![]() ![]() "They were like gods in the doper community," says Sean Convoy, a supervisor for the U.S. Their ability to operate in plain view of local police and federal agents gave them the aura of modern-day Untouchables. Falcon won the 1986 Offshore Challenge off the Florida Keys Magluta won three national championships and was a member of the commission that oversees the American Power Boat Association. Throughout the early and mid-Eighties, both men, and many others within their organization, were stars on the powerboat racing circuit - the preferred sport of drug smugglers. Writes DeFede: Falcon and Magluta constructed their empire, not while maintaining a low profile, but while basking in the public spotlight. This is the first of then- Miami New Times staff writer Jim DeFede’s stories about the case, originally published in the paper's February 12, 1992, issue and titled “Willy & Sal.” The longform feature, which was accompanied by a sidebar, “They Owned the Ranch,” covers the arrest of the alleged cocaine cowboys and provides a detailed account of the decade-long chase that led to their apprehension. When the two Miami Senior High School dropouts were finally captured by federal agents in October of 1991, prosecutors alleged that they’d amassed more than $2.1 billion in cash and assets by smuggling at least 75 tons of cocaine into the United States over the years.īut that was only the beginning of the legal proceedings against Willy and Sal, which dragged on for nearly a decade, dogged by law-enforcement snafus, doomed prosecutorial strategies, numerous incidences of jury tampering, escapes, murders, and other mayhem. ![]() Editor’s note: Below is the first of ten in-depth stories Miami New Times published about the federal government's dogged pursuit of Augusto Falcon and Salvador Magluta - AKA Willy Falcon and Sal Magluta, AKA Willy and Sal, AKA "Los Muchachos," AKA "The Boys" - two Cuban-American boyhood friends from Miami who grew up to head what was alleged to be the most lucrative cocaine empire in South Florida for nearly 20 years beginning in the late 1970s. ![]()
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