I got caught up in the excitement, and then I got caught up in the money, and then I got caught up in the power. Don't give me a hard time. I'm going to rearrange your world. Life in Colombia, it's worth less than a Coca-Cola. I didn't sit in this thing to kill people. Did I heard people? I've heard a few people along the way that I beat to a pulp. Go ahead and shoot me. I'm going to show you how a man dies. I said, my buddy, I'm going to see you again.

I'll be in hell waiting for you. T.J. Dominguez is the biggest drug trafficker I've spoken with on this podcast. He was Pablo Escobar's most invaluable cocaine pilot for almost a decade during the 1980s. Pablo had many pilots, but TJ was the only one to become a drug lord himself.

He had a vertically integrated organization, meaning he controlled the cocaine from its origin in Colombia all the way to its distribution on the streets of Miami.

He had teams of workers flying the cocaine into the Bahamas, more workers to smuggle it on speedboats into South Florida,

and then a network of distributors who moved the product all over the United States.

He owned hundreds of mansions along the coast of Florida, ran the most successful Ferrari

dealership in the world, and laundered tens of millions of dollars a year through shady Swiss

bankers and Hasidic diamond dealers in New York City.

His life literally was Scarface meets Miami Vice, a true boss. There's an amazing podcast series on

TJ's life called Cocaine Air, available now wherever you get your podcasts. I listen to it in one

sitting. It's that good. Make sure you check it out.

And for a bonus episode with TJ, where he talks about his relationship with Pablo Escobar

and gives never before heard secrets of the Medelline cartel, head over to patreon.com

slash the Connect show. I don't know how we're going to top this one, you guys. There will never

be another like him. T.J. Dominguez, right here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell.

I was forced to know a lot about Cuba, and my father pounded it on my head. I don't know Cuba.

I was born in Cuba, but hell, I left when I was a baby. And my mom said, as long as communism's

on that island, we don't put a foot back in that island. So I've never gone back. Wow, staunchly,

staunchly anti-communist, anti-Castro, as most of the Cubans who came to Miami were at the time.

Yeah. You, we've spoken to a lot of drug traffickers, drug kingpins, what have you, whatever

kind of label you want to put on it.

You, T.J. are the only one who managed to be vertically integrated, meaning you had the

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