Flying Cocaine for Pablo Escobar - Shocking Truth Inside the Cartel - Rodger Reaves

30:57We hopped on the back of that donkey and rode all morning until we came to the house. Pedro knew, and it was a man plowing, and he had a little horse and a cow. And the horse was taller than the cow, and the yoke across their necks was all angled. and he was plowing amongst dunks and a rail fence around his place. And so Pedro talked to him and he took us and put us in the house. They had nothing for our wounds. So they dropped diaper-like material. I had creased across all my head. My kneecap was shot off and my toe was just about gone, a big toe. And that thing was hurting, that toe was hurting.

31:36So I had nothing for it. So they put rags over it and she poured diesel oil over it to keep the flies off. So we sat there all day long, and about dark, oh, mules and horses just came walking fast up into the yard. They sump in the ground, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. They use animals that can travel down there. So a man came in, Dr. Benjamin So-So. He was a Red Cross doctor from somewhere they got him. And there was a slug up in Mockwood. It's still up in the lodge around the ankle bone. and I think he did more damage trying to find it than it did going in. But anyway, he was wonderful. He gave us shots of morphine and kept the shots and took care of us really well.

32:23And he was a skydiver, a world-renowned skydiver, young man. And he said, you have got to get, Pedro got to get the doctor, he'll die. And they got the roadblocks, all blocks going north. They know there's American pilot in there. And they said there was so much blood in that plane until they think you're dead. So he said there's roadblocks. So we got on some horses and rode. I don't know how far we rode. But we came to a road, and there was a big truck, a big Kenweaver, and it was loaded with corn in the ear. And they dug holes in it. I guess there was 10 or 15 Mexicans all on that truck with the big sombreros and serafes.

33:03It was turning kind of cold that night. And they dug holes in that corn and put me down in it and put Pedro on the other side. And we went through three roadblocks. And every time the road was bad, every time that truck would go from one side to the other, the corn would fall in over my face and somebody would break it back off a little bit. And I guess we went an hour or so until we came to a highway. And they sent the town for taxes. And I think they got Pedro out of there right away. They sent it for a tax that it would take me to Guadalajara. I think it's about an eight-hour drive south. So I went into a house, and they got me some clothes.

33:41And I remember the pan must have took 20 times to get the blood and the dirt and the filth off of me. I was so dirty and crushed it up. So a man came with a brand-new taxi, and he was a dwarf. And what a talker. So we headed out, and they put pillows and blankets in there, and I had these great big pain pills and I must have been not feeling no pain at all. And so the little man talked to me all night. I said, do you have a family, señor? Oh, see, I have a beautiful family. I have a lovely wife, Dora. Let me tell you how I got my wife, Dora. You see, I'm ugly. No girl would talk to me in the village.

34:27But I had my own Dora. She lived across the way. and one day she's playing the flute in the back of her band and I open the gate and I pull her in the yard and my mother helps me pull her in the house. And she sits in a straight chair, straight up, and I tell her that I love her and would like to marry her. She won't even look at us, me senor. What can we do if the next morning is getting daylight? You've got to do something with this girl. I don't know what to do. I'm really nervous. So we let her go home and I follow her. And she goes and she knocks on her door and her hard-hearted father screams at her, Get away from here, you prophet, you.

35:06You spent the night with some man, you're no daughter of mine. Get away. And Dora walked away with her head down. And Senor, I went up and said, Dora, let's go talk to the padre. And Senor, that's how I got my beautiful wife, Dora. And one year later, we had a beautiful baby boy. And I had a new Ford. I had money, senor. I had a Ford. And we named that boy Ford. And you won't believe it, but one year later, we had another boy. And I had a new Dodge, so we named him Dodge. and senor I know you won't believe it one year later we had another boy and I had a new Chevrolet and the priest he would not name him Chevrolet and I had to teach that son of a bitch to drive to get him to name him Chevrolet senor that's how I got my three boys Ford Dodge and Chevrolet is that a true story true story perfectly true see when your plane see when your plane is getting shot down Roger you're nearly dead your foot's blown off do you think that was your sign to then call it quits did you ever think of not doing it again or was it just straight back to business once you were fit and healthy it was back to business I didn't know much to know I wasn't going back to that place anymore I knew that I didn't have enough of that but two guys had been watching me land and they were packing campers in the jungle down there and I had met them and you imagine one of them came to see me and said my boss wants to meet you so I went and met my friend Gerald Will he's the only fellow still alive out of all that he lives down in Palos Verdes he's a wonderful person and I see him every once in a while now and he said Roger I'd like to buy a big twin engine plane and if you'll fly it we'll go on apps so I said where so we went to Wisconsin and bought the plane the twin that had belonged to the Beach Boys I said, what a palatial plane.

37:13That thing was wonderful. So I flew that plane on and on. I must have did 30 trips with that. That was one lucky plane. I had many stories to tell about that. How much marijuana would you take on each trip in the plane, Roger? I usually put about a ton, a little bit over, 2 ,200, 2 ,500 pounds. About 1 ,000 kilos? Yeah, 1 ,000, 1 ,200 kilos, something like that. And how much would you... At that time, we were selling it for$60 a pound. So$60 ,000. I don't know. I'd make it$50 ,000,$55 ,000 a trip after my expenses. But it was just so simple. It would sell overnight. How much were they paying a kilo in Mexico?

38:03About$10,$10, I think. Yeah. I think$15 a pound Yeah How much was it going for in America? $120,$130 a kilo Yeah, so major profit I might have been I think I'm a little bit wrong I believe to O 'Geehan I was paying$17 a kilo That's what it was Because I'd pay for a thousand kilos And he owed me$17 ,000 That's what it was What was the story when your plane caught fire with a thousand kilos in it? Yes, I was, I loaded up way down in Mexico and I was, I had a split place over in Baja. That's the peninsula there south of San Diego that goes down a thousand miles. And at that time, there was not much roads and I found a beautiful runway right in the middle of it.

38:56It was more than 20 miles to the nearest road and oh, it had muskets and trees all over it. They used to haul meat out of there a long time ago And the guy named Juan had a goat ranch. So I would land there. I didn't care where I come from, Guatemala or Oaxaca, wherever I came from, I would come north. And I would go across the Sea of Cortez and land on that runway. And there wasn't a runway, just a strip. But it was nice and long. And the owner, Juan, would come up and we'd unload the airplane, put the stuff on the bales under the trees. and I'd fly into the town of Moolahe, and I'd take a shower and get a room and have lunch.

39:37Then late in the afternoon, I'd fly back out there and load up and go from there northwest out over the Pacific and go way around San Diego, at least 300 miles off, so that they didn't see me. Well, on this one morning, I'm coming up, and I'm over Los Motos at two miles high. I'm 11 ,000 feet, and I felt a little bump in my feet, and I looked around, and I saw oil coming out of the cowling of the left engine. And, uh, oh, what in the world? Then all of a sudden that oil caught fire. And, uh, well, it was a cylinder. It looked like motorcycle cylinders. It split wide open. And now the fuel was coming out of that and caught, catch the oil of the engine on fire.

40:21And it just burnt that wing. I mean, it was blazing. That thing was hot and it was on fire. well I thought I was going to die I really did so I opened the cowl flaps which lets a lot of air through to the engine and I put that baby in the dive and I went almost straight down I know the wings have come off and the uh the tails those split tails on that they have been known to come off and so I went on I think we had 400 miles an hour never at speed he just pegged that and I just went right on through it and I did blow the fire out so uh the fire went out but then I was going too fast to even the controls to have any effect.

41:04They were just like frozen at that speed so fast. So anyhow, I knew if I pulled that hard, the wings would come off at that speed. So I gradually, gradually, gradually got it out of the dive. And I was about 1 ,500 feet on one engine. And then I went on above Guaymas. And I thought I would, I have a float plane rating. I used to fly a float plane, so I was ready to put it on the water. And right when it went to touch down, the cushion of air called ground effect, and that thing started flying. And one wingtip would just skim in the water. And I'm holding it up like that, and it's shaking like it got palsy.

41:45It's just the hilt shaking because it's in a stalled position. And the horn's blowing. Well, I rode that thing all the way to the United States. I see a Cortez probably about another 4 ,500 miles And by that time it's burned off enough fuel It will pile a little bit But not nothing, I'm keeping it right down on And I follow the Colorado River all the way back Into the United States Up to Batonuma And come on in So in the 70s as well Roger Did you go to Pakistan And ship 3 ,500 tonnes of hash? Or no 3 ,500 kilos of hash How did you end up involved with People in Pakistan? Oh, the guy that I told you about bought that airplane for me, they love Pashish.

42:31So there was one fellow that had a connection. Boy, he had a big connection. I went over there, and the big connection was a taxi driver named Diesel, aptly named. Anyway, he got us a load. I didn't care for Pakistan. I got out of there, and I came back to, was going to bring it back to British Columbia, go all the way around the world. So I bought an 85-foot shrimper that was almost brand new. The guy took it out and got financial trouble in the back of a mobile. I paid the back debts and got it free. And, man, I took a course in celestial navigation. Those little eight tracks, you put them in and you learn how to navigate with a six.

43:15block. Anyhow, we went to Pakistan and got the hashish and boating it twice that much, but the loaders didn't pay their share. They shot machine gun bullets over the boats getting loaded and scared us away. And it was just them. They didn't pay their share. So the police came back to the first load. So anyway, came back through the, by Singapore, right on up around under Japan and came across the Pacific and unloaded there on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada. And then I bought a float plane. I'd already bought it. And I assessed a 206 on floats. And I flew it down one load at a time, about 600 pounds, into Lake Oseti in right northwest Washington.

44:01Oh, that was some snotty-nosed flying. It was always just right down on it. and I'd come over the radio station and just pull the power and I'd land on that lake. I couldn't even find the boat that was waiting on me and they couldn't find me. And that fog and stuff, we had to talk on the radio and I had to keep my legs on. See, when you're doing that, Roger, obviously the money is the main objective, but was it a buzz for you being involved in gunfights and planes going on fire? You seem to be a thrill-seeker as well. was it a buzz doing what you were doing you know I didn't even think of it once it was over and the fire was out you just like whoo got away with that one you know you seem to get away with so much I did

44:56when I got shot up on that sand strip that bothered me I didn't realize how much it bothered me but even a year or two later I'd run over a rock in the road and it hit Real loud under My hair would kind of Stand up on the back Of my head I don't know You've got something In there that's remembered Did you start growing Your own crops as well Roger Because did you not get Did you not get busted With your own crops Of marijuana 245 kilos I think Or 245 tons 245 tons Is what they estimated I'll call that My pot plantation Did you start growing Your own stuff Yes I I hauled a load out of a hawker, a DC-3, and it was full of seeds.

45:38We shook 700 pounds, 200 pounds of seed out of great big black marijuana seeds. And I thought, now those things are just too, we shouldn't just throw those away. So I gave them to my friend in Georgia, and there's old moonshiners that I knew and had worked with. And they had a 245-acre field way back in the woods. And it was round, just like the circular for the irrigation. and they planted the corn and then on every other row we we went with us and planted those seeds i best every one of those seeds come up i don't i don't believe one of them missed it every three feet there was a there was a marijuana plant well we knew we couldn't get labor so i went to mexico and i got seven indian people i mean native with the long black hair and they were from way down in la japa and they came and and i put them out on that farm there's no house there and they stayed and work really, really wonderful.

46:35They never left. And they hold out the mails. They put, anyhow, they looked accurate. Well, we started harvesting. We had a billion-dollar crop.

46:49And they was harvested. We put some of it in the road and on cotton sheets and stuff to dry. There's no way in the world do we have enough shelter to dry that stuff? They had to put it in the sun, which was not the best way. But anyway, my sister had married a guy named Pete. And he went around the chain and ran around the fence. And him and his ex-wife found a bale of that marijuana. And they put it on their motorcycle and was gone. Well, the owner of the land saw in the little mud, He took pictures of it. He saw the motorcycle tracks. He saw the woman's long barefoot. By dark, I knew who had stolen the marijuana.

47:38Anyway, he went ballistic. He wanted me to pay him out. And I said, no, I'll send those people to Mexico. So they can't talk. No, no, no. Get it out of here. Get it out of here. So we had two hay balers, baling hay. And we had it stored up at my farm right next to Jimmy Carter's and some of it. Some of it in different counties. We had that stuff tore it all over. Well, anyway, I took my Indians and I left. I said, I don't have nothing to do with it. Y 'all going to get caught. Somebody's going to get killed. You're walking around with a gun in your hand. I just like, you got a billion dollar crop, but you can't handle it.

48:15You can't handle it. I'm like, nothing I can do. That's not my land. So anyway, I left. And they went to town and they got about a dozen, you know, fellas from the poor section of town in Albany, Georgia. And, of course, it lasted three days. And they got busted. They got five years apiece. And my buddy that I give a step to, he got seven years. But I didn't. They kept on. They have a big radio show across the nation. And it was Paul Harvey. Paul Harvey in the news. Paul Harvey and the rest of the story you know we'll tell you the two tomorrow he had that thing on that thing on for a year or two and he said they're looking for the big rooster in California but none of them had ever seen me all that help I left before that so I squeaked away from that I got on a sailboat yeah you got on a sailboat you'd disappear and we went to Mexico my wife we just lived out there for a couple of years we had a group that was Mexico the first time you went to prison Roger No, that was all before.

49:21Yeah. So, when was the first time you went to prison for drugs? Yeah, they charged me with what they call a continuing criminal enterprise. I was number 41 in the United States. It's called an 848. Title 21, 848, continuing criminal enterprise. It can carry you up to life without parole. And John Gotti, I was number 41 in the United States to be charged with it. And John Gotti was number 42. I paid millions and gave up my property and made a deal, and I got 35 years for the marijuana, 30 years for the marijuana, and five years for the income tax evasion running consecutive. So I'll tell you about that title, that 848.

50:02They don't already ever use it. They couldn't catch me. I thought they had to catch, but they don't. If all your friends tell on you, it's just like nobody sees you kill somebody, but three people said that was him. You're finished. So I had 11 friends tell me. They didn't call me just, well, Roger told me five years ago or seven years ago. And he goes on. And I said, so you have to run three different organizations with five people in each organization to be charged with a continuing criminal enterprise. I said, I've never done that. And they said, well, who worked on the airplane? Who was a mechanic?

50:40Who fueled it up? Who loaded it up? Who unloaded it? Who sold it? Who bought it? You cut 10 people before you know it that you might not even meet. So that's how they convicted me, and I pled guilty. When was it? You got prison in Mexico, but they tortured you. Roger, what year was that? Yeah, I got tortured real bad in Mexico. I guess it was about 1974. That was after I got shot down on the end of that runway. I went back down there to get it. I sent another plane down with an old man in it, and he made a mistake, landed at the wrong place. He had my pony name in his pocket. Well, they arrested me, and they'd been after me.

51:25And so, yeah, they did a number on me. In fact, I almost died from it. First of all, they just put me in a cell, I believe, I don't know, 12 by 15 feet long. And before the night was over, there was 18 people standing in the room. It's filthy. The next day they come and they had a bucket there for your PC. That thing was running over on the oar. And then we came out and they just swabbed it out with the same thing you do with a home.

52:06That's disinfected. Oh, then they took me in the back. They took me a little cell. I think it was about five foot square, real high. And it was hot. I mean hot. And I didn't have any clothes. He took my clothes completely away. And once in a while, he'd open the door and give me a little food and some warm water. And, of course, you didn't know day or night how long you'd been in there. And you could hear the sounds of the other ones being tortured. They'd beat on them and slap them, and you'd hear them crying and begging. So they took me out and wanted me to sign some papers. So I went to sign them, and they had a tub of water that it looked like.

52:40And they took me by my hair, and three of them helped me down. and I took a whip of that. It had some kind of gas in that water and it like tore my head on it. I mean, I tore loose. So I found out that you just, you act like that right before you have to breathe. Otherwise you couldn't, you couldn't put up with it. And then they beat me from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. I was black and blue and yellow and busted lips and nose. And they want me to sign a confession. If you sign a confession, it's over. You go straight to the prison and you'll be in there for about six years. You don't sign a confession.

53:12You've got time to make all kinds of bribes if things happen. So I knew I wasn't going to sign that confession. And then they, let's see, what did they do? Then they took me and they had little chains on your handcuffs and they pull you apart like this. And on your feet. And they spread me over a barrel and buttered my backside up. And I thought, oh, oh. And they came with hot chili pepper and poked my whole colon full of hot chili pepper. And it burnt the lining off of my intestines. It was terrible. I mean, just terrible. That's the worst you could do. So after that, I don't know how long it was, a few days later, I was laying on the floor naked, and they brought a dead man in.

53:55He was frozen. It was a skinny black man, and he was wrapped and looked like a mummy with newspaper all around him from head to toe. And they took him in and put him on a meat hook and hooked him onto a bolt on the side of the wall, and he just hung there. and it wasn't long before in that heat, I guess it was 50 degrees in that, his eyes started thawing out and it looked like he was crying down that run. And then his private parts started coming loose. It looked like he was peeing on the floor. And that formaldehyde puddled up on the floor under him. And what an awful smell of it coming out of his intestines and all of him.

54:33And I put my head under the door and breathed. and when I'd wake up, I would remember it was like I'd see pink flying pigs, animals all color. I'd say, I know where Walt Disney got his ideas for movies. Anyway, I went to sleep and then I woke up in the infirmary in the hospital and a doctor was very concerned about me. He said that formaldehyde breathing, that strong could kill you. So they took me back, put me in general population. My wife came down and paid a bribe and I got out. How much was a bribe? $17 ,000. The same amount. She got the guy that owed me the money for the load. And he come and paid somebody.

55:15Plains of Oz managed it. So he gave him the money. And early in the morning, a guard come. And like, I escaped. He took me down the little aisle real close, almost bent over. And I went out the back door of the prison into a truck and whipped me away to the airport. What are you thinking then, Roger? You're not thinking that a near-death experience like that. You've had many, but being tortured and having stuff stuck in your ass and dead bodies in your cell, was that not another chance for you to say, right, enough is enough? Or again, was it just straight back to business? No, I think that I did quit for a while.

55:52I went to New Orleans and I started a hydro glass ship. And I cleaned the Russian grain ship. I had a contract with the Russians with a Greek shipping magnet to clean the Russian grain ships that come in. And I did that for a year. And that's when I took the boat and went around the trip around the world to Pakistan. So I had a break in there from the farm. In 1980 as well, Roger, was your marijuana shipment not brought down by the Colombian Air Force? Yeah, it was 1980 during the World Series baseball game. I went down and I was on a runway. I went in first to see the Farps way down, and the guy lied to me about how far it was.

56:37It was 400 miles further in, so the guy named Dan, what a liar. He had told me where it was I never would have went. So I went in the Farps Barilla's run and said, come back in the morning. So we went back to the staging place 400 miles north, and the man was nervous. and I was laying in a hammock after some some woman's moral duty but not enough that thing was stringy anyhow I was about to sleep and then I just looked up a terrible roar and two fighter jets were going straight up with after blows ago I rode out of that hammock and then they came back and they just come around one of them just tore up the runway with uh those 50 caliber machine guns I mean he just tore it up front the airplane.

57:19I just jumped in it and took off. I didn't even warm it up. Well, they were both on both sides and they got under me and they shoot that 20 millimeter cannon and they were trying to get me to go to Bia Vincencia, the military base. I just yelled up the old, get your sign, no thank you. I said, close, just like me and you in their jets on each side. Their wing was over mine.

57:46So I saw a big pasture. I had these pins that go in the struts of a DC tree. Keeping it up, keeps it from falling on the ground. And those metal pins are stuck through the strut. Well, and they got a big red flag on them, plastic. Well, those things are blowing in the breeze. So I landed on a pasture. It looked kind of smooth, but that thing was rough. and I bounced and knocked some of the fuel caps off. That thing looked like it was just, the wings just popping like that. I jumped out and took the tens out of the struts and I took off again. During that time is when the World Series baseball said that American DC-3, believed to be on a drug smuggling run, had just been shot down by the Colombian Air Force.

58:32But he's up, he's up and away, ladies and gentlemen. I wasn't shot down at all, but that was a recording. down in the world series so i i took off and then one jet left and went to town and one stayed with me and uh i uh i kept going and i got into uh by the mountains there was a thunderstorm and oh he would just bang bang bang and boom boom boom and he didn't didn't shoot me to start with and uh so But then I went in that thunderstorm and then I came out. Then he did some damage to me. And so I went back into that thunderstorm and put that plane up on each side and just spiraled right down until I came out the bottom of it.

59:19And then I went, I wanted to go back and get the load. By that time, my adrenaline's up. I felt bulletproof. I was going to go back to the, what do you call those people, the gorillas, and get my, I'll pick up three tons. It looked like some good stuff, too. So I put it down and looked on a flat place above the real Guayviary. And I kept going round and round, and the propellers would cut the weeds. They would waste the iron core. And after a full five times, it looked like we were running. And it looked so smooth and far along. And I said, all right, to my co-pilot owl, I said, we're going to stop this time.

59:56So just before it stopped, the thing weighs 30 tons. And it was on two wheels, and they broke through the crust. and it was in the suit below and I gave it full power but it wasn't enough and it just came and stood right up on it and said stop with the two engines holding it up and the tail straight in there and you couldn't have made a plumb on it and got it straighter, stuck it down. The hatch for DC-3 is right over the top so I just stepped out with my half hatchel and the co-pilot got out then there was a couple of guys and they got out and they had to put hoses together and shimmy down. That thing's high up there.

1:00:38Anyway, that great big fella that got me there, he just went to cry and he took his own suitcase. So he's a village about 20 miles away and we saw a boy and a girl on a couple of locks and we asked them to carry our suitcases because they were pretty heavy. And we got to that village and we asked them, is there any police there? No, señor, no police. So anyway, when we got near the village, I had them off and taught them to go back. I didn't want to tell them whoever was in that village about that plane digging up in the jungle. And there was cloud cover all over, so the jets couldn't see where we were.

1:01:15So we got to the village and was getting a Coca-Cola and a little hut with an axe roof. Man, we were surrounded by soldiers. I don't know what we were doing there, but they had guns. There wasn't no police there. This was a military base. So we broke into a military base. So anyhow, we got supper. I noticed that there was one big dugout canoe. I guess it was 40 feet long and 10 feet wide. I mean, it was huge. That's the biggest log I'd ever seen. And it had a long motor hook to it, a Yamaha. And we found out where the man lived. Anyway, they put us in a house and we slept on the floor. They put a guard at the door.

1:01:59but that big big guy dan that had uh hooked me up with a load i got on his shoulders and removed the tiles one at the time very silently and before daylight we crawled out and got on the ground and i went to the man's house that had the had the boat and we told him that we were botanist that was broke down down the river so i got that man and he started down the river after a while he pulled up on the sandbar and said i can't go any further i'm the mailman for this village i I walked up. We said, you have to, mister. I mean, we can't go back now. So I guess without gun or anything, I gave it my number$1 ,000.

1:02:38And he was pretty happy with it, but he didn't want to go in. We had to run the rapids. Anyhow, we got away and come to a village, a terrible poor. And I walked about 50 miles to a sawmill and got a jeep to come back. And then it was all night long going through one creek and river after another. And I got under that Jeep, jagged it up, winched it across. I was as muddy as a hog in the mud. And then just in daylight, the driver says, get your passports in order because this is a big roadblock up here. Well, like he said, yes, this is FARC territory we're leaving. And they're really sensitive. They're going to search everything.

1:03:19I said, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't speak Spanish that good, but I understand this. So I told the other guys with me, I said, come, man, we can't go through a roadblock. Oh, yes, they only make$200 a month. We can do this and that. And I tried to get their co-pilot. Please come with me, Dan. No, I'm going to go with Al. They were exhausted. So anyhow, I said, I'll eat snakes in here for a year, crawl on my belly to get around. I'm not walking through a roadblock. Not after what we've done. We done violated airplaced, been shot down, and kidnapped the riverboat, man. We don't need to be going talking to the police.

1:03:57Anyway, they went on through and they spent five years in prison there for those same act. And I spent 11 days in the jungle going around it. I went but dug out boats, swam across places, whatever way I could get. And I kept asking the Indians, Dantia Stavions, where are airplanes? Loma Linda, Loma Linda, where is it this far? I went, I guess, two or three hundred miles. And I remember one day I was in a dugout canoe, and I was just telling my wife, Mari, I'm alive. Mari, I'm okay. And she said she was in the shower, and she heard me clear say that. And she was relieved just from the spiritual connection that we had.

1:04:39So I came to a place called Loma Linda, and it was like World War II, Hawaii. It was really nice. shipwap boards of buildings with tile, long runway out of clay, and a bunch of airplanes, a hangar. I thought, what is this place? So I went in and talked to the girl. She said, how did you get here? Well, I said, what is this place? You don't know. This is Loma Linda Headquarters for Missionary Aviation Fellowship for the Amazon. So God tapped me on the shoulder. And they flew me out the next day. See when you Did you ever smoke yourself Roger Did you ever test the product before you took it away No I don't use drugs I have tried them all But I don't use them I just don't like them I don't care for it I just don't use drugs Certainly I've tried I'm not like somebody else I did in hell So in the early 1980s You've done the marijuana you've distributed thousands of tons but in the early 1980s you went to Columbia to source a new supplier is that correct?

1:05:49but you ended up with involvement with the Black Widow what was that story? oh boy well I got ripped off for$65 ,000 which wasn't a big deal so I went down there looking for it and so the fellow said oh I give it to the man but let me introduce you to somebody I'm going to introduce you we're going to fly to medellin colombia i was in bogota you're going to meet my very good friend fernando cordero that he's the biggest cocaine dealer in south america and he probably was at that time so we went and flew to medellin and went to the the nice apartment building right downtown and it was so beautiful that that that place is emerald green and it was just all glass on like 20 floors up and he was there and he was drunk and he was like a western churchill i mean He was brilliant, but he was just drunk, and he could speak about any language he wanted and talk about anything he wanted to talk about.

1:06:47So while we were talking, he said, yes, I got plenty of work. I paid$5 ,000 a kilo. We'll go talk to Martha. That was his wife. She lived over at the country club place, and I did. But while we were talking, this lawyer that had taken me across there to the place, and walked a kind of Indian-looking woman from Bolivia. She was dressed in rabbit fur jacket, skirt, boots. Kind of like a clown, but she was kind of pretty and all painted up. And so this Fernando asked her where she was going. She was going to Miami to buy an airplane. And so he was in. So the lawyer was a lot quicker than I was. He said, well, Roger over here has got an airplane for sale.

1:07:32And he winked at me. So she turned to me the first time. like she's noticed to me. I'm just a lowly person in the room. And what kind of airplane do you have? I said, I have a queen there. Oh, queen there. Now she likes the idea of queen there. Do you think she's the queen? I said, yes. What at all? How far will it go? So I told her it was tank. And she said, okay, you bring it down. I like it, I buy it. I said, well, that's a long way for it to come. You give me$5 ,000 and it'll go towards the price. What is the price? and the lawyer's doing his thumb up, up, up, up. So I raised the price. I didn't particularly want to sell the plane.

1:08:11And so I said, well, he can land tonight in Panama or tomorrow night. I forget which. So I had a friend of mine to bring it down. And we were waiting at the airport, and it came. It looked like a big jet coming in. It was nice. It had a big landing light. And so she liked the airplane. She said, you have to go to Bolivia to get your money. All right. So the next day, we loaded up with her on trudge and flew to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. There we met by the police, and she had a limousine with the little flags on it. She's the black widow. I mean, she's the cocaine gal of Bolivia at that time. And we went through town and went out on the edge of town under a big water tank, Santa Cruz, where it says the ever-looking-for-her-out is under the Santa Cruz water tank.

1:09:00and it looked like a marble mausoleum, just a square place with a big fence all around it, barbed wire all over it. And nine, 10 or 12 people out at the gate crying and wringing their hands. They were just all upset. She shot out of the limousine, what's the matter with you fools? She said, your lime is eating the baby? What? She opened the gate and ran in. I went behind her and she had a mountain lion. I guess that thing, 200 pound big old bale. and he was eating the mage baby he just about through with it, the head was still there and some of the guts and little clothes and that dog had blood all over the floor and that line just had blood all over his face and she just ran and grabbed that line pulled him away and went to another room what a terrible terrible sight, that's in my life, that's the worst thing I've ever seen and I grabbed my money and got out there I never didn't say a minute Yeah, and I wish you could have been the Lions next dinner That's mad Some mad stories Was that when your cocaine journey started, Roger?

1:10:07Yes, that's when I started there Is that when you came into contact with Pablo Escobar Is it Carlos Leder? Who's the guy Johnny Depp done the film Blow for? Yeah, Carlos Leder They didn't like Carlos much at all But, yes, I went, I kept waiting for Fernando to sober up so we could do business. I went to see his wife, and she's a lovely lady. And they've all been killed since then. And their son, too, his girlfriend, all of them have been murdered. It's about most of the people I know down there except one, but they're dead.

1:10:47So, I was up in release. and I got called and she said they're having a birthday party for Fernando on the Pacific coast and the airlines are flying people over to their state over there and invited me to come and said he'll be sober for his birthday so I flew back down to Medellin and certainly I got on a airline or twin engine, it was really short I don't remember them and they flew load after load after load of people over and I We landed uphill from the ocean, and what a place. I mean, I could have made millions of dollars just on the junk that was on each side of that runway. They had D8 Caterpillars with their rusting in the rain and all kinds of different airplanes.

1:11:34They had abandoned theirs because they had used those old numbers to put on new airplanes, so they wouldn't have to pay the duty. Anyway, we stayed there for three days, and people came there from all over Columbia. They were movie stars, judges, police chiefs, all kinds of things. And what they were doing, they were trying to figure out how to stop the killing. Let's work together. But I suppose that weekend was somewhat the beginning of the Medellin cartel. Let me get that off of a thing. So I met the fellow there, Jaime Ordonez, and I did a load for him, and it didn't work out. He didn't, I was supposed to be 300 kilos.

1:12:19He put 165. I gave it to Bill Barbosa in Miami. Somebody shot him in the stomach. I was two or three months getting my money, and I didn't want work for those. So I told my friend Mario, no, I'm not going to do that. He said, well, let me introduce you to somebody. So I flew back down there and he took me to a little town in Begata. And we went up a little mountain road and went through a turnpike where the guys with the guards let us in. In a lovely old house and people waiting in the yard with little stones, itching rails from a house probably 200 or 300 years old. And those rich people had bought them really called fincas, little tiny, well, two or three acres.

1:12:59Oh, that's bigger, maybe 20 acres. Anyway, we were ushered in to see Jorge Ochoa, a very nice young man. And he spoke English, and he had a huge desk, and on his desk was 12 telephones. And he said, and he pointed to the river, he said, now this is New York, this is Chicago, and that's Denver, that's Los Angeles. He said, when I'm running, I know who I'm talking to. so uh and then he uh asked me about the airplanes i had what kind of airplanes i had i had a turbo jet aero commander and i had a beach 18 out of dc3 and so he was how many loads you done i said i've done over 100 loads across the border never been caught so he was he was happy with that so he sent uh the pretty woman that was uh it made us coffee next door and uh Favreau Escobar came in she introduced us, he shook hands he said the same thing, we've got all you can do, all the work you can do,$5 ,000 a kilo, be glad to have you on board he went on back to his office so he was in a plaid shirt guy about my thigh, 5 foot 8 160 pounds, so he seemed nice enough, he didn't have fangs or horns at that time I understand later on he was a terrible monster what was he, what was how many kilos did you use the ship for them at a time for Pablo Escobar?

1:14:25Okay I did 300 kilos at the time and I did I don't know how many loads I did but I did several loads and I got above the clouds one night the fog and I couldn't get down so I had to come down the glide slope at New Orleans with a closed runway and sit there all night and then I the next morning it was sunshiny and I still couldn't go and I thought I'm definitely going to get caught this time. But I got up and went across my place. I had to put it in a dive to go through the fog on a little short strip out of the woods. And so I told the Colombians, I'm hanging it up, boys. I ain't ever going to do this no more.

1:15:02And the guys in Leto, the guy in Florida, oh, Roger, no, because they was making money off of me. They get the money to distribute it. So don't you know anybody, anybody? mostly to do them a favor of just almost begging me to find somebody to fly if you want to fly. So I hired Barry Seal. Barry was like, oh, man, that was all right. He didn't believe it. And then I did fly some. I threw the bottom in, and I land in Belize, and we'd switch off planes in Belize. Then I got, I hooked up Pablo Escobar and Ochoa told me about landing in Nicaragua with the military there. And that way we could refuel and come all the way on the end.

1:15:48And Barry was, had the governor paid off there in Mina, Arkansas. And I had to pay$50 ,000 every time he landed for protection. Of course, he had, you know, who he had and had the CIA there unloading him. They was all working together. I didn't know that. When I went to prison, he paid for my airplanes and continued to work with the authorities of the CIA. Did Pablo Escobar bowled runways for your specific operation with him? One time I went and told him the runway was too short. We couldn't get off of that boat. The next time I went down there, 5 ,000 feet long. That's what you're talking about.

1:16:31I mean, they had boardosers and motor graders in there, and it was fixed up fine. But then the biggest thing he did was hook us up with the Sandinista government in Nicaragua so we could refuel at a regular strip. Go and get something to eat and wash your airplane. Send you on your way. Stay along as you wanted to. Where did you pick up the cocaine from, Colombia, and take it to America? Yes. picked it up in Columbia and took it to, I took it up there to Louisiana, but Barry took it up to to Mena, Arkansas. And that movie that Tom Cruise played should have been called Mena, but when Hillary was running for presidency, the Democrats put so much pressure on them until they stopped the production because it implemented Clintons.

1:17:20And they changed the name of it to America Made. if somebody Google that they want to Barry Seale in the Maine Arkansas connection how did you end up in contact with Barry Seale who's known as one of the biggest snitches of all time he brought down cartels he brought down yourself he was your friend you always still speak highly of him Roger but how did you end up meeting in the first place okay I was looking for a place to live about halfway between Columbia and the United States and I look at honduras i like honduras it's a agricultural place and i was raised on the farm i thought all right i'll do that so i took my wife and the children we went down to uh to honduras and we went up in the mountains and i looked at a ranch and that thing was lovely but my wife just didn't want to move there that the grass was waist deep and the cows were fat and a river running through it with fish swift and oh so nice so we came to san pedro sulla and to get on the airplane and all our clothes and muddy we took them to a laundry they said we have them ready uh you know tomorrow but they weren't come back in the morning well we already had tickets to go to new orleans i maybe we lived in new orleans and i don't remember but anyway the clothes weren't ready i told maria take the children and y 'all get on the plane anyway we got tickets these planes are full it's easier for one to get out uh on standby than it is for four of us so she did and i went to the laundry and got the clothes and i mean there was a pile of my on my back i got an old taxi and i paid him a hundred dollars just please go fast and he just blew the horn faster and i got to the airport that plane was taxing out on the tarmac and i ran around i waved to the pilot a nice looking fellow he waved back and then i saw mario's face in the in the cockpit brand new airplane and the front wheel went down where he put on the brakes then he put the ladder out for me and he put it almost out then he pulled it up took off again like a like a guy waiting to stop me with a hitchhiker and then taking off anyway he went a few feet and he stopped everybody was laughing I got on with my clothes and everybody just gave me a clap I mean it was a full-on that I made it so I went on back and my daughter Miriam I guess she about nine years old at the time she was sitting in the middle seat and Barry was sitting by the window and I sit down and I thought Oh, boy, he looked like he could be trouble.

1:19:49He looked like he might be the CIA or the CIA. I ain't going to fool with him. He had nice blue eyes. He kind of had a princely look.

1:20:00So we didn't speak, and I said, well, it's not assigned seating, so it's just random that we're together here. So the wheels came up under the 727 with a thud. Then he got on another couple of minutes. He got up 5 or 10 ,000 feet and a little click. And you could see that through the airplane. And Miriam said, what was that, Dad? I said, he just turned on his autopilot. The fellow reached there and said, you fly these things? I said, I got a few hours, mister. He said, my name's Barry Seal. How you doing? And so he got to talking. He said he just got out of jail that morning. It had been a year down in Honduras.

1:20:40And I didn't believe him bit the world. But when we landed, there was a whole mob to beat him. There was grandma and mama, wife and children. They was hanging on him and crying and hugging him. That guy tells them the truth. He just got out of jail. So I wrote my address on a little piece of paper. I said, come out to Chantabarver, California. I'm going to help some work for you, Barry, if you're interested. And so a few days later, he showed up, and I took him up flying. I had a almost brand new Arrow Commander Turbo Prop 690B. That thing was hot. So I said, show me what you got. Well, I wish I hadn't said that.

1:21:23He had more than I wanted to sleep. That guy was an aerobatic pilot. He's like those blue angels. I mean, he could fly. I can fly from one place to the other, but I have no air show man. Anyhow, he cut the engine sideways like this called the falling leaf. and rolled and looted and emulins and everything else you could think of just one right after the other that's enough barry i buy and me throw it up so he knew how that's how i met barry sealed so i said this plane needs tanking he said i got a mechanic in mina arkansas that'll do it for ten thousand dollars and he will never say a word still i know now that he had this cia guy mechanic there working.

1:22:04So he went away with my airplane and I flew to his house. Some days later he called and I flew to his house in Baton Rouge and we made a deal. And so he flew for me for over a year. When did you find out he was working with the CIA, Roger? Of course he was working with the CIA. Yeah, how long did it take you to find out, though, that he was working with the CIA? Oh, after the fact. He never told me I had to CIA. he told me he was taking his$50 ,000 to have dinner with the governor so that was Bill Clinton you know he said I got it paid off to the top it's impossible for me to get caught in Arkansas it's impossible for me to get caught me in Arkansas I said well it's impossible for me to be caught in Columbia or Nicaragua I guess we got a permit so he flew I believe it was 30 trips for me and had no problem whatsoever then I went to prison for the marijuana I got 35 years I think I told you Was that in Miami?

1:23:07I got arrested in Miami but they brought me out here to California and the charge was out of Los Angeles What you thinking then Roger when he's your friend you brought him in to make some money and then he's turned against you and everyone else that were you disappointed? Heartbroken or was it expected? By that time I'd had everybody in the book they weren't nobody everybody i knew told them they weren't one person that stood up followed i mean when they face in life they face in that many years and roger can go in my place they'll they'll feed you to it right quick so no no doubt in my mind that's the way the that's the government makes makes them do it so what happened with barry uh he didn't want to tell i mean he did not well I just know I didn't want to.

1:23:57But I had heard that he had turned what time I got out of prison. So I just got out. I did about two and a half years on that marijuana charge. And they let me out on parole, 30 years parole. And. I'm watching eating breakfast and watching the television and there's Ronald Reagan, blue eyes. on national television. He said, we have absolute proof that the communist Sandinista government is in the cocaine running business. And there's the old airplane, Barry's airplane called a fat lady, a big old C-120, one with a ramp on the back. This on the runway, bailed in. And I thought, uh-oh. Five guts turned to ice water.

1:24:42I'm like, oh, the shit speaks in the head to fan. So sure enough, it wasn't long before Barry called me. He said, I hadn't talked to him in over two years, but he did pay Maury for the airplanes. He helped her out every which way he could. He sent lawyers in for me. He did me right. So he came in and he said, I'll be in this French restaurant here tonight at 9 o 'clock. I went down there at 9 o 'clock and he was sitting at the back, leaned back. He gained some weight and I looked around and there's men and women all around there, maybe 20 of them. They were in their 30s, 40s, DEA for sure. He had it rode all over them.

1:25:17Leather skirts, blue jeans and that fancy French restaurant. And I woke up and said, Barry, are you wired? He said, no, I'm not. I said, well, you just talk. I'm not going to say anything. We just talked and he just talked. He said, Roger, I just couldn't do it. They abandoned me and it paid off. They left me as a scapegoat. Everybody, every one of them left me. Left me hold in the bag. You know, you know the story. And he put his hands up over his eyes like that. And the tears ran between his fingers. He said, I am so sorry. I just said it was three life sentences. Arjonam. And he said, so I got out on bail on what he was doing.

1:25:52And he said, I went to Washington and saw Edwin Mesey, a federal attorney general. And I told him they're bringing tons of cocaine out of there. And he wouldn't believe me. They run me out of the office. I went back the next day and talked him into it. So they put this fellow here, Jake Jacobson, over there in with me. And he says, we went down, got one and a half ton. I billed it in it in Nicaragua. and we brought it on up another plane and you can see the photographs of the men unloading it Pablo Escobar is clear with stripy shirt and the book Kings of Cocaine and then they flew Escobar bought another plane they got in that plane after they crashed that one on purpose and they flew it in the Homestead Air Force Base and my friend Leto unloaded it and put it in a motor home of course they couldn't let a ton and a half go to the public so they had a DPA with a dump truck to rent it.

1:26:47They rent it in the freeway down there. And that's it. So cocaine's all over the highway. So Leto, and there's a highway patrolman, one deep in me, dressed up just like a highway patrolman right behind him. And Leto, senor, I need to call my boss. He said, there's a telephone just over there. Go call him. They want Leto to go. Go ahead and keep this scam going. But there was a guy in a Buick said, that's cocaine. And he tackled Leto right there in the highway. Wind up that little scam. So, uh, he, uh, the bear just said, listen, Roger, you are a hundred percent under my umbrella. You can keep your money.

1:27:24They'll give you a passport. You can be up anywhere on earth. You and your family want to live. It's all set up. You just got to testify before grand jury with me against Escobar and Ochoa. And I said, friend, they are going to kill you. I said, bring your head on, Joe, over. And the guy said, you come tomorrow. It was Jake Jacobson. And we drank some Chavis Regal, and you can come tomorrow first class. You and Mari testify before a grand jury, or I can take you down in chains, and the only place you're going to ever see your family again, as long as you live, is in a federal penitentiary business.

1:28:01It's your choice. I'll still be there first class. I went to Brazil, of course, to kill Barry, that story. How many people did he send to prison, Barry? I don't know He sent the president of Turks and Caicos, I know That's the only person I know that actually went to prison Because before they could stand trial, they'd killed him So he didn't get to testify against anybody Did June O 'Straight away, Roger? If you'd have testified against anyone in cartels You'd have been dead as well? well you know uh barry could have uh got another passport and leave some other country with his family and and people are doing that all over and i suppose they would have tried to check it down but in a few years all those people are dead too but uh he chose not to and a judge there in louisiana gave him six months in a halfway house and the dea said mister judge that is a death stuff to him.

1:29:06He got to have bodyguards. He got to have armor. He's got to have guns. The judge said he should have thought about that before he did the crime. Six months in a halfway house. So every night he goes up to this halfway house and parts his car. And of course, not long before three of them wait to name machine gun it to death. I was a liar. Cures came to my eyes. I cried when I heard about it. I like Barry. He was just put in a terrible position. even though he was going even though he was going to testify against you yes but he gave me a chance he gave me a chance to testify with him like I gave him a chance to fly with me he didn't just behind my back tell on me and without making a deal so I appreciate that too otherwise yeah how does that make you feel yeah how does that make you feel Roger as well that you brought him in with you and then him getting killed, does part of you blame yourself?

1:30:07You know, I was just sorry that he got killed. I was down in Brazil and when I called the club and he said, he's dead, he's dead, and there was all joy. And I had a tear in my eyes. I went back and told Mario and Miriam and they cried too. But he was close. I mean, we'd come spend the night in the hotel room with us where there was no room and put the baby up on his big old belly and give him a bottle.

1:30:30Well, that's how close we were. So, yeah, it was almost like having a brother died. He was a good pilot. He was a friend of mine, the intelligent man, that would put in a terrible mess by the U.S. government. They didn't keep their word. He worked for them, and then they killed him, or had him killed. How realistic is the film about him, American, made with Tom Cruise? It's a very poor movie. That movie should have been called, it was written as Mina, Mina, Arkansas, hometown of Bill and Hillary Clinton. And it was about them and the payoffs that he was making through them and the CIA. Well, when Hillary was running for presidency, that's when that movie was supposed to come out.

1:31:18And the Democratic Party or somebody got so hard behind the Hollywood producer until they just stopped it for several years. they changed the name to America Made the writers quit the producer quit and they just turned it around and I think somebody sat in a rocking chair and read about it and tried to fill in the blank they didn't get anything right the whole thing was wrong they didn't get the feeling they didn't get the sentiment of it they missed Barry by a mile so do you then go on a run to Brazil? I went on a run yes Who was looking for you? They said I was on the 10 most warning list on the DEA For drug smuggling?

1:32:03Yeah So you were going to get a life sentence? I did get a life sentence Yeah Yeah But is that when Yeah, so you ended up running Brazil What did you start doing then? Were you still smuggling? Or was it trying to keep a low profile? Low profile But then we moved to We went from Brazil We flew to Holland and stayed there for a couple of months. My wife is from Holland. And then we went down to France, and we lived there a year, and we'd had some things in Canada in storage, and we had those shipped across, and, of course, they had a bug on them, and we discovered the bug, and we got out of France and went to Spain.

1:32:44And we went to Mallorca, and I was hooked up with your infamous guy, Dennis Howard Marks, Mr. Nice. Mr. Nice was not so nice to me. I did some loads for him, and he turned me in, and instead of paying me in, ouch. So I got arrested in Spain. I escaped. I got arrested in Holland. I escaped. And then finally they caught me again in Spain. I jumped out the window, 31 feet from the window bottom to the top of a car, exploded in the street. They caught me down the road. And anyhow, they introduced me to Germany. and they handcuffed me like this, one hand over the other one. So I can't even get the handcuffs.

1:33:27So I went up to Germany, and they gave me eight years. And after one year, I escaped from that German prison in Lubeck. And then I went back to South America, and I tried to get some of the money that they owed me. And then I came back to the United States, and they arrested me for a parole violation. They gave me 11 years of maximum security, Long Park Penitentiary, for a parole violation that I should have got six months for. all this stuff is about they dug up that stuff about barry they call it a silent beef so i got 11 years for a silent beef nothing they give me through two years for the escape in spain two years for the escape in all two years from escape in germany two years for this attempted escape from the metropolitan detention center and all they just stacked all that late years and and it wasn't even illegal in germany did you know it's illegal if you steal their clothes so you have to wash and iron their clothes and mail them back to them within 24 hours and don't you get six months.

1:34:25But to escape is not illegal. So you've escaped five times, Roger. When was your first prison escape? Was that in Madrid? No, it was in... Okay, two times in Mexico. One of them was I'd fade out the back door. That really wasn't escape. But they counted as escape. And another time I kicked the door off of a jail over in Baja and got away. And then I escaped at the Schiphol Airport while I'm all over me. Then I escaped in Spain at the, jumped out of the courtroom and 31 feet on top of a car. And then I escaped from the max security prison in Lubeck, Germany. And that's not counting just the times I escaped from the police.

1:35:08That's a lot of time. How did you escape from the maximum prison? That's a whole story in my book. The smuggling. Let's just don't forget about that, folks. There it is right there. We'll leave a link in the description for people to get that. Yeah, forget the smugglers on Amazon. It's in audio and video and everything. But, yeah, I... It's quite a long story how I got out of that prison. You want me to tell it? I will. Yes, of course. All right. I was there and they put me on a little job late in the afternoon 20 minutes to clean the lawyer's visiting area well that was still all in the main prison but it was behind that big big door and uh so you went in at the three rooms and had high windows and had bars on the windows but they were made to be pretty looked like music notes because it only went out into the prison yard where they kept the uh the equipment for soccer well they didn't want that in there because you could have put it up there was a wall around and every hundred feet was a was a tout with a was a guy with a machine gun or rifles that thing was i mean it was it was a bad place that red brigade they had all those guys in there from turkey of machine gun guys they it was it was colorful so uh i uh i was coming back from court and i saw that they had taken above the sally port, they had taken all that rolled up razor wire off, and they were putting a new wall up to expand it.

1:36:55And I, oh boy, there's a route out of here. So I got a rope for a jump rope, a good heavy rope. They made a rubber boat for the Navy, and the painters are kind of heavy. So I got that, and they have heavy mop handles. and I cut them off handling two and I put that down my shirt legged whenever pants legged whenever I went in there late that afternoon I wrapped that rope around tied a bowline and put it running and tied it like that and pulled those bars together then I did it on the other side and that thing come loose and like to knock my knuckles off I thought feed my pants it hurts a bad when I quit dancing I did it again and I almost died going through there.

1:37:42It was pouring down rain on the outside and I had to take my shirt off and I lost it back in and the skin just came off all my chest right down to the blood and trying to work it and get through. I got through and then my pants, my hips were bigger than my head. I had to undo my pants and I fell out on top of my head six feet down right on top of my head and right in that rain I got up and went around the corner of there, a little corner of there and there was a scaffolding up four floors. They were changing some windows in that prison. And I had to reach with one hand on the bricks and the other hand on the scaffolding so the guard and the tower couldn't see me.

1:38:17And I got all the way above him on the fourth floor and laid out up there in that blood and rain. And I got to the end of it and I looked down and two floors down was the guard tower was sticking out above the styly porch. And the top of it was like a silo halfway. And so the wall was just out in front of him and below. And beyond that was a big-sized pile of sand, just like you see. It was huge, I guess 10 feet tall. And a backhoe was something that piled it up there where they could do the foundations for a new wall. Well, there was a guard and his wife and a little boy, that's about three or four years old, was coming.

1:38:59It was really raining. And it was under a double umbrella. I never saw him, but looking from the top of it, it's just like that, Mr. Donald. And she took him to the door, and when she went back, and she was right in line with that machine gun, I jumped straight down, one floor down on top of that roof of that place. Bam! It got out. Scared. And I bailed over the fence, and I went up to my knees in that sand on the sideways. It didn't even slow me down. And I ran straight towards a woman and on faster. And then I got to the corner and I was running downhill. And I heard flam, blam, blam, blowing the horn.

1:39:42And that poor woman was up on the sidewalk trying to kill me. She was knocking down the parking meter, just tearing her car up. And I run behind a car that was parked down there. And she tore the bumper off of her, the fender off her car. And she had a demon-like face just screaming at me. That little boy standing in the front page. I thought, well, I can't go no further this way. So I got up and there was a wall there with concrete, and it had a little glass on top of it. And I tore my hands and my stomach up more. I was bleeding so bad from that glass more than I was where I went through. Anyway, I got away and went to Holland.

1:40:14Did Pablo Escobar owe you$3.5 million? That was Jorge Ochoa. And he's still there, and I went to see him. He won't talk to me. I think my friend or the unloader, one or the other, got it. they told him that they paid me, so he won't pay me. And Howard Marks, did he owe you$2 million as well? Yeah, and he turned me in with that adrenaline beat. He was going down. And they put them together in the same place. Every time I'd see Howard, the police show up, and I'd escape from them three times. See, when you were taking your money to the Cayman Islands, how much were you taking over at a time, Roger?

1:40:55Oh, I put$15 million in the plane, laid down on top of it. I have a couple of files applied there. Did you not have the cheque of$15 million in your pocket, but you had to eat it? I went into the bathroom and ate the receipt. I had it in my pocket. I didn't want them to find that. I had a receipt of$15 million, yes. Out of all the prisons you've been in, Roger, what's the worst prison? Mexico by far. And then they have one up here near Apple Valley that was just awful too, a federal prison. They all bad now. These federal prisons are just awful. They got the guards hate you. They hate one another.

1:41:29The blacks hate the whites. The whites hate the blacks. The browns hate both of them. It's just a place of hate. And I mean, you have to walk easy. It wasn't that way when I went 40 years ago. It was pretty, people loved one. And I got along. Now, it's just like, it's not good. You don't want to go to prison, I can tell you that. Not in the United States. So see you've been in prisons all around the world Roger, you've had warrants out from police all around the world you've shipped thousands and thousands of tons of drugs like what was the see when you came out of prison in America what was your plans then were you thinking just to go straight or was it trying to then go on the run again because you ended up in Australia involved in the biggest, one of the biggest drug busts of all times with a thousand kilos of coke that did you have a warrant out when you got caught with that i had a warrant out here for parole violation and i was trying to avoid it so when i left germany i uh i i didn't have anything if as long as i didn't come back to america i wasn't wanting because on a parole violation they cannot extradite you i could have stayed in bahamas or anywhere canada or mexico they can if you show up and put your foot on american soil you're you can serve that 30 years that i owed That's what happened So when I finished that I went back to Germany And they let me out on the street And then I needed some money So I took that job To take the boat to Australia I was going to make$20 million So how did the job to Australia come about To make$20 million It ended up one of the biggest drug busts of all time With a thousand kilos of cocaine How did that come about Roger?

1:43:13Well I went down to see old children To see about the$3.5 million and I saw my friend that wanted to introduce me to it and of course I wasn't going to get my money from him. He said, well, listen, would you like a job? We'll get you, pay you$20 million to buy a boat and take it to Australia, take a load of Australia. Sure, I'll do it. That's a lot of money and three must work. How did you get caught, Roger? okay the uh the brother the owner of it his brother went down to unload it and he went there way too early he's columbian and he called his friend i think from california another columbian boy young man says come over here and help me unload this big load you're a really smart guy you just got out of a five-ton deal in california when i heard that i took the boat and turned it from which way I was going.

1:44:10You don't get out of a five-ton deal in California without a big confession. They call it a four-slap confession. You know what a four-slap confession is? No. You slap him one time to get him started talking, then you have to slap him three more times to shut him up. What are you thinking then, Roger? Obviously, you've been caught with one of the biggest shipments in Australian history. that you realized then that you were going to go away for life? Yes. I have visions. And I had about two weeks before I was arrested, I had a vision of being in the ground with guns and exactly like it happened.

1:44:53I even remember the vision better than I do. It actually happened. And I was saying, poor, poor, poor, Murray. Poor, poor, poor, Murray. I woke up crying with tears coming down my face and the guy in my back with the gun and it happened just exactly like I saw. That's when I turned the ship and went 500 miles from where I was supposed to go, and it still happened exactly like I saw. What are you thinking then, Roger, when you get caught and you're getting life in prison to a woman who's stuck by you through thick and thin, but this is your biggest sentence? Did you know that she would still stick by you, even though you were going away for life?

1:45:32Well, I didn't worry about it. I mean, we know her so close until I know she I just know how devastated she'll be as devastated as I was. And to start off with, I got I got a 25 year sentence with a with a 14 year bottom that I do 14 years. Great. What in life? I'd have been a medium security prison out for maybe rehabilitation or something. And then I testified for a fellow that was on the boat and he went home and he got free. So the Crown appealed my sentence. And I was in a place, it was a terrible place. I was in the chute, like the Silence of the Lambs, were looking at me through one-way mirrors.

1:46:15And it came in that just by letter that my sentence had been raised to life, imprisoned. So I tell you what, it was hard to swallow. My knees was weak for a few days. And that's whenever I decided to write my memoirs. I said, I didn't particularly write a book. I just, my children, my grandchildren and great-grandchildren are never going to really know. Let me tell them the real happy daddy that they is. And so there was a computer in there in a little room that's glassed in. And it was just like in the movie, The Silence of the Lambs. I mean, it was just exactly like that. There was a cage and I was in it.

1:46:55well i didn't know how to i can type but i didn't know how to turn that computer on so it didn't have a program i got they got the guard to turn it on and uh it had a thing called paintbrush no no uh no program so i sat down and i just started typing i can type pretty good and uh the tears would just run down my face as i remember something happened many years ago with my loved ones and on the far and all that. And I wrote over a million words in one line before I quit typing. That was like, Farish Gump, I run as far as I wanted to, now I'm almost going to quit. So after a year of that, they let me out in general population, and pretty soon they sent me to a place called self-care.

1:47:39And Australian prisons are civilized, let's say. They're not good, but they're civilized. If you behave yourself, you can go to a place called self-care and cook six or 12 people to an apartment, say. And they bring the food or you can order it, but you want different ones. Anyway, they let me buy a computer. And it took me a year to figure out what I had written. It was all down, but there was no paragraph on nothing. So that was a chore. and then I took two-thirds of it away and published the last 530 pages, I believe. How was it writing it, Roger? Did it bring back a lot of emotion, like reliving everything that you've done?

1:48:25You've been through the family destruction. Was it difficult or was that therapy for you? It might have been therapy. It wasn't difficult. It just flowed. It was just like I couldn't write a fiction book or nothing, but I can remember very well. And as it come, I just remember things. There's people dead 70 years sometime. And I'm telling you, it's just wonderful. I could almost smell them. It's when you get a little news on your shoulder, and he's talking to you as fast as you can type. And it just goes. Like he didn't want to quit when I had to leave the room. Like I'm not through typing. And when it was finished, I was in it.

1:49:06That's it. What was it like getting released, Roger? A man who's always You've always been caught Or you've always escaped But you've always got back into business Even though you were in your 70s When you got released Are you then thinking Fuck it, I'm going to go again Or was enough enough this time? Enough is enough I wouldn't Listen, I wouldn't mind doing it I think it's just fun It's romantic Get an airplane or boat And sail around the world There's a lot to it But I just I wouldn't pay the penalty And I would not do that to my family again. I wouldn't even, and plus, I don't want to die in prison.

1:49:42And if I do it again, I'm going to die in there. Ain't no doubt about it. They'll kick me out in the box and burn me or something. And I just, it would just devastate my poor wife. But, oh, yes, I know I don't want to do it again. And anybody would be a fool to do it. I mean, 33 years in a cage over money? I didn't need the money. I don't need it now. I didn't need it then. just like, why? It's not greed. I was so, I give all that money away or had it stolen from me. My business partners were thieves. I owned a whole city. I owned a real estate outfit. We built, we did. We had oil wells and hydrolytic plants built.

1:50:27I had no chance of ever getting that money back from them crooks. And so, it just don't come back. I had boxes of it. My wife said he just had wings on it when you give it to him. It just, goes away. Oh yes, we made millions, we've done this. Then the one guy we did so big with, he just flew into the side of a mountain. Everything was in his name. It's just like, just gone. That old Harry Hand of Fate turns against you, it turns all over. Tell me this, Roger, that you're 79 now, the life you've lived, but do you miss it? Well, not so much. No, I have enough of it. I'm going flying again. I go flying old Twin Beasts and I'm applying the scintillator out there.

1:51:11I can put a 747 and there were two engines on fire. They can crash and burn. I can start over again in a minute. It's kind of fun, but it's not the same. What's the biggest drug deal you ever done, Roger? Oh, yes. I did 17 tons out of Thailand, and that was the biggest one. Thai stick, Thai weed. That was expensive. $1 ,400 a pound, so you can figure out how about myself. I can't figure it in my head, but$60 or$70 million, something like that. But there was several of us in it, so it wasn't that big for me. How was that when you found out Escobar was dead? Like, if he owed you $3.5 million and then you found out he'd get killed, like, how was that feeling?

1:51:58I didn't care nothing about him one way or the other. Just like reading something, some famous person died it didn't bother me a bit i didn't care i mean he should have been killed a long time ago to bring an airliner down and kill all those people but a lot of people loved him i mean it was all right to me but i didn't i didn't care i didn't know him i didn't i went with escobar one day uh spent a day with him we flew up to some ranch he bought in his plane there were several of in there and we got off and uh uh early in the morning we went in there and had a little breakfast and tortillas and whatever uh it was just a plain place i guess i don't know how it come about it how big it was but it had burned over and there were stumps and logs and uh they had some motorcycles there and he asked me if i could ride i sure i could ride so they put like a mac 10 machine gun around my shoulder and uh there's the motorcycles lined up and they did that on purpose and so I got on there as a hot shot and I took off through that grass and it was a little ditch, knee deep and the front field fell in that thing and I skidded about 20 feet through that grass on my chin and they about fell off with their motorcycles laughing, they knew it was going to happen so we rode around a while with a motorcycle and we would come back got some horses and got on the horses and pretended to round up some cows and stuff and that was the only time I've ever spent any social time with him Did you realise how big he would have been?

1:53:27Obviously now people still talk about him There's still books written about and films And then when you were working with him In the 80s did you realise how big a name He would have actually been in the drug world? No And he wouldn't have been if he hadn't been such a mass murderer We hear about All these people that kill a lot of people And they seem to get a Bigger name than they could With no choice Moved a lot more cocaine than he did it. But he got the name for it. They went in that prison that they made for themselves and they kept their head down and came out after a few years. Why wouldn't they?

1:54:02Their wives could come in and stay with them, have any kind of food they want, have caretakers in king-size beds and air conditioning. Why didn't they just behave themselves and get out of there like the old showers? But no, he wanted to keep things running. How big were the median cartel, Roger? How much money were they making per day? do you know? Not an idea. I understand. I certainly wasn't the only one flying. I know that. So I met one pilot that would burn real bad. They wanted me to fly him out and I wouldn't do it. I said, no man, I'd love to, but I don't want you to know me and I don't want to know you.

1:54:42But he was up in a bin some house. You know if I'd fly him home with a load. I'd just be somebody or to tell on me later on. Why do you think that everybody you've kind of worked with are either dead or got killed and you're still here, Roger? Was that to do with you and your personality? Like being a cool, calm, collective character, even now smiling and talking about it and just enjoying life, is that a lot to do with your personality? In fact, the fact that you never stuck anybody in either, because like you says, everybody became snitches and rats. You're the only one who accepted their destiny and never stuck anybody in.

1:55:21A lot of people in that life either get killed or life in prison, but you never turned against anyone. Is that to do with your personality and the fact that you never done that while you're still alive today? You know, I'm a Christian. I believe in God. I don't believe in destiny or nothing. And it gives us enough brains. We pray for wisdom. And sometimes you just have enough wisdom to see the danger and get out of the way. and uh like all right i just i sometime i can just field and not the upper side where other ones go right right on and are punished so i i i think that's for sure i'm the witness i mean i i just just have a sense about it in fact when i was in long park penitentiary it was so strong until i could tell the next person that was going to get killed there was somebody murdered there every month.

1:56:18And often I'd say, all right, Mike's looking... It's kind of a few days to be stabbed to death. Just like, you can see it. I don't know that that kept me from being killed. I didn't bother that. The only people who got killed in there was mostly for heroin. They didn't pay their debts. They got killed for it. Somebody robbed them for it. When did you get released from prison, Roger? two years ago? Two and a half years ago, yes. I got made total in 2000. And when did you get back to America? Okay, I was down in Australia, and after 18 years, I wrote my neighbor, Jimmy Carter, and I asked him, Mr.

1:57:07President, would you write a letter and ask him to be kind to me or consider me for parole? And he wrote a letter, that said, if appropriate, I'd appreciate it if you would consider for extradition or release my friend and neighbor, Roger Reeves. And so it helped. I know it did. We'd have Jimmy Carter, a wonderful person. I hope the United States can find somebody, somebody even close to the integrity of the wisdom that man has. 96. So if he never wrote that letter, you would have still been not able to go back to America? because of the warrant that was issued? Well, they did. They put three marshals on me and they extradited me back to the United States.

1:57:57And when I got off the plane, they let the plane in because it was a big old, huge plane. And I came and I walked off with a, just had a handcuff, laughing and talking with those Australian guards, marshals. And I was slammed into the wire. Wham! I'd nose and kick my feet apart and put leg irons on me. Feet apart, eyes forward, eyes forward. Mexican gals, these Border Patrol guys, six or seven of them, all those. Me. They put two sets of leg irons on me, two sets of handcuffs, chained me up. It marked me about 100 feet away to the marshal's office. I walked in there, and the marshal took it all off except a set of handcuffs.

1:58:41They just put on the show. And they took me to a metropolitan detention center where I could have owned a wall back in brand new. And so I thought I was going to general population, waiting for parole year and year on this stuff that was 43 years ago, marijuana. And they put me in isolation. Why in the world am I isolation? I've been 18 years in open prison and come back here for marijuana 43 years ago. Nothing should be in a camp. Well, I stayed in that place nine months in isolation. And after about a week, I kept asking every morning, a lieutenant come by and they open the thing. How are you doing, Reeves?

1:59:24And get me out of here, man. Put me in population so I can use a telephone, write letters. Can't do it. Sorry. What in the world? So one morning, a little Judas window pulls up, a nice looking man there with a suit and towel. Hello, Reeves. My name is Short. I'm the associate warden here at Metropolitan Detention Center. We saw your National Geographic documentary, and it does me pleasure to keep you in isolation. And I never could get out. I was in that place by myself the whole time. So I got sent to Oklahoma City. We have a terrible, terrible, corrupt organization here called Con Air. They're flying people, I believe, 21 or 22 airplanes.

2:00:14They're flying prisoners back and forth. If you get arrested with two grams of methamphetamine in California, they'll send you to Atlanta for a psychiatric evaluation. And you'll stay at that 1 ,800-bed hotel in Oklahoma City, maybe three months. And then they move you out from one place to another. It's ridiculous. You can't even find out who owns it. It's a Canadian company that owns that. But it's definitely politicians and the people with the wardens and stuff. Got to be. I mean, it's just awful. So that's just something. It's just real fun. So there was a lady there really nice, and she says, I said, I'm waiting for a parole here.

2:00:59She said, yes. There was a man from Washington here, and he stayed until 3 o 'clock. And then he said to tell you he'd be back next year. What? Yes. so she came to see me in a couple weeks she said would you like for me to ask for a parole on the record I said please I don't even know what it was and the next day she came and said here and handed me the slot I got my parole I got out and I came home uh what a what a relief so I've been going uh I guess I've been gone from home about 35 years so I come home and first thing I did And I went in and I just showered all that scrub with soap. And I already had all my clothes in the closet here.

2:01:43And it was ironed and she'd send everything to the cleaners. And they were so crisp and I put them on. I felt so good. And I put on some nice pair of shoes and I took a step. And the soles of the shoes stayed on the floor. The strings were all rotten. So I just sat down at the table and she prepared a meal for me. I couldn't even eat it. I was so hard. Ah, the placemats were the same. The table was the same that I'd, 50 years ago, that I'd cleaned the clothes and polished it. The silverware's the claim. The paintings on the wall, the same. Still an apartment, but the same ones we had 60 years.

2:02:20And, oh, I just couldn't quit crying. I just couldn't quit crying in about three days. I couldn't look at pictures or photograph. It just broke my heart to see her at 40, 50, 60, and 70. I wasn't there. The children growing up, she raised those children, and they all got educated, and they're doing well. Great, outstanding citizens. My daughter, the one who wrote the poem, she's a physician here. She comes by every day or two to look after me and her. She keeps me on the straight and narrow, and they mirror you. Was that the biggest moment, you think, in your life, everything you've done, like holding everything back, probably the emotions, to then getting home after 30, 40 years, to then just having that breakdown and realizing, fuck, what was it all about?

2:03:05I reckon so. It was just something you didn't think of. It was just the tears just flowed just from everything I'd look at. It would just make the tears. I had missed that for all those years. And my wife's a beautiful woman. How in the world, Mari, did you resist the, you know, what did you say to me? And she said, I told him I wasn't available. And she said, even everybody said, why don't you divorce him? he's doing life he may never get out she said I just couldn't ever see another man sitting at the head of the table saying to blessing and the children I just couldn't see it and so she waited for me all these years so she's the queen of the show that's a beautiful thing you don't get much loyalty but that now Roger tell me this if your wife never waited for you what do you think you'd be doing now I don't know I really don't I can't imagine it Reboot my heart I just don't know Yeah but the main thing is you're out What's the plans for the future going forward for you brother What an amazing story You've served your time You've done what you've done But you're a very good character You can see by your energy, your presence The way you tell a story It's unbelievable I've sat across and interviewed many people But yours is up there It's one of the best stories I've ever heard like it's madness like it's just people aren't so intrigued by these stories and especially your character like we all have a portray in our mind of the way a criminal or a gangster or a smuggler should look like but you're just like the grandpa next door, you're just like someone's grandfather who butter wouldn't melt even though a man who's escaped prison five times shipped drugs all around the world been in prisons all around the world but yet you're still here smiling healthy it's mad to see but What's your plans for the future, brother?

2:05:02Oh, we have different ones. I kind of have a daydream of buying another sailboat. Mari and I just say, just go right on down to Mexico and through the Panama and sail around the southern part of Cuba, then maybe on to the Mediterranean. I'd like to go down to Greece and Israel, go down through the Red Sea and under Seychelles and Madagascar. I would like to. Now, I'm having a little, Mari's got her heels kind of dug in. She says, you must not remember as good as I do. We haven't done a sailboat before. How can people get your book as well, Roger? How can people, the UK audience, buy your book, Smuggler?

2:05:45It's on Amazon. It's in paperback, it's in e-book, and it's in audio, all on Amazon. Yeah, amazing. I would tell you that I've signed a contract With Range Media Partners to make A series, they're talking about a 30 part Series, or 30 episodes Into three series So we'll see how that goes I'll find out next month This will be mega, this should be a film The people you've worked with That've made films about them, this is One of the best, people love this sort Of stuff Roger, because you've lived it And tell your story probably daily It might not seem as big but people love this sort of story and true crime sells and hopefully you can get the life that you want and everything you've done in your life you have created it basically but to live the best years of your life and think the best years of your life are still ahead of you is still a beautiful thing, like travelling the world with the women that you love then fuck all else matters really but I hope to see this as a film or a 30 part series that deserves it but would you like to finish up on anything Roger?

2:06:52Not a thing, I just I've enjoyed being here with you It's just been a real pleasure Yeah if you're ever in Scotland brother Let me know and we'll put you up for the night here Right I'll come Yeah and hopefully I'll be in America soon So I'd love to come and visit you And anything I can ever help with over here I'm only a phone call away Roger Please come to see me I'm in Santa Barbara California It's a nice little town But thanks for coming on today And telling your story brother I'll leave all the links in the description for people to get your book but I wish you all the best for the future stay out of trouble Roger and God bless you brother and God bless you too thanks Roger take care bye