0:00

Murder in Miami is a

0:02

production of I Heart Radio previously

0:07

on Murder in Miami. So it's

0:10

two and I decided how to go

0:12

back to Washington, d C. Along the way,

0:14

it had occurred to me that the people

0:17

I considered the real criminals were the people

0:19

who are running things in Washington

0:21

and other places like that. The

0:24

Christic Institute was a nonprofit

0:26

public interest law firm. They sought to

0:28

wield the law as a weapon of progressive change

0:30

against a number of daunting targets.

0:33

What I told Danny was

0:35

that Bob Adams had been part of a military

0:38

intelligence unit that provided logistical

0:40

support for assassinations

0:43

conducted by the United States. And

0:45

in any case, Danny offered me a

0:48

monthly stipend of a

0:50

month, and I put everything in the car

0:52

again and went back to Miami.

0:55

Now, you're basically working as

0:57

a private investigator in

1:00

instigative journalists investigating

1:03

intercept a private investigation,

1:06

Yeah, I suppose. So the funny part is

1:08

that when I got back, I went

1:10

out to the office in Perigne

1:12

and it was closed. So finally I

1:15

tracked down Bob, and Bob tells me,

1:17

turns out the Lamar has

1:19

been under federal investigation for some

1:22

time now, something called Operation

1:24

Loan Star, and it's a very big deal. The

1:26

next thing I know, I get this call from Bob saying

1:29

that Lamar wants to meet me at the

1:31

mutiny went out of the blue. Lamar

1:33

says, well, I just want you to

1:35

know that I appreciate what you're doing

1:37

here, but I sure as i'll wish

1:39

you and your boys back in Washington would get a move

1:41

on it. I really don't

1:43

know what to make of it. And he says,

1:46

oh, come on, now, you're with the C. I

1:48

A right, wait, he

1:50

thought you were with the CIA.

1:55

I had no idea at the time. So

2:00

if Bob Adams led Phil to

2:02

believe Intercept was connected with

2:04

drug smuggling through Lamar Chester,

2:07

who was Chester's connection, the

2:09

man you're about to meet would definitely

2:11

know because he claims

2:13

he facilitated one of Chester's notable

2:15

expansions in the drug trade. Did

2:18

you quit loving me? Happy

2:20

Miles here give me a call. That's

2:23

Mr Happy Miles, a man who has

2:26

led a pretty fantastical life, one

2:28

peppered with some very unique

2:30

professions. He's also very active

2:32

on Facebook. Happy

2:35

Here give me a call on

2:37

Facebook. His dormant.

2:39

Twitter self describes Happy as

2:41

a lifelong adventurer, pilot,

2:44

sailor, boat builder, plane builder,

2:46

and a purveyor of the finer things

2:49

in life. Judge Ugly

2:52

was born than a job, It was an

2:54

adventure. Mr

2:56

Miles was also a close business

2:58

associate and friend of Intercepts

3:01

biggest client, Lamar Chester, the

3:04

man indicted as a marijuana smuggler,

3:06

although Happy himself never bothered

3:08

much with marijuana. I

3:11

don't like being around pot because I

3:13

hate the smell of it. Cocaine

3:16

was Happy. He's preferred cargo. It

3:19

is. It is bulky, and it's

3:21

not as nasty. Coke

3:24

is all nice and clean and wrapped

3:26

up. You just put it in Duffel bags.

3:29

What do you miss about those times? The

3:32

money? I'm

3:37

Lauren brad Pacheco and this is

3:40

murder in Miami. When

4:01

I started working at Intercept, I was just like

4:03

Mr Magoose, stumbling around there. I

4:05

didn't know anything, and I certainly

4:07

had no idea that at the time

4:10

they were already under federal investigation.

4:13

Wow. All I really knew about Lamar

4:15

Chester was what Bob Adams had told me.

4:17

And I wouldn't meet Happy Miles

4:20

till years later when I figured

4:22

I'd better start looking into this thing. What

4:24

was your initial take on Happy Miles.

4:29

He was a

4:31

very eccentric, interesting

4:33

guy. He had a lot of great stories. He

4:36

had an island in the Bahamas for a while. He

4:39

One story that sticks with me is that when

4:41

he was making a lot of money in the

4:43

in the drug business, like all of those guys,

4:45

he had a lot of disposable income, he gave a

4:48

fifteen thousand dollar tip to a waitress

4:50

in a lunch counter down in the Keys. It's

4:53

quite a life he's lived. Yeah, he's

4:56

such a character. He

4:58

strikes me as this

5:01

purely like Dionysian

5:05

person. There's

5:08

a reason why he called himself Happy

5:10

Miles. And

5:13

over the course of many months, I've

5:15

grown used to hearing Happy Miles

5:17

share the stories woven into

5:19

that life, which spans eighty

5:21

three years. When I killed

5:24

people about my life, they

5:27

don't believe nobody

5:29

could have done all the things I've done.

5:32

He's not kidding. Do you know? I produced

5:34

the record you Did What is it called

5:37

the Songwriter with Michael

5:40

Donoff on the X wide receiver

5:42

for the Denver Broncos. He's

5:45

dead now, but I

5:47

wrote that you heard the song Coyote

5:49

Ugly. There's a movie called Coyote

5:52

Ugly. Yeah, I should see the bastards

5:56

because it's a copyrighted name.

5:58

What's the song kyote me about? So

6:01

you order up a shot and you order up a beer

6:03

in hopes it will bring her been there? Yeah,

6:08

the woman kind

6:14

of woke up with three? What

6:16

did this woman do to

6:20

deserve me? And then

6:22

it goes on to say how ugly

6:24

was she? I'm telling you she

6:27

could drop them mag it off of meatway.

6:30

Well, this woman is what you call cow

6:36

cowd. The ugly is when you roll over in the morning,

6:39

you take a look at her and you chew

6:41

your arm off to keep him waking her up. No,

6:44

that's coyote ugly. You

6:47

wrote that, yeah, Mike,

6:49

and I did. I owned the copyright.

6:52

Well, not exactly a feminist anthem.

6:55

The song does appear on the album Happy

6:57

Mailed Me, complete with a be

7:00

Right, and the singer Michael

7:02

Donovan was indeed on the

7:04

roster of the Broncos in nineteen seventy

7:07

six and seventy seven, before

7:09

becoming mayor of Glendale, Colorado,

7:11

and running for governor in two thousand

7:13

fourteen. The thing about Happy

7:16

his stories check out. Happy's

7:18

kind of like the dose Akis guy of decadence.

7:22

Well, little world knows me as Happy

7:24

h Miles. What is the H

7:26

stand for Horney?

7:30

Yep, And as my voicemail

7:32

can attest, most every Happy

7:34

Miles story leads to another. Hey,

7:37

I saw a real funny story.

7:40

Give me a call. If

7:42

you'd wager a former cocaine smuggler

7:45

with eighty three years under their belt would have

7:47

some pretty interesting stories to share

7:50

with Happy, you'd hit the jackpot. I

7:53

didn't tell you the red sheetcase story,

7:55

did I know? Okay?

7:58

When I flew for another

8:01

guy, he had this era

8:04

that would take samsuied

8:07

suitcases, the lining

8:09

out and meticulously

8:11

with bag the cocaine

8:14

and very small bags

8:17

like a small condom.

8:19

Kind of okay, and

8:21

he would line the vertical

8:24

edges of the suitcase with

8:27

it glue in ice

8:30

cream sticks to hold everything

8:32

in place, and then put

8:34

the lining back in. NIA

8:37

couldn't tell just by

8:40

glancing that anything had

8:42

been done to the suitcase unless

8:45

you picked it up, that it would be twenty

8:48

pounds heavier right than

8:50

it should be. Happy's

8:53

job was to fly into Venezuela

8:55

and pick up the suitcases containing the hidden

8:57

cocaine. But when the courier

9:00

to this hotel Happy had immediate

9:02

issues. The suitcases

9:05

were empty, and I said,

9:07

hold it, hold it, I'm

9:09

not carrying these suitcases

9:12

out past the immigration

9:15

and customs to the airplane.

9:18

I'm not gonna do it these empty

9:21

suitcases. This is ridiculous.

9:23

And what man owns red suitcases?

9:27

They were both red. Yeah, brand new

9:30

Sampsonite red suitcases

9:33

with twenty keys of cocing

9:35

each one made

9:37

avoid twenty pounds more.

9:40

So I went down to

9:42

the habodash tree

9:44

in the hotel, very

9:46

swank Habodassar, and

9:49

I bought arrows shirts

9:52

enough to fill up these big suitcases,

9:55

probably four or five grand

9:58

worth, because they were like their be

10:00

five dollars a piece. They

10:02

weren't cheap. How big were these

10:04

suitcases, They were big suitcases.

10:07

I filled these up with shirts,

10:10

so now they had all these unwrapped

10:12

shirts in it. Right. So

10:15

I buile a flight plan out

10:17

for the morning at the Stunn

10:20

up at dawned because nobody

10:23

will be out there, right, and

10:25

I paid customs

10:27

off ahead of time, so

10:29

I felt rather secure. But

10:32

I had a hanging bag. I

10:34

had a duffel bag and I

10:36

had my flight bag and

10:39

to fucking red suitcases.

10:42

Well that's quite a load for

10:44

one guy to carry. Yeah,

10:46

So next morning I carried the

10:49

ship downstairs, grab a tab

10:51

to the airport, and I'm

10:53

walking out to the airplane.

10:55

It's about a four hundred foot

10:58

track. I get about halfway

11:00

there to the airplane,

11:03

and that's exactly when Mr Miles

11:05

says, a young army guard shows

11:08

up to offer a huffing and puffing happy

11:10

assistance with his heavy load. Now,

11:13

the last the guy wanted him do him

11:16

is carrying one of these suitcases,

11:19

right, So he's

11:22

just kat Enny

11:24

and the suitcase. What do you got in the suitcases?

11:28

So I laid him down and opened

11:30

them right away, and he

11:33

looks really puzzled. I've

11:35

got all these brownne

11:37

shirts. And he says

11:39

to me in Spanish, she says, kid

11:42

enters, you shid him contrabandista

11:45

to come. He says, what are you

11:47

a smuggler of shirts? I

11:52

said, yeah, you caught me, but

11:55

look, just take whatever

11:57

shirts you want and you can have them.

12:00

Well, this kid never saw a thirty

12:02

dollar shirt, and there's life. So

12:05

he took two shirts and told

12:07

me in Spanish, I have to go quick before

12:10

the sergeant sees me, and

12:13

he takes off a couple of shirts

12:15

and I take off for the airplane.

12:18

Load that jump in, light it up

12:20

and go. But

12:23

he had caught a smuggler of shirts

12:27

who had a lot of cocaine stuffed

12:29

underneath the shirts. Anyway,

12:33

so that was the story

12:46

and middle initial aside. There's

12:48

also a story behind the Happy Miles

12:51

name. Well, people started

12:53

calling me Happy while I

12:55

was dating and Margaret, that

12:58

makes sense. You should be a happy man if you're eating

13:00

and Margaret yes, and Margaret

13:03

that and MARGARETVI the Las

13:06

Vegas as in Elvis and Margaret.

13:08

But as Happy tells it, this was a few

13:10

years before she found fame in

13:13

the sixties. I had

13:16

just gotten out the Marine Corps and

13:18

then I met Ann Margaret. She

13:21

went to work at the Villa Marina,

13:23

and I took her to breakfast

13:25

every morning after she got

13:27

off work at midnight or

13:30

two, because they didn't have any

13:32

money to eat the day is

13:35

the band she was singing with at the time. They

13:37

didn't even have money to put gas

13:39

in their car or get to the gig.

13:43

I took her to Catalina, earned

13:46

two of the guys from the

13:48

subtle tone her band. We

13:51

had a rough shift coming back. We

13:54

had to drift all night because it was

13:56

so rough you couldn't go either way.

13:59

Happy so he offered to keep

14:01

Miss Margaret warm under a tarp

14:03

during the night. We got

14:05

in about nine o'clock in the morning

14:09

and the guy said, boy, it looks like

14:11

you've had a lot of Happy Miles

14:14

and the name just stuck. Does

14:18

your driver's license say Happy Miles.

14:20

My driver's license says it.

14:23

I have two names on my path

14:25

sport and my

14:27

pilots licenses in the name

14:30

of Happy Miles. When

14:32

I crashed on the mountain top

14:34

in Bolivia, they

14:37

told me that they were going to suspend

14:39

my license because I wasn't

14:41

Happy Miles. I was John

14:44

Anthony Mihlo. In order

14:46

to avoid a formal hearing, Happy

14:48

says he was given the option of

14:50

providing the Bolivian officials with character

14:53

references confirming he was an upstanding

14:55

citizen known as Happy Miles. He

14:58

figures he collected about three hundred

15:00

signatures. Yeah, I had everybody

15:03

sign it. I had the Mayor of Miami

15:05

Beach. I had the Mayor of Miami

15:08

Maurice Ferrey. I had

15:10

the customs officers where

15:12

I cleared customs with the airplane

15:15

all the time. I had

15:17

the Fire Department and

15:21

Coral Gables Police Chief,

15:23

and I had tons of members

15:26

from the Adventures Club. Sign

15:29

It nestled in Coconut

15:31

Grove in the mid to late nineteen seventies,

15:34

The Adventurers Yacht and Sailing Club

15:37

offered participants a clever combination

15:40

of an exclusive membership

15:42

with outdoor adventures, complete

15:44

with instruction and rentals for sailing

15:47

and eventually flying. At the time,

15:49

the Adventurers Club was a fixture on the Miami

15:52

social scene, and so was its

15:54

flashy founder, Mr. Happy Miles.

15:57

Coca It Grove was a great place

16:00

to live, and you know, having

16:02

the Adventures Club, I was

16:05

Mimmy's fair haired

16:07

boy. I was on a first

16:09

name basis with the

16:12

Mayor of the city,

16:14

attorney and manager.

16:17

Happy shared a ton of pictures

16:19

with me from all different stages of his life.

16:22

Many are set in tropical or social situations

16:25

where he's smiling next to an assortment

16:27

of beautiful women. In the nineteen

16:29

seventies, Happy stood about six feet

16:32

tall, with a wavy head of dark

16:34

hair and a devious smile that

16:36

competed with the bright blue of his

16:38

eyes for attention, which competed

16:41

with the sparkle of his taste in gold chains,

16:44

expensive watches, and at one point

16:46

a diamond studded bracelet that spelled

16:49

out his name. It was

16:51

a nugget bracelet. I'll send

16:53

you a picture of be wearing

16:56

it, and also wearing a gold

16:59

Rolettes was a nugget band

17:01

that I paid forty thousand

17:03

four. Wouldn't that kind of be a dead giveaway

17:05

as to what you did for a living? Well,

17:08

catch me if you can, he

17:10

sent the picture. You can see why

17:12

in his younger days, Happy was often mistaken

17:15

for Teddy Kennedy. He's seated at

17:17

a desk, arms resting in front of him,

17:19

golden bling popping out from

17:21

both the dazzled wrist, and a

17:24

medallion in chain resting atop

17:26

his chest hair. He's wearing a confident

17:28

grin and a sleek white collared shirt

17:31

generously unbuttoned at the neck.

17:33

I was a pretty good dresser.

17:36

I mean I had a lot of Western

17:38

seats. I still learn the

17:40

boots from that air, and

17:43

those boots seem made for walking. Considering

17:45

the number of times Happy he has been married, Some

17:48

people that are in better know than

17:50

I am say, it's been a baker's

17:53

doesn't but I'm not sure. Wow,

17:57

Well, in my case, there are

17:59

tons of tons of women around.

18:02

As the commodore, you know,

18:05

Happy was known as the commodore

18:07

of the Adventurers Club, which at

18:09

its height boasted more than undred

18:12

members, including the then mayor

18:14

of Miami and international

18:16

drug smuggler Lamar Chester. That's

18:19

where their paths first crossed. Lamar

18:23

Chester joined my yacht club

18:25

to sail, and I

18:27

did such a good job of running boats.

18:29

He thought I should be in the airplane

18:32

business, and he had a bunch

18:34

of airplanes he couldn't pay for, so

18:37

I bought them. And that's how I

18:39

met Lamar. He was

18:41

flying for Eastern

18:43

Airlines, but he had overextended

18:46

himself and you guys ended

18:48

up becoming pretty good friends. Right. Yeah.

18:51

I was the only outsider at his

18:53

wedding because it

18:55

was only family relatives.

18:58

I was the only non family

19:00

member there. It was

19:02

an Indian theme, and

19:04

by Indian, Mr. Miles means

19:07

Native American. I got

19:09

a picture of it. Artists

19:11

in Lamar Okay, let

19:13

me get up so I can describe artists.

19:17

Was she was tall by

19:20

can or something like that? West.

19:25

Lamar has kind of been a Eisenhoward

19:28

type jacket, but Western

19:31

she like, and he

19:34

stands about a three quarters

19:36

of the head two thirds of the head

19:38

taller than Artist. Where

19:41

was their theme to the wedding? Just for fun? It

19:44

was both of their second marriages,

19:46

and they were like The

19:49

photo was faded to a soft pastel

19:51

glow. Lamar and Artists are looking

19:54

at the camera, likely helped by Happy

19:56

Chester's right arm resting on his bride's

19:58

lower back. Both are wearing wide

20:01

grins, and Artists is indeed wearing

20:03

what appears to be Native American

20:05

garb and a band across her forehead.

20:08

Just her smile is topped by a thin mustache

20:10

that gives off an Errol Flynn sort of vibe.

20:13

He's wearing his dark hair meticulously

20:15

slicked back and a yellow rose on

20:17

his left lapel. They look like

20:19

a very happy couple. Well, I

20:22

think they are very much in love with

20:24

each other. I know she was going

20:26

with some Mafi also when

20:29

Lamar met her, and Lamar

20:31

used to buy roses and fly over

20:33

there yacht and dump the roses

20:36

out thumb his nose at

20:38

the mafia. He wasn't

20:40

afraid. Lamar wasn't afraid

20:42

of anything. He stood about two

20:46

or three inches taller than I, long,

20:49

lanky, kind of a farm

20:51

boy type, and he wasn't afraid

20:53

of anybody or anything. That

20:56

fearlessness would be on full display

20:58

during a double date. Happy remembers

21:01

as memorable on multiple levels. One

21:06

time we went for Paiea in

21:09

Cuban Town in my Cadillac

21:11

and Lamar and artists were in the

21:14

back seat and I

21:16

pull up to stop signing. A guy would

21:18

pull up alongside of us and then want

21:20

to drag racist to

21:23

the next light. And I didn't

21:25

know. Lamar was given him

21:27

the finger of the whole time. And

21:30

when we came to stop, he had a three

21:32

fifty seven pointed at

21:34

me, and I was in the

21:37

right lane, so I made a right turn

21:39

and tried to lose them. And

21:41

here we were a hundred miles an hour

21:44

going through Cubantown, all the

21:46

residential roads, and

21:48

I was open for a cop to see

21:50

us. We finally blocked

21:53

them and we got back to his

21:55

apartment um Brickle

21:57

Avenue on the water there, and

22:00

I went up to his apartment and

22:02

he opened a foot locker and

22:05

got a couple of machine guns out

22:07

of it oozes and

22:09

said, let's go find the bastard.

22:12

I said, Lamar, you're crazy. We're not

22:14

going looking for any trouble.

22:17

And he was flying guns then to

22:20

Nicaragua. You

22:23

heard that, right, machine guns

22:25

that were being flown from Miami to

22:27

Nicaragua in the late nineties seventies.

22:30

They were military foot lockers

22:33

in the living room, stacked

22:35

one on top of the other, standard

22:37

military foot lockers the

22:40

issue you in the Marine Corps

22:42

and foot locker's about two

22:45

feet high and two feet

22:47

deep and four ft long

22:49

or something like that. And

22:52

they were just filled with guns. Yeah, there

22:54

were probably at least twenty thirty

22:56

guns of each one. And

22:58

what what kind of guns? Um,

23:01

sixteens I guess and and

23:03

uh and stuff

23:06

like that. So military military

23:08

grade stuff. Yeah, all military

23:11

grade. And did he

23:13

tell you who he was running the

23:16

guns for? The cy A?

23:19

I would imagine the CIA was

23:22

running that show. Those

23:24

guns and Chester's claim of

23:27

running them for the government will play a

23:29

major role as a story unfolds,

23:31

and that remains one of the pieces Bill Stanford

23:34

is still trying to place and one

23:37

that will eventually play out in a

23:39

court of law. Yeah,

23:41

that was one of the stories

23:43

That struck me as very important because

23:45

it was evidence that Chester

23:48

was running guns. I mean, there

23:50

were crates of guns, and as Happy says,

23:53

no one has that many guns for personal use.

23:55

I mean they were in these crates for

23:57

shipping and apparently told

24:00

Happy that he was flying them to the Nicaragua.

24:04

Remember that story because it'll

24:06

come up again. But in terms of

24:08

our timeline, Happy's hold on

24:10

Miami social scene was coming to an end

24:12

by the time Phil relocated there,

24:15

which is why their paths wouldn't cross until

24:17

years later. When I finally tracked

24:19

him down. It turned out he was living about ninety

24:21

miles from me in Albany,

24:24

Oregon, in an abandoned aircraft

24:26

hangar, building a plane. Very

24:30

Happy esque. He has remarkable

24:32

abilities. I mean he's he's completely unschooled,

24:35

but there's a little bit of certainly

24:37

mechanical genius about him. He

24:39

was able to put together huge deals. He

24:41

was able to master several

24:44

crafts. I think he started out as a sailmaker,

24:46

and then that got him into the

24:48

boat rental business, and then he got into

24:50

the aircraft business, and he was modifying planes

24:53

and god knows flying them

24:55

too, without a commercial pilot's

24:57

license. Sound No, he's dyslexa, so

25:00

he can't get his instrumental

25:03

flight certificate. He gets

25:05

mixed up. That's why he said that it was

25:07

scary. I didn't like it.

25:11

I mean, you're coming back at night

25:13

times. Sometimes it

25:15

was just scary as ship being

25:17

dyslexic. I almost

25:20

killed myself a couple of times.

25:22

Airplane lost it in the clouds

25:25

and it went out of control. And just

25:27

a good Lord to save my ass. I

25:30

guess, I don't know good

25:35

that's that's happy. Did I

25:37

ever tell you that he ended up going into

25:39

the movie business as well, both

25:41

as a producer and in Caddyshack,

25:44

there is that scene

25:46

where Ted Night is on the boat

25:49

and Rodney Dangerfield is trying

25:51

to rev up his boat and

25:53

come see him, and all

25:55

of this chaos ensues, and somebody

25:58

throws a fishing rod and he gets hot to

26:00

the boat and he goes flying through the air, and at

26:02

that moment a plane comes and

26:04

swoops down, almost brushing

26:07

Ted Night on the top of the head. And

26:09

guess who's flying that plane. That's happy?

26:11

Yeah, that's happy. Miles and

26:14

flirting with risky flying seems

26:16

to be a running theme with the Coconut Grove.

26:18

Guys, here's happy.

26:20

In fact, Lamar one time let

26:23

me land a seventy

26:26

seven at National Airport.

26:29

No way, not with people on the flight.

26:31

Oh yeah, how did that come about?

26:34

That that Lamar let you fly

26:36

a passenger plane? I was

26:38

on a trip with Lamar. Back

26:40

in those days, they could take

26:43

somebody up into the cockpit,

26:46

even take him on the airplane without

26:48

paying for him. And when the

26:50

chief planot Freester, said what are

26:52

you doing? He said, I didn't think he

26:54

could fly? Do you think I let him fly

26:56

my airplanes? And

26:59

I had eleven thousand hours

27:02

probably at that point in my life.

27:05

And we took off

27:07

from Miami, and the co pilot

27:09

got out of the seat and I got in and

27:11

then flew the airplane, flew

27:15

the approach, and then when we got

27:17

i don't know, down five feet or

27:19

something, he said, my airplane and

27:21

he landed it. Oh so he landed

27:24

it. Yeah, but I

27:27

could have landed it. Back

27:29

to Phil. Did he also tell

27:31

you a story about

27:34

an air drop in the Everglades where

27:37

Lamar talked his way out of an arrest. Yes,

27:40

it's a great story. One morning

27:42

they're doing another drop and happy he's up doing

27:44

the lookout, and here come two planes headed

27:47

from Jamaica or wherever they were coming from. They

27:50

flew together because they'd

27:52

create one radar signature, and the

27:55

idea was that the plane carrying the dope

27:57

would drop down and the other one would

27:59

take off, and so the people watching radar would

28:01

think just one plane had passed

28:03

over the Everglades and would be landing

28:05

at the whatever airport sometime

28:08

later. So here comes the

28:10

plane landing on the road

28:12

and Lamar is driving

28:14

a truck. But there's

28:16

a police presence nearby, and

28:18

so the gang had to get a message to Chester

28:21

in code. I'll let Happy pick it up from

28:23

here. They didn't

28:25

use aircraft radios to talk

28:28

to back and forth. They used marine

28:30

boat radios and

28:33

they would talk about fishing. You

28:36

know, I hope you got your license

28:38

with you today because the

28:40

game warden's checking licenses.

28:43

It let's to be about five

28:46

minutes away or something like

28:48

that. Anyway, so Lamar

28:51

landing was offloading the

28:54

load. He had a truck,

28:57

and not just any truck. This

28:59

one was customized. It

29:01

was painted green and

29:04

it had a Florida state seal

29:07

on the door that said

29:09

Florida hyha sint control.

29:12

Nothing suspicious about that,

29:15

except there's no Florida Hyacinth

29:18

Control. They had the logo

29:20

and everything just made up. Yeah,

29:23

yeah, And they had this truck

29:25

jacked up way off the ground so

29:27

you couldn't see in the bed of it. So

29:30

they landed and loaded the

29:32

load through a tarp over

29:35

it, and Lamar said, you

29:37

fly the airplane to his son

29:39

and I'll drive the truck because

29:43

sheriff was coming. So

29:47

five minutes later they meet going

29:49

the opposite direction and Lamar

29:51

waves them down. That's

29:54

when Chester informs the sheriff about

29:56

suspicious activity he passed

29:59

a while back, and graciously

30:01

offers to phone it into the state and

30:04

the sheriff said, would you be so kind?

30:07

He said, yeah, I'll do that for you. Back

30:14

to phil and Lamar drives

30:16

off, and of course, Happy learns about it later

30:18

when they all stopped for drinks, probably

30:20

outside Opelack air Airport,

30:23

and they all have a good laugh about that

30:25

one. So there was no hyacinthe

30:27

patrol. I

30:30

mean, these guys have a lot of time to sit around scheming,

30:33

and Lamar was and happy. They

30:35

were both schemers. That's kind of

30:37

brilliant because they weren't impersonating

30:39

an actual arm

30:42

of law enforcement. They created

30:45

their own Yeah, yeah, no, it

30:47

was a good dope smugglers story.

30:50

Lamar Chester would also introduce

30:53

Happy Miles to a legendary marijuana

30:55

smuggler, Ron Elliott. Well.

30:58

Ron and Lamar both flew through Eastern

31:00

Airlines, were both captains,

31:04

and they both joined my club.

31:07

Ron is one of these guys

31:10

that overthinks everything and

31:12

makes it too complicated.

31:15

He was an astronaut, you know,

31:18

but when they shut down the sky

31:20

Lab program, we

31:23

want to work flying for Eastern

31:26

and he and his wife

31:28

had had a baby, had some

31:31

weird disease where the baby never

31:33

got out of diapers. He

31:36

wasn't supposed to live but a year or two.

31:38

He lived to be seven, and

31:41

she was a nurse and both

31:43

of them were just frazzled

31:45

by the time the kid died, and

31:49

Ron Elliott said, buck,

31:52

I was so teed up.

31:54

I had robbed the bank, but

31:57

he decided he'd find a buye

31:59

in Jamaica. He did so.

32:02

That pretty much explains how Lamar Chester,

32:04

Happy Miles, and Ron Elliott knew

32:07

each other and why they were eventually

32:09

known by their swagger sounding nicknames.

32:12

Back to Phil there was Captain America

32:14

of course, as Lamar the

32:16

Commodore Happy because he had

32:18

this boat rental business.

32:21

And Ron Elliott, his

32:23

nickname was the the Astronaut because

32:25

at one time he had actually been part of the U. S A.

32:28

Government astronaut program.

32:30

He's a very vivid character. I

32:32

hadn't met him yet either. It was like Happy. I

32:34

didn't meet him till later. He was had

32:36

grown up in northern Florida, like

32:39

Lamore and Daredevil.

32:41

Like Lamore, he had been flying crop

32:44

dusting jobs while he was

32:46

still in high school, and about the time he graduated

32:48

from high school, went into the Service

32:51

and ended up flying special

32:53

operations missions in Vietnam

32:55

and laws and besides that, he was

32:57

flying in the mid East for an

33:00

intelligence off the book stuff.

33:02

But he was a pilot for Eastern

33:05

just like Lamar, and that's

33:07

actually how they met. Elliott told

33:09

Stanford about the meeting, which he remembers

33:11

occurring in nineteen six. He

33:14

had a layover in Boston for about four

33:16

hours, and I was in the pilot's

33:18

lounge and who should come in but Lamar.

33:21

Lamar wasn't flying that day, so we'd come up just to

33:23

see Ron and

33:25

they started talking and at a certain

33:28

point, Lamar said, how'd you like to

33:30

do some hanky panky flying? And Ron

33:32

says he played dumb at first, didn't know what

33:35

he was talking about. And Mar smiled at him and put

33:37

his government records fuller

33:39

with his government records on the table

33:41

in front of them. And Ron looked

33:44

at it, and so he knew that Lamar

33:46

was already familiar with all the off the books

33:49

flying he was already doing. He

33:51

agreed to hook up with Lamar and for

33:53

the next several days, he said, they were down in the

33:55

Bahamas, and Lamar showed him where the

33:58

safe houses were where he could get gas

34:00

and that sort of thing, and they

34:03

turned out to be best friends. He

34:06

was Lamar's best buddy. How

34:08

did Lamar get Elliott's

34:10

records? He would have had some sort of connection.

34:13

It's pretty clear. Did

34:22

um Elliot's name come up?

34:24

If I'm not mistaken in the Black Tuna trial

34:27

too. Oh yeah,

34:30

he was actually among the inditees

34:32

in the Black Tuna trial, but eventually

34:35

dropped. And I don't know whether it's because he had the

34:37

government connections or because he wasn't

34:39

really part of the

34:41

Black Tuna organization. He

34:43

wasn't. He was brought in at the very

34:45

end by Bobby Platt shown who had filled

34:48

a duty to rescue a couple of pilots

34:50

who had gone down in

34:52

Central America. And so he

34:54

got Ron Elliott and another

34:57

guy who turned out to be ad informant

35:00

to fly down and get the

35:02

the two down pilots. And when they landed,

35:04

they were arrested and Ron

35:06

Elliott was charged and initially

35:09

on the Black Tuna indictment, but

35:11

then the charges were dropped.

35:14

Yeah, And as I say, it's not clear

35:17

whether it was because he had the government

35:19

connections, which is quite possible, or

35:21

because he wasn't

35:23

really part of the Black Tuna gang. So Elliott,

35:26

the charges are drops and Platt Shorn

35:28

gets sixty years under the Kingpin.

35:31

Yeah. Yeah. Captain

35:34

America, the Commodore and the Astronaut,

35:37

along with another smuggler named Jack Devo,

35:40

would very much rule the Miami Skies

35:42

of nineteen seventies drugs smuggling.

35:44

Here's happy Jack was Captain

35:47

Jack from Dick Tracy.

35:50

He came into join the club

35:53

and very impressionable

35:56

guy. He came and talked

35:58

to me about joining the club. I

36:01

told him it was a hundred and fifty six dollars

36:03

up front for his first year news

36:06

and I would waive the initiation

36:09

fee and of four hundred

36:12

and he went and he got a check for

36:14

a hundred and fifty six dollars signed

36:16

by his mother. He was

36:18

a great pilot, good fr

36:21

pilot, pilot

36:24

instrument flight rules where

36:27

you go into the clouds and you can't

36:29

see anything and you have to drive

36:31

the airplane on instruments

36:34

only. Wow. So

36:36

what happened was Jack

36:39

joined my club and

36:41

then he borrowed my late Amphibian

36:44

and wrecked it. Did

36:46

so much damage to it that I

36:48

don't know how he got at home. And

36:51

then the government came and

36:53

said, you know that he's

36:55

using your airplanes because

36:58

he was using the planes

37:00

from the Adventurers Club to run

37:02

trips where well

37:05

I think he he originally

37:07

was, I'm not sure,

37:10

probably flying out of Jamaica,

37:12

but Denny went to Columbia.

37:15

Then the d A comes to you right

37:18

and starts asking questions about Jack's

37:21

travel. Yeah. Yeah, the

37:23

Task Force. He got

37:25

on the Task Forces radar.

37:28

And that's when Happy says, the

37:30

Task Force leaned on him to keep

37:33

tabs on devote. But when

37:35

Happy realized they were taping his

37:37

office at the Adventurer's Club. Mr

37:39

Miles returned to the favor. I

37:42

recorded the guys at Johnson Aviation,

37:45

which was the d e A in their

37:48

office next to my office. They

37:50

were trying to get evidence on me. So

37:53

while they're recording you, you're recording

37:55

them. Yeah, said

37:57

the idea. A better job than they did.

38:00

And I never talked

38:02

in my office, and instead

38:05

I take everything that went on in

38:07

their office and what were

38:09

they up to? Anything

38:12

but the right thing? I mean

38:15

I had taps of them

38:18

marketing products over

38:20

the telephone and stuff. Yeah,

38:23

and by marketing products, Mr

38:25

Miles means making drug deals. So

38:28

again they're they're actually committing

38:30

the crimes they're trying to enforce. Right.

38:33

Oh yeah, Happy

38:36

kept those tapes as insurance,

38:38

which could explain the unique

38:40

immunity deal he wound up getting.

38:43

Will dive more deeply into Jack Devo

38:45

in future episodes and how he

38:47

eventually ended up testifying against

38:50

Manuel Noriega, the

38:52

former CIA spy turned drug

38:55

running dictator, testified

38:58

before Congress with a little on

39:00

his face with

39:02

the black hood over his head.

39:05

We'll circle back to all of that a bit later,

39:08

but back to our story. Armed

39:10

with an innate sense of both engineering and

39:13

ingenuity, Mr Happy Miles

39:15

would take credit for a hack that was an absolute

39:18

game changer for this high flying

39:20

drug smuggling set. You know,

39:22

everybody credits

39:25

uh Later with stopping

39:28

the islands and figuring out

39:30

how to get kill caine from Colombia

39:33

to the US, but it

39:35

was me far ahead of them.

39:38

Carlos Later was a German Colombian

39:40

drug trafficker and one of the founding members

39:43

of the Medaian Cartel. He's

39:45

considered to be one of the most important Colombian

39:47

drug kingpins to have ever been successfully

39:50

prosecuted in the United States. I'm

39:53

the guy that built the airplanes with

39:55

four thousand mile range.

39:58

It wasn't for me building killed game

40:00

clippers. So airplane

40:03

that will fly forever, reliable,

40:06

twin engine hyper commanche

40:09

usually, although I

40:11

built other ones Skymasters

40:14

with two hundred gallons of fuel

40:17

on them, well over that two

40:19

hundred and fifty gallons of fuel

40:21

on them. Inspired by

40:23

a book about a legendary long distance

40:26

pilot who had broken records by retrofitting

40:28

planes with additional fuel capacity,

40:31

Happy employed the innovation to smuggling

40:34

by artfully disguising the additional

40:36

tanks to avoid detection. They

40:39

carried so much fuel, but nobody

40:42

knew it. I mean, I just

40:44

had a few more filler caps

40:46

up the airplane than the average Comanche,

40:50

but instead of carrying ninety gallons,

40:53

I carry three hundred

40:55

plus. And more fuel

40:57

means less stops on the way back for Columbia

41:00

or Jamaica for planes filled with drugs,

41:03

which meant less risk of customs

41:05

discovering those drugs and less

41:07

money spent on bribing those customs agents.

41:10

Fewer stops, lowered risk and increased

41:12

profits. So Happy's huge

41:14

yet hidden tanks were a huge hit

41:17

with the Coconut Grove smuggling set in

41:19

a time when smuggling was a bit simpler

41:22

and safer. We're just a

41:24

bunch of good old boys, Jack

41:27

Devot and Lamar and

41:30

Ron Elliott myself,

41:33

none of us were bang bang shot

41:35

him up. The only one I

41:38

had ever seen with a gun was Ron

41:40

Elliott. When he pulled it

41:42

on me, threatened to blow

41:45

my brains out, said I owed him money,

41:47

but I didn't. But I paid him anyway.

41:50

And I never made enemies

41:53

or had vendettas against anybody,

41:56

because life was too short and

41:59

you never know when you might need them.

42:02

But that happened a bit later. Back

42:04

to more innocent times. It

42:06

was three cocaine cowboy

42:09

era and Griselle

42:12

de Blanca. Griselle

42:14

de Blanco was a notorious Colombian

42:16

cocaine trafficker known as La Madrina,

42:19

the Godmother of Cocaine, and the Black

42:22

Widow. Because she murdered all three

42:24

of her husbands. There

42:27

wasn't a lot of bang bang shoot

42:30

him up if any. The

42:32

head of the d e A, Jane

42:34

frank Or, used to call me the last

42:37

of the oldie Goldie's, and

42:41

d e A was underfunded.

42:44

They had no money, so they

42:47

were pretty hamstrung of what

42:49

they could do, and

42:53

surveillance wasn't

42:55

what it is now, so

42:57

in in a way it was a simpler,

43:00

more safe time to get involved

43:02

in that business. Yeah,

43:05

I mean, the chances

43:07

of you getting caught if you knew what you

43:09

were doing were pretty slim,

43:12

and I'm sure that the rewards

43:14

were pretty high. Well yeah,

43:17

I mean you're getting basically

43:19

ten value

43:22

of the load. Whoever your Colombian

43:24

connection is. You're splitting

43:27

six thousand dollars a kilo

43:30

basically, So I was getting

43:33

three thousand, five hundred kilo

43:37

in the end. That's not what

43:39

I got in the beginning, but that's

43:42

what I got after I had worked for

43:44

in a while. How much

43:46

at your peak would

43:49

you say you were bringing in a month. I

43:51

was making it at least

43:54

three hundred and fifty thousand a month.

43:56

I'd go one time, so you were

43:58

making fifty a

44:01

trip a trip. Yeah,

44:03

that's over four million a year

44:06

in the nineteen seventies, and

44:09

that's what basically put the Coconut

44:11

Grove guys on the radar of law enforcement

44:14

money. Apparently, after Lamar

44:17

made the hook up with the cartel

44:19

people and got into cocaine,

44:21

which was really big money.

44:24

It was Ron Elliott who walked

44:28

duffle bags of money through customs

44:30

in Panama to launder

44:33

it in the banks down there. And

44:35

he was the one who was chosen

44:37

to do that because he he wore a suit

44:40

better than any any of the others. He could look

44:42

like a real businessman. That

44:44

was his job, besides regular smuggling,

44:46

flying duties taking the

44:49

money into Panama to be laundered. According

44:52

to Happy Fuel, takes weren't the only influence

44:55

he wielded over Chester. He claims

44:57

to have given the former dope smuggler his

44:59

cocaine connection. And

45:01

when I fixed him up with that load

45:03

of cocaine, he made more money

45:06

off of me that load than

45:08

the entire time he had been

45:10

running marijuana.

45:12

That's another story and a significant

45:15

turning point in ours back

45:17

to Happy and his impact on the coconut

45:20

grove smuggling set. Believe

45:22

it or not, I was the trendsetter. None

45:25

of them had airplanes

45:27

as sophisticated as my cocaine

45:30

clippers were my comanchies.

45:33

I mean, they followed me all the time.

45:35

I had the Adventures Club and then

45:37

the Flying Club, and then

45:40

Jack started a flying operation

45:44

out at Opallaca after me. Opalaca

45:47

is a city of Miami Dade with an airport

45:50

the coconut grove smugglers favored. I

45:52

was living at the Miami Lakes

45:55

Country Club, and I moved

45:58

to Ocean Reef, and

46:00

then Lamar moved to Ocean

46:02

Reef. Then Jack

46:04

moved to ocean Reef. Yes

46:07

Happy, he's referring to the exclusive

46:10

ocean Reef club in North Key Largo.

46:13

I had two hangars at ocean

46:15

Reef. Lamar had one hanger

46:17

at ocean Reef. I

46:19

guess after I left, Jack took

46:22

over one of my hangers. I don't

46:24

know. He's also implying

46:26

the group smuggled drugs there via private

46:28

hangars. You gotta remember

46:31

I started in what seventy

46:33

four or five? The first sload

46:35

I ever made, I carried

46:38

five kilos from Bolivia

46:41

of cocaine. So

46:43

off and on one form

46:46

or another, I had functioned

46:48

in the industry for over five

46:51

years. That's a long

46:53

time to get away with doing

46:56

what we were doing. But

46:59

as this event shifted into the eighties,

47:02

the good old boys dynamic was shifting too.

47:04

Like Icarus, all these guys, the Commodore,

47:07

Captain America, the Astronaut, and Captain

47:09

Jack would eventually fly a bit

47:11

too close to the sun and one would

47:14

actually crash and burn, but only

47:16

after all had had some very real run

47:19

ins with the law. They all

47:21

got burned except Happy. Except

47:23

Happy. Yeah. When I was talking to too

47:25

Happy, it was pretty clear that

47:29

he was very clever. He was always a jump ahead

47:31

of the law. He was as much involved as any

47:33

of the others, maybe even

47:35

more so, and that level of

47:37

involvement would ultimately let

47:40

Happy play both sides. What's

47:42

the biggest misconception people

47:45

have about the War on drugs,

47:48

Oh that the government wants

47:50

to do something about it. They

47:53

don't. Everybody

47:55

that works in the industry wants

47:58

to keep it going and make it bigger

48:00

and bigger. The more money

48:02

they pump at it. The Nie search choice

48:05

that the guys have to

48:07

play with and the cards that they

48:09

sees, they get the drive. So

48:12

you think there was never any real

48:15

intention to win the war on

48:17

drugs. Once they realized how lucratific could

48:19

be to fight it, well,

48:23

it was all for show on

48:27

the next murder in Miami, the longstanding

48:30

history of prohibition pushing illicit

48:32

profits. When later

48:35

moved into the

48:37

Bahamas, he paid a

48:39

lot of money to be able to operate

48:42

out enormous chew while

48:44

the War on drugs makes for some very

48:46

bizarre bed partners. He told

48:49

me that the CIA had been attached to

48:51

u throw the government in the Bahamas, and

48:54

how the coconut grove smuggling set

48:57

wound up in such hot water the

48:59

color dry from their faces because

49:01

there was a photograph of Lamar on there and

49:04

it said master criminal or secret

49:06

agent. Murder

49:08

of Miami is a production of I Heart Radio

49:11

Executive producers are Lauren Bright Pacheco,

49:14

Taylor Kogne, and Phil Stanford.

49:17

Written by Phil Stanford and Lauren

49:19

Bright Pacheco, Audio editing

49:21

and sound design by Nicholas Harder, Evan

49:24

Tyre and Taylor Scogne, featuring

49:27

music by Event Tyre, Phil Mayor, John

49:29

Murchison and Taylor Chacogne. For

49:33

more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit

49:35

the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

49:38

or wherever you get the stories that matter

49:40

to you