You see, Ed had been an entrepreneur from a very early age. He sold art and antiques, and his home was full of them, with Napoleanic mementos among his favorites, but he also dabbled in narcotics transactions, even whilst we were attending law school. Once, he personally smuggled in a couple of kilos in heroin from the Far East inside stereo speakers. Given the draconian penalties meted out for heroin trafficking, one has to be either very bold, or very stupid, to engage in such conduct.

By the time he participated in the Cuban Coffee Caper, he was  dealing kilogram-size lots of cocaine to clients. Remember, this was the heyday, the peak, of the American love affair with cocaine, before the crack epidemic reared its ugly head. Powder cocaine was being used by most young urban professionals, and the long-term physical and social effects were either disregarded or ignored.

Just after his organisation had successfully pulled off its $8.7 fraud with the government of Cuba, (see Part 4 of this series for details) Ed arranged to take delivery of seven kilos of cocaine from, ironically, a coffee salesman, who often moonlighted as a coke dealer due to the high profits such illicit sales generated for the sellers.

Unfortunately, the salesman was then arrested by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA, and he offered to assist the agents in snaring a lawyer, as part of what is referred to as Substantial Assistance, a method by which one can ultimately reduce his sentence. As a cooperating individual, or CI, his ability to assist in the arrest and prosecution of others would act to minimise his ultimate prison time. it is often the only way for arrested drug defendants to avoid a long term inside a medium-security prison.

After the seller delivered the goods, leaving the cocaine in Ed's garage, the DEA pounced, and Ed's world collapsed. He had earned the reputation of a person with a bright future in the Miami business community, because. amongst other achievements, he was the president of the proposed Miami World Trade Centre, and the organiser and a principal of the new Miami Free Trade Zone. His law partner, who represented foreign diplomats, immediately terminated their relationship. Ed's future had become bleak.

The authorities were even more adamant obtaining about a long prison sentence when they learned that Ed was negotiating to purchase 70 kilos of cocaine, which was considered to be a huge amount of drugs in those days. His criminal defence attorney could do little to save him from the inevitable.

Meanwhile, he had suffered a gun pointed at his head by one criminal and had cash extorted from him, and another time had been forced to run directly into traffic, and across a busy freeway, whilst being shot at by still another greedy criminal. He had had precious little time to enjoy the million dollars sitting under his bed, which he claimed was the ultimate aphrodisiac. He was even forced to engage a bodyguard, and to face the distasteful fact that he was headed for federal prison, sooner or later.

Then, it got worse. The female Dutch exporter and heroin trafficker who was a participant in the Cuban Coffee Caper was also a cooperating individual for the DEA, who had actually placed a listening device inside the air conditioner in her living room. The US government thus learned about the fraudsters plan well in advance, but strangely, did nothing to interfere or notify Cuban authorities, allowing it the occur. Why they did not intervene is one of my life's many mysteries, but pressure from Canada, after the fact, caused them to later charge ed with Wire Fraud.

You see, Ed had used the telex machine in his Miami office, and that of his Dutch co-conspirator, to send and receive international communications with the Netherlands Antilles front company operated by the Cuban government. He was charged under what was then one of the most frequently used prosecutorial tools, and he knew what the outcome would be at trial. 

Ed pled guilty in both cases. His back to the wall, Ed actually assisted the US attorney in drafting the charges  in the Cuban Coffee Caper, and pled guilty to an as-yet unfiled count for what is referred to as concurrent time. This means that he would serve both sentences at the same time, and not consecutively.

He received a sentence of eight years on both cases, and served more than three, mainly in a federal facility in Texas, far from home. I used to tell him it was his alternative to military service, but he never saw it that way.

After release, he went right back to associating himself with people involved in illegal pursuits, and so I judged him, correctly, to be my best reference into the underworld of money laundering in the tax havens of the Caribbean. Remember, he had utilised those jurisdictions to layer his organisation's illicit profits from the Cuban Caper, so he knew who could be trusted to ask no questions about the source of illicit cash.

NEXT WEEK: I get started as a laundryman.