 You can now follow me on all my social media platforms to find out who my latest guest will be and don't forget to click the subscribe button and the notifications button so you're notified for when my next podcast goes live. 860 pounds so you seem nice enough. He didn't didn't have fangs or horns at that time. I'd make it $50,000, $55,000 a trip after my expenses. But it was just so simple. We started harvest and we had a billion dollar coin. They charged me with what they call a continuing criminal enterprise. That I was number 41 in the United States is called an 848. I was 21, 848, continue criminal enterprise. It can carry up to life without parole. And John Gotti, I was number 41 in the United States to be charged with it. And John Gotti was number 42. I paid millions and gave up my property and made a deal. And I got 35 years for the marijuana, 30 years for the marijuana and five years for the income tax evasion. They took me and they had little chains on your handcuffs and they pulled you apart like this and on your feet. And they spread me over a barrel, buttered my backside up and I felt hopeful. And they came with hot chili pepper and poked my whole colon full of hot chili pepper. And it burnt the lining off of my intestines. I got arrested in Spain, escaped. I got arrested in Holland. I escaped. And then finally caught me again in Spain. I jumped out the window, 31 feet from the window bottom to the top of a car exploded in the street. Did you not have the check of $50 million in your pocket but you had to eat it? I went into the bathroom and ate the receipt. I had to get my pocket. I didn't want to find that. I had a receipt of $15 million, yes. Well, I went down to see Ochoa to see about three and a half million dollars. And I saw my friend that wanted to introduce me to him. And of course, I wasn't going to get my money from him. He said, well, listen, we do like a job. We get you pay your $20 million to buy a boat and take it to Australia. Take a little off your shoulder. Sure, I'll do it. That's a lot of money and three months of work. Boomer on. And today's guest, we've got one of the most famous drug smugglers of all time, Roger Reeves. How are you, Roger? I'm mighty fine. Pleased to be here with you. Yes. An honor to be. Have you hear that phenomenal stories? It's a mad story as well. Sad, happy. It's a mixture of so many different things. You've spent over 30 years in prison, Roger, but you've worked with some of the biggest drug dealers known to mankind. Like, you've worked with Pablo Escobar. You've been friends with Barry Seal, who was murdered by Escobar. But mad story. You just got a prison two years ago after serving a live sentence in Australia for drug smuggling the biggest drugs bust of all time with nearly a thousand kilos of cocaine. First and foremost, Roger, how are you? I am fine. Just fine. I'm healthy. I'm blessed. Blessed every day. That's all. I think you saw where I just, just did a hundred push-ups without stopping just this morning. Yeah. And at the age of 79, is that correct? Almost 80 in a couple more months. Yeah, good on you. I'm proud of myself. Yes, I am. My help. I always go back to the start with my guest, Roger, just to get a bit understanding about yourself, where you grew up and how it all began. All right. I was born down in St. Augustine, Florida during the war. My dad was a foreman of a veneer plant, and my mother worked there. They made the boxes for the shelves to shift to the soldiers in the war. When the war was over, my great-grandpa died, and then we inherited a farm and a three-mule farm. So we moved up to the farm, and I was raised there with my mother, my daddy, a grandma, and slept in a big feather bed with my grandma until she died. And then my dad died when I was 17 years old. He was an alcoholic. So we were poor on a nice farm. And he died. My mother, boy, she worked like crazy, and she paid the debt off. And I stayed there with her for about 25, 26 years. I farmed with my mother, and I would go to Canada in the summertime and work for six weeks. They was like the grapes of wrath. We made $3 a day, maybe four or five if we were lucky, working all day long in the heat. Georgia picking tobacco, picking cotton, whatever. But they was offering $20 a day room and boarding Canada. So I started hitching hike up there in the summertime, and I would make six or $700 in six weeks. And so, let's see, I was about 18 or 19 years old. I met my wife, and that was quite a story. And so it's been over 60 years ago that we met. That's a long time. It's changed days now, Roger. People can't even last over 60 minutes now. What were you late? Was there much school back in the 40s and 50s, Roger? Were you at much school? At school? Yeah, I went through high school, and then I went off to agricultural college, but I didn't do well. I didn't have to study. I didn't study in school, but I went off to college, and it was a different story. So after I met Mari, shall I tell you about that? Of course. That was a colorful thing. That was backbreaking work called sand loaves. You had to get it. That was a big farm, 100 acres, and then big mules, big, big draft horses. And every time I'd put my foot up, he'd put his foot down and breathing on my back all day long, and I'd heat up in Canada. But when the leaves got up about a foot off the ground, we could go fast. So about two or three o'clock in the afternoon, we were finished. We'd made our $20. And then sometime we'd sucker. We'd break the sucker behind the leaves, and I'd make another $10. So boy, I was cracking up money, and I'd come in the greenhouse out of some water that was heated up, and I'd take a shower and get that stink off of me. But that bunkhouse was full of men from all over the world. Well, it was like Tower of Babel and that place stunk. But anyway, some of the boys from a neighbor farm came over in 1949, said, Roger, you want to go to the carnival tonight? Let's go. So we loaded up and went to Tilsonburg, Ontario. And when we came through the gate, what a place it was. It was huge. And the first place we went in was a Gucci Gucci show. I think we paid a dollar to get in. I'd never seen anything like that before. Certainly not in the Bible built down in Georgia, you want to see that. It wasn't anything not even bad in today's world, but it was risky at that time. And then we went on down the road for what way of ways, and we came to a great big man. I guess he's 300 pounds, had a flowing beard down his chest, and he had a bear and a circus cage there. And he was walking the platform with a microphone, five brand new $100 bills. Anybody rustle my bear and get all four feet off the ground. Anybody. Come on, $10. Anybody give it a try. Come on, you yellow belly Canadians ain't got guts enough to wrestle my bear. What's your name, young man? Roger Reeves. How much you weigh, Roger? I weigh 145 pounds. 145 pound man against 600 pound beast. And you open that little occasion through me, and then the people would just walk in him when they saw a fool come up. They knew what was going to happen. That old bear got up and he wasn't little like he looked like. He was big as a mule when he got up. And I slammed into him and the cage was all loose and slammed me so it made a lot of noise. And anyway, he hit me about my knees and left me just level like that. I hit the ground and flam, blam, and shot and shook my head in the crowd. Sick him, Roger. Well, he did that two or three times and I thought, man, I got to get a better year. So I grabbed the top of that cage and I could kick that bear with both of my feet. I kicked him right in the head. I thought I was supposed to be fighting that bear. That guy's pet. That bear came insane. He just went, I mean, he threw me in the corner so hard that I thought my breath was never going to come out of me. And he just pad and tore the clothes off of me. The man went and snapped the chain on him and pulled him off and he run over the man. This chain got snapped and part of the tent fell down and I was like, yeah, he's sick of me. I asked my $10, he told me to go to hell. They took me back to the bunk house that night and I got out of the car and fell down. I couldn't walk. I'd been traumatized like I'd been in a wreck. So I couldn't work for two days and the boys come on Sunday and said, let's go down to Turkey Point. And so I went and I leaped out on the pier with my clothes on. I didn't feel like bathing suit. And the three girls was out on the pier on the towel and one of them was Maury, my wife. And that was over 60 years ago. Congratulations, 60 years of loving. It's not been uneasy. So she should have known I was a transient farm worker, wrestling a bear and a carnival. What could have done her better? Yeah, that was a, that was a sign to stay away, Roger. But thankfully he's still with each other and obviously we'll get into the nitty gritty where it's not been easy in love like a woman to have stuck by you after spending over 30 years in prison. Don't get me wrong. There must have been some good times, but obviously with good times comes the bad times as well. But when you were younger, Roger, did your grandfather not do a murder? Did he not kill someone in court? Yeah, it was a rather publicized trial. He was a school teacher and I understand he was a small man. And back that time, I guess guys went on to school, they had only worked, but go to school one or two months a year, learned to read and write. And so someone was in there over 20 years old. Well, there was one fellow in there, I guess he had some trouble with him. He just bringing a load of stove wood. He took a piece of, he heated their stove in this little room and he had that guy outside the head with a piece of stove wood. And so they took him to court to fire him. And my grandpa got up to tell his side the story. And they said he was a very principal, a really, really good person. And he must have been having trouble with that fellow. So the man told his side the story and sit down and my grandpa stood up to tell his side. And when he started, the man's name would jumped up and pointed his finger at him, said, you're a goddamn liar. And my grandpa pulled a pistol out, shot him twice right through the heart. And the bullets went into the door of the courtroom. You can still see them about four inches apart where they dug them out. And he woke up and laid his gun on the judge's desk. I still got the old pistol, a Webley 38 breakdown from World War One. Although it was the type they used. And the judge said, Reeves, I believe you have killed him. He said, I hope the hell he did. So I don't know if it runs in the family or not, but that was a heck of a story that was told. And how was that for that as a kid? That was that something so out of the ordinary? Or was that something you were quite used to? Well, I've never heard of such a thing before, or since I was just unusual. He went, they gave him, I believe 15 years and reasonable kind of tension. He went in and was a bookkeeper. They said that he was a really smart man that trains come by and the numbers on the boxcar, he could add them all up as fast as the train would go by. So, but after three years, he went blind with cataracts and they operated on him and blinded him. And the governor pardoned him and he told the school the rest of his life for many more years as a blind man. So what did they do? Made them blind? Well, they took the cataracts off and in the operation, that was a very beginning of them. And they went blind from the operation. I don't know what happened. It was in a prison operation. Certainly it wasn't. They didn't use disinfecters and they were still just bloody hands and bloody sheets and all that stuff back in the early 1900s. Yeah, so it could have probably got infected. Yeah. Something happened. He went blind. So what was your first job, Roger, before all this stuff wouldn't work? Yeah. Oh my goodness. I went to work in a grocery store when I was 14 years old. And I paid the lunch money for my little brothers and sisters. And I started off three dollars a day and we were 14 hours. And then the next year, it went up to four dollars a day and another child started to school. So I never had 25 cents left over all those years. And then I worked in the logging woods a little bit in the summer and then go up to Canada and pick that tobacco. And that's about all I ever did, just worked on the farm. There was plenty of there that were never over. So say that back. Yeah. So say back then, Roger, like when you're working, you're on a farm, you're hardworking, you're in nature. Was there no involvement and crime or trying to cut corners at a young age? No, never. Nobody, I knew broke the law. Nothing. We just, I had a little horse I rode and my buddy had a bicycle and owned up hills, I threw him a rope and pulled him up the hills and we'd race and go 20, 30 miles sometimes. I had a wonderful young life. But Christian's family, my grandma prayed just to sleep every night on all of these. We're just good people. There was nothing to do with outlaw stuff except my grandmother, the way before I was born, killed somebody. What did you do after the farm, Roger? Let's see. I got a job on the Atlantic coastline railroad and I was a fireman on the diesel electric and they called a feather bed. We didn't have anything to do because the other firemen had used to shovel coal and so wouldn't fire. And those only engineers were mad. They were jealous of us. Look at the knots in my legs where I shoveled coal for 20 years before I got your place. Anyway, it paid the same price as an engineer that's been there 40 years. They the unions on the railroad was good. Anyway, I got married and moved to the farm. I got married in Canada and took Murray down to the farm. Oh, what an eye opener it was for her with the rattlesnakes and all the woods and the farming and it was just animals. But she just loved it. She just barkled with it. So everything was new. So my mother, I think I told you my daddy died when I was 17 years old. My baby sister was only six weeks old. So my mother and I barred the money to put in chickens. So we put in 36,000 laying hands and more of you, more of you to farm. Well, it wasn't long before there was 20 million chickens within 20 miles. It's either way of my house. The arena company had come in and they just had said, all right, let's make this the center for the egg producing in America, I reckon. So price of eggs kept going down and the price of feed kept going up. And every time we pick up 12 eggs, we lost a nickel. So it don't take too long, too many years of that. And we owed $78,000. And the bank's gonna pull clothes on the place. So I started taking so much chicken feed and making whiskey. I went and got me some vats of 8,000 gallons a piece and made a condenser and I learned how to make whiskey. I was making a thousand gallons a week. So I went $3.50 a gallon. So that's a lot of money. And it didn't take nothing much to make it. So the whiskey steel blew up. I had outrun the blood hounds and swim across an icy creek and I got away. But anyway, there was so much trouble until the railroad fired me. They didn't want me anymore. You have something on your record like making whiskey no matter where you're guilty or not. And the long chain man come took the trucks and the tractors. I was paralyzed broke. So I left the farm and went out to California. My sister lived out in Tarns, California. And my wife and I had a little girl two years old. And we went out there and I went to work framing and shoveling concrete. And then I got a job as electrician. I told him I was electrician. I was a counterfeit electrician. They never found out. So you had a right to work if you live in another state that didn't have me. So I signed the right to work. The other guy, I didn't know which wires to put on and I'd say, you hook them and I'll pull them. What? All right. Well, that was easy for us. And so then I took a test for the Redondo Beach Fire Department in California. That was a good paying job. And I got it. There's 400 people applied for that job. And so I was really, really fortunate to get that job. So I went on the fire department there in Redondo Beach and I rode rescue and bumpers. And then for the last couple of years, I drove the back of a hooking ladder truck, 108 footer. That was something else. That was a rig. So with that, you only work nine to 10 days a month on the fire department because you work 24 hours a day. Are you there? And I had a business. I did a little room additions and had a paint and crew. Then I started hauling antiques out of a Missouri back during the Gold Rush time when people were coming to California and Oregon, they would leave New York or Atlanta where they lived in the East Coast and they would come to Missouri on the train. Then they would get up, take a ferry across the, across the river with all their goods. And they found out that those wagons just were not big enough to haul what all they brought. So they left their big pieces, I mean, by the millions along that river on the West side where they couldn't get up. Those wagons were called Studebakers. And we had the Studebaker car was what those people were making that wagon went to make into car later on. But anyway, I would go back there and I had a couple of firemen and they would just have a barn full of furniture and antiques. And I'd go there with a big semi and take it back to California and have an auction. Well, man, I was making good money. So I bought me an airplane. So that bought another one. I'd already learned to fly. And I'll back up a little bit. I read a book when I was a boy called Jungle Pilot, the story of Nate Sink. And he started Missionary Aviation Fellowship. And that was where the missionary where these pilots would go. And they would take the mail and medicine to the missionaries as they in Borneo where they had to walk two weeks to get to get out. Well, he would take it in his little Piper Cub and put a line down and like a rodeo guy curls it. And he'd put the little box right at the missionary's feet and they'd get their mail and put their mail in and say, I need penicillin. He'd wind it up and put what they needed back in. And he started Missionary Aviation Fellowship. And I thought, wow, I would love to fly for that outfit. So I tell that story because it comes around. But anyway, life went on and I didn't, I didn't do that job. They wanted me to go to school three years to be an airplane mechanic so I could work on my own planes in Borneo or South America. But I bought a system 182 and Maury and I and the girl would fly down to Mexico and we'd catch a good bunch of fish and ice chest. I'd bring them back. And by the time of two, I didn't even stop for the border. There was nobody there. If you stopped, you had to wait all day to get somebody to come out to clear customs. So one fellow says, why don't you bring some marijuana back? And I thought, I don't know nothing about it. I heard the kids smoke it, but I just, I don't know anything about it. He said, man, it's the hottest things in pancakes. So and I said, what, what, what did they pay? He said, I don't know. I'll introduce you to somebody. So he introduced me to a fellow and this guy said, you got an airplane and you fly some airplane. I said, yeah, cool. Now, how much you pay? What the deal? He said, I'll pay you $10,000. So I said, well, throw some of that hay in there. I did a little. And came across it was nothing to it. I mean, just absolutely nothing. And he gave me $10,000 in a bag. Why? I didn't need the money. It was just kind of like a windfall. That was almost two years' pay on the fire department at that time. Take home. I dumped it on the bed and my wife put her hand over her mouth and said, oh my goodness. You know, that's a lot of money. The baby grabbed some $100 bills and crawled in the round and we just left. And we went to the lockbox and put it in the wall. We didn't need it. We went out to dinner. I said, don't look at the right hand side. Just look at the left. So I went to a lawyer and I gave him $100. I got about a two-minute question, Mr. Lawyer. You're a criminal lawyer. If I got caught bringing pot back from Mexico, what would happen to me? And he said, what's your criminal history? I said, I don't have one. I've never been arrested for anything. He said, I've never had a speeding ticket. I've never had a parking ticket. He said, you work on the fire department? I said, yes. He said, for sure you'll get probation. But just in case you didn't, then you'd get one year and spend four months raking leaves on a military base. I thought that that ain't a bad deal. So I went and bought me a bigger airplane. I bought a September 207. That's the biggest thing to add back then. And I'd go down there and I'd get $40,000. Now I didn't buy it or sell it. I just put for this other fella. I'd dump it out on the dry lake and his man'd pick it up. We could do later. They'd give me the $40,000 and I'd go back. So I bought me a new Cadillac like an idiot. So my mama came out, my baby sister, and I took him to Disneyland. And my mama and I was always close. She said, what you doing, boy? I said, I'm all in pot. She said, I'm what you making? I said, I'm making $40,000 every time I want to go down there. She said, what do they do if they catch you? And I told her what the lawyer said. And I said, what do you think, ma? She said, do you need a co-pilot, son? That's the way it was. And I was sort of a hero in the Bohemian Circle. We quit going to church because I didn't want to be like a hypocrite and feel like one of my wife had trouble. I had a lot of trouble with it. Well, I did. And I mean, I thought there's nothing to that stuff. I smoked it once and there wasn't nothing to mean. So I thought, wow, it's a weird thing. We've got a little bit of a buzz. So I didn't use it anymore and never did. I didn't care for it. But to make $40,000 in a day, that was six or seven years of work. So at that time, you could buy most any house in California, regular house, but $30,000, $25,000, $30,000. You need $2,500, $3,000 down. Those thousands worth meeting $2,000 now. I mean, it just was just unbelievable. So that plane got shot all to hell and back one morning on the take-home. I don't know how much of that story you'll be going to tell, but that was one of the highlights of my life. Obviously, it's great reward with very minimal risk, Roger. If you're making $40,000 for a run where there's not even a chance of getting a prison sentence, anybody who would have took that risk, anybody, it's even at that time, yeah. But what was your first, what was it like doing the first drug run? Were you nervous or were you calm? Because you seem a very calm character that you've got a great energy about you. That's why you're probably still alive to this day, no doubt. But what was it like doing your first drug run? I was, I mean, I like it. I was as calm as a man on a mountain stream. It didn't bother me at all. Nothing. I was worried about landing up here in the United States. I was afraid, you know, if they'd be waiting on me, I remember parking my plane and jumping out and running. I come to see if there's anybody behind me. I'd be like a jackrabbit. I only did that once or twice. And I'd land and the plane would be so loaded until I had to keep the power on all the way in to keep the tail up. When I landed it, bang, on the runway, on the dry lake. That's how much I loaded them. Yes. And every $1,000, I'll go back to the farm. I made $300,000 so quick. My wife said, you don't remember like I do. You don't remember those naps and bugs and kicks and skittles and rattlesnakes and all that hard work and manure from the animal. She didn't want to go back. So anyhow, I claimed, maybe I'm teasing a little bit. She kept me from going back to the farm. So. So when you done your first run, what was the plans? Where did you pick it up from? Where did you take it to? How many people were involved? Just two people. The guy that loaded me down here and the guy that unloaded me up here up on this end. How long was the flight? All day. I'd leave way down in Mexico and then I had to come up unloaded on a dry lake or a strip and then go into town and get fuel. Then I'd drag around until it got late in the afternoon and I would fly across the border just after dark. And early in the evening, there's a lot of a lot of planes in the air and you don't want to fly two or three o'clock in the morning. You'll be the only one up. So that's the way I did. And then later on, they put radar all the way across the border from all the way across the southern border of Mexico. So I started going out over the Pacific Ocean about 300 miles out and coming in behind the Santa Barbara Islands and coming up and going out in the desert land. It was a long way and I flew the load right over the water. Sometimes my windshield would be just coated with salt where I'd come in. And I know that was dangerous going that far out on old airplane. Was it your 13th trip that got shot down? No. I did two loads in that Cessna 182 and then I went and bought the Cessna 207 and the place I landed was in a bend of a little river. You could call it a river, but it was maybe knee deep and you could wade across it. And it was pretty there, but a lot of cactus and just poor donkeys, poor people and poor little children. So Mari and I would go and buy toys and candies and apples. They liked the red apples. And when I would land, I would give the children these boxes of goodies. But more and more children kept coming. The American Santa Claus is coming every week. And the guy walking, a hair left a little mouse of a man. Oh, he'd try to steal the candies and stuff. I was giving him $17,000 for the marijuana and he didn't want to see those children with an apple. I didn't like him. So there was not enough room on that runway. I think it was 900 feet long and that's about what it took to take off. So I would land right into the sun. It looked like a welding torch. It was so hot in the evening. And I spent the night there and I took gasoline with me along with the goodies and I'd fuel up. And then early the next morning, a young man that didn't weigh very much named Pedro, he'd get in a plane with me and we'd fly out 20, 30 miles, maybe. And they would be, the men would have a highway blocked on. They'd walk it off. They'd see the airplane. They'd come out with this truck and they'd had the rifles all on it. Then about a mile down the road, another one would come out and walk the road off. And I would land between the trucks and then one of them would come down. They'd pass it out like a bucket brigade and fill my airplane up marijuana. And I would shake hands with all of them in the road and get in it and take off. Take off right over the other truck. And sometimes maybe 30 cars, I guess, waiting to pass. It was a busy highway. And I remember one time there was a highway patrol car there. He didn't have his light on. He was just still sitting there. So that was how we did it. And so one morning, I walked back down to the river with about 10 or 12 guys and I got in the river and brushed my teeth. It was still dark and just as it cracked in daylight, Pedro and I got in the plane and I cranked the engine up and I was kind of in the middle of the runway. I was going to taxi back down to the end like all we did and take off the full 900 feet. And just as I cranked it up, I looked, I thought a tire blew out. That's how innocent I was. And Pedro was bumping me, Roger, police here, police here, police here. And it dawned on me. And oh boy, I don't want that. So I just pushed it to the firewall. And I think I might have had 400, 500 feet left in front of me. And then there was the river and then there was a little waterfall in front of it. And just at the end of that, I went tearing down that strip and I was looking at the airspeed indicator and it would fly at about 40. And just about the time it turned 40, I pulled it up right up on its nose and I just got riddled from both sides of the machine guns. And I was looking at the airspeed indicator and it just disappeared. That was the first thing I noticed gone, bam. Then all the windows and the windshield was shot out and I was hit three times. I didn't already know it. And then the bullets came in from the right-hand side, went up into the left wing and ruptured the fuel tank. And that fuel was blowing in on me like it was pouring out of a bucket right in my face. I was just turning which way to get out of the fuel. And it was hanging on the propeller like this. And it felt like the rudder cables had been cut in two. So I just reached over and switched everything off. And I think I went into shock. I know I did. Just from the scare of it, I thought I was going to bust into flames any second. And so I remember coming out, probably wasn't 100 feet high, maybe 50 feet high when I pulled power and shut it down. And the rocks, the formation, you know, our mineral form, a lot of times into geodes and all different things. Well, these looked like the rocks, the backs of the turtles. Because I cracked towards them. It looked, they was underwater, but they looked like it and I hit. And the winds came off. And the next time it bounced, and the next time the engine and all came under and came under the plane. And I'm left sitting up there. And I think I was not a cuckoo at that time. And Pedro said, come on, Roger, come on. And I just stepped out now into the water. It wasn't knee deep. And here those, better all, his full one was coming down the, down the runway, still shooting. And a couple, a couple of balls hit that plane hard right, right where we were. They killed us. So on top of the radio, I had a nine millimeter browning high power taped to the top of the radio, just in case of crashing in the desert or whatever. I didn't have to kill anybody or little protection and stuff like that. So I just, it was right there. I just slid that thing out and I popped a few caps down that runway above their heads. And boy, they run into rocks. I didn't see them anymore. So we took off, took off and I want to go down the mountain. Pedro said, no, no, no, they'll go that way. So we went up, up the mountain and I looked and his foot was almost shot off. They was, it hit, it hit the bone on the right hand side and just blew out the ankle. It wasn't even bleeding. He was in shock. So we went on the waves and we came and it was a lot of cactus, a lot of brush. It was in a path and there was an old donkey. She looked like she was huge and 30 years old with his way back. Charlotte, Charlotte and he'd give her a pet. We hopped on the back of that donkey and rode all the morning till we came to the house that Pedro knew. And it was a man plowing and he had a little horse and a cow. And the horse was taller than the cow and the yolk across her neck was all angled and he was plowing amongst dunks and a rail fence around his place. So Pedro talked to him and he took us and put us in the house. They had nothing for our wounds. So they dropped diaper-like material. I had creased across all my head. My kneecap was shot off and my toe was just back down, my big toe. That thing was hurting. That toe was hurting. So I had nothing for it. So they put rags over it and she poured diesel all over it to keep the flies off. So we sat there all day long and about dark, oh, mules and horses just came walking fast up into the yard. They stomp in the ground. They used animals that can travel down there. So a man came in, Dr. Benjamin Sokso. He was a Red Cross doctor from somewhere they got him. There was a slug up in my foot. It's still up in the lodging around the ankle bone. And I think he did more damage trying to find it than it did going in. But anyway, he was wonderful. He gave us shots of morphine and kept the shots and took care of us really well. And he was a skydiver, a world-renowned skydiver, a young man. And he said, you have got to get, Pedro got to get the doctor. He'll die. And said, and they got the roadblocks, all blocks going north. They knew it was American pilot in here. And they said, there was so much blood in that plane until they think you're dead. So he said, there's roadblocks. So we got on some horses and road. I don't know how far we rode. But we came to a road and there was a big truck, a big tin we learned. It was loaded with corn in the ear. And they dug holes in it. I guess there was 10 to 15 Mexicans all along that truck with the bigger sombreros and seraphas. It was turning kind of cold that night. And they dug holes in that corn and put me down in it and put Pedro on the other side. And we went through three roadblocks. And every time the road was bad, every time that truck would go from one side to the other, the corn would fall in over my face and somebody would break it back off a little bit. And I guess we went an hour or so until we came to a highway. And they sent the town for taxes. And I think they got Pedro out of there right away. And they sent the taxi that would take me to Guadalajara. I think it's about eight hour drive south. So I went into a house and they got me some clothes. And I remember the pan mostly took 20 times and get the blood and the dirt and the filth off of me. I was so dirty and crusted up. So a man came with a brand new taxi and he was a dwarf. And what a talker. So we headed out and they put them pillows and blankets in there. And I had these great big pain pills and I must have been not feeling no pain at all. And so the little man talked to me all night. I said, do you have a family single? Oh, see, I have a beautiful family. I have a lovely wife daughter. Let me tell you how I got my wife daughter. You see, I'm ugly. No girl would talk to me in the village. But I had my eye on door. She lived across the way. And one day she's playing the flute in the back of a band. And I open the gate and I pull her in the yard. And my mother helps me pull her in the house. She sits in a straight chair straight up. And I tell her that I love her and we'd like to marry her. She won't even look at me. So what can we do with the next morning is getting daylight? You got to do something with this girl. I don't know what to do. I'm really nervous. So we let her go home. And I follow her. And she goes and she knocks on her door and her heart hearted father screams out, I get away from here. You profit you. You spent the night with some man. You're no daughter of mine. Get away. And Dora walked away with her head down. And Senor, I went up and said, Dora, let's go talk to the Padre. And Senor, that's how I got my beautiful wife Dora. And one year later, we had a beautiful baby boy. And I had a new Ford. I had money, Senor. I had a Ford. And we named that boy Ford. And you won't believe it. But one year later, we had another boy. And I had a new Dodge. So named him Dodge. And Senor, I know you won't believe it. One year later, we had another boy. And I had a new Chevrolet. And the priest, he would not, he would not name him Chevrolet. And I had to teach that son of a bitch to drive to get him to name him Chevrolet. And Senor, that's how I got my three boys. Ford, Dodge and Chevrolet. Is that a true story? True story. That's perfectly true. See when your plane, see when your plane's getting shot down, Roger, you're nearly dead. Your foot's blown off. Do you think that was your sign to then call it quits? But did you ever think of not doing that again? Or was it just straight back to business once you were fit and healthy? It was back to business. I didn't know much to do. I wasn't going back to that place anymore. I knew that. I didn't have enough of that. But two guys had been watching me land. And they were packing campers in the jungle down there. And I had met them. And one of them came to see me and said, my boss wants to meet you. So I went and met my friend, Gerald Wills. He's the only fellow still alive out of all that. He lives down in Palace, Versailles, States. He's a wonderful person. And I see him every once in a while now. And he said, Roger, I'd like to buy a big twin engine plane. And if you fly it, we're going to have. So I said, where? So we went to Wisconsin and bought the plane, the twin beach that had belonged to the Beach Boys. What a palatial plane. That thing was wonderful. So I flew that plane on and on. I must have did 30 trips with that. That was one lucky plane. I had many stories to tell about that. How much marijuana would you take on each trip in the plane, Roger? I usually put about a tonne, a little bit over 2200, 2500 pounds. About 1000 kilo? Yeah, a 1000, 1200 kilo or something like that. And how much would you... How much would you... Oh, at that time we were selling it. At that time we were selling it for $60 a pound. So it was $6,120. I don't know. I was making $50,000, $55,000 a trip after my expenses. But it was just so simple. It was selling overnight. How much were they paying a kilo in Mexico? Well, about $10, $8, $10, I think, yeah. I mean, $15 a pound. Yeah. Is that... How much was it going for in America? $120, $130 a kilo. Yeah, so major profit. I might have been... I think I'm a little bit wrong. I believe Georgie and I was paying $17 a kilo. That's what it was. Yeah, because I'd pay $4,000 kilos and he owed me $17,000. That's what it was. What was the story when your plane caught fire with a thousand kilos in it? Yeah. So I was loading up way down in Mexico and I was... I had a place over in Baja. That's the peninsula there south of San Diego. It goes down a thousand miles. And at that time there was not much roads. And I found a beautiful runway right in the middle of it. It was more than 20 miles to the nearest road. And oh, it had muskeets and trees all over it then. It used to hold meat out of it a long time ago. And the guy named Juan had a goat ranch. So I would land there. If I didn't care where I come from, Guatemala or Mohawk or wherever I came from, I would come north. And I would go into, across the sea of Cortez and land on that runway. And it wasn't a runway, just a strip. But it was nice and long. And my owner Juan would come up in on a view and we'd unload the airplane, put the stuff under the bales, under the trees. And I'd fly into the town of Mulay. And I'd take a shower and get a room and have lunch. And then late afternoon, I would fly back out there and load up and go from there, northwest, out over the Pacific and go way around San Diego, at least 300 miles long. So that they didn't see me. But on this one morning, I'm coming up and I'm overlocked motius at two miles. I'm 11,000 feet. And I felt a little bump in my feet. And I looked around and I saw oil coming out of the cowling of the left engine. And oh, what in the world. Then all of a sudden, that's that old coal fire. And when it was a cylinder, when it looked like motorcycle cylinders, I think it split wide open. And now the fuel is coming out of that and catch all of the engine on fire. And it just burnt that wing. I mean, it was blazing. That thing was hot and it was on fire. Well, I thought I was going to die. I really did. So I opened the cowl flaps, which lets a lot of air through to the engine. And I put that baby in the dive. And I went almost straight down. I know the wings have come off and the the tails, those good tails on that. They have been known to come off. And so I went on. I think we had 400 miles an hour, never exceed. He just pegged that. And I just went right on through it. And I did blow the fire. So the fire went out. But then I was going too fast to even the controls to have any effect. They were just like frozen at that speed out so fast. So anyhow, I knew if I pulled that hard, the wings had come off at that speed. So I gradually, gradually, gradually got it out of the out of the dive. And I was about 1500 feet on one engine. And then I went on above Guimas. And I thought I would, I would, I have a float plane rating. I used to fly a float plane. So I, I was ready to put it down in the water. And right when it went to touch down, there's a cushion of air called ground effect. And it's, that thing started flying. And one wing tip would just skim in the water. And I'm holding it up like that. And it's shaking like it got palsy. It's just, it's the heel shaking because it's in a stall position. And the horns blowing. Well, I rode that thing all the way to the United States. I, I used to see a quartet, it's probably about another four, five, three miles. And by that time, it's burned off with enough fuel. It will fly a little bit, but not, not nothing. I'm keeping it right down on. And I followed the Colorado River all the way back in, into the United States, except for Batonuma. And then come only in. So you went in the seventies as well, Roger. Did you go to Pakistan and ship three and a half thousand tons of hash? Oh, they're three and a half thousand kilos of hash. So how did you end up involved with people in Pakistan? Oh, the guy that I told you about, uh, bought that airplane for me, they love Pashish. So there was one fellow that had, had a connection. Boy, you had a big connection. I went over there and the big connection was a taxi driver named Diesel, aptly named. Anyway, he got us a load. I didn't care for Pakistan. I got out of there and I came back to, was going to bring it back to British Columbia and go all the way around the world. So I bought a, uh, an 85 foot shrimper that was almost brand new. The guy took it out and got financial trouble in the bank of Mobile. I paid back debts and, and got it free. And then I took a, took a course in celestial navigation. So there was a little eight tracks. You put them in and you learn how to navigate with a six. Anyhow, we went to Pakistan and, uh, and, and got to Hashish and, uh, both you get twice that much, but the loaders didn't pay their share. They shot machine gun bullets over the boats, get loaded and scare us away. And it was just them. They didn't pay their shares. Oh, the police came back to the first load. So anyway, it came back through the, uh, by Singapore. Right on up around under Japan and came across Pacific and unloaded there in, uh, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada. And then I bought a slot float plane. I'd already bought it and assessed a 206 on floats. And I flew it down one load at a time, about 6,800 pounds into Lake Oseke in the right northwest Washington. Oh, that was some nutty nose flying. It was always just right down on it. And I'd come over a little radio station and just pull the power and I'd land on that lake. I couldn't even find the boat that was waiting on me. They couldn't find the net fog and stuff. We had to talk on the radio and I had to keep my lights on. Well, see, when you're doing that, Roger, where do you, obviously the money is the main objective, but was it a buzz for you, like being involved in gunfights and planes gone on fire? Like you seem to be a thrill, a thrill seeker as well. Like was it a buzz, like doing what you were doing? You know, I didn't even think of it. Once it was over, the fire's out, you're just like, got away with that one, you know? You seem to get away with it. So what, you stole that? When I got shot up on that sand strip, that bothered me. I didn't realize how much it bothered me, but even a year or two later, I'd run over a rock in the road and it hit real loud under my hair. We'd kind of stand up on the back of my head. You've got something that's remembered. Did you start growing your own crops as well, Roger? Because did you not get busted with your own crops of marijuana, 245 kilos, I think, or 245 tons? 245 tons is what they estimated. I call that my pot plantation. Did you start growing your own stuff? Yes. I hauled a load out of a hawk on a DC3 and it was full of seeds. We shook several hundred pounds, 200 pounds of seed out of great big black marijuana seeds. And I thought, now those things are just too, we shouldn't just throw those away. So I gave them to my friend in Georgia and there's old moonshineers that I knew and worked with. And they had a 245 acre field way back in the woods. And it was round, just like the circular for the irrigation. And they planted the corn and then on every other row, we went with us to plant those seeds. I guess every one of those seeds come up. I don't believe one of them missed it. Every three feet, there was a marijuana plant. Well, we knew we couldn't get labor. So I went to Mexico and I got seven Indian people. I mean, native with the long black hair and they were from way down in La Jolla. And they came and I put them out on that farm. There's no house there. And they stayed there and worked really, really wonderfully. Never left. And they hauled out the males and they put, anyhow, they looked after it. Well, we started harvesting. We got a billion dollar crop. And they harvested, we put some of it in the road and own cotton sheets and stuff to sort of to dry. There's no place, the way in the world that we have enough shelter to dry that stuff. They had to put it in the sun, which is not the best way. But anyway, my sister had married a guy named Pete. And he went around the chain and ran around the fence and him and his ex-wife found a bale of that marijuana and they put it on their motorcycle and was gone. Well, the owner of the land saw in a little mud. He saw, he took pictures of it. He saw the motorcycle tracks. He saw the woman's long barefoot. Like by dark, I knew who extolled them in the marijuana. Anyway, he went ballistic. He wanted me to pay him out. And I said, no, I'll send those people to Mexico with men so they can't talk. No, no, no, get it out of here. Get it out of here. So we had two hay bales. Balen hay and we had to store it up at my farm right next to Jimmy Carter's and some of it. Some of it in different counties. We had that stuff stored all the way. Anyway, I took my Indians and I left. I said, I don't have nothing to do with it. Y'all going to get caught. You're somebody going to get killed. You're walking around here with a gun in your hand. I just like, this is, you got a billion-dollar cross. You can't handle it. You can't handle it. I'm like, nothing I can do. Is it not my land? So anyway, I left and they went to town and they got about a dozen young fellas from the poor section of town in Albany, Georgia. And of course, it lasted three days and they got busted and they got five years of peace in my buddy that I give the stuff to. He got seven years. But I didn't, they kept on it. They have a big radio show across the nation. And it was Paul Harvey. Paul Harvey in the news. Paul Harvey and the rest of the story. He'd always tell you tomorrow. Anyhow, he had that thing on. That they don't for a year or two. And he said, they're looking for the big rooster in California. But none of them had ever seen me. All that help I left before that. So I squeaked away from that. I got on a sailboat. Yeah, you got on a sailboat. You'd disappear. And we went to Mexico, my wife. And we just lived down there for a couple years. We had a great time. That was Mexico the first time you went to prison? Roger? No, that was all before. Yeah. So when was the first time you went to prison for drugs? Yeah, they charge me with what they call a continuing criminal enterprise. That I was number 41 in the United States. It's called an 848. Title 21, 848, continuing criminal enterprise. It can carry up to life without parole. And John Gotti, I was number 41 in the United States to be charged with it. And John Gotti was number 42. I paid millions and gave up my property and made a deal. And I got 35 years for the marijuana. 30 years for the marijuana and five years for the income tax evasion running consecutive. So I'll tell you about that title, that 848. They don't already ever use it. They couldn't catch me. I thought they had to catch you, but they don't. If all your friends tell on you, it's just like if nobody sees you kill somebody, but three people say that was him, you're finished. So I had 11 friends tell on me. They didn't call me. They just, well, Roger told me five years ago or seven years ago, and he goes on and I said, so you have to run three different organizations with five people in each organization and be charged with a continuing criminal enterprise. I've never done that. And they said, well, who worked on your airplane? Who was a mechanic? Who fueled it up? Who loaded it up? Who unloaded it? Who sold it? Who bought it? You've got 10 people before you know it. That you might not even meet. So that's how they convicted me and I played guilty. You got prison in Mexico, but they tortured you. Roger, what year was that? Yeah, I got tortured real bad in Mexico. I guess it was about 1974. That was after I shot down on the end of that runway. I went back down there to get it, and I sent another plane down with an old man in it, and he made a mistake, landed at the wrong place and had my 20 man in his pocket. Well, they arrested me and they'd been after me. And so, yeah, they did a number on me. In fact, I almost died from it. First off, they just put me in a cell, I believe. I don't know, 12 by 15 feet long. And before the night was over, there was 18 people standing in the room on this filthy. The next day they come and they had a bucket there for your PC. That thing was running over on the floor. And then we came out and they just swapped it out with the same thing you do with all the disinfectant. Oh, and then they took me in the back, and they put me in a little cell. I think it was about five foot square real high, and it was hot. I mean, hot. And I didn't have any clothing to my clothes completely. And once while it opened the door, give me a little food and some warm water. And of course, you didn't know day or night how long you've been in there. And you could hear the sounds of the other ones being tortured. They'd beat on them and slap them. And you hear them crying and begging. So they took me out wanting me to sign some papers. And I wouldn't sign them. And they had a tub of water there it looked like. And they took me by my hair and three of them helped me down. And I took a whiff of that. It had some kind of gas in that water. And it likely tore my head off. I mean, I tore loose. So I found out that you act like that right before you have to breathe. Otherwise, you couldn't put up with it. And then they beat me from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. I would black and blue and yellow and busted lips and nose. And they wanted me to sign a confession. If you sign the confession, it's over. You go straight to the prison and you're there for about six years. If you don't sign the confession, you've got time to make all kinds of bribes and things happen. So I knew I wanted to sign that confession. And then they, let me see what did they do. Then they took me and they had a little change and on your handcuffs and they pulled you apart like this and on your feet and they spread me over a barrel and buttered my backside up. And I thought, oh, and they came with hot chili pepper and poked my whole colon full of hot chili pepper. And it burnt the lining off of my intestines. It was terrible. I mean, just terrible. That's the worst you could do. So after that, no, I don't know how long it was. A few days later, I was laying on the floor naked. And they brought a dead man in and he was frozen. And it was skinny black man and he was wrapped and looked like a mummy with newspaper all around him from head to toe. And they took him in and put him on a meat hook and hooked him onto a boat on the side of the wall and he just hung there. And it wasn't long before that heat, I guess it was 50 degrees in that. His life started flowing out. It looked like he was crying down that run. And then his private parts started coming loose and looked like he was peeing on the floor. And that formaldehyde puddled up on the floor under him. It was an awful smell coming out of his intestines and all of him. And I put my head under the door and breathed. And when I would wake up, I would remember it was like I'd see pink flying pigs, animals, all color. I said, I know where Walt Disney got his ideas. We moved it. But anyway, I went to sleep and then I woke up in the infirmary in the hospital and a doctor was very concerned about me. He said, did that formaldehyde breathe in it? That strong could kill you. So they took me back, put me in general population and my wife came down and paid a bribe and I got out. How much was a bribe? $17,000. The same amount. She got the guy that owed me the money for the load and he come and paid somebody. Friends of ours managed it. So he gave him the money and early in the morning a guard coming like I escaped. He took me down a little aisle real close, almost made over. And I went out the back door of the prison into a truck and with me away to the airport. What are you thinking then, Roger? You're not thinking that a near-death experience like that. You've had many but being tortured and having stuff stuck in your ass and dead bodies in yourself. Was that not another chance for you to say, right, enough is enough? Or again, was it just straight back to business? No. I think that I did quit for a while. I went to New Orleans and I started hydro-glassing and I cleaned the rushing grain ship. I had a contract with a Russian with a Greek shipping magnet to clean the rushing grain ships that come in. And I did that for a year. And that's when I took the trip around the world of Pakistan. So I had a break in there from the fly. In 1980 as well, Roger, was your marijuana shipment brought down by the Colombian Air Force? Yeah, 1980 during the World Series baseball game. I went down and I was on a runway. I went in first to see the far way down and the guy lied to me about how far it was. He pointed a mile further in so the guy named Dan, what a liar. He told me where it was. I never would have went. So I went and looked for the guerrillas around us all and said, come back in the morning. So we went back to the staging place 400 miles north and the man was nervous. And I was laying in a hammock after some woman, more of a user, but not enough. That thing was crazy. Anyhow, I was about to sleep. And then I just looked up a terrible roar and two fighter jets were going straight up but after blows ago. I rode out of that hammock and went out. And then they came back and they just come around one of them just tore up the runway with those 50 caliber machine guns. I mean, he just tore it up front of the airplane. Well, I just jumped in it and took off. I didn't even warm it up. Well, they were both on both sides and they got under me and they shoot that 20 millimeter cannon. And they were trying to get me to go to be up in the sentry of the military base. Just held up the old hippie sign. No, thank you. I said, it's close. Just like me and you and their jets on each side. Their wing was over mine. And so I saw a big pasture. I had these pins to go in the struts of the D.C. Three, keep it up so it keeps it from falling on the ground. And those metal pins are stuck through the strut. Well, they got a big red flag on plastic. Well, those things are blowing in the breeze. So I landed on a pasture. It looked kind of smooth, but that thing was rough. And I bounced and knocked some of the fuel caps off that thing looked like it was just the wings just popping out there. And I jumped out and took the pins out of the struts and I took off again. So during that time, it's when the World Series baseball said that American D.C. Three to believe to be on a drug smuggling run had just been shot down by the Colombian Air Force. But he's up. He's up in a way later than Jim. I wasn't shot down at all. But that was a recording to have in the World Series. So I took off and then one jet left and went to town and one stayed with me. And I kept going. And I got into by the mountains. It was a thunderstorm. And oh, he was just bang, bang, bang and boom, boom, boom. And he didn't shoot me to start with. And so then I went in that thunderstorm and then I came out and then he did some damage to me. And so I went back into that thunderstorm and put that plane up on each side and just spiraled right down until I came out the bottom of it. And then I went, I wanted to go back and get the load. By that time, my adrenaline jumped. I felt bulletproof. I was going to go back to the, back to the, what do you call those people, the gorillas and get my, and pick up three tons. It looked like some good stuff, too. So I put it down and looked on a flat place above the Rio Guavieri. And I kept going, going round and around and the propellers would cut the weeds. They would waste the iron core. And after a full five times, it looked like a runway. And it felt so smooth a mile long. And I said, all right, did I go pile it out? I said, we're going to whiff this top this time. So just before it stopped, the thing weighs 30 tons. And it was on two wheels and they broke through the crust. And it was in the suit below. And I gave it full power, but it wasn't enough. And it just came and stood right up on it. So it stopped with the two engines holding it up. And the tail straight in there, you couldn't relate, couldn't relate. A plum on it got any straighter up and down. Hatch for DC-3 is right over the tops. I just unbundled and stepped out with my Hatch Hatchel. And the co-pilot got out. And then there was a couple of guys in New Saatch and they got out and they put hoses together and shimmy down. That thing's high up there. Anyway, that great big fella that got me there, he just went to cry and he told his own suitcase. So he's a village about 20 miles away. And we saw a boy and a girl on a little couple of little ox. And we asked them to carry our suitcase because they were pretty heavy. And we got to that village and we asked them, is there any police there? No senior, no police. So anyway, when we got near the village, I paid them often to tell them to go back. I didn't want to tell them whoever was in that village about that plane digging up in the jungle. And it was cloud cover all over so the Jets couldn't see where we were. So we got to the village and we was getting a Coca-Cola and a little hut with an axe roof. And man, we were surrounded by soldiers. We didn't know what we were doing there with the headguns. There were no police there. This was a military base. So we broke into a military base. So anyhow, we got suffering. I noticed that there was one big dugout canoe. I guess it was 40 feet long and 10 feet wide. I mean, it was huge. I think it was the biggest log I've ever seen. And it had a long motor hooked to it, the Yama Hall. And we found out where the man lived. Anyway, they put us in the house and we slept on the floor. And they put a guard at the door. So that big, big guy, Dan, that had hooked me up with a load, I got on his shoulders and removed the tiles. One at a time, very silently. And before daylight, we crawled out and got on the ground. And I went to the man's house. It had a boat. And we told him that we were botched. It was broke down down the river. So I got that man and he started down the river. After a while, he pulled up on the sandbar and said, I can't go any further. I'm the male man for this village. I don't walk stuck. He said, you have to, Mr. I mean, we can't go back now. So I guess without gun or anything, I gave him a $1,000. And he was pretty happy with it, but he didn't want to go any. We had to run the rapids. Anyhow, we got away and come to a village of terrible poor. I walked about 50 miles to a sawmill and got a jeep to come back. And then it was all night long, going through one creek and river after another. And I got under that jeep, jagged it up and winched it across. I was as muddy as a hog in the mud. And then just in daylight, the driver says, get your passports in order, because this is a big roadblock up here. Well, he said, yes, this is FARC territory we're leaving. And they're really sensitive. They're going to search everything. I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't speak Spanish that good, but I understand this. So I told the other guys with me, I said, come, come, man, we can't go through a roadblock. Oh, yes, they only make $200 a month. We can do this and that. And I tried to get the copilot, please come with me, Dan. No, I'm going to go with them. They were exhausted. So anyway, I said, I'll eat snakes in here for a year, crawl on my belly to get around it. I'm not walking through a roadblock. Not after what we've done. We done violated their placement, shot down and kidnapped a riverboat man. We don't need to be going talking to the police. So anyway, they went on through and they spent five years in prison, therefore, those same acts. And I spent 11 days in the jungle going around it. I went to the dugout boats, swim across places with whatever way I could get. And I kept asking the Indians, Dantia style avions, where are airplanes? Loma Linda, Loma Linda, where is it this far? I went, I guess, 200, 300 miles. And I remember one day I was in a dugout canoe and I was just telling my wife, Mari, I'm all right. Mari, I'm okay. And she said she was in the shower and she heard me clearly say that. And she was relieved just from the spiritual connection that we had. So I came to a place called Loma Linda. And it was, it was like World War II. How are you? It was really nice. She had flat boards on buildings with tile and long runway out of clay and a bunch of airplanes to hang her. I thought, what is this place? So I went in and talked to the girl, she said, how did you get here? And I said, what is this place? You don't know. This is Loma Linda headquarters for missionary aviation fellowship for the Amazon. So God tapped me on the shoulder. But they flew me out the next day. See, when you're, when you're, did you ever smoke yourself, Roger? Did you ever test the product before you took it away? No, I don't, I don't use drugs. Oh, I have tried them all, but I don't, I don't use them. I just don't lack them. I don't, I don't care for it. I just don't use drugs. You certainly have tried. I'm not like somebody else I did in there. So in the early 1980s, like you've done the marijuana, you've, you've distributed thousands of tons. But in the early 1980s, you went to Columbia to source a new supplier. Is that correct? But you ended up with involvement with the Black Widow. What was that story? Oh boy. Well, I got ripped off for 65,000 dollars, which wasn't a big deal. So I went down there looking for it. And so the fellas said, Oh, I give it to the man. And they said, but let me introduce you to somebody. I'm going to introduce you. We're going to fly to Medellin, Columbia. I was in Bogota. You're going to meet my very good friend, Fernando Cortarello, that he's the biggest cocaine dealer in South America. And he probably was at that time. So we went and flew to Medellin and went to the nice apartment, a building right downtown. And it was so beautiful. That place is emerald green. And it was just an old glass on blue, like 20 floors up. And he was there and he would drunk. And he was like a Winston Churchill. I mean, he was brilliant. But he was, he was just drunk. And he could speak about any language you wanted and talk about anything you wanted to talk about. And so while we were talking, he said, Yes, I got plenty of work. I'll pay $5,000 a kilo. We'd go talk to Martha. That was his wife. She lived over at the Country Club Place. And I did. But while we were talking, this lawyer that had taken me across there to the place, him walked in, kind of an Indian looking woman from Bolivia. She addressed in rabbit fur jacket and skirt and boots. It looked kind of like a clown, but she's kind of pretty and all painted up. And so this Fernando asked her where she was going. She was going to Miami to buy an airplane. And so he was in. So the lawyer was a lot quicker than I was. He said, Well, Roger Ogier's got an airplane for sale. And he winked at me. So she turned to me the first time. Now she's noticed me. She, I'm just a lowly person in the room. And what kind of airplane do you have? I said, I have a queen there. Oh, queen there. Now she's, she likes the idea of queen there. She thinks she's the queen. I said, yes. And what in all, how far will it go? So I told her, it was tanked. And she said, okay, you bring it down. I like it. I buy it. I said, well, that's a long way for it to come. You give me $5,000 and it'll go towards your price. What is the price? And the lawyer is doing his thumb up, up, up, up. So I raised the price. I didn't want to sell the plane. And so she said, well, he'll, you can land tonight in Panama or tomorrow night. I forget where she was. I had a friend of mine to bring it down. And we were waiting on the, on the airport. And it came in. It looked like a big jet coming in. It was, it was nice. Had a big landing light. And so she liked the airplane. She said, you have to go to Bolivia to get your money. All right. So the next day we loaded up with her on Trojan flew to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. And then we met by the police and they had a, she had a limousine with a little flags on it. And she's the black widow. I mean, she's the cocaine gal. Bolivia at that time. And we went, went through town and went out in the edge of town under a big water tank, Santa Cruz, where she says, if you ever looking for her out, it's under the Santa Cruz water tank. And it looked like a, a marble mausoleum, just a square place with a big fence all around it, marble wire all over it. And until the 12 people out at the gate crying and ringing their hand, they was just all upset and she got out of the limousine. What's the matter with you fools? He said, your lineman is eating the baby. She opened the gate and ran in and I went behind her and she had a mountain line. I guess I think 200 pound big old bale. And he was eating the mage baby. He just about threw with it. The head was still there and some of the guts and little clothes and that dog had a blood all over the floor. And that line was just added blood all over his face. And she just ran, grabbed that line, pulled him away and went to another room. What a terrible, terrible sight. That's in my life. That's the worst thing I've ever seen. And anyhow, I grabbed my money and got out of there. And they were in, they didn't stay a minute. Yeah, I wish you could have been the lions next dinner. But that's mad, like some mad stories. Like, was that when your cocaine journey started, Roger? Yes, that's what I started there. Is that when you come into contact with Pablo Escobar? Is it Carl Losleder? Who's the guy, the Johnny Depp, that you kept on the following blow for? Yeah, that's Carl Losleder. They didn't like Carl as much at all. But yes, I went, I kept waiting for Fernanda to sober up so we could do business and went to see his wife. And she's a lovely lady. And they've all been killed since then. And their son too, his girlfriend all been murdered. It's about most of the people I've never done except one. They did. So she, I was up in release. And I got to call and she said that they having a birthday party for Fernando, Pacific Coast. And the airlines are flying people over to their, to their state over there and invited me to come. Said he'll be sober for your birthday. So I flew by down to Medellin. And certainly I got on an airline or twin engine. It was pretty short, I remember. And they flew load after load after load of people over. And we landed uphill from the ocean and what a place. I mean, I could have made millions of dollars just on the junk that was on each side of that runway. They were D8 caterpillars with it, rusting in the rain and all kinds of different airplanes that they had abandoned there because they had used those old numbers to put on new airplanes. So they wouldn't have to pay the duty. Anyway, we stayed there for three weeks, three days, and people came there from all over Columbia. They were movie stars, judges, police chiefs, all kinds of things. And what they were doing, they were trying to figure out how to stop the killing. This worked together. But I suppose that was right that weekend was somewhat the beginning of the Medellin cartel. Let me get that off of the thing. So I met a fellow there. I'm here for Donys and I did a load for him. And it didn't work out. He didn't supposed to be 300 kilos. He put 165. I gave it to Bill Barbosa in Miami. Somebody shot him in the stomach for work. I was two or three months getting my money. And I didn't want to work for those. So I told my friend, Mario, no, I'm not going to do that. And he said, well, let me introduce you to somebody. So I flew back down there and he took me to a little town in Bogota. And we went up a little mountain road and went through a turned bike where the guys used to put the guards. Let us in, in a lovely old house and people waiting at the yard or the little stone. It's in the rails from my house, probably 200, 300 years old. And those rich people had bought them really cold fincas. They were a little tiny, well, two or three acres. 10, oh, that was bigger, maybe 20 acres. Anyway, we were ushered in to see Jorge Ochoa. Very nice young man. And he spoke English and he had a huge desk. And on his desk was 12 telephones. And he said, and he pointed at it. But he said, no, this is in New York, this is in Chicago. And that's, that's Los Angeles. He said, one rings. I know who I'm talking to. So, and then he asked me about the airplanes I had, what kind of airplanes I had. I had a turbojet air commander and had a beach 18. I had a DC3 and so he was, how many loads you're doing? I said, I've done over 100 loads across the border, never been caught. So he was, he was happy with that. So he sent the pretty woman that was, it made us coffee. Next door, and Pablo Escobar came in. She introduced us. He shook hand and took him. He said, the same thing, we've got all you can do, all the work you can do, $5,000 a kilo. Be glad to have your own board. He went on back to his office. So he was in a plaid shirt. He got about my size, five foot eight, 160 pounds. So he seemed nice enough. He didn't, didn't have fangs or horns at that time. But I understand later on he was a terrible monster. What was he, what was, how many kilos did you use to ship for them at a time for Pablo Escobar? Okay, I did 300 kilos at the time. And I did, I don't know how many loads I did, but I did several loads. And I got above the clouds one night in the fog and I couldn't get down. So I had to come down to Glideslope at New Orleans with a clothes runway and sit there all night. And then the next morning it was sunshine in and I still couldn't go. And it's, I thought I'm definitely gonna get caught this time. But I got up and went across from my place and I had to put it in a dive to go through the fog, get on a little short strip out the woods. And so I told the Colombians I'm hanging it up towards I ain't never gonna do this no more. And the guys in Lito, the guy in Florida, oh Roger, no, because they was making money off of me. They was, they get the money to distribute it. So don't you know anybody, anybody? Mostly to do them a favor of just almost begging me to find somebody, fly if you won't fly. So I hired Barry Seale. And Barry was like, oh man, that was all right. He never, he didn't believe it. So, and then I did fly some, I flew the bottom in and I landed in release and we'd switch off the planes and release them. Then I got, I hooked up Pablo Escobar and Ochoa told me about landing in Nicaragua with the military there. And that way we could refuel and come all the way on in. And Barry was, had the governor paid off there and mean to Arkansas. And I had to pay $50,000 all the other time he landed for protection. Of course, he hadn't, you know, we hadn't, we had just CIA there unloading them. They was all working together. I didn't know that. When I went to prison, he paid for my airplanes and continued to work with the authorities and the CIA. Did Pablo Escobar build runways for your specific operation with him? One time I went and told him the runway was too short. We'd already couldn't get off of that boat. The next time I went down there it was 5,000 feet long because that's what you're talking about. I mean, they made it, they had bulldozers and motor graders in there and it was, it was fixed up fine. And but then the biggest thing that he did was hook us up with the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. So we could refuel at a regular strip, go and get something to eat and wash your airplane and send you on your way, day long you wanted to. Where did you pick up the cocaine from? Columbia and take it to America? Yes, I picked it up in Columbia and took it to, I took it up there to Louisiana, but Barry took it up to Mina, Arkansas. And that movie that Tom Cruise played should have been called Mina, but when Hillary was running for presidency, the Democrats put so much pressure on them until they stopped the production because it implemented Clintons. And they changed the name of it to America Made. Somebody Google that if they want to do Barry's field in the Mina, Arkansas connection. How did you end up in contact with Barry's field who's known as one of the biggest snitches of all time? He brought down cartels, he brought down yourself, that he was your friend. You always still speak highly of him, Roger, but how did you end up meeting in the first place? Okay, I was looking for a place to live about halfway between Columbia and the United States, and I looked at Honduras. I like Honduras. It's an agricultural place, and I was raised on the farm. I thought, all right, I'll do that. So I took my wife and the children, we went down to Honduras, and we went up in the mountains, and I looked at a ranch and that thing was lovely, but my wife just didn't want to move there. The grass was waste-deep and the cows were fat, and the river running through it was fish, swift, and oh, so nice. So we came to San Pedro Sula and had to get on the airplane and all our clothes and money. We took them to a laundry. They said, we'll have them ready tomorrow, but they weren't. Come back in the morning when we already had tickets to go to New Orleans. Maybe we lived in New Orleans then, I don't remember. But anyway, the clothes weren't ready. I told them already to take the children and y'all get on the plane. Anyway, we got tickets. These planes are full. It's easier for one to get out on standby than it is for four of us. So she did, and I went to the laundry and got the clothes. And I mean, there was a pile. I might have them on my back. I got an old taxi and I paid him $100. Just please go fast. And he just blew the horn faster. And I got to the airport. The plane was taxiing out on the tarmac. And I ran around. I waved to the pilot. He's nice-looking, but he waved back. And then I saw Lori's face in their cockpit. Brand new airplane. And the front wheel went down where he put on the brakes. Then he put the ladder out for me. And he put it almost out. Then he pulled it up and took off again like a guy waiting and stopping with a hitchhiker and then taking off. Anyway, he went a few feet and he stopped. Everybody was laughing. I got on with my clothes. And everybody just gave me a clap. I don't know, it was a full-on that I made it. So I went on back in my daughter Miriam. I guess she about nine years old at the time. She was sitting in the middle seat and Barry was sitting by the window. And I sat down and I thought, oh boy, he looked like he could be. It could be trouble. He looked like he might be the CIA or the DEA. I ain't gonna fool with him. He's nice-blue eyes. He kind of had a princely look. So we didn't speak. And I said, well, it's not a signed seating. So it's just random that we're together here. So the wheels came up under the 727 with a third. Then he got on in another couple of minutes. He got up 5,000 or 10,000 feet and a little click. And you could feel it through the airplane and Miriam said, what was that dad? I said, he just turned on his autopilot. The fellow researcher said, you fly these things. I got a few hours, Mr. He said, my name Barry Seale. How you doing? And so we got to talking. He said he just got out of jail that morning. He'd been a year down in Honduras. And I didn't believe him bit the world. But when we landed, there was a whole mob to meet him. There was a grandma and mama, a wife and children. They was hanging on him and crying and hugging him. I can't tell him the truth. He just got out of jail. So I wrote my address on a little piece of paper. I said, come out and sign up for Barbara California. I may have some work for you, Barry. Be interested. And so a few days later, he showed up and I took him up flying. I had a, I'm a brand new Herald Commander, Turbo Prop 690B. That thing was hot. So I said, show me what you got. Well, I wish I hadn't said that. He had more than I wanted to sleep. That guy was an aerobatic pilot. He's like the Blue Angels. I mean, he could fly. I can fly from one place to the other, but I had no air show, man. Anyhow, he cut the engine and flew it sideways like this called the falling leaf. And rolled and looped and emeralds and everything else. He could think of just one right after the other. That's enough Barry. I had me through and up. So anyway, that's how I met Barry Seale. So I said, this plane needs tanking. He says, I got a mechanic in Meena, Arkansas. It'll do it for $10,000 and he won't never say a word. So I know now that he had this CIA guy mechanic there working. So he went away with my airplane and I flew to his house. Some days later, he called and I flew to his house in Baton Rouge and we made a deal and he flew for me for over a year. When did you find out who's working with the CIA, Roger? Of course, he's working with the CIA. How long did it take you to find out, though, that he was working with the CIA? Oh, after the fact. He never told me he had the CIA. He told me he was taking a $50,000 and was going to go to have dinner with the governor. So I would be with Clinton now, you know. So he said, I got paid off to the top. It's impossible for me to get caught in Arkansas. It's impossible for me to get caught in Arkansas. I said, well, it's impossible for me to be caught in Columbia or Nicaragua. I guess we got a permit. So he flew, I believe it was 30 trips for me and had no problem whatsoever. Then I went to prison for the marijuana. I got 35 years. I think I told you. Was that in Miami? I got arrested in Miami, but they brought me out here to California and the charges out of Los Angeles. What are you thinking then, Roger, when he's your friend, you've brought him in to make some money and then he's turned against you and everyone else? Like, were you disappointed, heartbroken, or was it expected? By that time, I'd had everybody in the book trip. They were nobody. Everybody I knew total. One person that stood up solid. I mean, when they're facing life, or they're facing that many years, and Roger can go in my place, they'll feed you to it right quick. So no doubt in my mind. That's the way the government makes them do it. So what happened with Barry? He didn't want to tell. I mean, he did not. Well, I guess none of them didn't want to, but I had heard that he had turned by the time I got out of prison. So I just got out. I did about two and a half years on that marijuana charge and they let me out on parole, 30 years parole. And I'm watching Eat and Breakfast and watching the television and there's Ronald Reagan, Blue Eyes on national television. He said, we have absolute proof that the Communist Party needs to go but is in the cocaine running business. And there's the old airplane, Barry's airplane called a fat lady, a big old C-120, one with a ramp on the back, miss on the runway, bell it in. And I thought, oh, I got turned to ice water and I'm like, oh, the shit's fixing to hit the fan. So sure enough, it wasn't long before Barry called when he said I hadn't talked to him in over two years. But he did pay Murray for the airplanes. He helped her out every which way he could. He sent lawyers in for me. He was, he did me right. So he came in and he said, I'll be in this French restaurant here tonight at nine o'clock. So I went down at nine o'clock and he was sitting at the back, lean back. He gained some weight and I looked around and there's men and women all around him, maybe 20 of them. And they was in the 30s, 40s, DEA for sure. He had it ruined all over. Leather skirts, blue jeans, in that fancy French restaurant. I woke up and said, Barry, are you wired? He said, no, I'm not. I said, well, you just don't come up. I'm not gonna say anything. Well, he just talked to me. He just told me, he said, Roger, I just couldn't do it. They abandoned me. And it paid off. They left me as a scapegoat. Everybody, every one of them left me. Left me holding the bag. You know, you know the score. And he put his hands up over his eyes like that and the tears ran between his fingers. He said, I am so sorry. I just said it was three life sentences. I joined him. He said, so I got out on bail on what he was doing. And he said, I went to Washington and saw Ed Wilmesia, Federal Attorney General. And I told him they're bringing tons of cocaine out of there. And he wouldn't believe me. They run me out of the office. I went back the next day and talked him into it. So they put this fellow here, Jake Jacobson over there, in with me. And he says, we went down and got one and a half done. And I bailed it in, in Nicaragua. And we brought it on up from another plane. And you can see the photographs of me and I looked at Pablo Escobar's clear, with a stripy shirt in the book, Kings of Cocaine. And then they flew it. Escobar bought another plane. They got in that plane after they crashed that one on purpose. And they flew it in the homestead Air Force Base. And my friend Lito unloaded it and put it in a motorhome. Of course, they couldn't let a ton and a half go to the public. So they had a DBA with a dump truck to ram it. They ran it in the freeway down there. And that's it. Cocaine's all over the highway. So Lito and he's a highway patrolman. One of them dressed up as a highway patrolman right behind him. Oh, and Lito Senio, I need to call my boss. He said, there's a telephone just over there. Go call him. They want Lito to go. Go and keep this scam going. But there was a guy in the Buick. He said, that's Cocaine. And he tackled Lito right there in the hour. Wind up that little scam. So the bear just said, listen, Roger. And you are 100% under my umbrella. You can keep your money. They'll give you a passport. You can be anywhere on earth. You and your family want to live. It's all set up. You just got to testify before grandeur with me against Eskibar and Ochoa. And I said, friend, they aren't going to kid you. I said, bring your head on. Ochoa over. And the guy said, you can come tomorrow. It was Jake Jacobson. And we drank some Chavis Regal. And you can come tomorrow first class. You and Mari, testify before grandeur. Or I take you down in chains. And the only place you're going to ever see your family against as long as you live is in a federal penitentiary business room. It's your choice. I'll still be their first class. So I went to Brazil. Of course, I killed Barry. Nothing in that story. How many people did he send to prison? Barry. I don't know. He sent the president of Turks and Caicos, I know. That's the only person I know that actually went to prison because before they could stand trial, they'd killed him. So he didn't get to testify against anybody. Did you know straight away, Roger, if you had testified against anyone and cartels, you'd have been dead as well? Well, Barry could have got another passport and lived in some other country with his family. And people are doing that all over. And I suppose they would have tried to track you down, but in a few years, all those people were dead, too. But he chose not to it. And a judge there in Louisiana gave him six months in a halfway house. And the DEA says, Mr. Judge, that is a death sentence to him. He got to have bodyguards. He got to have armor. He's got to have guns. The judge said he thought about that before he did the crime. Six months in a halfway house. So every night he goes up to this halfway house and parts his car. And of course, it was not long before three of them were waiting in a machine gun into death. I was sorry, tears came in my eyes. I cried when I heard about it. I liked Barry. He was just put in a terrible position. Even though he was going to testify against you? Yes, but he gave me a chance. He gave me a chance to testify with him. Like I gave him a chance to fly with me. He didn't just behind my back tell on me and without making a deal. So I appreciate that, too. Otherwise. Yeah. How does that make you feel, yeah? How does that make you feel, Roger, as well, that you brought him in with you and then him getting killed? Does part of you blame yourself? You know, I was just sorry that he got killed. I was down in Brazil. And when I called the client, and when I called the club and he said he's dead, he's dead, and they was all joyous. And I had a tear in my eyes. I went back and told Mario and Miriam, and they cried, too, that Barry. But he was close. I mean, we'd come spend the night in the hotel room once where there was no room and put the baby up on his big old belly and give him a bottle of smoke. That's how close we were. So yeah, it was almost like having a brother died. He was a good politician, a friend of mine, the intelligent man that was put in a terrible mess by the U.S. government. They didn't keep their word. He worked for them, and then they killed him. Or had him killed. How realistic is the film about him, American Made with Tom Cruise? It's a very poor movie. That movie should have been called, it was written as Nina. Nina Arkansas, the hometown of Bill and Taylor Clinton. And it was about them and the payoffs that he was making through them and the CIA. Well, when Hillary was running for presidency, that's when that movie was supposed to come out. And the Democratic Party or somebody got so hard behind the Hollywood producer until they just stopped it for several years. They changed the name to America Made. The writers quit. The producer quit. And they just turned it around. And I think somebody's sitting in a rocking chair and read about it and tried to fill in the blanks. They didn't get anything right. The whole thing was wrong. They didn't get the feeling, they didn't get the sentiment of it. They misburied by a mile. See when, so do you then go on the run to Brazil? I went on the run, yes. Who was looking for you? They said that I don't want to attend most morning lists on the DEA. For drug smuggling? Yeah. So you were going to get a live sentence? I did get a live sentence. Yeah. Yeah. But as that went, yeah. So you ended up in the run in Brazil. What did you start doing then? Were you still smuggling? Or was it trying to keep a low profile? Profile, but then we moved to, we went from Brazil. We flew to Holland and stayed there for a couple of months. My wife is from Holland. And then we went down to France and we lived there a year and we'd had some things in Canada in storage. And we had those shipped across and of course they had a bug on them. And we discovered the bug. And we got out of France and went to Spain. And we went to Mallorca and I was hooked up with your infamous guy. Dennis Howard March, Mr. Nikes. Mr. Nikes was not so nice to me. I did some loads for him and he turned me in and instead of paying me, ouch. So I got arrested in Spain and escaped. I got arrested in Holland. I escaped. And then finally they caught me again in Spain. I jumped out the window, 31 feet from the window bottom to the top of a car, exploded in the street. And then they caught me down the road. And then they started out me to Germany. And they handcuffed me like this, one hand over the other one. So I can't even get to that. So I went up to Germany and they gave me eight years. And after one year, I escaped from that German prison in Lubeck. And then I went back to South America and I tried to get some of the money that they owed me. And then I came back to the United States and they arrested me for parole violation. And they gave me 11 years of maximum security long park penitentiary for parole violation. I should have got six months for it. All this stuff is about, they don't got that stuff about Barry. They call it a silent beef. So I got 11 years for silent beef, nothing. They give me two years for the escape in Spain. Two years for the escape in Holland. Two years for the escape in Germany. Two years for this attempted escape from Metropolitan Detention Center and all. They just stacked all that late years. And it wasn't even illegal in Germany. It's illegal if you steal their clothes. So you have to wash an iron their clothes and mail them back to them within 24 hours or don't you get six months. But to escape is not illegal. So you've escaped five times, Roger. When was your first prison escape? Was that in Madrid? No, it was in, okay, two times in Mexico. One of them was I paid out the back door that really wanted to escape. But they counted the escape. And another time I kicked it off of a jail over in Baja and got away. And then I escaped to the skip old airport where I'm all over me. Then I escaped in Spain at the court room. Jumped out of the courtroom. And 31 feet on top of a car. And then I escaped from the maximum security prison in Lubeck, Germany. And that's not counting just the time as I escaped from the police. That was just lots of time. How did you escape from the maximum prison? That's a whole story in my book. The smugglers. Let's just don't forget about that. There it is right there. We'll leave a link in the description for people to get that. Yeah, we'll forget the smugglers on Amazon. It's in the audio and video and everything else. But yeah, quite a long story how I got out of that prison. You want me to tell it? I will. Yes, of course. All right. I was there and they put me on a little job late in the afternoon, 20 minutes to clean the lawyer's vesting area. Well, that was still all in the main prison, but it was behind that big, big door. And so you went in, had the three rooms and had high windows and had bars on the windows. But they were made to be pretty. It looked like music notes because it only went out into the prison yard where they kept the equipment for soccer. Well, they didn't want that in there because you could have put it up. There was a wall around there and every 100 feet was a tout with a guy with a machine gun or rifles. That thing was, I mean, it was a bad place. They had red brigade. They had all those guys in there from 30 of machine guns guys. It was colorful. So I was coming back from court and I saw that they had taken above the Sally court, that they'd taken all that rolled up razor wire off and they were putting a new wall up to expand it. And I, oh boy, there's a route out of here. So I got a rope for a jump rope, a good heavy rope. They made a rubber boat for the Navy and they had the painters are kind of heavy. So I got that and they have heavy maw panels. And I cut the maw panel in two and I put that down my shirt legged whenever, pants legged, whenever I went in there, late that afternoon, I wrapped that rope around, tied a bowling and put it running and tied it like that and pull those bars together. Then I did it on the other side and that thing come loose and locked my knuckles off. I thought, feed my pants, it hurts so bad. When I quit dancing, I did it again. And I almost died going through there. It was pouring down right on the outside and I had to take my shirt off and I lost it back in and the skin just came off all my chest right down to the blood and trying to work it to get through. I got through and then my pants, my hips were bigger than my head. I had to undo my pants and I fell out on top of my head six feet down right on top of my head and right in that rain, I got up, went around the corner of there, a little corner there and they was a scaffolding up four floors. They were changing some windows in that prison. And I had to reach with one hand on the bricks and the other hand on the scaffolding and so the guard and the tower couldn't see me and I got all the way above him on the fourth floor and lay down up there in that blood rain and I got to the end of it and I looked down and two floors down was a, the guard tower was sticking out above the stiley port and it's like the top of it was like a silo halfway. And so the wall was just out in front of him and below and beyond that was a big saap pile of sand. Just like you see, it was huge. I guess 10 feet tall in a backhoe which something piled it up there where they could do the foundations for a new wall. Well, there was a guard and his wife and a little boy and that's about three or four years old was coming. It was really raining and there was under a double umbrella. I never saw them. We're looking from the top of it. It's just like that. And she took him to the door and when she went back and she was right in line with that machine doing it by the way it was, I jumped straight down one floor down on top of that that roof of that place. Bam! They got held up. Hey! Scared you. And I bailed over the fence and I went up to my knees in that sand on the sideways. It didn't even slow me down. And I ran straight towards a woman and on past her and then I got to the corner and I was running downhill and I heard flam, blam, blam, blue in the horn and that poor woman was up on the sidewalk trying to kill me. She was knocking down the parking meter just tearing her car up and I run behind a car that was parked down there and she tore the bumper off of her the fender off of her car and she had a demon-like face just screaming at me and that little boy standing in the front page. I thought well I can't go no further this way so I got up on there was a wall there with a this concrete and it had a little glass on top of it and I tore my hands if I stumbled up more. I was bleeding so bad from that glass more than I was where I went through anyway I got away and went to Holland. Did Pablo Escobar owe you $3.5 million? That was a Jorge Ochoa and he's still there and I went to see him and he won't talk to me. I think my friend or the unloader one of the other got it. They told him that they paid me so he won't pay me. And Howard maps the TOA to a million as well? Yeah and he turned me in with that gentleman. He knew he was going down and they put this in together in the same place. Every time I'd see Howard the police show up and I'd escape from them three times. See when you were taking your money to the Cayman Islands how much were you taking over at a time Roger? Oh I put $15 million in the plane lay down on top of it and have a couple pilots fly down. Did you not have the check of $15 million in your pocket but you had to eat it? I went into the bathroom and ate the receipt I had to get my pocket. I didn't want to find that. I had a receipt of $15 million yes. Out of all the prisons you've been on Roger what's the what's pleasant? Mexico by far and then they have one up here near Apple Valley that was just awful to a federal prison. They all bad now. These federal prisons are just awful. They got the guards hate you. They hate one another the blacks hate the whites the whites hate the blacks the browns hate both of them. It's just it's just a place of hate. And I mean you have to walk easy. It wasn't that way when I went in 40 years ago. It was pretty people loved one and I got along. And now they're just like it's not good. You don't want to go to prison. I can tell you that not in the United States. So see you've been in prisons all around the world Roger. You've had warrants out from police all around the world. You've shipped thousands and thousands of tons of drugs like what was the see when you came out a prison in America. What were your what was your plans then were you thinking just to go straight or was it trying to then go and run again because you ended up in Australia involved in the biggest one of the biggest drug busts of all times with a thousand kilos of coke that did you have a warrant out when you got caught with that? I had a warrant out here for parole violation and I was trying to avoid it. So when I left Germany I I didn't have anything. As long as I didn't come back to America I wasn't wanted because on a parole violation they cannot extradite you. I could have stayed in Bahamas or anywhere in Canada or Mexico. If you show up and put your foot on American soil you're you can serve that 30 years that I owed. That's what happened. So when I finished that I went back to Germany and they let me out on the street and then I was I needed some money so I took that job to take the boat to Australia. I was going to make 20 million dollars. So how did the job to Australia come about to make 20 million dollars? It ended up one of the biggest drug busts of all time with a thousand kilos of cocaine. How did that come about Roger? Well I went down to C.O. Children to about the three and a half million dollars and I saw my friend that wanted to introduce me to it and of course I wasn't going to get my money from him. He said well listen would you like a job we'll get you pay you 20 million dollars to buy a boat and take it to Australia take a little off to Australia I'll do it. There's a lot of money and three months work. How did you how did you how did you get caught Roger? Okay the brother the owner of it his brother went down to unload it and he went their way too early he's Colombian and he called his friend I think from California another Colombian boy young man says come over here and help me unload this big load you're a really smart guy you just got out of a five ton deal in California well when I heard that I took the boat and turned it from which way out of school you don't get out of a five ton deal in California without without a big confession they call it a a four slap confession you know what a four slap confession is? No. You slap him one time to get him started talking then you have to slap him three more times to shut him up What you're thinking then Roger like obviously you've been caught with one of the biggest shipments in Australian history like did you realise then that you were going to go away for life? Yes. I have visions and I had about two weeks before I was arrested I had a vision of being in the ground with the guns and exactly like it happened I even remember the vision better than I do that it actually happened and I was saying poor poor poor Mari poor poor poor Mari I woke up crying with the tears coming down my face and the guy in my back with the gun and it happened just exactly like I saw that's when I turned the ship and went 500 miles from where I was supposed to go and it still happened exactly like I saw it What you're thinking then Roger when you get caught and you're getting life in prison to a woman who's stuck by you through ficking thin but this is your biggest sentence like did you know that she would still stick by you even though you were going away for life? Well I didn't worry about it I mean we know her so close until I know she I just knew how devastated she would be as devastated as I was and to start off with I got a 25 year sentence with a 14 year bottom that I had to do 14 years straight what in life so I'd have been a medium security prison out for maybe rehabilitation something and then I testified for a fellow that was on the boat and he went home and he got free so the crown appealed my sentence and they I was in the a place it was a terrible place I was in the chute like the silence of the land were looking at me through one way mirrors and and it came in that by just by by letter that I had my sentence had been raised to life in prison so I tell you what it was hard to swallow my knees was weak for a few days and that's whenever I I decided to write my my memoirs I said I didn't particularly write a book I just my children my grandchildren the great grandchildren never going to really know me let me let me tell them the real happy daddy today is and so there was a computer in there in a little room it was glassed in and it was just like in the movie The Silence of the Lambs I mean it was just exactly like that there was a cage and I was in it but I didn't know how to I can tie it but I didn't know how to turn that computer on so it didn't have a program on it I got the what got the guard to turn it on it had a thing called paintbrush no no no program so I sat down and I just started typing I can type pretty good and the tears are just run down my face as I remember something happened many years ago with my loved ones and on the far and all that and I wrote over a million words in one line before I quit typing that looks like far as come up I run as far as I wanted to now I'm let's go and quit so after a year of that they let me out in general population and pretty soon they sent me to a place called self-care and Australian prisons are civilized to say they're not good but they civilize you behave yourself you can go to a place called self-care and cook six or 12 people to a an apartment say and they bring the food or you can order it but you want different ones anyway I they let me buy a computer and it took me a year to figure out what I had written it was all down but there was no no paragraph or nothing so it took and that was a that was a chore and then I I took two thirds of it away and published the last 530 pages I believe how was it writing it Roger did it bring back a lot of emotion like reliving everything that you've done you've been through like the the family destruction that was it difficult or was that therapy for you it might have been therapy it wasn't difficult it just you just flowed it was just like I could write a fiction book or nothing but I can remember very well and as it come I just remember things those people dead 70 years sometime and it just I'm telling you just wonderful I could almost smell them you know just when you get something you like to get a little news on your shoulder and he's talking to you as fast as you can type and it just goes you know like he didn't want to quit and when I had to leave the room like I'm not through typing and when it was finished I was it was it what was it like getting released Roger like a man who's always you've always been caught or you've always escaped but you've always get back into business that even though you were in your 70s when you got released that are you then thinking fuck it I'm going to go again or was enough enough last time enough it's enough I wouldn't well listen I wouldn't mind doing it I think it's just fun it's romantic get an airplane or boat and sail around the world it's a lot to it but I just I wouldn't pay the penalty and I would not do that to my family again I don't I wouldn't even and plus I don't want to die in person and if I do it again I'm gonna die now there ain't no doubt about it they'll kick me out the box and burn me or something and I just it would just devastate my poor wife oh yes I know I don't want to do it again and and anybody be a fool to do it and me 33 years and a cage over money I didn't need the money I don't need it now I didn't need it then just like why it's not greed I was so I give all that money away or had it stolen from me my business partners with thieves I owned a whole city I owned a real estate outfit we built we did we had oil wells and hydroelectric plants built I had no chance of ever getting that money back from them crook it's so it's just not it don't come back boxes of it my wife said he just had wings on it when you give it to him it just goes away oh yes we've made millions we've done this then the one guy we did so big with he just flew into the side of a mountain everything was in his name it's just like just gone that old Arihanda fate turns against you it turns all over tell me that's Roger that you're 79 now the leaf you've lived but do you miss it oh not so much you know why I had I had enough I mean I'm going flying again I go flying old twin beach and I do it and I'm flying the simulator out there I was 747 and there were two engines on fire they crash and burn and I start over again in a minute it's kind of fun but it's not the same what's the biggest drug deal you ever done Roger oh yes I did 17 tons out of Thailand and that that was the biggest one the Thai Thai weed that was expensive I was 1400 dollars a pound so you can figure out how much that was I can't figure it in my head but 60 or 70 million dollars or something like that and but they were several I was saying that so it wasn't that big for me how was that when you found out Escobar was dead like if he owed you three and a half million and then you found out he get killed like who was that feeling I didn't I didn't care nothing about him one way or the other I'm just like reading something something famous person died it didn't bother me a bit I didn't care I mean he should have been killed a long time ago to bring an airliner down and kill all those people but a lot of people loved him I mean he was all right to me but I didn't I didn't care I didn't know him I didn't pop out I went with Escobar one day spent a day with him we flew up to some ranch he bought in his plane there were several of us in there and we got off and early in the morning we went in there and had a little breakfast and toward two years and whatever it was just a plain place and I guess I don't know how he come about it how big it was but he had burned over and they were stumps and logs and there's some motorcycles there and he asked me if I could ride I sure I could ride so they put like a mac 10 machine going around my shoulder and there's the motorcycles lined up and they did that on purpose and so I got on there it was a hot shot and wouldn't wouldn't wouldn't and I took off through that grass and it was a little ditch by knee deep and the front wheel fell in that plane and I skidded about 20 feet through that grass on my chin and they about fell off that motorcycles landed they knew it's going to happen so we rode around a while with the motorcycles and we come back got some horses and got on horses and pretended to round up some cows and stuff and that but that was the only time I've ever spent any social time with him did you realize how big he would have been obviously now people still talk about them there's still books written about them films and then when you were working with him in the 80s did you realize how big a name he would have actually been in the drug world no and he wouldn't have been if he hadn't been such a mass murderer we hear about you know all these people that kill a lot of people and uh they seem to get a bigger name than the good deal Joe was moved a lot more cocaine than needed but he got the name for it they they went in that prison that way they made for themselves and they kept their head down and came out after a few years but why wouldn't they their wives could come in and stay with them have any kind of food they won't they have caretakers and king size beds and air conditioning why didn't they just behave to self and get out of there like the old Joe was but no he wanted to keep keep things running how big were the medians Cartel, Roger how much money were they making per day do you know not an idea idea I understand you I certainly wouldn't know anyone flying I know that so I met I met one pilot that would burn real bad and they wanted me to fly him out and I wouldn't do it I said no man I would love to but I don't want you to know me and I don't want to know you but he was up in a bin in some house they wouldn't know if I'd fly him home with a loon so it'd just be somebody else to tell on me later on why do you think everybody you've came that worked with or either dead or like got killed or in your style here Roger like was that to do with you and your personality like being a cool calm collective character even now smiling and talking about it and just enjoying life like is that a lot to do with your personality the fact in fact the fact that you never stuck anybody in either because like you says everybody became snitches and rats you're the only one who accepted their destiny and never stuck anybody in like a lot of people in that life it either get killed or life in prison but you never turned against anyone is that to do with your personality and the fact that you never done that why you're still alive today you know I'm a Christian I believe in God I don't believe in destiny or nothing and it gives us a enough brains tell me you pray for wisdom and sometimes you just have enough wisdom to see the danger and get out of the way and like all right I just I sometime I can just feel it and and step step aside where other ones go right right right right on and are punished so I I think that's for sure I know what it is I mean I just just have a sense about it in fact when I was in Long Park Penitentiary it was so strong until I could tell the next person that was going to get killed there was somebody murdered there every month and often I'd say all right Mike's Mike's Mike's look and you can it's kind of easy to be stabbed to death just like when you can see it I don't know that that kept me from being killed I didn't I didn't bother that the only people got killed in there was uh mostly for heroin heroin and the they didn't they didn't pay the debts or they got to kill for it from my robin import when did you get released from Prison Roger two years ago two and a half years ago yes I got April 2000 and when did when did you get back to America? okay I uh I was down in Australia and after 18 years I wrote my neighbor Jamie Carter and I said I'd ask him Mr. President would you write a letter and tell him ask him to be kind to me or consider me for parole and he wrote a letter and said if approach would I'd appreciate if you were to consider for extradition or release my friend and neighbor Roger Reeves and so they did help I know it did they would have Jamie Carter he's a wonderful person I hope the United States can find somebody somebody even close to the integrity and there was the man that has 96 so if he never wrote that letter you would have still been not able to go back to America because of the want that was issued well when they did they put put three marshals on me when they and they extradited me back to the United States and when I got off the plane they let the plane in there's a big old huge plane and I came and I woke up would just had a handcuff laughing and talking about those Australian guards of marshals and I was slammed into the wire wow I knows and kicked my feet apart and put leg irons on me feet apart eyes forward eyes forward Mexican gallon these border patrol guys six or seven of all they mean they put two sets of leg irons on me two sets of handcuffs chain me up marks me about a hundred feet away to the marshals office I walked in there and the marshals took it all off me set me set the handcuffs they just put on the show and so they took me to a Metropolitan Detention Center where I'd cut a hole in the wall back to me brand new and so I thought I was going to general population waiting for a parole year and year on this stuff that was 43 years ago marijuana and they put me in isolation I'm quiet in the world of my isolation I've been 18 years in open prison and come back here for marijuana 43 years ago for nothing there should be in a camp well I stayed in that place nine months in isolation and after about a week I kept asking the everyone lieutenant come by and they opened the thing how you doing Reeves and get me out of here man put me in population so I can use the telephone write letters can't do it sorry wasn't in the world so one morning a little Judas Wendell pulls up a nice looking man there with a suit and towel fellow Reeves my name is Short I'm the associate warden here at Metropolitan Detention Center we saw your national geographic documentary and it does me pleasure to keep you in isolation quick and I never could get out I was in that place by myself the whole time so I got sent to Oklahoma City we have a a terrible terrible corrupt organization here called Conair they flying people I believe 21 or 22 airplanes they flying prisoners back and forth if you get arrested at two grams of methamphetamine in California they'll send you to Atlanta for for a psychiatric evaluation and you'll stay at that 1800 bed hotel in Oklahoma City maybe three months and then they move you up we'll go from one place to another it's it's ridiculous you can't even find out who owns it it's a Canadian company that owns that but it's definitely filed politicians and the people with wardens and stuff gotta be I mean it's just awful so that need that's just something needs you know it's just real so there was a lady there really nice and she says I said I'm waiting for a parole here and she said yes there was a man from Washington here and he stayed until three o'clock and then he said to tell you he'd be back next year what yes so she came to see me a couple weeks she said would you like me to ask for a parole on the record I said please I don't even know what it was in the next day she came and said here and handed me the slot I got my parole and I got out and I came home what a what a relief so I've been gone I guess I've been going from home about 35 years so I come home and first thing I did and I went in I just showered all that scrub and which soap and I've already had all my clothes in the closet here and there's iron and she's sent everything to the cleaners and they were so crisp but I put them on I felt so good and I put on nice pair of shoes and I took a step and the soles of the shoes stayed on the floor they the strings were over rotten so I just sat down at the table and she had prepared a meal for me I couldn't even eat it I was so hard the place mats were the same the table was the same that I'd 50 years ago that I'd cleaned the clothes and polished it the silverwares are claimed the paintings on the wall the same still apartment but the same ones we had 60 years and oh I just couldn't quit crying I just couldn't quit crying in about three days I couldn't look at pictures or photographs it just broke my heart to see her 40 50 60 and 70 I wasn't there and the children growing up she raised those children and uh they all got educated and they did doing well great outstanding citizens my daughter the one that wrote the poem she's a physician she comes by every day or two and look at me and her she keeps me on the straight and narrow and they mirror you was that the biggest moment you think in your life everything you've done like holding everything back probably the emotions to then getting home after 30 40 years to then just having that breakdown and realizing fuck what was it all about I reckon so it was just something you didn't think of it was just a tear just flowed just from everything I look at would just make the tears that's I had missed that for all those years and my wife's a beautiful woman how in the world Mari did you resist the you know what did you say to me and she said I told him I wasn't available and she said even everybody said why don't you divorce me he's getting a doing life he may never get out she said I just couldn't ever see another man sitting at the head of the table saying the blessing and the children here I just couldn't I couldn't couldn't see it and so she said she waited for me all these years so she's the queen of the show yeah that's a beautiful thing you don't get much loyalty like that now Roger like see tell me this like if your if your wife never waited for you what do you think you'd be doing now well I don't know I really don't I can't imagine it it broke my heart and I just don't know yeah but the main thing as you're out like what's the plans for the future going forward for you brother like what an amazing story like you've served your time you've you've done what you've done but you're a very good character you can see by your energy your presence the way you tell a story like it's unbelievable and I've sat across and interviewed many people but yours is up there is one of the best stories I've ever heard like it's madness like it's just people aren't so intrigued by these stories and especially your character like we'll have a portrait in our mind of the way a criminal or a gangster a smuggler should look like but you'll just let the grand pan next to all of you you'll just let someone's grandfather who butter wouldn't melt even though a man who's escaped prison five times shipped drugs all around the world but in prisons all around the world but yet you're still here smiling healthy it's mad to see but what's your plans for the future brother oh we have different ones I have I kind of have a daydream of buying it another sale Maura and I just say just go right on down to Mexico and through the Panama and sail around the southern part of Cuba then maybe on to the Mediterranean and I'd like to go down Greece and Israel on down through the Red Sea and down to Seychelles and Madagascar I would like to now I'm having a little Maura's got her heels kind of dug in says you must not remember as good as I do we lived on the sailboat before that how can people get your book as well Roger how can people the UK audience buy your book smuggler it's on Amazon it's in hard it's in paperback it's in e-book and it's on in audio all on Amazon yeah amazing I would tell you that I've signed a contract with range media partners to make a series they're talking about a 30-part series 30 episodes into three series so we'll see how that goes I'll find out next month this will be mega like this should be a film that like the people you've worked with they've made films about them like this is one of the best like people love this sort of stuff Roger like because you've lived it and tell your story probably daily it might not seem as big but people love this sort of story and true crime sales and hopefully you can get the life that you want and everything you've you've done in your life you have created it basically but to live the best years of your life and think the best years of your life are still ahead you're still a beautiful thing that you're travelling the world with the women that you love then fuck all the else matters really but I hope to see this as a film or a 30-part series that deserves it deserves it but would you like to finish up on anything Roger? Not a thing I just enjoyed being here with you just have been a real pleasure yeah if you're never in Scotland brother let me know and we'll put you up for the night here right I'll go yeah and hopefully I'll be in America soon so I'd love to come and visit you and um anything I can ever help with over here I'm only a phone call away Roger please come to see me I'm in Santa Barbara, California just a couple hours north of Los Angeles a nice little town yeah but thanks for coming on today and telling your story brother um I'll leave all the links in the description for people to get your book but I wish you all the best for your future stay out of trouble Roger and God bless you brother and God bless you too abundantly thanks Roger thank you bye