YouSaid · the spoken record

Roger Reaves

lines on the record: 179
first: 2021-07-11
most recent: 2021-07-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“He was a great, bad killer. So he's the one to actually kill Barry The one that went up on the first load with me. And Ronaldo, and he's doing live.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, a couple of years before. So, anyway, we took off and the mud got up in the wheel well so thick until the wheels wouldn't come up. Well, I'm going 200 miles an hour instead of 300 miles with wheels coming down. Well, I can't go back there. If I do, I'm going to be in the same situation until the sun dries it out in a few days. But in belief, I had a runway that had been used for $10,000, used to refuel. So I told the guy, listen, we got to land in beliefs, to refuel, and no, no, no, he put the back tim and I'll shoot you. Go ahead, fool. You're going to die too.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I'll tell you about that story. On the first load I did, I landed at a banana plantation, and it was raining, and it was a muddy strip clay, and they put the three hundred kilos of cocaine in the ugliest man you can imagine, named Ronaldo, got in there with a Mac ten, and he was making sure I took it to Louisiana.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, oh no, and I went back to the hotel. We were up in northern part of Brazil. And where was it, Mighty? Yeah. And so I went back and I told Mari and Miriam and they cried and I cried. I really cried.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, I think so. I've been back down there and I've been welcome. I have my contact. And when I was in Brazil, I was trying to get this money. They owe me $3.5 million. So I called up there and he was going to pay me. Oh, I got $600,000 today. And I'll get you some more tomorrow. And then the next week I called, hey, hey, great news. Great news. Barry Seal's been killed.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not many. I had all my friends testified against me. I had eleven friends and every one of them put their finger up. Roger did it. I was facing life continuing criminal enterprise”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On you, I didn't know what I could do. I talked to a lawyer. I mean, I just didn't know what I could do, but the best in Miami said what he told me. So I had to go.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They will convict you of everything you've ever done, and you tell them. So you can't do it. So I said, Barry, I'm having trouble with a lawyer. Give it. I'll go tomorrow. Let's go. He said, all right, use my lawyer. And he gave me his card as a lawyer's card. So Murray and I went to the festival restaurant that night and burying Debbie came in. She would dress pretty, and Barry was. And so we was already about finished. So we had dessert together. And I said, Barry, they're going to kill you, friend. He said, no, they ain't going to kill me so-and-so, such and such is gone and this and the other. I said, Barry, they're going to kill you, man. You can't deny it. And I said, I didn't tell him I wasn't going to testify. So I hugged his neck. I really like, and we fled to Brazil. I took Mari and the children went to Brazil.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Boy, my face turned red. Well, I'm not a snitch. He said, Well, that's what you're talking about. He said, let me tell you something. If you go in there and say one thing and sign that paper and you don't tell them everything you know.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but it's still. I wish he left me out of it. I understand him getting in such a mess that he told because if the CIA and whoever else would find him betrayed him. And he's going to tell everything. So I says, All right, I'll be to Miami. So Mari and I flew down first class. And I went to a lawyer, one of the biggest lawyers in Miami. And I said, man, I am in a mess. This fella's told everything, and I've got to say something, but I'm not a snitch, man. I mean, I can, what can I do? And he said, well, being a snitch is like being pregnant. You either are or you're not. And he says, I don't represent snitches, but if you want to fight this case, I'll do it for $600,000.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Can't do it. How am I going to do it? I just can't work with people. And he was honest with me. How am I going to testify against them? I can't spend the rest of my life in a federal prison. What on earth? What a mess Barry you've got me into.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So Barry leaned back and he told me the story. And the tears came down between his fingers as he put his hands over his eyes. And he said, I couldn't do it, Roger. I just couldn't do three life sentences. So I've told him everything. I went to Congress and I've testified before Congress. He testified before Congress for all these things that he had done. And he said, I told him all about you. But you're under my umbrella. You got to testify with me before grand jury in Miami. So the guy said, You can come down. The DE agent said, You can come down tomorrow with Mari first class, or I'll take you down in chains. And if you don't justify with Barry, the only place you'll ever see your wife and family again is in a federal prison visiting room.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Running Sons of Cocaine into the United States. And Edward Meese put him up with his agent, Jacobson, I believe it was. And they went down and got one and a half tons. And on the way back, they bellied it in, and Pablo Escobar and some of the other ones on general there in Nicaragua. You can see them toting it from one plane to the other in the book called The Big Kings of Cocaine. It's got a mention of me too, and also the other one has a mention of me in it. Said, I'm in more files for the DEA than Nariega.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So Barry leaned back in that chair and he told me that he got caught with one and a half tons and he bellied it in the runway in Nicaragua Had cameras flashing inside and out, and then he flew it back to Homestead with an agent there, and he brought the agent over. Jake Jacobson, really nice fellow. I think he was the crop duster. And we'd have got along if we'd have been on the right side. And so we sat there and drank Chevis Regal until I got pie-eyed. And Barry told me about it. He said he went to see Edwin Meese. He got out on bail. And he flew his jet up to Washington and went in to see the Attorney General, Edwin Meese. And they run him out of the office. The next day he went back and said, I have absolute proof that the CIA is bringing tons of cocaine.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's certainly true, but that's not everybody in there. That's just sometimes you get a few policemen in the department that do these things. I don't believe, I believe that our government is good. I think we got some fools running it. I don't know how we get them there I don't think I know.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but it was a handful of renegade CI agents that was Barry's friends that was making a load, load of money, tons of it come up. If you would like to read the book, The Big White Lie, the CI and the crack cocaine epidemic, the CIA put, according to this, the book in... Michael Levine, I didn't remember his name last time I talked, wrote that book, and he was a head CI agent that exposed this. And the CIA tried to kill him. And he says they put crack cocaine they develop. Their chemists develop crack. And they put it in every city in the United States on one weekend. So they were bringing it up by the tons, and that's for sure. And Barry was bringing it.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I know what I know is true that Barry was taking a small amount of arms back to Central America and giving them to whoever Oliver Northwest. Oliver North was a colonel that got implemented and almost brought the government down. And so they said, all right, we're getting the guns from Iran. And we're taking cocaine to pay for them. And since Congress won't give us money to fight this war, we're going to circumvent it. So that was a whole thing”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I don't know this. I mean, this is just what happened, putting it all together, that he had some CIA buddies That was pretending we're going to supply all of our North with arms. And with that, you can land cocaine back here by the tunnel. So he's taken his little planes and putting some AK-47s and maybe ammunition or whatever and takes it down to the contors against the Communist Party of Nicaragua, where we've been landing. And Oliver North was involved in this. So when all that, and so his CIA buddies was certainly involved, and we know they were. And Barry had been in the CIA earlier when he first got out of school. When, as I say, the shit hit the fan, they all fled, and left Barry holding the bag to see.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I said, well, Barry, I'm going to set you, and you just talk to me, buddy, and tell me what's on your old mind. And he sat there and he just went to talking, and he told me about he was left holding the bag.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll tell you, after I saw Reagan's face on the television saying we have the absolute proof, the phone rang, and it would barry. I hadn't heard from him in a couple of years. He said, I'm coming out tonight, Roger. So he came out and he said, I'll meet you in this French restaurant. I don't even know it in Santa Barbara. And I walked in. There's about 20 or 30 people in there. And he was all 30, 40 years old. Women Leather skirts and me and the blue jeans, and I looked around, and Barry was at the back. He was leaned up, he had gained weight. And I walked up my said Barry, you wired. He said no. I said, I'm not going to talk of these DE agents. He said, every one of them.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And Barry was honest, so he wasn't just taking it from me because he was making a million dollars and he didn't care for the $50,000.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I paid one and a half million dollars for burial land at Mean, Arkansas, so I was pretty well assured that he couldn't get caught. And I said, Well, I can't get caught in Columbia. We can't get caught in Nicaragua. Well, I guess we got a license. That we went for”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's the name that was written and produced in Mina. And waiting on Hillary to be elected, they would not let that movie out That movie was changed drastically”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Barry said, and he knew that he couldn't get caught in Mean, Arkansas. And when that movie was going to come out be called Mina, Somebody stopped it. I mean, they stopped it dead in the tracks for two or three years, and the producer even quit.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mean to Arkansas. Mr. Bill Clinton undoubtedly. And it's like, did Bill Clinton, did you give him any money? And I said, no, I never be with the man any money. But it was like the money that I went to Grand Cayman Islands. And I told my lawyer, I said, I never touched that money. He said, you don't have to fondle it to be guilty.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He was working with them at that time. But let me back up a little bit when I was flying and I told Barry we would refuel and train airplane the loads in police where I had a spot up there. And then that's when they told me we can refuel in Nicaragua and then you fly and Barry couldn't believe it. He says, all right, but I wanted to land. I had a place in Louisiana for $10,000 that I could unload and sheriff and all of them was paid off. And he said, no, no, no. I can't get caught in me in Arkansas. I said, What do you mean? You can't get caught in me in Arkansas. You get caught anywhere. He said, I can't, but it's going to cost you $50,000 every time my wheels touch the ground.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, there was his plane. Barry's plane. And okay, on the way north, we could stop in Nicaragua and land on the military base or on a base that they used as crop dusters and all and refuel. Instead of that shorten our trip, we go further into the jungle and come up, and that was what Pablo Escobar and Ocho and him. And they were associates with the people in Nicaragua”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, when I got out of prison, I hadn't been out long. I was eating breakfast, and there was Ronald Reagan's face right in the television. We have absolute proof that the communist Sandinista government is into cocaine running business. And there was that fat lady, the C-20126, on the runway would bell it in, and I thought, oh God, he had done it. So I had heard that Barry Mod had been working with him. So it wasn't long”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, Barry knew the people that unloaded. Of course, he sent the cars down and all that. So he met the unloader, a guy named Leto. Lewis Carlos Bustamanti of Venezuelan. And so he used to kept on flying. But I believe he had three of my airplanes at $400,000 apiece, and they owed me some money. Well, he collected a lot of that and gave Mari the money and put it in his safe and took her to his house and all after I got arrested and sent a lawyer in. He got me the best lawyer in the country. Albert Krieger, he was head of the defense team for all America. Wonderful man.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A wonderful man, a gentleman, Southern gentleman. Just looked after his mother, his family, everybody around him, everybody loved Barry. He just had a little smile on his face always.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. Rhett, our son was a baby. And I remember we went out till a festival was my favorite restaurant in Carl Gables. Oh God, it was good. And Barry knew about it. Anyhow, we went out to dinner so we came back and there was no rooms. So Barry will spend the night with us. So he goes to our hotel room with us and we got two big beds in the Omni Hotel and he lays over there and gets down to his stripish undershorts and his t-shirt and he puts a baby up on his belly and gives him the bottles. Ain't that good, Red O my mind? He just feeds the baby and we laugh and talk. That's how close we were, that we could all stay in a hotel room together.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think he flew about 30 loot for me. And then I got arrested and for everything in the world. Got 35 years sentence. But let me back up a little bit. Barry was our friend, Mari and I both friend.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Panther conversion was these people called Panther, they took everything out from the firewall and instruments and all and converted them and put Q-tip propellers on and four-bladed. And you get very quiet. And the CIA developed those in Southeast Asia for running behind the lines. And that's where Barry had flown those things, so he knew about them. So that's what he wanted, and that's what we got him.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No. I didn't introduce him at all, and I our deal was that you don't meet my people. I mean, we just kind of cross you working for me to fly the airplanes. So he wanted these Panther conversions cost $400,000 each. with a storm scope and radar on anything you want.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not very big. You can put it in a large briefcase Weighs exactly 10 kilos. Each bill weighs a ground, so you can weigh your money and almost get it exactly right.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So he was, then I hired him to fly. And he was funny. I paid him a million dollars a trip. I paid him $2,000 a kilo, so about a million dollar trip. And I didn't get paid until the people received it. They had to ship it to Chicago and New York, and then the money came back. So it was a couple of two or three weeks pipeline. Well, I always had to pay him before he'd go again. I mean, and he bellyache. I mean, he had moaned and groaned. So, One time I gave him a million dollars and I put it in a box real nice.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He was sufficiently skilled. Absolutely. He knew what he was doing. I can get a plane from one spot to another, and I guess I'm known as a good pilot, but that guy was an aerobatic. So anyway, he stayed with us a couple of days, and then I told him, I said, this plane needs tanking. I said, I got some work done in Columbia, needs to come back to Louisiana, and I need 2,500 mile range. He said, I got somebody in Meena, Arkansas do that and keep their mouth shut. So I gave him $10,000 and he flew away. And in a few days he called me and says, Come to my house in Baton Rouge. So I went out to his house in Baton Rouge, and I stayed with him for a few days, and that plane was tanked, I mean beautiful from stem to stern. I could went from Bolivia to Canada with him.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's enough. And then he did a falling leaf. That's where you cut the engines and the plane falls from side to side. I saw Bob Hoover do that in an air show once. And that's the only person I ever saw do it. And my hand was white and knuckle hanging on the seat.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Back up and just finish where I started off there. I gave him a thanks to bear. I may have some work for you. I know I got some work for you. And I says, come out to Santa Barbara. And so I don't know a week or two later, he flew out and went to our house and stayed with us a couple of days. And I had an almost brand new aerial commander, 690B. That thing with turbo prop and it was hot. That's the hottest thing I had ever had. So I said, let's go, Barry. Let's see what you can do. So I'm sorry I said that. We got about 10,000 feet. And he was like one of them blue angel pilots. He wrung that thing out.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know where he came from. He got caught in Honduras, probably refueling. But he'd been in prison down here before for bringing explosives to the Cuban contrast. And he lost his job with the airlines. And then later on, I found out he was ex-CIA, and George Bush Sr.'s protege had a thousand parachute jumps and was there. He was a hotshot vile.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I reached over and gave him a little piece of paper I hadn't married to write it out with our address. I said, Barry, I might have some work for you.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He said, You fly these things. I said, I got a few hours, mister. He said, I fly them too, or something other. And he said, My name Barry Seal. And he reached over Miriam and shook hands. And we got to talking. And I thought, no choice of seats on this. It's just open seating, but I don't believe him one bit. And he started talking about, he just got out of jail that morning, just got out of prison. I said, uh huh And he told me he'd been a pilot with TWA and this and other and told me what he was for. So we had a nice conversation for a couple hours to New Orleans. I didn't believe him. So he got off in front of us and what a crowd of people to meet him an old mother and a wife and little children hanging on to him crying and hugging and kissed him. I said He was telling the truth”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Then he put it out and I got on and whole crowds clapped, and I'm coming on with that load of clothes. So I go way down in the middle, and the plane's full, and Miriam, our daughter's about nine years old then, and she was sitting in the middle and by the window was Barry Seal, of course I didn't know it, and I sat in the middle, and we took off and the wheels come up wit clunk, and then I got up about five thousand feet and we had a little click. And she said, what was that, Daddy? I said, He just turned on his autopilot. And that fella reached over and I looked at him. I said, he looks like CIA or FBI something. He ain't supposed to be here. Clear blue eyes, gentleman looking man. Any.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I told Mari for her and the children to go into the airport because it'd be easier for one on a standby flight. So I went to the laundromat for the clothes and they were ready. There was a polym. And I put them on my back and got in a taxi. And the old taxi would drive him with it and I'd give him $100 to go faster. He just blew his horn more rapidly. Finally, we got to the airport and I jumped out and ran around on the tarmac. And here's a brand new 727 taxi in No no So I'm waving to the pilot and his young fella he waves back Then I see Mari's face in the cockpit and the nose goes down where he puts on brakes and he laughs and he puts some stairwell out and I run for the stairwell and he pulls it back up and goes like a hitchhiker gonna pick you up and go again.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is a friend of mine. Murray and I and the children went down in Honduras and we went up Lake Azul, I believe it was, and we was looking at a ranch to buy. I was looking for something in Central America where I'd have a halfway place. Oh, it was lovely. We stayed up there for some days and our clothes got muddy and we went in the river and all kind of thing. So we got to San Pedro Sula. And I was going back to New Orleans. So to the cleaners to get our clothes, and most of them was in there. And they go, Oh, Signor, they'll be ready tomorrow morning. We're not ready now. Well, the plane leaves it, nine o'clock or whatever.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thing was out for years and about five miles from the river was flashing red lights and a detour. And then they swamp on both sides of it in the middle of it, we're growing up with 20 feet trees. And that was like International runaway from anywhere in the world. So I landed on that over and over, those red lights were just like the end of a runway. And then the next morning, we'd go out there and scrub the marks off the highway where I'd landed.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sand strip in the bend of a river was just too short to take off with a load. So there was a young man there named Pedro, must not avoid much over maybe 120 pounds. And he'd get in a plane with me. And he'd direct me 20, 30, 40 miles away to a highway. And the people, Joaquin and the people would pull out in a two-ton truck with a machine gun on it and a bunch of guys with their arms and they'd block the road and then another one would block it up about a mile away and I'd land right over that truck and they'd load me up and looked like a bucket brigade with the marijuana coming and I'd shake hands with all of them and I'd take off right over the other trucks and sometime maybe 20 30 40 cars lined up one time I remember a patrol car a highway patrol car he didn't have his lights on to go right over him and then when I started flying to Louisiana the bridge over the Mississippi River there were several contractors that went broke and that”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Landed a highway most of my life, most of the times. In Mexico, first time I went down, there was a place called Picolingi. And it had a 900-foot strip. And I would fly down and I'd carry gasoline wing with me. And Marie and I would go to the grocery store and buy all kinds of little goodies and candies and toys to bring to the children.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But then I had people that would bring me on strips that were just unworthy of an airplane. I land on a highway And in the rainy season, I would come back to land again, and the guy wouldn't think about it, and it'd have little heels on both sides. And the wings were out there. Well, the grass and the weeds would grow up, and it sounded like... I mean, it sounded like tearing the airplane apart when those wings hit and mowing the grass down both shoulders of the airplane. The weeds grow up high in the tropics. So some of that stuff was bad and oh, getting bad gasoline and telling me that land here and the light and knocked the wheels off when you land. Oh, you should have landed a little further up here, Senor. They ditched down. You know, that sort of thing”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then I would come in behind the Santa Barbara Islands down low, and then I'd come up and go out in the desert land. And I did that for the rest of the marijuana trips.”
2021-07-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source