Notorious drug smuggler on life with Pablo Escobar, being tortured and prison escapes
| Published date | 15 July 2021 |
| Date | 15 July 2021 |
| Publication title | Daily Star: Web Edition Articles (England) |
But the drug mule's actions came at a devastating cost – spending a total of 33 years behind bars in 26 prisons across four continents.
In an eye-opening interview with Lex Fridman, Roger spoke about working with some of the most feared drug cartels in history, what movies get right about smuggling and how his plane was shot down twice.
Meeting Pablo Escobar
Roger revealed how he performed several smuggling missions for the Medellin Cartel during his career and formed a bond with its head Pablo Escobar.
Upon first impressions, the smuggler believed Escobar to be a “gentleman, just like you and I”.
The drug lord paid for his family to stay in a five-star hotel during meetings. This, Roger said, was for "security" to make sure he was not a drug enforcement agent.
Escobar even rode motorcyles with the smuggler and invited him and his family to live in his extensive estate.
Roger said he predominantly worked under Jorge Ochoa, one of the founders of the cartel. It was Ochoa, he claims, that was the "brains" behind the entire operation.
He claimed the pair were "really nice people" – but then everything changed.
“When I heard about Pablo Escobar blowing up that airline and killing those women and children, I was sorry I ever shook his hand,” he said, referring to the domestic Colombian flight shot down in 1989.
Pablo was ultimately “not a good man at all”, but one Roger believed he could trust in business.
Being shot down
Most of Roger's smuggling flights went by without a hitch, but on certain occasions they went disastrously wrong.
He recalled one haul in which Mexican police opened fire on his plane as he attempted to fly cocaine out of central America.
The police had shot out his tyres and despite Reaves' effort to leave the runway, the police "opened up with machine guns" and "riddled" the airplane.
“As I pulled off the ground they opened up on both sides of me with machine guns, and they riddled that airplane, I mean the windshield came out," he recalled.
"I got hit three times, but I didn't know I was hit," he said. "The world turned yellow, I must have been in shock."
He crashed into a waterfall but managed to escape authorities by running up a mountain before jumping on a donkey and riding seven miles.
The smuggler then hid himself on a lorry transporting corn.
Roger claims he was also shot down over...
To continue reading
Request your trial