All language subtitles for FBI.True.S06E09.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

- Everybody knew Willie
and Sal were the hub

for cocaine trafficking
in Miami.

- The organization had
trafficked in over $2 billion

of cocaine.

The DEA arrested Sal Magluta
and Willie Falcon,

but they were acquitted
on all counts.

The first part of
the investigation

was the homicides
and attempted homicides

of government witnesses.

The second part
of the investigation,

the prosecutors suspect that
there was some jury tampering

that went on in this case.

One of the jurors said the
jury foreman, Miguel Moya,

was putting more and more
pressure on everybody

for a not guilty verdict.

With Moya, we were able
to trace around $350,000

in unexplained spending.

- We always suspected there
were other jurors involved.

The plan was Gloria
was gonna get $1 million

for a not guilty verdict,

but she gets like $260,000.

- Third part of the case
was massive

money laundering operation.

Marilyn Bonachea had been
distributing large amounts

of cash for the organization.

- She became Sal's bookkeeper,

and those books
were confiscated.

- We sent those ledger books
up to FBI headquarters

to have them deciphered.

And then the informant,
Orlando, calls us

and says,
"Sal Magluta is worried.

They want Marilyn out of
Miami as quickly as possible."

- In the FBI, we make
a lot of headlines.

Drug busts,

mob stings,

terrorist takedowns.

- Get down! Get down!

- We understand why people
want to tell stories about us.

- Mark it.

- Freeze!
- FBI.

- FBI!
- Action!

- But they don't know
the half of it.

What really goes down,

we save that for each other

when we're talking
agent-to-agent.

This is "FBI True."

- We need to know,
where is Willie and Sal?

They're gonna stash Marilyn.

We tell the informant, Orlando,

"Hey, we're gonna help you
rent a Winnebago.

"Tell Marilyn,
I'll help you get out of Miami

to wherever you need to go."

We had to scramble everybody.

All hands on deck.

Everybody get a bag and go.

We're gonna follow
this Winnebago.

- We stayed at every hotel
she stayed at along the way.

- Where did they end up
taking Marilyn?

- Orlando and Marilyn
stopped at a hotel

in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

And then the organization
was to sit tight.

We're gonna send somebody
to meet you

and take you to a safe house.

- We thought
it wasn't gonna be long,

but it turned out
to be a while.

- It ends up being three,
four, five days,

and all the agents
are getting antsy.

I'm on pins and needles.

My wife is having a baby
any day now.

So there's a lot of pressure
on me at this time.

I'm like, "Damn it, why doesn't
this guy show up already

"so we can figure out,
you know, who he is

and where the safe house is?"

So finally, probably seven
or eight days in at this hotel,

we get word from the
informant--

"Hey, Marilyn got a call.

The guy's coming."

So we called Newark SOG,
and we're like,

"You guys, it's very important.

"We have to know where
this safe house is.

"If they stash her, and you
guys don't see where it is,

"we're out of luck.

We never find her again."

So this individual from the
organization finally shows up.

The Newark SOG follow her
back to almost like

a brownstone-type apartment
in New Jersey.

Now we've identified
the safe house.

It's time to take this
Winnebago back to Miami

and start our investigation
of Marilyn.

The Newark SOG, they're so
focused on following Marilyn

that they lose
the organization member.

So all we knew about this guy

was that his nickname
was Culito, which means?

"Little ass."

- They call him Culito because
he's a pain in the ass.

- Yeah, right.

He was doing money drops
to Marilyn every few weeks.

He would bring her money and
make sure she had her groceries

and stuff like that.

So we're scrambling
to try and identify him.

He's a very difficult guy
to follow.

But through Orlando, we finally
get his cell phone number.

So we start tracking
his cell phone.

And one night, they see him.

And he's got the phone on,
and they're able to track him.

And then they arrest him.

And he's identified
as Tony Garcia.

So we bring him
to the Newark FBI office.

- Mm-hmm.
- And we try and solicit

his cooperation.

And Culito tells us
that every couple of months,

he's delivering illegal drug
money for Willie and Sal.

He travels into Miami,

and he does big money pickups
for the organization.

And they deliver cash
to him in boxes.

And then he transports
the cash from Miami

to New York City.

And he launders the money
a variety of different ways

for the organization
so that Willie and Sal

can pay their attorneys

and have some semblance
of legitimate funds

to pay their expenses.

So initially,
Culito starts moving the money

through one of his Jewish
friends, Isaac.

Eventually, Isaac says,

"I can't handle
this amount of money for you,

"but I got a guy, you know,

"who can launder
the money for you.

"Nobody knows any names.

"I just know he's a Jewish guy.

He's one of those guys
with the curls."

And I go,
"He's a Hasidic Jewish guy?"

He goes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's a Hasidic Jewish guy."

"I think he's a rabbi, too."
A rabbi?

- And we were thinking--

- So we were like,
this is interesting.

- This is very interesting.

Willie and Sal's organization
is connected to a rabbi--

- To a rabbi in New York City.

- Who's laundering his money?

And we're like,
this can't get any crazier.

- But we're like, "Who do
you pick up the money from?"

And again, Culito,
he doesn't know his name.

both: Blondie.

- We know Blondie--
- Another nickname.

- From the DEA Investigation.

Yeah.
- OK.

We knew Blondie was
Richard Passapera.

- Yeah.

He's part of the organization.

Culito tells us that
for each of these money drops,

he gets a letter
from Sal in jail--

Telling him how much money
needs to be put

into different accounts.

And some of the money needs to
go to, like, a family member.

Some of the money needs
to go to lawyers.

So we're like,
"All right, perfect.

When's your next money pickup?"

So he says, "Next money
pickup's in about three weeks."

So that gives us some time
to get all our ducks in a row,

get the authority to, you know,
launder this amount of money,

which is in excess
of $1 million.

So for the money pickup,
we have Culito wired up.

Blondie gives him a box.

We take the box back
to the FBI office,

dust the box for fingerprints.

So we convinced the FBI,
OK, we're gonna

let this money walk
because we want to see

how it goes through.
We want to identify everybody.

So we're eager to find out
who this rabbi is.

So the initial meeting is at
a restaurant

in Washington Heights
with the rabbi.

So they do the money drop,

and the surveillance groups
from New York

follow the rabbi into
a Hasidic Jewish neighborhood

in Brooklyn.

And he goes to his apartment.

And they identify him
as Harry Kozlik.

Harry ends up going to
the Dime Savings Bank.

One guy sees that he's got
a safety deposit box.

So we take note of that.

Like, we're sure
there's some good evidence

in that safety deposit box.

So we decide to do
another money drop.

So the second money drop
was $950,000.

Culito explained Harry
is getting Jewish students

to transport this money
to Israel.

And then once
he gets to Israel,

he's opening up accounts
in Israel

under the name
Leonard Friedman.

- They would write these
fake checks out

under the name
of Leonard Friedman.

Attached with the checks
were letters for the attorney

saying,
"On behalf of Sal,

I would like to pay
for their defense,"

to make it look legit.

These attorneys
are getting checks

from some Leonard Friedman
out of the blue,

and they deposit them.

- In that Dime Savings Bank
safety deposit box

were the Leonard Friedman
checks

and the account
opening documents.

So we were able to track
over $30 million in payments

to attorneys
and private investigators.

- So where do we sit with Sal
at this point

in the investigation?

- So Sal Magluta had gone to
trial on fraudulent passports

the DEA found during the
search of their mansion

on La Gorce Island.

So Sal decides in the middle
of the trial to flee.

- He was found guilty
without being present.

- He is convicted.

He gets sentenced
to nine years.

Because it's a bond jump,

Deputy US Marshals,
they're trying to track him.

- A man once charged
with being

one of South Florida's
cocaine kingpins

has been missing
since February.

That's when Sal Magluta
simply vanished

while standing trial
in a Miami federal court.

- And we're thinking,
he's gone.

He's probably in South America
or somewhere like that.

So we're a little bit skeptical
that we'll be able to find him.

So we're able,
through informants,

to get his cell phone.

They knew he's in
the Palm Beach area.

So one day, literally,

the Marshals are just
passing him by,

and they're tracking him.

And he drives by them.

And he has this ridiculous
fake wig

to try and disguise himself,
you know,

so nobody can recognize him.

But he decides to go to the
Ritz Carlton in Palm Beach.

- He didn't go very far.
- Yeah, he didn't go very far.

And they arrest him.

- So what are you doing
with Marilyn at this point?

- So we were tracking Marilyn
at her safe house

in New Jersey.

- We were getting information
from Orlando,

and it was getting
very stressful for Marilyn.

She was addicted to Xanax,

and she would get really angry.

- She hated Culito.

And he didn't like her either.

- She was very demanding.

She would yell at him.

And then he started
making advances at her,

and she wanted nothing
to do with him.

So that became a problem

because she was constantly
telling Orlando,

"I got to get out of here.

"I got to get away
from this guy.

I want to leave."

She was losing her mind there.

- One day,
we got a call from Orlando

informing us that she wants to
move out of that safe house.

And she wants to go upstate
New York into the mountains.

We weren't exactly sure
where they were gonna go,

but we had Orlando with her.

So there was a short period
of time

where we actually lost track
of her.

And then we patiently waited
for a few days,

and then Orlando was able
to contact us and tell us

that she had gotten a cabin in
Lake George, upstate New York.

We do a financial analysis
of her bank accounts,

pull her tax returns,

and we learn that aside from
being a paralegal

for Sal Magluta,
she really didn't

have any legitimate income.

And during the period
of the trial,

we tracked $1 million

in unexplained deposits
into her accounts.

She liked to live
the good life.

She would spend a lot of money.

And it was just
an easy financial analysis case

because all her deposits

were less than $10,000.
- Right.

- That's even more suspicious--
- More--yeah, of course.

- Than inputting
large cash deposits.

She's not paying any taxes
on this income,

so we had a tax case on her.

And then we had an extensive
money laundering case on her,

and also obstruction
of justice charges.

So we hit her with, like,
every type of charge

you could imagine
through this financial analysis

and through our evidence
from other witnesses.

So we reached the point where
we now have enough evidence

to go arrest Marilyn.

- We show up at the house
in Lake George

to go arrest Marilyn.

She's got these two big
Siberian husky dogs.

And we know
she loves these dogs.

So there's talk amongst
the team members,

"Hey, listen, if these dogs
try and attack anybody,

we're gonna have
to kill these dogs."

- We knew that if something
had happened to those dogs

during that arrest,

that we probably wouldn't
get any cooperation.

- We decided, since
she's not a dangerous person,

to just call her up
on the megaphone

and tell her
to lock up the dogs,

come out of the residence.

So she did come out.

And it took us
maybe 15 minutes--

- Not even.
- I think,

to get her to cooperate.

We didn't have to show her
the evidence.

She knew everything--
- She--

- You know.
- Looked relieved.

And she goes, "OK, you got me."

And she tells Mario,

I got to take my pills with me.

And Mario is like,
"Oh, no, you cannot."

So he wouldn't let her
take her Xanax.

Those prescription drugs
were illegal.

- We didn't want to start
interviewing her

until she was off the drugs.

We had to check her
into a rehab center temporarily

because she's of no value to us

unless she's thinking clearly.

- No one from the organization
knew that she was in custody.

So we had to take care
of her 24/7.

She was a very sweet girl.

She wanted to just hang out
with us, you know?

Like, she felt like she was
now part of this family,

and I'm gonna help you
guys now.

She embraced it.

- At this time, we gotta
continue the money drops

that she--she was getting money
from Colombian couriers

every couple of months.

They would come to upstate
New York and drop her money.

So she goes,
" got to go back to Albany

and get my money drop, or
they're gonna know, you know"--

- That something's--
she's not showing up.

- Yeah, she's not showing.

And that's when it gets
a little bit more dangerous

because now these are cartel,
you know, couriers,

and we're not quite sure
who they are,

not having identified them.

So we made sure
for this money drop, we go,

"It's gotta be a public--

we gotta be able
to be around you."

So she insisted on meeting
at the Amtrak station

in Albany for this money drop.

And we were able to cover
that money drop.

With Marilyn,
it was weeks of debriefings.

And we had to go through all
the entries in the ledger book,

all her knowledge,
from growing up to the present,

with Magluta.

We had sent those ledger books
up to FBI headquarters

to have them deciphered.

And some of the ledger books
had real names and addresses,

but a lot of it
was just nicknames,

like check marks and dates

that didn't really
make a lot of sense.

So we needed Marilyn to
decipher those ledger books.

- Marilyn knew a lot
about the organization,

so she was able to
give us information

as to who the individuals were
in the ledger books.

She created her own nicknames
for them

because they reminded her
of something,

or she met them,
and they had dogs,

so she named him Perros,
you know, or stuff like that.

She talked about
money deliveries

to the murder suspects
and hitmen.

And she also talked about
a confession

that Sal confessed about
the murders and why he did it.

Then she said
he was the one

that was responsible
for ordering these murders.

He knew they were going on.

So that was our only evidence
of an admission,

was from Marilyn saying that

they were together
romantically.

Then Sal confessed.

- So in mid 1999,

we've been
in this investigative stage,

you know,
since January of 1997.

So now the US Attorney's office
is ready

to bring the indictments.

And there's gonna be two sets
of indictments that come out.

Number one is the indictment
for the obstruction

and money laundering.

And at that same time,

we're also gonna bring
the indictment on the murders

part of the case as well.

So between
these two indictments,

now, we're indicting
over 20 subjects

who were involved
in the obstruction

of the original case,

whether it be murders,
whether it be money laundering,

whatever your role was.

We tried our best
to hold everybody accountable.

One of the individuals that
was part of the big takedown

in 1999 had information
that Luis Valverde

had money stored at his house,

millions of dollars
stored at his house.

As we did an
investigation of him,

we learned that he was employed
as an air conditioning

maintenance worker
for Dade County Schools,

making a very modest salary.

But he's living in a luxury
home in South Florida.

So when the agents executed the
search warrant at his house,

he was initially very confident

and denying
he has any knowledge

of any money in the house.

And as the agent started
to go up into the attic,

they could notice him
getting a little bit nervous,

getting maybe a little sweaty.

And they ended up finding
$6.2 million in cash.

- So was Willie Falcon part
of that final indictment?

- Yes, yes.
- Yes.

- So Willie Falcon was locked
up for weapons violation.

He was indicted
on money laundering

and obstruction of justice
charges.

Sal was indicted in
the homicides conspiracy

part of the case.

And Willie, there was no
evidence that he had anything

to do with the homicide.

So he was not indicted
on the homicides.

So we had to sever
the two of them.

We couldn't try them together.

They had to have
separate trials.

In 2002, we go to trial
against Sal Magluta,

but this time, we're not gonna
make the same mistakes

like last time.

All our witnesses are in
the witness security program.

And the jury this time is
gonna be an anonymous jury.

So nobody knows the names
of these jurors,

and it's gonna be
a sequestered jury.

- Jurors enter the courthouse
underground in a Marshals van,

kept under guard in a hotel
somewhere in South Florida,

sequestered as they will be

for this three-
to six-month trial.

- We were still very confident
that we were gonna get,

you know,
a guilty verdict in the case.

But as the deliberations
went on longer and longer,

we start to get
a little bit nervous.

So the jury comes out,

and it's a mixed verdict.

He was convicted
on 12 of the 29 counts.

- Right, sure.

- He was acquitted on
all the homicide counts.

He's been convicted on all
the money laundering charges

and some of the obstruction
of justice.

And the judge sentenced him
to 205 years.

- How did it feel to
finally bring Sal Magluta

and Willie Falcon to justice?

- I was proud to be part of it.

As a police officer,
I saw the beginning of it all,

and then I joined the FBI
and shut them down.

It was very rewarding.

A lot of the people,
they're like,

"Oh, they were just
drug traffickers."

And I'm like,
he didn't get 205 years

for just being
a drug trafficker.

He brought in tons of cocaine.

He was responsible
for our crack epidemic

that occurred in Miami,

the crime wave, addiction,

suicides, overdoses.

So 205 years
is a little light for me.

He's right where
he needs to be.

- In my 30-year career
in the FBI,

this was the most significant
case that I worked on

because this really was, you
know, an attack on the whole,

you know, justice system,
you know,

what they did
by bribing jurors,

murdering witnesses,

laundering millions of dollars
in drug money.

So our team needed to show
the community that,

you know, drug organization
is not gonna get away

with this type of conduct

in the Southern District
of Florida

or anywhere else
in the United States.