Original subtitles

[reporter] Detectives have arrested

Demetrius Flenory in the wild shootout

that shattered windows of bars and restaurants.

[Yolanda] But now, with house arrest over,

we goin' to Mexico.

[Bryant] Next, Meech is having a huge birthday party.

We got in position to take photos.

Holy shit.

It's the who's who of the drug trade

all in one spot.

-What's really good with you, Meech? -What's crackin'?

[Scott] He hasn't actually learned anything

from the Club Chaos shooting.

He thinks he's untouchable.

But you're the head of a conspiracy.

[dramatic music plays]

[Bryant] A double murder occurred

in Atlanta.

Misty Carter and Ulysses Hackett.

[Jack] Hackett was thought to be

a potential government witness.

[Bryant] It touched a lot of people in the community.

[Scott] The investigation went from 0 to 100

in the blink of an eye.

[Yolanda] Every house,

they hit the same day.

And Meech said, "Sis,

"shit getting real right now.

"I'm gonna leave Atlanta, 'cause from this day forward,

you understand, we hot."

[dramatic hip-hop music plays]

[Meech] E-everybody move like brothers.

[echoing] Like brothers. Like brothers.

♪ ♪

Everybody's shining like new money.

[echoing] New money. New money. New money.

♪ ♪

It ain't no other crew like this in the world,

and never will be another.

[echoing] Never will be another.

Never will be another.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music plays]

[Wayne] In the drug business,

we couldn't fall in love

with nothing than the drug game.

If you fall in love with it,

this shit- this shit gonna get you fucked up.

You gotta go.

[Yolanda] We left Atlanta and never looked back.

That's when everything changed.

We were on the run.

[suspenseful music plays]

[Wayne] You know how many times we done left houses

full of Italian furniture, expensive shit?

Clothes, wardrobes of shit.

You can get all that shit back, man.

You can't get your freedom back.

[Yolanda] We left houses, cars, clothes,

jewelry--everything.

And we moved to Miami.

[suspenseful music plays]

The situation didn't really hit me

until I got there.

And I laid in the bed, and I just started crying.

I think I was in bed for, like, a day and a half.

[Jack] Meech left Atlanta

after the raid was conducted at the house.

You know, once it was contaminated

by the presence of law enforcement--

that's how a lot of these guys are.

They won't ever go back there.

He knew the heat was on in Atlanta.

We could tie Meech to a lot of circumstantial evidence.

[Scott] All conventional wisdom would have told you

that when you move down to Miami

to avoid the heat that you were getting

in Georgia,

that you would change your behavior.

But Demetrius,

he just couldn't help himself.

[person] BMF from beginning to the end!

[hip-hop music plays]

[crowd cheering]

[Scott] It was almost impossible

for Demetrius to keep a low profile.

♪ ♪

You know, it was like a moth to a flame.

♪ ♪

Crobar at the time was one of the hottest clubs in Miami.

[person] BMF, hands up! Show who's in the building!

[person] ♪ Sunday night, I'm in Crobar ♪

[rapping indistinctly]

[Scott] First week Meech got there,

he declared Sunday nights at Crobar BMF night.

[crowd cheering]

Meech said, "I'm out so much in the streets,

when am--when am I doing anything else?"

You know, "I'm promoting my record label."

It was like a smoke and mirrors kind of thing.

But there were so many different people around.

That's what made it so hard to know

who was actually a federal agent

and who was actually a person out just

having a good time on the party scene with us.

We know they're here.

So we're looking over our shoulders every day.

Every day.

♪ ♪

[David] In Miami, Meech's presence alone

just spoke for itself

because he gonna stick out wherever he is.

He a person that he can't hide.

[David] Meech was, like, spending the money.

He having a good time.

It was crazy.

[T.I.] Meech said, "Fuck it.

"I'ma be ballin' till they get me.

"I accepted my position

"and what come with it a long time ago.

"I'ma be doing this as big as I can do it

until the day I can't do it no more."

[Latarra] Terry didn't like that Meech was a party animal,

because, you know,

it just brought so much attention.

It was like a big disagreement.

[indistinct cheer]

[Rick] When you're a drug kingpin,

you might go out to the club and pop some bottles

and buy some jewelry and live the good life.

But the stress level-- it's stressful, man.

Trust me.

It's more stressful than running Amazon.

You're- you're stressed out every day.

Ask Meech, was he ever relaxed?

You're always thinking, "Are the police coming?

What's next? Is someone else coming?"

If you've ever been in a situation

where all the walls are caving in,

and the ground sinking and everything,

ain't shit you can do about it, but guess what.

You gonna ride until the wheels fall off.

Good and bad.

[crowd cheering]

[Scott] To the people that Meech was closest to,

he was saying he knew the end was coming.

[tense music plays]

Once you started to scratch beneath the surface

of Demetrius' larger-than-life personality

and his extreme bravado,

the situation was starting to really take its toll on him.

He had trouble sleeping at night.

[Yolanda] He goes, "Yogi, I know these folks

gonna try to come and take my life one day."

He said, "You know what I want, though?

"I don't wanna not ever go to jail.

"I wanna have the foresight

"and the knowledge to know before they're coming

so I can have everybody set up and situated."

We used to always ask Meech, like,

"Why don't you just quit or walk away?"

And Meech would always say,

"Well, it's- it's easy for me to walk away,

"but what I'ma do about y'all?

Think I'm just gonna leave y'all out like that?"

And that was his mentality.

[soft music plays]

[Yogi] Meech was like, "Yogi, we hot.

"So I need you in Miami with the most important thing to me,

my son."

[person] Go take a picture with Uncle Bleu.

He ain't playing.

[Yolanda] "I know you think

"I'm about to turn you into a nanny,

"but I'ma get you away from any drug activities

and saving your life."

[Stephen] Lil Meech was the prince.

-[person] He right here. -Let's get him.

I got him.

[Stephen] He was probably three, four years old.

He'd be out runnin' through the streets.

Had his dad's necklace on.

[person] Tell the camera.

[person] Tell 'em what it is, coz.

[Stephen] Meech is your dad.

You're gonna experience a life

where you're seeing stuff that grown people

don't even get to do or be around.

[laughs]

[Latarra] He was just a very hands-on father,

except for the diaper changing.

Yeah, he wasn't very hands-on for that,

but I was just gonna be as supportive

as I could be as his girlfriend,

as the mother of his child.

[Yolanda] At that point in time,

Meech was more family-oriented.

He wanted Tarra around a lot more,

and Tarra wanted the intimate setting.

[Latarra] When Demetrius moved to Miami,

we were very close,

and he was spending a lot of time with his son.

Although I didn't love having, you know,

ten guys at the house all the time.

Yeah!

-What up, baby? -What up, baby?

[person] What up?

[Latarra] All the cleaning up, you know, being honest,

it was not fun for me.

[crowd cheering]

I wanted that--that alone time.

[Yolanda] Meech would tell her,

"You like sleeping comfortable at night?"

"That's what they're here for. To keep us safe."

♪ ♪

[Wayne] Business was still going on

around the United States.

But Meech used to tell me

"Some thunderstorms in the forecast.

"I just don't know when they coming.

See why I need to go to Brazil?"

And I found out you can't do that no more.

They got extradition now.

[Chad] I was moving quietly,

but Meech like, "Fuck it, man."

It's just how he was. "Like, man, fuck them, man.

They can't stop us."

My mother used to tell me, "Why don't you stop?

"Can't you see you way ahead?

You know, you need to stop now. Go get a job."

I said, "A job?"

She said, "If something happened,

"you could say you was at the job.

You didn't do it. You know what I mean?"

Like, Ma, you don't know what you talking about.

She was right, though.

I was like, how long can we live

the lifestyle that we living?

[Yolanda] When we left Atlanta,

you got to really show what you're made of,

because you have to question whose loyalty

is gonna remain loyal now,

because the feds definitely are gonna want to come

and talk to everybody.

[tense music plays]

♪ ♪

[Scott] Over the previous 18 months,

law enforcement was making little busts

and little arrests,

mostly off of traffic stops

and kind of minor league stuff.

[Jack] There were a lot of little incidents,

some seizures that were happening in various parts

across the country that we could link to the BMF,

giving us great pieces of evidence.

And if the driver is caught and cooperates,

that's really how dominos fall.

♪ ♪

[Walt] BMF was probably

the most sophisticated drug organization

that I had ever seen.

Because in order to really get everything

that you would need in order to conclude

and wrap this up, you have to have knowledge

of all the different locations they did business.

[Jack] A case like the BMF, there were a lot of targets,

'cause it was a big organization.

So, you know, that's gonna be complex.

[Walt] Having a wire on your conversation over the phone.

That was about the only way

that I knew with this particular organization

you could have disbanded.

[Rand] We went from, like, 3 wiretaps to 27 wiretaps.

At the time, I don't think any of us

grasped the enormity of it,

but that's what it was like, it was just buzzing.

[Jack] I would make out a chronology of events,

you know, explaining, you know, this is this guy's role,

that's that guy's role-- kind of a pyramid down

with 20 or 30 or 40 people on it.

But the issue with having a investigation this large

is it involved multiple jurisdictions.

[tense music plays]

[Jack] There were cases in Atlanta, Miami,

Orlando, New York, Louisville,

St. Louis, Greenville, LA,

and it involved multiple federal agencies as well.

FBI, ATF, IRS, DEA--

all the alphabet agencies.

The coordination of the case was complex,

making sure that all the different offices

were working in conjunction with one another.

Don't make this arrest

if that's gonna impede another agency.

[Rand] It was like herding cats.

Everybody wanted to be a part of it.

We were putting in 20-hour days.

Towards the end, I don't remember sleeping at all.

Every day turned into another day.

I remember just being in the same clothes,

you know, day after day.

[Bryant] At one point, they decided,

we have enough to get these warrants

to start rounding up people.

[Jack] But we'd still need evidence that links Meech

to drug trafficking,

and it was pretty tough,

because BMF were very secretive.

[buzzing]

BMF guys had tattoos with "death before dishonor."

So we could see they gained street cred

from not talking with law enforcement

under any circumstances.

[Stephen] Secrecy was everything.

I mean, that's what's gonna keep the ship floating.

Everything was built on loyalty.

One wrong person in the wrong place or something,

you know, could sink a whole ship.

[Bryant] Next domino, I would say,

was focusing more on these people

who were mid to higher level.

And one of those guys would have been Omari McCree.

♪ ♪

[Rand] We got word Omari was in Atlanta.

Omari was indicted

on a state level by Rand Csehy.

He was one of the first ones.

You already know the fuck I'm here.

[Rand] Omari was running a side business with Jeffrey Leahr

without Meech's permission.

So Omari was the weakest link in Meech's chain

because once Meech found out what they were doing,

they were dead.

[Bryant] Once the warrants were drafted,

we arrest Omari McCree, and we began debriefing.

[dramatic music plays]

[Raheem] Meech always said,

"Let's see who real when them doors come in,

"'cause they coming in one day.

Let's see if you that tough, still."

[Rand] Omari starts talking about Meech

and his organization, how the drugs come in,

how they go out, the money, and who's in charge.

And laid it all out.

[Bryant] Omari McCree said,

"Hey, I get my dope from Demetrius Flenory."

And that was a breaking point in this investigation.

Now we have a high-level soldier in the organization

putting dope in Demetrius Flenory's hand.

And he would later say that he would cooperate

and he was prepared to testify.

[Scott] Omari ended up being the first member

of Big Meech's inner circle

to turn witness for the government.

And that one domino

ends up leading to 20 other dominos.

[Latarra] When I found out that some of Demetrius' friends

were cooperating against him,

I was very um, disappointed and- and hurt,

because, you know, we--

I opened my home to these people, you know.

They slept on my beds and couches.

They played with my son.

I mean, we embraced them like family.

[Yolanda] Meech was so big on loyalty,

so he was shocked and disappointed.

But, I mean, when you're facing that much time,

you know, the loyalty goes out the window

when it's my freedom over the loyalty.

The lifeblood of-- of law enforcement

is having people cooperate.

We do depend on people like that.

[Bryant] Next domino would be Doc Marshall.

The DEA kept holding

the Angier Court murder robbery

against Doc Marshall.

[Jack] Doc Marshall considered himself the CFO,

Chief Financial Officer of the BMF.

At that scene, they seized evidence

related to the XQuisite Empire car brokering scheme.

[Scott] They simply held this over his head

for the next three years

and used it as a leverage point.

[Bryant] Jack and I paid Doc Marshall a visit

at the airport, flying in from Orlando.

And the minute he walked off the plane, very cordial.

He stopped, put his hands behind his back.

He kinda knew that the gig was up.

Once the squeeze was put on him

about this car fraud case,

he said, "Hey, I know some bigger fish."

[Scott] At that point,

things were occurring fast and furious.

There was no slowing down.

[Jack] We had a meeting where we were dividing up

which jurisdiction will take which defendant.

[Chad] You have motherfuckers getting called,

people running they mouth.

And that's when shit really started happening.

[soft music plays]

♪ ♪

[Lucille] Demetrius came home to see me.

He visited with us for a while.

[Lucille] With Meech, it was always like a regular visit.

If he was worried about something,

he didn't say.

I don't know if it was to keep, you know,

Mom from worrying about him or what.

But I was just happy to have him home

and all of us, the family, together.

[Nicole] Back in the day in Detroit,

Meech and Terry's notoriety

brought consequences at times.

If they owed money or if they owed somebody for the drugs,

people were coming to look for Mom and Dad and other siblings.

So you were always looking over your shoulder.

And people kind of looked at me

thinking that, "She's a part of it,"

or, "She's gonna be just like them."

So I've always felt

that I've had something to prove to be different.

You know, I've had big shoes to fill.

[Roland] Meech used to always tell me he gonna be rich,

and the boy became rich.

Out there, he was Big Meech, the big baller.

But when he come home, shit, he old Meech.

He had come back to Detroit,

and he sitting on my front porch

waiting on me with my dog, feeding him.

They both eating vanilla wafers.

That's Meech.

And I'm laughing at him because,

man, I can't believe these people treating you

like you a God.

I'm like, hell naw.

You know, I'm like-- he pushing me, "Stop, man."

That's my best friend.

[Nicole] Meech always had a vision.

Meech always was a positive person.

You just knew that he would be powerful

and make a difference somehow, some way.

I don't even think he looks as his self as a king.

But, you know,

in a lot of people's eyes, he is a king.

Terry's the same way.

In other people's eyes, they are kings.

But I just look at them as my family.

[tense music plays]

♪ ♪

[Jack] In October of 2005,

we had this sealed indictment

and we wanted to go ahead with our nationwide roundup.

But the thinking was, let's put off the roundup

until we get Terry in pocket.

Because as soon as you arrest one person,

and he's arraigned,

you- you have to unseal the indictment,

and that sets off fire alarms with other associates,

and they go into hiding.

So the best thing is to find a reason to arrest them

without having to unseal the indictment at all.

That night, marshals found Terry

in a house in Florissant, Missouri.

It was a big gambling party.

♪ ♪

[Walt] They in the house gamblin'.

Talking shit loud.

Six million in the house.

And the feds got there.

[Jack] A raid was conducted at the house,

and Terry and numerous other people were arrested.

[tense music plays]

♪ ♪

[Latarra] One morning,

I was at home...

[alarm blaring]

...when I hear the alarm,

and I just see all of these men just bombard the door.

[Yolanda] I was there too.

When I came out of the shower,

there was a man there, and he was like,

"Go ahead, Yogi, and get dressed.

We'll be waiting on you in the front room."

It's the feds.

[Latarra] They're telling me to get dressed,

and they put cuffs on me.

They said, "If you keep protecting Meech,

you're gonna go to jail."

[Yolanda] They took us both down

to the Miami-Dade headquarters.

And when I tell you, I walked in this room,

and it was something like out of a movie--

hundreds of pictures on the table

of myself and Meech just from surveillance.

I said, "Well, I mean, it looks like you

basically know what we do on a daily basis."

I guess they wanted to flip me.

I mean, but flip me to say what?

I don't know what you want me to say.

Those were my exact words.

"I mean, I don't know what you want me to say."

[Latarra] We stayed till late night, and they let us go.

But it was a reality check, because you knew

that it was really no coming back from this.

I mean, they let me out,

but I knew they're not gonna play nice.

[dramatic music plays]

♪ ♪

[Scott] At this point, Demetrius is on move.

He had moved from Miami

and had tried to take cover in Texas.

[Scott] He's living relatively quietly,

not being as out in the open

as he had been in Miami and Atlanta,

but it was too late at that point.

[Latarra] We were very concerned.

We felt it coming, in a sense,

that something was gonna happen.

I just knew something wasn't right.

[David] I was there with Meech.

I see a van parked next door.

I'm looking at the van, and I kinda, like,

see somebody moving in the van,

but I ain't thinking nothing of it.

♪ ♪

[siren wailing]

[dramatic hip-hop music plays]

♪ ♪