Justice Then, Justice Now
This podcast explores the American criminal justice system from all angles, including perspectives from: law enforcement, prosecution, inmates, fugitives and everything in between.
Justice Then, Justice Now
Ep 13: Dave Gaddis - Battling Drug Cartels and Navigating Undercover Operations
Curious about what it takes to bring down major drug cartels? Join us for an eye-opening conversation with Dave Gaddis, a retired DEA agent whose career spans some of the most intense eras and locations in narcotics enforcement. From his early days inspired by his Green Beret father, to overcoming vision-related hurdles that led him to the DEA, Dave's journey is a testament to resilience and dedication. We talk about his book, "The Noble Experiment," where he shares stories aimed at giving the public—and his own children—a glimpse into the gritty reality of federal law enforcement.
Ever wondered how undercover operations really work? Dave Gaddis takes us through the complexities of managing informants and the invaluable street survival tactics he learned in Miami's volatile drug scene. Hear about the diverse backgrounds of DEA trainees, ranging from NYPD officers to former fast-food managers, and how their unique skills contributed to a united mission. Dave recounts his undercover assignments in Miami and Costa Rica, and the strategic relationships he formed with informants that were crucial for cracking major drug cases.
As we tackle contemporary issues like the fentanyl crisis and cannabis regulation, Dave offers his expert insights on the critical need to halt the flow of dangerous drugs into the U.S. and debates whether the ATF or DEA should regulate cannabis. We also reflect on the evolution of drug enforcement policies and the enduring camaraderie among agents in this high-pressure field. Don't miss this episode packed with compelling stories and expert perspectives from a career dedicated to making our communities safer.
Produced by: Citrustream, LLC
We have another episode of Justice Then Justice Now. Our guest today is Dave Gaddis. Dave is retired from the Drug Enforcement Administration. His background is he was an agent here in Miami. He was overseas. I met him for the first time when he was in Costa Rica on a case which he almost got me fired for working narcotics with customs, which I wasn't supposed to do, but it was a favor, as I told the SAC. But that went well, but he did get me a nice commendation, so it helped. We've been friends for years years.
Speaker 1:Dave went to Onward to become the country attache in Bogota, colombia, at the height of the drug smuggling and the conversion to heroin which happened over there, and then ended up in Mexico City working there with the Mexican movement of the smuggling of narcotics. Retired in 2011 from the DEA, he's an expert on everything. He's testified at Congress. But, more important, he started out as a street agent in Miami, which was in the late 80s and early 90s a very busy period. He has this book out that I've read, the Noble Experiment. It starts out with him as a street agent and follows his career up through the Drug Enforcement Administration. He talks about the policy changes and everything else in it. It has my highest recommendation and Dave's character is beyond reproach and he will tell it like it is. Thank you, dave, for coming on.
Speaker 2:It's great to see you. My pleasure you bet. Toby. It was uh great to hear from you again same here.
Speaker 1:This is jeff thomas. Jeff is, uh, uh, very good friend of mine. He's the producer of all this kind of stuff and an expert, and uh training me as I go along. So I I'll let you, I'll let you.
Speaker 3:And I'm the and I'm the big dummy, so I get to ask all the dummy questions. So all the you know less informed people in the audience can get a translated you know version for all of us dummies.
Speaker 2:Well, that's essentially why I wrote the noble experiment, because I wanted to show people who didn't know about federal law enforcement what it's really like and how fun it could be perfect thing, you're a perfect guest.
Speaker 3:So, um, the way we have been opening up um and it's worked pretty well. If you can just briefly go over, yeah, you know your early life, where you're from, um, you know you're growing up and you know you know your parents and what led you to a start, a career in law enforcement well, jeff, you gotta buy the book well, I mean just first chapter, you gotta give us a little teaser. You know I'm gonna read it. You just gotta get a little teaser, get the hooks in hey, listen, man, it was.
Speaker 2:You know the the. That was one reason I wrote the book. The second reason was because I have a couple of kids and, as Toby knows, you know, when you're in the job and you're working it, you don't talk much about it. A lot of the stuff that's happening in your case is you don't really want to talk about. You know, to your family. I mean, it's not always pleasant things, in fact it's rarely pleasant In a way. I always joke that my job was to make other people's world turn upside down. Right, because we were targeting the bad guys.
Speaker 2:And if their lives turned upside down then I was doing my job. But I'm glad that it was written and the kids can look at it. And it basically all started when I was in college, right, I grew up in a military family. Uh, my dad was a special forces green beret, um vietnam era guy and um, he just showed me, uh, the importance of civil service. So, um, I initially thought about military but, uh, I just had something of a greater calling, it seemed to me, and it was going to be in law enforcement. I really don't know why, but I decided I wanted to be a part of the law enforcement community For a couple of years.
Speaker 2:As a junior and senior in college, I probably applied for every ABC agency you could think of, including the Legacy Customs Service, but only two agencies decided to interview me. One was the FBI and the other was the DEA. So it turns out the DEA had a bit of a more expedient uh hiring process than the fbi and um, and I ended up being hired by the dea, although I would have been disqualified by the fbi eventually, I understand, because I had had um radiocarototomy eye surgery when I was in college and the fbi was using that as a disqualifier, uh at that time, as well as the military. They don't any longer, but they did at that time. But the DEA they didn't have uh that requirement. So I ended up just sliding under the radar and getting hired with DEA and that's how my career started.
Speaker 3:Is that? Is that the um that's like still like fighter pilots and that kind of stuff? Can't um, have that, have that past, correct? Or is that like across the board?
Speaker 2:okay now I, I'm I'm absolutely certain that um training fighter pilots have to have perfect, perfect natural vision not even lacing now yeah, I would think.
Speaker 2:Well, I would think, know, let's say you're 40 years old, right, or 30 years old, and you've been a pilot for eight years, you might be able to get away with some of that modern LASIK stuff, but now, now, if you're a training pilot, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to to to qualify. And it's funny because when I first graduated high school, I actually went to the US Air Force Academy Preparatory School, which is also in Colorado Springs, colorado, with the intent of being an Air Force Academy cadet and flying. I wanted to fly. It was in that year that my vision went to hell, in a handbasket and um, because for the first time in my life, I think I actually had to study and uh, uh the vision went pretty bad, uh, at the age of 19.
Speaker 2:And uh, I realized that even if I I graduated from the academy which would have been a fabulous education I never would have been a pilot. So it kind of burst my bubble a little bit, so I maybe a sorry excuse as to why I didn't continue to go on. Um, I did receive an appointment to the academy, but I decided to, uh, to turn to federal law enforcement at that time instead of the military so you went straight into the DEA, no local police background or anything, just straight in.
Speaker 2:No, you can't do that. You have to have or at least at that time in 1985, 86, you had to have three years full-time work experience, preferably as a law enforcement officer of the military or some related field. You know, probation, parole, anything like that. And while I was in college I actually had an 11P to 7A job at the Madison County Alabama Juvenile Detention Center. So I was a probation officer and intake officer for juveniles and I did that for three years while I was actually in college, which worked out very well. So I almost immediately qualified, at least on the application after I had degreed. And it turns out that the timing was perfect. Right, that's life, timing's always the important thing.
Speaker 2:And George Bush, 41, GW's dad was the president and I'm sorry, he was the vice president at the time in 86. And Ronald Reagan you remember Ronald, nancy Reagan, just say no campaign. They were really focusing on trying to stop drugs and drug abuse and they actually asked the vice president, george Bush, to oversee and activate the South Florida task force around 1985. Toby, you remember all that. There was a lot of attention back in Miami because that was ground zero for Dopeland, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and with that South Florida task force, yeah, and I was a member of that, they called it FJTG and we used to complain because the customs agents they had to fill out two forms ROIs and DEA 6s, and the DEA agents had to do 6s.
Speaker 3:So what's a ROI? A report of investigation?
Speaker 1:and DEA 6 was their report of investigation. So what we'd have to do is sit at our typewriters with carbon copies and figure out how to submit the reports and the seizures. And I think we got shafted with that, Dave. But that's okay, Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you guys we'll get into it, because I'm sure we'll get into it.
Speaker 1:Border search authority, Title 21, all that.
Speaker 2:But I'll remind you of the FDIN and we'll get back to that.
Speaker 2:I'm sure very soon in the conversation and you guys own the F? Fdin most of the time. But, um, no, I mean it was great timing they were hiring. There was a flood of uh basic agent trainees coming in. Uh, not that they would hire uh, you know, just anybody. But I think I was part of a pool where, uh, I was included in some fabulous uh uh agent trainees at that time it was 1986. And, uh, we, we had, uh we had NYPD cops. Um, we had, um, folks like me that just kind of had a peripheral experience to law enforcement, as as a juvenile detention officer. Um, we even had somebody who was a manager at McDonald's. So I mean, they were really taking a lot of people at that time and that individual who actually worked at McDonald's turned out to be one hell of a great agent. So you never know what your experience comes from. That will essentially evolve and just create this persona of a great DEA agent or a federal agent in general.
Speaker 2:Right, I remember working many cases with customs agents in South Florida and we had a great time and we all came from different backgrounds. You know different education levels. I only had a bachelor's degree at that time and I don't know if people know this, but technically you do not have to have a four-year bachelor's degree to join the DEA. You didn't then and you don't now. Now, as a practice, you know, most of the people who are hired have some bachelor's degree, whether it's in humanities, behavioral sciences, science or whatever. But technically it's not required. So we got, like you know a whole group of different people. I remember when I was at the FBI Academy, which is where the DEA Academy in 86 was located in Quantico Virginia, and 86 was located in Quantico Virginia and one of the FBI agents who was a really strong-looking guy, you know, a real strappy guy. He had worked in a circus and was an elephant trainer. So how do you use that experience to become a federal agent?
Speaker 3:I'm sure there's some crossover there.
Speaker 2:I always thought it was, you know, basically shoveling shit right. If you learn to shovel shit, you can be a DEA agent.
Speaker 3:Yes, and what mountain of shit is bigger than an elephant's?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the top of the hill.
Speaker 2:Or the US drug problem, yeah.
Speaker 3:Especially in the 80s.
Speaker 2:Man. Toby, wasn't that something? The 80s was off. Toby, wasn't that something. The 80s was, uh, it, it was off the hook. Really it was an amazing experience.
Speaker 2:Um, I I was in a class of about 40 people, maybe 45 34 ended up graduating because it's multi-month training and you know, some people just decide it's not for them or or they can't hack it. You know, there's a physical training at the time and, um, and then there's course, course work and all this stuff. But, uh, nothing prepared anyone for miami and I was so thankful that dea had sent me to miami as a 24 year old graduate of the Academy instead of. You know, boise Idaho nothing against Boise Idaho. Today there's drugs everywhere.
Speaker 2:But at that time, I mean, we weren't really working. You couldn't work ounce cases, which is where the rest of America work. You know they were working. Multi-ounce cases in some cases, gram cases, right, and conspiracies and whatnot. But in Miami it was nothing to throw together a five, 10 kilo by bust case, and by bust is where, you know, you set up with an informant and you meet the guy who wants to sell the dope. You show him a little money, some flash money hopefully not at the same time, because we had plenty of shootings in Miami at that time and, of course, lots of people that would rip you off if they could. And then, yeah, you had five or 10 kilos of cocaine on the table, right. I mean there are places. Even at that time Houston Texas wasn't getting those kinds of cases because it was the mid-90s and Miami was the gateway to Latin America and the drug supply.
Speaker 3:So how much did that schooling prepare you for getting into Miami and getting started, or was it mostly on the job training once you got there?
Speaker 2:the school basically just taught us how to survive, uh, administratively yes, 100 the senior agents.
Speaker 2:The senior agents in Miami taught you how to survive on the street Because you're not really dealing with true informants. And Toby can tell you one of the most challenging parts. It's a great career. I called it my 25-year perpetual play date. It's a great career. It's so much fun, fun. I recommend it for everybody. But there's one frustrating part about being a federal narc and that is operating and managing your informants, because you don't have legit business owners, you don't have clergymen, you don't have great moms. You have sometimes you have moms, but they're not great and, uh, you're informed we'll talk about those.
Speaker 2:Yes, the great moms so you, you know you don't have that in training man. And then when you're there, it all comes out right. And you're trying to. You're trying to drink it from a a five foot fire hose and you're trying to drink it from a five-foot fire hose and you're trying to suck it in. And thank goodness you have those senior agents who, with their experience their 8, 10, 15, 20 years of experience that can say, hey, kid, it's okay, we're going to handle it this way, we're going to do it this way, but going to do it this way. But wait, the manual says we should actually go through this and we're going to follow the manual. But I've got a shortcut, you know. So it, there's a way to get things done and, uh, legally, uh and um, but the regulations I remember, actually, when I joined dea, I think theA special agent's manual was about an inch and a half thick, and today it's probably about four inches thick, and that extra two and a half inches is definitely mistakes that have been made by people like me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Plus, like the thickest section of the customs manual, it was undercover operations and handling informants.
Speaker 3:I mean, that was where people got in trouble, you know, keeping them confidential, or what was the? What was the main um?
Speaker 2:overwhelming, uh, apparent thing that that, um, that you discovered every one of them wanted something. Every one of them had their agenda. I get it, we're all human. But if you're working with a defendant informant, they have a very dark background, right. They have probably witnessed homicides. They have certainly witnessed threats and extortion against individuals. They're a tough personality because they've lived through it, right, it's as if you're working with a mobster, right, a career mobster, right, a career mobster, right. So Toby and I are sitting here in Miami and we ended up with an informant and then a formant's been with the Cali cartel or the Medellin cartel for I don't know, five years, four years, whatever. I mean they probably die after about nine or ten years. I mean you don't last in those cartels very long.
Speaker 1:No pension plan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's no pension plan and there's no pink slip, you know, except in the form of a bullet. So you're dealing with a rough crowd, right? That's the first thing. And second, I mean they've got their own agenda right. Either they're going to try to get off of some time because they're a defendant informant, they've been charged and they know they have to cooperate in order to get less time, or they're on the outs of the cartel for one reason or another, or there's monetary incentive, right. And if there's simply monetary incentive to do it, you can't trust them, right?
Speaker 2:I mean, we had a case where a Colombian informant, a female, a very attractive female in the late 80s, was working with our group and she was sitting on about $4 million and this was connected to the Ochoa cartel out of Medellin in the mid 80s, and we basically monitored her activities and she was giving us a little bit of information, but she felt like she couldn't give up the money because if she did, they would kill her. And she's probably right. You know, the Ochoa cartel were not friendly to enemies and in the end she, she moved it. I mean, you know, 3 million became 4 million, 4 million became 6 million, 8 million, and then, lo and behold, she ended up moving it and it it costed the DEA quite a bit and the FDLE, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, uh, a heck of a lot of spent time on surveillance, and that was one informant that skewered the, the investigation.
Speaker 2:Uh, were we successful in the end? Uh, yeah, I think at certain levels, but uh, we didn't get the, the fat fish that we wanted, and it was because of that, that informant that had had became a turncoat in the ninth inning of the program. Did you ever experience anything like that, toby? Were your informants skewered on you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I always assumed that and it's terrible to say that they were wired from internal affairs or they were working for my ex-wife. You know, I just had that mentality. It was a professional relationship and that's the hard part of it. There's some of these people that you actually like. They have same interests and stuff like that, and you had to keep that line there in dealing with them. No matter any law enforcement officer that handles informants has to has to do that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, of course, yeah, I remember one of my chapters is called um. It's called mangoes. Yes, in the noble experiment it's about a defendant named chichi and I'd worked undercover. I brought a load in from the guajira uh peninsula of colombia and um, I don't know, it's a 500 kilos, something like that. And then there was another you know thousand pounds of weed that they insisted on throwing on the on the plane and, uh, I worked with chichi for undercover of course, uh, for maybe I don't know 60 days, 70 days, something like that, and we actually kind of got to know each other.
Speaker 2:But of course he doesn't know who. I am right, I was the brother-in-law of the pilot who was able, who had run many loads for him in the past, a gringo pilot. So it was natural for me to be his brother-in-law, it was natural for me to be his brother-in-law, and once we arrested him which was kind of a violent arrest because he was on the run he was on the lam for about maybe two weeks before we could actually put him down in Hialeah and took him down at a friend's house.
Speaker 2:But when we started talking to him in the Metropolitan Detention Center down there in South Dade I really felt like I got to know him. That's right, I got to know him. It was the other zoo, right, the two-legged zoo, and he turned out to be a pretty cool cat man and I wrote a chapter about that. Simply because we connected, we kind of connected in a way, and I realized the, the, the human side to how it happened, because he told me his life story. He never had an opportunity. He, he was. He was brought over not long after the mariel boat lift. Uh, he, he was, he was relatively young and uh fell into the wrong crowd, was making some easy, not a whole lot of money, but easy money and uh. So you know, we ended up uh kind of bonding, you know, as as cop and drug trafficker and uh, it it turned out to be a relationship to where he's out of prison now and I hope he's doing well. Actually I hope he's living a normal life and he's about my age, so he's starting to slow down a bit, but I hope he's doing well.
Speaker 2:But there was that case in the chapter of mangoes where we were running around and he was pointing out houses, you know flop houses, where he said, ok, I picked up 40 kilos from that house and then we would go a few blocks down and he said I picked up 20 kilos here, I dropped off 80 kilos at this one, and so I'm just documenting and document. And we finally went by a corner lot and there was this huge mango tree, beautiful ripe mangoes hanging off of it. I mean, they were purple, they were so beautiful. And he looked at that and apparently he wasn't getting mangoes in federal prison. So he said, dave, please let me pick a mango. And I said you know, you've been helping me, I'm going to let you pick a mango. I didn't know whose tree it was, it's private property, but it was in the front yard, it was over there on the side of the house, and there were a few there on the ground, right. So I said, okay, I'm going to let you pick a mango. But of course he was handcuffed the whole time, right. So I unhandcuffed him, know, and I looked at him straight in his eyes and I said, gg, if you run, I'm gonna shoot you. He said, no problem, so he will.
Speaker 2:It's out of the car, it's like a 1984 le sabre. You know, three of the lug nuts on each tire had been ripped off. You know, from car chases and whatnot, I never would have been able to catch them. And he walks out there, he looks around the ground, he looks at a couple of mangoes. No, he's not happy with that. I mean, this is a Cuban guy, right, he knows a mango. So he looks up and he picks the perfect mango and he starts, he grabs a couple of the ones that were on the ground and he starts throwing it and throwing it. And I'm thinking, geez, you know, this is this is going to get me in trouble.
Speaker 2:We got to get him back in the car, right, he gets one of the mangoes that he wanted. It falls to the ground, he grabs it, he starts devouring it. You know, just casually, walking back to the uh, to the car, and uh, and I said, are you happy now? And he goes oh, yeah, thank you. Muchas gracias, david, muchas gracias. And then, uh, I get back into the car. I said get in the car. And he doesn't get in the car and he doesn't get in the car. He's standing up, door's open on the passenger side. He's not getting in the car.
Speaker 2:I get back out of the car and I look over the hood and he's just looking down the road and I said Gigi, get in the car. He doesn't answer, he's looking down the road and I thought for a quick second this guy's going to rabbit on me, he's going to run. He was probably in one of his old neighborhoods, right? He would know the area much better than I. He took a sigh, big breath. He got back into the car, handcuffed him and we continued, uh, uh.
Speaker 2:He continued fingering stash houses for me for another couple of hours before we went back and I asked him. I said why didn't you get in the car when I told you? And he says I miss it? He says I really miss it. You know the fresh mangoes, the fresh air of Miami. He says I just missed it. But you know you're treating me right. I'm going to treat you right and I'm going to do this. You can count on me. So, right before we get back to the DEA office so we could confirm all the addresses. Toby, you'll remember this. I don't know if it's, yeah, it probably is current, but there used to be these umbrella stands where these young ladies would be selling hot dogs and then they would have these.
Speaker 1:I forgot all about that, so he told me you never saw those and they were.
Speaker 2:They were, you know, clad in in these very were they out at the airport?
Speaker 1:were they out at the airport too?
Speaker 2:they were everywhere.
Speaker 3:Perimeter road perimeter road there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've seen photos oh yeah, I almost on every corner. They were modern-day Starbucks, they were on every street corner. It had a little hot dog stand, little umbrella, and the girls were wearing bikinis, right, and they sell you these great hot dogs. And man, all the workers were around and probably all the customs agents were around a few DEA agents and we ended up going by that umbrella stand and then Chi-Chi looks at it and he goes mangoes, can I stop and get those mangoes?
Speaker 3:And I said no, chi-chi, those are mangoes you will never have and I stopped and get those mangoes and I said no Chi.
Speaker 2:Chi, those are mangoes, you will never have.
Speaker 3:Yeah, toby sent me a picture one time and he was like this is what they used to do to distract all the customs agents while they flew stuff into the airport.
Speaker 1:When the Colombian flights came in at between 3 and 11,. He knows they were all out there on perimeter road. We thought they were working for him. That distract us and the guys from the task force would have been brilliant, brilliant move. They were very sharp with that. They were very creative. You know I can't wait to hear the stories about bogota and mexico city, but you know, from him.
Speaker 3:So how early on in your DEA career were you undercover on flights and flying behind enemy lines?
Speaker 2:I did all of my undercover in Miami and in Costa Rica. See, I left Miami in 1992, joined in 1986, worked six years in Miami Wow. Then I ended up going to Costa Rica, Did some undercover in Costa Rica. But you have to get special permissions from the US State Department, the ambassador, to work undercover because you're not on US soil, right, no-transcript. But as you can see, the ambassador would not be very comfortable if you were photographed or caught in a place like that doing your undercover work. So by about 1994, I wasn't working undercover anymore, but I did most of it right there in Miami and I was lucky enough to have some very good informants, which is as frustrating as they can be to work with. Toby can tell you you have to have them.
Speaker 1:Right, absolutely. You can't do your job without them.
Speaker 2:It's the peanut butter with bread baby. You got to have them and I had some great informants. I had one guy who was a red-haired Canadian, big old, fat guy, who was a pilot, a pilot, a very, very skilled pilot, and, um, he was grabbed for smuggling a couple of tons of cocaine. But he had been doing it for probably 15, 20 years, uh, when he got caught. So he had some real deep hooks into suppliers in Colombia. So I was his brother-in-law you know, I'm red-haired myself and with his recommendation it was easy to work me in. So I had people like that, you know, that was able for me to get in.
Speaker 2:I didn't really speak fluent spanish, uh, during my uh six and a half years in in miami I was trying to learn it, but, uh, it's, it's difficult, you know. Um, it took a few years for me to actually pick it up and and I was actually lucky enough to uh to be sent to spanish language school at the defense Language Institute in Monterey, california, for six months and then I was able to establish a base, you know, so I could begin speaking it and when I came back it was just, you know, off I go. Man, it was great because you really, and Toby could tell you, if you didn't speak Spanish you were definitely disabled as an agent, because all the police officers, miami-dade, metro-dade, hialeah, I mean, they were all native speakers. So you kind of felt blind, right, if you couldn't speak the language.
Speaker 3:And I was lucky enough to pick that up and that's how I ended up with the post in Costa Rica speak the language and I I was lucky enough to pick that up, and that's how I ended up with the post in costa rica and then in costa rica, are you, is it still like um, kind of like air, air smuggling and stuff, or is that? Is that, around the time that it started, kind of shift into like mexico? Uh?
Speaker 1:no, this is pre pre that yeah yeah, one of the questions I'm going to talk about with Dave is about we had a big shift in seizures in Miami in the 90s and it went from cocaine to heroin overnight and it was unbelievable the change that they had. I mean, we started, you know, they always made me the stat guy because I didn't speak Spanish. So I, I would. I didn't do that, I did limited undercover, mine was in the gold industry and things like that. But, um, you know, uh, he he'll, he'll talk about that, but he he was, he was down there, you were the rep down there, right Cause that's where you got me in trouble, but that's okay.
Speaker 3:Oh, I got to hear that story.
Speaker 2:No, I was, I was, I was a journeyman. You know, grade 13 special agent in Costa Rica. Man, uh, my boss, a guy named uh Ron Lard, who, uh is considered the country at your shade. We call them country at your shades. They're the lead agents in any uh office, uh office uh of like four agents or less, and um, and ron was a great mentor, he was a great supervisor yeah, super, super cool guy and uh.
Speaker 2:So you know, he just kind of gave us a very long leash to do our jobs. He trusted, uh, our training. He trusted, uh, our experiences, uh, if, if, there and. But there were times when he said, hey, listen, you know you're pushing the envelope here time out. Let's think of another way, you know, to, to, to achieve the same end, uh and um, and I really enjoyed working for him, and that's when I met toby. But uh, where were we going with this?
Speaker 3:I can't remember now uh, like the transition to heroin and all that stuff no, no, no, I'll ask that later we'll go into that later, but it was funny.
Speaker 1:I went down with an undercover agent and informant and they didn't know each other. So I mean each other's roles obviously in that. And Dave was a tremendous help in Ron. And when I came back because I worked for customs, he needed paperwork to show for a reverse deal and I said I'll get you that, you know, send it down there. And so they had a successful, what they call a reverse sting down there with Drisham drugs.
Speaker 1:So I get called about two months later to the SAC's office and our SAC he had this deep voice and said I heard over the intercom the entire office Roach, come to my office. So I go in there. And he goes are you working money laundering in gold or are you working narcotics? And I said, well, no, I'm running undercover with that and doing that. He goes. Well, I just got a commendation from the ambassador down there and the DEA deputy director for your fine work down there on this case like this. And I said, oh my God, and he produces a letter from Ron Lard and I'm in there on this case like this. And I said, oh my God, and he produces a letter from Ron Lard and I'm in there and he goes like this and you know we got along well with DEA in Miami and customs Other areas of the country they'd lock, but we had so much drugs it was like, okay, who's going to be the lead? Flip a coin.
Speaker 3:That's right. That's exactly what it was like. Okay, who's going to be the?
Speaker 1:lead Flip a coin.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's exactly what it was like. And we'd laugh when we did control delivery somewhere. So I said what was this all about? And I said a favor. I just you know like the line from, you know with Al Pacino in that movie I forget the name of it Carlito's Way A favor, a favor will get you killed. He, carlitos way a favor, a favor will get you killed. He was like telling me a favor but we have to do paperwork on this and I said okay, but yeah, nice job, had me out. So I told Dave, next time you come to Miami, we're going to have drinks and use your American express card at tobacco road, which was a local dive hangout. So anyway, I was always grateful for that I, by the way.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think I actually forged ron large signature.
Speaker 1:He never knew about that I just basically wrote it down right see, takes 30 years for the truth to come out, jeff check the spelling.
Speaker 3:Seal the envelope. Check the spelling on the name.
Speaker 2:Seal the envelope and he had a stamp, his desk probably and just sent that out see, that's, that's that's what those uh senior agents taught you, both in uh customs, uh legacy customs, and the dea. Is that? Um, you know, they knew the line of things that you could get away with, and and then they knew what you couldn't get away with. So don't be stupid and do nothing illegal. But if you bent a rule every now and then, it was okay.
Speaker 1:If not, you're not trying right. It's called a favor, jeff, that's the word Favor. It's not bending the rules, it's a favor, that's right. That's right, yeah, it's a favor.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so anyway, the book is great. I recommend it to everybody, not because Dave Gaddis is my friend, but it's inaccurate and starts out exactly how we're doing this discussion Working as agents. And then he progressed into management and it's you know, usually you see, and he was an executive in the government, he was an SES, which is Senior Executive Service, and usually they start at the top and then you read little things in there. But this is casework. I mean, that's what's you know, and I have a book too. So you know, know, behind blue eyes, it's cases, it's cases and that's a great book.
Speaker 1:Pete wrote it, thank you, and when pete wrote it it was about the cases in the marshal service and then here and carrying 40 years. So but again, dave went down and I can't think of a better person to head the office in Bogota at the time when he was there. And then obviously he did a great job and, as they do in the government, you can do one of two things you can do a shitty job and you get transferred, and that happens, or you can. You, you can do a great job and they decide to move you at a different step, but you always go to a problem area because they'll put you in. It's like when I was an agent. They put me in different groups. They say, okay, we need this done and this Okay. And you don't take it personally. They just do that kind of stuff. So if you could pick up and tell us how you ended up in Bogota and that man, you know, the career, as exciting as it is, is equaled by the surprise.
Speaker 2:You know, I went from Miami, like I said, very lucky to start in a place during the mid 80s. Probably wouldn't have wanted to be there at my age then because it was way, far too risky. But when you're a 24, 25, 26 year old, I mean, you're just ready to take on the world, right, you're impetuous, you're aggressive and you just want a lot of adventure. But I went from Miami to Costa Rica, from Costa Rica to Mexico. So I actually stayed six years overseas and Costa Rica was got. To be honest, man, costa Rica was a training ground for what was happening in Mexico. Uh, because I transferred to Mexico in 1995 and that was when, uh, you know, the shit was hitting the fan and everything was going through Mexico, you know, through the central American and Caribbean, to Central America, central America to Mexico, and it was starting to really heat up. That was when Amado Carrillo Fuentes was tied into the Medellin cartel and it just they formed that alliance. So I was right there at that time and really enjoyed it, and I'll tell you some stories about being in Mexico. But then, from Mexico, I ended up going to headquarters, which is what we call dead time, and because there's no fun, there's no street work. You're basically living vicariously through agents out there. But you've got to do that, you know, if you want to get promoted. And I was already in management because I had become a manager to be in Mexico the first time, and then I left there, ended up with a domestic assignment in North Carolina and then after that I ended up in Bogota. So you know, you can't spring from a group supervisor to an SES. If you're going to be an SES and a regional director or a special agent in charge, you got to go through the steps right. It's a ladder. You got to climb up the ladder. Uh, the same with every organization, uh, whether it's ICE, uh, dea, fbi.
Speaker 2:So, uh, I ended up doing my uh, my mid level, mid management level time in inagement level time in North Carolina and DC, and then I was asked to take on the job for a promotion at the SES level in Bogota and I left North Carolina, charlotte, north Carolina, specifically to go to Bogota, and that was in 2003, which was a fun time, so it just seemed like the timing. Always I was very fortunate and lucky to have been in that location at that time. Why do I say 2003 was a great time to go to Bogota? Because that's when the right-wing paramilitaries, pablo Escobar had been killed, the Medellin cartel was being dismantled and there was a number of drug traffickers who were stepping up and they were trying to take over, create a new uh a cartel.
Speaker 2:And uh, and they did so and it became what was called the uh AUC, which was, um it's a Spanish acronym for the right wing paramilitaries Uh, the the auto defenses who need this the Columbia and uh, they grew into a force of like 30,000 soldiers and they were paramilitary soldiers. They were tough and they became a drug trafficking cartel the greatest cartel that you can imagine, I believe, and I was there during that time when it was all happening. So we started targeting members of these AUC leaders. In the end, although at times it was very frustrating because of the levels of sophistication and the money that they had, we were able to succeed and grab lieutenants, captains, and eventually we were able to grab the top guys and the AUC was dismantled. It demobilized, uh, politically, the president, a guy named Alvaro um, help me, toby, uh, alvaro Uribe.
Speaker 1:Uribe, alvaro Uribe U.
Speaker 2:Uribe yeah, he ended up working up a peace process for that organization so the lower level guys could get out, and I was in the middle of that man, so it was great. It was great is able to go from a place like Charlotte, north Carolina, where he's in charge of five offices in one state, to being in Bogota and being in the ground zero of all drug trafficking, both heroin and cocaine, around the world. It's an amazing change and amazing opportunities for someone, and I felt very, very lucky to find myself in those positions.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So from there you went to Mexico City and there and that was probably the last time I saw you when I was down there working as a PI- that's right, Bringing informants and the usual stuff that we do Sometimes. I think this job is like the mafia you know and I retire. I don't know about you. Do you play pickleball or anything like that, or no?
Speaker 2:No, my friend, I'm a farmer.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Don't let the Ralph Laurenph lauren. No, I always, I notice things like that.
Speaker 1:You know that the dressing and that I'm, I, I keep busy, I keep.
Speaker 2:You are an scs dave.
Speaker 1:So you know that's, that's the I completely I completely abandoned that thought and that mentality.
Speaker 2:I actually, uh, grow potatoes and corn now and have a little livestock and and a place that I'll refer to as off the beaten path, and I really love it. Yeah, no pickleball for me, but you're right about an organization, it's it's, it's a fraternity, and I mean that in both a male and female sense. You know, you go around the world. It's one of the odd experiences in life where you can meet somebody, you can work a case with them, or cases with them not see them for 40 years, and then when you do see him, it doesn't seem like a day had passed.
Speaker 1:Yep, a lot of fun, especially if you've got a Heineken in front of you. That usually helps.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right, although this is water, I wanted to be straightforward with you guys.
Speaker 3:That was good timing. Not get too silly.
Speaker 2:I timed it perfect, didn't I Jeff? Yeah, I timed it perfect, didn't I Jeff?
Speaker 1:Yeah, can you talk about your experiences as the country attache in both Bogota and there? You touched on the AOC and what was happening there with the paramilitary buildup. What about? You know, right now in the news everything's about Mexico. It's about the border. Border, you know, and I have my opinions on it. I think you know where they are. Uh with that and it's creating the flow of narcotics and hopefully that will change the policy on that, just because of the safety factor to American citizens.
Speaker 1:But what was Mexico like? I mean, with the development of the major cartels out of there with? You know the Camarita case? I worked and when I was a marshal in DC, I was involved in that, when Rene Verdugo Urquhise was across the border, shall we say, and that personally too, with his transportation and all that to courts and things like that. It was a very, very sad day we hadn't seen. I mean you remember with the task force that? I mean you remember with the task force that Eddie Benitez and Ariel Rios were killed on Operation Florida, which in the early 80s, and put everybody on alert for safety and all that.
Speaker 2:But what was the experience like with Mexico transitioning to what they are today, with drug smuggling? You know, I felt like when I left Colombia and went to Mexico in 2006, I was thrown out of the frying pan into the fire. Mexico is unparalleled in terms of the transnational drug threat. The idea of being able to stop the Mexican cartels is almost to me preposterous, because the connections and the influence of corruption in the country is unparalleled. I mean, there's nothing that I've seen like it, not in Colombia, not in Asia. We'll get to this. But when I finished my career, I was chief of global enforcement, so I was involved with casework throughout the globe and there is no place like Mexico in terms of the influence of cartels.
Speaker 2:And one can argue that, okay, where do they get their arms? Some of it's from the United States. Okay, we'll take that hit, right? Yeah, maybe you know we have illegal arms traffickers that are funneling weapons down to Mexico, but not all of them. Right? You can't even own a weapon if you're a private citizen unless it's at a .38 caliber level pistol or below. There are special permits for hunting weapons at a 38 caliber level pistol or below. Um, there are special permits for for for hunting weapons and stuff for hunting rifles, shotguns and stuff. But, um, it's, it's set up in Mexico so that the corruption becomes the grease it keeps the wheels going throughout. You know the culture, um, and I'm not saying anything that would be a surprise to any Mexican citizen. They know that. They know that there's lots of jokes about government corruption
Speaker 2:there. Are there good people in Mexico? You're damn right, there are Great, great people, real patriots. We had in our sensitive investigations unit, which was a special forces unit, trained, recruited, trained in the United States in Quantico, we had a guy his name was Omar Ramirez Aguilar and he was a terrific guy. He was a PhD candidate in Mexico University and had a family, four kids, was doing everything he could to save the country, and then he was murdered right by the Cetas. A couple of motorcycles went up next to him and took him out. So they're good people there. But, man, mexico was a different animal
Speaker 2:altogether. And your question about what was it like to manage, you know, to be the director for Mexico? Quite frankly, I felt that it was easy. And it was easy because I had good people working for me. Um, I had some really excellent agents, intelligence analysts, uh, program managers, uh, and, and even administrative folks that were just in it. Altogether it was like a team. You know right and um and they, they did the hard work but, uh, on the political side, it was the political side. It was always a bit difficult. However, when you're a manager of a federal law enforcement agency overseas, what's critical is to have support from your ambassador or your deputy chief of mission and fortunately, like I said, luckiest man alive both in Colombia and Mexico I had great support from both my deputy chiefs of mission and my American ambassadors. They were terrific. Bill Wood was the ambassador in Colombia and Tony Garcia I'm sorry, garza, tony Garza was the ambassador in Mexico, and just both of them were fantastic and I write about them in the book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know he wrote the recommendation for you. I read that that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we ended up accomplishing quite a lot together and it goes toward I mean, you're doing it, you know, at one time of the day, one hour of the day, no-transcript job. It really was a fun job but, uh, it took. It took a lot of patience and, uh, and I think what I was able to do is look at the hard work and the success of those agents and and other personnel that were succeeding every day, because I had worked there and I'd been in Hermosillo, I had been in San Jose, managua, Nicaragua, guatemala as an agent. You know I knew how difficult it was to run around surreptitiously and covertly and actually accomplish a few things and get things done. So I was lucky to have good people.
Speaker 1:Excellent, excellent. Go ahead, jeff. I've been talking.
Speaker 3:You got layperson.
Speaker 1:Questions for Dave. I'm taking notes but I think I understand most of it right now.
Speaker 3:When my dummy alarm comes off, I'll pipe up.
Speaker 1:Where do you think that? I know we all hear about the fentanyl. When I, when I worked, that wasn't. I couldn't even spell it for you back then. Um, what do you think this future? What do you think the future is for narcotics in the United States? Because this fentanyl and all the other drugs that are, they're not the marijuana, cocaine, heroin that we all got used to. Where do you think this is heading as far as society and efforts to combat it coming in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm really worried. This fentanyl has become the true poison that could completely dismantle American culture. Why do I say Because it's killing somewhere around 100,000 US citizens a year. Thousand us citizens a year? Uh, that means that a hundred thousand us citizens are taking a chance.
Speaker 2:They don't know if there's fentanyl in it, they don't know they're committing suicide, but they're.
Speaker 2:They're trying to take, you know, uh, the adderall, percoc, vicodin. They think they're taking a pill that will relieve them in some way or some fashion, and it's going to wipe out an entire generation. So this might not be something that we really see true ramifications for the next 15 to 20 years, but when that happens, there's going to be a missing generation and I mean, listen, it's going to affect everything, right, it's going to affect people who can volunteer for military service. It's going to affect people who can support social security. You know, if they're dead, they can't have jobs and they can't support social security, which is for other people in the future. So I mean, this is going to have some severe long-term ramifications for our country and I hope that we wake up and see how important this really is and see how important this really is. I don't mean to be the bearer of bad news, but we're in big trouble here. If we don't turn this thing around pretty quickly, I think we could suffer in ways that we don't even imagine right now.
Speaker 3:What's the course that you would suggest with something like fentanyl?
Speaker 2:Well, I talked about it in the book a little bit and that was toward the end of the book with regards to our national drug control policy and I said we have to give everything that we've got into stopping the flow of prescription, false prescription medicine and fentanyl. I talk about, you know, the marijuana issue. I don't think marijuana is good for you and I don't think marijuana is uh is going to get, um, you know any any uh easier to deal with because the uh percentage of the thc is becoming more and more potent. But I don't think that's I don't think it being a federal uh responsibility is is necessarily helping our country right now, and the reason I say that is because it's almost like the abortion issue that has already been decided by the Supreme Court. They sent it back to the states. Right, I think they should send cannabis back to the states. Let states enforce it, regulate it, legalize it, decriminalize it, whatever the hell they want to do. But in federal law enforcement, we have to look at what's really degrading our society and that right now, my friend, are hardcore drugs, including fentanyl. So we need to put our best resources into this problem. We need to focus on its flow across the border, which is a very current political issue, I understand, and we got to put everything we can into it. Man, I would love to even see maybe the military doing some kind of intelligence gathering support to us, because most of it is coming across the border, most of it is coming across our southwest border. You know the, the fentanyl uh is imported into mexico from china, uh, through, take your pick. You know what uh, what uh. You know the, the corner of cross and don't walk. Uh, the, the walk and don't walk. I mean every country you can imagine, but it ends up in Mexico.
Speaker 2:The labs are in Mexico, it's stamped, it looks like a regular Adderall or Percocet Vicodin pill and then it's fired all over the border into the United States. And there's no way we're going to be able to stop that unless we put every resource we have into it. And then we have to hold these people responsible. Right, we've got to. It has to be a holistic approach where we deal with the Mexican government, difficult as it may be, and we also have to deal with some kind of intelligence collection capability both. Well, dea, customs sorry, ice, fbi can handle it in the US, but we have to figure out a way to do it overseas right. We have to get some major intelligence in terms of locking out those labs.
Speaker 2:Now, maybe DEA I've been retired since 2011. Perhaps DEA knows where the labs are and Mexico's not doing anything about it at a large level. But that was the case with methamphetamine. I can tell you that in the early 2000s, you know, we were able to tell the Mexican government that there was a methamphetamine lab that would manufacture I don't know 500 kilos per 48 hour cycle production cycle, and it would take them two months to react. And and, of course, when they did, they had moved the lab to another, another place. So, um, that's that's what we're dealing with here. Very difficult, jeff. It's a hard question to answer so do you like?
Speaker 3:um, if we know like the fentanyl is is mainly coming from china, like, do we have to wait till it lands in mexico before the da can do anything, or is there any way to intercept it between the foreign countries? How does that work? Do you kind of have to catch it in our court, or close?
Speaker 2:Well, no, no, no. I mean, dea's reach is global. So if we were able to identify where the load was and of course keep in mind that it's always a load of fentanyl is not going to be I mean, one grain of salt in fentanyl can cause an overdose, right? So if you take a 44 pound barrel, 44 pounds is relatively small, let's call it a pony keg. You could take that full of fentanyl and you could hide it in a load of 47,000 pounds of flour that's coming from India, from China, through India into Mexico. You'd never be able to find it right, unless you have the informants or you have some kind of method or technique that reveals of that smuggling conspiracy. You wouldn't know it. There's no way that detection is going to catch that kind of movement. And then, once the fentanyl is in Mexico, you take 44 pounds of fentanyl and then you can cut it three, four times I don't know, tell me Toby perhaps 20 times, and it still have an effective high in whatever pill that is consumed in the United States, sometimes even creating overdoses at the tune of 100,000 people a year. So real problem People have to focus on this right. Number one and I said this too in the book. You know demand must be reduced, right, and I don't know how we're going to do that. People need to know not to take drugs. You know it's more so than ever.
Speaker 2:I mean, when Toby and I were running the streets of Miami in the 80s, we thought this was the worst of the ever. I mean, when Toby and I were running the streets of Miami in the eighties, we thought this was the worst of the worst. I mean that pedals in comparison to the fentanyl threat right now. I, I could, I never, ever saw a hundred thousand people dying per year because of a single drug. And and that's what we're up against now. I mean it's far worse than it ever has been, and I feel terrible about that because we committed our careers to it. You know 25, 30-year careers, but I look at it I hope Toby does too is that? Hey, maybe along the way we saved a few lives and that's what we wanted to do Exactly, right, right, you're never going to stop it altogether.
Speaker 1:I hope Toby does too, is that, hey, maybe along the way we saved a few lives and that's what we wanted to do. That's exactly right. Right, you're never going to stop it altogether. Yep, that's the whole thing, but what you said.
Speaker 1:There's two interesting points that you made and I commend you on this Number one. It begins in the people not wanting the drugs. The people not wanting the drugs. I mean, you'd think that if you saw this, with all these 100,000 people that have died from this, it would be a deterrent Even for somebody that's experimenting with drugs in their teens, early 20s. That seems to be the target use of that and I know that would scare me off. Until it hits home.
Speaker 1:You got a cousin who died of it. Most people think, oh, this ain't going to happen to me or my family. Yes, it always does. Drugs have always affected. I don't care if you came from a military family, dea, customs, whatever. There's a relative that did drugs, there's somebody that did that. So it's affected everybody. And the other thing I found interesting is that you said about the marijuana With that, do you think that, with the states regulating it and we all know there's blue states, red states, conservative, liberal that it'll be a that people will actually move out of a state because of the legalization or go to it. Have a migration like that? That would be. That would be horrible. So I guess my question is do you think this is going to lead to? It's still a Schedule 1 drug marijuana right, or has that changed?
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Okay, if they move that then it would go to the states, just like abortion, and they can decide that, that whole aspect of it, okay. But I'll give you an example when I was a police officer in Massachusetts, okay, they just ruled the governor's office there that anybody that had a record and they haven't decided the amounts of the drugs or anything they could get it wiped off like totally sealed and expunged, and that may happen with that too. And you and I both know there were some people that and the smugglers, but mostly the street dealers that stood on the corner and sold heroin, cocaine and marijuana that you know that they affected these people's lives. I just, I just think if that happens, it's got to be carefully planned. You know. Just some theories I want to throw out at you.
Speaker 2:Oh, I agree 100%. I mean, if there still needs to be some federal oversight maybe Food and Drug Administration or you know, some agency that looks into the regulatory aspect of whether cannabis is proper in the state, is being properly managed in the state but I just don't see it being a federal law enforcement responsibility any longer. Number one, because we have fatter fish to fry. We have this fentanyl problem, we have methamphetamine, we have heroin, opioids All this there are only so many of us, right? I mean, I don't know how many DEA agents there are today. I doubt that there are more than 6,000, 7,000.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
Speaker 2:Far more treasury agents, but then you know, you have your. How many statutes does a treasury agent, an ICE agent, have to be focused on? You know, I mean you may have 40 or 400 statutes that you're focused on. You know, I mean you, you may have 40 or 400 statutes that you're you're focused on. So my point is is that we have, we have a lot to do, and I just didn't see that, um, that we should be too focused on cannabis right now, although, like I said, I don't think cannabis is the answer. I don't.
Speaker 2:It's not aspirin, folks, and and it's and it it's not a beer, you know, I mean they're talking about the THC levels surpassing 95% these days. I mean, when I was in high school, it was three to 5%. You know, of whatever you would smoke. You know that ditch weed, but now I mean it's, it's. It's really something that that, something that can make a difference in how you live your life, you know, and how successful your life is. It's like anything else, right? Alcohol, it's a drug, right, if you drink it in moderation, that's one thing, but if you abuse it, it's going to affect your life. So I'm really worried right now, though, about the fentanyl, and I have been for some time. We've got some people that are working very hard to bring awareness to it, including the parents of fallen children, and when I say children, I'm talking about anybody between 15 and 45. I mean, it's a wide angle of deceased that have died from fentanyl overdoses. So we have to keep a close eye on it, man.
Speaker 3:So would the cannabis make more sense in an ATF scenario than a DEA?
Speaker 2:Well, ATF is also a law enforcement agency, but you mean, with regards to the firearms, being more of a regulatory, having some regulatory oversight.
Speaker 3:And making sure that there's actual commercial licensed companies and stuff trading and having some sort of regulation on that right Taxation and stuff DEA actually does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good point, jeff, because DEA already has a division called Diversion Diversion and what they do is regulatory and cyclical oversight for prescription medication. I mean United States doctors, pharmacies they have to work with DEA in order to prescribe. They have to work with DEA in order to prescribe. You know the drug, the scheduled drugs that they need to support, you know their medical practices. So, yeah, that's a concept that actually could be applied is that you use like a diversion type of model to just make sure that the states are regulating the cannabis production and the distribution in the way that they're supposed to be.
Speaker 2:Now, there are a number of arguments out there in opposition to this idea. Number one, that drug traffickers are never going to obey the law. Right, they're always going to be out there in the national parks growing weed, they're going to influence and and threaten other legitimate growers and and things like that. But uh, like I said, let the states figure it out. I just don't see where, federally, we have the time to truly look. I don't think, and from from dea's perspective, and I could be wrong, but I don't. I don't. While I was there, we weren't really focusing on on pot. We were focusing on, on fat or fish, you know, the fentanyl, the methamphetamine, the heroin, the cocaine, uh, just yeah, pick, pick from the buffet is.
Speaker 3:That is the biggest problem. Is that because biggest problem is our demand, is our demand is that because, um, uh, because the violence associated with the trade itself or the the danger of the substances?
Speaker 2:well, in fentanyl, it's the danger of the substances, it's it's the high rate of of uh overdoses to death and, um, I mean, when you're talking about methamphetamine that results in a number of uh violent crimes, domestic uh issues, domestic disputes, arrests. You know uh, spouses are beating spouses, spouses are killing other people, I it it, just it goes on and on, man uh. You know there's a lot more for us to look at in terms of the small resources and and the the ammo that we have to work with right and uh, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I just I agree with toby that marijuana, you know, and some people have, um, some of my fellow agents have brought to my attention that what was very helpful with uh, marijuana arrests, federal arrests, was at three strikes and you're out Right. So if you were able to grab a trafficker, you know, that was in possession of a half a pound of of of a pot and he had two or more prior arrest, you could you give him the three and you're out Right, and then that's a harder sentence and keep them in jail for longer. But you know, I I don't really see that as as as a solution. I think that's more. I mean it is a solution, but it could be a solution on the state state end and not the federal end because we're just we're becoming awash in this uh, this, this fentanyl threat yeah, I.
Speaker 1:I just I just wanted to comment that the creation of task force with the border issue would be good. I we touched briefly in the beginning about cross-designation and one thing that we had is we had Title 21 authority from DEA with customs, and they had border search authority, which makes a difference. And border search authority is if you follow a load into the United States or narcotics, you don't need a search warrant, as long as you have that in view and can place it. And a lot of times there's there's, you know, there's delays in getting search warrants for whatever reasons. It can be an assistant US attorney who you know doesn't want to act on it quick enough. It can be the judge. It can be a lot of things. So it was a very, very useful tool that we had and Title 21 was great. And the most important thing is camaraderie among the people you're working with. You don't want to have adversity. Competition is good, fun competition, but you don't want it between enforcement agencies. You want them together and you want to be able to solve the issue and I think if they create these kinds of things with fentanyl, it'll at least start in the right direction. So I just wanted to commend you on one thing before we go.
Speaker 1:This book is great and the first chapter will blow you away and I'm not going to discuss it. He knows it, he lived it. He's a brave man, okay, and one of the agents who was involved in that became the head of miami office. But it starts you right out. So I'll just want to pay you a compliment for that, that that, if that that got people's attention, it got mine right away because I was looking and I said you know, this is going to be like the big cheese over the office and sack and you know, down in, you know the country attache the head of global operations. But it starts out like that and it paints such a relevant picture for anybody that has any interest in the law enforcement in 1980s okay, well, I'm buying it.
Speaker 1:You sold me see you got a sale today, hey jeff, you and my mother that's two well, I'm not going to check it out of the toby library.
Speaker 3:I'm going to get a copy. Take my time.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it. No, it's done well. I mean, I it's, it's. It's actually gotten some very, very um fine reviews and uh and some positive uh responses, so I'm, I feel blessed, yeah, and all I wanted to do was tell the story right. Like toby knows, it's a perpetual play date. It was the. It was the best job that I could imagine. It was fun.
Speaker 1:I have one last proposal that I have his book. I hope you have mine somewhere. It's I do. It's less pages. You can read it at the beach. That's that's what I tell people. But I want you to come down. We're going to go to go to tobacco road. We're going to sign each others, but I got to warn you, the tobacco road is not what it used to be. It is now. Remember. The parking was like, you know, park for free or five bucks. It's now like like new york, like the design district down there, and it's like 25 to 30 bucks to park there.
Speaker 1:The Death Burger is cheaper than the parking, if you can believe that. Okay, and you know Paul Pelletier, right, the prosecutor, he's an ASA Very, very tough. He came down there. He lives in Washington. He came down there and we met there and he he's like I can't believe how expensive this is now. And I said I said yeah, yeah, I said uh, it's changed a little bit over the years, but I want you to come down when you're in Miami. We're going to meet there.
Speaker 2:Dave got us thank you know if you, if, if you spoke to current AUSAs, assistant US attorneys or even current federal agents today and you tried to explain to them what Tobacco Road was like in Miami at that time, it would be like trying to explain to somebody today what, uh, an eight track tape or even a 4578 LP record was like right, they, they, you know, trying to teach a 11 year old what that was like. It's totally different. I mean, it truly was once in a lifetime, historical moment that you and I were able to grow in the cocaine cowboys era at Ground Zero. There was no comparison and we're really lucky, amazingly lucky, to have been a part of it, and we are also lucky to have survived it.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, even though our hair colors changed a little bit over the years, you know. But that's life.
Speaker 2:I'm not. I haven't lost color, I've just lost the hair.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm working on that. Now it's going away, but you know what can I say? I had it for a long time.
Speaker 3:Mine's just migrated south.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you've got the cool, you've got the peaky. That's covering it. I like that. Hey, Jeff, listen, read the book. If you see some chapters that you like, we can get back on the call again.
Speaker 3:We're going to do this again book. If you see some chapters that you like, we can get back on the call again. We're gonna do. I love this guys. This is so much fun, it was fantastic and I'm sure we're gonna have a ton of comments. So next time we get on we can maybe answer some of the viewers comments and uh, you know, keep them moving definitely absolutely.
Speaker 2:Let me know anytime you want to get together.
Speaker 1:This was a lot of fun okay, good people, see you at tobacco road. Take care, dave. Appreciate it, dave, bye.