Digital Social Hour
Surviving 33 Years in Prison: Roger Reaves' Shocking Tale | Roger Reaves DSH #1169
Sat, 08 Feb 2025
🚨 Unbelievable! Hear Roger Reaves’ shocking journey of surviving 33 years in prison and his rise as one of the biggest drug smugglers in history. From outsmarting the DEA to dodging bullets in Colombia, Roger shares jaw-dropping stories of danger, survival, and resilience. 🌍💥 🎙️ Join Sean Kelly in this special episode of the Digital Social Hour Podcast as he dives deep into Roger’s extraordinary experiences—from his humble beginnings on a Georgia farm to wild escapes across borders and his incredible transformation. This episode is packed with valuable insights and unforgettable moments you can’t afford to miss. 🙌 👉 Tune in now for a rollercoaster of emotions, real-life drama, and lessons you never knew you needed. Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🚀 #truecrime #famouscriminals #crimedocumentary #wolfofwallstreet #truecrimedocumentary #truecrime #documentary #interview #cocaine #insider CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:33 - Growing up poor in Georgia 06:24 - The bear wrestling story 06:44 - Beginning of criminal career 14:07 - When it got serious 18:05 - The shootout incident 19:54 - Operation Star Trek overview 22:21 - The Goat Ranch experience 25:28 - First arrest story 31:59 - Prison #2 - The Dead Cow Pile 35:40 - Last time in Mexico 36:24 - Flying drugs from Colombia 43:18 - Shot down by Colombian military 44:58 - Meeting Barry Seal 48:04 - Meeting Sonia Atala 51:47 - Dealing with snitches 54:07 - Encounter with Medellin Cartel 1:00:25 - Meeting Jorge Ochoa 1:06:31 - The endgame strategy 1:08:10 - Beginning of the end 1:08:21 - Barry's betrayal 1:15:25 - Fleeing to Brazil 1:16:40 - Moving to South Africa 1:18:35 - Daddy's Poem 1:19:41 - Miriam’s letter to her dad 1:23:30 - Final thoughts and reflections APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: jenna@digitalsocialhour.com GUEST: Roger Reaves https://www.instagram.com/rogerreavessmuggler/ www.youtube.com/@rogerreavessmuggler9241 https://smugglerrogerreaves.com/ LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/
Chapter 1: What is Roger Reaves' early life story?
All right, guys, we got Roger Reeves here today. Come a long way from the South. Let's go. Thank you, Sean. Absolutely. You grew up in the South, right? In Georgia, yeah. How long were you there? 26 years. Wow. I'm 27, so that's my whole life. What made you want to move out? Well, the bloodhounds was after me.
The sheriff arrested me. You got ran out of there? And every three months, the, what do you call it? The circuit judge came through and they have the 24 men for them to decide whether they got enough to make a bill from you. I was around there in the soda fountain shaking everybody's hands. Remember me? I'm William Reeves' son. And the lawyer grabbed me and said, get out of here, boy.
You'll get more trouble interfering with the grandeur than you ever will with that whiskey.
So that's when your life on the run began, 26?
Well, no. I wasn't on the run because they didn't indict me. But that's the reason. I might have to back up here and just tell the whole story. Yeah, yeah.
Let's talk about it.
I was raised on a three-mule farm in Georgia. We had tobacco was about the only thing that made any money. The other stuff, we worked hard at peanuts and cotton and some corn and wasn't much, a 100-acre farm. And my daddy was a bad alcoholic. And so we lived poorer than we should have. And I worked in the grocery store from the time I was 14 years old until I was about 18.
And my daddy was 54 years old when I was 17. He died just one day. He had an aneurysm. And seven little brothers and sisters. I had a baby sister six weeks old in the house with my mother. She was beautiful and 41 years old. And he owed more money on the farm than it was worth. so we went to work. I mean, my mother, we, we, I went to work and, uh, um, we grew tobacco mainly.
What should we paid it out and watermelons. But, uh, when I got 18, I, uh, And I went up to Canada. I hitchhiked up there to a crop tobacco, picking tobacco, transient farm worker. It was 1,100 miles. And they paid $20 a day in room and board up there. And in Georgia, you only made $3 or $4 a day, whatever you could get.
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Chapter 2: How did Roger Reaves start his criminal career?
And I went up there and, oh, big tobacco farm, beautiful big Belgium draft horses. And I'd pick my foot up and one put his down behind me. And their nostrils was on me all day long. I was tough from working on a farm in Georgia and the heat didn't bother me. So after we was into the crop a couple of weeks, boys came over from another farm and said, you want to go to the carnival tonight?
Oh, sure, I want to go to a carnival. So we got in a 1949 Ford, and away we went to Tilsonburg, Ontario, Canada. I don't know how far it was, 50 miles. And we got there, and it was a huge fair carnival. Big tents. It was the first thing was the hoochie-coochie show. I'd never seen anything like that. Went in for our 50 cents and going down the road a little bit.
And there was a huge man on the platform, and he's got a little bear in a cage over there in a circus wagon. And he's saying, brand new $500, $100 bill that anybody got guts enough to wrestle my bear and get in that cage and get all four feet off the ground. What's your name, young man? Roger Reeves. How much you weigh, Roger? I weigh 145 pounds. 145-pound man against 600-pound beast.
And he threw me in that cage with that little bear. That little bear wasn't little at all. When he started getting up, he got up all over that circus wagon. And he had big pads on his feet, on his hands and legs, and he had a muzzle on. I wasn't too much worried about it. So I ran into that bear's frown on, and all the things was loose. It made a lot of noise for the crowd.
That bear took one swipe at me and laid me out about six feet tall level, and I hit the ground. Wham! And the crowd here, whoo, sick him, Roger. not on my feet again before I'm laid out the other way. Jeez. So I thought something's got to change. So I grabbed the top of that cage and I kicked that bear with all my shoes on right in the head.
He went back up there and I run into him as hard as I could. And I mean, I had, I knocked him off his feet for sure. Wow.
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Chapter 3: What were Roger Reaves' experiences with bear wrestling and moonshine?
And they was towing it away, Foskey Auto Parts, Douglas, Georgia. what that guy was three times big as I am. And his overalls like Mr. Reeves owed us some money on this. So we got it.
Yeah.
So that's, that's how bad it was. Anyhow, I just wanted to put that out. So we were just devastated, no tractor, no way to go. No money. So now it's when I went up to Canada and worked and come back. And a couple of years later, I went up in, got Mari and we got married and, and came on back to the farm. And I borrowed money against the farm.
My mother signed for me, and we put in 36,000 laying chickens. And the price of feed kept going up, and the price of eggs kept going down until every time we'd pick up a dozen eggs, we lost a nickel. So I was $78,000 in debt. Wow. And I thought, we're going to lose the farm for sure. So I started making moonshine whiskey.
Mm-hmm.
And I got bigger and bigger until I was making a thousand gallons a week. Wow. And so selling at $3 a gallon, it took a dollar to make it. So I was making $2,000 a week. I was paying things off. And then somebody turned me in and I went by and, um,
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Chapter 4: How did Roger Reaves transition to drug smuggling?
Going to the steel, I had the truck loaded with sugar and condensers and barrels, and I saw a car in a place it wasn't supposed to be, and I went down that little side road, and two of them got after me, and I went over logs and through the swamp and through the woods. Finally, I jumped out and ran, and eight doors opened, and those men shot, emptied their pistols at me.
I got nicked across the neck right there. Wasn't bad, but... And then I went into Horse Creek, the big Horse Creek, and it was so cold, I broke ice getting in it. And I must have swam down that creek two miles getting away from them. And I go away from the bulldogs, and I knew they was going to be there soon.
And I walked to my mother's house, and then I went to see a lawyer, and he said, if they didn't catch you, you all right. But they didn't indict me. And so I was arrested for it. That was the first thing. And I think with that, that I saw how easy it was to break the law. And if nobody knows, you're in pretty good shape. So I think that was the beginning of my criminal career right there.
If I hadn't have done that, I would have never got into the drug business. Wow. So that didn't stop you from making moonshine? I quit making moonshine. So I went on that. There was nothing for me in Georgia. I lost my job at a railroad. They fired me because I was making moonshine. And so I went out to California and I worked for a couple of years in construction.
And then I got a job on the Redondo Beach Fire Department. And I thought I had won the lottery. I really did. And so I drove, I spent most of the four years that I was on the fire department driving the back of a hook and ladder truck. And on my days off, we only worked 10 days a month, and we worked 24 hours a day, so we got 20 days off. I would go back to Missouri and buy antiques.
There was a lot of them there on the west side of the Mississippi River. As the settlers would come, the people going to California and Oregon, they would come with their furniture and their dishes and stoves. But when they crossed the river from getting off the train – They got across the river. They couldn't get it in those wagons. Those wagons were Studebakers. Nobody much knows that.
And they were later Prairie Schooners. But that's what came across. And they couldn't get half their furniture in it. So millions of large pieces was left on the river there. And I'd get semi-trucks and bring it back every month and have an auction. I was making pretty good money and owned the fire department. And so I bought an airplane. Then I bought a better one and another one.
And that just was my hobby was to fly. So I'd fly down to Mexico, Mule, particularly, and Mari would come with me and the babies with us, and she would lay in a hammock and read a book, and I'd go fishing, and she'd party train the babies there. And the guy said, why don't you bring some marijuana back with you? I said, I don't know anything about that, mister. What's the deal?
He said, it's the hottest thing since pancakes, man. There is nothing, nothing better than that. I said, what did he pay? He said, I'll introduce you to someone. So he introduced me to a really nice guy. He was paralyzed. I didn't realize he couldn't walk. Beautiful voice. And he said, you got an airplane? Bring some pot back. I said, I don't know. I said, What would you pay?
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Chapter 5: What was Roger Reaves' scariest experience while smuggling?
I flew to Atlanta and picked my wife up, Mari, and we had to roll out the carpet there on the International Runway. So I flew with that plane. I flew so many loads until I brought the price down from $100 to $60 a pound in California.
Damn.
That year. And they was catching a lot of pilots. They was catching almost everything coming across the border called Operation Star Trek. And so I figured out a way to beat it. I'd come out of southern Mexico or wherever I was coming and go to the middle of Baja, California. And there was a ranch there, a goat ranch, where they made cheese. It was 20 miles to the nearest road.
And there was a strip there. And I landed there and asked a guy named Juan if I could unload my marijuana there while I went to town for fuel. Sure. So I gave him $500, and I'd go to town. We put it under the musket trees, the doves. It was such a beautiful place, unbelievably beautiful. And I'd go to Mule Hay, and they'd wash my plane, fill it up with fuel.
I'd have lunch, maybe rent a room and have a nap. I'd fly back out there in the afternoon and load back up. And I would take off and go west and there was an island of Guadalupe, 200 miles off the coast of Baja. And I would go there and then I would head northwest until I was 300 miles off the coast of San Diego and I put it down pretty low.
Then I went north until I got behind the Santa Barbara Islands and they're 4,000 feet tall. And then I'd come in low behind him and there was an airstrip there and I'd pull up and go on out into the desert and unload. Wow. I did that over a hundred times. Holy crap. And they never caught on? They never caught on to what I was coming in. Dang. I didn't tell that until recently.
So that was my marijuana. I'd like to tell one about on the way down. I said, I better stop. I was going south, and I said, I better stop at the goat ranch and see if everything's okay before I go get a load. I'd usually go down to Cabo San Lucas, and that was before the road was even made, and it was dirt streets. And so I stopped, and Juan came up on his fast-walking mule.
Hey, little one, how is everything? Not so good, senor. I said, what's the matter? He said, when you left last time, the soldiers came. Oh, 50 of them. And they camped under all these trees here waiting on you to come back. And they ate my goats. What? I said, he said, look, and he took me out of the plot. There's a pile of bones that big. I saved the bones to show you. I said, how many?
He said, they just shot the nannies, the ones closest to the pot. They ate my goats. And so I said, how many did they? And he said, I believe he said 50 that they ate. And there was a pile. I said, how much for each one of them? And I forget what it was, $30 or $50 a piece. And I had money in my pocket. I gave it to him, and he was happy again.
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Chapter 6: How did Roger Reaves survive his first arrest and imprisonment?
citizen, right? No, but they all over. They'll extradite you out of there. I don't know how they got her. Damn. But that book, The Big White Lie of the CIA and the Cracked Cocaine Epidemic, it's a good book. And they put a whole chapter of me and her in that chapter.
Hmm.
She brought down a lot of people. I don't know. She did what she wanted to. She's living here in the United States in witness protection.
Wow. You never wanted to go that route? Oh, absolutely not. Which is respectful. You're either a snitch or you're not. Yeah. A lot of people you worked with, though, like some guys here.
Every one of them.
Every one of them? Every single one of them. Wow.
I was... I was doing some work, and I'll just tell you about this. I told my friend Jerry, when I first started, I said, Jerry, that guy's an asshole. He said, Roger, remember this. In this business, if you don't work with assholes, you're going to be lonely. I love that. About the truth. Yeah. Not all of them, but there was plenty of them.
They just blow life that'll tell on you in a minute. Yeah. So you had to live pretty cautiously who kept around you, right? Yeah.
I didn't, I didn't, I didn't smoke the stuff. I didn't, I didn't do it. I didn't fool with those people. So I had nobody around me. I come home with my family and went to church and went and bought grocers and went down the road and whatever I had to do, you know, plowed my garden and I lived a normal life.
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Chapter 7: What are the details of Roger Reaves' escape stories?
And then I'd heard Barry had turned. While you were in prison? Well, yeah, towards the end of it. I don't know how I heard, but somebody was like, wasn't just right. So I was home and Mari had rented a house and it was nice. And I was eating breakfast in there. It was Ronald Reagan face on the news. And there was a seat 126, Barry's. bailed in on the military strip there in Nicaragua.
And Ronald Reagan's blue eyes said, we have absolute positive proof that the communist Sandinista government is in the cocaine running business. And there it was. So the phone rang. And Barry says, Roger, I'm coming out tonight. Meet me at such and such a little French restaurant there in town. So I met him at 9 o'clock. And I went in and he was sitting back at the back.
And the room was 20 people or more. All of them 25, 35-year-old DE agents, of course.
Wow.
Women with their leather skirts and men with their... port jacket, and Barry was leaning back. I said, Barry, you wired? He said, no, I'm not wired. I said, well, I'm not going to say anything. Just tell me what's happening. So he went to tell me how that he had been protected by the Clintons, CIA, everybody in the unloading. I was giving him $50,000 every time I landed for his protection.
So he said, they all abandoned me. So I was facing three life sentences. So I told everybody. I told on all of them. And they said, I've told them you're part of it too. I said, you can come to Miami and testify with me. You can get a new passport, keep your money, live anywhere in the world you want to live. I said, all of them. But he just put his fingers over his eyes.
I mean, he put his hands up, and the tears run between his fingers. He said, I'm so sorry, Roger. I'm so sorry. I just couldn't do it. I just couldn't do three life sentences. And I said, Barry, they're going to kill you for it. No, no, no. And I said, well, bring your head honcho over. And the guy was Jake Jacobson, the guy that they had gone down and got one and a half tons.
And I put it in that C-126 and bellied it in the runway there in Nicaragua. And then they called Pablo Escobar and said, we need another airplane. And Barry had a camera inside clicking and one under the wing clicking. Wow. He said, you could hear them clicking. Wow. And Pablo Escobar comes and you can see, and you can read about this and you've got pictures of it in the book.
Um, Kings of cocaine. It's got a chapter about me in there. And, um, So you see Pablo Escobar and some of those generals toting the cocaine from one plane to the other. And they take it on into Florida. And then Leto, my friend, gets it. And they drive down the road in a motorhome. And they have a dump truck with the agent ram into it. And Leto's the last thing that's the end of the game.
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