In January 1981, Marta Falcon, mother of “Cocaine Cowboy” Willy Falcon, was kidnapped with a $500,000 ransom demanded for her release, as T.J. English explains in “The Last Kilo: Willy Falcon and the Cocaine Empire That Seduced America” (William Morrow, out now).
For Falcon, the head of Miami’s Los Muchachos drug traffickers, the money was irrelevant. “In the larger scheme of cocaine profits, it was chump change,” he writes. “But something else was at work, something ominous and diabolical.”
He had reason to worry.
A month earlier, an associate of Falcon’s was kidnapped by the same people, and when the ransom didn’t materialize, “they murdered the kidnap victim, cut his testicles off, and stuffed them into his mouth,” English writes.
While Marta Falcon was released unharmed, it was a stark reminder of the risks involved in the drug trade — even though Falcon’s operation never used violence, preferring corruption to preserve their place in the “narcosphere.”
“Dirty cops, lawyers, judges, and politicians feeding off the profits of the narcosphere is what made the world go round,” writes English. “This existed at every level of the business, in every country, state, and city where kilos of coke passed through grubby hands on its way to and up the nostrils of the consumer.”
Over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, Falcon and Salvador “Sal” Magluta, perfected cocaine trafficking.
When they were apprehended in 1991, prosecutors estimated Los Muchachos had imported seventy-five tons of pure cocaine into America, although Falcon believed it was nearer 700, with a street value of $50 billion.
“It made them the preeminent cocaine smugglers during a period when the product if it was a legal commodity, would have dominated the New York Stock Exchange,” says English.
“The Last Kilo” is based on interviews English conducted with Augusto Guillermo “Willy” Falcon following his release from prison in 2017 after a 27-year sentence. Magluta was not available.
“He was incarcerated, serving a 195-year sentence on cocaine trafficking, obstruction of justice, and money-laundering charges — the same charges that ensnared Falcon,” writes English.
In 1967, the Falcon family fled Cuba during the revolution when Willy was just eleven, settling in ‘Little Havana’ in Miami. Within a few years, he would be hustling when the emerging cocaine market caught his eye.
His first deal in 1976 netted him and then partner, Tony Bemba, a profit of $700,000. When he teamed up with fellow Miami Senior HS dropout Magluta their business went stratospheric.
By the time they offloaded their fourth shipment in 1977, they cleared $2.5 million from that single deal alone.
By 1983, demand for cocaine was insatiable. It wasn’t just high rollers indulging, it was lawyers, real estate agents, politicians, and police officers — and Falcon was making $100 million a year.
“Cocaine broke down inhibitions and made revelers get it on,” English explains. “For a time, Falcon and those like him became stars in their own right. “They were the deliverers of good times.”
Los Muchachos bought airplanes, built landing strips in rural Florida, and developed their own impregnable short-wave radio communication system.
Later, they worked the West Coast, driving 100 kilo loads from Florida to Los Angeles and San Francisco. They even dealt with notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar, who called Falcon ‘The Doctor’ because he cured his distribution problems.
In the mid-1980s Falcon moved to New York where a new drug — crack — threatened the profitability and, ironically, the reputation of his operation. “It was no longer about speedboats, women in bikinis and disco balls,” says English. “The good times had taken a dark turn.”
The long-running War on Drugs launched by President Nixon in 1971 compounded matters.
Having spent $47 billion, Congress allocated an additional $11 billion to it. “The War on Drugs entered a new phase; it was an orchestrated propaganda war,” says English. “Cocaine traffickers were more likely viewed as merchants of death and destruction — and un-American.”
For the first time, the pair discussed getting out of cocaine. But the business had become a commercial juggernaut with thousands in South America and the US dependent on it. “The spigot could not simply be shut off without immediate and dire consequences,” says English.
Awash with cash, they plowed money into more legitimate concerns. They launched construction firms and bought a ranch and a farm, with its own private airstrip. And they indulged themselves with powerboats, winning multiple races with their team ‘Seahawk’.
Magluta was even on the commission overseeing the American Power Boat Association.
“They were the kings of their domain,” adds English.
But in October 1991, they were finally caught. Magluta was first to be apprehended when a 25-man team from the U.S. The Marshals Service stormed his palatial La Gorce Island home. Five hours later, Falcon’s Fort Lauderdale mansion was raided and as he was arrested, Falcon shouted: “F–k you all bitches!”
As well as a million dollars in cash and gold bullion, the raids netted fake driver’s licenses and passports, unlicensed firearms, and, critically, ledgers detailing financial transactions.
It was game over for Los Muchachos. “After years of investigation,” writes English, “they finally had the tiger by the tail.”
