Black Tuna Fugitive Arrested

[Bobcat]

It mentions in the article how they used to paint fake water lines on the boats.

There is more if you click the link at the bottom of the page

* On Facebook | Follow the crime and courts news feed

BY JAY WEAVER
jweaver@MiamiHerald.com

A key member of the infamous Miami-based Black Tuna Gang, the biggest U.S. marijuana-smuggling operation of its time, was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service Thursday morning in West Palm Beach -- more than 31 years after he skipped out of a federal trial.

Mark Steven Phillips, 62, was captured in his rented apartment at Century Village, a senior living community where he had been living in recent months, law enforcement officers said.

``The judge wants to see you, Mark,'' a deputy U.S. marshal told Phillips after rousting him out of bed.

``The judge wants to see me from 30 years ago,'' Phillips responded, according to the Marshals Service.

Phillips was charged in May 1979 along with 13 others in what was then the nation's biggest pot importation prosecution in history -- before the dawn of the Cocaine Cowboy era in Miami. The trial was before U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King, who is still on the bench. Phillips was convicted in absentia on racketeering, possession and distribution charges in February 1980.

At his first court appearance in decades Thursday afternoon, a pale and bald Phillips was wearing a beige long-sleeved shirt, light-green shorts and tan sandals -- along with shackles around his wrists, ankles and waist.

Phillips, who faces sentencing for the racketeering conviction and charges as a fugitive, told U.S. Magistrate Edwin Torres that he has no property, $600 in a bank account and receives $667 in monthly Social Security benefits. He told Torres that he couldn't afford a lawyer, so the magistrate appointed one for him, at taxpayer expense.

``I'm retired,'' he said. ``Your honor, I would like to say something. . . . I have no valid passport -- nothing but a bicycle, but I'm not going anywhere.''

A joint DEA/FBI task force in Miami that took down the Black Tuna Gang estimated the ring smuggled 500 tons of marijuana into the United States over a 16-month period. The case was the first combined investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI on drug profits behind the marijuana trade.

The gang operated, at least briefly, from a suite in Miami Beach's Fontainebleau Hotel, according to the DEA.

The Tunas invested in yachts, particularly Fort Lauderdale-based Striker Aluminum Yachts. Its treasurer, Phillips, whose family owned the company, retrofitted yachts for maximum carrying capacity, painting water lines on the hulls to give the illusion they weren't riding low even when they were laden with tons of marijuana.

The grass was transported in these modified boats and unloaded at a series of waterfront ``stash houses'' in posh neighborhoods.

The Black Tuna gang also used state-of-the-art electronic equipment to stay in touch with marijuana-laden freighters and to monitor DEA and Customs communications channels.

A DEA-FBI probe of Florida banks called Operation Banco, which began in 1977, traced the group's drug profits through South Florida banks until members of the Black Tuna Gang made a large cash deposit in a Miami Beach bank.

In the racketeering indictment, Phillips was accused of showing two vessels in 1977 to a co-conspirator that had been used in the smuggling of 20 tons of marijuana into the United States. He also was accused of going to a Miami address to pick up a suitcase filled with cash, and paying $223,000 to buy a yacht for future marijuana smuggling trips.






Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/2...#ixzz1CHzqsWlR

[endeavor1]

Sounds fun back then.

[T2x]

I'll sleep better now knowing that this dangerous fugitive is off the streets. At this rate maybe we'll bring down the Crips and Bloods in a couple of hundred years. The Mexican drug gangs are exempt, of course, because they are only trying to gain access to the "American Dream".

Perhaps we can pick up his bicycle at a bargain price in the Government auction?

[Steve Miklos]

I am thinking Schwinn Manta Ray

Steve

[rschap1]

Mine was blue, but a Sting Ray...

[Slandrew]

I am thinking Schwinn Manta Ray

Steve

Give the judge that bike he'll set him freeA waste of time taxpayer pays for his legal fees?Drop him back off@country village maybe the seniors&Red buttons will keep him under house arrest

[boostbros]

if that was the boats back in the day and there are even more drugs on the street today makes ya wonder what there up to now i think either a pipeline or subs anyone have a clue?

[T2x]

if that was the boats back in the day and there are even more drugs on the street today makes ya wonder what there up to now i think either a pipeline or subs anyone have a clue?

The Mexican Border.............. Have you checked the news lately?

[boostbros]

yes i,m still laughing at the catapult over the fence guys i do give them an A for adapting old technology

[T2x]

yes i,m still laughing at the catapult over the fence guys i do give them an A for adapting old technology

That's the minor stuff...The drug gangs are sending truckloads over and killing anybody who tries to stop them...... especially US police and agents. This has to be stopped...but not by Obama....since it will involve force and he only advocates that against Egyptian politicians.

[rschap1]

There were some F'in funny lines here!!


I'll sleep better now knowing that this dangerous fugitive is off the streets. At this rate maybe we'll bring down the Crips and Bloods in a couple of hundred years. The Mexican drug gangs are exempt, of course, because they are only trying to gain access to the "American Dream".Perhaps we can pick up his bicycle at a bargain price in the Government auction?


The Mexican Border.............. Have you checked the news lately?

yes i,m still laughing at the catapult over the fence guys i do give them an A for adapting old technology

[T2x]

There were some F'in funny lines here!!

Thanks.......

It's a curse.....(sigh)! But people with no sense of humor and a low IQ....find me bitter.

T2x

[boostbros]

up here on our tiny port on lake ontario we have 4 border patrol boats one is a 36 foot safe boat with 4 merc 350s and seats with shocks they call themselfs saskuatch with little decals of bigfoot on the boat their moto is you might see us but you dont know anything about us! they show up in unmarked yukons load machine guns act like navy seals and go out all night looking for drug running subs .....i suppose its a big surprize nothing has been found yet not a single thing i think we should send all these guys down south for the winter!

[poncho]

I don't think we arrest here for pot anymore. Mostly fines and asset seizures, cost of doing business with no jail time.

How many places in the U.S give promise to appear notices and release people at the scene, when they've found three 11-kilogram bags of marijuana

They do here all the time!! Heck even with coke and heroine most times your released with a promise to appear!

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Van...613/story.html