01x06 - Adios, Muchachos

[bunniefuu]

[reporter] First at 5:30.

They are two of South Florida's

most notorious criminals,

Willy Falcon and Sal Magluta

are already in federal prison.

[Mario] Willy Falcon was in jail

doing ten years on a g*n charge.

Sal was doing ten years

on a false passport case.

[reporter] Tonight, the Feds want to make

sure they stay behind bars for good.

[dramatic music playing]

[reporter 2] It reads like a script

from Goodfellas,

m*rder, attempted m*rder,

payoffs, and intimidation.

It's got the nicknames to match,

Blondie, Ikey, Willy, Sal, and Ouija.

It is a 46-count indictment.

And it comes on the heels

of two decades worth of investigation.

[Raquel] Finally, a chance

to retry the case again

and put the right people in jail

for the murders,

for the money laundering,

for the corruption.

The three major components

of our RECOIL case.

[Mario] We really as the FBI

and the United States Attorney's Office,

had to send a message

that this wasn't gonna happen

in the United States.

Charging in effect conspiracy

by the Falcon and Magluta organization

to obstruct

the entire criminal justice system.

[Mario] We wanted to indict and convict

every single individual

in the organization

that had anything to do

with obstructing that 1996 case.

[reporter] Magluta and Falcon are charged

with conspiracy to obstruct justice

by bribing jurors,

paying witnesses to lie,

and murdering three witnesses

who were about to testify against them.

The term witness tampering

are in fact m*rder of government witnesses

and they carry a life in prison penalty.

[Mario] If you attempt to corrupt

our justice system,

we're going to come back at you

and make sure that in the end,

justice is served.

["Blood Sport" by Pitbull playing]

Woo!

Sniff, co- ♪

Snort, -caine ♪

Deal, cow- ♪

Extort, -boys ♪

Will, will, k*ll, k*ll ♪

For the love of the blood sport ♪

They'll do 25 to life ♪

For the love of the blood sport ♪

[Raquel] On the day

that the indictment was unsealed,

we already had served

25 search warrants.

We had seized 20 bank accounts

and we indicted 13 co-conspirators.

[reporter] FBI agents served

search warrants yesterday on 13 homes.

[reporter 2] In the attic

of the Valverde house,

agents found nine boxes stacked with cash.

[Marilyn] Luis Valverde.

I was the one that told Mario,

go to his house,

'cause, you know, he keeps money there.

[Raquel] He was an AC repairman

for Miami-Dade County school.

And I doubt that even in his lifetime

he would have had

six million dollars in his attic.

[reporter] They have found so much cash,

they haven't even been able to count it.

[Marilyn] They only found six million.

To me, that was nothing.

I was thinking they were gonna find

a lot more than that.

[reporter] Among those arrested,

lawyer and Magluta brother-in-law

Richard Martinez, seen here in the middle,

charged with bribing witnesses.

Attorney Mark Dachs is arrested

accused of telling witnesses not to talk.

[Jim] There used to be a sense

of camaraderie among the white powder bar.

Prosecutors understood

defense attorneys were doing their job.

Defense attorneys understood

prosecutors were doing their job.

Falcon and Magluta changed that.

Prosecutors had to say, "You know what?"

"We can't give the defense side

a free pass anymore."

"They're no longer just sort

of equal players like us in the system."

"They're the enemy."

I didn't know if I was

a target, a subject, a witness.

I didn't know what I was,

but I knew I was very uncomfortable.

[Marilyn] They got Sal's ledger book.

They were aware of every attorney

that was in that ledger book,

and they were interested in each

and every one of them.

I think everybody was subpoenaed

to explain the story behind the fees.

[Frank] How dare the government

ask defense lawyers who paid them,

how they were paid?

[Bobby] It's a chilling effect

on the entire defense bar.

That doesn't necessarily

make you wanna wake up

and take the next big case

that comes into town.

It was an unnecessary, unwarranted,

and unprecedented intrusion

into the attorney-client relationship.

Business as usual

for some of those attorneys

and how they conducted themselves

and accepting drug money as fees.

[Albert] If you know

that the money is dirty,

you may well be committing the crime

of money laundering by taking that money.

I'm not going to play the game

as to how close I can come

to the cliff of money laundering

and get away with it.

That's not for me.

I wanna go home at night.

I wanna sleep well.

I wanna see my children.

I don't want to become any more familiar

with the inside of a jail than I have.

[reporter] Miami's famed criminal defense

lawyer Roy Black is withdrawing

from a notorious drug case.

Prosecutors say Black unknowingly took

at least 300,000 dollars

in laundered drug money

from his clients

Willy Falcon and Salvador Magluta.

[Pat] Some lawyers in the community,

criminal defense lawyers,

tended to think

that we just wanted revenge, etcetera.

They were sore losers.

[dramatic music playing]

[man] In comes a new team of lawyers.

Jack Denaro, the lead attorney.

Every bit as good

as Mr. Krieger and Roy Black.

[man] Jack, in turn, brought in

Neil Schuster.

I received a phone call

from one of Sal's assistants

and she says,

"Sal would like to see you."

Now, mind you, I've heard of Sal.

I've never met Sal.

I was like, "Why the hell

would I be going to see Sal?"

She said, "He wants to interview you

for purposes of representing him."

You have the melting pot

of Miami as your defense team.

He had an Anglo,

he had a Jew, and he had a Black.

[reporter] The father and son

of reputed drug kingpin

Sal Magluta

are now facing federal charges,

accused by the government of

money laundering and obstructing justice.

[Jim] There was some interesting tactics,

played on the prosecutor side of things,

as a form of leverage

against Willy and Sal.

I had asked Mario and Pat please

not to do anything to Christian Magluta

or to Manolo 'cause he's an older man.

And they said that they had to

because they felt it was a way

to pressure Sal into cooperating.

[melancholy music playing]

That was the US Attorney's Office,

myself, playing hardball.

The government

is not interested in your family.

The government is gonna use

your family as leverage if they can.

[reporter] Twenty-eight-year-old

Christian Magluta

and his 80-year-old grandfather Manuel

are said to have tampered

with government witnesses

and used drug money to buy land and cars.

[Jorge] Manolo, that man was a saint.

That man was incapable

of committing a crime.

And Christian, his son,

I guarantee that he never did anything

thinking that it was ill*gal.

We've now gotta prepare

a defense to the charges.

We hope they don't indict

the dog and the parrot tomorrow.

Sal Magluta very well

could've plead guilty

and not gone to trial, and the end result

of all that would've been,

I think, a great benefit to loved ones,

friends, and family members.

Maybe he thought he was calling our bluff,

that we wouldn't prosecute

a father and son.

What would you do

for your dad not to spend a day in jail?

I'd take life.

And he was confronted

with that dilemma directly,

and he was resolute in his decision

that he is not going to cave in.

Sal wanted to save himself, that's it.

For Sal, it was about winning.

He couldn't let go of that.

He just kept it going.

[reporter] The case against reputed

drug kingpins Sal Magluta and Willy Falcon

took yet another twist today.

[Mario] We indicted Sal Magluta

on the murders,

the government was never

able to gather any evidence

against Willy Falcon linking him.

So the judge granted their motion to sever

Willy Falcon from Sal Magluta for trial.

[Marilyn] It was Willy Falcon's decision

that he wanted to be separated from Sal.

Because he had nothing

to do with the m*rder charges.

And if he went with Sal,

it would hurt his case.

[Jim] The thing about Falcon and Magluta,

the thing about the Boys, Los Muchachos,

was they were always greater

than the sum of their parts.

They were stronger and more powerful

together than they ever were separate.

[dramatic music building]

Once you split them apart,

once you no longer had Falcon and Magluta

as Falcon and Magluta,

it sorta weakened them.

Sal seemed less than.

Sal didn't seem

as great, as strong, as big.

[glass shattering]

[reporter] He was known as one

of the original Cocaine Cowboys.

He and partner Willy Falcon suspected

of using high-speed boats

to smuggle billions of dollars' worth

of cocaine into the US.

The reputed cocaine kingpin

is finally getting his day in court again.

It's showtime. [chuckles]

[reporter] Jurors enter the courthouse

underground in a Marshal's van,

kept under guard in a hotel

somewhere in South Florida,

sequestered as they will be

for this three to six month trial.

Our sketch artist not allowed

to draw their faces.

Civilians not allowed to stand

in the lobby when jurors walk by.

The reason, as prosecutor

Pat Sullivan phrased it,

"This trial is about another trial."

[dramatic music builds]

[Rod] Pat Sullivan,

the assistant United States Attorney

who was handling the case,

he makes his opening to the jury.

[Pat] This prosecution was about righting

a series of really serious wrongs,

about setting the ledger straight.

[Rod] They said,

"Sal Magluta used his money

to deny justice in the first case."

They said he was able to finance

the crimes they said he was involved in.

The bribery of the jury,

where did the money come from?

The money laundering itself,

where did the money come from?

The hit teams that came

into United States to k*ll witnesses

involved in this case,

where did the money come from?

There was a technical

money-laundering aspect,

but it was a m*rder case.

[Rod] If convicted of money laundering,

the most he can get is 20 years.

He probably would've been looking at

anywhere from eight to ten years.

But the k*lling of witnesses,

he would face life in prison.

[Mike] When the indictment

of the drug case came down in 1991,

there was also

a sweeping restraining order

that restrained about two billion dollars

in organization drug assets.

And the organization had to figure out

some way of paying their attorneys

'cause they didn't want to get

publicly appointed counsel.

They were used to getting what they wanted

and they wanted the best attorneys

their drug money could buy without being

seen as violating the restraining order.

And so what they did is they created

a variety of different mechanisms

to pay the attorneys

through purported third parties.

One of the ways was that Marilyn Bonachea

paid people through cash

that was recorded in the ledger.

[Richard] But some of the attorneys

wanted a more legitimate

recognized paper trail that money

had been transferred by check.

Magluta was not in position

to have his own bank account,

so he had to use another bank account,

and another name, to pay the attorneys.

The paper record that they had been paid

was certainly better than taking cash.

That ultimately proved to be

another one of Magluta's downfalls.

[Mario] Antonio Garcia was the individual

in charge of laundering money,

so accounts could be opened up overseas,

so checks and wire transfers could be

paid to defense attorneys in the case.

He agreed to tell us exactly

how the accounts were being opened up

and how defense attorneys were being paid.

[Pat] He basically showed us firsthand

how this money route worked.

He was taped picking up cash

in Miami from another associate.

That money was transported

up to New York by plane.

And he was taped delivering that money

to a person from New York

named Harry Kozlik.

Harry Kozlik would give Tony Garcia

back checks from Israel,

and remarkably these checks would appear

in the accounts of the attorneys.

[Benson] Interestingly,

I did receive a check in the amount

for 50,000 dollars drawn

on the Bank of Israel.

And Pat Sullivan asked me

if this was from Sal's rabbi.

- [producer] Was it from Sal's rabbi?

- Apparently.

I had never had any prosecution

involving a rabbi

who was involved with money laundering,

and since that trial,

I have never come into any other rabbi

involved in money laundering.

That was a first for me.

[reporter] And the star

government witness,

Marilyn Bonachea, who prosecutors

say helped her former boyfriend Sal

run his drug ring from behind bars.

[man] Marilyn Bonachea was a witness

the government deemed

to be critically important.

[Pat] We were trying to prove

that all this money

reflected in the Bonachea ledger

was drug money.

[Rod] For those who have seen the movie

The Untouchables,

Marilyn Bonachea's character would have

been played by Al Capone's bookkeeper.

[man] Two coded entries in this ledger

represent cash disbursement

to Alphonse Capone.

[man 2] That is correct.

That's what Marilyn was supposed to do

for the jury.

She understood the ledger.

She was supposed to walk the government

and the jury through his finances.

But more importantly,

she was supposed to be the missing link

between Sal and these murders,

this so-called confession

that Salvador Magluta made to her.

[Marilyn] Six years had gone by,

and I hadn't seen Sal.

In an odd way, I wanted to see him

and see how he was doing.

I walked out and sat down,

and he was already there.

And the first thing Sal does,

he starts crying.

There was a sadness about the whole thing.

I turned around

and we started talking in sign language.

He knew sign language because

my brother and sister were both deaf.

And he spent a lot of time

in my house when we were kids.

And he said, "I forgive you."

"Well, I don't need your forgiveness,

but that's nice."

"Thank you." Yeah.

It was either Pat or Mario

who told us to stop.

[melancholy music playing]

I testified for over two weeks.

I had knowledge

of all the charges against Sal.

I would translate

the ledger book for the jury,

Sal's dealings, Willy Falcon's dealings.

And then we talked about

what I call "confession day."

[dramatic music building]

How Sal had admitted

to the m*rder of Acosta.

And he was behind the other murders also.

He opened up and starts telling me

about all the other ones

that he's planning to m*rder,

or he already attempted and failed.

He told me about Tony Posada.

He says,

"Well, you know, I tried to m*rder him."

He put a b*mb in Tony Posada's car.

Juan Barroso was also

on his potential witness list.

Sal kind of joked around

about him not dying

'cause he had attempted twice

and he wouldn't die.

"The guy's immortal. The guy

keeps getting shot and he won't die."

I told him,

"Well, maybe it's not his day to die."

Sal told me

they tried to put a hit on Pegy.

But it didn't work out.

Sal was especially worried

about Bernie Gonzalez.

Bernie Gonzalez knew a lot.

Bernie was gonna testify

he was smuggling for them.

One day Sal tells me,

"Well, you know, something good happened."

And I'm thinking, "Okay, good. He decided,

you know, he's gonna let Bernie go."

He says, "No, I found a way in."

Bernie's brother is selling his boat.

So Sal said, "We're in. We're finally in."

And I was kind of,

"Oh, no. He's gonna die."

And Bernie wasn't home,

but his brother was.

And they took his brother

and tied him up and put him in the garage.

And they waited for Bernie,

and then Bernie came in.

As soon as Bernie came in,

they shot and k*lled him.

And then they went

into the garage and k*lled the brother.

Sal told me,

"We didn't intend to k*ll the brother,

but he just happened to be there."

I was scared that Sal was becoming

a different person.

He wasn't the person that I knew anymore.

The person I knew would never have done

the things that he was doing.

I said, "Don't keep doing it.

It's gonna get worse and worse."

"You're just gonna have

to add more people."

One day, I got mad. I said,

"What are you gonna do?

k*ll 100 of them?"

"If there's 100 people that testify,

you gonna k*ll them all?"

[melancholy music playing]

He cried.

He did cry.

I told him, "God always forgives."

And that's what he needed to hear.

I think that's the reason he told me

'cause he needed to hear that.

[Jim] That betrayal by Marilyn Bonachea,

a childhood sweetheart,

someone he relied on his entire life,

worked at his family's bakery.

You just know that Sal never thought

Marilyn would do that to him.

[Pat] Marilyn Bonachea was one

of the best witnesses

I think I've ever seen on a witness stand.

Some of the criminal defense lawyers

who saw her testify said the same thing.

[Mario] We didn't just wanna rely

upon just Marilyn's testimony,

but that was really all we had

at that point to link him to the murders.

We had hit team members in custody.

But none of the cartel members

who cooperated ever had any direct contact

with Salvador Magluta.

So really,

we didn't have that direct link.

That essentially left the government

with one remaining witness,

Marilyn Bonachea.

Their linchpin.

Why would she lie? She's his girlfriend.

Marilyn Bonachea,

she was a heavy user of opiates.

Orlando Leyva, her side piece,

who unbeknownst to her

was a confidential informant.

She's telling Orlando that

it was very hard for her to function.

[Marilyn] I am mentally ill, you know,

that they have driven me to a point.

[Orlando] That's rotten.

[Marilyn] I just couldn't handle

what was going on anymore.

In 1996, she was actually

involuntarily committed.

As a result of that, Sal cut her money.

He lost trust in her.

[Marilyn] A month before that

I tried to k*ll myself.

[Rod] Marilyn Bonachea

was a scorned lover.

She knew Sal when they were teenagers.

We're talking about decades.

She was in love with Sal.

So for five years before the first trial

while Sal has been sitting in jail,

Marilyn Bonachea is spending all

of her time and energy catering to Sal,

going to visit him on a daily basis,

doing everything Sal asks her to do.

She is thinking if somehow

he gets exonerated from this,

they're gonna spend

the rest of their lives together.

But it didn't work out that way.

Thank God. It was all only done,

it was only possible by God.

[Rod] Sal gets acquitted.

She doesn't hear from him

for over a month.

He is gallivanting all around town

celebrating his acquittal.

[Orlando] If you could tell him now,

if you could talk to him,

what would you tell him?

[Marilyn] "I thought you were my friend."

[Rod] Here comes October of 1996.

[sirens wailing]

Marilyn Bonachea is stopped.

The ledgers are seized.

Sal now wants her to leave her family

and hide out in these dump hotels.

Yet, he's staying at the Ritz-Carlton.

She's pissed.

The US Attorney's Office advised her

that she's looking at spending

approximately 205 years in prison.

So, she's going to cooperate.

She's gonna do

and say everything she has to say

to not spend any time in jail.

[Marilyn] You know what?

I've taken the rap for everybody. I, yo.

I've been like Virgin Mary.

[in broken Spanish] Here, I have beared

and suffered for everyone.

There'll come a time,

it's gonna be their turn.

'Cause my mom didn't raise no fool either.

[Rod] But if Sal was responsible

for the murders of all of these witnesses,

if she was the one that can take Sal down,

why would Sal

allow Marilyn Bonachea to live?

He could've easily k*lled her

if he wanted her dead.

It just doesn't fly.

Sal is not a violent individual.

Sal never put a hit out

on Marilyn Bonachea.

So, how would she know those facts

about the death of the witnesses

if Sal didn't tell her?

How would she know

about the deaths of those witnesses?

Places, the times, who did what,

how would she know that?

And then, it became obvious

how she knew it.

The Miami Herald.

Because the Miami Herald ran an article

that detailed in specificity

the deaths of these witnesses.

When Marilyn is pulled over in 1996,

in the trunk of the vehicle

are the ledgers.

But also in the trunk

was this July 18, 1993 article

that she had for three years.

[Marilyn] Sal said,

"You know about the attorney?"

He said, "Well, I had him k*lled."

"Juan Barroso," he says, "We shot at him

five times. The guy's immortal."

[Rod] The testimony that Marilyn Bonachea

gave during the trial

mirrored that article.

[Marilyn] Luis Escobedo.

He was k*lled in a club in Coconut Grove.

Sal tells me,

"Bernie's brother is selling his boat."

[Jim] It was like the end of

The Usual Suspects, when you find out

that everything Keyser Söze told

the Customs agent during the whole movie,

he was just reading off the wall

directly behind him.

[Rod] And when the jury finally saw

that her testimony was consistent

with what was printed by the media,

they completely lost trust in her

as a witness.

[Richard] We truly demolished that case.

[Rod] Can I get a what, what?

[Mario] This is a complex,

complicated case.

The jury was definitely out

for several days.

And we just wait.

We were very nervous.

More so in this case

than any other case I've ever worked.

[reporter] Jury deliberations continue for

a fifth day in the trial of Sal Magluta.

We were waiting for the verdict,

knots in your stomach,

almost like a sick feeling.

[dramatic music playing]

[Reporter] We're following breaking news

within the last few minutes,

there is now a verdict, finally,

for drug kingpin Sal Magluta.

It took eight days of deliberation.

[Mike] It was standing room only

in the courtroom.

We were looking back

waiting for the jury to come in.

And it was packed.

[Mario] When the jury stands up

and they give their verdict,

you can hear a pin drop

in the courtroom.

And then of course, the verdict comes.

[dramatic music building]

[reporter] Sal Magluta not guilty

of the most serious counts.

[reporter 2] The jury found the defendant

not guilty of ordering the m*rder

of three government witnesses.

The counts that could have

put him away for life.

Those "not guilty" counts were not, um

Those were disappointing.

Forty-one counts.

He's found not guilty of 33 counts.

[Richard] It was a m*rder case,

but the only counts he's convicted of

are paying his lawyers eight checks.

The jury said, "He paid his lawyer

with the wrong check."

"But he's absolutely innocent

of all of this other stuff

that the whole trial was about."

If he had been convicted of the murders

it would have been mandatory life

in the strictest prison

in the United States.

By winning the verdicts

on the m*rder cases,

I think his freedom from prison

in the future is almost assured.

Oh, he's getting out.

Sal's gonna walk out of here one day.

Yeah, he'll do, you know,

a little short period of time

for the money laundering counts.

He's gonna get outta here.

[reporter] Magluta's family

had little to say about the proceedings

although his mother was relieved,

expecting a harsher verdict.

If you look at the verdict sheet,

uh, he had some successes.

We lost the m*rder counts,

which was certainly a big disappointment.

We lost a lot of money laundering counts.

But we had to get the sentence

that we believed Sal Magluta deserved.

So sentencing comes around.

[reporter] We begin

with breaking news right now,

sentencing for notorious

cocaine kingpin Sal Magluta.

[reporter 2] Sal Magluta is set

to learn his fate tonight.

It's been the federal government's crusade

to put Magluta behind bars

for the rest of his life.

And right now a judge is deciding

whether to do just that.

[Rod] The judge

maxed him out.

[dramatic music playing]

[Mike] It was the accumulative

or aggregate statutory maximum

of all the crimes he was convicted.

Twenty years for this count

plus 20 years for this count.

And you just run the adding machine tape

and his maximum exposure was 205 years

and that's what the judge

sentenced him to.

[reporter] Prosecutors emerged

from federal court with smiles

after putting away one of the Boys,

as he came to be known.

Today, justice answered back.

Today, the court sent a clear message

that this community and this court

will not tolerate those who attack

and obstruct our system of justice.

[Chris] It wasn't a matter

of being vindicated.

Eventually the federal government's

gonna catch up to you.

[reporter] Magluta fined more

than 60 million dollars

and sentenced to 205 years.

This for being found guilty

of 12 nonviolent felonies,

money laundering,

and obstruction of justice.

A punishment that was equivalent

to a m*rder conviction

was just inordinate.

I thought it was awful.

I didn't expect 205 years.

I felt it was my fault.

Sal was punished for his acquittal.

Sal was punished for the drug charges.

Sal was punished for everything.

Whether he was acquitted

or convicted didn't matter.

[Rod] When they went after Al Capone,

they didn't get him

for bootlegging or m*rder.

They got Al Capone for tax evasion.

You don't sentence Al Capone to life

for tax evasion and they didn't.

He served eight years.

[Rod] He did a portion of that

and he lived out the rest of his life

in a mansion on Miami Beach.

Salvador Magluta

is not convicted of m*rder.

He's not convicted of selling drugs.

What does he get?

[Chris] I can tell you, I prosecuted

a number of drug traffickers,

and there is a host of individuals

who are serving life sentences in prison

for far less egregious conduct

than Sal Magluta committed.

The only thing he's found

guilty of was paying his lawyers.

[Richard] Sal, had he paid the attorneys

in cash instead of paying by check,

he would have long since completed

his time in prison and be a free man.

[Marilyn] Facing reality,

I thought, "Yeah, this is the last time

I'm ever going to see Sal."

But part of me said,

"This is not over yet."

"One day, I'm still gonna run into him."

I still kinda feel that way.

- [reporter] No comment?

- No.

- [reporter] Been a long journey for you.

- Yes, but it's not over yet.

This is just one down and one to go.

[Mario] After Willy Falcon

saw the government's case

that we had put on

against Salvador Magluta,

obviously, he did not want a similar fate

of facing a life sentence in jail.

So he immediately had

his defense attorneys begin to negotiate

a plea deal with the government.

[Richard] Willy Falcon plead to conspiring

to launder drug proceeds,

and he was sentenced

to the maximum 20 years.

[Jorge] Willy was smart enough

to take the plea.

Sal, he could have easily taken ten years.

The government would've saved face.

They would've closed the file.

It was such a mess

in so many different ways.

He'd be out already.

[Richard] Sal is out in Florence, Colorado

with the Unabomber

and other lovely violent characters

who probably should be housed inside

of a mountain where they can't get out.

[Rod] It's the highest level of security

in any federal prison

in the United States.

He's a non-violent offender

convicted of money laundering.

[Raquel] He's exhausted all his appeals

and he probably will die in jail.

Where he needs to stay.

And what should be k*lling him

is the pain that I put

both my parents through.

And the pain

that he's put those two old people.

And the fact that

he didn't get to bury his father.

He's not gonna get to bury his mother.

[emotional music playing]

I feel really bad

for Sal that he is in that prison,

especially when we grew up the same.

We had dreams to just be successful.

There was a lot else we could have been.

Right now, we could be talking

about a story of redemption.

The real irony is that

we, law enforcement,

and the citizenry have lost out

because of the things

Sal could have provided.

Under the terms of our offer

before the first trial,

they would've had Sal and Willy in prison

for a substantial period of time.

In addition, they would have had

all of the drugs that were on the street,

all of the money,

the people that assisted them.

People who occupied

positions in the public realm,

local government, individuals

[Raquel] Police officers

providing security for drug dealers.

Falcon and Magluta and all his people

don't operate in a vacuum.

They had facilitators,

those who helped them all along the way.

[Raquel] I think if Sal had flipped,

I'm sure he could have opened up

a Pandora's Box.

[Bobby] You start to understand

that the whole system, perhaps,

has a corrupt level to it.

[Chris] In direct prosecutions,

I would say at least 50 individuals

were convicted of crimes

related to the Falcon-Magluta group.

[Benson] This case was so overarching

in so many different respects

that it impacted literally

hundreds of people directly.

[emotional music playing]

I was in the Witness Protection Program

'til 2003.

I lost everybody.

Everybody that I testified against

were my friends.

I lost my family.

I don't know where they are

except for my son.

I have no idea if they're still alive,

if they're dead, I don't know.

I lost Sal.

I lost everything.

I even lost my two dogs.

They finally died.

[laughs] So, I ended up losing everything.

[theme music playing]

Jorge Valdes is setting an example

of cleaning up his life.

I didn't walk away 'cause I got arrested.

I didn't change my life,

because I'm sorry, I got caught.

I walked away 'cause I want

nothing to do with that world.

[organ music playing]

[reporter] Jorge's biography,

Coming Clean,

helps support a ministry by the same name.

He speaks at over 30 youth rallies

every year.

He is now establishing a center

for counseling and working with youth.

Now, my passion is to make more money,

so I can send a million books

and help prisoners to find hope

and to find redemption.

And to look at the world, "Hey,

Jorge Valdes changed, I can change too."

It doesn't matter how we fall,

what matters is how we get up.

[Ralph] I got out in October of 1999.

[dramatic music playing]

I'm involved in

the high-performance boat business.

[engine revving]

Miami Vice, they needed

some high-performance boats.

We set up all the boats for them.

I did some of the driving

of the boats in the movie.

But I lost ten years of my life.

My wife, she left me.

At the end of the day, it's not worth it.

[Pegy] When he went away, I remember

Jay's son being like two, three years old.

[announcer] In the air, right-center field

Jay on the ball. Jon Jay is there!

[crowd cheering]

[Pegy] I came out of prison summer of '96.

[funky music playing]

[Alexia] This Cuban doll is back

on the scene and living the dream.

I was on a reality show

with Roy Black's wife.

- I loved your father.

- [Peter] Always, always.

[Alexia] I didn't wanna leave him

at a time like that.

Peter's always been a great dad.

He refuses to grow up,

but he's grown up a little bit.

I don't want him to get in trouble again.

Like, I don't want my kids or myself

to go through that pain.

[Pegy] The drug business,

it catches up sooner or later.

At the beginning, you're making money,

you think you're invincible

and nothing's ever going to happen,

but sooner or later, it catches up to you.

[dramatic music playing]

There's no way out, or there is a way out,

in prison, or you probably get k*lled.

[music intensifies]

The life that I live,

I don't want it for my kids.

[Jim] The amazing thing is,

there are actually still

defendants out there

who have never been arrested

from the '91 indictment.

Willy's brother Taby is still at large.

[Chris] Gustavo Falcon

has not been apprehended.

There's not even been a close call.

Over 20 years after his indictment,

he still is at large.

[reporter] Over the years,

the Marshals release fliers with photos

of how Falcon might have aged.

No luck.

[Jim] He's on America's Most Wanted

like some sort of golden oldies.

You know, whether or not

he's alive or dead, nobody knows,

at least nobody

in law enforcement is saying.

[Pat] Usually it happens that some

misfortune will befall a fugitive,

he'll get stopped driving

without a license or something,

and they'll get captured,

but it's been quite a while for Taby.

I don't know

if that's ever gonna happen to him.

[reporter] Captured!

Gustavo Falcon collared after more

than a quarter-century on the lam.

[reporter 2] We have live team coverage

of the capture of the last

of the Cocaine Cowboys.

This indicted Miami drug kingpin

has been hiding essentially

in plain sight.

It turned out, they've been living

in their Orlando suburb

not far from Disney World.

[reporter 3] Gustavo Falcon's life

on the run came to a halt

at this Kissimmee intersection

just blocks away

from the home he was renting.

On Wednesday, while Falcon

and his wife were on a lengthy bike ride,

Deputy Marshals

conducting surveillance arrested him.

[somber music playing]

[reporter 4] Sources tell CBS 4 News

that Gustavo Falcon

seemed almost relieved that his years

on the run had come to an end.

But while his entry

into the legal system is just beginning,

his older brother, Willy Falcon,

is scheduled to be released in June.

["Willy Falcon" by DonCu playing]

One of the so-called

Cocaine Cowboys has been deported.

[reporter] Falcon was born in Cuba

and never became a US citizen.

So after he was released from jail, he was

immediately placed into ICE custody.

[reporter 2] His attorneys fought

deportation to Cuba,

saying he would be k*lled

if he was returned to the island.

Well, he struck a deal

with the Justice Department.

CBS News confirms that Willy Falcon

was taken to the Dominican Republic.

Willy Falcon, Willy Falcon ♪

[reporter in Spanish] Augusto Willy Falcon

led the Cocaine Cowboys.

He will be coming

to the Dominican Republic, Augusto Falcon.

[man in English] The fastest

little V-bottom in modified, Seahawk 31.

Sal Magluta, the driver.

[Sal] You have mistakes made, but you just

try to make 'em as minimal as possible.

[man] What are the consequences

of those mistakes?

[laughs] Well, uh

["Kings of Miami" playing]

Do, do money

Sal Magluta ♪

[Jim] Really telling the story of Willy

and Sal is telling the story of Miami.

Now we the kings ♪

[Chris] This was the pinnacle

of drug dealing in Miami.

I think the Falcon-Magluta case

represented the end of that era.

Now who the king ♪

They were the last of the Cocaine Cowboys.

[Jim] Two immigrant kids come here

and go from high school dropouts

to the kings of cocaine in South Florida.

[Pegy] I mean, America, what is it,

the land of opportunity.

I mean, we came from Cuba with nothing.

But now, the Cubans, we own Miami.

[Marilyn] Miami really did love the Boys.

[reporters repeating] The Boys.

- [reporter] The Boys.

- [Jim] The Boys, Los Muchachos.

They were almost like folk heroes.

We didn't need to create Tony Montana.

We had them.

They were Falcon and Magluta,

Willy and Sal. They were the Boys.

The king of Miami ♪

Now who the king,

Who the king of Miami? ♪

Sal Magluta, Sal Magluta

Willy Falcon ♪

Run the prices up and down

Like Dow Jones ♪

We're the kings

We're the kings of Miami ♪

[Jim] The feds were trying to catch

Willy and Sal for two decades

with massive resources,

dozens of law enforcement agents.

Who knows how much money they spent?

But you have to put it

into the larger context.

Now who the king,

Who the king of Miami?

The government says Willy and Sal

brought in 75 tons of cocaine.

That's 68 million grams,

hundreds of millions of lines snorted

by tens of millions of people

in Miami,

Los Angeles,

Chicago,

New York,

all over the country.

That gives you an idea

of the scope of the problem.

As long as there's demand,

there will always be someone

willing to bring it in.

We're the kings

We're the kings of Miami ♪

[Jim] But for decades,

the Boys were the best.

They were the kings of Miami.

The kings of Miami ♪

[closing theme music playing]