Speaker 1: We interrupt your usual DP show feed. Do introduce you
Speaker 1: to Running Smoke. It's a new show on my podcast network.
Speaker 1: It's a white knuckle true story about fast cars, organized crime,
Speaker 1: and a NASCAR driver fighting for the future of his nation.
Speaker 1: Here's the first episode. I hope you enjoy. Campsite Media
Speaker 1: race fans a moment has a ride Drivers Shia. It's
Speaker 1: July nineteenth, twenty fifteen, and we're in Loudon, New Hampshire
Speaker 1: at the Magic Mile. We're going racing baby, who will
Speaker 1: hoist the lobster at the end of three hundred and
Speaker 1: one laps from Hampshire over speedy Forty three of the
Speaker 1: country's best drivers have gathered here for the NASCAR Sprint
Speaker 1: Cup Series five hour Energy three oh one. On the
Speaker 1: line is a check flag, a quarter million dollars purse,
Speaker 1: and NASCAR's only living trophy, a twenty pound lobster named Loudon.
Speaker 1: I want to take a look at our starting grid
Speaker 1: as the car's about to roll off of Pitt Road.
Speaker 1: On the front row Carl Edwards with its first Magic
Speaker 1: Mild Pole and first since twenty thirteen. He's next to
Speaker 1: two time New Hampshire Winter Joey Logano and then way
Speaker 1: Way in the back. Starting in forty second place is
Speaker 1: the Jet black number thirty three Chevy driven by a
Speaker 1: man named Derek White. Even though Derek is forty five
Speaker 1: years old, he's a rookie here in New Hampshire. It's
Speaker 1: 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. Bands are on their fadeer
Speaker 1: in New Hampshire Water Speedway. Green flating is in the air,
Speaker 1: getty up and go the green flag. To call Derek
Speaker 1: an underdog wouldn't be totally accurate because as Derek doesn't
Speaker 1: stand a snowball's chance and how at winning this race.
Speaker 1: He's starting last in a car that's a few miles
Speaker 1: per hour off the pace even on its best days.
Speaker 1: I'm behind the side candy making snake. In the end,
Speaker 1: he finished in thirty ninth place, ten laps behind the leader.
Speaker 1: The TV announcers never mentioned his name and the cameras
Speaker 1: only showed his car for a split second. But that's
Speaker 1: a damn shame because Derek is making history here. Derek
Speaker 1: White is a Mohawk from Canada, and he's the first
Speaker 1: Indigenous person ever to drive in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Speaker 1: Instead of putting up ads for Oscar Meyer or Viagra
Speaker 1: on his car, he chose to paint the Mohawk Warrior
Speaker 1: flag on his hood. Derek was a real hero back home,
Speaker 1: an inspiration for his community. What he didn't know was
Speaker 1: that police were watching his every move. They were wired
Speaker 1: tapping his phone, tailing his vehicles, and intercepting all his
Speaker 1: messages because they believed Derek was a major figure in
Speaker 1: a criminal organization made up of South American drug cartels,
Speaker 1: Canadian gangsters, and outlaw bikers. Just a few months after
Speaker 1: his NASCAR debut, Derek White would go from being the
Speaker 1: pride of the community, someone the entire Mohawk Nation could
Speaker 1: stand behind, to the person splitting it. Apart from Campsite
Speaker 1: Media and Dan Patrick Productions, this is Running Smoke, the
Speaker 1: story of a race car driver taken down in an
Speaker 1: international police stay and how he might change the future
Speaker 1: of Native rights. Episode one, Welcome to Ghanawage. My name
Speaker 1: is Rodigola and I grew up in Florida between the
Speaker 1: Volucia County dirt Track and the Daytona Speedway. If I
Speaker 1: hadn't been blessed with severe motion sickness and a voice
Speaker 1: made for podcasting, I might have become a race car
Speaker 1: driver instead of a journalist. So you can understand why
Speaker 1: I've been hooked on Derek's story since it made headlines
Speaker 1: back in twenty sixteen and what had called the largest
Speaker 1: rate of its kind in America, Quebec Provincial Police carried
Speaker 1: out Operation Mygale, aimed at dismantling what they called a drug,
Speaker 1: tobacco and money laundering ring. On Wednesday, seven hundred police
Speaker 1: officers carried out a bus that netted more than one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand pounds of contraband tobacco, eighteen hundred pounds of cocaine,
Speaker 1: and millions in cash. Nearly sixty people across Canada and
Speaker 1: the US were arrested on narcotics, smuggling and money laundering charges.
Speaker 1: It was the biggest bust in years, and Derek was
Speaker 1: accused of being a major figure in the criminal organization.
Speaker 1: Then I learned that Eric was taking his case all
Speaker 1: the way to Canada's Constitutional Court. This rookie race car
Speaker 1: driver who was accused of being a major player in
Speaker 1: a criminal operation was taking on the Canadian government for
Speaker 1: his rights as an Indigenous person, and it looked like
Speaker 1: he actually had a case. So I started looking into
Speaker 1: Derek's story and put thousands of miles on my car,
Speaker 1: tracking down indigenous leaders, undercover investigators, and contraband smugglers. And
Speaker 1: what I learned was that this story is about much
Speaker 1: more than race cars and a drug bust. It's about
Speaker 1: what it means to be indigenous in the modern world.
Speaker 1: I knew that the first step to telling the story
Speaker 1: was to find Derek and find out who he really was.
Speaker 1: So that's what I did. Back in twenty nineteen, shortly
Speaker 1: after he appealed his case. I packed my car and
Speaker 1: spent three days covering the fourteen hundred miles from Florida
Speaker 1: to Montreal. When I got there, it turned out to
Speaker 1: be a lot easier to find Derek than you might think.
Speaker 1: I knew that, aside from racing, he ran a grocery
Speaker 1: store and gottawauge the Mohawk Territory where he lived. So
Speaker 1: I left a message for him at the Mohawk Market
Speaker 1: and he met me in the parking lot about twenty
Speaker 1: minutes later. How's it going right? All right? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: up to running all yeah, he just came a yeah,
Speaker 1: just last Night's gonna be here for a month, a month?
Speaker 1: Yeah what? Derek hopped 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'd driven all the way up
Speaker 1: just for him. He got back in the van, popped
Speaker 1: the door and told me to get in. Hey, you
Speaker 1: on New year seagull unders, and you're with me. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna need a seat Bill, I put my seatbelt on. Anyway,
Speaker 1: where do you want to go? I wanted to see
Speaker 1: Gonawage 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 Reverening started off with my
Speaker 1: grandmother starting up her own little smoke shop right in
Speaker 1: her yard. Boa Boah by there right now and have
Speaker 1: a look at it. On the way there we passed
Speaker 1: a microbrewery, a cigar lounge, a 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: Gonawage didn't look like the stereotypical reservation I'd seen in movies,
Speaker 1: some dusty, barren piece of land with tumbleweeds and mobile homes.
Speaker 1: Gonawaga to 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 statistics, I think we're one of the wealthiest reserves
Speaker 1: in Canada. What do you think that is? If you
Speaker 1: 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 Gnawaugus. So whatever we sell on the reserve,
Speaker 1: people are gonna buy because we're always our prices are
Speaker 1: always better than the outside. So you have a lot
Speaker 1: of traffic control. The reason prices are better in Gnawogue
Speaker 1: than in Montreal comes down to one simple fact. Gnawogue
Speaker 1: is a sovereign nature, separate from Canada. They have their
Speaker 1: own flag, their own laws, and their own government. When
Speaker 1: you cross the bridge from Montreal to go to Gnawage,
Speaker 1: there might not be a customs agent or a passport check,
Speaker 1: but you're essentially leaving the country of Canada and stepping
Speaker 1: foot onto the independent Mohawk territory of Gnawauke. And one
Speaker 1: thing you'll notice right away when you cross into Gonawauge
Speaker 1: is that sales tax is not collected here, so tax
Speaker 1: free shops line the main roads. You got all smoke
Speaker 1: shops all down here. That's one, two, three, four five
Speaker 1: in a road that are within one two hundred feet.
Speaker 1: It's impossible to miss the smoke shops in Contawauge. 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 mc 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: car 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: Gonawage you won't find those pesky tax stamps on any
Speaker 1: cigarette packs. And what's the price difference between buying a
Speaker 1: carton on the other side of the bridge vers over here. Well,
Speaker 1: you got the cartons on the outside, the name brands
Speaker 1: Damie or Export and stuff like that. They go for
Speaker 1: about one hundred and twenty dollars per carton two hundred cigarettes,
Speaker 1: and you can buy two hundred cigarettes in a bank
Speaker 1: for twenty bucks, so you're saving one hundred dollars per
Speaker 1: two hundred cigarettes. You can see how cigarettes sold on
Speaker 1: a tax free reservation would be pretty good business and
Speaker 1: It's one that Derek's been involved in since he was
Speaker 1: a kid. Derek's pulled off the main road and pointed
Speaker 1: through a window at a gas station with a turquoise
Speaker 1: blue awning over two pumps. Off to one side, there
Speaker 1: was a car wash that said ocr gas Bar. It
Speaker 1: was a logo I'd seen plastered over a lot of
Speaker 1: Derek's race cars. The gas station looked like any Shell
Speaker 1: or Sinocco you've ever seen, except for the fact that
Speaker 1: it was attached to a house with a two car garage.
Speaker 1: This is what Derek wanted to show me, his grandmother's
Speaker 1: place where he got a start. My grandmother opened up
Speaker 1: her first, first and only basically cigarette store, was righted
Speaker 1: into this little car poort here where you see this car.
Speaker 1: That was a small little store. She was a school
Speaker 1: bus driver for the kids, so she would do her
Speaker 1: run in a morning, like seven o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: When she would drop the kids off, she would get
Speaker 1: in her nineteen eighty money Carlo and she would drive
Speaker 1: down to Cornwall. She had enough money for half a
Speaker 1: case smokes, and then she would drive it all the
Speaker 1: way back herself, put it in her store, try to
Speaker 1: sell it off and the next day she would turn
Speaker 1: the profit over and that and then she'd have enough
Speaker 1: to buy a whole case, and then so on and
Speaker 1: so on like that. That's where she started out. This
Speaker 1: road here, like I said, was the main artery to
Speaker 1: get to Montreal, so there was traffic all the way
Speaker 1: down this road. So this little store was pretty that busy,
Speaker 1: you know. Ever since he dropped out of high school,
Speaker 1: Derek had worked odd jobs on and off the reservation.
Speaker 1: He tried his hand at high rise construction, concrete pouring,
Speaker 1: even had a stint shipping vehicles internationally. Eventually, he decided
Speaker 1: to follow its grandmother's example. Tobacco and gas and gnawage.
Speaker 1: You couldn't go wrong. When we opened this place. I
Speaker 1: went to borrow the money at the bank and they
Speaker 1: wouldn't lend it to me because they wouldn't They said
Speaker 1: there's not enough community members in the reserve for a
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 groundlar at the time to open
Speaker 1: this station. And she asked me, she goes where you
Speaker 1: gonna put it? I told her, so I'm gonna put
Speaker 1: it right in your yard. I had no other land,
Speaker 1: So I mean this is what started everything in the
Speaker 1: ninety six. From that little gas station in his grandma's
Speaker 1: front yard, Derek built an empire. I have three gas stations.
Speaker 1: I have the Momauk 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 back hole was dump trucks.
Speaker 1: And in the same area and my property there I
Speaker 1: have a garage, a small garage that I do tires
Speaker 1: and oil changes for locals and non locals. Also, Derek
Speaker 1: had an entrepreneurial savvy that I found remarkable. He was
Speaker 1: constantly wheeling in dealing, looking for the next opportunity. His
Speaker 1: brain was wired for it, and it served him well.
Speaker 1: Eric 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,
Speaker 1: so if they want my business, they'll talk English. Derek's
Speaker 1: success was built on the foundation that Mohawks don't pay
Speaker 1: sales tax. It was a fundamental fact of life on
Speaker 1: the territory, but on the outside. That exemption can be
Speaker 1: a bit more contentious coming up after the break. They
Speaker 1: see who're making money, boom, they want to tax us, 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. Hold on, we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: You're listening to And when I met Derek in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: he was out on bail in the middle of one
Speaker 1: of Gonawoge's most watched court battles. He was facing off
Speaker 1: against the Canadian government. He was hemorrhaging money to legal fees,
Speaker 1: couldn't lea Quebec without permission and had to check in
Speaker 1: at a police station on a regular basis. He was
Speaker 1: simply trying to spend time with his wife and his
Speaker 1: two sons, run his businesses, and keep a low profile.
Speaker 1: He had no reason to talk to a journalist. But
Speaker 1: as I started to learn, there's more to it. Derek
Speaker 1: had his walls up for a reason. Folks in Gnawoge
Speaker 1: were tired of having their story told by outsiders and
Speaker 1: having it told wrong. I think the thing that people
Speaker 1: are wary about is they get burned by the French media,
Speaker 1: who would just come in, you know, spend a couple
Speaker 1: of seconds here, get a bullshit story, and then view
Speaker 1: of their narrative and their skewed view of us said,
Speaker 1: they're ignorant viewlests, you know, kind of pointing at all
Speaker 1: of us as criminals. Steve Bonspiel is the editor and
Speaker 1: published of the Eastern Door Newspaper, one of the bigger
Speaker 1: papers serving Mohawk territories across Canada. Steve is Mohawk himself
Speaker 1: and is reported on these communities for nearly twenty years.
Speaker 1: It'll be actually nineteen years in January. Could you meet
Speaker 1: just like the barest overview of what Gottawaga is like,
Speaker 1: how would you describe this community? How many people are here? Like?
Speaker 1: What's it like? Well, you know, it's funny because even
Speaker 1: just the question of how many people are here is
Speaker 1: open to interpretation, because I think right now there's sixty
Speaker 1: five hundred people on the Gohaga of Gonawaga Registry, apparently
Speaker 1: there's eight thousand people that actually live here, and apparently
Speaker 1: on the Federal registry there's ten thousand. So your guess
Speaker 1: is as good as mine. It seems like every part
Speaker 1: of your existence here is open to your interpretation. And
Speaker 1: is just like this gray area. Well, I guess that's
Speaker 1: the kind of you know, the intro to this. You're
Speaker 1: you're right, I mean, it's it's unfortunately, there's so many
Speaker 1: things that have been left like that, you know, and
Speaker 1: and the ones doing the interpreting is not us, you know,
Speaker 1: it's usually the outside governments and non Native people. One
Speaker 1: major stereotype that Gonawaga deals with is this idea that
Speaker 1: Indigenous communities are lawless places that are totally run by
Speaker 1: organized crime, that their sovereignty is really just a cover
Speaker 1: for illicit activity and provides a safe haven for the
Speaker 1: criminal underworld. I think it's a narrative that fits the
Speaker 1: running narrative of mohawks or outside the law, you know,
Speaker 1: are doing things in a gray area because they don't
Speaker 1: understand their rights. You know, they don't understand why we
Speaker 1: have quote unquote special rights. It's also the reason Steve
Speaker 1: says that Gonawage faces so much scrutiny from law enforcement.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's sad to say, but you know,
Speaker 1: any kind of police operations, it's it's just so normal
Speaker 1: to us. They're always looking for ways to get in
Speaker 1: the community, they're always working, looking for ways to nail people.
Speaker 1: So were always vulnerable. They're always watching us. When I
Speaker 1: tell people like our phones are bugged, people will say, oh,
Speaker 1: is it always crazy? He's conspiracy there, No, it's just reality.
Speaker 1: Just in the last few years, there's been several stories
Speaker 1: of folks in Gonawage being busted in high profile police
Speaker 1: operations that involve wire taps and undercover officers, like the
Speaker 1: case of Floyd Lahtch, a former pro hockey player who's
Speaker 1: taken down for selling wine illegally, or Wendy Mayo, a
Speaker 1: grandmother who's arrested in a sixteen person cigarette smuggling operation.
Speaker 1: And there's the case of Gnandio 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 Gonawage'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 see is tax free trade. Outsiders see his tax evasion.
Speaker 1: What mohawks see is sovereignty. Outside signers see as a
Speaker 1: free pass for criminality. As a businessman, Derek knows that
Speaker 1: double standard. Well, every time we try to do something.
Speaker 1: The government always has something to say or do they
Speaker 1: try to throw They threw a wrench in our spokes. Basically,
Speaker 1: we get something going and then right off the bat
Speaker 1: they see who're making money, boom, they want to tax us.
Speaker 1: So that's what we're kind of fighting for, is 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 in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: it was more than just a sticker to cover up
Speaker 1: a blank body panel. It was a bold statement and
Speaker 1: an attempt to redefine Gnawage for the outside world. M
Speaker 1: proud of who we are and where we were from.
Speaker 1: We're not We're not Canadians, we're not Americans. We're North
Speaker 1: Americ natives. Yeah, I live in Quebec, but I'm not
Speaker 1: a quebecerum, born and raised in Gunnawage, and we are
Speaker 1: native people. We are our own people. We were doing
Speaker 1: our best to cover you know, every race he was doing,
Speaker 1: and it's something you have to give the people. You
Speaker 1: have to give them something to look forward to, you know,
Speaker 1: and and make them understand or you may just be
Speaker 1: some kid from the rest, but you don't always have
Speaker 1: to be, you know. So you have to fight against
Speaker 1: that narrative, to fight against that view, and that's what
Speaker 1: he did. Racing made Derek an inspiration for his community
Speaker 1: and offered an alternative for the harmful stereotypes that have
Speaker 1: played Native communities for generations. But racing would also eventually
Speaker 1: lead Derek into a gigantic web of organized crime, making
Speaker 1: him a target for the DA, Homeland Security and Canadian
Speaker 1: police that's coming up after the break. Derek's garage is
Speaker 1: right next to his house and almost exactly the same size.
Speaker 1: Inside pack like sardines, are race cars, vintage vehicles, and
Speaker 1: power sports toys. It's a site that would make any
Speaker 1: season podcaster forget to ask every single question. He driven
Speaker 1: all the way to Canada to ask. Gorgeous, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: you got an eight seventy one blow around it. It's
Speaker 1: like twelve hundred horsepower nineteen seventy Chevy pickup. There's a
Speaker 1: seventy five buick. That one's ready to go through. That
Speaker 1: one's ready to race tomorrow if you want it. Though,
Speaker 1: that are drag car back there, a sleep or four
Speaker 1: door Bonville, got old ashfall car, Nova, got a drag
Speaker 1: car Malibu. What's the car in here that you've had
Speaker 1: a long all right? I go through so many cars,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't even Derek led me up the
Speaker 1: stairs to his man cave, a beautifully appointed room covered
Speaker 1: an oak paneling, sports memor abielia and a polar bear
Speaker 1: rug on the floor. Oh, this is where we hang
Speaker 1: out and watch racing or fully, we've got a full bar,
Speaker 1: they say. By some people over they say it's one
Speaker 1: of the nice as far as even in Montreal. Well,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to ask you a couple questions when
Speaker 1: we had a quiet place. I wanted to understand how
Speaker 1: a guy like Derek ends up being accused of being
Speaker 1: the leader of a criminal organization. As it turned out,
Speaker 1: it actually started with a trip to Disney World. So
Speaker 1: were you into Nascar as a kid too? No? You
Speaker 1: know what, It's it's kind of funny that, Uh, I
Speaker 1: never really liked Nascar. I was more like, uh, into
Speaker 1: drag racing and doing the burnout. It's the smoke and
Speaker 1: the loud noise, and you know, and after a while
Speaker 1: I kind of got boring a little bit. And then
Speaker 1: we were in Florida and Orlando with my son Jeremy,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to go to the Team Park and
Speaker 1: there's a track right outside Universal Studios, and I hear
Speaker 1: them ripping, you know, like revving like like constantly, So
Speaker 1: holy shit, what the hell is that going on over there?
Speaker 1: So what Derek was hearing was the Walt Disney World Speedway,
Speaker 1: basically a go cart track for adults, but you get
Speaker 1: to race real deal race cars. I dropped them off
Speaker 1: at the gate. They went into the studio Universal Studios,
Speaker 1: and I just took the car and I went follow
Speaker 1: the sound and I come out there's a big tractor.
Speaker 1: I think it's a five eight mile track. So I
Speaker 1: pulled up there. I went inside and I said, uh,
Speaker 1: who are these do guys driving? Or? They tested, No,
Speaker 1: you could rent this? What I said, where do I
Speaker 1: sign up? So I walked in there and I never
Speaker 1: drove a NASCAR before, I mean like a stock car before,
Speaker 1: and signed the waiver, put the race suit on, the
Speaker 1: helmet on, and they drew me in a car. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh. I got in there and we went
Speaker 1: around the track. You do one and one or two
Speaker 1: laps slow you and you got to stay behind the
Speaker 1: pace car and stuff like that. But then after two
Speaker 1: three laps, I was like, wow, okay, I could get
Speaker 1: used to this. I saw a little picture plaque from
Speaker 1: his first day at the track. It's a photo of
Speaker 1: him almost twenty years ago, wearing a red and blue
Speaker 1: fire suit and sunglasses. That's what started it right there.
Speaker 1: Two thousand and six was, yeah, that's me. I got
Speaker 1: in for the four laps, and then I went again
Speaker 1: and then again and again, and I was just so
Speaker 1: holy shit, I'm still really just more hung up on
Speaker 1: the mustache and then go tee. Oh yeah. Derek made
Speaker 1: it sound easy, just getting behind the stock car and
Speaker 1: turning a few laps. But racing is incredibly physical. NASCAR
Speaker 1: drivers will pull more g's than an astronaut on launch,
Speaker 1: and they can lose up to ten pounds in a race.
Speaker 1: They're sitting inside of a car that'll get up to
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty degrees, and even though the cars
Speaker 1: don't have windows, they're moving so fast that the air
Speaker 1: just glides over the opening. The only air conditioning drivers
Speaker 1: have is their helmet. It's an incredibly grueling experience. But
Speaker 1: as soon as Derek left the racetrack, he knew he'd
Speaker 1: found his calling and he was ready to go all in.
Speaker 1: So Derek started asking around to see if anyone would
Speaker 1: sell him a race car. He went all the way
Speaker 1: down to just before a border of Michigan, somewhere somewhere
Speaker 1: way out in Ontario, and the guy was closing down
Speaker 1: his sudden lost interest in it, and he was selling
Speaker 1: two cars with all the tools and everything. So I
Speaker 1: went down there and I bought everything. That's where it started.
Speaker 1: Racing works like any other sport. You work your way
Speaker 1: through the leagues until you make it to the big time.
Speaker 1: First you work your local tracks Frogtown, a Stash and
Speaker 1: other short ovals around Montreal. Then once you've got enough
Speaker 1: experience and enough money, you break into the lower regional
Speaker 1: and national leagues. Derek started out in the Penties Canada
Speaker 1: Racing series and you can hear how much he loved
Speaker 1: it in this old interview he did with the Aboriginal
Speaker 1: People's TV Network. It's the adrenaline, you know, it flows
Speaker 1: sort of veins, the blood discuts pumping, and once you
Speaker 1: get behind that wheel, it's a whole different world. In
Speaker 1: owners you don't think about anything else. You just want
Speaker 1: to get on that track in that car that's ahead
Speaker 1: of you. You want to just get in front of
Speaker 1: that car. And there's another car ahead of that car.
Speaker 1: You want to get in front of that one. Derek
Speaker 1: showed promise right away, and in twenty ten he won
Speaker 1: Rookie of the Year. Not long after that, he graduated
Speaker 1: to the NASCAR Truck and Exfinity Series. The last two
Speaker 1: runs before the big time, Derek was on his way.
Speaker 1: He was brokeering sponsorship deals and buying faster, better built
Speaker 1: race cars. Now, racing is pensive. There's not many people
Speaker 1: that can afford to buy a race car, or staff
Speaker 1: a team or build a garage. So it's not uncommon
Speaker 1: for people who can afford that stuff to rent it
Speaker 1: out to people who just want to race here and
Speaker 1: there weekend Warriors, which is how Derek met a French
Speaker 1: Canadian racer named Paul Jean who was interested in striking
Speaker 1: a deal with the racing. I met a guy that
Speaker 1: wanted to come and race, and I had cars for rent.
Speaker 1: So basically this individual came see me and he said,
Speaker 1: I want to rent your car. This is fine, I said,
Speaker 1: you got to bring some money, no problem. Derek's deal
Speaker 1: was simple, you want to race one of my cars,
Speaker 1: pay me thirty thousand dollars, and you've got it for
Speaker 1: the weekend. For the first couple of races, things went well.
Speaker 1: Paul Jean brought Derek the cash, put on a fire suit,
Speaker 1: and hopped in the car. Everything was paid up, and
Speaker 1: then he got into maybe two or three different races,
Speaker 1: and he was kind of behind in his payments. To
Speaker 1: me said listen, I said, you're behind in payments. I said,
Speaker 1: I can't put you in the car. I said, I
Speaker 1: have somebody else that's who ready to pay. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: don't worry. So he offered it. He goes, my friend
Speaker 1: has tobacco, really, I said, he goes, you interested, I said, well,
Speaker 1: if it's landed on my door, bring it. So that's
Speaker 1: where it basically, that's where it started. He brought He
Speaker 1: brought some in and then uh start paying off his
Speaker 1: bills and he kept on racing and it just kept
Speaker 1: on going like that. For Derek, tobacco is as good
Speaker 1: as cash. He'd grown up in the business. He knew it. Well,
Speaker 1: can you focus on other mohawk territories who could take
Speaker 1: raw tobacco and turn it into cigarettes, and they'd pay
Speaker 1: a pretty penny for a steady supply. In Derek's eye,
Speaker 1: there wasn't anything illegal about it. Sure, Kennedy usually levied
Speaker 1: heavy taxes on tobacco, and there was even a special
Speaker 1: police force in Quebec dedicated to intercepting untaxed tobacco shipments.
Speaker 1: But that wasn't Derek's problem. Tobacco was something Mohawks had
Speaker 1: smoked for thousands of years, and buying it and selling
Speaker 1: it was their right as native people. He brought in
Speaker 1: tobacco and asked them where it came from or who
Speaker 1: he got it from. Or do you regret ever making
Speaker 1: a deal with him? Yeah? I do. Should have never
Speaker 1: got I shouldn't not never bought anything off those people.
Speaker 1: I mean, I only deal with my own people. I
Speaker 1: don't deal with the outside. It's just that it's hard
Speaker 1: when you deal with somebody you don't know who the
Speaker 1: heck they're dealing. That's exactly how it is. All this
Speaker 1: bullshit happened. You know. If I would have known that,
Speaker 1: believe I would have stayed ten miles away from all
Speaker 1: this crap. You know, And when did you find out
Speaker 1: the Hell's Angels were involved in all this. The day
Speaker 1: we got arrested, coming up on this season of Running Smoke,
Speaker 1: you know, our elders told us, they warned us, don't
Speaker 1: do this. These people are doing international money laundering, and
Speaker 1: we thought we could control it. We were wrong. Bikers
Speaker 1: showed up and killed him dead right on his front porch.
Speaker 1: You know, the right people, you can get anything into.
Speaker 1: Gonna waga. I mean, look at Nascar. I mean it
Speaker 1: was it was built off bootlegging, you know, with the
Speaker 1: Moonshiners and all that. When I was smuggling, it was
Speaker 1: like almost a free for all. I loved it. We
Speaker 1: were met with two Maudu's fifty caliber machine guns on
Speaker 1: the roof of that casino. I had no choice. I
Speaker 1: had to pay them whatever they wanted if he did
Speaker 1: a comparison between the wealthiest Native person the wealthiest white person,
Speaker 1: that's not even close. He's not Robin Hood. They're doing
Speaker 1: it for the fucking money, period, end of story. We
Speaker 1: have helicopters over my house. They're just hovering there. They're watching. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess we could say it was a trapdoor that
Speaker 1: bagus just walked down. Someone had to do it and
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, it's time someone fight discoverment
Speaker 1: and see what happens. They know that if this case
Speaker 1: goes in any way our way, they got a whole
Speaker 1: new story to rewrite. And I'm William, I'm ready to
Speaker 1: go to jail. I don't care if we lose. It's
Speaker 1: going to affect the Mohawk Nation. Running Smoke is a
Speaker 1: production of Campside Media, Dan Patrick Productions and Workhouse Media.
Speaker 1: Written and reported by me Roger Gola. Our producers are
Speaker 1: a Lea Papes, Laine Gerbig and Julie Denichet. Our editors
Speaker 1: are Michelle Lands and Emily Martinez. Sound designed and original
Speaker 1: music by Mark McAdam. Additional sound and mixing by Ewen
Speaker 1: Lyon Tremuwan. Additional reporting by Susie McCarthy. Our executive producers
Speaker 1: or Dan Patrick, Josh Dean of camp Side Media, Paul Anderson,
Speaker 1: Nick Vanella, and Andrew Greenwood for Workhouse Media. Fact checking
Speaker 1: by Mary Mathis, artwork by Polly Adams and additional thanks
Speaker 1: to Greghorn, Johnny Kaufman, Sierra Franco, Elizabeth van Brocklin, and
Speaker 1: Sean Flynn. Well. I hope you enjoyed that, and if
Speaker 1: you want to hear more, follow along at the Dan
Speaker 1: Patrick Show website, or wherever you get your podcast. Thanks