April 12, 2019 • 43 mins
It sounds like a darkly comic tale worthy of Vonnegut -- Rodney Hyden, a down-on-his-luck Florida businessman, hears a modern urban legend from Julian, the local town hippy: Years back, the story goes, Julian was living the simple life in Puerto Rico when a huge parcel of cocaine washed ashore. Not being sure what to do, Julian buried the drugs and more or less let them be. As the 2008 crash put Rodney in dire financial straits, he began assembling a team to retrieve the cocaine in a mission that was a combination of a heist, a search for buried treasure, and an international drug deal. Join the guys as they sit down with director Theo Love for a peek behind the curtain of this strange, true story.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Gradios How Stuff Works. Hello, welcome
(00:24):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is They call me Ben. We are joined as always
with our super producer Paul, Mission controlled dec and most importantly,
you are you. You are here and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. A very interesting
episode for us today, guys, because we watched a documentary
together that blew our collective minds. What a story and
(00:49):
how often do we get a night at the movies
as a collective. You know, we shared a big bucket
of popcorn. We had the giants soda. We were drinking
from three straws stuck in there. It was a whole
bonding experience. We need we need those air bra T shirts.
You guys think I'm joking with dolphins and sunsets, I
mean preferably so. So this this film we watched, it's
called the Legend of Cocaine Island, and it has it
(01:13):
has so many things going on that we thought would
be of interest to you. We also decided, because we
do get good ideas occasionally, not to dive into this
on our collective lonesome We are lucky enough to have
with us on the show today the director of Legend
of Cocaine Island. He's also the editor, also the editor,
(01:34):
the director documentary and editor and producer. THEO love THEO.
Thank you so much for coming on the show. Dude,
thank you so much for having me. It's it's crazy,
you know, Noelan Ben and I have done our fair
share of video editing in the past, and at the
very end you see that it was you actually editing. Uh.
That that brought a lot of joy to our hearts.
Knowing some of the things that you get to watch
(01:57):
happen in the show, in the documentary, uh, and also
knowing that you directed the entire thing. It's it's pretty awesome. Well,
it's so funny too. When you think of a documentary director,
it's sort of an amorphous idea. But this movie, I mean,
it's it feels like a movie. It is a documentary,
but it's this amazing kind of hodgepodge mishmash of like,
you know, interviews talking to interviews, but these incredible recreations
(02:20):
that have this energy and like tension that I have
never really seen in the documentary before. So kudos to
you just on the production level right up front. Yes,
oh thanks guys. Uh yeah, I mean that that was
our goal was to make it feel like a movie experience,
um and and kind of take it away from a
(02:40):
more traditional documentary field. So I'm glad it's working. Heck yeah.
And look, before we jump into this too hard everyone, uh.
The following is a message from the incoming Spoiler Alert Association.
In this episode, you will hear spoilers. If you have
not seen The Legend of Cocaine Island yet, do yourself
a favor, pull up Netflix and get out right now.
(03:01):
And then this conversation will be super interesting on multiple levels.
And we're going to dive into some of the questions
that were raised by the movie, the story, some plot points,
and so having seen the movie before you hear us do,
this conversation is going to be key. So stop what
you're doing right now. Watch the movie. So let's begin
with a quote from a character in the documentary, Mr
(03:22):
Andy Colepepper, a character and a real life human being.
It's hard to believe, but it's true. Um, we think
he really encapsulates this. He encapsulates this entire thing. So
here's that quote. Now, he says, if you knew where
two million dollars was buried in the ground, would you
go get it? Who wouldn't the American dream bro. And
it makes me think of that line from The Wire
where it's like, you gotta play. It's America, baby, you
(03:45):
gotta play. You know. It's totally the same idea. And
this character again actually human being I could only describe
as like the most hysterically drug adduled, kind hearted weirdo
that I've ever seen in my life. So he has
really positive energy. He's the word and I found the
word for this guy. It is Lucy. Yes, yes, disreputable
(04:11):
or sorted in a rakish or appealing way. Oh that's
that's what popped into my head. This okay, so broad overview.
The legend of Cocaine Island centers on something that's like
a modern urban myth, quite literally a campfire story. And
(04:33):
one of our first questions for you THEO is how
did you and how did you and your group discover
this story in the first place. Well, we were looking
for crime story that was a little bit more lighthearted.
I love the prime genre and documentaries. I mean, it's
(04:53):
super popular now, but most of them are grewsome murders,
really heavy subject matter. So I was wanting something that
just felt a little bit sunnier and uh So, although
all roads led to Florida and uh and I started
reading just the entire internet uh library on Florida man primes,
(05:17):
and I finally found Rodney and this cocaine treasure hunt
sing and it seems way too good to be true.
There was already a couple of articles about it, um,
you know, some local news and but then I read
an article in g Q about it. But it wasn't
until I called. I started calling the subject. I was like, man,
(05:40):
not only is this true, but it's even crazier than
I could have ever imagined. And these characters are just
absolutely bonkers and deserve a movie. And so we went
on May one like the way that ends. So for
everyone listening, as we know, we've all seen the film now,
(06:03):
but for everyone listening who wants a brief, like high
level recap of the actual legend, could could you tell
us the story theo that that are protagonist originally here's Yeah.
So the story starts out with a man named Julian.
I gotta describe him a little bit for you. He's
(06:24):
he's basically a hippie version of Gandalf. Uh. She starts
his story in an island named Culebra. It's right up
the coast of Puerto Rico, and Julian is walking on
the beach one day saving sea turtles and sees a
duffel bag washed up on shore. He goes and unzips
(06:47):
his bag and finds two million dollars worth of cocaine.
He's absolutely terrified, uh with you know, this amount of drugs,
doesn't know what to do with that, doesn't feel like
he go to the cops. Um doesn't want to be
seen with it, and so he just buries it. And
and he moved back to Florida and for the past
(07:10):
fifteen twenty years has just been telling this drunken fireside
story about this buried treasure on this tropical island. And
that that led, you know, that story of his kind
of grew into you know, more details, and more people
heard it, and more people kind of thought about, you know,
(07:33):
was he telling the truth? Was he you know, was
it really that much cocaine. But when Rodney Haydn heard
the story, he didn't question it one bit. He he
did not view it as a legend at all and
actually thought that he could go dig that treasure up. Okay, So,
(07:54):
Rodney Haydn, this is the gentleman that we follow for
most of the film. And this guy, this guy is
again like every single character we keeps saying, it's is
larger than life in so many ways. Tell us who
is this man? Rodney Hyden Rody is as you said,
(08:15):
it was great. He's larger than life in every way.
He is a very jolly, happy, go lucky dreamer. He
did always sees the bright side of everything. Uh. He's
a family man. He's the owner of a small construction business,
UM and he lives in central Florida. UM. He had
(08:36):
a pretty successful construction business up until the recession, and he,
you know, Florida got hit really hard, UM in the
construction business, and so he lost pretty much everything, had
to move out of his big house in the city,
had to you know, go from forty employees down to two,
and he was, you know, in crazy amounts of debt
(09:00):
and his his family was was pretty heartbroken to leave
that lifestyle behind, so so that that was how where
Rodney was at in his life when he heard the
story from Julian. It's interesting too, because he really does
kind of represent this idea of the American dream, Like
he is this big dreamer. He wanted all of these things,
(09:20):
these physical objects in this life of luxury and all that.
And you know, he talked about in the film how
it was never enough. They had to have the motorcycle
and then the pool, and then this and then that,
and then they lose it all, which is uh. Certainly
you do a good job of making that his motivation
in the movie. Why he might really enteraentertain this idea
of like getting this life changing money, no matter how
(09:41):
stupid or dangerous it might seem, right, I mean, I
that's the thing is that that the motivation is is understandable.
I think that everybody's motivated in similar ways to um.
But there is this underlying absurdity to his conclusion that
(10:02):
you know that I'm gonna go try to get you know,
a douffle bag full of cocaine that's fared in the ground. Yeah.
But but really you do such a great job of
having that representation even In the words of Rodney's wife,
she likens it to the forbidden fruit featured in the
Bible's Garden of Eden. This like almost unattainable thing, but
(10:24):
achieving it or getting it could represent everything for you,
right and you almost don't even know what it could represent,
but you feel that it could be the answer to
all your problems totally. And I think that we can
be attempted by anything, you know, anything, any quick fix
is gonna feel feel really tempting, and you know, not
(10:48):
not to jump too far ahead, but you know, there
there's not a whole lot of morality in this film.
We're not judging Rodney for for what he does in
that big of a way, but there is some sort
of moral uh thought at the end that's delivered by
by the main drug dealer in the story, who on
(11:11):
the surface looks like the bad guy, but he actually
kind of talks about how there's really no shortcuts in
life and that whether you're drug dealing or you're running
a small, you know, construction business, you just have to
work hard. That's it. And and I thought that that
was really funny coming from him. Agreed, Agreed, This is
(11:32):
this is something that that brings us to a a
sort of procedural or behind the camera question. In multiple
parts of the Legend of Cocaine Islands, people are describing
both the intent to commit crimes and the attempt to
commit crimes. How easy or difficult was it to get
(11:56):
these these folks to sit down and to just be
honest with to you while the film's rolling. You know,
it was surprisingly easy to get access. And I when
I first started this project, I was like, man, these
are these are active drug dealers, these are active uh people,
(12:20):
and and there's no way they're gonna actually talk to me.
There's no way they're gonna want to. And but then
they started reaching out to me once they heard that
the project was going and and they were just fans
of drug documentaries. They mentioned cocaine Cowboys and uh it
(12:40):
said that they really wanted to be a part of
the story. Now, once we got to the like the
logistics of oh, your your face is gonna be on
camera and that might not be very good for your business,
then we had to talk about, hey, can we work
at disguise in there? And you know, so, so we
we got creative with how to protect their identity. But
(13:03):
at the end of the day, this was a silly
story from beginning to end. Everybody knew that this was
a ridiculous story, and it didn't feel like anybody took
it seriously. Um. And that that was true across the
board with everybody. UM. And so even though it this
(13:25):
is definitely crime and it's very serious and I don't
recommend anybody try to traffic seventy pounds of cocaine, um there,
it does kind of feel light and like there weren't
really that dramatic of stakes. So, I mean, getting access
with a lot easier than that I anticipated. But once
you actually sit down, it was really funny. I told them,
(13:48):
I'm not gonna ask you any questions about your your business,
your criminal business, um, outside of this story. We're just
gonna stick to this story. But the funny thing about
getting into a conversation with people is that sometimes they
don't know when to shut up. And so we got
so much more detail than we ever imagined just because
(14:09):
people got into the storytelling of it. It wasn't really
an interview as much as just kind of prompting them
to tell the best version of the story. Like they
were hanging out in the bar and We'll be back
with more from THEO Love right after this. So tell
(14:31):
tell us about Andy Kulpepper. What was it like to
hang out with him in that tattoo parlor? Good lord,
He's like one of my favorite human beings on this planet.
He is hilarious, a very unpredictable fellow. The initial contact
with him was was pretty interesting. Um We met him
(14:52):
in a parking lot outside of j C. Pennies and
he was trying to sell his car. I think, Um,
I wasn't really sure. People kept stopping and getting in
his car for a couple of minutes, and then they
would get out and drive away, and then he keep
talking to us. I had no idea what he was doing. Yeah, definitely,
(15:13):
definitely right. Um So, there's there's always something a little
off with every interaction that I've ever had with Andy,
where you're just kind of feeling like something else is
going on, or maybe he's not all the way there.
Um So. I don't know if he was tied during
the interview or if he was putting on an act
(15:35):
or what, but he really just turned it on and
had the entire crew laughing hysterically. He's just the most
likable drug addict that I know well, to be fair,
in his words, he doesn't have a drug problem. He's
he's done drugs, but it's not a problem for him anymore,
(15:56):
which I just think it means he's like figured out
how to maintain at a comfortable level, at least for him.
But yeah, that's the thing that he didn't seem like
a dangerous dude. He didn't seem like sketchy and like
he was gonna rob you or a creepy way. And
it seemed like he genuinely had a friendship with Rodney,
who was known for like picking up these strays and
trying to help them improve their lives, which and kind
of how he ends up going down this rabbit hole
(16:16):
because he just it was a world that he really
had no part of or no business being in, but
he had this weird in road through guys like Rodney,
which I thought was really fascinating because I mean, I'm
sorry guys like Andy, but Rodney is a very likable
character as much of a kind of goof he is,
He's like a good natured goof and you root for
him the whole time, which I thought was really really
(16:36):
important totally, And and that's That's the what we really
wanted out of this this movie was to kind of
have it be a buddy comedy a little bit where
you've got me this happy, go lucky family businessman in
his fifties, and then you've got Andy, who's uh you
(16:59):
know it is one eve and partied way too hard
and it's just I mean, crazy, colorful character. You combine
those two and send them on this adventure, it's it's
bound to be hilarious. I completely agree with that. In fact,
one thing that I thought of while watching it, it's like,
(17:20):
this is a much more affable Walter White Jesse Pinkman
kind of dynamic duo. And uh this you know, without
all the terrible things that happened and breaking bad, but
just like that duo, regardless of how effervescent and compelling
their personalities are. This is, as you said, an examination
(17:44):
of crime, quite a serious crime or attempt at one.
And that's where a lot of our stuff they don't
want you to know occurs. Here. Could you tell us
a little bit about this area in Puerto Rico where
you know, where Julian said he buried all this cocaine. Yeah,
(18:05):
it's on it's a it's technically on um protected land.
It's a wildlife refuge um, but it's not it's not
like the place where he buried it was where the
animals were or protected ecosystem. This was actually just where
(18:26):
the staff of the refuge would live. And and so
there was um. There's like a couple of offices there.
And then he had his trailer and he he dug
a hole right behind his trailer between the trailer and
this sisterm um. But in the years since then, this
(18:46):
was about twenty years ago, since then, his trailer has
been torn down, and so the exact location it's hard
to determine, but it's it's still right around there, you know,
in in this um, I think of the parking lot
right next to it. Now. Wow. So as we were
doing research for this, we we noticed that Puerto Rico,
(19:09):
in particular, not necessarily Calebra, but the surrounding area there there,
it's seen an increase in drug trafficking just at least
since uh twenty the early twenty tens, I guess um,
and specifically it's seen an increase in heroin and cocaine
(19:29):
drug trafficking. And I was wondering, like, as you're shooting this.
Did that affect your production at all? Like, were you
guys actually out in Puerto Rico on location shooting any
of this stuff? And did you have problems with law enforcement? Um? No,
we we didn't have any problem with law enforcement. Actually
that Uh. We did film on on location in Culebra,
(19:53):
and we did all the normal things that we do
when we film in an area like that. We checked
in with the with the local governments and checking with
the local police, let them know that we're, you know,
making a film there, and they were they were supportive.
We we told them that we wanted to make the
(20:13):
island that look beautiful and they're very supportive. Um. But uh,
but yeah, I mean, it wasn't the We never approached
this like it was a drug movie, if that makes sense,
you know. And so so we we didn't do a
whole lot of research about the drug trade because this
(20:35):
story was about somebody who was not a drug traffic
They're attempting to traffic drugs for the first time, and
so the less information we had was probably better for
you know, to represent our main character. If that makes sense,
got you, I guess. Just the the big point is
that it makes a lot of sense that in the film,
(20:58):
as You learned, Department of Homeland Secure, he was very
much interested in cocaine coming out of Puerto Rico. Um
According to uh the Washington Examiner, the U S Customs
and Border Protection, they seized around sixty six thousand pounds
of narcotics in and around Puerto Rico uh in, which
was more than any previous year on record. So you
(21:21):
can you can imagine why, like, as that's ramping up,
they were really really interested in this. But one of
the main things that this documentary goes into is the
legality of what the main character and some of the
other characters involved did what they did, and how bad
it was essentially, So let's let's talk about some of that.
(21:43):
Do you think Rodney would have actually uh again, you
need to watch the film. Do you think Rodney actually
would have just left the whole thing alone if he
wasn't contacted by Carlos. I personally think that he would
have made the attempt the first time, But he went
(22:05):
a second time and it was so unsuccessful. I mean,
it wasn't even like he got close, and so he
he made two trips that I think he would have
made on his own, regardless of who else was involved,
But there was that that third element, that third trip
that he didn't go on. But this, you know, Carlos
(22:28):
guy went on to dig it up for him and
and I don't think that Rodney would have done. I
think that's where he would have stopped. I think that
after Rodney's you know, to failed trips, he would have stopped.
But that's where Homeland Security really pushed it. That that
extra mile. Yeah, that's that is a fascinating part of
(22:52):
the story for us because we've looked back at other
situations in the US and abroad, these sorts of kind
of undercover law operations, right, and it seems that despite
his uh frankly very endearing can do attitude Rodney, Rodney
(23:15):
runs into things that time and time again, people who
aren't even career criminals would see his bad moves. I
refer specifically to that time where Andy is saying, Andy
is saying, yeah, Carlos said, tell him, just tell him
where it is, give him the map. And I was like, bro,
that's a terrible idea. Yeah, you'll just get a cut
(23:36):
at the end, right, right, Because he seemed like he
was very trusting with people. But it also seems like,
first off, it seems difficult to believe with the benefit
of retrospect that he did not suspect anything was up
with this mysterious Carlos character. However, what what do you
(24:01):
feel about the legality of law enforcements actions, because you
said he probably would have given up after that second attempt,
but then he gets some real firepower in the form
of Carlos and his mysterious enigmatic organization. Was law enforcement
on the right side of things legally speaking by essentially
(24:24):
I mean, let's say it essentially committing this crime for Rottney, Yeah, right,
And I think, well, that question is is getting at
is whate of this was entrapment? Absolutely right? Yeah, and
and and that's that's where you really have to to
(24:44):
get down to the legal the legal definitions of entrapment
and what law enforcement have to do um in order
to to execute a proper drugs sting without in traveling
and they go through I mean, our our law enforcement
(25:06):
is very thorough and they have they have procedures and
they stuck to them on these and this was a
very well executed investigation in the sense that they got
what they were after and they went to trial, they
got the conviction and uh, and the bad guy got punished.
(25:27):
So from there, from that standpoint, the law enforcement did
great now and and and that's from a legal standpoint,
they won the case. From a common sense standpoint, I
think that this was a whole they waste of time.
And oh and nobody looks good in this story because
(25:51):
Rodney was not an active member of the drug trade
and would have had no ability to move into that
um without completely changing his life. What he did do
was that he showed an interest in committing a crime
and had deliberate action, multiple deliberate actions um to commit
(26:15):
that crime. And so that's that's where where technically it's
all legal to arrest Rodney. Should they have done it? Uh?
I don't think so. The big question for me is,
it's not Rodney's cocaine, right, It's it's cocaine that exists
somewhere on an island in Puerto Rico that is just
(26:37):
sitting there if it even exists in the first place,
and he at no point ever had possession of it.
He's like the producer of this operation. Well, he does
have possession of it when he takes it out of
the trunk and puts it in his truck rigidly the cocaine. Yes,
that was somehow you know, made it out of the ground,
made it into Carlos's car, and then he picks it up.
(26:59):
That's the one moment that he ever touches it. But
that's the moment that they get you on any drug charge,
is they call them hand to hands or whatever when
they yeah, when you take it from somebody in the
cups that you do it, then you that is now
you're cocaine. But did he pay money for it? That
does that really matter? I'm just saying, like, at no
point was it his He like took it. It's just
(27:20):
so confusing to me when you're thinking about it from
uh in like if you're trying to argue it and
if a juror is listening to it. I'm just trying
to understand. Uh, I don't know, like chain of custody. Know,
it absolutely feels like in trapping in that respect. Were
they yeah, I mean you know, it's like, here's the
keys to my trunk. It's in my trunk, you know,
take it. I Mean, I don't know. That's the part
(27:41):
that really got me. I Mean, you brought up a
really good point about that Rodney didn't paid for it,
and that he wasn't paid for it that and that's
that's one of the technicalities that I think is really
really suspicious, because their deal was that Harlow only got
a portion of the cocaine. It's not like Rodney pads
(28:05):
to go bring this cotine in. It was it was
a share of the of the loot, which in my opinion,
doesn't doesn't mean that there's a real transaction here. It's
just that they were partners in this crazy scheme. Yeah,
that's that's a crucial distinction here. And just just on
(28:28):
the side, I'm curious. I don't know if you guys are,
but I'm curious, did you in the creation of the documentary,
did you ever speak with anybody on the law enforcement side,
like off camera, that was associated with this operation. Is
there anything you want to talk to us about about it?
(28:50):
I mean, let's just put it this way. Every single
person that I talked to on the law enforcement side
couldn't up laughing as they were telling the story. Yeah,
like the the underlying like the underlying implication there is
that I don't think that they were viewing this as
(29:10):
a serious case. I don't think that they were taking
it in any ways seriously and and so yes, they
technically executed a a good investigation, but like a lot
of the bigger issues surrounding drugs, I don't think really
(29:30):
even came into play him that. So that's that's my
personal opinion about just the impression I got interacting with
them off camera well, and also given like the sentence,
the very lenient sentence that Rodney got from a you know,
admittedly sympathetic judge who was like he kind of saw
everything we're talking about. He's like, this guy was a patsy,
he was a fish out of water. He had no
(29:51):
business being in this world and had no means of
flipping these drugs. So he gave him like a slap
on the wrist, and like, you know, the community service
with habitat for human So it's ultimately like a fairy
tale with a happy ending, which I love that about it,
because you're right, so many of these crime things are
so dark and depressing, and this one is not only
funny and intriguing, it has like a happy ending, but
(30:12):
it also ends with this notion that maybe they never
dug up the drugs in the first place, and That's
fascinating to me because it's like, to what end, who
were they going after? It seems like an awful lot
of effort just to embarrass a you know, washed up
construction guy. It does, it really does. It's as I said,
(30:32):
it feels like a big waste of time. I think
that that the stories um like that are really entertaining.
But you know, in the real world, yeah, it doesn't
seem worse homeland security time to two chase after this
whole thing, but it is. It's maddening to think that
(30:54):
all of this happened and maybe maybe nobody even touched
that cocaine at all, everything that happened, this whole adventure
and all of these consequences, and nobody actually even dug
it up. That to me, that's just hilarious. We'll continue
our exploration of Cocaine Island after a brief word from
(31:15):
our sponsors. Can I tell you my theory theo, and
then you just tell me what you think about it.
So I think the police officers, uh and what I
don't know what county was in where D got picked up,
but I think the police officers that picked D up
(31:37):
that one night with oxy cotton, they heard the story
about the same story that the Julie has been telling,
the same story that Rodney bought into. They heard two
million dollars cocaine Puerto Rico, and they then got so
interested and excited by the fact that maybe our you know,
(31:58):
maybe our small department could put two million dollars in
cocaine on the table, have a press conference that they
end up getting involved with, maybe homeland security, and then
they get, oh, man, we could put two million dollars
in cocaine. That would look really great if we could
just you know, get that on camera and put it
on the news. And then it became snowballing to the
(32:19):
point where they realized all they had was Rodney and
that was it, and uh, there's nothing they could do.
So they had to they had to do something essentially
to justify the amount of dollars they put into the
man hours of all the people looking into this. That's
my theory. What do you think I think that is?
(32:40):
That's completely plausible. That actually, yeah, that makes a lot
of thanks as did like, how it could how it
get actually spiral into this you know the Um, Yeah,
I think that that's that's pretty spot on. Um, it
really did. It really did start with the local police
(33:00):
and and that's how you know, that's how it started.
So um, yeah, nobody could have anticipated that it would
have led to two you know, the two trips to
Puerto Rico and then you know, the big arrest with Rodney.
I don't think that that was like a game plan
from the beginning, but yeah, you would, you would hope
(33:21):
that they had bigger ambitions, like bigger fish to fry,
you know, for this investigation when they started. Hope, Yeah,
you'd think that at least if they did, if Homeland
Security actually did pick up that two million dollars of cocaine,
hopefully you will you hope that there was some kind
of forensics on the bag or in the bag, or
on the cocaine or the containers that you could actually
(33:43):
follow that chain right of custody of it back to
some bigger fish like they were talking about, but in
this case, like it just yeah, it doesn't make much
stinking sense. Uh. And and in the trial they actually
talked about the cocaine that they found and they just
said that it was it was completely unusable. It was
(34:05):
just it had been rotted away and couldn't be sold
or used in any way. So you know that that's
another that's another thing, like they weren't able to get
anything from from that evidence, even if it's true that
they dug it up. So I have one follow up
question that I've been thinking about this whole time. Why
(34:26):
in the hell did Julian not just leave it in
the damn ocean. I think he wanted to see what
it smelled like. Okay, that's fair, that's fair. So he
just took a little taste and then it was like,
I can't have all this that makes sense, all right?
I don't know, man, I'm not getting into that part
of it. That's fair, that's totally fair. Was that actually
(34:48):
Julian at the end I saw that he had somebody
he was playing him, but that was him. Yeah, at
the very end, that was him. And and at the
very beginning, you know him walking in the um in
the forest. Yeah, yeah, he's and he is just the sweetest,
sweetest old hippie and just wants to be left alone
(35:08):
and wants to live a simple life. And I got
to be really close with him, uh while we're making this,
and he just he really just didn't want He's just
embarrassed that this whole thing happened, and so so he
he was okay with us making the movie, and I
(35:29):
pleaded with him that everybody just wants to see his face,
and so he agreed to do an interview with one
question where I asked him to tell his story and
then politely to tell me know and and then and
then I squeaked in the follow up question there um
as well. So uh so, yeah, it was it was nice.
(35:50):
I felt like that was the appropriate amount of amount
of Julian to keep the legend of life. Oh. Absolutely.
And it was also a nice big reveal where it's like,
I thought, you picture him as this mythical creature kind
of almost and I love the fact that he's like,
it's not my story to tell anymore. Yeah, and then
he just leaves it at that, and that's uh, I
think that's really smart. Um. Yeah, he had some great
(36:10):
philosophical notes. I remember remember when he talked about finding
the cocaine somewhere and saying, oh, I'm a millionaire, just
not with money, and uh, and I can completely I
can completely see the uh this slightly anti authoritarian idea
(36:30):
of that one question interview, which, by the way, THEO
thanks for not doing that to us today. Yes, seriously,
this has been great. Yeah. So one one thing we
always like to we always like to end with when
we're exploring these kind of current projects, is something related
to the future. Can you share with us any any
(36:54):
next projects you have on the horizon or things that
are fellow listeners should keep an eye out for. Well,
I can't announce anything officially yet. There's a there's but
there's quite a few things in the works. Um, I
can't tell you creatively the direction that I'm moving in. Um.
The the whole idea of blending documentaries and narratives is
(37:19):
something that I think is just we're just at the
beginning of exploring right now, and where we're in documentaries,
we don't just have we don't think of cheesy recreations.
We think of them as as more cinematic experiences. And
so the next couple of projects that I'm working on,
I'm working on a horror documentary that incorporates a lot
(37:41):
of horror visuals, and then UM, I'm also working on
an action documentary that has more explosions than you can imagine.
It's Uh, I'm hoping to make it like Michael Bay
makes the documentary. Oh my gosh, So that's the direction
I'm heading in. I thought the Transformers movies were documentaries,
Now they were actually Yeah, speaking speaking of documentaries, tell
(38:07):
tell us just a little bit about Little Hope was Arson.
I just want to know more about that before we
move on. So Little Hope was Arson was my very
first film. I was actually writing a screenplay about this
true story about ten churches that burned down in East
Texas and it was a massive criminal investigation and it
(38:30):
wasn't racially motivated, it wasn't terrorism. The people in East
Texas thought that it was Satan himself burning these churches down,
but in reality, it was just two local boys who
had gone to Sunday school every week of their life.
And so I was writing the screenplay about this, and
(38:52):
I went out to Texas and started, you know, doing
research and interviews with the actual people, and I found
that they were giving me their stories in ways that
I could never write, and their emotion was was so
real that it just kind of inspired me to make
(39:12):
a documentary. And I had literally never considered making a
documentary before that point, and so I made it was
a tiny little movie, but it was lucky enough to
played a couple of festivals and get picked up for
a distribution by the Orchard and it played on PBS
and it was a really great starting point for my
documentary career. You could almost say it started a fire
(39:34):
within you. Sorry, sorry, well the uh I thought, I
thought that was all right. That The good news is, folks,
that you can uh you can watch The Alleged of
Cocaine Island now again, the second look for all the
(39:56):
Easter eggs that we uncovered in this fantastic interview. Yes, absolutely,
you can find it available now live and direct on Netflix.
Do check it out. Who doesn't love a Bury treasure story?
And as you said, you know, I think that's the
nail on the head for you. I was looking for
the right way to describe it. It's one hell of
(40:16):
a buddy comedy, it really is. And the entire thing
is worth it for this, for this one shot with
Rodney when he's looking up and he's in a studio
somewhere and there's cocaine falling onto him, There's there's money
flourishing around him. It's beautiful. There's also a lot of
really intense mustache shots in this movie. I have to
(40:39):
have to have to. I have to really compliment you
on your mustache shots because it's just like this guy,
he's he is like a human mustache, is what Rodney is.
I love him, you know, I really aspreciate that nobody's
commented on my mustache shots. And that meant a lot
to me. I from the from the very first time
I saw rod me I was like the first thing
(41:01):
that you will ever see if this man is his mustache,
I never heard from that day one. You gotta follow
your creative choices to the to the bitter. And I
love it. No, I enjoyed it very much. And it's
super fun talking about this stuff. And UM, thank you
so much for making the time. Thank you guys so much.
This was a really really fun Hey, thank you. And uh, alright,
(41:22):
anything else anyone needs to know about where to find
you or anything for you? Uh No, But there's some
there's some really interesting uh movement on on Reddit with
people finding some some making making their own own trip,
you know, to the place, and even on on Google
(41:43):
Maps if you look on it. Uh, there's a review
for the Wildlife Area with um it's funny. Just check
it out. The review is talking about people actually showing
out the dig It's so so for anyone that doesn't remember,
I didn't notice. It flashes at the end of the
film some coordinates after the two Homeland security guys like, yeah, definitely,
(42:08):
don't do that. Definitely. The review says, too many tourists
for my taste, mostly young men in need for shovels.
I saw the business opportunity visit Cocaine Shovel Puerto Rico
dot com today. It's fantastic. That's fantastic. So thank you
again so much THEO. We hope that you have enjoyed
(42:30):
learning about Cocaine Island. This concludes our episode, but not
our show. We will be back with more strange, unusual
stuff they don't want you to know. In the meantime,
you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all the hits,
all that slow jazz. Yeah, if you want to check
us out on our Facebook group it's called Here's Where
It Gets Crazy. Or you can talk about this and
(42:51):
all the other episodes we put out and just hang
out with your fellow listeners. If you don't want to
do any of that, you can send us a good
old fashioned email where we are conspiracy at how stuff works.
Dot Com. Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is
(43:21):
a production of I heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Gradios How Stuff Works. Hello, welcome
(00:24):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is They call me Ben. We are joined as always
with our super producer Paul, Mission controlled dec and most importantly,
you are you. You are here and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. A very interesting
episode for us today, guys, because we watched a documentary
together that blew our collective minds. What a story and
(00:49):
how often do we get a night at the movies
as a collective. You know, we shared a big bucket
of popcorn. We had the giants soda. We were drinking
from three straws stuck in there. It was a whole
bonding experience. We need we need those air bra T shirts.
You guys think I'm joking with dolphins and sunsets, I
mean preferably so. So this this film we watched, it's
called the Legend of Cocaine Island, and it has it
(01:13):
has so many things going on that we thought would
be of interest to you. We also decided, because we
do get good ideas occasionally, not to dive into this
on our collective lonesome We are lucky enough to have
with us on the show today the director of Legend
of Cocaine Island. He's also the editor, also the editor,
(01:34):
the director documentary and editor and producer. THEO love THEO.
Thank you so much for coming on the show. Dude,
thank you so much for having me. It's it's crazy,
you know, Noelan Ben and I have done our fair
share of video editing in the past, and at the
very end you see that it was you actually editing. Uh.
That that brought a lot of joy to our hearts.
Knowing some of the things that you get to watch
(01:57):
happen in the show, in the documentary, uh, and also
knowing that you directed the entire thing. It's it's pretty awesome. Well,
it's so funny too. When you think of a documentary director,
it's sort of an amorphous idea. But this movie, I mean,
it's it feels like a movie. It is a documentary,
but it's this amazing kind of hodgepodge mishmash of like,
you know, interviews talking to interviews, but these incredible recreations
(02:20):
that have this energy and like tension that I have
never really seen in the documentary before. So kudos to
you just on the production level right up front. Yes,
oh thanks guys. Uh yeah, I mean that that was
our goal was to make it feel like a movie experience,
um and and kind of take it away from a
(02:40):
more traditional documentary field. So I'm glad it's working. Heck yeah.
And look, before we jump into this too hard everyone, uh.
The following is a message from the incoming Spoiler Alert Association.
In this episode, you will hear spoilers. If you have
not seen The Legend of Cocaine Island yet, do yourself
a favor, pull up Netflix and get out right now.
(03:01):
And then this conversation will be super interesting on multiple levels.
And we're going to dive into some of the questions
that were raised by the movie, the story, some plot points,
and so having seen the movie before you hear us do,
this conversation is going to be key. So stop what
you're doing right now. Watch the movie. So let's begin
with a quote from a character in the documentary, Mr
(03:22):
Andy Colepepper, a character and a real life human being.
It's hard to believe, but it's true. Um, we think
he really encapsulates this. He encapsulates this entire thing. So
here's that quote. Now, he says, if you knew where
two million dollars was buried in the ground, would you
go get it? Who wouldn't the American dream bro. And
it makes me think of that line from The Wire
where it's like, you gotta play. It's America, baby, you
(03:45):
gotta play. You know. It's totally the same idea. And
this character again actually human being I could only describe
as like the most hysterically drug adduled, kind hearted weirdo
that I've ever seen in my life. So he has
really positive energy. He's the word and I found the
word for this guy. It is Lucy. Yes, yes, disreputable
(04:11):
or sorted in a rakish or appealing way. Oh that's
that's what popped into my head. This okay, so broad overview.
The legend of Cocaine Island centers on something that's like
a modern urban myth, quite literally a campfire story. And
(04:33):
one of our first questions for you THEO is how
did you and how did you and your group discover
this story in the first place. Well, we were looking
for crime story that was a little bit more lighthearted.
I love the prime genre and documentaries. I mean, it's
(04:53):
super popular now, but most of them are grewsome murders,
really heavy subject matter. So I was wanting something that
just felt a little bit sunnier and uh So, although
all roads led to Florida and uh and I started
reading just the entire internet uh library on Florida man primes,
(05:17):
and I finally found Rodney and this cocaine treasure hunt
sing and it seems way too good to be true.
There was already a couple of articles about it, um,
you know, some local news and but then I read
an article in g Q about it. But it wasn't
until I called. I started calling the subject. I was like, man,
(05:40):
not only is this true, but it's even crazier than
I could have ever imagined. And these characters are just
absolutely bonkers and deserve a movie. And so we went
on May one like the way that ends. So for
everyone listening, as we know, we've all seen the film now,
(06:03):
but for everyone listening who wants a brief, like high
level recap of the actual legend, could could you tell
us the story theo that that are protagonist originally here's Yeah.
So the story starts out with a man named Julian.
I gotta describe him a little bit for you. He's
(06:24):
he's basically a hippie version of Gandalf. Uh. She starts
his story in an island named Culebra. It's right up
the coast of Puerto Rico, and Julian is walking on
the beach one day saving sea turtles and sees a
duffel bag washed up on shore. He goes and unzips
(06:47):
his bag and finds two million dollars worth of cocaine.
He's absolutely terrified, uh with you know, this amount of drugs,
doesn't know what to do with that, doesn't feel like
he go to the cops. Um doesn't want to be
seen with it, and so he just buries it. And
and he moved back to Florida and for the past
(07:10):
fifteen twenty years has just been telling this drunken fireside
story about this buried treasure on this tropical island. And
that that led, you know, that story of his kind
of grew into you know, more details, and more people
heard it, and more people kind of thought about, you know,
(07:33):
was he telling the truth? Was he you know, was
it really that much cocaine. But when Rodney Haydn heard
the story, he didn't question it one bit. He he
did not view it as a legend at all and
actually thought that he could go dig that treasure up. Okay, So,
(07:54):
Rodney Haydn, this is the gentleman that we follow for
most of the film. And this guy, this guy is
again like every single character we keeps saying, it's is
larger than life in so many ways. Tell us who
is this man? Rodney Hyden Rody is as you said,
(08:15):
it was great. He's larger than life in every way.
He is a very jolly, happy, go lucky dreamer. He
did always sees the bright side of everything. Uh. He's
a family man. He's the owner of a small construction business,
UM and he lives in central Florida. UM. He had
(08:36):
a pretty successful construction business up until the recession, and he,
you know, Florida got hit really hard, UM in the
construction business, and so he lost pretty much everything, had
to move out of his big house in the city,
had to you know, go from forty employees down to two,
and he was, you know, in crazy amounts of debt
(09:00):
and his his family was was pretty heartbroken to leave
that lifestyle behind, so so that that was how where
Rodney was at in his life when he heard the
story from Julian. It's interesting too, because he really does
kind of represent this idea of the American dream, Like
he is this big dreamer. He wanted all of these things,
(09:20):
these physical objects in this life of luxury and all that.
And you know, he talked about in the film how
it was never enough. They had to have the motorcycle
and then the pool, and then this and then that,
and then they lose it all, which is uh. Certainly
you do a good job of making that his motivation
in the movie. Why he might really enteraentertain this idea
of like getting this life changing money, no matter how
(09:41):
stupid or dangerous it might seem, right, I mean, I
that's the thing is that that the motivation is is understandable.
I think that everybody's motivated in similar ways to um.
But there is this underlying absurdity to his conclusion that
(10:02):
you know that I'm gonna go try to get you know,
a douffle bag full of cocaine that's fared in the ground. Yeah.
But but really you do such a great job of
having that representation even In the words of Rodney's wife,
she likens it to the forbidden fruit featured in the
Bible's Garden of Eden. This like almost unattainable thing, but
(10:24):
achieving it or getting it could represent everything for you,
right and you almost don't even know what it could represent,
but you feel that it could be the answer to
all your problems totally. And I think that we can
be attempted by anything, you know, anything, any quick fix
is gonna feel feel really tempting, and you know, not
(10:48):
not to jump too far ahead, but you know, there
there's not a whole lot of morality in this film.
We're not judging Rodney for for what he does in
that big of a way, but there is some sort
of moral uh thought at the end that's delivered by
by the main drug dealer in the story, who on
(11:11):
the surface looks like the bad guy, but he actually
kind of talks about how there's really no shortcuts in
life and that whether you're drug dealing or you're running
a small, you know, construction business, you just have to
work hard. That's it. And and I thought that that
was really funny coming from him. Agreed, Agreed, This is
(11:32):
this is something that that brings us to a a
sort of procedural or behind the camera question. In multiple
parts of the Legend of Cocaine Islands, people are describing
both the intent to commit crimes and the attempt to
commit crimes. How easy or difficult was it to get
(11:56):
these these folks to sit down and to just be
honest with to you while the film's rolling. You know,
it was surprisingly easy to get access. And I when
I first started this project, I was like, man, these
are these are active drug dealers, these are active uh people,
(12:20):
and and there's no way they're gonna actually talk to me.
There's no way they're gonna want to. And but then
they started reaching out to me once they heard that
the project was going and and they were just fans
of drug documentaries. They mentioned cocaine Cowboys and uh it
(12:40):
said that they really wanted to be a part of
the story. Now, once we got to the like the
logistics of oh, your your face is gonna be on
camera and that might not be very good for your business,
then we had to talk about, hey, can we work
at disguise in there? And you know, so, so we
we got creative with how to protect their identity. But
(13:03):
at the end of the day, this was a silly
story from beginning to end. Everybody knew that this was
a ridiculous story, and it didn't feel like anybody took
it seriously. Um. And that that was true across the
board with everybody. UM. And so even though it this
(13:25):
is definitely crime and it's very serious and I don't
recommend anybody try to traffic seventy pounds of cocaine, um there,
it does kind of feel light and like there weren't
really that dramatic of stakes. So, I mean, getting access
with a lot easier than that I anticipated. But once
you actually sit down, it was really funny. I told them,
(13:48):
I'm not gonna ask you any questions about your your business,
your criminal business, um, outside of this story. We're just
gonna stick to this story. But the funny thing about
getting into a conversation with people is that sometimes they
don't know when to shut up. And so we got
so much more detail than we ever imagined just because
(14:09):
people got into the storytelling of it. It wasn't really
an interview as much as just kind of prompting them
to tell the best version of the story. Like they
were hanging out in the bar and We'll be back
with more from THEO Love right after this. So tell
(14:31):
tell us about Andy Kulpepper. What was it like to
hang out with him in that tattoo parlor? Good lord,
He's like one of my favorite human beings on this planet.
He is hilarious, a very unpredictable fellow. The initial contact
with him was was pretty interesting. Um We met him
(14:52):
in a parking lot outside of j C. Pennies and
he was trying to sell his car. I think, Um,
I wasn't really sure. People kept stopping and getting in
his car for a couple of minutes, and then they
would get out and drive away, and then he keep
talking to us. I had no idea what he was doing. Yeah, definitely,
(15:13):
definitely right. Um So, there's there's always something a little
off with every interaction that I've ever had with Andy,
where you're just kind of feeling like something else is
going on, or maybe he's not all the way there.
Um So. I don't know if he was tied during
the interview or if he was putting on an act
(15:35):
or what, but he really just turned it on and
had the entire crew laughing hysterically. He's just the most
likable drug addict that I know well, to be fair,
in his words, he doesn't have a drug problem. He's
he's done drugs, but it's not a problem for him anymore,
(15:56):
which I just think it means he's like figured out
how to maintain at a comfortable level, at least for him.
But yeah, that's the thing that he didn't seem like
a dangerous dude. He didn't seem like sketchy and like
he was gonna rob you or a creepy way. And
it seemed like he genuinely had a friendship with Rodney,
who was known for like picking up these strays and
trying to help them improve their lives, which and kind
of how he ends up going down this rabbit hole
(16:16):
because he just it was a world that he really
had no part of or no business being in, but
he had this weird in road through guys like Rodney,
which I thought was really fascinating because I mean, I'm
sorry guys like Andy, but Rodney is a very likable
character as much of a kind of goof he is,
He's like a good natured goof and you root for
him the whole time, which I thought was really really
(16:36):
important totally, And and that's That's the what we really
wanted out of this this movie was to kind of
have it be a buddy comedy a little bit where
you've got me this happy, go lucky family businessman in
his fifties, and then you've got Andy, who's uh you
(16:59):
know it is one eve and partied way too hard
and it's just I mean, crazy, colorful character. You combine
those two and send them on this adventure, it's it's
bound to be hilarious. I completely agree with that. In fact,
one thing that I thought of while watching it, it's like,
(17:20):
this is a much more affable Walter White Jesse Pinkman
kind of dynamic duo. And uh this you know, without
all the terrible things that happened and breaking bad, but
just like that duo, regardless of how effervescent and compelling
their personalities are. This is, as you said, an examination
(17:44):
of crime, quite a serious crime or attempt at one.
And that's where a lot of our stuff they don't
want you to know occurs. Here. Could you tell us
a little bit about this area in Puerto Rico where
you know, where Julian said he buried all this cocaine. Yeah,
(18:05):
it's on it's a it's technically on um protected land.
It's a wildlife refuge um, but it's not it's not
like the place where he buried it was where the
animals were or protected ecosystem. This was actually just where
(18:26):
the staff of the refuge would live. And and so
there was um. There's like a couple of offices there.
And then he had his trailer and he he dug
a hole right behind his trailer between the trailer and
this sisterm um. But in the years since then, this
(18:46):
was about twenty years ago, since then, his trailer has
been torn down, and so the exact location it's hard
to determine, but it's it's still right around there, you know,
in in this um, I think of the parking lot
right next to it. Now. Wow. So as we were
doing research for this, we we noticed that Puerto Rico,
(19:09):
in particular, not necessarily Calebra, but the surrounding area there there,
it's seen an increase in drug trafficking just at least
since uh twenty the early twenty tens, I guess um,
and specifically it's seen an increase in heroin and cocaine
(19:29):
drug trafficking. And I was wondering, like, as you're shooting this.
Did that affect your production at all? Like, were you
guys actually out in Puerto Rico on location shooting any
of this stuff? And did you have problems with law enforcement? Um? No,
we we didn't have any problem with law enforcement. Actually
that Uh. We did film on on location in Culebra,
(19:53):
and we did all the normal things that we do
when we film in an area like that. We checked
in with the with the local governments and checking with
the local police, let them know that we're, you know,
making a film there, and they were they were supportive.
We we told them that we wanted to make the
(20:13):
island that look beautiful and they're very supportive. Um. But uh,
but yeah, I mean, it wasn't the We never approached
this like it was a drug movie, if that makes sense,
you know. And so so we we didn't do a
whole lot of research about the drug trade because this
(20:35):
story was about somebody who was not a drug traffic
They're attempting to traffic drugs for the first time, and
so the less information we had was probably better for
you know, to represent our main character. If that makes sense,
got you, I guess. Just the the big point is
that it makes a lot of sense that in the film,
(20:58):
as You learned, Department of Homeland Secure, he was very
much interested in cocaine coming out of Puerto Rico. Um
According to uh the Washington Examiner, the U S Customs
and Border Protection, they seized around sixty six thousand pounds
of narcotics in and around Puerto Rico uh in, which
was more than any previous year on record. So you
(21:21):
can you can imagine why, like, as that's ramping up,
they were really really interested in this. But one of
the main things that this documentary goes into is the
legality of what the main character and some of the
other characters involved did what they did, and how bad
it was essentially, So let's let's talk about some of that.
(21:43):
Do you think Rodney would have actually uh again, you
need to watch the film. Do you think Rodney actually
would have just left the whole thing alone if he
wasn't contacted by Carlos. I personally think that he would
have made the attempt the first time, But he went
(22:05):
a second time and it was so unsuccessful. I mean,
it wasn't even like he got close, and so he
he made two trips that I think he would have
made on his own, regardless of who else was involved,
But there was that that third element, that third trip
that he didn't go on. But this, you know, Carlos
(22:28):
guy went on to dig it up for him and
and I don't think that Rodney would have done. I
think that's where he would have stopped. I think that
after Rodney's you know, to failed trips, he would have stopped.
But that's where Homeland Security really pushed it. That that
extra mile. Yeah, that's that is a fascinating part of
(22:52):
the story for us because we've looked back at other
situations in the US and abroad, these sorts of kind
of undercover law operations, right, and it seems that despite
his uh frankly very endearing can do attitude Rodney, Rodney
(23:15):
runs into things that time and time again, people who
aren't even career criminals would see his bad moves. I
refer specifically to that time where Andy is saying, Andy
is saying, yeah, Carlos said, tell him, just tell him
where it is, give him the map. And I was like, bro,
that's a terrible idea. Yeah, you'll just get a cut
(23:36):
at the end, right, right, Because he seemed like he
was very trusting with people. But it also seems like,
first off, it seems difficult to believe with the benefit
of retrospect that he did not suspect anything was up
with this mysterious Carlos character. However, what what do you
(24:01):
feel about the legality of law enforcements actions, because you
said he probably would have given up after that second attempt,
but then he gets some real firepower in the form
of Carlos and his mysterious enigmatic organization. Was law enforcement
on the right side of things legally speaking by essentially
(24:24):
I mean, let's say it essentially committing this crime for Rottney, Yeah, right,
And I think, well, that question is is getting at
is whate of this was entrapment? Absolutely right? Yeah, and
and and that's that's where you really have to to
(24:44):
get down to the legal the legal definitions of entrapment
and what law enforcement have to do um in order
to to execute a proper drugs sting without in traveling
and they go through I mean, our our law enforcement
(25:06):
is very thorough and they have they have procedures and
they stuck to them on these and this was a
very well executed investigation in the sense that they got
what they were after and they went to trial, they
got the conviction and uh, and the bad guy got punished.
(25:27):
So from there, from that standpoint, the law enforcement did
great now and and and that's from a legal standpoint,
they won the case. From a common sense standpoint, I
think that this was a whole they waste of time.
And oh and nobody looks good in this story because
(25:51):
Rodney was not an active member of the drug trade
and would have had no ability to move into that
um without completely changing his life. What he did do
was that he showed an interest in committing a crime
and had deliberate action, multiple deliberate actions um to commit
(26:15):
that crime. And so that's that's where where technically it's
all legal to arrest Rodney. Should they have done it? Uh?
I don't think so. The big question for me is,
it's not Rodney's cocaine, right, It's it's cocaine that exists
somewhere on an island in Puerto Rico that is just
(26:37):
sitting there if it even exists in the first place,
and he at no point ever had possession of it.
He's like the producer of this operation. Well, he does
have possession of it when he takes it out of
the trunk and puts it in his truck rigidly the cocaine. Yes,
that was somehow you know, made it out of the ground,
made it into Carlos's car, and then he picks it up.
(26:59):
That's the one moment that he ever touches it. But
that's the moment that they get you on any drug charge,
is they call them hand to hands or whatever when
they yeah, when you take it from somebody in the
cups that you do it, then you that is now
you're cocaine. But did he pay money for it? That
does that really matter? I'm just saying, like, at no
point was it his He like took it. It's just
(27:20):
so confusing to me when you're thinking about it from
uh in like if you're trying to argue it and
if a juror is listening to it. I'm just trying
to understand. Uh, I don't know, like chain of custody. Know,
it absolutely feels like in trapping in that respect. Were
they yeah, I mean you know, it's like, here's the
keys to my trunk. It's in my trunk, you know,
take it. I Mean, I don't know. That's the part
(27:41):
that really got me. I Mean, you brought up a
really good point about that Rodney didn't paid for it,
and that he wasn't paid for it that and that's
that's one of the technicalities that I think is really
really suspicious, because their deal was that Harlow only got
a portion of the cocaine. It's not like Rodney pads
(28:05):
to go bring this cotine in. It was it was
a share of the of the loot, which in my opinion,
doesn't doesn't mean that there's a real transaction here. It's
just that they were partners in this crazy scheme. Yeah,
that's that's a crucial distinction here. And just just on
(28:28):
the side, I'm curious. I don't know if you guys are,
but I'm curious, did you in the creation of the documentary,
did you ever speak with anybody on the law enforcement side,
like off camera, that was associated with this operation. Is
there anything you want to talk to us about about it?
(28:50):
I mean, let's just put it this way. Every single
person that I talked to on the law enforcement side
couldn't up laughing as they were telling the story. Yeah,
like the the underlying like the underlying implication there is
that I don't think that they were viewing this as
(29:10):
a serious case. I don't think that they were taking
it in any ways seriously and and so yes, they
technically executed a a good investigation, but like a lot
of the bigger issues surrounding drugs, I don't think really
(29:30):
even came into play him that. So that's that's my
personal opinion about just the impression I got interacting with
them off camera well, and also given like the sentence,
the very lenient sentence that Rodney got from a you know,
admittedly sympathetic judge who was like he kind of saw
everything we're talking about. He's like, this guy was a patsy,
he was a fish out of water. He had no
(29:51):
business being in this world and had no means of
flipping these drugs. So he gave him like a slap
on the wrist, and like, you know, the community service
with habitat for human So it's ultimately like a fairy
tale with a happy ending, which I love that about it,
because you're right, so many of these crime things are
so dark and depressing, and this one is not only
funny and intriguing, it has like a happy ending, but
(30:12):
it also ends with this notion that maybe they never
dug up the drugs in the first place, and That's
fascinating to me because it's like, to what end, who
were they going after? It seems like an awful lot
of effort just to embarrass a you know, washed up
construction guy. It does, it really does. It's as I said,
(30:32):
it feels like a big waste of time. I think
that that the stories um like that are really entertaining.
But you know, in the real world, yeah, it doesn't
seem worse homeland security time to two chase after this
whole thing, but it is. It's maddening to think that
(30:54):
all of this happened and maybe maybe nobody even touched
that cocaine at all, everything that happened, this whole adventure
and all of these consequences, and nobody actually even dug
it up. That to me, that's just hilarious. We'll continue
our exploration of Cocaine Island after a brief word from
(31:15):
our sponsors. Can I tell you my theory theo, and
then you just tell me what you think about it.
So I think the police officers, uh and what I
don't know what county was in where D got picked up,
but I think the police officers that picked D up
(31:37):
that one night with oxy cotton, they heard the story
about the same story that the Julie has been telling,
the same story that Rodney bought into. They heard two
million dollars cocaine Puerto Rico, and they then got so
interested and excited by the fact that maybe our you know,
(31:58):
maybe our small department could put two million dollars in
cocaine on the table, have a press conference that they
end up getting involved with, maybe homeland security, and then
they get, oh, man, we could put two million dollars
in cocaine. That would look really great if we could
just you know, get that on camera and put it
on the news. And then it became snowballing to the
(32:19):
point where they realized all they had was Rodney and
that was it, and uh, there's nothing they could do.
So they had to they had to do something essentially
to justify the amount of dollars they put into the
man hours of all the people looking into this. That's
my theory. What do you think I think that is?
(32:40):
That's completely plausible. That actually, yeah, that makes a lot
of thanks as did like, how it could how it
get actually spiral into this you know the Um, Yeah,
I think that that's that's pretty spot on. Um, it
really did. It really did start with the local police
(33:00):
and and that's how you know, that's how it started.
So um, yeah, nobody could have anticipated that it would
have led to two you know, the two trips to
Puerto Rico and then you know, the big arrest with Rodney.
I don't think that that was like a game plan
from the beginning, but yeah, you would, you would hope
(33:21):
that they had bigger ambitions, like bigger fish to fry,
you know, for this investigation when they started. Hope, Yeah,
you'd think that at least if they did, if Homeland
Security actually did pick up that two million dollars of cocaine,
hopefully you will you hope that there was some kind
of forensics on the bag or in the bag, or
on the cocaine or the containers that you could actually
(33:43):
follow that chain right of custody of it back to
some bigger fish like they were talking about, but in
this case, like it just yeah, it doesn't make much
stinking sense. Uh. And and in the trial they actually
talked about the cocaine that they found and they just
said that it was it was completely unusable. It was
(34:05):
just it had been rotted away and couldn't be sold
or used in any way. So you know that that's
another that's another thing, like they weren't able to get
anything from from that evidence, even if it's true that
they dug it up. So I have one follow up
question that I've been thinking about this whole time. Why
(34:26):
in the hell did Julian not just leave it in
the damn ocean. I think he wanted to see what
it smelled like. Okay, that's fair, that's fair. So he
just took a little taste and then it was like,
I can't have all this that makes sense, all right?
I don't know, man, I'm not getting into that part
of it. That's fair, that's totally fair. Was that actually
(34:48):
Julian at the end I saw that he had somebody
he was playing him, but that was him. Yeah, at
the very end, that was him. And and at the
very beginning, you know him walking in the um in
the forest. Yeah, yeah, he's and he is just the sweetest,
sweetest old hippie and just wants to be left alone
(35:08):
and wants to live a simple life. And I got
to be really close with him, uh while we're making this,
and he just he really just didn't want He's just
embarrassed that this whole thing happened, and so so he
he was okay with us making the movie, and I
(35:29):
pleaded with him that everybody just wants to see his face,
and so he agreed to do an interview with one
question where I asked him to tell his story and
then politely to tell me know and and then and
then I squeaked in the follow up question there um
as well. So uh so, yeah, it was it was nice.
(35:50):
I felt like that was the appropriate amount of amount
of Julian to keep the legend of life. Oh. Absolutely.
And it was also a nice big reveal where it's like,
I thought, you picture him as this mythical creature kind
of almost and I love the fact that he's like,
it's not my story to tell anymore. Yeah, and then
he just leaves it at that, and that's uh, I
think that's really smart. Um. Yeah, he had some great
(36:10):
philosophical notes. I remember remember when he talked about finding
the cocaine somewhere and saying, oh, I'm a millionaire, just
not with money, and uh, and I can completely I
can completely see the uh this slightly anti authoritarian idea
(36:30):
of that one question interview, which, by the way, THEO
thanks for not doing that to us today. Yes, seriously,
this has been great. Yeah. So one one thing we
always like to we always like to end with when
we're exploring these kind of current projects, is something related
to the future. Can you share with us any any
(36:54):
next projects you have on the horizon or things that
are fellow listeners should keep an eye out for. Well,
I can't announce anything officially yet. There's a there's but
there's quite a few things in the works. Um, I
can't tell you creatively the direction that I'm moving in. Um.
The the whole idea of blending documentaries and narratives is
(37:19):
something that I think is just we're just at the
beginning of exploring right now, and where we're in documentaries,
we don't just have we don't think of cheesy recreations.
We think of them as as more cinematic experiences. And
so the next couple of projects that I'm working on,
I'm working on a horror documentary that incorporates a lot
(37:41):
of horror visuals, and then UM, I'm also working on
an action documentary that has more explosions than you can imagine.
It's Uh, I'm hoping to make it like Michael Bay
makes the documentary. Oh my gosh, So that's the direction
I'm heading in. I thought the Transformers movies were documentaries,
Now they were actually Yeah, speaking speaking of documentaries, tell
(38:07):
tell us just a little bit about Little Hope was Arson.
I just want to know more about that before we
move on. So Little Hope was Arson was my very
first film. I was actually writing a screenplay about this
true story about ten churches that burned down in East
Texas and it was a massive criminal investigation and it
(38:30):
wasn't racially motivated, it wasn't terrorism. The people in East
Texas thought that it was Satan himself burning these churches down,
but in reality, it was just two local boys who
had gone to Sunday school every week of their life.
And so I was writing the screenplay about this, and
(38:52):
I went out to Texas and started, you know, doing
research and interviews with the actual people, and I found
that they were giving me their stories in ways that
I could never write, and their emotion was was so
real that it just kind of inspired me to make
(39:12):
a documentary. And I had literally never considered making a
documentary before that point, and so I made it was
a tiny little movie, but it was lucky enough to
played a couple of festivals and get picked up for
a distribution by the Orchard and it played on PBS
and it was a really great starting point for my
documentary career. You could almost say it started a fire
(39:34):
within you. Sorry, sorry, well the uh I thought, I
thought that was all right. That The good news is, folks,
that you can uh you can watch The Alleged of
Cocaine Island now again, the second look for all the
(39:56):
Easter eggs that we uncovered in this fantastic interview. Yes, absolutely,
you can find it available now live and direct on Netflix.
Do check it out. Who doesn't love a Bury treasure story?
And as you said, you know, I think that's the
nail on the head for you. I was looking for
the right way to describe it. It's one hell of
(40:16):
a buddy comedy, it really is. And the entire thing
is worth it for this, for this one shot with
Rodney when he's looking up and he's in a studio
somewhere and there's cocaine falling onto him, There's there's money
flourishing around him. It's beautiful. There's also a lot of
really intense mustache shots in this movie. I have to
(40:39):
have to have to. I have to really compliment you
on your mustache shots because it's just like this guy,
he's he is like a human mustache, is what Rodney is.
I love him, you know, I really aspreciate that nobody's
commented on my mustache shots. And that meant a lot
to me. I from the from the very first time
I saw rod me I was like the first thing
(41:01):
that you will ever see if this man is his mustache,
I never heard from that day one. You gotta follow
your creative choices to the to the bitter. And I
love it. No, I enjoyed it very much. And it's
super fun talking about this stuff. And UM, thank you
so much for making the time. Thank you guys so much.
This was a really really fun Hey, thank you. And uh, alright,
(41:22):
anything else anyone needs to know about where to find
you or anything for you? Uh No, But there's some
there's some really interesting uh movement on on Reddit with
people finding some some making making their own own trip,
you know, to the place, and even on on Google
(41:43):
Maps if you look on it. Uh, there's a review
for the Wildlife Area with um it's funny. Just check
it out. The review is talking about people actually showing
out the dig It's so so for anyone that doesn't remember,
I didn't notice. It flashes at the end of the
film some coordinates after the two Homeland security guys like, yeah, definitely,
(42:08):
don't do that. Definitely. The review says, too many tourists
for my taste, mostly young men in need for shovels.
I saw the business opportunity visit Cocaine Shovel Puerto Rico
dot com today. It's fantastic. That's fantastic. So thank you
again so much THEO. We hope that you have enjoyed
(42:30):
learning about Cocaine Island. This concludes our episode, but not
our show. We will be back with more strange, unusual
stuff they don't want you to know. In the meantime,
you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all the hits,
all that slow jazz. Yeah, if you want to check
us out on our Facebook group it's called Here's Where
It Gets Crazy. Or you can talk about this and
(42:51):
all the other episodes we put out and just hang
out with your fellow listeners. If you don't want to
do any of that, you can send us a good
old fashioned email where we are conspiracy at how stuff works.
Dot Com. Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is
(43:21):
a production of I heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
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