[SPEAKER_03]: previously on cocaine air or a marijuana connection.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what you can do for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: That would be my pay.
[SPEAKER_03]: And TJ gets his marijuana connection in 1986 in Columbia and then gets an airplane and starts smuggling tons of weed into South Florida.
[SPEAKER_03]: But every trip is not a success.
[SPEAKER_02]: We drop 2,000 pounds of weed on the
[SPEAKER_02]: but I'm responsible for all this marijuana to a Colombian in Colombia.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then suddenly that Colombian kidnapped TJ and takes him to an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere and points a loaded gun to his head and TJ is not exactly begging for his life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go ahead, kill me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said I'm ready to die.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Jonathan Walton, and this is Cocaine Air, the TJ Dominguez story, episode four.
[SPEAKER_03]: I need a million dollars, like I need air.
[SPEAKER_02]: I never wanted to get into Cocaine, because Cocaine was a bad guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Cocaine world where the guys are doing all the killing.
[SPEAKER_03]: TJ's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: In the 1980s, the cocaine business in South Florida is fraught with gruesome murders and a diabolical one-upsmanship with dealers killing anyone who gets in their way.
[SPEAKER_03]: That hit movie Scarface about a maniacal cocaine kingpin played indelibly by Al Pacino.
[SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't just based on one true story, it was based on dozens of true stories, because selling cocaine in South Florida in the 1980s is a violent and scary application.
[SPEAKER_03]: But selling pot?
[SPEAKER_03]: Not so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: The mayor of one of the guys were like, like, lay back, oh man, let's show him a little root pizza.
[SPEAKER_02]: That kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: There were really killers cocaine guys were.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I stayed away from that whole world.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it's not really what I set out to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: I set out to generate $14 million for the sugar mill.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now what happens is during my marijuana journey, it was like taking two steps forward and three back.
[SPEAKER_02]: Doing air drops in the middle of the ocean.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really romantic, it makes towards a great movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: Having an airplane flying low, which by the way, one of the scariest things I've ever done in my life, is throwing out a hundred pound bail off an airplane, going a hundred and eighty miles per hour.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's nothing between you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the ocean is only one bail that you're gonna be pushing out the door at scary as hell because you can go out with it Airplane doesn't want to fly at that point is jumping is bouncing and you're pushing these bales out You know, so it's pretty scary So I had so many problems doing all these air drops and I lost so many trips that I started only a lot of money to a Colombian a Colombian that was pretty ruthless and He ends up shooting my partner
[SPEAKER_01]: Police are investigating a shooting in Miami acclaimed one man's life, police, and I've had introduced me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I owed him $800,000, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what I owed.
[SPEAKER_02]: They got that introduced me to him.
[SPEAKER_02]: He kidnapped some shoots and kills him.
[SPEAKER_02]: So next thing I know, I get kidnapped.
[SPEAKER_03]: And these Colombian killers who had just murdered his partner, take TJ to an abandoned farmhouse on the outskirts of Miami-Dade County.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no furniture in the house.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember it really well in a couple of seats.
[SPEAKER_02]: They put me in the kitchen to have a chair on the middle of a floor.
[SPEAKER_02]: They said, me down on the middle of the floor.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the guy says to me, I want my fucking money.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, I started to talk.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he said, shut the F, busy, you ain't no cowboy.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's ain't no movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what he said to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I never got those words.
[SPEAKER_02]: I won my $800,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I said, listen, he said, no, you listen.
[SPEAKER_02]: You pay me and he hates me with a gunner.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I have three or four of these guys around me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hitch me against my money.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you think about it, this kind of feels like karma for TJ, because it was only a few years earlier that TJ was the one kidnapping that banker who'd scammed him out of $100,000.
[SPEAKER_03]: TJ was the one taking him to a deserted farmhouse in Miami, beating him senselessly, demanding his own money.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, the shoe was on the other foot.
[SPEAKER_03]: Though, the main difference here is that TJ was never going to actually kill that banker.
[SPEAKER_03]: He just wanted to frighten him to get his money back.
[SPEAKER_03]: But these ruthless Colombian drug guys were 100% planning to murder TJ.
[SPEAKER_03]: They had already killed his partner, and TJ knew now sitting in that chair, beaten and bloody, that he was as good as dead.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then suddenly, TJ pulls a mind-fuck of a reverse psychology move on the guy holding a coughed gun to his head, ready to pull the trigger.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's what I said, don't go ahead, kill me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said I'm ready to die.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now he's quiet.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's not expecting that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I said, now, if you let me talk, I can get you your money.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, I have two airplanes I own.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got four speedboats, worth more than $800,000, gaming 24 hours, and I'll get you your $800,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, I promise, I give you my word.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't break my word.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll come back here.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I don't have the money, I'll come back and then you can finish with you starting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll come back.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he says, you got 24 hours.
[SPEAKER_03]: A ticking clock is pounding in TJ's ears.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's got 24 hours to come up with $800,000 cash, or he's dead, which FYI, $800,000 is the equivalent of nearly two and a half million dollars in today's money.
[SPEAKER_03]: And after the Colombians killed TJ, they're gonna kill his whole family.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's just how they operate.
[SPEAKER_03]: So TJ, frantically, calls up his friend Luis, a fellow drug smuggler who lives in the Bahamas, who at one point was interested in buying TJ's most prized possession.
[SPEAKER_03]: His number one airplane, Gigi.
[SPEAKER_03]: TJ needs cash more than anything at this point.
[SPEAKER_03]: So now he's willing to sell.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've fly to the Bahamas, don't meet with Luis.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's going on tea.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, listen man, you want to buy GG.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, but that's your bread and butter.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, I know, he's a tailor that airplane.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you want to sell it?
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, I $800,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got a need to airplane.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to be dead.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you mean you're going to be dead?
[SPEAKER_03]: So TJ explains his dire situation with the Columbians and tries to get Louise to give him cash for his plane and his boats.
[SPEAKER_03]: But Louise refuses.
[SPEAKER_02]: He goes, um, you want to make a million?
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, I need a million dollars like I need air.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, yeah, I want to make a million what I need to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says fly cocaine.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, fly cocaine, I said, what do you mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, you go to my farm, pick up a trip, bring it here, I'll give you a million dollars.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, well, what would that entail?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I need to get paid within 24 hours.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to get paid in cocaine.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to get paid in dollars.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can't wait for you to sell the cocaine to get paid because I'm going to be dead or family member of mine is going to be grabbed.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I have to clear all this out up front, you know, relax, you're going to get paid.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I did a little bit of the math.
[SPEAKER_02]: The airplanes that we were flying is eight hours, six, seven, eight hours to go down, six, seven hours to come back up.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the length of time that I already took me to find Louise, I'm going to be pushing the envelope on the 24 hours.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't want this guy to jump the gun and go grab one of my relatives.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I said, Louise,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just tired, can we try it as $1,400 of frequency that we're transmitting on?
[SPEAKER_02]: Can we try to locate Tokaio on the radio?
[SPEAKER_03]: Tokaio is the main Colombian TJ owes the $800 grant to.
[SPEAKER_02]: what do you want to locate it for?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to need another 24 hours, man, because I might not be able to make it in time and you can give me my money.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he says, okay, so we locate him.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, Luis was a big name.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was well known in the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he, we raised him.
[SPEAKER_02]: He went by Primo, Primo, Primo, and I'm cyclone, cyclone that he's to call me.
[SPEAKER_03]: So Primo says to Tiger Tigre, he says,
[SPEAKER_02]: He was working for me, gotta be doing a job for me, I'm standing good on the note, give him another 24 hours.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he bought me 24 more hours.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I said, okay, I'm ready to go, he said you can go now.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, fuel the plane and went down to Columbia picked up 450 kilos, I think it was the first trip I ever did in flew back to cocaine, landing the next day, Luis called me up, he says, here's your money, I took the million dollars when cash and cash, suitcase, man, I was on a Ferrari, let me tell you something.
[SPEAKER_02]: It didn't fit in the car.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, payment was shipmills.
[SPEAKER_02]: $20, $50, bulky stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not like I think I don't need all that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It didn't fit in the car, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I could tell where you're at in the way of selling by the money that you give, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if you're dealing a devalued that I was later on, we only play with hundreds.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you show up with a 50 or 20 year guy in the street, five and 10's, oh my God, you're in a street corner.
[SPEAKER_02]: on the run.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to talk to this guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he shows up with a suitcase.
[SPEAKER_02]: I swear to God.
[SPEAKER_02]: And two boxes.
[SPEAKER_02]: A TV box and a some boom box type box.
[SPEAKER_02]: Didn't fit in the car.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had it for Ari three away like the magnum one.
[SPEAKER_02]: They take the top off the car throw the suitcase.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if I would have hit his feet on my probably would have lost.
[SPEAKER_02]: a box with a hundred grander to one your grand.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I go to a hotel, and I can't take this money to the house, so I go to a hotel.
[SPEAKER_02]: I started counting, I was still nervous.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, my fingers are turning green, and I'm counting all this cash that I've got.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just just a million dollars, but it was in small bills and it's bulky.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I started counting all this money.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the more I counted, the more nervous I got and looking at the watch, I kept screwing up, go back to counting again.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, you know, the hell with you shit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just gonna peel out two of your thousand, and I figured that the rest is there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I took out 200,000 of my money, stashed at,
[SPEAKER_02]: then I had eight hundred grand and put the eight hundred thousand in the car and I drove over to where they had kidnapped me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I pulled in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jonathan with a whole different attitude.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a whole different attitude.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the main Colombian guy, Takayo, isn't there.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's back in Colombia.
[SPEAKER_03]: But his underlings are there.
[SPEAKER_03]: And TJ treats them with the respect he feels they deserve.
[SPEAKER_02]: I left the money in the car, top was down on the Ferrari, knocked in the door, they opened up the door, I said, the effort money's in the car, go get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I pointed to the car.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they came out, they dragged this money into the house.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm standing in the living room like this and they brought the money.
[SPEAKER_02]: The suitcase that was leather had a zipper all the way around.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they opened up this flap of this thing and there is all this cash sitting there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, it's $800,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me tell you something, Mel.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not hanging around here if you're counted.
[SPEAKER_02]: God damn money, you understand that?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not hanging around here to count as money.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, Tokyo from the jungle calls up on the radio, and he says, Tokyo wants to talk to you, so they put me on the radio.
[SPEAKER_03]: He says to me, Hey, my brother, they tell me you brought the cash.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said La Plata, which is what they call cash, is silver.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says to me, When are you coming back?
[SPEAKER_03]: I said, when am I coming back?
[SPEAKER_03]: At this point, those marijuana-selling Colombians are super impressed that TJ was able to get his hands on so much cash in a mere 48 hours, and they want to do more business with him.
[SPEAKER_03]: They want to give him more marijuana.
[SPEAKER_03]: But now that TJ knows, he can fly a plain load of cocaine, land in the Bahamas, and make a million dollars.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm in a cocaine business, man.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not marijuana anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, don't fucking call me again.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's gonna hire you for another job.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: You wanna me to go back and do more marijuana tricks.
[SPEAKER_02]: I walked out of that house and never looked back.
[SPEAKER_02]: I started working for Louise.
[SPEAKER_03]: TJ had officially become a cocaine smuggler.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it was the last thing in the world he ever wanted to be, and he actively avoided it for years.
[SPEAKER_03]: But this kind of money was just too insane to pass up.
[SPEAKER_02]: With Luis, I was doing a triple week with Luis, and I'm getting paid a million dollars for a triple week.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, this is wonderful.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't have to fool around with the boats.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't have to sell the stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was better than the marijuana.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to have to bring it in, put it in a place.
[SPEAKER_02]: And let me tell you something about marijuana buyers.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're finicky.
[SPEAKER_02]: These guys, it's not green enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not brown enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not that smelly.
[SPEAKER_02]: This or that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was always a problem when every time we went to soapbox.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so this is wonderful.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't have to sell anything.
[SPEAKER_03]: and the other huge advantage flying cocaine had over selling marijuana, what's the fact that TJ never had to smuggle anything into Florida?
[SPEAKER_02]: I never flew a trip of cocaine into the United States.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where would you drop it?
[SPEAKER_02]: No drop it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't drop cocaine.
[SPEAKER_02]: You drop marijuana.
[SPEAKER_02]: You got to afford to lose marijuana.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can't afford to lose cocaine to expensive.
[SPEAKER_03]: The street value of a plain load of cocaine back in 1986 is close to $100 million.
[SPEAKER_03]: The street value of a plain load of marijuana?
[SPEAKER_03]: Not even a million.
[SPEAKER_03]: And all TJ has to do now is fly his plane Gigi from Miami to Colombia, pick up the cocaine from Luis's farm over there, and fly it to an undisclosed secret airport in the Bahamas that Luis owned.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is one of the Florida to sell anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do a delivery, I get paid, I get paid in cash in Miami, and I go hang up for four five days.
[SPEAKER_02]: No worries, no pressure.
[SPEAKER_03]: And TJ quickly becomes, literally, the best cocaine pilot in the world.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because that landing strip in the Bahamas was hidden, and it was on the edge of the ocean, and it was really hard to find.
[SPEAKER_03]: But TJ manages to locate it and land his plainload of cocaine, safe and sound, every single time.
[SPEAKER_03]: A lot of other pilots in the cocaine smuggling business were not so lucky.
[SPEAKER_03]: How many pilots died trying to make that landing?
[SPEAKER_02]: Too many to count.
[SPEAKER_02]: Matter of fact, in the Bahamas, the count almost looked like flies on the water.
[SPEAKER_02]: Plains that almost made it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Punas that ran out of fuel.
[SPEAKER_02]: I get to tell you one story of two guys of flu by the sea to their pens.
[SPEAKER_02]: I used to call them freaking frag, because they didn't fly from me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't have them.
[SPEAKER_02]: These guys didn't need an airplane to fly, they were always eye on cocaine, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And you're going to fly a load of plane?
[SPEAKER_03]: And keep in mind, TJ has never done drugs in his life.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's never been high.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's always 100% sober and clear headed at all times.
[SPEAKER_03]: and that really seems to set him apart from all the other cocaine pilots of the day.
[SPEAKER_02]: So these two pilots, Frick and Frack, they go down there in this airplane, they land, they pick up the the cocaine 500 kilos of powdered cocaine that they put on the airplane, beachcraft twin engine, which uses basically jet fuel.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're getting high inside the airplane.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't check the fuel.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't check this.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't check nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: On the ground, the crew fuels the airplane with the wrong gasoline.
[SPEAKER_02]: They put diesel, which was the had been for the other airplane.
[SPEAKER_02]: So these guys had enough fuel when they take off off the runway.
[SPEAKER_02]: The airplane climbs.
[SPEAKER_02]: It goes up in the air.
[SPEAKER_02]: It starts sputtering.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sputtering, sputtering, came right down to the ocean.
[SPEAKER_02]: If they can't strike, die, 500 kilos of gold gain were lost.
[SPEAKER_03]: That kind of thing just never happens to TJ because he's a level-headed stickler for details.
[SPEAKER_03]: He checks and double-checks and triple-checks everything all the time, and TJ never loses a plain load of cocaine.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm got three airplanes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So now, once going into their shop, once flying in a gut deal, when I'm rotating three airplanes, and I'm no downtime, I'm rocking and rolling.
[SPEAKER_03]: And TJ knows better than any other smuggler out there, how to avoid attention, how to keep things on the extreme DL, how to not get noticed, especially on all those back and forth trips between the Bahamas and South Florida.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're pros, we are the cats, me out of the smuggling world.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're the pirates of the Caribbean.
[SPEAKER_02]: We really are all this, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So my airplanes got to come in, but I'm going in coming, going in coming so many times, what we would do then at that point, I'd have my captain in a uniform, walk up and down the airport in Nassau, for example.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey man, I just dropped off a chart, I'm dead heading back to Miami.
[SPEAKER_02]: Give me 50 bucks, I'll bring you back.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anybody wants to go back to Miami?
[SPEAKER_03]: So TJ's captain is approaching American tourists lined up at the miserable air-conditionless crowded airport in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, and offering them a quick and cool flight back home to Miami for 50 bucks.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the takers are many, but TJ is looking for a certain type.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not looking for a hot chick or anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm looking for a lady in a wheelchair.
[SPEAKER_02]: because she's gonna chill my airplane and we come back.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if I come back all the time with a dark sunglasses with a hint of getting my hand and a hot blonde on the my arm, you know, I look like a player, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: So you don't want that type of image.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you hear guys say, well, you know, you wanna put a couple of good looking girls and thong bikinis.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the last thing you wanna do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why is the last thing?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is the distraction always in attraction?
[SPEAKER_02]: They're gonna pull you up and keep you there just to look at your chick.
[SPEAKER_02]: You want an older lady, you want a cup, but you want a little dog.
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to just look normal.
[SPEAKER_02]: One time I'm behind the school bus and I say to my buddy, look at the kids that just got off that school bus.
[SPEAKER_02]: My friends says to me, what's wrong with them?
[SPEAKER_02]: Nothing, I don't see anything wrong with them.
[SPEAKER_02]: They said keep looking and he says, I don't see anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: I say, that's the problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: normal.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's what you want to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: Want to be normal.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't want to stand out.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the trend.
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to blend in.
[SPEAKER_03]: And TJ's success rate at blending in and smuggling coke is 100%.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's flying a plain load a week full ofweasts, and he never loses a load.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he never gets busted by authorities.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's meticulous, he's punctual, he's confident, but he's not cocky, and he always impresses everyone he meets.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I started developing a pretty good reputation doing these one-a-week trip, one-a-week trip, getting a million.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what starts happening, I'm starting to hang around with all these heavy, white Colombian guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now I started catching a little bit of traction.
[SPEAKER_02]: My name's out there in that circle, that the air is very thin at that point.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we're not in the amateur world in the pros.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so now my name comes up the Pablo.
[SPEAKER_03]: As in Pablo freaking Escobar, the man, the myth, the legend himself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Pablo heard of you heard of me through a couple of people because they were always looking for guys that are like stand up guys guys that are not getting high without an airplane guys are pros so Pablo hears of me and I get introduced to Pablo by the guy that built his house who's a builder who's a friend of my friend he says to me hey you want to make some real money I'm making a million dollars a week what's wrong with that isn't the 80's and I early 80's he says no you want to make some real money
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, no, what do I have to do?
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, you want to be Pablo.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'll be honest with you, Pablo didn't mean anything to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm making a million dollars.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to follow myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: I walk on water.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm making four million dollars a month.
[SPEAKER_02]: The house wrong with that, in the 80s.
[SPEAKER_02]: Multiply that 10, three or four now.
[SPEAKER_03]: TJ's right, $4 million back in 1986, adjusted for inflation in today's money, is more than $11 million.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what TJ was making every month.
[SPEAKER_03]: So he really doesn't need anything from Pablo Escobar, but he is somewhat flattered that the world's most notorious and most powerful cocaine kingpin wants to meet him.
[SPEAKER_03]: So he sets up a meeting with Pablo.
[SPEAKER_03]: I go see Pablo.
[SPEAKER_03]: I go to Pablo's house.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now Pablo Escobar didn't just have a house.
[SPEAKER_03]: He had a 5,000 acre mythical hidden fortress, deep in the Colombian jungle.
[SPEAKER_03]: Pablo Escobar was moving 15 tons of cocaine into the United States
[SPEAKER_03]: He owned 15 private jets and six helicopters.
[SPEAKER_03]: His estate had its own airport.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it even had its own zoo with elephants, giraffes, and lions, you know, for the kids.
[SPEAKER_03]: But for security, there were multiple guard towers with machine gun wielding snipers, surrounding the property.
[SPEAKER_03]: So anyone trying to sneak up on Pablo Escobar didn't live long to tell the tale.
[SPEAKER_03]: But TJ Dominguez was an invited guest of Pablo's, because Pablo had a proposition for TJ.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I go to Pablo's house.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's there with a whole bunch of people there, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Gustavo is his partner.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people don't realize, don't know, Pablo actually had a partner.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then him Gustavo was his cousin.
[SPEAKER_02]: They started together.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I walked up and I, and they said, they told me that you're a transporter.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I said, yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he says how much you charge.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says $7,000 a kilo.
[SPEAKER_02]: One guy almost fell off the chair laughing.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, what are you crazy?
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, oh, I'm not crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just that good.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says that's ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_02]: We paid 3,500 tops.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, that's why you got to go on hunt so many people and shoot them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I say if you're dealing with a bunch of amateurs, I said those guys, those guys are flying in airplanes with a Bible in one hand and a Rosary in the other.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to take any shots that were living because I love God and all of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, but I don't need all of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a professional.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I say, that's a difference between me and those one of you guys.
[SPEAKER_03]: TJ Dominguez is standing in Pablo Escobar's secret layer surrounded by his heavily armed thugs.
[SPEAKER_03]: rejecting Pablo's 3500 Achilo offer to his face.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, Pablo Escobar has killed a lot of people for less.
[SPEAKER_03]: The tension in that room was palpable, but TJ shows no fear, and he refuses to back down.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to stand strong there in front of them and show no weakness.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted $7,000 in Keto.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know they were paying $3,500.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if they called me and they wanted to talk to me, we'll shit and I, you know, be with more money.
[SPEAKER_02]: They refused to pay this $7,000, so I said, don't look.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got a $2 million airplane.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got a million dollars for its fishing vessel, and I've got a half a million into the operation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why would I come to Columbia to risk my equipment, my freedom for less money than what I'm gonna make?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's gotta be with my time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I came up with a logic, so I said, I'm not coming here for less money than that, I tell what I'll do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Give me $5,000 a kilo and put 700 kilos on the on the strip 7 times 5 is 3.5.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you do that, I'll come down a little you come up a little bit and we'll meet a $5,000 a moment to do that for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they said, when can you go, I said, go right now, you got radios.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I got on the radios, this happened in Columbia.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I got on the radios and I called over here Q, the guy that I always kept on 24-call.
[SPEAKER_03]: Q was TJ's tech guy named after that famous gadget guru in the James Bond movies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is the Herming device ready at Q?
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only at Herming device, but at an extremely delicate microphone as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said Q.
[SPEAKER_02]: Call up Kingfish, Joe Kingfish, we're having dinner with Gigi next week, get her ready, I'm on my way back.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was code for get my plane fueled and ready.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to fly a planeload of cocaine for Pablo Escobar.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how that happened.
[SPEAKER_03]: In the end, Pablo Escobar agrees to pay TJ $5,000 per kilo to fly a plain load of at least $1,000 kilo to the Bahamas.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's more than a ton of Coke and potentially $5 million a week for TJ.
[SPEAKER_03]: But there was just one teensy weency problem.
[SPEAKER_03]: Since TJ was not flying cocaine for Luis anymore, he had no place to land his airplane in the Bahamas, and he can't just land a plane chock full of cocaine at a regular airport.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're going to want to know what's inside, and then when they find what's inside, they're going to confiscate it.
[SPEAKER_03]: He actually agreed to fly 1,000 kilos of cocaine for Pablo Escobar without having any place to land it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I need an airport, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I need an airport.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so TJ flies to the Bahamas without any cocaine on his plane.
[SPEAKER_03]: And in an insane twist, TJ ambushes a high-placed government official, the guy in charge of all Bahamian airports, the head of their FAA.
[SPEAKER_03]: And before that official is able to turn TJ away, TJ peeks his interest.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, I want to talk about making you rich.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's making me rich, and I say, here, I wanna talk about making you rich.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, what do I have to do for making me rich?
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, nothing, I want you to do nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, you're gonna make me rich, and I have to do nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I say, yeah, that's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I bend over, and I say, I want you to do nothing when I land my airplane full of coke in your airport.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want you to go get a couple of coffee and not do a goddamn thing, nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, how much is his pace?
[SPEAKER_03]: To see some incredible photographs documenting TJ's life, go to CocaineAir.com.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you're enjoying CocaineAir, please hit that share button and text it to your friends and family right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you feel comfortable, leave us a five-star review.
[SPEAKER_03]: Reviews really help other listeners find us.
[SPEAKER_03]: CocaineAir was created, written, and executive produced by me, Jonathan Walton, for Jonathan Walton Media.
[SPEAKER_03]: executive producers, Evan Goldstein, and the inimitable T.J. Dominguez.
[SPEAKER_03]: Audio engineering by me, Jonathan Walton.
[SPEAKER_03]: All sound design and editing was done by the super-talented Puneath Shanoi from podcast fundits.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the cocaine air cover art is by Bobby Animation.
[SPEAKER_03]: 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 ear out.