the cocaine air podcast

In the decadent 1980's in South Florida...

T.J’ Dominguez is leading a double life. By day he's an upstanding businessman, running an armada of successful enterprises. But by night, he's making - adjusted for inflation - nearly $100 million a month flying tons and tons of cocaine for Pablo Escobar - and his family has no idea!

“I had 30 Lamborghinis, and I dressed well. They brought me the car that matched the shirt that I decided to wear that day.” Dominguez says.

In and around South Florida, Dominguez owned a cell phone company, a housing development, a charter airplane and boat business and an exotic car dealership that sold more Lamborghinis than any other dealership in the world. And Dominguez has never spoken publicly about his near decade of cocaine smuggling until now.

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episodes

Episode 1 - So I conned him back...

In this episode we meet the inimitable T.J. Dominguez fresh out of Federal Prison 3 days ago. He sits down with Johnathan Walton at a secret location, somewhere in Florida, and begins to unpack his unbelievable story. Believe it or not, TJ only became a cocaine smuggler to keep a deathbed promise he made to his father.

Episode 2 - Not my day to die...

TJ figures out how to smuggle large quantities of marijuana from the Bahamas into the Miami-Ft Lauderdale area. And it almost kills him 100 different times.

Episode 3 - Let me show you how a man dies...

TJ buys an old airplane and crash lands learning how to fly it. He eventually gets it to Colombia and starts making mad money smuggling South American weed. But all hell breaks loose when TJ loses a couple shipments of marijuana worth nearly a million dollars and the Colombians kidnap him. And they plan to murder him. Just like they murdered the last smuggler who lost a shipment for them. Like a scene out of a movie, the Colombians tie TJ to a chair in an abandoned farmhouse and point a gun to his head. Then TJ shocks them into confusion with these four words: “Go ahead. Kill me.”

Episode 4 - I need a million dollars like I need air...

TJ has 24 hours to get his hands on $800,000 cash or those Colombians who kidnapped him are going to kill him. And then kill his entire family. It's interesting, TJ got scammed by a couple of conniving con artists and turned it into a $500 million cocaine business. I got scammed by 'The Irish Heiress' and wrote: 'Anatomy of a Con Artist' for Penguin Random House to teach people how to spot the con artist in their lives BEFORE they get scammed.

Episode 5 - I'm the one signing the checks around here...

One of TJ's underlings is stealing from him. And when he is busted he thinks TJ is going to kill him. But TJ has other inventive ways to teach this guy a lesson.

Episode 6 - The tailspin down...

TJ never actually gets busted smuggling cocaine. He's felled by someone from his inner circle. The person who brings TJ down is someone he loves. Someone he trusts. And someone who turns out to be a 'Judas' - betraying TJ in the worst imaginable way.

Episode 7 - The Cutting Room Floor - Part 1

Executive producer Evan Goldstein and I fuss and discuss some of the wild and crazy T.J. stories that ended up on the cutting room floor. What was Pablo Escobar like? How can you offset the weight of 500 pounds of cocaine in your car trunk ? How do you unload a ton of cocaine from your boat to your waterfront mansion with your nosey neighbors watching, while keeping them in the dark about what's REALLY going on?