April 6, 2008, was not a happy afternoon at the American Airlines Arena. The Miami Heat were losing to the Detroit Pistons in a key game for their NBA championship run. Despite this, the announcer in the booth energized the crowd by pointing out a celebrity in the stands, while the cameras focused on a man in his mid-fifties—stocky, with slicked-back gray hair—accompanied by his son. Fifteen years earlier, this man, Jon Roberts, had laundered a fortune of $150 million from drug trafficking, funneled money into the hands of Panamanian president Noriega, buried bags of cash in the suburbs of Miami, and acquired properties, cars, boats, and horses worth hundreds of millions. At one point, his face adorned FBI Most Wanted posters plastered across the country.
Jon Roberts was born in New York in 1948. Of Italian descent, his family name was originally Riccobono, but he changed it. The first time he witnessed a murder, he was seven years old—the gun was wielded by his father, who was deported when Jon was still a child. Consequently, he was raised by his uncles within the Sicilian mafia of Little Italy. His childhood was marked by school expulsions, street gangs armed with fists and firearms, marijuana-clouded street corners, and petty crimes that escalated into major offenses, culminating in imprisonment for kidnapping and attempted murder. However, Roberts spent little time behind bars—barely a few months—as the military was recruiting young men to fight in Vietnam. That war would scar him deeply; he would later recount in interviews how soldiers were tied by their feet to intensify pain, or how they would hang enemy soldiers from trees and skin them alive.
In 1968, Jon Roberts returned to New York,
just as the city was emerging as a nightlife mecca. He ventured into the nightclub business and integrated himself into the jet set. Neon lights and expensive suits served as a façade to open the door to the drug trade and its underworld. Two years later, after a murder, he fled the city to avoid being captured by the police. His destination was Miami—a paradise of bikinis, blondes, cocktails and turquoise seas. He arrived in his car with $600 in his pocket and his dog.
Initially, Roberts took on survival jobs in Miami, but his attempt to break away from bad habits was unsuccessful. He connected with people who introduced him to Alberto San Pedro, a Cuban drug lord. Roberts plunged into the drug trade, starting locally before expanding to other cities. He resumed his life of women, parties, vice, and glamour, cementing his place in the era of the Cocaine Cowboys and the Medellín Cartel. The Ochoa brothers, heads of the cartel, sought to expand their cocaine distribution in the United States by bringing it from the Bahamas. Marijuana had already lost its appeal and wasn’t profitable for an operation of that scale. Roberts had a racing boat docked at his home, knew about tides and weather patterns, and was connected to boat builders, sailors, and the corrupt police in North Bay Village. This combination of factors was crucial for the Ochoa brothers’ boats to transport cocaine from the Bahamas to Miami’s coastline at North Bay Village without interference from authorities.
After the Ochoa brothers came Pablo Escobar and Griselda Blanco. While Roberts was already familiar with luxury and opulence, this new level of endless orgies at The Forge and the Mutiny Hotel—featuring Colombian cocaine, Playboy bunnies, politicians, athletes, and celebrities like Don Johnson, star of Miami Vice—elevated him to the top of the power pyramid. He even assisted the White House with the illegal transport of weapons to support Nicaragua’s Contras. On the flip side, Miami became the city with the highest crime rate in the country and the global epicenter of the drug trade. The government waged a fierce war against the cartels and their kingpins, forcing Roberts to flee once more. This time, his escape spanned a grueling five years, and no seaside paradise awaited him. Eventually, he was captured and faced a 300-year prison sentence, which was reduced to three years in exchange for his cooperation with the authorities.
His time in Dade County Metro Jail took a toll on Jon Roberts. No longer young enough to look forward, he sought redemption upon his release, forming a family. However, he had little time to enjoy it, as cancer claimed his life in 2011.
