2 Cubans Took On Miami’s Entire Cocaine Trade — $2 Billion Later, They Owned It – HT

 

 

 

It’s 1996 in a Miami federal courthouse. Two Cuban-American men in expensive suits sit at the defense table, stone-faced as the jury foreman rises to deliver a verdict. These two high school dropouts have been accused of smuggling 75 tons of cocaine into the United States, an operation worth over [music] two billion dollars.

The prosecution has presented thousands of pages of evidence, dozens of witnesses, and seized ledgers documenting everything. The foreman clears his throat. Not guilty. On all 16 counts. The courtroom erupts. Federal prosecutors are stunned. The US attorney calls it a dark moment for justice.

 But what nobody knows yet is that the jury foreman sitting in that box has $400,000 in cash hidden at his home. Payment for delivering that verdict. The two men shaking hands at the defense table are Augusto “Willie” Falcon and Salvador “Sal” Magluta, known throughout Miami as Los Muchachos, the boys. And they have just pulled off one of the greatest courtroom heists in American legal history.

 But this isn’t a story about getting away with it. Because years later, Sal Magluta would be sitting in ADX Florence, the most secure supermax prison in America, serving 195 years alongside El Chapo and the Boston Marathon Bomber. This is the story of how two Cuban immigrants went from selling marijuana in a Miami high school parking lot to becoming the most powerful cocaine traffickers America has ever seen.

Before we get into it, if you’re new here and you enjoy content like this about American crime organizations, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. We cover stories like this every week. Now, on to the video. To understand Willie Falcon and Sal Magluta, you need to understand what Miami was like in the late 1970s.

The city was transforming. Waves of Cuban refugees were arriving on boats, fleeing Castro’s regime and searching for the American dream. Among them were two boys who would change the city forever. Salvador Magluta was born in Bejucal, Cuba in 1954. His family ran bakeries back home, and when they immigrated to Miami, they opened a small bakery in Little Havana.

Sal arrived through Operation Pedro Pan at just 7 years old, a child refugee who would grow up on Miami streets. Augusto “Willie” Falcon was born in Cuba in 1955 and transferred from a private school in Havana to Miami Senior High, where he met Sal. The two became inseparable. They cut classes together, hung out in parking lots, and quickly figured out that there was money to be made outside the classroom.

While other kids worried about homework, Willie and Sal were already running a marijuana operation right there at Miami High. They were not sophisticated about it. They would buy weed cheap and sell it to classmates at a markup, but they were learning the fundamentals of distribution, customer relationships, and staying under the radar.

Both dropped out of school. Education was not going to make them rich, they figured. And in late 1970s Miami, opportunities for young Cuban immigrants were limited unless you were willing to get creative. The duo continued their small-time marijuana dealing through the mid-1970s, making decent money but nothing spectacular.

They dreamed of something bigger. [music] Specifically, they dreamed about powerboats. Speedboat racing was exploding in South Florida, and Willie and Sal became obsessed with it. The speed, the adrenaline, the competition. They wanted in, but powerboat racing required serious cash, and marijuana nickels and dimes were not going to cut it.

Then, in 1978, everything changed. The key to Willie and Sal’s transformation was a childhood friend named Jorge Valdes. Valdes had grown up with Magluta in Cuba, their families close enough to be considered relatives. But unlike the underachieving duo, Valdes was brilliant. He started college before turning 18 and landed a prestigious job at the Miami Federal Reserve Bank.

But Valdes had a side hustle. He set up dummy corporations in the Caribbean for Miami businessmen, no questions asked. Eventually, this brought him into contact with lawyers who represented drug dealers. Before long, Valdes was spending his nights at the Mutiny Hotel in Coconut Grove. The Mutiny wasn’t just a hotel.

It was the Wall Street of cocaine in 1980s Miami. Drug dealers in gold chains closed million-dollar deals over champagne, while celebrities and lawyers mingled at the bar. The place was later nicknamed Hotel Scarface because of its prominence in the film. If you wanted to move cocaine in Miami, this was where you did business.

Valdes became a major player, making more money in a month than he’d make in years at the bank. And one day in 1978, he found himself stuck with 30 kg of cocaine from a deal that went sideways. He had a European vacation booked and couldn’t leave Miami until he moved the product.

 So, he called his old friends from the neighborhood. Willie Falcon didn’t hesitate. When Valdes asked if they could handle 30 kg, Willie answered immediately, “We do it.” Sal was more cautious. 30 kg was a lot of responsibility for two guys who’d only dealt marijuana. But Willie’s confidence was contagious. They took the cocaine on consignment.

One month later, when Valdes returned from Europe, Willie and Sal handed him $1.3 million They’d moved all 30 kg and wanted more, a lot more. This was the moment Los Muchachos were born. Valdes began supplying them regularly, connecting them to his Colombian contacts. >> [music] >> The duo proved themselves efficient, reliable, and most importantly, non-violent.

While other cocaine cowboys were shooting up Miami in turf wars, Willie and Sal kept things quiet. They paid their debts, honored their agreements, and built a reputation as businessmen rather than gangsters. Their operation grew rapidly. They established connections with both the Medellin and Cali cartels, becoming the chief American distributors for Colombian cocaine.

They moved product through an intricate system using [music] powerboats, planes, and tractor trailers. The logistics were sophisticated. Cocaine would be shipped from Colombia to the Bahamas. From there, Willie and Sal’s speedboats would race across the water, picking up shipments and running them back to Miami.

Their racing skills weren’t just for show. They could outrun the Coast Guard. They also cultivated dirty cops. In Hendry County near Lake Okeechobee, they convinced Earl Diaz Jr., a sheriff’s department captain whose father was the actual sheriff, to let them use a secluded ranch as a landing strip for cocaine flights.

Having the narcotics unit captain on your payroll tends to simplify operations. By the early 1980s, Willie Falcon and Sal Magluta had transformed from high school dropouts into the most significant Cuban-American cocaine trafficking organization in South Florida history. If you’re enjoying this story, make sure to hit subscribe.

 We cover organized crime stories like this every single week. And we’re just getting started with Los Muchachos. Part of what made Willie and Sal untouchable was their public image. They didn’t hide in the shadows like traditional criminals. They became celebrities. Using their cocaine profits, they dove into powerboat racing with everything they had.

Willie won the 1986 Offshore Challenge off the Florida Keys. Sal won three national championships and became a member of the commission overseeing the American Powerboat Association. They raced under team names like Seahawk and Cougar, appearing on ESPN telecasts, and attracting fans across South Florida. Their company, KS&W Offshore Engineering in St.

 Augustine, built custom high-performance racing engines. It was a legitimate front, but it also let them design boats specifically optimized for outrunning law enforcement. The money flowed everywhere. They invested in South Florida real estate, condos in Vail, construction companies run by their fathers, and offshore corporations in Panama.

They established accounts at Sunshine State Bank through Willie’s childhood friend, Ray Corona, who knew exactly where the cash was coming from, but didn’t care. In their Cuban-American community, Willie and Sal became Robin Hood figures. They donated to local schools, gave money to neighbors so their kids could attend college, and sponsored community events.

They were beloved. One federal agent later remarked that while there might be six degrees of Kevin Bacon in America, in Miami, there were only one or two degrees from Willie and Sal. “They were like gods in the dope community,” said Shawn Convoy, a US Marshals supervisor. “All the other smugglers talked about how invincible they were.

” And for years, that reputation seemed justified. In 1979, they were convicted on state drug trafficking charges and sentenced to 14 months in prison. But they tied up their appeals for 7 years, remaining free the entire time while continuing to expand their empire. When the appeals finally ran out in 1987, they simply went into hiding.

In California in 1985, they were arrested under the aliases Wilfred Fernandez and Angelo Moratto. They had complete fake identities, driver’s licenses, credit cards, everything. Police released them on bail. And by the time anyone figured out who they really were, Willie and Sal had vanished. A year later, the California detective who’d arrested them >> [music] >> was watching the Miami Grand Prix on television.

There on the screen was Angelo Moratto being introduced as Sal Magluta, thanking race organizers for helping sponsor the event. The detective couldn’t believe his eyes. In 1988, Sal was shopping for office supplies when he ran into Jorge Placencia, a Metro-Dade detective who’d gone to high school with him. Placencia arrested Sal on the spot.

But when DEA agents jail to interview him, they discovered he’d been mysteriously released due to a clerical error in the paperwork. A corrupt jail official had falsified documents showing Sal had already served his time. He was back on the streets within days. Their ability to operate in plain view while evading capture made them legends.

No police agency in South Florida [music] didn’t have some effort going to catch them. But every time authorities got close, Willie and Sal slipped away. The bubble finally burst in October 1991. A coordinated federal operation swept up dozens of players in the Willie and Sal network. Agents raided their homes, seized their powerboats, and finally got both Beato men in handcuffs.

The indictment was massive. Multiple federal charges, including operating a continuing criminal enterprise. Prosecutors claimed Willie and Sal had smuggled 75 tons of cocaine worth over $2 billion between 1978 and 1991. They called it one of the five largest drug trafficking operations in the world.

 For the first time, Los Muchachos were facing life in prison. But their empire had generated enormous wealth, and now they deployed it in their defense. They hired the best lawyers money could buy. Albert Krieger, who had represented John Gotti, defended Willie. Roy Black, who had won acquittal for William Kennedy Smith on rape charges, defended Sal.

The trial would not begin until 1996. And in those 4 years between arrest and trial, something disturbing happened. Potential prosecution witnesses started dying. Three witnesses who were expected to testify against Willie and Sal were murdered. Two others survived car bombings. The prosecution suspected Los Muchachos had dispatched Colombian hit squads, but they could not prove it.

 The defense denied any involvement. By the time the trial began, the witness intimidation had worked. Many potential cooperators were too terrified to testify. The 4-month trial was a spectacle. Prosecutors presented thousands of pages of evidence and called dozens of witnesses, many of them former associates who had cut deals to reduce their own sentences.

 The defense tore into every government witness. Roy Black called them liars seeking lighter sentences. They questioned the reliability of convicted criminals testifying against his client. They argued that Willie and Sal had retired from drug trafficking after 1980, despite ledgers showing active operations through 1991. Then came the verdict.

 Not guilty on all 16 counts. Federal prosecutors were devastated. US Attorney Kendall Coffey called it one of the largest drug cases ever lost in the United States, a dark moment for justice. Willie and Sal embraced their lawyers. They were free, but they had made one critical mistake. They had paid off the jury. The foreman had accepted $400,000 to deliver the acquittal.

At least two other jurors had also received bribes. When investigators began examining the jurors’ finances >> [music] >> after the trial, they discovered purchases and deposits that could not be explained. In 1999, prosecutors brought new indictments. Jury tampering, witness bribery, obstruction of justice, money laundering, and murder.

 Specifically, the three witnesses who had been killed before they could testify. The 2002 retrial was different. Willie Falcon knew the evidence was overwhelming. He negotiated a plea deal, accepting guilt on money laundering charges. He was sentenced to 20 years and served 14 before being released in 2017. Because of his connections to the Colombian cartels, his lawyers argued he’d be killed if deported to Cuba.

So he was sent to the Dominican Republic instead, [music] where locals weren’t happy about hosting a billionaire drug trafficker. Sal Magluta refused to take a deal. He’d beaten the system once. He believed he could do it again. He was wrong. The jury found him guilty of conspiracy to launder money, witness and juror bribery, and obstruction of justice.

He was acquitted of ordering the three murders, but it didn’t matter. The judge sentenced him to 205 years in federal prison, later reduced to 195 years on appeal. Sal Magluta was transferred to ADX Florence in Colorado, the supermax facility often called the Alcatraz of the Rockies, his neighbors include El Chapo, the Boston Marathon bomber, and former FBI agent turned Russian spy Robert Hansen.

He spent over two decades in solitary confinement, locked in a tiny cement cell half the size of a parking space for most of each day. His legal team has sought compassionate release citing his declining health and mental state. They say further incarceration would be excessive and inhumane. In 2021, Sal submitted a four-page handwritten letter to the court asking for mercy.

“I would ask the court to find some way that I can be used to share my experience and the consequences of living outside of God’s will and the law.” The judge denied his request calling his health claims exaggerated and stating he remained a danger to society. Today, Willy Falcon’s whereabouts are unknown. After being released from the Dominican Republic, he seemingly disappeared.

 His three adult children have lives of their own now, far removed [music] from their father’s cocaine empire. His wife Alina never saw the end of the story. She was shot and killed during a robbery in Coral Gables in 1992 while Willy was in jail awaiting trial. Sal Magluta sits in ADX Florence serving out a sentence that will keep him there until long after he’s dead.

The man who once raced powerboats at 100 mph, who lived like a king in Miami’s cocaine heyday, who beat the federal government in one of the largest drug trials in American history, will die in a concrete box. Their story has become part of Miami’s mythology, immortalized in the Netflix docuseries Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami.

Director Billy Corben spent years pursuing the story and Sal eventually cooperated from prison giving access to his personal archives and family photographs. But what makes the Willy and Sal story different from other drug lord tales isn’t just the scale of their operation or the audacity of their courtroom [music] victory.

 It’s that they built something that functioned like a legitimate business while moving billions in cocaine. They weren’t wild cowboys spraying bullets across Miami. They were businessmen who happened to traffic drugs. They paid their debts. They honored their word. They gave back to their community.

 And they thought that would be enough to keep them safe. It wasn’t. At the end of the day, Los Muchachos learned what every drug trafficker eventually learns. You can be the smartest, most careful operator in the game. You can buy cops, bribe jurors, and murder witnesses. You can hide in plain sight as a celebrity powerboat racer, but the game always wins.

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