Back in the 1980s, I was leading a double life. By day, I owned and operated the largest Lamborghini dealership in the United States. But by night, I was secretly flying tons of cocaine for Pablo Escobar and smuggling it into South Florida.
I never set out to be a cocaine smuggler. My dad was a real estate developer in Miami and my mom was a homemaker. I had a great childhood. But becoming the victim of a duplicitous con artist completely changed the trajectory of my life and turned me into a different person. And a few years later, I was making tens of millions of dollars every month in the cocaine business.
At the height of my success, I owned 30 airplanes, dozens of boats, multiple mansions and Lamborghinis. I even had a pet mountain lion named Top Cat.
But it all came crashing down in April of 1988 when I was arrested in an early morning raid by federal agents. As I was crouched on my knees getting handcuffed, and as federal agents surrounded me with guns drawn pointing at my head, I thought to myself, “How the hell did I get here?”
I was born in Cuba back in 1952. At that point my father was a senator, a really respectable and noble man. And all I wanted to do, all I ever wanted to do was follow in his footsteps. The brutal dictatorship of Fidel Castro forced my family to flee Cuba and make a new life for ourselves in South Florida. My dad started working in construction, and before long he became a very successful real estate developer.
