January 29, 2020 • 46 mins
After 22 years, RV’s dad’s pot smuggling career comes to a dramatic end in a standoff that involves the Mafia, Mexican Cartel, lost millions, lost friends - and a buried secret revealed for the first time.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
School of Humans. Well, yeah, well I'm getting there. One
story that I know we haven't hit is the whole
big story of the trip that caused you to quit
(00:30):
the industry and pivots. Are you ready to tell that
story this morning? Um? I'm working on it. My dad
is preparing to tell me about his last trip, the
trip that became the final straw in his smuggling career.
(00:51):
I'd have to attribute dad to ego, arrogance, stupidity, carelessness,
and foolishness. Yeah. I mean, that's at least five of
the deadly sins, isn't it. It's nineteen eighty eight and
Reagan boosts the Anti Drug Abuse Act, adding the death
(01:12):
penalty for some drug related crimes. My dad is nursing
his nineteen eighty six loss of over half a million
dollars to the Green Beret. The same year, Reagan passed
the mandatory minimum drug sentencing law, dramatically changing the pot
smuggling industry from a gentlemanly scene of hippie outlaws to
a high stakes underworld of ruthless crime syndicates circling the
(01:36):
weed pond. I'm in eighth grade, top of the food
chain at my artsy private primary school. I'm applying to
expensive private high schools nerdily obsessed with Shakespeare, the movie Willow,
and slow dancing to ridiculous eighties ballads like take My
Breath Away by Berlin as heard in the movie Top Gun.
(01:57):
My big sister is back east for college, and my
little brother is obsessed with a Star Wars trilogy, watching
them on VHS daily. So blissfully unaware my parents are
drug smugglers. That news doesn't arrive for at least a year.
I'm so oblivious to everything but the concept of French kissing,
singing opera and gossiping with my fellow hormone riddled classmates.
(02:21):
I don't even recall my dad being out of town
for extended periods that year, or his cheerless mood when
he returns, distressed, unnerved and on the cusp of retreat
from his twenty two year smuggling career. I'm Rainbow Valentine,
and this is disorganized crime smuggler's daughter want to do young,
(02:51):
free and groovy, making it up. We rode along. So
(03:28):
this is how the Final Straw Trip began. So it's
the late eighties and my dad's old friend and driver
mister Sandwich introduces him to a smuggler we'll call smuggler
Dick with ten thousand pounds a pot set to arrive
in New York. My dad connects Smuggler Dick with his
(03:48):
old New York City friend Blondie, who can coordinate offloading
the product with the New York City dock workers. Now
Smuggler Dick's ten thousand pounds are in a can Smuggler's
lingo for shipping container. My dad plans on trucking a
couple thousand pounds of smuggler Dick's product to the West
Coast for distribution. Dad doesn't really know the other people
(04:13):
working on this trip, and from the beginning he notices
his old friend Blondie doesn't seem too eager about the trip.
He seemed very flaky about the whole thing. But he said, yeah,
he's got people on the docks, but they're not not
the greatest people to be dealing with, you know, want
to fuck around with them? And then basically they were gangsters. Now,
(04:38):
this was unusual for my dad to work outside his network.
He didn't know Smuggler Dick before the trip, and he
didn't know Blondie's offloader affiliates, and these offloaders wanted cash upfront.
He said, okay, well they want some real money. They
want some down money to make it real. You're real
(05:01):
about this, he asked for and I gave him one
hundred and eighty thousand dollars of mine. This was also unusual.
My dad's pot smuggling world was always deals made on handshakes.
This was the first time my dad ever gave a
down payment for offloaders. I knew who theoretically was the
(05:23):
main man, main smuggler. He was friendly and it just
seemed like a reasonable guy. And he didn't even have
the money for it. I can't believe I used my
money instead of his, and I theoretically trusted my old
pab Blondie. Simultaneously, as my dad and Sandwich are waiting
(05:47):
for the East coast can of Dick's ten thousand pounds,
Dad's smuggling associates on the West Coast bring in an
enormous load of two hundred thousand pounds of taiweed. Two
hundred thousand yeah, and it was My understanding was it
was dropped in four of four places on the West
(06:10):
coast in fifty thousand pound drops got two hundred thousand pounds.
That's sort of a lot because it goes through channels,
even fifty thousand at a pout. So and it was good.
It was amazing. It was really quite good. Everyone working
in the industry knows about this huge tie trip, and
since my dad knows the West Coast Crew, smuggler Dick
(06:32):
persuades my dad to front him one thousand pounds of
the West Coast tie to sell in New York in
the interim as they all wait for the East Coast
can to arrive. A thousand pounds of ties wholesale value
is about twelve hundred a pound, So my dad fronts
Dick about one point two million dollars in tie. Remember,
(06:54):
my dad has been fronting and been fronted thousands of
pounds of pot in his twenty plus years smuggling career.
Fronting is absolutely common. But then everything goes sideways. We're
(07:15):
in New York and we're hanging out expecting we come
in a few days before it's supposed to be the
container's supposed to land. Okay, we're waiting and we hear
nothing from My only connection to this whole trip is
to the whole last straw. The container is Blondie. At
(07:35):
this point, you know, we wait and we wait, and
we're here for a month or two. We can't stay
in hotels for too long at a time. You can,
It's not like you can park yourself in a fucking
place for a month at a time. So we're moving
around hotels in New York. That's when it got stressful,
(07:57):
and Blondie never talked to me. I would call him
and call him. He wouldn't answer the phone, and he
didn't return many of my call. It's weeks past the
East Coast Can's scheduled arrival, and no one has any
idea of what's going on because Blondie has gone dark.
(08:18):
It's becoming clear that no one, not Smuggler Dick, my Dad, Sandwich,
or Blondie is going to secure any cannabis from this shipment.
And it's obvious that my Dad's down payment to Blondie
for the offloaders has disappeared. The smuggler says, hey, man,
I know it's it's bullshit. I knew it. I know
it came in and he says, you your side, somebody
(08:44):
ripped off my thing. I'm not paying you for the
for the thousand pounds. Everything went bad every which way.
My dad loses big time. First his deposit of one
(09:07):
hundred and eighty five thousand dollars to Blondie for the
offloaders is gone. And then smuggler Dick, angry that his
can has disappeared and wanting vengeance on someone anyone, refuses
to pay for the one thousand pounds of West Coast
tie my dad had fronted him. In total, he's been
(09:27):
ripped off for about one point four million, which today
would be worth more than three million dollars. I was paralyzed.
I was deeply hurt, emotionally hurt. It really closed me
up again. It didn't happen over like two days. You know,
(09:47):
you get busted, boom, it happens, or you lose something somewhere,
you know it happens. This was this long drawn out
like a cancer and then you die. It just was
telling me, Okay, this world is just not what it
used to be. The quality of the criminal gone way
down hill. That's my dad's attorney on retainer, Bernie Seagull's line.
(10:11):
The quality of the criminal has gone down. And in
nineteen eighty eight, my dad realizes his world of pot
smuggling has dramatically changed. It's becoming the antithesis to his
familiar scene of ethical hippie outlaws and gentleman handshakes. The
(10:31):
old ways of business are coming to an end. Red
flags are all over the landscape. Friends are getting busted
left and right, and real gangsters, possibly murderous, are honing in.
My dad is floored by this giant rip off and
his longtime friend Blondie's inability to communicate Reagan's war on
(10:55):
drugs raises the stakes in everything related to my dad's industry.
Pot smuggling is more dangerous, more expensive, more ruthless. The
bigger the money, the bigger the sharks, and suddenly the
psychedelic pioneers find themselves running in the same circles as
the mafia and the Mexican cartel. You go to the
(11:15):
other side of the world where all of these came from,
these different different cannabis drugs came from, and it's not
like here where we didn't use guns and we didn't
do this stuff, and we you know the other side
of it, you know, in Colombia or entirely, and I
(11:38):
mean you were run by militias because it's huge money
it's so beyond gangs, it's armies. You know. It was
really my own choosing. I didn't want to get quite
that close to the flame. And when I did that time,
I got burned. And I'd have to say it was
the first time I knowingly got involved with what I
(12:01):
believe was gangsters. And you could feel the whole game
changing because the same time, while I lost a thousand
pounds for these other guys, their whole trip was getting
busted all over the place. Defeated, Dad and Sandwich returned
to Mill Valley. That all the shit just kidding the
(12:21):
fan in this yearish of time. That was like time
to move on for me. Losing all that money and
all that stuff was terrible. It wasn't like the old
days anymore. And I could smell the car, you know,
I could just smell that. I didn't want to be
around all the ship that were. I had never been
(12:42):
ripped off in my life. I mean a whole bunch
of these things. It was just scrimming at me. Get out.
This is not what it used to be. Dad is done.
He's determined to retire from pot smuggling. The risk has
(13:03):
finally outweighed the rod war I'm Rainbow Valentine, and this
is disorganized crime. We'll be right back. While my dad
was consumed by mobsters, millions and marijuana, I'm obsessing over
(13:28):
the movie Beetlejuice, my role in Midsummer Night's Dream, and
you be forty song Red Red Wine. Now. Dad never
let on to me that he'd returned home crushed from battle.
I vaguely remember he was moody, but that wasn't too unusual.
And I was embarking on teen hood, completely oblivious to
anything unintrinsic to my hormonal, theatrical teen life. And Dad,
(13:52):
always an expert at seeing the empty glass half full,
took us river rafting down the Grand Canyon shortly after
the final straw trip. I never knew he was suffering.
So popping by our house every now and again are
the West Coast smugglers looking for the one point two
(14:12):
million in tye weed or cash they'd fronted my dad,
which had been stolen by smuggler Dick, whose can supposedly
never arrived in New York City. Luckily for my dad,
the West Coast smugglers who fronted him the one thousand
pounds of tie were counterculture outlaws, and they never did
anything aside from knock on our door for a few years,
(14:34):
and a guy who I knew but I didn't know
I knew his face would come knock on my door
every six months and ask have you done any I said,
I've retired. This thing blew my mind. I don't have money.
We have our house and that's all we have. My
Dad's reasonably certain that Blondie's offloaders were in the mafia
and took his one hundred and eighty five thousand plus
(14:56):
the can. However, Blondie never returned Dad's phone calls, never
spoke about the trip, didn't really talk to my dad again.
Four years go by. I attend an expensive college prep
private high school in Marin, mostly populated by non hippie
(15:18):
kids from old California money. Early in high school, my
big sister reveals to me that our parents are drug smugglers,
but she calls them drug dealers. Now. I've avoided the
overwhelming topic since then, focusing on my nerdy dedication to theater, music,
and art. However, as high school progressed, our family's financial
(15:40):
hardship began to surface. In nineteen ninety one, my dad
sells our Tahoe house and becomes a real estate agent,
which doesn't go well, and by my senior year in
high school, my dad is broke. How do you replace
making half a million dollars from a handshake and a
cross country drive with a truck of pot disguised by
(16:02):
thrift store furniture. You can't put a resum out there,
and my unconventional, outspoken, often misunderstood dad isn't fit to
work for anyone but himself. He's desperate. In nineteen ninety two,
a small opportunity arises, a meager trip of fifty pounds
(16:26):
peanuts compared to what my dad was used to smuggling,
but in need of money to support his family, he
calls Hi Fi. Hi Fi was my dad's main guy
in New York, meaning my dad would truck loads of
pot to New York City to High Fi to distribute.
(16:48):
And Dad and High Fi were also extremely close friends.
They've been through a lot together. So in the early eighties,
my dad's guy in New York City was actually Neil.
I talked about Neil in episode six because Neil introduced
my dad to fine investing. Now when Neil was twenty one,
(17:09):
he tragically died in a house fire the night he
returned to New York City after spending the weekend at
my family's home celebrating his godson's first birthday. Neil was
my little brother's godfather. I'll never forget my alarm coming
upon my parents in the kitchen, clinging to each other
and sobbing, gently telling me Neil had died, which didn't
(17:33):
make sense because he had just been standing in our
kitchen alive the day before. I was eight. Well before
his awful death, Neil was also a pot dealer to
rock stars and required a bodyguard. Enter Hi Fi, a
(17:55):
Vietnam vet and son of Holocaust survivors and freedom fighters.
Hi Fi met Neil in a stereo store and they
bonded over music. Now Neil, High Fi and my dad
become close friends as well as business partners, and then
Neil dies unexpectedly. There's a morning period of inertia, grief
(18:18):
and shock, and eventually High Fi takes over for Neil
and becomes my dad's guy in New York City. My
parents in HIGHI had a deep friendship as well as
a fruitful business relationship. Perhaps Neil's extraordinary life and deathly
presence infused my Dad and Highi's alliance with distinction, integrity,
(18:41):
and goodness. Who knows, but they were tight, which makes
the next thing that happened all the worse. And to
make this chapter even more intense, emotional, and astonishing, I'm
about to tell you the story my dad never told
anyone for thirty plus years. This is his war buddy
(19:07):
left on the field story that he was too ashamed
to tell anyone, including his best friend my mom, until now.
So this story, I just asked Dad to tell it
to you, and he's talked about it, and he said,
I've never told your mother. Mom, I've never told you.
(19:28):
I'm scared. We're still here. So I get this is
twenty seven years ago. Twenty seven years ago, but it
was something I didn't think you needed to know back
then because it was it was kind of funky basically,
(19:49):
as you know, by ninety two, we were starting to struggle. Yeah,
we had money that carried us through for some years
after I quit, but then looking for something else to do,
we went through various things, and anyway, by ninety two,
(20:14):
I was feeling a little desperate, which was there's nothing
worse than feeling desperate. Because all you can make is
poor decisions. So this feeling led to a thing of
me sort of reaching out to somebody who was a neighbor.
But he said, hey, I've got a friend in Indiana.
(20:36):
I can probably get a bunch of some stuff fronted
to you. So the neighbor hooks up. My dad was
some guy in Indiana, an ominous sign. Remember Indiana is
where the Brooklyn Boys were busted on the night of
my birth, when my dad lost his life savings but
gained a child. Me well, in my cranking of my brain,
(21:00):
then I thought, okay, well that's cool. I talked to
Hi Fi. We decided to meet in Bloomington. Met with
this guy who was weird, and the pot he offered
was really pretty funky, pretty tea funky. But I pushed
(21:22):
Hi Fi into saying, oh, come on, let's start to
see what can happen. It's not that much. Let's see
if we can get something going again. Both Hi Fi
and I were skeptical of its quality. I mean, we
knew it wasn't particularly good, but I feel like I
(21:44):
was the one who sort of pushed him to it,
said oh, come on, let's try. It's not that much.
You know, get rid of it or whatever the and
so we got it. We packaged it up in the
motel room we were in. Wasn't that much. So he
takes off back to the East and I jumped back
(22:08):
on a plane come home, and I got a call,
I don't know how from his wife saying he just
got busted in. OHI I didn't know anything about what
(22:31):
had happened on his side. It's not a happy story.
And it it was so such a downer and depressing.
It's sort of for me beyond nailed the coffin shut
of Okay, fuck this. You know, I quit four years before,
(22:52):
in nineteen eighty eight because of this other thing. But this,
I mean, that was just money. This was his life.
They put him, they put him in jail, and he's
the most careful guy. I don't know how it happened.
I mean, it's a part of me that thinks that
these guys dropped a dime. Remember, drop a dime means
(23:13):
to turn in an associate to law enforcement in exchange
for freedom. Fun fact, it originates from the vintage action
of dropping a dime into a payphone to call the cops.
So my dad's lifelong shame based on his inability to
help his number one guy. His ally wore buddy high
fine begins back home, so I had been keeping it.
(23:38):
So I gave him a bunch of wine. And I
can't even remember if I gave him all of what
he was owed. At the time, we were both really struggling.
I was obviously pretty up tight. That's the worst thing
that ever happened to me and my crew ever personally
with my I mean, and he was he was like
my partner. My inability without the amounts of money that
(24:03):
was needed. I just got very frightened and shrank and
I left him on the battlefield. I mean, that is
the biggest thing in my life that still haunts me.
Working outside the law is like war. The smuggler has
(24:25):
an enemy the government, and being taken by the enemy
in smuggling or war has the same consequences downfall, ruin prison. Sadly,
after Hi Fi was busted, my dad buried his head
in the sand like an Ostrich, the same way Blondie
did in the Final Straw Trip. And aside from sending
(24:47):
Hi Fi some wine, my dad was too paralyzed to
reach out again. Dad was afraid being connected to Hiphi
would lead to his own arrest, and his subsequent silence
became a heavy secret burden. My dad never knew exactly
what happened to Hiphi. After the bust, they drifted apart
and entombed. Secrets lay hidden. Now. When I started this podcast,
(25:12):
my dad hadn't spoken to High Fi in twenty seven years.
Throughout our interviews, Dad kept mentioning HIGHI, expressing a longing
to reconnect, reach out, and apologize. So I went to
New York to see if HIHI would be willing to
talk about it. All right, I'm at an old Italian
(25:34):
restaurant founded in nineteen fifty six. It's called Four Ladies.
It's on the edge of Chinatown and Italy. I'm meeting
my dad's guy in New York. Stay tuned. We hope
he will talk to me on team. I meet him
(25:55):
at a restaurant you'd find tony soprano in red booths,
giant plates of Marinera, and lifelong Italian waiters who act
like adoring uncles you've known your whole life. Now. I
haven't seen Hi Fi since nineteen ninety two, my senior
year in high school, and he tells me He chose
the Eatery because he and Neil went there in the
(26:15):
early eighties. But it took that visit and a lot
more conversations for him to be willing to talk about
it on tape. Finally, I spoke to him on the
phone a few days before the release of this episode,
and High Fi's traumatic story reveals that my dad got
out of pot smuggling by the skin of his teeth.
(26:37):
So here's HIGHI. So I makee with a man. You know,
it didn't feel right right from the get go. We
met with the guy, and you know, you look kind
of nervous, and it wasn't the usual kind of connection
that I was used to doing with your father. This
guy opens up a trunk and the back of a vein.
I believe those basically hodgepodge of product. You know, looking
(27:03):
back on it, it looked like some thing that was
seized because a lot of it was loosened bags and
in cylinders. It wasn't consistent. It looked like it looked
like it was commandeered or or you know, seized out
of somewhere but struggling. I was very disappointed, but you know,
I looked at father. He said, yeah, Yeah, that's all
(27:25):
the best we can do right now. Like my dad,
hi Fi had also been struggling financially because once my
dad retired in nineteen eighty eight, part of hi Fi's
business also disappeared. So I'm I'm driving and through Indiana
and I get into Ohio. You know, on the interstate,
(27:45):
there's apparent construction going on. But next to the construction zone,
you know, there's this trooper, you know, and I see
him and he's got binoculars. So as I approach and
pass him, he pulls out. That's it, Okay, that's interesting.
He comes behind me, flashes the lights. Pull over. Okay.
(28:06):
So I pull over and I look and it's a
canine unit. He comes out with the dog, walks the
dog around. My card. Didn't say anything to me, so after,
you know, whatever the dog does, I guess the dog
pointed because yeah, I had product on it, and it
wasn't very very well packaged, you know, my mistake, Shame
on me. My dad and Hyphi had packaged the fifty
(28:29):
pounds in a motel room in Indiana, so they weren't
in their own space with their customary tools, and the
pot wasn't as carefully packaged as usual. From the beginning,
the entire trip felt stressful, rushed, and ill prepared. I
rolled down the window and says, you know, you know,
you know why you're being stopped. I said no. I said, okay,
(28:50):
Can I see your driver's license? You know? He didn't
say one. Okay, So I gave him my driver's license
and all that, and says, well, I walked the dog
around your car, okay, and we have cause to certain,
you know, to search your car. Can we search your car?
I said no, right, I said, you know you're not
(29:10):
giving me cause of me. You're stopping me. I have
seen no reason for you to search my car. He
tells me to come out of the car. I come
out of the car. He handcuffs tells me to sit down,
So I sit down. I'm going fully cooperative. So he
opens up the trunk, finds finds the stuff. Okay. Then
he calls in whoever I'm still sitting there. Tow truck
(29:34):
you know, comes in. They load load the car that
I was in. He puts me back at his vehicle. Now,
mind you all, this is not protocol for arrest. And
I knew that That's why I was cooperating. Now, just
so you know, you know, the protocol is that you know,
when you're arrested, you know, they're supposed to be especially
with contraband or any plus suspect of illegal product you
(29:58):
know in the car, there has to be a supervisor,
especially with seizure of product, seizure of property. Okay, he
can't be the only one that does. This has to
be witnessed by a supervisor. They take High Fi to
jail and he calls his New York colleague, who alerts
Hi Fi his wife and a lawyer. The officials move
(30:19):
High Fi to a high security jail with local murderers
and bank robbers, and he's there for a week until
his new Ohio lawyer arrives to talk about the future.
And according to the lawyer, it's grim. So so you know,
you're going to do at least seven years, right, and
it's mandatory, and he's probably are going to do more.
So this guy's already given me up. This is supposed
(30:41):
to be my defense lawyer. So you know, when he
goes out, you know, I see him go through a
different room and he's talking to the you know, to day,
the prosecutor okay, and the cops are in there. Now,
this guy's supposed to be on my side. Hi Fi,
justly unsatisfied with this lawyer who's already given him up
(31:02):
for guilty, gets a recommendation for a superior or lawyer
from his new bank robber friend and sealemate. So he says,
you know, one thing that you have to tell me
is that we're going to sit down, and you have
to tell me exactly, you know, second by second what happened. Okay,
So I basically told him the same thing, and I
just told you, and he says, yeah, you know, it
(31:24):
says you know, I think we've got something here. You know,
later later I found out that you know, the cop
that that arrested me, you know, it was a rookie
and they were giving him the carler. You know, now
my suspect is a I'm suspicious. Up to this point, somebody,
somebody dropped the dime. Arming HiFi believes that someone dropped
(31:48):
a dime on him, and at this moment, sitting in
an Ohio jail, he doesn't know who, but realizes my
dad is a possibility. I mean the first question, you think,
did I drop a dime on him? Yeah? Yeah? And
then he didn't. And I mean, that's the I mean.
(32:11):
And that was really ugly, Steph, to think that my
partner kish It thought that I dropped a dime on him.
That's how ugly it was, That's how sad it was.
High fives in jail for a month. He puts up
twenty five thousand dollars for bail, plus ten thousand up
(32:32):
front for his new lawyer, and he spent six thousand
already for the previous inadequate lawyer. So he's already out
forty thousand and he hasn't even gone to trial. Now. Thankfully,
the superior lawyer recommended by the bank robber wins hi
Fi his freedom, but he's in enormous debt. In desperation
(32:57):
to pay back his legal debt, Hi Fi sets up
a trip with the Mexican cartel and his family pressed.
Sure's high fight to work with his brother in law
on the trip. Okay, And I've done business with him
before before, and he was three, didn't have a good tractor.
I've lost product with him before. But being family and
(33:17):
people in the family are begging me, I listen, give
him a no, no, the chance you know you'll make
good and all that I got the trip together, and
you know, Mexican Mexican cartels, we know, you know, they
don't they don't bullshit around, you know. And I felt
confident that I could turn you know, turn it over
and pay him back and all that. But next thing
I know is that, you know, these people telling me
(33:40):
that they lost the trip. The trip goes terribly wrong.
Hi Fi's brother in law and associate end up losing
the Mexican cartel's pot or betraying high Fight, depending how
we look at it. And the Mexican cartels pot was
worth four hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth over eight
(34:02):
hundred thousand dollars in today's money, leaving High Fi massively
in debt to the Mexican cartel. So Hi Fi meets
up with the two traders to figure out what to do.
You know. So I'm telling, I says, listen, you know,
I said, we've got to come up with a payment
on this. Maybe I can negotiate them down, or we've
(34:24):
got to start paying them back. You know. So this
other guy that with him, you know, I says, he says,
what you know, you want war, We'll give you war,
I said, war. He says, you know right there, and
then I said, okay, you know, these guys, these guys
are out of their minds. We don't deal in those parameters,
you know, like like like they're talking about, you know,
(34:45):
it's all gentlemen and handshakes and all that. I felt like,
you know, I said, okay, you know, because I'm capable
of I was going to waste them right there. And
then well then I said, okay, you know, if I
do that, then then but I go to jail for
a couple of low lives. Hi Fi is referring to
his brother in law and his brother in law's associate. Now,
(35:05):
ultimately hi Fi is responsible for the product, and these
guys put hi Fi's life on the line. He severs
all contact with them and never talked to them. I
never contacted them and blacklisted them. And that didn't go
all the well, because you know, my family's going what
happened and that, you know, I said, well, you know,
(35:27):
let's let's keep it that way. I don't want anything
to do with this guy. Ever. Again, what ended up
happening to these guys is the guy that once said
that he wanted war, he got shot by his own
people killed and the guy that you know that that
betrayed me family member. He ended up going to jail
and he died in jail. The karmar Karma is a bitch,
(35:48):
isn't it. Now This sounds brutal, but remember Hi Fi
is the son of concentration camp survivors, Holocaust freedom fighters,
plus he's a Vietnam Vet. Furthermore, Hi Fi got into
smuggling as a bodyguard for a reason. He excels at
(36:10):
keeping people safe, and his brother in law's deadly betrayal
has just turned Hi Fi into a bullseye for the
Mexican cartel. I had met with the cartel, you know,
in mid Manhattan, and I thought I wasn't going to
walk out it there. But but I had back up.
I said, listening, anything happens to me, you know, because
(36:33):
you know, I had guys look look looking out for
me in case something did happen. You know, we're going
to escalate the meeting, you know. But nothing happened. He says, Okay,
you know, listen, because give me time to work this out,
you know, and I'll make good on it. Then I did, okay,
but it took me a long time. Now always spectacular
(36:54):
at his job, Hi Fi made a deal with a
Mexican cartel and after ten years of arduous work, repaid
his debt. And he tells me at the end of
it all, he's not afraid of who's behind him. But
(37:14):
along with the casualty of colleagues, the Mexican cartel's pot,
and ten years of high stakes debt, was the loss
of the friendship between High Fi and my dad. We
were great business partners, aren't friends for a good decade.
But you know, when things weren solved for whatever reason,
(37:36):
you know, I tried to reach out, but rip wasn't
we see a purple I guess why didn't my dad
connect with High Fi after his bust, shame and guilt.
My dad was embarrassed he couldn't help his comrade, ashamed
he couldn't save him, so he just shut down and
(37:59):
buried the whole thing. Never spoke a word about this
trip to anyone, including my mom, until now. But did
you wonder why High Fi didn't come around anymore? Yeah,
because we had quit. We had quit years we could
so we we just I thought we had quit. She
didn't know this. I did this secretly. I just said
(38:20):
I was going going on something or something, you know,
and so I didn't like. I was always like, I
had no idea. That would have been awful. I mean
it was awful when our friend who's who introduced us
to him died, but that this was really awful, too awful,
(38:40):
and I I just didn't want to dump it on you. Also,
I didn't feel like you needed to carry this this burden.
Well it's a I don't know if that's a good idea. Well,
usually when you do something like that, you take your
(39:01):
own responsibility. You don't expect other people to be all
you out, well, especially if they don't have any money. No,
I'm I'm well aware, like irresponsible to my family. Oh
that you were, you were, you were well, he was
(39:21):
as close to us as anybody was. When you do
something and you get caught, it's your responsibility snitch, right,
he did what he did. He didn't snitch. Oh, he
was strapped, right, he didn't at all. It was always
true to a sword. And you were. I mean you didn't.
We didn't have any money at that point in time.
(39:42):
We lost the whole house. I just really went into
a deep hot that's when you went your depression, your
your long depression might be. And then and get out
of the couch. Remember you couldn't get up for months.
You just laid their watch television on the red couch
(40:05):
and the dan. Yeah, what do you remember you hold
about him at that time? Did you got really depressed?
Really depressed? Nine two? Yeah? Yeah, I don't know what,
I don't I don't know, right, there was nothing I
could do. But that doesn't that that doesn't I mean
you were both kind of really dumb to go out
(40:25):
there without any without anything. Yeah, it's really dumb. That's boke.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean. Yeah, well, no, it's important
to have the wherewithal to back up with your doing
in case, just in case, because like obviously you thought
(40:46):
you guys were never gonna get in trouble. Witnessing my
dad reveal this story to my mom was incredible and
cathartic for all of us, and we all feel lighter, free, disencumbered.
How do you feel hearing this? I feel Walter accused
(41:10):
himself of not being good enough. I mean, this was
like very horrible, but it happens like I you know,
I do with it? Do you wish you know? Uh? Yeah,
because it would have caused him no less suffering. You know,
actually you could have shared the suffering with him. Yeah,
(41:33):
well he's still suffering because she should never like think
that you should never think that you're not good enough
because she couldn't do anything. I mean, we all knew
that we couldn't do anything without a lot of money,
you know. Oh, yes, then you get more desperate, more desperate.
How do you feel? How do I feel? I feel
(41:57):
greatly relieved, and I feel that what I have known
most of our whole lives is how this person has
been my partner my whole life and supported me through
the ups and downs of mine and our mistakes and
(42:23):
has so I feel. I feel I'm managed. Telling my
mom this big secret about leaving Hi Fi on the
battlefield lifted an enormous burden from my dad. But there's
(42:43):
one more thing my parents want to do to release
shame and guilt and heal the wounds of the past,
apologize to Hi Fi and thank him for not turning
them in. Next week's episode is the last of this season.
We wrap up with my dad's smuggling career and I
(43:04):
reflect on being a smuger's daughter with one of my
closest friends who shares the same title as me, but
experienced a very different childhood, and my parents give Hi
Fi a call. I'm Rainbow Valentine. This is Disorganized Crime
Smuggler's Daughter. Disorganized Crime Smuggler's Daughter is written and recorded
(43:32):
by Me Rainbow Valentine. Our producers are Gabby Watts and
Taylor Church. Executive producers are Brandon Barr, Brian Lavin, Elsie
Crowley and Me at School of Humans, and Connell Burn
and Charles Bryant at iHeartRadio. Our music is by Gabby
Lala and Claire Campbell, with original theme by Mark Karen
and Me. You can follow us online at Disorganized Crime
(43:54):
podcast dot com. Young, Free and Groovy, making it up
swee roll along, Rolling along, far out country roll he
(44:21):
lit the Great in the Golden Gate, doting far up
New York State, making it up as we roll along,
pulling the uby, Young rich and groovy, making it up
(44:43):
sweet roll along, rolling along, far out country roll, following
the sunshine as we go go, chasing a darting kids
and keylows, making it up as we roll along. Writing
(45:06):
novel story, doing as with me, Tamble by Steeping Princess
of the red wood trees. She helps us keep it real.
Handshake seals the deal, wrap the sky, seal, Meal road
(45:27):
up these, always rolling the Doobi, Young, rich and groovy,
making it up as we roll along, Rulling along Far
Country roll, Rolling along Far Country roll, Rolling along far
(45:55):
O Country roll
School of Humans. Well, yeah, well I'm getting there. One
story that I know we haven't hit is the whole
big story of the trip that caused you to quit
(00:30):
the industry and pivots. Are you ready to tell that
story this morning? Um? I'm working on it. My dad
is preparing to tell me about his last trip, the
trip that became the final straw in his smuggling career.
(00:51):
I'd have to attribute dad to ego, arrogance, stupidity, carelessness,
and foolishness. Yeah. I mean, that's at least five of
the deadly sins, isn't it. It's nineteen eighty eight and
Reagan boosts the Anti Drug Abuse Act, adding the death
(01:12):
penalty for some drug related crimes. My dad is nursing
his nineteen eighty six loss of over half a million
dollars to the Green Beret. The same year, Reagan passed
the mandatory minimum drug sentencing law, dramatically changing the pot
smuggling industry from a gentlemanly scene of hippie outlaws to
a high stakes underworld of ruthless crime syndicates circling the
(01:36):
weed pond. I'm in eighth grade, top of the food
chain at my artsy private primary school. I'm applying to
expensive private high schools nerdily obsessed with Shakespeare, the movie Willow,
and slow dancing to ridiculous eighties ballads like take My
Breath Away by Berlin as heard in the movie Top Gun.
(01:57):
My big sister is back east for college, and my
little brother is obsessed with a Star Wars trilogy, watching
them on VHS daily. So blissfully unaware my parents are
drug smugglers. That news doesn't arrive for at least a year.
I'm so oblivious to everything but the concept of French kissing,
singing opera and gossiping with my fellow hormone riddled classmates.
(02:21):
I don't even recall my dad being out of town
for extended periods that year, or his cheerless mood when
he returns, distressed, unnerved and on the cusp of retreat
from his twenty two year smuggling career. I'm Rainbow Valentine,
and this is disorganized crime smuggler's daughter want to do young,
(02:51):
free and groovy, making it up. We rode along. So
(03:28):
this is how the Final Straw Trip began. So it's
the late eighties and my dad's old friend and driver
mister Sandwich introduces him to a smuggler we'll call smuggler
Dick with ten thousand pounds a pot set to arrive
in New York. My dad connects Smuggler Dick with his
(03:48):
old New York City friend Blondie, who can coordinate offloading
the product with the New York City dock workers. Now
Smuggler Dick's ten thousand pounds are in a can Smuggler's
lingo for shipping container. My dad plans on trucking a
couple thousand pounds of smuggler Dick's product to the West
Coast for distribution. Dad doesn't really know the other people
(04:13):
working on this trip, and from the beginning he notices
his old friend Blondie doesn't seem too eager about the trip.
He seemed very flaky about the whole thing. But he said, yeah,
he's got people on the docks, but they're not not
the greatest people to be dealing with, you know, want
to fuck around with them? And then basically they were gangsters. Now,
(04:38):
this was unusual for my dad to work outside his network.
He didn't know Smuggler Dick before the trip, and he
didn't know Blondie's offloader affiliates, and these offloaders wanted cash upfront.
He said, okay, well they want some real money. They
want some down money to make it real. You're real
(05:01):
about this, he asked for and I gave him one
hundred and eighty thousand dollars of mine. This was also unusual.
My dad's pot smuggling world was always deals made on handshakes.
This was the first time my dad ever gave a
down payment for offloaders. I knew who theoretically was the
(05:23):
main man, main smuggler. He was friendly and it just
seemed like a reasonable guy. And he didn't even have
the money for it. I can't believe I used my
money instead of his, and I theoretically trusted my old
pab Blondie. Simultaneously, as my dad and Sandwich are waiting
(05:47):
for the East coast can of Dick's ten thousand pounds,
Dad's smuggling associates on the West Coast bring in an
enormous load of two hundred thousand pounds of taiweed. Two
hundred thousand yeah, and it was My understanding was it
was dropped in four of four places on the West
(06:10):
coast in fifty thousand pound drops got two hundred thousand pounds.
That's sort of a lot because it goes through channels,
even fifty thousand at a pout. So and it was good.
It was amazing. It was really quite good. Everyone working
in the industry knows about this huge tie trip, and
since my dad knows the West Coast Crew, smuggler Dick
(06:32):
persuades my dad to front him one thousand pounds of
the West Coast tie to sell in New York in
the interim as they all wait for the East Coast
can to arrive. A thousand pounds of ties wholesale value
is about twelve hundred a pound, So my dad fronts
Dick about one point two million dollars in tie. Remember,
(06:54):
my dad has been fronting and been fronted thousands of
pounds of pot in his twenty plus years smuggling career.
Fronting is absolutely common. But then everything goes sideways. We're
(07:15):
in New York and we're hanging out expecting we come
in a few days before it's supposed to be the
container's supposed to land. Okay, we're waiting and we hear
nothing from My only connection to this whole trip is
to the whole last straw. The container is Blondie. At
(07:35):
this point, you know, we wait and we wait, and
we're here for a month or two. We can't stay
in hotels for too long at a time. You can,
It's not like you can park yourself in a fucking
place for a month at a time. So we're moving
around hotels in New York. That's when it got stressful,
(07:57):
and Blondie never talked to me. I would call him
and call him. He wouldn't answer the phone, and he
didn't return many of my call. It's weeks past the
East Coast Can's scheduled arrival, and no one has any
idea of what's going on because Blondie has gone dark.
(08:18):
It's becoming clear that no one, not Smuggler Dick, my Dad, Sandwich,
or Blondie is going to secure any cannabis from this shipment.
And it's obvious that my Dad's down payment to Blondie
for the offloaders has disappeared. The smuggler says, hey, man,
I know it's it's bullshit. I knew it. I know
it came in and he says, you your side, somebody
(08:44):
ripped off my thing. I'm not paying you for the
for the thousand pounds. Everything went bad every which way.
My dad loses big time. First his deposit of one
(09:07):
hundred and eighty five thousand dollars to Blondie for the
offloaders is gone. And then smuggler Dick, angry that his
can has disappeared and wanting vengeance on someone anyone, refuses
to pay for the one thousand pounds of West Coast
tie my dad had fronted him. In total, he's been
(09:27):
ripped off for about one point four million, which today
would be worth more than three million dollars. I was paralyzed.
I was deeply hurt, emotionally hurt. It really closed me
up again. It didn't happen over like two days. You know,
(09:47):
you get busted, boom, it happens, or you lose something somewhere,
you know it happens. This was this long drawn out
like a cancer and then you die. It just was
telling me, Okay, this world is just not what it
used to be. The quality of the criminal gone way
down hill. That's my dad's attorney on retainer, Bernie Seagull's line.
(10:11):
The quality of the criminal has gone down. And in
nineteen eighty eight, my dad realizes his world of pot
smuggling has dramatically changed. It's becoming the antithesis to his
familiar scene of ethical hippie outlaws and gentleman handshakes. The
(10:31):
old ways of business are coming to an end. Red
flags are all over the landscape. Friends are getting busted
left and right, and real gangsters, possibly murderous, are honing in.
My dad is floored by this giant rip off and
his longtime friend Blondie's inability to communicate Reagan's war on
(10:55):
drugs raises the stakes in everything related to my dad's industry.
Pot smuggling is more dangerous, more expensive, more ruthless. The
bigger the money, the bigger the sharks, and suddenly the
psychedelic pioneers find themselves running in the same circles as
the mafia and the Mexican cartel. You go to the
(11:15):
other side of the world where all of these came from,
these different different cannabis drugs came from, and it's not
like here where we didn't use guns and we didn't
do this stuff, and we you know the other side
of it, you know, in Colombia or entirely, and I
(11:38):
mean you were run by militias because it's huge money
it's so beyond gangs, it's armies. You know. It was
really my own choosing. I didn't want to get quite
that close to the flame. And when I did that time,
I got burned. And I'd have to say it was
the first time I knowingly got involved with what I
(12:01):
believe was gangsters. And you could feel the whole game
changing because the same time, while I lost a thousand
pounds for these other guys, their whole trip was getting
busted all over the place. Defeated, Dad and Sandwich returned
to Mill Valley. That all the shit just kidding the
(12:21):
fan in this yearish of time. That was like time
to move on for me. Losing all that money and
all that stuff was terrible. It wasn't like the old
days anymore. And I could smell the car, you know,
I could just smell that. I didn't want to be
around all the ship that were. I had never been
(12:42):
ripped off in my life. I mean a whole bunch
of these things. It was just scrimming at me. Get out.
This is not what it used to be. Dad is done.
He's determined to retire from pot smuggling. The risk has
(13:03):
finally outweighed the rod war I'm Rainbow Valentine, and this
is disorganized crime. We'll be right back. While my dad
was consumed by mobsters, millions and marijuana, I'm obsessing over
(13:28):
the movie Beetlejuice, my role in Midsummer Night's Dream, and
you be forty song Red Red Wine. Now. Dad never
let on to me that he'd returned home crushed from battle.
I vaguely remember he was moody, but that wasn't too unusual.
And I was embarking on teen hood, completely oblivious to
anything unintrinsic to my hormonal, theatrical teen life. And Dad,
(13:52):
always an expert at seeing the empty glass half full,
took us river rafting down the Grand Canyon shortly after
the final straw trip. I never knew he was suffering.
So popping by our house every now and again are
the West Coast smugglers looking for the one point two
(14:12):
million in tye weed or cash they'd fronted my dad,
which had been stolen by smuggler Dick, whose can supposedly
never arrived in New York City. Luckily for my dad,
the West Coast smugglers who fronted him the one thousand
pounds of tie were counterculture outlaws, and they never did
anything aside from knock on our door for a few years,
(14:34):
and a guy who I knew but I didn't know
I knew his face would come knock on my door
every six months and ask have you done any I said,
I've retired. This thing blew my mind. I don't have money.
We have our house and that's all we have. My
Dad's reasonably certain that Blondie's offloaders were in the mafia
and took his one hundred and eighty five thousand plus
(14:56):
the can. However, Blondie never returned Dad's phone calls, never
spoke about the trip, didn't really talk to my dad again.
Four years go by. I attend an expensive college prep
private high school in Marin, mostly populated by non hippie
(15:18):
kids from old California money. Early in high school, my
big sister reveals to me that our parents are drug smugglers,
but she calls them drug dealers. Now. I've avoided the
overwhelming topic since then, focusing on my nerdy dedication to theater, music,
and art. However, as high school progressed, our family's financial
(15:40):
hardship began to surface. In nineteen ninety one, my dad
sells our Tahoe house and becomes a real estate agent,
which doesn't go well, and by my senior year in
high school, my dad is broke. How do you replace
making half a million dollars from a handshake and a
cross country drive with a truck of pot disguised by
(16:02):
thrift store furniture. You can't put a resum out there,
and my unconventional, outspoken, often misunderstood dad isn't fit to
work for anyone but himself. He's desperate. In nineteen ninety two,
a small opportunity arises, a meager trip of fifty pounds
(16:26):
peanuts compared to what my dad was used to smuggling,
but in need of money to support his family, he
calls Hi Fi. Hi Fi was my dad's main guy
in New York, meaning my dad would truck loads of
pot to New York City to High Fi to distribute.
(16:48):
And Dad and High Fi were also extremely close friends.
They've been through a lot together. So in the early eighties,
my dad's guy in New York City was actually Neil.
I talked about Neil in episode six because Neil introduced
my dad to fine investing. Now when Neil was twenty one,
(17:09):
he tragically died in a house fire the night he
returned to New York City after spending the weekend at
my family's home celebrating his godson's first birthday. Neil was
my little brother's godfather. I'll never forget my alarm coming
upon my parents in the kitchen, clinging to each other
and sobbing, gently telling me Neil had died, which didn't
(17:33):
make sense because he had just been standing in our
kitchen alive the day before. I was eight. Well before
his awful death, Neil was also a pot dealer to
rock stars and required a bodyguard. Enter Hi Fi, a
(17:55):
Vietnam vet and son of Holocaust survivors and freedom fighters.
Hi Fi met Neil in a stereo store and they
bonded over music. Now Neil, High Fi and my dad
become close friends as well as business partners, and then
Neil dies unexpectedly. There's a morning period of inertia, grief
(18:18):
and shock, and eventually High Fi takes over for Neil
and becomes my dad's guy in New York City. My
parents in HIGHI had a deep friendship as well as
a fruitful business relationship. Perhaps Neil's extraordinary life and deathly
presence infused my Dad and Highi's alliance with distinction, integrity,
(18:41):
and goodness. Who knows, but they were tight, which makes
the next thing that happened all the worse. And to
make this chapter even more intense, emotional, and astonishing, I'm
about to tell you the story my dad never told
anyone for thirty plus years. This is his war buddy
(19:07):
left on the field story that he was too ashamed
to tell anyone, including his best friend my mom, until now.
So this story, I just asked Dad to tell it
to you, and he's talked about it, and he said,
I've never told your mother. Mom, I've never told you.
(19:28):
I'm scared. We're still here. So I get this is
twenty seven years ago. Twenty seven years ago, but it
was something I didn't think you needed to know back
then because it was it was kind of funky basically,
(19:49):
as you know, by ninety two, we were starting to struggle. Yeah,
we had money that carried us through for some years
after I quit, but then looking for something else to do,
we went through various things, and anyway, by ninety two,
(20:14):
I was feeling a little desperate, which was there's nothing
worse than feeling desperate. Because all you can make is
poor decisions. So this feeling led to a thing of
me sort of reaching out to somebody who was a neighbor.
But he said, hey, I've got a friend in Indiana.
(20:36):
I can probably get a bunch of some stuff fronted
to you. So the neighbor hooks up. My dad was
some guy in Indiana, an ominous sign. Remember Indiana is
where the Brooklyn Boys were busted on the night of
my birth, when my dad lost his life savings but
gained a child. Me well, in my cranking of my brain,
(21:00):
then I thought, okay, well that's cool. I talked to
Hi Fi. We decided to meet in Bloomington. Met with
this guy who was weird, and the pot he offered
was really pretty funky, pretty tea funky. But I pushed
(21:22):
Hi Fi into saying, oh, come on, let's start to
see what can happen. It's not that much. Let's see
if we can get something going again. Both Hi Fi
and I were skeptical of its quality. I mean, we
knew it wasn't particularly good, but I feel like I
(21:44):
was the one who sort of pushed him to it,
said oh, come on, let's try. It's not that much.
You know, get rid of it or whatever the and
so we got it. We packaged it up in the
motel room we were in. Wasn't that much. So he
takes off back to the East and I jumped back
(22:08):
on a plane come home, and I got a call,
I don't know how from his wife saying he just
got busted in. OHI I didn't know anything about what
(22:31):
had happened on his side. It's not a happy story.
And it it was so such a downer and depressing.
It's sort of for me beyond nailed the coffin shut
of Okay, fuck this. You know, I quit four years before,
(22:52):
in nineteen eighty eight because of this other thing. But this,
I mean, that was just money. This was his life.
They put him, they put him in jail, and he's
the most careful guy. I don't know how it happened.
I mean, it's a part of me that thinks that
these guys dropped a dime. Remember, drop a dime means
(23:13):
to turn in an associate to law enforcement in exchange
for freedom. Fun fact, it originates from the vintage action
of dropping a dime into a payphone to call the cops.
So my dad's lifelong shame based on his inability to
help his number one guy. His ally wore buddy high
fine begins back home, so I had been keeping it.
(23:38):
So I gave him a bunch of wine. And I
can't even remember if I gave him all of what
he was owed. At the time, we were both really struggling.
I was obviously pretty up tight. That's the worst thing
that ever happened to me and my crew ever personally
with my I mean, and he was he was like
my partner. My inability without the amounts of money that
(24:03):
was needed. I just got very frightened and shrank and
I left him on the battlefield. I mean, that is
the biggest thing in my life that still haunts me.
Working outside the law is like war. The smuggler has
(24:25):
an enemy the government, and being taken by the enemy
in smuggling or war has the same consequences downfall, ruin prison. Sadly,
after Hi Fi was busted, my dad buried his head
in the sand like an Ostrich, the same way Blondie
did in the Final Straw Trip. And aside from sending
(24:47):
Hi Fi some wine, my dad was too paralyzed to
reach out again. Dad was afraid being connected to Hiphi
would lead to his own arrest, and his subsequent silence
became a heavy secret burden. My dad never knew exactly
what happened to Hiphi. After the bust, they drifted apart
and entombed. Secrets lay hidden. Now. When I started this podcast,
(25:12):
my dad hadn't spoken to High Fi in twenty seven years.
Throughout our interviews, Dad kept mentioning HIGHI, expressing a longing
to reconnect, reach out, and apologize. So I went to
New York to see if HIHI would be willing to
talk about it. All right, I'm at an old Italian
(25:34):
restaurant founded in nineteen fifty six. It's called Four Ladies.
It's on the edge of Chinatown and Italy. I'm meeting
my dad's guy in New York. Stay tuned. We hope
he will talk to me on team. I meet him
(25:55):
at a restaurant you'd find tony soprano in red booths,
giant plates of Marinera, and lifelong Italian waiters who act
like adoring uncles you've known your whole life. Now. I
haven't seen Hi Fi since nineteen ninety two, my senior
year in high school, and he tells me He chose
the Eatery because he and Neil went there in the
(26:15):
early eighties. But it took that visit and a lot
more conversations for him to be willing to talk about
it on tape. Finally, I spoke to him on the
phone a few days before the release of this episode,
and High Fi's traumatic story reveals that my dad got
out of pot smuggling by the skin of his teeth.
(26:37):
So here's HIGHI. So I makee with a man. You know,
it didn't feel right right from the get go. We
met with the guy, and you know, you look kind
of nervous, and it wasn't the usual kind of connection
that I was used to doing with your father. This
guy opens up a trunk and the back of a vein.
I believe those basically hodgepodge of product. You know, looking
(27:03):
back on it, it looked like some thing that was
seized because a lot of it was loosened bags and
in cylinders. It wasn't consistent. It looked like it looked
like it was commandeered or or you know, seized out
of somewhere but struggling. I was very disappointed, but you know,
I looked at father. He said, yeah, Yeah, that's all
(27:25):
the best we can do right now. Like my dad,
hi Fi had also been struggling financially because once my
dad retired in nineteen eighty eight, part of hi Fi's
business also disappeared. So I'm I'm driving and through Indiana
and I get into Ohio. You know, on the interstate,
(27:45):
there's apparent construction going on. But next to the construction zone,
you know, there's this trooper, you know, and I see
him and he's got binoculars. So as I approach and
pass him, he pulls out. That's it, Okay, that's interesting.
He comes behind me, flashes the lights. Pull over. Okay.
(28:06):
So I pull over and I look and it's a
canine unit. He comes out with the dog, walks the
dog around. My card. Didn't say anything to me, so after,
you know, whatever the dog does, I guess the dog
pointed because yeah, I had product on it, and it
wasn't very very well packaged, you know, my mistake, Shame
on me. My dad and Hyphi had packaged the fifty
(28:29):
pounds in a motel room in Indiana, so they weren't
in their own space with their customary tools, and the
pot wasn't as carefully packaged as usual. From the beginning,
the entire trip felt stressful, rushed, and ill prepared. I
rolled down the window and says, you know, you know,
you know why you're being stopped. I said no. I said, okay,
(28:50):
Can I see your driver's license? You know? He didn't
say one. Okay, So I gave him my driver's license
and all that, and says, well, I walked the dog
around your car, okay, and we have cause to certain,
you know, to search your car. Can we search your car?
I said no, right, I said, you know you're not
(29:10):
giving me cause of me. You're stopping me. I have
seen no reason for you to search my car. He
tells me to come out of the car. I come
out of the car. He handcuffs tells me to sit down,
So I sit down. I'm going fully cooperative. So he
opens up the trunk, finds finds the stuff. Okay. Then
he calls in whoever I'm still sitting there. Tow truck
(29:34):
you know, comes in. They load load the car that
I was in. He puts me back at his vehicle. Now,
mind you all, this is not protocol for arrest. And
I knew that That's why I was cooperating. Now, just
so you know, you know, the protocol is that you know,
when you're arrested, you know, they're supposed to be especially
with contraband or any plus suspect of illegal product you
(29:58):
know in the car, there has to be a supervisor,
especially with seizure of product, seizure of property. Okay, he
can't be the only one that does. This has to
be witnessed by a supervisor. They take High Fi to
jail and he calls his New York colleague, who alerts
Hi Fi his wife and a lawyer. The officials move
(30:19):
High Fi to a high security jail with local murderers
and bank robbers, and he's there for a week until
his new Ohio lawyer arrives to talk about the future.
And according to the lawyer, it's grim. So so you know,
you're going to do at least seven years, right, and
it's mandatory, and he's probably are going to do more.
So this guy's already given me up. This is supposed
(30:41):
to be my defense lawyer. So you know, when he
goes out, you know, I see him go through a
different room and he's talking to the you know, to day,
the prosecutor okay, and the cops are in there. Now,
this guy's supposed to be on my side. Hi Fi,
justly unsatisfied with this lawyer who's already given him up
(31:02):
for guilty, gets a recommendation for a superior or lawyer
from his new bank robber friend and sealemate. So he says,
you know, one thing that you have to tell me
is that we're going to sit down, and you have
to tell me exactly, you know, second by second what happened. Okay,
So I basically told him the same thing, and I
just told you, and he says, yeah, you know, it
(31:24):
says you know, I think we've got something here. You know,
later later I found out that you know, the cop
that that arrested me, you know, it was a rookie
and they were giving him the carler. You know, now
my suspect is a I'm suspicious. Up to this point, somebody,
somebody dropped the dime. Arming HiFi believes that someone dropped
(31:48):
a dime on him, and at this moment, sitting in
an Ohio jail, he doesn't know who, but realizes my
dad is a possibility. I mean the first question, you think,
did I drop a dime on him? Yeah? Yeah? And
then he didn't. And I mean, that's the I mean.
(32:11):
And that was really ugly, Steph, to think that my
partner kish It thought that I dropped a dime on him.
That's how ugly it was, That's how sad it was.
High fives in jail for a month. He puts up
twenty five thousand dollars for bail, plus ten thousand up
(32:32):
front for his new lawyer, and he spent six thousand
already for the previous inadequate lawyer. So he's already out
forty thousand and he hasn't even gone to trial. Now. Thankfully,
the superior lawyer recommended by the bank robber wins hi
Fi his freedom, but he's in enormous debt. In desperation
(32:57):
to pay back his legal debt, Hi Fi sets up
a trip with the Mexican cartel and his family pressed.
Sure's high fight to work with his brother in law
on the trip. Okay, And I've done business with him
before before, and he was three, didn't have a good tractor.
I've lost product with him before. But being family and
(33:17):
people in the family are begging me, I listen, give
him a no, no, the chance you know you'll make
good and all that I got the trip together, and
you know, Mexican Mexican cartels, we know, you know, they
don't they don't bullshit around, you know. And I felt
confident that I could turn you know, turn it over
and pay him back and all that. But next thing
I know is that, you know, these people telling me
(33:40):
that they lost the trip. The trip goes terribly wrong.
Hi Fi's brother in law and associate end up losing
the Mexican cartel's pot or betraying high Fight, depending how
we look at it. And the Mexican cartels pot was
worth four hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth over eight
(34:02):
hundred thousand dollars in today's money, leaving High Fi massively
in debt to the Mexican cartel. So Hi Fi meets
up with the two traders to figure out what to do.
You know. So I'm telling, I says, listen, you know,
I said, we've got to come up with a payment
on this. Maybe I can negotiate them down, or we've
(34:24):
got to start paying them back. You know. So this
other guy that with him, you know, I says, he says,
what you know, you want war, We'll give you war,
I said, war. He says, you know right there, and
then I said, okay, you know, these guys, these guys
are out of their minds. We don't deal in those parameters,
you know, like like like they're talking about, you know,
(34:45):
it's all gentlemen and handshakes and all that. I felt like,
you know, I said, okay, you know, because I'm capable
of I was going to waste them right there. And
then well then I said, okay, you know, if I
do that, then then but I go to jail for
a couple of low lives. Hi Fi is referring to
his brother in law and his brother in law's associate. Now,
(35:05):
ultimately hi Fi is responsible for the product, and these
guys put hi Fi's life on the line. He severs
all contact with them and never talked to them. I
never contacted them and blacklisted them. And that didn't go
all the well, because you know, my family's going what
happened and that, you know, I said, well, you know,
(35:27):
let's let's keep it that way. I don't want anything
to do with this guy. Ever. Again, what ended up
happening to these guys is the guy that once said
that he wanted war, he got shot by his own
people killed and the guy that you know that that
betrayed me family member. He ended up going to jail
and he died in jail. The karmar Karma is a bitch,
(35:48):
isn't it. Now This sounds brutal, but remember Hi Fi
is the son of concentration camp survivors, Holocaust freedom fighters,
plus he's a Vietnam Vet. Furthermore, Hi Fi got into
smuggling as a bodyguard for a reason. He excels at
(36:10):
keeping people safe, and his brother in law's deadly betrayal
has just turned Hi Fi into a bullseye for the
Mexican cartel. I had met with the cartel, you know,
in mid Manhattan, and I thought I wasn't going to
walk out it there. But but I had back up.
I said, listening, anything happens to me, you know, because
(36:33):
you know, I had guys look look looking out for
me in case something did happen. You know, we're going
to escalate the meeting, you know. But nothing happened. He says, Okay,
you know, listen, because give me time to work this out,
you know, and I'll make good on it. Then I did, okay,
but it took me a long time. Now always spectacular
(36:54):
at his job, Hi Fi made a deal with a
Mexican cartel and after ten years of arduous work, repaid
his debt. And he tells me at the end of
it all, he's not afraid of who's behind him. But
(37:14):
along with the casualty of colleagues, the Mexican cartel's pot,
and ten years of high stakes debt, was the loss
of the friendship between High Fi and my dad. We
were great business partners, aren't friends for a good decade.
But you know, when things weren solved for whatever reason,
(37:36):
you know, I tried to reach out, but rip wasn't
we see a purple I guess why didn't my dad
connect with High Fi after his bust, shame and guilt.
My dad was embarrassed he couldn't help his comrade, ashamed
he couldn't save him, so he just shut down and
(37:59):
buried the whole thing. Never spoke a word about this
trip to anyone, including my mom, until now. But did
you wonder why High Fi didn't come around anymore? Yeah,
because we had quit. We had quit years we could
so we we just I thought we had quit. She
didn't know this. I did this secretly. I just said
(38:20):
I was going going on something or something, you know,
and so I didn't like. I was always like, I
had no idea. That would have been awful. I mean
it was awful when our friend who's who introduced us
to him died, but that this was really awful, too awful,
(38:40):
and I I just didn't want to dump it on you. Also,
I didn't feel like you needed to carry this this burden.
Well it's a I don't know if that's a good idea. Well,
usually when you do something like that, you take your
(39:01):
own responsibility. You don't expect other people to be all
you out, well, especially if they don't have any money. No,
I'm I'm well aware, like irresponsible to my family. Oh
that you were, you were, you were well, he was
(39:21):
as close to us as anybody was. When you do
something and you get caught, it's your responsibility snitch, right,
he did what he did. He didn't snitch. Oh, he
was strapped, right, he didn't at all. It was always
true to a sword. And you were. I mean you didn't.
We didn't have any money at that point in time.
(39:42):
We lost the whole house. I just really went into
a deep hot that's when you went your depression, your
your long depression might be. And then and get out
of the couch. Remember you couldn't get up for months.
You just laid their watch television on the red couch
(40:05):
and the dan. Yeah, what do you remember you hold
about him at that time? Did you got really depressed?
Really depressed? Nine two? Yeah? Yeah, I don't know what,
I don't I don't know, right, there was nothing I
could do. But that doesn't that that doesn't I mean
you were both kind of really dumb to go out
(40:25):
there without any without anything. Yeah, it's really dumb. That's boke.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean. Yeah, well, no, it's important
to have the wherewithal to back up with your doing
in case, just in case, because like obviously you thought
(40:46):
you guys were never gonna get in trouble. Witnessing my
dad reveal this story to my mom was incredible and
cathartic for all of us, and we all feel lighter, free, disencumbered.
How do you feel hearing this? I feel Walter accused
(41:10):
himself of not being good enough. I mean, this was
like very horrible, but it happens like I you know,
I do with it? Do you wish you know? Uh? Yeah,
because it would have caused him no less suffering. You know,
actually you could have shared the suffering with him. Yeah,
(41:33):
well he's still suffering because she should never like think
that you should never think that you're not good enough
because she couldn't do anything. I mean, we all knew
that we couldn't do anything without a lot of money,
you know. Oh, yes, then you get more desperate, more desperate.
How do you feel? How do I feel? I feel
(41:57):
greatly relieved, and I feel that what I have known
most of our whole lives is how this person has
been my partner my whole life and supported me through
the ups and downs of mine and our mistakes and
(42:23):
has so I feel. I feel I'm managed. Telling my
mom this big secret about leaving Hi Fi on the
battlefield lifted an enormous burden from my dad. But there's
(42:43):
one more thing my parents want to do to release
shame and guilt and heal the wounds of the past,
apologize to Hi Fi and thank him for not turning
them in. Next week's episode is the last of this season.
We wrap up with my dad's smuggling career and I
(43:04):
reflect on being a smuger's daughter with one of my
closest friends who shares the same title as me, but
experienced a very different childhood, and my parents give Hi
Fi a call. I'm Rainbow Valentine. This is Disorganized Crime
Smuggler's Daughter. Disorganized Crime Smuggler's Daughter is written and recorded
(43:32):
by Me Rainbow Valentine. Our producers are Gabby Watts and
Taylor Church. Executive producers are Brandon Barr, Brian Lavin, Elsie
Crowley and Me at School of Humans, and Connell Burn
and Charles Bryant at iHeartRadio. Our music is by Gabby
Lala and Claire Campbell, with original theme by Mark Karen
and Me. You can follow us online at Disorganized Crime
(43:54):
podcast dot com. Young, Free and Groovy, making it up
swee roll along, Rolling along, far out country roll he
(44:21):
lit the Great in the Golden Gate, doting far up
New York State, making it up as we roll along,
pulling the uby, Young rich and groovy, making it up
(44:43):
sweet roll along, rolling along, far out country roll, following
the sunshine as we go go, chasing a darting kids
and keylows, making it up as we roll along. Writing
(45:06):
novel story, doing as with me, Tamble by Steeping Princess
of the red wood trees. She helps us keep it real.
Handshake seals the deal, wrap the sky, seal, Meal road
(45:27):
up these, always rolling the Doobi, Young, rich and groovy,
making it up as we roll along, Rulling along Far
Country roll, Rolling along Far Country roll, Rolling along far
(45:55):
O Country roll
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