Speaker 1: Pushkin, previously on deep cover. FBI agent Ned Timmins finally
Speaker 1: had his victorious moment. The kingpin of the drug smuggling operation,
Speaker 1: Lee Rich aka Mister Beach Club, was nabbed at the
Speaker 1: airport in Jamaica, and then the authorities arrested Mike Vogel,
Speaker 1: the grocery guy in Michigan. We had the whole swat
Speaker 1: team out there lands place all night long waiting for
Speaker 1: word that they had Lee and custody. And once we
Speaker 1: got word, then we had Vogel's house, and Stephen Kaylish,
Speaker 1: the smooth talking gentleman smuggler who'd gotten cozy with General
Speaker 1: Noriega down in Panama, was also behind bars. If you recall,
Speaker 1: Stephen had an escape plan in place. He had a
Speaker 1: group of mercenaries forces guys that he kept on retainer
Speaker 1: for this very purpose. I had a serious escape plan, oh,
Speaker 1: I had one before I ever got arrested. A friend
Speaker 1: of mine's brother ran a special Forces team. I put
Speaker 1: him on one hundred thousand dollars retainer to come and
Speaker 1: rescue me no matter where I was. But the Special
Speaker 1: Forces guys told him there was a catch. They could
Speaker 1: break him out, but in the process someone might get killed.
Speaker 1: This was a problem because the gentleman's smuggler was a
Speaker 1: declared pacifist. So what to do? Lee Rich and his partner,
Speaker 1: Stephen Kaylish decided to fight the charges against them, so
Speaker 1: they were prosecuted together down in Tampa. The trial began
Speaker 1: in February of nineteen eighty seven. In his opening arguments,
Speaker 1: the assistant US attorney at the time, Robert Kennedy, described
Speaker 1: Lee Rich as the classic kingpin, living in a fancy
Speaker 1: house in the Caymans, throwing lavish parties, flying around in
Speaker 1: his lear jet, and raking in millions. And he depicted
Speaker 1: Stephen Kaylish as the field general quote, a leader who
Speaker 1: inspired other people to work for him and work for
Speaker 1: him very efficiently. Quote. As the prosecution started making its case,
Speaker 1: Stephen wasn't hopeful. We've been in tramper about six weeks
Speaker 1: and they've been about fifty or sixty witnesses, and it
Speaker 1: was a joke because we were cooked. The prosecutors had
Speaker 1: an army of witnesses, truck drivers, pilots, boat captains, radio operators,
Speaker 1: and even the bail throwers who had unloaded the drugs.
Speaker 1: Mountains of incriminating evidence started piling up. Stephen claims that
Speaker 1: at some point he began encouraging people to testify against
Speaker 1: him to save themselves, and turns out Stephen was making
Speaker 1: plans of his own. One day, a few weeks into
Speaker 1: the trial, Lee says that his partner in crime, the
Speaker 1: gentleman smuggler, kind of vanished. They had moved him out
Speaker 1: of the cell the night before, afraid, you know, somebody's
Speaker 1: going to stick him. So my lawyer says, yeah, he
Speaker 1: rolled Lee. He's become an informant. When your lawyer says
Speaker 1: that you, what's your reaction. Well, I wasn't happy. I
Speaker 1: can tell you that I was thinking that that's a
Speaker 1: real dirt bag. I know he's saving his ass, but
Speaker 1: I was looking at life in prison, no parole, and
Speaker 1: so was he. Lee claims he would never have done this.
Speaker 1: I'd never testified in a courtroom against anybody ever, never will.
Speaker 1: It's not in my blood to turn in people and
Speaker 1: never will be. Stephen remembers this all differently in his
Speaker 1: telling of events. He doesn't just disappear one day during
Speaker 1: the trial. Instead, he was candid with Lee and told
Speaker 1: him exactly what he intended to do. I said, I'm
Speaker 1: the only one that holds any cards here, and those
Speaker 1: cards in Noriega. In my relationship with Noriega, I said,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit through this trial any longer.
Speaker 1: In fact, Stephen had been talking with prosecutors for months
Speaker 1: sussing out the possibility of a deal because Stephen thought
Speaker 1: he might have a get out of jail free card.
Speaker 1: I just knew that the information that I could divulge
Speaker 1: about Noriega and his activities were a bombshell. There's no
Speaker 1: doubt in my mind that there's ramifications. They go all
Speaker 1: the way to the top. I mean literally from Reagan
Speaker 1: on down. I'm Jake Halbern and this is Deep Cover,
Speaker 1: Episode eight, the Political shit Storm. Stephen Kaylish was a
Speaker 1: man who always had a backup plan. Long before he
Speaker 1: was ever arrested. He had hired those Special Forces guys
Speaker 1: to break him out if need be, But in the end,
Speaker 1: he couldn't stomach the possibility that someone might die. I said,
Speaker 1: well that's a deal breaker. I said, I've never harmed
Speaker 1: anybody in my life. I'm not going to do it now.
Speaker 1: I said, if they can't get me out of here
Speaker 1: without somebody being hurt, then I'll figure out another way.
Speaker 1: And it turns out he did another way, or so
Speaker 1: he thought, and it involved his friend, General Noriega. General
Speaker 1: Noriega had always been Steven's ace in the hole. When
Speaker 1: Stephen was a fugitive living in Panama, Noriega gave him
Speaker 1: a safe haven, a way to launder his money, a
Speaker 1: way to keep smuggling drugs. And now once again, Stephen's
Speaker 1: relationship with Noriega might come in handy. I didn't know
Speaker 1: how it was going to work out. I didn't know
Speaker 1: if they would drop charges. I had no idea how
Speaker 1: everything was going to play out. By going public with
Speaker 1: his story, Stephen understood he might make some enemies. He
Speaker 1: knew that Noriega had allies in Washington, DC, people who
Speaker 1: might not want this getting out. I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of trepidation, you know, I have to be really careful
Speaker 1: about you know, who I disclosed, as to how it's disclosed,
Speaker 1: whether it's going to become public. So it's very very
Speaker 1: secret and very concerning. Stephen wouldn't be the first person
Speaker 1: to offer up dirt on Noriega. The famous investigative journalist
Speaker 1: Seymour Hirsch had written a front page article in the
Speaker 1: New York Times about Noriega about eight months before the trial.
Speaker 1: It was damning. Hirsh wrote that Noriega was involved in
Speaker 1: money laundering and that he was quote a secret partner
Speaker 1: end quote in a drug smuggling business. The article seemed
Speaker 1: to be describing Noriega's arrangement with Stephen Kaylish exactly, but
Speaker 1: it was all pretty vague. Hirsch relied entirely on anonymous
Speaker 1: sources in theory Stephen could change all of that. He
Speaker 1: could give these allegations a name and a face and
Speaker 1: a storyline. So at least six months before he went
Speaker 1: on trial down in Tampa with Lee Rich, Stephen had
Speaker 1: already been gone to talk with prosecutors, hinting at what
Speaker 1: he knew that one of America's top allies was actually
Speaker 1: a drug trafficker. One prosecutor in particular took a keen interest.
Speaker 1: Doug McCullough. McCullough was the first US attorney for the
Speaker 1: Eastern District of North Carolina. He had his own case
Speaker 1: against Stephen. Remember that ghost ship from episode four, the
Speaker 1: one that gets abandoned in the harbor with all the
Speaker 1: marijuana in it. Doug was working on that case. He'd
Speaker 1: been in touch with Stephen's lawyers and had gotten word
Speaker 1: that Stephen had secrets to tell that went far beyond
Speaker 1: the ghost Ship. Well, I knew Kaylish had this evidence
Speaker 1: that would implicate Noriega and money laundron. His lawyers had
Speaker 1: told us that in what's called a proffer, But I
Speaker 1: wanted to hear it from Kaylish's own mouth and see
Speaker 1: what kind of person he was. So Doug arranges for
Speaker 1: Stephen to travel up to North Carolina. Well, they put
Speaker 1: me in some shitty gel I mean it just typical
Speaker 1: red and at shit home. And then Doug takes me
Speaker 1: back to his officers, right, and he goes, well, we
Speaker 1: want to take you to secure location and sit down
Speaker 1: with the INDEP review. Stephen knew what Doug wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about. The question was what did Doug want to
Speaker 1: do with it? This information was currency, and one way
Speaker 1: or another, Stephen wanted to profit from it. Either way.
Speaker 1: If they want me to talk, I want something for it.
Speaker 1: If they want me to shut up, I want something
Speaker 1: for it. I don't give a shit. They it's their call,
Speaker 1: it's not my call. Well, I'm just going to tell
Speaker 1: the story and then let the cards fall the way
Speaker 1: however they fall. So they all get out to Camp Lejeerne,
Speaker 1: the big Marine Corps base in North Carolina. Doug McCullough,
Speaker 1: the prosecutor, his team, along with Stephen and his defense lawyers.
Speaker 1: Doug has arranged for two trailers, one for the prosecution
Speaker 1: and one for the defense team. Stephen remembers the Marine
Speaker 1: Guards were stationed all over with their M sixteens. Everyone
Speaker 1: piles into one of the trailers and Stephen starts telling
Speaker 1: his story high detail, my smuckling operations, obviously in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: which is one of the things that concerned him. But
Speaker 1: it leaked all up to me getting to Panamall, and
Speaker 1: then about me going to Panamall and me paying off Noriega,
Speaker 1: and then me buying helicopters and jets for Noriega. Doug's
Speaker 1: basically almost shell shocked. I mean, he's visibly shaken by
Speaker 1: it all. Doug wasn't naive he understood that a guy
Speaker 1: like Noriega might be corrupt. What blew him away was Stephen.
Speaker 1: Here was a runaway kid from Texas who become a
Speaker 1: drug tycoon and was apparently Noriega's business partner. And he
Speaker 1: had evidence. He had airplane logs that showed on his
Speaker 1: private jet him flying Noriega around. These logs show that
Speaker 1: Noriega used Stephen's plane during a trip to the United States,
Speaker 1: and this trip it was a big deal. Noriega went
Speaker 1: to d C. I met with the Secretary of Defense
Speaker 1: and then the director of the CIA. There's a celebratory
Speaker 1: lunch for him at the Pentagon. It's pretty much a
Speaker 1: hero's welcome. So yeah, Stephen's evidence would make a lot
Speaker 1: of people look very bad. The debriefing session goes on
Speaker 1: and on until finally Stephen says, okay, guys, I've talked
Speaker 1: for five or six hours. I said, now it's my turn.
Speaker 1: I want to see my wife. Are you all satisfied?
Speaker 1: Stephen's wife was actually waiting to meet with him. That
Speaker 1: was part of the deal that Stephen says he worked
Speaker 1: out with Doug ahead of time. Ever, the gentleman smuggler,
Speaker 1: Stephen had asked for some very gentlemanly terms. He wanted dinner,
Speaker 1: and he wanted a trailer overlooking the Atlantic. And I said, okay, well,
Speaker 1: if you're satisfied, I want my wife and I have
Speaker 1: several hours together. And Duck goes more than satisfied. They
Speaker 1: brought me a nice steak dinner and beautiful meal. I
Speaker 1: think a bottle of champagne, and my wife made love
Speaker 1: a couple of times. After I finished with my wife,
Speaker 1: Duck comes in and he goes, We're going to Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Because I've been ordered by my boss that
Speaker 1: they won't you at Main Justice in Marshington, d C.
Speaker 1: For deep briefing. A few days later, they all fly
Speaker 1: up to DC together to the headquarters of the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice. According to Stephen, they go to a big
Speaker 1: conference room and meet with a whole host of officials,
Speaker 1: and once again Stephen tells his story. When it's all over,
Speaker 1: they basically just thank him for his time. Seemed like
Speaker 1: a dead end, but toward the end of the day,
Speaker 1: Doug McCullough remembers an assistant Attorney General pulling him aside
Speaker 1: and saying, all of this information has been passed up
Speaker 1: to the National Security Council, so apparently people were taking notice.
Speaker 1: For all of his efforts, Stephen gets pretty much zilch.
Speaker 1: No one gives him a get out of jail free
Speaker 1: card or really anything close to it. So in February
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty seven, Stephen goes on trial in Tampa
Speaker 1: alongside his old partner Lee Rich. For a few weeks
Speaker 1: they're fighting it out together, but by mid March, Stephen
Speaker 1: says he sees the writing on the wall. There's no
Speaker 1: winning this case. So he reaches a deal with prosecutors.
Speaker 1: As they say in the business, he joins Team USA
Speaker 1: and agrees to testify for the government. In return, he
Speaker 1: gets well less than he hoped for. He's promised a
Speaker 1: jail sentence of no more than twenty years. Meanwhile, Lee
Speaker 1: Rich keeps defending himself at trial, but in the end
Speaker 1: he loses. He's found guilty of running a continuing criminal enterprise.
Speaker 1: His sentencing hearing was brutal. The prosecutor said, good old
Speaker 1: mister Beach Club had quote no redeeming social value end quote.
Speaker 1: He was sentenced to thirty years. So it seemed like
Speaker 1: Steven's big move and the whole story of the General
Speaker 1: went pretty much nowhere, a big dud. But that wasn't
Speaker 1: the case. By peddling his story around in DC and elsewhere,
Speaker 1: he'd gotten people talking and started something much much bigger
Speaker 1: than he ever imagined. More on that after the break,
Speaker 1: so Stephen's story was slowly making its way through the
Speaker 1: grape vine in Washington, d C. And it turns out
Speaker 1: totally independent of this, another investigator named Jack Blum was
Speaker 1: also taking a closer look at Noriega. Jack was special
Speaker 1: counsel for the Senate Form Relations Committee under John Carey,
Speaker 1: and Jack, like everybody else, had heard the rumors and
Speaker 1: read the article in the New York Times about Noriega
Speaker 1: and his alleged drug trafficking. To Jack, it was intriguing,
Speaker 1: but not an open and shut case. I didn't have
Speaker 1: a smoking gun the time, certainly didn't have a smoking gun,
Speaker 1: but there was enough there. So glad anybody who really
Speaker 1: wanted to know could find out a lot more. Jack
Speaker 1: was interested not just in Noriega, but in all the
Speaker 1: particulars of how drugs were being smuggled and how money
Speaker 1: was being laundered, and so in the mid eighties this
Speaker 1: became Jack Blum's mission. But he was not just some
Speaker 1: policy walk sitting in some room with his whiteboard. Jack
Speaker 1: was more like, well, a detective. I went to visit
Speaker 1: these people in jail, spending time talking to them. So
Speaker 1: I actually became quite a visitor to the federal prison system.
Speaker 1: And of all the people that he interviewed. One in
Speaker 1: particular still stands out to this day. I remember, particularly
Speaker 1: Lee Rich. The words that come to mind are clean cut,
Speaker 1: nice guy. I could go out drinking with them, I
Speaker 1: could have him as a business partner. One of the
Speaker 1: things that came clear was how normal and routine and
Speaker 1: pleasant some of these five star criminals turned out to be.
Speaker 1: And Lee starts to tell his story all about how
Speaker 1: he smuggled his drugs and how he laundered his money
Speaker 1: with the help of the General Manuel Noriega. It was
Speaker 1: quite a revelation. People were talking about Noriego was in
Speaker 1: charge of everything in Panama and he was our guy.
Speaker 1: Well you heard this, and it was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: he's not our guy. It was one thing to have
Speaker 1: a newspaper article with a bunch of unnamed sources, but
Speaker 1: it was another thing entirely to have a guy like
Speaker 1: mister Beach Club who could verify it all and say basically, yeah, General,
Speaker 1: Mammo Noriega, he was our business partner, and here exactly
Speaker 1: is how he helped us launder our money. The further
Speaker 1: into this mess that I got more apparent, it became
Speaker 1: that it was a very tangled mess. You start looking
Speaker 1: at the awards that were given to Noriego. There are
Speaker 1: photographs of the top man in the giving plaques to
Speaker 1: Noriega in Panama, congratulating him for sustain various busts. Jack
Speaker 1: began to piece it all together what exactly Noriega had
Speaker 1: been doing. He'd been cooperating with the US War on
Speaker 1: Drugs kind of Basically, Noriego would apprehend some drug smugglers,
Speaker 1: but he was being very selective about which bad guys
Speaker 1: he went after, namely the guys who didn't use his
Speaker 1: money laundering services. Those guys they got busted. All the while,
Speaker 1: Noriego is providing valuable info to the CIA, because well,
Speaker 1: he did know all kinds of things. Noriego's talking to
Speaker 1: Fidel Castro, Noriego's relating to all of the heads of
Speaker 1: state and the characters who were all over Central America
Speaker 1: one way or another. He's got his hands in every pie. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, the stupidity of it is he's really working
Speaker 1: for himself. The more that Jack looked into who Noriega
Speaker 1: was and how he operated, the more troubling it became.
Speaker 1: At one point, Jack interviewed one of Noriega's pilots, who
Speaker 1: detailed the murder of Hugo Spataphora. Spataphora was a prominent
Speaker 1: doctor and revolutionary who'd criticized Noriega for his involvement in
Speaker 1: the drug trade, and he paid for it. In nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five, some Panamanian soldiers abducted him, and his decapitated
Speaker 1: body was later found in a ravine. The notion of
Speaker 1: torturing and beheading his opponent and doing it the way
Speaker 1: he did it, this man is really evil from top
Speaker 1: to bottom. Up until now, Jack says, Noriega's bad behavior
Speaker 1: had been tolerated because he was so helpful to agencies
Speaker 1: like the CIA. I actually found an internal CIA document
Speaker 1: from the time marked secret that's since been declassified. It said, quote,
Speaker 1: we have no smoking gun on Noriega, but he is
Speaker 1: closely associated with some connected to the drug trade. So yeah,
Speaker 1: they had an inkling. So the CIA had its agenda
Speaker 1: for Panama. They were interested in their mission and nothing else.
Speaker 1: And their response, if you ask why are you doing
Speaker 1: business with all these terrible characters was pretty simple. Terrible
Speaker 1: characters or are stock and trade. It's the criminals who
Speaker 1: know how to get around the law and get around
Speaker 1: all of the systems and who can help us do
Speaker 1: our job. It was kind of like what Ned Timmins
Speaker 1: had told me from the very beginning. If you wanted
Speaker 1: to get intel on the bad guys, well, then you
Speaker 1: also had to play with the bad guys. For Jack Blum,
Speaker 1: the only way to blow all of this open was
Speaker 1: to hold congressional hearings and use guys like mister Beach
Speaker 1: Club to go public and make some headlines. More on that.
Speaker 1: After the break In early nineteen eighty eight, about a
Speaker 1: year after they'd gone on trial down in Tampa, Lee
Speaker 1: Rich and Stephen Kaylish went public with their story about Noriega,
Speaker 1: and they did so in the biggest possible way. In Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Before the Senate in front of live TV cameras.
Speaker 1: The US Congress today heard about a strange partnership between
Speaker 1: Panama's military rule, Manuel Noriega, and a convicted American drug dealer.
Speaker 1: At this point, many senators were interested in the subject
Speaker 1: of narco trafficking in general. There were multiple sets of hearings.
Speaker 1: Jack Blum organized one of them. Altogether. They created a specticle.
Speaker 1: A parade of former criminals showed up to tell their stories.
Speaker 1: Stephen and Lee hope that by talking publicly, they'd get
Speaker 1: their jail sentences reduced. On TV, Stephen is super clean cut,
Speaker 1: perfectly combed hair, huge black grim classes a dark suit.
Speaker 1: He looks like he could be a stockbroker on his
Speaker 1: lunch break, and he's telling a story, but he's reading it,
Speaker 1: checking his script constantly, not nervously, just like he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to get a single detail wrong. In his testimony,
Speaker 1: Stephen explains how exactly he'd become friends with the General.
Speaker 1: I was taken to General Noriega's private home. I had
Speaker 1: been instructed bring a gift for the General large enough
Speaker 1: to show how serious I was about doing business in Panama.
Speaker 1: I placed three hundred thousand dollars cares in my briefcase.
Speaker 1: The briefcase stuff with cash would become an icon for
Speaker 1: this scandal that unfolded, kind of like Monica Lewinsky's dress
Speaker 1: or Richard Nixon's White House tapes. It was a singular
Speaker 1: image that people could picture and that told the whole story.
Speaker 1: Here was the head of state hosting a drug dealer
Speaker 1: in his house and accepting a briefcase stuffed with bills.
Speaker 1: A few months later, at a separate set of hearings.
Speaker 1: Lee Rich, mister Beach Club, also testified. He backed up
Speaker 1: Stephen Kaylish's account, corroborating the now famous story of the
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand dollars in the briefcase Mike Vogel, the
Speaker 1: Detroit grocery guy. He testified two. In the time between
Speaker 1: Stephen Kaylish and Lee Rich's testimonies, there was big news.
Speaker 1: The US Justice Department was going after Noriega, the military
Speaker 1: leader of Panama, General Manuel Noriega, was indited today on
Speaker 1: charges of drug smuggling and racketeering. In all of US history,
Speaker 1: this was only the time that the Justice Department had
Speaker 1: indicted the head of a foreign nation. Only problem was,
Speaker 1: Noriega was still safely situated in Panama, very much in control.
Speaker 1: The indictment only created more controversy. The legendary Congressman Charles
Speaker 1: Wrangel accused the Reagan administration of quote, a full blown
Speaker 1: cover up of the facts end quote. At last, the
Speaker 1: political shit storm had arrived. Noriega didn't just stand by
Speaker 1: and watch all of this silently. In the press, he
Speaker 1: defended himself. He said that the US was really just
Speaker 1: interested in getting rid of him so it could keep
Speaker 1: control over the Panama Canal beyond nineteen ninety nine when
Speaker 1: the US was supposed to be out of there. Noriega
Speaker 1: actually did an interview with Mike Wallace of CBS to
Speaker 1: make his case. As you know, general, the American people
Speaker 1: are being told at this moment, but Monde Noriega is
Speaker 1: a criminal, a drug dealer, He is an arms dealer,
Speaker 1: He is a money launderer. Question why Noriega and why now?
Speaker 1: But precisely in the interview, Noriega said, essentially, look, all
Speaker 1: of this is political conspiracy. This is retribution because I
Speaker 1: wouldn't do the US's dirty work in Nicaragua and help
Speaker 1: the contrast. During the sixty minutes interview, Wallace asked about
Speaker 1: Stephen Kaylish. You know Stephen Michael Kaylish a kive Banama here, Banama.
Speaker 1: Many people come by when you work in my profession,
Speaker 1: and also as a politician, you see a lot of people,
Speaker 1: not that you know them. I would know Kaylish if
Speaker 1: he gave me three hundred thousand dollars. And he said
Speaker 1: that the first time he met you, he left a
Speaker 1: bag behind the three hundred thousand dollars inside. And he
Speaker 1: also said that you were a full scale co conspirator
Speaker 1: in his drug operation that he paid you eventually millions.
Speaker 1: You were talking about two gunvicts. That's say they both
Speaker 1: gave money. If that doesn't invalidate it, the money for
Speaker 1: what does? This was a big part of Noriega's defense.
Speaker 1: Stephen Kalish is a convict. You can't believe a word
Speaker 1: he says. Look, some of Noriega's critiques were legit, like
Speaker 1: the fact that the US messed around in small countries
Speaker 1: in order to advance its own sketchy interests. Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 1: But when it came to the drug and money laundering charges,
Speaker 1: the evidence against Noriega was pretty damning. The real question
Speaker 1: on a lot of people's minds was how could the
Speaker 1: US allow this? How could it buddy up with a
Speaker 1: drug trafficker like Noriega because our intelligence services knew what
Speaker 1: he was up to. Two years before the congressional hearings,
Speaker 1: John Poindexter, the National Security Advisor at the time, went
Speaker 1: to Panama. According to The New York Times, he told
Speaker 1: Noriega to quote cut it out. So, Yeah, people knew.
Speaker 1: In fact, as far back as the early nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: US officials were in the know. They'd heard the allegations
Speaker 1: of Noriega's involvement in the drug trade, and this evidence
Speaker 1: was actually passed along to the US Senate at the
Speaker 1: time when it was negotiating a new treaty with Panama.
Speaker 1: But for years and years, the US had opted to
Speaker 1: do very little about this, not anymore, not after the
Speaker 1: story of the Gentleman's Smuggler and his briefcase. That was it.
Speaker 1: While all of this is going on, the congressional hearings,
Speaker 1: the indictment against Noriega, the growing scandal, Ned Timmins was
Speaker 1: back in Detroit. No one had asked him to testify
Speaker 1: before Congress. Apparently he was just another cog in the
Speaker 1: machine that had helped bring all of this to light.
Speaker 1: But Ned was still plenty busy at work thanks to
Speaker 1: his time on the Lee Rich case. Ned had all
Speaker 1: kinds of contacts in the drug world. One of them
Speaker 1: was a beautiful young woman from Columbia who knew things.
Speaker 1: She was connected with the biggest people in the cartels
Speaker 1: and talked a good game. She knew what she was
Speaker 1: talking about, She knew the right names. These are the
Speaker 1: people that would have supplied the drugs to Likely Rich.
Speaker 1: They are the people that controlled everything on the Earth
Speaker 1: coast to Columbia. It seemed like this could be the
Speaker 1: final piece in the puzzle. After all, Ned and the
Speaker 1: FBI had busted the distributor with the big warehouse in Detroit,
Speaker 1: They'd gotten the master smuggler with his armada of ships.
Speaker 1: They'd gotten the kingpin from his safe haven, and the Caymans,
Speaker 1: even the money launderer Noriega had been indicted, and now
Speaker 1: Ned had a shot at the source. Next time on
Speaker 1: deep Cover, our final episode in the series, A real
Speaker 1: reckoning for Ned with his marriage Anne with the FBI.
Speaker 1: I mean, she was a strikingly beautiful woman and now
Speaker 1: she's sitting here with no husband. She's got no other
Speaker 1: connections besides Ned. Not a good situation to have your
Speaker 1: husband involved in. I mean, you can almost predict trouble.
Speaker 1: Deep Cover is produced by Jacob Smith and edited by
Speaker 1: Karen Schakerjee. Our story editor is Jack hit Original music
Speaker 1: and our theme was composed by Luis Gara and Flawn
Speaker 1: Williams is our engine year fact checking by Amy Gaines.
Speaker 1: Mia Lobell is Pushkin's executive producer. Ned's novel is read
Speaker 1: by Walton Goggins. Special thanks to Julia Barton, Heather Fame,
Speaker 1: Carly mcgliori, Lee to Mullad, Maya Kanig, Eric Sandler, Maggie Taylor,
Speaker 1: Kadija Holland, Zoe Gwenn and Jacob Weisberg at Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: Special thanks also to Jeff Singer at Stowaway Entertainment. Additional
Speaker 1: thanks to John Dingis, who wrote Our Man in Panama,
Speaker 1: A meticulously researched, an excellent book. I'm Amuel Noriega. I'm
Speaker 1: Jake Halbern