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Speaker 1: Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio previously on

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Speaker 1: Murder in Miami.

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Speaker 2: So it's nineteen eighty two and I decided how to

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Speaker 2: go back to Washington, DC. Along the way, it had

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Speaker 2: occurred to me that the people I considered the real

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Speaker 2: criminals were the people who were running things in Washington

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Speaker 2: and other places like that.

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Speaker 1: The Christic Institute was a nonprofit public interest law firm.

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Speaker 1: They sought to wield the law as a weapon of

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Speaker 1: progressive change against a number of daunting targets.

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Speaker 2: What I told Danny was that Bob Adams had been

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Speaker 2: part of a military intelligence unit that provided logistical support

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Speaker 2: for assassinations conducted by the United States. And in any case,

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Speaker 2: Danny offered me a monthly stipend of twenty five hundred

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Speaker 2: dollars a month, and I put everything in the car

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Speaker 2: again and went back to Miami.

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Speaker 1: Now, you're basically working as a private investigator, investigative journalist,

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Speaker 1: investigating intercept a private investigation.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I suppose. So the funny part is that when

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Speaker 2: I got back, I went out to the office in

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Speaker 2: Perne and it was closed. So finally I tracked down Bob,

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Speaker 2: and Bob tells me turns out that Lamar has been

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Speaker 2: under federal investigation for some time now, something called Operation

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Speaker 2: Loan Star, and it's a very big deal. The next

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Speaker 2: thing I know, I get this call from Bob saying

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Speaker 2: that Lamar wants to meet me at the mutiny. When,

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Speaker 2: out of the blue, Lamar says, well, I just want

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Speaker 2: you to know that I appreciate what you're doing here,

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Speaker 2: but I sure as i'll wish you and your boys

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Speaker 2: back in Washington would get a move on it. I

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Speaker 2: don't know what to make of it, and he says, oh,

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Speaker 2: come on, now, you're with the CIA.

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Speaker 3: Right?

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Speaker 4: Wait? He thought you were with the CIA. Why?

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Speaker 2: I had no idea at the time.

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Speaker 1: So if Bob Adams led Phil to believe Intercept was

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Speaker 1: connected with drug smuggling through Lamar Chester, who was Chester's connection,

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Speaker 1: the man you're about to meet would definitely know because

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Speaker 1: he claims he facilitated one of Chester's notable expansions in

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Speaker 1: the drug trade.

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Speaker 3: Did you quit loving me?

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Speaker 5: Happy Miles here?

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Speaker 3: Give me a call.

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Speaker 1: That's mister Happy Miles, a man who's led a pretty

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Speaker 1: fantastical life when peppered with some very unique professions. He's

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Speaker 1: also very active on Facebook.

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Speaker 3: Happy here, give me a call.

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Speaker 1: On Facebook, his dormant Twitter self describes Happy as a

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Speaker 1: lifelong adventurer, pilot, sailor, boat builder, plane builder, and a

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Speaker 1: purveyor of the finer things in life.

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Speaker 5: Judge spuggling was born than a job. It was an adventure.

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Speaker 1: Mister Miles was also a close business associate and friend

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Speaker 1: of Intercept's biggest client, Lamar Chester, the man indicted as

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Speaker 1: a marijuana smuggler, although Happy himself never bothered much with marijuana.

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Speaker 5: I don't like doing around pot because I hate the

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Speaker 5: smell of it.

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Speaker 4: Cocaine was Happy. He's preferred cargo.

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Speaker 5: It is. It is bulky, and it's not as messy.

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Speaker 5: Coke is all nice and clean and wrapped up. You

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Speaker 5: just put it in Duffel bags.

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Speaker 4: What do you miss about those times?

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Speaker 3: The money?

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Speaker 1: I'm Lauren brad Pacheco, and this is murder in Miami.

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Speaker 2: When I started working in an Intercept, I was just

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Speaker 2: like mister Magoo, stumbling around there. I didn't know anything,

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Speaker 2: and I certainly had no idea that at the time

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Speaker 2: they were already under federal investigation.

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Speaker 4: Wow.

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Speaker 2: All I really knew about Lamar Chester was what Bob

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Speaker 2: Adams had told me. And I wouldn't meet Happy Miles

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Speaker 2: till years later, when I figured I'd better start looking

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Speaker 2: into this thing.

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Speaker 1: What was your initial take on Happy Miles.

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Speaker 2: He was a very eccentric, interesting guy. He had a

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Speaker 2: lot of great stories. He had an island in the

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Speaker 2: Bahamas for a while. One story that sticks with me

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Speaker 2: is that when he was making a lot of money

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Speaker 2: in the drug business, like all of those guys, he

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Speaker 2: had a lot of disposable income, he gave a fifteen

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Speaker 2: thousand dollars tip to a waitress and a lunch counter

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Speaker 2: down in the Keys. It's quite a life he's lived.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, he's such a character.

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Speaker 1: He strikes me as this purely like Dionysian person.

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Speaker 2: There's a reason why they called himself Happy Miles.

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Speaker 1: And over the course of many months, I've grown used

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Speaker 1: to hearing Happy Miles share the stories woven into that life,

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Speaker 1: which spans eighty three years.

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Speaker 5: When I tell people about my life, they don't believe me.

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Speaker 5: Nobody could have done all the things I've done.

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Speaker 4: He's not kidding, you know.

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Speaker 5: I produced a record you did, what is it? Called

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Speaker 5: The Songwriter with Michael dunafon the ex wide receiver for

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Speaker 5: the Denver Broncos. He's dead now, But I wrote you

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Speaker 5: heard the song Coyote Ugly.

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Speaker 4: There's a movie called Coyote Ugly.

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Speaker 5: I should see the Bastards because it's a copyrighted name.

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Speaker 1: What's the song kyote yug So you order up the

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Speaker 1: shot and you order of a here and hopes that

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Speaker 1: it'll bring her bit.

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Speaker 5: There you're you, yah, the old woman. I went with

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Speaker 5: an eight, kind of woke up with three. What dead

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Speaker 5: this woman do to deserve me?

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Speaker 3: And then it goes on to say just how ugly

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Speaker 3: was she?

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Speaker 4: I'm telling you she could drop them mag it off

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Speaker 4: of me wagon.

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Speaker 2: Well, this woman is what you call.

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Speaker 5: Cow cowd. The ugly is when you roll over in

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Speaker 5: the morning, you take a look at her and you

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Speaker 5: chew your arm off to keep from waking her up.

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Speaker 3: No, that's coyote ugly.

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Speaker 5: You wrote that, yeah, Mike, and I did. I owned

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Speaker 5: the copy right.

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Speaker 1: Well, not exactly a feminist anthem. The song does appear

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Speaker 1: on the album Happy Nailed Me, complete with a nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty one cop be right, and the singer Michael Dunavan

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Speaker 1: was indeed on the roster of the Broncos in nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy six and seventy seven, before becoming mayor of Glendale, Colorado,

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Speaker 1: and running for governor in twenty fourteen. The thing about

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Speaker 1: Happy his stories check out. Happy's kind of like the

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Speaker 1: dose ekis guy of decadence.

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Speaker 5: Well, la world knows Vias Happy H Miles.

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Speaker 4: What does the H stand for?

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Speaker 3: Horny?

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Speaker 5: Yep?

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Speaker 1: And, as my voicemail can attest, most every Happy Miles

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Speaker 1: story leads to another.

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Speaker 5: Hey, I saw a real funny story.

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Speaker 3: Give me a call.

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Speaker 1: If you'd wager a former cocaine smuggler with eighty three

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Speaker 1: years under their belt would have some pretty interesting stories

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Speaker 1: to share with Happy, you'd hit the jackpot.

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Speaker 5: I didn't tell you the red sheetcase story, did I?

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Speaker 4: No?

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Speaker 3: Okay? When I flew for another.

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Speaker 5: Guy, he had this Arab that would take samsoried suitcases,

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Speaker 5: the lining out and leticulously with bag the cocaine and

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Speaker 5: very small bags like a small condom. Kind of okay,

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Speaker 5: and he would line the vertical edges of the suitcase

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Speaker 5: with it glue in ice cream sticks to hold everything

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Speaker 5: in place, and then put the lining back in. NIA

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Speaker 5: couldn't tell just by glancing that anything it had done

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Speaker 5: to the suitcase unless you picked it up and it

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Speaker 5: would be twenty pounds heavier right than it should be.

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Speaker 1: Happy's job was to fly into Venezuela and pick up

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Speaker 1: the suitcases containing the hidden cocaine. But when the courier

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Speaker 1: arrived did his hotel. Happy had immediate issues.

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Speaker 5: The suitcases were empty, and I said, hold it, hold it,

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Speaker 5: I'm not carrying these seaitcases out past immigration and customs

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Speaker 5: to the airplane. I'm not going to do it these

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Speaker 5: empty suitcases. This is ridiculous. And what man owns red suitcases?

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Speaker 4: They were both red.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, brand new sampsodite red suitcases with twenty keys of

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Speaker 5: coch in each one, made them by twenty pounds more.

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Speaker 5: So I went down to the Habitashery in the hotel,

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Speaker 5: very swank Habiitashery, and I bought arrows shirts enough to

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Speaker 5: fill up these big suitcases, probably four or five grand

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Speaker 5: worth because they were like five dollars apiece.

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Speaker 3: They weren't cheap.

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Speaker 4: How big were these suitcases?

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Speaker 5: They were big suitcases. I filled these up with shirts,

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Speaker 5: so now they had all these unwrapped shirts in it.

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Speaker 3: Right, So I buy a a flight plan out for.

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Speaker 5: The morning at the stun up at dawned because nobody

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Speaker 5: will be out there right, and I paid customs off

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Speaker 5: ahead of time, so I felt rather secure. But I

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Speaker 5: had a hanging bag. I had a duffel bag. I

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Speaker 5: had my flight bag and two fucking red suitcases. Well

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Speaker 5: that's quite a load.

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Speaker 4: For one to carry.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, So next morning, I carry the shit downstairs, grab

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Speaker 6: a tap to the airport, and I'm walking out to

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Speaker 6: the airplane.

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Speaker 5: It's about a four hundred foot truck. I get about

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Speaker 5: halfway there to the airplane.

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Speaker 1: And that's exactly when mister Miles says. A young army

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Speaker 1: guard shows up to offer a huffing and puffing happy

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Speaker 1: assistance with his heavy load.

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Speaker 5: Now, the last thing guy wanted him doing is carrying

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Speaker 5: one of these suitcases, right. So he says, kak Enny

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Speaker 5: and the suitcase. What do you got in the suitcases?

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Speaker 5: So I laid him down and opened them right away,

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Speaker 5: and he looks really puzzled. I've got all these brown

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Speaker 5: new shirts. And he says to me in Spanish, he says,

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Speaker 5: kiddy enters, you stead him contrabandista to come. He says,

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Speaker 5: what are you a smuggler of shirts?

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Speaker 3: I said, yeah, he caught me. But look, just.

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Speaker 5: Take whatever shirt you want and you can have them. Well,

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Speaker 5: this kid never saw a thirty dollars shirt and there's light,

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Speaker 5: so he took two shirts and told me on Spanish,

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Speaker 5: I have to go quick before the sergeant seized me.

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Speaker 5: And he takes off of a couple of shirts and

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Speaker 5: I take off for the airplane loaded, jump in, light

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Speaker 5: it up and go. But he had caught a smuggler

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Speaker 5: of shirts.

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Speaker 1: Who had a lot of cocaine stuffed underneath the shirts.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: Anyway, so that was the story.

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Speaker 1: And middle initial aside. There's also a story behind the

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Speaker 1: Happy Miles name.

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Speaker 5: Well, people started calling me Happy while I was dating

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Speaker 5: amm Margaret.

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Speaker 4: That makes sense.

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Speaker 1: You should be a happy man if you're and Margaret yes,

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Speaker 1: and Margaret that and Margaret Viva Las Vegas as in

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Speaker 1: Elvis and Margaret. But as Happy tells it, this was

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Speaker 1: a few years before she found fame.

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Speaker 5: In the sixties. I had just gotten out of the

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Speaker 5: Marine Corps and then I met Anne Margaret. She went

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Speaker 5: to work at the Villa Marina, and I took her

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Speaker 5: to breakfast every morning after she got off work at

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Speaker 5: midnight or two, because they didn't have any money to eat.

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Speaker 1: The They is the band she was singing with at

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Speaker 1: the time.

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Speaker 5: They didn't even have money to put gas in their

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Speaker 5: car to get to the gig. I took her to Catalina,

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Speaker 5: earned two of the guys from the subtle tone her band.

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Speaker 3: We had a rough ship coming back.

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Speaker 5: We had to drift all night because it was so

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Speaker 5: rough you couldn't go either way.

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Speaker 1: Happy so he offered to keep Ms. Margaret warm under

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Speaker 1: a tarp during the night.

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Speaker 5: We got in about nine o'clock in the morning and

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Speaker 5: the guy said, boy, it looks like you've had a

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Speaker 5: lot of Happy Miles and the name just stuck.

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Speaker 4: Does your driver's license say Happy Miles.

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Speaker 5: My driver's license says it. I have two names on

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Speaker 5: my passport and my pilot's licenses in the name of

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Speaker 5: Happy Miles. When I crashed on the mountain top in Bolivia,

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Speaker 5: they told me that they were going to suspend my

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Speaker 5: license because I wasn't Happy Miles. I was John Anthony Mahalo.

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Speaker 1: In order to avoid a formal hearing, Happy says he

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Speaker 1: was given the option of providing the Bolivian officials with

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Speaker 1: character references confirming he was an upstanding citizen known as

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Speaker 1: Happy Miles. He figures he collected about three signatures.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I had everybody sign it. I had the Mayor

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Speaker 5: of Miami Beach. I had the Mayor of Miami Maurice Foray.

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Speaker 5: I had the customs officers where I cleared customs with

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Speaker 5: the airplane all the time. I had the Fire Department

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Speaker 5: and Coral Gables police Chief. And I had tons of

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Speaker 5: members from the Adventures Club.

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Speaker 1: Sign It nestled in Coconut Grove in the mid to

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Speaker 1: late nineteen seventies, the Adventurers Yacht and Sailing Club offered

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Speaker 1: participants a clever combination of an exclusive membership with outdoor adventures,

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Speaker 1: complete with instruction and rentals for sailing and eventually flying.

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Speaker 1: At the time, the Adventurers Club was a fixture on

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Speaker 1: the Miami social scene, and so was its flashy founder,

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Speaker 1: mister Happy Miles.

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Speaker 5: Coca At Grove was a great place to live. And

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Speaker 5: you know, having the Adventures Club, I was Miammies fair

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Speaker 5: haired boy. I was on a first named basis with

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Speaker 5: the Mayor of the city, attorney and manager.

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Speaker 1: Happy shared a ton of pictures with me from all

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Speaker 1: different stages of his life. Many are set in tropical

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00:16:23,880 --> 00:16:27,600
Speaker 1: or social situations where he's smiling next to an assortment

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Speaker 1: of beautiful women in the nineteen seventies.

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Speaker 4: Happy stood about six feet.

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Speaker 1: Tall, with a wavy head of dark hair and a

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Speaker 1: devious smile that competed with the bright blue of his

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Speaker 1: eyes for attention, which competed with the sparkle of his

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Speaker 1: taste in gold chains, expensive watches, and at one point

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Speaker 1: a diamond studded bracelet that spelled out his name.

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Speaker 5: It was a nugget bracelet. I'll send you a picture

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Speaker 5: of me wearing it, and also wearing a gold Rolettes

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Speaker 5: was a nugget band that I paid forty thousand for.

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Speaker 1: Wouldn't that kind of be a dead giveaway as to

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Speaker 1: what you did for a living?

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Speaker 5: Well, catch me if you can.

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Speaker 4: He sent the picture.

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Speaker 1: You can see why in his younger days, Happy was

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Speaker 1: often mistaken for Teddy Kennedy. He's seated at a desk,

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Speaker 1: arms resting in front of him, golden bling popping out

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Speaker 1: from both the dazzled wrist, and a medallion in chain

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Speaker 1: resting atop his chest hair. He's wearing a confident grin

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Speaker 1: and a sleek white collared shirt generously unbuttoned at the neck.

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Speaker 5: I was a pretty good dresser. I mean I had

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Speaker 5: a lot of Western seats. I still learned the boots

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Speaker 5: from that.

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Speaker 1: Era, and those boots seem made for walkin'. Considering the

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Speaker 1: number of times Happy he's been married.

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Speaker 5: Some people that are in better know than I am

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Speaker 5: say it's been a Baker's dozen, but I'm not sure.

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Speaker 4: Thirteen.

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Speaker 5: Wow, Well, in my case, there were tons of tons

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Speaker 5: of women around as the commodore.

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Speaker 1: You know, Happy was known as the commodore of the

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Speaker 1: Adventurers Club, which at its height posted more than twenty

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Speaker 1: five hundred members, including the then mayor of Miami.

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Speaker 4: And international drug smuggler Lamar Chester. That's where their paths

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Speaker 4: first crossed.

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00:18:22,600 --> 00:18:27,280
Speaker 5: Lamar Chester joined my yacht club to sail, and I

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00:18:27,359 --> 00:18:30,320
Speaker 5: get such a good job of running boats. He thought

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00:18:30,400 --> 00:18:33,720
Speaker 5: I should be in the airplane business, and he had

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Speaker 5: a bunch of airplanes he couldn't pay for, so I

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Speaker 5: bought him.

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Speaker 3: And that's how I met Lamar.

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Speaker 5: He was flying for Eastern Airlines, but he had overextended himself.

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Speaker 4: And you guys ended up becoming pretty good friends, right.

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Speaker 5: Yeah. I was the only outsider at his wedding because

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00:18:55,640 --> 00:19:00,000
Speaker 5: it was only family relatives. I was the only non

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00:19:00,119 --> 00:19:04,240
Speaker 5: family member there. It was an Indian theme.

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00:19:04,760 --> 00:19:08,080
Speaker 1: And by Indian mister miles means Native American.

303
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Speaker 5: I got a picture of it Artists and Lamar, okay,

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00:19:13,320 --> 00:19:17,520
Speaker 5: let me get up so I can describe it. Artists

305
00:19:17,600 --> 00:19:21,920
Speaker 5: was a she was tall by pianner or something like that.

306
00:19:22,480 --> 00:19:24,960
Speaker 3: She west eighty and others.

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00:19:25,240 --> 00:19:30,640
Speaker 5: Lamar's kind of been a eisenhowerd tight jacket, but a

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Speaker 5: Western like and he stands about three quarters of a head,

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00:19:37,480 --> 00:19:40,000
Speaker 5: two thirds of the head taller than Artist.

310
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Speaker 4: Why was there a theme to the wedding just for fun?

311
00:19:43,560 --> 00:19:47,560
Speaker 5: No, it was both of their second marriages, and they

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00:19:47,600 --> 00:19:48,520
Speaker 5: were like that.

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00:19:49,520 --> 00:19:53,159
Speaker 1: The photo was faded to a soft pastel blow. Lamar

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Speaker 1: and Artists are looking at the camera, likely held by

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Speaker 1: happy Chester's right arm resting on his bride's lower back.

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00:20:00,160 --> 00:20:03,280
Speaker 1: Both are wearing wide grins, and Artists is indeed wearing

317
00:20:03,280 --> 00:20:06,760
Speaker 1: what appears to be Native American garb and a band

318
00:20:06,800 --> 00:20:07,800
Speaker 1: across her forehead.

319
00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:09,960
Speaker 4: Chester smile is topped by.

320
00:20:09,880 --> 00:20:12,760
Speaker 1: A thin mustache that gives off an earl Flynn sort

321
00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:16,440
Speaker 1: of vibe. He's wearing his dark hair meticulously slipped back

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Speaker 1: and a yellow rose on his left lapel.

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Speaker 4: They look like a very happy couple.

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Speaker 5: Well, I think they were very much in love with

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Speaker 5: each other. I know she was going with some mafia.

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Speaker 3: Also when Lamar met her.

327
00:20:30,960 --> 00:20:34,159
Speaker 5: Lamar used to buy roses and fly over there a

328
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Speaker 5: yacht and dump the roses out from his nose at

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Speaker 5: the mafia.

330
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Speaker 4: He wasn't afraid.

331
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Speaker 5: Lamar wasn't afraid of anything. He stood about two or

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Speaker 5: three inches taller than I, long, lanky, kind of a

333
00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:55,199
Speaker 5: farm boy type, and he wasn't afraid of anybody or anything.

334
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Speaker 1: That fearlessness would be on full display during a double date.

335
00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:03,120
Speaker 1: Happy remembers as memorable on multiple levels.

336
00:21:05,920 --> 00:21:10,800
Speaker 5: One time we went for Paiea in Cuban Town in

337
00:21:10,920 --> 00:21:14,919
Speaker 5: my Cadillac and Lamar and artists were in the back seat,

338
00:21:15,680 --> 00:21:17,920
Speaker 5: and I'd pull up to a stop sign and a

339
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:20,760
Speaker 5: guy would pull up alongside of us and then want

340
00:21:20,760 --> 00:21:25,359
Speaker 5: a drag racist to the next light. And I didn't

341
00:21:25,400 --> 00:21:26,919
Speaker 5: know Lamar.

342
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Speaker 3: Was giving him the finger of the whole time.

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Speaker 5: And when we came to stop, he had a three

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00:21:32,359 --> 00:21:34,920
Speaker 5: point fifty seven pointed at me.

345
00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:38,600
Speaker 3: And I was in the right lane, so I made

346
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Speaker 3: the right.

347
00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:42,520
Speaker 5: Turn and tried to lose them. And here we were,

348
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Speaker 5: at one hundred miles an hour, going through Cubantown, all

349
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Speaker 5: the residential.

350
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Speaker 3: Roads, and I was open for.

351
00:21:49,520 --> 00:21:53,600
Speaker 5: A cop to see us. We finally locked him and

352
00:21:54,080 --> 00:21:58,600
Speaker 5: we got back to his apartment on Brickell Avenue on

353
00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:01,919
Speaker 5: the water there, and I went up to his apartment

354
00:22:02,320 --> 00:22:05,879
Speaker 5: and he opened a foot locker and got a couple

355
00:22:06,119 --> 00:22:10,520
Speaker 5: machine guns out of it uzzis and said, let's go

356
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Speaker 5: find the bastard. I said, Lamar, you're crazy. We're not

357
00:22:14,760 --> 00:22:18,760
Speaker 5: going looking for any trouble. And he was flying guns

358
00:22:18,800 --> 00:22:22,800
Speaker 5: then to Nicaragua.

359
00:22:23,080 --> 00:22:26,320
Speaker 1: You heard that, right, machine guns that were being flown

360
00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:30,119
Speaker 1: from Miami to Nicaragua in the late nineteen seventies.

361
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Speaker 5: They were military foot lockers in the living room, stacked

362
00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:39,840
Speaker 5: one on top of the other, standard military foot lockers,

363
00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:42,680
Speaker 5: the issue you in the Marine Corps.

364
00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:45,080
Speaker 3: A foot locker is about.

365
00:22:44,720 --> 00:22:49,000
Speaker 5: Two feet high and two feet deep and four feet

366
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Speaker 5: long or something like that.

367
00:22:51,920 --> 00:22:53,400
Speaker 4: And they were just filled with guns.

368
00:22:53,600 --> 00:22:56,960
Speaker 5: Yeah, there were probably at least twenty thirty guns of

369
00:22:57,080 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 5: each one.

370
00:22:58,359 --> 00:22:59,960
Speaker 4: And what kind of guns.

371
00:23:01,160 --> 00:23:06,760
Speaker 5: Sixteen's I guess and M one and stuff.

372
00:23:06,520 --> 00:23:10,040
Speaker 4: Like that, so military grade stuff.

373
00:23:09,880 --> 00:23:12,600
Speaker 5: Yeah, all military grade.

374
00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:16,320
Speaker 1: And did he tell you who he was running the

375
00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:16,960
Speaker 1: guns for?

376
00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:22,960
Speaker 5: This IA? I would imagine the CIA was running that.

377
00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:27,720
Speaker 1: Show those guns and Chester's claim of running them for

378
00:23:27,760 --> 00:23:31,560
Speaker 1: the government will play a major role as history in Foles,

379
00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 1: and that remains one of the pieces Bill Stamford is

380
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:38,440
Speaker 1: still trying to place and one that will eventually play

381
00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:39,760
Speaker 1: out in a court of law.

382
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:44,159
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was one of the stories that struck me

383
00:23:44,200 --> 00:23:48,840
Speaker 2: as very important because it was evidence that Chester was

384
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:52,080
Speaker 2: running guns. I mean, there were crates of guns, and

385
00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:54,960
Speaker 2: is Happy says, no one has that many guns for

386
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:58,360
Speaker 2: personal use. I mean they were in these crates for shipping.

387
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:02,040
Speaker 2: And apparently he told Happy that he was flying them

388
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:02,920
Speaker 2: to Nicaragua.

389
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:07,840
Speaker 1: Remember that story because it'll come up again. But in

390
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:11,600
Speaker 1: terms of our timeline, Happy's hold on Miami social scene

391
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:14,800
Speaker 1: was coming to an end by the time Phil relocated there,

392
00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 1: which is why their paths wouldn't cross until years later.

393
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:20,720
Speaker 2: When I finally tracked him down. It turned out he

394
00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:24,840
Speaker 2: was living about ninety miles from me in Albany, Oregon,

395
00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:28,679
Speaker 2: in an abandoned aircraft hangar building a plane.

396
00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:30,879
Speaker 4: Very happy asque.

397
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:35,320
Speaker 2: He has remarkable abilities. I mean he's completely unschooled, but

398
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:39,280
Speaker 2: there's a little bit of certainly mechanical genius about him.

399
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:41,879
Speaker 2: He was able to put together huge deals. He was

400
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:45,760
Speaker 2: able to master several crafts. I think he started out

401
00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 2: as a sail maker, and then that got him into

402
00:24:48,640 --> 00:24:51,040
Speaker 2: the boat rental business, and then he got into the

403
00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:54,440
Speaker 2: aircraft business, and he was modifying planes and god knows,

404
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:58,280
Speaker 2: flying them too, without a commercial pilot's license.

405
00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 1: Now, no, he's dyslexi, so he can't get his instrumental

406
00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 1: flight certificate.

407
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 4: He gets mixed up. That's why he said that it

408
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:08,280
Speaker 4: was scary.

409
00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:12,680
Speaker 5: I didn't like it. Oh, I mean, you're coming back

410
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:17,120
Speaker 5: at night time. Sometimes it was just scary as shit

411
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:22,879
Speaker 5: being dyslexic. I'd almost killed myself a couple times. The

412
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 5: airplay lost it in the clouds and it went out

413
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:29,920
Speaker 5: of control, and just a good Lord to save my ass,

414
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:31,159
Speaker 5: I guess I don't know.

415
00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:36,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, good, that's happy.

416
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:39,160
Speaker 1: Did I ever tell you that he ended up going

417
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 1: into the movie business as well, both as a producer

418
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:48,359
Speaker 1: and in Caddyshack, there is that scene where Ted Knight

419
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:52,120
Speaker 1: is on the boat and Rodney Dangerfield is trying to

420
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:55,960
Speaker 1: rev up his boat and come see him, and all

421
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:59,400
Speaker 1: of this chaos ensues and somebody throws a fishing rod

422
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:01,160
Speaker 1: and he gets hot to the boat and he goes

423
00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:04,120
Speaker 1: flying through the air, and at that moment a plane

424
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:08,199
Speaker 1: comes and swoops down, almost brushing Ted Knight on the

425
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 1: top of the head.

426
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 4: And guess who's flying that plane.

427
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:13,120
Speaker 2: That's happy? Yeah, sure, that's happy.

428
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:16,680
Speaker 1: Miles and flirting with risky flying seems to be a

429
00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:20,119
Speaker 1: running theme with the Coconut Grove guys. Here's happy.

430
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:25,359
Speaker 5: In fact, Lamar at one time let me land a

431
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 5: seventy seven at National Airport.

432
00:26:29,240 --> 00:26:32,840
Speaker 4: No way, not with people on the flight. Oh yeah,

433
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:34,000
Speaker 4: how did that come about?

434
00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:34,080
Speaker 5: That?

435
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 4: Lamar? Let you fly a passenger plane.

436
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:39,840
Speaker 3: I was on a trip with Lamar.

437
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:44,680
Speaker 5: Back in those days, they could take somebody up into

438
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 5: the cockpit, even take him on the airplane without.

439
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:49,280
Speaker 3: Paying for him.

440
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 5: And when the chief plot Freester said what do you doing?

441
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 5: He said, I didn't think he could fly? Do you

442
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 5: think I'd let him fly my airplanes? And I have

443
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 5: had eleven thousand hours probably at that point in my life.

444
00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 5: And we took off from Miami and the co pilot

445
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:11,919
Speaker 5: got out of the seat and I got in and

446
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:16,400
Speaker 5: then flew the airplane. I flew the approach and then

447
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:19,399
Speaker 5: what we got, I don't know, down five hundred feet

448
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 5: or something.

449
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 3: He said, my airplane and he landed it.

450
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 4: Oh so he landed it.

451
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I could have landed.

452
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:30,359
Speaker 4: It back to Phil.

453
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: Did he also tell you a story about an air

454
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:38,520
Speaker 1: drop in the Everglades where Lamar talked his way out

455
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:39,639
Speaker 1: of an arrest.

456
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:43,560
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a great story. One morning they're doing another

457
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:45,920
Speaker 2: drop and Happy's up doing the lookout, and here come

458
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 2: two planes headed from Jamaica or wherever they were coming from.

459
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:54,879
Speaker 2: They flew together because they'd create one radar signature, and

460
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:57,520
Speaker 2: the idea was that the plane carrying the dope would

461
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:00,119
Speaker 2: drop down and the other one would take off, so

462
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:02,679
Speaker 2: that people watching radar would think that just one plane

463
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 2: had passed over the Everglades and would be landing at

464
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:10,720
Speaker 2: the whatever airport sometime later. So here comes the plane

465
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 2: landing on the road and Lamar is driving a.

466
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 1: Truck, but there's a police presence nearby, and so the

467
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:21,959
Speaker 1: gang had to get a message to Chester in code,

468
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:23,680
Speaker 1: I'll let happ you pick it up from here.

469
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 5: They didn't use aircraft radios to talk to back and forth.

470
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:35,080
Speaker 5: They used marine boat radios, and they would talk about fishing.

471
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 5: You know, I hope you got your license with you today,

472
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 5: because the game warden's checking licenses. It looks to be

473
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 5: about five minutes away or something like that anyway. So

474
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 5: Lamar landing was offloading the load. He had a truck.

475
00:28:57,120 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 4: And not just any truck, this one was cussed demized.

476
00:29:01,680 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 5: It was painted green, and it had a Florida state

477
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 5: seal on the door that said Florida hyacin Control. Nothing

478
00:29:13,320 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 5: suspicious about that, except there's no Florida hyacin control.

479
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:21,840
Speaker 4: They had the logo and everything just made up.

480
00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, And they had this truck jacked up way

481
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 5: off the ground so you couldn't see in the bed

482
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 5: of it. So they landed, unloaded the load, threw a

483
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 5: tarp over it, and Lamar said, you fly the airplane

484
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 5: to his son and I'll drive the truck because a

485
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 5: sheriff was coming. So five minutes later they meet going

486
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,880
Speaker 5: the opposite direction and Lamar waves him down.

487
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 1: That's when Chester informs the sheriff about suspicious activity he'd

488
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:02,440
Speaker 1: passed a while back, and graciously offers to phone it

489
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 1: into the state and.

490
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 5: The sheriff said, would you be so kind? He said, yeah,

491
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 5: I'll do that for you.

492
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 2: Back to phil and Lamar drives off, and of course,

493
00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:20,200
Speaker 2: Happy learns about it later when they all stop for drinks,

494
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 2: probably outside Opa Loca air Airport and They all have

495
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:25,680
Speaker 2: a good laugh about that one.

496
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 4: So there was no hyacinthe patrol.

497
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 2: No, no, I mean, these guys have a lot of

498
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:35,200
Speaker 2: time to sit around scheming. And Lamar was and Happy.

499
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 2: They were both schemers.

500
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 1: That's kind of brilliant because they weren't impersonating an actual

501
00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:44,480
Speaker 1: arm of law enforcement.

502
00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:45,560
Speaker 4: They created their own.

503
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, it was a good dope smuggler story.

504
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 1: Lamar Chester would also introduce Happy Miles to a legendary

505
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:57,640
Speaker 1: marijuana smuggler, Ron Elliott.

506
00:30:57,800 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 5: Well On and Lamar both slew through Eastern Airlines, were

507
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 5: both captains and they both joined my club. Ron is

508
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 5: one of these guys that overthinks everything and makes it

509
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 5: too complicated. He was an astronaut, you know, wow, But

510
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 5: when they shut down the Skylab program, we went to

511
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 5: work flying for Eastern and he and his wife had

512
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:33,080
Speaker 5: had a baby that had some weird disease where the

513
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:37,239
Speaker 5: baby never got out of diapers. He wasn't supposed to

514
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 5: live for a year or two, and he lived to

515
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 5: be seven, and she was a nurse and both of

516
00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:47,800
Speaker 5: them were just frazzled by the time the kid died.

517
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:54,880
Speaker 3: And Ron Elliott said, fuck, I was so teed up.

518
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 5: I'd have robbed a bank, but he decided he'd find

519
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 5: a buy in Jamay and he did so.

520
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:05,880
Speaker 1: That pretty much explains how Lamar, Chester, Happy Miles, and

521
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 1: Ron Elliott knew each other and why they were eventually

522
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 1: known by their swagger sounding nicknames.

523
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:15,280
Speaker 2: Back to Phil there was Captain America of course, as

524
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 2: Lamar the commodore, Happy because he had this boat rental business,

525
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:25,719
Speaker 2: and Ron Elliott his nickname was the Astronaut because at

526
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 2: one time he'd actually been part of the US government

527
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:33,040
Speaker 2: astronaut program. He's a very vivid character. I hadn't met

528
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 2: him yet either. He was like Happy. I didn't meet

529
00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 2: him till later. He had grown up in northern Florida,

530
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:44,080
Speaker 2: like Lamar and Daredevil. Like Lamar, he'd been flying crop

531
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 2: dusting jobs while he was still in high school, and

532
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 2: about the time he graduated from high school went into

533
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:54,560
Speaker 2: the Service and ended up flying special operations missions in

534
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 2: Vietnam and laws and besides that, he was flying in

535
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 2: the Mid East for intelligence off the book stuff, but

536
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:06,440
Speaker 2: he was a pilot for Eastern just like Lamar, And

537
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 2: that's actually how they met.

538
00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:11,960
Speaker 1: Elliott told Stamford about the meeting, which he remembers occurring

539
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:13,360
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine.

540
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:16,720
Speaker 2: He had a layover in Boston for about four hours,

541
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 2: and I was in the pilot's lounge and who should

542
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 2: come in but Lamar. Lamar wasn't flying that day, so

543
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:26,520
Speaker 2: he'd come up just to see Ron. And they started

544
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 2: talking and at a certain point, Laura said, how'd you

545
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 2: like to do some hanky panky flying? And Ron says

546
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:35,280
Speaker 2: he played dumb at first, didn't know what he was

547
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 2: talking about. And Lamar smiled at him and put his

548
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 2: government records folder with its government records on the table

549
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 2: in front of them, and Ron looked at it, and

550
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 2: so he knew that Lamar was already familiar with all

551
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:51,760
Speaker 2: the off the books flying he was already doing. He

552
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 2: agreed to hook up with Lamar and for the next

553
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:56,400
Speaker 2: several days, he said they were down in the Bahamas,

554
00:33:56,440 --> 00:34:00,160
Speaker 2: and Lamar showed him where the safe houses were where

555
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:02,600
Speaker 2: he could get gas and that sort of thing, and

556
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:07,000
Speaker 2: they turned out to be best friends. He was Lamar's

557
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:07,560
Speaker 2: best buddy.

558
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:11,000
Speaker 4: How did Lamar get Elliott's records?

559
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:14,279
Speaker 2: He would have had some sort of connection. It's pretty clear.

560
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:25,840
Speaker 1: Did Elliott's name come up? If I'm not mistaken, in

561
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:27,239
Speaker 1: the Black Tuna trial too.

562
00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he was actually among the indictees in the

563
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:36,320
Speaker 2: Black Tuna trial, but eventually dropped. And I don't know

564
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:38,880
Speaker 2: whether it's because he had the government connections or because

565
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 2: he wasn't really part of the Black Tuna organization. He wasn't.

566
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:47,160
Speaker 2: He was brought in at the very end by Bobby Plattshorn,

567
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:50,280
Speaker 2: who'd filled a duty to rescue a couple of pilots

568
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 2: who'd gone down in Central America. And so he got

569
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 2: Ron Elliott and another guy who turned out to be

570
00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 2: ad informant to fly down and get the two down pilots.

571
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 2: And when they landed, they were arrested, and Ron Elliott

572
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:11,399
Speaker 2: was charged and initially on the Blacktooning indictment, but.

573
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:13,480
Speaker 4: Then the charges were dropped.

574
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, And as I say, it's not clear whether it

575
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:20,880
Speaker 2: was because he had the government connections, which is quite possible,

576
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:25,319
Speaker 2: or because he wasn't really part of the Blacktoona gang.

577
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 1: So Elliot the charges or drops and platt Shorn gets

578
00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 1: sixty years under the kingpin. Yeah yeah, Captain America, the

579
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:39,680
Speaker 1: Commodore and the Astronaut, along with another smuggler named Jack Devo,

580
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:43,480
Speaker 1: would very much rule the Miami Skies of nineteen seventies

581
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:44,320
Speaker 1: drug smuggling.

582
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:50,640
Speaker 5: Here's happy Jack was Captain Jack from Dick Tracy. He

583
00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:56,959
Speaker 5: came in to join the club and very impressionable guy.

584
00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 5: He came and talked to me about joining the club.

585
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:03,160
Speaker 5: I told him it was one hundred and fifty six

586
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 5: dollars up front for his first year dues and I

587
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:12,239
Speaker 5: would waive the initiation fee and of four hundred and

588
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:14,760
Speaker 5: he went and he got a check for one hundred

589
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:18,520
Speaker 5: and fifty six dollars signed by his mother. He was

590
00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:21,680
Speaker 5: a great pilot, good IFR pilot.

591
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:23,360
Speaker 4: What is an IFR pilot?

592
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:28,719
Speaker 5: Instrument flight rules? Where you go into the clouds and

593
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 5: you can't see anything and you have to drive the

594
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:34,680
Speaker 5: airplane on instruments only.

595
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:35,840
Speaker 4: Wow.

596
00:36:36,400 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 5: So what happened was Jack joined my club and then

597
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 5: he borrowed my Lake Amphibian and wrecked it.

598
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 3: Did so much damage to it that I don't know

599
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:50,360
Speaker 3: how he got it home.

600
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 5: And then the government came and said, do you know

601
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:57,400
Speaker 5: that he's using your airplanes?

602
00:36:57,760 --> 00:37:01,960
Speaker 1: Because he was using the planes from the Adventurers Club

603
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 1: to run trips where.

604
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:09,880
Speaker 5: Well I think he he originally was, I'm not sure,

605
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:15,840
Speaker 5: probably flying out at Jamaica, but Denny went to Columbia.

606
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:19,040
Speaker 1: Then the DA comes to you, right and starts asking

607
00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:21,800
Speaker 1: questions about Jack's travel.

608
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:26,640
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, the task Force. He got on the task

609
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 5: forces radar.

610
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:32,279
Speaker 1: And that's when Happy says, the task Force leaned on

611
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:36,120
Speaker 1: him to keep tabs on devo. But when Happy realized

612
00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:39,799
Speaker 1: they were taping his office at the Adventurers Club, mister

613
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:41,400
Speaker 1: Miles returned to the favor.

614
00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 5: I recorded the guys at Johnson Aviation, which was the

615
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:50,360
Speaker 5: DEA in their office next to my office.

616
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:53,200
Speaker 3: They were trying to get evidence on mate.

617
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:55,799
Speaker 4: So while they're recording you, you're recording them.

618
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 3: Yeah.

619
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:00,600
Speaker 5: Except I did a better job than they did, and

620
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:03,160
Speaker 5: I never talked.

621
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:04,399
Speaker 3: In my office again.

622
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 5: Instead, I taped everything that went on in their office.

623
00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:10,200
Speaker 4: And what were they up to?

624
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:13,279
Speaker 3: Anything but the right thing?

625
00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:20,200
Speaker 5: I mean I had cakes of them marketing product over

626
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 5: the telephone and stuff.

627
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, and by marketing products, mister Miles means making drug deals.

628
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 1: So again, they're actually committing the crimes they're trying to enforce. Right,

629
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Happy he kept those tapes as insurance,

630
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:42,560
Speaker 1: which could explain the unique immunity deal he wound up getting.

631
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 1: We'll dive more deeply into Jack Develle in future episodes,

632
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:52,040
Speaker 1: and how he eventually ended up testifying against Manuel Noriega,

633
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:55,920
Speaker 1: the former CIA spy turned drug running dictator.

634
00:38:56,480 --> 00:39:02,840
Speaker 5: Yep testified before Congress with all his face wow, with

635
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:04,840
Speaker 5: the black hood over his head.

636
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:07,799
Speaker 1: We'll circle back to all of that a bit later,

637
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:11,920
Speaker 1: but back to our story. Armed with an innate sense

638
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:15,920
Speaker 1: of both engineering and ingenuity, mister Happy Miles would take

639
00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:18,840
Speaker 1: credit for a hack that was an absolute game changer

640
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:21,960
Speaker 1: for this high flying drug smuggling set.

641
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 5: You know, everybody credits Later with stop in the Islands

642
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:33,279
Speaker 5: and figuring out how to get cocaine from Colombia to

643
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:38,040
Speaker 5: the US, But it was me far ahead of them.

644
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 1: Carlos Later was a German Colombian drug trafficker and one

645
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:43,359
Speaker 1: of the founding members of the.

646
00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 4: Made Aene cartel.

647
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 1: He's considered to be one of the most important Colombian

648
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 1: drug kingpins to have ever been successfully prosecuted in the

649
00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:52,440
Speaker 1: United States.

650
00:39:52,840 --> 00:39:56,279
Speaker 5: I'm the guy that built the airplanes with four thousand

651
00:39:56,400 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 5: mile range. It wasn't for me building to came Clippers,

652
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:10,200
Speaker 5: so airplane that'll fly forever, reliable twin engine Hypercomanche.

653
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 3: Usually, although I built.

654
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 5: Other ones Skymasters with two hundred gallons of fuel on them,

655
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:21,799
Speaker 5: well over that two hundred and fifty gallons.

656
00:40:21,239 --> 00:40:22,279
Speaker 3: Of fuel on them.

657
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:26,720
Speaker 1: Inspired by a book about a legendary long distance pilot

658
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:31,279
Speaker 1: who'd broken records by retrofitting planes with additional fuel capacity,

659
00:40:31,760 --> 00:40:36,200
Speaker 1: Happy employed the innovation to smuggling by artfully disguising the

660
00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:38,440
Speaker 1: additional tanks to avoid detection.

661
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 5: They carried so much fuel, but nobody knew it. I mean,

662
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:46,920
Speaker 5: I just had a few more filler caps up the

663
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 5: airplane the average comanche, but instead of carrying ninety gallons

664
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:57,280
Speaker 5: I carried three hundred plus.

665
00:40:57,000 --> 00:40:57,800
Speaker 4: And more fuel.

666
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:00,759
Speaker 1: Means less stops on the way back from Columbia or

667
00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 1: Jamaica for planes filled with drugs, which meant less risk

668
00:41:04,560 --> 00:41:08,200
Speaker 1: of customs discovering those drugs and less money spent on

669
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:13,200
Speaker 1: bribing those customs agents. Fewer stops, lowered risk, and increased profits.

670
00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:16,760
Speaker 1: So happ these huge, yet hidden tanks were a huge

671
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:19,759
Speaker 1: hit with the Coconut Grove smuggling set and a time

672
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:22,720
Speaker 1: when smuggling was a bit simpler and safer.

673
00:41:23,560 --> 00:41:27,839
Speaker 5: We're just a bunch of good old boys, Jack devoed

674
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 5: Lamar and Ron Elliott myself. None of us were bang bangs,

675
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:38,880
Speaker 5: sheet them up. The only one I had ever seen

676
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:42,880
Speaker 5: with a gun was Ron Elliott. When he pulled it

677
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:46,600
Speaker 5: on me, threatened to blow my brains out. Said I

678
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:48,680
Speaker 5: owed him money, but I didn't, but I.

679
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:49,719
Speaker 3: Paid him anyway.

680
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:56,640
Speaker 5: And I never made enemies or had vendettis against anybody

681
00:41:56,800 --> 00:42:00,480
Speaker 5: because life was too short and you never know when

682
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 5: you might need them.

683
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:06,360
Speaker 1: But that happened a bit later, back to more innocent times.

684
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:13,359
Speaker 5: It was three cocaine cowboy Era and Grisel de Blanca.

685
00:42:14,160 --> 00:42:18,160
Speaker 1: Grisel de Blanco was a notorious Colombian cocaine trafficker known

686
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:22,080
Speaker 1: as La Madrina, the Godmother of Cocaine, and the Black

687
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 1: Widow because she murdered all three of her husbands.

688
00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:30,480
Speaker 5: There wasn't a lot of bang bangs, shoot them up,

689
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:35,919
Speaker 5: if any. The head of the DEA, Jean Frankr, used

690
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:40,080
Speaker 5: to call me the last of the oldie goldies. And

691
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:47,839
Speaker 5: DEA was underfunded. They had no money, so they were

692
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:54,840
Speaker 5: pretty hamstrong of what they could do, and surveillance wasn't

693
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:57,280
Speaker 5: what it is now.

694
00:42:57,600 --> 00:43:01,400
Speaker 1: So in a way, it was a simpler, more safe

695
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 1: time to get involved in that business.

696
00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:08,799
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, the chances of you getting caught if

697
00:43:08,840 --> 00:43:12,719
Speaker 5: you knew what you were doing were pretty slim.

698
00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 1: And I'm sure that the rewards were pretty high.

699
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:21,360
Speaker 5: Well yeah, I mean you're getting basically ten percent.

700
00:43:21,560 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 3: Value of the load.

701
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 5: Whoever your Columbian connection is, you're splitting six thousand dollars

702
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:34,839
Speaker 5: of kilo basically, So I was getting three thousand and

703
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:36,160
Speaker 5: five hundred.

704
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:38,239
Speaker 3: A kilo in the end.

705
00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:42,000
Speaker 5: That's not what I got in the beginning, but that's

706
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:44,360
Speaker 5: what I got after i'd worked for.

707
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:44,920
Speaker 3: In a while.

708
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:50,000
Speaker 1: How much at your peak would you say you were

709
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:50,920
Speaker 1: bringing in a month.

710
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 5: I was making it at least three hundred and fifty

711
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 5: thousand a month.

712
00:43:56,719 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 3: I'd go one time, So.

713
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:02,560
Speaker 4: You were making three hundred fifty dollars a trip a trip.

714
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's over four million a year in the nineteen seventies,

715
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:11,960
Speaker 1: and that's what basically put the Coconut Grove guys on

716
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:14,440
Speaker 1: the radar of law enforcement money.

717
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:19,759
Speaker 2: Apparently, after Lamar made the hookup with the cartel people

718
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:24,719
Speaker 2: and got into cocaine, which was really big money. It

719
00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:30,200
Speaker 2: was Ron Elliott who walked Duffel bags of money through

720
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:34,320
Speaker 2: customs in Panama to launder it in the banks down there,

721
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:38,120
Speaker 2: and he was the one who was chosen to do

722
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:40,920
Speaker 2: that because he wore a suit better than any of

723
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:44,400
Speaker 2: the others. He could look like a real businessman. That

724
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:48,440
Speaker 2: was his job, besides regular smuggling flying duties is taking

725
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:51,280
Speaker 2: the money into Panama to be laundered.

726
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: According to Happy, fuel takes weren't the only influence he

727
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:58,280
Speaker 1: wielded over Chester. He claims to have given the former

728
00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:00,440
Speaker 1: dope smuggler his cocaine connection.

729
00:45:01,600 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 5: And when I fixed him up with that load of cocaine,

730
00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:08,560
Speaker 5: he made more money off of me that load than

731
00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 5: the entire time he had been running marijuana.

732
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:16,840
Speaker 1: That's another story and a significant turning point in ours.

733
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:20,320
Speaker 1: Back to Happy and his impact on the coconut grove

734
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:21,400
Speaker 1: smuggling set.

735
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:25,440
Speaker 5: Believe it or not, I was the tremsetter. None of

736
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 5: them had airplanes as sophisticated as my cocaine clippers were

737
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:35,440
Speaker 5: mich Coman cheese. I mean they followed me all the time.

738
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:39,080
Speaker 5: I had the Adventures Club and then the Flying Club,

739
00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:45,560
Speaker 5: and then Jack started a flying operation out at Opalaca

740
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:46,160
Speaker 5: after me.

741
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 1: Opa Laca is a city of Miami Dade with an

742
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:52,160
Speaker 1: airport the coconut grove smugglers favored.

743
00:45:52,760 --> 00:45:56,840
Speaker 5: I was living at the Miami Lakes Country Club and

744
00:45:57,560 --> 00:46:01,799
Speaker 5: I moved to Ocean Reef, and then Lamar moved to

745
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 5: Ocean Reef. Then Jack moved to Ocean Reef.

746
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: Yes happy, he's referring to the exclusive Ocean Reef club

747
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:12,880
Speaker 1: in North Key Largo.

748
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:17,280
Speaker 5: I had two hangars at Ocean Reef. Lamar had one

749
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:21,760
Speaker 5: hanger at Ocean Reef. I guess after I left, Jack

750
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:23,840
Speaker 5: took over one of my hangers.

751
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:24,640
Speaker 3: I don't know.

752
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:29,400
Speaker 1: He's also implying the group smuggled drugs there via private hangars.

753
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:33,719
Speaker 5: You got to remember I started in what seventy four

754
00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:38,320
Speaker 5: or five. The first load I ever made, I carried

755
00:46:38,440 --> 00:46:45,480
Speaker 5: five kilos from Bolivia of cocaine. So off and on

756
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:49,879
Speaker 5: one form or another. I had functioned in the industry

757
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:54,520
Speaker 5: for over five years. That's a long time to get

758
00:46:54,560 --> 00:46:57,760
Speaker 5: away with doing what we were doing.

759
00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:02,480
Speaker 1: But as this shifted into the eighties, the good old

760
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:06,360
Speaker 1: boys dynamic was shifting too. Like Icarus, all these guys,

761
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:10,560
Speaker 1: the Commodore, Captain America, the astronaut, and Captain Jack would

762
00:47:10,560 --> 00:47:13,560
Speaker 1: eventually fly a bit too close to the sun and

763
00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:17,399
Speaker 1: one would actually crash and burn, but only after all

764
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 1: had had some very real run ins with the law.

765
00:47:20,920 --> 00:47:24,960
Speaker 2: They all got burned except Happy, Except Happy. Yeah. When

766
00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:28,879
Speaker 2: I was talking to Happy, it was pretty clear that

767
00:47:29,440 --> 00:47:31,480
Speaker 2: he was very clever. He was always a jump ahead

768
00:47:31,480 --> 00:47:33,680
Speaker 2: of the law. He was as much involved as any

769
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:36,320
Speaker 2: of the others, maybe even more.

770
00:47:36,160 --> 00:47:40,400
Speaker 1: So, and that level of involvement would ultimately let Happy

771
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:46,080
Speaker 1: play both sides. What's the biggest misconception people have about

772
00:47:46,120 --> 00:47:47,359
Speaker 1: the war on drugs?

773
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:52,239
Speaker 5: Oh, that the government wants to do something about it.

774
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:53,560
Speaker 3: They don't.

775
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:58,799
Speaker 5: Everybody that works in the industry wants to keep it

776
00:47:58,880 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 5: going and make it bigger and bigger.

777
00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:03,759
Speaker 3: The more money they pump at it.

778
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:08,120
Speaker 5: The niser choice that the guys have to play with.

779
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:11,400
Speaker 3: In the cars that they seize, they get the drive.

780
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:16,520
Speaker 1: So you think there was never any real intention to

781
00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:17,840
Speaker 1: win the war on drugs.

782
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:20,240
Speaker 4: Once they realized how lucratific could be to fight.

783
00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:24,440
Speaker 5: It, well, it was all for show.

784
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:30,760
Speaker 1: On the next murder in Miami, the long standing history

785
00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:33,560
Speaker 1: of prohibition pushing illicit profits.

786
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 5: When later moved into the Bahamas, he paid a lot

787
00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:44,080
Speaker 5: of money to be able to operate out in normal steal.

788
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:47,320
Speaker 1: While the War on drugs makes for some very bizarre

789
00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:48,400
Speaker 1: bed partners.

790
00:48:48,719 --> 00:48:51,560
Speaker 5: He told me that the CIA had been attempted to

791
00:48:51,719 --> 00:48:53,040
Speaker 5: observe the government in the.

792
00:48:53,040 --> 00:48:57,719
Speaker 1: Bahamas and how the coconut grove smuggling set wound up

793
00:48:57,840 --> 00:48:59,040
Speaker 1: in such hot water.

794
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:02,200
Speaker 5: The color dry from their faces as there was a

795
00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:05,600
Speaker 5: photograph of Lamar on there and it said master criminal

796
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:06,840
Speaker 5: or secret agent.

797
00:49:08,280 --> 00:49:12,880
Speaker 1: Murder of Miami is a production of iHeartRadio. Executive producers

798
00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:16,680
Speaker 1: are Lauren Brett Pacheco, Taylor Chackoine, and Phil Stamford.

799
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:19,239
Speaker 4: Written by Phil Stamford and.

800
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:23,840
Speaker 1: Lauren Brett Pacheco, Audio editing and sound design by Nicholas Harder,

801
00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:28,600
Speaker 1: Evan Tyer, and Taylor Chacoine, featuring music by Evan Tyre,

802
00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:34,120
Speaker 1: Phil Meyer, John Murchison and Taylor Chacoine. For more podcasts

803
00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:38,800
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

804
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:40,839
Speaker 1: you get the stories that matter to you.