Tales of True Crime and Drug Smuggling, with David Tuch

I was hoping maybe we could start by you just giving the listeners a little summary of the story, of the plot, so they know what we're talking about, and then we can talk about how you got into it, because I think that's going to make them... yearn to hear more.

With pleasure.

That sounds great.

And it's great to be here.

Isaac, thanks so much for having me.

It is one of the most extraordinary stories I've ever come across in fact or fiction.

So a few years ago, I discovered that my British cousin from Manchester was one of the largest marijuana traffickers in American history, moving several hundred tons of weed per year.

And He was able to do this through his invention of the drug mothership, which explored the legal loophole that allowed him to transport many, many tons of marijuana with near legal impunity.

And what's even more amazing is that on his return trip, he was delivering arms to the Marxist guerrillas in Colombia.

And this was all before his assassination by professional hitmen in Miami in 1976.

So I became completely enraptured by the story and dedicated myself full-time to researching this extraordinary life.

And the further I went into the story, the more extraordinary and dangerous it became.

And even to this day, I'm finding new discoveries as I get more information from Freedom of Information requests and also some of his contacts who are surfacing after the publication.

But it's been a really fascinating and enthralling journey over the past few years.

And I'm really delighted that I've been able to bring this story to readers.

Yeah, it's really amazing.

So how did you find out about this? How did you find out about this cousin of yours?

So I was doing some genealogy research with a cousin based in Philadelphia, and we were exchanging emails.

And towards the end of our exchange, almost as an afterthought, he wrote, oh, you should look into our mutual cousin, this guy named Harold Derber.

He was a gunrunner and drug trafficker, shot down in Miami.

And when you hear those family rumors, you

never know if

it's sort of fabrication or sort of...

So I checked in with another cousin and she said, oh yeah, he used to run guns for Castro.

And so at that point I was definitely intrigued.