Former Drug Smuggler Roger Reaves | PBD Podcast | EP 152
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PBD Podcast Episode 152. In this episode, Patrick Bet-David is joined by Adam Sosnick and Roger Reaves.
Buy Roger Reaves' book Smuggler: https://amzn.to/3MBTWJQ
Visit Roger Reaves' online at: https://bit.ly/3F5UuoM
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About:
William Roger Reaves is an American pilot who was one of the most prolific drug smugglers in history. He worked for Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel. Reaves employed Barry Seal as a pilot in many of his drug-smuggling operations. In his memoir, Smuggler (2016), Reaves claims that Seal paid millions in bribes to the Clintons when Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas in order to land planes carrying cocaine at Mena, Arkansas.
About Co-Host:
Adam “Sos” Sosnick has lived a true rags to riches story. He hasn’t always been an authority on money. Connect with him on his weekly SOSCAST here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw4s_zB_R7I0VW88nOW4PJkyREjT7rJic
Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
To reach the Valuetainment team you can email: booking@valuetainment.com
0:00 - Start
1:50 - How Roger Reeves got into drug smuggling
12:00 - The time Roger almost got caught
18:00 - First time Roger got arrested
20:00 - How Roger is such a likeable guy
22:00 - Did the jail time turn him off/Why does he keep coming back
25:00 - Roger's connection to Barry Seal
31:00 - Middle man/The Big Phone Call
36:00 - Why did his wife not stop/the money/what keeps him coming back
38:00 - Roger's connections to Pablo/Ochoa
45:00 - Barry Seal
48:00 - How Roger got caught in the USA
49:00 - Barry connections to USA/CIA- Who killed Barry
53:00 - Run-ins with the mob
55:00 - Time with Pablo & Ochoa
59:00 - PBD's interview's with 'criminals'
1:04:35 - Relationship with Pablo
1:11:00 - Death penalty/Half of men don’t deserve to be locked up
1:18:00 - The power of a father
1:29:00 - Does he have any regrets
1:35:00 - Toughest questions his kids asked him
All right, so folks, I've interviewed a lot of interesting people.
Today, this man's fully qualified in that category.
William Roger Reeves, but we'll call him Roger, highest paid drug pilot in history, worked with Pablo Escobar, Ochoa, got arrested, did over 30 years in jail in 26 different prisons, seven different countries, four different continents, and he escaped five times.
There is some kind of a connection with a man named William.
Some call him Bill, some call him William, but I think his name is William Bill Clinton in Arkansas.
Yeah, we'll talk about him.
We'll talk about the city that they almost named the movie after the city, right?
Mena.
They almost named it.
It was written as Mena.
It was written as Mena, and then they changed it.
And stories left and right reportedly was responsible for $5 billion worth of cocaine entering the United States.
Some interesting opinions about Pablo, some interesting opinions about Ochoa at the time, Pablo being the seventh richest man in the world, but who was counting his money anyways.
But aside from that, I mean, listen, $50, $60 million of earnings in the 80s.
There's a lot of stories I'm so curious to get into.
With that being said, Roger Reeves, thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast.
It's a pleasure.
Thank you.
And by the way, your voice is insane.
I can listen to that voice all day.
It's a radio voice.
It's a pleasure.
You know, the way you speak, it's incredible.
I'm from Iran, so my accent is a different kind of an accent.
Yours is from Georgia.
I prefer yours.
Oh, thank you.
It's like classy, but also ready to party at any moment.
Absolutely.
Yes, go.
So, you know, some of us wake up one day and we say, I want to go into real estate.
Some wake up, they say, I want to be a cop.
I want to be a bodybuilder.
I want to be a financial advisor.
I want to be a nurse.
I want to be a doctor.
Who wakes up and says, you know what?
I want to be the highest paid drug pilot in history.
How does that happen?
It doesn't happen like that at all.
So it's not like when you were a kid, you said, when I grew up, I want to be.
I wanted to be a farmer.
I wanted to, you know, have a big plantation of tobacco.
And then I started flying and I wanted to be a missionary aviation fellowship pilot.
I wanted to fly the missionaries in and out of the jungle.
Seriously.
Yes, seriously.
That's why I learned to fly.
Wow.
Your heart was always in the right place.
Absolutely.
I mean, I'm not a preacher, but I could fly those sick people in and out of the jungle and the missionaries and bring them their mail.
And there was an eight saint started it with a little plane.
And he'd put a rope down and put the bucket and write it to missionaries' feet.
And they'd put their note in it.
And he'd put them some penicillin in it and then mail and bring it back out.
And they started that until they could cut out strips in the jungle.
And I thought, wow, what kind of wonderful flying that would be.
And then later on in the first story, my book, I tell when I was shot down over the Amazon, and I was 11 days, and who rescued me except Missionary Aviation Fellowship.
Full circle defilement.
Did you like somehow meet a pastor that was smoking too much weed and snorting too much coke and you got connected?
Is that kind of how this happened?
Not at all.
I just read the book and I thought, I'd like to do that.
Jungle Pilots, the name of the book.
Wonderful book.
And they made the movie The Point of the Spear.
Point of the Spear.
Interesting.
He was killed in Ecuador when he landed on a sandbar with the Indian people.
Wow.
I'm assuming you've been to Ecuador as well.
Yes.
Yes.
Beautiful place.
Keep going.
So little bitches.
So you're going, you're doing what you're doing, and then you become a pilot, and then somehow, someway, you get affiliated with these folks?
It happens so gently.
Let me just tell you how subtly these things can come about.
I had a farm in Georgia, and I put in 36,000 lay-in chickens, and Prena promoted it, and the price of feed went up, and the price of eggs went down until every time I picked up a dozen eggs, I was losing five cents, and I was losing the farm.
So I started turning that chicken feed into moonshine whiskey, and I made 1,000 gallons a week.
And you can read over, I got all, they emptied their bullets at me trying to kill me and blew my steel up, and I lost everything.
So when I quit running, I was in California.
So I went to work into construction, worked at that a couple of years, and then I got on the Redondo Beach Fire Department.
And so I was on it five years.
And, oh, it was a good job.
It was hard to get on.
It's like winning the lottery to get on it.
But I had a little painting crew, and I was bringing antiques from Missouri back and selling them.
And I was making quite a bit of money.
And one day, I was reading a National Geographic magazine as I bumped across country with the guy, and it said mercury in Mexico was $1, and it was $13 in the United States.
And I said, I should bring some of that back when I go down in my little airplane.
He said, oh, man, you ought to bring some of that marijuana back.
I said, I don't know nothing about it.
I heard about the kids smoking it.
He said, it's the hottest thing you've seen.
What year is 1973?
Okay.
All the cool kids are smoking that marijuana.
We're just starting.
So I said, well, tell me about it.
So he introduced me to a fellow.
He said, you got an airplane?
I said, yeah.
And he said, would you be interested?
What do you pay?
So he says, let me introduce you to somebody.
So he called somebody, and the fellow came over and said, I'll give you $10,000.
And I said, well, throw some of that hay in there.
Hey, that's the nickname.
I said, well, yeah, well, I mean, it looked like a little bit of hay to me in the back seat of my airplane.
It wasn't no big deal.
And I come home and landed and give them their stuff.
And they give me $10,000 in a bag, and I brought it home and shook it on the bed.
And the baby got $100 bills and crawling around.
And my wife put her hand over her mouth.
And I said, let's go out to dinner.
You know, let's celebrate.
So then I said, wow, now that, I don't know about that.
That wasn't nothing.
So I went to a lawyer and I put $100 bill on his desk and I said, Mr. Lawyer, what would happen to me if I got caught bringing some marijuana across the border in my plane?
He said, what's your criminal history?
I said, I've never had a speeding ticket, not even a parking ticket.
He said, you work on the fire department?
I said, yes, sir, I work on it.
He said, man, you'll get probation.
At the very worst, you would get one year and spend four months raking leaves.
So I thought, now that's the business for me.
So I bought a Cessna 207 that would carry 1,100 pounds, and I'm making $40,000 when I want to go down.
So I brought my mother out from Georgia to Disneyland and picked her up my new Cadillac and took her to Disneyland.
He said, what you doing, boy?
I said, I'm hauling pot, Ma.
You told her?
Yeah.
And she said, how much you making?
I said, I'm making $40,000 any day I want to go down there.
He said, what do they do if they catch you?
And I told her what the lawyer said.
And I said, what do you think, Ma?
She said, do you need a co-pilot son?
That makes all the sense in the world.
That's family valuation.
Mom's like, go for it.
Absolutely.
Were you giving your mom money at this point?
Yes, I took care of my mother and all my family.
Yes.
How different would it have been if mom said don't do it?
How different would have been if she said you shouldn't do it?
It wouldn't have made any difference.
It wouldn't have made a difference.
If she would have said it or not, you would have done it anyway.
Oh, yeah.
Why do you ask that?
Because the parenting, obviously.
I'm just curious.
I'm curious to know if he was asking for confirmation or if he was asking for, like I remember I was working at Bally's in Chatsworth and Chatsworth at the time was 80% of porn.
And a guy comes in with a pretty girl and they're sitting there saying, how much money do these guys pay you per month?
I said, they pay me, you know, three, four grand a month.
He says, how would you like to make that every weekend?
I had no idea what he was talking about.
Then he says, he says, well, you know, you look like you'd make a hell of an actor.
I said, really?
You've never seen me act.
He says, you just got the personality for it.
I said, great.
Are they figuring me out in Hollywood?
He said, what action this is going?
So he says, you know, you ever done adult films?
I said, like, like movies for adult people, like, you know, like Reddit R.
He says, no, like adult adult.
I said, what are you talking about?
He says, porn.
I said, no, I'm not going to do porn.
He said, well, if you ever wanted to, we'd pay you four grand a movie.
So after you did your first movie, what happened?
Well, I got to pay four grand.
No, no, no.
But I went home and I told my dad, I said, dad, so let me tell you what happened to me today.
And then I told my dad, my dad's like, if you ever do it, you can never call me your dad again.
Really?
I said, dad, what are you going to say if your friend Cita saying that's Gabriel's son?
Think about it.
If your older friend Cita, they're going to say that's Gabriel's son.
Wouldn't you be proud of that?
He says, no, I don't want you to touch it.
No, that's obviously.
You sought his counsel.
No, I didn't.
I was teasing him.
Of course I was giving him a hard time, but that's the source.
I was curious enough if there was a conversation with mom to see what mom would say.
So, okay, so he says, so she says 40,000, do you need a co-pilot?
That's right.
At any time, you can go and make 40K and come back.
Right.
So what do you do then?
Just keep doing them.
Keep doing them.
I wanted to make $300,000 and go back to farm.
And I got $300,000 right quick.
And my wife says, you must not remember like I do, all that heat and bugs and rattlesnakes, hoeing and digging.
She didn't want to go back, so we stayed.
Stayed what?
Stayed in California.
In Redondo Beach.
Yes, sir.
You didn't want to go back to Georgia.
No, you don't want to do that.
Your goal was $300,000 is what you said.
And you got the goal.
And you said, how long did it take to get that?
A couple weeks, months?
I reckon two or three months, probably.
Two or three months.
So in three months, you reached your goal.
Yes.
And you just, the taste of all that money was too sweet to turn up?
It was just nothing.
It was just like there was nothing between the United States and Mexico but a barbed wire fence.
I mean, and you couldn't even find that.
I flew across real low, and it didn't matter.
So just come and just one run after the other.
So was there ever a goal to say, babe, once we make this much money, I'll stop?
Or was it just a full-on addiction to saying, next one, next one, next one?
Let's get some more.
Because I knew he said $300,000 and I would stop.
Yeah, well, I would have.
I mean, if I'd have went to the farm, but then you're there and you're sitting there with an airplane.
I'm still working on the fire department.
I got every four days off.
I'd go down there and do it and come back.
And it was just nothing.
It was absolutely just, I'd go down and go fishing.
And your fire department guys are not asking you.
They're like, how did you actually get that Cadillac?
Oh, yeah, they reported me.
Oh, they did report you.
So that's how it happened.
Well, that didn't matter.
On load 13, I had that little feeling in my stomach, like ding, ding, ding.
This guy walking, we had to land at a, I landed in a little 900-foot strip, if you could call it that, on the bend of a river in the sand.
And there was water coming through and a little waterfall and a river about knee deep.
And I'd go there and brush my teeth and take fuel.
They had fuel and fill me up.
And then a young fellow named Robert, anyhow, a young fellow would get in the airplane with me, Pedro.
And we would go over where he would tell me to go on the highway, maybe 20, 30 miles away.
And they had two trucks and machine guns on it.
And I'd land between those trucks.
And they had like a bucket brigade.
They'd put the marijuana in the airplane.
And I'd shake hands with all of them and take off.
And there'd be 20 or 30 cars parked waiting, a highway patrolman in there with no lights on.
And I'd take over that and go home and unload it.
But on day 13 on the morning, we got in the plane and pow!
I thought a tire blew out, and I looked and he said, Police see up, Roger, police here, police here.
And it dawned on me.
But we only had 400 feet from the end of the runway, and I, because I'd parked down about halfway, and just at daylight, I'd just brushed my teeth in the river, and these men around there.
And I just put, it was a Cessna 207, a big, big stretch Cessna.
And when I got to the end of the runway, I just pulled it up.
And when I did, there were four of them that just riddled that airplane with four AK-47.
They put 80 bullet holes in it.
Hit me across the top of my head, knocked my kneecap off, and the end of my toe, and then shot his foot nearly off.
And so I thought, I mean, the windshields was all out, and they'd hit the tank up on the other side, and the gasoline was just gushing in on me.
And they hit the strut right by my head, and they spattered it all in my face.
Hundreds of pieces of lead just spattered all over me.
And I thought I was going to die.
I really did.
I thought I was going to burst into flames with all that gasoline.
And I just pulled the power and it went to hit that river, and it looked like huge turtles, the way the rocks were formed.
I remember seeing.
And when I hit, the wings came off, and the next time the nose came under the plane and stopped in the water.
And I was knocked out.
And he was shaking me, Roger.
Come on, Roger, come on.
So we jumped out, and they were still shooting the plane.
And come hit, well, on top of the radio, I had taped in a holster a 9mm.
You were ready?
No, I just had that in case I crashed.
Somewhere you would like to have something in the jungle.
I didn't have it for people or nothing.
Just had something kind of, I don't know, just like a little survival kit.
Self-defense.
Yeah, so anyway, I took that pistol and they were running down the runway toward me.
And I shot a few shots, popped a few caps, and they ran in the stones, and it was big boulders everywhere.
And we started running, and I saw that Pedro's foot was nearly shot off.
I mean, it was just a shot through the, and I took my t-shirt off, and it wasn't even bleeding, but it was just torn out, I guess, of stress.
And we went up the hill through the cactus, and there was an old donkey.
Charlotte, Charlotte.
And he caught that donkey, and we got on and rode and rode till we came to a little house, and there were some people, and they went for help.
We sat there all day long.
And that's a heck of a story.
I can finish it if you want me to.
Then what happened?
How'd you get out of it out there?
All right, so I'll finish it then.
So there was a little house, and I see you, and a man plowing with a cow and an ox, a cow and a little mule with the harness over him, and he was plowing.
And so Pedro talked to him, and they put us in the house.
And the woman put cloth and put diesel fuel all over us to keep the flies and the bugs off.
And we sat there all day long.
And about dark, about 20 horses and mules come into that yard.
Click, click, click.
And there was a doctor there, Dr. Benjamin So-So.
And he got in there and I have a slug in my foot, and he was trying to find it.
And he gave us morphine and shot us up and gave us tetanus shot and whatever.
He said, you've got to get out of here.
They've got roadblocks everywhere looking and they think the Americans in here are dead because of all the blood that was in the plane.
So they put us on mules and horses and we rode to a road.
We come to a dirt road.
And there was a big truck.
It was a 10-wheeler.
And it was loaded with corn in the ear.
And they dug holes in that corn.
And all those Mexican guys got on there with the big hats and Sarappis.
And I guess it was kind of cold.
And we put us under the corn.
And that truck would just, and the corn would fall over, so they kept pushing my face out.
And we came finally to the highway, and they got us out.
Oh, we got stopped three times by.
Did you pay these guys off or no?
No, they were just.
So why would it help you?
They just wanted to be helpful.
Oh, yes.
Did they know who you were, though?
Did they have to do that?
How many they had to do?
But anyhow, they're wonderful people down in Mexico.
They're wonderful.
But they knew you were on the run.
Oh, yes.
People on the inside.
They knew all that.
They knew you were on the inside with who?
There's a Mexican cartel at this point?
No, no, there was no such thing as that.
It was just country folks, just farmers, and it was growing pot.
But these were just people just helping us.
And Dr. Benjamin so-so.
But they got a taxi for me to go to Guadalajara because they said they got all the roads blocked north.
So they got a dwarf guy to come, and he had a new car.
And he talked, and they propped me up with the pills and bandaged up and got some clothes for me.
And I remember that night, we talked all night long.
And again, I said, do you have any children?
Oh, see, Senor, I have a beautiful wife and three boys.
Let me tell you how I got my beautiful wife, Dora.
He said, you see me.
No girl would look at me.
But there was a girl in the village that I had my eye on, and she was playing in a band.
She was playing the flute at the back.
And I grabbed her and pulled her into the yard.
And my mother helped her skid in the house.
And I told her I love her.
And we sit there all night, but she wouldn't look at us.
And the next morning, Senor, we had to let her go.
So she went to her father, and she knocked on the door.
And he said, get away from here, you prostitute.
You've been away all night with some man.
You're not a daughter of mine.
And she walked away with her head down.
And I said, Dora, let's go talk to the priest.
And, senor, that's how I got.
Wow.
Well, I'm not through.
Let me just, just a little bit more.
And he said, and then one year later, we had a beautiful baby boy, and I had a Ford.
And we named him Ford.
And the next year, Senor, you won't believe it, but we had a beautiful baby, another boy.
And I had a Dodge, and we named him Dodge.
And I know, Senor, you won't believe this.
Three years ago, Teslas, though.
Three years later, we had another boy, and I was driving a new Chevrolet.
And that damn priest wouldn't name him Chevrolet.
I had to teach him to drive to get him to name him Chevrolet.
And that's how I got my three boys, Ford, Dodge, and Chevrolet.
Unbelievable.
Can you imagine naming your kids after three cars?
It's kind of like four brothers, Dallas, Denver, and whatever.
So, okay, so from there, you didn't get arrested.
You didn't do Tommy.
You got away.
So what was the first time you got arrested?
At what point was the first time you got arrested?
After I lost my airplane, I hired a man to fly another airplane.
And he came down and I gave him $5,000 and told him to land at a feedlot there south of Hermica.
And he mistakenly landed at the International Airport and tried to pay off.
And he had my phony name in his pocket.
And I was at the hotel, a nice hotel, and a guy, nice gentleman, came over and arrested me.
And they put me in jail there in Mazatlan, in prison.
First time.
That was first time, and it was a terrible time.
They wanted me to confess, so they beat a confession out of me.
Is this the time they tortured you?
Yes, uh-huh.
Got it.
This is the hot sauce story.
Yeah.
This is the hot sauce story.
Uh-huh.
You may want to tell the audience your hot sauce story because I know you're not a fan of hot sauce.
I've never seen it.
No story.
So, you know, first off, they duck your head into some seltzer water until you just, and when you inhale, it just explodes your head.
And then they beat you.
And after some days, they took other people out of the, and you could hear them beating and crying and beating them.
And I was black and blue, but it was no more than in a good fight you would have.
It wouldn't bother me that bad.
But they took me out naked and chained me up and buttered my bum.
And then they filled it full of hot chili pepper.
Holy moly.
And I did talk ugly.
I bet.
I thought if I'll ever find you.
Did that ever, like every time you go to a restaurant and they say, would you like some hot sauce?
Did I completely mess with you for the rest of your life?
No, I'm good on the hot sauce.
Leave it alone.
Alone.
But spicy fluid.
But there's a little more to it.
Then they hung a dead man in the cell with me.
And it was just a little cell.
It was July and it was really hot.
And the man was frozen and he was wrapped in strips of newspaper like a mummy.
And after a while, the formaldehyde started to melt.
It looked like he was crying, hanging on the meat hook, and he's opened up so I could see his liver.
And then the fluid started running out of him and went on the floor and up.
The place was not even six foot square.
And I put my face under the door so I could breathe.
And as I breathed the fresh air, I went to sleep.
And I'm also breathing that fluid that was in him.
And I had pink flying pigs, so I know where Walt Disney got his ideas from.
And when I came to, I didn't know which was real and which was a dream.
So this is the first time you were arrested, and all these stories are happening in Mexico.
Yes, correct.
Oh, yeah.
So you haven't gotten involved in Colombia.
At the 10 years I didn't get in Columbia.
So you're in jail.
The hot sauce story.
The dead man in the cell.
Are you this, like right now, you're just like this happy-go-lucky, like 0% do I feel drug smuggler criminal vibe out of you whatsoever?
It's very apparent how likable you are.
Do you have this same demeanor at that time of your life?
Oh, no, I memorized his face, and I was hoping to look him up one day.
Are you serious?
Probably not, but I mean, you thinking that I don't want to do it to you.
But you see what I'm saying about his personality now.
His personality is not very common for that type of person.
That's a strength, though.
That's a very big strength because you're, you know, when you're the guy that comes across as being harmless, he couldn't harm anybody.
That's the most powerful guy in the room.
Really?
Oh, my God.
Kaiser Soze type of thing.
This is Kaiser Sosa Motto.
I'm listening to him.
All I'm thinking about is usual suspect.
And all the stories, I'm like, where is he picking up?
I'm looking behind me, thinking some of this stuff is coming.
But obviously, you're a great storyteller, and you know that.
You're a wonderful storyteller.
So at this point, has the jail time have these experiences, 99% of people, if they had that hot sauce experience, that you had, not hot sauce, I keep saying hot sauce, the experience that you had, they're probably like, you know what, babe?
I think I'm done.
I'm going to go back to Redondo Beach.
Let's go back to, you know, and just kind of hang out.
Why keep coming back to it?
Especially that close call?
I don't know.
It didn't, you know, when I was out, the people where I was shot down from the load, I had paid them $17,000.
So they gave the money after a month or so.
I got the word out.
And my wife came down and was trying.
Oh, boy, I mean, she can tell the story about going between those cells and visiting me and the vis-a-vis day.
We have the little shacks you can shack up with your woman in the courtyard.
Oh, my gosh.
So she's just walking straight with her basket full of food and them reaching each side with their hands out.
But anyway, somebody come and paid the $17,000.
And I was taken out the back door of the jail and put into a brand new pickup with a horse's head on it and taken to the bank.
And the banker told me, because he spoke English, that this Joaquin has paid them $17,000.
Roberto Roberta has paid somebody in the jail to get you out.
Now, that's paid for.
And so when I caught that airplane, it was the 4th of July, 1974.
And when them wheels came up, I thought, I really did get out of there.
At that time, how much money you have in the bank?
How much cash you got in the bank?
This is $74.
Maybe half a million dollars.
Half a million dollars.
$74, half a million dollars, like $4 million today.
$3 million.
It's real money there.
I could have retired.
But did you, but this story was prompted based on when I asked you a question about the firefighters, the co-workers.
I don't know what prompted you telling that story because what I was trying to find out is you're still a firefighter in Redondo Beach.
Did the firefighters start realizing why is this guy pulling up in a Cadillac?
What's he doing?
Did they start asking questions?
Did they start reporting?
Was there an investigation or no?
They played it cool.
I know that there was one fireman there that went to the police or went to the DEA or read that transcripts.
So one guy went.
One guy went.
Did that do anything?
Did that need to do anything or no?
I thought, and I really thought for all those years that they had to catch you.
And they never did catch me.
How long in the U.S. until they caught you from 1973?
Oh, they never did catch me.
I was for 12 years until 1982 before they arrested me and they charged me with continuing criminal enterprise.
I was number 41 that was ever charged with that horrible charge.
It's title 21-841 called Continuing Criminal Enterprise.
And you have to manage three organizations with five people in each organization, and it carries up to life in prison.
And wow, John Gotti was number 42.
You were 41?
He was 42.
He was 22, yes.
And he died in there.
I gave up the money, and they dropped that charge, and they gave me, I think, choose any two marijuana charges and income tax.
And I got a total of 35 years with only five-year sentence and 30 years of probation parole.
So I got out after a couple of two and a half years.
Got out after two and a half years.
And that's when Barry Seal came to me.
I'm skipping way ahead.
And he says, I'm coming out tonight.
Ronald Reagan's Blue Eyes was on the television.
We have absolute proof that the communist Sandinista government is in the cocaine running business.
And the phone rang, and Barry said, I'm coming out.
But I come way ahead.
I jumped many years in advance there telling that.
Now, for people that you may not know who Barry Seal is, if you want to put up the movie American Made, so they know what movie American Made played by Tom Cruise.
Have you seen a movie or not?
Yes.
It's a great movie, by the way.
You think so?
I thought it was a good movie.
I mean, obviously, the story of...
Were you not a fan?
Oh, it was just terrible.
Really?
Oh, yeah.
Well, of course you would say that because it's your life, meaning you lived it, so you know more details than the guys in the world.
It was just stupid.
If you got $30 million in your airplane, you're going to bet $10 he can't take off because the runway's too short.
Who could even think of such a thing?
You're going to put guns to his head and take his sunglasses.
That's just pure crazy.
And then all these planes running through the IPR pioneered that course through the oil wells.
And they're going to talk to the DEA.
How are you going to know what channel they own?
Just like, it's going to go different.
So you think a lot of that movie was just kind of far-fetched, unbelievable.
Somebody sat in a rocking chair and read something and said, how could it have been?
Did you look at Tom and say he reminds me of Barry or not at all?
Oh, not at all.
Really?
Nothing.
Barry looked like a statesman.
Barry looked like somebody that should have been a governor or a senator, like a Clinton, like a Bill Clinton type of guy.
Even better.
Good looking.
Yeah, and really smart.
Well-spoken.
Oh, beautiful, smoke it.
He's just gentle and southern gentleman, nice a man as you would ever meet.
Just really.
So you guys get hooked up.
At this point, who has more power and more money between the two of you?
Or is it a different kind of power and money?
Barry worked completely for me.
I paid him a salary.
So Barry worked for you.
You paid him a salary.
Yes.
And he's flying for you at this time.
That's right.
Okay.
When all that happened.
But boy, we've got so many years we've jumped over there.
So between those years of jumping over, what happened there?
Did you have any kind of connection at this point from Mexico to now you're doing stuff with Ochoa or Pablo?
Has anything happened yet or not yet?
No, nothing's happened to them until, I guess, 1980.
But I did, I got a Twin Beach airplane.
A friend of mine says, okay, you got shot down and you're shut up.
Let me buy you a Twin Beach.
They brought me a beautiful one from, I met the Beach Boys and bought their airplane.
That thing was lovely.
And I went to Atlanta and picked my wife up, and the red carpet was rolled out.
That thing was just absolutely, it was like that red one over on the right.
Back then, that was so nice.
And I still like that best of all of the airplanes I flew.
And yes, and so then I could haul about 2,500 pounds, and I just haul load after load after load.
And I started Operation Star Trek, and they put these trucks on the little hills all across the border from Galveston to Tijuana.
But then I would go out in the middle of Baja, 400 miles south of San Diego, and go out two or three hundred miles and come in behind the islands of Santa Barbara and come up and go out in the desert and unload.
Just never had any problem whatsoever.
So it looked like I had, it's like I had a license.
How many people were working for you at that time?
Nobody.
It's still a one-man show.
Just a one-man show.
So this is.
So always was.
This is still a one-man show.
So at this time, are you having the big life?
Do you live in a big house?
Do you have the nice clothes?
Are you partying with the right people?
Are you being invited to celebrities, stuff like that, or no?
You're living a very low-key, nobody knows.
It's like the millionaire next door, or instead it's a trafficker next door.
Nobody would know who you are.
Is that kind of how it was or not?
I don't know, kind of a mix.
We had a nice home in Santa Barbara in Hope Ranch.
It's a really nice home.
What does that nice home mean to you?
Well, it was $180,000 back then, and it's like $15 million now.
Okay, so that's a really nice home.
That's a really nice home.
Yeah, $50 million home.
Okay.
On a firefighter salary.
No, well, listen, I quit the fire department.
We moved up to Santa Barbara.
My wife found a house, and I said, you know, we can't hide $170,000.
How are we going to hide a house?
She said, well, you hide airplanes and ships.
Certainly we can have a house.
By the way, this whole time you've been with your wife.
Yes.
Same wife.
Same wife.
In and out of jail, everything.
You've been together?
60 years.
60 years strong.
But we were married 58.
We were sweethearts for a year and a half before that.
Yeah, I know how it goes.
All right.
And how much in that plane that you mentioned, how much money gets, can you, you said?
2,500.
2,500 tons.
Pounds, pounds, not tons.
2,500 pounds, I apologize.
What does that equal in terms of the weight that you're moving, marijuana could be?
And I was making from $60,000 to $100,000.
I flew it on halves.
I didn't like to buy it or sell it or load it or nothing.
I would land, somebody would put it in.
I would come up, kick it out, somebody pick it up and take it to him.
You didn't touch anything.
I didn't use it, touch it, buy it, smell it, smoke it.
So did you feel like you were a criminal at this point?
Or is it like, look, I'm not even touching it.
I'm the Uber driver of the trafficking business.
Listen, I never felt like I was a criminal.
I'm an outlaw, but we outlaws for many things when you break the law.
Now it's not even against the law.
After I got out, after all those 30-something years, there was a big billboard that said, relax.
We deliver your marijuana to your house.
I think Adam's trying to get ideas on that.
That's what Adam's trying to get ideas on how to make that movie.
He wants to buy that $50 million house in Santa Barbara.
I did too.
So, okay, so at this time, you're living large.
Are you partying or are you pretty low-key?
No partying at all.
You're not a partying.
So are you a guy that uses the product, smokes weed, snores coke or not?
Don't touch it.
You don't touch it.
You've never touched it at all.
Just not touch it.
I tried, but I mean, I don't know.
But it's not something where you're like, hey, since I'm in the middle of the day, I didn't inhale.
Okay, Bill Clinton.
Well, Biggie said, never get high on your own supplies.
That's right.
No, I'm not a druggie.
I don't use it.
Yeah.
So, okay, so this is happening.
So are you still a middleman?
Are you still not working directly?
Are you still not somebody that's, you know, or when does the big phone call come in where you said, oh, shoot, I'm officially sitting with players in the room now?
Well, I'd like to back up and tell you one story.
I bought a DC-3 and I had connections down to Columbia to haul marijuana.
And that haul three tons, 1,000 miles, and land on a 1,700-foot strip.
A wonderful, wonderful airplane there, Flattius.
What did you pay for that, by the way?
That plane?
If you can put it up, John.
$65,000.
You paid $65,000 for that plane?
Yes.
Wow.
And it's worth about a half million dollars now.
But anyway, I was down there and I got shot down, shot Lama Sky by the Columbian jets, two jets.
And that was during the World Series baseball game in 1981.
And I got out of that plane and was 11 days in the jungle.
And the other couple of guys that was in the plane, they went down the road.
And they spent several years in Bogota, prison.
And I went through the jungle and rode dugouts and whatever I could do and swim across rivers.
And I was 11 days.
And that's when I finally came to a place I could don't stall avionics, wear airplanes.
And the Indians would say, Loma Linda, Loma Linda.
And finally, when I got to Loma Linda, it was beautiful.
It was like Hawaii and World War II airplane sitting out there.
And I went up and, hello, how did you get here?
And you don't know what this place is?
This is Loma Linda, headquarters for Missionary Aviation Fellowship for the Amazon.
And they flew me out.
Isn't that wonderful?
Wow.
And by the way, we have younger listeners.
This is not the same Amazon, like the Amazon Company.
You were talking about like Amazon Amazon.
The Amazon Jungle.
We have to clarify it nowadays because some people are thinking Amazon was founded in the 80s.
It's not, folks.
It's later on.
So that happens.
And then what happens at that moment?
How are you getting connected with these guys?
Oh, a guy came up and wanted me to know if I would unload a ship with marijuana and wanted me to give him $100,000 or something to buy the fuel to come up in case I didn't there so they could go back.
And I thought that was a pretty good deal.
But it was just a rip-off.
So I went down to see him.
And he didn't have the money, of course.
So he took me to see a man named Fernando Cottereo in Medellin, Colombia.
And he was up on the top floor.
And he looked like Winston Churchill or was a kind of like, he could speak a lot of language.
He'd probably a genius from, no telling what.
But he was drunk.
And he stayed drunk.
So that's how, and he said he'd pay $5,000 a kilo to anybody to transport his cocaine.
But you see, Marta, his wife, and so I did.
And so inshada, a woman from Bolivia, Sonia De Atila, and high-cheekbone and rabbit boots and rabbit fur coat.
And she was kissing him on all cheeks and said she was going to Miami to buy an airplane.
And so he said, you have an airplane, don't you, Roger, for sale?
So the lawyer there did.
So I said, yes.
She said, what kind?
I said, a queen air.
Well, she perked right up, queen air.
So she said the price, and he kept bumping his hand up like that.
So I made a deal to sell her the queen air, and I had it brought down.
And then we came to Panama, and she said, well, you have to go to Santa Cruz, Bolivia to get the money.
Wow, so her entrage and all got in it.
We went to Santa Cruz, and the police met her with the flags flying on the old limousines, and we went out outside of Santa Cruz underneath the water tank.
And there was like a house made of marble, square, like a mausoleum.
And there's a fence around it, and the people were all outside the fence, and they were crying.
And she said, what's the matter with you fools?
And your lion is in there eating the baby.
She had a mountain line and she opened the door and ran in there and there was Kitty about a 200-pound mountain lion eating a baby on the floor.
I mean, it was just gross.
What do you mean, eating a baby?
The maid left the baby on the floor in this mountain line that she's pet in her house is eating it.
What?
Yes.
That's the most gruesome thing, horrible thing I've ever seen in my life.
It was just terrible.
I mean, she finally took it away, but the baby was eating.
Done.
Some head and some diapers and left.
Dude, that story.
Yeah.
So holy mud.
Well, this story just took a total turn.
Seriously, I'm in a completely different place right now.
And it was her baby and her mother.
No, I'm no more interested about this mountain lion now than Pablo Escobar.
No, I don't know.
Yeah, it was.
You saw this.
Right there when she pushed him away in a black line with all her muddy mouths, and she grabs him around the neck and gets him out of there.
Roger, I know we're going to get into Pablo Escobar.
I know we're going to get into some of those juicier stories.
At any point, you're already in a Mexican jail.
You're seeing babies getting eaten.
You're getting your shot at.
You're missing a foot almost.
At any point, you're saying, babe, like, is your wife not saying, honey, what are you doing?
Like, this is like, live our life in California, or is the money too sweet to pass up?
Did you know?
Looking, at that time, it didn't even feel dangerous, even though those things happened.
How's that possible?
I don't know, but it just didn't.
What?
You're seeing people lose their lives.
You're almost losing your life, and it still didn't feel dangerous.
It really didn't.
I mean, it's just like flying an airplane and you land on a sandbed or it's like a bush pilot and it was fun and it was great.
I mean, go down and stay in the nicest hotels in Mexico and go fishing and fly a load back.
It was just great.
How much shit did you see growing up as a kid?
Like, did you live a rough life?
Like, did you live a life where you saw mother and father and grandma?
I lived in the ground.
It feels like you were raised with right values.
I did.
Yes, of course I did.
And then, so as an outlaw yourself, you're so you is so is it the thrill?
Is it the excitement?
Is it money?
Is it let me get a little bit more?
Is it what keeps you coming back?
I don't know.
It was just like I wasn't afraid of it, and it was a lot of money.
Now I'm making $100,000 every time I want to fly an airplane down for a little buzz and go fishing and come back.
That was it.
Yeah.
So, okay, so if you want to continue with the story, so at what point do you meet Ochoa or Pablo?
Okay, these guys come up after, I think it was after the DC-3 was shot down.
And now I'm all right.
I can't go to Columbia, and I've had some trouble in Mexico too, and things that I've skipped.
So I'm kind of out of places to go.
We went to Pakistan, did a load out of there, and then went to Thailand, did a load out of there, big 20-ton loads, unloaded it in British Columbia and flew it down in float planes to Washington State.
I did.
What did the Thailand deal make you?
The 20 tons?
I don't know, a couple of million dollars, I reckon, you know.
A couple million dollars.
Yeah, and I bought a Cessna 206, was a beautiful plane, and flew it down.
How did they find you?
Because this is pre-anything.
So how are people finding you?
Through what contests?
Not like you're on YOLO page.
It's not like you have an Instagram DM me.
How are people finding you?
Well, this guy, you know, the Thailand deal was later on with a guy named Howard Marks that wrote the book, Mr. Nice.
You've heard of him.
Yeah, he hooked me up and did several times.
So he said, because obviously back in the days in the military, that was normal.
So I'm thinking if the connection was any kind of a military, things like this used to happen with some of the guys that were in the military back in the days.
Military bases were a great place to smuggle drugs.
Right.
Back in the days.
Oh, he had some people that were doing it.
We had some people to do it.
But then, okay, so a guy came up and wanted me to unload a ship, and then he stole the money.
And so I'm going after it.
So he introduces me to Fernando Cordareo.
And so then his wife says, we were having his birthday party.
And so it was over on the Pacific coast.
And this is another story.
He says, so I flew over there in a plane with a commercial plane landed on the Pacific Ocean.
It was like in the jungle.
I mean, it looked like he was on, as far away from civilization as you could get between Panama and Ecuador.
And they landed, it must have been 300 people there.
And that's when they was deciding, I think it was, or I know it was the beginning of the Medellin cartel.
They had actresses and actors and stand-up comedians and judges and police chiefs from all over.
And everybody had their little bag of cocaine showing it, this and the other.
And the party raged for about two days.
And then the nice helicopters went to flying away in the planes and left us poor folks there.
So it was Sunday, and a good portion of them had been gone.
And I had taken some barbecue and went around the log cabin and was laying there in the hammock reading MMK's The Farth Pavilion.
And bow, bow!
And blood spattered on the book that I'm reading.
I rolled out of that hammock and kept rolling until I felt safe to look up.
And I looked up, and there was a young black man, handsome man, looked like he's about 22 or 25, and he was tearing the pistol out of a Colombian, a white Colombian man's hand.
And he put it right between his head and went click, click, click, click.
There was no more bullets in it.
And there was a dog there, a white bulldog with a black spatch over his eye, and he was turning cartwheels, and the blood was flying.
And I looked and on the young man was, he had been shot in the leg, and he was bleeding bad.
And so he hobbled backwards.
And I said, listen, I told him in Spanish, I'm a doctor, I was lying, but I could have stopped it because with his fireman training.
So he pointed that gun at me, and I didn't want that click, click, click in my face, and he hobbled on back.
I said, please, man, I'm a doctor.
I can help you.
And he went on back down there and died.
And old Cronouts came out streaming.
Y'all people are going to get in trouble.
And that night, the generator went out, and it was full of water and stuff when we went out there.
And we could hear those people under the trees down there.
And we thought we was going to get killed.
I mean, sure enough.
And the next day, the place was, the runway was covered in cans and trees and stuff so the people couldn't land.
And we stood up all night long to a little rags and oil cans so we could have a little bit of light.
It's a crazy story.
How did you meet Pablo and John?
So now then I meet somebody there and he wants me to fly cocaine.
So his name was Jaime Ordonis.
And he had had a ton of cocaine confiscated from him in Medelline and he had killed 16 judges is what I heard.
So I flew down and he was supposed to put 300 kilos and I believe there's 165 in there and I gave it to a guy named Bill Barbosa and somebody shot him in the stomach.
He was in the hospital two or three months here in Miami and I thought, I ain't won't fool with those people anymore.
So I told my friend Mario, the one that introduced me to him, and he says, I got somebody to introduce you to.
I've got somebody you need to meet.
Come down.
So I came down and we went to Invigada, it's a village just out of Medellin.
And We pulled up into like a little estate, like an old house with hitching rails in front and little stones all over.
And there must have been 30 or 40 men out there waiting to talk to the patrons.
And so we were ushered right in, and there was a drop-dead gorgeous woman in there.
I mean, she wanted to know if we wanted a cup of coffee or tea, so we had our coffee, and then we were introduced to George Ochoa, Jorge Ochoa.
And he was sitting at a big desk, and he was so nice.
He spoke some English, and he had 12 telephones, all of them with different colors.
And he'd tell us this is New York, and this is Washington, and that and Seattle.
He said, when it rings, I know where they're talking from.
So I got salesman in that part and other, and he told me, I wanted to know what kind of airplanes I had and what kind of experience I had crossing the border.
And I told him, and he said, well, we pay $5,000 a kilo for you to bring it up.
And we'll put it on, and our people will accept it up there.
So he said, let me get my partner.
So he was gone a minute, and he came back in with Pablo Escobar.
And Pablo Escobar, a nice-looking man, friendly, and had a nice attitude toward him, shook hands, asked me the same question that Jorge had asked me, and he seemed pleased with it.
And that was how I met him.
So I started flying.
And they put 300 kilos on the first time.
And then I said, it'll hold a lot more, but they wouldn't put it on for me.
So after, I don't know how many loads, I guess five loads or something, I got above the fog and I couldn't get down.
And I had to land at New Orleans International Airport and bounce down that thing in the fog and sat there all night with 300 kilos in there.
So the next morning the sun's come up and I'm like, ouch.
And I took off and went over where I was supposed to do and got down.
And I thought, I'm not going to ever do that again.
I had $7 million at the time.
And I said, I'm just, I'm through.
So I told Leto, the man that I give it to, I said, listen, man, I almost got killed.
I'm not going to do it again.
Oh, Roger, please, please.
Don't you know anybody?
So that's when I hired Barry Seale.
Got it.
And then I hired another fellow out in California.
So I had two airlines going, and I had seven of those Panther conversions.
And I had two people buying cars, putting hydraulic jacks on them, and new hoses and new tires.
And it was just like, bang, bang, bang, bang.
So what are you paying Barry and what are you making every time Barry flies?
I would pay Barry $2,000 a kilo when he was $4.5.
So he made $1 million each time.
And then I had to give him $50,000 for the hefy at MENA.
You have to give him $50,000 for the Heffy at MENA.
For people that don't know who the Heffy is, is this the William guy?
I suppose it was.
He said, he told me, I'm having dinner with the governor tonight.
So I don't know.
I never met the governor or nothing.
So you never met Bill Clinton?
No, no.
Okay.
I never even been to MENA.
But he told you that this money was going to Bill.
No, he told me I have it paid away all the way to the top.
I have it paid off completely.
There's no way on earth I can get Caul MENA.
And he did say a couple of times, I'm going to be, I'm going to the governor matching tonight.
Now, where would you see him?
Where would you see him?
Oh, I saw him all the time.
I had to give him money all the time.
Well, where did you see him?
All over the place.
No, I see him in New Orleans or he lived in Baton Rouge.
And he'd come to Miami.
And I tell you a little story.
He wouldn't fly again until I paid him.
And it took me about three weeks to get the pay because it was a pipeline.
And so he would belly ache about it, not being any good natured, really, but he'd hold, one night we weren't in a room, so he'd stay with my wife and I and the little baby in the hotel room at Omni there.
And he'd hold the baby up on his big old belly and, oh, ain't that good, Rhett?
And so I gave him a, I paid him a million dollars, and I put a package of stay-free mini pads in there.
And he liked that so good, he made a vote for it on his mantle piece.
Let me ask you a question.
The story about MENA, that at one point, MENA, a small city nobody knew about, was getting more $10,000 cash deposits than any other city in America.
Was that an accurate story?
They were building banks on top of banks.
And the federal government is like, why the hell does MENA have so much cash in the bank there?
What's going on over here?
And it kind of triggered something.
Well, I went to prison, and I was in there for two years.
And then, of course, Barry was really nice.
He paid me for the airplanes, every penny of it that was, and helped my wife whatever he could, got me a lawyer.
So he was a good friend of mine.
Barry was.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
I love Barry.
And so then he started with the CIA, those guys, and he was bringing it up by the tons.
And he was landing in MENA, and he was taking a few guns back down.
Can you imagine what a twin-engine plane, no matter how big it is, AK-47 is going to affect the war down there?
It was just an excuse for them to say, okay, we're shipping guns down and changing it for this.
So that's all it was.
Just a front.
It's just a front.
But what's the, you know, again, you hear these, like, when you went to jail, when you went to jail at that time, when he was saying he was paying all the planes and all that stuff, how did you get caught for you to go do the 30-some years that you did in U.S.?
Not the 30 years, but the time they get caught here.
How did you get caught?
Okay, just 11 people told on me, and they give, I mean, you could write a book of all the depositions that they gave.
Said Roger did it.
The airplane, the man that worked on my airplane, he would just tell about the bullet holes in the plane, see machine guns in there, which there was no such thing.
White powder on the windowsills.
I never, just, once they get into the grand jury, they think they're going to get out of their little problem.
They just build a whole book about it.
Did Barry ever, Barry, the story about him being an informant and working with guys and being on the inside?
Because Barry, for whatever, Barry was more connected.
Would you agree that Barry was more connected with politicians and power players in the U.S. than you were connected in U.S. and you were more connected in other countries than here?
Is that a correct statement?
Exactly.
But Barry was connected with the CIA.
He was connected with the CIA.
Absolutely.
They was hooked up and they were bringing it.
And they had somebody to invent the cracked cocaine.
And they put it in every city in the United States over one weekend.
And it killed thousands and thousands of people.
They mixed it with, I think, baking powder or something and made it.
And it's extremely addicting.
And it went to the black communities, particularly.
What was the motive behind it?
I mean, we've read about it.
Just money.
And so, I mean, on that one trip, I know that he brought one and a half tons in.
And that's a pretty good solution.
understood there was 10 ton loads coming in there so well they was so the the the the story about him uh you know there's many versions of the story And I've heard even you tell this story in multiple different podcasts and things that's been written about, even in here.
But what are, rather than asking you, what do you think happened to Barry and who killed him?
What are some of the conspiracies out there about who killed Barry?
I know exactly who killed Barry.
You know exactly who.
I know 100% who killed him.
A man named Ronaldo.
And on my second load, Ronaldo got in the back.
I was on a banana plantation, and it was real clay, long clay runway.
And I had a little turbojet air commander, turboprop air commander.
And I took off with him in the back seat with a MAC-10.
And when we took off, the wheels got filled up with mud, red clay, and the wheels couldn't come up.
So I can't make it to Louisiana, over 2,200 miles, I believe it was.
So I had a place I used to refuel in Belize and a real nice fellow there on a huge ranch.
So I told him, we got to land.
He put the gun to my head.
No, no, no.
You're going to Louisiana.
So we're going to all die, man.
We got to do it.
So anyway, we had a nice Leonard and went on.
And he's the one that killed.
He met Barry, I believe, at that time.
And he's the one that killed him.
He's still doing life.
He may have been the one that killed him, but what's his reasoning for wanting to kill those moments?
I would imagine, well, I don't imagine.
I just know that Barry was testifying against Pablo Escobar and the Ochoas.
Now, this guy worked for them.
Got it.
So there's no question who did it.
Somebody paid him to come up here and kill him.
And he had two guys with him, and they all got caught.
Is it true that Barry went to Bush Sr. and said, if you don't clear up my IRS tax issues that I'm having, you know, I'm going to let the whole story out and tell everybody about what really happened to you, what we did?
No, that's not true.
That's not true.
No.
No, that's just not true.
Got it.
And then in regards to Bill Clinton, and I know it's probably, there's a lot of people to be scared of in life.
You know, his wife's probably in the top 100 list for many people.
Maybe not yourself, but she's a pretty experienced individual in many different ways, politically.
Who was Bill Clinton back then when you were doing what you're doing?
I mean, I know who he was, but who was he?
Was he a power guy?
Was he just a governor?
Was he, who was he?
He was a strong man around me there until he was governor, and then he was governor, and that's just all it was, is all I know.
Did you also have those kinds of relationships with other governors from other states or no?
He was.
No, I think I was completely out.
When I was doing Louisiana, I used Interstate 10.
They were building it.
And it was the best runway you could ever see.
And the bridge was.
That was a freeway.
Oh, my God.
You could land on that.
What a freeway.
And I'd just go out there the next day and scrub my tire marks out and they keep landing there.
You would land on 10?
Interstate 10 before it was finished.
Get out of here.
All the way across Louisiana and Texas as they was making it.
It was just beautiful.
You just have miles.
Have a truck there with a thousand-watt candlelight.
10 was a game changer.
It was wonderful.
I know.
I mean, you take it from St. Augustine, your neck of the woods, Jacksonville, all the way through Florida, Tallahassee, all the way through the Panhandle.
Boom, you're in Louisiana or Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas.
You're just in that bridge across the Mississippi.
Several contractors went broke on it.
I guess it was 10 or 15 years, and they had big red flashing lights just like at the end of a runway, and you had five miles to the river.
Pascal.
It was beautiful.
Any run-ins with the mob during that time?
Like when you were doing stuff?
Did you do anything with the Italian mob?
I know you said 41 was you, 42 was John Gotti.
Was there any kind of relationships when they, because when they find out somebody knows how to make money, they typically want to team up.
Did that ever happen?
No, nobody knew me that much, but I did clean the Russian grain ships with a hydro blasting business, and I met Carlos Marcello, and I liked him.
And he said, no, when you do something, that's how many knows it.
And when you tell somebody, that's how many knows it.
How many is that?
Two.
No, it's 11.
Got it.
So I like that.
Then he tells his best friend.
So I love memory of him.
He said that.
Yeah.
So what's the message there?
Just keep it up.
Just keep your mouth shut.
And are you telling your wife everything at this point, though?
No, but she knows what I'm doing, but I don't tell her.
And your mom knows what you're doing.
She's over in Georgia, so she's out of it.
But they know.
She's aware.
Oh, they know.
And your wife's aware.
Yes.
And at any point, when I feel like I keep circling back to this, you're getting shot.
You're getting run up on.
Your plane's going down.
I mean, you're going to jail, hot sauce.
At any point is your wife saying, honey, enough's enough.
Are you that big of an adrenaline freak?
Are you that just, hey, you know, it happens, line of business, to get out of this?
I don't know.
She just had faith in me.
She just believed I could do anything.
I mean, it's like I always came home and she knew about where I was and she was kind of my flight plan.
So sometimes I remember I'd be eating sandwiches and I'd have a love letter right in between the baloney.
Did she love you that much or did she love the $15 million house?
She definitely did not love the money and still doesn't.
She does not.
She's real simple.
She's a very Christian person.
We both are Christian, but she really loves the Lord.
Did you ever try to introduce Jesus to Pablo and tell Pablo about Jesus and God and Bible or no?
No, no, you.
I'm not talking about you.
Oh, no, I'm not that type of person.
So how much total time did you spend with Pablo and Ochoa?
If you were to say that.
So I spent a weekend with Ochoa out there out on his, where all the bird cages and the animals and all that.
And with Pablo, I saw him like three times or four times, and I spent one day with him.
We flew out to a farm that he had near with a couple of guys in, and there were some boys there, and they put me on a motorcycle early in the morning.
The grass was wet, and he said, you ride a motorcycle?
Yeah.
So we got on him, and I boom, boom, boom, and I went and there was a little ditch there, and the front wheel fell in it, and I went sliding across the grass, and they all had a big laugh, you know.
So then we rode those motorcycles a while.
And then we got on horses, and he gave me a machine gun pistol and over, can you, you know about this?
And of course, I'd never seen one.
Yeah, absolutely.
So we rounded up some cattle, played cowboys a little bit.
Was he a guy?
Was either one of them the type of guy that you see him, you're like, wow, what a fun guy.
What a nice guy.
And then all of a sudden, something happened, triggered, boom, is a completely different human being.
Or was it your few hours that you spent with them, you just saw one side of their personality?
Oh, I think that he was just one side of his personality at that time.
I think he went somewhat crazy.
You know, there was a three-pronged war down there for some years, and 10,000 people a year being killed, murdered, and Medellin.
So the military was just as bad.
The government was just as bad as his side.
You had the government.
You had the Contras the white Colombians that was against the guerrillas.
And all three of them was full-on in the cocaine business and into tons of it.
And so I guess the Contras was who I was working with.
But there was plenty of it coming out from the jungle, from the fark.
And the military was producing and robbing and stealing all they could get.
So it was fair game.
So I guess whenever they started killing Pablo, I don't know who started killing first, but it was a war between them.
And so people get, when people start dying around you and people trying to kill you, people change.
And I believe he did.
And later on, he'd become like a monster, just bringing that airline down if he did and paying $1,000 for every policeman that they would kill.
That's just terrible.
Did Ochoa go and turn himself in?
And then he did like five years and then came out and now he's like living in Medellin.
I think he's still alive or something like that, right?
Yes, he is.
His older brother died recently.
Right.
And his younger brother just got out of prison, I believe.
What is he up to?
What is Ochoa up to?
He has a place for Pasafino, Pasafina horses there in Vigado.
He'd be a very, I think we reached out for an interview a few years ago.
He'd be a fascinating guy to interview.
If he's still in Medellin, you think he would do an interview?
I don't know.
He's a mighty nice person.
He's a real gentleman.
Oh, absolutely.
So he's not a guy that's killed anybody.
No, just not his type of person at all.
You'd like him.
Ochoa.
Yeah.
So I'd be safe if I went to Medellin to conduct anything.
100%.
Well, maybe we go together because you got your license back to fighting.
He owes me some money, so he don't want to talk to me.
He owes you some money.
Three and a half million dollars.
So maybe we go collect and go halves.
That's good.
I'll show you.
That's what he's trying to get.
I mean, Adam's trying to, this entire time he had an OnlyFans situation that we're trying to fix.
I know you're kind of joking.
No, I'm not sure.
Wait, no, no, no, no.
I know Pat's kind of joking, but he's also kind of serious because look at his resume.
How many mafia mob guys have you interviewed?
Dozens.
Yeah.
Countless.
How many guys affiliated with the DEA, Escobar, everyone in the Colombian Mexican cartels?
I mean, we're talking dozens and dozens and dozens of this.
What keeps coming, why does it keep coming back to you?
Like, all right, these types of characters, these stories, these entrepreneurs doing things their own way.
Why do you keep revisiting this?
What is it about this?
And what is it about their business models that maybe you learn from?
Yeah, I mean, for me, like, I am, as much as I love capitalism, I like talking to communists more because I want to know what makes you believe in that argument.
Make sense?
Like, as much as I'm a free enterprise guy, I like to talk to, like, Jenkins, one of my favorite guys I talk to.
What makes you believe that?
Like, what caused you to get there?
I'm a law-abiding citizen, but I want to know, Sammy, how did you get here, Sammy de Bo Gravano?
I'm just curious.
What was the tipping point?
Was there a place to save you from getting there?
Like, with him, either you are, you know who you look like.
Can you pull up Jim Jenkins?
This entire time I won't, you know who Jim Jenkins is or no?
Okay.
So type in Jim Jenkins and type in Jim Jenkins and put Kennedy right next to it.
Put Kennedy right next to Jenkins.
Yeah.
Right there.
Look at that.
Okay, click on that.
Jim Jenkins was one of the autopsy guys.
You look like you guys could be brothers, by the way.
Obviously, he'd be older than you, but Jim Jenkins.
He's a handsome guy.
Oh, by the way, what's crazy is he's been married to the same woman for 50 plus years.
So similar, how long you've been married to your father?
58 years.
He's been married to his wife at this point.
I want to say 54 years, 55 years, right?
You have no idea who this man is, Jim Jenkins.
Okay.
No, but I sit there and I'm listening to you and I'm like, okay.
Do you think you're smarter than the people you sit with?
Like, do you think you can outsmart and outmaneuver yourself out of anything?
Do you think that or no?
Not at all.
At all?
No.
Seriously?
No.
So would you consider yourself a very simple man?
Yes.
What do you like to do for fun?
I like to walk.
I like to run.
I climb the mountain behind our house every week and that sort of thing.
How about when you were 35?
Like, what was fun for you at 25 or 35?
Well, I don't know.
I like flying.
And I like when my wife and I, we go out to eat dinner and bottle of wine, that sort of thing.
We didn't do anything.
I mean, just didn't have anything simple.
Your simple life.
And are you somebody that if somebody shared a secret with you, it stays with you?
Absolutely.
That's your M.O.
It's strong and it stays with you.
So then, because the fact that you're alive, still sitting here, and Barry is not, means something.
There was something that happened there that they weren't willing to take you out.
They had no reason to whatsoever.
I mean, it's not about that, many different reasons to take you out.
If I got a plane, you're bringing me a delivery, and if I want to flip against the other guy, and I can just take this, there's a lot of different ways I can eliminate you.
The people could do that to make more money.
A guy like you could do.
No, no, you misunderstand.
They put, I'd land a plane on a, I would come over to El Banco in Magdalena Basin.
Yeah.
And I'd be at 10,000 feet, whatever kind of airplane I had.
And I'd look at 9,000 feet, and there'd be a Cessna tailledragger, a bush plane, circling at 9,000.
I didn't know where I was going.
And I'd circle around, I'd find him, and we wiggle wings, and I might go 100 or so miles behind him, and we'd come to a jungle strip, and I would land.
And I could spend the night.
I could do as long as I wanted to.
They'd have a good meal for me, put gasoline in the plane, fill it up with the cocaine, and I would fly back, and each one of those duffel bags belonged to someone.
And they would have like the brand for their cattle, like a snake on it, or three X's or some horns.
And those all belonged to, and I would give them to a man in Miami here named Leto, and I would just point out the cars where they were.
And I didn't, they didn't have to give me any money.
I'd wait three weeks, sometimes a month, before I'd get paid.
Yeah, but the moment people know on the inside and greed happens, how do empires fall?
They fall within.
You don't have to ever worry about the people on the outside.
Always worry about people on the inside that may turn against you due to envy, due to whatever may be associated.
All I'm saying is if somebody on one guy's side says, hey, you know, such and such, you know, this guy making all this money, why don't you and I go and be in the middle of the travel that he's doing and take him down and take some of the stuff and we can walk away with a couple million dollars.
Temptation happens, and that happens all the time.
That's what I mean when I say I don't know.
The fact that you're sitting here, you know, somebody looked over you because odds are not supposed to be on your side.
In regards to El Chapo, El Chapo's a 1957 guy.
You're 1973 when you started, so he was 16.
So you probably never done anything with El Chapo or any nothing.
Not at all, because he came later on.
Got it.
And so outside of that with Pablo and Ochoa, you've been very complimentary about Pablo, but at the same time, you said, when I found out amount of people he killed, I was disappointed by that.
What's your relationship in how you saw him, how he treated you to what he did later on?
How do you view Pablo?
Is it like a complicated way you view him?
No, I just think that he just turned bad.
That he just, probably the stress and whatever it was, and people start shooting and killing each other.
People, it's like him more.
Look what's happening now with Putin.
And you wouldn't think that about him a couple of months ago seeing him.
He turning killing tens of thousands of people.
Do you think good men are capable of, I guess the question would be the following.
Do you think more of good men are capable of doing evil things or evil men are more capable of being good?
Wow.
I don't know.
I think all of us, all of us could do bad things if we had the right provocation.
And I think all of us want to do good if we just live in and be around us and people are nice to us and you say hello and good morning.
I love everybody.
But somebody's killing my family, I turn into something different.
Yeah, I agree.
One time I had a conversation with my dad and I told my dad, I said, dad, do you think you're capable of killing someone?
He says, never.
I said, dad, stop.
He says, never.
I'm telling you, I could never do it.
You meet my dad.
My dad, you know, he said, I'm not capable of doing something to anybody.
I said, dad, stop it.
I said, take one of your grandkids.
Somebody does something to him right in front of you.
If you have a choice between killing them or you, what would you do?
He says, well, maybe I'm capable of doing something to you.
Life changes a little bit, right, when you get to that.
But have you seen evil, evil men become good?
No.
Have you met many evil men throughout your lifetime?
Yes, in prison.
There's some that should be executed.
Seriously?
Absolutely.
Tell me more.
Well, we had a fellow in there named Stickham Steve.
And Stickham Steve was a guy about my size, but I think he'd kill, he came in to do three years and he killed 13 people while he was in there.
Over the years.
13 people in there.
In prison, over the years.
He'd go in a year or two in solitary and he'd get out and he'd kill somebody else.
Maybe he wouldn't get convicted of it.
He kills somebody else.
And then he kills somebody else.
Prisoners.
Yeah.
For what reason?
Whatever.
It didn't bother him.
So he'd come in.
We had a little TV room there at Long Park is Max Security's prison where somebody was killed every month when I was there.
Murder.
Every 30 days, somebody was killed.
What city is this?
Long Park, California here.
Okay.
They got cameras in there and knocked it down to three or four years.
But when I was there, it was bad.
So Steve would come in, turn the television camera at 3 o'clock.
We had headphones to plug in in a little TV room glassed in.
Y'all know I watched Bonanza every day at 3 o'clock.
And the guys would just lay the headsets down and go.
I wasn't scared of Steve.
I just didn't want to kill him.
I didn't want the trouble with him.
So I just put my headset down and watched Banana one or the other.
Well, I was down on cell 17, and my friend Phil was 18, and I was a little slow getting my cup of coffee, my coffee, to go down to the end where the hot water heater was.
And usually 15 or 20 men down there getting it.
And my friend Phil's coming down, and he says, and I'm going, he says, you don't want to go down there.
I said, what's going on, Phil?
He said, you don't want to see.
Bullshit, I do want to see.
And I go down there.
There's nobody there.
It's a place bigger than this room.
And I look and I get my hot water and my instant coffee.
And I look across, and there's Steve with his shirt off at the rail.
And he turns around and comes to me, and it looks like a car spring has been stuck through him all the way through his chest, and it's out his back.
Oh, boy.
And he came right up to me, and like a little boy, he said, Can you help me?
Can you help me?
I said, no, Steve, I don't believe I can help you.
And he said, can anybody help me?
And he walked back over to the rail and he leaned over and the blood started coming out of his mouth and dropped down by the guard station.
And of course, the guard hit the button and hear all the guards come, 50 of them, and they're going up them stairs, shaking it like boom, boom, boom, boom.
And his boss, he painted the house, and his boss was a tubby fellow, about 30 years old.
And they had had an argument the day before, and he almost put Steve in the chokie.
And he ran right up to Steve, and he was like me.
He didn't see it to start with.
And when he saw it, he dropped dead of a heart attack right in front of Steve's feet.
Get out of here.
I'm around the corner kind of having a look and all those people.
And then Steve fell down on him.
Just the two of them dead right there together.
And they locked us up for two weeks.
And I mean, they treated us bad.
They come to everything out of the cell with guns in my face.
Like, say something, Reef, say something.
Who's they?
Who is that?
That guard.
His name was Clark.
What did Stick'em Steve do at that point?
He just fell dead.
No, but who did he kill at that point?
He didn't kill anybody.
Somebody had come into his cell while he's still laying on the mattress and put that metal through him.
It went out into his mattress, through him, and it didn't kill him right then.
He lived another five minutes.
So his was the first cell there on that side.
And so he just walked out and.
How many different prisons have you been in?
Well, wait, I want to stay on the story here.
So this guy, so did you guys finally find out who killed the guy?
No, nobody wanted to know who killed him.
How many people were in the prison with you guys at that time?
1,400.
Oh, so you're not going to find out?
And about 200 in my unit, and I was a maximum unit.
There were some bad boys in there.
But you're saying Steve had it coming?
Absolutely.
13 people.
You're kidding me every time he goes down there.
So eventually, people are going to be able to get it.
Somebody might have to take this guy out.
But somebody should have done it.
Done it a long time ago.
Somebody should have done it a long time ago.
The government should have done it.
I mean, why are we going to let that happen?
So you believe in death penalty?
100.
When I went in, I didn't.
But after living with some of those people that black Bob cut a man open and ate his heart and put him under my bed, knee 17, before I got there.
What?
Yeah.
So, I mean, you live with those people.
They cut a guy up and ate his heart.
He cut his heart up.
He killed him and cut his head.
What jail did you go to?
This is in California.
Pop penitentiary right there.
1,400 men, 12 dying a year average.
That's why I asked the question about how many different jails you've been to and what was the worst.
So you're trying to compare like how bad it is compared to this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You've been to Mexican jail.
You've been to jail in California.
I assume you've been to jail.
You've been in jail in all Australia.
26 of them.
How many different jails?
And what's the worst situation to be in?
In Mexico.
Okay.
By far.
No doubt about it.
This is cleaned up somewhat now than what it was.
There's where I was, 11 years.
Oh, maybe not much.
You're looking at it right now.
What do you think when you see this picture?
Does it do anything to your name?
I just think what a terrible situation the United States has, all those men in there.
Half of them don't belong there.
Half of them don't?
No, do not belong there yet.
So go back to death penalty, and then I want to ask you the question on the half and half.
So death penalty, you're fully Ford.
You went and not being Ford.
You left saying, no, we need death penalty.
There's some people in there that, you know, like Black Bob.
I mean, he'd just kill you if you fool with him.
And you're just like, I don't know.
And he had shot terror went up, and he had plenty of sense.
I played chess almost every day, and he'd be nodding off.
And I said, come on, Bob, move.
And he'd move and make, okay, and beat me.
So he said, he ain't no shortage, but to do something like that, he's in there for murder.
Did any of that, so did you go in as a simple guy?
Did you come out with some bad, ugly, maybe not habits, but like your view of the world and your intentions changed where you could do more harm than you went in or you went in, you came out the same human being?
I think I came out pretty much the same thing, but I got tougher as the years went by in there.
Yes, you see it.
These teeth are not my own.
I left them in the man's neck.
What happened there?
He was winning.
Okay, I got you.
He had his hair.
I pulled it over and gave him a good bite, and that was the end of that.
Did you do that right after seeing the Tyson fight?
Or was that like inspiration came from the family?
I should give him some lesson.
You went after the ear, you went after the head.
Do you think it's there?
There must be some.
I know you said, I'm a simple man.
You know, I'm just here.
There must be deep below, maybe not on the surface, maybe something you don't even like talking about.
A deep sense of cunningness, an acute sense of it.
There's got to be something in there.
You're hanging out with Pablo Escobar with Ochoa.
You're hanging out with these literal murderers.
And yet you're just.
They weren't then.
They were just like us sitting here.
Absolutely.
You can't look at a man telling you.
But even in prison, though, Roger.
Well, even if some of those people.
That guy, something Bob, you said, what did you call him?
Black Bob?
Black Bob.
Black Bob.
Do you think he was always evil?
Yes.
So you think some people are.
Well, no, listen, no little baby's born evil.
No, I get that.
But do you think like he's been bad for a long time?
I don't know what happened to him to make him that way.
From you being around them.
I'm just curious.
I'm finalizing some of these guys.
How much of that is parenting?
How much of that is their own DNA?
There's a bunch of their own DNA because it follows.
I see it in families.
Grandfather, father, son, comes right on in there.
Push yourself down.
Pass it down.
Well, look at animals.
You've got bulls that hook and gore.
You get rid of them.
And pretty soon your herd gets a better disposition.
It's crazy to know that the perspective here to believe in death penalty after seeing what many of these guys did.
And did you ever see, well, you said no.
You didn't see.
You said half the people in America shouldn't be in jail.
The ones that are in jail shouldn't be in jail.
The other half deserve to be in there.
How do they end up in there?
How broken is the system that we have?
It's horribly broken.
Why and how?
Okay, a lot of the people in prison, not in those prisons, but in the lesser prisons, making up the population and camps and farms.
And this DE agent will go under the bridge with his mustache and his tattoos all over him, and he'll shoot harem with these guys, or he'll snort a little bit of whatever, and he'll get one of them to sell two or three grams of methamphetamine to the other one.
Now he's got two bust.
And he takes them to jail.
And boy, now I've got two, so he does that every month or two.
So whenever it's come for who's going to make sergeant, guess who makes sergeant?
The one that's got all these little arrests.
Or maybe some of them a little bit bigger, but I'm just making it.
So now then he goes to a young prosecutor, and the prosecutor comes and says, Boy, we're going to give you 10 years if you don't plead guilty, buddy.
And you've got a public defender.
I'm going to make sure you do 10 years.
If you'll take five, you can do it now, the prosecutor says.
Okay.
And it's full of them.
Okay, you're going to have to do four on the five.
And so he's had two grams of methamphetamine.
And I'm waiting on a parole hearing in Oklahoma City, which I never got.
And so I meet a fellow from Santa Barbara.
And where are you going?
He said, I'm going to Atlanta.
I got caught with two grams of methamphetamine.
And I'm going to Atlanta for psychiatric evaluation.
And then I meet a nice young fella from Albany, Georgia.
Where are you going?
He said, I'm going to Los Angeles.
I got caught with two grams of methamphetamine.
I'm going for psychiatric evaluation.
I imagine they cost the government $30,000, $50,000 to take them across country and leave them a month in Oklahoma City at the big exchange there.
17 planes, I believe.
I don't know for sure which Fed Air, Con Air.
Don't ask who owns it.
Now, the people of the government and people of the United States don't want to pay that.
It's these people that are lining their own pockets with it and their own retirements.
And it's wrong.
It's really wrong.
So your upbringing, could they have done anything for you to not have pursued this career?
Your parents?
Yes, I don't blame anybody.
It's all mine.
But my father was an alcoholic.
Okay.
And we lived in a nice white house on a pretty big farm.
But he was drunk.
And he loved us and nothing wrong with him.
He was just a gentleman.
But my poor mother worked in a sewing factory and dug like crazy in the dirt and made us, helped us make a living.
And I think if he had put his arm around me and said, son, you know, you're smart.
Why don't you be this or that or a lawyer or a doctor or whatever?
I would have perked right up because whatever he said, I like to do it.
But he said, Roger's the best damn hog catcher in the county.
Well, I was sure I was.
I'd ratled a bull down or ride a bucking horse.
And I mean, he laughed about that and I liked it.
So I just wondered, my daughter's a doctor, and I encouraged her, you know, study a lesson.
Go for something.
You can do it.
So I think.
Well, he never beat you up.
He never did anything.
It wasn't like he was abusive.
He just drank.
He was a wonderful human being.
If I talked about him now, I'd cry.
But you were seeking his approval.
If he told you to do something positive in your life, you would have done that.
Oh, yes.
Of course, I would have to.
That's the power of a father, man.
Power of a father.
Can you go a little bit more deeper on that?
The power of a father on the son.
Why is that role so important?
What it is.
Why, though?
Why is it so important?
I think it's just inbred in us what our fathers and mothers think of us.
It really is, particularly boys with their father.
I mean, I can remember things that he did, and it just warms my heart.
When I was about five or six years old, I'd follow him.
We had two bird dogs, and he would shoot the quail with the double-barrel shotgun, and they'd point them, and as they'd fly, pow, bow.
And the birds with feather would fall, and the dogs would get them and come here.
And then I'd say, Daddy, can I shoot that gun, you know?
And he says, do you really want to shoot this 12-gauge shotgun?
I just little.
Yeah, I want to shoot it.
So he puts it over a stump, and he gets behind me real close and holds me, and he puts it in my shoulder niche, and he pointed to that tree, and I pull that trigger, and the bark flies off of that pine tree.
Man, I could have walked on the air.
I was so big.
You know, stuff like that.
Do you remember that vividly?
Vividly.
I remember me out in the yard, and I'm throwing a butcher knife up at the leather-winged bats.
I think I'm going to hit them because they'll dive towards you.
They're blind, and they go away.
And I see him coming down the road with his leather coat on and a double-barrel shotgun over and his two big rabbits hanging in.
I run all the way out and meet him.
Can I carry one?
And I have to hold it up like this in the rabbit's hair.
You know, you just remember things like that.
And then for him being drunk, if he would have been carried on with that, what would I have been?
I would have never went to prison, but it's certainly not his fault.
It's mine.
My brother didn't go to prison.
My children, my sisters didn't.
So you don't put any of the onus.
By the what month's your birthday?
January the 26th.
Aquarius.
Wow.
And then how about your dad?
April.
April.
Pat, this is something that you constantly are kind of bringing up, the role of the father, the role that you play with your kids, the important role that your father has played in your life.
Something that even when Roger over here is talking about his dad, this is something that interests you greatly.
Like he said, he's going to get emotional about this.
Even with Rick Macy, we talked about the role of a coach and the role of a parent and the role of a father.
What is it about, I mean, other than the obvious of obviously your parents are important, why is this something you keep bringing on harping about?
Yeah, I just think, you know, we're trying to fix, you're getting to the product late to fix it.
You know, I don't know how to describe that.
Like, we're trying to fix the product after it's already been broken for 18 years.
Amen.
Instead, let's work on the most important example and, you know, face of what that product is looking up to and who is emotionally.
Listen, I have a lot of influence.
Okay, so I went to a wedding, you know, with this one of our guys, George's wedding.
And his dad and I, we've had a lot of good battles back and forth, a lot of them over the years.
Dad was a man's man, just like he was a guy, Cuban guy, you know, tough guy, you know, confident, swagger, walks in, not afraid.
I took him to Kentucky Derby one time, and you would have thought he owned the Derby.
He wasn't supposed like 10 years ago when I took him to the Derby.
And 11 years ago when I took him to the Derby.
But he would be like, why are you making my son do this?
You're making him drive from Palmdale to this.
We would get into it.
I'm like, listen, I'm not trying to do anything bad to your son.
I'm trying to help your son be a man and a leader.
Let me do my part.
Let me do my part, right?
And son George is a quality, quality guy.
Very quality guy, right?
Smart guy, very successful.
He runs a $30 million year business with us right now.
Does very well for himself.
But he wanted to win for his dad, right?
And his dad comes up to me to the wedding in November when he got married.
He got married, I think, November 13th or something like that.
I'm in LA.
Beautiful wedding.
Small wedding, but a beautiful wedding.
My dad goes, I got to talk to you, Pat.
I got to talk to him.
We go in the corner.
He says, hey, listen to me.
You need to know this.
You need to hear from me because there's only one man that can tell you this.
I said, what's that?
He says, my son's had two fathers, me and you.
We've raised this boy together.
I got him in the first half.
You got him in the second half.
But it's you and I.
And he's crying.
I'm crying.
My body's got chills all over the place.
I'm feeling it right now.
But a boy wants to make his dad and his mom proud.
Some of that shit breaks.
I don't know.
So, yeah, to me, I would much rather train the trainers.
I would much rather get the parents.
I would much rather get the fathers than we get them at this point of the game.
It's too late.
Absolutely.
It's too late.
What are we going to do in here at this point?
We screwed the whole thing up way too late.
Well, I'll tell you how to do it.
That's how, from starting off, that's how family planning is a great, great part of the education.
Did you know that there's half a million children in foster care, and I don't know how many in orphanages and millions aborted every year.
But those children are unborn and unloved, and they wind up there.
A great portion of them don't know who their parents are.
Don't know if my mama didn't want me.
And I think I told this before, my daughter was, my daughter's a doctor, and she delivered a baby to a 10-year-old child.
What in the world?
I mean, four or five generations in the vision room all on welfare.
And I say that a bird builds a nest before she lays an egg.
Not so, human beings.
And where the children are rather more scarish, they're wanted and they're loved and they're taken care of and nurtured.
And that's what needs to be done.
You know, the four things I tell my kids is lead, respect, improve love.
And I don't know.
I don't know a quote.
Listen, everybody talks about me.
It's not like, but it's not like the way you sell it.
I don't think the power of love, man, that love is a very, very, you know, challenging thing.
Unfortunately, we had Paul Manafort here last week.
I don't know if you know who Paul Manafort is.
Paul Manafort went to jail, Trump, that whole situation as a lobbyist.
Trump's campaign.
Yeah, and I'm not a fan of lobbyists at all.
And I told him I'm not a fan of lobbyists, what these guys do, right?
It's a big business model.
You make a lot of money.
But then he said something.
He says, what are you going to do?
Okay, don't have lobbyists.
The other side's going to have lobbyists.
So don't go and have them.
So now what are you going to do?
And you're cornered.
So, yeah, oh, you know what?
We're not going to use tanks, but they're going to use tanks.
Okay, let's get a couple tanks, guys.
You see what I'm saying?
Hey, hey, they're going to use rocket launchers.
No, no, that's not our policy.
We got to get rocket launchers.
Guys, let's go buy some rocket launchers, right?
So eventually, to go against an enemy that's doing that, you know, you try to use love as much as possible, but some people are just, they're playing by different rules than you.
So you as a human being are conflicted, constantly conflicted to say, what should we use to handle this crisis?
Okay.
Should we handle it?
You know, just let it go and don't worry about it.
Well, then if you let it go and the market gets a reputation of you just let things go, then they're going to come in like vultures, you know, take advantage of you constantly.
Then what do you do?
And maybe that's not the responsibility of everybody.
Maybe that is the responsibility of the parents to impose that love and respect and strength and confidence on the right values and principles and hoping the kids are going to pick it up and do something with it.
And you still got to risk because at the end of the day, I think the kids got to do what they got to do.
There's a lot of kids that were raised to great parents that did some dumb shit.
They did some stupid things.
So a part of the onus is going to be on them as well.
You can do everything right and still screw it up because you are not 7.5 billion people around your kids and you're not around them 100% of the time.
You only run them for a few hours or minutes or sometimes they're gone away from you when they're adults.
But yeah, I think, Adam, to go back to it, man, I think somehow, some way, as much as we are doing what we're doing with parents, you know, with kids, I think there's got to be some kind of a parents once a week, once a month course teaching something.
I don't know, because if you do it and they do it, the kids feel it.
If you pick something up and somebody tells you, here's how I raise my kids, and you do it, your kid is going to be the beneficiary of what you picked up from another person that taught it to you.
I think we're not spending enough time teaching parents.
I want to keep saying this.
I think we're not spending enough time teaching parents.
But I think, you know, parents are also starting to realize a few different things with all the stuff that's going on.
Disney, Netflix, politics, you know, all this mess that's going on.
Parents are starting to realize I have to be more involved.
There's four things we came up with today.
One of them is they're going to start putting their kids in more private schools because right values and principles are necessary.
Number two is homeschooling is going to increase.
Number three is they're going to relocate to different places.
Could be a state.
They're going to relocate to a different place.
And number four, I'm going to keep saying this to you, and I'm not even in the business.
I'm telling you right now, you're going to see more parents putting kids in churches, some kind of additional, like MMA.
My kids go to the bar here in Fort Lauderdale, and I got to tell you, they're sitting there teaching them discipline.
That's not how you do this.
You respect each other.
You do this.
You have to put your kids in communities right now that are teaching the right values and principles, whether it's martial arts, whether it's church, whether it's sports, whether it's anything.
Because there's a lot of, it's almost as if there's a lot of people that are also confusing kids nowadays where parenting matters and supporting cast matters.
But I'm listening to you the entire time.
When you listen to him, if you close your eyes, you didn't know his story.
And we never talked about him being a smuggler.
And all we were able to talk about is from 0 to 18.
And you have one game you have to play.
Can you guess what he ends up doing for the rest of his life?
Would you have been able to guess what he did for a living?
Definitely not a drug smuggler based on his.
Would you have been able to guess it today?
He's just a guy who likes to fly and happened to have drugs on the plane.
Became a pilot, maybe he became a fighter pilot.
Maybe he went into the military, became a colonel, lieutenant colonel, something like that.
Like he said initially, he wanted to be missionary aviation.
That's where his heart is.
And it just so happened that the money was too sweet to regrets?
Oh, 33 years of them.
Yeah, I mean, nothing.
Nothing, nothing in this life.
People is worth, but no amount of money is worth going to prison for.
Not for long.
Not like that.
Why, though?
I mean, you kept going back, though.
Why?
I mean, you say that, but I mean, I hate to do this to you.
He asked you the same question three times.
You say no amount of money is worth 33 years.
Absolutely.
You went to jail 26 different times in six different countries on four different continents and escaped five times.
I wanted to get home.
Okay, well, you went back, though.
All right.
When I got 35 years from marijuana, and I got out after a short time and had 30 years of parole, and that means anytime you violate, they can give me all a part of that 30 years that was left.
Now then you get Barry's seal that comes, says, if you, and they, let me tell you about that.
After I saw Reagan's blue eyes on the television, they're saying that the communist Sandinista government was in the cocaine running business, and there was Barry's airplane billeting on the runway in Nicaragua.
Uh-oh.
And I'd heard Barry might have turned.
So I got a phone call from Barry.
And he said, I'm coming out tonight.
He said, I'll meet you at a French restaurant there in Santa Barbara.
I don't remember what it was.
So I'd be there at 9 o'clock.
So I came in and Barry had game weight and he was back at the ball and I looked around.
There's about 20, 25 people in there.
Women with leather skirts on, all 30, 40 years old.
Men, blue jeans and jackets.
And I went up and Barry, are you wired?
And he said, no, I'm not.
And I said, well, are they all DEA?
And he said, every one of them.
And I said, well, please just tell me what's going on.
And he sat there and he leaned back and he started telling me how it happened and how that he got left holding the bag.
And he just put his hands over his eyes and the tears ran down between his fingers.
He said, Roger, I just couldn't do it.
I just couldn't do it.
I was facing three life sentences, life sentencing each prison in state Florida, I don't know where, Louisiana and Arkansas.
He said, so I went to, I got out on bail and I went to see Edwin Meese in Washington and I told him everything.
I've testified before Congress and I told him your part.
And you testify with me, you can keep your money, you'll get a new passport, your family will live wherever you want to live.
So he was one of the 11 people.
No, he was, I think, 12.
This was after I'd already gone.
So he said, but you've got to do it.
He said, I just couldn't do it.
I'm so sorry.
So he brought the guy said, well, bring your head honcho over.
So it was a guy, I think he was a crop duster from Alabama named Jake Jacobson.
He'd been in his pilot, the one that flew the one and a half tons up and bellied it in.
And he told me, you can come to Miami tomorrow and testify before a grand jury.
You can come down first class with Mari, or I'll take you down in chains.
I said, well, I'll come down first class.
So I went down and I went to see one of the best lawyers, Gould, and his partner had been assassinated for representing a snitch.
So I went to talk to him.
I said, man, I've got to say something.
I don't know what I'm going to say.
I'm not going to testify.
He said, well, I don't represent snitches.
My face turned red.
I said, I'm not a snitch.
He said, well, that's what you're talking about.
He said, let me tell you something.
You go in that grand jury room, and if you don't tell them everything, and Barry's told them something different, you're going to get life.
No matter one thing that you don't tell them.
So I went to the courthouse.
I was supposed to meet Barry to do it.
So I was standing there, and they came up the Calvocade and had Barry in between them and cars in front and back.
And they stopped down there, and it was hot.
And they was all looking up with their machine guns looking up this way and that way.
And I just reached up and hit the top of that car, bam!
They tore the inside of it, and I said, see how easy it would be?
So I said, fellas, I'm having trouble getting a lawyer.
So, well, so he'd give me a name of a lawyer or something.
So that night I had dinner with Mari in the La Festival restaurant, which was our favorite down in Carl Gaples.
And Barry and Debbie come in.
And while we were finishing up, we had dessert together.
And I hugged his neck.
I said, Barry, they're going to kill you, friend.
No, no, no.
So I fled to Brazil with Mari and children in July.
They killed him.
That was on my birthday in January 1985, I guess.
Six months later, they killed him.
Yeah.
And you saw that coming?
Of course, 100%.
And if you would have, something would have happened to you.
Well, of course, they'd have killed me, but I mean, I wasn't going to a halfway house every night.
If I went and went to Portugal or something with my money and changed my name and all this stuff flew over in a few years, I would have been all right.
But I didn't want to take the chance.
I didn't do it for that.
I'm just not a snitch.
You either are or you're not in your heart.
They killed him for snitching.
Yeah, absolutely.
Barry.
100%.
The cartel?
Yes.
And you knew what your fate would be if you did the same thing as him?
Well, yes.
But I did.
I could have taken the money and went to Russia or somewhere and lived behind the Iron Curtain.
They wouldn't have found me.
But I just didn't want to.
It just wasn't me.
It's just not me.
Telling somebody that I worked with, made a deal with, he's just a good person.
How am I going to send him to prison for life and me sit outside?
I mean, I don't want to go.
You're in a terrible position, but I would have hid anywhere somewhere instead of doing that.
What's the toughest question your kids asked you?
Have they asked you a question where you were startled or no?
Have they ever asked you a question where you totally were like, oh my God, that's the question I don't want to be asked?
Okay, whenever I went to Brazil, we changed the name from Reeves to Odom.
That was my great-grandfather's name and the children was.
And my little boy was just five years old.
And we were two or three years with that.
And anyhow, whenever we had to change it back to Reeves, I had to tell him, you know, your name is really Rhett Reeves.
And he thought, what?
And then it dawned on him.
He remembered it.
So that was just something like a question.
You have to tell them their real name.
What's your relationship with your kids today?
Oh, just wonderful.
They're just full of love.
And they're how old now?
56 and 47 and 41.
How old are you?
I'm 79.
79.
January 26th.
January 26th.
43?
43.
1943.
Same age as your dad.
No, he's one year younger.
He's a year apart.
Yeah, my dad's 42.
Yeah.
Very interesting.
Well, I mean, listen, first of all, what a story you've lived.
We didn't even get into 90% of it on what we have.
For folks who want to know more, we're going to put the link below to your book, Smuggler.
And listen, this is, you know, stuff that we probably touched 5-10% of the book.
If you want to learn more about it, you can go order the book.
I wish we had a couple more hours, man, because you're a great storyteller.
You got a lot of interesting stories that you're sharing with us.
And I think there's more depth to it rather than just many of these stories that are entertaining.
I think there's depth to it that have to do with character, with how to be a man, fatherhood, relationships, decision-making.
I think there's more to it there as well.
But I'll give you the final thoughts.
The audience has listened to you for a couple hours.
What final thoughts do you have for them?
Oh, boy.
Ask me questions.
I can do a whole lot better than if it came up on the thought.
I have an idea of prison reform that particularly young people come in should be sentenced to a trade.
And I got a lot of flack over saying that, but they should be.
You're going to give them 10 years to make a plumber.
So instead of going to jail.
No, you go to jail.
And you go into a trade school in jail.
You've got 10 years, buddy, but as soon as you were a Class A plumber and you got a job at 50 bucks an hour, you walk out that door.
And that would take a heap of a...
Very interesting.
Why would they not implement something like that?
I feel like if you want to have productive members of society.
Absolutely.
And people say, well, you do a crime, get an education.
But those people are just going to sit there and slam their dominoes down for 10 years for nothing and come out to do another crime.
It's just sad.
Why wouldn't they do it, though?
Adam asked the question.
I don't know.
I don't think they dawned on them yet.
And I'll just tell you that I have some good news about it.
I signed a contract with Range Media Partners to make a series.
Congratulations.
They're working on it, yeah.
That's very cool.
Very exciting.
I mean, I'm sure these stories, every story you're telling me, all I'm thinking about is a movie.
I'm going to the scene, so I want to see it on the big picture myself when these come out.
Tyler, did you want to say something or you unmuted yourself?
Roger, really enjoyed this.
Thank you so much for coming and being a guest on the podcast.
It's been a pleasure.
Yeah, so we don't have nothing this week or we do?
Do we have podcasts on Thursday?
Podcast Thursday, yeah.
Thursday?
Yo, it's going to be a special one.
So Hank Type, we're going to have something special for you guys on Thursday.
