A DRUG SMUGGLER ASKS FOR HELP FROM THE JUNGLE

When I was working as an investigative TV reporter in Houston at the CBS station KHOU TV 11, I had lots of viewers ask me to help them, just like I do here in L.A. One of the requests from a Houston Fire Fighter was rather unusual and took me to the jungles of East Colombia in South America.

I got a call one day in the TV newsroom from a Houston Fire Fighter who said he had met me once at a fire and helped with get some information. Now this fireman wanted me to help get him out of the Country of Colombia. I asked him what are you doing in Colombia on your days off from the fire station. He said he was flying a friend to Venezuela and got lost in his small plane. He said he saw a lighted landing field and landed. But the field was controlled by Colombian Indian drug runners and now he was being held hostage. He wanted me to come and get him out. He figured that if I came with a KHOU TV CBS crew there would be enough pressure put on the Colombia Government that they would let him go.

Now, should I really buy a story that a fire fighter on his days off, they get four days a week, just happen to be flying to Venezuela and got lost and landed at an Indian drug runner strip in Colombia. I MEAN REALLY! I checked with the Colombian Government and they had a whole different story. They say the fireman was a drug runner pilot and accidentally landed at an Indian strip at night and was take hostage. The Indians wanted his family to pay a ransom to get him back.

It sounded like a good TV story one way or the other. So a photographer and I flew to Barranquilla, Colombia. Also a reporter and photographer from the NBC and ABC TV stations also went. They also thought it was a good story even though the fire fighter had called me.

When we got to Barranquilla we all ended up staying at the same hotel. The next day we were headlines in the local newspapers. It was big news that reporters and photographers were in Barranquilla to try and get (a very important fire official) out of the hands of the Indians. The local press added the part about the fireman being an important fire official from Houston, Texas. When the Indians learned from the local newspapers that the drug runner was a "so called important person" they let him go.

The local military put him in the Rio Acha Jail. So I hired a taxi to take us to the small Pueblo of Rio Acha that was about 75 miles from Barranquilla. Trying to save my station some money and knowing that it is best to operate in groups when you are the foreign press in South America, I shared the taxi with the NBC station. At the last military checkpoint before Rio Acha we were stopped and taken to see the Military General. He took us to him military base and proudly showed off the pounds and pounds of marijuana he and his special troops had seized from the organized crime drug gangs and the Indians that also did business in marijuana. We interviewed the General and when we left he was a happy camper.

We continued into Rio Acha, a small town with a major industry, drug running.

We were told by a governmental official that we should be out of Rio Acha and off the main highway before dark. He said the checkpoints would be much harder to go through at night.

We went to the jail and interviewed the Houston fire fighter. He stuck to his story that he got lost while flying a friend to Venezuela. I did not buy that story. But the local police did not seem to want all this publicity about the drug running business in their Pueblo and were eager to get ride of the fireman. But they did not release him that day.

This small Pueblo looked like most small villages in Colombia with the exception that most of the citizens were driving late model sports cars or double cab pickup trucks. There were no old cars. The small homes had satellite dishes for TV.

The guys on the streets were not selling apples, or pencils, they were selling Mr. Coffee Makers or small color TVs. This town was awash in money.

Each night large jet cargo planes from the U.S. would fly in and pickup loads of marijuana, and the drug runners on the planes paid in U.S. green backs. Large highway tankers would leave just before sunset for the secrete landing strips so that they could sell jet fuel to the planes for the return trip to the States.

Remember the warning we had received about not being on the highways after dark because of the check points. Well, we stayed too long in Rio Acha getting sound interviews and shooting the color of the town. By the time we got to the first military checkpoint on the highway it was after dark. The friendly military guards that had greeted us when we went through in the morning were gone. The new checkpoint guards were teenagers about 17-years-old in uniform and they had orders to stop all foreigners. The did not understand the concept of "Freedom of the Press."

They stopped us and poked machine guns into the car and demanded to see our identification. We showed it to them, and they were not impressed. What does NBC stand for anyway, "National Biscuit Company?" Then they wanted us to get out of the car. I was really concerned about that order. I feared that if we got out of the car we might never get back in alive. It would be too each to shoot us out there in the Colombian Mountains and say they never saw us. When the NBC reporter finally ran out of excuses, I tried my best Spanish excuse why they should let us through the road block and do it quickly. Remember that Colombian Army General that I interviewed in the morning, well he had a reputation of being extra hard on his troops. So I told the young trooper that General Sanchez was about 15-minutes behind us in his jeep and we were supposed to be in the next town to take his pictures for TV when he arrived. I said to the young trooper, "You are going to have to explain to General Sanchez why we are sitting here at your checkpoint when we are supposed to be in the next Pueblo ready to take his picture. The young trooper said you mean General Sanchez is behind you. I said Si. He thought for a moment, and said to his partner open the gate let them through now. I thanked him and we were off. Of course there was no General Sanchez behind us but that story sure it get us out of a serious situation. And who says my Spanish is not up to par? I have a great Mexican accent.

Bottom line the next day the government let to fire fighter go home, and I had a great story that we milked for a week during sweeps.

Note: Two years later I got a call from a Houston Fire Captain and told there was a small plane crash near the approach to Hobby Airport in Houston. The captain said I think you will be interested in this crash. So speed to the scene, and you guessed it, the dead pilot was the fire fighter we helped get out of jail in Rio Acha and he was running drugs again. I guess some people never learn!