Cocaine Confidential (7 page)

But it's not always plain sailing for Chris by any means. He explains: ‘The Mexican and Colombian distributors in Florida were constantly trying to cut costs by hiring immigrant truckers to haul the coke north. It used to really piss me off. I'd have flown in from somewhere and find myself handing tens of millions' worth of coke over to some illiterate driver. I lived in constant fear that one of them would strike a deal with the Feds, who constantly monitored the freeways throughout Florida for traffickers.'

But Chris always takes special measures to try and avoid any problems. He's become an expert at covering his tracks wherever possible. ‘I usually stay in a rundown motel at least twenty miles from the airstrip. I also avoid people, pay cash for everything. But if anybody asks, I usually say I'm delivering planes to rich folk.'

Ten years after President Reagan declared his ‘war on drugs' in the mid-1980s, Chris got himself trained as a pilot after spotting a useful gap in the employment market. Initially, Chris went to a flying school in Central Florida for training in dealing with all the tricky weather conditions he knew he'd be facing. ‘I loved it the minute I got up there in skies. I just needed to find a lucrative way to make money from what I loved doing.' He soon got to hear about the ‘cash business', as he calls it.

‘At first I flew a bit of weed north from Florida to Connecticut. But it soon became clear that the big money only came with the white powder, so I switched allegiances. I knew full well that if I got arrested I'd get much longer jail time but, boy, the money was five times as much.' Chris then took over some of the best coke routes from smoked-up Vietnam vets, who'd dominated the dope-on-planes business in the 1970s and 1980s.

During his ‘career', Chris reckons he has piloted more than thirty different types of planes, and found himself in some pretty hairy situations. ‘Listen, over the years I been in this business, I've done some high-risk stuff like flying into northern Mexico, landing on ramshackle runways without
any lights to guide me. Then there were flights through the Sierra Madre, where trigger-happy farmers galloped alongside my plane on horseback, shooting their pistols into the air. It sure is a wacky world out there.'

Chris denies being addicted to danger, but he definitely has a taste for the better things in life. ‘Look, I got a lifestyle to maintain here. That means taking a few risks. So what?'

Chris openly relishes the challenges of aerial smuggling and down the years has even devised ingenious ways to avoid detection: ‘Mostly it's about flying as low as you dare to evade the radar, and then not worrying about where you put your wheels down. It's all part of the job as far as I am concerned.'

Chris's connections to the Mexican and Colombian cartels make him a highly trusted person within a very deadly environment. He says he's seen one double-dealing villain shot dead in front of his very eyes after daring to steal a million dollars' worth of coke from underneath the noses of the Colombians.

Chris flies anything up to 250 pounds of cocaine on most flights. He charges $400 per pound, which adds up to more than a $100,000 per trip, plus $5,000 expenses. Like all those involved in the cocaine game, Chris often worries that others will talk. But he admits it's hard to resist the pull of yet another big payday. ‘I pride myself on my professionalism,' says Chris. ‘This is my career and I don't really want it all to end with me being put in prison.'

Chris is realistic enough to accept that for all the care he
takes to avoid detection he's been under close surveillance by the authorities and is fully aware that he'd be pressured to cooperate with the Feds if caught. ‘I know I'd have no choice but to refuse to disclose anything about the cartels because they would almost certainly retaliate against my family.'

Chris also realises that anything he's told other traffickers is sure to be used against him by the Feds if they manage to ‘turn' anyone in Chris's ‘team'. He explains: ‘My biggest fear is that I'll be sacrificed by an informant who knows only too well I won't go after them in the same way that the cartels would.'

Chris was once arrested by the Feds, who wanted him to provide evidence against his cocaine bosses. ‘I strung them along for a while by feeding them with small bits of information which they thought was great but I knew would not help them prove anything against my people,' he recalls. ‘Then they cut me loose without any explanation after the Twin Towers attack. It seemed they were told to drop all the less important drug investigations and prioritise terrorism. I understood why they did that but there was a period of time after that when I was very vulnerable. If any of my bosses had heard I'd even been talking to the Feds I would have been killed.'

Chris continues: ‘Luckily, it never slipped out and I just carried on flying as if nothing had happened but I still fear the day when someone hears that I was helping the Feds all those years ago.'

He knows only too well that if he was ever caught again, he'd also lose his house and his cash, as well as any aircraft registered in his name. ‘I'll never make that mistake again. I'm gettin' real close to the time when I can retire … I'll miss the buzz but if I can get there without serving a prison sentence it will be the best result of all.'

But the Caribbean isn't just a staging post in cocaine's deadly journey around the globe. Its hot weather and golden beaches attract millions of tourists every year, and it's perhaps not so surprising that cocaine dealers can make a huge annual ‘salary' providing cocaine to some of the region's rich, famous and wealthy visitors.

Ex-public schoolboy Tony, originally from Hampshire, England, is proud of his job as a coke dealer on Barbados, even though he'd get at least ten years in prison if caught by the police. Tony's lived in Barbados for more than twenty years. He says he prefers the island to his native England. He boasts how cocaine has provided him with a sizeable income since he arrived penniless in the Caribbean and spent the first three months sleeping on the floor of a friend's apartment on the less fashionable east coast of the island.

‘I originally came here with aspirations to work in the hotel trade. Yawn yawn, eh?' says Tony. ‘I soon realised there were more hotels than road signs here and decided I needed a more exciting career with better money. Cocaine dealing made perfect sense. There are a lot of rich and famous people here who need my services.

‘I first got into it when I did a temporary job as a hotel
barman in a well-known upmarket resort. A few of my friends on the island did coke at the time and this rich customer asked me outright when I was serving at the bar if I could get him some. I didn't say yes and I didn't say no but I got on the phone to my flatmate and he gave me a dealer's number and within half an hour I'd made a tidy $100 profit out of the deal, which was more than I would have earned for two day's work in that hotel.'

Tony goes on: ‘A few days later this same guy rang me again and said he wanted another eight ball [three and a third grams] that afternoon. I rang the same dealer and made another $100 and told my one and only customer that I was looking to expand my business and would appreciate any recommendations.

‘Well, I soon had a dozen of his friends on the phone to me putting in orders. I did a biggish deal with the dealer I knew but was very careful not to say I was dealing myself, as I knew that would piss him off.

‘What I really needed was to find a new supplier who would sell to me wholesale but I knew that the dealer I was using at that time was supplying top quality coke and that was why this guy and all his friends wanted my product.

‘I was lucky. I went back to the dealer and we agreed a bulk deal, which meant we both made a good mark-up. I knew I had to keep those early customers happy so they would spread the word.'

Tony's next lucky break came when he got a call from the personal assistant of one of Hollywood's most powerful movie
executives, who happened to own a villa on the island. ‘This guy was A-List and his PA had heard about me from that first guy who originally bought off me in that hotel. His PA was completely paranoid about her boss being exposed, so I had to meet her in a local bar to pick up the cash for his order. Normally I don't need cash in advance but she offered it so I agreed to a meeting to hand over the cash.

‘Well, I nearly fell off my chair when I looked inside a large envelope she passed me and realised it contained $20,000. This was serious stuff. So off I went, organised the coke and then met her back in the same bar and handed her back the same envelope with the coke inside it.'

Tony believes that part of his success in the early days was down to his posh English accent. ‘Back then people out here trusted an English voice more than they do today!'

Tony's VIP movie mogul customer soon began ordering $20,000 worth of coke from him every time he was on the island. ‘I was expected to drop everything whenever I got a call from his PA but for that sort of money I was more than happy!'

Over the following ten years, Tony reckons he ended up delivering half of his cocaine to that same movie producer. ‘I travelled all over the world with coke for that man. He was insatiable. I have no idea to this day whether he did all the coke himself or whether he shared it out among his friends. But then I never actually met him!'

That particular ‘cash cow' came to a sudden and dramatic end when Tony's VIP customer died after a drug binge. ‘Wow.
That was a pretty tricky time because he was found dead in his bathroom from a cocaine and alcohol overdose. In the end the cause of death was covered up for the sake of his family. I've been asked a couple of times if I felt guilty about what happened to him, but I don't see it as my fault. He made a decision. He was rich enough to hire a doctor to get him off the booze and coke if he'd really wanted to.'

Unperturbed, Tony continued to build on his upmarket Barbados contacts and says that during the peak holiday season over Christmas time, he has 200 different customers each week. ‘I make an average $500 from each one of them so the money is incredible and the ironic thing is that quite a few of those customers know that I dealt all the coke to that guy who died but it doesn't seem to bother them in the slightest.'

Tony claims that among his best customers at that time of year are many of the journalists who swamp the islands writing stories about all the celebrities who go on holiday there every winter. ‘It's a bun fight but I get my business from both “ends”, so to speak; the journalists and the celebs. It couldn't be better.'

Today, Tony still has numerous rich and sometimes high-profile clients and is sometimes flown across continents with special consignments of cocaine for his wealthier customers, whom he first made contact with on Barbados. ‘They're all professional people, who need a discreet dealer who isn't interested in who they are. I never ask awkward questions and I make a point of not trying to be their friends if I deal
with them direct, but usually it's through their assistants. It's much better that way for me and them.'

But Tony claims it is the consistent quality of his cocaine that makes him such a successful dealer on the island. ‘Too many dealers these days look at the short-term. They supply shit coke and then wonder why their customers stop using them. I know that as long as I can provide top quality cocaine then they will all come to me. It has to be consistent. If you sell them superb stuff one week and crap the next, then they start not to trust you and begin looking around for another dealer. It's all common sense really. But you'd be amazed how few dealers understand those rules. Mind you, if they did then I'd have a lot less customers.'

Tony's businesslike attitude and back-story provides a fascinating insight into what has been called the ‘acceptable face of drug dealing'.

Recently, Tony celebrated his fiftieth birthday with his young girlfriend, who was born on the island. ‘I toasted out loud all the rich clients who've made me who I am, especially that poor guy who died from an overdose of coke.

‘Hopefully my luck will stay intact and I'll carry on for another ten years maybe and then retire to the English countryside and live the life of a country squire back home. I always insist I don't miss England but maybe it would be better to get off this island once my career is over.'

Tony has led a much more charmed life than most cocaine dealers. The reality of the ‘business' is that it is a high-risk occupation with danger lurking around every corner.

Brazil's efforts to clean up the streets of Rio in preparation for the World Cup and then the 2016 Olympics have been well documented. But this supposedly booming South American country has recently been dubbed the biggest single consumer of cocaine in the world after the United States.

The Colombian cartels have used all their marketing and sales ‘skills' to make big inroads into Brazil over the past decade. These days, getting a gram of cocaine on the streets of Rio is as easy as catching a bus. But being a coke dealer on the streets of this steaming metropolis is riddled with danger.

Trigger-happy cops and armed gangsters ensure that most young coke dealers cannot expect to live much beyond thirty. ‘The police are heavy-handed and always looking for bribes,' says dealer Carlos, who's worked with his partner Jose in Rio for more than two years. ‘The criminals will just
slit your throat and steal your cocaine if you give them half a chance.'

Often, police anti-drugs raids cause so much resentment in Rio that they lead to open street battles between police and cocaine gangsters armed with machine guns, assault rifles and grenades. One hot close Rio night in 2012 twelve families were reportedly forced from their homes by gang members who wanted to use them as hideouts when they were being pursued by the police.