hello world Tim McBride is a former marijuana Smuggler and poth hauler living on the edge of Florida's Everglades from 1979 to 1989 Tim ran the southern Waters and the Caribbean with a band of modern-day Pirates known by locals as saltwater Cowboys night after night Tim would offload up to 20 tons at a time from cargo ships that would make the trip from South America similar to how Mexico does today Colombia supplied 42% of the marijuana consumed in the United States in 1984 the major percentage of this traffic was controlled by Tim's crws working with smaller Crews and several large Colombian organizations Tim story is [ __ ] crazy highly recommend this podcast this is one of my all-time favorites without further Ado please welcome Tim McBride When I Was preparing to do that vicand video yeah I uh I asked John that's the guy I showed you the superintendent and we'll show you in a minute um I said you know any of your other buddies hanging around man that might want to you know get involved in this thing he goes um yeah he says I know the two perfect guys right he says these guys love to talk about themselves I said that's perfect man that's what I'm looking for so he says Ron Curry and Ron Guthrie Ron and Ron right so fast forward we're having lunch at a Panera Bread just then we're talking about what's coming up you know what what they're going to do with with the uh you know on the video and on you know for the dock and yeah this uh Ron Curry he looks over at me goes you don't remember me do you and I said uh no should I and he says well yeah I boarded your boat one night oh I said really and dude I've only been boarded three times ever and I remember him perfectly and I said you're going to have to give me a little more than that so he starts telling me the story about I'm coming out of the Southwest on the Fort Myers Beach just after Sundown and he throw the blue lights on me and and stop me and I said oh yeah that's the night I let you stop me he goes what do you mean you let me stop you and I said dude I had you know 60 M hour on you I could have left you hanging but what I didn't need was you on the radio and everybody out here CH running around trying to chase me and find me when 20 minutes at or 25 minutes after you stopped me I ran north of Pine Island and unloaded 47,000 lb he [ __ ] he says he goes no you didn't and he looks over to boss Johnny goes yeah he did so Ron goes on we get to be friends and he's telling me things and you know and um I was originally sentenced with 160 years mandatory to life and and 16 million dollar in fines this episode of the podcast is brought to you by the best Bongs in the business I don't care if you're smoking weed tobacco free base for my fellow Floridians just kidding of course there are two types of cannabis smokers out there those who suffer from burning scratchy throats and those who use the freeze pipe with freeze pipes freezable glycerin coils you will enjoy colder bigger hits without the 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which gave you good time statutory good time and parole MH plus the judges or magistrates if you will had at that time uh discretion the ass let's put it that way you know they could take a lot of things under consideration when they're sentencing you like are you a family man or you've ever been in trouble before you know and that kind of stuff you know your demeanor and you know are you cooperating are you participating and all that kind of crap well those sentences up until that time weren't having any real great effect on anything really um and you know to a great example of that is um I had just H somehow managed to come across an an article and you can find it if you look it up if you ever if you if you Google um Daniel's Brothers Everglades and uh an old Miami uh Herald article will come up front page article and it reads the headline reads the Cocaine Cowboys of Miami have nothing on the Daniels Brothers of Everglade City so The Story Goes On The Articles reading through in the magistrate these five brothers are standing in front of the magistrate being arraigned for their crime pool and four the brothers had been arrested had never been arrested but Craig the youngest brother who's you know my buddy um this would be his second time so the judge goes um he's you know you can hear him rifling through this [ __ ] and he goes um I have absolutely no how no I absolutely don't have any knowledge on how to sentence people like you he says there are no guidelines for people such as you he says I I'm I'm met my wits in I have no idea you know he says um and he looks over at Craig the youngest of the of the five brothers and he says uh you do realize this is your second time around Mr Daniels he says um so why don't we do this he says so your four brothers first time around 36 months and then they he looks at Craig and he looks at Craig and he goes Mr Daniels he says now remember second time around he says this do 5 years sound like a long time to you and he's asking him and cig goes oh hell yeah man it sounds like a long time to me got five years this is after reading their list of seizures and the list of seizures read like I mean Jesus uh around $15 million in Holdings in the Netherlands and Till's holding company and number of properties around the Caribbean here in the United States they had time shares hotels Motel houses um cars boats buses plane airplanes I mean all kind of [ __ ] They seized another $8 million in cash plus They seized 580,000 of Colombian weed no who's got who's got who's got a half a million plus pounds of weed laying around well we do so this is what they this is what they seized from these guys and these are the sentences that they gave them 36 months and 5 years and what year was this again this was in 1984 1984 they came um they did two operations in or three actually three operations in the'80s they did the first one was in 1983 called operation everglaze over 250 plus federal agents from nine branches of law enforcement across the United States the every end of the spectrum was there man I mean they were everywhere and it wasn't the it didn't result the way they had intended it to because the uh intelligence of the first Generations you I'm considered third generation poth hauler I was the part I was with the kids the second generation is those guys and and their fathers and uncles and older cousins and the generation before them was their like grandpas you know and so on like that because it was generational so um um these guys are you know they're standing there and they're they're getting these sentences and you know Craig gets 5 years after having had all this stuff seized all this money and all this property and all this stuff like this the guidelines only provided for that the judge has no other recourse but to go by what the book told him to do at that time um so skipping forward Here Comes 1984 I mean the first time they came around they could they hardly found anybody because two weeks before that um they knew two weeks before they were coming that that they were coming because their intelligence was such that everybody left town oh they're coming leave town so almost a year to the day here they come again 250 plus almost 300 federal agents from DEA custom Secret Service FBI you name it they were in there and they shut the town down and a little bit of Naples it only took one guy to block off the road into the Everglades because there's only one Road in there and it's it was kind of silly that's how they blocked the road off Jesus this is a this is a major look at this guy with his hat and his shotgun like pot hauling operation and this is their road block what are you going to do with that [Laughter] shotgun cuz there's you think you're going to do with that thing man [ __ ] dude there's only one Road in and one road out I mean how many guys do you need to watch [ __ ] road right and I thought so um plus you guys are getting around on airboats anyways you know so the second time around I mean it was It was kind of comical in in in in most respects because there were more reporters on this 130 acre Island there were more reporters and cops on the island there were people being arrested it's kind of funny they're trying to block a road when you guys get around on boats dude yeah I mean you know and what what's crazy too is you know what we were masters of hide in plain sight you know we'll get into this in a little bit about how it's done the mechanics of it um you know most people it just blows most people's mind and that's when I start getting a yeah right dude you know this kind of [ __ ] but dude you know I'm not sitting here you know you know and and St Martin's press didn't didn't verify you know my story or what it is I'm imparting without some kind of you know sources because the publisher of St Martin's press Susan Robins she asked me she says what about validation you know because all this craziness I'm writing about you know hundreds and hundreds even thousands of tons of pot and I said well validation let me see who would who would you like me to introduce you to the supervisor for Customs uh DEA um FDLE which is Florida law Department of Law Enforcement uh Sheriff's Naples Sheriff's trient task force uh officer uh FBI CIA who do you want to talk to I'll introduce him to you and she said perfect that's all the validation I need write the book right so so everything that you reading here and people have asked me about embellishment when they you know when they when I'm talking about you know unloading a boat with 55 tons on it you know I said well embellishment I said there's no room for embellishment to embellish on what was written would have made it first of all sound so ridiculous that you know it would be comical well that is comical 55 tons that is that is almost so ridiculous it's it's unable this is something that you know I mean is people don't people don't know the story which is why I'm sitting here with you you know and guys like you to to try to get them to understand that you know if you were smoking weed in the' 60s 7s and early ' 80s dude this is how you got it you know there was no growing the [ __ ] like they were growing it all over some guys were experimenting little bits here and there you know with a plant or two and like that but dude if you wanted weed to smoke you literally had to go to another country load a [ __ ] boat full of the [ __ ] and bring it back mhm there's your weed this is how it was done up until the till the early 90s there's a reason for that too what is this is this it Naples man arrested for how much Co how much weed there's I'm not sure who that guy is Captain Tom what's his last name Storer of Collier County yeah this is just that's the sheriff oh it's the sheriff says Daniels oh Daniel scroll up to the top but this is like after 30 years he got caught again or something oh really yeah huh saying something about that yeah see the daners are a prevalent um family in Everglades they were the first people to get busted well they were no actually uh the way the chain of events works is there the original po holler was his name was uh Lauren ttch Brown ttch was his nickname ttch is a legend in the Everglades really yeah he was the guy who blazed the trail for po hauling um out of necessity because these are the days when you United States is expanding their borders with Everglades National Park to try to include our passageways into Everglade City and chakalos Island where we bring our catches you know our or stone crabs and you know grouper and what have you um what they had tried to do at one point was create a law that says that you can you're not allowed to bring your catches through the National Park well how in the hell you going to get to the [ __ ] fish house if you got to go through the National Park to get there right that wasn't going to happen so it was a big deal going on and they tried to shut us down then they start then they go into uh rules and regulations you can only catch so many of a size the if at a time of year at a certain time of year yeah only certain types of Nets are to be used on mullet and pompo and that type of thing you know and they just started crunching down and making life a little bit harder on everybody down there you know but and then and then this PO coland shows up you know and to gets approached and he's you know okay V know so he gets his boat together and his crew he goes to Panama goes around the corner and up the river to the grass up the grass land to find the the red bud that everybody was you know smoking at that time and trial and error I mean it wasn't an easy thing I mean he had his problems but he finally wor wound up working it out so he's bringing these loads from Colombia of South America you know to the guys to the Cubans in Miami and things are getting a bit dicey over there you know and he says look why don't we just bring this [ __ ] over here you know he says look at this 10,000 Islands we live here this is where our kids play you know you get the [ __ ] in there it's ours so why don't we just bring it around there so if you saw the dock on viceland that's exactly how it played out Miami was the focus nothing going on over here every Cocaine Cowboys [ __ ] everything up man I mean everybody wants to be the guy you know and in in particular in those days was a woman by the name of Grisel de Blanco oh yeah she was the Godmother mhm and if anybody knows this story and I pretty much know it intimately you know without the Hollywood [ __ ] that goes into it you know when you see it on television um she and her husband actually got Pablo and his partner um Carlos later brought them out of The Gangs of Med they were selling weed on the streets and in medine showed them how to gather the Coca paste and create the cocaine hydrochloride they were setting him up to use him as a conduit from Columbia to the United States G Zelda had it where she was using models and beautiful women and putting in the bras and this kind of [ __ ] you know that was her first gig she was started out in New York got busted with a kilo disappears two years later she shows back up in Miami under her her real [ __ ] name hello nobody keps nobody picks up on it this is our these are the people protecting us they don't even know that This Woman's back and she's using her real name in Miami she winds up being the murderous torturing brutal son of a [ __ ] that ever loved if you know the story yeah that's why I've seen I've seen Billy Corbin's documentaries Billy Corbin made that yes that's um how Escobar became the murder in infamous son of a [ __ ] that he was he learned it from her cuz that's just how these people were she was the kind the kind of woman where if you got her [ __ ] and you paid her back and she didn't like you she'd kill you mhm if you didn't pay her bag should' kill you if you took her [ __ ] and and whatever you know she'd killed people like she's ordering pizza so that's where the focus began over there on the Cocaine Cowboys and what we were doing on our end of it was taking these idiots money their bar money you know just for instance give me 300 Grand I'll take it to Colombia and I'll buy you 30,000 lbs of Colombian red bud it's 10 bucks a pound you know so by the time I get your [ __ ] back here to the United States it's up where around $500 a pound at that time buying it for 10 in Colombia and selling it in Miami for 500 500 so this is another this is another fallacy that I try to disprove you know um um when people think about violence dude you're in Columbia in South America I work with Nora several times never met him got a handwritten note from the guy one time but never met him just people like this people in Colombia and Jamaica you know like that no I'm not scared what the [ __ ] I'm a kid I grew up in this you know with doing this with these guys um how old are you you I'm 20 first time I ever unloaded a boat full of pot I had just turned 21 and it was 15 Tons and I never did one that small Jesus Christ how long does it take how many guys do you have unloading 15 Tons uh well there's and how long does that take there's three guys on the big boat that go out to meet the mother ship that's us that's the higher this is the hierarchy of how it all works go that goes offshore to unload from the Mother Ship right that who gets paid the most because when you think about it if we're taking 30,000 lb of [ __ ] and putting it on our boat three guys are responsible for the whole load for about five hours to get it into Shore so that's that's big money yeah and while we're doing that we you know there's always safety valves built into the scenario no matter where you are and what you're doing um in this case and I think I gave you this we're using this boat oh yeah the picture of your uh your uh your crabbing boat right that's me on that side that's my buddy Mark he's the first mate on this side yeah here pull that up Austin you have that right you got this boat yeah we got the crab boat that boat has hauled millions of pounds of literally millions of pounds of pot has has been on the deck of that boat not only the deck we're filling it up around the bow we're stacking it up on top here just so the radar turns and then from that level all the way back it's that high this goes down to about 8 in of water line that's how heavy the boat gets and we plug the scuppers in the back so the boat doesn't see so how many pounds can you fit in one fit in that boat at one time we I think we put about 45,000 lbs on there at any one time and this is not um this is not hiding it Blow deck all the subterfuge [ __ ] this shit's I mean if you were to fly over this thing when it's loaded all you'd see was the radar turning and a big ball of pot going through the water and that's what it looks like what happened you can't find the boaton open that only that's the only one that won't open oh [ __ ] that sucks and then uh you know the reason why you see it was our job as the as the guys on the boat to sample the [ __ ] you know so when we get back to the shore we're like yeah take some of this [ __ ] man it's good you know like that and then everybody would have a stash of it right so um it was never a problem load the boat kick kick back Captain's doing his job he's watching the radar you know we got a 50 m radius anything comes within that we keep an eye on it and it looks like that targets coming toward us we get off onto that that's running that's the speed boat that's my Chase boat it's running right next to that load you got a picture of that one up there yeah we have that picture too hopefully he can pull that one up that's me driving the boat and a buddy of mine just out for a cruise this boat driv like a Scarab or something like a a go fast boat Criss craft okay okay um nearly 600 horsepower and it's a deep V offshore I mean go fast 60 M hour before your ass hits those guys are following you they're behind you I've got this boat if if it's not my boat that one right there it's somebody else's boat that we've hired to run alongside of us we' got this giant [ __ ] ball of weed going through the water that's maybe doing four knots right cuz it's I mean it's loaded you're chugging and if if something on the radar looks like it's coming at us you know what the hell you going to do right right well you jump on that son of a [ __ ] and you go you get the [ __ ] out of there you leave the weed let them have it because the guys running the boat don't own it the captains the owners of the vessels will never on them the uh the guys that own the vehicles and the trucks and all that stuff for transportation the owners are never involved there's always somebody else and there's a reason for that as well if somebody were to if we were to jump off and get onto that chase boat and and you know off into the night they're never going to find us we are on the radio the minute we see we're getting boarded to the guy that owns the boat our captain call it in he calls the cops the local sheriff department and says dude I just looked out and noticed that my slip my boat's gone so he reports it's stolen so and the vehicles are the same way if Vehicles get stopped these guys get out and haul ass because we have we're we're um let me back up a minute here so it can all make sense for you we unload the freighter we bring that 30,000 lbs in 20 25 other little smaller boats teac crafts teac crafts or mullet boats at that time a tcraft this is it without its twin 235s okay really wide really shallow bottom right I don't know if you can see with twin 235 Evan rots hanging on the back of it with with vertical and horizontal trim right so as long as that prop will go through the water that boat go through the water M so we're running these we're unloading our big boats onto this 25 of these they're running them through the shallows through the backwaters to the island where we literally taking the furniture out of one of our buddy houses and we start stacking and filling this house full and if there's more to be had then we just move to Tommy's house next door and start filling his house this all takes place between sun down and Sun up by the time the sun comes up the entire load regardless of how big it is is in somebody's house and waiting to be taken to Miami if by chance and this happen the entire load meaning how many how how much 40 tons 40 T how many trips do you have to go back how many times you have to go back and forth the boat Can Only Hold 30,000 lbs well then we take three boats that's [ __ ] nuts man we take three of those big boats like my like my big boat right right we anticipate the size of the load or they tell us what's coming okay you know there 60,000 lb we can't get 60,000 lb on one boat right right so you take one another boat or you take three boats and make the loads a little bit lighter you move a little bit faster it all gets done quicker everybody makes the same amount of money because it just I mean the math tells you how much money there is it's ridiculous so um in this case it's just one boat took the whole load we brought it in they come out like flies on a garbage can these little boats and they take as many trips back and forth to the house till our boat's empty and the house is full close it up and lock it up now if the if the vehicles the Vans the cars the trucks you know whatever it may be that it's transporting the material to Miami some of them get loaded that night while it's coming off the boat and then they drive it into town and park it in the driveway and leave it there you know just park it in the driveway everybody has a 2 meter radio deal we got like 110 of these things cuz to do one of these jobs say even just a 30,000 LB One I never did one that small before ever after that they were always bigger than that M um takes about 50 to 60 people sometimes more to make one job work that's why when the you know the article comes out in Life Magazine we'll get to that and it talks about a town of mostly women and children because the entire population's going to [ __ ] prison you know that's because you can't keep using the same guys night after night after night dude you're going to bust their asses because I stone crab during the day and I'm pulling 350 stone crab traps which will that's that's a job that'll [ __ ] break you oh dude it's a it'll make a man out of you oh yeah cuz these traps are I know a lot of guys live right down the street here stone crab all day every day during stone crab season we had 7,000 traps we we pulled 700 a day I pull 350 the guy on the other side of the boat we have twin pullers back and forth yeah while he's pulling his I'm dropping mine while I'm clearing my trap he's picking one up I empty mine I dropped one in his place we were picking up dropping off picking up dropping off all day long like this and that's bust ass [ __ ] work these things are like anywhere from 50 to 60 lbs a piece these traps are and if they're not catching and the captain says pick them up boys we pick every [ __ ] one of them up and stack them move them somewhere else drop them out just like they do on deadly as catch you've seen this yep and uh the way it's done is not that far much different than the way they do it of course their operation is far worse than what we've got to get go I'm not even going to make that comparison they're [ __ ] out of their mind yeah stone crabs in the Gulf is nowhere near king crabs in Alaska where we can pull 350 a day it may take them a week to pull 3 so it's a whole different game but the way it's done is very similar in the way they have that big round thing spinning put the Rope through it yep it's a and then it goes into a coiler yep now they're they're running you know 8900 ft of rope and that thing spinning is called a shiv and the way it works is it's like two pie pans stuck together like that and you put the rope in between them and it cinches it and it starts to pull it and it'll grab it and and it'll start pulling out rope but halfway through it it's a little thing sticking out down here called a knife the Rope comes around but it's not actually a knife really it's just what it's called it kicks the Rope back out so it doesn't continue to spin and wrap around that big thing that's spinning right falls out on their feet they put it in a coiler our just coil on the on the deck of the boat cuz we're at the most 60 ft you know something like that so in that way it's very similar but dude we're busting our ass all day pulling traps and then we go out and we move you know say um 20 tons 40,000 lbs that's um average about anywhere between 800 900 pieces we're moving mhm we're handling 900 Bales a night sometimes two sometimes three times a night so if you're making that much I you're got to making a ton of money um my first time out see these guys um when I came down to Florida I I I uh I came right down I had a I had a gig in Hollywood I was working with Samy Davis Jr for a few years but that's a whole other deal there we'll talk about that some other time but um I W up coming back and a buddy of mine uh come back back home I grew up in North Carolina my father was 82nd Airborne um uh went to school went through my high school years in Wisconsin of all freaking places freezing my nuts off and um so I I do this gig out in California come back to Wisconsin a buddy of mine uh that was next Liv next door to me calls me up and says dudee I'm moving to floorida tomorrow he says my brother-in-law is running a fish house on chuckus island this little island i' had been to years before for vacation just visiting he says I'm going down to work on a crab bout said want to go and I was a Mach you know I taken back up a machinist job at that time and I didn't even give it a second thought I said [ __ ] yeah man I'm in so just like that I packed all my crap and I was you know I was gone the next day we drove all the way down and got to the end of 29 and the dead end 29 wow dead ends right on chuusy island wow and um that's where I uh that's where I started and uh and how do you get F how did you get first introduced to Holland pot well the thing of it is is you know when you when you just show up like that people L you know it's such a small town that people are sideways glancing you you know yeah who's this guy who this guy you know they're always eyeballing you and that way in that way but um because of the people that we move that I moved down there for um my brother my my friend Mark his sister and brother-in-law ran uh Ernest Hamilton stone crabs on chakalos island so they were part of the family there they everybody knew them so Mark was um his sister was there and I came down with him so everybody knew where we came from so it was cool we weren't cops we weren't infiltrating we weren't you know all that kind of stuff so you know it kind of got around to oh it's all cool Mark gets a job on this crab Bel um and the other guy on the stern with him there's only three guys on the boat the other guy on the stern with him is is from Michigan and uh the captain Billy he's really not digging this guy you know because there's um so they decided I said dude you know I'm I'm helping build a house for for Mark's brother-in-law you know at the time just to kill some time make a little bit of money and he says look we going to get rid of this guy we want a job on the boat I said yeah [ __ ] yeah so they worked this guy to death I mean and you can do that too dude I mean it's bust ass work I mean you can you can you know tear a [ __ ] up real quick don't [ __ ] around man one of the hardest working dudes ever [ __ ] dude I have a my back is shot because of this [ __ ] now but uh he quits and they bring me on well you know they give me a you I I already knew the rundown you know you get up early 3 or so in the morning it takes you two three hours to get to the traps near the lines and the and the traps are set in in in in lines we have buoys that are about the size of little bit smaller than a soccer ball a styrofoam buoy and with a number on it and we have we use what it call we call catch poles we have like a one by one piece of lab that's maybe six feet long we fiberglass uh a shark hook on the end of it and growing the Barb off of it so we can you know grab that line Pull It in whereas The Deadliest Catch guys they throw the grappling hook out there between two bags that are Flo and there's a line between those two bags they catch that line and Pull It in because I mean they got a mamy [ __ ] thlb trap to pull in ours are only 70 so we grab that buo and as fast as I can put it through the block around the shiv that's already turning and the trap's coming up like that so you know we start doing this um by day and um I go out there and you know they explain it all to me so we're headed out that first day and I just happened to wake up the bunks is in the Wheelhouse and I happened to wake up and look I like the sun's up and I'm thinking n we should have been started by now I mean the Sun's Up C I look over and Captain Billy he's got a big grin on his face he's looking over at me and goes you know he says Timmy he says we're not going to go pull traps today he says buddy we're going to go offshore and unload a pot boat from Colombia tonight and I said cool you know there they kind of shangh hied me into it man cuz but you know knowing me you know they knew I'd be cool about it you know so it was kind of a tongue and cheek sort of a thing I said all right cool let's go man so that was at 15 Tons that night so we did that and the very next day we get on the boat we get ready we go you know we're going to go pull traps again and here we go again I wake up no pullings going on he says okay this tonight it's 20 T tonight it's 22 tons I said okay two nights in a row nearly 80,000 lb of you know 80 tons of [ __ ] weed but I got paid rookie pay at that time was only $5,000 per load that per night that was rookie pay but now that Captain understood he's got a crew that's ready to bust ass and willing to work now my pay changes it goes now it goes according to the size of the load we're hauling in so if the load's 50,000 you know or 75,000 I'm getting paid 50 75,000 bucks a night a night and there was there were times when we were working you know two three times in a week a nights a week sometimes four nights a week and we're not the only boat there's other boats out you go to this one you go to this one I mean they were stacked out there like a [ __ ] parking lot man ridiculous uh in one instance we go out to to unload this boat supposed to be 60,000 pounds of [ __ ] on this thing it was a freighter you know it was like 460t Freight or some [ __ ] like that [ __ ] so um there were three boats you know assigned to do the you know offload to meet the Mother Ship so we go offshore we get together and we're diving we're swimming we're [ __ ] off all day long you know having a great old time getting stoned and [ __ ] and and uh at about 4 in the afternoon or something like this um just out of nowhere this little cess and a single engine comes roaring across the over the top of the boat and you can't hear [ __ ] air plane coming when he's down on the water M you don't hear it until it's right on top of you know so Here Comes This Plane and it comes up and it just misses our lowan antenna you that's how close this [ __ ] guy was it turns out to be Daryl he's the guy that's doing the job this is his job oh he's one of the five brothers that we're working us all okay so he's he buzzes us like that he goes up like this and he turns and he comes back and he throws a milk carton out of the [ __ ] plane so we Ease on over there and we [ __ ] you know open it up and there's a note in it and it says one of you guys got to flip a coin I don't give a [ __ ] one of you guys got to go unload this boat over here he another cuz there was [ __ ] being unloaded all over the place what the [ __ ] so um we were going to go with the original load it was so it was up to the other two so they flipped and whatever so it was he goes that boat takes off to go unload that boat we're waiting to unload our 60,000 so the way it works is um The Horizon on the water when you're out there if you're familiar with this at all from Florida Your Horizon is typically 8 miles before you to curve of the earth puts it out of your sight depending on how big the vessel is above the waterline that can stretch to 8 n n and 1 half miles sometimes at the most so you're out of sight you're over the curve of the earth out of sight at eight miles at 8 Miles okay so we sit off the Horizon till you know you know about 8 9:00 somewhere like that about 2 3 hours before Sunset call signs we always new all these boats have different call signs that are given to us prior to just going out on the job so this one's Philippe Philippe Zoro Philippe phpp Zoro he says it twice the captain says it twice then he hears it back Zoro come on so we they know it's us coming so nobody else coming to that boat they're not going to be shocked and surprised so here we go we pull up to this [ __ ] frider in this goddamn thing it's six the the the deck 16 ft at least above my head and you know we pull up there and there's nowhere to tie off so Billy the captain or the two captains have to keep the boats up against the side of the ship because there was probably God I don't know there must have been 80 guys on this boat man and they were going down one hatch single file going down down one hatch coming out another hatch on the other side carrying a bail on their shoulder one right after the other throwing them off the edge down to our boat down below landing on the deck 16 feet Down Bam these [ __ ] are smashing the deck and you know we're trying our damn just to not get hit right moving them out of the way and all of a sudden we [ __ ] you up one of those land on your head we're here oh dude it' kill you I mean this 70 lbs of compressed [ __ ] weed dude and um the deck starts crunching crunch the fiberglass cuz these [ __ ] are hitting like bricks Crunch and we're thinking oh god there goes our deck but um because we couldn't keep up with the 80 whatever guys throwing this [ __ ] they're they're not throwing on us they're throwing it on the other boat too you know they're loading us both at the same time right well the bailes start to stack up and they start hitting one another so that solved the crunching of the deck problem now all we had to do is you know oriz dragging them and putting them anywhere we could put them before you know fill the hole up put the deck Lids on fill the deck you know around the Wheelhouse on the bow on top of the boat wherever we could stick this [ __ ] so we figured you know um Captain Billy he's in the Wheelhouse and he's kind of doing we're all kind of doing a rough count we figured 400 pieces roughly thereabouts would be half the load they would have the other half so we're getting to where we're thinking we got about 400 and I'm looking up in the captain he's leaning against the rail peeling an orange and this all [ __ ] shit's going on right and I look up and I go how many more and he says to me in this half-ass English he goes 50 more I'm like okay so we're counting 50 6 Jesus Christ how many [ __ ] more and he goes 50 more I think that's the only number the guy knew cuz he just know English right he's just yelling 50 more right so they keep throwing these goddamn things so now we're at the point where you know what scuppers are on a boat no what a Scupper um Scupper holes are where you know when you're working you're doing you're bringing water and rain and sit Splash on the deck the water runs out out the back of the boat those are the scuppers well now we're so low to the scuppers are starting to go underwater Oh [ __ ] and that's going to sink the [ __ ] boat because I mean once you get water on the deck it's in the engine hatch it's in the [ __ ] builds it's all over the [ __ ] place so we take a knife and we cut open a couple of uh life vests pull the watering out of them and stuff the scuffers and plug them so the boat won't sink while we're doing this the shit's still coming and Billy says he's yelling I mean we've got this [ __ ] stacked up to we can't we can't even see inside the Wheelhouse hardly because it's you know we just left a little space for the door to open up and Billy says we're getting the buck out of here man he starts the boat up big black smoke you know and [ __ ] bellowing out the back end and we start going these [ __ ] are still throwing Bales off I mean for as far as we could see these guys up into the Horizon and with binoculars there's they're still throwing Bales off are you worried about going you're still8 miles off shore right dude no8 miles is the Horizon right we're probably 30 miles you're 30 miles we're yeah we're out in the are you not you guys not concerned about running out of fuel with that much [ __ ] on the boat no we're all prepared for that you know it's that's why it's that's why the chase boat because when you're coming back loaded like that dude you're not you're going to be four five six hours getting back home oh yeah easy so we always usually used to start a big load like that we'll start loading Before Sunset you know and then once Sunset gets going on now we have all this time to get into Shore and then get it into the house so we know you know the biggest thing is trying to get the mother ship to come as close as we can get them to get to the Shoreline MH you know the closer the better obviously and some of these guys they they they want to stay in international waters they want to stay out in the um there's a dividing line between the shrimpers out here and the stone crabbers shrimpers stay offshore so many so many miles offshore and the and the stone crabbers have so many miles inshore for their traps delay because a shrimp boat will take your whole [ __ ] line man I mean they can screw up a trap line and nothing flat so we had our boundary you know and we respected that so the boats would come into where the shrimp boats are and hide amongst them so they're just a blip on the radar like 70 other shrimp boats out there so we got to run out there to them and unload the [ __ ] you know like that so we're um you know and then we have this long truck back in that's why the chase boat that's why the radar and all this kind of stuff you know so it's um you know it's you know the the way I wrote the story it's a bit jial you know but in reality there's a lot of seriousness to it you know I mean we were kids working for the adults we were the humpers we were the we were the machine we were doing the work and adults are going here go here go there go they're not handling this [ __ ] we are so you bring it in we're met by the little boats little boats take it put it in the houses and like I said what doesn't go to the houses goes to you know park in front of somebody's driveway two meter radios that have five different digits to com to use as a combination virtually unscannable at that time and we have communication is key everybody has to be in communication with everybody else we've got like 100 or 12 of these radios just hanging around so we got one so um the next day when it's time to start sending the [ __ ] to Miami in broad daylight as soon as the sun comes up the next day that's when the [ __ ] goes to Miami and vans and [ __ ] across Alligator Alley cars trucks dump trucks we'd have a guy bring in and dump a load of gravel in somebody's driveway fill it full [ __ ] weed and send it out of town that's 120 m across Florida you know so these um drivers don't own the boat don't own the cars they own the Vans and [ __ ] like that so there are also at that time you know at that stage of the game another safety valve designed into the workings is we have anywhere between six and eight or 10 spotters driving that route back and forth to Miami in staggered form back and forth so all day you all day as long as we're moving this sh to to Miami now what happens is we take it and we take it to a designated spot in somewhere in you know West Miami like Coral Gables or Kendall or some place like that typically a a Plaza in Kendall and then just a little strip mall or some kind like that our guys will drive in park get out go into shop and I have one of our guys with the Cubans on the other end who own the [ __ ] pointing that's our car that's our truck they put a guy in it they go unload it and bring it back this is a dead drop this is um when the uh the uh the term Dead Drop first was coined back in those days so that had an uh the major effect that that had was that the guys that were taking the weed from us in Miami didn't know where the [ __ ] was coming from in Everglades and our guys in Everglades didn't know where the [ __ ] was going in Miami because that guy took in and unloaded it so if either one of them got popped nobody could tell them where the [ __ ] came from right you know plus if a guy's driving say from Everglades to Miami and he gets pulled over we got pickup trucks and cars they all have re hitches trailer hitches some of them have the low slung you know like big tall trucks need the low slung like this well we get those pull them out turn them over so they go oh out and up with a little ball on top of it up here right and if you get stopped pulled over what over like this you first thing you do is get on the radio and say hey I'm I'm busted mhm you wait for whoever stopped you to get between your vehicle and theirs throw your [ __ ] thing in reverse and mash the [ __ ] out of that car you've got a ton of [ __ ] weed or two tons of weed in this van truck or whatever it is and you smash this [ __ ] with that thing that going right through his radiator he ain't going nowhere but you're not going to outrun His Radio you can get in that thing and haul ass and get out of side of him and one of those 10 spotters will pick you up cuz they're already there right you get in the car and go home and and the the the Call's already been made to the guy that owns the vehicle so he's me he's dude I just looked out my driveway my my [ __ ] my car's gone my truck's gone somebody stole my [ __ ] well that immediately relieves him the vehicle the boat whoever relieves them of any responsibility of what that thing has been through because it was stolen from them and they get it back wow what a very thorough operation you guys had man yeah I mean it this is you know this is 30 years of [ __ ] going on here you know these guys had it figured out now going back to the Cocaine Cowboy story it seems like just from the conversations that I've had and throughout history is from by and large most of the PO haulers converted to Coke hollers because there's more money in Coke right and more profit easier to move easier to move bulk wise why why didn't you convert none of us wanted to to have anything to do with that simply because of the first of first of all people involved in it for one thing we just Maniacs you couldn't I mean there's no trust there's no nothing there's no family to it there's nothing you know oriented in that way whatsoever plus the amount of time you get for being caught with cocaine which was significant was it oh yeah it was way more way more significant than than getting caught with a boatload of [ __ ] weed you know plus you know mostly it was the gang the the environment the type of people that you know that were working with that I had an opportunity several times to move Coke it would have been so easy to do but I didn't do it for those two reasons and I did it for a third I didn't for a third reason the most important one in my opinion is now the way this works is if you bring a load of pod in and it gets to Miami you don't get okay here's your money you don't get paid those millions of dollars right away that [ __ ] has to start selling you get paid out of the [ __ ] that's sold out of that load so it Mak maybe a week and a week and a half before I start seeing money so that being said our guarantee for the payment is I take if you if I do this arbitrarily 30,000 pound a ship for you okay MH and you owe me $5 million for having done the job that's what typically it cost to do that okay you paid $300,000 for this load you're making $9,700 th000 profit on something that only took me8 days to get to you so I'll give you all your [ __ ] [ __ ] except for $5 million of it that you owe me that goes to Fort Meyers you lose your [ __ ] in Miami for whatever [ __ ] reason I'm getting paid I'm going to sell that [ __ ] because I got a buyer right now ready to take it my crew didn't risk Our Lives to move this [ __ ] into the country and not get paid so now when it comes to the cocaine dude I'm not keeping $10 million worth of your cocaine and little payment you know [ __ ] that [ __ ] dude just do it all have it all and then risk getting paid or not getting paid so it really it was really wasn't worth it man I mean we were set up and geared up for pot hauling you know because of the simply because in the area in which we lived you know there are there are times when we start to bring a load in and there's too there's unusual traffic on the island and that's when it's immediately determined that okay the load has to wait and we'll put it out in the woods now in the early days the guys would build what they call a million dooll pad they would take the Bales they would find the driest spot out there on one of the islands I mean I'm talking about literally 10,000 Islands you can pick and choose and which we knew really well cuz that's where we [ __ ] around find relatively highest spot on the ground on the island that you can lay down you know a bunch of Bales and then pyramid stack them on top of those if the tide comes up and it happens to ruin the ones that it's sitting on there's a million dollars that's the pad that's the million dooll pad we take all the Bales that are dry leave the [ __ ] in the woods however many bales that took so that's all that's all figured into the gig that's funny so as the kids took over as those guys wound up going through their you know their the process of being arrested and all that kind of crap and [ __ ] that left us kids over we didn't believe in million dooll pads you know that's a lot of that's a lot of cash wasteful it's it's a lot of pot it's wasteful what we wound up doing was a little bit more work but was a little bit more Ingenuity involved in it and we had to do this one night because there was too much traffic on the island we brought um I think it was around 42,000 lb just around just over 20 21 tons I think it was and we had to stack it in the woods so what we did was we found a spot about 3 miles south of Everglades up into up in into the islands and broke down dead trees and dead branches and built pads literally built six different pads to set this stuff on and bucket brigaded them from the boats into the woods and built these pads and put the [ __ ] on to keep it dry and I paid a guy $115,000 to spend the night with it so he had a radi spend the night with it so nobody could show up and come back and you know help themselves to it that's one of the most fascinating things about this whole time this whole like era in history right there's like this 10 15 year period in South Florida whether you're where there's so many opportunities to make so much [ __ ] money whether it be weed or Coke and it's just it's insane the amount of people that I've been able to meet that have made so people that just they were just lucky enough to be born at that time in in that area of the world and they made so much ungodly amount of money and and you're you you're right about you know one thing is that it's it's pretty much being at the right place at the right time it's not something that you can that you just sign up for you drive here and you sign up for it kind of thing you got to kind of be you know grew up with it and that's what that's what happened to me and and on all us kids we all grew up with it dude I you know when I started taking in in upon myself to to do loads on my own when the first and second Generations wound up going to prison um I can tell you that I can I can uh lead up into that story well um it wasn't uh it was then when we started amping up the you know the way it was done up until the second and the third Generations wound up going to prison it was well boats it was you know it was radios it was um you know um mechanics fixing your boats you you know and a lot of visible stuff you know that really didn't need to be that way um but it worked because at that time there weren't people weren't looking for this they were particularly weren't looking for it on the scale in which we were working I mean it was just outrageous I mean it's it's I find it hard to even say sometimes because it sounds so ridiculously stupid I mean I I did a calculation one time uh and he actually did it in my book where our crew worked 28 nights in a row some of the guys would say it was more than that but I left it at 28 nights in a row and this is 20 tons 25 tons 30 tons every single night I mean there was [ __ ] going and coming up cars when every and this is why half the town was involved in it right um so we're just uh you know going crazy you know crazy stupid and then when um the first and second Generations had their go had their run operation everglaze one which was kind of a bit of a failure operation everg 2 almost came a year to the day this time all the grown-ups and the adults and everybody you know that was visible at that time just sat around on the porches at 2 3 in the morning waiting for the show to start cuz you know it was coming there was nothing they were going to do about it so operation Everglades 2 came and it was a bit of a a success I guess you could call it that but what they weren't expecting was the magnitude of at which this was all taking place the she volume of stuff that was being moved they had no idea um so when they took those guys all to prison you know here you know us kids are left we were the infrastructure we the ones doing all the work the adults are pointing doing this go here go there you know you know pick this [ __ ] up move sometimes we'd have to take stuff out of one house move it up the river and stash it to where you can load it out and get it out that night cuz we have full put more in that house you it was just that way right so 28 nights thought it was more than that but I did a rough calculation to the tune of about 1.6 million pounds in 28 nights went through that little bitty 129 acre Island to Miami and during the day because there's only one way in there and one way out you know so when the Everglade Seafood Festival came around every year boy that was that was a winter man cuz I mean there were so many cars and there's 30 now the town goes from 500 people to to 34 40,000 people man this [ __ ] I mean it's time right let's go let's move this [ __ ] there's Vans and truckloads of this [ __ ] going through town W people like this this [ __ ] waving at the cops even you know 99 times out of a hundred we're waving at the cops as we drive right on by them because that's only way to get out of there and I had a funny thing and I'll just jump ahead real quick I have to say this when I was being interviewed by uh two Secret Service agents when I got arrested they you know I said that you know first question out of my mouth to them was do you know the geography of Everglade City uh yeah and I said well how many roads in there and how many roads are out of there there's one yeah there's one and I said well how many direct routes from Everglade City to Miami are there there's one well yeah there's one and I said well how do you think all those millions of [ __ ] pounds got to Miami it didn't go by pelicans and porpuses for Christ's sake it went down that one goddamn road that the only goddamn road that there was and nine times out of 10 we're waving at you as we're going by you know [ __ ] it was just that ludicrous I mean that's hilarious you know this is a t this is a thing that people have a hard time wrapping their mind around yeah you know because I mean I'm skipping around a lot you know but I mean some things just need to be said in order to you know to complete that bit of a story and make it you know somewhat believable right you know um did you ever have the thought of like you know man I should just hedge right now quit quit right quit while I'm ahead I don't want to go to prison I got millions and millions of dollars in these safes man you know how many times I've been asked that question but you know honestly it never occurs never occurred to me to to quit you know because first of all clearly you weren't doing it for the you had enough money to last for the the money after a while was a pain in a dick right I mean I'm just it was it was more about getting away with it you know than it was you know getting paid because Christ there was this period of time when I'm getting paid you know I'm getting bags of money shoved across the kitchen table at me for jobs I don't even remember doing you know this is this job happened like four weeks ago you know well here's another one this one was that one this one was that one then I got like a stack of bags of money that I don't remember doing so what was the motivation then like what was the best part about it thrill just the thrill of it just not getting caught the camaraderie of it you know I mean we're all kids man right and we're running the [ __ ] show yeah you're in your early 20s you're you're not even fully [ __ ] your brain's not fully developed they babies I'm sitting here 63 years old and I'm thinking wow 20 years old and I'm thinking you know when I think about some of the [ __ ] that I did my ass goes you could cut a you could cut a cigar with that [ __ ] man oh it's hilarious but this is just how we grew up this is all we knew as kids we only knew multi- ton [ __ ] loads we you know I dumped more [ __ ] out of my fishing boots than any three guys can smoke probably in their lifetime I mean that's just how stupid it was and I say that because let me give you a little bit of a history here from beginning in the beginning when we first started hauling Bales off of these boats they were just I mean coming apart they weren't even packed they weren't compressed the compressed Bales hadn't come along yet this is in the the late 70s early ' 80s bags I mean dude they were like taking the [ __ ] in in in heavy Mill plastic stuffing it with their foot seemed like and then duct tape that shut stick it in a um burlap bag and then Stitch that shut throw it in a pile they were irregular they were elongated they were small they were big they 30 lb 110 lb one of these [ __ ] things was and was like a big torpedo there was no rhyme nor reason to it it was just pack it and get the [ __ ] out of here thing well when we take this [ __ ] off the mothership you know we're responsible for that [ __ ] load you know that's our that's our deal that's why we get paid the big bucks I've been paid as much as $125,000 a night just to bring a load in and I'm only working seven hours you know but the thing of it is is once that [ __ ] comes ashore and it gets off our boat we've got to clean that [ __ ] boat man and taking hours with knives and screwdrivers and little cracks and [ __ ] because this sit and Colombian weed in those days was seedy mhm I mean there was seats coming pouring out of this [ __ ] and we're unloading boats where we have to sometimes get down inside the boat and help the crew because these Freighters like the hole is way up the [ __ ] up here yeah you got to build a pyramid of Bales to stand on to get the [ __ ] up and it's falling apart and it looks like you know you look like a goddamn uh McDonald's happy meal with your [ __ ] seeds on your face and [ __ ] you know it's just comical so you know this goes on and we finally got to the point where you know we take a roll of visqueen a roll of plastic and some duct tape and on our way out you know we Sun Sun's going down we radio our call sign we're head to the boat put this Vis Queen out and duct tape it all down and make a big bowl out of the back of the boat there you go you know so when they throw this [ __ ] in there you know we get back home can unload the [ __ ] unload the [ __ ] unload the [ __ ] go offshore pull all this plastic into a ball tie a chain and an anchor to it and throw it off the boat so smart man like painters when they put a drop cloth down [ __ ] you know because you know if if anything is become suspicious during the evening and they're out there running around looking at boats and they boarding boats if they find any a seed on your boat you're [ __ ] wow they'll take your boat it's a simple as that so we get together and we thinking okay this is the early 80s when the the Advent of the commercial and the household trash compactors first started coming into on commercials and into into the scene so a couple of the third and uh first and second Generations get this light bulb goes on and they say well why don't we take about a dozen of these [ __ ] things and a few generators down there and show them how to do this you know that's how a bail looks like a bail of pot now really because of our guys went down to Colombia and said we're you know we can't be responsible for your [ __ ] anymore right you either get your [ __ ] it's not their problem it's your problem it's us right cuz it's our asses it's on our boat they're not going to prison for this [ __ ] [ __ ] that's how the Advent of the Square Grouper came about when you look at a bail of pot today it looks that way because our older generation made him look that way that's insane man and uh that's the God's gospel go gospel truth man you can you can hate on me all you want but that's you know I'm not sitting here telling lies because I like to that's just the way it was because we were responsible so having said that now the they're more consistent they're easier to handle they stack better so now what happens the loads get bigger because they're not these God awful [ __ ] pieces of [ __ ] anymore you know so now they're stackable and our boats designed to haul crab traps are perfectly designed to haul Bale aot so they're stacking in there really nice man and now we got some and and we were stacking them in there to a point where sometimes the boat would that's what they look like right there yeah sometimes the boat was you know you're pitching and rolling on the like Legos on yeah they're pitching and rolling on the Seas a little bit and some will fall off and [ __ ] like that hence Square Grouper that's that's how they get the name Square Grouper nobody really knows today who first came up with it but I know it came out of our it came out of Everglade City because I mean we're the [ __ ] else would it come out of right um and I don't uh you know I don't go on telling these stories like we the only ones that ever did it we didn't invent hauling pot we weren't the only ones that ever hauled a bill of pot I never said that and I and I would never take anything away from anybody that had has ever done it because man it takes balls yeah you know go to another country to people you don't know load your boat bring it back you know and get away with it they were poth haulers all over the place what my story is designed to do is to help you understand the history of it all and how a small town in in in Southwest Florida can be the Hub of the marijuana industry throughout North America and nobody know a [ __ ] thing about it yeah a little 500 600 person town is responsible for the bulk of the weed coming into this country country so it's um you know wild and I felt the story needed to be told because I you know what what what prompted me really was I saw um Billy Corbin's um documentary doc Square Grouper yeah and it was uh you know I I I like his style I like the way he does the animations and you know and he's really good at at production when it comes to that sort of thing um but the actual telling of the story in my opinion he missed the the bet the greatest story ever to be told he talked about the uh Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church out of Jamaica who set up a uh an operation in a mansion on Star Island in biscane Bay in Miami right right uh we hauled millions of [ __ ] to that Island for them I mean really yeah and there was another group of guys at that time this guy's he's funny [ __ ] his name was um Robert flator he was um they they called him the black tuna gang because the everybody in the group had a gold pendant made of a tuna had a tuna so if you're part of that click you had a tuna black tuna but whatever um they got into pot hauling when back when uh President Carter was making quasi moves toward legalization and you know bringing that on so they figured they're going to blaze the trail they're going to go to Columbia figure it out they even used a High Times magazine I don't know if you're familiar with high times they used to give you the pop prices in the magazine they were using that to figure out what their prices would be you know so they set up headquarters in the U the fountain blue Hotel downtown Miami in a penthouse suite and their South Beach right South Beach their claim to fame was like a half a million pounds or some [ __ ] like that the the Zions the copics they claimed of Fame was like a million pounds of feed you know weed moved in [ __ ] like this um I Got a Hold U and I first heard George Young's story by him flying Mexican weed into the country and this and that and his association with a guy named Diego in the movie Who in real life was Carlos Slater that was that was who they're portraying right um and another guy who I happened to find a phone number on the internet for just out of the out of the blue his name was Brian OD day and he wrote a book called uh High uh life of an international drug Smuggler he's his claim to fame was about a half a million pounds of Asian weed that he brought into the Gulf of Alaska processed it on a fishing vessel put it in boxes and froze it and brought it to the docks in Washington just like it was a regular catch and he would have a you know a box of actual frozen fish sitting around one of his guys are out then bump one like they just spill across the deck and there be fish everywhere so you know that's fish right it's not weed going into that truck well I taken these guys claim to FES you know the Zions the the tun the gang um George Young and and Brian OD day and I and I put all their [ __ ] in a pile and I said [ __ ] that's not even a Year's work for us man you want to hear a story well back the [ __ ] up here comes a story you know so that's when I started writing this and what I did at that time was I went back to Everglades and you know writing a memoir and writing about the history of you know this genre if you will I needed to make sure that the stuff that I was riding just didn't come from what I thought took place or I knew the guys I this guy did this and I went back and talked to the older Generations I sat down with Craig the youngest brother and I wrote about what he told me you know about you know how things went for them and how they were arrested and how they were you know they were shunned in prison and when they walked through the prison yard they it would open up like this and they would let through because they're Whispering about the Everglades cartel you know which was a [ __ ] joke right but people gave them the ultimate respect because of the just the sheer volume of [ __ ] they managed to move you know and so I wrote you know I wrote their little bit about their story in the book you know and and that little bit about them being sentenced in front of the magistrate these ridiculous sentences you know which brings me back around to the mandatory minimums that you know and they weren't having the dramatic effect that they expect did it to have you know the busting and then all this kind of stuff so they said okay mandatory minimums across the board we're going to take away discretion from the magistrates and the judges across the country we're going to give you a slide rule rather you know if you will here and here and whatever times it dictates that you get that's what you're stuck with there's no more discretion amongst the judges they can't help you you know s hands are tied amount that you're busted with equals a certain amount of years is what that means well what what happens if if you're over 2,000 kilograms than you're majored my indictments were there were four of them mhm they were a mandatory 10 Years to Life on each count they didn't actually catch me with anything these are conspiracy counts right comp conspiracy to possess to import more than 2,000 kilg um conspiracy to sell and some other crap my how did they get your name how did they know who you were um that was interesting because um the the way it works is you know when I was a kid doing this work um along with all the other kids you know we never knew who the boss was we never knew who was paying us and we didn't give a [ __ ] you know who was paying as long as that paper bag got slid across the kitchen table we were all happy man we care so when I started taking you know and doing doing uh jobs on my own which only happened because they everybody went to prison and then two guys that I happened to know in Miami just out of you know serendipitously how it happened was I I drove went a Bago full of that 55 tons of [ __ ] because I didn't have enough drivers I made 75 grand the first night hauling it in Shore and they paid me 35 Grand to drive this [ __ ] winnabago brand knew to Miami that had about 11,000 lb of Bales in it and it couldn't go to the do dead drops Plaza cuz you got within 40t of this [ __ ] thing you could smell it right oh [ __ ] it had to go right to the house okay so what they needed what Daryl needed was somebody he could trust to to do this so he said and I go over there just to see what's going on and I get Shackled into this thing man he said Timmy come here he says and he would like you to drive this to Miami if you wouldn't mind I said well [ __ ] like that he up you know it's it's a $335,000 job you know I said well I just made 75 grand that night I didn't give a [ __ ] about the money right but because of who it was it was asking me I felt obligated yeah okay he's the boss this is okay what the [ __ ] so we put um airbags in the springs of this thing and you inflate the airbags and it lifts this wab bag off the ground so its ass is not sparking the highway when it's going down the road right so I'm driving this Behemoth down [ __ ] 41 all the way to Miami to Chrome Avenue and I hang all right and I go off and I'm driving down back into this orange field and there's this looking Castle it looks like a castle it's just doesn't belong there and I pull up the side door and the guys jump out they start unloading the [ __ ] taking it into the basement and guys were teasing me before I took this ride they were telling me about you know you many people have been murdered in this house man these guys are you know these guys are insane [ __ ] cu doing freaks you know like this and really I just was hearing it you know it didn't occur to me it was that way at all and it wasn't really when I got over there I had to spend the day that they' asked me to spend the day because when when the um loads quit coming for that day I was to drive a car with money in it back home cuz I drove the wi a Bago I needed to get home so right so I don't know how much money was in this [ __ ] car it was jam-packed full and um I was all day you know playing cards and you know goofing off getting to know the guys and [ __ ] like that so fast forward now when everybody gets busted and [ __ ] and they go to prison they go to jail and these guys still got work to do they only knew one face they never saw any of the other crew nobody ever drove to the stash houses they were always dead dropped nobody knew anybody that was the way it was kept you don't know them they don't know us I never saw your face I don't know who the [ __ ] you are or anything like this but me I was chosen to Drive St straight to the [ __ ] house spend the day with these guys so now when everybody gets busted and you know it wasn't two three maybe maybe two three months later I get a knock on my door and open the door and there's this guy Jorge from that [ __ ] house in Miami Timmy it took them three weeks to find me they knew my name was Tim they knew what I looked like but they took him three weeks and they found me and they said Timmy man we got [ __ ] backing up can you do this work and I I just you know without even thinking about it yeah [ __ ] yeah like that you know what did they want you to do haul the pot for them okay the grown-ups weren't there to set the deals and go go buy the [ __ ] and all that they're in prison these Cubans still had work to do they needed us to continue doing the work well the infrastructure was still there like I said earlier the kids that did all the work I mean we were all there you know cuz they got the visible guys at that time the older Generations they had no idea the kids were doing this [ __ ] there were 20y old 19 20y old kids driving boats full of pot through the islands and [ __ ] they never never occurred to them so I went back and got everybody was there the only thing I had to figure out was how much to charge the [ __ ] where to go get the [ __ ] you know and all this kind of stuff which I wound up getting from one of the other Generations you know keyed me in on their connection and how it's done and how they pay and the price I had come up with you know on my own was pretty close to what were charging because by that time I had worked almost every position I was a bail Handler I was loading cars I was under you know unloading freighter I was you know whenever they needed somebody I worked it and I got paid that that pay well the pay skills are different for every job you do the bail handlers get five grand a night the guys that drive the cars will get 30 grand a a trip they pay their drivers out of that you know the guys that have the smaller boats that come out to get the [ __ ] from our boat from the Mother Ship those little boats making it through the islands they're about 35 Grand a piece they pay their guy on board out of that we're on the big boat with the load I make 75 or 100 Grand a night so that's how it all works so I just reverse engineered the math right and came up with a number about how many people we needed for this and and it was fairly close now there's two ways to do it there's pay me $175 a pound I'll go to Columbia Jamaica Central America wherever the [ __ ] you want to get your [ __ ] and put on your doorstep in Miami for $175 a pound or you can pay me $145 a pound you go get the [ __ ] you bring it out here offshore I'll come and unload you and bring it and put it on your doorstep in Miami I'll do it that way but most of the guys opted for me to just do the whole [ __ ] thing because they didn't want to bother with it right and that's how it worked wow man and I you know I just managed figuring that so I went from being this guy that was running offshore unloading boats it's just all of a sudden I'm the guy that's now you're making it all happen yeah so you know yeah so I get the first job in everybody's paid everybody's happy so we do another one another one another one and then um that's when the guy started you know with me about the cocaine you know St load of coke dude that's [ __ ] easy I'm like no for one reason there's you know whole different crowd of people [ __ ] around with that [ __ ] and I you know and then I told them about the whole money kind of thing I didn't want to do that either but little did I know that um the two guys that only two guys from Miami that I mentioned in my book of carito and Leo carito and Leo as it turns out wind up being Two Soldiers of gel de blanos really holy [ __ ] I I didn't know this until I researching my own [ __ ] you know wow so uh and then it finally occurred to me I'm thinking yeah okay what so you know we're counting money you know and um the loads are getting bigger so the cash is getting more um some of the jobs are going for you know 2530 million and I'm taking my cut out of that while they get their cut so I've got to count I'm counting you know at any any time my my crew is you know 10 12 15 20 million for my crew I've got to count it so we had at one point um four money machines that the banks use you know going constantly and we had hundreds in one bedroom 50s in another 20s in another 10 in another and fives in the garage cuz I mean $5 bills were ridiculous dude nobody wanted them because just burn them right just 50 I mean $50,000 in5 bills is big as big as this [ __ ] table you know but the thing of it was was when I got paid or anybody did really you had to take you couldn't just take hundreds I had to take multiples of denominations you know spread it out a little bit like that so um you know why was that well it's because um I mean it's just fair thing to do okay somebody going to wind up with a [ __ ] garage full of fives yeah you know who's going to want that and you know 80% of them $5 bill I got a bundle of them one time $5 bills they shrunk wrap you know in a probably about a 1 by one square like this open it up and they were moldy it was mil duded cuz money Ro money milw yeah and they put these goddamn rubber bands around them and the the bacteria on the rubber bands starts on the money starts to deteriorate in the rubber bands you know how rubber band gets after a while oh yeah it falls apart and [ __ ] like that well that's cuz money's nasty you know and I've gotten paid with $20 bills that were in the mold flying out of them [ __ ] just you know because the money just being handed like this is you ever getting time to spend it at that level right so I get a you know I I do this job we're over there counting money and and uh um I should be in Colombia or I should be helping my crew with another load but I'm stuck counting Goddamn money you know because now our paydays are getting up toward you know 15 20 million takes a while to count that kind of money man people just don't they don't grasp they see these movies you know of a guy you know carrying around a bag that's got a million dollars in and he's running he's slinging that [ __ ] there's no [ __ ] way slinging that bag around how long does it take for one of those money machine or three of those bunny machines to process 10 million bucks days days Days non-stop nonstop because you're not only doing just hundreds you're doing hundreds 20s t f you're doing all these denominations so when the guy the guys go into the the room they shovel in a bunch of money into a [ __ ] laundry basket bring it out to us we're popping rubber bands and stuffing this sing in and we're it's counting and we're ledgering and it's just taking for goddamn ever man so um just out of you know sheer screwing and [ __ ] around in those days with triple beams and the cocaine and that kind of [ __ ] you know guys would you know do a line they throw their [ __ ] bill on the on the scale and just [ __ ] around it weighs a gram weigh it every Bill no matter what D nomination it is weighs a gram that's crazy look it up on the internet dude they'll actually tell you now on the internet how much money weighs so if every Bill no matter what denomination weighs a gram there's 28 of them in an ounce there's 16 of them in a pound dude it's just math from that point on right so now we're taking these baskets setting the basket on the scale we have to count the bundles that we throw in there the first time around at says 20 or 10 we first we're counting to bundles until we got a million dollars worth of say $20 dollar bills in this basket M and it weighs x amount we have to subtract the weight of the rubber bands on the bills so if there's two rubber bands on each bound bound pack of bills that's two grams so we had to count the the bundles so we could subtract the grams for the for the rubber bands and the money comes out exactly on the dollar that's [ __ ] crazy 110 PB in $20 bills weighs is a million dollars 110b in 20s in 20s 2.2 22.2 PBS is a million dollars in 100s I remember reading in uh in the book that Pablo Escobar's brother wrote I think it was called the accountant story something like that I remember he wrote cuz he was the one who was like accounting for every single expense I remember he said that they were spending 10 around 10 grand a month on rubber bands yeah you know it's funny you should bring that up it's reminded me we were taking so much [ __ ] I mean dude you have to read the book saltwater Cowboy rise and fall of a marijuana Empire um you can find it on Amazon just about anywhere um uh we were bringing so much [ __ ] out of South America they were running out of stuff out of bags to put it in first we're getting coffee bags burlap coffee bags cuz coffee is a big product and they got us you know they got burlap bags coffee burlap bags all over the [ __ ] place well we used all of them that we could use now we're getting uh um and it's the first time I had ever seen this I never knew Purina made horse chow and monkey chow and you know Cat Chow for lions and [ __ ] like that for zoos oh wow I didn't know that either so now we're getting bags that are got Purina monkey Chow written on the side of them cuz they're out of burlap bags when we're using every [ __ ] bag in South America Sugar Sugar you know there's uh then they started going to the nylon woven out of the burlap kind of thing and we used every kind of [ __ ] I saw a whole boatload of weed 40 20 tons of [ __ ] boxed in maror containers really that's funny they said regular marble cigarettes on because we were taking so much [ __ ] they were running out of stuff to put it in h what was when was the first time you actually went down to Columbia yourself oh that was in um I think late ' 84 okay somewhere like that and what's what spawned that decision um when uh when um when uh Jorge showed up at my door that day oh really and he knocked on the door and said Timmy we got [ __ ] to do man can you do this and I said yeah so I go back to Everglades and find everybody and say you know going to work we want to do this we want to work and they said okay um what we need you to do is we need you to go get it you go pick it out you weigh it you go get it and you go the first one you bring it you take care of all of it bring it for us so carito and Leo had a jet that their gang used it was a was a corporate lar at that time okay and um he said come on let's you know he says I took my buddy um Franco he was um Spanish dude to translate for me mhm so we hop on this plane it's only like a 5 and 1/ half hour flight you know depending on the wind speed and all that kind of [ __ ] it's only 5 hours to South America right so I uh I agreed I'd go down there i' weigh the I'd find the [ __ ] i' chest it i' try it I'd weigh it make sure they're getting a good product and you know I get it back for him you know send a boat for it and you know like that so hop on the plane me and my buddy and we fly down there and we we land and they pick us up in a [ __ ] Bronco really yeah this thing was badass dude it was it looked like um you remember that um Romancing the Stone you ever see that movie with Michael Douglas I don't think so and he's got this Columbian guy's got his little mule his little mule's a Bronco oh really yeah it was just funny as [ __ ] so that's hilarious we get there and I meet the guy and he was just you know I didn't meet him the first day you know we flew in we went to the house and you could see the house from the plane from the jet before we landed I mean this is huge beautiful home out in the middle of nowhere and the the the landing strip was carved out of the jungle floor it wasn't paved it was just very wellmaintained and when you're flying out there and all you're seeing is a sea of green and then out pops this little strip of white out of nowhere and you were to land a Lear jet where they're Landing this little [ __ ] Jet right on this thing it was designed made perfectly for it wow so we get there and um we he takes us to this apartment at the back of the house and this is you know five times bigger than my house at home you know the apartment so we're hanging out and um um the sounds rather cliche but he had um um um VHS just come out of the betamax which were the great big giant bucket ones and they went on to to the to the VHS and watch Scarface we put Scarface on they held bowls of coke all over the apartment really yeah so we're in there just chilling from the trip you know and I got [ __ ] whacked and know and I can't eatz I'm doing one of these you know um so we walk through the garden we get into this thing we have dinner and [ __ ] you know so we're having this party and there's all these women in the house and there's guys that I met from you know that day we were out weighing the [ __ ] and what what we were doing was weighing is um the Boss shows up that that afternoon he comes in the house and doesn't speak a lick of English and he's got this t-shirt on it with a big smiley face on the front of it says have a nice day like this oh really yeah and he walks past me me and it gets back on the back of it it's the same smiley face with a smoking bullet hole in its head and it says or else on the back of it I thought he's got um um camo type bucking Army fatigues on with a with a gun belt on and a Holst pistol and and combat boots on he's got this goofy [ __ ] smiley face t-shirt what the [ __ ] and it said I I couldn't I get to this picture is in my mind of this smiley face and then he walks past me and it's got a smoking bullet hole in his [ __ ] I'm thinking D this guy's [ __ ] insane so so he says you know he's talking how trip blah blah blah he says you do you want to see your stuff and I said yeah let's go he says and he's first one out the door he grabs a an AR and heads for the truck his uh his two boys grab ARS my guy grabs an AR and I fig oh [ __ ] I've never handled guns in my life man we didn't do guns right you didn't need them didn't need them at that level you know and I'll get to that too um so I [ __ ] grabbed one I go out we get in the Bronco and we drive and we're going through brush and Bush and all kind of [ __ ] and we get to truck stops and as soon as the guy opens the door can smack me in the face with this Colombian weed smell and burlap that smell I'll never I'll remember for the day I die it's just a I wish saidd make a cologne out of it or something you know but um pull these leathery branches and leaves apart and [ __ ] like there's this mountain of [ __ ] dude it looked like an incing [ __ ] ruin he's got these Bales stacked as high as your ceiling here what's that about 8 n ft MH and they're probably 20 ft wide in rows of maybe 40 50t long going off into the jungle like this of Bales wow already packaged already ready to go and he hands me a a bamboo pole about 7 foot long with a piece of pipe on the end of it cut slash like that like a hypodermic mhm and he's sticking the pieces bail like this and he's pulling it out we're using his pipe we're testing it we're you know I'm smoking this [ __ ] I said well how many of them buckers you got up there and his guy's up there he's kicking them off he's kicking off every one of those you got and I got a spray can in my hand and I'm putting my mark on the on the Bales right they're weighing them as I'm going through and picking them and when I picked out you know 20 tons of whatever [ __ ] I need and I got my mark on them and they're all weighed up we go to to the house to have this party so that's when we have the Coke and we go and we get meet the PE meet the people and dinner and after dinner party and all this kind of [ __ ] so there's all these people around the house and I'm sitting in a chair he's sitting in front of me and We're translating back and forth and this guy walks in I hadn't seen this guy before comes up behind the boss this is what I call him I'll never say his real name I always called him a boss in the book and he's like this in his in his ear he's up behind his head like that and he gets this real Ashen look on his face and right away I'm thinking oh what the [ __ ] and he gets sets his drink down he gets up and he's like fast-paced walking out of the room I put my drink down I'm fastpaced following his ass out of the room he goes down the hallway into the kitchen out the door out the kitchen door onto a veranda down these [ __ ] Veranda stairs into the backyard and he's bolts off running and I'm on his ass I mean I'm following this [ __ ] guy what made you want to follow him dude if the guy that's owns the [ __ ] place is running out of the house my ass is going too right so he dives into the bushes all the flood lights are pointing toward the house so we get into the jungle behind the lights and you can't see I ran about 20 feet past that Bucker and like Dove like a sprinter off the starting blocks into the bushes and I laid there and I'm waiting for all hell to break loose man and I'm sitting there sweating and [ __ ] mosquitoes the size of dragon flies and all a sudden I I hear this voice out the back door of the house Spanish like this then I hear this [ __ ] guy laughing and now I'm thinking what in the [ __ ] is going on man I mean just you know I'm drenched with sweat I got [ __ ] all over me and he's yeah I see him now he's in the flood lights he's walking up to the house and he's I'm brushing myself off by the time I get back to my chair he's already in his chair with a drink and he's you know wiping the sweat off his [ __ ] I sit down and he looks over at me and he says says to the guy standing next to him and that guy walks over to me and goes where in the hell did you think you were going to me yeah and that's when I told him what I told you I said you know when the big dog gets up and runs out of the [ __ ] house this is what I told him runs out of the [ __ ] house my ass is going too and they started laughing he's cracking up [ __ ] laughing right turns out he gets this message that his wife's coming up the mountain oh [ __ ] he's got guys all the way up and down he said she left town knowing we were coming she was going to stay with the in-laws while we did business and take the kids and just be out of the way well he's having this [ __ ] party there's [ __ ] everywhere you know and there's all kinds of people in this Mansion right I he he is so he figures if he runs out of there he ain't there he's not responsible for what's going on in the [ __ ] house right right turns out wasn't even his wife oh my God that's what the joke was that was hilarious that was my first trip to Columbia was this [ __ ] guy and he just turned out to be he's an okay guy you know he's just typical Colombian looking hair greased back you know long and and you refer to this guy as the boss in your book The Boss he's the boss is this the same guy you dealt with every time you went to colia every time I went to Columbia yeah did he ever get popped or did he get busted never never he actually you know we of course you know throughout the years we all lost contact one another this [ __ ] went down I didn't want to run into anybody right even some of the guys that where I grew up with we you know kind of well you had to actually because when you're an xcon you can't hang around with xcon you know are you violating some [ __ ] [ __ ] but um um yeah we uh we didn't remain friends but we were we were good friends while that was while that was all going on he actually um if you remember uh of course you know the story below right the movie well there's a scene in the movie where he where George and Diego Carlos Slater take their money to Panama and put it in a Panama Bank MH and he makes a George makes the comment about wow I give you $30 million and you give me this little book back you know and they take off so later on when he wants to get out um um Diego starts working on Norman's K in the Bahamas on that island right that island is actually called Norman's K and it actually does exist okay and it was used exactly for that because Carlos later used it for that who Diego was supposed to be in the movie right so story goes on George decides to get the [ __ ] out of the business and all this kind of [ __ ] and he goes back down to Panama to get his money and the guy says we should have called he said the president of the bank says you probably should have called because um your your money has been appropriated by the the government of Panama two years prior to that three years prior to that or so my guy in Columbia told me when I would I did a job for nor I told you this I I didn't know who it was for the guy wanted 60,000 and I'm like I [ __ ] as long as carita Leo bring me the money I don't meet anybody right I don't need to know anybody but you guys I give you you pay me and it's kind of [ __ ] right exactly so they wanted 60,000 and at that time I could do 60,000 lb but I had to go to the boat twice mhm cuz I couldn't get it all in once I didn't have enough boats to work to go you know at that time to get it all in one shot so I was going to do this very Serendip serendipitously with with the same boat Bo so we get 60 lbs I said give me a you know show me the boat what's it look like give me a schematic let me show you know how you going to load this [ __ ] thing you know cuz if you're going to sit out there all night long you can't just have the [ __ ] laying everywhere you know especially if I approach it and leave it I mean that now now you're wide open mhm so I find I find in the drawings of this this vessel in the front of the vessel is called the folks hole and in front of the folk hole is a is a maintenance Bill maintenance hatch that you get to maintenance Bild just big enough to put 30,000 lb of [ __ ] in you know but there's a maintenance hatch the maintenance closet you go through to get to the hatch to get down to the builds room you know to check whatever needs to be checked and those are all watertight drawers doors because they're going to the bill of the boat right then I said don't press your bails any bigger than you can get through that hatch put 30,000 lbs of it put half of it down there shut that hatch and and if you've ever been aboard a boat a Bessel or any kind of seagoing giant ship where they have watertight doors or where they don't have watertight doors they have a threshold that you have to step over right you step through and into the room the threshold is usually 14 16 Ines tall M well when you close the hatch to the builds down below it only stuck 4 Ines above the the the floor I said put half the load down there shut that hatch and the maintenance hatch wasn't any bigger than you know twice the size of your table here the room itself right I said put 5 Ines of concrete in there on that floor and cover that [ __ ] thing up and they'll never know it's there and put your brooms and your buckets and your [ __ ] and your eggs and throw them all back in there huh so when I come the first night get the first 30,000 lbs in the main is is in the main midship hold I'll get that the first night you put that on Deck I come and get it when I call you the next night you Jackhammer that hole open take that other 30,000 out and get it ready to go and I'll take it then so I get the first 30,000 and we're headed back in we're about 2 hours into our trip and I get a frantic call from the captain of that boat dude he's talking about send your chase boat back he says the a plane looked like the Marine Patrol or what somebody Coast Guard just flew over the boat he said send you send your boat back for us and I said you know what [ __ ] you dude I said how in the hell do we don't know how do we know that they don't know we're out here you know that's my getaway I that's you know I paid for that [ __ ] not you right right you know this is the game we play dude this pretty much what I said to him I said you know hey you know this is the game you play right and whether or not something would happen whether it did or it didn't it's just the way it is right well as it turns out the next day we're unloading they're sending this [ __ ] to Miami getting ready you know keyed up for the next night turns out that they went out and boarded The Vessel he has the for cense to call back to Panama then saying we're being boarded panaman the Panamanian uh registered vessel so they reported hijacked at Sea out of the out of out of Panama okay the um when they boarded The Vessel there was residue from the first 30,000 lbs of [ __ ] that was in there right from in the main shipold right so they confiscate The Vessel they arrest the the crew and the captain and [ __ ] and they tow the vessel into here into the Tampa into Tampa right they held the boat for 4 months for evidence they couldn't keep the vessel because it was a Panamanian registry and it was a stolen it was a hijacked vessel right well because of all the residue and [ __ ] that was in the first hole of the boat they never knew the other 30,000 lbs was still in there under the concrete under the concrete they deported the boat back to to um Panama noraga put another crew on it s no [ __ ] way man that's so crazy oh man it was just like you know and and at that time it didn't seem like anything to me it just seemed like wow what a stroke of luck that was and that's that's when um Jorge George shows back up with this handwritten note from Nora to me in Spanish and all it said was it say I said holy [ __ ] my friend how in the [ __ ] did you do that that's all it said and you know and I wish i' have kept that thing man because this you know be worth a oh my God could you imagine and ironically enough then when I was busted in 87 or 88 88 it was um this was just they were just coming to the end of oper um um what the hell was it it'll um it'll come to me but when they they got Nora they captured Nora and they brought him to the United States they put him in Miami MCC Metropolitan Correctional that's where I was oh really they put him in the same [ __ ] place I was but we never knew one another but they put him in the se you know where you're um segregated segregation and um it's a whole different yard that you can get into and stuff like that but we could see each other through the fences you knew what he looked like forth oh yeah who know what Nora look like man a Pock marked face and [ __ ] just a short [ __ ] guy it's a piece of [ __ ] you know really nobody I ever wanted to deal with but I didn't have to deal with him directly I'll take his Goddamn money for sure for sure yeah but um yeah that was kind of ironic we wind up the same place together at that at that time but he wind up doing he finished his time here in in America about 5 years ago and he was um extradited to France where he'll he'll probably die in prison in France oh he's in prison right now in France oh yeah oh wow yeah but that's my little run in with that wow man [ __ ] crazy crazy [ __ ] how does it make you feel nowadays seeing [ __ ] that's going on especially in like in our country and in Florida with like the where they regulating the pop business and I think there was like some company I just read the other day that some company this happened like like in March or something but a company called true leave bought another company for like $25 billion dollar Harvest a company called Harvest was purchased for $2 billion for Florida dispensaries [ __ ] crazy [ __ ] I'm kind of thinking I should get some [ __ ] credit back or or some [ __ ] you know um but I didn't do too bad you know I mean you read the book the book really really tells you know the the the whole tale from from A to Z and when they changed the federal sentencing guidelines to those absurd mandatory minimums that means that meant none of us were getting out of prison right I mean well you only me what did you what did you actually get charged with you mean TimeWise yeah like initially 160 years mandatory to life 160 oh and $16 million in fines cuz there's a $1 million fine yeah look at that 2.1 billion Blockbuster deal with Arizona his biggest marijuana company oh Jesus Christ yeah they bought I think it was truly yeah Florida so the May so trueu leave the largest marijuana company in Florida bought harvest the largest marijuana company in Arizona for $2.1 billion probably pay it off in the first year you know at the prices that they're selling the [ __ ] for dude I got a medical card but I'll be goddamned if I'm going to go spend you know $60 on [ __ ] Christ it's insane you know it really is insane and it and it and it it's it's worse for the patience you know because I know what it costs to grow this [ __ ] so does anybody else that grows it they know what it costs very little you know upfront cost yeah because you're doing Hydroponics you're doing lighting you're doing all this all this new type [ __ ] you know that's going on it's inexpensive to start up and you very rarely within the first 5 years or so see any r R you know it's just that way but at the prices that they're selling the [ __ ] at man you think it would be I mean it's insane man it is it's just stupid but um well at least they're not putting people in jail though you know at least they're not [ __ ] locking people up for 10 years for selling a dime bag right you know and that's another thing too when I'm when I was speaking about the mandatory minimums when they arrested us in our crew I was I was one of the first 38 to go um I don't know if you have that picture or not of the of that front page but um yeah we have it what um what wound up happening is after that first you know they said it had 150 tons uh over 150 tons um after the first 2 three weeks what they what they realized was that that that almost nearly 400,000 pounds was only about a week's work that's when they knew what kind kind of a can of fish they opened up then when they started affecting these arrests the first 38 went and then and then so on and so on and it happened by way of new asked this earlier by way of a guy that was um part of the crew had been part of the crew for raised and born and raised there right uh was doing some crazy cocaine [ __ ] in Colombia and got himself busted and put in prison well the government US Government found out that he was in prison down there and who he was where he lived and all this kind of crap and he was associated with us they went down there and offered him a deal said look we'll get you out of here if you can do this for us we need you know this is what we need well they got him out and brought him back back put him right back into our our group we never knew he was gone we never knew he was in Colombia never knew he was you know had any problems or anything like that he just all a sudden he was gone now he's there hired him as a Chase booat driver oh no for a job that I put together with 57,000 pounds because I was splitting the load between two places Pine Island and Everglade City and he was the chase booat driver on the Pine Island side of it so they knew about it right from the right from the get-go now what happens is the bust goes down nobody gets caught they get all it was in the paper actually back then they called it the Pine Island dump because there's weed everywhere man um then everybody took off like flies gone you know so um um this guy who they who they caught I'm not going to say any names yeah uh the guy that they caught you know starts telling some of the younger crew you know these guys you do it's over they got you man they got you they know your name they know who you are blah blah blah they've changed everything around now it's a mandatory 40 Years brother you're gone at least 40 years no doubt about it and there's no parole none you do 85% of your time and when you tell a 1920 year-old kid that he's going to tell him his [ __ ] grandma oh yeah you know oh yeah so it started out with just a couple couple of them you know a couple of the younger guys that they knew they they could roll and then then that's when the [ __ ] started happen you know there people started become inv visible because names were being said and began a domino effect but along with that domino effect and this is an interesting part about it now this was given to me information given to me by um uh the supervisor for United States Homeland uh security here in Southwest Florida and the supervisor for United States Customs at the time told me that they understood that you know while they're affecting these arrests that they're only arresting kids all the adults have already been arrested man there's nothing but kids left so giving a mandatory life sentence and all these ridiculous million doll fines to a bunch of kids just didn't really kind of sit good with them didn't sit with them so what they did was by Design rather than by accident they Incorporated Within These plea agreements to the people that they're catching these kids that they're catching say look you tell us everything you know everybody you know everything that you've done we'll give you immunity from prosecution from everything that you've done except for one count we'll hold one count back so we can you know we got to give you something yeah you know and at that point depending on their cooperation how substantial or whatever it may be would determine whether you got going home you getting parole you getting two years getting a year you know what are you going to get you now they can sentence you if you cooperate guidelines State they can now sentence you below the mandatory minimums that's the only way you're dodging a life sentence is if you cooperate so what happened was by the language of that cooperation plea agreement was by giving them immunity Jimmy can tell on you Freddy can tell on you your name's already been spoken you got immunity you can't be hurt they get immunity they get immunity everybody's telling and running saying names but they all have immunity so they can't hurt one another right and it was it was an amazing thing about how they did it was and and it didn't matter that at the time that you know a lot of the guys are saying a lot of the same names all that told the government was they're getting all the right people but putting kids away for life for hauling pot when just the year before their fathers and uncles and grandpas and cousins and [ __ ] are doing 8 10 12 months and getting H and going home and you're going to get a life sentence for it didn't really set easy for them but what it did manage to do was GL the government was able to find its conscience well yeah I mean it was it was unprecedented yeah you know in the fact that you know if it hadn't have been you know us kids you know if it had been a bunch of guys toting guns and shooting that was another thing too none of us carried guns right [ __ ] man we could run around with cut offs and bare feet right you that's our that was the clothing you wore that was the island Garb man you know you worked on the boat you go out crab fishing you got on a pair of a Slickers and a pair of boots right fishing boots and under that you got a pair of cut offs on so what they weren't willing to do at that time when they pronounced these significant sentences or these guidelines was put away kids for the rest of their lives what they did was they offered them this agreement and within the agreement was that Clause was that escape valve which allowed everybody to say look dude they said your name John um dude you're going to prison but if you cooperate with them tell them me tell them my name give him Jimmy's name give him Fred's give him Paul's name tell on them cooperate with them and you can't hurt them they already got immunity right see so it worked out great when it comes to a guy like me [ __ ] they want to know who I'm seeing in Miami all the time who I'm flying where am I flying out of the country to two three times a month and we know we got a pictures of the plane you get on and you get off you know they had everything man and I said well you know what guys I said this is something that you're going to have to figure out on your own I said because if I start that [ __ ] I'm opening up a can of worms that just can't put the lid back on even though throughout all the years that this was done it was you know our fathers and uncles and grandpas and people like that and us kids not a single shot was ever fired not a not a gun was ever seen I never saw a [ __ ] gun that's fun that's crazy man and there's a there's a really very simple reason for that it's because of the sheer volume of money that's being made right and the amount of money being put forth to make that it was very insignificant to make you know but what made the cocaine aspect of it in Miami why was there so Much Death there was like an Untold amount of death in Miami it was very easy to bring into the country because of you know if you bring 10,000 lb of cocaine in the country you can do it relatively easy 10,000 lbs of [ __ ] weed would fill this room right you know that and the fact that there's more money involved in it lot more money because you can take that pure cocaine you can chop it down to make you make one kilo into four M but by the time that kilo gets to the United States it's worth at that time I think kilos were about 30 grand mhm now they're around 65 Grand but you can turn that6 that $30,000 into you know almost a million if you're a dealer you know so that's the reason for the the big deal of the cocaine then the crack came along right you know so now you're making more money off the Cocaine by selling the crack rocks right you know that kind of thing I really don't know how the chemistry works or how the math works on all of that but I just know that you know it's it's a something that we never agreed with really I mean we all had our Share a Coke and we do it you know till we got sick of doing it but wanting to get into doing that no and people asked me well the nature of the drug the nature of the Coca the people that you're selling the cocaine to like like it's that stigma it's that whole crowd it's that people you're selling it to you know at that time it was considered you know the for the rich the wealthy The Fabulous the you know this and that well then then the Miami became a wash in it and now grams are going the when grams were going for 120 bucks now they're going for 50 mhm you know or you get an eight ball for a 100 bucks you or some [ __ ] like that right um now everybody's doing it yeah and everybody's making money and everybody wants to make money so everybody wants to be that Cocaine Cowboy man everybody wants to be the man and you start killing them you're killing your competition that's what started the war in in 1979 or S 1980 somewhere between in there uh Time Magazine wrote an article about about Miami and they called it Paradise Lost I remember that was across the front of the magazine Paradise Lost and that's because Miami was was being run by the cartel literally and they called on the United States government to come down and help because they couldn't handle it right now you got cops running around with 38s and they're being you know shot at with automatic weapons you know AK-47s you know military style Weaponry right um the the first hint of this was the uh um D land Massacre there it is yeah there it is exactly wow man the uh Legendary Times cover Y and what led and what brought that on was that that fight what turned it into a fight with the United States government rather than the state government was that um they called it the uh Dand Massacre these guys um these Cocaine Cowboys Cubans went in there to a um ABC Liquor Store to kill two guys two guys they killed everybody in the store plus they shot anybody that was walking around in the parking lot too and then left that set the pace that that was a whole new ball game now the cops are out gunned you're going to go up against you're going to go up against an AK with a 38 I don't [ __ ] think so so they had to rethink their whole strategy they had to bring United States government in that's when the whole [ __ ] went down so that's when they said look we got this under control now let's see what's going on over here so that's when they started knocking on our door you know although we weren't violent in any stretch of the imagination we weren't violent and there's no way that that crap that was taking place in Miami could have ever found its way to Everglade City and that being taken over because it's a little V fishing Village that's been there since the early 1800s right it's family oriented it's 10,000 Islands you don't know [ __ ] dude unless you're raised there I can lose you in two I can lose you in 30 seconds right and you'll be one Island away from town and not know it and you probably die there you know it's just the way it is so you don't come in and take an area over like that you take advantage and make use of the people in the infrastructure that's already there that's why nobody [ __ ] with us right nobody wanted to because they couldn't we had the vessels we had the know how we had the ability we had the you know the wherewithal so that's how it managed to go for as long as it did it's incredible and how you were so close you were just a hop a skip and a jump away from that Metropolitan hell hole called Miami yeah and you know there was so much going on and was so much killing and so much of that going on that you know it gave law enforcement a bad taste in their mouth regardless of which product you were you were messing with they came in Bri Lade City with shotguns and rifles and you know I mean the guys are you know the captains running around yelling make sure your rifles are loaded make sure your shotguns are gone got plenty of MMO and you like what the [ __ ] yeah are you raiding a village in N or something right oh [ __ ] me man most of the guys that the second time around they're just we're just older guys you know and a lot of them didn't even smoke weed right they just did it cuz were supplementing an income that the government tried to [ __ ] them out of MH so they sat in a front porch smoke cigarettes just wait for the show to start nothing they could do about it oh my incredible man [ __ ] fast yeah so um um there was uh talking about this guy Ron my my buddy um from the CIA he was involved with um we had done a job one day or one night actually um we got pretty ballsy sometimes we brought this boat right into town right into Everglade City loaded with Bales on below deck you can only get so many pound you know it could probably get maybe depending on the size of the boat maybe 15 ,000 lbs of bailes stuff just right under the boat we bring it right into town and park it and go away from it till till dark and then come back well somehow somebody walk past there tourist or somebody is looking at the boats and [ __ ] and they smell the [ __ ] weed and they call the cops and they bust the boat here comes the you know the DEA and you know the sheriff's department everybody in there and my buddy Ron when he's showing me those pictures of my money in the NBA MBI guys like this he's got a picture of himself and and his other buddy Ron in the build of our boat the boat was called um um Risky Business a crab boat and they got pictures of them down below you know amongst the Bales you know you know big deal and they got them lined perfect name for your boat they got them lined up on the dock the Bales are stacking up they got pictures of them like this and that so long story short the boat gets confiscated obviously they tow it out of there well these boats when they're taken you know like this they go up for Government auction anybody can go bid on these boats so what do what do our guys do go to the Government auction and bid on our own boat and buy it back wow they go I [ __ ] you not that boat should be in a museum they put it in check this out though they get to the auction they they don't care what it what the costs you know right outbid everybody on the [ __ ] they got money to spare right so they get the boat they bring it back they re-register it changed the name to still kicking this is like a big [ __ ] you that's awesome you know that's [ __ ] awesome so you ended up doing four years yeah four years total did they get all your cash that picture they they they I me they put it back in the safe you said right yeah no no no that wound up going to the government took all your money well the lawyer took a lot of it yeah um in cash you lawyer the the attorney I hired here in town it was too high-profile of a case for him right so he was kind of freaking out a little bit funny usually attorneys like the the high-profile yeah well this wasn't your typical [ __ ] dime bag salesman going on here you know but um he says my father-in-law is a pretty high priced criminal attorney out of Baltimore he said let me give him a call he cost me 750 Grand o just to start off with you know but he he did wonders he you know he was he was worth every dime I man um what it wound up being was excuse me the um I'm sitting here at my attorney's office and and he's when I sit down he slides what's called Discovery familiar with I'm familiar with it this is all the evidence that the prosecuting attorney has against you they can't hold anything back they have to give you all of it no surprises M and that [ __ ] thing is this deep with paper wow everybody that said my name that that knew me as who I was wow you know because a lot of people don't know I mean there's hundreds of people I mean five Crews there was a Everglade City crew there was a Goodland crew Marco Island crew a Naples crew and a Pine Island crew we're talking anywhere from 70 to 100 guys on each crew there's no way that maybe just a handful of them know who the boss is like I told you earlier nobody gives a [ __ ] right right but it comes to light that yeah you know I'm the guy I'm that's doing this [ __ ] and I'm setting the deals up actually I was set up one day and didn't realize this until after I had gotten busted I was sitting in a in a bar in a club down in Naples owned by um the U the ex- sheriff's son and I was having a conversation with a guy about unloading his Shrimp Boat you know talking money and Deals and win we you know walked away from that and nothing really came of it which usually happens and I get busted that day that day I get busted I get hauled into Fort Meers I'm in the federal building and I'm talking to the guy and this guy looks over at me he goes get big white Fuzzy Beard and he's got B white white hair and he says Hey Timmy remember me I'm looking at him like this he's a little bit older I just do this at him like this and I said oh man you that [ __ ] had a drink with in the bar that day aren't you he said that's me I was setting up and I was set up by that guy who the bar doing a deal for this but they never busted me for that there was nothing you know to come of it but ultimately when they did figure out you know who I was they that's when they wanted to know who's in Miami and who's in South America and all this like this and I said look you just might as well just shoot me shoot you and your whole family shoot everybody I know my family and all this kind of [ __ ] because you know even though there was no violence involved ever in anything that that we did you pop the cork on one of these [ __ ] guys and they're going to do exactly what what they're very good at and that's shutting you the [ __ ] up so I couldn't tell them anything I couldn't tell them anything about that I had take my lumps you know but my Saving Grace came when everybody else was getting this deal I mean we're talking about hundreds of guys I had you know there were kids 19 20 years old bail handling and [ __ ] um my Saving Grace came um after you know like about seven eight months of sitting in Fort Meers County Jail uh two United States Treasury officers came to visit me a man and a woman two identical Brown vested suits and they pulled out their little gold badges slapped them against the window they had me all chained up inside this room with a you know Burger King thing that you're talking to and um um I said you know right right out loud I said you know what I said this this is about cooperation I said you just open that door up and you know send me home or send me back to myself cuz it ain't happening and Susan dtuva who was the United States prosecutor who was Prosecuting me at that time she was in the Next Room she heard me say that she comes running into the room she goes no Timmy she says you know cooperation isn't really what we're looking for because we know that's not possible for you she said but what we would like to know is how you guys were able to do this for nearly a decade and we couldn't catch you and I said well game over I can tell you that I'll tell you how stupid you [ __ ] are right so that's when I started telling them about driving this [ __ ] out of town and waving at you probably half the time we're going out of town and how how do you think we got all that stuff to Miami man it was like going on like this and you had no clue you know and um so I start you know then these investigators from the US attorney's office want to come and talk to me so almost every other day I'm getting Shackled and cuffed and I'm taken outside the jail I'm here downtown Fort Myers and I'm doing the convict Shuffle with all these chains and [ __ ] on into the next building right and I start telling them you know how stupid they are how we do this how we do that you know this no names but you know you figure it out if you can [ __ ] figure it out okay I had uh one of the guys on the crew was a um Everglades National Park Ranger he was one of my best friends he was on my crew he introduced me to a guy in Miami who was a counter surveillance technology expert he worked with the government on their surveillance technology I was getting the same if not better technology that the government was getting I had handheld radar had um at that time they were perfecting Starlight scope night vision from the Vietnam War you know I had three of those really yeah all kind of cool [ __ ] man wow um I had a um a little r RF detector it was about half this size it was about this big size of a deck of cards M little switch on top a little red light and a and an a telescopic antenna that I could unscrew off and put a wire antenna on it I could take that wire put that thing in my pocket run the wire down my pant leg and I'm walking to the club if this thing starts to vibrate somebody's somebody's recording it's picking up or sending a signal somebody's picking up a radio frequency RF it's a radio frequency detector so if I feel this thing vibrating in my pocket I just walk around the club till I find out who's carrying it really yeah and when I get home at night then I unscrew the wire put the telescopic um antenna back on it pull out and sweep my house when I get home that's insane that's coolest [ __ ] man you know and when we this is all part of having ramped up our operation once the grown-ups and us kids took over yeah now we're all using the kind of boat that I showed you the teac craft that was very popular another boat that was very popular shallow drafting boat was made by um couple of Brothers Morgan brothers made boats in Naples oh yeah you know I'm familiar with Morgans I don't know that but I'm I'm fam Mor boats yeah excellent boat um so we changed all over to those you know we got rid of the mullet gifts you know what those are with the little motor in the middle kind of old fashioned kind of [ __ ] but they were great at the time CU that's all there really was and um the uh everybody was really fond at that time of the 235 Evan RS you know because were they're the most dependable and and Powerful engines at that time as far as torque um so um there were so many tea crafts at that time during the late 70s early 80s um and um through the mid 80s there's so many tea crafts around Southwest Florida people had to start hiding them kicking them out of sight because I mean it takes like 25 or 30 of these to to unload us you know a 40 ton job you know to get it into Shore and then everybody takes them home and hides them and [ __ ] like this right we had and I told you about the the logistics of the older generation and the problems they had with their mechanic and keeping boats running and like this well I had one mechanic Sammy one mechanic for all these boats and when you called him if you had a problem with one of your 235s no matter where where you were your everglaze Goodland Marco Naples wherever he doesn't come with a truck and a box of wrenches to wrench on your [ __ ] engine he brings you a new engine cuz it's always been said that if this [ __ ] lefts me sitting it's not going to give I'm not going to give it a chance to let me [ __ ] sit again get it off my [ __ ] boat well people say you know people always ask me about well what about breaking in new engines I mean how can't put a h can't put a brand new engine on there and haul loads like that around well duh of course not we must have known at that time between all of us every Comm every private um Charter captain that there was fishing in those days you know six pack Charter captains we'd give them a 235 Evan rude just give it to them to use and then Sammy would make note and keep track of all the engines he's got into all these people when they run so many hours on them he takes them out swaps them out gives them a new engine takes that engine puts it back in the crate so when we call him he brings us an already broken in 235 hangs it on a boat we're good to go that's how you sharpen up the [ __ ] that's how you shape up an operation man that's incredible not only that this say funny [ __ ] one of the guys on the crew was um was the son of one of the sheriff deputies in Everglade City there's only three I mean there's a Sheriff and two deputies I mean guys like Barney F and you know um so when his dad was on duty you know it was like the back door was open man he usually worked the night shift you know just [ __ ] was coming [ __ ] was coming [ __ ] was coming man there was one night I don't I know if it's him or who it was in the car I'm unloading at the um everglaze National Park Ranger Station it's right there in the middle of town lights on in the parking lot and all kind of [ __ ] like that there this is in early days this way back when and um um I'm eliminating all the other people out of the play I'm eliminating everybody except the mother ship and the and the the two boats that I hired to bring it in the two crab boats I hired to bring it in typically they bring it in and then the little boats grab it take it to the house you know the story BL blah blah like that well I cut everybody out of the picture and brought those two boats right to the docks at the at the everglaze national ranger station and loaded that [ __ ] in two tractor trailer trucks that were sitting there in the parking lot sheriff's car sitting there lights on in the parking lot and the guys in the front seat like this 2 in the morning Sheriff's sleeping trucks getting loaded and you I don't tell that I don't tell that very often often because of you know you can't make this [ __ ] up man no and and there was a I mean it just gets better there was a guy um two Marine Patrol guys in in Marathon and in Marathon they they put up a um a weather type of a weather balloon they call it fat boy and it mounted below it was a was a radar device so they crank this thing out there on a cable I don't know four five 600 feet, feet in the air this was a you know good size looked like a blimp a good de blimp but it was downscaled MH well they could watch through radar this the traffic Lanes coming through the the Yucatan pass we call it the Gap there's the um um the um UK there's the uh western coast of uh Cuba in the eastern coast of the Yucatan and that's where we had to come through to get to Southwest Florida well they had this goddamn raadar up there that's watching and they turn it on every night and they put a VHS tape and have it running and recording so they don't have to monitor it just in case and they they file it away in case anything other comes under sus suspect they can go back and review you know whatever M so being that there's two guys down there in Marathon we always went in when we were when we were um um lobster fishing we'd always stop and and spend the night at a hotel in a really nice resort called the buccaneer so um one of the guys was single the other guy was married had kids and just like that cuz we had guys following him I had a couple of guys that live in Marathon want these guys well the one guy that was single uh really liked having dinner at the buccaneer you know cuz it was a cool place to hang out a bar and a grill and that kind of thing and it was on the water and stuff so um it took one of my dumbass buddies down there I mean this guy was you know had had about as much education is you can get out a number two pencil that's about this big you know so I said look what you need to do is go in there and I had a bag of money I 100 Grand I said go in there sit down next to the guy put the bag down on the floor next to you and have Strike Up conversation and and it's real simple dude he's either going to grab you try to grab you and in that case and you run your [ __ ] ass off grab the bag but run your ass off or he's just going to sit there and listen to you talk so Sammy takes the bag and he goes in the guy sitting at the bar and we can see through the window we're in the car and we're watching in there and he's in there 10 minutes 15 minutes I'm thinking what the [ __ ] is he asking this guy for a date or what and he gets up and he walks out gets in the car and we drive off had he I said had he grab try to grab you you dive in the window and we're down the road we're in that teac craft of ours and we're halfway across Florida Bay before he gets his car started but it turns out he just sat there kept the money what we did was asked him to turn that VCR off don't turn the radar off just turn the VCR off at a certain day at a certain time for so many hours as our boat's coming through the Yucatan cuz when you're coming through the yukatan and you change from one shipping Lane to another there's shipping Lane that goes to Houston New Orleans and Tampa for bigger vessels if anything Strays out of those shipping lanes they become suspect and you know they may get looked at they may not get looked at you know depends so we have him turn it off for so many hours that time so he can get out of the shipping lanes and into the crabbing Lane where all the crabbers are or the uh um shrimp boats are oh God as simple as that but if you think about it you know in those days if you offer a cop or you offer a Marine Patrol or any one of these guys you know park ranger 10 times their annual salary just to go over there for two hours and go to sleep what the [ __ ] do you think they're going to do right they're going to go take a nap for Christ's sake don't give a [ __ ] what you're doing n in those days it was just that easy you that's amazing man that's [ __ ] amazing well dude we just did like two and 1 half hours sweet appr we just got started man I know we got to do a part two of this man yeah when I get my tooth Ved the mangr knocked out the other day Jesus oh where can where can people uh go buy your book um check it out on Amazon they're selling um Amazon saltwater Cowboy rise and fall of a marijuana Empire um I've seen people reselling my book for as much as 150 bucks on Amazon really yeah can you believe that that's wild why I don't know they're a limited Supply well Amazon buys them they and they're gone okay and what's T what I I believe what's happening is they're pushing the I'm also on Kindle in a Nook and I also have an audible version oh good did you read it or you guys want to read it no no no I put my hat in the ring yeah um during uh pre-production uh but it was too late during pre-production because I was having a contract dispute between um not so much a dispute but rather a a change in my contract where St Martin's press who I contracted as my publisher had written Amazon and um audible in or um into their contract so they would have gained any any resulting residual from those and I would have not seen it so I scratched that [ __ ] out of there okay and the minute I did that and turned my contract back in I get a call my agent gets a call from audible saying we'd like to advance you and Royal to you separately so I got a got a deal with audible oh cool and I got a deal for the Nook and the Kindle you know the the the ebook versions of it but those are my most lucrative deals because there's no there's literally no work to be done other than push a button in a download where you got to print a book you got to package it you got to send it off and all this kind of [ __ ] there's a lot of money download much cleaner downloads much cleaner and more profitable because I can make up for every 5,000 units sold of my audible book or my um um Kindle or Nook books uh my percentage of uh profit increases up to I think 42% of the cost of the book oh wow which is I mean that's very lucrative that's amazing but um what's the book called um saltwater Cowboy rise and fall of a marijuana Empire and my picture on the front very cool 80s is looking I got a picture like to see it we have we have it don't we you got you sent it yeah we got it yeah yeah yeah stick put up on there there we go there she is saltwater Cowboy there I am look at you Tim you know and there's a very cool review only two reviews on the back of the book one of them was done by kirkus kirkus is um notorious for bashing uh authors let alone new Authors but they somehow managed to give me a somewhat glowing review on the back of my book which I was pretty impressed with you have an incredible story and the uh the author of the book blow who wrote the guy Bruce Porter who wrote George Young's story actually is a um is a St Martin's press author as well so when he found out about the book he was freaking man and wanted to get an advanced copy of it to read it and he left a he said dude I gotta I got to give this guy a review he said let me offer a review for the back of the book and uh let me if I can find it here real quick oh [ __ ] why don't I just do this is it on the back of the book yeah oh perfect oh yeah the book where am I there she is which one am I you're here hold hold it close to your face so they can see it there you go just like that salt Cowboy R okay now these are my two reviews right here this is kirkus review and this is Bruce Porter's riew talk to the mic so we can hear you this is Bruce Porter's review here and it says a a wild and entertaining True Story by one of the biggest pot haulers in American history speedboat ch chases women Colombian mansions to McBride's tale of excess is a thrill to read go buy that book everybody buy it right now get thrilled I'll link it I'll link it below too link it in the description for everyone to see it yeah you know what I brought something else just real quick I wanted to show you this yeah I have a website too it's www. www. Originals saltwater cowboy.com and there's a media section in there that has a lot of the media that I've done in there and stuff like that but this is the uh Life Magazine I alluded to earlier um when uh operation Everglades 2 came to Everglades in 1984 one of the reporting Crews I said there was so many reporters down there that there were more reporters in cops and there were people being arrested Life Magazine was one of them um they offered up a rather awesome where did it go Center full old picture oh the infamous of the trouble in Everglades and the subtitle says a Southwest Florida Town tired with drug smuggling and most of it 600 residents say so what 18 pages of article they put in this magazine which is was pretty outstanding and pretty unprecedent it it made national news all over the country it was a big deal at that time and I felt it was necessary to write this book and tell the story about how it actually happened without any embellishment without any [ __ ] regardless of whatever the haters want to throw at me that's cool man I've had it all um if you're going to understand uh marijuana particularly in this day and age when it's becoming legalized or quasi legalized through medical use and what have you I think that it's um important that people understand the the true history and judge their their first use of this medication as we call it now cannabis for the first time not by what they see happening and taking place down the Mexican border the D the violence and the Mayhem and the death and the destruction over cannabis and you know all the drugs coming across our border um I don't particularly the Cannabis I don't want people going into their first experience with cannabis with that in their mind what they should be thinking about is how it originally took place with my generation and the generation before us I want you to to go into trying cannabis for the first time thinking about that Ultra Cool rosta Dude standing out in the middle of 200 Acres of Virgin bud just you know enjoying and digging life smoking on a spliff or that little Colombian dude in all his white cotton and his white hat just out there picking and having a good time and just enjoying life like that not no guns no this no that that's the version they should hear the version they should hear that involves no Gunplay no violence whatsoever just family oriented of course breaking the law you know I'm not I'm not advocating you know breaking the law or smuggling in any way shape or form it's just what I grew up into you know it's just my unfortunate or fortunate uh circumstance if you will but people need to understand that it was not violent it was never that violent and the reason being real quickly is because when if I can spend $300,000 and buy $15 million were they [ __ ] who's shooting at me nobody's shooting at me they're giving me more money they can't get go back they can't get me going back there fast enough so that's how it all took place so you can find a lot of that on www. original saltwater cowboy.com you can look at some of my posts that I post on Instagram at original saltwater cowboy and um I gotta follow you that's it that's awesome that's well that a that ain't it you got to have me back and we'll talk another three three hours hell yeah man oh [ __ ] great I want to follow you right now there's this some you know some some very interesting characters that involved in this you know keep in mind that you know we're not we're never violent dude I mean we're kids man and I think that has a lot to do with the reason why the United States government chose to do what they did yeah and you know in retrospect now I'm 63 I look back on some of the craziness I did like I said I could have cut a cigar with my ass all over but um you know knowing that we did it in such a way that I I I'm not ashamed of it you know I broke the law yeah I'm an Outlaw I'm a [ __ ] poth hauler but I never killed anybody you know yeah um not to say that that didn't happen it didn't it went on for sure I mean there were [ __ ] out there that just didn't give a [ __ ] you know I mean Bad Dudes M but I don't want that to to overshadow you know the majority of the [ __ ] that was coming into the country and and the people that were bringing it right families you know so let's leave it at that well thank you so much Tim it's been uh an invigorating two and a half hours you got a ton of stories man like that dude oh it really did it really did I'm super grateful for you coming on and uh thanks for we'll do it again in the future for sure yeah I'm just down the road bro only two hours right yeah well that's somebody doesn't get ascended on the bridge again as long get ascended on the Skyway [ __ ] ascended on the Skyway might as well bring a [ __ ] lunch with you all right goodbye everybody goodbye everybody thanks for [Music] listening
