Cocaine Cowboys and I

As Tom and I work on writing this book, and more people find out about my former life in Miami, they ask me about the documentary, Cocaine Cowboys. They want to know two things. First, was life in Miami really like that back in the 80s?

The answer is, yes. The documentary begins with a re-enactment of the Dadeland Mall massacre to let you know what’s coming. Then it switches gears to tell the story of Jon Roberts and Mickey Munday, just a couple of fun loving adventurers who made tons of money. (Dadeland, by the way, happened the year before I got to Miami, but more about that kind of thing in a minute.) By the time you get through seeing how Roberts and Munday set up their operations, you’ve almost forgotten about Dadeland. The film lulls the viewer into feeling that the cocaine business was just one big, fun party.

It was fun. Where there’s coke and money, there’s a party. I didn’t make anything like the $100 million Jon Roberts claims to have earned. But my boss paid me well to make deliveries. And the documentary was certainly accurate in its depiction of how deals went down. That part of the business was pretty straightforward. I never felt I was in danger when making a delivery. I never felt at risk, either from business associates or cops. My boss would hand me a set of keys and tell me where to drive the car. That was it. I never knew what was in the car. (I mean, of course I knew what was in the car, but he never said anything about it.) During the deliveries, there were never any guns, or test tubes, or suspicion anywhere along the way. We were all part of the same organization. It really and truly was just business. Like delivering a truck load of TVs to Sears.

And I never handled any money. That was all taken care of separately. The only money I touched during the deals was the money my boss paid me for the work I did. And it was a lot. But I did things on the side that earned me twice what I got for deliveries. And that’s where things got ugly. That’s what you see in the second half of Cocaine Cowboys. Don’t get me wrong. I never killed anybody, but I saw people shot to death in the streets of Miami, and there were a number of attempts made on my life. How many? I guess that depends on how you count.

A guy put three bullets through my windshield one day. I think that counts. Three guys beat me half to death in the elevator of a condo in Palm Beach. Were they trying to kill me? Felt like it. Four guys tied me up and put me under an upside down boat on a beach in the Bahamas. I was sure they intended to come back for me at night and kill me. I was chased on foot through the streets of Little Havana by a guy with a shotgun. I had guns pointed at me on a number of other occasions. And even some of that was fun. I know it sounds crazy, but when you combine the adrenaline of being shot at with the elation of coming out of it without a scratch, you get a feeling like no manufactured drug can deliver. But I also still have nightmares about those experiences.

Would I go back to those times? No. Everything in those days was me, me, me. And in the process of pursuing what was best for me, I lost myself. The money? Yeah, it would be nice to have some of that back. In fact, there’s still a guy out there somewhere who owes me a bunch of money for unloading a plane in Pahokee, up near Lake Okechobee. He was a big importer. He could afford to pay me. But he went to prison. You see? It all comes tumbling down eventually.

And there’s another question people always want to ask me about Cocaine Cowboys. Did I know all the people in the film? No. Here’s the thing. The coke business in Miami was huge. I guess Jon Roberts was the biggest, but there were lots of people bringing in coke, and thousands of people distributing it at various levels. I worked for a guy who wasn’t as big as Roberts, but he did very well for himself. He lived in a huge house in Kendall (which, by the way, is the location of the infamous Dadeland Mall, not Miami).

I never knew Jon Roberts. I knew people who knew Mickey Munday, but I never met him myself. Thankfully, I never knew Griselda Blanco, the godmother, who was responsible for many killings in the Miami area, including Dadeland. I knew Rafa, the Colombian distributor who first brought Jon Roberts into the really big time. And I knew Rivi Ayala, the killer who worked for Griselda Blanco. We didn’t hang out together, but I was around him a bit. We did time together, before he was charged with all those murders. It wasn’t until I saw Cocaine Cowboys that I learned how bad a guy he really was.

Those were the days. For good and for bad. They were the days when two drugs ruled Miami: cocaine and adrenaline. And they are, thankfully, in my past. I don’t do coke anymore. And my biggest adrenaline rushes are in my nightmares.