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Speaker 1: Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio. What follows

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Speaker 1: is some bonus content from mister Happy Miles on is

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Speaker 1: dealing with the DEA and others on the task force

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Speaker 1: fighting the War on drugs in the nineteen seventies in Miami.

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Speaker 1: Mister Miles says there was absolute overlap with law enforcement

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Speaker 1: and the opposing side of the battle in terms of corruption,

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Speaker 1: and that he had a front row seat to it

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Speaker 1: during his pre smuggling days as the commodore of the

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Speaker 1: Adventurers Club in Coconut Grove.

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Speaker 2: My want for people to realize that people in governments

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Speaker 2: shouldn't be able to come in and destroy your livelihood,

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Speaker 2: in your way of life without any recourse. It's just wrong.

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Speaker 2: It's wrong. You're cooperating with them. And because Congress has

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Speaker 2: in fit to grant them funding, they in turn have

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Speaker 2: the right of seizure, and so they don't care if

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Speaker 2: you're doing anything wrong or not. They just want to

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Speaker 2: seize whatever they can so they can get funding to

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Speaker 2: put gas in the DEA vehicles, to have people come

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Speaker 2: in that can put you out of business in our heartbeat,

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Speaker 2: and do it with impunity. It's wrong. It's terribly wrong.

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Speaker 2: I mean they can lie to you. They can do

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Speaker 2: anything they want to in an interrogation to try and

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Speaker 2: tick trick you into admitting something or saying something improper

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Speaker 2: that can be used against you. And now that's okay.

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Speaker 2: People realize why I ever got into the business, and uh,

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Speaker 2: it was because I was basically pushed into the business

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Speaker 2: to survive. You know, it's like a sinking ship. You

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Speaker 2: jump off of it, you get in a raft and

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Speaker 2: hope she'll survive.

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Speaker 3: So you contend that until the DEA approached you, you

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Speaker 3: were a legitimate businessman.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. I mean, it wasn't just DEA, it was it

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Speaker 2: was FBI, it was DEA, it was I, R, S

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Speaker 2: and H and the state police. I mean, it was

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Speaker 2: the whole task force. And then they came in and said, hey,

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Speaker 2: we might seize happ these airplanes, and we're putting you

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Speaker 2: on notice, so if we do seize them, we can

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Speaker 2: keep them.

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Speaker 3: But what do you think placed you on their radar?

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Speaker 3: Was it Jack Devo?

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Speaker 2: Well? Yeah, I think that active vote was using my airplanes.

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Speaker 1: Did they claim that you knew what he was doing

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Speaker 1: with your planes?

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Speaker 2: Well, they acted like I either knew or was part of.

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Speaker 3: It, and did you know? Were you part of Oh?

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Speaker 2: I wasn't part of it, and I didn't know.

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Speaker 1: But to save his planes from being repossessed by the bank,

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Speaker 1: Happy says, he turned to smuggling.

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Speaker 2: Well, I didn't want to my company to go under

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Speaker 2: and disappoint everybody who had given me money to have

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Speaker 2: the right to sail and fly. I mean, you know,

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Speaker 2: there's a little thing called honor, which very few of

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Speaker 2: these guys have. I had enough fun afterwards, which I

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Speaker 2: would have probably never had and never had that kind

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Speaker 2: of money if I hadn't gotten into the business. So

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Speaker 2: anyway I at all equals itself out.

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Speaker 1: Happy says. Once he retired from smuggling, he was asked

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Speaker 1: to share his insight with law enforcement on how the

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Speaker 1: war on drugs could be won.

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Speaker 2: I once gave a lecture to people from all over

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Speaker 2: the country. There had to be forty five people in

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Speaker 2: the room, and I told him how you shut this

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Speaker 2: at least eighty percent of cocaine down? And when I

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Speaker 2: got done, they all agreed that it would work what

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Speaker 2: I told him. But like I was conducting an orchestra,

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Speaker 2: four guys in different corners of the room stood up

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Speaker 2: and they said, yeah, but what would we do for jobs?

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Speaker 2: They didn't care about shutting it down. That was the mentality.

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Speaker 2: They didn't want to stop it.

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