[SPEAKER_01]: Previously on Cocaine Air, I'm in a Cocaine business man, not marijuana anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: And TJ is now making a million dollars a week in the mid-1980s, flying a plain load of Cocaine from Columbia to Luis's secret landing strip in the Bahamas.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I started developing a pretty good reputation during this one-on-week trip, one-on-week trip, getting a million.
[SPEAKER_01]: And eventually, cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar gets wind of TJ's stellar reputation.
[SPEAKER_00]: 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.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Pablo Escobar offers to pay TJ $5 million a plain load to fly cocaine for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's at least $5 million a week in TJ's pocket.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's just one problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: But since TJ is flying for Pablo Escobar now, he can't land on that secret runway in the Bahamas anymore, because that runway is owned by Luis, the previous cocaine guy he was flying for.
[SPEAKER_01]: So TJ scrambles to find a new runway he can land Pablo Escobar's plain load of coke on, and in a bold and balsy move, TJ ambushes the head of the Bohemian FAA at a local bar.
[SPEAKER_01]: and offers to hire him to look the other way.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's how much his his pay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Jonathan Walton, and this is Cocaine Air, the TJ Dominguez story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Episode 5.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm the guy signing the checks around here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you remember, I was buying wheat from the government of the Bahamas, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had some good context in the government.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of those contacts tells TJ where he can casually run into the head of the Bahamian version of the FAA.
[SPEAKER_01]: A bespectacleed and lanky Caribbean man in his 50s, wearing a navy blue uniform with a government badge, a numerous military patches.
[SPEAKER_01]: He kind of looks like a Renegade Eagle scout.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, he's always every Friday.
[SPEAKER_00]: He goes to this watering hole after he gets out of work for drinks.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says, we'll go with her and talk to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, he'll be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I said, OK, fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we go with there.
[SPEAKER_00]: We go with the pool site.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're hanging around by the pool site, the where we are now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, there he is.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's walking up to a little Tiki bar.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nobody in the Tiki bars or I'm three o'clock in the afternoon.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that walks up, he comes up to a stool, sits down, or is a drink.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I tell my buddy Hunter, okay, go over there and talk to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Break the ice and then call me over.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he said, no, you could talk to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, no, man, the guy's dressed in a goddamn costume off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, you know, with the bars and all that, I don't know, this guy, you go talk to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He goes, it's cool, man, you can go talk to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're arguing back and forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, okay, fine, I'll go talk to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I walk up to the bar with his guy sitting three stools away and I clear my throat thinking and hoping that he turn around and look at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know he looks at me, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: He Norris me, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Bartender comes up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, give me an absolute on the rocks with the twist along.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so I give my absolute, I turn around, looking at the guy that I want to even turn around, look at me, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I drink this drink.
[SPEAKER_00]: I order another one, all right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They guys still, like, I'm not even there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, on the third absolute, I walk up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stand up and I push the chair over.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said to the guy, hey, listen, I have a mutual friend that said that I could talk to you about something sensitive.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, what's your friend's name?
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, Frankie.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, Frankie, Frankie, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, Frankie, he's Frankie.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not a normal Frankie man.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Frankie TJ's referring to here is Benjamin Frankie or Franklin.
[SPEAKER_01]: The U.S. president on the $100 bill.
[SPEAKER_01]: This behavior in airport official just isn't getting it, but he's about to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, well, I got a picture of Frankie, maybe you might recognize his picture.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, okay, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I reached my back pocket and I pulled out 20 grand in hundreds.
[SPEAKER_00]: I peel one franky and I put it on top of the counter.
[SPEAKER_00]: I put another one on top of them when I'm $10,000 almost into this stack in the guy he says to me, okay man, what is it that you want to talk about that sensitive?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do I have to do for this?
[SPEAKER_00]: I take this stack and I push your infront of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is it that's so sensitive?
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, I want to talk about making you rich.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's making me rich.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, here, we want to talk about making you rich.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, what do I have to do for making me rich?
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to do nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, you're going to make me rich.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have to do nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, yeah, that's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I bend over.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, I want you to do nothing when I land my airplane full of coke in your airport.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to go get a couple of coffee and not do a goddamn thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, how much is his pay?
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, 500,000, half a turn, half a night leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, how many times a month can you do this, man?
[SPEAKER_01]: That behavior in airport official goes on to become very, very wealthy, making half a million dollars to look the other way, each time TJ Lens his cocaine filled airplane in the Bahamas.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how would you get the cocaine from the Bahamas to South Florida?
[SPEAKER_00]: So once we landed in the Bahamas, what we would do is that cocaine would go to a secure safe house.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was guarded also by guns all the way around.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm paying a million dollars to the government to land the plane.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because those payments started out at 500,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was 100,000.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do they then pop up to a million?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's called Green.
[SPEAKER_00]: He told me last time he said to me, unless you give me a million dollars, your boys are getting locked up.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the actor, Jack Palantz once said, the only two things you can truly depend on are gravity and greed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the Bahamas, a third-world nation, you can't exactly crack open a coconut and become an instant millionaire, and TJ knows that better than most.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, he goes on to find multiple airports on multiple islands in the Bahamas to land his cocaine filled airplanes on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all these shady airport officials on the take start getting insanely jealous of one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get a phone call from Jack, my number one guy, he says, hey, team, he said, yeah, Jack was going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, where are you in jail?
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, they got me locked up over you in the Bahamas.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, why?
[SPEAKER_00]: He looked good down here right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, all right, so I jumped on plane, I flight down to the Bahamas.
[SPEAKER_00]: I go see the officer that's got him locked up in his brown.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, what's going on here, off his brown, I got me got my guy locked up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, we haven't broken the law here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We haven't done anything wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't smuggled or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wake up my guy locked up.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what he says to me?
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear you've been working the outer islands, you need to start spreading that money around.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the irony of the whole thing is, so you're locking up my guy because we're not breaking the law.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now because we broke the law, because we're not breaking the law on your backyard, he wanted to get paid.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I'm working, there's 700 islands in the Bahamas.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some other working, some other island.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the collecting him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't get a paycheck.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now he's pissed off because I'm a brain money to his island.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or really better than him.
[SPEAKER_01]: You see, while TJ isn't fact operating on that particular island in the Bahamas, he isn't landing cocaine there anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was a base, that was a home base that I had.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had cow reserve, I had backup engines from my speed bones.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was like a base.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not doing stuff there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm keeping that in the event that something was to go wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a spare boat that I get run here and run there.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I need another engine, I don't have to come to the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can go there and get something taken care of.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not breaking the law there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this guy says, you better start bringing some money over here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or I'm gonna harass every time that it's you.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of you guys, I'm gonna lock them up.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I said, right, listen, Brown, I'll make it happen, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I called a couple of friends to mine and they said, hey, guys, I got a great line and you guys could work at them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got them guy dirty, they brown.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got some people, they're going to take care of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now leave my guys alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Eventually, though, that greedy airport official really gets under TJ skin.
[SPEAKER_01]: So TJ cuts him off.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stopped paying him because I didn't like to be hustled.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't like to be painted into a corner, and I didn't like his attitude of just kept pushing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I started with 500, what to 650, what to 750.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he made the big jump to a million.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what he said to me, unless you take care of me, I'm gonna lock up your boys.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a million dollar fee from now on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I said, okay, fine, I'll give you a million.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I picked up all my pieces
[SPEAKER_00]: and then I came across a hotel that was not in good shape.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it was three, four, five million dollars at the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now that that behavior and airport official wants a million dollars every time TJ lands a plane, buying that hotel for five million dollars, actually turns out to be a way cheaper option.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's five million is five landings, it pays for itself right away.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I got the hotel, it was called Hock's Nest.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was in bungalows.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of bungalows on a clubhouse, but it had everything I needed.
[SPEAKER_00]: It had a marina.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it had his own private landing strip.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now, what I did was when I acquired the hotel, I have under renovation.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, nowhere right now or not open.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're renovating the rooms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm painting them all with powder cocaine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't want people in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the best paint customers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a great cover, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says renovation could take forever, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who can say when it's over?
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And these are people that are drifting.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are boat people.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like going to Nashville.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what they call an outer island.
[SPEAKER_00]: Otter islands got very little traffic.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you see in the island are your millionaires, your movie stars, people that get a 40 chartered airplane because there's no schedule airline going there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unless you have a boat, or you're on your own airplane, or you charter a plane, you're not going to the Adder Islands.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what are the names?
[SPEAKER_00]: What are they names?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, you're 700 of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's Cat Island, Long Island, Cat Key, Great Harbor, Siskin, the Abacode, Who's Bimmany?
[SPEAKER_00]: Bimmany South and Bimmany North.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the closest.
[SPEAKER_01]: As the months tick by, TJ is flying multiple plain loads of cocaine every week for Pablo Escobar.
[SPEAKER_01]: and making tens of millions of dollars doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: At one point, Pablo actually stops paying TJ in cash and starts paying him in cocaine.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now TJ is not only smuggling cocaine, but he starts selling it too, making many millions more.
[SPEAKER_01]: And TJ starts building his own cocaine empire.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did what no other smuggler had ever done in the history of smuggling.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is, fly my own plane, try my own boat, bring it in, transport it on the land, sell it, collect the money, take the money, send it to Europe, bring it back longer and invested it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was that's what they actually call me cyclone, which is cyclone because I was everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was on the boat, I'm on the plane, I'm on the ground, moving it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So just to understand, you got the cocaine you landed in one of the islands in the Bahamas and eventually were storing it in the hotel that you bought and was on the renovation and then you would put it on boats from the hotel.
[SPEAKER_00]: What we do then is we want to time what vehicles I'm using to bring in into United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I say time, if it's a sports fishing vessel, it's going to take longer.
[SPEAKER_00]: are we going to Coco Beach or are we going to the keys or are we coming into Miami for a lot of their area.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that change according to how the government was concentrating their task force.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't talk to the paper buddy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I wake up in the morning
[SPEAKER_03]: The Coast Guard offloaded nearly 14,000 pounds of cocaine confiscated in the Caribbean Sea in Atlanta, Goshen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the mind, the way the mind works, if I'm an agent, oh man, I want to concentrate on the people.
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys are coming in in Miami.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now their eyes, their subconscious is geared for speedboat in Miami.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to come in now with a sports fishing vessel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not coming in Miami.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna come up cocoa.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna go around to the keys.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I do see the sessions that I made based on call it instant, call it my crystal ball, call it intuition, call it whatever you wanna call it, but I made the right calls.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't lose the trip of cocaine.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is an incredible feat because any South Florida local will tell you, smugglers lose tons of cocaine every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's literally washing up on the beach.
[SPEAKER_01]: And on the six o'clock news, every single day.
[SPEAKER_02]: The officials say packages with 146 pounds of cocaine are washed up over the weekend.
[SPEAKER_01]: but none of that washed up cocaine belongs to TJ.
[SPEAKER_01]: His operation runs like a well-oiled machine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because he surrounds himself with the most talented people that he personally trains.
[SPEAKER_01]: And paradoxically, TJ doesn't hire experienced drug smugglers at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: He likes newbies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Simple.
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, if you're coming to me with a history,
[SPEAKER_00]: then you're bringing me your troubles.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second of all, now you're coming to me and at some time or another, you're gonna try to dictate to me what you think is right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and no, it's not what you think is right.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what I think is right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I signed the checks around here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's my way of the highway.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I had that out of two.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm the one sitting here, well, everybody else is swinging on Chandallews and opening up bottles of champagne.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm brainstorming how to meet this thing a little bit better and safer for all of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I stayed away from those experts.
[SPEAKER_00]: All those experts, they scared me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who are you recruiting?
[SPEAKER_00]: American Airlines.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went and, you know, pal around a couple of my guys, we became friends with a couple of those guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and eventually when we get to know you a little bit better and get to find out how you are a little bit better, American Airlines just paying 200,000 dollars a year, you know, and you're working your butt off, and I got a better plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got a better plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll give you 200,000 a weekend.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can guarantee you a trip a month.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want, you do two trips a month, that's 400,000 dollars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now what are you making again in America?
[SPEAKER_00]: And airline 200,000 a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can quicker retire with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they would moonlight that, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd fly in by day for American Airlines and fly in front of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if actually they would quit American Airlines.
[SPEAKER_00]: because when they put enough money together, these guys are, you know, they're smart guys, they're investing their money wisely, they're buying a home in the Bahamas, real estate here and there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in 1987, TJ very quickly becomes the boss we all wish we had.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got dozens and dozens of employees now, who are not only making a lot of money, but they're having a blast doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And TJ rewards his team by throwing them parties.
[SPEAKER_01]: Crazy fraternity type, sex drugs and rock and roll parties.
[SPEAKER_00]: And whenever we party and got no one's we party, and not only wanna go into that, because that's really triple-exraided.
[SPEAKER_00]: So these parties can sit in the Bahamas where I control everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we fly an airplane or they're fully chicks.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we take a kilo of cocaine, open it up, put it on top of the table, cut a window, put it on a simple platter, and have at it, party for the weekend, we all made money.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now we party.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would leave those guys alone while they're partying.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would go to my other house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had another house at the end of the island because it was just to bizarre those guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is just stuff that triple and straight.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's stuff I just wasn't into all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they earned it, though.
[SPEAKER_01]: TJ is living a double life at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: His family thinks all this money and all these properties in the Bahamas come from proceeds.
[SPEAKER_01]: TJ is making with his Lamborghini dealership.
[SPEAKER_01]: or with his housing development, or his cell phone company, or his charter airplane business.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, my family didn't have any idea, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I hit it really well.
[SPEAKER_01]: But every now and then, TJ's separate worlds collide.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my mom says to me one day, she was, I would like to do something really nice for your Aunt Esperanza.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I say, yeah, what do you want to do for her?
[SPEAKER_00]: She goes, you think we can go to your beach house in the Bahamas?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been like a weekend over there and you have like a birthday party over there and everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say, sure, mom, that would be a problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: He told me, no, how many people are going to go, so I know what airplane to use.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is going to be 14 people or 6 people, so I get, you know, choose the airplane to take everybody over there, because his island, again, just don't airlines going there, it's, uh, it's all chartered.
[SPEAKER_00]: She goes, okay, that'd be great.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just realized that we had just done a trip there a day before.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to go over there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I call up Jack and he said hey Jack remember when we were when we just finished his trip and you guys were partying in that house Yeah, what about it?
[SPEAKER_00]: T I said what you do with a kilo of cocaine?
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys want to put it in the cover
[SPEAKER_00]: I put it on top of the cupboard, you know, the drop ceiling, back of those days of the drop ceiling, you kind of lift, you know, these I put it on top of the cupboard, it's up there on the plate.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I should okay fire up the plan on my way over there to the airport right now, we gotta go to the island.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was why?
[SPEAKER_00]: I said because I got my aunt, my mom, and then I got one of those and to like to open up every drawer and see what going on, curious George time, thank
[SPEAKER_01]: And TJ is infinitely more scared of his family finding out that he's a cocaine kingpin than the authorities finding out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, my God, if they found any cocaine, there I would be dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd rather get arrested.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so we go over there and we, we land in the airport.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have my, my state got a picture of my property.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's picking me up.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's there with his car.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get off the airplane, I jump on the car, and I drive over to the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say, did Jack wait for me here, I'll be right back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where'd you say it, kitchen, top?
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, okay, so I go over there and I live to ceiling.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm feeling for this thing, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel okay, I got the plate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is I'm sliding the plate out from underneath or on top of the cabinet, the darn thing slides, it's a paper plate and eight the kilo of cooking hits me on the head.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm covered with cooking, it's pure cooking.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm freaking out, Jonathan.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't do drugs, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm thinking I'm gonna die here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know this stuff goes through your skin.
[SPEAKER_01]: TJ's right, cocaine can easily be absorbed through the skin, especially if there's a lot of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in this case, there is.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm thinking, oh my god, a kilo cocaine on my hair, on my arms, it's going through me, nice start thinking that I'm going to have a heart attack from all this tremendous amount of cocaine in me on the head.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm feeling this thing and what I thought about it, the more my heart started to raise.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what do I do?
[SPEAKER_00]: I run into the shower with my shoes and everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I lean up against the wall, turn on the faucet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I got the shower hitting me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got cocaine dripping off my body.
[SPEAKER_00]: The more I thought about it, the harder my heart beat.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sitting there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe I'm gonna die like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So TJ, frantically, rinses that kilo of coke out of his hair, office face, office arms and hands, and spends a few minutes under the shower spray, catching his breath, waiting for his heart to stop racing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And eventually, it does.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I turn off the water, I look over.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got a trailer cocaine from the kitchen to the shower, powder cocaine a little place, powder, you know, a little nuggets and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now I grab a broom and I grab a dust pan, a shovel everything in there, I flush it down the toilet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm soaking wet, I don't know how any extra clothes there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I come out dripping wet again the car and the guy goes,
[SPEAKER_01]: And that guy, that driver, really loves TJ because he pays him a lot and he treats him like family.
[SPEAKER_01]: TJ surrounds himself with really hardworking, really trustworthy people.
[SPEAKER_01]: But one day, TJ discovers one of his underlings is stealing from him.
[SPEAKER_01]: This guy pocketed $100,000 from a multi-million-dollar cocaine sale because he figured no one would notice.
[SPEAKER_01]: But TJ did, and he confronts the thief in question, and this guy starts shaking with fear because he's certain TJ is going to kill him.
[SPEAKER_01]: But TJ actually has other plans.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, I'm gonna let you live.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I said, but I can't let you all walk out of the house like this, because you're a snake.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got no backbone, you robbed me, you robbed me.
[SPEAKER_00]: When all you had to do is ask me from million dollars and I want to give in it to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you robbed me from $100,000.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are a real piece of shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said I'm gonna let you live.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're gonna walk out that door.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're gonna move from the state of Florida.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't wanna see you again ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want people to think you're actually dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, it'll help you when I help my image.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said before I could do that, since you're such a snake, I gotta put a little bad morning to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: They got the guy kneeling down for a week, okay, when let him stand up, he had to be on his knees.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I said, look up to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I took a bottle of champagne, I busted the bottle champagne in the kitchen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Took the bottle that was the part of the bottle that broke in, and I slid my own thumb here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I should not drink the blood of a man, so I could put a little backbone in you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that terrified thief is now on his knees and a dozen of TJ's other employees are in the room.
[SPEAKER_01]: Watching this crazy scene unfold with their eyes wide open and jaws dropped.
[SPEAKER_01]: All of a sudden, that thief on his knees actually starts drinking the blood shriekling from TJ's thumb.
[SPEAKER_00]: My guys are looking at this, they're the attributes are off the scale.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I got darn cheap, I truly gross.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm rubbing my blood all over the guys' face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Guys drinking my blood is on his knees.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see this stuff in a movie?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, gone down, that's really gross, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it does send a message.
[SPEAKER_00]: You let you live.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't steal from him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the kind of guy that was spent a million dollars to go chase one penny if you rob me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I made it clear like that, because you have to let these people know whether I do when I don't, I'm sad and pressons.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the guy who drank your blood, yeah, never saw him again, he moved out of the state.
[SPEAKER_01]: Needless to say, that was the last time anyone stole anything from TJ Dominguez.
[SPEAKER_00]: That story spread among my guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was like, what do you do?
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't want to steal from Tee, don't mind guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's 1987 now, and TJ is making millions of dollars every week.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got planes flying cocaine from Colombia to his hotel that's perpetually under renovation in the Bahamas.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's got boats smuggling all that cocaine from the Bahamas into South Florida.
[SPEAKER_01]: At this point, TJ has a giant mansion in an affluent suburb of Fort Lauderdale that he uses to store his tons and tons of cocaine.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is badass house, right in a country club, multi-million dollar house.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just hate house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then nobody knows where that house is at.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody knows where that house.
[SPEAKER_00]: So many three people that knew that house.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be me.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of my guys, flash in my other guy, yeah, you're, it's a house where we store cocaine in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, when you're my buyer, and you're picking up 300 kilos or 200 kilos,
[SPEAKER_00]: I tell you to drop off the car, set a shopping center, or Burger King.
[SPEAKER_00]: Leave the keys in the sun, vice, you don't want to meet anybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to see anybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he drops off the car, the home by the way, I get paid ahead of time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never put the money in the cocaine in the same location.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I get the key now, right, and I tell you, listen, it's gonna take me an hour or two okay, so I gotta drive away, sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just hang up.
[SPEAKER_00]: actually the house is right on the corner.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you don't have any idea what the house is at.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not want anybody, you know what the house is at.
[SPEAKER_01]: So TJ leaves his cocaine customer at a nearby shopping center or Burger King.
[SPEAKER_01]: Drives his customers car to the safe house.
[SPEAKER_01]: and drives the car back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Leaves the keys in the visor and walks away.
[SPEAKER_01]: TJ has already been paid, and now that customer has his cocaine.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a system that works flawlessly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Until one day, TJ and his crew, Flashen Yello, are at the safe house, dividing up tons of cocaine getting it ready for sale.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm separating my stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm separating my stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have a room full of cocaine over there.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of my guys, Yale comes up to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he just, like, really, really tension.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he goes, man, we got problems.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, why, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, we're surrounded.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, surround.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you talking about, man?
[SPEAKER_00]: He goes, they're here, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Feds are here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, man, don't joke like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like those kind of jokes.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's not like joking, God damn it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've done time in Cuba.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because it's got a little bit like scar face, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: A real one, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, I'm not going back.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not taking me alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: They want me to have to come poopy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, he's got the machine gun, it's hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, these guys, like, going bonkers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm calm down, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me see what's going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me, you know, says the situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't do anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, all right, but I'm not going out that door in handcuffs.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so I run up to the balcony in the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Big house, 8,000 square feet or more.
[SPEAKER_00]: I look out the balcony.
[SPEAKER_00]: Damn, if he was wrong, man, the feds are there.
[SPEAKER_00]: They got the town cars out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when they got the trucks open, they got punk guns, shotgun, they're putting on their jacket, marshals, yellow things on the back and all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, she'll be a problem, man.
[SPEAKER_03]: Nobody in the country, they're not rotting.
[SPEAKER_01]: At that very moment, there are dozens and dozens of uniform federal agents with guns drawn.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lining the street in front of TJ's safe house.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to knock out.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they're not doing any of their old talk and they're on their radio.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're right directly from my house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right directly from the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: that was going on, man, and maybe they're waiting for more backups so they could surround us, you know, and it was escalating.
[SPEAKER_00]: The tension inside the house was escalating to the point that I said all right, this is simple man I know it wasn't big so it's twenty-two guys Who's the right here?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm pointing fingers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who dropped the ball here?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's your buyer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay explain to me how long you've known this god darn fire What do you know this guy from my nose not him?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he's not interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you're the guy that had to fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you explained to me how this shit's going or what happened here
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, I'm telling you, I'm not my guy, my stuff, my guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're arguing amongst each others.
[SPEAKER_00]: I go back out to the left.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was like, you know, you're taking the gun and ramming his back, he's waiting for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pacing.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what I mean.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tension's really escalating as I listen, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't take this anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna go out to and find out what the hell's going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I'm gonna get arrested, I'm gonna find out what the hell's going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not going out there, so I'm going to go out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the house had a garage with a win-wall, so you didn't see the garage from the street.
[SPEAKER_00]: The garage opened up to the side of the house, big house, and it had hedges all over the plate.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I said, I'm just going to go out to and test the order.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to have to kind of know what the hell's going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they say anything, they may all speak Spanish, and I say, I'm just the lawn guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's like grab a broom, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just open the garage door.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I grabbed this push room, and I'm kind of like inching my way out, past the wind wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: I look over and I see all the cars out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not really looking over there, but I'm looking from the corner of my eye, and I'm pushing, brooming all the pavers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when those federal agents spot TJ, sleeping the driveway, you all were there with a broom.
[SPEAKER_00]: A yells at me really loud.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I gave you a million dollars, you'd never be able to guess what happens next.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what the hell's going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: To see some incredible photographs documenting TJ's life, go to cocaineair.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're enjoying Cocaine Air, please hit that share button and text it to your friends and family right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you feel comfortable, leave us a five-star review.
[SPEAKER_01]: Reviews really help other listeners find us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cocaine Air was created, written, and executive produced by me, Jonathan Walton, for Jonathan Walton Media, executive producers, Evan Goldstein, and the inimitable TJ Dominguez.
[SPEAKER_01]: audio engineering by me, Jonathan Walton.
[SPEAKER_01]: All sound design and editing was done by the super talented who meets Shanoi from podcast fundits.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the cocaine air cover art is by Bobby Animation.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got a lot of fascinating, untill stories like Cocaine air coming down the pike at Jonathan Walton Media, so subscribe and keep an air out.