0:15

Pushkin, previously

0:24

on deep cover. FBI

0:26

agent Ned Timmins finally had his

0:28

victorious moment. The kingpin

0:31

of the drug smuggling operation, Lee Rich

0:33

aka Mister Beach Club, was

0:35

nabbed at the airport in Jamaica, and

0:38

then the authorities arrested Mike Vogel,

0:40

the grocery guy in Michigan. We

0:43

had the whole swat team out there lands place

0:46

all night long waiting for word that

0:48

they had Lee and custody. And once

0:51

we got word, then we had Vogel's house, and

0:55

Stephen Kaylish, the smooth talking

0:57

gentleman smuggler who'd gotten cozy with

0:59

General Noriega down in Panama, was

1:02

also behind bars. If you recall,

1:04

Stephen had an escape plan in place. He

1:07

had a group of mercenaries forces

1:09

guys that he kept on retainer for this

1:11

very purpose. I had

1:14

a serious escape plan, oh,

1:16

I had one before I ever got arrested. A

1:19

friend of mine's brother ran

1:21

a special Forces team. I

1:23

put him on one hundred thousand dollars retainer

1:26

to come and rescue me no matter

1:28

where I was. But the

1:30

Special Forces guys told him there

1:32

was a catch. They could break him out,

1:34

but in the process someone might

1:36

get killed. This was a problem because

1:39

the gentleman's smuggler was a declared

1:41

pacifist. So what

1:44

to do? Lee

1:50

Rich and his partner, Stephen Kaylish

1:53

decided to fight the charges against them,

1:55

so they were prosecuted together down

1:57

in Tampa. The trial began in February

2:00

of nineteen eighty seven. In

2:02

his opening arguments, the assistant US

2:04

attorney at the time, Robert Kennedy,

2:06

described Lee Rich as the classic kingpin,

2:10

living in a fancy house in the Caymans, throwing

2:12

lavish parties, flying around

2:15

in his lear jet, and raking

2:17

in millions. And

2:19

he depicted Stephen Kaylish as the field

2:21

general quote, a leader who

2:23

inspired other people to work for him

2:25

and work for him very efficiently. Quote.

2:29

As the prosecution started making its

2:31

case, Stephen wasn't hopeful. We've

2:33

been in tramper about six weeks and

2:36

they've been about fifty or sixty witnesses,

2:38

and it was a joke because

2:41

we were cooked. The

2:48

prosecutors had an army of witnesses,

2:50

truck drivers, pilots, boat

2:53

captains, radio operators, and

2:55

even the bail throwers who had unloaded

2:57

the drugs. Mountains of incriminating

3:00

evidence started piling up. Stephen

3:03

claims that at some point he began encouraging

3:05

people to testify against him to save

3:07

themselves, and turns out Stephen

3:10

was making plans of his own. One

3:12

day, a few weeks into the trial, Lee

3:15

says that his partner in crime, the gentleman

3:17

smuggler, kind of vanished.

3:21

They had moved him out of the cell the night before,

3:23

afraid, you know, somebody's going to stick him.

3:25

So my lawyer says, yeah, he rolled

3:28

Lee. He's become an informant.

3:30

When your lawyer says that you, what's your reaction.

3:33

Well, I wasn't happy. I can tell you that I

3:35

was thinking that that's a real dirt bag. I

3:37

know he's saving his ass, but

3:40

I was looking at life in prison, no parole,

3:42

and so was he. Lee

3:45

claims he would never have done this. I'd

3:49

never testified in a courtroom against

3:52

anybody ever, never will. It's

3:55

not in my blood to turn in people and

3:58

never will be. Stephen

4:00

remembers this all differently in his

4:02

telling of events. He doesn't just disappear

4:05

one day during the trial. Instead,

4:07

he was candid with Lee and told him

4:09

exactly what he intended to do. I

4:13

said, I'm the only one

4:15

that holds any cards here, and

4:17

those cards in Noriega. In

4:20

my relationship with Noriega, I

4:22

said, I'm not going to sit

4:25

through this trial any longer. In

4:28

fact, Stephen had been talking with prosecutors

4:31

for months sussing out the possibility

4:33

of a deal because Stephen thought

4:35

he might have a get out of jail

4:37

free card. I

4:40

just knew that the

4:42

information that I could divulge about Noriega

4:45

and his activities were a

4:47

bombshell. There's no

4:49

doubt in my mind that there's ramifications.

4:52

They go all the way to the top. I

4:55

mean literally from Reagan on down. I'm

5:04

Jake Halbern and this is Deep

5:06

Cover, Episode

5:09

eight, the Political shit Storm.

5:37

Stephen Kaylish was a man who always

5:40

had a backup plan. Long before

5:43

he was ever arrested. He had hired those

5:45

Special Forces guys to break him out if

5:47

need be, But in the end, he

5:49

couldn't stomach the possibility that someone

5:52

might die. I said, well that's

5:54

a deal breaker. I said, I've

5:56

never harmed anybody in my life. I'm not

5:58

going to do it now. I said,

6:00

if they can't get me out of here without somebody

6:02

being hurt, then I'll

6:05

figure out another way. And

6:07

it turns out he did another way,

6:10

or so he thought, and it involved

6:12

his friend, General Noriega.

6:17

General Noriega had always been Steven's

6:19

ace in the hole. When Stephen was a fugitive

6:22

living in Panama, Noriega gave him

6:24

a safe haven, a way to launder his money,

6:26

a way to keep smuggling drugs. And

6:28

now once again, Stephen's relationship

6:31

with Noriega might come in handy.

6:34

I didn't know how it was going to work out. I

6:37

didn't know if they would drop

6:40

charges. I had no idea

6:43

how everything was going to play out. By

6:46

going public with his story, Stephen understood

6:49

he might make some enemies. He knew that

6:51

Noriega had allies in Washington, DC,

6:54

people who might not want this getting out.

6:57

I mean a lot of trepidation,

7:00

you know, I have to be really careful about you

7:02

know, who I disclosed, as to how

7:05

it's disclosed, whether it's going to become public.

7:08

So it's very very secret

7:12

and very concerning.

7:20

Stephen wouldn't be the first person to offer

7:22

up dirt on Noriega. The famous

7:24

investigative journalist Seymour Hirsch had

7:26

written a front page article in the New York Times

7:29

about Noriega about eight months

7:31

before the trial. It was damning.

7:33

Hirsh wrote that Noriega was involved in

7:36

money laundering and that he was quote

7:38

a secret partner end quote

7:40

in a drug smuggling business. The

7:43

article seemed to be describing Noriega's

7:46

arrangement with Stephen Kaylish exactly,

7:48

but it was all pretty vague. Hirsch

7:51

relied entirely on anonymous sources

7:54

in theory Stephen could change

7:56

all of that. He could give these allegations

7:59

a name and a face and a storyline.

8:02

So at least six months

8:04

before he went on trial down in Tampa with

8:06

Lee Rich, Stephen had already been

8:09

gone to talk with prosecutors, hinting

8:11

at what he knew that one of America's

8:13

top allies was actually

8:16

a drug trafficker. One prosecutor

8:18

in particular took a keen interest. Doug

8:21

McCullough. McCullough was

8:23

the first US attorney for the Eastern

8:25

District of North Carolina. He

8:28

had his own case against Stephen. Remember

8:30

that ghost ship from episode four, the

8:32

one that gets abandoned in the harbor with all the

8:34

marijuana in it. Doug was working

8:36

on that case. He'd been in touch

8:38

with Stephen's lawyers and had gotten

8:40

word that Stephen had secrets

8:42

to tell that went far beyond the ghost

8:45

Ship. Well, I knew

8:47

Kaylish had this evidence that would

8:49

implicate Noriega and money laundron. His

8:52

lawyers had told us that in what's called a proffer,

8:54

But I wanted to hear it from Kaylish's own mouth

8:57

and see what kind of person he was. So

8:59

Doug arranges for Stephen to travel up to North

9:01

Carolina. Well, they put

9:03

me in some shitty gel I

9:06

mean it just typical red

9:08

and at shit home. And

9:11

then Doug takes me back to his officers,

9:13

right, and he goes, well, we

9:16

want to take you to secure location and

9:18

sit down with the INDEP review. Stephen

9:21

knew what Doug wanted to talk about. The

9:23

question was what did Doug want

9:25

to do with it? This information was

9:28

currency, and one way or another,

9:30

Stephen wanted to profit from it.

9:33

Either way. If they want me to talk, I

9:35

want something for it. If they want me to shut

9:37

up, I want something for it. I don't give a shit.

9:39

They it's their call, it's not my

9:41

call. Well, I'm just going to tell the story

9:44

and then let the cards fall the way

9:47

however they fall. So

9:51

they all get out to Camp Lejeerne, the

9:53

big Marine Corps base in North Carolina.

9:55

Doug McCullough, the prosecutor, his

9:58

team, along with Stephen and his defense

10:00

lawyers. Doug has arranged for two

10:02

trailers, one for the prosecution

10:04

and one for the defense team.

10:07

Stephen remembers the Marine Guards were stationed

10:09

all over with their M sixteens.

10:11

Everyone piles into one of the trailers and

10:14

Stephen starts telling his story

10:17

high detail, my smuckling operations,

10:20

obviously in North Carolina, which is one

10:22

of the things that concerned him. But it

10:25

leaked all up to me getting to Panamall,

10:28

and then about me going to Panamall

10:31

and me paying off Noriega,

10:33

and then me buying helicopters

10:36

and jets for Noriega. Doug's

10:39

basically almost shell shocked.

10:42

I mean, he's visibly shaken by

10:44

it all. Doug

10:46

wasn't naive he understood that

10:48

a guy like Noriega might be corrupt.

10:51

What blew him away was Stephen.

10:53

Here was a runaway kid from Texas

10:56

who become a drug tycoon and was

10:58

apparently Noriega's business

11:00

partner. And he had evidence.

11:03

He had airplane logs

11:06

that showed on his private jet

11:08

him flying Noriega around.

11:11

These logs show that Noriega used

11:13

Stephen's plane during a trip to the United

11:15

States, and this trip it

11:18

was a big deal. Noriega went

11:20

to d C. I met with the Secretary of Defense

11:23

and then the director of the CIA.

11:25

There's a celebratory lunch for him at the Pentagon.

11:28

It's pretty much a hero's welcome.

11:31

So yeah, Stephen's

11:33

evidence would make a lot of people look very

11:36

bad. The

11:42

debriefing session goes on and on

11:45

until finally Stephen says, okay,

11:47

guys, I've talked

11:49

for five or six hours. I said, now it's

11:51

my turn. I want to see my wife.

11:54

Are you all satisfied? Stephen's

11:56

wife was actually waiting to meet with him.

11:58

That was part of the deal that Stephen says he worked

12:01

out with Doug ahead of time. Ever,

12:03

the gentleman smuggler, Stephen

12:05

had asked for some very gentlemanly terms.

12:08

He wanted dinner, and he wanted

12:10

a trailer overlooking the Atlantic. And

12:15

I said, okay, well, if you're

12:17

satisfied, I want my wife

12:19

and I have several hours together.

12:22

And Duck goes more than satisfied.

12:25

They brought me a nice steak dinner

12:27

and beautiful meal. I think

12:29

a bottle of champagne, and my

12:32

wife made

12:34

love a couple of times. After

12:38

I finished with my wife, Duck comes in and he

12:40

goes, We're going to Washington,

12:43

d C. Because I've

12:45

been ordered by my boss

12:47

that they won't you at

12:50

Main Justice in Marshington, d C.

12:53

For deep briefing. A

12:56

few days later, they all fly up to DC

12:58

together to the headquarters of the Department of

13:00

Justice. According to Stephen, they

13:02

go to a big conference room and meet with a

13:04

whole host of officials, and

13:07

once again Stephen tells his story.

13:10

When it's all over, they basically

13:12

just thank him for his time. Seemed

13:15

like a dead end, but toward

13:17

the end of the day, Doug McCullough remembers

13:19

an assistant Attorney General pulling him

13:22

aside and saying, all of

13:24

this information has been passed

13:26

up to the National Security Council,

13:28

so apparently people

13:31

were taking notice. For

13:34

all of his efforts, Stephen gets pretty

13:36

much zilch. No one

13:38

gives him a get out of jail free card or

13:41

really anything close to it. So

13:43

in February of nineteen eighty seven, Stephen

13:45

goes on trial in Tampa alongside

13:47

his old partner Lee Rich. For

13:50

a few weeks they're fighting it out together, but

13:53

by mid March, Stephen says he

13:55

sees the writing on the wall. There's

13:57

no winning this case. So he reaches

13:59

a deal with prosecutors. As they say

14:01

in the business, he joins Team

14:04

USA and agrees to testify

14:06

for the government. In return, he

14:08

gets well less than he hoped for. He's

14:10

promised a jail sentence of no more

14:13

than twenty years. Meanwhile,

14:15

Lee Rich keeps defending himself at trial,

14:18

but in the end he loses. He's

14:20

found guilty of running a continuing

14:22

criminal enterprise. His sentencing

14:25

hearing was brutal. The prosecutor

14:27

said, good old mister Beach Club had quote

14:30

no redeeming social value

14:32

end quote. He was sentenced to thirty

14:35

years. So it seemed

14:37

like Steven's big move and the whole story

14:40

of the General went pretty much nowhere,

14:42

a big dud. But that

14:45

wasn't the case. By peddling his

14:47

story around in DC and elsewhere,

14:50

he'd gotten people talking and

14:52

started something much much

14:54

bigger than he ever imagined. More

14:58

on that after the break, so

15:13

Stephen's story was slowly making its way

15:15

through the grape vine in Washington, d C. And

15:17

it turns out totally independent of this, another

15:20

investigator named Jack Blum

15:22

was also taking a closer look at Noriega.

15:26

Jack was special counsel for the Senate Form

15:28

Relations Committee under John Carey, and

15:30

Jack, like everybody else, had heard

15:32

the rumors and read the article in the New York

15:35

Times about Noriega and his alleged

15:37

drug trafficking. To Jack,

15:39

it was intriguing, but not an

15:41

open and shut case. I

15:44

didn't have a smoking gun the

15:46

time, certainly didn't have a smoking gun,

15:48

but there was enough there. So

15:50

glad anybody who really

15:53

wanted to know could find out a lot

15:55

more. Jack was interested not

15:58

just in Noriega, but in all

16:00

the particulars of how drugs were being

16:02

smuggled and how money was being laundered,

16:05

and so in the mid eighties this became

16:07

Jack Blum's mission. But he

16:09

was not just some policy walk sitting

16:12

in some room with his whiteboard. Jack

16:14

was more like, well, a detective.

16:20

I went to visit these people

16:22

in jail, spending time talking

16:25

to them. So I actually became

16:27

quite a visitor to the federal prison

16:29

system. And of all

16:31

the people that he interviewed. One in

16:33

particular still stands out to this

16:36

day. I remember,

16:38

particularly Lee Rich. The

16:41

words that come to mind are clean

16:43

cut, nice guy. I

16:46

could go out drinking with them, I could

16:48

have him as a business partner. One

16:51

of the things that came clear

16:54

was how normal

16:56

and routine and

16:59

pleasant some of these five

17:02

star criminals turned out to be. And

17:06

Lee starts to tell his story all

17:08

about how he smuggled his drugs and

17:10

how he laundered his money with the help

17:12

of the General Manuel Noriega.

17:16

It was quite a revelation. People

17:19

were talking about Noriego was

17:22

in charge of everything in Panama

17:24

and he was our guy. Well

17:27

you heard this, and it was like, wait a minute,

17:29

he's not our guy. It was one

17:32

thing to have a newspaper article with a bunch

17:34

of unnamed sources, but

17:36

it was another thing entirely to

17:38

have a guy like mister Beach Club

17:41

who could verify it all and say

17:43

basically, yeah, General,

17:45

Mammo Noriega, he was our business

17:47

partner, and here exactly

17:50

is how he helped us launder our money. The

17:53

further into this mess that I got

17:55

more apparent, it became that

17:58

it was a very tangled mess. You

18:00

start looking at the awards that were

18:03

given to Noriego. There are

18:05

photographs of the top

18:08

man in the giving plaques

18:11

to Noriega in Panama, congratulating

18:14

him for sustain various busts.

18:23

Jack began to piece it all together what

18:26

exactly Noriega had been doing. He'd

18:29

been cooperating with the US War on Drugs

18:32

kind of Basically, Noriego

18:34

would apprehend some drug smugglers, but

18:37

he was being very selective about which

18:39

bad guys he went after, namely

18:42

the guys who didn't use his money laundering

18:44

services. Those guys they

18:46

got busted. All the while,

18:49

Noriego is providing valuable info

18:51

to the CIA, because well,

18:54

he did know all kinds of things. Noriego's

18:57

talking to Fidel Castro, Noriego's

19:00

relating to all of the heads

19:03

of state and the characters

19:05

who were all over Central

19:08

America one way or another.

19:10

He's got his hands in every pie.

19:13

Now, of course, the stupidity of it

19:15

is he's really working for himself.

19:19

The more that Jack looked into who Noriega

19:21

was and how he operated, the

19:24

more troubling it became. At one

19:26

point, Jack interviewed one of Noriega's

19:28

pilots, who detailed the murder of

19:30

Hugo Spataphora. Spataphora

19:33

was a prominent doctor and revolutionary

19:35

who'd criticized Noriega for his involvement

19:37

in the drug trade, and he paid

19:39

for it. In nineteen eighty five, some

19:42

Panamanian soldiers abducted him,

19:44

and his decapitated body was later

19:46

found in a ravine. The

19:50

notion of torturing and beheading

19:54

his opponent and doing it the way he

19:56

did it, this man is really

19:58

evil from top to bottom. Up

20:02

until now, Jack says, Noriega's

20:04

bad behavior had been tolerated because

20:06

he was so helpful to agencies like the

20:08

CIA. I actually

20:10

found an internal CIA document

20:12

from the time marked secret that's

20:15

since been declassified. It said,

20:17

quote, we have no smoking

20:19

gun on Noriega, but he is closely

20:22

associated with some connected to the drug

20:24

trade. So yeah,

20:27

they had an inkling. So the CIA

20:30

had its agenda for

20:32

Panama. They were interested in their

20:35

mission and nothing else. And

20:38

their response, if

20:40

you ask why are you doing business with

20:42

all these terrible characters was

20:45

pretty simple. Terrible characters

20:47

or are stock and trade. It's

20:50

the criminals who know how to get around

20:52

the law and get around all of

20:54

the systems and who can

20:56

help us do our job.

21:00

It was kind of like what Ned Timmins had

21:02

told me from the very beginning. If

21:04

you wanted to get intel on the bad guys,

21:07

well, then you also had to play

21:09

with the bad guys. For

21:15

Jack Blum, the only way to blow

21:17

all of this open was to hold congressional

21:19

hearings and use guys like mister

21:21

Beach Club to go public and

21:23

make some headlines. More

21:25

on that. After the break In

21:31

early nineteen eighty eight, about a year

21:33

after they'd gone on trial down in Tampa,

21:36

Lee Rich and Stephen Kaylish went public

21:38

with their story about Noriega,

21:41

and they did so in the biggest possible

21:43

way. In Washington, d C. Before

21:45

the Senate in front of live TV cameras.

21:49

The US Congress today heard about a strange partnership

21:51

between Panama's military rule, Manuel

21:53

Noriega, and a convicted American drug

21:56

dealer. At this point, many

21:58

senators were interested in the subject of narco

22:00

trafficking in general. There

22:02

were multiple sets of hearings. Jack

22:04

Blum organized one of them. Altogether.

22:07

They created a specticle. A parade

22:10

of former criminals showed up to tell their

22:12

stories. Stephen and Lee hope

22:14

that by talking publicly, they'd get

22:16

their jail sentences reduced. On

22:22

TV, Stephen is super clean cut,

22:24

perfectly combed hair, huge black

22:26

grim classes a dark suit.

22:29

He looks like he could be a stockbroker

22:31

on his lunch break, and he's

22:33

telling a story, but he's reading

22:35

it, checking his script constantly,

22:37

not nervously, just like he doesn't want to

22:40

get a single detail wrong. In

22:42

his testimony, Stephen explains how

22:44

exactly he'd become friends with the General.

22:47

I was taken to General Noriega's private

22:50

home. I had been instructed

22:53

bring a gift for the General large

22:56

enough to show how serious I was

22:58

about doing business in Panama.

23:00

I placed three hundred thousand dollars

23:03

cares in my briefcase. The

23:06

briefcase stuff with cash would become

23:08

an icon for this scandal that unfolded,

23:10

kind of like Monica Lewinsky's dress or

23:12

Richard Nixon's White House tapes. It

23:15

was a singular image that people could picture

23:17

and that told the whole story. Here

23:20

was the head of state hosting a drug

23:22

dealer in his house and accepting

23:24

a briefcase stuffed with bills.

23:30

A few months later, at a separate set of hearings.

23:32

Lee Rich, mister Beach Club, also

23:34

testified. He backed up Stephen

23:37

Kaylish's account, corroborating

23:39

the now famous story of the three hundred

23:41

thousand dollars in the briefcase Mike

23:43

Vogel, the Detroit grocery guy. He

23:46

testified two. In

23:48

the time between Stephen Kaylish and Lee Rich's

23:50

testimonies, there was big news.

23:53

The US Justice Department was going

23:55

after Noriega, the military

23:57

leader of Panama, General Manuel Noriega,

23:59

was indited today on charges of drug smuggling

24:02

and racketeering. In

24:06

all of US history, this was only

24:08

the time that the Justice Department

24:10

had indicted the head of a foreign nation. Only

24:13

problem was, Noriega was

24:15

still safely situated in Panama,

24:18

very much in control. The

24:21

indictment only created more controversy.

24:24

The legendary Congressman Charles Wrangel

24:26

accused the Reagan administration of quote,

24:29

a full blown cover up of the

24:31

facts end quote. At

24:33

last, the political shit storm

24:36

had arrived. Noriega

24:40

didn't just stand by and watch all of this silently.

24:43

In the press, he defended himself. He

24:45

said that the US was really just interested

24:47

in getting rid of him so it could keep

24:49

control over the Panama Canal beyond

24:52

nineteen ninety nine when the US was supposed

24:54

to be out of there. Noriega

24:57

actually did an interview with Mike Wallace

24:59

of CBS to make his case. As

25:01

you know, general, the American people are being

25:04

told at this moment, but Monde

25:06

Noriega is a criminal, a

25:09

drug dealer, He is an arms dealer,

25:11

He is a money launderer. Question why

25:14

Noriega and why now? But precisely

25:20

in the interview, Noriega said, essentially,

25:22

look, all of this is political conspiracy.

25:25

This is retribution because I wouldn't

25:28

do the US's dirty work in Nicaragua

25:30

and help the contrast. During

25:32

the sixty minutes interview, Wallace asked

25:34

about Stephen Kaylish. You know

25:36

Stephen Michael Kaylish a kive

25:39

Banama here, Banama.

25:41

Many people come by when you work

25:43

in my profession, and also as a politician,

25:45

you see a lot of people, not

25:48

that you know them. I would know Kaylish if

25:50

he gave me three hundred thousand dollars. And he said that the

25:52

first time he met you, he left a bag behind the

25:54

three hundred thousand dollars inside.

25:56

And he also said that you were

25:58

a full scale co conspirator

26:01

in his drug operation that

26:03

he paid you eventually millions.

26:06

You were talking about two gunvicts. That's

26:09

say they both gave money. If

26:12

that doesn't invalidate it, the money for what does?

26:16

This was a big part of Noriega's defense.

26:18

Stephen Kalish is a convict. You can't

26:20

believe a word he says. Look,

26:26

some of Noriega's critiques were legit,

26:28

like the fact that the US messed around in small

26:31

countries in order to advance its own sketchy

26:33

interests. Yeah, fair enough.

26:36

But when it came to the drug and money

26:38

laundering charges, the evidence against

26:41

Noriega was pretty damning. The

26:43

real question on a lot of people's minds

26:46

was how could the US allow

26:48

this? How could it buddy up with a

26:50

drug trafficker like Noriega

26:52

because our intelligence services knew

26:55

what he was up to. Two years

26:57

before the congressional hearings, John Poindexter,

27:00

the National Security Advisor at the time,

27:02

went to Panama. According to The New York

27:04

Times, he told Noriega to quote cut

27:07

it out. So, Yeah, people

27:09

knew. In fact, as far back

27:12

as the early nineteen seventies, US

27:14

officials were in the know. They'd heard the

27:16

allegations of Noriega's involvement

27:18

in the drug trade, and this evidence

27:20

was actually passed along to the US

27:22

Senate at the time when it was negotiating

27:25

a new treaty with Panama.

27:27

But for years and years, the

27:29

US had opted to do very little

27:31

about this, not anymore,

27:34

not after the story of the Gentleman's Smuggler

27:36

and his briefcase. That was

27:39

it. While

27:47

all of this is going on, the congressional

27:49

hearings, the indictment against Noriega,

27:52

the growing scandal, Ned Timmins

27:54

was back in Detroit. No one had asked

27:56

him to testify before Congress. Apparently

27:59

he was just another cog in the machine that had

28:01

helped bring all of this to light. But

28:04

Ned was still plenty busy at work thanks

28:07

to his time on the Lee Rich case. Ned

28:09

had all kinds of contacts in the drug world.

28:12

One of them was a beautiful young woman from

28:14

Columbia who knew things. She

28:19

was connected with the biggest people in the cartels

28:22

and talked a good game. She

28:24

knew what she was talking about, She knew the right names.

28:28

These are the people that would

28:30

have supplied the drugs to Likely Rich.

28:33

They are the people that controlled everything on the Earth coast

28:35

to Columbia. It

28:38

seemed like this could be the final piece in the puzzle.

28:41

After all, Ned and the FBI

28:43

had busted the distributor with the big warehouse

28:46

in Detroit, They'd gotten the master

28:48

smuggler with his armada of ships.

28:50

They'd gotten the kingpin from his safe haven,

28:53

and the Caymans, even the money launderer

28:55

Noriega had been indicted, and

28:58

now Ned had a shot at the

29:00

source. Next

29:15

time on deep Cover, our final

29:18

episode in the series, A real reckoning

29:20

for Ned with his marriage Anne

29:22

with the FBI. I

29:25

mean, she was a strikingly beautiful

29:27

woman and now she's sitting here

29:30

with no husband. She's got no

29:32

other connections besides Ned.

29:35

Not a good situation to have your husband

29:38

involved in. I mean, you can almost

29:40

predict trouble. Deep

29:57

Cover is produced by Jacob Smith and

29:59

edited by Karen Schakerjee. Our

30:01

story editor is Jack hit Original

30:04

music and our theme was composed by Luis

30:06

Gara and Flawn Williams is our engine

30:09

year fact checking by Amy Gaines.

30:12

Mia Lobell is Pushkin's executive

30:14

producer. Ned's novel is read

30:16

by Walton Goggins. Special

30:18

thanks to Julia Barton, Heather Fame,

30:21

Carly mcgliori, Lee to Mullad,

30:23

Maya Kanig, Eric Sandler,

30:26

Maggie Taylor, Kadija Holland,

30:28

Zoe Gwenn and Jacob Weisberg

30:30

at Pushkin Industries. Special thanks

30:33

also to Jeff Singer at Stowaway Entertainment.

30:36

Additional thanks to John Dingis, who

30:38

wrote Our Man in Panama, A meticulously

30:41

researched, an excellent book. I'm Amuel Noriega.

30:45

I'm Jake Halbern