Deadly Influence | FULL EPISODE | The FBI Files

three mysterious deaths in the florida river confound local authorities the preliminary investigation reveals little [Applause] but when police and the fbi find a sinister link to international drug smuggling they uncover a conspiracy of unbridled greed and ruthless violence it's a case that thrusts an entire city into chaos [Applause] [Music] in the 1980s thousands of violent criminals flooded into america from cuba and colombia drugs in south florida and the area bloated with illicit wealth became a violent powder keg i'm jim calstrom former head of the fbi's new york office in the bloody miami drug wars the winners got rich the losers buried and everyone was a target columbia south america until the 1970s life was simple but hard then a failed economy gave way to a sharp rise in drug trafficking the drug trade caused stiff competition that literally began to rip the country apart ruthless colombian drug lords began consolidating their businesses into partnerships known as cartels death came to anyone who got in their way as the cartel's influence grew so did the american appetite for illicit drugs and miami became the prime point of entry for most of the cocaine smuggled into the country and with it came bloodshed colombian assassins were sent to miami to wipe out the local competition the homicide rate grew to more than triple the national average for large cities miami was named the murder capital of the u.s [Music] former metro dayed homicide detective alex alvarez recalls how in 1979 violence came to a miami shopping mall his date of birth is several drug traffickers bought out a a a step van lined it with bulletproof vests and portholes and did a drug hit in the parking lot and sprayed it with you know hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of rounds in the parking lot trying to kill their intended target two known drug traffickers were killed and several innocent bystanders were wounded there were also incidents of high-speed pursuits on the expressway between two drug dealers that were just shooting it out on the expressway during rush hour traffic and and numerous people were being injured and killed it was like the wild wild west so there was a need to try to curb and stop um these uh drug traffickers who seem to be out of control a special squad was formed to deal with the violence central tactical unit or syntac 26 was headquartered at the metro dade police department sergeant george placencia was a detective assigned to the unit the first of its kind in miami it was a 26th one in the nation the purpose of forming the task force was that we would go out and monitor all the homicides in the county and pick and choose the ones that we thought involved major drug traffickers and an attempt to work that angle the homicide angle and dismantle the organization by the mid-1980s constant pressure from law enforcement slowly changed the way drug traffickers were doing business in miami they got a little bit more sophisticated they still did the murders but not the the shootouts in public drug traffickers went deep underground organizing cells that excluded all but family and close friends [Music] many cells specialized in activities such as cocaine transportation distribution or money laundering in only a few years the business had become large and sophisticated and still very deadly on the afternoon of july 29th 1985 a marine salvager working on the miami river noticed something off the bow of his boat floating in the water was a body by the time metro dade county police responded dock workers had pulled two more bodies from the river the coroner examined the deceased for any signs of trauma or gunshot wounds he found none it appeared that the three had drowned on the bodies officers found beepers rolex watches and plenty of cash two were armed essentially they were all carrying the tools of a drug smuggler metro day police called syntac 26 [Music] we started doing area camps to see if anybody had seen anything suspicious right seeing these individuals prior to them meeting their demise and that proved to be you know not so fruitful at all nobody had seen anything the three victims were identified as local cuban americans two had minor police records the official cause of death was drowning but there was no indication how they ended up in the water or why detective alex alvarez searched for a lead in the case we began running records checks and contacting the drug enforcement administration to see if these people were known drug traffickers agents at the dea did not know the men but they did have a source that could help right right what's the address they had an informant and that informant knew the son of one of the dead people that were fished out of the miami rivers and it was definitely and he was going to put us into contact with the sun that afternoon investigators paid a visit to the i sun know why we're here he was willing to tell what he knew hoping that the mystery of his father's death could be solved can you can you tell us what you know how you found out about it well i know it's a really big business he told us that his father was one of the biggest drug smugglers in south florida he brought in thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds of cocaine well i know last saturday he said he said his father's crew used run-down steel-hulled vessels to smuggle drugs into the country since the old boats aroused less suspicion than big yachts [Music] he also detailed how the smugglers built false bulkheads into the boats concealing hidden compartments filled with hundreds and sometimes thousands of pounds of cocaine when customs search these boats their only hope of finding drugs would be to use a welding torch see the smugglers are smart they know that there's no way that customs and the open ocean is going to put a torch to a boat because if they're wrong they'll sink the boat now safely past customs the smugglers would continue to move their enormous cargo up the miami river they would park at a marina and then let it sit there for two or three days to make sure there's no surveillance and on the second third or fourth day when they were convinced there was no surveillance they'd come at the middle of the night unload the drugs into vans and ship them off to different locations within south florida the son said he had been visited by two of his father's friends who were on board the ship the night his father drowned they told him that the boat was raided by a group of gunmen dressed as cops so that's where your father was going that night the raiders threw the six-man crew overboard and then stole about 450 kilos of cocaine [Music] each kilo at that time was worth approximately um 60 000 dollars so the net retail value of this load was approximately 27 million dollars and that's not the street value street values probably two three times that the sun provided the names of all three men who survived but said he didn't know how to contact them the sentak detectives needed to find out if there had been a legitimate raid at the marina they contacted every law enforcement agency in south florida that handled drug cases none of them had any operations close to the boat yard where this incident happened so at that time when i when i canceled out that this was a legitimate raid my next focus was well these people must have been phony cops people impersonating police officers because there was a trend at that time at that time for people to dress up as police officers and and and raid drug dealers homes and steal their cash and steal their drugs [Music] to check the victim's son's story investigators went to the marina where the raid took place they interviewed the security guard who had been on duty that night he said that seven or eight men in police uniforms rushed the marina and headed for one of the boats [Music] they went right past the security guard security guards say being south florida is nothing unusual you know go at it he hadn't gotten a good look at any of them investigators later searched that boat but found no clues so they turned their attention to looking for the three men who would survive the raid two of the three survivors had minor police records but could not be located at their last known address [Music] the next day centac 26 detectives played a hunch they figured that the survivors would likely be going to the wake for one of the deceased victims so we showed up at the funeral home with the names and identities of the people we were looking for the detectives were right they recognized the survivors from arrest photos and approached the men as they entered the men confirmed the boat was overrun by a group of raiders dressed like cops but the men denied the boat was involved in drug running they claimed they were simply having a party they had been drinking beer with the three victims and two additional friends and while they were there drinking beer and having a good time people in blue uniforms stormed past the front gate of the marina and started yelling police police the gunman began assaulting them they said several friends were thrown in the water by these individuals dressed in blue uniforms within minutes all six men were overboard in the miami river but only three swam to safety the investigation had now become a triple homicide the sentak 26 detectives were convinced the raid was yet another instance of fake cops ripping off drug dealers but again the survivors denied the drugs were on the boat and insisted they did not know why the men attacked them they said they didn't see any badge numbers or police cars couldn't even tell which department the uniforms were from [Music] with no detailed information from the two witnesses the investigators were left without any significant leads [Music] with the case stalled the fbi offered their assistance agent robert martin at about the same time that the the homicide investigation began regarding the three bodies found in the miami river uh an fbi cooperating witness uh provided some information to us regarding a group of police officers who were involved in some rip-offs and he identified who those guys were at least several of them knew who some of them were had conversations with him detective alvarez got an unexpected call from an agent in counter intelligence he says he needs to meet with us that he has a motive and a possible information about our case he put two and two together so maybe this is related to this information that i'm getting uh through my informant among the um we can narrow down armando un the fbi agent said was a well-connected nightclub worker that knew about a group of crooked cops who were ripping off drug dealers along the miami river [Music] centec 26 detectives went to see armando but he did not want to see them the interview went nowhere it would take the murder of a friend before armando um [Applause] the motorist was driving through the everglades he spotted something that piqued his curiosity a wooden box he pulled over to his horror he found a body inside he called police detectives from miami-dade's drug task force centac 26 were investigating the deaths of three men found floating in the miami river they hoped an informant named armando un could help them his friend and employer had been found murdered in the florida everglades his name was luis rodriguez the owner of a nightclub in miami's little havana district he'd been shot several times in the head and then stuffed in a box rigged to spring open a gruesome display investigating for syntac 26 was detective alex alvarez and sergeant george placencia they needed to get armando un to talk we never mentioned anything about three bodies our ploy in speaking to him was that we were investigating the death of his best friend the murderer of his best friend according to detective placencia armando un was very candid we sat down and chatted with him for a while about louis rodriguez and he said yeah louis rodriguez was involved in drug trafficking he admitted that rodriguez was dealing drugs out of his nightclub and said he believed the men rodriguez was involved with killed him he was furious that his friend had been murdered and said he wanted to help he was making money for everybody if he knew about police officers real or fake robbing drug dealers he said nothing he never mentioned that the police officers were involved he did say that louis rodriguez was friendly with some officers thank you very much armando seemed wary and selected his words carefully when the interview ended the detectives still had no suspects in the miami river murders all they really knew was that luis rodriguez was dead and may be the fourth drug murder victim in his many days then a city of miami detective contacted placencia and alvarez with a surprising lead [Music] he said that luis rodriguez had also worked for him as a police informant he told us that louis rodriguez was giving him information about people who were dressed as um and police imposters and were ripping off drug dealers and committing murders in dade county the detective explained that he had met luis rodriguez through a miami patrol officer named marco ribera [Music] i said we need your help now i need you to set up a meeting between the street cop and george and i and let's tell them that we're investigating louis rodriguez's murder that'll be the cover story the meeting was set for that night at the miami police department officer ribeiro worked the late shift in 60 sector police code for little havana he verified that he knew luis rodriguez and that rodriguez had on occasion been his informant but then without prompting he brought up the miami river drownings he volunteered some information about the three bodies that were floating up in the miami river he said that these guys stole the drugs themselves and when the owner of the drugs found out about it had them uh murdered or they were thrown in the water and drowned themselves that there was no cops involved at all his denial that officers were involved which no one had mentioned seemed too forceful [Music] the sentak 26 detectives tested him we asked this patrolman to repeat a story at the conclusion of our meeting and we detected that the story didn't fit the the first story that he had told us there was something wrong there ribera claimed a street source told him about the raid so the detectives asked to speak directly with the source yeah i guess so you know just give me a call tomorrow okay i'll try to contact him and if i can't get in contact for any reason for the syntax investigators the case had taken a dramatic turn this officer sworn to uphold the law seemed to be hiding something the following day officer marco rivera introduced the detectives to the source who allegedly had information about the miami river murders i don't know if i should even be talking to you i don't even know bro ribera claimed his source could verify that drug trafficking colombians had carried out the raid not miami cops but as the source spoke he had a hard time remembering details of his story officer rivera had to help him remember according to detective alvarez the officer keeps having to correct him no no it happened like this and tell him about this and he's filling in the blanks for this guy who's obviously been been coached and cued on what to say so we knew at that point obviously he was covering something up officer rivera's cover-up meant the detectives were faced with an even more serious problem in case the deadly raiders were actually miami police officers they needed to be very careful this is a problem that we weren't really trained or focused in to investigate which is you know we're not internal affairs investigators we don't investigate cops that wasn't our role that wasn't our job but we were charged with the responsibilities of investigating these murders and if these murders were committed by cops they were fair play we realized that if we're going to start to investigate cops we'd have to do things very differently the sentak 26 detectives had to cover themselves [Music] they asked the police chief to hold their personnel files as a precaution against internal leaks we did a lot of things to protect our our identity and our family's identity we took every thing that we had in our names and took them out of our names so they couldn't trace where we lived and who we were you know we're investigating they're gonna find out who we are so right away we we built a wall between them and us once they felt safe centac detectives began investigating the officers working the night shift in 60 sector little havana officer marco rivera's beat with the chief's permission miami pd's internal affairs gave centac 26 the personnel records for the officers in question well the city of miami internal affairs unit was very concerned uh they're very cooperative uh they you know the names that we provided to them they started looking into and giving us the backgrounds that they had on these individuals the investigators focused on a close-knit group of eight officers all relatively recent hires who joined the force at a time when miami was in crisis in the spring of 1980 cuban president fidel castro had announced he would allow thousands of political refugees to seek asylum in foreign countries the us agreed to accept 3 500 then unexpectedly castro announced that for the first time in years he would also allow american boats to enter marielle harbor the result was what became known as the marielle boat lift more than 120 000 cuban refugees flooded into south florida which overwhelmed miami's ability to handle them most were hard-working immigrants looking for a chance at the american dream most but not all 10 of them was estimated were criminals that were dumped out of the prison system of fidel castro um so there's a spike in the crime wave in miami-dade county to stem the rising crime rate the city had to hire over 400 new cadets in three years instead of hiring the best candidate they hired anybody who was just marginally acceptable they just couldn't find enough quality candidates and they went for quantity as opposed to quality [Music] centek 26 began surveillance watching as the officers in question hung out together after hours enjoying lifestyles far beyond the means of honest police officers [Music] marco ribeiro was the suspected ringleader armando garcia had recently become part owner of a bodybuilding gym osvaldo coelho had just retired from the force he was 30 years old driving a one hundred thousand dollar lotus it was easy to track their lavish spending one officer uh bought a home and built this pool and he paid the uh the developer cash showed up with a bag full of cash and gave it to him here for the purchase of my home still the detectives had little solid evidence yeah i'm in front of the restaurant i don't see any units over here or our boy is definitely over here having coffee with some friends outside but i don't see any units they needed first-hand information and they needed it soon if these officers had already left at least three people dead the detectives feared there could easily be more [Music] four people have been murdered in miami over a 27 million drug deal gone bad with so much money involved the dividing line between the criminals and the cops blurred the fbi offered their assistance to local law enforcement special agent robert martin we began investigation which became a joint investigation into whether there was some police corruption in the city of miami [Music] drug task force detectives with sentak 26 had narrowed their investigation to a suspected group of corrupt miami police officers but the detectives needed inside information if they had any chance of cracking the case [Music] they hoped they could get it from a reluctant police informer named armando um they had already interviewed oon about the murder of his friend and partner nightclub owner luis rodriguez he seemed wary perhaps afraid they too were dirty cops here mother when you look at these photographs see if you recognize anyone detective george placencia tried to win his trust by showing photos of their surveillance of the suspect officers and he started looking through the photos and he just paused he dropped the photographs and shook her hand and he says you guys are doing a good job let's sit down and talk but unfortunately these things go wrong moon came down to centec 26 where he told detective alex alvarez he figured he had nothing to lose he was scared he thought well if i stick it out with the crooked cops they prob they were the ones that probably killed my partner and he said well if they killed him the next person to go is me in a marathon debriefing he explained the origins of the rogue officers and their criminal enterprise he said his friend and employer nightclub owner luis rodriguez had grown tired of the officers coming into his bar and shaking down his patrons for small amounts of drugs he wanted to make sure that his customers weren't bothered so he first started paying the cops off not to come and you can maybe get a couple of rest that could make everyone some money [Music] according to owen louis rodriguez said to the officers hey you know what instead of arresting these people that are coming over here with petty drugs why don't i set up deals you know maybe multi-kilo deals more drugs involved and when these people come over i'll give you a description of their car where they're coming from you can stop them steal their cocaine bring it to me i'll sell it i'll give you a share [Music] the officers agreed what made this whole thing possible for these cops was they grew up and knew people who were in the drug trade and that was the one aspect of what they had going for him patrolman marco ribera ran the rip-offs the dealers would never incriminate themselves by reporting the thefts and rodriguez would always come through with the cash with more and more cops becoming involved but they got greedy wanting to do more rip-offs and bigger ones rodriguez introduced them to a second bar owner who knew of larger shipments louis rodriguez brought in another bar owner he knew and he worked smuggling boatloads of drugs into the united states and rodriguez said wait a minute why stop why stop at these one kilo two kilograms of cocaine drug bust why don't we go for the boat loads and get 300 400 500 kilograms of cocaine at one shot um didn't know about the raid where the three men drowned but he did describe an earlier one the second bar owner had set up a group of miami officers had slipped aboard a boat in another marina thinking the crew had left for the night [Music] they knew exactly where the drugs were hidden but during the unloading they noticed the air conditioning was on and suspected the crew was still on board hiding [Music] [Applause] [Music] the raiders wasted no time disposing of the crew as they had in the other raid [Music] this time no one drowned all the men swam safely to shore the cops finished up then drove off with about 200 kilos of cocaine [Music] valued at over 10 million dollars [Music] armando un confirmed the names of the officers involved the very ones had been watching [Music] unfortunately the investigators knew his credibility would be attacked in court [Music] jury's not going to believe armando um and it self-proclaimed admitted drug trafficker over you know half a dozen or a dozen respected police officers they're just not going to believe it so we need more evidence what they needed was a confession on tape from the very cops they were investigating [Music] they brought in the local bar owner from the drug raids and explained the evidence they had implicating him in the rip-offs he reluctantly agreed to wear a wire and to meet with officer marco ribera but he said ribera had been avoiding him for weeks no doubt because of the centac 26 investigation [Music] they would have to trick him into the meeting investigators hope the results would be worth the risk detectives set up in a building across from a bar in the area ribera patrolled and sent the informant inside when surveillance units confirmed rivera was nearby detectives called 911 officer rivera drove up just as they planned rivera entered looking for the alleged fight but everything was quiet [Music] the informant made his move he told the he'd been subpoenaed by the u.s attorney's office and wanted to know what to say ribera took the bait but he didn't want to talk in front of witnesses the corrupt cop spoke freely about his involvement in the drug operation everything he said was being recorded in miami investigators pursued a group of rogue police officers suspected of ripping off drug dealers and killing at least three of them the detectives of centac 26 finally managed to tape an incriminating conversation with the group's leader officer ribera as he talked about the raids the drugs the dirty cops detective alex alvarez it was key it was key key evidence because it was the corrupt police officer's own words about what he did when he did it and who he did it with the u.s attorney's office in miami reviewed the tapes assistant u.s attorney russell killinger knew they would need as much evidence as possible to convince a jury that several miami law enforcement officers were behind the murders and thefts the tapes provided a good start but killinger needed more evidence to implicate the other officers perhaps armando un could get it we wanted to get hoon on wearing a wire and talking to the other cops so we get those other cops to confirm their own participation out of their own mouths wearing a wire hoon met with miami officers marco ribera and armando garcia [Music] he told them that investigators were asking him questions about the boat raids they warned him not to cooperate [Music] but then they became suspicious asking him if he was wired [Music] that defectively halted all plans to record any more of the officers [Music] but investigators were undaunted we decided to more take more of an overt approach uh in the investigation and and and go to the next level which was basically um subpoenaing witnesses to the grand juries issuing bank subpoenas for bank records and financial records investigators began cataloging the assets of the suspects including marco ribera's safety deposit box at a miami bank the box contained over two hundred sixty thousand dollars in cash nearly ten times his annual salary like ribera the other suspect officers left incriminating money trails that money was burning holes in their pockets they were around spending money left and right they buy 20 30 40 50 000 cars cash they bought homes valued in excess of two hundred thousand dollars cash they bought expensive furniture they put down cash now this is an officer who's making thirty thousand dollars we had an enormous amount of evidence [Music] the financial records together with the tape conversations were enough evidence for arrest warrants to be issued two days after christmas 1985 centac 26 miami pd and the fbi began the arrests taking down six miami cops including the ringleader officer marco ribera officer armando garcia was also arrested without incident osvaldo cow and emilio ray surrendered in the following days the trial began on september 29 1986. federal prosecutors thought they had a strong case we felt pretty good about the case we've gotten pretty much all the evidence in that that we had hoped to get in then on january 21st 1987 the jury came back with their verdicts i remember the judge just kept looking looking at the at the at the verdict forms and he would look at one and put it down and look at another and put it down and pick up the other one looking at it again and and this went on for seemed like an eternity and then he started shaking his head the jury was deadlocked causing the judge to declare a mistrial one juror had refused to deliberate investigators were stunned as all suspects were released that was really a low point in the investigation we found out later because the jurors that the 11 jurors that voted for for conviction were so convinced that these officers because of all the evidence were guilty they started coming forward and saying you know we started being contacted by we started getting contacted by friends and family members of these cops offering us jobs and offering us money and we knew that that was an attempt to try to to get us to sway our votes the mistrial was an enormous setback detectives knew if they could not put these corrupt cops away the people of miami may never trust law enforcement again a group of miami officers were arrested and prosecuted for corruption but chaos in the jury room resulted in a mistrial all suspects were released they were thrilled that they weren't convicted uh what they didn't realize it was probably a blessing in disguise for us because all that did is give us more time and we were more determined to find out more evidence against them and that's exactly what happened the prosecutor and detectives were unwilling to give up with so much at stake investigators needed a break they finally got one we found out um that these officers had hired a hitman to kill armando un that hitman was killer joe martinez he confessed to being hired hoping he'd get leniency for another crime he had committed we brought him in he testified against the river cops we were able to add more charges against them and by that time you know the case was just becoming stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger and they had nowhere to go and then they started to fold and they started to cooperate the case finally broke wide open when one of the defendants patrolman emilio ray decided to confess through his lawyer he had learned of the additional evidence against him he hoped for sentencing leniency in exchange for his testimony he described to us some some fairly bone chilling conspiracies that that had gone on and that were going on in an effort to to try to kill the government witnesses all of the government's witnesses especially armando un were in danger investigators knew they had to use patrolman ray's confession to put more pressure on the other river cops [Music] facing the beefed-up federal case ring leader marco ribera confessed he had implicated some 60 other city-minded police officers in various criminal activities unfortunately osvaldo coelho and armando garcia fled the miami area five months later an fbi informant said koeyo was hiding in the bahamas the fbi has no formal jurisdiction outside the united states so it maintains legal attache offices called league ads in many foreign countries they work as liaisons with each country's national police the fbi liaison asked the bahamian police for their assistance they agreed to help get kaleo kaweo was wanted for taking part in massive and deadly cocaine rip-offs in miami investigators knew he had a broad network of friends he could ask for help called one of them several times to arrange for assistance [Music] yeah i can help you what do you need okay good see you then what kawaii didn't know was that the fbi had already approached the friend and he was working as an informant the bahamian police arrested osvaldo coelho without incident he was extradited back to miami to face charges of drug trafficking conspiracy and racketeering armando garcia was the last of the rogue miami cops still at large on january 8 1989 the fbi added garcia to their 10 most wanted fugitives list fbi special agent robert martin we don't pick our top 10 fugitives lightly they have to be people that we consider to be a serious danger not only to society but to the very nature and fabric of what makes our country what it is and one of those things is is honest honest law enforcement services our garcia was added to the list for that reason the fbi had evidence that garcia may have fled to south america but had few leads [Music] special agent robert martin ran the public corruption squad that kept searching for the elusive fugitive armando garcia was was uniquely qualified to to understand what it was going to take to survive out of the country here was a police officer who knew every technique that we might use to to find him or capture him a guy that knew the difficulties uh moving in and out of foreign countries and doing investigations in those foreign countries on top of that you had a guy that had a lot of money yeah let's just look at these passports garcia could be anywhere for four years agents looked into hundreds of leads with negative results then in late 1993 the fbi got a tip a friend was planning to visit the garcia family in colombia [Music] agents worked with the colombian police who followed the friend to an apartment in cali agents believed that fugitive armando garcia was living there the columbia national police set up a surveillance with a number of units it was going to be a 24-hour surveillance and waited to see if they could identify anybody who would come out or travel around with her [Music] three days later they spotted armando garcia the fugitive was caught off guard unarmed garcia garcia told them said i have four thousand dollars with me i have you see the jewelry i have you see my automobile i have goods and belongings in my apartment you can have all of that if you just let me go and to quote the columbia national police official who came to miami to describe events they then told armando garcia we're not the dirty cops you are the last of the main suspects armando garcia pleaded guilty to drug trafficking racketeering and tax evasion and was sentenced to 25 years when it was all over 17 miami officers were convicted for their involvement in the drug rip offering it was the largest police corruption case in florida history in response to the scandal the city of miami police department formed its own internal investigations unit that targeted over 100 additional officers they obviously were suffering from all the media exposure and then the embarrassment of having numerous officers arrested but i think it made them a stronger department when you weed out the bad officers you know it just make the makes the good officers shine even brighter [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The FBI Files

Views: 1,563,010

Keywords: Corruption scandal, Crime drama, Crime reenactments, Crime scene analysis, Crime scene investigations, Deadly Influence, Drug kingpins, Drug-related crimes, Episode, FBI agents, Federal agents, Forensic technology, Investigative reporting, Narcotics, Narcotics trafficking, Police corruption, Police misconduct, Real FBI cases, The FBI Files, True crime series, Wiretapping

Id: u1KqrXzkWyA

Length: 49min 53sec (2993 seconds)

Published: Sat May 22 2021