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 Medellin 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 Mari,

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, ExpressVPN, FourSigmatic, and AIDSleep. 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 a 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 a transport of drugs. Since 1971, the war on drugs has cost us

one trillion dollars. Marijuana legalization alone would save and make 13.7 billion dollars

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 past 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

Dostoyevsky'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 Friedman 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 that you can possibly know what to do

with? 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 to 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 land where the city of Merino Valley, California is.

I had an option on that land. Did the planning and development of that,

the most expensive coin in the world, yachts, ships, airplanes, glower.

Did that bring you happiness? No, absolutely not. 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,

and not the governments, the police, all the big bad agencies chasing you. You could do whatever

the heck you wanted. As far as having to look over your shoulder everywhere you 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. I like to make phone calls the same way.

What was it like meeting and working with Pablo Escobar, the leader of the Medellin cartel?

He was 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 it didn't work out well. The fella,

I give it to, got shot and it took a while to get my money in. They didn't put as many kilos on

the plane as they're supposed to and so I wasn't going to work with them anymore and my contact

down there introduced me to Jorge Ochoa and we went up and in Bogota we went up and the gate

opened and we was escorted in. They must have been 50 men out in the yards, a hitch and rail on an

old house and we were escorted right in and they was a beautiful woman in there. I mean,

gorgeous, drop dead beautiful and she made us a cup of coffee and then 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 he said that each one of those

telephones represented another city in the United States. This is Chicago and this is New York.

If I ring, I knew who was calling and so we chatted a while and he asked me what type of

airplanes I had and what experience I had flying across the U.S. border and I told him he seemed

pleased with it and he called the lady in and she went next door and came Pablo Escobar and he

introduced me to Pablo Escobar and he asked the same questions again and I answered him and I said,

and I asked him how much he paid and they paid $5,000 a kilo to haul it and so I said how much

you put on the plane? It's $300,000, $500,000. That's one and a half, two and a half million

dollars for an eight hour trip. It sounded pretty good to me. And we're talking about cocaine and

we're talking about Columbia. Columbia and cocaine and Medellin cartel and Jorge Ochoa was one of the,

what would you say, founding members of the committee? Probably 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.

Murray and the children were down there. They went down and they stayed in the hotel and five

stars treated royally on my first looting. And they just did ask security to make sure

that I wasn't a DEA agent. So I did the first looting. They can say they were hostages,

but they really weren't. It was just an insurance. So there was some integrity to the way they

operated? Completely. I mean straight up. The money was ironed and banded and just right.

And the numbers would never want anything wrong with it.

What would you attribute that honesty to? Within their own moral system and their

own set of rules, why weren't people crossing the line and shaving off the top and 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. And plus they're just

honest to start with. They make him plenty of money. They was making as much money as I did.

I'll tell you how that came about. I understand that 10,000 people were killed every year in

Medellin, Columbia. And what they were doing, they didn't have any organization. And if one

fellow had 10 kilos and he wanted to ship 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 three Ochoa brothers and Pablo Escobar and Gacho. 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 the time you give it to us and the time we give it to your man, we will replace it in

Columbia 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 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 with the help of 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 military. They were just as much into it as anybody. And then you had the

fart gorillas. They had about a third of the country. And then you had the conchers. It was

like the 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, I'll kill some of yours too.

So 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 brutal murder. So you would say Escobar is not a good man?

Not at all. It's terrible. Now that looking back on it, when I met him, he was good.

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. He felt safe.

Completely. We flew up into his ranch and we brought out motorcycles to start with.

And 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 in the front wheel dropped and that thing.

And I must have slid across that grass 20 feet before I got stopped. He almost fell

off his bike waiting because they knew what it was going to do. And then we got on horses.

And we went out there and pretended to type or round up some cows and he put a Mac 10 machine

gun pistol over my shoulder. 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 the 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, you know, tell me how many more times of cocaine

than Pablo did. Just him and his brothers, you could tell by the, they had on each load,

they was in duffel bags and his big football shaped fluffy stuff made with ether. And 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, and he was just a gentleman. I took

him to family. We went one weekend to his ranch or his, my life show place out near Barranquilla.

And oh, we, he just treated the family and his family had a, his younger brother made a bull fight

and we had skiing and little airplanes on floats 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 Jaco willing. Can we talk to a lot about killing in the context of 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. It's,

he's trying to get away or out of the situation. But if some woman don't pay you and you

send a hit man over to kill her and her children, that's, 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 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's 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, I was there when she was kidnapped.

And finally he kidnapped our, I guess a hundred leaders of the FARC and said, all right, I mean,

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 median cartel

that you interacted with? Was, was it a dictatorship where Pablo ran everything?

Was there a bunch of power centers? Was it like a company with 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 will 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 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 saw 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 they shipped his 100 kilos, he got

paid for it. If the other one 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 somebody to load it on through the airplane.

I gave it to their man in Miami. They gave it to whoever it belonged to by the,

by the marks on the duffel bags. So they was making just untold millions. Just 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 speaks to something else perhaps that's bigger than money.

Maybe, maybe, maybe not. But it seems like just like in the casino, like you mentioned,

we get accustomed to 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 betrayal should become a place. But it's not.

It wasn't. Not at all. They said, Carlos later, 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 didn't go, I was offered to fly with a DC three with that, but I didn't like it.

So I had my route through the old wheels in Louisiana. And so I didn't want to change.

But 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 lead to conflict.

Columbia was, like you said, an ultra violent place. How did you survive? Who protected you?

I was a hero. 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 720,

if I remember right, on the AM. And I'd fly at 10,000 feet 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 miles, not land on some jungle strip or some banana plantation. And they'd fuel me up.

I could eat steak in the night. It was just like treated royally. And I mean, take off the next

morning, whenever I wanted to, it was just like that was protected. And I was honored guest.

It wasn't anything like in that movie, putting a gun to your head and taking your sunglasses

and betting. So one time I complained to Jorge Ochoa that the runway was pretty short

that they were using. And I went back down and it looked like Los Angeles International. They

had to bulldozers in there. Had to think 5,000 feet long. Just like the next week it was all done.

The jungle was gone and Clay put up there. And all the while, you were not afraid. You were

treated like a 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 all flew an airplane

with drugs on it? Tell me the story, the first time you smuggled drugs.

All right. I flew down to Jalapa Veracruz with a Cessna 182. And we landed the town. It was a

lovely town. Just an old town looked like Bible times. People, women were washing their clothes

in the streets with stone basins and the stream running through. I just was just dumbstruck.

It was just so pretty. And I went in a church, a Catholic church, and it had the stations of

the cross all carved magnificent. I had never seen that. And I come home and told Murray about

that. That just almost brought tears to my eyes. It was so beautiful. And three o clock the next

morning, I went out to the airport and taxied down to the taxiway. And there was a guard came out.

And I wanted to know what I was doing. And I pulled out. I was on the fire department

at Redondo Beach, California. So I pulled out my wallet and it was a fire department badge.

And oh, he shook my hand. We're so glad. So I taxed it on down and we loaded up about 400 pounds

in the plane. And I came on back and I was running the headwinds more than I thought.

And I landed on a little strip. You're talking about on the way back?

On the way back on the way north after we loaded up early in the morning.

And I just for only time I ever got vertigo, the mountains were coming down at a 30 or 40 degree

angle in the Milky Way was overhead. And somehow I wanted that airplane to be level with the stars.

And it got it got me. And it's a phenomenon of how vertigo is the only time I ever had it was

on that load. So anyway, the wind was on the nose of that system. I wasn't going to make it to the

dry lake where I had fuel. So I landed on a little bitty strip. There was a little house

that was caved in. And it was a little boy named Lazarus about six or seven 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 sat down with the lunch that I

brought back and little Lazarus sat there and ate with us. And we had a good time. We loaded

him back and came home. Oh, wow. I wonder where he is now. So what was it like to fly? Maybe

describe the details of do you have to fly low? 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 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 six 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, senior. That was had a rusty leak in it. We don't have any. Well, you better

be able to go to town and get it. So that's what I did. And when I was coming back for several

years, I would fly up in 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 go to the

Salton Sea and go below sea level, a hundred and something feet, I believe 170 feet, and come on up

and go out there and 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 go on back out and get it. And that was fun.

And then it got really dangerous. They had Operation Starlight, I believe was the name of it. And

they called a lot of pilots coming across the border. So I changed it. And by that time,

I was flying bigger planes. I was flying beach 18s. And I would refuel in Mulaje on halfway down on

Baja Peninsula. And then over in the middle, 20 miles from the nearest road was a goat ranch

where they milk goats and made cheese. And I would go there and unload the load coming up out of

anywhere in southern Mexico. And I would land there and a guy named Juan would put the marijuana

under the trees and I'd fly into Mulaje and they'd wash my plane and gas it up and I'd eat lunch and

rent a room for a few hours and take a nap and shower and then go back in the afternoon and

fill up. And then I would go northwest out of there and fly 200 miles off the coast of the island of

Guadalupe. And from there, I would fly on a more northwestern heading about 300 miles 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 land. And 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? No, it's 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 I'd land on a highway. And in the rainy season, I would come back to land again

and the guy wouldn't think about it and he'd have like little hills on both sides and the wings

were out there. Well, the grass and the weeds would grow up and it sounded like, I mean,

it sounded like tearing the airplane apart when those wings hit and moving the grass down both

shoulders of the airplane. The weeds would grow up high in the tropics. So some of that stuff was

bad and oh, getting bad gasoline and telling me that land here in the light and knocked the wheels

off when you land. Oh, you should have landed a little further up here, senior. They ditched down.

That sort of thing. What was it like landing on a highway? 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 Pichilingi and you had a 900 foot strip and I would fly down and I'd

carry gasoline with me and Maury and I would go to the grocery store and buy all kinds of little

goodies and candies and toys to bring to the children. And that sand strip 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 have weighed much over 100, maybe 120 pounds and he'd get in a plane with me and he'd direct

me 20, 30, 40 miles away to a highway and the people, Joaquin and the people would pull out

in a two ton truck with a machine gun on it and bunch of guys with their arms with us 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 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. One time I remember a patrol car, a highway patrol car, he didn't have his lights on,

took off right over him and then when I started flying to Louisiana, the bridge over the Mississippi

River, there were several contractors that went broke and that thing was out for years and about

five miles from the river was flashing red lights in a detour and then they swamped on both sides

of it in the middle of it. We're growing up with 20 feet trees and that was like an international

runaway 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 also a drug smuggler is Barry Seal. Who is Barry Seal? How did you meet him?

Barry Seal is a friend of mine. Murray and I and the children went down in Honduras and we went up

Lake Azul, I believe it was, and we were looking at a ranch to buy. I was looking for something

in Central America where I'd have a halfway place. 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 things. So we got to San Pedro

Sula and we was going back to New Orleans. So we went to the cleaners to get our clothes and most

all of them was in there and they got, oh, senior, they'll be ready tomorrow morning. We're not ready

now. Well, the plane leaves at nine o clock or whatever. So I told Murray 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

laundromat for the clothes and they were ready and there was a pile of them. I put them on my back

and got into taxiing. The old taxi would drive him with it and I'd give him $100 to go faster and

he just blew his horn more rapid. So 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 and he waves back. Then I see Murray's face in the cockpit and the nose goes down

where he puts on brakes and he laughs and he puts some 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 again. Then he put it

out and I got on and the whole crowd's clapped and I'm coming on with that blow to close.

So I go way down in the middle and the plane's full and Miriam, my daughter's about nine 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 we took off and the wheels come up with clunk and then I got up about

5,000 feet and we had a little clink, clink and she said, what was that daddy? I said he just turned

on his autopilot and that fellow reached over and I done looked at him. I said, he looks like

CIA or FBI or something. He ain't spoke to be here. Clear blue eyes, gentlemen looking man

and he said, you fly these things? I said, I got a few hours mister. He said, I fly them to or

something other and he said, my name Barry Seal and he reached over Miriam and shook hands and we

got to talking and I thought there's no choice or 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'd been a pilot with

TWA and this and other and he told me what he was for and so we had a nice conversation

for a couple hours to New Orleans. I didn't believe him so he got off in front of us and

what a crowd of people 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 little piece of paper. I had Mario to write it out with our address. I said, Barry,

I might have some work for you. What was he in jail for? He got caught with 100 kilos of cocaine

in a small plane and so he's preserved a year. And that was from Columbia? I don't know where

it comes from. He got caught in Honduras probably refueling but he'd been in prison 90 before for

bringing explosives to the Cuban Contras and he lost his job with the airlines and then later on

I found out he was ex CIA and George Bush Seniors Prodigy and had a thousand parachute jumps and

was there. He was a hot shot model. There's a million questions I want to ask here but

maybe can we linger on a little bit longer? What was your relationship with him like?

You were a drug smuggler. He's a drug smuggler. Your friends, how often do you guys talk? How

often do you work together? What was the relationship like? Well, I'll back up and finish where I

started off there. I gave him the things. Barry, I may have some work for you. I know I got some

work for you and I says I come out Santa Barbara and so I don't know. A week or two later he flew

out and went to our house and stayed with us a couple of days and I had an almost brand new

Arrow Commander 690B. That thing with turbo prop and it was hot. It was the 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

about 10,000 feet and he was like one of them blue angel pilots. He rung that thing out. That's

enough and then he did a falling leaf. It'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 my hand was white knuckle hanging onto the seat. You shut off the engine? Yeah,

he shut off the engines and landed flying side by side like this. How do you explain that? Was he

just a wild man or was he sufficiently skilled to work? He was sufficiently 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 was an aerobatic. So anyway, he stayed with us a couple of days and

then I told him, I said, this plane needs tanking. I said, I got some work down in Columbia,

needs to come back to Louisiana and I need 2500 mile range. He said, I got somebody in

Meena, Arkansas, do that and keep them out 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 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 he was then I hired him to fly

and he was funny. I paid him a million dollars a trip. I paid him $2,000 a kilo so about a million

dollar trip and I didn't get paid until the people received it. They had to ship it to

Chicago and New York and then the money come back. So it was a couple of two or three weeks

pipeline. Well, I always had to pay him before he'd go again. I mean, and he belly ache. I mean,

he had my own in Rome. So one time 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?

$100. It's not very big. You can put it in a large briefcase. It weighs exactly 10 kilos.

Each bill weighs a gram so you can weigh your money and almost get it exactly.

10, 20 something pounds is a million dollars. 22 pounds. $100 bills. But in $100 bills,

it's one ton, 2,200 pounds. We didn't even accept them. Were you the one that introduced

Barry Seale to Pablo Escobar? No. I didn't introduce him at all. And our deal was that you

don't meet my people. I mean, we just kind of crossed New York for me to fly the airplanes.

So he wanted these Panther conversions because $400,000 each with dormscope and radar. So I

don't want anything you want. What does that mean, sorry, to interrupt Panther conversions?

Panther conversion was these people called Panther. They took everything out from the

firewall and instruments and all and converted them and put QTIP propellers on them full 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 the new thing. So he knew about them. So 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 think he flew about 30 loads for me. And then I got arrested and was about

everything in the world. Got 35 years sentence. But let me back up a little bit. Barry was our

friend. Mari and I, both friend. We should pause real quick and say Mari is your wife and we'll

hopefully she'll we'll convince her to join us in a little bit. She's the love of your life and

sort of she weaves in and out of many of these 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 your daughter. Yes. Our son was a baby. And I remember we went out to the festival.

It was my favorite restaurant in Carl Gables. Oh God, it was good. And Barry knew about it.

Anyhow, we went out to dinner. So we came back and there was no rooms. So Barry was in the

night with us. So he goes to our hotel room with us. We got two big beds and the omnihotel.

And he lays over there and gets down to his striped undershorts and his T shirt. And he puts

the baby up on his belly and gives him the bottle. He says, isn't that good, Red? Oh, my, my. And he

just feeds the baby. We laugh and talk. And that's how close we were that we could all stay in the

hotel room together. And would you say he's a good man? Oh, wonderful man. A gentleman,

southern gentleman. Just looked after his mother, his family, everybody around him. Everybody love

Barry. He just had a little smile on his face always. So you got arrested and then what happened

to Barry? Well, Barry knew the people that unloaded. Of course, he sent the cars down,

all that. So he met the unloader, a guy named Lito, Louis Carlos Bustamante of Venezuelan.

So he just kept on flying. But he, I believe he had three of my airplanes at $400,000 a piece.

And they owed me some money. Well, he collected a lot of that and gave Murray 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 of America. Wonderful man. Can you tell the story of the months that led up to Barry's assassination?

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 eating breakfast and there was

Ronald Reagan's face right in the television. We have absolute proof that the communist Sandinista

government is in the cocaine running business. And there was that fat lady, the C126, on the runway

with the bellied in and I thought, oh, God, he had done it. So I had heard that Barry might

been working with him. So it wasn't long before with the DEA or whoever, that he is even no longer

on our side, you know. So can you clarify how you got that from the Reagan making a statement about

we've heard? Okay, there was his plane. There was Barry's plane. And okay, on the way north,

we could stop in Nicaragua and land on a military base or on a base that they used,

those crop dusters and all and refuel. And so that short and our trip would go further into

the jungle and come up and that was what Pablo Escobar and Ocho and them and they had to,

they was associates with the people in Nicaragua. So Barry was, if that plane was there, that means

Barry was feeding the DEA information. He was working with them at that time.

But let me back up a little bit. When I was flying and I told Barry, we would refuel and

train airplane, the loads in Belize where I had a spot up there. And then that's when they told

me we can refuel in 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 unloading

a chair if an old one was paid off. And he said, no, no, no. I can't get caught in me in Arkansas.

I said, what do you mean? You can't get caught in me in Arkansas. You get caught anywhere.

He said, I can't, but it's going to cost you $50,000 every time my wheels touch the ground.

Why can you explain why he can't get caught in me in Arkansas?

He said he was hooked up with them at 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.

Undoubtedly. And it's like, did Bill Clinton, did you give him any money? And I said, no,

I never give the man any money. But it was like the money that I had that went to the 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, I mean, there's a lot of conspiracy theories around the relationship

between Barry Steele and the Clintons. Absolutely. What evidence do we have?

What would you say from your best understanding of what was the relationship between Bill Clinton

and Barry Steele? Barry said, and he knew that he couldn't get caught in me in Arkansas. And when

that movie was going to come out, be called Mina, 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 was going to be called Mina. Yes, the name it was written and produced in Mina.

And waiting on Hillary to be elected, they would not let that movie out. And that movie

would change 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. I don't know.

I mean, 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 really stuck. I mean, what's your sense?

Well, I paid one and a half million dollars for Barry to land at Mina, 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 a license. So we went for it.

So when you say I can't get caught, just to clarify, 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,

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 to somebody.

To somebody. And Barry was honest. So he wasn't just taking it from me

because he was making a million dollars and he didn't care for the $50,000.

Man, taking the story forward, the months leading up to his assassination, what do you

understand? Why he was assassinated? 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 oh boy. So he came out and he said, I'll meet you in this French restaurant. I don't

even know it in Santa Barbara. And I walked in, there's about 20 or 30 people in there.

And there's all 30, 40 years old women with plastic leather skirts and men in their blue

jeans. And I looked around and Barry was at the back. He was leaned up, he'd gain weight.

And I walked up and I said, Barry, you wired. He said, no, that's what I'm not going to talk

of these DE agents. He said, every one of them. 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 you sit there and he just went to talking and he told me about,

he was left holding the bag and that. What do you mean by that? Like that nobody supported him?

Well, I think it's somehow or another. He was, and I don't know this. I mean, this is just what

happened. Putting it all together that he had some CIA buddies that was pretending we're going to

supply all of our Northwood arms. And with that, you can land cocaine back here by the ton.

So he's taking his little planes and putting some AK47s and maybe ammunition or whatever

and takes it down to the Contras against the Communist Party of Nicaragua where we've been

landed and all of a North was involved in this. So when all that and so his CIA buddies was certainly

involved, we know they were. And Barry had been in the CIA earlier when he first got out of school.

So when, as I say, the shit hit the fan, they all fled and left Barry holding the bag.

The CIA and the DEA.

Yeah. Not the DEA, the CIA. The DEA wasn't in on it. The CIA was selling that cocaine,

bringing it in. And just to clarify it, what's Iran Contra scandal? What was the alleged involvement

of the CIA 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 were. 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. And since Congress won't give us money to

fight this war, we're going to circumvent it. So that was a whole thing.

So it was a CIA's effort to circumvent the funding mechanisms of government by selling drugs?

Yes, but it was a handful of renegade CIA agents. It 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 Big White Lie,

The CIA and the Cracked Cocaine Epidemic, the CIA put, according to this, the book in

Michael Levine, I didn't remember his name last time I talked,

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 chemists 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 policemen in the department that do these things. I don't believe, I believe that

our government is good. I think we've got some fools running it. I don't know how we get them

there, but I don't think I know. Okay, so what was Barry's involvement here?

So Barry leaned back in that chair and he told me that, you know, he got caught with one and a

half tons and he bailed it in the runway in Nicaragua and had cameras flashing inside and out

and he flew it back to Homestead with an agent there and he brought the agent over.

Jake Jacobson, a really nice fellow. I think he was a crop duster and we'd have got along

if we'd have been on the right side. And so we sat there and drank Chevy's Regal until I got pie

eyed and Barry told me about it. He said that he went to see Edwin Meese. 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 this agent, Jacobson, I believe it was, and they went down and

got one and a half tons and on the way back they bailed it in and Pablo Escobar and some of the

other ones in general there in Nicaragua, you can see them toting it from one plane to the other

in the book called the big, no, 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 wanted to get rid of Barry? Who wanted to get rid of Barry more, the cartels or the CIA?

The cartel. But so Barry leaned back and he told me the story and the tears came down between his

fingers and he put his hands over his eyes and he said, I just couldn't do it, Roger. I just couldn't

do three live 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 him all about you, but you're under my umbrella. You've got to testify with me

before grandeur in Miami. And so the guy said, you can come down, the DEA agent said, you can come

down tomorrow with Murray. 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, 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 he was honest with me. How am I going to testify against him? 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 is that a

kind of betrayal there? Yes, but it's still, I wish he left me out of it. I understand him getting

in such a mess that he told because if the CIA and whoever else was behind him betrayed him,

then he's going to tell everything. So I says, all right, I'll be in Miami. So Murray and I flew

down first class and I went to a lawyer, one of the biggest lawyers in Miami and I said, man,

I am in a mess. This fellow's told everything and I've got to say something, but I'm not a snitch,

man. I mean, I can, what can I do? And he said, well, being a snitch is like being pregnant. You

either are or you're not. And he says, I don't represent snitches, but if you want to fight this

case, I'll do it for $600,000. And 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, then they will

convict you of everything you've ever done and you tell them. So you can't do it. So I said,

Barry, I'm having trouble with a lawyer. Give it to, I'll go to Murray. I said, all right,

use my lawyer. And he gave me his card, the lawyer's card. So Murray and I went to the

festival restaurant that night and Barry and Debbie came in. She was dressed pretty and Barry was.

And so we was already about finished. So we had dessert together. And I said, Barry, they're

going to kill you friend. He said, no, it ain't going to kill me. So and so, such and such is

going and this and other. I said, Barry, they're going to kill you, man. Ain't no, you can't deny it.

And I didn't tell him I wasn't going to testify. So I hugged his neck. I really like,

and we fled to Brazil. I took Murray and the children went to Brazil. So you decided there,

you're not going to testify? I knew. 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 said, what he told me.

So I had to go. And you went to Brazil. We went to Brazil. Did you have a conversation with anybody

at the cartel? I mean, that's such an interesting moment that tests the man's character.

To not snitch. And did you have a conversation with anybody? No. Pablo with about it?

No, not at all. 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. I had

11 friends and every one of them put their finger up. Roger did it. And I was facing life,

continuing to criminal enterprise. And still you couldn't do it? I just couldn't do it.

Do you ever get respect from the cartels for that, from the people in the cartel?

Oh, there was all the time I got back and stuff. They owe me money and I can't get it.

So. Well, 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 welcome. I have my contact and

when I was in Brazil, I was trying to get this money. They owe me three and a half million dollars.

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 Seales

been killed. So, oh no. And I went back to the hotel. We was up in northern part of Brazil.

And where was it money? Yeah. And so went back and I told Mari and Miriam and they cried and I

cried. I really cried. 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 them? Yes. I'll tell you about that story.

On the first load I did, I landed in a banana plantation and it was raining and it was a muddy

stripped clay and they put the 300 kilos of cocaine in it. The ugliest man you could imagine,

named Ronaldo. Got in there with a Mac 10 and he was making sure I took it to Louisiana.

So, this is many years before? Yeah, a couple of years before. So anyway, he,

we took off and the mud got up in the wheel well, so thick until the wheels wouldn't come up.

Well, I'm going 200 miles an hour instead of 300 miles while the wheel's 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 runway that had 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 and I'll shoot you. Go ahead, fool. You're going to die too. So,

it was in a term. He wasn't just ugly, he was also angry. He was a bad, bad killer. So,

he's the one to actually kill Barry, the one that went up on the first load with me

and Ronaldo and he's doing life. So, he's just a killer. Yeah.

He's doing life in Louisiana. I wonder who, is it known, who made that decision?

The younger Ochoa brother, I understand Fabio, was the 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 done 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 do you think that movie got, right? What did it get wrong?

Almost everything wrong. It was disgustingly wrong. Okay, which parts? Can you, can you,

can you maybe elaborate? It's about Barry Seal and it just didn't even,

it was nothing. Whoever wrote it had no idea who Barry Seal was. They sat in a rocking chair

and just tried to think of what, what's some baby bashing drug dealer doing. And it's just like,

God, just, you just don't have any idea of the spirit of the man.

So, they wanted just to try to tell a fun story without actually studying the story.

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

Barry and never met him. They telling all about him. I think that's just ridiculous.

Yeah. And for one thing before his character coming out of horror houses and all that,

that was just like ugly. And then down in Columbia, putting a gun to his head,

going to take his sunglasses, and then he put $25,000 million worth of cocaine on his plane.

And then they're going to bet $100 that you 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 frequency they own. How he's got five planes

and they all split when the DEA comes out. These are just somebody just 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's something that's

really important to you that was missed? Yes. They just try to sensationalize on

little things that people remember. And it's just not true. It's just,

it was just like a business deal and good people and good airplanes and good flying. And

it was like a good watch it 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? Yes. Well, there's a,

there's a series called Chernobyl done by HBO. And because I have sort of family connected to

that period, 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, to make it easier for people to understand. But it was, it was still somehow

accurate. 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. Yes. 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 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 you, with the, with the story with this period of time. Oh,

yes. There was a, it was a story that needs to be told. It needs to be told in the correct way,

not like we're trying to bash a certain angle. Yeah. Well, if Netflix or HBO are watching this,

you need to tell the story of Roger Reeves in my opinion. There you go. This is a young picture

of you. Yeah. There you go. That's from National Geographic. Jorge Archoa, Pablo Escobar, it's you,

Roger and Barry. Yeah. Smuggler, a memoir. Yeah, I really do hope that they make a movie of this one.

There's a movie called Blow that tells the story of George Young, Boston George. Did you know George

Young? That's one way to ask it. The other is, what do you think of the movie, Blow? I didn't

know George Young, 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 time. He was using stewardesses to fly the marijuana out of Manhattan Beach. And

I was on the fire department in Redondo Beach, 10 miles 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. I was shot down twice. I escaped from five different prisons. I was tortured almost

to death in the Mexican prison. So he didn't have all that fun that I had. Funding quotes. Yeah.

So yours is a heck of a fun adventure. Just to linger on a little bit. So Johnny Depp plays

George and Ray Liotta plays his father. And there's the son, father kind of scene at the end.

I don't know. 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 don't usually, I mean, I don't, I almost, I

really never get like teary eyed in a movie. But that got me. It's almost like

confronting at the end of your life, what your life could have been with your father.

And the way he calls him, Georgie. It, like you fucked up, Georgie.

Yes. I did too. I really, really did. Murray waited for me all those years and the children

raised him without me, pissed at 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 about, I can tell you.

I was, I was in a poo and a gentleman came over and shook hands with me and put handcuffs on me.

And I thought, what in the world? That was not one of the nice hotels. And they put me in a,

in a jail cell and I sat there and all the trunks and the thieves and stuff kept coming in and

they had a bucket near overrun. And I said, I remember like 18 people in a room about 12,

12 foot 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. It's like, it was a pilot come to see me up in Hermosillo and he

stopped and he made a mistake and went to the international run. We 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

smoker. So after about three days, they put me back into the, into the back and it was a torture

place. And they put me in a little cell. Like, I guess it wasn't hard. It wasn't six feet. It must

been about five feet square and about 12 feet high. And it was June, the end of June. And it

was hot. I mean hot. And they left me in there for, I guess, a few days. You didn't know they,

so every once while they come drag me out and first off, they 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 that was the first treatment. And then they started beating me.

And they beat me blackjack and rubber hose until I was black and blue and yellow from the bottom

of my feet to my head. What did they want from me? They wanted me to sign a confession that I was a

drug smoker. And they put the papers under your, under your nose. This is all over a fuel sign.

Well, I knew if you signed, you got six years. I wasn't going to sign. I wasn't going to sign.

But they didn't want you to snitch on anybody. They just wanted me to sign that paper.

And you still didn't.

About to. I ain't beating that bad. So anyhow, it's coming to the good part. So then

they come and they take me out. I'm bug naked and they bend me over and they have things to

pull you. That change. Click, click, click, click, click. And they bent me over and they

put butter on my bum. And they convinced to put hot chili pepper up there. And that stuff was bad.

I mean, it was red hot. And that was, that was awful.

And still, still.

Just awful.

Yeah, but still you didn't.

I didn't think about it. I ain't going to. I guess if I'd have known he's going to kill me,

I wouldn't have done it. But I, 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 dead man in there and he was wrapped, he was frozen. He was wrapped in newspaper,

little 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 you next son of a bitch, you next. And so he's sitting there like

this. And as he starts to thaw out, which is pretty quick, it looks like he's crying. And it

looks like he's peeing. And the papers start unraveling on him. And the formaldehyde puddles

on the floor. What a smell that rotten 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 of 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 knew where Walt Disney gets his ideas. I saw white pink

pigs with wings on them, all kinds of stuff lying 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 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.

You're just a stubborn son of a bitch. I think some of both of it. And I think

they aren't going to keep you here forever. 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 had got shot down a few weeks before that. I got shot from my

disguise. 80 bullet holes through the plane, killed a fellow on the ground, shot the leg nearly off

the man. What was this? In that little place of Peche Lingi. And they were shooting you from

the ground. Yeah, yeah. All right. A little 900 foot strip there at Peche Lingi, a poor village

with starving donkeys. And that's where they, I'd give them $17,000 for loading. And I'd go

over on the highway and load. Well, on day 13, I did a load every day for 13 days. They had a

bunch of marijuana pretty good piled up. I was going load a day. And on the day 13,

I had that little warning sign going off in my stomach. Uh oh, don't do it. But I asked this

Joaquin, oh, we had the federalist paid off nowhere he were. So I spent the night in a hammock and

walked down to the airplane just as it didn't daylight. And 10 or 12 men walked with me and

Pedro got in. I brushed my teeth in the little stream. It was about foot deep, little river

coming through there. Got in the airplane and I fired her up, bam, blah, blah. 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 was yelling, police see her, police see her, Roger, police see her. 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, there's off to the side, they'd shot, they'd shot, just a warning like, get

out, stop. We're going to rob you, whatever it is. That's what they do. They're just taking the plane

and me and put me in prison, old thing. So, but I even though I had papers. So I just shoved it

to 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 stalls at about 50 miles an hour. 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.

Do you like your body? Yeah. And I didn't know I was hit. I mean, it was just 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 the strut right by my head and it just,

parts of that bullet just went all over me. I would just look like I'd been peppered,

which would lead. And the gasoline was just pouring in. I mean, just pouring in where

they'd shot the wing up above and windshields gone. I mean, I didn't, blah, blah, blah, blah,

but it was just like a hail storm. So I... The airplanes, the stall or no?

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 too. So I thought, oh God. So I just reached over and

switched it off, switched it off, 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. There's quite a pretty place. And I crashed straight on to it. I thought,

if I get 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 out and came under the plane. And I'm sitting there, I must

have been knocked unconscious because Pedro was shaking me, come on, Roger, come on, Roger.

So I stepped out into the water. And here comes these full federales still shooting at us.

And I'm bullied that two hit the airplane. And I kept a nine millimeter browning high power,

taped to the top of the radio in case I ever needed it. So you didn't want it in the airplane.

So I just, it was just handy. You just lay in there. So I took and popped a few caps out of them.

And they ran into the rocks. So we took off running. And then I looked and Pedro's

foot nearly shot off. They'd shot him on one side of the ankle and it just blown out the other side.

And it wasn't even hardly bleeding, the shock of it. So I took my t shirt off and

gripped it and tied it best I could. But you had still bullets in you. So like you could still run.

I shot the top of my toenail off. I shot across my head and my kneecap. So I would just nicked.

It was very painful later on. But right that time it was just hot. And there's a bullet

still in my foot from it, a piece of a bullet, a good sized 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 easy way. Let's go this young fellow. And we came to an old donkey. She must have been 30

years old, long and way back, long hair on her. Charlotte, Charlotte. And he pitted the donkey

and we jumped on. And we rode for seven. Like an actual donkey? A donkey. They were donkeys all

over the place. I knew that one from the village. And so we rode seven miles, two of us on the

donkey with no bridle, no saddle, nothing. And we came to a little man plowing a little horse

and a little ox. Both of them spotted. 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 house there. And so we went into his house and his wife

and his daughter, they put like cloth over my wounds and on Pedro's. It was terrible.

And they put diesel oil on it to keep the flies off. So I'm covered in diesel oil. So

the man left and he was going all day. And then about dark, he showed up about 15 or 20

horses and mule showed up in the yard, walking fast. And the doctor got out. He said, I'm Dr.

Benjamin Soso 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,

die if he don't get to hospital. And he said, they were looking for American pilots and 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. And it was loaded

with corn in the ear. And the duck holes in that corn put us in it and covered us up. And the road

was rough. And every time we'd hit a dirt road, that corn would cover me up. They'd scratch my face

out again. When they came to the highway, 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 at different times.

I kept washing and washing my foot too. All the blood and the crud got off of me and put on those

clothes. And somebody went to, they said, you can't go north of Rhodes Block. They're looking for the

pilot. So you got to go south. So they found a taxi in Mazatlan. And it was a rather new taxi

and the fellow would take me to Guadalajara, which was, I don't know, seven, eight 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 paint pills. And I was quite content. Then I was shot down

in, shot down in Columbia also. What, can you tell that story? I sure can. All right. I was, I went

down for Lodum, Lodum, marijuana. And we got to the place and we got there too early and the gorillas

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 DC3, carry three tons. And so while

I was waiting, I ate something for lunch and I went around behind the house. We refueled a plane

up. I had to wait until late in the afternoon. They wanted me to come just at dark so the military

planes couldn't see me on their strip. So I'm leaning in the hammock asleep and I hear this

terrible roar. And I looked right up through the trees and at the ass 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 caliber machine guns. They just showin out.

So I run for the airplane. I just give 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 copilot got in and the name was Al. He got in with me and two

fellas got in the back. We had drums of fuel in there to refuel when we got down to the gorillas.

So we took off and I couldn't get the gear up because I'd taken off in such a hurry these

pins in the struts of a DC3 and with big flags on them and you have to take them up so that

the 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 piece. I didn't think they would shoot. I really didn't.

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 started shooting up under

me. Boom, boom, boom, boom with them 20 millimeter counters and then the tracers just going up.

They looked like they're curving up from me. I was and 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 I kept on going and the one just tore the left wing tip up with a 50 caliber and then he

come back again and shot the tail up. He's warning me and I tell the fellow and I 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 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 during the 1980 World

Series baseball game that it says American DC three 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 in a way, 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 storm and

boom, boom, boom in there and at 20,000 feet 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 feet and come out under it and I was flying along

the Guadalajara River and there was a 20 feet above the water. It looked like a pasture. It was

just grass and I made several runs to tear the grass down and it looked like it felt hard.

That little DC three weighs 30,000 pounds and I put it down on the fifth run. I said,

all right, we're going to land now. So you flew like close. I put the wheels down.

Oh, you put the wheels down without landing. And just so I'm making it run.

So you're being tracked by a jet. He's just trying to, well, before that,

I'm just retelling this story how insane it is. So he's trying to shoot you down

and there's a thunderstorm that you're escaping into and then you do a spin down to what,

2,000 feet, whatever you said, like somehow escaping all of this and then you try to land on

the pasture on a giant heavy plane that carries three tons by touching down five or six times

to make a landing strip for yourself. Yeah, the grass is three or four feet.

So it looked really good 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 crust 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 a stop, it did a headstand 90 degrees to the ground.

And the engines 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. 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. Was there fire? No fire. Left the plane there and the two guys, it was in the

back when I broke his thumb and it was with the barrels. And they had to tie gas hoses together

to shimmy down to get out. Yeah. That's an incredible story. Well, let me just tell you,

they had a little bit more to it. I learned to fly with the idea of being a missionary aviation

fellowship pilot. Fly the missionaries in and out of the jungle. 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'll crawl on my

village six months in year 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 his place and it had airplanes. I kept

asking the Indian, don't just tie avions. 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 and World War II was a runway there. I said, you don't know. This is Loma Linda,

headquarters for missionary aviation fellowship for the Amazon. And they flew me out.

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 black miraculous 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 the courtroom, handcuffed, kicked the 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

station wagon on the side. He jumped out? I jumped out from 31 feet 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 the thing coming

and handcuffed and I got out.

And it kept running?

Yeah, it kept running. They ran me down to and hit me in the back. I still got a dead spot.

My back where the policeman hit me with a shotgun and they brought me back.

Murray was there and he was saying, your husband is crazy. That was spectacular,

but I escaped from Lubeck, maximum security prison and I cut out of there and got out.

That was a miraculous escape. And Lubeck, Germany.

What was that escape like?

I was there and it was going to extradot me back to the United States where I still had all

these charges and 25 years special parole. And I was cleaning the lawyer's vesting room

and on it was bars that looked like a piano notes or this way to make it pretty,

but there was a little bit. So I got a rope from a guy where they made boats in there and 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 they pulled 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 putting new windows on one side of the prison and they

had it scaffolded up to the fourth floor. So there was a little recess there and there was guard

towers ever 100 feet or so. I mean they were shooting kill you. So I got behind that 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

asked my, and I just lay there trying to catch my breath. I didn't bring my inhaler.

With blood everywhere. Oh, I would bloody, yes. And so I got down to the end and on the end,

the reason I did it, they were putting a new wall again around the prison to 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 like a dome sticking out

of that brick building where there's a guard there with a gun and he'd kill you. And 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 floor above it and I saw a guard and his wife come with a double umbrella.

It was just pouring down the rain. And 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'd 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 in 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 bam, bam, bam, bam,

bam, 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 and she tore

the fender off of her car, trying and yelling, yeah, yeah, yeah. And 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 had glass embedded. And I cut my hands and my arms

all up getting over that. And I hit the ground on the other side. And it was that muck where

some farmer had dug it. I dug in there and Mari had slipped me $200 into prison. And I had that in

my shoe and I lost my shoes in that muck. Anyway, I got out there and got to Holland. Really heck

of a story how I could do that. What was prison like, whether it's Germany or whether it's Australia?

What were some of the darker moments in prison? The United States prisons are awful, awful,

evil places now. And just really, there's nothing nice about them. There's the guards.

In LA. And everyone I went to. It seemed like to 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. Or hatred by the guards and the inmates. Like, I speak Spanish and I walked

into the Spanish TV room and it was in your 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 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 in the guards. It was just like, come here, Reeves. And I woke up to him,

get the fuck out of my face. He sticks his chin out like for me to break his jaw.

Like, what in the world, man? I love people. And it just.

Yeah. You got this joy to you. You have a joyful nature. 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 tried to enjoy my life wherever I am every day. I do. 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 and I talked with people, storytellers,

guys were coming to 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 picked their country music and

it was all right. Red Morgan Freeman's character in the Shawshank 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 true to that? 100%. I get to see the walls,

except when I was playing on escaping. In Shawshank Redemption, he spent so many years in prison

that he almost didn't know what to do with himself once he left, once he was a free man.

That's the, you get so used to the system, the rituals, having to follow orders,

even being treated poorly, all those kinds of things that you become dependent on.

Well, down in Australia, I spent the first a little over a year in the shoe. It was like,

did you see the movie, The Silence of the Lambs? Thank you. And he said, I had five or six cars

looking at me with one way mirror. And that's whenever I thought I might never get out. I got

a life sentence. I had all this time waiting here in Germany. And so 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 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 particularly, I was in what they call the lifers pod. There was 268 men in self care

there. And it was unbelievably good that we were left alone. Basically, they were there,

the guards were certainly there, but they had their shack and we had apartments for apartments

to the building. And 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 learned to cook good. And the people and other people

have their specialties. And so that was quite, it wasn't so like being in prison. It was

somewhat living with me and it was difficult, man. I had some good fights and carry on,

and you don't get along with everybody. But then whenever I came back to the United States,

I was laughing and talking. And when I got off the plane in LA, I had three marshals with me

from Australia. I was slammed up side the wall. I mean, hard, put an ankle or back zone and handcuffed

so tight that they cut my plane off, face forward, face forward, lands apart. Good gracious. And walked

me 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. 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

marshals, put me in there, and they put me in isolation. I don't know what in the world they

got me for isolation for. I don't need anything. How long did you spend in isolation? More than

six months. So I, after three or four days, 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 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 U.S. Parole Commission

has spoke to give you a hearing within 90 days. So Murray paid a lawyer $7,500 and he never picked

up the phone. Somebody got to him. Who's that somebody you think? Christopher Callan was his

name and I don't know who got to him, but he didn't do anything to get me out of there.

I got one 15 minute phone call a month and I couldn't get out. So then after six months, they

sent me to put me on conair, double shackled in black box on my hands, and I went to Oklahoma

and they let me out on the floor. I couldn't imagine. Then 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. What? I've been in now over six months.

So then there was a lovely little lady. She was a case manager or something. She said,

you can ask for parole on the record. And I said, please do. So I'll send them an email

and the next day I got my parole. 90 days later, they sent me to Terminal Island and put me in

the place there with the infallit, I guess since I'm as old as I am, 78 years old. So they put me

into people in there dying and wheelchairs and legs off and arms off and cancer. So I was in

there and I pushed the fellas around and I went come out to Chow Hall there and I went to go to

the right to get me a haircut and two Mexican guys there looped in another one between us.

And he went like, I could outrun you. And they slammed me, put me on the ground, hand cuffed

me and put me in the shoe for a week. I got out and man, they put me in a back in the place.

They treated me rough. So I got in a little more trouble and they put me back in the shoe and I

wouldn't come out. They had that, the virus was killing people. So they killed eight people in

that unit I was in. So I mean, I wouldn't even come out to take a shower. I had a little straw

that I put in the sink and I take a sock that I had and scrub myself with it with some slope

and glass of water over my head and then cleaned the floor up and 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 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 the parole officers couldn't even come.

They weren't working. They were just doing everything by video.

They don't have a drink. The only thing was I couldn't even have a drink of wine.

So after a year, 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, so I had to pee in the bottle every week.

I said, I've been in 33 years. How many pissed desks do you think I've had?

Never been dirty. Only thing if yall want to clean when you come get me.

Before I talk to you about love, let me ask you 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 and let me open it.

Besides 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're 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. The marijuana doesn't hurt anybody. That's the truth of it.

And so in your career, you walked amidst violence but you never participated in the violence.

I didn't even see it. It just didn't happen around me. In prison it did. I sewed people up.

They called me doc. I had dental floss and one time I had to get a blade and try to

keep them from my patient from getting again. But I just, like if I shot at those people,

I shot at them to keep them from killing me. I certainly didn't mean to kill them.

So that's just, some people are evil and they will kill you and hurt you, lie to you. I just

don't do any of that. It just makes you sick. I've seen it. When I was in the shoe, three guys

tried to kill the guy and they stabbed him so many times but they stabbed,

breaking the blood, getting out of the room and I said, you're going to kill him. You're going to

kill him and save his life. Drug him up there where the guards could see him. There's stuff like that.

I'm just not of that nature of those people. They're just evil. They're people born evil, I believe.

Yeah. It is heartbreaking to hear that the basic humanity has 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 when it's absent. It's

the thing that destroys us. 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, however little 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 two grams 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 a million, what was his name? Gilbert.

I'm going to give him in a million years before I get off the judge. You get foods 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 health issue. You cannot police it

enough. They know 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 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 Portugal and England. And when they give the girls cleanup, no more

stolen cars. Why? Who wants to keep this forest 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 such a spin. 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 lot of young people that listen to this, high school, college students.

What advice would you give them? How to live? 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'd just tell you what I'd have done. I would have paid attention and studied my lesson

and did the best I could. 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 there and do that. If you can do that at a very young age, start in a trade,

learn to do something. It doesn't matter what it is. If you learn to do something good,

there is a great demand for you. I would say that in prison, the prison system should come in and

you get a thief, young fans of thief, robber, and you say, all right, we need carpenters,

we need plumbers, we need electricians, we need sheep. Sentence them to that trade,

and when you get an A plus in that, where you can go out and make you $30 or $50 an hour,

you go home. Now, you can mess around 10 years if you want to or you can do this in two. I think

that's just for the prison. But anyway, I would say that they find somebody and be true to them,

that we have, just be honest and true in your life.

You mean like relationships?

Relationships, yes. I mean, so many people, particularly our children, are from relationships

where they're not wanted, they're divorced, their father's left, they don't know who their daddy is,

they diss in foster homes, 500,000 children in foster homes in America today. And we have,

our government inadvertently is encouraging those people. My daughter is a doctor and she

delivered a couple of years ago a baby from a 10 year old child. That child, and she said,

in the visiting room is four generations, all of them on welfare. Now, we got one more and it

reminds me of Elvis Presley's song, Indighetto. So for an individual, learn a trade, become a

craftsman of sorts, and find somebody to love and who loves you. That's right. Have a family

and stick with it. Surely, you're going to get angry, you're going to get disappointed,

you're going to get all kind of stuff, but come back and make up before you go to sleep.

Well, I did half of those things. I got the first one and working on the second one,

so I appreciate the advice. Well, Mari, thank you so much for joining us.

Can you tell me the story of how you do that? Well, my parents every summer would go to the

lake 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, sunbathing. This was back in the 60s, and I was

sitting on the pier with a few girlfriends and telling them my story, 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. We're swimming in 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 so 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, I know. I was okay. Okay,

next. Well, about six 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. In those days,

you just wrote everything. And then the next summer, he was coming up again. He was on his way

to Alaska, and 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 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 first touch.

That was love. It was just like a silence, you know, in 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 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. But that was it. That was love,

and you've been together ever since. Yeah. Well, the thing is about the love that the two of you

have for each other is they 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 remains steadfast. 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 I think my faith,

you know, my faith, my steadfast faith, and also the fact that Roger and I communicated,

we wrote letters, you know. 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 the life.

He's a good looking charismatic. He's pretty, you know. Yeah, and he's adventurous. He was

adventurous, you know, and would you say that again? But yes, it was just, I know, I missed

him physically, but he was just, we were just so strong in spirit, you know, and we could talk

to one another. Yeah. Well, what was it like, Roger, when you're a free man, seeing Mari for

the first time in person again? I cried for three days. Everything, I'd look at a picture of her.

I came home and there, she prepared a meal for me. And there 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 shining.

I put the shoes on and I walked out on the strings and the soles came on with the shirts and all fit

perfect. Everything, so it just was wonderful. And just to see her and then just to think about,

see her picture of her 50th birthday or her 60th birthday or her 70th birthday, I wasn't there.

And the picture of her and with the children, it was heartbreaking. And about the third day,

I thought, man up, I mean, you've got to. So I got over and quit the tears.

Everything was just pulsating with life. It was just unbelievable to get out of that place.

It really was. Is there, do you regret the drug smuggling that took you away from the one you love?

Oh, yes, 100%. I wouldn't have done it again if you don't think you're going to get caught.

And 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. So the adventure, I mean, it was one heck of an adventure for the two of you,

for the both of you. Were you able to enjoy it or was it always danger? Was it always

something that threatened your relationship, your love, your family? Are we able to enjoy the

adventure of it? You know, we'll all die. Life is short. And to live that kind of adventure.

Well, whenever I did the first loot, I got $10,000. And that was just about two years

pay on the fire department take home. And I brought that home and I put my hand over my mouth. I said,

oh, Roger, I can't believe this. Roger said, let's go have dinner. And so we went to the

restaurant that we would go to, you know, and he said, and don't you dare look on the right hand

side 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. Yeah, I was giddy about it.

And were you afraid that, I mean, did you think about the fact that it's illegal

and Roger can end up 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. Hard to catch you in the air.

So you never thought hard to catch you in the air. I didn't know that if your friend told

on you five years later, you'd still go to prison. That was a problem. I didn't know that.

Did you guys ever talk about walking away? I asked Roger to walk away. And he says,

I can't Mario just now, you know, and then of course, 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 want 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. Yeah. Yeah. But he was very generous, extremely generous and benevolent and.

And when I started, I would ask about, I went to a lawyer and a good, good people, a number of

people 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 a hundred dollars on the table. What would they do if I

caught me bringing marijuana across the board? He said, if you have a criminal record, I said,

no, I've never had a speeding ticket, nothing, not even a traffic ticket. I said, he said,

you work for the fire department? I don't know. I said, yes, sir. He said, you'll get probation.

The worst you'll do is you'll get one year and you spend four, four months raking leaves on the

military base. So my mother and my father died some years before and I brought 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 where it raking leaves. That's what do you think? She said,

do you need a co pilot son? Yeah, money is money. Yeah. So your relationship

persevered through some, some big challenges. Is there advice you can give about what

makes for a 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 little fire just that fire just

keeps burning and burning and burning. You can't put it out, no matter what it's the love fire.

But it gets difficult. It's funny. It's funny, the love fire. So you're saying the love fires

all it takes to to persevere through the difficulty. Well, no, I well, that's a huge part of it.

And also, I contribute my my individual situation to in order to endure what 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. What advice would you give?

I just don't know how to do it. I do know that you have to work on a relationship.

And Maury and I has had problems. I mean, we get really good guys getting fights. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yes. But not they don't let them last long. Yeah. You know, but certainly,

well, you're so different. We're the same and yet we're so different. Yeah.

Like little stuff. Little stuff, yes. And it might be big, but I usually win her over, you know.

But anyhow, I just feel like Maury was always there. It was like she was my anchor. 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. Are you afraid for his life, by the way? Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. There

are times. Yeah. 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, you know, Pablo Escobar, one of the most dangerous humans

in history, plus the US government. Very difficult, very difficult to get away.

In terms of your faith, 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 dwell on the good side. You know, when I ever, I meet someone

and there's 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. Yeah, he looks crazy. Oh, yes. And happy to be, you know, at home or

he'll say, Mari, I am just so happy to be with you here in this condominium. I'm content because 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. Particularly, I'm going to have

a heart valve replacement in about seven days where I could not make it. You know,

it's a very serious operation. And I think about that very much. And 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? Somewhat and some 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.

Visions in health can happen very, very clear, like what I have seen in the future. Scientists

might call it wormholes or in the Old Testament, they call it profits. But I see sometimes in 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 it was a chair with a wide arms and it was straight.

And there was like the beams coming out above my head and I'm on a porch. Boke and be ya.

And I come, I have out of the 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.

This is in my future. But this is something he has seen in the past.

Yeah. No, I know, but it's funny. Just the tense you use, it happened and yet it's something

that will happen to both are true. It's just unbelievable. And I don't know how many people

have it, but I have it. Out of my body, just like, just where I could come up to you and

look and set up on the radio. I used to be at work on the railroad and I had them there.

How do you explain that? What the heck is going on in this universe that's possible?

Oh, I don't know, but certainly, certainly a phenomenon that just happened. And

there's a guy, Bill Monroe, that wrote the book on the out of the body. He tells about it.

And who was the guy that writes the Alchemist?

Pablo Coelho?

He has them also, just like that. And he tells about how it happens on him.

Might happen differently. But you certainly can come out of your body.

What do you think the meaning of this life is? Maybe from your faith, but also from just

the amazing adventure that you live through? How do you make sense of why the heck we're here?

I don't know. It's just kind of like who you are. Even when I was a child, I was like,

I'm different from other people. And just as a boy, I was.

Could you put into words how you were different or was just the feeling?

Yeah. My brother, I mean, he kept his hands clean and his shoes shined. And here I was barefooted

catching a wild hog or rafting a horse trying to get it down.

I saw pictures of you climbing a tree recently.

When I first got out of prison, always something like that.

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 turn white from it.

I just kind of almost like smile. I mean, if they come at me, I'll turn white, you know what?

But it doesn't bother those things. That 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 cookie.

Well, maybe 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 and are

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 as possible.

It's like a garden. You know, all the different flowers.

It's like a garden. Yeah, like a garden.

You did mention you weren't sure if there's a free will or not.

Do you think it's all predetermined? Or do you think we make out with your decisions?

I just said if it is, I hope that it. But I know that we make out decisions.

Yes, I agree.

And I know that we're spirits that are living in this flesh. That's beyond a shadow of a doubt

with me. If you walk out of your body and have out of the body experience, you will know it.

So the body is just the temporary container for something which.

The spirit lives on eternally with no beginning and no end. And that's hard to fathom.

Yeah, this is just a little shell to contain that spirit. You know, this is the way we

work on earth, you know. But yeah, I know. I'm an eternal being. So are you.

Do you think there's a why to it? 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 crossover 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 until we know, let's just enjoy this beautiful life.

Yes. All we got it. And we're meant. That was my gift. I love everybody and everything.

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 these are these things that I just think about. Oh, what a hypocritical world we live

in, though. Like, most anybody out there listen, okay, he's a drug dealer. And I would say most

of them are committed adultery. That's a cardinal sin. Yet they move through rocks at me for moving

marijuana cocaine across the road. Yeah. It's just if you saw the two different things, you'd say,

what a terrible difference it is. But we become conditioned with this mad society that we have.

You mentioned that your daughter, Miriam, wrote you a poem. You mind reading it?

I'd be glad to. I was doing 11 years up in Lombok Penitentiary, maximum security prison

for parole violation for possession of marijuana in 1977. They should have given me six 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,

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 Quervo, Daddy, with you holding

me in your arms as you sang Jim Reeve's 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 asleep in one of your airplane's 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 Quibis King and Hotels Pleasure Galore and three dozen roses that we came through

the airport door. I can see your face in Amsterdam with 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 far

away 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 juggling

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. Over the old world and all its luxury,

what a good time it was. From South America to the Krasmopolski, 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 US of A,

but life here isn't so bad, and I'm plumb content to stay. I'm happy to be near you, although I'm

not as close as I was before, but because of your loving encouragement, I've been able to open your

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're giving me, Daddy. It's a

tremendous and a magical gift. We already have so many stories to tell, there are far too many to

list. But I want to thank you again this day for the very big happy birthday to you, and to tell

you just a few more things that are new in my heart to be true. 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 an 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 a 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,

the laugh and dance on the upper deck while the boat glides through. It'll 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. That's beautiful. 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. 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, FourSigmatic, and AIDSleep. 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.