November 7, 2022 • 23 mins
The premiere episode of True Crime Reality has Ben Higgins joining Caelynn with all the details of his chaotic teenage spring break to Miami…where things plummeted from bad to worse. What started as a stroll on the beach with his buddies, ended with them being detained by the DEA. It would have been a scene out of a movie, except this story is 100% real and you have to hear it to believe it.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to True Crime Reality with host Calyn Miller Keys.
Things are about to get real. Meet Ben Higgins, entrepreneur, author, husband,
and star of season twenty of the hit show The Bachelor.
He's widely known as an all around great guy, but
(00:20):
there's an event from his past. In two thousand six,
way before he was known to the world, when Ben
and his friends were involved in a drug bust with
the d e A and detained while on Spring Pray
and Short, things went south in South Beach. Calyn Miller
Keys investigates this is true Crime Reality. Hello everyone, My
(00:47):
name is Caylan Miller Keys, and I am so excited
to be sharing the first episode of True Crime Reality
with you all. And this idea was brought to me
because I love crime. I loved Your Time, I love
crime podcasts, and I also love reality TV. So why
not mesh the two together? Because there are so many
reality TV stars that have experienced crime, and my very
(01:10):
first guest is an incredible human, one of my favorite people,
Ben Higgins. Oh, I'm pumped to be here. I think
this is an absolute incredible idea. When I heard about this,
I think You're gonna rocket. I think the content is
going to be incredible, and I think you gonna have
a lot of stories from people. I'm I'm interested to
(01:30):
see what episodes you you post because there's so much
content that you're gonna have that nobody knows about or
nobody knows the details too. So I'm so excited to
be your first guest. Well, thank you so much for
coming on, and I cannot wait to get into this story. One.
You're a great storyteller when you're a great podcaster, I'm
like a little nervous to have you on my very
first episode being a host because you have been such
(01:51):
a gracious host to me on your podcast, so I'm
really pumped for you to be here. Well, it is
also unique because we're doing this in person, and I
don't know how often you'll be somebody in the same room,
but that always brings like a unique level of nerves
to me. It's just like heightens it. Right if you're
on Zoom or if you're in a studio, even like
a studio setting is a little more comfortable. We're just
like chilling in a living here. I'm s brought out
like I'm in therapy right now. I don't get to
(02:13):
tell this story very often, um, and so that's why
I'm really really excited to talk to you about it. Well,
it's cool because I've heard so many crazy stories from you,
and when I first heard you were the first guest,
so many stories things to mind, but not this one
because I've never heard this one. So I'm really excited
to talk about it with you. And I know a
little backstory just from talking to you a little bit,
(02:35):
but I would love to hear from your perspective, you
know exactly what happened in Miami in two thousand six.
I believe it is. You're right, Cale. I'm sitting here
right now, and I just picture you doing this like
on television, like you're meant for this moment. Is this
is gonna be good. You're gonna like the investigative journalism
(02:56):
that you're gonna be able to do is gonna be
so good. Okay, So here's the It's two thousand six.
I am a sophomore in high school. Every year, um, well,
I guess for three years, my parents had taken my
friends and I and their families, so like ten of
us would go on a cruise. And this year in
(03:16):
two thousand six, were going on a cruise out of Miami,
and so our families decided to go down a day
and a half early and stay on South Beach and
like a resort. Before the crew started. Um, I was
with two of my friends. They were both juniors in
high school, so they were a year older than me.
And I'm gonna be very honest, um on this podcast.
(03:40):
We're on South Beach, and my buddies and I were
not naive to the fact that South Beach is a
nude beach and we are also high school students at
the time, and we found a way to tell our
parents and check our parents were just old enough to
be able to kind of do this, I feel like
on our own. But we said, hey, we're gonna go
for a walk on the beach with really one idea
(04:01):
in mind, like let's go sight see, Let's see see
what's out there, Let's see South Beach, Let's see what
kind of trouble we can get into. Um, let's get
away from the parents. Like, you know, you're in high school.
That's that's a great like moment when you can like
feel like you're an adult and you can just go.
And so we start our walk and uh, you know,
(04:21):
we're being boys, were enjoying it. We're wrestling on the beach,
we're hanging out, and we just end up walking for
like an hour down the beach, about an hour down
the beach um, which is about two miles from our resort. Uh,
we're walking and uh, we walked past this bag um
that has been kind of buried in the waves, so
(04:42):
it's just like just inside the wave line, but it's
in the sand and it's buried like halfway underneath it.
And it's a bag that's about the size like a
cereal bag. So if you pull out a cereal bag
that hasn't been opened, it's like that big. And it
was heat sealed on both sides, and it was full
of white powder. Packed full of white powder. And we
(05:03):
we saw it and we actually had picked it up
and we had said we think this is cocaine, and
then we laid it back in the sand and we
kept walking for about thirty more seconds and we stopped
and we're like, wait, this feels like something that like
we should like this feels like a cool story. We
should do something with this, right, So we got back
(05:24):
and we're standing in this huddle and this part of
the beach It was kind of between two resorts and
so it wasn't super busy. Um, there wasn't a lot
of people, but there was a lifeguard stand about a
hundred yards up the beach, and so we stood around,
like what should we do with this? You know, none
of us, uh, we're into any kind of drugs, so
we really don't even know what we're doing, right, We're
(05:44):
very naive, but we were We knew enough to know
that this was something unique to the beach. So we
picked up the bag and we said, we're gonna bring
it to the lifeguard stand. So we brought up the
bag here to the lifeguard stand. We laid it on
the lifeguard stand table. Now, lifeguards on a beach are
like summer, this is a summer job, and so these
(06:05):
like this life guard was probably eighteen years old at most,
like young. So we I remember laying the bag up
and being we just found this on the beach down there. Uh.
We pointed to it, and his eyes were opening, and
he he didn't even say, thinking, I remember our common afterwards,
he didn't even think us for that, like that was
a big deal, right, Like we just gave him a
(06:26):
bag full of cocaine. That's that's a huge like thing
for him, like we're protecting this beach. You didn't even
say thinking. He just was like okay, and we kept walking.
Quick question for you when I was fifteen sixteen, Uh,
(06:49):
I had no idea what cocaine? When? How did you know? Well,
like you've seen enough TV? Yeah, like I think, I
mean I remember us being confu used, Like I don't
remember us being confident on what we saw and what
it was. I even think even when we handed it
to him, we didn't fully know like what it was.
(07:10):
We we had an idea like you've seen TV. You've
seen like the c s I you've seen all those things, um,
and you're like, I think this is like it's a
white powder and a clear bag that's heat sealed, impact full,
like it's heavy. I mean it's it's this is a
heavy bag. Um, But I don't think we really knew,
like it could have been sugar for for all we need. Right,
(07:31):
So that's why we walked, And so we just kept
walking and we're joking, we're talking about it, and like, oh,
how funny is this gonna be? Nobody's gonna believe us, right,
nobody's gonna believe that we found cocaine. Our parents are
gonna believe this is We're like just like having a
good time, but we kind of stopped talking about it.
You know. It became like a thing we did and
we'll tell our families when we get back. Like this
crazy moment we had. We walked for another thirty minutes
(07:53):
until there is this cloud of dust like yards behind us. Uh,
and it's sand dust, and it's four four wheelers with
d A markings on it, like four d A four
wheelers pulling up. And they pull up to us and
they go, are you the three that just found the
(08:15):
bag on the beach? We said, yeah, we are, and
they said you need to come with us, And so
now we get nervous, right like now we're like, we
don't know what's happening. They're not talking to us. They're
not they're not saying two words to us, and so
we're asking them questions like, um, I mean, I'm sixteen,
I don't I could have been drinking, but I don't
(08:35):
think we were. Yeah, I don't think they wouldn't have
been shocking, but like we were scared, like all of
us at this point, All of a sudden, the fun
had stopped. We're on the back of four wheelers going
down the beach and like now, South Beach is packed,
so every eye is on you. We pull up to
the lifeguard station and there are probably a hundred media
(08:56):
outlets surrounding this lifeguard station and hundreds of people, like
hundreds of people in this big circle they had marked
off around the lifeguard stand and they pull us up
into the middle, and so everybody's chat like you can
hear everybody talking. I have at this point. I never
been on camera, not knowing, and nobody will say again,
nobody will say a word to us. And so I
(09:17):
remember standing and they said, how older you? I said,
I'm sixteen years old. They're like, you need to call
your dad. We have to have his consent to speak
to you. So they hand me their phone. I call
my dad, who's two miles terrified, absolutely terrified. They won't
say if we're in trouble, if we're not. We're asking,
are we in trouble? Like we thought we did something good,
(09:39):
This wasn't ours, Like you know, we're explaining everything. I
call my dad and my buddy has to call his dad,
who is also down there. They're two miles down the
beach in Miami. No car, Dad, Uh, I'm with d A. Uh.
They want to speak to you. They need you to
come here. Think about phone call in South Beach. And
(10:03):
so my dad, who is not like he is just
he's always been very generous and kind to me, He's like,
what the f did you do? I'll never It's probably
the only time I've ever heard him say that in
my life. From then to that point because for all
they know, we have found our way into some type
(10:24):
of trouble and they're having the bills out. So they
pull down the beach, they get a taxi. I see
them walking, parking the car and walking up the beach
and to the scene that they walked up to hundreds
of people and they're three, you know, teenage boys that
they're responsible for standing in the middle. So they get there.
(10:44):
The d A talks to them before we do, which
is good, explains the whole situation. At that point, their
nerves come down, but their confusion increases, like what is happening?
What is going on? Um, we signed consent, We talked
to the d e A. They tell us that it
was cocaine. They've tested it. That the today show is there,
(11:05):
um along with most of the other big morning outlets,
So we do a bunch of interviews about the whole
story as a sixteen year olds this this story ends
in a fantastic way, just to let you know, uh,
and this is one of the reasons why I don't
talk about it very often, because it's very embarrassed. Back then,
gold chains were really cool. And so I am wearing
(11:26):
a thick gold chain on the beach, shirtless with like
I don't even remember, like they were like very flowery
long swimsuits and a black hat backwards, like I am
looking good, Like I am cool, I am. I'm on
the prow that day. So we're doing all these interviews
that are going to be aired nationally UM, asking us
a hundred questions. Then Court TV comes in and they say, hey,
(11:52):
we're doing a show called Beach Patrol Miami Beach. And
this show still airs, but they did a whole segment
where they had us reenact finding the back, bring it
to Lifeguard stand the d A questioning us like us
explaining our story on what we found. How are your
acting skills at that point? Not good? Luckily, there was
(12:13):
no talking. It was like, hey, walk down the beach
towards us find the bag, look surprised. You know, probably
a thousand takes. So we do this whole show with
them for another hour while our parents are standing there
watching it, like still confused. Still, we're all confused. Our
day just got wild, right, Um, we bring like the
(12:35):
whole thing's done. Uh. They do a final interview with me.
This isn't the end of the full story, but they
do a final interview with me on the show, and
I want to be cool, Like I'm thinking, this is
my moment, right, and I'm embarrassed by this. I don't
appreciate my my language. I don't enjoy the fact that
I was a sixteen year old who was dumb and stupid.
(12:58):
But the host of the show asks, how is your
spring break going? So far? This is how the episode ends,
or at least it used to. They might have cut
some of this. My comment to them was I saw
titties in cocaine. What more would you want? Phe Wow, Well,
(13:19):
Mike Job, honestly, I mean what absolutely from Ben Higgins,
one of the like pure souls. It might change, it
might have changed. So a couple of things happened afterwards.
We went back Home, and that show aired fairly quickly
in two thousand six. You can actually still watch it today.
I get a random tweet or somebody's like, hey, I
(13:40):
just saw Ben on Beast Patrol. It still comes up now.
And again, what ended up happening was they believe, or
at least they knew back then that what they told
us was a boat was coming across the ocean to
with drugs in it. A patrol boat caught them and
they started rowing the bags overboard, all the cocaine on
(14:03):
their boat to get it off the boat so they
weren't caught with it. So we found the first bag,
and then they scraped the beach that day and it
ended up being at the time the largest cocaine bust
in Miami Beach. Ever, I can't even I don't want
to say, and we've tried to find it before the podcast.
The amount um, but I think if you look in
two thousand and six, like what a kilo you could
(14:24):
find like whateqilo? So our bag was three kilos of cocaine.
I think they found like thirteen bags of cocaine, like thirteen,
so it's you know, three times thirteen is thirty nine
like kilos of cocaine um that day on the beach,
all from us. So it became a big story, right,
It became a massive story that a lot of people
(14:46):
were covering. The thing that got weird for me was
we left for spring break. We left on the cruise
and came back and people had already hit like our
local paper, It had already hit the news stations, especially
in Miami. But they were using my name and my hometown,
so Ben Higgins for more Sandiana, And so for six months,
(15:07):
they would check in on us because they didn't know
if whoever is cocaine this was if they would be upset.
Now they weren't. I think they probably understood it was
a six year old kid finding a random bag on
the beach. We had no clue what we're getting ourselves into.
Was this the d E A who's checking in on you? Yeah?
I remember what it was some law enforcement that was
like patrolling or monitoring situation. Because this is a really
(15:30):
big story for Miami, especially on South Beach. Like this
stuff happens a lot, right, but especially on a on
a crowded beach where this is popping up. It became
a really big story. And so and because my name
and all of our names and our hometowns were there.
It just it's a concern, right, It's a it's a
security concern. But nothing ever happened from it except the
(15:52):
fact that then our local paper had it and we
became like many celebrities in two thousand six. And then
obviously everybody in my hometown that watched that episode had
to see me in the episode in the most like
great test way, which probably changed your perspective and me forever.
I'm sure that's still how they remember. No way, anyone
who knows you knows that you're the kindest person ever.
(16:16):
Six I think I was like trying to rage have
a good time, and we found a way to do it,
trying to live it up. Yeah. Hi, it's Bethany Frankel.
My time on the Wheelhousewives of New York is a
few years behind me, and now I'm ready to put
the reel back into the real Housewives. That's where my
new podcast Rewives comes in. This isn't your typical rewatch podcast.
(16:39):
I'm watching only the most iconic episodes from all cities.
I'm sharing never before heard stories of what happened behind
the scenes, and I'm not just pulling in cast members
for postgame analysis. I'm doing something a little bit more interesting.
If you've ever seen an episode of The Wheelhousewives, you
know the drill, But beyond throwing drinks and leg there
are lessons about marriage, divorce, for chip, money, parenting, and fame.
(17:02):
If you have the right minds, analyze and dig deeper.
So I'm bringing on unexpected thought leaders and celebrities to
get their take on the chaos this season. I sit
down with Elizabeth Moss, Kevin Neal and Susie Orman, Griffin
Johnson and more. You think that there isn't much to
learn from flipping tables and yanking wigs, but that's where
you're wrong. Listen to Rewives with Bethany Frankel on the
(17:22):
I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get
your favorite podcasts, and you can find the story. Um,
if the episode ever airs, I just asked that people
tell me because I really wanted to like record it
at some point, I really want to have it like
(17:44):
in my arsenal to laugh at Wait. So the boat
that they originally were the patrol officers on the boat,
they were all arrested. Everyone on that boat. I don't
believe so, because I think they successfully got rid of
most of the drugs on the boat, and I'm sure
there's I'm sure there's some type of law that they
can still like hold them m but I don't think
(18:05):
they found any. I mean, the amount that was in
the water that day, like right off the beach, I
don't think a boat could have carried much more than that.
The patrol officers found the boat, let them go, and
then you found the cocaine, and then did they just
lose them? They lost all like days later. Was um
when we found it, and so I'm sure it happened
(18:26):
like thirty miles offshore and it just washed over time
and it stayed intact and it all washed up kind
of at the same moment. And we're just lucky enough
for I guess you could say lucky enough to have
found it um, but I mean it definitely. It's funny
because you go back to high school and everybody's like,
you're an idiot. You could have made so much money,
you know, like that was kind of the new I
(18:48):
was just looking on Reddit actually um to see if
anybody had seen the episode recently, and even everybody on
the like reddit, which is just a spiraling hole to
feel better about yourself or worse about yourself. Um, they
were like he should have sold it. He probably did
sell it, But we I mean, I think going back,
like we really just didn't know what it was and
we didn't know how big it was, like how big
(19:11):
of a deal it was until after the fact, until
we got back from the cruise when they said, you know,
they found so many more bags following our our find.
How is the cruise though, Like you you just did
this insane thing and then you're going to go go
on a cruise. Yeah, you're probably like walking around on
macho Like I just had a drug bust at sixteen
(19:31):
years old. We did that exact same thing. We used
it to our to our advantage. We found like our
cruise friends and our cruise girlfriends, like you always do
when you go on a cruise in your teenage years.
But it also, you know, it's weird how those big
stories in life, like when you get away from him,
like you kind of like forget at moments, uh, and
(19:52):
so I remember on the cruise even like one night
at dinner, our families like this has been the weirdest
vacation ever because you're going to cruise in a thousand
different things. How on a cruize you get a lot
of trouble. You're an idiot, you're sixteen, you're stinking away
from your parents, are doing stuff that like they don't
want you to do, so like the whole week then
kind of that set the tone, and I felt really
cool and probably invincible, super invincive. Yeah, I mean I
(20:14):
my gold chain was on, like I felt, I felt
so invincible, and even telling the story today, like I'm
reminiscing back to my mindset and like just the the
pride that I had, like being on TV for what
I thought was doing something so good. Now we got
made fun of high school a lot for turning it
in well just because but yeah, you feel invincible, You
(20:39):
feel um, And it's like a story not sixteen, that
I'll tell for the rest of my life, you know.
And we're lucky enough to have a documented We were
lucky enough to having our paper, like you know, my
two buddies and myself, like that was the cover find
X amount of you know, X amount of money's worth
(21:01):
of cocaine and South Beach. So you just feel cool.
That's amazing. I mean, I don't know how you talked
that honestly. There. You know, I think there's so many
ways it could have ended differently for me. Uh But
I think throughout this podcast, you're gonna have a lot
of stories that you just sit here in awe of, Like,
(21:22):
you know, for what my story lacks is like I
didn't have to have any resilience, Like I didn't have
to pile through anything tough. But like a lot of
these stories that you're gonna get are going to have
some stories of resilience. For me, this is like a
random moment that like gave me a push in high
school to be known a little bit more, to feel
(21:42):
a little cooler about myself, to have something that people
talked about, to have something to talk about with people. Yeah,
I know you said he got made fun of, but
I mean there was some aspect to it where you
guys probably walked around the school too in the same
way where you're like, we're a little bit invincible, Like, sure,
you're making fun of us now, but we did this amazing, incredible,
insane thing. Yeah you know us, Yeah, you know us
(22:04):
because of this thing that we did are the the
you know, we're a minor, like I was sixteen years old.
And if you look at a sixteen year old day
and you think of them processing this um, especially in
the like the next four years of your life, I mean,
we had and it doesn't happen as much anymore. But
(22:26):
like when I was even in college, the show was
still airing, like beach Re told, Miami was still airing
on television, so people in college would know, like I
just saw you on TV the other night, like that
was a kind of a college show. You flip it on,
you like kind of doze off. But like people in
college even had picked up on the story. So it's
followed me, It's followed me along. That's amazing. I mean,
(22:49):
what a great first story. I'm so happy you came on.
This has been incredible. I've never heard this story before,
so I'm so happy I could hear it for the
first time here because You've had a lot of life
experiences and a lot of again the stories, so this
one was awesome. This is this is the one that
that I'll never forget And thanks for let me share it.
I'm so pumped to listen to you for the next
couple of years in my life. Thank you so much.
(23:10):
Ben Higgins, Thank you so much for listening, and be
sure to follow us on Instagram at true Crime Reality.
Until next time,
Welcome to True Crime Reality with host Calyn Miller Keys.
Things are about to get real. Meet Ben Higgins, entrepreneur, author, husband,
and star of season twenty of the hit show The Bachelor.
He's widely known as an all around great guy, but
(00:20):
there's an event from his past. In two thousand six,
way before he was known to the world, when Ben
and his friends were involved in a drug bust with
the d e A and detained while on Spring Pray
and Short, things went south in South Beach. Calyn Miller
Keys investigates this is true Crime Reality. Hello everyone, My
(00:47):
name is Caylan Miller Keys, and I am so excited
to be sharing the first episode of True Crime Reality
with you all. And this idea was brought to me
because I love crime. I loved Your Time, I love
crime podcasts, and I also love reality TV. So why
not mesh the two together? Because there are so many
reality TV stars that have experienced crime, and my very
(01:10):
first guest is an incredible human, one of my favorite people,
Ben Higgins. Oh, I'm pumped to be here. I think
this is an absolute incredible idea. When I heard about this,
I think You're gonna rocket. I think the content is
going to be incredible, and I think you gonna have
a lot of stories from people. I'm I'm interested to
(01:30):
see what episodes you you post because there's so much
content that you're gonna have that nobody knows about or
nobody knows the details too. So I'm so excited to
be your first guest. Well, thank you so much for
coming on, and I cannot wait to get into this story. One.
You're a great storyteller when you're a great podcaster, I'm
like a little nervous to have you on my very
first episode being a host because you have been such
(01:51):
a gracious host to me on your podcast, so I'm
really pumped for you to be here. Well, it is
also unique because we're doing this in person, and I
don't know how often you'll be somebody in the same room,
but that always brings like a unique level of nerves
to me. It's just like heightens it. Right if you're
on Zoom or if you're in a studio, even like
a studio setting is a little more comfortable. We're just
like chilling in a living here. I'm s brought out
like I'm in therapy right now. I don't get to
(02:13):
tell this story very often, um, and so that's why
I'm really really excited to talk to you about it. Well,
it's cool because I've heard so many crazy stories from you,
and when I first heard you were the first guest,
so many stories things to mind, but not this one
because I've never heard this one. So I'm really excited
to talk about it with you. And I know a
little backstory just from talking to you a little bit,
(02:35):
but I would love to hear from your perspective, you
know exactly what happened in Miami in two thousand six.
I believe it is. You're right, Cale. I'm sitting here
right now, and I just picture you doing this like
on television, like you're meant for this moment. Is this
is gonna be good. You're gonna like the investigative journalism
(02:56):
that you're gonna be able to do is gonna be
so good. Okay, So here's the It's two thousand six.
I am a sophomore in high school. Every year, um, well,
I guess for three years, my parents had taken my
friends and I and their families, so like ten of
us would go on a cruise. And this year in
(03:16):
two thousand six, were going on a cruise out of Miami,
and so our families decided to go down a day
and a half early and stay on South Beach and
like a resort. Before the crew started. Um, I was
with two of my friends. They were both juniors in
high school, so they were a year older than me.
And I'm gonna be very honest, um on this podcast.
(03:40):
We're on South Beach, and my buddies and I were
not naive to the fact that South Beach is a
nude beach and we are also high school students at
the time, and we found a way to tell our
parents and check our parents were just old enough to
be able to kind of do this, I feel like
on our own. But we said, hey, we're gonna go
for a walk on the beach with really one idea
(04:01):
in mind, like let's go sight see, Let's see see
what's out there, Let's see South Beach, Let's see what
kind of trouble we can get into. Um, let's get
away from the parents. Like, you know, you're in high school.
That's that's a great like moment when you can like
feel like you're an adult and you can just go.
And so we start our walk and uh, you know,
(04:21):
we're being boys, were enjoying it. We're wrestling on the beach,
we're hanging out, and we just end up walking for
like an hour down the beach, about an hour down
the beach um, which is about two miles from our resort. Uh,
we're walking and uh, we walked past this bag um
that has been kind of buried in the waves, so
(04:42):
it's just like just inside the wave line, but it's
in the sand and it's buried like halfway underneath it.
And it's a bag that's about the size like a
cereal bag. So if you pull out a cereal bag
that hasn't been opened, it's like that big. And it
was heat sealed on both sides, and it was full
of white powder. Packed full of white powder. And we
(05:03):
we saw it and we actually had picked it up
and we had said we think this is cocaine, and
then we laid it back in the sand and we
kept walking for about thirty more seconds and we stopped
and we're like, wait, this feels like something that like
we should like this feels like a cool story. We
should do something with this, right, So we got back
(05:24):
and we're standing in this huddle and this part of
the beach It was kind of between two resorts and
so it wasn't super busy. Um, there wasn't a lot
of people, but there was a lifeguard stand about a
hundred yards up the beach, and so we stood around,
like what should we do with this? You know, none
of us, uh, we're into any kind of drugs, so
we really don't even know what we're doing, right, We're
(05:44):
very naive, but we were We knew enough to know
that this was something unique to the beach. So we
picked up the bag and we said, we're gonna bring
it to the lifeguard stand. So we brought up the
bag here to the lifeguard stand. We laid it on
the lifeguard stand table. Now, lifeguards on a beach are
like summer, this is a summer job, and so these
(06:05):
like this life guard was probably eighteen years old at most,
like young. So we I remember laying the bag up
and being we just found this on the beach down there. Uh.
We pointed to it, and his eyes were opening, and
he he didn't even say, thinking, I remember our common afterwards,
he didn't even think us for that, like that was
a big deal, right, Like we just gave him a
(06:26):
bag full of cocaine. That's that's a huge like thing
for him, like we're protecting this beach. You didn't even
say thinking. He just was like okay, and we kept walking.
Quick question for you when I was fifteen sixteen, Uh,
(06:49):
I had no idea what cocaine? When? How did you know? Well,
like you've seen enough TV? Yeah, like I think, I
mean I remember us being confu used, Like I don't
remember us being confident on what we saw and what
it was. I even think even when we handed it
to him, we didn't fully know like what it was.
(07:10):
We we had an idea like you've seen TV. You've
seen like the c s I you've seen all those things, um,
and you're like, I think this is like it's a
white powder and a clear bag that's heat sealed, impact full,
like it's heavy. I mean it's it's this is a
heavy bag. Um, But I don't think we really knew,
like it could have been sugar for for all we need. Right,
(07:31):
So that's why we walked, And so we just kept
walking and we're joking, we're talking about it, and like, oh,
how funny is this gonna be? Nobody's gonna believe us, right,
nobody's gonna believe that we found cocaine. Our parents are
gonna believe this is We're like just like having a
good time, but we kind of stopped talking about it.
You know. It became like a thing we did and
we'll tell our families when we get back. Like this
crazy moment we had. We walked for another thirty minutes
(07:53):
until there is this cloud of dust like yards behind us. Uh,
and it's sand dust, and it's four four wheelers with
d A markings on it, like four d A four
wheelers pulling up. And they pull up to us and
they go, are you the three that just found the
(08:15):
bag on the beach? We said, yeah, we are, and
they said you need to come with us, And so
now we get nervous, right like now we're like, we
don't know what's happening. They're not talking to us. They're
not they're not saying two words to us, and so
we're asking them questions like, um, I mean, I'm sixteen,
I don't I could have been drinking, but I don't
(08:35):
think we were. Yeah, I don't think they wouldn't have
been shocking, but like we were scared, like all of
us at this point, All of a sudden, the fun
had stopped. We're on the back of four wheelers going
down the beach and like now, South Beach is packed,
so every eye is on you. We pull up to
the lifeguard station and there are probably a hundred media
(08:56):
outlets surrounding this lifeguard station and hundreds of people, like
hundreds of people in this big circle they had marked
off around the lifeguard stand and they pull us up
into the middle, and so everybody's chat like you can
hear everybody talking. I have at this point. I never
been on camera, not knowing, and nobody will say again,
nobody will say a word to us. And so I
(09:17):
remember standing and they said, how older you? I said,
I'm sixteen years old. They're like, you need to call
your dad. We have to have his consent to speak
to you. So they hand me their phone. I call
my dad, who's two miles terrified, absolutely terrified. They won't
say if we're in trouble, if we're not. We're asking,
are we in trouble? Like we thought we did something good,
(09:39):
This wasn't ours, Like you know, we're explaining everything. I
call my dad and my buddy has to call his dad,
who is also down there. They're two miles down the
beach in Miami. No car, Dad, Uh, I'm with d A. Uh.
They want to speak to you. They need you to
come here. Think about phone call in South Beach. And
(10:03):
so my dad, who is not like he is just
he's always been very generous and kind to me, He's like,
what the f did you do? I'll never It's probably
the only time I've ever heard him say that in
my life. From then to that point because for all
they know, we have found our way into some type
(10:24):
of trouble and they're having the bills out. So they
pull down the beach, they get a taxi. I see
them walking, parking the car and walking up the beach
and to the scene that they walked up to hundreds
of people and they're three, you know, teenage boys that
they're responsible for standing in the middle. So they get there.
(10:44):
The d A talks to them before we do, which
is good, explains the whole situation. At that point, their
nerves come down, but their confusion increases, like what is happening?
What is going on? Um, we signed consent, We talked
to the d e A. They tell us that it
was cocaine. They've tested it. That the today show is there,
(11:05):
um along with most of the other big morning outlets,
So we do a bunch of interviews about the whole
story as a sixteen year olds this this story ends
in a fantastic way, just to let you know, uh,
and this is one of the reasons why I don't
talk about it very often, because it's very embarrassed. Back then,
gold chains were really cool. And so I am wearing
(11:26):
a thick gold chain on the beach, shirtless with like
I don't even remember, like they were like very flowery
long swimsuits and a black hat backwards, like I am
looking good, Like I am cool, I am. I'm on
the prow that day. So we're doing all these interviews
that are going to be aired nationally UM, asking us
a hundred questions. Then Court TV comes in and they say, hey,
(11:52):
we're doing a show called Beach Patrol Miami Beach. And
this show still airs, but they did a whole segment
where they had us reenact finding the back, bring it
to Lifeguard stand the d A questioning us like us
explaining our story on what we found. How are your
acting skills at that point? Not good? Luckily, there was
(12:13):
no talking. It was like, hey, walk down the beach
towards us find the bag, look surprised. You know, probably
a thousand takes. So we do this whole show with
them for another hour while our parents are standing there
watching it, like still confused. Still, we're all confused. Our
day just got wild, right, Um, we bring like the
(12:35):
whole thing's done. Uh. They do a final interview with me.
This isn't the end of the full story, but they
do a final interview with me on the show, and
I want to be cool, Like I'm thinking, this is
my moment, right, and I'm embarrassed by this. I don't
appreciate my my language. I don't enjoy the fact that
I was a sixteen year old who was dumb and stupid.
(12:58):
But the host of the show asks, how is your
spring break going? So far? This is how the episode ends,
or at least it used to. They might have cut
some of this. My comment to them was I saw
titties in cocaine. What more would you want? Phe Wow, Well,
(13:19):
Mike Job, honestly, I mean what absolutely from Ben Higgins,
one of the like pure souls. It might change, it
might have changed. So a couple of things happened afterwards.
We went back Home, and that show aired fairly quickly
in two thousand six. You can actually still watch it today.
I get a random tweet or somebody's like, hey, I
(13:40):
just saw Ben on Beast Patrol. It still comes up now.
And again, what ended up happening was they believe, or
at least they knew back then that what they told
us was a boat was coming across the ocean to
with drugs in it. A patrol boat caught them and
they started rowing the bags overboard, all the cocaine on
(14:03):
their boat to get it off the boat so they
weren't caught with it. So we found the first bag,
and then they scraped the beach that day and it
ended up being at the time the largest cocaine bust
in Miami Beach. Ever, I can't even I don't want
to say, and we've tried to find it before the podcast.
The amount um, but I think if you look in
two thousand and six, like what a kilo you could
(14:24):
find like whateqilo? So our bag was three kilos of cocaine.
I think they found like thirteen bags of cocaine, like thirteen,
so it's you know, three times thirteen is thirty nine
like kilos of cocaine um that day on the beach,
all from us. So it became a big story, right,
It became a massive story that a lot of people
(14:46):
were covering. The thing that got weird for me was
we left for spring break. We left on the cruise
and came back and people had already hit like our
local paper, It had already hit the news stations, especially
in Miami. But they were using my name and my hometown,
so Ben Higgins for more Sandiana, And so for six months,
(15:07):
they would check in on us because they didn't know
if whoever is cocaine this was if they would be upset.
Now they weren't. I think they probably understood it was
a six year old kid finding a random bag on
the beach. We had no clue what we're getting ourselves into.
Was this the d E A who's checking in on you? Yeah?
I remember what it was some law enforcement that was
like patrolling or monitoring situation. Because this is a really
(15:30):
big story for Miami, especially on South Beach. Like this
stuff happens a lot, right, but especially on a on
a crowded beach where this is popping up. It became
a really big story. And so and because my name
and all of our names and our hometowns were there.
It just it's a concern, right, It's a it's a
security concern. But nothing ever happened from it except the
(15:52):
fact that then our local paper had it and we
became like many celebrities in two thousand six. And then
obviously everybody in my hometown that watched that episode had
to see me in the episode in the most like
great test way, which probably changed your perspective and me forever.
I'm sure that's still how they remember. No way, anyone
who knows you knows that you're the kindest person ever.
(16:16):
Six I think I was like trying to rage have
a good time, and we found a way to do it,
trying to live it up. Yeah. Hi, it's Bethany Frankel.
My time on the Wheelhousewives of New York is a
few years behind me, and now I'm ready to put
the reel back into the real Housewives. That's where my
new podcast Rewives comes in. This isn't your typical rewatch podcast.
(16:39):
I'm watching only the most iconic episodes from all cities.
I'm sharing never before heard stories of what happened behind
the scenes, and I'm not just pulling in cast members
for postgame analysis. I'm doing something a little bit more interesting.
If you've ever seen an episode of The Wheelhousewives, you
know the drill, But beyond throwing drinks and leg there
are lessons about marriage, divorce, for chip, money, parenting, and fame.
(17:02):
If you have the right minds, analyze and dig deeper.
So I'm bringing on unexpected thought leaders and celebrities to
get their take on the chaos this season. I sit
down with Elizabeth Moss, Kevin Neal and Susie Orman, Griffin
Johnson and more. You think that there isn't much to
learn from flipping tables and yanking wigs, but that's where
you're wrong. Listen to Rewives with Bethany Frankel on the
(17:22):
I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get
your favorite podcasts, and you can find the story. Um,
if the episode ever airs, I just asked that people
tell me because I really wanted to like record it
at some point, I really want to have it like
(17:44):
in my arsenal to laugh at Wait. So the boat
that they originally were the patrol officers on the boat,
they were all arrested. Everyone on that boat. I don't
believe so, because I think they successfully got rid of
most of the drugs on the boat, and I'm sure
there's I'm sure there's some type of law that they
can still like hold them m but I don't think
(18:05):
they found any. I mean, the amount that was in
the water that day, like right off the beach, I
don't think a boat could have carried much more than that.
The patrol officers found the boat, let them go, and
then you found the cocaine, and then did they just
lose them? They lost all like days later. Was um
when we found it, and so I'm sure it happened
(18:26):
like thirty miles offshore and it just washed over time
and it stayed intact and it all washed up kind
of at the same moment. And we're just lucky enough
for I guess you could say lucky enough to have
found it um, but I mean it definitely. It's funny
because you go back to high school and everybody's like,
you're an idiot. You could have made so much money,
you know, like that was kind of the new I
(18:48):
was just looking on Reddit actually um to see if
anybody had seen the episode recently, and even everybody on
the like reddit, which is just a spiraling hole to
feel better about yourself or worse about yourself. Um, they
were like he should have sold it. He probably did
sell it, But we I mean, I think going back,
like we really just didn't know what it was and
we didn't know how big it was, like how big
(19:11):
of a deal it was until after the fact, until
we got back from the cruise when they said, you know,
they found so many more bags following our our find.
How is the cruise though, Like you you just did
this insane thing and then you're going to go go
on a cruise. Yeah, you're probably like walking around on
macho Like I just had a drug bust at sixteen
(19:31):
years old. We did that exact same thing. We used
it to our to our advantage. We found like our
cruise friends and our cruise girlfriends, like you always do
when you go on a cruise in your teenage years.
But it also, you know, it's weird how those big
stories in life, like when you get away from him,
like you kind of like forget at moments, uh, and
(19:52):
so I remember on the cruise even like one night
at dinner, our families like this has been the weirdest
vacation ever because you're going to cruise in a thousand
different things. How on a cruize you get a lot
of trouble. You're an idiot, you're sixteen, you're stinking away
from your parents, are doing stuff that like they don't
want you to do, so like the whole week then
kind of that set the tone, and I felt really
cool and probably invincible, super invincive. Yeah, I mean I
(20:14):
my gold chain was on, like I felt, I felt
so invincible, and even telling the story today, like I'm
reminiscing back to my mindset and like just the the
pride that I had, like being on TV for what
I thought was doing something so good. Now we got
made fun of high school a lot for turning it
in well just because but yeah, you feel invincible, You
(20:39):
feel um, And it's like a story not sixteen, that
I'll tell for the rest of my life, you know.
And we're lucky enough to have a documented We were
lucky enough to having our paper, like you know, my
two buddies and myself, like that was the cover find
X amount of you know, X amount of money's worth
(21:01):
of cocaine and South Beach. So you just feel cool.
That's amazing. I mean, I don't know how you talked
that honestly. There. You know, I think there's so many
ways it could have ended differently for me. Uh But
I think throughout this podcast, you're gonna have a lot
of stories that you just sit here in awe of, Like,
(21:22):
you know, for what my story lacks is like I
didn't have to have any resilience, Like I didn't have
to pile through anything tough. But like a lot of
these stories that you're gonna get are going to have
some stories of resilience. For me, this is like a
random moment that like gave me a push in high
school to be known a little bit more, to feel
(21:42):
a little cooler about myself, to have something that people
talked about, to have something to talk about with people. Yeah,
I know you said he got made fun of, but
I mean there was some aspect to it where you
guys probably walked around the school too in the same
way where you're like, we're a little bit invincible, Like, sure,
you're making fun of us now, but we did this amazing, incredible,
insane thing. Yeah you know us, Yeah, you know us
(22:04):
because of this thing that we did are the the
you know, we're a minor, like I was sixteen years old.
And if you look at a sixteen year old day
and you think of them processing this um, especially in
the like the next four years of your life, I mean,
we had and it doesn't happen as much anymore. But
(22:26):
like when I was even in college, the show was
still airing, like beach Re told, Miami was still airing
on television, so people in college would know, like I
just saw you on TV the other night, like that
was a kind of a college show. You flip it on,
you like kind of doze off. But like people in
college even had picked up on the story. So it's
followed me, It's followed me along. That's amazing. I mean,
(22:49):
what a great first story. I'm so happy you came on.
This has been incredible. I've never heard this story before,
so I'm so happy I could hear it for the
first time here because You've had a lot of life
experiences and a lot of again the stories, so this
one was awesome. This is this is the one that
that I'll never forget And thanks for let me share it.
I'm so pumped to listen to you for the next
couple of years in my life. Thank you so much.
(23:10):
Ben Higgins, Thank you so much for listening, and be
sure to follow us on Instagram at true Crime Reality.
Until next time,
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