[suspenseful music plays]
[reporter] The great Seahawk racing team.
How do you look forward to the race today?
- We'll see when we get out there.
- Don't believe anything he says.
Who just came into this picture here
is the one and only Sal Magluta,
the man who is the driving force
behind the Seahawk race team.
The way it's going, you may end up
with a third national championship
somewhere along the way.
Well, I'll take it.
Why not?
Three in a row's not too bad.
They come in threes.
Willy Falcon, driver of Seahawk.
Willy Falcon looks confident to me today.
- I wish him the best of luck.
- Thank you.
[imperceptible]
[announcer] There's the yellow flag
and the flare. They're now on the course.
Right off the bat, look at these two cats
going at it. A drag race, if you will.
Willy Falcon makes a bid for the lead
over Sal Magluta.
- [engine whines]
- Uh-oh! Sal Magluta spins out!
You're gonna see
the number 20, Willy Falcon,
go by and now he has moved up.
Whoa! And we're starting to fly.
Jesse James has taken over the lead.
Willy Falcon
He's finding some extra power.
Whoa! Seahawk has taken over the lead.
A little happiness
on the part of the navigator
as he kinda jumps up and down.
[commentator] He knows.
[announcer laughs]
They're waving out there.
Look at the excitement in that crew now.
What a thrill for this crew to come here
as the second boat of the Seahawk team.
[commentator] Look who's excited,
their teammates who broke early.
Look at Sal Magluta do a dance.
[announcer] This team will be
celebrating for three weeks, I think.
[reporter] Willy Falcon and Sal Magluta,
Los Muchachos, "the boys,"
the offshore powerboat champions
indicted for trafficking
more than 75 tons of cocaine
worth an estimated two billion dollars.
Making it what federal authorities say
was the largest drug case in history.
Witness assassinations,
unprecedented corruption
of the American justice system.
Few people in South Florida
have been untouched
by the saga
of Willy Falcon and Sal Magluta
that has taken
these Cuban exiles from dropouts
to the epitome
of the Cocaine Cowboys of the 1980s.
[rap music playing]
I've been processed, packaged
Delivered in bricks ♪
I've been cut, cooked
Chopped and whipped ♪
I've been called all types of names ♪
Like perico, yeyo
Snow, blow, and cane ♪
I'm the reason that the Cubans
Took over Miami ♪
I'm the reason they extorted Escobar
By extraditing his family ♪
I'm protected by K*llers
I'm handled by dealers ♪
Well-connected with greed
I'm all white but I produce green ♪
They'll kick in your door
Like Bruce Lee ♪
Just to have
An intimate love affair with me ♪
I corrupt governments
Yeah, that's me ♪
I built the streets, listen closely ♪
Now, it's cool to be a snitch
It's cool to go to jail ♪
It's cool to get caught
Damn, where did I fail? ♪
When I was in the streets heavy
They had codes and rules ♪
Now it's just steady foes and fools ♪
That's why they get found stiff
Like frozen food ♪
Take a sniff and let me remind you
Whoo! ♪
Sniff, co-, snort, -caine ♪
Deal, cow-, extort, -boys ♪
Will, will, k*ll, k*ll ♪
For the love of the blood sport ♪
They'll do 25 to life ♪
For the love of the blood sport ♪
[mellow Cuban guitar music plays]
[woman] I was born in New York City.
My parents are Cuban.
And in 1971, we moved to Miami.
[reporter] This is Southwest 8th Street
or as the Cubans call it,
8th Street of the Southwest.
Little Havana's main street.
The Tamiami Trail
now symbolizes an economic miracle
brought about by Miami's Cuban refugees.
[Bonachea] I was 15 and a half.
It was summer, and I needed a job.
My mom said, "Next to Publix
is a bakery, a Jewish-Cuban bakery
with the rye bread, the pumpernickel."
And then they had guayabas,
and all that kinda stuff.
So I said, "Okay." I went over there.
I met Sal's mom and dad, and uncles.
They all owned the bakery.
The next day, I met Sal.
I just didn't like him. I thought,
"Who is this guy with attitude here?"
He was supposed to be working in the back.
But he would set up a stool
where I worked in the counter
and he'd sit there and watch
because I wore this little pink uniform.
It was really short. He would sit there
and wait for me to bend over.
[laughs]
He spent three weeks
trying to get my phone number.
I said, "I'll give you
one number per week."
I gave him one number
until we went down the line
to the seven numbers,
then he got my phone number.
Most of the time we went out,
he didn't have a penny to his name.
He says, "One day I'm gonna have
all the money in the world.
I'll buy any car I want."
I was like, "Great."
Sal was always up to no good.
He was mischievous.
He had just gotten
kicked out of Miami High School.
So he ended up in my high school.
And I would sit and do his homework,
so he wouldn't get in trouble.
His mother and father
don't speak any English.
And he would take his report card home
and his mother would say,
"What does that F stand for?"
"That F stands for Felicidad."
Felicidad means "happy."
He got a good grade.
And they believed it all these years,
all those F's,
that Sal was doing great in school.
Because he was getting
Felicidad, Felicidad, Felicidad. [laughs]
When he wasn't even attending class.
He would date
at least ten girls at the same time
before I found out.
And he got one of the girls pregnant.
[sad guitar music playing]
I wouldn't date him anymore after that.
[man] Gloria and Manolo Magluta
were my parents' best friends.
To me, they were like my parents.
So Sal was like my cousin.
Actually, like my brother.
Sal's parents, they owned
a bakery shop and they worked very hard,
extremely hard-working people.
They were in church
two, three times a week.
Here were these amazing parents,
but they weren't there all day long.
I look back now,
and that probably started
to become the formation
of what happened in Sal's life.
[Bonachea] Every night, Sal would call me.
We would chat and he'd read me the Bible.
Sal's main concern, always,
was whether he was going
to go to heaven or not.
He said to me one time that,
if you repent,
no matter what bad deeds you do,
that you will go to heaven.
So I think in his mind,
it's like, "I can do anything I want
as long as later I repent,
and I feel bad for what I did,
and then God will forgive me
and I will go to heaven."
I think that things
started to go wrong for Sal.
He was hanging around the wrong crowd.
[Bonachea] Sal's best friend
during that time was Willy Falcon.
Willy was intimidating,
where Sal wasn't.
Sal was the peacemaker.
Willy was more of the brawler.
Like, you know, "I'm in your face."
He had this expression
of going like this all the time,
"What you gonna do about it?"
At that time, I had no idea
that they were drug dealers.
We all shared one thing.
We were poor and didn't wanna stay poor.
[smooth Latin jazz playing]
Willy and Sal started off as small-time,
little pot pushers out of Miami High.
They sorta struggled, don't do well,
end up being high school dropouts.
[man] My sister-in-law's boyfriend
introduced me to Willy.
"Tony, why don't you give
these guys a try?"
At that time,
Willy was selling dime bags with Sal.
Willy was a jovial guy, very nice.
Uh, not too smart.
I knew his mother
and his father and his brother, Taby.
Willy and Salvador were always together.
They were like family.
But really, Willy didn't know
what the hell was going on.
How much money they had,
he didn't know. That was all Sal.
Willy was always kept in the dark.
Willy was, for all intents
and purposes, Sal's dummy.
I'd fly the marijuana from Colombia
and I was selling it to them.
But then I stopped.
It's not enough money.
[Valdes] There was so many people
in the marijuana business,
because it took
so many people to handle one load.
Whereas in the cocaine,
you can bring in 800, 1000 kilo.
Literally, I could handle that
with four people.
[DeFede] They moved
from marijuana to cocaine.
I wouldn't have said
they were drug dealers.
They were buying ounces
on the streets and reselling it.
Sal was just a regular young guy
doing a little hustle on the side.
You know, if anybody,
I was a drug dealer, right?
I'm the one bringing in 800 kilos a month.
I think that Sal put two and two together.
My father started telling
how I was always traveling.
and that I was putting
a banana company together in Colombia.
Sal just said, "Impossible.
I mean, Jorge is 21 years old,
he's making a million dollars a month.
He ain't selling bananas."
[funky music playing]
"Let me talk to your son.
Tell him to give me a meeting."
I finally gave him a meeting.
I had about 15 minutes to meet with him.
I was in a rush. He was at my office.
He said, "Give me a chance. I think
I can sell some coke here and there."
I'm like, "Well,
how much money do you have?"
And he's like,
"I think ten or 20 thousand dollars."
I literally almost peed in my pants.
At that time, it was $42,000,
in Miami, wholesale for a kilo of cocaine.
I didn't wanna insult him
because I've always loved Sal, even today.
I'm like, "All right, let me see
if the opportunity arises because now,
we really are committed somewhere else."
My handsome Latin friends,
the brothers Falcon, Gus and Willy.
[man] In about 1978,
my older sister, Gina,
she started dating Taby, Gustavo Falcon.
As soon as she turned 18,
my sister and Taby got married.
Through Taby,
I met his older brother Willy Falcon.
And through Willy Falcon,
I met his best friend, Sal Magluta.
I grew up in Little Havana
when we came from Cuba.
It was like the Cuban ghetto.
[mellow Latin jazz playing]
[reporter] Among Latins in South Florida,
particularly Cubans,
there is a lingual reference
to different aspects of community life.
Police are called la jara.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation
is la federica.
And when talking about a g*n,
Latins say, la fuca.
[Rosello] My parents didn't know English.
So it was hard for us growing up.
My dad had two jobs.
He would leave at seven in the morning
and get back at ten o'clock at night.
I saw my dad working so hard.
That's not what I wanted to do
when I was a kid growing up.
I didn't wanna have two jobs.
But now, I was Willy
and Taby Falcon's little brother.
I hung out with Taby,
like, on a daily basis.
After school, I would go to their house.
Willy's friends would come by.
I would wash their cars
and get paid 20 bucks.
Expensive Corvettes, Cadillacs, Porsches.
So on a Saturday and Sunday,
I would make like $200 in two days.
My dad would make
$200 probably in three weeks.
So, I'm like,
"Oh, this is good," you know?
I mean, whatever they're doing,
it's paying off.
A lot of Willy's friends,
they would taunt me, you know?
They would go in and go,
"Pegy, here look what I got in here."
They opened the shoe box
and it was all money,
and I'm, like, "Damn." You know?
Right then and there,
I knew what they were doing.
I knew it was drugs.
[moody rock music playing]
The city of Miami in 1978 and 1979,
a number of narcotics detectives
at that time had obtained permission
from a state court judge to conduct
a wiretap investigation
involving a number of drug traffickers.
This operation was coined
Operation Video Canary.
[reporter] The state attorney's office
got its first lead last August
when an informant led
undercover agents to the 5th floor
of the Capital Bank Building.
[Valdes] Sal was dealing
with this gentleman that had a office.
And the office was all wired.
That operation, Video Canary,
was the first time
that they came into the radar.
All they know about Sal and Willy is
that they were selling ounces or a kilo.
It wasn't no big amounts of anything.
That investigation
was not centered on Falcon and Magluta.
[reporter] More than 120 suspects
were expected to be brought in,
43 of whom are from Dade County.
[Clark] Falcon and Magluta
were among those arrested
and charged in the state system
in Miami, Florida
with state drug trafficking charges.
[Valdes] When they got busted, I don't
believe the government had any idea
what Sal and Willy were all about.
They're clueless what's going on in Miami.
[Clark] They were given
a probationary sentence of five years,
a special condition
of which they serve 14 months.
What it was, it was like a joke.
It was like, "This is nothing.
This is kiddy play."
[DeFede] Willy and Sal got out on bail.
But what their attorneys
were also able to do,
was to keep the case on appeal for years.
The likelihood of them
ever prevailing was nil.
However, this did buy them time.
And they continued to traffic in drugs
pretty much unabated throughout the 1980s.
[DeFede] They were still out
on the streets, selling cocaine,
and this began a real theme for them.
That they were almost untouchable.
Like they were walking between raindrops.
And that's really
the story of Willy and Sal.
At that time, a load had come in
and we were down to 30 kilos.
All of a sudden, we had
these 30 kilos I had to get rid of
because the following day,
I'm leaving for Europe.
Sal comes over with Willy
and I said, "You want a chance?"
And he's like, "Yeah, thanks."
I said, "Okay, here it is, 30 kilos."
Sal did not wanna do it.
Sal didn't think
they could sell 30 kilos of cocaine.
He's like, "Oh, my God! No, too much."
But Willy jumped up and he's like,
"That's nothing."
"Trust me. Don't worry.
It's Miami, we'll figure it out."
And Sal looked at him like
[chuckles] "You've probably been
snorting a bit too much."
Sal's got more reservation
about what he can do,
possibly because Willy knew
more people than he did.
Willy was just the face.
He loved to brag.
Not a lot of brains,
but everybody loved Willy, right?
Thirty days later the guy came back.
They had $1.2 million for him
in return for the 30 kilos
that he had sold them.
They came with all the money.
And I was very shocked.
"Hey, when can we have some more?"
[DeFede] There was never
any discussion after that
as to whether they could actually handle
the amount the providers
could give to them.
[Valdes] Sal got confidence quickly.
When you try to do something
the first time, you don't think you can.
Once you do it,
you're like, "That was not hard."
They went from selling grams,
to selling 30 kilos.
How did these people go from party boy,
to becoming a major drug lord,
making a million dollars a month?
Very quickly.
Little did we begin to see
that demand would explode and it was fast.
[DeFede] The demand was insatiable.
It was like an eruption.
[reporter] Americans consume
more than 50 tons of cocaine every year,
spending nearly
$40 billion for the illicit drug.
[Valdes] It started in California
where you got movie stars,
celebrities, singers.
New York City where you have nightclubs,
where you have Wall Street.
What was Miami?
There was no night life. It was two, three
little nightclubs of high school kids.
South Beach did not exist.
To imagine selling
30 kilos in Miami, it's crazy.
Sal comes into the picture of Miami.
He starts bringing
all his young friends around
to go and party and to show off.
Sal and Willy developed
the Miami cocaine market.
They got a huge reputation very quick.
Success in any business venture involves
elements of hard work as well as luck.
Falcon and Magluta benefited from luck
and the misfortune of one
of their colleagues, Jorge Valdes.
He was arrested and he received
a sentence of between five and ten years.
But then he had to turn
his business over to somebody.
When I got convicted,
they let me out on bail. Logically,
I didn't have anybody else
to handle operation that I thought
could handle the level
of what I was doing.
So I got together with Sal
and I told him, I said,
"Here's my buyers in California."
And I introduced him to
my connection in the Medellin cartel.
[Clark] This was the break that launched
Falcon and Magluta into the big time,
now that they had Valdes' exclusive
contact with the Medellin cartel.
Now they had unlimited access
to large quantities of cocaine
that the Colombian cartel needed
to have transported successfully
into the United States.
Imagine if they thought selling 30 kilos
was something crazy out of this world.
Suddenly now,
they're going to be running an empire.
Man, next week, there's 800 kilos coming.
All they have to do
is find a pilot with a plane.
[engine starts]
[lively salsa music playing]
[man] I had a part-time job doing banners
up and down Miami Beach.
And that paid $3 an hour.
I went to Miami High with Willy and Sal.
We just became friends.
Years later, we started talking.
We discussed, what kind of plane
would you use for smuggling?
I started doing some research
as to what kind of plane,
what kind of equipment.
I said, "Look, this is what you need
and this is how much it's gonna cost."
And he says, "Okay, well,
let's do it."
[suspenseful music plays]
Everything was prepared,
the Colombians were ready,
'cause they need a few days
to clear the runways
between the army
and the leftist guerrillas
and bring the merchandise
to where it's supposed to be.
Opa Locka Airport was full of smugglers.
[Posada] Everybody there was working.
[Linero] Cuban smugglers walking around,
all were wearing cowboy boots.
All were wearing beepers.
All were wearing Rolex.
All were wearing cowboy hats.
And I think that's where
the "cocaine cowboys" came to be known as.
It was a uniform.
Going to Colombia,
it was a ten-hour flight.
So we had about 400 gallons
of fuel in about eight tanks.
I'm in a flying b*mb.
In Colombia, it is ill*gal to fly
a private airplane after five o'clock.
So, basically, everybody knows that
this plane that's flying at six o'clock
is a smuggler plane.
You look down,
everybody is giving you signals.
They're burning tires.
So you have to precisely be
where you need to be, or otherwise,
you're gonna die.
I made my approach
and I'm pretty confident
that I got the runway,
which is not really a runway.
So, I landed,
get out, people start putting grass
on top of the airplane and so on.
In the morning, we get to the plane,
and here comes these three or four Jeeps
full of duffel bags, each carrying
about 30 to 40 kilos of cocaine.
Plane is loaded, ready to go.
Now, we're almost 1,500 pounds over
the gross weight of the airplane.
"Are you out of your mind?
This could not happen."
Well, it's happening, okay?
We were doing lines right on the top of
the dashboard where the instruments are.
Some beautiful,
big, thick lines of cocaine.
People fly high, you know?
I can't understand that.
[Linero] You need to be very aware
of what's going on in the plane.
As I'm high and paranoid, I could feel
a little change on the engine in my a*s.
If there was a vibration,
I could look at the gauges
and see that this is okay
and that's fine here.
I think that being high helped a lot.
He must have been out of his mind.
There was a time that I was making
about one or two trips a month.
We're talking about 800 keys a month.
I was basically making
around 200 grand per trip.
Willy, he wanted me to go every week
but it's like, how many times can you go
into bullfighting and not get hurt?
[Rosello] They used to bring
the coke from Colombia to Freeport.
From Freeport, they would
bring the coke to Miami in speedboats.
The guy on the boat was Juan Barroso,
that used to race with Seahawk.
He used to bring in the coke.
Okay, now we have the smallest navigator
in offshore racing,
and it's Johnny "Recut." Here we go.
My name is Juan Barroso, right?
They call me "Recut."
[laughs]
Like if he was recut, you know,
like if they cut him. [laughs]
[Linero] One time when he got in,
Willy got a couple of phone books
and put him on his seat with duct tape
and he was screaming and yelling.
And we were all laughing.
As you can see, we standing up.
You know, we had to make a special booster
for him, but he's learning very little.
He's learning by the time
that he's got a big mouth.
Willy and me, we used to know
each other from high school.
[Rosello] Willy says,
"You have Recut in the boat,
he probably weighs 80 pounds.
He's this short.
You won't get drag from the wind,
so you'd get a little advantage."
We took our boat down to Nassau,
and we took an aerodynamic.
And the boat was running fast,
but we needed a shorter navigator
so the air would pass through,
so we had to get a shorter person.
How old are you?
- Eleven.
- How old are you?
- Twenty-nine.
- He's bigger than you?
He's a little bigger.
[all laugh]
- You're full of sh*t.
- [all laugh]
There was a guy
that worked for him, Justo Jay.
We started talking and he tell me,
"Hey, Willy wants to meet with you."
Willy told me, "We got some stuff
that's coming through Freeport, Bahamas."
"Can you do it for me?" "Yeah."
It was the first load
I did with cocaine with him.
I made like 250 grand.
In one night.
I would go down to Freeport.
You go across the island.
Then he'd meet me with a little boat
and he'd put the stuff in.
[whistles]
Outta there.
I go over by the Keys.
I saw people, they transported it
and put it in trucks.
[whistles]
They bring it over to Miami.
[Rosello] '81,
Willy and Sal were already big.
[tense music playing]
Justo Jay was the one
that took care of the loads that came in.
He took care of the stash houses.
He used to take care of everything.
He's like, "I'm gonna pick you up,
I want you to help me do something there."
I get in the car. We get to the house.
He's like, "I need you
to help me count some money."
He takes the money out of the safe,
tells me how to count money
and how to keep ledgers.
There was times where we counted
up to five million dollars
twice a week.
And I was 15 years old.
If the counting machine would break,
like five or six hours.
And the next day, my thumbs
would be swollen from counting.
[mimics paper ruffling]
Growing up, you see your parents
going through hard times,
and then you're in a room
with three or four million dollars,
I mean, how are you gonna
say no to that, you know?
[Jefede] Everyone at that time
had a friend or a friend of a friend
who was in the drug business
seeming to get rich overnight.
A lot of these kids,
they're first-generation immigrants.
They thought this was their path
to the American dream.
If you would've told us we were criminal,
we would have laughed.
We're 20-year-old kids!
We're just having fun.
[engine starts]
[announcer] And there he is,
Justo Jay, Willy Falcon,
doing a fine job in the Seahawk V-Bottom.
[dramatic '80s music playing]
I'm very much responsible
for them getting involved in racing.
I started racing boats.
One day, Willy came over,
he saw all the fun we were having.
And he goes, "Hey, can we do this?"
And we started a company.
[Rosello] Willy and Sal bought
a boat company, Seahawk.
[young Linero]
It's the hottest thing around.
[reporter] It seems to be.
It was appealing to drug smugglers,
'cause it's an expensive sport.
[DeFede] Who else could afford it?
The toys are more expensive,
but they're toys, right?
[Rosello] You do, say, nine races a year.
One race could cost you a million dollars.
If you're a drug dealer,
why would you wanna race boats?
How the hell you gonna justify
spending a million dollars racing boats
and you don't have a job?
[Linero] Sal got a boat,
and they went and they got another boat.
And forget about everybody else,
the race was between Willy and Sal
in different boats. That was the race.
[announcer] There you see it,
Seahawk Two makes a move on Seahawk One.
Willy Falcon makes a bid
for the lead over Sal Magluta
and Sal answers the challenge.
[Rosello] And they had Taby, Recut,
Jay, and Ralph Linero.
They call him cabeza
because he's got a big head.
The racing helmet, it had to be
custom made 'cause none of them fit.
Sometimes when we finish a race,
we got a couple of planes coming
in about a day with 400 keys.
[DeFede] Willy won one national title,
Sal was a three-time champion.
[Barroso] We won the world championship.
Man, that was
the best feeling you ever had.
[announcer] There's your winner
in the Open Class National Champions
two years in a row,
a nd in modified class before that.
[DeFede] At one point,
two-thirds of the champions
of the powerboat racing circuit
were also all either soon-to-be
or had just been convicted drug smugglers.
Certainly, when you finish racing,
win, lose, or draw,
you come home to a beautiful family,
so you can't really lose.
No way.
[Spanish disco music playing]
[Linero] It was the family business.
I know that these guys will do
whatever they could for me,
and I would do whatever I could for them.
[Rosello] Willy's wife,
Alina, had three sisters.
Sal's wife, Isabelita, had three sisters.
Their husbands or boyfriends worked
for the company or had a connection.
My daughter, Rachel,
is married to Sal's nephew.
We're very close.
[reporter] Sal Magluta. A man who has more
to smile about than just his race boat.
Who do we have here today?
[Sal] I have my oldest son, Chris,
my little twins,
Michael and Michelle, a boy and a girl.
[reporter hesitates]
- And don't forget.
- Oh, and the wife here, Isabel.
[Rosello] My little sister used to keep
the books for Taby. She was 14 years old.
I mean, it was something
that was kept very into the family.
No outsiders.
Bye!
Bye!
[speaks Spanish]
Bye! Bye!
[Rosello] We were a close family,
we did everything together.
I mean, everything.
We used to go to Vail twice,
three times a year.
I mean, my family, my sister.
I mean, we never had to pay for anything.
[children singing "Jingle Bells"]
[DeFede] Willy and Sal,
what set them apart,
was that they really did view
this as a business.
[Rosello] We referred
to the organization as "the company."
It was run like any other business.
You're not running a drug empire.
You're running a legitimate corporation.
And one of the products is cocaine.
We're nothing more than
the Kennedys of the 21st century.
Basically, it's a Fortune 500 company
run by a bunch of muchachos.
[salsa music playing]
[DeFede] It was like "Muchachos Inc."
Ralph Linero
was vice president of air operations.
Juan Barroso
was the vice president of boats.
Justo Jay, a V.P. of distribution.
Willy's brother, Taby,
was like an executive vice president.
And Willy and Sal, they were the CEOs.
Willy was more of a schmoozer.
He was the one who would work the edges
and the personalities,
made the connections.
Then Sal would come in
and actually negotiate
the finer points of business.
That's the way Sal wanted it.
He wanted the focus always to be on Willy.
In case something happened,
Willy would go down and he wouldn't.
[Rosello] Sal was taught
numbers and the business.
[Linero] Sal was an accounting wizard.
[DeFede] He's making sure payments
are being made on a regular basis,
that the organization kept moving,
kept running, kept operating.
That was Sal's responsibility.
That's why they worked.
You need an enforcer
and you need a good guy.
Sal would use La Finquita,
the farm in Miami,
as the corporate headquarters.
[Linero] Sal had a tiger there.
We had a room full of short-wave radios
to communicate with Colombia.
[Rosello] Every six months, he would have
everybody gathered there, all the clients.
I used to keep a daily ledger
of the money and the coke.
Everybody would be waiting there
in the living room watching TV,
talking, taking hits, whatever.
[Linero] There was no board table.
It was done with sweatsuits on.
[Rosello] They would call you one by one.
You walk in, you sit down in front of Sal.
He's behind the desk.
They had la silla caliente, the hot chair.
'Cause once you sit there,
the truth has to come out.
You can't f*ck around.
Sal had the books, the ledgers,
and he'll let you know
how much money you owe
and the merchandise
that you've taken and all that.
Sal and his books.
He ran it like a legit business.
[reporter] You guys are making it
sound like a Sunday drive.
Oh, yes, it was nice.
[DeFede] The hardest thing
about being a drug dealer in Miami
in the '70s and early '80s
was what to do with the money.
I had ten million dollars in a big
Like a U-Haul box inside the closet.
My mom told this friend from the family,
"I wanna clean Pegy's room."
"There's this big box I need to move.
I need you to help me."
They open the closet, both of them
are pulling and tugging on the box.
The box breaks, all this money falls.
My mom sees that.
Boom, she's fainted on the floor.
"What the hell is this?
There's all this money in your closet."
"Your mom just fainted.
We were trying to move the box."
[DeFede]
The money was the biggest problem.
You can only box it up
and keep it in your basement for so long.
Falcon and Magluta had purchased
a great number of properties
and had used their fathers,
their respective fathers,
to act as presidents
of construction companies
that built apartment buildings
in the Miami area.
[Rosello] They used to live in mansions,
vacation homes, and Vail.
Sal had an apartment in Brickell Key,
we used to call it Scarface.
We would go out and party
and Sal gave us an extra key.
After clubbing and stuff,
we would go and hang out at Scarface.
[Spanish disco music playing]
They will go out to party at a club
or whatever to spend 20, 30 grand a night.
That was like, nothing.
Willy and Sal, they used to party
at The Mutiny all the time.
[Bonachea] If you were anybody,
you'd be at The Mutiny.
That's where every drug dealer went.
[Linero] I would describe
The Mutiny as the Wall Street
of cocaine business in the '80s.
That's where everything happened.
It was not my thing.
Too many fools.
Cocaine on the f*cking tables
with the women all around.
What are you, crazy?
[Linero] We had a way
to let other organizations know
that we had material.
We would get a Burger King hat.
We would put it on the table.
That was a sign to everybody
in the club that, "Hey, we got material."
"Let's talk."
I went looking for Willy
to get me my money.
And they had a party at The Mutiny.
They were celebrating Cabeza's birthday.
And I found Willy, Sal, and Jay
stoned out of their minds
in a room at the hotel.
And there was three girls
in the bed, naked.
So I said, "The girls or the money?"
So I jumped right in.
[Rosello] Willy and Sal were married,
but you have money,
you wanna go out, party with your friends.
You think your wife
She could get mad for a day or two.
You get home,
you give her 30, 40, 50 grand
and you tell her, "Go shopping."
She's not gonna be mad at you anymore.
[Linero] If they had a boat race,
I would fly
either the mistress or the wife
and then the mistress would go
on another plane in another hotel.
It was a comedy of errors sometimes.
[Rosello] Outside his marriage,
Willy had kids with this girl.
They had twins.
"Here's $50,000 to go shopping."
I guess that probably cost Willy
probably a million. [chuckles]
[DeFede] These two guys
were running the place.
Everywhere you went, it was Willy and Sal.
[Rosello] If you didn't know
Willy and Sal personally,
you knew someone
that knew someone that knew Willy and Sal.
All of Miami considered them local heroes
because they were like Robin Hoods.
They always shared their wealth.
[Rosello] Miami High, the basketball gym
needed a new scoreboard.
So Willy and Sal donated the money.
It was 20 grand.
I mean, you go to them, "I need 30 grand,
40 grand to put my kid through college."
"What do you need, 30? Here's 50."
They helped everybody.
[gentle ethereal music playing]
[Bonachea] I hadn't seen Sal since 1979.
Sal called me, he said,
"I wanna see you tonight."
He says, "Do you remember what car
I was driving when we last were together?"
I said, "Yeah, you were driving
a blue Challenger."
And he says, "Okay. Watch what
I'm gonna pick you up in."
He came and he picked me up
and he's in a Rolls-Royce.
We were out in the Rolls
and we were going through
You know Coconut Grove
has a bad neighborhood on one side?
And Sal goes, "You see all these people?
I support them."
"They get all their drugs from me."
I said, "Great."
Then right behind us, I see sirens.
And I go, "Oh, man."
I think he had
a couple of keys in the back.
And [laughs]
So I go, "Okay.
We're all going to jail today."
There were two cops.
They come out of the car.
They looked at Sal and never said,
"Can I have your driver's license?"
or anything.
They knew who he was.
Sal says, "Look, we'll do a trade.
You take the keys and you let me go."
And the cops turn around and said,
"It was nice running into you."
Took the two keys and took off.
And that was the end of that
and I was like [gasps]
[laughs]
[DeFede] In a lot of ways, Willy and Sal,
in their world, in their community
More popular than Gloria Estefan
and Miami Sound Machine.
Come on, shake your body, baby
Do that conga ♪
[DeFede] They were the kings
of cocaine in South Florida.
[Posada] They were grossing
20, 30 million every month.
I told Willy, "You already have
over 100 million dollars.
Why don't you quit?"
And he said, "Until I get to a billion,
I'm not gonna quit."
The Miami area has the highest
m*rder rate per capita in the country.
[reporter 1] The rate
of k*lling here is accelerating,
the efficient work of the Cocaine Cowboys.
[reporter 2] Local homicide detectives say
Miami's in the middle of a narcotics w*r
between Colombian and Cuban drug dealers.
[grenade launcher firing]
[tires squealing]
[DeFede] The violence, the shootings,
the police were totally overwhelmed
and so they focused their limited
resources on the violent drug dealers.
The ones who were embarrassing them
because of headlines in the newspapers.
But not Willy and Sal.
[Clark] Falcon and Magluta, they weren't
necessarily on the radar screen.
They were the nonviolent drug dealers.
[Linero] If I would say,
"Hey, I lost a load."
I wouldn't be in fear of say,
"Hey, I don't want to get k*lled."
My word was just good enough for them.
[DeFede] It wasn't about retaliation.
It was about taking care of business.
Violence attracts more attention to you.
That's not what they wanted.
You're in the drug business and when
you're that big, of course it's dangerous.
Kind of a stressful lifestyle, but
The sport itself isn't dangerous
as long as you're well-prepared,
you got a good crew,
and they're all working together.
Uh
You I don't see any danger in it.
[reporter 1] A federal task force
is helping Florida
reduce the drug tide, now estimated
at seven billion dollars a year.
[reporter 2] Cocaine seizures are up.
12,000 pounds of coke seized in 1983,
compared with 44,000 pounds
of coke taken last year.
Drugs weren't coming in like they used to.
[reporter 2] The efforts by
the Drug Task Force
has officials
in other parts of the country
saying now they have increased
problems with drug smugglers
moving marijuana and cocaine
through other places.
Places away from Miami.
That put a stop
on the operation, and then it was,
"We gotta go back to plan B."
Plan B was to move to California.
[rhythmic '80s music plays]
[Rosello] In '85,
Willy and Sal, they left to L.A.
[Clark] They set up shop
in Marina del Rey,
an affluent suburb of Los Angeles.
Willy's like, "Stay in L.A., count money,
start working for the company,
I'll pay you $5,000 a week."
California was the equivalent
of Miami at that time.
Drugs were being transported
across the southwestern border.
[Rosello] The difference
between East and West Coast,
East, you bring it up
by plane and speedboats.
West Coast, tractor trailers.
I think that once everything started
in L.A. in '85, things got out of control.
They were bringing in anywhere
from three to five thousand keys
on a monthly basis.
[Clark] Because of
their high-living lifestyle,
this drew the attention of bystanders
and information was related to
the Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Department, Narcotics Squad.
They ex*cuted a raid and discovered
a treasure trove
of incriminating evidence.
Large amount of cash,
three kilograms of cocaine,
fake identification.
And based upon that bust,
Falcon and Magluta,
under their assumed identities,
were arrested again
on state trafficking charges.
They were issued bond
under their fake names.
Law enforcement wasn't really in tune
with how to capture
and go after these guys.
They'd get arrested.
You just change your ID,
get new driver's licenses,
you skip bail.
And that's what they ended up doing.
Once you make bond in L.A., they're gone.
They're back in Miami.
[salsa music playing]
[Clark] The Los Angeles Sheriff
happened to be watching ESPN,
which was broadcasting a powerboat race
and there, lo and behold, was Sal Magluta,
aka, Angelo Maretto, being interviewed
having won a powerboat race.
Sal Magluta,
last year's national champion,
very close to being
last year's world champion.
[DeFede] "That's not Sal Magluta.
That's Angelo Maretto!
I know that guy!"
The sheriff was floored by this news
that the fugitive
from the state of California,
that he was searching for,
wound up in Florida.
[DeFede] This was the guy who got away
and yet here he is on ESPN
for the whole world to see
just living large.
Are you crazy?
Aren't you ever satisfied?
You got a brand-new boat.
No, every year,
everybody comes out with faster things,
so you have to try to stay up there.
[Clark] In 1979, Falcon and Magluta had
already been charged and convicted
in the state of Florida
in the Operation Video Canary case.
When, in 1987,
the board rejected various appeals,
they were expected to surrender
to serve their 14-month sentence.
That, he did not.
They were now wanted
in the state of Florida.
[DeFede] Prosecutors,
DEA, state, local cops,
all wanted to know
where Willy and Sal were.
But by 1987, they stopped racing boats.
They moved out of their houses
and rented new places under fake names.
They were still smuggling cocaine,
but they were trying
to keep a low profile.
[Clark] Because they had continued
to traffic in drugs throughout the 1980s,
pretty much unabated
for well over ten years,
they acquired this legendary status
within the drug trade.
[DeFede] This was the holy grail
for any cop trying
to bring down a dope ring.
[man] March 30, 1988
myself and my partner, Jorge Plasencia,
we go to Dolphin Office Supply
on Southwest 27th Avenue.
I'm shopping. I'm looking.
And the next thing I know,
I feel Jorge Plasencia
tugging at my shirt.
And he goes
[whispers] "That's Sal.
That's Sal Magluta."
Sal is in a store, buying some ledgers.
He's a fugitive,
and who does he happen to run into,
but a guy he went to high school with
who's a Miami detective.
They went to school together
at Miami High.
We knew that Sal was wanted. In fact,
we had his last known booking photo
in our visor in the car.
He's a big fish.
It's a big one. [laughs]
He walked outside, I drew my g*n,
and I put it behind his head,
and I said, "Sal, don't move.
You're under arrest."
He goes, "I'm sorry. I don't know what
you're talking about. That's not my name."
Sal tries to play dumb like, "Oh, no.
That's not me, I'm somebody else."
Sure enough, he's got a driver's license
with somebody else's name,
Santiago Menendez.
I look at him and I go,
"Sal, look over there."
And across the other side
of the car was Jorge Plasencia.
I go, "My partner went
to high school with you, Sal."
"I know it's you, Sal! Sal, we went to
high school together! I know it's you!"
We put him in the car.
I said, "Sal, it's not a problem,
we'll have you fingerprinted."
He didn't even break a sweat.
He said, "You're making a mistake.
I'm sure we can clear this up."
He's talking like a businessman.
[announcer] It's drama on the high seas
with the Seahawk racing team.
They had it going so well
up to that point.
So halfway to the police department,
he goes, "Okay."
"It's me."
"You got me. Let's make a deal.
I can take you, right now, to a house
that has 1,000 kilograms of cocaine.
That's like a ton.
You can have it.
Just let me go."
[announcer] This is
a very serious situation.
I believe that boat is starting to sink.
They just pulled out their life raft.
[Alvarez] The street level of that was
worth in excess of 25 million dollars.
So he's offering me
a bribe of 25 million dollars.
I said, "Sal, I'm sorry, I can't help you.
I appreciate the offer."
He had no fear.
He had no fear at all
of losing his liberty.
I don't think I grasped that
the way I should've.
We walk him over to the jail. Process him.
Put him in.
Back in 1988,
nothing really was computerized.
All the prisoner's names
were in 3x5 index cards.
Almost like your grandmother
would have her recipes on.
And they would put in there
whether they had bond or no bond.
Sal's situation is he's got no bond.
The only thing he needs to do
is serve his sentence,
so he's not getting bond.
He needs to serve his time.
We put no bond and we left.
And we think
this is the end of Sal.
A few days later, we go back
to get him to try to cooperate.
We go to the front desk, we said,
"Bring down Salvador Magluta."
They look through the index card.
"We don't have anybody here by that name."
"I don't understand."
"We brought him here Friday.
He's got no bond.
He's going to prison. Where is he?"
He said, "He's not here."
I said, "What do you mean he's not here?
Find him. He's here. We brought him here."
He was let out the day before.
I go, "He couldn't have been.
He couldn't have been!
He's got no bond."
And then they find the card.
Time served and was released.
I go, "He couldn't have served his time.
He was a fugitive.
He needs to go to prison."
[DeFede] Somehow,
the paperwork at the county jail,
well, something happened
and instead of it showing that
Sal owed them 14 months,
it showed he'd
already served his 14 months.
So they pat him on the back
and walk him out the front door.
That's Miami.
[salsa music playing]
Sal called me and he says,
"You know where I am?"
I said, "Yeah, in jail."
He says, "No, I'm on the street."
[Alvarez] We blew a gasket.
It just so happens,
the mistake was made
to one of the most prolific
drug traffickers in US history.
What's the chances of that?
To operate a company that big,
you have to pay people off.
They had a lot of people on payroll.
[Bonachea] I said, "How'd you get out?"
He says, "I did a favor for somebody
that works at the jail."
They decided to return the favor
and falsify his papers,
so he could walk out.
[Clark] Again, for the third time,
Sal Magluta is in the wind,
no longer in custody
when authorities had the opportunity
to keep him in custody.
Every time they got busted,
they bounce back.
And then they bounce back,
and then they bounce back!
[announcer] Okay, the Seahawk Racing team,
that's Sal Magluta.
That team is having some problems.
But Sal appears
that he doesn't wanna stop.
[salsa music playing]
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01x01 - Willy & Sal
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Six part docuseries chronicling the rise and fall of Miami drug lords Sal Magluta and Willy Falcon.
Six part docuseries chronicling the rise and fall of Miami drug lords Sal Magluta and Willy Falcon.