Cannabis Chronicles

In somewhat the same tradition as Howard Marks, there’s a website authored by the man who was tried and convicted on a variety of charges related to his marijuana smuggling operation known as the Black Tuna Gang. Also in the tradition of Mr Nice, the Black Tuna kingpin has authored a book about his life as a drug smuggler

Here’s a couple of excerpts of from that (yet unpublished) book and the website associated with “Bobby Tuna”, the kingpin of the Black Tuna gang.

THE BLACK TUNA DIARIES
A true account of America’s most written about pot smugglers
By Robert E. Platshorn

MIAMI - It’s the mid 70’s. Bell bottoms and bright open collar shirts. The Hippies are almost gone and the Cocaine Cowboys haven’t arrived. Pot is in. Twenty-six states have lightened the laws. California made it a misdemeanor and Alaska flat out legalized it. The best pot is coming from Colombia and Miami is the terminal.

On National Law Day, May 1st, 1979, President Jimmy Carter’s Attorney General, Griffin Bell, called a press conference in the nation’s capital on May 1, 1979, with simultaneous press conferences in most major cities. tics. Bell announced the arrest and indictment of the Black Tuna Gang led by Robert Platshorn and his two partners. Bell called the Tunas the “slickest, most sophisticated pot smugglers of the 70’s,” telling the gathered reporters that the gang used a fleet of aircraft, and five yachts, to smuggle over a half-million pounds of Columbian marijuana into the United States in a six month period. Later, the DEA would claim the Tunas brought in anywhere from one million to three million pounds of high-grade grass and made over 300 million dollars.

Twenty nine years later, the official DEA website still has a picture of the gold medallion they claim Black Tuna gang members wore as “a talisman and symbol of their membership in this smuggling group.” They fail to mention that no trace was ever found of the fleet of aircraft, the five yachts, or the $300,000,000.

Now, after almost 29 years in federal prison, Robert Platshorn, better known as “The Black Tuna” breaks his silence and tells the true story of America’s most publicized pot smugglers. From his first toke to his last ton, Platshorn accounts for every pound, every penny, every plane and every yacht, including a few the government never knew about.
We All Get By with a Little Help from Our Friends..

On April Fool’s Day 2008, after spending almost 29 years in prison America’s longest serving federal marijuana offender was released from a prison in central Florida. Robert Platshorn, convicted leader of the organization the DEA dubbed “The Black Tuna Gang”. Led by Platshorn and his two partners the Attorney General of the United States called them “slickest” and “most sophisticated” bunch of pot smugglers of the 70’s, Bobby Tuna is now living in a Salvation Army Halfway House and looking for a job to support himself until his memoir, “The Black Tuna Diaries” can legally be published.

As can be seen from the fact that the author is still shopping his autobiography, unlike Howard Marks aka Mr Nice, Robert Platshorn’s story still hasn’t found a publisher. That really seems to be a shame. Certainly, there have been pot stories with far less potential that have made it to press.

BLACK TUNA DIARIES - PART I The HIGH TIMES (1974-1979)
CHAPTER 1 - DEATH BY FIRING SQUAD

Everyone knows that a black cat has nine lives, but a Black Tuna only has seven, Let’s start with a true accounting of how I lost life number two by firing squad in the jungles of Columbia.

Late 1977

The gun barrel painfully prodding the base of my spine was attached to an ancient M- 1 carbine, a present from my Uncle Sam to the Columbian Army. Attached to the carbine was a short, tan Indio in the uniform of the Columbian Army. He forced me into the back of a rusting step-van, parked on a dirt trail, near a clandestine airstrip, deep in the mountainous jungle of Columbia. It was over 100 degrees in the damp equatorial forest and even hotter in the moldy interior of the truck. Our entire loading crew crowded onto the van’s two narrow benches, a dozen very large, fierce Guarjiran Indians, plus two pilots-Captain Beercan and Bo, an ex-NFL, player also called El Gigante. We were captured on the airstrip. The army, claiming they were not paid the customary “landing fees,” said they were taking us to the nearby town of La Cienega to shoot us as a warning to others who might neglect their mordida.

Our DC-3, and its cargo of 5000 pounds of Santa Maria Gold, the most sought after marijuana in South America, sat on the airstrip guarded by a squadron of Columbian soldiers. In truth, we’d paid our “landing fees,” but the owners of the busy jungle airfield had misappropriated the money. It was the rainy season, and this was the only usable landing field on the Atlantic Coast, so they’d load four or five planes a day, but only pay mordida for two or three. It was our bad luck to be on the field when the army showed up to collect past due accounts. Held at gunpoint in the equatorial sun for over four hours with nothing to drink, we were already dehydrated. Climbing into the step-van was like leaving a sauna for an oven. The last to enter, I sat by the open rear doors. Captain Beercan, in the far dark corner, was already passed out, while El Gigante. squeezed between two large Guarjirans, tried not to look scared. I was still stoned from handling 5,000 pounds of primo pot in the hot sun. To avoid thinking about the firing squad, I closed my eyes and asked myself, “Self, how in the hell did you end up here?”…

We can’t help picturing a movie version of that last scene, with a voice over fading into a sonic backdrop of the Talking Head’s song Once in a Lifetime . . .

“And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack,
And you may find yourself in another part of the world . . .
And you may ask yourself-well…how did I get here?”

Here’s one more excerpt from Robert Platshorn’s Black Tuna Diary . . .

Kidnapped at the Fontainebleau Hotel
By Robert Elliot Platshorn … The Black Tuna

Early 1978……..I spent the day at our headquarters in the Presidential Suite of the Fontainebleau Hotel on Miami Beach. It was almost five when I phoned home to tell Lynne I was on my way, I took the elevator to the lobby, put the money I had collected from two of our Philadelphia customers into the hotel safe, and headed out the wide glass doors. The doorman waved and sent a valet to bring up the Ford E-350 van that was my ride. Coming up the entrance ramp, waving and calling my name was Rigaberto Santana. His older brother, Fello Santana was a major marijuana smuggler; a big shot from the CIA trained Cuban Brigade that invaded Cuba at Bay of Pigs. We had once brokered a big load of poor quality pot for Fello. I didn’t much care for his macho tough guy demeanor and refused his recent offers to sell the cheap crappy weed he bought at bargain prices in Colombia. His younger brother Berto was likable, but I couldn’t imagine what he wanted.

“Take a short ride with me my brother wants to have a drink with you and talk about some business, It won’t take long, and then I’ll drive you back.” He looked uncomfortable, besides I had no desire to discuss anything with Fello Santana.

I shook his hand and smiled.”Look, it’s almost dinner time, I’m headed home, maybe some other time.”

Berto looked around, opened his jacket and gestured to the ugly chromed .45 automatic tucked in his waist band, “It’s OK hermano, we just go to my brother’s house for a short talk.”

I didn’t think he’d shoot me on the steps of the biggest hotel on Miami Beach, but I didn’t want him or his brother’s goons showing up at my house. I walked down the ramp and got into his BMW. The conversation on the short ride was awkward. Fifteen minutes later we turned onto a cul de sac in south Miami. All six houses on the horseshoe street belonged to members of Santana’s family or a close associate.

Fello’s house was the big one in the center. We went through to the Olympic size indoor pool in the rear and circumnavigated to the long bar against the far wall. Complete with barstools, it looked like a private cocktail lounge. To the right was Fello’s office. I could hear him on the phone arguing loudly in Spanish. When I heard him say “la subasta”, the auction, I realized he was referring to me. Robby and I owned the South Florida Auto Auction. Sitting at the bar, six big Guajirans from the Rio Acha area of Colombia. A couple of them looked familiar, but I was too distracted to think about it, I returned their smile, refused the drink Berto offered me, and stood waiting for Fello to get off the phone. Then the light went on! These guys were the Colombians that had loaded my DC-3 with 5000 lbs of Santa Marta’s best pot, on a jungle airstrip above Lake Cienaga where we were all captured by the Colombian army, who wanted to take us to the nearest town to shoot us (see “Death by Firing Squad’”) A minute later all six of them were laughing, shaking my hand, and giving me hugs.

When Fello come out of his office and saw the happy reunion he looked confused. He didn’t know anything about our DC-3 adventure and none of us were about to enlighten him. The Guajirans were there to intimidate me, or that was his plan. He didn’t like what he was seeing.

“Just tell me what’s on your mind, I’m late for dinner,” I was feeling braver now that I figured had allies.

He put on his macho face. “My yerba, 40,000 lbs, its missing. The entire shipment disappears from the behind my fish house in the Keys. Except for my people, you and your people were the only one’s who knew where it was.” He pointed to the Colombians. “These people come for their money. Now you and your partners have to pay. You stay here until they bring the money.”

Now I had the picture. The Colombian suppliers never trusted Santana. The Guajiran crew where there to collect from Fello.

A week earlier Fello had come to the hotel and offered to sell us the load suspiciously cheap. The yerba was sitting dockside behind his fish house in the lower Keys. All we had to do was get a couple of trucks and pick the stuff up. Yeah right! It was obvious he was afraid to bring it out of the keys himself. No doubt the load was under surveillance by the Coast Guard or DEA, or he would have brought it too Miami himself and gotten $50 more per pound, than he wanted from us. Two days later there was a very small article, buried in the Miami Herald local section, about a big load of marijuana that was busted by the Coast Guard behind a fish house in the keys. Fello didn’t want the Colombians to know he didn’t have the cojones to move the goods before it was busted, so he was selling wolf tickets, to pass the blame.

Problem solved. The rest was too easy. I picked up one of the two phones on the bar, asked Berto to put it on speaker phone and to translate for the Guajirans. I got the number for the Coast Guard and dialed.

“This is Elliot Roberts. I’m with the Atlanta Journal, Could I please speak to your PR guy, Jim Dingfelter “. A moment later he was on the phone, “Hi can I get some info on the load you guys busted in the Keys a few days ago”

“Mr. Elliot, there aren’t many details. Who ever unloaded it ran away. We watched for three days. When no one showed up to claim it we took it down to Key West to the confiscation compound. We didn’t arrest anyone because the fish house where we found it had been closed for months.” I thanked him and hung up.

Now there were six .45 automatics on the bar and I knew they weren’t there to scare me. Fello was trying to claim he didn’t know anything about the bust. The Guajirans weren’t buying his story. They told him they knew who I was, that we had been together in the jungle, I was their friend, and could get all the Yerba I wanted without putting up a penny.

Without another word, I gestured to Rigaberto and headed for the front door. It was no further business of mine. I have my doubts whether Fello ever paid the Colombians. A few months later a bomb went off in a hotel room in Coral Gables. Mr. Santana, a loose cannon who was always at odds with other members of the anti-Castro factions, was scattered in tiny bits across Coral Way.

A pity…..couldn’t happen to a nicer Fello.

Platshorn’s writing style is quite informal, but fairly compelling, and so is his story. The grammar is a little rough at times, and we’d think that he’d benefit from a good editor (what author doesn’t?). We’d like to offer our encouragement to Mr Platshorn, we’d think that some enlightened book company out there really should take a chance on his book.

After all, Hairy Pothead & the Marijuana Stone found a publisher, and who wouldn’t want to sport a stylish “Bobby Tuna” cap?