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The Bmf Documentary: Blowing Money Fast - Season 2 Episode 3 - The Rise Of Black Mafia Family
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00:00we were making a lot of money our name was ringing out there with this newfound wealth
00:22came newfound jealousy with the streets comes to violence demetrius saw that he was either going to
00:28be arrested or murdered so he left Detroit Tony and I got close eventually we become a couple he
00:37just became somebody that I could trust start seeing some funny things going on like surveillance
00:44we want to get Intel on these guys we gotta know who they connected with where they go I'm telling
00:49Terry we being watched we being followed I slide out the back door and I disappear let's just leave
00:56and never look back everybody's shining like no money
01:17the mid-90s was incredibly important for what BMF became
01:46Terry joined Demetrius in LA and had gone full time to the west coast before Los Angeles Demetrius
01:55was going city to city building a network that for years afterwards he could tap and integrate into
02:03his business but he didn't have the supply line to actually do that they had to in some way start
02:08from scratch the reason I moved to California there's a lot of heat on in Detroit I adjusted quick because
02:17when I arrived in LA it felt like a place I supposed to been it gave me that surge in LA everybody's waking up
02:25doing something you know so it gave me that drive to get up and go and again it's a lot of money to be made
02:34I knew my season and my time was up in Detroit and there was no looking back hey bye bye Detroit I
02:42decided to just make the move with Terry we end up living in this condo in California for a bit then
02:50I'm like I can't live like this I come from my house we gotta what you gonna do
02:55the well was running dry they needed that connection or that entire vision was going to
03:04come crashing to the ground and they would have to go back to Detroit with the tail between their legs
03:08this call is from Demetrius Flannery an inmate at a federal prison
03:14one thing about LA nobody out there ever gave us anything maybe you can say we didn't know the right
03:19people but at the time didn't get enough out of LA so we had to find the plug they had the intuition to
03:27understand that the new drug game was coming out of Mexico and across the southern border they knew
03:35they had to sniff out a new source they made it clear all they ever needed was a plug you'd be
03:42surprised what we could do that was an understatement that was probably the understatement of the century
03:49I was fortunate enough to meet this dude they might call the green eyes we were looking for
03:55some smoke and he was selling some weed over in his hood
03:58I'm from Westside Culver City gang in Los Angeles I've been around drugs all my life seeing people use
04:10them sell them and me likewise too I used them and sold them since I was about 14 yeah I came from a
04:19projects I grew up on welfare and food stamps when educated people grow with educated people they
04:25tell them here look this is what you can do and this is what you can be and I have people telling
04:29me look this is what we do and I was like well fuck it I'll just be the best I could be at this shit
04:34Terry and Meech they were looking for work and I knew that I could help
04:40Green Eyes was a real plug we get this piece together the sky's the limit
04:46you got tons of coke when you Mexican cartel connected our goal was just to get tons and distribute these
04:55tons and make a lot of money Green Eyes was tied to the highest levels of some of these cartels
05:02so Terry and Meech went right to the source Terry and Demetrius actually traveled to Mexico on a number
05:10of occasions to have face time with some of these cartel bosses the first time we ever experienced
05:16going to Mexico we crossed illegally then we went to mountains they had guys take us we walked in the
05:27desert running from the army and banditos and eventually end up at this ranch somewhere in
05:33Mexico we don't even know where we at the Mexican cartels had become incredibly powerful and dangerous
05:44they control the government they also controlled the law enforcement a lot different out there practically
05:53lawless just like you see on those shows on TV branches with guys with guns pickup trucks with
06:01guys with guns barns sometimes with drugs everywhere sometimes with money that's exactly how they move
06:10these cartels are murdering tens of thousands of people bringing in millions of dollars worth of drugs on
06:20a daily basis you got the magazine called alarm when you look at it you know it's ten bodies over
06:26here with no heads it's vicious man they're playing a vicious game I think we was down there in Perry like
06:33three weeks we were orchestrating sending the drugs from Mexico to us in the US the cartel was
06:46responsible for getting it from Mexico and across the border once it's in our possession the price shoots
06:53up to almost triple quadruple so you can get wealthy faster eventually Meach and I go back to California
07:02but once we started cartel plug that was it from there we climbed the ladder we was able to buy 500
07:12a thousand cash at a time a lot of it was coming through the border that separates San Diego from Mexico
07:20I'll just get a call and then I go pick up it was just an exchange of vehicles it would get the
07:27green eyes green eyes green eyes would call me let me know it was here we always just had a code
07:32words that we would go by Tuesday call me say fat boy you ready to go to the gym let's go work out so
07:39I know he's on his way he would bring 200 or 300 kilos at a time two hours later call me again let's go
07:46work out this shit didn't got too sweet the end of that day we was at 1500 kilo from that point on
07:53turned into being a world we didn't know exactly which cartel we were working with till somebody
08:02calls me and say hey he is some jury for his guys back in Mexico these are some heavyweights big name
08:09people who don't even speak English they wanted to buy jury for single to mile so I gave him two
08:16million dollars worth of jury out of New York from the world famous Jacob the jeweler and they were
08:22blown back by me being able to get two million dollars worth of jury so they called to thank
08:28me in Spanish for being able to do that and he says hey you don't even know who you was talking to
08:34I said I don't he said yo man you talking to the heads of the Cinderella cartel I said what the hell is
08:42the Cinderella cartel was Chapo Guzman El Chapo the most infamous drug boss maybe ever the leader of the
08:54Cinderella cartel known for his focus and willingness to commit violent acts understand we buy from the
09:03cartel they didn't make us it wasn't no you don't do business with us we gonna kill you my reputation
09:10was just as big as any cartel I didn't have to worry about no violence we kept the bill right and they
09:17kept the business right Meech and I broke this record for moving the most drugs that made them loose
09:24enough to send us mass scales and shipments the rest was history the final piece of the puzzle was
09:34their connection to the Mexican cartels it was like turn down a faucet and everybody was drinking out of
09:42that faucet and at that point Demetrius can go back to all the cities that he had campaigned in and said
09:51you know remember what I promised you well here it is on a silver platter and now we're going to
09:56the moon together
10:03Stakes rise through the roof when you're dealing with cartels that is gonna draw the ire of the government
10:12Now you had the most prominent cartel Sinaloa and an up-and-coming VMF they fueled each other
10:21when Terry and Meech came on my radar we began to understand who they were it took time because in
10:28those days there wasn't a lot of communication between DEA divisions and offices Terry and Meech
10:35depended on the fact that the good guys the cops were not talking to each other we weren't connecting
10:40to the dots
10:43My name is Joseph Cronin I worked with Jack we knew that it was big but we didn't know how big and then it exploded
10:52it was like overnight
10:54We began to put together an operational plan developing informants undercover work court authorized wiretap and just intensive
11:02surveillance the thing you got to try to do is number one identify the players involved in their hierarchy
11:07because there's a code we're not going to rat on each other oftentimes these organizations have
11:13a heavy reliance on family
11:18Starting up Terry and Meech would take a lot of cues from the romanticized version of the Italian Mafia
11:25from movies like the Godfather and Goodfellas and Scarface
11:29We had a movie we liked called Monsters
11:35That movie showed how they formed the crime syndicate, how they formed the monsters
11:40I used to tell Meech I was Maya Lansky and he was Lucky Luciano
11:45In that movie Maya tells Lucky you're the one, you got the look, they don't see me
11:50Between you and me, we're equals, but other people, they look to you
11:59Everything about Maya Lansky, that's me
12:02He didn't want to be seen, but yet Maya was the giant behind the face front of Lucky
12:11Lucky Luciano and Maya Lansky were the founders of the modern day American Mafia
12:16They implemented a nationwide structure that spanned from the west coast to the east coast
12:23And they were all under one umbrella
12:26And Demetrius and Terry were inspired by that
12:31We got people from everywhere in our mind, everybody move as one
12:34Every man plays his own role, everybody move like brothers
12:38We did everything together, it was more or less a brotherhood
12:41And the Italians got their mafia
12:46If you don't hear about no black mafia, no organized crime, the black side of things
12:52Meech just said, yeah, black mafia family
12:55It just kind of fit
12:59Keeping the operation under control was the easy part
13:03Because we had the manpower
13:06Once it's here, then we got to do what we got to do to it
13:08It's got to be taken care of properly
13:11And put away and then shipped out
13:15I ended up coming up with the concept of putting the drugs in the suburban, the high-end areas
13:22Right under their nose
13:24These houses were stash houses
13:26Kept the money in rotation
13:28Or the drugs going out to the locations they were going
13:32We always got the shipments where they needed to be
13:36Our operation was quiet, it ran smooth
13:41Like a UPS or a Walmart situation where we get the drugs right at your door and we had the best prices
13:49We just started picking the different little cities
13:54Like one of my cousins stayed in Memphis
13:57So I would blow him up
13:59He knows the guy that's getting all the work there
14:02But I'm going to bring it where it's going to be cheaper
14:04So we're going to take over that city
14:06By the early 2000s, BMF was operating in almost two dozen different major cities around the United States
14:14And each one of these cities had their own packaging houses, stash houses, their own individual nerve centers
14:18To make sure that that city, that region, worked in conjunction with the other cities in the region
14:24Detroit Hustlers are thinkers, real, strategic
14:29So we're thinking about it as a corporation
14:35From our investigation, we knew there were separation of duties
14:40There was an org chart, there was a hierarchy, and there was delegation of responsibilities
14:46There's usually people involved in some type of security
14:51We have obviously the transportation arm, which is crucial
14:54And then somebody that can handle the money
14:56Meech and I was hands on with a lot of these guys
15:00And we knew a lot of these guys from growing up
15:03It was like family around
15:04When I first met Terry Meech, it had to be in the 90s, when I was still in high school
15:15Then later, I get a phone call saying, hey, are you ready to change your life?
15:21Be on the red eye to fly to California
15:26I just dropped my whole life and left
15:28Eventually, I was probably like third in command in L.A.
15:35So a lot of responsibility always fell on me
15:40The key to America is transportation
15:43So if you have a product in California, you're going to get California rates for it
15:49But if this product is high demand in New York, and you know how to get it there
15:53You can almost name your own price
15:57To move around all these cities, you might have transportation that holds 10
16:03Transportation that holds 20
16:06I've seen minivans
16:08I've seen Mark 8s
16:10Conversion vans
16:12Shit, I've even seen an old-ass Cadillac before
16:15The load moved up, we had to move up with vehicle transportation
16:18It came a point to where Terry was saying, we need to minimize the risk and maximize our efforts
16:27We needed something bigger
16:29So they had put a word out to try to find this guy, Pior, down in Miami
16:35My name is Pierino Varelli
16:37They call me James Bond
16:39McIver
16:41Tableau 7
16:43And many more, but usually they call me Pior
16:45El senor Piero Varelli
16:47A big applause for Varelli
16:49Between 87 through maybe 2003
16:53A lot of the company was making things for movies
16:56They asked me to make some advice
16:59Which was for the time well advanced
17:02Like a voice recognition system
17:05Open the right door
17:07Ahhhh
17:08But not just for movie, also for famous people
17:13The normal request was a video in a car, sound systems
17:17And safe
17:19Esto es una secret compartiment con una safe
17:23Ya, un compartimento secreto
17:27Mitch and Terry, they come in the shop at the time
17:31They give fickening
17:33They come to me and say, I got a limo business
17:35And they said that people didn't want to fly anymore
17:39Because of 9-11, they were scared
17:41So they wanted to basically travel with a limo
17:45And they want to have their own safe in the limo
17:49It makes sense for me
17:51Wealthy people supposed to be traveling
17:53Can be a lot of money, can be jewelry, can be whatever
17:56Important document
17:58And it says this safe got to be waterproof
18:01Anything happen in this car
18:02Even if you go underwater
18:05You got to be sealed
18:07We needed limousines
18:09They had perfect compartments
18:11Airtight, no dog could sniff them
18:14To avoid any heat from any level of the game
18:18So I started to do different type of configuration
18:21And it can open in a lot of different ways
18:24You can use the switch inside the car
18:28To be a keypad
18:29So let them not take attention
18:32Maybe you got to press the window switch down
18:34And press your brake pedal
18:36And then you put the flask on
18:38You got to push the switch in the right sequence
18:41Oh, the safe not going to open
18:43And every car was different
18:45P.R. was a wizard of ours if you ask me
18:47Because the things he could do with a car
18:49He had to down to find science
18:51I really, I like what I was doing
18:54But I don't know really where this car end up
18:57My father's nickname was Lucky
19:00So of course when I was born I was a little lucky
19:03I love driving so I could have did it forever
19:07For driving one trip across the United States
19:11He would pay me $20,000
19:13The driver had to look like he was a limo driver
19:15He always had a white shirt on and a necktie and black slacks
19:18I would be sent to maybe say California or Miami or Atlanta
19:28And I would see these guys
19:31And they would stack a limo in a secret compartment full of cash
19:35That was their payment for the drugs
19:37I would then take the car back to say California
19:40Then they would stack the cars with drugs
19:42And I would run the drugs back to the drug dealer I just received the money from
19:47Until you had a regimen for them
19:49They had to follow this regimen
19:51It was a great system because they had to pay first
19:54Before they received their drugs, so
19:56When we ran our operation
19:59We learned from a lot of our mistakes
20:02There's a major rule in hustling on any level
20:06You never really want your money and your product in the same place
20:11You ever get caught, you lose everything
20:14My awesome team was very meticulous when it came to drivers
20:19You had to have a certain look
20:21Probably be a certain age
20:23It's like a well oiled machine
20:25We had videos on drivers getting busted out of Texas
20:31Arkansas
20:32We would have guys sit and watch these tapes with us
20:36And we'd stop the tapes and say
20:38He tripped them up right there
20:40So we taught them to pay attention to what they were being asked
20:44And just answer the question with one word
20:47We brought the structure and discipline
20:50So it would be no accidents
20:54I have never heard of any organization doing it the way that BML do it
20:59Southwest T and Meech were geniuses in this market
21:04And I thought, no way we can ever be caught
21:11There was a lot of money flowing through BMF
21:14A kilo at that time sold probably like 15, 16,000
21:20If you're paying 10, 12 to get it
21:24That's like half a million dollars every trip
21:26We was already making millions but now
21:30We're making hundreds of millions now
21:32I'll just tell you that these hands have counted more than most banks
21:35L.A. is all in or nothing
21:46We were starting to enjoy the fruits of our labor
21:51It's not cheap to live in L.A.
21:53It's not cheap to flow through L.A.
21:55But the type of money we was bringing in
21:59It was able to afford that lifestyle
22:02From high-end furniture to cars, jewelry, restaurants, you name it
22:08At that point in time in our life, it was amazing
22:15In L.A. they have all these mountains, right?
22:18And me and Terry on the freeway
22:19And he said, I'm gonna move you up there
22:22And I'm like, I don't know how you gonna make that possible
22:25But when he sets his mind to do something, he did it
22:28My whole life changed
22:33Tony and I eventually moved to Mulholland Drive
22:37From the outside looking in, it just looked like normal family
22:41We had barbecues and people got up in the morning and actually left the house
22:45Now I'm living in this different world with all the Hollywood people in this cul-de-sac behind the gate
22:54So I have to become somebody else
23:03I'm sitting next to these wealthy women, these movie stars
23:07And these people thought for sure I was just a housewife with these three children
23:11This Susie Homemaker, I was sticking to this story to all my neighbors
23:17To the schools, I taught my kids to live a double life too
23:22Become neighbors with Shaq, Quincy Jones, Denzel Washington
23:29I actually was good friends with Bruce Willis
23:32A lot of people don't know that
23:34One time, I think we were going to Hawaii or something like that
23:37And hear me and T coming in to the private airport
23:42We pull up into Maybach
23:44With all the Louis luggage
23:46We looking good
23:48Magic Johnson and Cookie come in
23:51And Magic looking like, well who are these people?
23:54So Magic says, I've never seen two black people in private planes on the runway at the same time
24:01I'll let you take off before me
24:02It was kind of like, yeah, we made it too
24:06You know, like that crazy thinking
24:08In reality, forgetting again, no
24:10You selling drugs, you're not like Magic
24:17We started going out a little bit
24:19Real quiet like going out to the celebrity club
24:24That's when I started coming out of my shell
24:27Ego boost a little bit
24:30I'm human, I started to stretch out a little bit
24:35Terry and Meech, they both have their different personalities
24:39Meech, you know, he like to have fun and he like everybody else to have fun with him
24:43Meech likes to party more and T likes to stay in the house more
24:47That don't mean T ain't gonna go out and pop all those bottles
24:49But he gonna take care of his business most of the day and then chill with his family
24:55That kind of helped to stay out the limelight
24:58Southwest T, he always emphasized, take care of your family
25:03We're in this to take care of our family
25:07At this point, the money was just everywhere
25:10Everywhere
25:12It was so much, it was making me nervous
25:14Carlos
25:16Claws in those
25:18Duffel bags
25:20I'm not talking about little Duffel bags
25:22We talk about a body can fit in bags of money, you know
25:25It was just so much and it was coming fast
25:28I wanted Terry to stop
25:31I'm like, we got so much, how much do you think we need?
25:35People don't understand
25:37Money changes people
25:38It does and I think as Terry was growing, he was changing
25:44The more money he made, he started becoming a Terry that I didn't know anymore
25:50It was starting to be a lot more friction and it was because of the stress, the power
25:56But when you get that level, the cartel or the people that need you to supply them are not gonna let you stop
26:04I think deep down in his heart, every time I would say it, Terry wanted to stop, but how do you?
26:15At the same time that Terry has planted the flag for BMF in Los Angeles, Demetrius is setting up permanent residence in Atlanta, which became a hub
26:25BMF was growing, growing, growing, growing, and then one day it's like they're huge, they may have been absorbing and distributing as much as half of the cocaine that Sinaloa was producing, making BMF the largest domestic cocaine distribution organization in U.S. history
26:43Everybody from different places, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Detroit, Texas, Atlanta, Cali, Florida, and we can't be stopped
26:55Well, if you're gonna be successful in this business, you gotta be invisible a lot of times
27:00But Meech didn't want to do that
27:02I believe in living every day like your last
27:06That's to say I go to Atlanta, I go to club, I blow a bunch of money
27:09And I feel like the feds been watching me and so
27:12Well, it's nothing for me to get on a plane and go to L.A. and just sit back
27:16And return to Atlanta whenever I feel like it a couple of months later
27:20We didn't have a hard time finding Meech anywhere he went
27:22At the same time, for years, nobody never heard of me
27:28Nobody even knew who I was, it was quiet
27:31I was a ghost
27:33Nobody never heard of me
27:36Until Meech brought the heat in Atlanta
27:52I was a ghost
27:55I was a ghost
28:13I was a ghost
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