Original subtitles

[overlapping arcade game music]

[man] Karl wasn't from the streets, he was actually a good, hardworking man.

He meant well.

Streetwise, though? Definitely not.

Karl wasn't about that life.

So, when Karls came to me about this idea he had, I was really shocked.

[rock music playing]

But my flaw is...

my family.

I go all out for my family.

♪ If you want trouble You got it ♪

[man] And all BS aside, when you talk a hundred million, come on.

Who isn't interested? [laughing]

[newsman 1] Miami International Airport was the scene last month

of one of the largest heists in US history.

[newsman 2] The crime was a family affair, led by three Cuban-American relatives.

[newsman 3] The gang of thieves walked out with millions in broad daylight.

[newswoman] The mastermind claims to have learned his skills

by studying television shows.

[narrator] The FBI.

[robber] Money in the bag and don't scream.

[newswoman] What happened after the crime

was even more incredible than the theft itself.

[screaming]

[man] Were mistakes made? Yeah.

Was trust broken? Definitely.

But at the end of the day, Karls is family.

So, what are you gonna do?

[rock song playing]

[man 2, in Spanish] When I was in Cuba as a kid...

...I saw in movies and television that in the United States,

if you work hard, you can get what you want.

[in English] Oh, Brock, isn't this beautiful?

It sure is.

[man 2, in Spanish] No matter how hard you work in Cuba,

there was no future.

That's why I wanted to come to the United States.

[jazzy funk music playing]

[newswoman, in English] An increasing number of Cuban exiles

have been sailing north to Miami

in search of a new and better life.

The path is hard, and their future is uncertain,

but they say it's worth it for freedom.

[woman] God bless America.

[in Spanish] It was like going to another planet.

It was totally different.

You see the cars and people dressed nice.

I had never seen an apple in Cuba.

I had never seen grapes.

I saw all of that my first day in Miami.

[in English] I've known Karl for probably 20 to 25 years,

working in the tow company.

Karl was a hard worker. Come in early, leave late.

Always aim to please, always aim to satisfy. On time.

[Karls, in Spanish] In the United States,

I've been able to achieve whatever I put my mind to.

One time I went skating with friends. I had never gone skating in my life.

So I set a goal for myself.

I wanted to be one of the best skaters on that rink.

I skated all the time.

Every day.

I've always been like that. Every time I've wanted to do something,

I've persisted and persisted and I've succeeded.

[in English] This guy's the most simplest guy

that honestly I have ever met.

In Miami, you have to have some swag to stand out.

Karl didn't need no swag. Didn't want it.

Always been a family guy. His brother, his mom, that's what Karl lives for.

[Karls, in Spanish] The American Dream, for me, has always been

to have a house,

a nice car,

not an expensive one, just a nice one.

And to have a family.

[gentle music playing]

[woman, in English] I met Karls through a friend.

I was at her house and we were preparing for a Thanksgiving dinner for work.

He walked over to me and he asked me if I could give him my phone number,

and I told him no. [chuckles]

[in Spanish] When I met her, she looked at me like this.

She didn't think much of me.

[Brandy, in English] Then he started writing down his phone number on a card.

His cell phone number, his beeper number,

his house number, his work number.

I was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just one number's fine." [chuckles]

[Karls, in Spanish] She was a bit cold.

I thought about it as a...

What's the word?

A challenge.

[salsa music playing]

[in English] ♪ If I open my heart to you... ♪

[Brandy] We had a friendship at first.

He would pick me up, we would go roller skating,

and he was really good at roller skating.

I thought he was handsome, you know,

he has green eyes, tall.

I just knew right off the bat he was a good guy,

and somebody that I knew that I could have a life with.

But I just didn't want to tell him right away.

[Karls, in Spanish] We were like the perfect couple.

We were together and we didn't need anything else.

[Brandy, in English] From the moment we met, everything was like a fairy tale.

But if my family didn't approve of him, like,

you just weren't gonna date that person.

My niece is how old? And this guy looks how old?

I remember walking in, seeing him,

and kind of gave him the dirty look, the stare. You know how it is.

[man] Hey, Pinky. [speaking Spanish]

[Brandy] My uncles, my grandfather, my whole family,

they were very intimidating.

Sometimes I wouldn't even know why some guys would stop talking to me.

[Pinky] Karls, he earned my respect, treated her right.

Like I told him, just... don't ever get to the point,

if you feel you gotta put your hands on her, just walk away,

'cause if you put your hands on her, I'm gonna put my hands on you.

You know, and that's something you don't want. [chuckles]

[Brandy] I didn't consider my family mafia,

but everybody in the streets knew my family.

They knew that we were not a family you could mess with.

[Pinky] At first we were just kids on the block,

but eventually we evolved into a... what they call a gang.

I didn't consider it a gang, I considered it family,

but you know how it is.

[Karls, in Spanish] When I met her family,

little by little I noticed that her uncle Pinky

had a reputation of selling drugs on the streets.

On the street, people respected him a lot.

[Pinky, in English] The area we grew up in...

you're gonna bump into a lot of hoodlums.

You had your Syndicates, your Zulus,

your TNSs, your Imperial Gangsters,

your Latin Kings, your Latin Forces, your YLOs.

People would pull up to the house,

"Hey, we need to talk to so-and-so in there, I know he's in there with you."

"Yeah, he's in there with me. And what's the problem?"

"Well, the problem ain't with you, the problem's with him."

Well, if you got a problem with him you got a problem with me.

My mom would even come out and fight with us sometimes. [laughs]

We weren't really bad, bad individuals.

Just doing a lot of stupid shit.

We would sell anything from fuckin' coconut Icees

to fuckin' cocaine, you know what I mean?

[laughing]

[Pinky] Cars, drugs, boats, guns.

[Matthew] Miami's a crazy place.

Palm trees and breeze and bitches with dirty knees.

A peninsula that smuggles all them fuckin' keys.

[laughing]

[Karls, in Spanish] Honestly, I didn't like what they were doing, but Pinky?

He was like family. So I didn't want to get involved.

[gentle music playing]

I think it was Christmas Eve he proposed to me.

He told me, he was like, "The ring that I'm giving you is a little ring."

I mean, you couldn't really see the diamond or anything.

But he's like, "It's just, you know, to start off,

and then I'll get you a bigger ring."

I didn't ask for much.

For us to be together, and have a house, and have children.

[Pinky] She was going crazy for kids, she always wanted kids.

She'd pick my kids up and, you know, she'd take 'em for the weekends.

Here comes my daughter with a new dress, and her hair done.

Yeah, I knew she was gonna be a great mom.

[chatter on video]

[Karls, in Spanish] I always wanted a big family,

like my dad, who had four children.

My wife and I kept trying and trying,

but we could never have a child.

[Brandy, in English] I went to a fertility doctor, got on treatments,

and when I went, we were already starting the testing,

and the doctor was like, "You're pregnant."

"Oh, what a miracle." [chuckles]

[heartbeat on EKG]

I lost the baby around sixteen weeks,

and, um, so a little while after,

um, Karl and I decided that we wanted to try again to have another baby.

I tried for months and I would do pregnancy tests, and nothing.

So then we decided to go back to the fertility doctor.

When I went back the second time, doctor tells me, "You're pregnant again."

And I was like, "Oh, my God, you have to be kidding me."

I was about seven months pregnant, and the pregnancy was going good.

[Karls, in Spanish] We were happy. We already had a room for our little girl.

We went places and she would buy stuff for the room,

and we put Hello Kitty everywhere.

[Brandy, in English] One day, I remember I'd told Karl that I wasn't feeling good.

I told him, um, I had a bad feeling

that, you know, something was, you know, not right.

[in Spanish] I put her in the truck

and went to the hospital. We got there in 20 minutes.

[monitor beeping]

[Brandy, in English] When the nurse came in to check me,

she told me that the baby's heart rate is dropping.

[tearfully] And, um, she's like, "Well, you have to give birth."

And then she told me the baby's not gonna make it.

[in Spanish] She was already dead.

We couldn't do anything.

[Brandy, in English] We did have to prepare funeral arrangements.

[crying] And, um, I asked the nurse to please let me hold her.

[sniffling] And, um, so they let me hold her before I left the hospital.

And, um, I have to say, that was the hardest part.

Karl was devastated.

And, um, I felt like, you know, all of our hopes and our dreams,

you know, had been shattered.

[soft music playing]

[Frank] That really messed him up.

Fucks anybody up. Eight months?

[Brandy] I wanted to adopt, and I wanted to adopt quickly,

because I already had the room painted and set up for my daughter.

We really didn't want to let everybody know that the baby had passed away.

And we found an adoption agency in Russia.

But it was expensive.

Over $30,000.

[in Spanish] We couldn't afford to adopt a child.

[in English] The Karl that I know, quiet, calm, cool, collective, thoughtful,

when he puts his mind to it, he accomplishes what he wants.

And he couldn't get it, not working the way he was working.

That must have destroyed his ass.

And then he starts cranking himself up, like, thinking what can he possibly do?

[jet engines roaring]

[Karls, in Spanish] A few months later, my friend, Onelio, called me.

He said he had a business proposition.

[suspenseful music playing]

He told me, "I got a job at Brinks."

"I'm a driver."

"What's the proposition?"

[engines roaring]

"Every Sunday between 2:00 to 2:30, an airplane arrives from Germany."

"There's $80-100 million inside."

[music intensifies]

"They need to transfer the money onto pallets."

"Inside of a warehouse they count the money."

"But since it's really hot in there,

they leave the doors open."

"What do you want to do?"

"Steal the money."

He said, "You told me you wanted to adopt a girl,

and I thought this would help."

$80 million is a lot of money.

I asked him, "Are any cops there?"

"No, it's just us."

"And we can't have guns in there because we're not police."

"Their policy is if you're getting robbed, don't confront them."

"It's like stealing candy from a baby."

I didn't believe him.

So I decided to get a hotel room that looked at the airport.

I bought a big telescope

to watch the planes.

The routine never changed.

I knew what Onelio said was true.

But I wanted to see the money for myself.

So I went to the warehouse.

You wouldn't believe how easy it was.

They were counting the money.

I saw a lot of giant bags.

When I saw the money, I said,

"I'm going to do this."

[announcer, in English] Next, The FBI... in color.

[Karls, in Spanish] Because that money was for the Federal Reserve,

I needed to learn how they worked... The FBI

Then one day I was watching TV and an FBI show came on.

[man, in English] Where were the witnesses?

Age unknown, height average, weight average...

[in Spanish] "Let's see what they do."

That's where I learned how federal agents catch people.

[newsman, in English] Investigators attempted to lift shoe prints from a desk.

[in Spanish] I learned different things from different shows.

CSI: Miami,

FBI Files,

I (Almost) Got Away With It.

Discovery Channel also helped me a lot.

[man on TV, in English] And it starts to emit a signal.

[Karls, in Spanish] I learned that there were trackers inside the money bags,

GPS trackers.

You have to be careful, they don't put them in every bag, only a few of them.

[woman on TV] Treasury builds it into all US paper currency.

[in Spanish] I learned that the money was marked.

[in English] Send this down to the lab,

and check the serial number on that Navy equipment.

[Karls, in Spanish] That you can't leave any type of evidence behind,

nothing that can link you to the robbery.

- Plastic holds prints better than paper. - [man] All right, I'll take a look.

Your fingerprint was recovered from the GPS unit.

What kind of idiot would do that?

[in Spanish] I also learned that anyone at the robbery,

the workers of the warehouse workers and Brinks employees, would be suspects.

Their friends would be suspects, too.

I was flipping through the channels and I saw a guy

who had stolen a Brinks truck.

I found out why they were caught.

They started spending a lot of money.

They were ordinary people

and they started buying houses worth millions.

They bought cars, boats, motorcycles, watches.

[man on TV, in English] It's little details like these

that lead to big breaks for law enforcement.

[in Spanish] I learned a lot of things from television.

That was my source of information.

And little by little,

I became a professional.

[in English] You know the FBI, Lou. We're nothing if not persistent.

[TV powers off]

[Karls, in Spanish] From the start, I knew that I couldn't do it alone.

I needed to find a group I could trust.

I didn't want to incriminate anyone in my family, especially my wife.

And that's why I chose Ricky.

I'd known him for years,

many years.

I heard he had experience in robberies,

and I needed someone like him.

I just told him the plan was to steal some money. A lot of money.

He said he wasn't interested.

The job was too for him,

and it scared him a bit.

So I had to resort to Plan B.

I didn't want to use my own family,

but the only person I knew who was streetwise

and liked easy money was my brother-in-law, Jeffrey.

[upbeat electronic music playing]

[in English] Jeff's my nephew, and he is hardheaded

and he is a troublemaker.

Everybody knew Jeff.

My brother was more of, like, the black sheep of the family.

Always getting himself into something.

Them motherfuckers would talk shit or something,

and in the middle of the street, he'd pop the trunk, out comes the shotgun.

"Jeff, are you kidding me?"

[Pinky] He liked to party, and he partied hard.

He'd call me, three, four in the morning.

"Hey, Unc, I'm at the club, you wanna come down?"

I'm like, "Man, I gotta work tomorrow."

Jeff was to the extreme.

The more money there is, the crazier the chick is,

the better the drugs, he's into it.

So, yes, $100,000,000 heist, he is definitely interested.

[hip-hop music playing]

[Karls, in Spanish] I still needed a stolen van to use for the robbery.

I knew beforehand that Alex had a stolen car

stripped of its VIN number.

Jeff came to me knowing I could provide a car.

He was a real good friend.

He gave me more details, and that's when I knew Karls was involved.

I said, "Fuck."

I really didn't want to do nothing that had anything to do with him.

He was just one of these guys that wasn't really from the street.

He wanted to be from the streets, he bragged a lot,

just for the attention, one of those guys. I didn't like him.

I went and spoke to Jeff, and I'm like,

"Look, I don't know if I can do this, man." You know?

"It sounds real good, but this guy's just a fuckin' idiot."

I feel like, even if we go through with this,

he's gonna ruin it in the long run.

But he was like, "No, we'll keep him in check." This and that.

At the end of the day, it was so much money,

I'm like, "Fuck it, I'll do it."

[Karls, in Spanish] I needed someone else

to work as a lookout while we did the robbery.

I chose a friend from work.

[in English] Karls was a hardworking guy, man.

He's quiet but friendly at the same time.

So at first it was like, "Oh, bullshit."

"Where the hell is there $100,000,000 sitting in a warehouse?"

But he was like,

"I'll give you a million dollars. All you have to do is be a lookout."

I don't know why he would give me a million dollars,

$10,000 would have been fine. I would have agreed to it, too. [laughs]

You could imagine, poor kid from Cuba,

I was like, "Man, this is it. The American dream."

[whistling, explosions]

[in Spanish] Then I needed one last person

to guard people while I took the bags,

and for that I chose Pinky.

Pinky was a person who wasn't afraid of anything.

[Pinky, in English] Karl called me and told me, "Listen."

"How do you want to come across some big bucks? Big money?"

And I'm like, "What you got lined up?"

I'm thinking the usual, we're gonna go hit a grow house

or, you know, some dope boys.

But then he pops out with,

"Hey, we're gonna rob an airport." [laughs]

I'm like, "Get the fuck outta here, man."

He goes, "No, seriously, we're talking about $100 million."

"I got everything worked out." And he laid it out for me.

Sounds good.

But I had just done a different job,

so I was okay financially for a little while.

So, I was actually trying to lay low, get settled down and do this family thing.

So, I wasn't very interested.

But Jeff knows how to push buttons.

Jeff kept calling me, calling me,

"Hey, Tinkerbell, you sure you're ready for this?" [laughs]

You know, "You got your tutu on?"

You start wondering, "Hey...

Does he really think I don't have the balls for this?"

So I'm like, "Okay, how sure are you that that money's there?"

He goes, "Oh, I'd bet my life on it."

Like, "Watch what you say." [laughs] "Watch what you say."

'Cause if I get wrapped up in some bullshit

over some petty shit, we're gonna have a problem.

Like, "All right."

Yeah.

[Karls, in Spanish] I had everyone I needed.

[gun cocks]

[upbeat electronic music playing]

And Jeffrey, he couldn't run or jump or anything,

because he was too fat.

All he could do was drive the truck.

Next, I had to plan the robbery

so that we could get away clean.

[Pinky, in English] Sounds nice.

Sounds real nice.

But are they really just gonna let us go on up in there and start grabbing bags?

You gotta do your homework.

So we just laid the plan out.

How we gonna do this, where are we going, who's involved?

[engines roaring]

We went out to the airport, we did a drive through.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Pinky] Well, it is an airport.

There's a lot of people, a lot of eyes, a lot of movement.

We got a Customs headquarter right across the street.

[Karls, in Spanish] The faster we get in and out,

the less chance we have of getting caught.

[Pinky] We didn't want Jeffrey too close to the docks,

where, hey, the guards would look at the truck or be suspicious or turn around.

[Karls, in Spanish] Pinky and I would get out and run.

[Victor, in English] You got 45 seconds

from the time the car stops to the time the car's gotta go.

[Karls, in Spanish] Pinky would deal with the people,

I would get all the money I could.

"Jeffrey, when we run into the warehouse,

you need to reverse the truck right against the wall by the door

so I can load the bags onto the truck,

and we can do it quickly, without speaking."

[in English] In 45 seconds, whoever's not in the car stays.

A minute and a half in here,

the cops will block you and you're never gonna make it out.

Karl broke it down, he told me he didn't want no guns in the area.

He doesn't feel comfortable around guns.

[in Spanish] In Cuba, people fight with their fists,

not with machetes or guns. They use their fists.

I never saw myself putting a gun to someone's head,

because I'm not like that.

I come to you and I tell you,

"Yeah, there's $100,000,000. Don't worry, there's no guns, nothin'."

"It's a piece of pie."

$100,000,000? No guns? At an airport?

They're surrounded by all these different agencies.

Yeah, I'm definitely gonna go with my guns.

[Karls, in Spanish] I also wanted to be sure of our routes,

because the freeways had cameras.

I didn't want them to follow me to my house,

so I started driving around

and I found a road

under the freeway that took me directly to my house.

I also needed to buy clothes, gloves, mirrors.

[in English] He's going MacGyver, trying to...

You know, too much movies and book sense, you know?

So, "Change your names and have code words and shave."

[in Spanish] Arms and chest so we wouldn't leave hair as evidence.

[Pinky, in English] He's a different breed, so he thinks different.

But that's Karl.

[Karls, in Spanish] I've always felt confident

that when I want to do something, I can do it.

I was ready.

[engines roaring]

[Karls] On the day of the robbery.

I felt a bit nervous when I woke up.

[Pinky, in English] You got the blood pumping, nerves,

and you're always gonna have that. So everybody get, you know,

their head straight, everybody get, you know, their shit together.

[Brandy] That Sunday, I told him I was gonna go out with a girlfriend of mine.

He told me that he was meeting with some friends.

- [truck engine starts] - [suspenseful music playing]

[Karls, in Spanish] I called Onelio

and said, "Call me as soon as the plane lands."

We parked about a half mile from the airport

to wait for Onelio's call.

I didn't want to sweat,

because if a drop of sweat lands on the floor,

maybe they'd find some DNA proving I was there.

[woman on radio, in English] Can you believe it's November already?

[Karls, in Spanish] So I had the AC blasting. It was freezing inside.

[phone ringing]

He calls me and says the plane has arrived.

So I knew I had about half an hour.

[in English] I didn't think they'd do it. I'm like, "Man, this stupid fuck Karl

is probably gonna chicken out at the end, or whatever."

[Karls, in Spanish] I was nervous, but I didn't want to show it.

I didn't want anyone to get hurt.

[in English] Was my blood pumping and were there some nerves shaking?

Yeah. But nervous?

Nah. I was ready.

[suspenseful music intensifies]

[Karls, in Spanish] We passed Victor.

His job was to warn us if any police approached.

[Pinky, in English] When we got there, everything was nice.

No movements, nothing was going on, the dock doors were open.

This is gonna happen now. This is going through.

[Karls, in Spanish] I told Pinky,

"Don't pull out your gun, we don't need it. No one has a gun here."

[in English] "Hey, calm down."

"Listen, this is what's gonna happen. We're gonna run up in there,

we're gonna lay these guys down, and we're taking some money."

[police siren chirps]

I made a call to Karls.

[line ringing]

There was a van full of police guys heading to you.

[police siren wailing]

[siren chirps]

"Holy shit. Okay, what we got going on now?"

[in Spanish] I was like...

"The plan is fucked."

[tense music playing]

[in English] They're the Customs agents. [chuckles] I'm guessing it's shift change.

We're sitting there, we're waiting for these fools to smoke.

"Don't look this way, oh, please don't look this way." [chuckles]

[Karls, in Spanish] I was nervous.

Knowing you're going to commit a robbery

and you just saw police enter the building,

anyone would be nervous.

[in English] I told Karl, soon as that last guard touches that door handle,

ain't no ifs, ands, or buts, I'm gone. [chuckles]

Karl was a little jittery, he was a little nervous, he was like, "Wait, but, but..."

Sure as shit, that officer put his hands on that handle,

Jeff didn't know what happened, Karl didn't know what happened,

I was gone.

[intense music playing]

[stopwatch beeps]

Everybody on the floor!

When you're going in there you gotta prove your point,

and get that point across effectively.

Anybody makes a move, you're gonna get hurt.

It took a minute, till they saw the guard's expression

and then that gun to his head.

Element of surprise is a bitch. [laughs]

Feet apart, hands apart, faces down.

[in Spanish] I go straight to where the money is.

[Pinky, in English] Those that don't know what $100,000,000 looks like,

it looks beautiful. [laughs]

[intense music playing]

[in Spanish] But when I pick them up, I find out they're very heavy.

I thought they were stuck to the pallet.

[stopwatch beeping]

[Pinky, in English] What we didn't put into the equation

was how much them bags was gonna weigh. [laughs]

[stopwatch beeping]

[grunting]

They was heavy.

[Karls, in Spanish] Each one weighed 40 pounds.

When I pick them up,

it's 120 pounds in each hand.

I dragged the bags out, and when I looked back up,

Jeffrey hadn't moved the truck.

He was in the same spot. He froze in the middle of the street.

[stopwatch beeping]

[Pinky, in English] Jeff was further than he could throw the bags into the truck.

Uh-oh.

[in Spanish] I had planned on a few trips.

[in English] I wasn't gonna stick around, we had to go.

[in Spanish] But on the fifth and final bag, my bandana fell off.

I lowered my head quickly and I got back in the truck.

[in English] I would have loved to stay, to clean them out.

Unfortunately, we didn't have the time.

[tires squealing]

The greedier you get, the riskier it gets.

[in Spanish] I told Jeffrey to keep driving normally, not too fast.

[in English] We ain't going out skidding, no Dukes of Hazzard,

doing donuts, jumping ramps, we ain't doing none of that.

[upbeat jazzy music playing]

I go, "Shit, they did it."

[tires screech, engine revs]

I let them know. Jeff, check the mirrors. Karl, keep an eye out,

make sure nobody's coming behind us. Trying to make it to our clean vehicle.

- [car engine starts] - [truck tires screech]

[in Spanish] Jeffrey left in the same truck we used for the robbery,

and we followed, but at a distance.

[in English] I'm driving, Karl's in the back.

[Karls, in Spanish] I didn't have time to think.

I just immediately started checking the bags for GPS trackers.

[in English] He doesn't see nothing, "Hey, It's clean. It's clean."

I look back and he's waving this shit in my face,

he's waving these bundles of money. "Look, money!"

And he's... [imitating bills flipping] Starts flipping through it.

I get that phone call. I said, "All right, where you wanna meet?"

Everybody was screaming, yelling, "Oh, shit!" You know?

I'm like, "Man, y'all need to sit the fuck still."

[Karls, in Spanish] Jeffrey pulls up next to us at the traffic light,

I lowered the window and showed him a stack of bills.

It was $100,000.

[in English] Oh, man, he lit up like a Christmas tree. [laughing]

[engines revving]

[gentle music playing]

[Alex] I took the truck.

And that's it.

The truck disappeared.

[Pinky] On the way back to the house there was some smiles on our faces.

I mean, there was like a little kind of cheer, like, "Damn, we did this."

"We pulled it off." You know, "Nobody got hurt, we did this."

It was crazy.

Just an instant adrenaline rush just went through you,

like, "Damn, my whole life just changed."

It felt good to see all that money.

[Karls, in Spanish] I...

felt proud because I succeeded.

I just did something that no one's ever done,

but everyone wants to.

I just wanted to steal enough money to adopt a child.

But this was more than I could ever imagine.

It's like winning the lottery twice.

It went off without a hitch. It did. It really did.

[sirens blaring]

It was too, too smooth. I was like, "There's gotta be a catch."

[intense music playing]

[engine revving]

[police siren wailing]

[funky jazz music playing]