NYPD Through The Looking Glass

Hunting Griselda Blanco

• Vic Ferrari

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0:00 | 1:09:48
SPEAKER_00

Raul, you were a homicide investigator in in the 1970s and you saw an explosion of violence, and you you were on the scene and responded to the famous Daydeland shooting. What was that like?

SPEAKER_02

That was incredible. That shooting was what gave us a little peek into what we would be looking at in the next coming years in Miami Date, as far as homicides went. Uh we were outgunned, outcarred. I mean, I mean, these people had anything they wanted, and yet we were measured, you know, we we had almost at that time we had no overtime, we had problems with with corruption in our own department. We had we were shooting 38 caliber revolvers, these guys had machine guns, they had everything. But if you took a look at the war wagon, the the wagon that they used to get to Dayton, you knew that that wagon was used for encounters with police. It was a step-up van with a rolling door, and all around the van they had placed a quarter-inch steel plank and holes on the side of the van and inside the the plate so that you could they could stick guns out and and shoot outside. And then the roll-up door had vests screwed onto it so that so that yeah, so that they could roll it up and down and still have pr uh protection against uh shootings. So we knew and then there were 14 guns inside. It was like, look, these people dropped the van, the van was due. So they dropped the van, they dropped 14 guns, and they killed two people in the middle of the afternoon at Daydance Shopping Center. That was as bad as it got in a town. And that was a preview of what we were gonna be looking at in the next months and years.

SPEAKER_00

Do you remember like with witnesses, how many shooters were in that in that Daydeland shooting?

SPEAKER_02

There were two of them. There were two shooters. They called Kumbamba and the other guy, I forget his name, but there were only two of them. Kumbamba was later involved in the murder of Barry Seal in Louisiana.

SPEAKER_00

Was Rivy I Aller a part of that Daydeland shooting?

SPEAKER_02

No, I I don't think Rivy at that time was uh a big name with Grisilda.

SPEAKER_00

So, you know, the name with all these murders and homicides, one of the biggest was Griselda Blanco, the godmother. She was a central figure in these com in these wars. What made her operation particularly ruthless or innovative compared to the other cartels during that time?

SPEAKER_02

To her. She would tell one guy to go tell Rivy to get this guy killed. And Rivy would go and tell somebody else to go get it done. So before you get to her, you have to go through three guys. And if one of them shut up, that's it.

SPEAKER_01

And most of the time all of them shut up.

SPEAKER_00

It's almost like the mafia where the boss tells the consiliary, who tells the captain, who tells so you really don't know where the message is coming from. That's what? You were involved in countless shootouts and and raids. Is there one that that really was like the most intense for you? Yes.

SPEAKER_01

The Kendall 6. This was uh a house in the Kendall area, which is an upper middle class section of Miami.

SPEAKER_02

Um it was almost like a brand new house. It was a a very nice neighborhood, and we got a call. The uniform guy had responded. I remember I I don't remember what kind of call was he responding to, but he responded. No one answered the door, he gained entrance, and he comes back to the car and says that they found two dead, the bodies of two dead women there. Then he goes back and four be by the time he finished coming in and out, we had six dead bodies in there.

SPEAKER_01

The men were killed by asphyxia, they were wrapped in nylon in in in in plastic paper, and they were asphyxiated, and the women were shot in the ears by a small caliber weapon. That was very impressive. Was was that homicide ever solved? Yes, it was.

SPEAKER_02

It was Ribby. It was Ribby and he caught hell from it caught he caught hell from from Griselda because he left a baby alive. Griselda was pissed off at Ribby because he left the baby alive. You know, that homicide is the one that Griselda was charged with. And she was facing the electric chair because she was the one who ordered it. And then Ribby started holding phone sex phone calls with the state attorney secretary, and that case was dropped. And that's when Griselda was released from jail. But she was looking at six murder case accounts. But they had to drop it because of previous. You know, I always thought that Ribby wanted to make sure that he remained alive in jail. And I think that he went through this phone sex thing and then somehow let it be known. Big scandal, big articles in the newspapers, and the state attorney's office backed off and dropped the charges against Griselda.

SPEAKER_00

Had he not gotten involved in that phone sex scandal, do you think he would have had a chance of getting out of jail?

SPEAKER_02

Oh no, no, no. No, Ricky was not and Rivy was not gonna get out of jail. He he had too many dead people to be left out of jail. And you know, we uh we had him as a suspect in 41 murders, and he confessed to 29.

SPEAKER_01

He confessed to more murders than we suspected a Milkar of having committed.

SPEAKER_00

Roel, your book, Killing the Lieutenant, available on Amazon, mentions pressure and power struggles, hidden agendas from both sides of the law. How much internal corruption or resistance within law enforcement did you encounter while you were pursuing a lot of these cases?

SPEAKER_02

Several some of the best and most experienced homicide detectives were charged with corruption. They had become associated with a long time Cuban criminal named Mario, I'll come to it later. But anyways, they started ripping off ripping off money. Mario Escandar, who had been one of the first Cubans to get arrested for narcotics here in the United States back in 1968 during Operation Eagle. He was charged with so they got associated with Mario and they started ripping off from the property room or from homicide scenes. Um during before Dayton, there was a shooting involving two cars down US 1 in Miami. Very busy road. When they got stopped, they were found the car they got stopped was found to have a body, a dead body in the in the trunk, and several kilos of cocaine. So when the cocoa was checked out for trial and returned to the property room, had tested first in the eighties or ninety percentage of pure was supposed to have maybe fifteen, twenty percent. So what they did is they took it out and they cut the shit out of it, and they kept they they kept several kilos of good and turned in the the bad now mind you, Vic, that you know, uh a kilo in those days was going for fifty thousand dollars.

unknown

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02

So I mean, you know, if they kept six or seven kilos and they only cut it once. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

You're talking about six hundred thousand, seven hundred thousand dollars. Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00

You know, in i in the NYPD, every now and then we we had a scandal where guys would be ripping off drug dealers, and there was an it was one time that there was a team of guys that were in the money laundering unit that were hitting the couriers, moving money. But it seems like amateur hour compared to what was going on in the Miami area during your time period.

SPEAKER_02

It was incredible. And you know, people were surprised. I mean, I was surprised that some of the people who were who were caught in doing in doing this this crap. But, you know, you you join the department, you join the academy, and you go in with all good feelings, you know, protect and serve and all that, but then uh, you know, life goes on, you've got six, seven, eight years in the department, and all of a sudden one of your kids gets sick, seriously sick, sick, and you start uh you start having financial problems, and then you walk into a house and there is a a briefcase with$800,000 in it, and you're the only person in that room. The temptation that existed in those days has never existed before, had never existed before, and I doubt it will ever exist again. Because as much money as I was out there, it's it would be incredible for it to happen again.

SPEAKER_00

Roll, could you t this is a great story from your book. I laughed out loud, even though it was dangerous. Could you tell the story of your undercover purchase of a case of stolen dynamite from an outlaw biker gang?

SPEAKER_02

You know, those guys may have been very good bicycle riders or motorcycle riders, but they didn't know shit about explosives. I I had a an informant who was a member of the outlaws, and uh and and he came to me, he says, This is would you be interested in in getting some dynamite? And at the time I was in the counterterrorism unit, so I said, Of course I am. So he set me up with this motorcycle mama. I mean, all 300 round of 300 pounds of her short, but mean, I mean, like round and tough, strong. So I go see her, and uh, we made conversation, and and I said, Well, I like a sample. I said, Will you she said, will you like it tonight? I said, sure. Brings back a towel with something inside it, and I and you can and I can smell it right away. And and five minutes later, I had a hell of a headache. She brings the stuff, and I open the towel, and there is a stick of dynamite sweating like crazy. And I said, okay, I'll take this as a sample. So I walked very slowly to the door. I walked down the stairs very slowly, I put it in the in the trunk of my car, and I called on the radio. I didn't have to worry because there was nothing attached to it. So I they they I told them I needed them to change the meeting location to get closer because I was not gonna drive much longer with that thing in the trunk of my car. So I got to the shopping center on 50 and and and there's a bomb guy, Tom Brody, and he opens the trunk, he goes, Oh my god, you are lucky. He starts telling me about sweating dynamite. So, anyway, I called the lady, Janet, Janet Barnes. I called her back and I said, Listen, we're in business, but I I I hope that the rest of the dynamite is in in better and you know, better conditions. She said, Oh yeah, LB is at a guy's house. I said, Okay. So I came over to her house, her apartment again, with Iggy Vasquez. Iggy was, I don't know, 6'2, 6'3, 200 and some pounds, won the police olympics for for for lifting 405 pounds, bench pressing. So uh Iggy and I walked in, I was wired, and I had two guys waiting outside, the Benitez brothers. So we walked in, and um she gave me the address, I gave her the money, she started counting it, and then I gave the the code. I said, Janet, you know that all good things must come to an end. And I'm waiting for these guys to knock on the door and and nothing happens. So I look at Iggy and Iggy shrugs, you know, like so I said, listen, Janet, I know you know that all good things must come to an end, right? And she says, Yeah, yeah, what are you what are you saying? I said, all things must come to a fucking end. Okay? And nothing happened. So I said, fuck it, you know, Janet, I pulled my badge out, I had it hanging around my neck. I said, You're under arrest. And man, that woman is sound like uh like growling coming out of someplace. She just went and I she jumped on my ass, she jumped on me, she came across the table. Now, Iggy says, Gun shit. So now Iggy and I are wrestling this woman on the floor. Iggy, as big as he is, we can't control this woman. She keeps rolling one side to the other, trying to reach like, and then the door came down and the Benita brothers come in. So I got out of their asses for not coming in and all that. So what has happened was that my the wire, one of the wires and the bug had come out and I was not transmitting. So all these things, you know, if she hadn't growled, maybe these guys wouldn't have come in. I said, What made you come in? He says, Man, I thought that she'd had a dog in here or something because we heard this and we decided to come in. Well, and and so anyway, she had given us the address of the guy who had the rest of the dynamite in his house. My guys got there, and this guy was another guy, uh a member of the Outlaws, he lived in a trailer park, and he had several cases of this dynamite underneath his trailer, and all these boxes are sweating right underneath. They had to evacuate the whole trailer park to start bringing these boxes. Actually, I started having to bring the things one by one out, you know. But yeah, that was that was incredible. And later, you know, maybe you go and you go, you know, you go tell war stories at the local pub, and we're all sitting there laughing, but it was scary for a minute, you know. I thought I was gonna be shot by this by this woman.

SPEAKER_00

Listen, I I never purchased anything like dynamite. I I've purchased a couple of things undercover. And you're right, it's that microphone never works, and you keep saying the code word, and you're waiting and you're waiting, and you're like, fuck it. And then you decide to take matters into your own hands. I laughed so hard when I saw that story. I just I had to read it again. It was that was a great story from.

SPEAKER_02

Because if you're a cop, you can picture yourself in a situation like it. Because we don't know when you go out there, you don't know what the hell you're gonna run into, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. Well, you were involved in several shootouts in Miami with the infamous Raf Rafael Leon Rodriguez, aka Emil Car, who was suspected in homicides from New York, different countries in a Miami. Could you tell us about him and and what you were involved in with him?

SPEAKER_01

He had an ongoing battle with another guy from Venezuela. A guy named winning the battle.

SPEAKER_02

Because every time Rafael, who we whom we knew was Emilcar, every time he stuck his nose out of wherever he was, Winston was there to shoot at him. I caught him swimming in it in the pool and shot him in the nose. Uh I mean I he found him driving one day, followed him, shot the hell out of his car. So he was being very careful, and we suspected him of about 21 murders, and possibly the murder of the Del Toro kids, and I believe they were in Queens. Two children that were found frozen in the basin of a of an unused post office. They had been wired to the columns in the in the post office. Anyways, we suspected him of that. We had an informant who told us where he would be that afternoon, and a milkar was going to be at the famous Mutiny Hotel. So we set up all around Mutiny and we chase him out of the mutiny down US, down to Coral Gables, down to Miracle Miles, and boom, he disappears. And I'm asking my guys, I said, guys, we have a fucking airplane and seven units and radios. How did we lose him? And nobody could tell me. The airplane had had to leave the area because he was close to the landing pattern at Miami International. So that I understood. So they had to leave. But my other seven guys, I mean, God. So, anyways, we went around, we kept going around, and I saw him coming out of a French restaurant on Miracle Road and walking towards their car. So I told my guys, I had to turn around, come back around the block. And he left, they left in the car. And they drove to Le June Road, which is a very, very busy street in Miami. And it was right after school let out. So we had all the kids from Coral Gable High School walking to the Burger King in the corner, two blocks away from the school. And Milker and his driver just stopped right outside the Burger King on the road. They just stopped in the middle of the road. Apparently they had made one of my one or more of my cars. And so they didn't run, they just stopped. And I, you were a cop, so I'm gonna tell you this. This happened, something happened there that had never happened to me or anybody else in my department until that time. They sat there. This car was very, very uh had very dark tint. So you could hardly see inside. So I told my guys, I said, Well, you know, if they're not moving, we're gonna have to take him down. So I said, take them down. There was a car, a plain clothes car that came across the road and and blocked him in from the front. When my two guys came out of their car, a mill car and his chauffeur. Without warning, without opening the doors, without anything, they just opened fire from inside the car through the windshield. Without warning nothing, they my guys just dropped to the ground. One guy was what I when wouldn't I tell you in a minute I wouldn't anyway, so Amilcar and this guy take off, they get out of the car and they take off running. Cuban Marielito that just came from Cuba. They both run out with guns in their hands. Run to the corner, pushes a guy, stops a car, reaches inside the the car, pushes a guy away from the driver's side, opens a car, gets in the driver's side, and takes off. The black guy keeps running, and the guys that they had shot at keep chasing him. They chase him in in their car. So the guy, the bad guy, the black guy, turns around and aims at the car. Well, this is the car that had just been shot at. And my driver and my police officer said, Hey, Lieutenant, you know, I wasn't even about to stop again and say, hey, freeze police. He just ran him over. BAM! Okay, and ran his ass over. So he's down, but a milk car is gone. So we, you know, secure the scene, we take this guy down to the office, and while we're there, we get a call down. Uh we got a call that we have a guy downstairs who says that they have been he had been contact by a guy at the shooting. So we bring him up, and the guy was shaken up. He was a gay guy, and he was really shaken up. You know, he couldn't believe what had happened. So he tells us that Amilka pushed him over and drove to the proximity of the Biscayne Boulevard close to 36th Street, and that he stopped the car there. He apologized to the guy for taking his car and took off his Rolex and gave it to the guy. He says, Here's for your trouble. I said, Do you have a Rolex? He says, Yeah, right here. So he shows it to me. What are you doing? I said, This is evidence. The guy says, God damn it, I should have never come here. I should have sent the f ⁇ ing Rolex the next. So anyway, that was a Monday. We got into the shootout with him. On Tuesday, we're following to see where we can find him, and then Monday we start, the informant calls us again. He says, He's calling me at this number. So we trapped and traced the calls going into that number. So we trapped and traced several calls and we start following him. I start, I start, I develop a pattern where we started closing in, closing in, and finally two of my guys see him driving southbound or northbound on Northwest 45th Avenue, and they see him pulling into a into a parking space. My guys pull in and they get out, and the moment a mill car and the chauffeur get out, they open fire. They didn't say freeze police. And they said, Lieutenant, you know, based on what happened the day before, we weren't gonna say freeze police. And sure enough, both of those guys were armed again. They were they were in possession of fire, but they took off because my guys opened fire first. So they take off and they hide in a um in a laundry, the laundry room, and we got it, we we finally got him. So we arrested a milk car the second day after the third day after two shootouts. And it's funny, we he was a very nice guy when we caught him, you know. He would have killed us, but he was a very nice guy. And uh we're talking to him in my office, and one of the very top attorneys in Miami is a guy named Roy Black. And while we're talking to him, I get a I get a call into the intercom in the intercom says, uh, Lieutenant Roy Black's on the on the line. He says he's representing Rafael Leon Rodriguez. So I get on the phone, and I said, Hey Roy, how's it going? Good. You got my guy there. Yeah, I got a guy, got your guy here. I said, but do me a favor, can you give me like another hour? Because look, he's trying to bribe me, and I got him up to 15 million, so so give me another. He says, Fuck you! Fuck you, get stop talking to him, do not talk to him anymore. I said, Come on, Roy, you're not gonna miss your feet. You know, and so so we had to turn him loose and turn him over to Roy Black.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and Emil Carr got life in prison for his troubles. I said Emil Carr was eventually convicted on multiple murders and and died in prison.

SPEAKER_02

He did die in prison. He died he died in 1995, I believe, of a of a heart attack. Which was an easy way for him to go. He should have gone a different way.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, he he he was evil. Roel, can you talk about the brazen assassination attempt of Papo Majia in uh the Miami International Airport?

SPEAKER_01

You sailed had an ongoing feud with the Mahias for a long time.

SPEAKER_02

So she found out that Papa was coming to Miami, and she found out the time and the the flight and when he would be uh, you know, uh arriving in Miami. So she she somehow she had come into possession of uh of a bayonet, and she was playing with it, and she told Ribby, she said, I want you to go to the airport and kill Papu. In the airport with this bayonet. And Riby, who was a lot of things but not stupid, said, not gonna do that because you're asking me to commit suicide, but I will give it to somebody else. He says, Okay, give it to somebody good. So Miguel Perez, Miguelito, was a Marielito who was wanting to make a name for himself inside of Griselda's organization. So he tells he tells Rivi, I'll take it, I'll kill him with a bayonet in the airport. So Ribi was there in a car waiting for Miguelito to do the deed, and Papu and his his and a lady, whether his wife or his daughter or somebody come out of a customs enclosure. Miguelito approaches him and stab the hell out of him. You know, you're talking about Miami Airport as being a target of of terrorists and crazy Cubans and things like that, you know. So, yeah, I mean, they they had bombed the hell out of the airport one time. So they catch Miguelito, remixes that and takes off. So we brought Miguelito to to the office for interviewing. At first, he started telling us that that Colombian guy had violated, had had raped his daughter, and that it was a uh it was uh an honor thing that he had to do because because this man had raped his daughter. Miguelito didn't even have a daughter, but anyways, uh she you know this is his story. And while he's sitting there, he's sitting, he's sitting there with with with leaning on the back of the chair, he's turning the chair around and lean, and leaning with what he had his, he was handcuffed on the back. So he's leaning to forward, and he's leaning back, leaning forward, and leaning back, playing around with the chair, and he slides back out of the chair and slides down the wall, and the outlet on the wall was sticking out from the wall, and caught in the wires, and he got shot. I mean, he starts like he starts doing the chicken right there, you know? And so one of my guys had had the thought to kick his hands out of the outlet, and I guess saved his ass. But that was the end of the interrogation of Bigalito. Did he ever offer to cooperate? No. No, no, no. He went and took this time. You know, this is the same guy that a few months before had walked onto a soccer field and killed a guy right there in the middle of the afternoon. He shot the guy in the head several times, walked away, got in the car and took off.

SPEAKER_00

Did he know the guy? I mean, was it a hit or he just felt like doing it? It was a hit for Griselda. Bro, you had an infamous confidential informant with international ties, Ricky the Monkey Morales, and he must have been one tough guy that he got shot in the head and then pushed the bullet out of the entrance wound. Huh. Can you just go into a little bit about about him?

SPEAKER_02

Um unusual character. When they ri when when he died, they broke the mold. Uh there's never been there will never be another one like him. Uh he was trained at a very young age uh by his brother and others in bombs and bombings. And then when Castro took over, he was old enough to be a police officer, so he joined the G2, which was a secret police at the time, and he was further trained. So I often thought, you know, that he may have been like the top agent that Cuba had. But anyway, he was government and went into the Brazil the Brazil the the Brazil embassy and was taken to the United States. Then he started training for the Bay of Pigs. He started training for a group called Operation 40. And Operation 40 was a group of trained assassins. If the invasion had succeeded, this people in Operation 40 were responsible for killing those diehards of Castro's regime. Okay, so there would be no left over, as many as it took, it didn't matter. So he when the invasion failed, obviously they didn't he didn't get to go into Cuba. So he stayed back and he I don't know, he he started working with with some criminal organizations. He went to the Congo as a mercenary. Uh he committed whatever he did up there. In one of the depositions, they asked him how many people he had he ever killed, and he said, 15,000 and one. And they asked him, How did he come to the number? He said, Well, we had 10,000 prisoners in the stadium in the Congo, and they asked me to wire it for explosives, and then we blew it up with 15,000 people inside. And the one was Eladio Armando Ruiz. So, anyways, that that situation that you're talking about, that incident, was the beginning of his and Elio Ruiz's uh battle because he and Eladio had been both together at the Congo and they had come back like best of friends. But Eladio had killed my informant, Herman Lamazares, and then uh Ricardo had cooperated with me in charging Eladio with a first-degree murder. Eladio found out he got out of bond and went hunting for Ricardo. And one night Ricardo parked in front of his girlfriend's house, and they shot him through the back window, through the passenger site back window and hit him in the head. He decided, and the car outside kept going slowly. Ricardo took the bullet because apparently when he went through the window, apparently it had lost velocity when when it went through the window and it only and it remained subcutaneous. So he pulled that bullet out through the same hole it had gone into. Okay? That the hole that he made to get into. So he took the the bullet and placed it on top of the dashboard. He reached, he reached up and took the bulb out of the seating of the car, so that when he opened the door, the light wouldn't go on. Then opened the door, reached in the glove compartment, took his brownie and kind of duckwalked behind the cars at the on the street, and he got to the end and he lifted his head up and saw that it was Eladio Ruiz who got shot. But that takes an incredible, incredible amount of cold blood, you know. A lot of thanks for all here, because I would have been shot in the head and I would have been screaming like a girl out of the car.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah!

SPEAKER_02

No. How? Can you imagine that? I mean, that takes a lot of a lot of oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, just just the fact that he was able to keep it together that knew that by putting on the interior light would bring more attention to him than he was alive. Yeah. That he took the bulb out to kind of slip out of the car so he wouldn't catch more fire.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the guy was incredible. Another time, another time, you know, just uh a couple of years before.

SPEAKER_02

He calls me and says, uh, they said, Raul Ricardo's on the phone. I said, okay. Everybody in my unit knew Ricardo. So uh I picked it up. I said, Hey, how you doing? I said, Where are you? He says, In my command post. I said, In your command post? What are you talking about? He said, Yeah, I just got bombed. My car got bombed, I was driving. I got a little ping on my leg. I'm bleeding a little bit, but I I came over to this apartment and this lady let me in and I've established my command post. Shit. And so we all responded to Rick's command post. Found that his car had been wired with a uh grenade, and it went off at 72nd in Slagr in Miami. But here it was. I mean, he was driving, bam, all of a sudden his car blows up, his tire goes out, smoke, he opens the door and runs to this lady's apartment and sets up this command boost.

SPEAKER_00

You know, reading your book, I mean, I grew up in New York City, but I mean, reading your book, I had no idea the amount of political bombings that went on in the Miami area that the Miami Herald kept a running uh total called the Miami Bombing Box Score.

SPEAKER_02

It was unlike any other city in the United States. That's another thing that that those times were unlike any other times in any other city in the United States. Um New York and Jersey were, you know, they were they were pretty active too.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I remember there was an FBI agent they called Mr. Cuba, because he knew more about Cuban exiles and Cuban terrorists than anybody else. His name was Frank O'Brien. A real, real nice Irish guy, wonderful guy. And he knew more about Cubans than anybody in the United States than anybody else I knew. So, yes, your act, your area was very active too. But Miami was the you know the place.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you know, it's it what I was intrigued by is you had the the anti-Castro movement, and if someone like there was a couple of people in your book, a publisher and a um a radio host, and all they said was innocently, you know, maybe violence isn't the way to get back at Castro, and then their lives immediately were targeted for assassination.

SPEAKER_02

You know, Vic, we were we were in over our heads, okay? In any other in any other country, if you take a police officer from the streets and you assign him to work counter-terrorism in France, Spain, England, Germany, before that uniform officer goes on to fill the space in the counter-terrorism unit, that officer will undergo an incredible amount of I was told on Friday, June 17th, I believe. Yeah, it was the day my father-in-law got caught inside what are you eight. So he that Friday my lieutenant in uniform called me and he said, Hey, you can take a break, go home now, go early because today is your last day in uniform, you have to report to the uh on Monday. And that was it. Monday I was a detective. When I burned myself out, not not mentally, just burned my identity in undercover narcotics. I was transferred to counter-terrorism. Well, no special training. He was on the job talking. Well, the the the the monkey probably helped me more than anybody else. You know, the monkey, my father and and and my father-in-law helped me more than anybody else. And I started buying my own books and getting educated on on Cuban person. So it was um it was a hell of a time. These two guys, especially the radio guy that you mentioned, I took that personally. I it really, really hurt me what happened to him, and now it happened.

SPEAKER_01

Because he had trusted in me.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and and there's a quote from your book, political homicides and bombings always happen on a Friday.

SPEAKER_02

You know, I still have not figured that out.

SPEAKER_01

I mean I I they did Friday, Million You ready, you guys? Friday. On a Friday. Good Friday. Not Estimus, Friday. We're hit on Friday. All of them. Most bombings occurred on Friday nights. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_00

You know, maybe they thought specialized units worked Monday to Friday. They were right. Yeah, and there wouldn't be the initial push. If it happened on a Monday, detectives and everyone would be around, you know, for the next four or five days working this thing 24-7. They probably figured they would catch you guys with your pants down with a skeleton crew. You know what I mean? A guy goes on vacation, takes a long weekend. And you know how it is, like they call the first 48. If you don't got to start getting leads, the case there's a better chance of the case going cold.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, your book reads like a Tom Clancy spy novel. And at one point during your career, you were asked what's serving legendary CIA agent and Watergate burglar, E. Howard Hunt, a subpoena in federal prison.

SPEAKER_02

He's funny because Howard, everybody in Miami called Howard Howard, you know, and nobody called him because he was so well known and so well loved, you know. And uh and he had been with my father-in-law through Watergate. He was, you know, he was he was uh like almost like family, you know, just kicked out of the academy because he went to see, he went to check how I was doing. I wanted to make sure that I was doing well. And the sergeant who was in charge, the sergeant was a a New York, a New York transplant that we had. Uh Arnie De Luca was uh from a New York cop. So Arnie was the supervisor of the academy at that time, and Hunt approaches him, identifies himself as a, you know, shows him a Department of Justice ID, and and he tells him that he wants to see my file. And and never told De Luca why. So when he leaves, De Luca wanted my my resignation because I was under investigation by the Justice Department. Anyways, when we were in the trial of Rolando Otero El Condor, or the mad bomber, because that guy laid like like 11 bombs in Miami in like three days. And they all went off. We were in his trial in in uh Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Howard was in Eglin Air Force Base Jail, which was like a you know, golf courses and things like that. So I had to serve him with a subpoena. I have been sworn in as a deputy sheriff in uh Walton and I I was given the subpoena, and my friend Art Castro from the city of Miami had also been sworn in, had been in the CIA with Howard. So we get to the jail and they take us to Howard's room and they open the cell and there he is writing. So he turns around and I said, Hello, Howard, I'm Raul Rolando's son-in-law. Oh, he gets up and he comes over, he gives me a hug, gives me a hug, a big hug. I'll go to see you again. And then Art says, I'm Art Castro's son. Oh my God, how is Art doing? And you know, like and the guy from the jail is looking at this and and he still hasn't seen the subpoena served yet, you know. So we finally give the subpoena to Howard, and when when we get back to the sheriff's office, Frankie I. Mills was the sheriff. And he says, uh, in my office, please, gentlemen. So he says, you guys know Howard Hunt? I said, yes, sir, we do know Howard Hunt. So I explained to the sheriff how my father-in-law have been arrested in in Washington for the Watergate thing. And how Howard and I didn't get to finish. He said, Oh my god, your father is a patriot! I said, Yes, sir, he is that. He said, All right, no problem. Okay, you guys have a good time. I'll see you later. You know, so we get we get to the next, we get out to court, we go to the local water water hole there for the police, and there's a guy sitting there saying, Hey, there's a guy that's followers of paycheck. My dad was my father, my father-in-law, you know. You know how stories are, they get they start getting so. Yeah, that was incredible.

SPEAKER_00

Well, crazier than that, I mean, yeah, that your father-in-law was a watergate burglar, was was arrested. You kind of glossed over this in your book, and I'm fascinated by it. When you were a kid, you rubbed elbows with Jewel Thief and Murderer, Jack Murph the Surf Murphy, and and Roger Clark. Yeah. I'm reading this and I'm like, what the hell?

SPEAKER_01

Because how was the hotels used kids in the mornings to set up the pool area?

SPEAKER_02

You know, we go to the we go to the we we we go to the uh uh stacks and pull the mats out, then we lay the mats on the lounges, then we go to the laundry, we bring the towels, we put the pot towels on the on the la on the on the mats, then we go to school. Then in the afternoon we come back, we take the the towels off the mats, put them, take them down to the laundry, we pick up the mats, we line up the lounges, then we hose the ground. So they used us kids for that. And so my bosses, I had two hotels because they were small. They were not big, they were not real big in the pool area, though. I I used to do the Delmonico and the Casablanca. And the beach boy at the Casablanca was Murph, and at the Delmonico was Roger. So they used to, you know, like they took care of me, they paid me. And Alan used to come visit. And Roger, I mean, and and Murph actually taught a lot of us how to surf.

SPEAKER_01

So that's how I got involved with that. And then with with John Clarence, my mother was his wife's, you know, seems to.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and uh and Ricky the monkey morales blew up his boat and almost killed your mom.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, incredible. Yeah. Yeah. I told him, I told him, I said, well, when we first met him, I said, you almost killed my mom. And he looks at me and I said, but I didn't, did I? I said, I can't.

SPEAKER_00

I didn't know if I was ever gonna like this gun. Well, just to back up, but for those of you that don't know, uh Murph the Surf was an infamous jewel thief who robbed the New York City uh Museum of Natural History, where he repelled into the repelled in off the roof and made off with the priceless star of Indian India Sapphire. Then he was later implicated, I think it was a murder or a double homicide of two women or one woman, went to got life and somehow got out and then became like a minister and a counselor, but like in the 60s and 70s, like his name was all over the place.

SPEAKER_02

You know that that Murph was at a very young age, like seven or eight years old, he was already a violin virtuoso and a master player of chess. Murph, I don't know if he's dead or alive, was a genius if he if he's still if he's dead. And if he is alive, he's still a genius. I mean, a genius.

SPEAKER_00

Well, we were talking earlier about your undercover experiences, and you were you were a new undercover. Can you share the story about the time you were torpedoed?

SPEAKER_02

We were forming a new vice intelligence and narcotics unit in the 7th district of Miami-Dane County Police. It was for the Southwest District. And I kept hammering my guys. I said, listen, we're not in the movies, you don't wet your finger and stick it in the powder and then stick it in your in your tongue again, okay? We do not do that. We do not touch any other shit because if it's lazy, you guys are gonna be seeing some weird shit. Okay, which is really not happening, okay? But I don't want you thinking that I'm some alien and you just shoot my ass. Okay, so you do not take anything. Okay, okay, sorry, okay, sorry. So here we are, and we made a contact with uh through an informant, and he's gonna introduce us to a couple who was going to sell us, and I said, Look, I'm gonna go with you guys the first time. So, you know, uh just follow my lead, okay? So we go in, it's an apartment, like a two-bedroom apartment in Kendall District, right off US1 and Kendall. And so we go in, uh, we start talking, small talks. The girl says, You guys drink? Would you like a drink? They prepare a drink, we sit down, we talk. And uh I said, Can we see the I'd like to test the croak? He says, Okay, I'll I will know whatever her husband is, he's gonna go get it. Apparently they had it in the car. So he walks out and she says to me, Have you ever had a torpedo? Well, you know, she had been talking about drinks, you know. So I said, No, I never had a torpedo. Oh, I'm gonna make one for you, okay? So she goes, comes back with her hands behind her with her hands with her hands behind her back, and she says, Okay, lean your head back. I lean my head back and Jesus, Vic. I fast. I mean, it was my head wasn't in back, and she takes this straw and shoves it in my nostrils and went.

unknown

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02

And I swear to you that my hair stood up, my eyes I couldn't see. I I got her off me. I said, What the f was that? She said, Oh, it was some coke. I said, I hope it wasn't a lot of coke. Well, I was bouncing around for the next three or four hours, and my guys are having the greatest time. Hey, Lieutenant, how about that thing about we're not in the movies or TV or anything? Sorge, hey, sorry. Yeah. So we got the keto, we bought everybody wrestling.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you you you you were involved with a lot of major players in the Miami area. Did you ever have any interactions with Los Muchachos, Sal Maglotta, and uh Willie Falcone?

SPEAKER_02

No, you know what? Those two guys were under our under our radar because when I went to homicide, we started concentrating on Latin related, Latin narcotics-related homicides.

SPEAKER_01

And Willie and Sal had never been known for killing people. They just excluded them from the world.

SPEAKER_02

And that was you know, to some people who would have rather gotten killed than be excluded from Willie's and Sal's presence. So, no, I had never anything to do with them. I I knew them and I had I had spoken with Willie because his mother had been kidnapped, right? Which is something that has never been mentioned in any of these stories. We had a case where the brother of a up-and-coming marijuana distributor had been kidnapped. And they had asked for a million dollars. And he delayed in getting it because not everybody has, not even these guys, have a million dollars in cash available. And so he took a little too long, and they sent him. They placed, they, they, they put his brother's ear, one of his brother's ear, in his mailbox. And then and they and picture of his brother sitting on a chair, tied up to the chair. His brother was found in the canal in a chair. So then they kidnapped Willie's mother and they asked for whatever it was, whatever it was they asked for, he gave it to them because he got his mother back.

SPEAKER_01

And so I wanted to talk to him to see what had happened with the kid with the kidnapped. That's how, but that's the only thing interaction they had with him.

SPEAKER_00

We were taught you were talking about earlier about the um the Florida Turnpike shootout with El Loco. Did you ever have any dealings with El Loco?

SPEAKER_01

No, Loco went went out on bond, and I don't think we caught him again. I don't know. Oh, he vanished. Huh? Oh, he vanished. I didn't realize that.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, he in those days, uh, there were judges who thought that for depending on the attorney you have, depending on your attorney, you know, like Analyor Luis, the guy who who'd murdered my informant, and he was charged with murder in the first degree, and he got out on a$5,000 bond.

SPEAKER_01

But he had the right attorney.

SPEAKER_00

Raul, there's a great story from your book, Killing the Lieutenant, available on Amazon that has a pushy Geraldo Rivera storming into your conference room and demanding that you give him a ride along.

SPEAKER_01

Hey, you know something I didn't know who Geraldo Rivera was.

SPEAKER_02

I never saw the news. I made news, I didn't need to watch them, you know? So I would get home, I'd got I'd grab a book or something. I didn't want to watch TV, I didn't want to hear about anything else. I just, and I had no idea of who Geraldo Rivera was. So I'm doing this briefing, we're gonna search your house for weapons. I was in with a camera guy behind me. And I asked, I said, Who are you? He says, I'm Geraldo Rivera, with whatever place he was, with whatever station he was at the time. I said, and who is Heraldo Rivera? And so he says, I am Geraldo Rivera of this and that, and I've covered I don't know how many wars. I and I said, Well, yeah, but there's one war you haven't covered. This war, this war, and as far as I know, you're not gonna cover it tonight with me. So he leaves in a few minutes he comes back with my body from PIO. Hey Raul, you know, I forgot to tell you, but he was cleared. Uh, he was cleared by the director's office that he goes and accompanies you. And I said, God damn, man, but we just, you know, we just briefly, and I don't want this guy in the middle. No, no, no. He knows to keep this. So we go downstairs and park right in front of the parked right in front of our front door. This is huge. And so he walks to the back doors of the limo and opens one, and there's two hookers from the beauty sitting in the back of the of the limo. I go, girls, what are you doing here? Again, with Geraldo, we're gonna do, we're gonna follow you. No, no, no, no, no, no, you are not, absolutely not gonna follow me. I said, Geraldo, you can get your ass in one of our cars with your cameraman, but this current, and especially with his beautiful lady, is not follow me around Miami, okay? So we did that. He took his film, and later on he was at the mutiny, I guess.

SPEAKER_00

Raoul, can you share your story about how you got an offer to join the CIA?

SPEAKER_02

Well, after my father-in-law came out of jail, the the CIA was very, very kind to him, you know, and Rolando knew I had uh I only had a two-year degree, but I had something the CIA was looking for in those days, which was my Spanish.

SPEAKER_01

And I also knew a lot about Cuban terrorism and left-wing terrorism and African American. Okay.

SPEAKER_02

I had studied the Symbionese Liberation Army, uh studied uh uh the the the organizations uh left wing and and right wing, uh KKK, all of them.

SPEAKER_01

So he knew I had that knowledge, and he to make me an offer, you know, without having a four-year degree.

SPEAKER_02

So I would pay for a four-year degree later. So I I talked to Tanya and said, Listen, your stepfather got me an opportunity to go to work with the CIA, and they're willing to take me. And I'd like to go. And Tanya, who was the smartest, the smarter of the two of us, okay, said, Absolutely not. No way in hell are you going to work for the CIA. We've been through hell with Rolando, and I'm not gonna go through hell with you, too. And I understood, you know, Rolando used to go and and come home and say, uh weeks. And he'd be gone for six weeks or something, come back all sunburned and bitten, you know, yeah. So she didn't want any part of that. And, you know, I she wouldn't let me, she wouldn't allow to, she wouldn't want to do anything with any department or organization that would take us, take our family away from Miami. She was a Miami girl, and that was it. She was not going anywhere else.

SPEAKER_00

Raul, Barry Seal was a drug smuggling pilot who, after cooperating with authorities, the cartel put a contract on his life. He was machine gunned to death in, I think it was Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Later on after your police career, you become a private investigator, and you're hired by the defense to investigate, and you discover that a police lineup was intentionally set up. Could you go into that?

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

There was a um a lineup conducted by the state uh the I mean by the Baton Roots Police Department and the State Attorney's Office, Louisiana's uh that that district or that state attorney's office for the identification of the shooter and the driver involved in the actual shooting of Barry Seal.

SPEAKER_01

And so they had a woman, first name Col Colleen.

SPEAKER_02

I'm not gonna get into the last name, and um she had been interviewed by a local PD investigator, public defenders investigator, and she had refused to talk to him. So I asked the guys, uh the the attorneys, I said, let me let me try her, give her a try again. So I gave it a try and she agreed to talk to me. And I I thought I told her I was uh going to record, she said, fine. So I'm recording her. And I said, When you went and identified the person, how did that go?

SPEAKER_01

And then she says, It's all about the first time or the second time or the third time.

SPEAKER_02

And I didn't even I said, Let's talk about the first time. Okay, right. And she tells me that the first time she went in and they gave her a paper with numbers and told her to mark the number on the person she recognized as the shooter. So she marked it, went outside, handed it to put her name, handed it to the officer, and a couple of minutes later the officer came back and said, It's the wrong guy. Gave her another form and sent her back in. So she went back in and marked a second number and came back out, and he told her again, it's the wrong guy. You know, out of six guys, he's already, she's he already eliminated two, so she only got four. So she went in and picked the next guy and she picked the right guy. Because she picked the shooter. So she picked Luis and he was a shooter. So that was, I mean, a lot of people got up, a lot of people in the prosecution got pissed off at me. I said, listen, let me tell you something. You guys are stupid. Okay, if you think that I that is my fault, no, no, no, it's on you. That one is completely on you. Okay?

SPEAKER_01

So that's that's what happened. They lost they lost her ID. So and her ID would be really huh? And they still got the conviction. Oh, listen, Vic. I mean you're talking about Lake Charles, Louisiana. All right.

SPEAKER_02

Lake Charles, Louisiana is there, you know, uh five blocks are in the Bays. So the jury pool there is very pro law enforcement. They speak a lot of patois there that you don't understand what the hell they're saying. So I knew we were in trouble the moment they they changed the location, they changed venue for that doubt. I told everybody, I said, these guys don't stand a chance in hell of getting off. Okay. Uh and it happened. I mean, all of them were were found guilty of each and every count. So they were sentenced to death in the w in there with their place in the worst prison in Louisiana. Uh and I was staying at a holiday in and went to court a couple of times, and people learned that I was a former lieutenant. Uh, you know, the usual questions, how can you be doing this now? How can you do this? How can you do that? Hey, guys, I'm doing it. You know, it's just, I said, if the guy, if you guys did everything right, then you shouldn't worry about me. You know? So about the third or fourth day in there, there's a young girl, beautiful girl, and she approaches me and she says, Are you a PI? I said, Yes. She says, Oh, I want to be a PI. Can I hang around with you? I said, I don't. Oh, I'm very sorry, but no, no, thank you. Well, the next day, no, that evening, I go to change to shower and change and get ready to go have dinner, and there's a bouquet of flowers in my room. I go, wow. So it's By her. You know, welcome to Lake Charles. I'm sorry if I was too, you know, it wasn't when I she's asking to to meet next day for lunch. And I'm about to go out. I said, wait a minute. These people can't be that fucking stupid. I go back, I'm looking, and there is a fucking microphone. It's a flower. Right? So I went to the attorneys and I told him, I says, Well, I wanna no no no, don't say anything. Don't say anything. Let's use it to our benefit.

SPEAKER_01

Okay? So one of the attorneys had one of the girls in his office go and get a second room under somebody's name.

SPEAKER_02

And she gave me that key, and that's where I was sleeping. But whenever we I wanted to create havoc, I would go into my room and I would uh I would make up a conversation on the phone with somebody and I would and I know I drove them fucking crazy. You know, because I would come up with all kind of this information. I was having a great time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so came back, they looked again, and the microphone was gone. Just figure they figured I I knew.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I hope they take away from it that there's a lot more involved into police work than they think they know. Um everybody thinks uh cops are you know have no hearts, have no feelings. They don't understand the dynamics of a police officer's family.

SPEAKER_01

What what other members of that family go through because of what we go through.

SPEAKER_02

Uh for some it's been hell, you know. Um and I I also want them to realize that we in this country we do a lot more than we're called to do without the training.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I hope they get a I hope they like it.

SPEAKER_00

I liked it. Well, I first saw you on the Cowboys documentary, and I always said this is 20 years ago, I'd really like to talk to that guy. Like, this guy is fascinating. And I started the podcast, and I saw you on another podcast, and I I begged the guy, I says, Can you get me Rawls contact information, please? And then we did an interview about two years ago at a brand, and then you know, you reached out to me, you've got this book, and I I encourage my listeners to buy it. It's called Killing the Lieutenant. It's available on Amazon. It's a great read. I'm not just saying that. We just kind of scratched the surface with some of the stories from Raul's career and life. You're gonna enjoy it. Raul, I really appreciate you taking the time to do this interview.

SPEAKER_02

Uh thanks again, Rick. Uh uh, Vic. I really appreciate it. Good seeing you, MC, and and see that you're doing well too.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, my friend. Yeah, buddy. As always, I'd like to thank everyone for tuning in, especially my listeners in Manasqua, New Jersey, Spring Hill, Florida, Moxville, North Carolina, and Cobbleskill, New York. If you worked in law enforcement and had an interesting criminal background, please drop me a note on Twitter or Instagram at VicFerrari50. If you're watching on YouTube, please hit the like, subscribe, and hype buttons. And if you enjoy the content, check out my Amazon author page. Just type in my name, Vic, Ferrari Like the Car, where you can preview all my NYPD books for free. Thanks again, everyone, and I'll see you next week.