a...

01:07:27.300 Legitimate girlfriend.

01:07:28.460 Yeah, yeah.

01:07:28.860 So, you know, and I got out and I didn't have to do anything.

01:07:32.200 When I handed off the cartel to those guys, because when I saw they were taking me to

01:07:38.200 Georgia...

01:07:38.600 When you got out at that time, do you still have money?

01:07:40.840 Oh, I was a millionaire.

01:07:41.860 They couldn't find a dollar.

01:07:43.380 Okay.

01:07:43.940 Not one dollar.

01:07:45.160 As a matter of fact, Justice Berger, because I was given certiori on my bond hearing, which,

01:07:52.660 you know, the Supreme Court doesn't hear bond.

01:07:54.780 And in it, Justice Berger says, in this court's opinion, Mr. Valdez is a financial genius.

01:08:04.140 He's got assets all over the world we can't find, and he can move and leave in a snap of

01:08:09.360 a finger.

01:08:10.020 I wasn't going to go anywhere because I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life on the run.

01:08:13.500 Plus, I knew, convinced, all my million-dollar lawyers convinced me that I was going to win.

01:08:18.800 There was no way I could lose.

01:08:19.820 And so I got out, and I had a big...

01:08:25.440 We were one of the largest cattle breeders in the country at that time.

01:08:28.120 I had a big quarter horse operation, and I didn't need to do that anymore.

01:08:34.000 I had this gorgeous ranch, made me half a million dollars a year, legitimate.

01:08:37.920 I had millions of dollars still stashed away.

01:08:40.740 But I'd go see Sal and Willie.

01:08:44.220 So when I handed the cartel to them, they were like, we'll give you half a world of profits.

01:08:49.220 I said, no, no, no, don't do that.

01:08:51.000 Because a year into the, me in jail, you're going to say, you know what?

01:08:55.660 George is in jail having a good time, and here we are risking our life.

01:08:58.140 We ain't going to give a shit.

01:08:59.280 I said, so let's do this better.

01:09:01.940 Here's the money to buy 10 kilos.

01:09:04.420 Every load you bring in, through the operation I'm giving you, I'm giving you everything.

01:09:09.240 Who's going to give it to you?

01:09:10.700 How to bring it in?

01:09:11.860 Who to sell it to?

01:09:13.180 The whole deal, bankers, everything.

01:09:14.380 Buy me 10 kilos, sell them, and save me the profits.

01:09:19.980 That's all.

01:09:21.060 Oh, we've got to do more than that.

01:09:22.240 I said, no, don't do more.

01:09:23.080 Just do that.

01:09:24.680 Well, when I went to see them, they said they didn't have no money, that they had quit.

01:09:31.180 I said, okay, I'll get to my second trial, and here's what's interesting, that it doesn't

01:09:37.860 really come out very clear in Netflix, but so when I, I work out, well, let me get to

01:09:48.080 that, and then I'll come back, so it'll make sequence.

01:09:50.060 So, you know what?

01:09:51.580 I looked at them, and looking back, it was the greatest favor anybody ever did me.

01:09:55.860 According to people, they owe me like $20 million.

01:09:58.720 They gave me a dollar.

01:09:59.360 But I started my operation like that, again, no problem, and I started bringing in, and

01:10:03.800 we're bringing in 800, 1,000, one, on my birthday, one month, I brought in three airplanes, one

01:10:09.180 after the other.

01:10:09.880 So, you go in, you do five times, you come out, you're going back to the life.

01:10:13.360 Going back to the life.

01:10:14.340 Not even flinching, and you know you're going to get back into the life.

01:10:17.200 But the different thing is, yeah, because it was almost like an ego thing.

01:10:22.520 You know, you guys, like, this ain't right, you know, I shouldn't have gone to jail.

01:10:27.120 So, this case, I was guilty, but not what you charged me of.

01:10:31.380 And even though recently, I did a YouTube interview with the first undercover agent in my case, ever.

01:10:38.800 You interviewed him.

01:10:39.800 Yeah.

01:10:40.420 And in it, you can hear it, he talks about it, he says, we never even knew there was a

01:10:44.080 drug problem in America until we found out about you.

01:10:45.920 But then he says, he says, you know, I'll never forget, you walked by me, shook my hand

01:10:52.440 and said, congratulations.

01:10:55.540 And I said, yeah, because here's the deal.

01:10:58.980 You didn't frame me.

01:11:01.680 You're not my enemy.

01:11:03.300 You're my adversary.

01:11:05.060 Your job's to catch me.

01:11:06.000 Mine's not to get caught.

01:11:06.840 You did a better job.

01:11:08.020 So, good luck.

01:11:08.720 See you again.

01:11:09.740 And that was my whole mindset.

01:11:11.280 And that's why I don't have any enemies in the government anywhere.

01:11:14.780 So, lo and behold, I go back to the same thing, but then this is when the world now has changed.

01:11:21.100 This is when you've got to carry a gun.

01:11:22.720 This is when you've got to go around with bodyguards with machine guns.

01:11:25.120 This is when people are ripping people off.

01:11:27.000 This is when Pablo now is in the limelight.

01:11:30.120 Is this 83, 84?

01:11:30.600 This is 84.

01:11:31.560 Okay.

01:11:32.160 84.

01:11:33.360 And then now, my parents know.

01:11:36.620 See, my mother was the best at tough love.

01:11:38.800 And this is the tough love I tell parents.

01:11:40.840 My mother is like, son, what you're doing doesn't please God.

01:11:44.120 If you go back to New York, you're going to kill us.

01:11:46.120 This is not what we risked our whole life for.

01:11:48.320 And then she was like, what do you want to eat tonight?

01:11:51.360 You know, she drew the line quickly.

01:11:53.120 They lived and died in the same house that they bought when they came from Cuba.

01:11:58.380 I was mad at my dad.

01:11:59.600 I said, dad, I got a horse living in million-dollar mansions.

01:12:01.940 And here you're all living in a $60,000 little house in Miami, little ranch house.

01:12:06.940 Son, your lifestyle is now going to change ours.

01:12:10.020 And, you know, just tremendous, tremendous people.

01:12:13.040 But my mother now constantly, son, what you're doing doesn't please God.

01:12:17.320 Son, what you're doing doesn't.

01:12:18.200 And I was like mad at her.

01:12:19.140 I'm like, there's no God.

01:12:21.560 What God?

01:12:22.940 What was God when, you know, when we came from Cuba and we were sleeping in the floor going hungry,

01:12:29.060 three little kids every day?

01:12:30.740 Hey, God is who I make him up to be.

01:12:33.440 So, you know, but she never wavered.

01:12:36.760 And then it just started eating me alive.

01:12:38.820 And I started to realize this ain't the world that I signed into.

01:12:42.320 This ain't me.

01:12:43.920 You know, I'm not becoming someone that I am.

01:12:45.780 And I had a friend of mine.

01:12:47.240 And at this time I had the largest quarter horse operation in the country, right?

01:12:50.180 I went out and bought the best horse in the world, in Texas.

01:12:53.660 I paid a million dollars for him.

01:12:55.700 Ended up being worth six and a half million dollars.

01:12:57.260 And I was breeding them, 350 mares at 3,000 plus.

01:13:01.780 I built a hospital in my farm.

01:13:03.780 You know, I was making 900,000 plus selling my babies.

01:13:07.920 Anyway, I had a friend, Patrick, that would come over.

01:13:11.100 And he was one of the all-time pot smugglers.

01:13:14.020 And he had quit.

01:13:15.620 And I would always ask him, hey, Lathrop, how'd you quit, man?

01:13:19.460 Because he had moved to Ocala and left the business.

01:13:21.920 And he's like, man, George, you know, best thing I can tell you is like being pregnant.

01:13:26.700 Quitting and pregnant?

01:13:27.880 He said, yeah, man, you're either pregnant or you're not.

01:13:30.320 So you either quit or you don't.

01:13:32.780 And if you do, you got to move out of Miami.

01:13:35.240 He says, why are you doing this?

01:13:36.880 Look how much money you got.

01:13:37.940 Why are you risking your life?

01:13:39.400 And eventually one thing led to another, and I quit.

01:13:42.020 I walked away in 1987, February of 87.

01:13:45.840 I was making a million dollars a month.

01:13:47.120 Now, since the day I came out of prison until the day I quit, I never even sold cocaine anymore.

01:13:51.780 I had other people handle everything.

01:13:53.900 And I was making over a million dollars for doing nothing.

01:13:56.760 Still after 87.

01:13:58.100 For doing nothing.

01:13:59.400 Literally for saying, send a plane, don't send a plane.

01:14:03.220 Where were you living at that time?

01:14:04.240 Were you in Miami?

01:14:04.740 I was living in Miami, yeah.

01:14:06.480 And I had my ranch in Cluiston, which was 90 miles.

01:14:09.000 Macon never inspired you to get a house there or Macon, George?

01:14:11.940 No.

01:14:12.440 Okay.

01:14:12.700 The judge, which later on he became a fair guy, but the judge was like, first day of

01:14:16.580 trial, he sends the jury away.

01:14:18.640 He looks at me and says, young man, how dare you tell this court that you're innocent?

01:14:23.080 You got a million dollars worth of lawyers at your table.

01:14:25.280 Any young man can't afford that?

01:14:26.820 Then call the jurors.

01:14:28.020 I mean, the guy was brutal.

01:14:30.740 Wilbur Owens.

01:14:31.660 I'm not very good with old names, but I remember that one clearly.

01:14:34.200 I'm sure, yeah.

01:14:34.980 So it's 87.

01:14:36.400 You're making a million a month.

01:14:37.600 All you're doing is sending the planes.

01:14:39.020 You're living in Miami.

01:14:40.020 Still living large?

01:14:40.820 Or are you more low-key now?

01:14:41.920 Yeah, living real, real life.

01:14:42.880 Still partying hardcore.

01:14:44.840 But I didn't party in Miami.

01:14:47.140 See, I never did that.

01:14:48.240 Very, very seldom.

01:14:49.540 I would party in California.

01:14:51.800 I never, you know, the old saying, you don't poop where you eat.

01:14:54.320 Yeah.

01:14:54.540 You know, you stay low-key.

01:14:56.240 Like, for example, how they got me, how they found out about me to do the Netflix.

01:15:02.920 So the producers were constantly wondering, like, there's a missing link.

01:15:10.180 They've been doing this for 12 years.

01:15:12.440 Here we got Sound Willie.

01:15:14.300 They're high school dropouts.

01:15:15.440 They're not very smart.

01:15:19.220 They're selling grams and ounces at a disco.

01:15:21.860 And in six months, they become kings of cocaine.

01:15:25.820 What happened?

01:15:26.440 Until the prosecutor that you saw on Netflix, he's like, oh, you have a missing link?

01:15:34.240 Go find George Valdez.

01:15:36.200 And they're like, who's George Valdez?

01:15:37.840 We never heard of him.

01:15:39.040 And he's like, exactly.

01:15:39.940 Now they had we.

01:15:40.780 Until his attorney turned on him.

01:15:42.780 He ran this like a business.

01:15:44.180 I was on my, when they seized my ranch, they took over 100 Brioning suits.

01:15:50.300 I wore a suit, three different suits a day, every day.

01:15:53.620 I was on my office at 6.30 in the morning.

01:15:55.880 I left my office at 6 o'clock in the afternoon.

01:15:58.520 And I ran that like a business.

01:16:00.220 And I didn't have shady people at my office.

01:16:02.980 We had systems.

01:16:04.380 And that's the whole thing.

01:16:05.880 And when I realized that this is not just another business we're doing, you know,

01:16:10.200 this is something now that's killing kids.

01:16:11.840 And that's what really was getting to me because now crack was coming on the forefront, you know.

01:16:18.120 And I'm like, so when they asked me, how come it was so easy for you to walk away when Pablo, Chapo, Sal, Willie,

01:16:28.760 they had as much money as you or more, same amount of passports or more, more airplanes than you did.

01:16:34.120 And they couldn't walk away.

01:16:35.400 And I did.

01:16:35.800 I said, well, for me, it was simple because I never considered myself a drug lord.

01:16:39.860 To me, I was a businessman.

01:16:41.100 And this was a product I was selling.

01:16:42.960 And when that product was no longer attractive for me to sell, I'd walk away.

01:16:46.780 They can't walk away because that's all they are.

01:16:51.620 You see, ball players, you see athletes, when do they go down?

01:16:56.040 Literally in shame when they could have gone down, left the game at the top as heroes.

01:17:01.120 Nobody remembers a hero.

01:17:02.420 They remember, hey, you know, Joe Montana, you left the game when you were sitting on the bench.

01:17:06.800 Now, when you were winning Super Bowl, because all these people, they can't leave that world because that's their identity.

01:17:14.440 See, you take Chapo.

01:17:16.500 What the hell is he doing in an interview to Sean Penn?

01:17:19.740 This guy can go to Lebanon or go anywhere in the world.

01:17:22.460 The guy's doing a billion dollars a month.

01:17:25.120 A billion dollars a month.

01:17:26.380 Why?

01:17:28.360 I mean, a week.

01:17:30.320 Tons of airplane power.

01:17:31.920 He had distribution in every country of the world, every continent of the world.

01:17:37.400 He could go out and they'll never find them.

01:17:39.880 But they can't because that's their identity.

01:17:43.020 They have to be there.

01:17:44.000 You know, I call it the anguish of victory and the thrill of defeat.

01:17:50.020 You know, what they say, that X amount of most bank robbers get caught at the robbery site within the first hour.

01:17:56.220 They have to go back.

01:17:57.540 And that's what it was.

01:17:58.180 Well, that wasn't for me.

01:17:59.060 So for me, it was easy.

01:18:00.300 I just go back to my ranch and I just breed horses.

01:18:02.240 So what do you mean in 1990 when they took 60 million?

01:18:04.880 What's that about?

01:18:06.020 So I'm retired for four and a half years, just living the normal life, breeding horses.

01:18:10.020 I had a house in Vail.

01:18:11.920 I had a gorgeous condo in Vail.

01:18:13.780 I had a house for my beach in the ocean.

01:18:16.120 I had jets.

01:18:17.220 And I'm living this, racing my horses.

01:18:20.460 I'm building orange groves.

01:18:22.060 You know, I'm making over $2 million legitimate a year in my ranch.

01:18:26.520 And I'm at a horse show in 1990 and they come and arrest me.

01:18:31.040 And I had no clue.

01:18:32.060 I've been coming for four years.

01:18:33.540 In the middle of the horse show.

01:18:35.360 And I'm like, I'm clueless.

01:18:37.840 What are you arresting me for?

01:18:39.560 He said, you'll know when you go in front of the judge.

01:18:42.060 And so I go in front of the judge and he's like, you're wanting to make it in Mobile, Alabama.

01:18:46.960 Another place I've never been to in my life.

01:18:50.240 United States Attorney Jeff Sessions wants you.

01:18:53.800 Wow.

01:18:54.120 So, the gift from God for me was that it was a time when there was tremendous emphasis by the government on U.S. Attorney's Office to have seizures.

01:19:09.280 To just take, you know, when they, see, why they couldn't take nothing from us before?

01:19:13.340 Because the government had to prove that I made it illegally.

01:19:15.880 They couldn't.

01:19:16.380 When just one smart ad decided, hey, we'll change that.

01:19:20.440 Now we'll take it and let him prove that he made it legitimate.

01:19:24.020 So, they switched the proof, you know, and therefore they couldn't.

01:19:29.540 So, when I get to Mobile, Alabama, my attorney meets me there and he's like, you're going to walk.

01:19:36.460 Look, they got one pilot to say that when you were in Miami, you picked up this guy named Dickie Lynn.

01:19:45.520 Dickie Lynn was a kid that was in prison with me in England.

01:19:48.820 And was, when I got out, we hooked up and he was the guy in charge of all my transportation.

01:19:52.560 But we quit.

01:19:53.440 He kept going and I went my way.

01:19:55.440 And tremendous guy.

01:19:57.040 Super stand-up guy.

01:19:58.600 He gets indicted, 150 people.

01:20:00.660 They'll get convicted.

01:20:02.000 He gets life.

01:20:02.680 He doesn't rat nobody out.

01:20:04.420 And there's one pilot says, hey, I picked up, I took Dickie Lynn to Miami.

01:20:08.680 George Valdez picks him up.

01:20:10.540 Dickie Lynn leaves with George.

01:20:13.280 6, 7 o'clock, he comes with somebody else with $3 million.

01:20:16.420 He says, hey, look what George gave me.

01:20:17.620 Now, anyone knows that.

01:20:18.420 That's not how you.

01:20:19.600 But here's what's interesting.

01:20:21.100 The night before I got to Mobile, Alabama, that pilot killed himself.

01:20:25.880 Well, he was a government witness.

01:20:27.420 He was smuggling cocaine on a DEA airplane and crashed in the fog in Alabama.

01:20:33.380 You see those planes in American Made, you know, where they come into the old field?

01:20:36.980 That was a lot of our planes.

01:20:38.800 So, my attorney says, you got no, you walk.

01:20:44.280 And I'm like, three months earlier, for four years, July 1st of 1990, it was my final divorce.

01:20:54.880 And my ex-wife takes off with my daughter, which was the love of my life.

01:21:00.340 And she's crying.

01:21:02.500 When I walked away from the hotel, I hired a guy to teach me karate because I'd done karate for a lot of years when I was young.

01:21:07.400 So, I couldn't go out now.

01:21:08.800 I didn't have tons of bodyguards.

01:21:10.100 So, and the first day, he says to me, I'm going to teach you about the sword.

01:21:16.080 And I'm so excited, man.

01:21:17.280 You know, I love weapons.

01:21:18.680 We're going to get into doing the weapons.

01:21:21.640 We're not going to worry about just throwing a punch and all that.

01:21:24.060 He turns around with the Bible.

01:21:25.560 Now, I'm a diehard atheist.

01:21:27.480 I looked at him and said, dude, I'm paying you a lot of money to teach me karate.

01:21:31.100 I don't believe in that book.

01:21:32.120 I don't believe in what that book says.

01:21:34.000 So, tomorrow, you leave that sword home and bring the real sword.

01:21:37.700 He got up this close to me.

01:21:38.820 First guy, many, many years.

01:21:40.960 And I'm like, he said, young man, what I got to give you.

01:21:44.300 You got no money to pay.

01:21:45.720 And I'm like, man, I don't have a gun or a bodyguard.

01:21:48.980 He's got a seven-degree black belt.

01:21:50.800 Is he going to start whooping Jesus into me and I'm going to pay for it?

01:21:53.280 Oh, hell no.

01:21:54.720 I'm like, dude, don't get excited.

01:21:56.200 No, don't get excited.

01:21:57.500 This is what we'll do.

01:21:58.400 When the steam room is heating up after the two hours of karate, waste your time.

01:22:03.380 You know, tell me whatever you want.

01:22:04.260 Read whatever.

01:22:04.940 And he did.

01:22:05.540 And people say, well, what did he say that made you change?

01:22:08.220 I said, I don't remember anything.

01:22:09.800 I was just getting over the two hours of butt whooping.

01:22:11.880 Plus, I didn't believe any of it.

01:22:12.980 So, I didn't pay attention to any of it.

01:22:15.580 But it was this.

01:22:17.300 I began to see a guy, Patrick, that lived in a very little world.

01:22:21.520 Right?

01:22:21.860 He lived in a little thousand-square-foot house.

01:22:23.880 He drove an old car.

01:22:25.600 And what was most intriguing for me was when he told me that he was madly in love with his 45-year-old wife.

01:22:32.020 And I'm like, oh, no.

01:22:34.140 This guy's got to be on some Japanese drugs, man.

01:22:36.120 Ain't no way.

01:22:36.680 45?

01:22:38.280 I'm surrounded by supermodels.

01:22:39.980 I hate them all.

01:22:41.020 How the hell is this guy going to love that old woman?

01:22:43.420 You know, now I think she's a gorgeous woman.

01:22:45.880 But that was my mindset.

01:22:47.600 And it was intriguing.

01:22:48.880 And I did everything I could to chase him away.

01:22:52.460 You know?

01:22:53.240 And so, what ends up happening.

01:22:56.220 So, this is over three and a half years.

01:22:57.900 So, the only thing that he would say to me, which was really, really upsetting, or I'm like, come on, Tim.

01:23:04.920 Why are you so happy, man?

01:23:06.400 You ain't got nothing to be happy about.

01:23:08.480 He had a miserable car.

01:23:10.100 He had a miserable house.

01:23:11.900 And we got to be good friends.

01:23:13.480 Really great guys.

01:23:14.820 And he's like, man, George, I have an intimate relationship with Jesus.

01:23:20.480 And I'm like, oh, no.

01:23:22.460 I mean, I'm surrounded by people.

01:23:24.040 And I don't have no relationship with anyone.

01:23:25.980 This guy, a relationship with a ghost?

01:23:28.480 Is he crazy?

01:23:29.420 And that was my whole mindset forever.

01:23:31.440 And so, July 1st, 1990, 11 o'clock in the morning.

01:23:40.600 My wife is taking off with my baby.

01:23:42.840 And I'm devastated.

01:23:44.920 My world just crumbled.

01:23:46.680 And I go into my room.

01:23:49.180 I get on my knees.

01:23:50.000 And I'm like, look, God, I don't believe you exist.

01:23:52.980 Number one.

01:23:53.820 Number two, if you do, you probably enjoy it so bad.

01:23:56.100 You stay down there and I'll stay up here.

01:23:57.840 But if you're the reason for his joy, give it to me or kill me.

01:24:02.500 Because I can't buy it.

01:24:04.580 And I can't buy anything.

01:24:06.960 And nothing happened.

01:24:09.120 I just, you know, people say that when you have a conversion, there's bells in heaven.

01:24:12.520 I think it must be enough for Cubans, you know.

01:24:14.360 So I'm going to find out what happened to the Cuban bells.

01:24:16.920 But three months later, my world went from dark to complete darkness.

01:24:23.300 I get arrested.

01:24:24.100 And I remember walking into Jeff Sessions' office.

01:24:28.240 And I told my attorney, he said, you're going to walk.

01:24:30.260 I said, Alan, I'm done, man.

01:24:32.160 I can't fight these people anymore.

01:24:34.500 I'm miserable.

01:24:35.620 And I joked with him.

01:24:36.840 I said, look, and by the way, and I said it as a joke, complete joke.

01:24:40.580 I said, by the way, here you are, a good Jew, telling me I'm going home.

01:24:43.780 I give my life to another Jew.

01:24:44.940 He didn't say nothing.

01:24:46.240 And he's like, man, you're crazy.

01:24:47.840 You're a mess.

01:24:48.500 I said, I just can't fight these people anymore.

01:24:50.380 What do you want?

01:24:51.500 He said, well, let's go.

01:24:52.180 So we go in there, and they said, look, it's real simple.

01:24:55.560 Lots of money, little time.

01:24:57.980 Little money, lots of time.

01:25:00.140 Now, what can they get me for?

01:25:03.120 If they can't convict me, right, because there's no witness, then the only thing they can get me is for the violation of my parole that I'm voluntarily going to plead to.

01:25:12.960 They're liable in exchange for, so my deal is, so what do they do?

01:25:18.080 They're like, we're going to charge you with three life sentences.

01:25:21.520 Three.

01:25:22.280 Say, yeah, you quit with Dickie Linden and continue criminal enterprise.

01:25:26.780 You're as liable for the crime you committed as the crime he commits.

01:25:30.480 And now the law has changed, and it's no more 15 years, a life sentence.

01:25:35.900 So all they wanted was the money.

01:25:37.700 So I said, do you know how much money I got?

01:25:40.040 And they're like, no, but we know who does.

01:25:43.060 So they get out of the desk, they go open the door, and in came three agents, DEA, FBI, and IRS.

01:25:49.680 And they knew to the penny.

01:25:51.500 Get out of here.

01:25:52.180 How much toilet paper I bought.

01:25:53.340 Get out of here.

01:25:54.220 They've been following me for four years.

01:25:56.080 But wait a minute.

01:25:56.580 They knew exactly how much you had?

01:25:58.540 Exactly.

01:25:59.380 Now, think about it.

01:26:00.400 The first time I go to jail, I'm a drug dealer, right?

01:26:02.900 So they can't find nothing.

01:26:05.080 Shoot, I create a lot of money laundering operations.

01:26:08.620 But now I've been legitimate for four years.

01:26:11.200 I've made everything legitimate.

01:26:12.560 I'm living a legitimate life.

01:26:14.040 What portion of the $60 million you have is legitimate?

01:26:16.300 All of it.

01:26:17.180 Every bit of it.

01:26:18.020 Got it.

01:26:18.360 I mean, properties, planes, houses, horses, jewelry.

01:26:25.520 They stole about a million dollars of jewelry that they didn't declare.

01:26:28.440 I even filed a complaint on them.

01:26:29.900 One agent.

01:26:31.380 With customs.

01:26:32.540 But, so, they want it all.

01:26:35.780 Now, at that time, that amount of money in Mobile, Alabama, was a lot of money.

01:26:42.600 In Miami, not as much.

01:26:44.280 L.A., not as much.

01:26:45.880 But it was.

01:26:47.180 And so, our agreement, our plea with the government was, we voluntarily forfeited.

01:26:53.460 Then, we want to plead to a 10-year sentence, the time I had left in parole, right?

01:27:00.800 I was given 15 years.

01:27:01.840 I served five.

01:27:02.420 I had 10 years left.

01:27:03.180 And I had already done four so many years of that five, of that 10.

01:27:08.340 So, that's what they ended up giving me, the 10 years.

01:27:10.500 And then, in prison, I started, you know.

01:27:13.920 10, and you're 60?

01:27:15.020 They took all the 60?

01:27:15.980 Everything.

01:27:16.780 And this is how it dawned.

01:27:18.320 This is when it really dawned on me.

01:27:19.900 I go back to the cell, right?

01:27:23.120 And I'm in a daze.

01:27:25.240 And I hear this guy say, Milky Way, Milky Way.

01:27:28.800 And I looked at him and I said, man, what the hell is he screaming Milky Way about?

01:27:32.080 He said, oh, you better buy him now.

01:27:33.580 He said, they only give it to you once every two months.

01:27:35.340 County jail, Mobile, Alabama.

01:27:36.960 He said, the food here is bad.

01:27:38.800 That's how we supplement our food.

01:27:40.880 I said, how much?

01:27:41.860 He said, a dollar.

01:27:43.300 Man, Patrick, it's like just a building fell on me.

01:27:45.900 I said, shit.

01:27:47.400 An hour ago, I'm worth 60 million.

01:27:48.860 I don't have a dollar to buy a freaking candy bar.

01:27:52.140 What a mental shift you got to go through.

01:27:55.040 Then my wife disappears with my kids.

01:27:57.720 The love of your life, your daughter.

01:27:59.640 For two years, I couldn't find them.

01:28:01.320 And then, my dad, who is my best friend, my idol, is diagnosed with cancer and told he's got years to live.

01:28:07.960 And I don't know if I'm ever going to be released ever again.

01:28:11.080 And I'm going to prison.

01:28:13.360 And for another five years.

01:28:17.340 And it's all about mindset.

01:28:19.900 Inmate will tell you, sleep 12 hours.

01:28:23.140 You'll sleep half of your sentence away.

01:28:25.620 I say, if I sleep 12 hours, I waste half of my life.

01:28:29.240 I said, I might not get out of here.

01:28:30.900 And I might.

01:28:32.320 But whatever the case is, every day I'm going to be better than when I wake up.

01:28:37.260 At the end of the day, when I go to bed, I'm going to be better than when I woke up.

01:28:40.120 And I begin to read.

01:28:41.020 And I begin to read the Bible as a historical book.

01:28:43.700 I still don't believe any of it.

01:28:45.240 And then I decided, well, I'm going to get another degree.

01:28:48.700 So I got a bachelor's.

01:28:50.100 I said, well, let me start doing my master's.

01:28:52.260 I started doing my master's from Wheaton College in Illinois.

01:28:54.260 In jail.

01:28:54.860 In jail.

01:28:55.660 I taught myself Greek because I had no one to show me how to parse.

01:28:59.720 So all I could do, memorize the book.

01:29:01.720 So when I got out, I went.

01:29:03.480 So I did five years.

01:29:04.400 Got out.

01:29:05.180 Went back to Wheaton College.

01:29:06.320 And I was on full scholarship again and living off student loans.

01:29:11.200 I had no money.

01:29:12.880 I lived in.

01:29:13.780 My dad helped me buy this little 700 square foot three-bedroom house.

01:29:18.500 And because the rent, the rent taxes were $675 a month.

01:29:23.600 It was less than the college dorm.

01:29:25.760 And $90,000.

01:29:27.000 Living by yourself.

01:29:27.520 You're by yourself or what?

01:29:28.220 Living by myself.

01:29:29.740 And my mindset now is, I'm going to finish my master's.

01:29:33.000 And I'm going to do a PhD.

01:29:34.880 And I'm going to become the best professor in the world.

01:29:37.140 And I'm going to have just a bunch of pretty girls beg me for an A.

01:29:40.640 What a life, you know?

01:29:42.200 Well, not really, but.

01:29:44.360 So when I finish my PhD, I'm one of five Hispanics in the country with a PhD in Spanish.

01:29:48.660 Compared to 5,000 angles.

01:29:50.360 I'm named a Hispanic doctoral student in America twice by the Pew Foundation.

01:29:54.060 And all of a sudden, I meet, and then there I meet the love of my life.

01:30:01.060 Unfortunately, she had to be from Colombia.

01:30:02.780 But, you know, where I thought I would never, ever in a million years, right, would meet anyone.

01:30:08.460 But, you know, I met my wife, and it was just amazing.

01:30:13.820 And, you know, the interesting thing was that I have been celibate now for seven years.

01:30:18.580 And I'm like, you know, is this going to work out?

01:30:22.060 We've been married now for 24 years.

01:30:23.900 Good for you, man.

01:30:24.740 And been together for 20, 26.

01:30:27.560 You said first two marriages, three years?

01:30:29.060 This is 24 years.

01:30:29.300 First two marriages, three years now.

01:30:31.180 24.

01:30:31.800 Next year, next July, we'll celebrate 25.

01:30:34.180 And we have two amazing children, and I wake up every day of my life, you know, in love.

01:30:39.360 And I tell you, it's just a mindset with which you look at the world.

01:30:42.600 What do you do now?

01:30:43.280 What business are you in now?

01:30:44.020 So right now, I'm retired.

01:30:45.360 How did you make your money last 24 years?

01:30:47.100 So when I, so I finish my PhD, I'm going to teach.

01:30:50.520 And then my father dies.

01:30:52.360 And my father, like I told you, was my hero.

01:30:54.600 And all of a sudden, I'm in the shower, and I'm finally in the shower, and I'm like, man, he never gave me anything.

01:30:59.520 And I'm dying missing him.

01:31:00.880 And then he dawned on me.

01:31:01.880 Yeah, he did.

01:31:02.820 He gave you his presence.

01:31:04.960 Values.

01:31:05.720 And then, oh yeah, and then I have four kids.

01:31:09.860 I'm like, how are they going to remember me?

01:31:11.560 Someone that sends a check every month and has a good summer?

01:31:15.100 We're moving.

01:31:16.420 And we're going to move to Georgia so I can be a full-time dad to my kids.

01:31:20.220 We're in Georgia.

01:31:20.900 In Peachtree City, Georgia.

01:31:23.200 So there's no university to teach.

01:31:25.160 Didn't know what to do.

01:31:26.340 So I started a little service master, a little franchise.

01:31:28.660 Cleaning toilets.

01:31:29.900 Cleaning, taking water out of people's house.

01:31:31.760 Cleaning fire.

01:31:32.840 And it grew, and it grew, and it grew.

01:31:34.140 And when I built it into a multi, then I had my contact with governments.

01:31:38.640 We were involved in the cleanup of the Pentagon.

01:31:40.880 Then at 56, I have no dad living a very lavish life.

01:31:47.260 And I tell my wife, I said, look at our kids.

01:31:49.840 Our kids, we both grew up poor.

01:31:52.400 Our kids have been brought up with great values.

01:31:54.660 But they think that normal is living in a multimillion-dollar home,

01:31:57.880 flying around the country in a jet again,

01:31:59.460 vacationing in a house in Mexico on a yacht.

01:32:02.680 I said, we're moving.

01:32:03.620 And I'm quitting the company.

01:32:05.040 I said, because if a man can't define when enough is enough,

01:32:07.980 only grief will drive you.

01:32:09.260 And if grief drives you, I can tell you, you're never going to be happy.

01:32:12.200 And that's how it was.

01:32:13.260 I know what it is to live making a million dollars a month.

01:32:15.540 I know what it is not to have a dollar a month.

01:32:17.420 It doesn't buy you happiness and joy.

01:32:19.520 You know, happiness is when you get up every day of your life,

01:32:21.440 and you say, you know what, my thing that I use, phrase that I use every time I speak at the end,

01:32:27.520 when the pages of history are written, will history ever remember your name?

01:32:31.540 And I'm convinced that the only way history remembers our name is when we have an impact in another human being's life.

01:32:37.280 So I quit.

01:32:38.620 We moved to Mexico.

01:32:39.600 I started doing Ironman.

01:32:41.040 And then my wife wanted our kids to go to high school in the U.S.

01:32:44.140 So we stayed in Mexico five years.

01:32:46.600 Taught them a culture.

01:32:47.160 I took them to a place where they could see people that miss meals every day and still love God, Cozumel.

01:32:53.260 And we went for a year and stayed five.

01:32:55.280 I would stay forever, to be honest with you.

01:32:57.260 But she insisted we come back, and we came.

01:32:59.600 And all my kids are super successful now.

01:33:02.820 You know, my son, I have a son who at the age of 16 overdosed.

01:33:06.720 And his mother called me and said, he's dead.

01:33:07.940 He's dead.

01:33:08.820 16 years old.

01:33:09.720 15, as a matter of fact.

01:33:11.120 Christmas Day.

01:33:12.620 Had the rescue been two minutes later, he would have died.

01:33:15.020 Today, this kid is a millionaire making many figures a year, living in Malta, 32 years old, CFO of a tech company.

01:33:27.260 And my daughter who's a lawyer in Washington for the education department, another one masters.

01:33:34.680 And, you know, I did the same thing my dad did.

01:33:36.900 I invested in my kid's life and had a vision, a vision for their life.

01:33:41.360 And now I spend the rest of my life, we created a foundation.

01:33:45.480 When we built our company, we gave 10% to God and to our foundation to make it different in people's lives.

01:33:51.340 And we built churches inside prison.

01:33:53.940 And my mission now is to send a million books to prison.

01:33:56.800 We send 65,000 books.

01:33:58.660 And people ask me, why?

01:34:00.440 Why that?

01:34:01.400 I said, because, you know, that's a whole population that the world has forgotten, that the world has just abandoned.

01:34:06.740 They have nobody left.

01:34:08.000 And if they can read a book that can tell them we are not defined by our past, there is hope, there is faith, there is a God that forgives.

01:34:16.940 Because you'll pay the consequences of our choices, but you can be different, you can change your life, then the world will be a lot better.

01:34:25.040 And, you know, they say the question about how do you judge a great parent, they say by their grandkids, your parents were great parents.

01:34:35.600 Tremendous.

01:34:36.100 Your kids are doing what they're doing, lawyer, all that stuff.

01:34:38.520 That just means the values your parents passed down to you was passed down to the kids.

01:34:42.220 Now your kids are going to pass it down to their kids.

01:34:44.360 What a story.

01:34:45.600 What a great story you got there.

01:34:46.940 You know, and hopefully this story inspires people to not even want to go into that life.

01:34:49.900 I've interviewed a lot of different people from your world.

01:34:51.840 Not specifically, you know, maybe Cuban, Colombian, cocaine, although I have had some people like that as well.

01:35:01.960 And sometimes kids look at it thinking about the laver side.

01:35:04.840 But the trend I see with you is you had a way of running businesses.

01:35:10.720 You had a way of driving, selling, tracking, whatever it is, accountability, building a team, recruiting that could work in illegal businesses, but could also work in legitimate businesses.

01:35:22.880 And the moment you made that transition into legitimate, you won in both places.

01:35:25.980 Yeah.

01:35:26.340 Use the same principle.

01:35:27.220 So it's transferable to any industry.

01:35:28.720 To any industry.

01:35:29.660 It's the same principle that you use.

01:35:31.160 You know, how do you treat people?

01:35:32.300 Integrity.

01:35:32.760 Truth matters.

01:35:33.620 Well, I've really enjoyed this.

01:35:34.480 I've really enjoyed this.

01:35:35.440 I appreciate you coming out.

01:35:36.460 It's been my pleasure.

01:35:36.600 Really, really good having you on the way, Tim.

01:35:38.180 And it's been great.

01:35:39.120 My pleasure.

01:35:39.700 It's been great.

01:35:40.280 So did you enjoy it from the Cocaine Cowboys, the whole Netflix documentary?

01:35:43.840 Give it a thumbs up if you did.

01:35:45.300 And if you enjoyed this interview, we've got two other interviews for you.

01:35:47.840 One of them is with Ed Calderon from Mexican Cartel when he was dealing with that.

01:35:52.880 And the other one is with DA agent Steve Murphy and Javier Pena from the Netflix special, Narcos.

01:35:58.600 Click over here.

01:35:59.200 Take care, everybody.

01:35:59.860 Bye-bye.

01:36:04.480 Bye-bye.

01:36:07.260 Bye.

Valuetainment - November 05, 2021

The King of Miami Dr. Jorge Valdes Tells All - Behind NETFLIX Series 'Cocaine Cowboys'

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript