![]() troops because of Noriega's alleged involvement with drug traffickers. By the end of the decade Endara would be installed as the president of that nation after Manuel Noriega's regime was overthrown by invading U.S. The Panamanian corporations were set up in the early Eighties, with help from attorney Guillermo Endara. Investigators say the partners laundered their profits through offshore bank accounts and dummy corporations established in the Bahamas, the Netherlands Antilles, and the Republic of Panama. In their heyday, according to prosecutors, Augusto Falcon and Salvador Magluta controlled the largest cocaine smuggling organization on the East Coast and one of the top five in the world, a massive assemblage of planes and boats that funneled coke from the Colombian cartels in Medellin and Cali to the streets of Miami, New York, Washington, D.C., Charleston, South Carolina, and dozens of other cities across the United States. ![]() From 1978 right up until the day the two were finally arrested, federal prosecutors say the Miami Senior High School dropouts acquired more than $2.1 billion in cash and assets by smuggling at least 75 tons of cocaine into the United States. Because in the age of the cocaine cowboy, Falcon and Magluta weren't just hired hands. Inside the houses, they found nearly one million dollars in cash and jewelry, a small amount of cocaine, and a kilo of gold. Five hours later, with the rain still pouring down, the same team of agents raided the Fort Lauderdale mansion of Willy Falcon. Marshals Service stormed the house and captured the elusive Magluta. So on a rainy afternoon last October, as darkness fell over Sal Magluta's palatial La Gorce Island home in Miami Beach, dozens of federal, state, and local agents stood by as a specially trained, 25-man assault team from the U.S. Everyone wanted to be in on the arrest of Willy and Sal, to be able to say they'd been there when the legend died. It was a day for redemption, a chance to win back a little respect after years of embarrassment.
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