0:15

Pushkin. Previously

0:23

on deep cover, Ned

0:25

Timmins was finally getting somewhere. His

0:28

big breakthrough came in the spring of nineteen

0:30

eighty five, when Clinton shined Anderson

0:33

flipped. Shine was in charge of vetting

0:35

everyone in this smuggling network. I

0:38

know it was a massive operation, and

0:40

I knew that we had the

0:43

key to the safety deposit box

0:45

to open it all up. Shine

0:48

pointed Ned to a spot on the North Carolina

0:51

coast where he said his bosses had

0:53

smuggled marijuana into the country.

0:55

So Ned picked up the phone and called

0:57

the FBI down in Wilmington, North Carolina,

1:00

asked them if they have any intel on drug

1:02

smugglers who were using shrimp boats. They

1:05

tell them, yeah, actually we had this one

1:08

case in particular involving an abandoned

1:10

drug boat, a ghost ship. Ned

1:15

quickly begins to realize that so

1:17

many of the answers he's seeking about

1:20

the ghost ship, the smugglers, their system

1:22

are right in Beaufort, North Carolina,

1:25

perfectly camouflaged in the underbrush.

1:28

Well, we're heading out of Beaufort right now. We're

1:31

actually going Highway seventy east.

1:34

It's about a twenty minute ride to Back

1:36

Creek, twenty minute ride, so yeah,

1:39

you'll get to see a little bit of the country. That's

1:42

Carl Cannon Jr. He's a big,

1:44

strapping guy with this epic

1:46

beard. The word swashbuckling

1:49

suits him well. Carl's a local

1:51

guy, born in Bred and Beaufort. He's

1:53

showing me around the area. Now, if

1:56

you can picture a map in the United States,

1:58

We're on this little marshy spit

2:00

of land that sticks out from North Carolina

2:03

into the Atlantic Ocean. This whole

2:05

area is just a tangle of overlapping

2:07

inlets and waterways, a giant

2:10

aquatic maze. Really, this

2:12

is where Ned and Shine came back in the nineteen

2:15

eighties. It was just one of many trips

2:17

they took together across the country to

2:19

gather evidence. I went down

2:21

to Beaufort to retrace their steps.

2:24

So as you can tell, like I say, the

2:27

stuff's getting dense. You see all these little canals

2:29

that come up in these little areas.

2:31

This is North River to our right. We're

2:35

headed to Back Creek, to the very

2:37

spot where the ghost ship was supposed to unload

2:39

its cargo if everything had gone according

2:42

to plan. You know, as you can see now,

2:44

the trees are starting to thick end, which

2:46

is pretty typical for most of our country roads and areas,

2:49

you know, in land and coastal. You're

2:51

basically going to cross several places that are

2:53

basically wide open either swamps

2:56

or wooded swamps, much

2:58

like you have in Everglades. The

3:00

little road that we're driving on, it eventually

3:03

ends at the water's edge.

3:09

I take this a baby eagle. It

3:15

sounds like it. Carl and I get

3:17

out and walk along the shore for a bit. The

3:20

vegetation is dense, insanely

3:22

thick. Carl starts pointing down

3:24

the shore at what looks like just another clump

3:26

of overgrown bushes. They

3:28

would have come up through the canal,

3:30

which is the darker set of trees. You

3:33

can't see the entrance because it kind of disappears. I

3:35

can't. I can't see it at all from here. No, it's

3:37

just I can tell by the line of the woods

3:39

where it's at, where the opening is.

3:41

But you can if you kind of see a drop and then another

3:44

drop, that drop is where that creak

3:46

is. As they looked

3:48

out on this vast, watery expanse,

3:51

I started to get it, started to

3:54

see it. Here. You had a spot with

3:56

enough boat traffic that a decent sized ship

3:58

would not attract attention. But then

4:00

you also had a maze of coves and

4:02

inlets where that same boat could suddenly

4:05

disappear. It was perfectly

4:07

concealed, invisible. Really clearly

4:10

someone knew what they were doing. I'm

4:18

Jake Albert and this is

4:20

Deep Cover, Episode

4:23

four, The Gentleman Smuggler.

4:52

There are a few things to know about my local

4:54

guide Carl. First off, he

4:57

has a not so secret identity.

4:59

We name be Captain Carl Cannon Junior,

5:02

I portrayed Blackbeard. Yep,

5:05

Carl is a pirate reinactor. Fiddler's

5:08

Green is a please I've heard too well.

5:11

Pirus good when they don't go to hell

5:14

with the girls who are all pretty, and the beer

5:17

is all free and there's

5:19

bottles over him hanging from

5:21

every tree. Wrap

5:24

me up in the Carl

5:28

volunteers at the local museum.

5:30

He became Blackbeard because he had

5:32

the one major job requirement.

5:35

His beard he was born

5:37

kind of dangling down his chest. He

5:39

was already braiding it too. People would

5:41

tell him, hey, you look like Blackbeard.

5:44

And then came the job opening. Because

5:48

the former black Beard kind

5:51

of might have a fall from

5:53

grace, so to speak, and he was dismissed by the

5:56

museum fall from grace. What do you mean

5:59

he was doing some things that wasn't

6:01

thought to be quite family friendly

6:04

appropriate. You might say that he was

6:06

had a side job that he was performing

6:10

as Blackbeard and a

6:12

funny kind of you adult

6:14

manner. He was doing adult parties. Carl

6:22

is kind of the mascot at Beaufort, North Carolina,

6:24

because the place now sells itself as Pirate

6:27

Town, USA, and every other

6:29

storefront you'll see a skull and crossbones

6:31

the Jolly Roger flag. But

6:33

Carl is not just some random reenactor.

6:36

His family has lived here for generations,

6:38

and he says that the ghost ship wound up

6:40

here precisely because of this

6:43

pirate legacy, and these pirates

6:45

they tended to come and go depending

6:47

on the boom and bus cycle of a local

6:49

fishing economy. Carl

6:52

remembers how after a few bad shrimp

6:54

seasons, some fresh faces showed

6:56

up in town. Some of the

6:59

drug cartel folks came

7:01

in and just

7:03

gently started asking questions around some of the fish

7:06

market and boat owners, and then encouraged

7:08

them to get their friends to come together and

7:11

basically they'd presented to them around

7:13

town. They had secret meetings. It

7:15

was all word of mouth. My

7:18

dad was made an offer the same way.

7:21

One of his friends came to him and he said, I've got a

7:23

deal for you. Dad had bought a boat

7:25

in seventy four, had

7:28

mostly paid it off, but as all commercial

7:30

fishermen find out, hards a couple of hard seasons,

7:32

you need a new engine, or something

7:34

happens. They offered my dad if he would

7:37

come make a certain amount of runs for

7:39

him, run out and meet a mothership, come

7:41

back and go up into the base and unload away

7:44

from pride and eyes. Carl

7:46

says his dad. He never went to any

7:49

of these meetings, never took the offer,

7:51

but a lot of people that Carl knew, did,

7:54

So, you know, the temptation was there, and they

7:56

knew, and they knew the temptation was there that they

7:58

could offer to pay someone's boat off. You

8:01

know, when three much your boats paid for

8:03

and you'll never see us again. So

8:06

this is pirate Town, USA,

8:08

a place where pirates and smugglers had

8:10

been plying their trade for well

8:12

centuries. And this only made me

8:14

wonder more what exactly went wrong

8:17

with the ghost ship if these smugglers

8:19

were such probs and this setting

8:21

was so perfect, what the hell

8:23

happened? Why was the ship abandoned

8:26

the twenty nine thousand pounds of drugs in

8:28

the hold? To

8:34

find out, I visited Doug McCullough,

8:36

who at the time was the first assistant US

8:38

Attorney in the Eastern District of North Carolina.

8:41

He still lives in Beaufort. We met down

8:43

at the harbor just as the storm was coming

8:45

in. Some wind up here. It looks like there's

8:47

some weather coming in here. So where are

8:49

we? We're standing in Beaufort, downtown

8:52

Beaufort. Doug points

8:54

out to the spot where the ghost ship first

8:56

appeared on the horizon as it was coming

8:58

in from sea, and there was another

9:01

boat with it too, a small skiff,

9:03

almost like a guide boat, leading it in.

9:06

They came through this narrow passageway known

9:08

as Beaufort Inlet, and Doug kind of

9:10

points it out to me in the distance. And

9:12

there's something else that Doug wants to show

9:15

me. As you and I look out,

9:17

there's an island right in front

9:19

of us. And then over the top of that island you can

9:21

see a big flagpole with the American flag

9:23

and that's at the US Coastguard station.

9:27

That station was here back in eighty two.

9:29

In fact, that night, two coastguardmen

9:32

known as coasts noticed the shrimper

9:34

and the little guideboat coming in through the inlet,

9:37

and both vessels appeared to be drifting

9:39

out of the channel. They were just a bit off

9:41

course, so the coasts went out

9:43

to investigate. First, they pull up alongside

9:46

the little guide boat and in it they

9:48

see someone who is clearly not a

9:50

fisherman. He

9:54

was dressed for a disco.

9:57

This is the eighties member Saturday Night

9:59

fever, flared pants. He had a shirt

10:01

that was a silk and it was open to his sternham.

10:05

He had gold chains, he had the

10:07

stacked heel shoes, and

10:09

all these items you don't wear on an

10:11

open boat in carter At County. The

10:14

coasties knew something wasn't right. Eventually

10:17

they decided they want to check out the shrimp boat

10:19

too. It had since pulled up alongside

10:22

and nearby fuel dock. So

10:24

one of the coast's boards of the shrimp boat

10:26

and makes a move to go down below

10:28

deck. He said he was going to inspect the hold,

10:31

and that's when heard a shotgun rack around makes

10:33

a very distinctive chunk sound, and

10:36

anybody's ever been around a gun has

10:38

heard that sound would recognize it immediately the

10:40

coast. He's back away and go to get help. A

10:43

short while later, the police show up. The

10:45

shrimp boat's still there, but its

10:47

crew has fled. From

10:50

the outside it was it had its nets,

10:52

and it had the boom and the

10:55

other accouterments that you would expect

10:57

on a shrimper. It's only when you got

10:59

inside that you saw things that didn't

11:01

match. All that remained

11:03

was the cargo twenty nine thousand

11:06

pounds of pot. They

11:11

had a few early leads names

11:13

that turned out to be bogus, all dead

11:15

ends. The story made headlines in

11:17

part because the FEDS had almost

11:20

nothing on the ship except

11:22

that it was there. What was

11:25

like a ghost was the fact that we

11:27

didn't get any people at that time. You know,

11:29

everybody got away. It was a very

11:31

frustrating investigation because case

11:33

just sat on the shelf for almost

11:35

three years. All the law enforcement

11:37

agencies just kind of moved on, and we were

11:39

all just in a state of waiting

11:42

until Ned Timmans contacted

11:45

the nearest FBI office to Wilmington,

11:48

and he says, I've got the witness you're going to need, and

11:50

that witness was Shine.

11:55

If we had to turn one person, this is the guy we wanted.

11:59

So after Ned calls down to the Wilmington

12:01

office, Ned and Shine make

12:03

their trip down to North Carolina. They

12:05

meet with Doug McCullough. But that's not all.

12:08

Shine also take Ned on a little swamp

12:10

tour to a hidden cabin that the

12:12

smugglers used. They just laughed

12:14

at They all still mattresses all

12:17

over and coffee and stale

12:19

food, and they just got

12:21

the hell out of there. And whoever owned the cabin

12:23

never came back either. So far Shine's

12:25

story was checking out, and Ned

12:28

was slowly building his case. We're

12:30

out in the swamp, were identifying where they stayed,

12:32

where they rented cars, the hotels,

12:35

they stayed in, motels, any

12:37

tracks that we can

12:39

establish evidence that these

12:41

specific people were there. Shine

12:44

explains that everything, every

12:47

last detail was orchestrated

12:49

by the syndicates. Master smuggler, a

12:51

guy who went by the name Skip.

12:59

He says, this Skip character, he

13:01

was so sure of himself that just

13:03

six months after the ghost ship was captured,

13:06

he tried it again. Dare

13:09

to pull off the exact same operation,

13:12

same route, same offloading

13:14

site, used another shrimp boat, only

13:16

bigger this time, and it worked

13:19

basically. Shine explains, while

13:22

you guys were scratching your heads over the mystery

13:24

of the ghost ship, we doubled down

13:26

and slipped another shipment right under your

13:28

noses. Skip

13:31

was so confident of his system, of

13:33

the camouflage that he had created, that he

13:35

was unfazed by the loss of a single

13:37

ship. So not a fiasco,

13:40

but a tiny glitch in the system.

13:42

They'd steered a bad course into the harbor

13:44

and had led a guy on board who shouldn't have been there.

13:47

Remember the guy in the disco outfit. Yeah,

13:49

him. It's a mistake they wouldn't

13:51

make again, because Skip, he was

13:54

a perfectionist. Coming

13:56

up after the break, I tracked down

13:58

the legendary's Skip. Turns

14:00

out his real name is Stephen

14:03

Kalish, and he lives in a beautiful

14:05

mansion in Hawaii. So

14:21

I'm in my rental car heading out to

14:23

the house of Stephen Kaylish, who, back

14:25

in the eighties was a master smuggler,

14:28

the guy sneaking in tons and tons of

14:30

marijuana into the US. Looking

14:33

for a big house with a red roof. Oh

14:39

wow, that's gotta be it. That's

14:41

beautiful. That is a big house

14:44

with a red roof. Eventually,

14:47

I pull into this big gate, you know,

14:49

one of those imposing things with a keypad

14:51

on the side. So I punch in

14:53

the code that Stephen texted me and

15:00

there goes Kate is

15:02

opening. Okay,

15:05

the Kingdom has opened. I

15:08

pull up to the house. It's this mansion

15:10

with a perfect view of the Pacific. I

15:13

mean, imagine the last scene in the Hollywood

15:15

movie where the hero lands. Well, very

15:18

well, this is the place. So

15:21

get out of the car and I see him skip

15:24

aka Stephen kaylish him

15:29

to see you,

15:32

and I gotta tell you at sixty seven, he's

15:35

this really handsome guy with a perfect

15:37

tan and a ponytail and a

15:39

trim muscular physique. And almost

15:41

right away he takes me to the stables on his

15:43

estate because well he's got to feed his

15:45

horses. RB

15:49

nice. Stephen

15:51

starts preparing their meal, which starts

15:54

off simply enough, so let's

15:56

just facene for

15:59

their coach. Now.

16:03

I don't know if you've ever seen someone feed horses,

16:06

but I can promise you that's not what's going

16:08

on here. I see Stephen mix

16:10

at least half a dozen different pretty

16:12

obscure seeming ingredients with

16:14

such precision. It's like I'm watching a world

16:17

class pharmacist prepare a highly complicated

16:19

drug. And then this is organic

16:22

sea kelp, which

16:24

has minerals

16:28

in it. This is

16:31

bokashi. It's organic, it's

16:33

made here on the island. It's like

16:35

a probiotic. They

16:38

get this in the morning, in the evening. I

16:41

feed them about seven fifteen in the morning,

16:44

in about four thirty and one alfternoon.

16:47

And just watching you feed your horses gives me a little

16:49

bit of sense of your organizational nature.

16:53

I like things to be in their place. It

16:55

makes life easier. Did

16:57

you have some version of that philosophy when you're running

16:59

your your smuggling business hundred

17:01

percent? And it's all about being organized

17:05

and having plants in place and backup

17:07

plans in got plans

17:11

always, always, always. As

17:15

we walk through the stables, Stephen explains

17:17

to me that there is a very deliberate

17:20

feeding sequence based on where

17:22

the horses are in the pecking order Archie's

17:25

number one, Danish

17:30

number two, Sonoma's

17:33

number three, Sky

17:36

Guy our quarter horses number four. How

17:39

do you see that pecking order like they

17:42

figure it out. Do you think that's true

17:44

of people too to some extent er, Well,

17:48

yeah, there is. I mean some people

17:50

are natural born leaders and some

17:53

people are or not.

17:55

By was a natural By was a

17:57

born leader. Growing up. By

18:00

was always the leader, but the neighborhood

18:03

kids. I had a paper out

18:05

from the time I was twelve years old

18:07

to about fifteen, and I

18:09

had the neighborhood kids working for me. Later,

18:15

when he was in high school, he made headlines when

18:17

he organized a protest in front of the state

18:19

capitol in Austin his cause

18:22

marijuana. In a newspaper article

18:24

that I found, Stephen is identified as

18:26

the leader of the quote beautiful

18:29

People's Republic, and he makes the

18:31

case for a decriminalization. Meanwhile,

18:34

back at home, his father, an

18:36

arch conservative, wasn't too

18:38

happy. His dad was a heavy

18:40

drinker who sometimes beat him.

18:43

Stephen ran away to California for a time,

18:46

taking and selling LSD, but

18:48

he eventually came back to Texas and re

18:50

enrolled in high school. He lived with some friends

18:53

to support himself. He started selling

18:55

pot and found out he was good at

18:57

it, and he was even better at teaching

18:59

others how to follow his lead. Basically,

19:02

I started buying a few pounds a pot and

19:05

breaking it up and then letting

19:07

my friends sell it to their friends. So,

19:09

while still in high school, he created his own

19:12

multi level marketing scheme the way

19:14

Avon sells perfume, only it's

19:16

weed. Eventually, the market

19:19

grew and Harve's buying more

19:21

pot, Dan shoving

19:23

more pot. I finished my junior

19:26

year at Beller High School, and by that time

19:28

I was making a couple of thousand dollars a month.

19:32

Stephen eventually expands his efforts

19:35

begins smuggling larger quantities of weed

19:37

in from Mexico across the Rio Grande,

19:40

and then he ups his game again.

19:42

He teams up with some Columbians and starts

19:44

using shrimp boats to bring in even

19:47

bigger loads to a small marina in

19:49

Texas. At this point, he's in his late twenties,

19:52

and then in nineteen seventy nine, a

19:54

guy at the marina they were using turned

19:56

out to be an informant, so

19:58

Stephen gets indicted and is facing a four

20:01

year sentence. He was out on a

20:03

federal appeal bond when he made

20:05

the biggest decision of his life.

20:11

Bye got them fake ID together.

20:13

I got a birth certificate of

20:16

a deceased person, got

20:18

a passport in the name of Thomas

20:21

Franklin, and flew

20:23

Downder the Cayman Islets, and

20:26

he just pretty much vanished,

20:30

making himself a fugitive. In

20:32

the coming years, law enforcement occasionally

20:34

got wind of this guy who went by

20:36

so many different names, mister

20:39

Franklin, Frank William Brown,

20:41

Stephen Sloane, and simply Skip.

20:45

And this Skip character. He flickered

20:48

on and off the radar of law enforcement

20:50

like a UFO, and

20:52

with time he became kind of a legend.

20:55

People called him the gentleman smuggler.

21:01

Roy Fuget, the detective down in Louisiana

21:04

who had investigated one of Skip ships.

21:06

He heard about him. They said he never

21:08

wore gone, that he was not violent, that he

21:10

was really smart, really organized,

21:12

very intelligent, good with the ladies.

21:15

If he had been in the military, he'd probably be a

21:17

general, I mean good organizer. He had

21:19

a really professional army of

21:22

drug smugglers that he was supervising. And

21:24

as it turns out, around this time the

21:26

FBI was also getting interested

21:28

in this Skip character. We

21:31

heard this name Skip, and apparently

21:33

we realized that Skip was a pretty pretty

21:36

much a shaker and a mover in the organization. That's

21:39

Stan Jacobson, an FBI agent

21:41

down in Tampa who'd been on Skip's trail

21:43

for some time. Skip's name kept

21:45

coming up in various drug investigations,

21:48

but he was a master at eluding

21:50

the authorities, beginning with that nickname.

21:53

It's very frustrating because you know, you go

21:55

to have a major player, and I'm

21:57

sure there are a lot of people named Skip in the country,

22:00

so you know, trying to find

22:02

out who that was. Because he

22:04

maintained a pretty low profile. I mean,

22:07

this guy, he wasn't out

22:09

there like, you know, like a mafia done who

22:11

sometimes liked to like the sound

22:13

of their own press. He

22:16

may have kept a low profile, been anonymous,

22:18

but they knew that he was no ordinary

22:21

smuggler. We weren't dealing with someone

22:23

that robbed the bank and you know, with a note,

22:25

we were dealing with a major operator. If

22:28

he had been in a

22:30

major US corporation, he'd have probably been a

22:33

CEO. Stephen

22:38

Keelis should become almost invisible,

22:41

which was basically his entire business

22:43

model, staying under the radar, making

22:45

sure everything was unseen. He

22:48

didn't hire speedboats to make deliveries

22:50

or get planes to drop bails from

22:52

the sky. For a fishing village like

22:54

Beaufort, North Carolina, he leased

22:56

shrip trawlers and just motored

22:58

right up to the offload site. He

23:01

had his own crew, but he also used

23:03

locals, the folks that felt most

23:05

at home there and had the right vibe. Guys

23:07

like Bobby Webb, a local Vietnam

23:10

vat who was looking for work Vietnam

23:14

did something to me. You know, we

23:17

got adrenaline, and you know, you live

23:19

one adrenaline and it kind

23:21

of chad changes you. It

23:23

makes you take chances that you wouldn't take

23:26

before. Bobby was a gunner

23:28

in Vietnam on a small fifty

23:30

foot aluminum vessel known as

23:32

a swift boat. We're

23:35

in at twenty four hours a day, twelve

23:37

hours on, twelve hours off, and

23:40

by the time that skipped met him, he was

23:42

still jones in for that adrenaline. Oh

23:45

yet excitement, because you know you're on that

23:47

boat. We had two fifty calibra machine guns,

23:50

a fifty calibual on this side, at fifty calor

23:52

on this side, and sometimes at M sixty

23:55

in the wheelhouse, and we always had two

23:57

in fourteens shooting news

23:59

guns, you know, and one of us had

24:01

to run the boat or the others shoot the damn guns.

24:04

Shooting this side and run of that side.

24:07

What's that feel like? Oh?

24:10

Doesn't like it when you're doing it?

24:13

Doesn't like it. Bobby

24:18

was the perfect guy for the job, a gutsy

24:20

dude with the resume of a modern day pirate.

24:23

It makes sense why Steven would want guys

24:25

like this. I mean, why not go right to the folks

24:27

who'd hunted and fish this land for generations,

24:30

the guys who may have been the very descendants

24:32

of Blackbeard's own men. Bobby

24:35

remembers being approached by a guy who worked

24:37

for Skip. Skip had an

24:39

army of advanced men. He used them

24:41

kind of like a movie director would use a location

24:44

scout. They traveled the country looking

24:46

for possible sights. One of them

24:48

reached out to Bobby. He called me

24:50

up, just to shoot the boom,

24:53

he said. Bobby united place.

24:57

Some of us boards unled some pop, I

25:01

says, oh yeah. Once Stephen

25:03

committed to a given location, he

25:06

began managing every aspect

25:08

of the operation and Beaufort.

25:10

He began by studying road maps and topographical

25:13

maps. His guys measured the depths

25:15

of the water along the inlet. He moved

25:17

his security team down to the area months

25:19

before a load would come in just to do

25:22

reconnaissance. He set up a safe

25:24

house just for him in the top brass in

25:26

the organization. He had his guy's

25:28

tail. The local police study the

25:30

patterns of where they patrolled and when they

25:33

monitored parking lots which might serve as staging

25:35

grounds for large scale police raids,

25:38

and he listened to everything.

25:41

We would monitor all the police frequencies,

25:44

coach guard frequencies. We

25:46

would by a variety

25:48

of speedboats depending on the area we

25:50

were operating in. We would have boats

25:53

that we could use to evacuate crew

25:55

members or off float

25:57

personnel in case of an emergency.

26:00

Over the next couple of years, it got

26:02

to be very precision and very

26:04

military four innit. Eventually

26:08

Stephens started using airplanes. He

26:10

had Assessna two ten lookout plane,

26:12

which he used to make sure that his boats weren't

26:15

being tailed by a coastguard cutter or

26:17

a navy boat. And as for his

26:19

own smuggling ship, he customized

26:21

it. I mean I outfitted the boat

26:24

so it wouldn't be detected

26:27

from there Coastguard

26:29

over flights that they were making at this point using

26:31

it for red technology to

26:33

detect heat signatures in the holds of

26:36

shrimp boats. So to

26:38

avoid that, we installed

26:40

refrigeration units on our shrimp boat.

26:43

One thing that Stephen says he didn't do is

26:46

arm himself. Said he was

26:48

a pacifist at heart, and that usually

26:50

neither he nor his men carried

26:52

guns. It's a little hard to imagine,

26:55

right, I mean, all these guys, all

26:57

this marijuana, and no one is

26:59

armed. For Stephen,

27:02

the no guns thing, it was all part

27:04

of his philosophy, you know, being the

27:06

gentleman smuggler, a consummate

27:08

profession. He even took all

27:10

of his employees and their significant others

27:13

on accompany cruise as if

27:15

everything he was up to was totally legit.

27:19

By July nineteen eighty four, Stephen

27:21

was poised to pull off his biggest feet

27:23

yet he'd smuggle one million

27:26

pounds of marijuana in a single

27:28

load. There was just one

27:31

problem. More on that. When we come

27:33

back after the break, I'm

27:35

surrounded by fat and they

27:37

say, Stephen paylicks, you're under arrest. Just

27:51

to give you a sense of how much one million

27:53

pounds of weed is in Colorado,

27:56

where weed is now totally legal, that's

27:58

more than they sell in an entire year.

28:02

Stephen Kaylish planned to smuggle it right up

28:04

the Mississippi River and unloaded

28:06

at an old turkey farm in Missouri.

28:09

He'd have twenty five tractor trailers on standby

28:11

twenty five and unloaded

28:14

quickly. Stephen would have to invent a

28:16

new machine. He actually had a conveyor

28:18

system custom made that he paid

28:20

three hundred thousand dollars for. Oh

28:22

yeah, it was my pride and joy.

28:25

Stephen gave the operation a special code

28:27

name, Operation America's

28:30

Heartland, because we were bringing

28:32

the barts up through the Port

28:34

of New Orleans, up the Mississippi River all

28:37

the way up to Saint Louis,

28:39

headed east in the Missouri River

28:42

into America's Heartland in the middle

28:44

of Missouri in a thousand acre

28:46

turkey farm that I at least America's

28:49

Hartland. I thought it was a perfect name for

28:51

my last stop, his last

28:54

op. But isn't that they always

28:56

say, yeah, his last op.

28:58

He could quit any time he wanted. But

29:01

if he did quit this time, he'd

29:03

retire a very wealthy man. There'd

29:06

be about one hundred and sixty million dollars

29:08

in profits. But he knew

29:10

that the Feds were snooping around. He'd

29:12

been tipped off one of his planes, a

29:14

lear Jet. He heard it was being watched,

29:17

so he told his guys, put it away, hide

29:19

it in a hangar. We can't even risk going

29:21

near it. Stephen was used to

29:24

living like this, He'd been a fugitive for

29:26

years, but he was worried, so

29:28

worried, in fact, that he'd begun to move all

29:30

of his assets to a secret location in

29:32

another country where he had a home and

29:35

a whole nother life lined up. He

29:37

was ready to leave the US for good. There

29:39

was just one last thing

29:42

he had to do. I had

29:44

to go to Tampa to get my files

29:46

and my documents out of my Tampa house and

29:48

close it down. That was

29:50

his safe house, and his documents

29:52

were still there, his address book

29:55

and some floppy disks and those discs.

29:57

They contained a lot of logistical information

29:59

about America's heartland, including names

30:02

and job assignments of folks involved.

30:05

Stephen was nervous not having all of this with

30:07

him. It was a loose end, and Stephen

30:10

he didn't like loose ends, so

30:12

he flew to Florida to go to his safe house, and

30:15

when Stephen landed, it's about one thirty in

30:17

the morning. He looks out the window and

30:20

he freaked because there

30:22

on the tarmac was his lear jet

30:25

just sitting there. I'm

30:27

still pissed off. I mean, it was like totally

30:30

unnecessary. There was no

30:32

reason to pull that jet out of

30:34

the hangar because

30:37

we knew there was heat on it, you

30:39

know, we just knew there was heat somewhere. But

30:42

he sees that no one's there. The coast is

30:44

clear, so he grabs a car and

30:46

heads to the safe house to close it down. The

30:49

next day, he drives back to the airport

30:51

in his Bronco with two of his guys

30:53

and drops them off with instructions

30:56

tell the pilots to fly all of the jets

30:58

out of Tampa right away, because

31:00

if the jets are hot, you know, he doesn't

31:02

want them anywhere near him.

31:05

The logic here is kind of kooky because

31:07

by going back to the airport, he's

31:10

right there alongside the jets. But

31:12

you gotta remember, Stephen has a lot

31:15

on his plate at this moment, and

31:17

he likes to micromanage everything.

31:20

We barked about a mile away or a half mile

31:22

away, and I wait in the bronco. So

31:26

I'm sitting out in the bronco. After about twenty

31:28

minutes, just enough time that

31:30

Stephen's spidy senses start

31:32

tingling, and then he knows time

31:35

to go. He's got to just slip

31:37

away. So he gets out of the bronco.

31:40

Go and I'll start walking away, knowing

31:43

something's up. And I get about,

31:45

but I don't know a quarter mill away, not even

31:48

that, and I'm surrounded by fete

31:51

and they say, Stephen, kayleish're

31:53

under arrest. And I said who.

31:58

I said, My name's Frank Brown. I

32:00

said, dare. Here's my driver's license. They

32:03

go, no, when we know who you are? And

32:06

I go nope. They

32:09

go, well, you're under arrest. They said, okay, five.

32:11

Well they arrest me and they take me to their headquarters.

32:18

He's taken to the FBI offices in Tampa.

32:20

As Stephen walks into a room, he can

32:22

see up on a big board the names

32:25

of various suspects and their connections.

32:27

He takes one look at the board and he realizes

32:30

this investigation it's made

32:32

very little progress. They

32:36

don't know anything about our smuggling operation,

32:38

and they're trying to figure out who's who. Stephen

32:41

searched the board for his own name. He

32:43

didn't see Stephen Kaylish up there. What

32:45

he does see his Skip,

32:48

and he realized these guys they

32:50

haven't put two and two together. They

32:53

don't know that he is Skip. All

32:55

they seem to know is that they've arrested some fugitive

32:58

named Stephen Kaylish who's skipped

33:00

town a few years ago in Texas. They

33:03

don't seem to get that they had the master

33:05

smuggler right there. So

33:07

he tells the cops, I have nothing

33:10

to say to you. Guys, take me to jail.

33:13

So they take me to Hillsboro County. Joel, what

33:15

is your emotion that first night or two

33:17

in jail? Well, partially

33:21

relief. Relief

33:23

because Stephen Kaylish, the small time

33:25

drug dealer, was happy to take the rap

33:28

in order to protect Skip, the global

33:30

smuggling entrepreneur. And

33:32

was there a chance that you would talk at that point? No,

33:36

no, there was. The

33:40

story was way too big for the Feds.

33:42

I mean literally, it was this

33:45

is something you know,

33:47

the guys on the task

33:49

force just these guys couldn't

33:51

even comprehend the story.

33:55

And so Stephen goes to jail, starts

33:57

serving those four years for the charges in

33:59

Texas, the ones he's skipped out on. He

34:02

ends up in a medium security prison in

34:04

Texas, and he's prepared to do his

34:06

time operation

34:08

America's heartland. It's on ice

34:10

for now. Unbeknownst

34:15

to Stephen, another story was unfolding

34:18

up in Michigan. Clinton Shine

34:20

Anderson had become the FBI's star

34:22

informant. He was talking revealing

34:25

all the details of who Stephen Klish

34:28

really was and how he operated.

34:30

So this would mean trouble for Stephen.

34:33

Meanwhile, Stephen starts hearing chatter

34:36

that the FEDS are making progress in their case

34:38

against him. He'd been hoping to get

34:40

released to a low security camp

34:42

outside the prison, but now the

34:44

Fed said no. They were apparently

34:47

worried that he might run for it, and

34:49

they were right to worry, because Stephen

34:52

he was a planner, and long ago

34:54

he had anticipated being in this exact

34:57

situation. I

35:00

had a serious

35:03

escape plan. Oh, I had

35:05

one before I ever got arrested. So

35:08

a friend of mine and brother had

35:12

ran a special forces team.

35:15

I put him on one hundred thousand dollars retainer

35:18

to come and rescue me no matter

35:20

where I was. So after

35:22

I got arrested and I was in text or cannon, I

35:25

had his brother come visit me, and

35:28

I said, okay, I think it's

35:30

time that we need to look

35:32

at how we're going to get me out of here. So

35:36

they did a recon of the prison facility

35:38

and his brother came back to visit

35:41

me and said, okay, we're

35:43

ready. They can get you out. They

35:45

were coming in with a helicopter

35:48

to pick me up off the wreck yard. But

35:52

there's only one catch. Problem was

35:54

their guard towers with guards

35:57

with rifles in them. They

35:59

couldn't guarantee that one of the guards wouldn't

36:01

be killed if they opened fire

36:03

on the helicopter. They can't

36:05

guarantee there won't be any loss of

36:07

life. And

36:10

this leaves Stephen Kaylish, the

36:12

gentleman smuggler and devowed pacifist,

36:15

in a bit of a quandary. Freedom

36:18

is within his grasp as long as he

36:20

doesn't mind getting some blood on his hands.

36:26

Kaylish has arrest is a massive setback

36:28

for the smugglers, but it's

36:30

not a death blow. And this is essentially

36:33

what Ned learns. There's someone

36:35

else at the top of the syndicate,

36:38

a kingpin, a long time

36:40

money wanderer, a guy with deep

36:42

ties to the suppliers in Columbia.

36:45

And this guy, he's safe living

36:47

down in the Cayman Islands, untouchable.

37:03

Next time, a deep Cover Ned

37:05

travels down to the Caymans and finds

37:08

the kingpin. The stress

37:10

is unbelievable, the mental stress.

37:12

You don't sleep, You're worried about your

37:15

door getting kicked in any minute. You

37:17

have no weapons down there, you

37:19

have no backup. You're not gonna

37:21

be able to hit the radio and call nine on one.

37:23

You're you're not gonna be able

37:25

to call for help because nobody's coming.

37:40

Deep Cover is produced by Jacob Smith

37:43

and edited by Karen Shakerji. Our

37:45

story editor is Jack hit. Original

37:48

music and our theme was composed by Louise

37:50

Gara and Flawn Williams is our engineer.

37:53

Fact checking by Amy Gaines. Mia

37:56

Lobell is Pushkin's executive

37:58

producer. Ned's novel is read

38:00

by Walton Goggins. Special

38:02

thanks to Julia Barton had their

38:04

Fame, Carly mcgliori, Lee Tall,

38:07

Mullatt, Maya Caning, Eric

38:09

Sandler, Maggie Taylor, Kadija

38:11

Holland, Zoe Gwenn and Jacob

38:14

Weisberg at Pushkin Industries. Special

38:16

thanks also to Jeff Singer at Stowaway

38:19

Entertainment. Additional thanks

38:21

to Terry Peters and to Doug

38:23

McCullough, author of Ce of Greed,

38:26

which tells the story of his investigation

38:28

in North Carolina. I'm

38:31

Jake Calbern.