[SPEAKER_02]: We're back now with a shocking story.
[SPEAKER_02]: In American woman posing as an artist to the fictional Irish royal family.
[SPEAKER_02]: Behind bars in Main Tonight, and now we're waiting extradition to the United Kingdom.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jonathan, thank you so much for joining me.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I wanna start with your relationship with Smith.
[SPEAKER_02]: How'd you guys mean?
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, I met Mary and Smith the way a lot of victims meet their con artist.
[SPEAKER_06]: My name is Jonathan Walton.
[SPEAKER_06]: And her con, of course.
[SPEAKER_06]: Maybe you've heard of me.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was a victim of an international con artist, and it was all over the news.
[SPEAKER_04]: A royal scam and it all happened in Hollywood.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maris Smith, Pastor Self-Op, is an Irish Eris and a member of nobility to cheat hardworking entertainment industry insiders out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
[SPEAKER_06]: I even did a podcast about my crazy experience.
[SPEAKER_06]: you've been scamming aside a money this whole time.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, you're not going to.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're busted.
[SPEAKER_06]: But the truth of the matter is, I've never got no forgetting scammed.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't think I ever will.
[SPEAKER_06]: Being victimized by a professional con artist changes a person, irrevocably.
[SPEAKER_06]: God knows it changed me, and it also changed the man you're about to meet.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was a victim of a coin which pushed me in the direction that I actually ended up in.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's TJ Tominguez.
[SPEAKER_06]: He got scammed out of a hundred thousand dollars by someone he swore he knew.
[SPEAKER_06]: Someone he trusted.
[SPEAKER_06]: He said, thief man, I'm going straight now to the police and filed charges on this.
[SPEAKER_06]: From my experience, people respond to being victimized by a con in a lot of different ways.
[SPEAKER_06]: Some never speak out, crippled by the shame and trauma of it all.
[SPEAKER_06]: Me?
[SPEAKER_06]: I fought back, and managed to put my con artist in jail.
[SPEAKER_06]: Though I still haven't gotten a dime back, but TJ, after he got conned, well, it turned him into one of the biggest cocaine smugglers of all time.
[SPEAKER_05]: By day, I owned and operated the largest Lamborghini dealership in the world.
[SPEAKER_05]: But by night, I flew tons of cocaine from Columbia to United States for Pablo Escobar.
[SPEAKER_06]: episode one.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, I conned him back.
[SPEAKER_01]: He feller in the wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're on your screen.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, it's 2012 now.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I'm producing a history channel series called The Ten Things You Don't Know About
[SPEAKER_06]: And I'm searching and searching for anyone who was close to Pablo Escopar and brave enough to talk about it on television.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I hit gold.
[SPEAKER_06]: But Pablo Escopar is the world's most powerful drug lord in the 1980s and 90s, controlling the vast majority of the globe's cocaine supply from his empire in Medellin, Colombia.
[SPEAKER_06]: Escopar Shadow completely permeates the criminal underworld.
[SPEAKER_06]: And pop culture.
[SPEAKER_06]: Even to this day, hip hop stars from Jay-Z to Kanye West celebrate him in their music.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, after countless phone calls and emails and going down a bunch of terrifying rabbit holes, I finally uncover a guy who knows Pablo Escobar better than most.
[SPEAKER_06]: a guy who used to actually smuggle cocaine for him and is willing to tell me all about it on that history channel, show back in 2012.
[SPEAKER_05]: Pablo was said I'd rather be dead than imprisoning your United States.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's TJ Dominguez.
[SPEAKER_05]: In something deep down inside me said, reach out to Jonathan.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm actually sitting with TJ right now at his dining room table.
[SPEAKER_06]: in an undisclosed location, somewhere in Florida.
[SPEAKER_06]: But they've run that show.
[SPEAKER_06]: I've seen it a bunch of times on history, being of the derby runs of 10 things you don't know about Pablo Escobar and there you are.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's funny, you should say that because let me just say this.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm in prison.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's so many runs over to my room.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're on TV, you're on TV, and I said, I'm on TV.
[SPEAKER_05]: You guys said, yeah, you're on TV right now.
[SPEAKER_05]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_05]: It was your show.
[SPEAKER_05]: I haven't that been a mystery channel 10 things you don't know about Pablo Escobar.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I guess I was one of the 10 things.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're one of the things.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: TJ Dominguez is hands down the most fascinating person I've ever met in my entire life.
[SPEAKER_06]: And he has the most incredible story that's never been told because he's been in prison for years.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you're out of prison what two days now?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, three days.
[SPEAKER_05]: And here we are talking.
[SPEAKER_05]: In two days don't count guys because one day I drank like six seven bottles of champagne.
[SPEAKER_05]: So one day I was vertical and next day I was horizontal.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it's a couple of days.
[SPEAKER_06]: At the height of his cocaine career, adjusted for inflation, TJ is making nearly $100 million.
[SPEAKER_06]: Every month, flying tons and tons of cocaine from Colombia and sneaking it into South Florida, he has dozens of airplanes and mansions.
[SPEAKER_06]: and Lamborghini's.
[SPEAKER_06]: He even has a pet mountain lion named Topcat.
[SPEAKER_06]: And TJ has something else too.
[SPEAKER_06]: A Guardian Angel.
[SPEAKER_06]: A magical unseen force protecting him and guiding him through some of the most horrific situations you can imagine.
[SPEAKER_06]: I should have been dead many, many, many, many times over.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, that's a given, though, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: When you're dealing with Colombian drug cartels, especially someone like Pablo Escobar?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think it's perfect to meet the reconcils.
[SPEAKER_03]: You will be cognizant with the real Pario.
[SPEAKER_05]: I could sit here and tell you that I know Pablo Escobar.
[SPEAKER_05]: Anybody could say that because Pablo's dead.
[SPEAKER_05]: The trick is not me saying that I know Pablo.
[SPEAKER_05]: The trick is when I'm looking at his book and Pablo says he knows me.
[SPEAKER_06]: TJ is flipping through a hardcover copy of The Accountant Story inside the violent world of the Medaín Cartel, written by David Fisher and Roberto Escobar.
[SPEAKER_06]: who was Pablo Escobar's own brother and accountant.
[SPEAKER_06]: Handling the billions of dollars coming in, responsible for paying cocaine pilots like TJ, who, friends, called Tito.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, TJ, aka Tito, turns to page 106, and starts reading an Escobar quote, referencing himself.
[SPEAKER_05]: Tito, the Ming is who was one of our main transporters.
[SPEAKER_05]: had a fleet of 30 airplanes, including a 707.
[SPEAKER_05]: He owned one of the largest exotic car delicious in the world.
[SPEAKER_05]: We tried to had Clark gave us $6 million to do some work on his life.
[SPEAKER_05]: He owned an entirely new housing development of more than 100 houses.
[SPEAKER_05]: the man gets who personally on four Lamborghinis in different colors and each day he would drive the color the match is sure he was wearing.
[SPEAKER_05]: Is that true?
[SPEAKER_05]: That is true.
[SPEAKER_06]: I had it with 30 cars and I dressed for they brought me the car that matched you shirt that I decided the way that day my god that is like the epitome of the American dream right so rich you can match your Lamborghini to your shirt wow but here's the thing TJ to Minkez never set out to be a cocaine smuggler I don't condone drugs I've never done any drugs I've done a ton of drugs so I will balance out this
[SPEAKER_06]: TJ was a good kid, from a good family, with dreams of following in his father's noble footsteps, but becoming the victim of a con artist, actually multiple con artists changed everything for TJ, and he never looked back.
[SPEAKER_06]: Where were you born where'd you grow up?
[SPEAKER_05]: I was really a born in Havana.
[SPEAKER_05]: My dad was a senator, he's a great man, righteous, very, very righteous.
[SPEAKER_05]: My dad owned five sugar mills in Cuba in two in Haiti.
[SPEAKER_05]: I lived in Haiti for four years as a child, and then my dad had the family kind of like divided, and he's really, very much into the nucleus of a family and keeping everybody together.
[SPEAKER_05]: So my dad sold his half, his interest, and became a builder here in Miami.
[SPEAKER_05]: So growing up and so forth, I grew up in North Miami.
[SPEAKER_06]: South Florida in the 1970s, as a wild and crazy place for TJ Dominguez.
[SPEAKER_06]: He's a popular kid in high school.
[SPEAKER_06]: Pansum, he enjoys surfing and practicing karate.
[SPEAKER_06]: And at 16 years old, he drives a green 1967 Corvette Stingray around town.
[SPEAKER_06]: But life at home is strict.
[SPEAKER_05]: We all had to eat dinner together.
[SPEAKER_05]: Last button in the shirt had to be buttoned.
[SPEAKER_05]: He had to be turned off.
[SPEAKER_05]: I grew up with great values and I'm very proud of that.
[SPEAKER_06]: His dad is a very successful real estate developer in Miami.
[SPEAKER_06]: And he's making a lot of money.
[SPEAKER_06]: But he's not doing what he really wants to do.
[SPEAKER_05]: My dad always had that love for the sugar industry because he grew up on it.
[SPEAKER_05]: And he's an immigrant, my grandparents from Spain.
[SPEAKER_05]: So my dad grew up as a poor boy cutting sugar cane.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that up only five lovelm, five sugar mills.
[SPEAKER_06]: And with the year 1980, fast approaching,
[SPEAKER_05]: So he goes ahead, he eliquities a lot of things and we purchase a sugar mill and an island called Puerto Rico.
[SPEAKER_05]: Where the plan was to dismantle the sugar mill and then put it on a barge, float it over and take it over to Haiti.
[SPEAKER_05]: where we had 20,000 acres on their contract, and we had all of the permitting from the precedent to be able to take the money out and so forth and so on.
[SPEAKER_05]: This was a huge chunk to take, and it really, really is.
[SPEAKER_05]: If you have no idea what a sugar mill and compass is, it's, we're talking like 20,000 acres, 10,000 employees on and on and on millions and millions of dollars.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, along the way, my dad, he funds the project out of pocket along the way he gets cancer.
[SPEAKER_05]: Unbeknown to me, he starts writing a book about
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't even know what he was writing the book about, but I found that later.
[SPEAKER_05]: So he gets cancer now, we go to the hospital, it's terminal.
[SPEAKER_05]: So on his dying bed, he said, son promised me one thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: I said, sure dad, he said, finish the project.
[SPEAKER_05]: I said, I promise you I'll finish the project.
[SPEAKER_06]: The death of TJ's father takes a heavy toll on him, but he doesn't have time to mourn.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's a multi-million dollar business deal on the table, and TJ needs to get it done.
[SPEAKER_05]: So all this weight fell on my shoulders, and I came back to the house, I saw the book that he was writing.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it started with, in my absence, you shall do this.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it was like a map for me to follow to how to finish the project.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I had a meeting with all the engineers that we had on board.
[SPEAKER_05]: They all asked me what my plans were.
[SPEAKER_05]: I said, I'm going to finish the project.
[SPEAKER_05]: We had a feasibility study.
[SPEAKER_05]: We had the office.
[SPEAKER_05]: We had employees and so forth and so on.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I was, we were, we were missing $14 million to take the project to the next level, which we had a commitment from capital bank by German name Abelholtz.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, it was like press center of the bank.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I put on my brianne, put my best suit on, grab my briefcase, which is really my dad's briefcase.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so my egg came down to see him, you know, I want him to his office.
[SPEAKER_05]: In the first thing he said to me was, you know, I'm really sad for your loss and that was a great man, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, once we got past all of that, I said, I'm here to execute the commitment that we have for the project.
[SPEAKER_05]: He looked at me and I was like 19, 20 years old and he said, look T.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're a great guy, but you're very immature when it comes to this project.
[SPEAKER_05]: This funding was really sweet and what was the decisive factor was your father's history.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the fact that your father was one of the most knowledgeable men in the industry.
[SPEAKER_05]: He said, you have no knowledge.
[SPEAKER_05]: I said, well, I shouldn't have known for four years.
[SPEAKER_05]: I worked in the lab.
[SPEAKER_05]: He says, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_05]: We cannot honor the commitment to you.
[SPEAKER_05]: I have a board of directors that I have to answer to.
[SPEAKER_05]: He said, but I'm going to refer you to maybe another blending institution that's maybe a little bit more liberal.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I said, okay, well, I went to see them.
[SPEAKER_05]: From there, I went to see another one, and another one, Haiti didn't enjoy the best reputation because it was a dictatorship.
[SPEAKER_05]: So investment was really, really scarce.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, there was no assurance there that if you invested there the government was not gonna be overthrown or you were gonna lose your investment.
[SPEAKER_05]: I had a very, very difficult time financing for the $14 million that I needed to complete the project.
[SPEAKER_05]: All of these investors were Miami from banks.
[SPEAKER_05]: I went to mortgage lenders, mortgage brokers,
[SPEAKER_05]: And I mean, I started running out of doors to knock on.
[SPEAKER_05]: Everyone said no, everybody said no, everybody said no.
[SPEAKER_05]: I spent maybe two years now on the fault thing on everything.
[SPEAKER_05]: The sugar mills falling apart.
[SPEAKER_05]: I owe the government a Puerto Rico right at a million dollars.
[SPEAKER_05]: $780,000 to be more precise.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I got the $20,000 acres for what they're in Haiti that I have to pay down on that land.
[SPEAKER_05]: I have employees, and I'm 19, 20, 21 years old, and I just everything the way to the world felt in my shoulder.
[SPEAKER_05]: I started getting a little bit more desperate.
[SPEAKER_06]: And desperation can lead to a lot of things.
[SPEAKER_06]: None of them good, as young TJ is about to learn, when he meets a Miami banker named Ruben, who seems somewhat excited to give TJ a loan.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that should have been a red flag, especially when Ruben tells TJ, before any loan can be issued.
[SPEAKER_05]: He says to deposit $100,000 with our escrow account in our escrow account with our law firm.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I deposited the 100 grand, you know, and then I go back and I said, okay, Ruben, I got the commitment.
[SPEAKER_05]: I felt like I was, you know, floating on air.
[SPEAKER_05]: It was so wonderful.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, I'm getting my dad's project done.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now was Ruben a lawyer or was Ruben with a president of a mortgage lending institution?
[SPEAKER_06]: And he wanted you to deposit $100,000 in a lawyer's, you know, an escrow account.
[SPEAKER_05]: escrow accounts are like sacred accounts, you're not supposed to be a touch.
[SPEAKER_06]: And what was that 100,000 for security for him?
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, no, it was to show that I had the means to be able to make payments on the loan.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, not so much make payment that I was in that category.
[SPEAKER_05]: It was really not all that unusual for you doing as you're waiting out the riff right here.
[SPEAKER_05]: If you can't come up with 100 grand, then why should I take my time and look for 14 million for you?
[SPEAKER_06]: I got you.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it makes sense.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that money's not to be touched.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's supposed to be sacred.
[SPEAKER_05]: weeks later, I'm out getting the 14 million and I'm just getting tomorrow and the tomorrow became a week later and a week later became a month later to a three months of this stuff I'm starting to really think that there's a problem here.
[SPEAKER_05]: And as I'm walking to his place of business, I hear yelling and screaming behind the door.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, so I stand and freeze myself and I just kind of hold the handle of the door and I don't move when I'm listening for what's going on behind the door and I hate sort of a bitch, you know, back and forth to the fright.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, the door flies open and there's a guy standing staring right in my face like I died.
[SPEAKER_05]: man I go what in the guy goes what and and he goes no what what you know I know staring at each other guys theory spokes coming out of this guy's ears right and what's going on and the guy says that son of a bitch in there he's a thief I said who he says Ruben I said what do you mean he's a thief he says he's a thief man I'm going straight now to the police and filed charges on this blah blah blah so I said but I give him a hundred thousand dollars good faith to pass it the guy looked at me
[SPEAKER_05]: If you gave that guy a hundred thousand dollars, you've got nothing, he's a thief.
[SPEAKER_05]: Slime the door, walk down.
[SPEAKER_05]: At that point, I said, oh my God, I didn't know what to do.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was naive, I was young, I was always in my dad's shadow, even though my dad took me everywhere and exposed me to a lot of business deals and so forth and so on.
[SPEAKER_05]: So at that point, I had to make a decision, what do I do?
[SPEAKER_05]: Do I go to the authorities?
[SPEAKER_05]: behind this other guy.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know how much money he lost.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, you know what's going to happen.
[SPEAKER_05]: The authorities are going to take three, four years to get this thing settled.
[SPEAKER_05]: And at the end of the day, I will probably get a guilty conviction.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's not going to put food on the table and shoes on the kids, you know.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I said, I got to get this money back.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I got to think this out.
[SPEAKER_05]: I went back to my car and I drove
[SPEAKER_05]: And then I sat there when I got to the house obviously my mom and my two sisters that I had We're not privy to none of this none of it.
[SPEAKER_05]: They had no idea what what was going on At that point John a thing I decided I'm gonna get the money back, but I'm gonna I'm not gonna go to the court to get my money back
[SPEAKER_05]: I want to see my buddies that had these farms, and I say, listen, guys, there was Mike.
[SPEAKER_05]: I said, hey, Mike, I need you do me a favor, yeah?
[SPEAKER_05]: What do you need, T?
[SPEAKER_05]: So I said, I need you to play the role of a rich Texan oil guy.
[SPEAKER_05]: He goes, what do you want to do, I say, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_05]: And I need to borrow your farm.
[SPEAKER_05]: one of your farms, one of your barns for a little bit.
[SPEAKER_05]: What do you have in mind?
[SPEAKER_05]: I said, I got this guy that just ripped me off from 100 grand.
[SPEAKER_05]: I need to get that money back.
[SPEAKER_05]: So he says, what do you want to do?
[SPEAKER_05]: Is that what I'm getting at them?
[SPEAKER_05]: I wanna grab that son of a bitch.
[SPEAKER_05]: Put him in your barn, beat him to a pulmonary, get my money.
[SPEAKER_05]: Simple as that.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, justice, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: And I didn't give a damn about Ruben.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I cared about one thing, one thing, only.
[SPEAKER_05]: Give me what belongs to me.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, give me what belongs to me.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't care if you've got to go out there and rock ten on the people.
[SPEAKER_05]: Give me what's mine.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I caught him back.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I said, hey, Rubin, I got these friends of mine that are from Texas a lot of money.
[SPEAKER_05]: And guys, you should meet because these guys could be potential investors for you.
[SPEAKER_05]: You was, yeah, I love the meet them.
[SPEAKER_05]: I said, okay, give me your attitude.
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll come by and pick you up.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, this is okay, so we did.
[SPEAKER_05]: When I showed this as Mike, this is George.
[SPEAKER_05]: Tito and I grew up in the, so we jumped in the car.
[SPEAKER_05]: So we'll all go together in our car.
[SPEAKER_05]: Tito, so we could talk.
[SPEAKER_06]: So TJ and his rich Texas oil buddies, pick Rubin up at his house in South Miami.
[SPEAKER_06]: In his buddies go all out and dress the part, in stats and hats and cowboy boots, they're driving one of those gigantic 1970s Cadillac civils.
[SPEAKER_06]: Two of them in are sitting up front, and the other one is in the back seat blocking one door while TJ blocks the other, and Ruben seated in the middle on the hump seat.
[SPEAKER_06]: They drive far out of the city.
[SPEAKER_06]: their now in the middle of nowhere.
[SPEAKER_06]: A big ranch appears in the distance.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I said, oh, by the way, they want to stop off of this ranch.
[SPEAKER_05]: They look at this property.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're thinking about me.
[SPEAKER_05]: Maybe because of the morphing genre.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's go look at it.
[SPEAKER_05]: So that's how I got them in the house.
[SPEAKER_05]: Mike walked in the other guy walked in,
[SPEAKER_05]: And then when I turn around, I use a smack on my smack the little heart, wrapping by the neck, I spot them around, put my finger in his face as it, I want my f and money.
[SPEAKER_05]: What do you say?
[SPEAKER_05]: He started quibring, shaking like a leaf.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I had him with a death grip on his neck like this.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I slapped him hard.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know that I won, I don't know how many years a karate tournament.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it would also taught me a lot of stuff control.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't take candy from babies and I don't hit.
[SPEAKER_05]: I just wanted my money.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's all I wanted, you know?
[SPEAKER_05]: So I said, you know, he started quibring.
[SPEAKER_05]: He started a little lower.
[SPEAKER_05]: I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I said, oh my, I
[SPEAKER_06]: So this is where it gets really interesting.
[SPEAKER_06]: And it just proves Ruben is actually a con artist who works at a bank.
[SPEAKER_06]: Because he didn't have $100,000 anywhere to save his life, literally.
[SPEAKER_06]: But he did have a bogus cashiers check for $400,000.
[SPEAKER_06]: Made out to a card dealership in Miami.
[SPEAKER_06]: That he tricks a bank and became an island's into honoring.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's apparently part of a whole other scam Rubin's pulling on someone else entirely.
[SPEAKER_06]: But Rubin uses that bogus check for 400 grand to buy TJ, a bunch of new luxury cars.
[SPEAKER_05]: So he went to a dealership and pulled out like 10, 15 cars, pay for them where they cash your check.
[SPEAKER_05]: The dealer verified the draft with the bank.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I drove out with 10 or 15 cars and sold them for a nickel and the dollar a quarter on the dollar and I got my 100,000 back.
[SPEAKER_05]: And you didn't have to kill Rubin.
[SPEAKER_05]: No, I didn't.
[SPEAKER_06]: Just a fear of God was killing anybody.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: But he thought he was going to die.
[SPEAKER_05]: And there's hit the Atrix of Hollywood.
[SPEAKER_05]: This rules he play.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I mean, he needed to think that.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, you're going to be like, no, no, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_05]: He needed to believe that.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I believe it or not, when I said it, I don't know how far we would have gone.
[SPEAKER_05]: I didn't really, my feelings, my wishes, whenever it's you doing, you harm the room in.
[SPEAKER_05]: Right, you still have a lot of money.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I get it.
[SPEAKER_05]: You did the right thing in my life.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I don't want it, my gosh.
[SPEAKER_05]: You don't want money back.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know.
[SPEAKER_05]: I didn't really mean it, but at that point I had to put the fear of God into him to take him to the next level.
[SPEAKER_05]: He was wearing a Rolex, I yanked it off of him.
[SPEAKER_05]: And two other watches is that I guess he was screwing a secretary because I know that she was wearing a new Rolex also.
[SPEAKER_05]: I went back and I said, ruined, I wonder, watch it, you girls wearing.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, so I took that watch back and I sold those to friends.
[SPEAKER_06]: You notice the details, and I'm all about details.
[SPEAKER_06]: And TJ is not giving up at this point.
[SPEAKER_06]: He's still trying to secure that $14 million loan to get his sugar mill off the ground.
[SPEAKER_06]: And honor the promise he made to his dad before he died.
[SPEAKER_06]: So TJ keeps knocking on doors and working all of his contacts and his dad's contacts.
[SPEAKER_06]: And eventually, he finds someone interested in legitimately investing in his sugar mill.
[SPEAKER_06]: But it's the late 1970s now.
[SPEAKER_06]: And Haiti is in the grips of John Claude DuVallier.
[SPEAKER_00]: John Claude DuVallier is a dictator, an alleged thief and a murderer accused of pillaging his homeland and draining his treasury.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so Haiti is considered a high-risk country.
[SPEAKER_06]: And financial institutions are leary to invest.
[SPEAKER_06]: But TJ finds somewhat of a kindred spirit, and actually makes a deal with him.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: When I shook hands with this gentleman in Miami, he was a president of a bank, a son of a president of Cuba.
[SPEAKER_05]: My dad was the senator.
[SPEAKER_05]: So there was a little bit of family ties.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was in my 20s.
[SPEAKER_05]: He was maybe 47, some is in the neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_05]: I tell him, well, you know, this is what I've got.
[SPEAKER_05]: I present him the feasibility study.
[SPEAKER_05]: He's just, I don't even want to structure this.
[SPEAKER_05]: I says, we can do this this way.
[SPEAKER_05]: You take 80% out, take 20.
[SPEAKER_05]: Why should fully reimburse and you have no more skin in the game?
[SPEAKER_05]: At that point, I'll take the 80 and you take 20.
[SPEAKER_05]: But the first money that comes out goes to reimburse you.
[SPEAKER_05]: So we shook hands and he says, okay, let's go to 80.
[SPEAKER_05]: We go to 80.
[SPEAKER_05]: I introduced him to the Minister of Finance, Minister of Agriculture.
[SPEAKER_05]: I bring him over to the office.
[SPEAKER_05]: I bring him over to meet all these lawyers.
[SPEAKER_05]: I spent three, four days introducing this guy to everybody.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the guy's like, yeah, this is really great, great project.
[SPEAKER_05]: In the morning, I got a phone call in my room.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're standing the same hotel.
[SPEAKER_05]: I still hate it.
[SPEAKER_05]: And he says, I was in the penthouse, by the way.
[SPEAKER_04]: So he says, I need to talk to you.
[SPEAKER_05]: I said it's like six, seven o'clock in the morning.
[SPEAKER_05]: He's been all day to the other.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's just I need to see you before he will see the lawyer.
[SPEAKER_05]: Let me see it all right, fine.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I go down and meet him for a couple coffee in the lobby.
[SPEAKER_05]: And he says, look, I talked to my backers last night.
[SPEAKER_05]: I gave him the green light.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is a great, great, great project.
[SPEAKER_05]: They like it.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're all in.
[SPEAKER_05]: I said, OK, great.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I'm glad to hear that.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're going to see the lawyers today.
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll draw the agreements.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we'll move on.
[SPEAKER_05]: He goes, there's only one thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I said, what's the only one thing?
[SPEAKER_05]: And he says, we're going to do the project.
[SPEAKER_05]: But it's going to stay 80 across the board.
[SPEAKER_05]: Not 20, 80, 80 to us, you get 20.
[SPEAKER_05]: I said, but that's no more weird and Miami.
[SPEAKER_05]: He looked at me and he said, look, kid, you're green behind your ears.
[SPEAKER_05]: Welcome to the real world, this ain't Miami.
[SPEAKER_05]: You got nothing without me.
[SPEAKER_05]: You got a pipe dream without me.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I looked at him and I said they might just come off the other incident with the other corner just robbing me.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, this guy's basically calling me again.
[SPEAKER_05]: He brought me all the way to the gate and now he's going to slam the door in my face.
[SPEAKER_05]: At that point, I was a deciding factor.
[SPEAKER_05]: I looked at him and I looked at him and I said, remember exactly what I said.
[SPEAKER_05]: I said, look.
[SPEAKER_05]: My dad raised a man.
[SPEAKER_05]: My dad raised me to live by my word.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm gonna make you a promise.
[SPEAKER_05]: The last airplane going back to Miami is a 315 Eastern Airlines.
[SPEAKER_05]: If you're not in that fucking airplane, I'm gonna put you in a bag.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I don't break my word for nobody.
[SPEAKER_05]: That was it.
[SPEAKER_05]: I turned around, he left the island and trust me.
[SPEAKER_05]: I wanna beat this guy to a pulp.
[SPEAKER_05]: I just had such
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't even, I was mad.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was just tired of being used and kicked of the curb.
[SPEAKER_05]: I really was.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's when I decided, what's right, what's wrong?
[SPEAKER_05]: It seems to me, what's right is whatever it works for you and you can get away with.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I'm not going to let anybody push me anymore.
[SPEAKER_05]: Everything that they do, I'm going to do better.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to be a bank.
[SPEAKER_05]: I made the decision that night and went upstairs to the penthouse to Rasa that was sitting on the top of the hotel, 10 story on top of a mountain, very dark skies, but I did just reach out there and grab these stars who were so dark that night.
[SPEAKER_05]: I had to talk with my dad, my dad, my dad, father, and I said to my father, you're not going to approve of what I'm going to do.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm not asking for your permission, but I'm gonna get this sugar mill done, but I'm gonna do it my way.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm tired of asking people from money.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm tired of having been humiliated.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm tired of being abused.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm really, really tired of that.
[SPEAKER_05]: And he said, but I'm gonna make this promise, I'm gonna keep this promise to you.
[SPEAKER_06]: After the death of a father, after being conned and humiliated, a lot of people would have put their victim shirt on and made it their uniform for life.
[SPEAKER_06]: But those people aren't TJ Dominguez.
[SPEAKER_05]: That night, I packed up my suitcase, I came to Miami, and I became a smuggler.
[SPEAKER_05]: I had like a hundred and something thousand dollars left.
[SPEAKER_05]: My family had no knowledge of what was left in the bank.
[SPEAKER_05]: I called my cousin, a boat guy.
[SPEAKER_05]: My told him, help me buy a boat.
[SPEAKER_05]: What do you want to boat for?
[SPEAKER_05]: You're not a boat guy.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're a car guy, you say, yeah, well, you know, let's meet for a beer.
[SPEAKER_05]: I got a couple of things I got to ask you.
[SPEAKER_06]: TJ needs to make $14 million fast to get his sugar mill off the ground.
[SPEAKER_06]: And in his mind, the only way to do that now is to get a boat, sail to the Bahamas, a group of islands 100 miles give or take off the coast of Florida, and bring back a bunch of marijuana to sell.
[SPEAKER_06]: TJ's cousin is shocked.
[SPEAKER_05]: you say you're crazy you don't even smoke pot.
[SPEAKER_05]: I said yeah well you know you want to go with me hell no you just talk broker at the time he's doing pretty good he's I think you're making a big mistake I said I'm not asking you for advice or permission I just want you to teach me how to draw a damn boat
[SPEAKER_05]: I bought a scar about 30 footer, white with red stripes and 24.54.5 and a quarter horse is on each side and I learned a little bit of how to navigate.
[SPEAKER_05]: I didn't really know compass and readings and all that.
[SPEAKER_05]: Basically I grew up skiing in the bay, you know, which is not really going out there.
[SPEAKER_05]: I didn't even know where the Bahamas was at and never been to the Bahamas, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: And I'm gonna do this.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm scared.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm determined to do this.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know where the Bahamas were at and there was no GPS or anything.
[SPEAKER_05]: I knew there were East, you know, so he says, listen, I'm not gonna go away through your crazy.
[SPEAKER_05]: But I'm gonna introduce you to an old fisherman, an old Cuban fisherman.
[SPEAKER_05]: You could talk to him, maybe he'll go with you.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I said, okay, fine.
[SPEAKER_06]: So TJ found that old fisherman and he eventually found his way to the Bahamas, but procuring large quantities of marijuana by hitting up complete strangers is a whole other story.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm still nervous and I say to the guy, hey man,
[SPEAKER_05]: I was, yeah, you need gas, I said, no, man, I need, I need, I need to buy some marijuana.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the guy goes, oh, yeah, I mean, I want to.
[SPEAKER_05]: He pulls up three joints out of his pocket, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: I said, no, man, I'm a way out of my bails.
[SPEAKER_05]: But that way, we gotta go see my uncle.
[SPEAKER_06]: Next time on Cocaine Air.
[SPEAKER_06]: TJ's first big marijuana buy could be his last.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I take my money and I give it to him.
[SPEAKER_05]: He's how much he's there.
[SPEAKER_05]: I said 25,000.
[SPEAKER_05]: He's a 30,000.
[SPEAKER_05]: You've 5,000 dollars short.
[SPEAKER_05]: I said, well, that's what I got.
[SPEAKER_05]: He said, hey, man, there ain't no credit in this business.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I'm thinking I'm going to get robbed.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to steal my boats, steal my money, throw me in the water and get eaten up by a shark.
[SPEAKER_05]: But I have to go.
[SPEAKER_05]: I have no choice.
[SPEAKER_05]: Not my data die.
[SPEAKER_06]: To see some incredible photographs documenting TJ's life, go to CocaineAir.com.
[SPEAKER_06]: And if you're enjoying CocaineAir, please hit that Share button and text it to your friends and family right now.
[SPEAKER_06]: And if you feel comfortable, leave us a five-star review.
[SPEAKER_06]: Reviews really help other listeners find us.
[SPEAKER_06]: CocaineAir was created, written, and executive produced by me, Jonathan Walton, for Jonathan Walton Media.
[SPEAKER_06]: executive producers, Evan Goldstein, and the inimitable T.J. Dominguez.
[SPEAKER_06]: Audio engineering by me, Jonathan Walton.
[SPEAKER_06]: All sound design and editing was done by the super-talented Puneath Shanoi from podcast fundits.
[SPEAKER_06]: And the cocaine air cover art is by Bobby Animation.
[SPEAKER_06]: We've got a lot of fascinating untold stories like Cocaine Air coming down the pike at Jonathan Walton Media, so subscribe and keep an air out.