Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel | Lex Fridman Podcast #199

The following is a conversation with Roger Reeves, one of the most prolific drug smugglers in history. He worked for Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa, the leaders behind the Medellín Cartel. Roger was the employer and close friend of Barry Seal, the infamous drug smuggler who was the main character in the movie American Made. Roger transported countless tons of cocaine and marijuana covering six continents. He escaped prison five times, was shut down in both Mexico and Colombia, and was tortured nearly to death in a Mexican prison. Through all of this, his wife Marie, the love of his life, was there with him. And when he was in prison, she waited for him. He recently got out of prison where for many years he worked on his memoir called Smuggler. This podcast is an exploration of his story. Quick mention of our sponsors: Noom, Allform, Express VPN, Four Sigmatic, and Eight Sleep. Check them out in the description to support this podcast. Let me say a few words about Roger Reeves, Pablo Escobar, and the war on drugs. This conversation with Roger is unlike any I've ever done. In the eyes of many, including the law, Roger is a criminal, a bad man who has added to the suffering in the world. But he never directly engaged or participated in the violence unlike his bosses, Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa. His crime was the transport of drugs. I thought about this and about Pablo Escobar, who was at once both a brutal murderer and a Robin Hood figure who helped the poor and was loved by thousands, if not millions. We sometimes idolize murderers and destroy good honest men. We give power and money to corrupt politicians and dictators that starve and murder their own people. Given this, I think about what makes for a good man and what makes for a bad man and who decides. Sitting across from Roger, I saw a complicated man, but one who has kindness in his heart, a love for money and adventure, and a disdain for violence. Again, his crime was the transport of drugs. Since 1971, the war on drugs has cost US $1 trillion. Marijuana legalization alone would save and make $13.7 billion. That could send more than 650,000 students to public universities every year. Then there's the human stories of the 500,000 human beings sitting in prison for drug-related offenses and the 1.1 million on probation and parole. Their life is damaged or ruined beyond repair due to the prohibition of drugs. There's a lot more to be said about the damage done by the war on drugs. But when reading about Roger's story and talking to him, I couldn't escape the thought that while society wants to label him a criminal and a bad human being, there are much worse men out there who we give a pass to, even give power to, even men who hold political office or run companies. I also think about my role as an interviewer. Sitting across a man like Roger, in these interviews, in life, in many ways I continue to be myself, a person who like Dostoevsky's The Idiot seeks the good in all people, but is hurt by it on occasion and maybe is destroyed by it in the end. I'm not naive, but I'm also optimistic and have hope for humanity. That's who I am. And that's what these conversations are. I hope you join me and I hope you understand that I come from a place of love. This is the Lex Fridman podcast and here's my conversation with Roger Reeves. You are one of the most prolific drug smugglers in history. What would you say motivated you? Money, power, the thrill, or was it something else? Money. But isn't there a point where you've had more money than you can possibly know what to do with? Or was it always more money? You know, I had plenty of money several times. And I think it's sort of like if you was in Las Vegas and you had the slot machine handle down and the gold coins was tumbling around you and you had sweepers bagging them up, when would you let it go? But isn't some part of that the thrill then? Oh, there was a lot of thrill. Sometimes way too much. You made certainly tens of millions of dollars, probably much more. What memorable experience did having that much money make possible for you? So there's one thing is the money and the other thing is what that money can buy. Well, I bought everything that I could hide. I bought seven farms. I owned the um the city the land where the city of Moreno Valley, California is. I had an option on that land, the the planning and development of that. Uh the most expensive coin in the world. Um yachts, ships, airplanes galore. Did that bring you happiness? No. In fact, I think I'm happier now. I know I'm happier now. So looking back, would you do it the same way all again? No way. Really? Even the thrill of it? Not even the thrill of it. It wasn't worth 33 years in prison being away from my lovely family. So money, what about the power? Just being on top of the world where nobody can not the the governments, the police, all the big bad agencies chasing you, and you could do whatever the heck you wanted. As far as having to look over your shoulder everywhere you did went and every phone call you made, make sure that you was naked with somebody in the ocean before you talked. It's rather uncomfortable. Yeah. Um I like to make phone calls the same way. What um was it like meeting and working with Pablo Escobar, the leader of the Medellín Cartel? He was just a just seemed like a gentleman when I met him. He was just like you and I sitting here, shook hands and I had flown one load for a fella and uh it didn't work out well. The fella that I gave it to got shot and it took a while to get my money and they didn't put as many kilos on the plane as they supposed to and so I wasn't going to work with him anymore and my contact down there introduced me to Jorge Ochoa. And uh we went up and in Envigado we went up and the gate opened and we was escorted in. There must have been 50 men out in the yards hitching rail on an old house and we was escorted right in. And there was a beautiful woman in there. I mean gorgeous, dead beautiful. And she made us a cup of coffee and was ushered in to see Jorge Ochoa. And he had 12 telephones on his desk and all of them was a different color. And he shook hands, was very friendly, spoke English. And uh he said that each one of those telephones represented another a city in the United States. This is Chicago and this is New York. If I would ring, I knew who was calling. And so we had chatted a while and he asked me what type of airplanes I had and what experience I had flying across the US border and I told him he seemed uh pleased with it and he called the lady in and she went next door and in came Pablo Escobar and he introduced me to Pablo Escobar and he asked the same questions again and uh I answered him and I says uh and I I asked him how much he paid and they paid $5,000 a kilo to haul it. And uh so I says how much you put on the plane? He says 300, 500. So that's 1 and 1/2, 2 and 1/2 million dollars for an 8-hour trip. Sounded pretty good to me. And we're talking about cocaine and we're talking about Colombia. Colombia and cocaine and Medellín Cartel. And Jorge Ochoa was one of the what would you say, founding members of the the brains behind the whole thing. The brains and spoke good English. Yes. And they were nice people. Really nice people. Were you scared? Not at all. What's wrong with your mind that you weren't scared? Here's some of the most dangerous men in this world and you weren't scared. Well, I knew I was going to do exactly what I said I was going to do. Marie and the children was down there. They went down and they stayed in the hotel five star and treated royally on my first load. And I they just did as security to make sure that I wasn't a DEA agent. So I I did the first load and they was they can say they were hostages, but they really weren't. It was just a insurance. So there was some integrity to the way they operated. Completely. I mean straight straight up. The money was ironed and band band banded and just right and the and the numbers were never once anything wrong with it. What would you attribute that honesty to? Within the their own moral system and their own set of rules, why weren't people crossing the line and shaving off the top and and in injecting chaos into the system to where it would be unpredictable and people would be dishonest and greedy and all those kinds of things? That's true. Most people are, but there's certain people at the top of the food chain that they don't need that. And if they're completely honest, then they don't have to think of remember the lie they told. Mhm. And and plus they're just honest to start with. They're they're they're making plenty of money. They was making as much money as I did. I uh I'll tell you how that um that came about. I understand that 10,000 people were killed every year in Medellin, Colombia. And what they were doing, they didn't they didn't have any organization. And if one fellow had 10 kilos and he wanted it shipped to New York, he would tell his friend and his friend said, "Sure, I'll ship it. I have a pilot and I'll ship it up." And then he would look in the newspapers, "Oh, 40 kilos was busted in New Jersey. I'm so sorry, yours got busted." Bang bang, he's dead. So, here comes Jorge Ochoa and the three Ochoa brothers and Pablo Escobar and Gacha and they decided that we will make an insurance company. That we would charge you $10,000 to take it to your contact in Miami. If it gets lost anywhere between the time I put it on the airplane or at the time you give it to us and the time we give it to your man, we will replace it in Colombia for you. So, there was no way anybody could lose. And I understand they got 100 tons piled up under that insurance program. And I was right there the first day. So, I had all the work I could do. I would land in this I said, "When do you want me to come back?" "We waiting on you, senor." Well, let me ask you a difficult question. Some see Escobar as a brutal murderer and some see him as maybe a Robin Hood-like figure who helped the poor. How do you see the man? Both of them. I think he started out to be honest would help the poor. And then they had a war down there and they blew up and killed his people and the country was divided almost equally three ways. They had the uh the military. They were just as much into it as anybody and then you had the FARC guerrillas. They had about a third of the country. And then you had the contras. It was like white farmers and they're the ones that I was dealing with and they were at war with one another. And so if one of them started killing their people, "Well, I'll kill some of yours, too." So, that that's how it happened. And then when I heard about Pablo Escobar blowing up that airliner and killing those women and children, I was sorry I ever shook his hand. That's that's brutal murder. So, you would say Escobar is not a good man. Not at all. It's terrible. Now, looking back on it, but when I met him, he was good. He did just exactly what he said he would do. Could he be a bad man and a man you can trust? Absolutely, you could trust him. Yes. So, from your perspective, in terms of business, he was reliable, he was honest, had integrity, you could work with him. And you felt safe. Completely. We flew up in to his ranch and he he brought out motorcycles to start with. He said, "Can you ride a motorcycle?" "Of course I can ride a motorcycle." So, I took off across the grass and there was a little ditch there and the front wheel dropped in that thing and I must have slid across that grass 20 ft before I got stopped. He almost fell off his of his bike waiting cuz they knew what he was going to do. And then we got on horses and we went out there and pretended type to round up some cows and he put a Mac-10 machine gun pistol over my shoulder. "Do you know how to use this?" Well, I never had, but it was all right. I think it was like, "Okay, you got 10 bodyguards, what do you need me for?" So, that's kind of time we laughed and talked and drove some cows over the stumps. You said Jorge Ochoa was perhaps the brains of the Medellin Cartel. What was he like? And why do you say he was the brains? Well, he was a gentleman. And I suppose he shipped I don't know telling how many more times of cocaine than Pablo did. Just and him and his brothers, you could tell by the they had on each each a load. They was in duffel bags. And this big football-shaped uh fluffy stuff made with ether. And uh they would have three horns on it or a rattlesnake or four X's on each bag. You kind of got to know in which was which was which and they shipped a lot. So, um and he was just a gentleman. I took my family, we went one weekend to his ranch or his uh palatial place out near Barranquilla. And all we he just treated the family and his family had a his younger brother rode with made a bullfight and we had uh skiing and little airplanes on floats on on the water. It was really nice and he was really nice. How do you make sense of the tension that a man could be a gentleman, can have integrity, but also be a murderer? Well, murder is is a is a stronger word than killing. Can you explain the the the line, the gray area we're talking about? I mean, I've just talking with Jocko Willink and we talked a lot about killing in the context of uh military conflict in the context of war. So, there there's a line between murder and killing that you can draw. What's the line that you're referring to? It's something similar. If you if people shooting at you and you shoot back and kill him, I don't that's not murder whatsoever. That's a uh he's trying to get away or or out out of the situation. But if uh someone don't pay you and you send a hitman over to to kill her and her children, that's That's murder. That's murder. Was Jorge involved in those kinds of things? I don't think so at all. It just I mean, he was he was just such a gentleman. He had a a restaurant before and and he was just smart. I understand that the first 10 kilos he sold, he was sitting on a on a motorcycle in the in the sidelines in a parking lot when the DEA come in, he sped away. So, he didn't come back to America. He was just smart. Some people just have are savvy. And he was such a gentleman and the whole family, the mother and the father, the two brothers, their sister. They were I was there when she was kidnapped. And uh finally he kidnapped our our I guess 100 leaders of the FARC and uh said, "All right, when she don't come back, none of these are going to come back." So, they made a deal. Is there something you can say about the power structure, the hierarchy of the Medellin Cartel that you interacted with? Was was it a dictatorship or Pablo ran everything? Was there a bunch of power centers? Was it like a company where you have CEO, CTO kind of thing and then there's like managers and all those kinds of things? What's the like how did it run from a leadership perspective? I understand that about five of them got together and made this I would call it an insurance company. And now known as the Medellin Cartel. And I didn't see any difference. Each one of them had their own business. And uh their people from the jungle or wherever made the cocaine, gave it to them and they shipped it. And so, it didn't it didn't seem to be any any power play between them at all. But my main contact was Jorge Ochoa and Pablo Escobar was right there and I sold plenty of stuff for him, too. It's strange that they didn't betray each other regularly. You know, greed makes men betray each other. How do you explain that? How much betrayal did you see? I didn't see any. Absolutely none. If if he shipped his 100 kilos, he got paid for it. And the other one uh shipped his, I'm sure they got paid for it. How do you explain that? Well, there was no need to. The money was just unbelievable. You think about 500 kilos in the plane at $50,000 a kilo at the time. And they paid $5,000 to ship it. And they made 5,000 without even touching it. They just had them somebody to load it onto the airplane. I gave it to their man in Miami. They gave it to whoever it belonged to by the uh by the marks on the duffel bags. So, they was making just untold millions. Just uh no reason. But greed can blind men. I you know, it's still it's still strange to me that there was not more betrayal. It it speaks to something else perhaps that's bigger than money. Um may maybe maybe not. But it seems like just like in the casino like you mentioned, uh we um get accustomed to the whatever level of money we have, we get accustomed very quickly. Yes. And then there's a tension that's natural between human beings and when that tension combined with money, combined with power, combined with like you mentioned beautiful women and a bit of violence, it seems that um betrayal should be commonplace. But it's not. It wasn't not at all. Like Carlos Lehder, I don't know if he betrayed anybody, but he started that he was running cocaine through the Bahamas and he had the island. I I didn't go. I was offered to fly with a DC-3 with that, but I didn't like it. So, I had my route through the old wells in Louisiana. And so, I I didn't want to change. But he he talked a lot and I don't know if he betrayed, but they didn't like him. Yeah, so as you expand, there could be tensions that that lead to conflict. Colombia was like you said an ultra-violent place. How did you survive? Who protected you? I was a hero. They they liked me. I mean, I was just treated royally. All I did, I would come over El Banco. There's a radio station at the forks of the Magdalena River. I believe it was 7:20 if I remember right on the AM. And I'd fly in at 10,000 ft and I'd see below me there'd be a Cessna. And I'd wiggle my wings and he'd wiggle his and I'd fall in behind him and we might go 100 200 mi and I'd land on some jungle strip or some uh banana plantation. And they'd fuel me up. I could eat steaks, spend the night. It was just like treated royal and I mean take off in the next morning and whenever I wanted to. It was just like that was protected and I was I was honored guest. It wasn't anything like in that movie putting you putting a gun to your head and taking your sunglasses and and betting so one time I uh complained to um Aurelio Ochoa that the runway was pretty short that they were using. And I went back down there and it looked like Los Angeles International. They had had bulldozers in there. Had that thing 5,000 ft long. It just like it just the next week it was all done. The jungle was gone and clay put up there and And all the while you were not afraid. You were treated like royalty. Yes. There I was. I was afraid when I landed in the United States. Well, maybe let's go back to the beginning. What was the first time you uh flew an airplane with drugs on it? Tell me the story the first time you smuggled drugs. All right. I uh I flew down to Jalapa, Veracruz with a Cessna 182. And uh we landed at the town. It was a lovely town and it was just an old town looked like Bible times. People women were washing their clothes in the streets and I with stone basins in the stream running through. I just was just uh dumbstruck. It was just so pretty. And I went in a church in a Catholic church and it had the stations of the cross all carved magnificent. I'd never seen that. And I come home and told Murray about that. That would just almost brought tears to my eyes. It was so beautiful. And 3:00 the next morning I went out to the airport and taxied down to the taxiway and there was a guard came out. And uh wanted to know what I was doing and I pulled out I was on the I was on the fire department at Redondo Beach, California. So I pulled out my wallet and in in it was a fire department badge and oh he shook my hand was so glad. So I taxied on down there and we loaded up about 400 lb in the plane and uh came on back and I was uh running to headwinds more than I thought and I landed on a little strip. You were talking about on the way back? On the way back. On the way north after we loaded up early in the morning. And I had for only time I ever got vertigo. The mountains were coming down at a a 30 or 40° angle and the uh Milky Way Way was overhead and somehow I wanted that airplane to be level with the stars. And it got it got me and it's phenomenal pilot has vertigo. It's the only time I ever had it was on that load. So anyway, the wind was on the nose of that Cessna. I wasn't going to make it to the dry lake where I had fuel. So I landed on a little bitty strip and there was a a little house that was caved in and there was a little boy named Lazarus about 6 or 7 years old and he was herding some goats. So we put the marijuana in that house and the man stayed with it so while I flew into some town and got fuel and came back and we sit down with the lunch that I brought back and little Lazarus sit there and ate with us and we had a good time. We loaded them back and came home. Oh, wow. I wonder where he is now. What what was it like to fly maybe describe the details of Jeff to fly low? Um is there details that are unique to this experience of flying an airplane with drugs on it on board? All right. Well, one of the mistakes that just thousands hundreds and hundreds and thousands of pilots make they don't stop at the border going down and get their permit. Once you get a permit to be in Mexico you've got it for 6 months. You can go anywhere any fishing village any little town any little place show them this and you're welcome. If you don't have that you go straight to jail. So you go down there and you think okay they're going to have fuel for me to come back and so forth. Oh sorry senor that was uh had a rusty leak in it so we don't have any. Well, you better be able to go to town and get it. Yeah. So uh that's what I did and when I was coming back for several years I would fly uh fly up at Mexicali and cross the border right at Calexico just I would act like I was landing on the Calexico side just after dark. Then I'd zip across the border and I'd go over to the Salton Sea and go below sea level 100 and something feet. I believe 170 ft and come on up and go out there and uh above Palm Springs and land out 29 Palms in the desert. And put my stuff under a Joshua tree and fly into town and get my pickup and going back out and get it. And that was fun. And then it got really dangerous. They had a Operation Starlight I believe was the name of it and they caught a lot of pilots coming across the border. So I changed it and by that time I was flying bigger planes. I was flying Beech 18s. And I would refuel in Mulege on the halfway down on the Baja Peninsula. And then over in the middle 20 mi from the nearest road was a was a goat ranch where they milked goats and made cheese. And I would go there and unload the load coming up out of anywhere in southern Mexico. And I'd land there and a guy named Juan would uh we'd put the put the marijuana under the trees and I'd fly into Mulege and they'd wash my plane and gas it up and I'd I'd eat lunch and rent a room for a few hours and take a nap and a shower and then go back in the afternoon and and fill up. And then I would go northwest out of there and fly 200 mi off the coast of the island of Guadalupe. And from there I would fly on a more northwestern heading about 300 mi out over the Pacific. And then I would come in behind the Santa Barbara Islands down low and then I'd come up and go out in the desert and land. And uh I did that for the rest of the marijuana trips. What was the hardest part about flying those routes? The hardest part was getting good marijuana. So the hardest part isn't the flying. The hardest part is the flying. It's just like driving your car down. But then I had people that would bring me on strips that were just unworthy of an airplane. Like when the I'd land on a highway. Yeah. And uh and in and in the rainy season I'd come back to land again and the guy would it wouldn't think about it. You'd have like little hills on both sides and the the wings were out there. Well, the the grass and the weeds would grow up and it sound like I mean it sound like tearing the airplane apart when those wings hit mowing the grass down both both shoulders of the airplane. The weeds had grew up high in the tropics. So some of that stuff was bad and oh getting bad gasoline and telling me that this land here in the light and and knock the wheels off when you land. Oh, you should have landed a little further up here senor. There's ditch down Yeah. That sort of thing. What what was it like landing on a highway and and when did you have to land on a highway? I landed on a highway most of my life most of the times. In Mexico first time I went down there was a place called Pichilingue. And they had a 900 ft strip. And uh I would fly down and I'd carry gasoline wing with me and uh uh Murray and I would go to the grocery store and buy all kind of little goodies and candies and toys to bring to the children. And uh that sand strip in the in the bend of a river was just too short to take off with a load. So there was a young man there named Pedro must not weigh much over 100 maybe 120 lb and he'd get in the plane with me. And he'd direct me 20 30 40 mi away to a highway. And the people walk in and the people would pull out in a 2-ton truck with a machine gun on it and bunch of guys with their arms with just and they'd block the road and then another one would block it up about a mile away. And I'd land right over that truck and they'd load me up. Looked like a bucket brigade with the marijuana coming. I'd shake hands with all of them and I'd take off right over the other trucks. And sometimes maybe 20 30 40 cars lined up. I went down I remember a patrol car highway patrol car with he didn't have his lights on. Took off right over him. And then when I started flying in Louisiana the bridge over the Mississippi River there were several contractors that went broke and that thing was out for years. And about 5 mi from the river was flashing red lights and a detour. And then the swamp on both sides of it in the middle of it were growing up with 20 ft trees and that was like an international runway from anywhere in the world. So I landed on that and over and over those red lights were just like the end of a runway. And then the next morning we'd go out there and scrub the marks off the highway where I'd landed before daylight. Wow. Let's go to somebody you've known well. Somebody who is who's also a drug smuggler is Barry Seal. Who is Barry Seal? How did you meet him? Barry Seal is a friend of mine. Uh Murray and I and the children went down in Honduras and we went up uh Lake Yojoa I believe it was and we're looking at a a ranch to buy. I was looking for something in Central America where I'd have a a halfway place. Mhm. Oh, it was lovely. We stayed up there for some days and our clothes got muddy and we went in the river and all kind of thing. So we got to San Pedro Sula. And uh we was going back to New Orleans. So uh we went to to the cleaners to get our clothes and most all of them was in there. And the guy oh senor they'll be ready tomorrow morning. We're not ready now. Well, the plane leaves at 9:00 or whatever. So I told Murray to for her and the children to go into the airport because it'd be easier for one just on a standby flight. So I went to the um laundromat for the clothes and they were ready and they was a pile and when I put them on my back and got in the taxi and the old taxi we were driving with it and I'd give him $100 to go faster and he just blew his horn more rapid. Finally, we got to the airport, and I jumped out and ran around on the tarmac, and here's a brand new 727 taxiing out. Oh, no. So, I'm waving to the pilot, and he's a young fellow. He waves back. Then I see Marie's face in the cockpit, and then the nose goes down where he puts on brakes, and he laughs, and he puts the stairwell out. And I run for the stairwell, and he pulls it back up and goes like a hitchhiker going to pick you up and go go again. Then he put it out, and I got on, and the whole crowd clapped, and I'm coming home with that load of clothes. So, I go way down in the middle, and the plane plane's full, and Miriam, our daughter, is about 9 years old then. And she was sitting in the middle, and by the window was Barry Seal. Of course, I didn't know it. And I sat in the middle. And uh we took off, and the wheels come up with clunk, and then I got up about 5,000 ft, and we had a little clink clink. And she said, "What was that, Daddy?" And I said, "He just turned on his autopilot." And that fellow reached over, and I looked and looked at him. I said, he he looks like CIA or FBI something. He ain't supposed to be here. Clear blue eyes, gentleman-looking man. And he And he said, "You fly these things?" I said, "I got a few hours, mister." He said, "I I fly them too" or something other. And he said, "My name Barry Seal." He reached over Miriam and shook hands. And we got to talking, and uh I thought there's no choice of seats on this. It's just open seating, so but I don't believe him one bit. And he started talking about he just got out of jail that morning. Just got out of prison. And I said, "Uh-huh." And he told me he had been a pilot with um TWA and this and other. And uh he told me what what he was for and this. So, we had a nice conversation for a couple hours to New Orleans. I didn't believe him. Yeah. So, he got off in front of us, and what a crowd of people were to meet him. An old mother and a wife and little children hanging on to him crying and hugging and kissing. I said, "He was telling the truth." So, I reached over and gave him a a little piece of paper. I had Marie to write it out with our address. I said, "Barry, I might have some work for you." What was he in jail for? He he got caught with 100 kilos of cocaine in a small plane. And so, he's served a year. And that was uh from Colombia? I don't know where it come from. He got caught in Honduras, probably refueling. But um he'd been he'd been in prison down there before for bringing explosives to the um Cuban countries. And he lost his job with the airlines. And then later on, I found out he was ex-CIA and George Bush Sr.'s protégé and had a thousand parachute jumps and was there He he was a hot shot mouth. There's a million questions I want to ask here, but um maybe can we linger on a little bit longer. What was your relationship with him like? You you were a drug smuggler, he's a drug smuggler. Um you're friends. How often do you guys talk? How often do you work together? What was the relationship like? Well, I'll back up and just finish where I started off there. He I I gave him a thanks, Barry. I may have some work for you. I know I got some work for you. And uh I said, "Just uh come up to Santa Barbara." And so, I don't know what we could do later. He flew out and went to our house and stayed with us for a couple of days, and I had a almost brand new uh Aero Commander 690B. That thing was turbo prop, and it was hot. It's hottest thing I'd ever had. So, I said, "Let's go, Barry. Let's see what you can do." So, I'm sorry I said that. We got up about 10,000 ft, and he was like one of them Blue Angel pilots. He wrung that thing out. Yeah. And then I said, "That's enough." And then um he did a falling leaf. That's where you cut the engines, and the plane falls from side to side. I saw Bob Hoover do that in the air show once. And that's the only person I ever saw do it. And I was my hand was white-knuckle hanging onto the seat. He shut off the engine? Yeah, he shut off the engines and landing flying side by side like this. How do you explain that? Was he just uh a wild man, or was he sufficiently skilled to where skilled. Absolutely. He knew what he was doing. I can get a plane from one spot to another, and I guess I'm known as a good pilot, but that guy it was aerobatic. So, anyway, he stayed with us a couple of days, and then I told him I said, "This plane needs uh needs tanking like I said, I got some work down in Colombia needs to come back to Louisiana, and I need 2,500 mi range." He said, "I got somebody in Mena, Arkansas do that and keep their mouth shut." So, I gave him $10,000, and he flew away. And in a few days, he called me and says, "Come to my house in um Baton Rouge." So, I went out to his house in Baton Rouge, and I stayed with him for a few days, and that plane was tanked. I mean, beautiful from stem to stern. I could went from Bolivia to Canada with it. So, uh he was uh then I hired him to fly. And uh he was funny. I paid him a million dollars a trip. I paid him $2,000 a kilo, so it's about a million dollar trip. And I didn't get paid until they the people received it. They had to ship it to Chicago and New York, and then the money come back. So, it's it's a couple of two or three weeks pipeline. Well, I was had to pay him before what before he'd go again. I mean, and he bellyached. I mean, he'd moan and groan. So, uh one time I uh I gave him a million dollars, and I put it in a box real nice. So, how big is a box that contains a million dollars? So, we're talking about $100 bills? It's not very big. You can put it in a large briefcase. It weighs exactly 10 kilos. Each Each bill weighs a gram, so you can weigh your money and almost get it exactly. 20-something pounds is a million dollars. 22 pounds. 22 pounds. Of $100 bills. But in $1 bills, it's 1 ton, 2,200 pounds. We didn't even accept them. Were you the one to introduce Barry Seal to uh Pablo Escobar? No. I didn't introduce him at all, and uh he and I our deal was that you don't meet my people. I mean, we just kind of cross. You working for me to fly the airplanes. So, he wanted these Panther conversions, cost $400,000 each with storm scope and radar. So, I'd bought anything he wanted. What's that mean? Sorry to interrupt. Panther conversions. A Panther conversion was a these people called Panther. They took everything out from the firewall, the instruments and all, and converted them and put Q-tip propellers on them, four-bladed, and you very quiet. And the CIA developed those in Southeast Asia for running behind the lines. And that's where Barry had flown those things, so he knew about them. So, I that's what he wanted, and that's what we got him. How does that connect to Pablo? And so, he worked for you, and you got those upgrades. I I think he flew about 30 loads for me, and then I got arrested and was about a for everything in the world. Got 35 years sentence. But let me back up a little bit. Barry uh was our friend. Uh Marie and I both friend. We should pause real quick and say Marie is uh uh your wife, and we'll hopefully she'll uh we'll convince her to join us in a little in a little bit. She's the love of your life, and sort of she uh weaves in and out of many of the stories that you tell. Yes. She was there. She was behind the scenes, but I kept her out of it completely. And then also, you mentioned Miriam as as a your daughter. Yes. Rick our son was a was a baby. And I remember we went out to the festival. It was my favorite restaurant in Coral Gables. Oh God, it was good. And Barry knew about it. Anyhow, we went out to dinner, and uh so, we came back, and there was no rooms. So, Barry will spend the night with us. So, he goes to our hotel room with him. We got two two big beds in the the Omni Hotel, and he lays over there, gets down to his striped undershorts and his T-shirt, and he puts the baby up on his belly and gives him the bottle, says, "Ain't that good, Rick? Oh, my my." And he just feeds the baby. We laugh and talk and Yeah. That's how close we were that we could all stay in a hotel room together. He said, And would you say he's a good man? A wonderful man. A gentleman. Southern gentleman. Just He's looked after his mother, his family, everybody around him. Everybody loved Barry. He just had a He had a little little smile on his face always. So, you got arrested, and then uh what happened to Barry? Well, Barry knew the the people that unloaded. Of course, he sent the cars down and all that. So, he met the unloader, guy named Leto. Luis Carlos Bustamante. A Venezuelan. And uh so, he just kept on flying. Mhm. But he uh yeah, I believe he had three of my airplanes at $400,000 apiece, and they owed me some money. Well, he collected a lot of that and gave Marie the money and put it in his safe and took her to his house and all after I got arrested, and sent a lawyer in. He got me the best lawyer in the country. Albert Krieger. He was head of the defense team for all America. Wonderful man. Can you tell the story of the months that led up to Barry's assassination? What What What What did you know? What did you sense? What did you think? Okay, when I got out of prison, I hadn't been out long. I was uh watch eating breakfast, and there was Ronald Reagan's face right on the television. We have absolute proof that the communist Sandinista government is in the cocaine running business. And there was that fat lady, the C-20 126 on the runway with the belly in, and I thought, "Oh God, he had done it." So, I had heard that Barry might have been working with him. So, it wasn't long Working with with the DEA or whoever. Yeah, he that he had he was no longer on our side, you know. Uh so uh can you clarify how you got that from the Reagan making a statement about we've heard was his plane. There was Barry's plane and okay, on the way north we could stop in Nicaragua and land on the military base or on a a base that they used as crop dusters and all and refuel. Yeah. And so that shortened our trip to go further into the jungle and come up and that was what Pablo Escobar and Ochoa and him and they had to they was associates with the the people in uh Nicaragua. So Barry was if that plane was there, that means Barry was feeding the DEA information. He was working with him at that time. But let me back up a little bit. When when I was flying and I told Barry we would we would refuel and change airplane the the loads in Belize where I had a a spot up there and then that's when the they told me we can refuel in in uh Nicaragua. And then you fly all the way and Barry couldn't believe it. He says, "All right, but I wanted to land I had a place in Louisiana for $10,000 that I could land unload and the sheriff and all of them was paid off." And he said, "No, no, no. I can't get caught in Mena Arkansas." I said, "What do you mean you can't get caught in Mena Arkansas? You get caught anywhere." He said, "I can't. If you're going to but it's going to cost you $50,000 every time our wheels touch the ground." Why? Can you explain why he can't get caught in Mena Arkansas? was hooked up with the with him to the very top and he even said, "I'm going to have dinner with the governor tonight." That's at that time Mr. Bill Clinton. Mr. Bill Clinton. undoubtedly. And it's like did Bill Clinton did you give him any money and I said, "No, I never paid the man any money." But it was like the money that I had that went to Grand Cayman Islands and I told my lawyer I said, "I never touched that money." He said, "You don't have to fondle it to be guilty." So So what I mean there's a lot of conspiracy theories around the relationship between Barry Seal and the Clintons. Absolutely. What evidence do we have? What what would you say from your best understanding um of what was the relationship between Bill Clinton and Barry Seal? Barry said and he knew that he couldn't get caught in Mena Arkansas. And when that movie was going to come out be called Mena somebody stopped it. I mean they stopped it dead in the tracks for two or three years and the producer even quit. You mean the American Made with Tom Cruise movie? It wasn't going to be called Mena? the name it was written and produced in Mena. And we waiting on Hillary to be elected they they would not let that movie out. And that movie was changed drastically. But to push back on that that doesn't mean there's truth there. That means they were worried about the power of the conspiracy theory which stuck. Exactly. But how do you know? I mean you know some some conspiracy theories just because they're popular doesn't mean they're true and ones that but it also doesn't mean they're not true and there's ones that are not very popular that could be true. But that one that one really stuck. Do do I mean what's your sense? Well, I paid one and a half million dollars for Barry to land at Mena Arkansas. So I was pretty well assured that he couldn't get caught. And I said, "Well, I can't get caught in Colombia. We can't get caught in Nicaragua. I guess we got license." So we went for it. Oh, so when you say I can't get caught just to clarify there's a there's a sense where this is a safe place to land. Yes, like completely safe. So you don't think he was referring to some kind of um you know like my grandfather who fought in World War II would talk about bullets can't hit him. So it's almost like believing He was taking that $50,000 and giving it somebody. To somebody. And Barry was honest so he wasn't just taking it from me because he was making a million dollars he didn't care for the $50,000. Oh man. Taking the story forward. Uh the months leading up to his assassination, what what what what do you understand why he was assassinated, what who were the players involved? Maybe could you have stopped it? Well, I'll tell you after I saw Reagan's face on the television saying we have the absolute proof the phone rang and it was Barry. I hadn't heard from him in a couple of years. He said, "I'm coming out tonight, Roger." And I oh boy. So uh he came out and he said, "I'll meet you in this uh French restaurant on you know what in Santa Barbara." And I walked in there's about 20 or 30 people in there. And they's all 30 40 years old women with plastic or leather skirts and me in the blue jeans and I looked around and Barry was at the back. He was leaned up and he'd gained weight. And I walked up and I said, "Barry, you wired." He said, "No." I said, "Well, I'm not going to talk to these DEA agents." He said, "Every one of them." So Uh with jeans and skirts, I like it. I said, "Well, Barry, I'm going to sit here and you just talk to me, buddy, and tell me what's on your mind." And he sit there and he just went to talking and he told me about he was left holding the bag. And it uh What do you mean by that? Like that nobody's supported him nobody helped him other. He was uh And and I don't know this. I mean this is just what what happened putting it all together that he had some CIA buddies that was pretending we going to supply all of our North with arms. And with that you can land cocaine back here by the ton. So he's taking his little planes and putting some AK-47s and maybe ammunition or whatever and takes it down to the contras against the communist party of Nicaragua where we've been landing. And Oliver North was involved in this. So uh when the when all that and so his CIA buddies was certainly involved and we know they were. And Barry had been in the CIA earlier when he first got out of school. So uh When when as I say the shit hit the fan they all fled and left Barry holding the bag. and the DEA. Yeah. Well, no not the DEA the CIA. The DEA wasn't in on it. The CIA was was selling that cocaine bringing it in and uh Just to clarify it. Uh what's Iran-Contra scandal? What was the alleged involvement of the CIA in uh in using drug trade to fund things? What do you know? What do you think is true? What should we know? Well, I know what I know is true that Barry was taking a small amount of arms back to Central America and giving them to whoever Oliver North group group were. Who's Oliver Oliver North was a colonel that got implemented and almost brought the government down. And so they said, "All right, we're getting the guns from Iran and we're taking cocaine to pay for them. Yeah. And since Congress won't give us money to fight this war we going to we going to circumvent it." So that was that was a whole thing. So it was a CIA's effort to circumvent the funding mechanisms of government by you selling drugs. Yes, but it was a handful of renegade CIA agents that was Barry's friends that was making a load load of money tons of it come up. If you would like to read the book the the big white lie the CIA and the crack cocaine epidemic the CIA put according to this uh uh the book in Michael Levine I I didn't remember his name last time I talked. Uh wrote that book and he was a head CIA agent he was a head DEA agent that exposed this. And the CIA tried to kill him and he says they put crack cocaine they developed their their chemist developed crack and they put it in every country every city in the United States in one weekend. So they were bringing it up by the tons and that's for sure and Barry was bringing it. Can I ask you a small tangent question? Do you think the public should trust the CIA and the DEA? Do you think they're mostly good people that are carrying out a good mission? Yes. Because this kind of makes it sound like there's renegade agents that are just doing whatever the hell they want and with sometimes no regard for human life. Well, that's certainly true but that's not everybody in there. That's just sometimes you get a few of policemen in a in a department but that that do these things. I I don't believe I believe that our government is is good. I think we got some fools running it. I don't know how we get them there but uh I don't think I know. Okay, so what what was Barry's involvement here? So Barry Barry leaned back in that chair and he told me that you know he he got caught with one and a half tons and he buried it in the runway in Nicaragua and uh had cameras flashing inside and out and then he flew it back to Homestead with with an agent there and they brought the agent over. Um Jake Jacobson. Really nice fellow. I think he was a crop duster. If we'd have got along we'd have been on the right side. And so we we sit there and drink Chivas Regal until I got pie-eyed and and Barry told me about it. He said that he went to see Edwin Meese. He flew his he got out on bail and he flew his Lear jet up to Washington and went in to see the Attorney General Edwin Meese. And they run him out of the office. The next day he went back and said, "I have absolute proof that the CIA is bringing tons of cocaine or they're running tons of cocaine into the United States." And Edwin Meese put him up with his agent, Jacobson, I believe it was. And they went down and got 1 and 1/2 tons. And on the way back they bellied it in and Pablo Escobar and some of the other ones on general there in Nicaragua, you can see them toting it from one plane to the other. It's called in the book called The Big uh Kings of Cocaine. It's got a mention of me, too. And also the other one has a mention of me in it. Said, "I'm in more files with the DEA than Noriega." So, who was wanted to get rid of Barry? Is that Is it the Who wanted to get rid of Barry more, the cartels or the CIA? The cartel. But uh so Barry leaned back and he and he he told me the story. And the tears came down between his fingers as he put his hands over his eyes. And he said, "I I I just couldn't do it, Roger. I just couldn't do three life sentences. So, I've told him everything. I went to Congress and I've testified before Congress." And he testified before Congress for all these things that he'd done. And he said, "I told them all about you. But you're under my umbrella. You got to testify with me before a grand jury in Miami. And so the guy said, "You can come down." The DEA agent said, "You can come down tomorrow with Marie first class or I'll take you down in chains." And if you don't testify with Barry, the only place you'll ever see your wife and family again is in a federal prison visiting room. Was that a difficult conversation? Oh. Looking at him. My eyes My guts was just like ice water. I can't testify against my friends. I just can't do it. How am I going to do it? I just I can't work with people and they was honest with me. How am I going to testify against them? I can't spend the rest of my life in a federal prison. What on Earth what a mess Barry you've got me into. So, uh Is that a kind of betrayal there? Yes, but it's still I wish he'd left me out of it. I understand him getting his in such a mess that he told because of if the CIA and whoever else was behind him betrayed him, then he's going to tell everything. If you So, I says, "All right, I'll be to Miami." So, Marie and I flew down first class. And I and I went to a lawyer, one of the biggest lawyers in Miami. And I said, "Man, I am in a mess." Mhm. This fellow's told everything and I've got to say something. But I'm not a snitch, man. I mean, I can you help What what can I do? And he said, "Well, being a snitch is like being pregnant. You either are OR YOU'RE NOT." UM AND HE SAYS, "I I DON'T represent snitches, but if you want to fight this case, I'll do it for $600,000." And I Boy, my face turned red. Well, I'm not a snitch. He said, "Well, that's what you're talking about." He said, "Let me tell you something. If you go in there and say one thing and sign that paper and you don't tell them everything you know, Yeah. then they will convict you of everything you've ever done and you tell them. So, you can't do it." So, uh I said, "Barry, I I'm having trouble with a lawyer." Give it to I'll go to Marie. Let's go. So, all right, use my lawyer. And he gave me his card, the lawyer's card. So, Marie and I went to the the Festival Restaurant that night and Barry and Debbie came in. She was dressed pretty and Barry wasn't. So, we started about finished. So, we had dessert together. And I said, "Barry, they're going to kill you, friend." He said, "No, they ain't going to kill me. So-and-so such-and-such is going and this and the other." I said, "Barry, they're going to kill you, man. Ain't no You can't deny it." And uh and I says I didn't tell him I wasn't going to testify. So, I I hugged his neck. I really like and we fled to Brazil. But I took Marie and the children went to Brazil. So, you decided there you're not going to testify. I knew I was not going to I didn't know what I could do. I talked to a lawyer. I mean, I just didn't I didn't know what what I could do, but the best in Miami. What he told me. So, I had to go. And you went to Brazil. We went to Brazil. have a conversation with anybody at the cartel to I mean, that's such an interesting moment that tests a man's character. To not snitch. And did you have a conversation with anybody? No. Pablo with about it like So, it's just understood. I just didn't couldn't do it. But how many men like you are there? Not many. I had all my friends testified against me. 11 friends and every one of them put their finger up, "Roger did it." And I was facing life, continuing criminal enterprise case. And still you couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it. Did you ever get respect from the cartels for that? From the from the people in the cartel? I got back and stuff. They owe me money and I can't get it. So. Well, that's that's about money. I just mean about human beings. Oh, I think so. I mean, I've been back down there and I've been welcomed. I I have my uh my contact. And uh when I was in Brazil, I was trying to get this money. They owed me 3 and 1/2 million dollars. Mhm. So, I called up there and he was going to pay me. Oh, I got 600,000 today and I'll get you some more tomorrow. And then the next week I called, "Hey, hey, got great news, great news. Barry Seal's been killed." So, oh no. And I went back to the hotel. We was up in northern part of Brazil. And where was it, Marie? Rio de Janeiro. Yeah. And so I went back and I told Marie and Miriam and and they cried and I cried. I really cried. How How is that great news from the cartel perspective? Well, now there's no case against me and him and them. Do you know who killed him? Yes. I'll tell you about that story. On the first load I did I landed in a at a banana plantation. And it was raining and it was a muddy strip, clay. And they put the the 300 kilos of cocaine in the in the ugliest man you could imagine, name Ronaldo, got in there with a Mac-10. And he would make sure I took it to Louisiana. Mhm. So, This is many years before. Yeah. Couple of years before. So, anyway, he uh We took off and the mud got up in the wheel well so so thick until the wheels wouldn't come up. Well, I'm going 200 miles an hour instead of 300 miles with my wheel coming down. Well, I can't go back there. If I do, I'm going to be in the same situation until the sun dries it out in a few days. And so but in Belize I had a a runway that we'd been used for $10,000 used to refuel. So, I told the guy, "Listen, we got to land in Belize to refuel." No, no, no. He put the Mac-10 in and and I I'll shoot you. Go ahead, fool. You're going to die, too. So, Yeah. What's in the turf? He He wasn't just ugly. He was also He was a bad bad killer. Yeah. And so he's the one that actually killed Barry. The one that went up on the first load with me. And Ronaldo and he's doing life just a killer. Yeah. He's doing life in Louisiana. I wonder who Is Is it known who made that decision? Uh the younger Ochoa brother, I understand, Fabio. Which one paid for the hit? I don't know that, but that's what I've heard and it probably sounds about right. He's He's down in Jessup, Georgia doing a long long time. I think he's about to get out. He's been in 30 years or whatever. The movie American Made. What What do you think that movie got right? What did it get wrong? Almost everything wrong. It was disgustingly wrong. Okay. Um which parts? Can you Can you um Can you maybe elaborate Barry Seal and it just didn't even It was nothing Whoever wrote it had no idea who Barry Seal was. They sit in a rocking chair and just try to think of what what some baby bashing drug dealer doing. Yeah. And it's just like, "God, just you just don't have any idea of the of the spirit of the man." So, they wanted us to try tell a fun story without actually studying the story. He They didn't know him. They just had no idea. And Barry was such a nice person, such a really nice gentleman person. They talked to you or no? No. The people that made the movie. And I see all these people telling about about Barry, never met him. They telling all about it. I think that's just ridiculous. Yeah. And uh that for one thing, his character coming out of whorehouses and all that, that was just like ugly. And then down in Colombia putting a gun to his head, going to take his sunglasses. And then they put 25 thousand million dollar worth of cocaine on his plane. And then they going to bet $100 they don't have enough room to take off. That's just insane. I mean, just just the whole thing. And then he's talking to the DEA agents when he's coming up. You don't know what uh frequency they on. He's got five planes and they all split when the DEA comes out. These are just somebody's fantasy. But those are like those are details of the man, details of the story. Is there some big profound things they missed about just this whole period? About that something that's really important to you that was missed. Yes, they just tried to uh sensationalize on little things that people remember and it's just not true. It's just It was just like a business deal and and and and good people and good airplanes and good flying and um It was like a a good watch that was made. It just clicked and it just went on. And they missed all that. They tried to make it sound like it's something very ugly. Do you think it was a story that could have been told way better and still be a hell of a good story? Well, there's a there's a series called Chernobyl done by HBO. And because I have sort of family connected to that period, um you know, they did an incredible job of being historically accurate. And only not being historically accurate when it helped the story, only in those rare cases when they on purpose left the story to uh to make it easier for people to understand, but it was it was still somehow accurate. Uh and even though all the actors were British actors speaking English with a British accent, it was still somehow accurate. Like they captured the spirit. Yeah. So it was historically accurate and the spirit was captured. That was one of the most incredible like series I've ever seen. It convinced me that uh the movie was made by non-Russians. It convinced me that if you really care about a story, you don't have to have been brought up in it. You don't even need to speak the language. If you're truly a scholar of it, if you talk to a lot of people, if you learn, if you just pour your heart and soul into it, you can create something really special. And so your son says you could do that with your with the with the story with this period of time. Oh, yes. It was a it was a story that needs to be told. It needed to be told in the correct way, not like we're trying to bash a certain angle. Yeah. Well, if if Netflix or HBO are watching this, you need to tell the story of Roger Rees, in my opinion. There you go. Is this young picture you? Yeah. There you go. That's from National Geographic. Jorge Ochoa, Pablo Escobar, that's you, Roger and Barry. Yeah. Smuggler. A memoir. Yeah, I I really do hope that they they make a movie of this one. There's a movie called Blow that tells the story of George Jung, Boston George. Did you know George Jung? That's one way to ask it. The other is what do you think of the movie Blow? I didn't know George Jung, but it was a wonderful movie. Absolutely, it captured it. It did. Yes, it did. That's the way it should be. So he was a little bit before your time? Exactly the same time. Exactly the same Same. He was using Stewart Estes to fly the marijuana out of uh Manhattan Beach, and I was on the fire fire department in Redondo Beach, 10 mi away. Flying it up, sending it back. Somebody was sending it back. He might have been sending it back. But he didn't have near the excitement that I did. He I was shot down twice. I escaped from five different prisons. Yeah. Was tortured almost to death in a Mexican prison. So he didn't have all that fun that I had. Finding quotes. Yeah, so yours is a is a heck of a fun adventure. I'll just to linger on a little bit. So uh Johnny Depp plays George and Ray Liotta plays his father, and there's this son-father kind of scene at the end. I don't know. It's it's heartbreaking. Like that scene paints a picture of a life that could have been had if none of this wild drug smuggling happened. I get I don't usually I mean, I don't almost I really never get like teary-eyed in a movie, but that that got me. It's almost like confronting at the end of your life what your life could have been with your father. The way he calls him Georgie. It uh like you fucked up, Georgie. Yes, I did, too. I really really did. Marie waited for me all those years, and the children raised them without me. Visited me in prisons all over the world. It's unbelievable. It's just nothing's worth that kind of money. Yeah. Can you tell the story of when you were tortured nearly to death in a Mexican prison? I sure can, and I'm smiling, but it was nothing to smile at. But I'll tell you. I was a I was in a pool, and a gentleman came over and shook hands with me and put handcuffs on me. And I thought, "What in the world?" That was at one of the nice hotels. And they put me in a in a jail cell, and I sat there, and all the drunks and the thieves and stuff kept coming in, and they had a bucket. They had overrun. And I said I remember like 18 people in a room about 12 12 ft square. Oh, it was hot, and I thought, "Somebody's got to come get me. This This ain't real. I hadn't done anything." Just like It was a pilot come to see me in up in Hermosillo, and he stopped, and he made a mistake and went to the international runway instead of where he was supposed to go. And he had my phony name in his pocket, so they got me. So they said I was a drug smuggler. So after about 3 days, they put me back into the into the back, and it was a torture place. And they put me in a little cell. I I guess it wasn't hardly it wasn't 6 ft. It must have been about 5 ft square and about 12 ft high. And it was June, the end of June, and it was hot. I mean hot. And uh they left me in there for I guess a few days. You didn't know they they uh So every once in a while they'd come drag me out, and first off they'd put my head under water, and it had seltzer in it or some kind. And I took one whiff of that, and three or four of them couldn't hold me down. So then I learned it just before you have to breathe, tear loose like that, and they'll let you up. And uh that was the first treatment. And then they then they started a beating me. And they beat me with blackjacks and rubber hoses until I was black and blue and yellow from the bottom of my feet to my head. What did they want from you? They wanted to sign me to sign a confession that I was a drug smuggler. And they put the papers under your under your nose. This is all over if you sign. Well, I knew if you signed, you got 6 years. I wasn't going to sign. So they didn't want you to snitch on anybody. They just wanted to say They wanted me to sign that paper. And you still didn't? I ain't about to. I ain't beaten that bad. I said And so anyhow, he's getting into the good part. So then they come and they take me out, and I'm buck naked, and they bend me over, and they have things to pull you like chains. Click click click click click. And they bent me over, and they put butter on my bum, and they commenced to put hot chili pepper up there. Mhm. And that stuff was bad. I mean, it was red hot. Mhm. And that was that was awful. And still still awful. Yeah, but still you didn't I didn't think about it. I ain't going to tell you. I I guess if I'd have known he was going to kill me, I wouldn't have done it, but I'm but I wasn't about You get hurt bad enough, you'll pass out. So I didn't pass out, so I was all right. So then the last thing they did was they brought a a dead man in there, and he was wrapped he was frozen. And he was wrapped in newspaper, blue strips about a half inch wide, just like a mummy. And he was frozen, and they hung him on the wall with a meat hook. And uh God. You next, son of a bitch. You next. Yeah. And so he's sitting there like this, and uh as he starts to thaw out, which is pretty quick, it looks like he's crying. And then it looks like he's peeing. And the papers start unraveling on him, and the formaldehyde puddles on the floor. Yeah. Woo, what a smell. That rotten Yeah. insides and the formaldehyde. And there was a little space. It wasn't even a half inch high under the door. And I lay on that filthy floor on my cheek, and put my lips right up under that door, and was sucking that fresh air, and I went to sleep after some time. And I know where Walt Disney gets gets his ideas. I saw white pink with pigs with wings on them, all kinds of stuff flying around. So when I woke up, I didn't know which was real and which was the nightmare. It took me a minute to figure out where I was and what was going on. How did you stay mentally strong through that time? Like what I don't know that I did. I would Yeah, I was mentally strong. So I was, just like I am now. Stubborn. I mean, you could be that man. They could have killed you. Yes, they could have. So what gave you hope? Did you have hope? Yeah, I Or you're just a stubborn son of a bitch. I think some of both of it. I think they aren't going to keep you here forever. Yeah. You know, you're going to get out into the prison, or they're going to let you go or something. If you sign that paper, you ain't going nowhere. And I want to go home. I got shot down a few weeks before that. I got shot from out of the sky. 80 bullet holes through the plane. Killed a fellow on the ground. Shot shot the leg nearly off the man in the plane. this? In that little place of Pichilingue. You know that story. you from the ground. Yeah, yeah. All right. A little 900 ft strip there at Pichilingue, a poor poor village with starving donkeys. That's where they I'd give them $17,000 for load, and I'd go over on the highway and load. Well, on on day 13, I did a load every day for 13 days. They had a bunch of marijuana pretty good piled up, and I was going load a day. And on day 13, I had that little warning sign going off in my stomach. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Don't do it. But I asked this Joaquin, "Oh, we have the federales paid off. Don't worry." Well, so I spent the night in a hammock, and walked down to the airplane just as it's getting daylight. And 10 or 12 men walked with me, and Pedro got in, and I brushed my teeth in the little stream. It was about foot deep, little river coming through there. Got in the airplane, and uh I fired her up. Bam bam bam. And bam. I thought a tire blew out. I looked over and see if it was And it still ain't dawned on me, and Pedro's yelling, "Policia! Policia, Roger! Policia!" Well, it dawned on me, and I shoved it the throttle to the firewall. And I only had So that was a bullet? Yeah, somebody they they was off to the side. shot. They'd shot. Just a warning like get out, stop, we we going to rob you. Whatever it is. That's what they do. It's taking the plane and me and put me in prison, the whole thing. So, but I even though I had papers. So, I just shoved it in the firewall and there wasn't enough room to take off on that strip and there's half of it was behind me or some of it was behind me. And so, just at the end, I'm just like I think that thing stalled at about 50 mph. Just just turning 50 and I just pulled it right up. And put the flaps on and as I pulled off the ground they opened up on both sides of me with machine guns and they riddled that airplane. I mean, the windshield came out. I got hit three times. You like your body? Yeah. And uh Uh but I didn't know I was hit. I mean, it was just the the gasoline the gasoline just pouring in. The world turned yellow. I must have went into shock. So, it just stopped in slow motion. And one bullet hit this strut right by my head and it it just uh parts of that bullet just went all over me. I would just look like I'd been peppered with with uh lead. And the gasoline was just pouring in. I mean, just pouring in where they'd shot the wing up above and the windshield's gone. I did I mean, I I can't remember blah blah blah it's just like like a hail storm. So, I I was Did the airplane stall or not? It I was in a stall anyway and I didn't realize it and I guess you wouldn't unless you trained for it. But when you in a stall, the elevator is kind of flappy. And I didn't realize it at the time. I thought they had shot the elevator cable in two. So, I thought oh god. So, I just reached over and switched it all switched here. Pulled the mixture, pulled everything and in the river there was rocks about as big as this table and they were like the turtle back all the way up until there was a waterfall. It was quite a pretty place. And I crashed straight onto it. I thought if if I get to those rocks and when I did the first time I hit, the wings came off and then it bounced and the next time the nose came up and came under the plane. And I'm sitting there I must have been knocked unconscious cuz Pedro's shaking me. Come on, Roger. Come on, Roger. So, I stepped out into the water and here comes these four federales still shooting at us. And a bullet or two hit the airplane. And I kept a 9-mm Browning Hi-Power taped to the top of the radio. Mhm. In case I ever needed it. So, cuz you didn't want to land it. didn't want it in the airplane. So, I just it was just handy. Just cleanest. I took and popped a few caps at them and they ran into the rocks. So, uh we took off up off running and then I looked and Pedro's foot nearly shot off. Had shot him on one side the ankle and it just blown out the other side. And it wasn't even hardly bleeding. It the shock of it. So, I took my t-shirt off and dripped it and tied it best I could. But you had still bullets in you. So, like you could still run. I shot the top top of my toenail off. I shot a chop across my head and my kneecap. Cuz I was just nicked. Okay, got you. It was very painful later on, but right that time I didn't it wasn't it was just hot. There's a bullet still in my foot from it, a piece of a bullet. Good size slug. So, we went on up the mountain through the cactus and just running. Just going I want to go down. No, no, the federales are going the the easy way. Let's go this young fellow to and we came to an old donkey. She must have been 30 years old, long and swayback, long hair on her. Charlotte, Charlotte. And he patted the donkey and we jumped on. And we rode for seven Actual donkey? A donkey. They were donkeys all over the place. Anyhow, he knew that one from the village. And so, we rode 7 mi, two of us on a donkey with no bridle, no saddle, nothing. And uh we came to a a little man plowing a little horse and a little ox. They was both of them spotted and there's the ox was the yoke was across her back this way and he's plowing with a little plow amongst stumps. It was like one of these people clearing a little piece of land. And he had a little little house there. And so, we went in his house and his wife and his daughter, they put like uh cloth over my wounds and on Pedro's it was terrible was terrible. And they poured diesel oil on it to keep the flies off. So, I'm covered in diesel. So, the man left and he was going all day. And then about dark he showed up and about 15 or 20 horses and mules showed up in the yard walking fast. And a doctor got out and said, I'm Dr. Benjamin so-so with Red Cross. And he worked on my foot and he worked on Pedro. He gave us a shot of morphine and tetanus shots. And he said, you got to get to hospital. He said, Pedro will die if he don't get to hospital. He said, they're looking for a American pilot has been shot down. They think he's dead. There was a lot of blood in that airplane. And so, they rode I don't know how far we rode, but we rode miles and we'd come to a road and there was a big truck. It was loaded with corn in the ear. And they dug holes in that corn put us in it. And covered us up. And the road was rough and every time we'd hit a a dirt road, that corn would cover me up and they'd scratch my face out again. And when I came to the highway, uh we went into a house and they got me some clothes and mine was messed up. And a white basin and they must have brought 20 jugs of water different times. I kept washing and washing my foot till all the blood and the crud got off of me and put on those clothes. And somebody went to uh they said, you can't go north, the road's blocked. They're looking for the pilot. So, you got to go south. So, they found a a taxi in Mazatlán. And it was a rather new taxi and the fellow would would take me to Guadalajara, which was I don't know, 7-8 hours south. So, we got in that taxi and they propped me up with sheets and blankets and pillows in the back seat and give me these great big white pain pills and I was quite content. Then I was shot down in shot down in in Colombia, also. What Can you tell that story? I sure can. All right, I was I went down for load of load of marijuana. And we got to the place and we got there too early and the guerrillas screamed, you got to get out of here. You got to get out of here. And so, we went back to the place where we staged from and refueled. I had a beautiful DC-3, carried three tons. And uh so, while I was waiting, I uh I I ate something for lunch and I went around behind the house we refueled the plane up. I had to wait till late afternoon. They wanted me to come just at dark so the military planes couldn't see me on their strip. So, I'm laying in a hammock asleep and I hear this terrible roar. And I look right up through the trees and I see end of two military jets going straight up. And they do a dive over and they came back down the strip in front of that airplane and they just tear it up with 50-calibre machine guns. They're just showing out. Yeah. So, I run for the airplane. I just gave that guy $80,000 and he ran for the truck and all the rest of them ran for the truck. I should have ran with my money. But I didn't. I ran for the airplane. And the co-pilot got in, the name was Al. He got in with me and two fellows got in the back. We had drums of fuel in there to refuel when we got down to the guerrillas. So, we took off. And I couldn't get the gear up because I'd taken off in such a hurry. There's these pins in the struts of a DC-3 and with big flags on them and you have to take them up so that or the plane plane won't come up. So, these jets swarmed on me and they tried to get me to go. They kept telling me which way to go. And the pilot would be just as close as just right over there. I could see him. I just held up the old hippie peace sign. I didn't think they would shoot. I really didn't. And then nobody had shot before. So, I kept flying out and I kept getting slower and slower and they kept slowing down, down, down and the black smoke rolling. And then they they started shooting up under me. Boom, boom, boom, boom with them 20-calibre machine guns. And then and the tracers just going up. They looked like they're curving up from me. I wooed when I pushed the nose over so they couldn't get under me. And later on I heard they thought I tried to ram them. So, one of them went for fuel and then I kept on going and and the one just tore the left wing wing tip up with a 50-calibre. And then he come back again and shot tail up. He's warning me. And I tell the fellow in there says, you know, if you bring me enough water, I believe I can fly this thing. My mouth got quite dry. So, I went on and uh uh I landed on a big pasture. And it was huge pasture and it was rougher than it looked and the wings just flapped and I come to a stop and jumped out and pulled those tabs out and threw them on the ground so I could get my gear up. And I understand that in during the 1980 World Series baseball game that it was says, American DC-3 has just been shot down by American jets by Colombian jets. You know, it's the first plane shot down on Reagan's new war on drugs. But he's up. He's up and away, ladies and gentlemen. We'll keep you posted. So, I took off again and I went into a thunderstorm and they came close to the mountains. So, I spiraled up and every time I'd come out that jet was there. Boom, boom, boom. And I dove back into that that storm and it boom, boom, boom in there. At 20,000 ft I started icing up. So, I went out one last time and he was right there waiting. He had me on the radar. So, I went back in and I kicked it over and put it into a spin and went straight down to 2,000 ft and come out under it and I was uh flying along the Guaviare River. And it was a 20 ft above the water. It was like a pasture. It was just grass. And I made several runs to tear the grass down and it looked like and it felt hard. That old DC-3 weighs 30,000 lb and I put it down on the fifth run. I said, all right, how we going to land now? And as I So, you flew like close several times. the wheels down. I put the wheels down with half miles and just so, I'm making so So, you okay. So, you're you're you're being tracked by a jet. He's just trying to shut Well, the before that. I'm just like retelling the story how insane it is. Uh so he he's trying to shoot you down and then there's a thunderstorm you're escaping into and then you do a spin down to what? 2,000 ft, whatever you said. Like somehow escaping all of this and then you try to land on a pasture with a giant heavy plane that carries 3 tons. Uh by uh touching down five or six times to make a to make a landing strip for yourself. Yeah, the the grass was 3 or 4 ft high. So I it was really good after about after a few times. So then just before it stopped I said, "I'll take your feet off the brakes." He said, "I don't have my feet on the brakes." Well, I knew I had broken through the crushed. Nice. And I put full power on but it didn't that old big plane just come on down and it just did a head as it came to stop it did a headstand. 90° to the ground. Oh wow. And the and the engine held held it up and the nose and all just crushed in right on it. We fell between the two seats to keep from getting killed. Wow. And when it come to a stop all that fuel was pouring out on those hot engines and there's a escape hatch at the top. I just stepped out, took my suitcase with me. Did it Was there fire? No fire. And the plane left the plane there and the two guys that was in the back one of them broke his thumb and they it was with the barrels and they had to put a hoses tie gas hoses together to shimmy down to get out. Yeah. So That's an incredible story. Well, let me just tell you there was a little bit more to it. I I learned to fly with the idea of being a a missionary aviation fellowship pilot. Fly the missionaries in and out of the jungle. Yes. Well, I went 11 days through that jungle. The rest of them went on down the road and got went to prison. I said I I'll crawl on my belly 6 months in here a year eating snakes before I'm going down the road. So I went in there and I was 11 days in the jungle and I finally came to this place and it had airplanes. I kept asking Indian, "Donde está aviones?" I want to steal an airplane and get out of there. And when I came to the place I asked, "What is this place? Lovely place." It looked like Honolulu at a in World War II. With a runway there. She said, "You don't know? This is Loma Linda headquarters for Missionary Aviation Fellowship for the Amazon." And they flew me out. Wow. You escaped from prison five times. So what What stands out to you as the most difficult or miraculous escape in the bunch? The most like miraculous is was when I was in the courtroom in Spain. I think I was I was on the third floor of real high and I ran across a courtroom handcuffed, kicked a window out and I looked down and it was above the palm trees. I thought there might be a power line or something I could grab on as I went down. There was nothing and there was a car parked a station wagon on the uh So you just jumped out? I jumped out from 31 ft on top of that car and it exploded in the street. The windshield went over three or four cars. It looked like snow going up and I looked like Donald Duck with a thing coming out and handcuffs and I got out. And you just kept running. Yeah, I kept running. They ran me down to and hit me in the back. I still got a dead spot in my back where the policeman hit me with a shotgun. And they brought me back. Marie was there. They was saying, "Your husband is crazy. That was spectacular." But I escaped from Lübeck maximum security prison and I cut out of there and and got out of that was a miraculous escape. In Lübeck, Germany. What was What was that escape like? I was airing out They was going to extradite me back to the United States where I still had all these charges and 25 years special parole. And uh I was cleaning the uh lawyer's visiting room and on it was uh bars that looked like uh piano notes or this way to make it pretty but there was a little bit So I got a rope from a guy that where they made boats in there and I I had 20 minutes. So I went in there and I wrapped it around and I put a broom handle in it that was cut off and wrapped it around until to pull the bars together on that side and then I pulled them together on the other side but that only put me in inside the prison yard where the soccer equipment was kept but they were um putting new windows on one side of the prison and they had a scaffold up to the fourth floor. So there was a little recess there and there was guard towers every 100 ft or so. I mean they would shoot and kill you. So I got behind that uh and climbed up holding to the bricks on one hand and the scaffolding on the other and went to the roof. I lost my shirt and most of my clothes going through the window. I got all the skin off of me. I thought I was going to die and I was trying to go sideways like this and finally I got a grip and the bars let me through and took all the skin off of me. So I got up on that roof and I have asthma and I just lay there trying to catch my breath. Didn't bring my inhaler. With blood everywhere. Oh, I was bloody yes. And so I got down to the end and on the end the reason I did it they would put it they was putting a new wall again again around the prison to in make it larger. And they had taken all the wire off above the sally port where they could join the two walls together and I saw that when I came up. And there was a guard a half of a like a dome sticking out of that brick building where there's a guard there with a gun he'd kill you. I mean he was made he was surely trained to kill you. And we had some bad people in that place. So I lay up a one one floor above it and I saw a guard and his wife come with a double umbrella. It was just pouring down rain. Here I am without a shirt on bloody and he had a little boy She had a little boy with him under that double umbrella and I knew him and when he come and she started back from the sally port I hit the top of that guard tower bam with both feet and I jumped I guess it's three more floors. I jumped there was a pile of sand like a cone where they were digging it there and I hit that and my feet buried up to the knees but I didn't fall and I ran straight towards her so he couldn't shoot me and then I went around some bushes and went downhill. And then I heard blam blam blam blam blam behind me and I looked and that fool woman was in a big old car and she was knocking down the parking meters behind me. She was trying to run over me and I ran behind a car Oh wow. and she tore the fender off of her car trying and yelling yapping a terrible evil looking face at me screaming at me and the sirens going off in the prison. And there was a fence there a wall and I jumped up on it to jump over and it was had glass embedded. I cut my hands and my arms all up getting over that and I hit the ground on the other side and it was like it was that muck muck where some farmer had dug it. I dug in there and Marie had slipped me $200 in the prison and I had that in my shoe and I lost my shoes in that muck. Anyway, I got out of there and got to Holland. Really heck of a story how you did that. What was What was prison like whether it's Germany or whether it's Australia? What what were the some of the darker moments in prison? The United States prisons are awful awful evil places now. They're just really there's nothing nice about them. There's the guards In LA or what which one? In everyone everyone I went to. It seemed like the further east I went to Oklahoma and it was nicer but all of them on the west coast they was hatred there and they got really stupid people hired. Just incredibly A hatred by the guards. And and the inmates. Like I speak Spanish and I walked into the Spanish TV room and it was saying you don't know, you can't come in here. And I walked across to the black, "Hey, get out of here white boy." It was just like, "What? Man, I like all you people, you know?" Yeah. And so I walked down to the white people and they said, "Show us your paperwork." "You can't come in here until you show your paperwork. We don't let snitches and homosexuals and all this sort of stuff in here." So they have So it's just like "Man, I don't want to be in here." I mean it sounds absurd but you're saying like the basic humanity is gone. Completely. Completely and the guards it was just like "Come here, Reeves." And I walked up to him, "Get the fuck out of my face." He sticks his chin out like for me to break his jaw. Yeah. Like "What in the world, man? I love people and it's just Yeah, you you got this joy to you. You have a joyful nature. How and it didn't seem like that broke you. Not a bit. How did you persevere? Did you know I didn't even think I persevered but I I tried enjoy my life wherever I am every day. I do. I I ran every day and like I told you, "Hey, why do you run so, Roger?" I said, "To help me suffer these fools." And I played a game of chess every day almost of my life in there and I read two books a week. Mhm. And I talked with people, storytellers. Guys would come in and "Tell us another story, Roger. Give us a poem. Tell us one you never told us before." And so it was just nice. A lot of them have original boys. They just like they picked their country music and it was all right. Red, Morgan Freeman's character in The Shawkshank Redemption says the following. "These walls are funny. First you hate them, then you get used to them. Enough time passes you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized." Is there truth to that? 100%. I couldn't even see the walls except when I was planning on escaping. In Shawkshank Redemption he spent so many years in prison that he almost didn't know what to do with themselves with himself once he left. Once once he was a free man. That's the that you get so used to the the system the the rituals having to follow orders even being treated poorly, all those kinds of things that you become dependent on. Well, uh down in Australia, I spent the first a little over a year in sh- in the shoe. It was like uh Did you see the movie the uh Silence of the Lambs. Thank you, buddy. And he's there. I had five five or six guards looking at me with one-way mirror. Yeah. And that's whenever I thought I might never get out. I got a life sentence. I had all this time waiting in here in Germany. And so, that's they had a uh They had a computer in there, but it didn't have a program on it. And I wrote So, I just started writing these little stories of stuff I did in my life. And I wrote one line and I wrote wrote over a million words. With them looking at me. So, it was after a year they let me out. It wasn't long before they put me in a place called self-care. And uh particularly, I was in what they call the lifers pod. There was 268 men in self-care there. And uh It was It was unbelievably good. That we were left alone. Basically, they was there. Uh the guards was certainly certainly there, but they had their their shack, and we had apartments. Four four apartments to the building. Mhm. And uh six men to the unit with your own door and a key to it and a kitchen, dining room, freezer, refrigerator, and they gave you allowed you $360 a week to buy groceries. And I cooked for about 16 years. And uh learned to cook good. Mhm. And the people and other people make have their specialties. And uh So, that was that was quite uh it wasn't so like being in prison. It was somewhat living with men. It was difficult, man. I had some good good fights and carry on. You don't get along with everybody. But uh Then whenever I came back to the United States, I was laughing and talking. And when I got off the plane in uh L A., I had three three marshals with me from Australia. I was slammed up side the wall. I mean hard. Put ankle mic's on and and handcuffs so tight that they cut my vein off. Face forward. Face forward. Lands apart. Good gracious. And and walked me up 50 steps and turned me over to the marshals, and they took part of that off. That was a border patrol that was there over my marijuana charge from 1977. Yeah. For mar- for I did 11 years for parole violation. Now they want me for more violation. And they put me in down in Los Angeles, they put me in the the marshals put me in in there, and they put me in isolation. I thought, what in the world they got me for isolation for? I didn't do anything. How long did you spend in isolation? More than 6 months. So, I uh After three or four days is the little Judas window slide open, and a man a nice-looking man in a suit come there. Hello, Reeves. I want to just want to see what you look like. I saw you in a National Geographic documentary. And it does me pleasure to keep you in isolation. And he slammed the thing, and I couldn't get out of there. And by law, the US Parole Commission is supposed to give you a a hearing within 90 days. So, I already paid a lawyer $7,500, and he never picked up the phone. Somebody got to him. Who's that somebody you think? his name, and I don't know who got to him. But but some He didn't He didn't do anything to get me out of there. Yeah. I got one 15-minute phone call a month. And I couldn't get out. So, then after 6 months, they shipped me to uh put me on Con Air. Double shackled and black box on my hands. And I went to went to Oklahoma, and they let me out on the the uh on the floor. I couldn't imagine that I could call after a couple of days. And they said there was a man here from Washington give you a parole hearing. You only got here at 3:30. So, he left. He said he'd be back next year. Mhm. What? I've been in there over 6 months. So, then there was a lovely little lady. She was the uh case manager or something. She said, you can ask for a parole on the record. And I said, please do. She said, I'll send them a email. And the next day I got my parole. 90 days later, they sent me to Terminal Island put me in the place there with the invalid, I guess, since I was old as I am, 78 years old. So, they put me in the people in there dying and wheelchairs and legs off and arms off and cancers. So, I was in there, and I pushed the fellows around. And uh I I went come out the chow hall there, and I went to go to the right to get me a haircut. And two Mexican guys there, lieutenant and another one, walked between us. And he went like to boot boot boot. And I said, I could outrun you. And they slammed me, put me on the ground, handcuffed me, and put me in the shoe for a week. I got out, man. They put me in the back in the place. They treated me rough. Mhm. So, I got in a little more trouble, and they put me back in the in the shoe. And I wouldn't come out. They was had that uh the the virus was out killing people. So, they killed eight people in that unit I was in. Oh, wow. So, I mean I wouldn't even come out to take a shower. I had a I had a little straw that I put in the in the sink, and I I'd take a sock that I had and scrub myself with it with some soap. And glass water over my head and then clean the floor up, put it in the toilet. So, that was your time during the coronavirus pandemic. I got out last April right in the middle of it, and and they were dying bad in there. So, I was treated worse for that last year in America than I was for the whole 20 years in Australia. 18 years in Australia. And then you were a free man at the end of that year. They put me out and sent me home and and the parole officers couldn't even come. They weren't working. They were just doing everything by video. Said, better not have a drink. The only consti- thing was I couldn't even have a drink of wine. So, uh after year, they I had to I had to take psychiatric treatment every week. I had to go talk to the psychiatrist psychologist. And me and her got along great. She was a good Christian woman. We just chatted and talked. And I think they said side to pee in the bottle every week. Mhm. I said, I've been in 33 years. How many piss tests you think I've had? Never been dirty. Only thing if you want a clean one, you come get me. Before I talk to you about love, let me ask you a a difficult question. You write in your book, I don't consider myself much of a criminal. I don't lie, cheat, or steal, and I always take up for the underdog. Violence makes me sick. Yet, I know I'm an outlaw, and those that break the law must be punished. I think many people listening to this or some people listening to this will see you as a criminal, as a bad man who increased the amount of suffering in this world. What do you have to say to them? I would like to tell them that they have been indoctrinated by the spin of news and politicians, and they don't know the truth of the situation. You lay the truth out there in an envelope, let me open it. Beside something else that is false, and it's staggering. The truth is that I was a tobacco farmer. And tobacco kills 500,000 people a year in America, and 6 million have a debilitating diseases because of it. Drugs. All drugs combined kill between 10 and 15,000 people a year by overdose. And 60% of those are pharmaceutical. Now then, when I was a tobacco farmer, come sit on the front pew, Mr. Reeves. Come on up here. You are a gentleman. You just joined the Masonic Lodge, and you joined our church, and you just come on and sit down with the good people. You grow two marijuana plants, get out of here, you scumbag. And the marijuana don't hurt anybody. It's just that's the truth of it. And so, in your career, you were you walked amidst violence, but you never participated in the violence. I didn't even see it. Just didn't happen around me. In prison, it did. I sewed people up. They called me Doc. I I dental floss and uh uh one one time I had to get a blade and try to help keep him from my patient from getting again. But I don't was just uh like if I I shot at those people, I shot at them to keep them from killing me. I did I certainly didn't mean to kill them. So, that's that's just Some people are evil, and they will kill you and hurt you and lie to you. I just don't do any of that. It's just It's It's makes you sick. I I've seen it I was when I was in the shoe, three guys tried to kill the guy. They stabbed him so many times that their stab went black in it. The blood getting out the room. I said, you're going to kill him. You're going to kill him. And saved his life, drug him up there where the guards could see him. And stuff like that. I'm just not of that nature of those people. They're just evil. There's people born evil, I believe. Yeah. It It is heartbreaking to hear that the basic humanity is gone in prison in the United States. That's heartbreaking because that basic humanity is actually the light at the end of the tunnel. It's the thing that saves us as opposed to uh when it's absent, it's the thing that destroys us. Uh the prisons are filled absolutely filled with people that have some mental problems. Now, you see tent city all the way up and down here. I guarantee you every one of those people have mental problems. Some degree. How really it is, but they're a little bit off. Now then, you get a DEA agent that wants to make a name for himself. He goes down there and gets two of them one of them to sell a little 2 g of methamphetamine to the other one. And he gets a conviction. And a young prosecutor, he gets a conviction. He wants to make a judge. And we got the judge in Where was it? I'm going to give him a million What was his name? Gilbert. I'm going to make I'm going to give him a million years before I get off the judge. You get fools like that in charge, you're going to fill prisons up with pitiful humanity. And those are the ones and then the other is people over drugs. And drugs should be a a health issue. It's you can't you cannot police it enough. It's just they know like the only thing that overdoses is opioids, the heroin. And if they can give it to them it costs about a dollar a day to give the worst addict his his his fix. But they'll give it methadone which is from a pharmaceutical company which is just as bad. Why in the world we tried it all over the world in in Portugal and England and when they give the the the girls clean up no more stolen cars. Why? Who who wants to keep this farce going? They're just perpetuating it like oh every little police place is getting all these suits and armor and machine guns. It's just like oh it's it's such a spin. It's it's sad. Do you think all drugs should be legalized? I don't know about that but they certainly should be controlled. If a person is an addict he should be able to go down and get his fix with somebody there to help him with a clean needle and a glass of orange juice. It's so much cheaper than prison, so much cheaper than him stealing cars or prostitute having to go to work. That's sad. You've lived one heck of a life. Looking back there's a there's a lot of young people that listen to this. High school, college students. What advice would you give them? How to live um how to have a successful career, how to have a good life, how to be a good man or woman. To be a good man or woman? If I had it to do over with I'll just tell you what I'd have done. I would have paid attention and studied my lesson and did the best I could. Um In school? In school. Yes. And went as far as I could have. I would have liked to have been a doctor. I just didn't have the stickability or anybody to tell me, "Hey, go over here and do that." And if you can do that at a very young age, start in a trade. Learn to do something. Doesn't matter what it is. It's if you learn to do something good, there is a great demand for you. And I would say that in prison that the prison system should come in and you get a thief, young fans of thief or robber. And you say, "All right. Uh we need um we need carpenters. We need plumbers. We need electricians. We need sheep Send them send them send them to that trade and when you get an A+ in that where you can go out and make you $30 or $50 an hour, you go home." Now you can you can mess around 10 years if you want to or you can do this in two. I think that would uh that's just for the prison. But anyway, I would say that they find somebody and be true to them. That we have um just be honest and and true in your life. You mean like relationships, friendships? I mean so many so many people particularly our children are are from relationships where they're not wanted. They're divorced. Their father's left. They don't know who their daddy is. They're dis in the foster homes. 500,000 children in foster homes in America today. And and we have and our government in inadvertently has been encouraging those people. My daughter is is a doctor and she delivered a couple years ago a baby from a 10-year-old child. That child and she said in the in the visitor's room was four generations. All of them on welfare. Now we got one more and it reminds me of Elvis Presley's song In the Ghetto. So for an individual learn a trade, become a craftsman of sorts. Yes. And uh find somebody to love and who loves you. That's right. Have have a family and and and and stick with it. There's be surely you're going to get angry, you're going to get disappointed, you're going to get all kinds of stuff but but come back and make up before before you go to sleep. Well, I I did half of those things. I got the first one and working on the second one. So I appreciate the advice. Well, Mary, thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell me the story of how you two met? Well, um my parents every summer would uh go to the lake in in Canada and the place was called Turkey Point which is on Lake Erie and just have a nice summer holiday there, water skiing, swimming, you know, sunbathing. This was back in the '60s. And I was sitting on the pier with a few girlfriends and telling them my story, you know, and then all of a sudden I looked up and I saw this figure in the distance coming onto the pier. Now we're all dressed in bathing suits and swimwear and we're swimming and this that and the other and here he comes, dark trousers. In fact, they were black. White shirt and a tie and a straw kind of a Panama hat. And you know, so he was very he stood out. And so I invited him to come and sit down and so he continued to talk and we just talked and talked and talked and then later moved to the beach and I think the next time I saw him he was talking to another girl and I thought, "Yeah." You know, yeah. Man. I know. I was okay. Okay, next. Well, about 6 months later I received a letter and it's a letter from Roger. And then we start this lovely correspondence and we just start writing, you know, in those days you just wrote everything. And and then the next summer he was coming up again. He was on his way to Alaska and um he says, "I would like to come by and see you." And I said, "Well, I'll be in the same place that I met you last year." And so when we when he came up this time for some reason Roger reached for my hand and I reached for his and man, that was it. It was like love at for first touch. That was love. It was just a like a silence, you know, and a oh my gosh and we didn't even look at each other. It was just oh my goodness, what happened here? And I was the type of person I never wanted to get married, not to way way way down the road, never have any children and I wanted to see the world first and then do all that, you know. And um But that was it. That was love and you've been together ever since. Yeah. Well, the thing is about the love that the the two of you have for each other is it had to persevere through quite a heck of a journey. So how did Roger's drug smuggling change the nature of your love and your relationship? Well, Lex, that remained steadfast. It it endured. And since Roger's been home I think we've rekindled the love that we had when we first met. Yeah, what But but I think my faith um you know, my faith, my steadfast faith and also the fact that Roger and I communicated. We wrote letters, you know, he he never complained. I know there were the children there. He never had mistreated me. I love this guy. And we had a lot of experiences. It was just even though He's a good-looking, charismatic. He's pretty, you know. Yeah, and he's adventu- he was adventurous, you know, and and Would you say that again? But um yes, it was just I know I you know, I missed him physically but he was just we were just so strong in spirit. You know, and um we could talk to one another. Yep. What what was it like uh Roger when you're a free man seeing Mary for the first time in person again? I I cried for 3 days. Everything I'd look at a picture of her. I came home and uh there she prepared a meal for me. And it was the old oak table that I'd redone and the chairs the same one and the green placemats and the same china that we had and the same silverware. And it just just all of it just brought back the same paintings on the wall. It was just like unbelievable after 35 years. She had all my clothes cleaned, and my shoes shined and I put the shoes on and I walked out and the strings on the and the soles came off. But the shirts and all fit perfect and everything. So it was just wonderful. And just to just to see her and then to just to think about see her picture of her 50th birthday, of her 60th birthday, of her 70th birthday. I wasn't there. And the picture of her and with the children it just it was heartbreaking. And about the third day I thought, "Man, I felt I mean you you got to." So uh I got over it quick quit with the quit the tears. It It was It was It was everything was just pulsating with life. It was just unbelievable to get out of that place. It really was. Is there uh Do you regret the the the drug smuggling that took you away from the woman you love? Oh, yes. 100%. Just no I I wouldn't have done it again if if you don't think you're going to get caught. And uh it's just No, it's just I did it for money and I had everything in the world I wanted before I did that. Mhm. So, the adventure I mean, it was one heck of an adventure for the two of you for the both of you. Yes. Were you able to enjoy or was it always danger? Was What is Was it always something that threatened your relationship, your love, your family? Were you able to enjoy the adventure of it? You know, we're all die. Life is short. And to live that kind of adventure Well, whenever I did the first load, I got $10,000. And that was just about That was just about 2 years pay on the fire department take home. And I drove that home and I put my hand over my mouth. I said, "No." She took it home to Mary. She probably had $20 of money. Mary like, "Oh my. What in the world?" And then Roger said, "Let's go have dinner." Yeah. And so, we went to the little restaurant that we would nor we would go to, you know. And he said, "And don't you dare look on the right hand side of the of the menu." He said, "Just order anything you want." And it was just as we were in the restaurant, you know, it was just we were giddy about it. Yet, we were I was giddy about it and um Were you afraid that I mean, did you think about the fact that it's illegal and Roger going to end up in in prison? Oh, yes. Did you guys talk about it? Well, I just I kind of thought I was bulletproof. I mean, they didn't catch you. I thought if they didn't catch you, you was all right. It was hard to catch you. It hard to catch you in in the air. Yeah. So, you never thought hard to catch you in the air. I didn't know that if your friend told on you 5 years later, you'd still go to prison. That was the problem. I didn't know that. Did you Did you guys ever talk about walking away? I asked Roger to walk to to walk away. He said, "I can't Mary just now, you know." And then of course, the the amount of people that he began to support, the family and the gifts and The deals. The deals. Yes, the deals. Big ones. Yes. And then you always wanted to do What do you do with the money? You know, so you want to I guess you clean it up or you want to invest in a in an enterprise or in a business. Well, it just doesn't work. They know the source of it and they take it and run. Every one of them. Yep. Yeah. But, he's very generous, extremely generous and benevolent and And when I started, I I I would ask about I went to a lawyer and I a good good people a number of people in in California at that time wanted to legalize marijuana back in 1973. And I went to a lawyer and I says, "Mr. Lawyer, I put $100 on the table. What What would they do if I caught me bringing marijuana across the border?" He said, "Uh if you have a criminal record?" I said, "No. I've never had a speeding ticket. Not nothing not not even a traffic ticket." I said He said, "You work for the fire department?" I said, "No." He said, "I said yes, sir." He said, "You'll get probation. The worst you'll do is you'll get 1 year and you'll spend four four months raking leaves on a military base." So, my mother my father died some years before and my brother mother and baby sister came out and I took them down to Disneyland and she said, "What you doing, boy?" I said, "I'm hauling pot, Mom." She said, "How much you making?" I said, "Making $40,000 any day I want to go." And she said, "What do they do if they catch you?" And I told her what the lawyer said. "Four months at the most for raking leaves. That's what do you think?" She said, "Do you need a co-pilot, son?" Yeah. Money is money. Yeah. Is the So, your relationship persevered through some some big challenges. Is there advice you can give about what makes for successful relationship? Oh, well, you know, I think the initial igniting meeting someone, you know, that that's the love. That's it. And that that that little fire just that fire just keeps burning and burning and burning. You can't put it out no matter what. It's the the love fire. But, it gets difficult. It does. It's funny the love fire. So, you're saying the love fire is all it takes to to persevere through the difficulty. Well, no. Well, that's a huge part of it. And also, I contribute my my individual situation to in order to endure what we the prison years is my faith. Faith in God? Yes. And friends who were unconditionally still loved me no matter what. Yes. So, she had love around you. I did. And my children. They, you know, and that was a real purpose to guide them and to love them and to help them become citizens. All right. What about you, Roger? What What advice would you give? I just don't know how to do it, but I I do know that you have to work on a relationship. Mary and I have had problems. I mean, we get really You guys get in fights? Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. But, not They don't let them laugh home. Yeah. But, certainly we are so different. the same and yet we're so different. Yeah. Like little stuff? Little stuff, yes. And uh it might be big, but I usually win her over, you know. But, it's But, anyhow, I just feel like Mary was always there. It was like she was my anchor. Yeah. I was coming home. I was always coming home to her and the children. And you can see throughout my life, I'm working on getting there. Were you afraid for his life, by the way? Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. There were times. Yep. But, you know, I had some I had faith in him. He was an excellent pilot. For example, I always said, "Roger, if the ship's going down, I'm jumping in the lifeboat with you because I know we're going to get to shore. You will save us." And so, I had that I have that faith in him, you know. I mean, he's he's a man, but yet he's the one you want to get into the lifeboat with. Definitely. But, then there is uh you know, Pablo Escobar, one of the most dangerous humans in history, plus the US government. Yep. Worst I thought. Uh very difficult very difficult to get away. In terms of your faith, um how has your faith helped you to be the woman you are in this relationship in in in seeing love the way you see it? Well, I think my faith gives me hope. I have lots of hope. It helps me to um dwell on the good side, you know, when I ever I meet someone and they're some negative, I try to see why they are like that or what's the source of all that and I try to pull out the good. I really do. Not that I'm a goody-goody, but that's what your faith does, you know, you see them as God sees us, you know. How has he changed over the years? Roger? Yeah. He's still the same. Actually, I like him better now. He's a little calmer, you know. Oh, yes. And and happy to be, you know, at home or he'll say, "Mary, I am just so happy to be with you here in this condominium. I'm content." Cuz I used to call him my homing pigeon. You know, I just have to let him fly. I couldn't you know, he has to fly, but he always came home. Do you think about the end of this ride, our mortality? Do you think about your death? I do. I'll I'll particularly I'm going to have um a heart valve replacement in about 7 days where I could could not make it. You know, it's a very serious operation and I think about that very much. And um I ask for peace. I just lost my brother about 10 days ago so unexpectedly. And that really put you know, makes you think of your mortality. Are you afraid? Um somewhat and some and and and yet not. Yeah. I want to live, Lex. I want to live. You know. This life is fun. Yes. Do you think about your death, Roger? I have visions. I have visions and they often happen very very clear like what I have seen in the future. So, I just might call it wormholes or in the Old Testament, they called it prophets, but I I see sometimes into the future around the corner. It's clear as we're sitting right here. What's that look like? I was on a porch and I believe I was in like Central America place. I was an old man with khaki pants and a white shirt. And there's it was a a chair with a wide arms and it was straight and there's like the the beams coming out above my head and I'm on a porch. Bougainvillea. And uh and I uh I come I I have out-of-body experiences also. And I came out of my body. Just I just floated out of my body and went into a veil. And like into a mist. And I believe that's probably why it happened. You talk about You talk about like it's in your past. This is your future. in my future. But This is something he has seen, you know, in the past. Yeah, in the vision. No, I know, but it's funny just the tense you use. It happened and yet it's something that will happen too. Both are true. It's just unbelievable that and I I I don't know how many people have it, but I have it. I I went out of my body just like just where I could come up to you and look and sit up on the radio. I used to be at work on the railroad and I I had one there. How do you explain that? What do you What do you think What the heck is going on in this universe that's that's possible? Oh, I don't know, but certainly certainly a phenomenon which it happened and there's a guy Bill Monroe that wrote the book on it out of the body. He tells about it and who was the guy that writes uh the Alchemist? Paulo Coelho? He has them also just like that and and he tells about how it happens on him. Mine happened differently. And but you certainly can come out of your body. What do you think the meaning of uh this life is? Maybe from from from your faith but also from just the amazing adventure that you lived through. How do you make sense of why the heck we're here? I don't know. It just it's just kind of like who you are. Even when I was a child I was like I'm different from other people. You know, and I just as a boy I was like I uh I don't Could you put into words how you were different or was it just a feeling? Yeah, like my brother I mean he kept his hands clean and his shoes shined. Here I was barefooted catching a wild hog or or wrestling a a a horse trying to get it down, you know. pictures of you climbing a tree. Recently. When I first got out of prison, always something like that. Yeah. It's just So, I don't know. It's just that and I noticed that something about me is sometimes in prison there'd be a knife fight. And people just you see them rough guys that uh turn white from it. It I just kind of almost like smile. I mean, unless unless they come at me I you know, I'd turn white and get away. But it doesn't bother Those things doesn't bother me. I just prison didn't bother me. So, you don't know what the heck the meaning is. You just know you're a bit different than the others. Yeah, might be a little bit coopy. Well, uh maybe the the whole point is you want to realize you want to let that madness flourish, that uniqueness flourish. That's the whole point of life. We're all different in our in like very interesting little ways. And the more different you are you want to let that you want to let that become. You want to let it be as full It's like a garden, you know, all the different flowers. Yeah, like a garden. you did mention um you weren't sure if there's a free will or not. Um do you think it's all predetermined or do you think we make our own choices? our decisions. I just said if it is I hope that but I know that we make our decisions. Yes. I agree. And I I know that we are spirits Mhm. that are living in this in this flesh. That's beyond a shadow of a doubt with me. If you walk out of your body and have out of body experiences you will know it. So, the body is just a temporary container for something much bigger. eternally with no beginning and no end. It just and that's hard to fathom. Yeah, this is just a little shit This is a shell to contain that spirit, you know, this is the way we work on Earth, you know. But yeah, I know it. I'm an eternal being. So are you. Do you think there's a why to it? You know, do you think there's a meaning to this life? Well, I think the why is beyond my capability of understanding. It's someone greater than me. I don't understand it. But it's awesome. I just know that it's awesome. And one day we will know the answers once we get to that cross over the other to the other side. I think we will understand clearly. It says, you know, now we see through a glass darkly. But then when we are face to face with God we will understand. And un- until we know let's just enjoy this beautiful life while we got it. And we're fellow men. That was my gift. I love everybody and everything. Mhm. I I do and it just and I'm sorry if I put a stumbling block in anybody's way. I wouldn't want to. But uh these are these things that I just think about oh, what a hypocritical world we live in though. Like uh almost anybody out there listening okay, he's a drug dealer. And I would say most of them committed adultery. That's a cardinal sin. And yet they move through through rocks at me for moving a uh marijuana or cocaine across the road. Yeah. It's just it's just if you saw the two different things you'd say, what a terrible difference it is. But we we've become conditioned with this mad society that we have. You mentioned that your daughter Miriam wrote you a poem. You mind reading it? I'll be glad to. I was uh doing 11 years up in Lompoc Penitentiary, maximum security prison for a parole violation for possession of marijuana in 1977. They should have given me 6 months, but they gave me 11 years because they wanted me for what they call silent beef. Anyhow, while I was in that dungeon I received a letter from my daughter Miriam. It's called Daddy's Poem. A year ago I became a poet when I wrote your birthday prose. And here I am today ready to give it another go. First, I would like to wish you a very happy birthday to be and to thank you so very much for without you I would not be me. Secondly, I want to say that your support has been immense. It has been true, honest, loving, and free of all pretense. Thirdly, it goes without saying your love has surpassed all my wrongs and you always made me smile with one of your old country songs. I can remember on Creole Daddy with you holding me in your arms as you sang Jim Reeves songs and talked about the farm. I can see you walking through the door from one of your travels far and wide and the thought of you coming home, Daddy, kept a twinkle in our eyes. I can smell you as I did when I used to climb into your bed and you would talk to me again about one of the adventures that you led. I can see me and Mario sleep in one of your airplanes extraordinaire and remembering wondering to myself why there wasn't an available chair. I remember having to meet you and worrying that you wouldn't be there but you would pop from behind some counter and give us all a happy scare. You gave us presents in Key Biscayne and hotels pleasure galore and three dozen roses that we came through the airport door. I can see your face in Amsterdam at the luggage carousel and you looked like a boy with a secret that you were just dying to tell. You taught me mathematics in the sands of faraway places and taught me to sail and we left without any traces. We climbed glaciers in Argentina and saw the blue of the beautiful caves and witnessed the majestic beauty of such a jagging maze. I learned how to change gears on the dirt roads of Brazil. We ate hot dogs in Paraguay, a memory we smile over still. We talked about lions, elephants, and bears on a hacienda in Uruguay but decided it was better if to Europe we did fly. With the old world and all its luxury, what a good time it was. From South America to the Cosmopolski I think we fell in love. The European jaunt, well, it is considered a book in itself. But it's a story about beauty and knowledge, suspense, and worldly wealth. We went from Holland to Sweden and we went from France to Spain and I promise you I have no regrets. I would definitely do it all again. I would see the world with you anytime, sir. There's no doubt in my mind because being by your side, Daddy, always ensures a wild good time. So, our paths took a turn and we're back in the USA, but life here isn't so bad and I'm plumb content to you although I'm not as close as I was before but because of your love and encouragement I've been able to open new doors. I'm grateful to be in school and I'm generally happy where I am and I even like when you call and tell me to study for the next exam. What a life you've given me, Daddy. It's a tremendous and a magical gift. We already have so many stories to tell. They're far too many to list. But I want to thank you again this day with a very big happy birthday to you and to tell you just a few more things that I know in my heart to be true. That I love you, Daddy, with all of your wrongs and your rights. That you're ahead of our family and you've kept us all bound tight. That you have a honest love in your heart for God and all mankind and you truly do believe in yourself when you say it will all be fine. I know you will be there to catch me if ever I waver or slip and I know I'd want you as captain on any sinking ship. I also know a new chapter is written. It's almost time to move on. It's time to sail another sea and to witness a brand new dawn. It'd be good to see you at the helm again as you point out our destination and we'll laugh and dance on the upper deck as while the boat glides through. It'd be good to see you on the go as I know you like to be and to know you can open any door without any key. But while we revel in our days together we will know better than to hurry because as you told me many times life is an incredible journey. Mhm. Wow, that's beautiful. Mhm. Yeah. Roger. I'm really honored that you would take the time to visit me in Texas and to sit down and talk with me. Thank you so much, Roger. Thank you too. Thank you. It was a pleasure. It's been a real pleasure. Yes. Beautiful. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Roger Reeves and thank you to Noom, Allform, ExpressVPN, Four Sigmatic and Eight Sleep. Check them out in the description to support this podcast. And now, let me leave you with some words from Pablo Escobar. All empires are created of blood and fire. Thank you for listening. I hope to see you next time.