Speaker 1: Campsite, media grace fans, the moment has a ride your
Speaker 1: Rights shot. Yeah. It's July and we're in Loudon, New
Speaker 1: Hampshire at the Magic Mile. We're going racing baby, who
Speaker 1: will hoist the lobster At the end of three hundred
Speaker 1: and one laps from New Hampshire Motor Speed WYT. Three
Speaker 1: of the country's best drivers have gathered here for the
Speaker 1: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series five hour Energy three oh one.
Speaker 1: On the line is a checkered flag, a quarter million
Speaker 1: dollar purse, and NASCAR's only living trophy, a twenty pound
Speaker 1: lobster named Loudon. I want to take a look at
Speaker 1: our starting grid as the cars about to roll off
Speaker 1: of pit Road. On the front row Carl Edwards with
Speaker 1: its first Magic Mild full and first and thirteen. He's
Speaker 1: next to two times to get Shore Winter and then
Speaker 1: way way. In the back, starting in forty second place
Speaker 1: is the Jet Black number thirty three Chevy driven by
Speaker 1: a man named Derek White. Even though Derek is forty
Speaker 1: five years old, he's a rookie here in New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: It's his first time ever racing in the NASCAR Cup Series,
Speaker 1: his first time running with the big dogs for a
Speaker 1: guy that's been racing since he was a teenager. This
Speaker 1: is a dream come true. Fans are on there, made
Speaker 1: here in New Hampshire. Water speed like great flading is
Speaker 1: in the air, getting up and go the green flag.
Speaker 1: It's a call Derek an underdog wouldn't be totally accurate
Speaker 1: because Derek doesn't stand a snowball's chance and how at
Speaker 1: winning this race. He's starting last in a car that's
Speaker 1: a few miles per hour off the pace even on
Speaker 1: its best days. Behind the idea Timmy close Wi that's
Speaker 1: little lay cowards the inside. Can he make it stay?
Speaker 1: In the end, he finished in thirty ninth place, ten
Speaker 1: laps behind the leader. The TV announcers never mentioned his
Speaker 1: name and the cameras only showed his car for a
Speaker 1: split second. But that's a damn shame because Derek is
Speaker 1: making history here. Derek White is a Mohawk from Canada
Speaker 1: and he's the first Indigenous person ever to drive in
Speaker 1: the NASCAR Cup Series. Instead of putting up ads for
Speaker 1: Oscar Meyer or Viagra on his car, he chose to
Speaker 1: paint the Mohawk Warrior flag on his hood. Derek was
Speaker 1: a real hero back home, an inspiration for his community.
Speaker 1: What he didn't know was that police were watching his
Speaker 1: every move. They were wired tapping his phone, tailing his vehicles,
Speaker 1: and intercepting all his messages because they believed Derek was
Speaker 1: a major figure in a criminal organization made up of
Speaker 1: South American drug cartels, Canadian gangsters, and outlaw bikers. Just
Speaker 1: a few months after his NASCAR debut, Derek White would
Speaker 1: go from being the pride of the community, someone the
Speaker 1: entire Mohawk Nation could stand behind, to the person splitting
Speaker 1: it apart. M from Campsite Media and Dan Patrick Productions,
Speaker 1: This is Running Smoke, the story of a race car
Speaker 1: driver taken down in an international police stay and how
Speaker 1: we might change the future of Native rights. Episode one.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Ghanawage. My name is Roger Gola, and I
Speaker 1: grew up in Florida between the Volucia County dirt track
Speaker 1: and the day tone of Speedway. If I hadn't been
Speaker 1: blessed with severe motion sickness and a voice made for podcasting,
Speaker 1: I might have become a race car driver instead of
Speaker 1: a journalist. So you can understand why I've been hooked
Speaker 1: on Derek's story since it made headlines back in and
Speaker 1: what had called the largest grade of its kind in America.
Speaker 1: Quebec Provincial Police carried out Operation my Gale aimed at
Speaker 1: dismantling what they called a drug, tobacco and money laundering ring.
Speaker 1: Seven hundred police officers carried out a bus that netted
Speaker 1: more than a hundred thousand pounds of contraband tobacco, eight
Speaker 1: hundred pounds of cocaine, and millions in cash. Nearly sixty
Speaker 1: people across Canada and the US were arrested on narcotics
Speaker 1: smuggling and money laundering charges. It was the biggest bust
Speaker 1: in years, and Derek was accused of being a major
Speaker 1: figure in the criminal organization. Then I learned that Derek
Speaker 1: was taking his case all the way at Canada's Constitutional Court.
Speaker 1: This rookie race car driver who was accused of being
Speaker 1: a major player in a criminal operation was taking on
Speaker 1: the Canadian government for his rights as an Indigenous person,
Speaker 1: and it looked like he actually had a case. So
Speaker 1: I started looking into Derek's story and put thousands of
Speaker 1: miles on my car, tracking down indigenous leaders, undercover investigators,
Speaker 1: and contrabands smugglers. And what I learned was that this
Speaker 1: story is about much more than race cars and a
Speaker 1: drug bust. It's about what it means to be indigenous
Speaker 1: in the modern world. I knew that the first step
Speaker 1: to telling the story was to find Derek and find
Speaker 1: out who he really was. So that's what I did
Speaker 1: back in twenty nineteen, shortly after he appealed this case.
Speaker 1: I packed my car and spent three days covering the
Speaker 1: four miles from Florida to Montreal. When I got there,
Speaker 1: it turned out to be a lot easier to find
Speaker 1: Derek than you might think. I knew that, aside from racing,
Speaker 1: he ran a grocery store in Gottawauge, the Mohawk Territory
Speaker 1: where he lived. So I left a message for him
Speaker 1: at the Mohawk Market and he met me in the
Speaker 1: parking lot about twenty minutes later. How's it going all right?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we've running around drugging. Yeah, man, he just yeah,
Speaker 1: just last night. It's gonna be here for a month.
Speaker 1: A month. Derek copped out of a black workman wearing
Speaker 1: roughed up boots, some old jeans, and a dusty car
Speaker 1: Hart jacket. He looked like any good old boy I'd
Speaker 1: seen down at the track in my hometown. I made
Speaker 1: my pitch, said I wanted to tell his story. He
Speaker 1: crossed his arms and chewed on a toothpick while I talked.
Speaker 1: He was just totally unreadable. He didn't seem too happy
Speaker 1: I was there. But then Derek saw my Florida plates.
Speaker 1: He seemed impressed that I had driven all the way
Speaker 1: up just for him. He got back in the van,
Speaker 1: popped the door and told me to get in. You
Speaker 1: know new your seat bill, and you're with me, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be a seat bill. I put my seatbelt on. Anyway,
Speaker 1: what do you want to go? I wanted to see
Speaker 1: Gnawaga through Derek's eye, so I asked him to give
Speaker 1: me a tour of the place he called home. Oh,
Speaker 1: we could start off at weever, he started off with
Speaker 1: my grandmother starting up her own little smoke shop right
Speaker 1: in her yard. Boa by air right now and have
Speaker 1: a look at it. On the way there, we passed
Speaker 1: a micro brewery, the cigar Lounge, golf course, a bunch
Speaker 1: of mom and pop restaurants, and of course a Tim Horton's.
Speaker 1: This is one of my buddies. He's opening up some
Speaker 1: kind of I'm not even sure what it is. A
Speaker 1: juice place, or juice or some kind of healthy store.
Speaker 1: Donawaga didn't look like the stereotypical reservation I've seen in movies,
Speaker 1: some dusty, barren piece of land with tumbleweeds and mobile homes.
Speaker 1: Donawaga looked well off. The houses were big, the yards
Speaker 1: were tidy, and there seemed to be a new pickup
Speaker 1: truck in just about every driveway. If you go by
Speaker 1: the the statistics, I think we're one of the wealthiest
Speaker 1: reserves in Canada. Where do you think that is? If
Speaker 1: you look across, you see the bridge there. Montreal is there.
Speaker 1: This is the main artery to cross and you have
Speaker 1: to come through Guna August. So whatever we sell on
Speaker 1: the reserve, people are gonna bite because we're always our
Speaker 1: prices are always better than the old site, so we
Speaker 1: have a lot of traffic control. The reason prices are
Speaker 1: better in Gnawaga than in Montreal comes down to one
Speaker 1: simple fact. Gnawaga is a sovereign nation, separate from Canada.
Speaker 1: They have their own flag, their own laws, and their
Speaker 1: own government. When you cross the bridge from Montreal to
Speaker 1: go to Gnawaga, there might not be a customs agent
Speaker 1: or a passport check, but you're essentially leaving the country
Speaker 1: of Canada and stepping foot onto the independent Mohawk territory
Speaker 1: of Ganawauke. And one thing you'll notice right away when
Speaker 1: you cross into Gnawaga is that sales tax is not
Speaker 1: coited here, so tax free shops line the main roads.
Speaker 1: And you've got all smoke shops all the all down here.
Speaker 1: That's one, two, three, four, five in a row. That aret.
Speaker 1: It's impossible to miss the smoke shops in Cottawaug. There's
Speaker 1: ubiquitous as beer bellies at a NASCAR race. You can't
Speaker 1: go more than a few hundred feet without running into one.
Speaker 1: There's Mixed Smoky's with the Golden Arches. Then there's Best
Speaker 1: Butts on the yellow best Buy logo. There's Smoke King,
Speaker 1: Crazy Horse, Burning Leaf, Redman's, and so anymore. These smoke
Speaker 1: shops range from the size of a tool shed to
Speaker 1: a full sized truck stop, and inside you can get
Speaker 1: any cigarette you can imagine, plus a bunch of local
Speaker 1: brands you've never heard of. They come in boxes of twenty,
Speaker 1: cartons of ten boxes and cases of fifty cartons. You
Speaker 1: can even buy them in ziplock bags of two hundred
Speaker 1: On average, almost half the price of a pack of
Speaker 1: cigarettes that you might buy in New York or Quebec
Speaker 1: is just tax. That's not material cost, that's not the
Speaker 1: cigarette company's mark up. It's just tax. But here in
Speaker 1: Gnawage you won't find those pesky tax stamps on any
Speaker 1: cigarette packs. And what's the price difference between buying the
Speaker 1: carton on the other side of the bridge we're over here, Well,
Speaker 1: you got the cartons on the outside, uh, the name
Speaker 1: brand's demur or Explorer and stuff like that. The goal
Speaker 1: for about a hundred and twenty dollars per carton two
Speaker 1: hundred cigarettes, and you can buy two hundred cigarettes in
Speaker 1: a bag for twenty bucks, so you're saving hundred dollars
Speaker 1: per two hundred cigarettes. You can see how cigarettes sold
Speaker 1: on a tax free reservation would be pretty good business.
Speaker 1: And it's one that Derek's been involved in since he
Speaker 1: was a kid. Derek pulled off the main road and
Speaker 1: pointed through a window at a gas station with a
Speaker 1: turquoise blue awning over two pumps. Off to one side,
Speaker 1: there was a car wash that said O c R
Speaker 1: Gas Bar. It was a logo I'd seen plastered over
Speaker 1: a lot of Derek's race cars. The gas station looked
Speaker 1: like any Shell or Snocco you've ever seen, except for
Speaker 1: the fact that it was attached to a house with
Speaker 1: a two car garage. This is what Derek wanted to
Speaker 1: show me, his grandmother's place where he got to start.
Speaker 1: My grandmother opened up her first, uh first and only
Speaker 1: basically cigarette store was right in this little car poard
Speaker 1: here where you see this car. That was a small
Speaker 1: little store. She was a school bus driver for the kids,
Speaker 1: so she would do her run in the morning, like
Speaker 1: seven o'clock in the morning. When she would drop the
Speaker 1: kids off, she would get in her money carlo and
Speaker 1: she would drive down the cornwall. She had enough money
Speaker 1: for half a case of smokes, and then she would
Speaker 1: drive it all the way back herself, put in her store,
Speaker 1: try to sell it off, and the next day she
Speaker 1: would turn the profit over and that and then she'd
Speaker 1: have enough to buy a whole case, and then so
Speaker 1: on and so on like that. That's where she started.
Speaker 1: Over this road here, like I said, was the main
Speaker 1: artery to get to Montreal, so there was traffic all
Speaker 1: the way down this road. So this little store was
Speaker 1: pretty that busy. You know. Ever since he dropped out
Speaker 1: of high school, Derek had worked odd jobs on and
Speaker 1: off the reservation. He tried his hand at high rise construction,
Speaker 1: concrete pouring, even had a stint shipping vehicles internationally. Eventually,
Speaker 1: he decided to follow his grandmother's example. Tobacco and gas
Speaker 1: in Gonawaga. You couldn't go wrong when we opened this place.
Speaker 1: I went to borrow the money at the bank and
Speaker 1: they wouldn't lend it to me because they wouldn't They said,
Speaker 1: there's not enough community members in the reserve for another
Speaker 1: gas station. So she kind of they kind of thought
Speaker 1: that it wouldn't work. But I showed them I borrowed
Speaker 1: the money off my ground larder at the time to
Speaker 1: open this station. And she she asked me, she goes,
Speaker 1: were you gonna put it? I told her, so, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna put it right in your yard. I had no
Speaker 1: other land, So I mean, this is what started in everything.
Speaker 1: From that little gas station in his grandma's front yard,
Speaker 1: Derek built an empire. I have three gas stations. I
Speaker 1: have the Mowawk Market, the only grocery store under reserve.
Speaker 1: I got a car wash, the only car washing under reserve.
Speaker 1: I also got a construction company um back hole was
Speaker 1: dump trucks and in the same area and my property
Speaker 1: there I have a garage, a small garage that I
Speaker 1: do tires and oil changes for locals and non locals. Also,
Speaker 1: Derek had an entrepreneurial savvy that I found remarkable. He
Speaker 1: was constantly WHEELI in dealing, looking for the next opportunity.
Speaker 1: His brain was wired for it, and it served him well.
Speaker 1: Derek had gone from constantly looking for work and getting
Speaker 1: turned away from banks to calling the shots. You speaking
Speaker 1: of French a little bit. I can understand a little bit,
Speaker 1: but not much. The people I deal would all speak English. Song.
Speaker 1: If they've all by business, they'll talk English. Derek's success
Speaker 1: was built on the foundation that Mohawks don't pay sales tax.
Speaker 1: It was a fundamental fact of life on the territory.
Speaker 1: But on the outside that exemption can be a bit
Speaker 1: more contentious. Coming up after the break, they see we're
Speaker 1: making money, boom, they want to tax us. You know, like,
Speaker 1: just leave us alone, just bother your own people on
Speaker 1: the outside and let them collect the taxes from them,
Speaker 1: and just leave us alone. Going on, We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: You're listening to running Smoke media. When I met Derek
Speaker 1: in He was out on bail in the middle of
Speaker 1: one of Ghanawag's most watched court battles. He was facing
Speaker 1: off against the Canadian government. He was hemorrhaging money to
Speaker 1: legal fees, couldn't leave Quebec without permission and had to
Speaker 1: check in at a police station on a regular base.
Speaker 1: As he was simply trying to spend time with his
Speaker 1: wife and his two sons, run his businesses and keep
Speaker 1: a low profile, he had no reason to talk to
Speaker 1: a journalist. But as I started to learn, there's more
Speaker 1: to it, Derek had his walls up for a reason.
Speaker 1: Folks in Gonawaga were tired of having their story told
Speaker 1: by outsiders and having it told wrong. I think the
Speaker 1: thing that people are wary about is they get burned
Speaker 1: by the French media. Would just come in, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: spent a couple of seconds here, get a bullshit story,
Speaker 1: and then and then view of their narrative and their
Speaker 1: skewed view of us, said, they're ignorant view of let's
Speaker 1: you know, kind of pointing at all of us as criminals.
Speaker 1: Steve Bonspiel is the editor and publisher of The Eastern
Speaker 1: Door newspaper, one of the bigger papers serving Mohawk territories
Speaker 1: across Canada. Steve's Mohawk himself and has reported on these
Speaker 1: communities for nearly twenty years. It'll be actually nineteen years
Speaker 1: in January. Could you mean just like the barest overview
Speaker 1: of what Gottawaga is, like, how would you describe this community?
Speaker 1: Many people are here? Like what's that? What's it like? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny because even just the question of
Speaker 1: how many people are here is is open to interpretation
Speaker 1: because I think right now there's people on the Cahaga
Speaker 1: of Gonawaga Registry, apparently there's eight thousand people that actually
Speaker 1: live here, and apparently on the Federal registry there's ten thousand.
Speaker 1: So um, your guess is as good as mine. It
Speaker 1: seems like every part of your existence here is open
Speaker 1: to your interpretation. And it's just like this gray area. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess that's the kind of you know, the intro
Speaker 1: to this. You're you're right, I mean, it's it's unfortunately,
Speaker 1: there's so many things that have been left like that,
Speaker 1: you know, And and the the ones doing the interpreting
Speaker 1: is not us, you know, it's usually the outside governments
Speaker 1: and non native people. One major stereotype that Gonawaga deals
Speaker 1: with is this idea that Indigenous communities are lawless places
Speaker 1: that are totally run by organized crime, that their sovereign
Speaker 1: t is really just a cover for illicit activity and
Speaker 1: provides a safe haven for the criminal underworld. I think
Speaker 1: it's a narrative that fits the running narrative of Mohawks
Speaker 1: are outside the law, you know, are are doing things
Speaker 1: in a gray area because they don't understand their rights.
Speaker 1: You know, they don't understand why we have quote unquote
Speaker 1: special rights. It's also the reason Steve says that Gonawaga
Speaker 1: faces so much scrutiny from law enforcement. I mean, you
Speaker 1: know it's sad to say, but you know, any kind
Speaker 1: of police operations, it's it's just so normal to us.
Speaker 1: They're they're always looking for ways to get in the community.
Speaker 1: They're always working, looking for ways to nail people. So
Speaker 1: we're we're always vulnerable. They're always watching us. When I
Speaker 1: tell people like our phones are bugged, people say, oh,
Speaker 1: he is, you know, he's crazy, he's conspiracy there. No,
Speaker 1: it's just reality. Just in the last few years, there's
Speaker 1: been several stories of folks in Gonawaga being busted and
Speaker 1: high profile police operations that involve wire taps and undercover officers,
Speaker 1: like the case of Floyd Latch, a former pro hockey
Speaker 1: player who's taken down for selling wine illegally, or Wendy Mayo,
Speaker 1: a grandmother who's arrested in a sixteen person cigarette smuggling operation.
Speaker 1: And there's the case of Canandio Ross, who was accused
Speaker 1: of working with the Italian mafia to finance tobacco operations.
Speaker 1: By and large, these are cases related to gnawage's tax exemptions,
Speaker 1: and depending on which side of the border you're on,
Speaker 1: those exemptions are often seen in radically different perspectives. What
Speaker 1: Mohawks se is tax free trade outsiders see his tax evasion.
Speaker 1: What Mohawks the is sovereignty outsiders see as a free
Speaker 1: pass for criminality. As a businessman, Derek knows that double standard. Well,
Speaker 1: every time we try to do something, the government always
Speaker 1: has something to say or do they try to throw
Speaker 1: They threw a wrench in our spokes. Basically we get
Speaker 1: something going and then right off the butt they see
Speaker 1: we're making money, boom, they want to tax us. So
Speaker 1: that's what we're kind of fighting for it, you know,
Speaker 1: like just leave us alone. Just just bother your own
Speaker 1: people on the outside and let them collect the taxes
Speaker 1: from them and just leave us alone. So when Derek
Speaker 1: chose to put the mohawk flag on the hood of
Speaker 1: his car in that NASCAR race back, it was more
Speaker 1: than just a sticker to cover up a blank body pedal.
Speaker 1: It was a bold statement in an attempt to redefine
Speaker 1: Gnawaga for the outside world. Um. Proud of who we
Speaker 1: are and where we were from. We're not We're not Canadians,
Speaker 1: were not Americans, were North American natives. Yeah, I live
Speaker 1: in Quebec, but I'm not a Quebecer. Um born and
Speaker 1: raised in Gunnawaga, and we are native people. We're we
Speaker 1: are our own people. Were are doing our best to cover,
Speaker 1: you know, every race he was doing, and it's something
Speaker 1: you have to give the people. You have to give
Speaker 1: them something to look forward to, you know, and and
Speaker 1: make them understand you may just be some kid from
Speaker 1: the rest, but you don't always have to be, you know.
Speaker 1: So you have to fight against that narrative, to fight
Speaker 1: against that view. And that's what he did. Racing made
Speaker 1: Derek an inspiration for his community and offered an alternative
Speaker 1: for the harmful stereotypes that have played Native communities for generations.
Speaker 1: But racing would also eventually lead Derek into a gigantic
Speaker 1: web of organized crime, making him a target for the
Speaker 1: d e A Homeland Security and Canadian police that's coming
Speaker 1: up after the break. Derek's garage is right next to
Speaker 1: his house and almost exactly the same size. Inside pack
Speaker 1: like sardines, are race cars, vintage vehicles, and power sports toys.
Speaker 1: It's a site that would make any season podcaster forget
Speaker 1: to ask every single question. He driven all the way
Speaker 1: to Canada to ask. Gorgeous, Oh my god, you got
Speaker 1: an eight seventy one blow around it. It's like horsepower
Speaker 1: nine seventy Chevy pickup. There's a seventy five buick that
Speaker 1: that one's ready to go to. That one's ready to
Speaker 1: race tomorrow if you want it though. That are drag
Speaker 1: car back there, a sleeper four door Bonnville, got old
Speaker 1: ash folk car, Nova, got a drag car Malibu. What's
Speaker 1: the car in here that you've had the longest? Here?
Speaker 1: All right? I go through so many cars, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't even Derek led me up the stairs to
Speaker 1: his man cave, a beautifully appointed room covered in oak paneling,
Speaker 1: sports memorabilia and a polar bear rug on the floor. Oh,
Speaker 1: this is where we hang out and watch racing. Or okay,
Speaker 1: we've got a full bars, they say, invite some people
Speaker 1: over there. They say, it's one of the nicest bars,
Speaker 1: even in Montreal. Well, I just wanted to ask you
Speaker 1: a couple of questions when we had a quiet place.
Speaker 1: I wanted to understand how a guy like Derek ends
Speaker 1: up being accused of being the leader of a criminal organization.
Speaker 1: As it turned out, it actually started with a trip
Speaker 1: to Disney World. So were you into Nascar as a
Speaker 1: kid too? No, you know what, it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: funny that, Uh, I never really liked Nascar. I was
Speaker 1: more like, uh in the drag racing and uh doing
Speaker 1: the burnouts, the smoke and the loud noise and you know,
Speaker 1: and after a while I kind of got boring a
Speaker 1: little bit. And then we were in Florida and Orlando
Speaker 1: with my son Jeremy, and they wanted to go to
Speaker 1: the the team park and there's a track right outside
Speaker 1: Universal Studios and I hear him ripping, you know, like
Speaker 1: revving like like constantly. So holy shoo, what the hell
Speaker 1: is that going on over there. So what Derek was
Speaker 1: hearing was the Walt Disney World Speedway, basically a go
Speaker 1: cart track for adults, but you get to race real
Speaker 1: deal race cars. I dropped them off at the gate.
Speaker 1: They went into the studio Universal Studios, and I just
Speaker 1: took the car and I went follow the sound and
Speaker 1: I come out. There's a big tractor. I think it's
Speaker 1: a five eight mile track. So I pulled up there.
Speaker 1: I went inside and I said, Uh, who are these
Speaker 1: do guys driving? Are they tested? No? You could rent this?
Speaker 1: What I said, where do I sign up? So I
Speaker 1: walked in there and I never drove a NASCAR before,
Speaker 1: I mean like a stock car before, and signed the waiver,
Speaker 1: put the race foot on, the helmet on, and they
Speaker 1: threw me in the car. I was like, oh. I
Speaker 1: got in there and we went around the track. You
Speaker 1: do one, one or two laps slow you and you
Speaker 1: got to stay behind the pace car and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And but then after two three laps, I was like, Wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: I could get used to this. I saw a little
Speaker 1: picture plaque from his first day at the track. It's
Speaker 1: a photo of him almost twenty years ago, wearing a
Speaker 1: red and blue fire suit and sunglasses. That's what we
Speaker 1: started it right there. Two thousand and six. Yeah, that's me.
Speaker 1: I got in for the four laps, and then I
Speaker 1: went again and then again and again, and I was
Speaker 1: just so holy ship. I'm still really just more hung
Speaker 1: up on the mustache and the goatee. Oh yeah. Derek
Speaker 1: made it sound easy, just getting behind the stock car
Speaker 1: and turning a few laps, But racing is incredibly physical.
Speaker 1: NASCAR drivers will pull more g s than an astronaut
Speaker 1: on launch, and they can lose up to ten pounds
Speaker 1: in a race. They're sitting inside of a car that
Speaker 1: will get up to a hundred sixty degrees, and even
Speaker 1: though the cars don't have windows, they're moving so fast
Speaker 1: that the air just glides over the opening. The only
Speaker 1: air conditioning drivers have is their helmet. It's an incredibly
Speaker 1: grueling experience. But as soon as Derek left race track,
Speaker 1: he knew he'd found his calling and he was ready
Speaker 1: to go all in. So Derek started asking around to
Speaker 1: see if anyone would sell him a race car. He
Speaker 1: went all the way down to just before the border
Speaker 1: of Michigan, somewhere somewhere way out in Ontario, and we
Speaker 1: the guy was closing down his sudden lost interest in it,
Speaker 1: and he was selling two cars with all the tools
Speaker 1: and everything. So I went down there and I bought everything.
Speaker 1: That's where it started. Racing works like any other sport.
Speaker 1: You work your way through the leagues until you make
Speaker 1: it to the big time. First you work your local
Speaker 1: tracks Frogtown, Santa Stash and other short ovels around Montreal.
Speaker 1: Then once you've got enough experience and enough money, you
Speaker 1: break into the lower regional and national leagues. Derek started
Speaker 1: out in the Penties Canada Racing Series and you can
Speaker 1: hear how much he loved it in this old interview
Speaker 1: he did with the Aboriginal People's TV Network. It's the adrenaline,
Speaker 1: you know, it flows sort of veins, the blood dis
Speaker 1: gets pumping, and once you get behind that wheel, it's
Speaker 1: a whole different world. In orders, you don't think about
Speaker 1: anything else. You just want to get on that track
Speaker 1: in that car that's ahead of you. You want to
Speaker 1: just get in front of that car. And there's another
Speaker 1: car ahead of that car. You want to get in
Speaker 1: front of that one. Derek should promise right away, and
Speaker 1: in ten he won Rookie of the Year, not long
Speaker 1: after that, he graduated to the NASCAR Truck and Exfinity Series.
Speaker 1: The last two runs before the big time, Derek was
Speaker 1: on his way. He was brokering sponsorship deals and buying faster,
Speaker 1: better built race cars. Now, racing is expensive. There's not
Speaker 1: many people that can afford to buy a race car,
Speaker 1: or staff a team or build a garage. So it's
Speaker 1: not uncommon for people who can afford that stuff to
Speaker 1: rent it out to people who just want to race
Speaker 1: here and there weekend Warriors, which is how Derek met
Speaker 1: a French Canadian racer named Paul John was interested in
Speaker 1: striking a deal with the racing. I met a guy
Speaker 1: that wanted to come and race, and and I had
Speaker 1: cars for rent. So basically, this individual came see me
Speaker 1: and he said, uh, I want to rent your car.
Speaker 1: This is fine. I said, you got to bring some money,
Speaker 1: no problem. Derek's deal was simple, you want to raise
Speaker 1: one of my cars, pay me thirty thou dollars and
Speaker 1: you've got it for the weekend. For the first couple
Speaker 1: of races, things went well. Paul Jean brought Derek the cash,
Speaker 1: put on a fire suit and hopped in the car.
Speaker 1: Everything was paid up and then he got into maybe
Speaker 1: two or three different races, and uh, he was kind
Speaker 1: of behind in his payments. To me, said listen, I said,
Speaker 1: you're behind in payments. I said, I can't put you
Speaker 1: in the car. I said, I have somebody else that's
Speaker 1: ready to pay. No, no, no, don't worry. So he offered,
Speaker 1: he goes, my friend has tobaccle. Really, I said, he goes,
Speaker 1: you interested? I said, well, if it's landed on my door,
Speaker 1: bring it. So that's where it. Uh, basically that's where
Speaker 1: it started. He brought he brought some in and then
Speaker 1: uh start paying off his bills, and he kept on racing,
Speaker 1: and it just kept on going like that. For Derek,
Speaker 1: tobacco was as good as cash. He'd grown up in
Speaker 1: the business. He knew it. Well, can you focus on
Speaker 1: other mohawk territories who could take raw tobacco and turn
Speaker 1: it into cigarettes and they'd pay a pretty penny for
Speaker 1: a steady supply in Derek's size. There wasn't anything illegal
Speaker 1: about it. Sure, Kennedy usually levied heavy taxes on tobacco,
Speaker 1: and there was even a special police force in Quebec
Speaker 1: dedicated to intercepting untaxed tobacco shipments, but that wasn't Derek's problem.
Speaker 1: Tobacco was something Mohawks had smoked for thousands of years,
Speaker 1: and buying it and selling it was there right as
Speaker 1: native people. He brought in tobacco and and asked him
Speaker 1: where it came from or who he got it from.
Speaker 1: Or do you regret ever making a deal with him? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I do. I should have never got I shouldn't have
Speaker 1: never bought anything off those people. I mean, I only
Speaker 1: deal with my own people. I don't deal with the outside.
Speaker 1: It's just that it's hard when you deal with somebody
Speaker 1: you don't know who the heck they're dealing. That's exactly
Speaker 1: how it is. All this bullshit happened. You know. If
Speaker 1: I would have known that, believe it, would have stayed
Speaker 1: ten miles away from all this crap. You know. And
Speaker 1: when did you find out the Hell's Angels were involved
Speaker 1: in all this? The day we got arrested, coming up
Speaker 1: on this season of Running Smoke. You know, our elders
Speaker 1: told us, they warned us, don't do this. These people
Speaker 1: are doing international money longer, and we thought we could
Speaker 1: control it. We were wrong. Bikers showed up and killed
Speaker 1: him right on his front porch. You know, the right people,
Speaker 1: you can get anything into going a log. I mean,
Speaker 1: look at the NASCAR. I mean it was it was
Speaker 1: built off bootlegging, you know, with the Moonshiners and all that.
Speaker 1: When I was smuggling, it was like almost a free
Speaker 1: for all. I loved it. We were met with two
Speaker 1: Madus fifty caliber machine guns on the roof of that casino.
Speaker 1: I had no choice. I had to pay them whatever
Speaker 1: they wanted. If you did a comparison between the wealthiest
Speaker 1: Native person the wealthiest white person, that's not even close.
Speaker 1: He's not Robin Hood. They're doing it for the fucking money, period,
Speaker 1: end of story. We have helicopters over my house. They're
Speaker 1: just hovering there. They're watching. I guess we could say
Speaker 1: it was a trapdoor that bag I walk down. Someone
Speaker 1: had to do it, and I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's time someone fight discovernment and see what happens. They
Speaker 1: know that if this case goes in any way our way,
Speaker 1: they got a whole new story to be right. And
Speaker 1: I'm willing. I'm ready to go to jail. I don't
Speaker 1: care if we lose. It's going to affect the Mohawk Nation. Yea.
Speaker 1: Running Smoke is a production of camp Side Media, Dan
Speaker 1: Patrick Productions and Workhouse Media. Written and reported by me
Speaker 1: Roger Gola. Our producers are Leah Papes, Laine Gerbig and
Speaker 1: Julie Dennischet. Our editors are Michelle Lands and Emily Martinez.
Speaker 1: Sound designed and original music by Mark McAdam. Additional sound
Speaker 1: and mixing by Ewen Lyon from Ewan. Additional reporting by
Speaker 1: Susie McCarthy. Our executive producers or Dan Patrick, Josh Dean
Speaker 1: of camp Side Media, Paul Anderson, Nick Vanella, and Andrew
Speaker 1: Greenwood for Workhouse Media. Fact checking by Mary Mathis, artwork
Speaker 1: by Polly Adams and additional thanks to Greg Horn, Johnny Kaufman,
Speaker 1: Sierra Franco, Elizabeth van Brocklin, and Sean Flynn