Memoirs of Modern Day Buccaneer Jack Reed

Escobar earned the Mafia's respect.
"Italian-American Mafiosi, Sicilians and Neapolitans, we always thought that the Cartels were really nothing more than organized groups of nobodies.
Excluding Pablo Escobar, no Latin kingpin was considered equal to a Mafioso."


"I’m no goddamn rat!
I’m a player. I’m a pirate.
I’m a hedonist; and one hell of a good smuggler,
but I’m no rat!"
--Jack Carlton Reed
The man who brought the cocaine from Colombia to the U.S.


Jack Carlton Reed, (September 30, 1930 – October 12, 2009) was a drug smuggler and co-defendant of Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas, Colombian drug baron and co-founder, with Pablo Escobar, of the Medellín Cartel.

Reed was a pilot for Lehder’s cocaine transport empire on Norman's Cay, an out island 210 miles away from the Florida coast, in the Bahamas. Reed flew the drugs for Lehder, who handled transport while Escobar handled production and supply.



From 1978 through 1982, Norman’s Cay was the center of the world’s largest drug smuggling operation and a tropical hideaway for Lehder and associates, including Reed. Cocaine was flown in from Colombia by private aircraft, then reloaded into other aircraft for distribution to various locations across Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas.

Jack Carlton Reed
The "flight plan" was made possible via the bribes that Colombian drug suppliers allegedly paid to key officials in the Bahamian government.

On Norman’s Cay, Lehder maintained a fleet of aircraft that used a 3,100-foot runway guarded by everything from radar, to enforcers and guard dogs.
Carlos Lehder

Lehder and Reed, who both lived on the island, in separate residences, eventually had to flee Norman’s Cay after U.S. authorities started getting wind of the operation.

In February 1987, just days after Lehder was captured in the Colombian jungle, Reed was apprehended in Panama. The co-defendants were charged with conspiring to smuggle 3.3 tons of cocaine into the United States from Colombia from 1978 to 1980.

Reed was convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and operating a continuing criminal enterprise.

A non-violent offender, Reed was initially sentenced to two consecutive life terms and fined $2 million. After spending 21 years behind bars, something happened that would change everything.... 

Enter MayCay Beeler...

Pilot/Author MayCay Beeler
She's written a book about Jack Reed that is based on primary research -- including interviews and info that Reed himself gave up to her.  His story has never been given to any other journalist.

Here's what MayCay has to say about her true-crime book, Buccaneer: The Provocative Odyssey of Jack Reed, Adventurer, Drug Smuggler and Pilot Extraordinaire

Jack Reed was an outlaw pilot who smuggled cocaine from Colombia via Norman's Cay to the U.S. for best friend/drug baron Carlos Lehder, associate of Pablo Escobar. 

I first contacted Jack Reed in prison for research on a documentary I was producing about the Medellin Cartel... In a nutshell, this book was born at the end of Jack's life... This work  is a collaboration of the memoirs Jack wrote in prison, and notes taken from hundreds of letters and exclusive interviews.  Getting the work published fulfills a promise I made to Jack -- to get his extraordinary life story out there.

Jack landed in court as Ledher's co-defendant in the longest running drug trial in U.S. History.

The story is full of adventure, erotica -- but most importantly, it's about the evolution of Jack Reed, from pot loving hippie playboy to dedicated student of metaphysics, with a twist of fate ending only destiny could ordain.  All true -- as honest and real as it gets.


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