The Most Successful Cocaine Smuggler In The US - Masterminds - Air America - Rik Luytjes Documentary

he was the greatest smuggler in American history so he is very shrewd he was very smart he was very calculating his customized super plane evaded sophisticated radar and outran government air patrols he's an outstanding pilot and landed tons of drugs in the last place authorities expected compared to anyone else in the drug business he was a genius find out how he did it next on masterminds [Music] [Music] in the early 1980s the Reagan administration declared war on drug smugglers our commitment to this program is unshakable Colombian drug cartels were hiring Americans to fly their narcotics into the u.s. authorities identified Florida as the main point of entry and learned the smugglers fit a consistent profile the individual with the flashy goal in the watches and as I refer to as the Miami Vice type that you know they want to almost advertise that I am a drug smuggler Customs and Drug Enforcement agents targeted these smugglers the government subsequently put more agents down in Florida to combat this a secret network of sophisticated radar was installed throughout Florida and the Gulf Coast the government also put up a bunch of planes that were basically flowing radar systems designed to catch drug smugglers air patrols created a massive dragnet over land and sea all suspicious vessels were tracked and targeted 80% of your risk of being arrested is entering the shoreline in the United States being intercepted by customs are DEA authorities efforts paid off drug rings were busted tons of narcotics were confiscated millions of dollars were recovered and the smugglers themselves all chased out of the sky if you looked around down on Miami and down around the off the Bahamas as long as you're gonna see us crashed airplanes in spite of their success however the DEA realized one smuggler was alluding their security net and landing billions of dollars worth of cocaine they launched a massive manhunt this investigation was considered in number one case in da worldwide but authorities couldn't find it because they were looking in the wrong place this smuggler didn't operate out of Florida and didn't fit the profile he was an upstanding businessman living in small-town Pennsylvania Rick logis was a friend of presidents a world-class aviation expert [Music] and the mastermind who smuggled ten tons of cocaine into the u.s. lining his pockets with millions he brought in more cocaine than any other drug smuggling ring in this country and that's quite an achievement the question is how did he do it [Music] Rick Lycus is America's most successful smuggler flying over twenty billion dollars of cocaine into the u.s. from an early age Lycus is obsessed with flight he just loved to fly he got his pilot's license when he was still in high school he was gifted at flying and the mechanics of the planes after graduating college in the late 70s with a degree in aeronautics light just starts a business in Scranton Pennsylvania called Air America the company specialises in luxury upgrades to small planes if you're flying a plane to Canada it's nice if you don't have to stop to refuel bring your plane to Rick pay him a hundred thousand and he can outfit it the quality of work that came out of her air America was top-notch and was excellent Air America was very well known and had a very good very good reputation in the airline industry it was really good to its workers he paid him a fair wage more than a fair wage they all like Rick donates to local charities befriends the police even flies the state governor around on business he Gracie ated himself with politicians with government officials with leaders of the community air America thrives until recession hits hard in 1980 Rick's corporate clients are replaced by shady characters requesting their planes be outfitted with hidden cargo space one of them insists on paying his bill with a bag containing 3000 Tway loads [Music] desperate for cash Rick tries to sell them well his mechanic Abner don't somebody down in Philly they could probably move these things one of the first sales he made was to an undercover cop Rick is arrested in questions authorities quickly determine he's a financially strapped businessman not a serious dealer but because the DEA suspects his company is being used by drug runners to modify their planes they offer him a deal the DEA recruited him almost immediately offer that quaalude thing in return for dropping the charges lightest agrees to report any suspicious activity at Air America so he was kind of he was kind of other drug Venice whether you liked it or not Rick realizes the DEA is right many of his clients are drug smugglers and they're making millions more than him then in 1981 one of Rick's shady customers offers him a big payday to pilot for a Tampa pot smuggling ring with Air America and now on the brink of bankruptcy Lycus accepts long-range goal he loved not staying at Dennis forever we said that that wasn't his original intent little intent was to make a little money boost his business up so he could turn his back on smuggling but Rick quickly discovers the people he's hired to fly for our amateurs both drug smugglers were people who used the merchandise themselves they weren't the most stable reliable people he commented to his friends about how sloppy they were filled tanks set dangerously exposed in the cabin and the Rudy's forced to fly is crawling with DEA but lightest manages to land the plane and earn his money after flying two more runs he quits the ring but his professionalism brings him to the attention of Jorge or Choa poor hair Joe was one of the main members of the betty-ann cartel which was a group of individuals who control the cocaine coming into United States when you have access to a person like Jorge with Joe WA and you work directly for him transporting his cocaine you can't get any bigger than that Oh Joe dazzles Rick with promises of millions and all the adventure he can handle smuggling the cartels cocaine still in desperate need of money Rick accepts but the Colombian leaves him with a warning if you cheat us we'll kill you rich after that game the problem light just now faces is how to make the six thousand mile round trip from Pennsylvania to Colombia he knows landing to refuel during the voyage risks alerting authorities but the only aircraft that can fly non-stop our large cargo planes those airplanes get on the watch list right off and eventually those airplanes get caught so Rick sets out to turn an innocent looking Cessna 310 designed to fly 900 miles into a long distance super plane [Music] the first step is to increase fuel capacity Rick took a plane that would normally carry 2,000 gallons of fuel and outfit themselves they could carry 6,000 government and law enforcement looking for airplanes that had tanks inside the cabin or suspicious looking plumbing so light just stores extra fuel in rubber bladders hidden in the nose under the cabin floor in the luggage compartments and in hollow spaces in the wings the plane was basically a flying fuel turn to control the flow of fuel from these extra tanks light just builds a centralized distribution system that supplies the engines evenly while maintaining aircraft balance but with added fuel comes out at weight once you add that much fuel you needed to reinforce the wings you need to reinforce the wheel struts you needed to increase the strength of the engines so he would put in engines with much more horsepower anyone looking at it would say there's no way that plane can fly from here to Columbia to avoid suspicion from authorities lightest obtains an FAA certificate declaring all the modifications perfectly legal and law enforcement doesn't have any probable cause to mess with the airplane inside the cockpit Rick installs custom-designed radar to alert him to weather conditions and government air patrols if Rick was a genius it wasn't only equipping the planes it was figuring out a way of evading the radar and drug enforcement system to defeat the DEA security dragnet lightest targets a crooked customs agent who sells him a list of radar locations plus flight paths and schedules of all coastal patrol aircraft he also sets up a radio network spanning two continents and develops a secret communications code to keep in contact with the cartel during flight tony is very shrewd he was very smart he was very calculating it was obviously put a lot of thought in the each step that he did throughout his preparations rick is careful not to arouse the suspicion of his contacts and the DEA the agents got very close to Rick part of it was that he is a charming guy and I think he turned them finally after three months of planning Rick takes off on his maiden voyage and flies a direct route to Colombia 13 hours later he arrives while the Colombians load is playing with coke Rick makes a careful calculation of the plane's new weight and the exact length and state of the runway trouble is the fields that they were taking off from were generally unpaved there were trees at the end after a short rest Rick departs his tiny plane carries 800 pounds of cocaine and is 2,000 pounds heavier than the recommended limit the plane that the struggle to get off the ground and clear those trees and off the coast of Colombia this there are a lot of wrecks of planes that didn't quite make it the engine modifications an upgraded horsepower in Rick's plane get him safely airborne but he doesn't return home by the same route instead he takes a new flight path that authorities had never even considered the 73rd meridian he'd figured out that if he could equip the planes to fly further he would stay out of the pattern of radar detection but five hours into the flight Rick's custom built aircraft detection system alerts him to an AV tracker plane hot on his tail using his weather radar he locates a nearby electrical storm if you're getting painted by radar and we're worried about his being caught and going to jail for the rest of your life you might be willing to go into a storm assuming that the law enforcement pilot is not going to do that to escape Rick flies straight into the heart of the storm Rick was an outstanding pilot she wasn't the best drug-smuggling pilot he was damn close the Navy vessel refuses to follow and loses him on the radar two hours later Rick emerges from the storm and turns sharply inland flying below radar he heads for an abandoned commuter landing strip [Music] he approaches the runway but instead of landing he rises sharply to 1500 feet after flying 3,000 miles from Columbia he appears on radar for the first time we fly very low altitudes to penetrate the radar and pop up so you can look as though he's a normal airplane Rick then radios the Scranton control tower and has them log his flight as a brief commuter Hawk arriving safely home he unloads 800 pounds of cocaine and collects over 1 million dollars his success however will be threatened when his Florida pot smuggling days come back to haunt him [Music] [Music] Rick line cheese has been paid over a million dollars by the Midian cartel for smuggling 800 pounds of cocaine into the u.s. the cartel is so impressed they have Rick make regular runs for them over the next year Rick was in it because it was an adventure and the money allowed him to do the adventurous things that he wanted to do gaining confidence he now expands as operations hiring extra pilots and increasing flights it's like you feeding a mouse to a big Cobra you're gonna be really careful the first couple of times you do it but that Cobra doesn't bite you pretty soon you just casually lifting the lid throwing the mouse in and closing the lid and you do that time and time again light just prides himself on the efficiency of the operation Eve used to joke that he was the Federal Express of the drug business Ricky used to brag that he would be plus or minus three minutes of anytime you told him anywhere in the world the first four trips we did the Colombians were ready for us when we were ready for the fifth trip the Colombians told us we had to wait because we ran him out of product they were giddy with a schedule they never lost a flight never crashed they always delivered on time and the Colombians appreciated that they even gave him a raise meanwhile the DEA not realizing that Rick is a smuggler leaned on him for more information about the drug trade and he did manage to provide a lot of useful information but it was very strategically chosen then in 1984 disaster strikes one day the cobras piss he bites you you see why did that happen that's never happened before the Tampa pot ring that light just flew his first smuggling runs with is busted he is indicted along with 15 others and sent to Florida for trial Rick's defense was yes he flew those runs but he was only doing that in order to gain information about this nasty drug ring for his friends and the government lights even convinces his DEA handlers to testify on his behalf they all either came down or wrote testimonials to his fine in character but Rick's biggest fear is the Colombians to convince them that he's not ratting them out he flies coke runs every weekend during the trial each weekend he come home and dropped his lawyers off hopped in the airplane and went to Colombia brought a load back he'd bring in 200 to 300 kilos of coke dropped them off get a little bit of sleep and fly back into Florida on Sunday to be ready to sit in trial again Monday morning to trial lasted 11 weeks and during that time he made 11 flights smuggling cocaine Rick makes 13 million dollars flying these drug runs and is the only defendant the jury acquits but Rick's enormous smuggling success leaves him with millions of dollars to launder he enlists a corporate Scranton banker Michael Coffey to hide the cash offshore Michael Coffey helped blunder Rick's money by not filling out the proper documentation Michael was ambitious and he made a little extra for providing this service but Rick's suddenly faces a bigger issue Jim Cooper is in police custody he has crashed his plane into the car of a man waiting to offload drugs and killed him everybody says I crashed the airplane on top of this car I say this guy parked his car underneath my airplane he had done cocaine all day long and was blessed out of his head and he and I met in the middle of the runway when Cooper is charged with felony murder his first call is to Rick lysis Rick had the option of throwing a little money my way he could have said look you need to disappear go around the islands and get a tan for about nine months we didn't choose that Jim was facing up to 20 years in jail and instead he worked out a plea deal where he didn't get any jail time and in exchange he provided information about Rick armed with Cooper's confession the DEA makes its move on Air America and Rick liked us and the way we did that was what we referred to as following the paper trail other words going after where he landed an airplane find another was a gas receipt where he purchased a radio equipment find that out there was just seats for that the feds also bring in a money-laundering specialist to examine Rick's bank transactions realizing authorities are closing in Lyceus immediately wires 30 million dollars to the cayman island of st. Eustatius and flees there himself say to Stacia sand a lot of the islands don't have extradition treaties with the United States forensic accountants traces money to the island and the DEA appeals to local authorities myself and another agent provided information showing that Rick was wanted back in the United States they prevailed upon the government there to deport him as an undesirable alien st. Eustatius law enforcement agrees to cooperate in 1986 Rick is arrested by local police taken to the airport and hand it over to the DEA they got him put him on a plane brought him back when they got into US airspace they told him he was under arrest rick is charged with conspiracy to smuggle cocaine to avoid 345 years in jail he cooperates with the investigation and reveals where he has hidden the cash he seized over 21 million dollars in cash and or asset he also gives up his team all of whom end up serving time Rick himself goes to jail for eight and a half years Rick was a combination of Christopher Columbus and Charles Lindbergh Rick wasn't afraid to take a risk he wasn't afraid to learn about something he knew nothing about compared to anyone else in the drug business he was a genius bottom line is he heard a lot of people I mean you bring in nine tons of cocaine you're hurting you're hurting children you're hurting the families you're hurting people since his release Rick lightest has gone straight and started a new life in Florida last thing I heard he was living in a place called Smuggler's Cove very apropos [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: TOP BOX TV

Views: 1,616,664

Rating: 4.771997 out of 5

Keywords: Genius, Criminals, Scams, Documentary, Crime, Thieves, smuggler, cocaine, blow, scranton, rik luytjes air america, rik luytjes, drug running, drug runner, masterminds full episodes, air america, master minds, master minds episodes, masterminds documentary, masterminds tv show, master minds bank robbery, masterminds crime documentaries, masterminds air america, true crime, masterminds tv show full episodes, Rik Luytjes, cocaine smuggling documentary, war on drugs

Id: -DCkuvC28mE

Length: 23min 8sec (1388 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 20 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/bumbleeeeee]

The C.I.A. is the biggest smuggler in my opinion.