Drug Lords (2018) s02e03 Episode Script
Christopher Coke: Jamaica's Narco Prince
Drugs are always a big business in Jamaica.
And Christopher Coke was president.
The violence was always there.
Each year, it'd get more gruesome, more chilling, more burdensome.
People who are not his friend, people from outside, say, "Yeah, the man is a monster, the man is a devil.
" If you are in dispute or conflict with them, most of those conflicts would settle by people getting killed.
[man screaming.]
[theme music playing.]
[narrator.]
May 2010.
Kingston, Jamaica.
[gunfire.]
The Caribbean island is wracked by gang wars Come out of the road, man! in a state of emergency, as police pursue a drug lord at the height of his power.
Christopher Coke was one of the world's most prominent drug lords.
At its peak, 20% of the cocaine going into the USA was trafficked through Jamaica.
[narrator.]
Christopher Coke, AKA Dudus or Presi, controls a multi-million dollar drug empire through his violent gang, the Shower Posse.
[dog barking.]
They were fearless, they were hard-nosed, and they had a lot of firepower.
Shower Posse was a brand name in New York, Miami, Atlanta, Toronto, the UK, and Christopher Coke was the president and CEO.
[Coke.]
The more they try test me, the more I come, more I come.
[narrator.]
Coke's war against the police will bring Jamaica to its knees.
[gunfire continues.]
[woman screaming.]
[officer.]
Get your hands up! Head over here! [narrator.]
Jamaica, the 1970s.
Christopher Coke grows up in the violent heart of Kingston, in a family of gangsters led by his father, Lester.
Lester Coke started a very large criminal network in Jamaica, highly powerful, and he had a lot of public officials that were being paid bribes to protect his enterprise.
[narrator.]
To the Kingston community, Lester Coke is known as Jim Brown or the Don.
[Duane Blake.]
The don system in Kingston is similar to a community leader.
Dons aren't necessarily gangsters.
Dons are leaders, pillars, helpers of the community.
[narrator.]
But the dons have a dark side.
And the future drug lord watches and learns.
[Peter Bunting.]
They really use fear to intimidate, and the reputation for ruthless cruelty to to keep, um, one order, so to speak.
[narrator.]
The Coke family keeps that order through their notorious gang, the Shower Posse.
[Bunting.]
The Shower Posse got its name from their reputation for showering a hail of bullets on their opponents.
The so-called Shower Posse was a very violent, ruthless drug gang operating in West Kingston.
They were trafficking primarily cocaine, but also marijuana that was grown on the island.
[narrator.]
By the late '80s, Jim Brown's ruthless control has a large part of West Kingston under his sway.
But his reign is about to come crashing down.
The United States requested his extradition, and in 1992, the Jamaican government put him in jail.
[narrator.]
But Jim Brown knows too much.
It's expected he'll testify against corrupt Jamaican police and politicians in court.
The night before he was gonna be extradited to the United States, a mysterious fire broke out in his cell and he died as a result.
[narrator.]
The Don has been silenced.
The manner of his father's death will haunt Christopher Coke for the rest of his life.
[indistinct chatter.]
[narrator.]
Control of the Shower Posse should now pass to Jim Brown's eldest legitimate son, Tony, AKA Jah T.
[Captain.]
That man was a cool guy, Tony, man.
That Sunday changed everything, you know? Big, big problem that Sunday evening.
[narrator.]
One night, in February 1992, a rival gang member is trailing Jah T.
[Ford.]
Jah T was riding down Maxfield Avenue.
Several shots were fired at him.
He was hit, and died subsequently.
And then as a result, he being killed, his brother now came into the picture, and that was Christopher.
[narrator.]
At just 22 years old, Christopher "Dudus" Coke ascends to the throne.
The young drug lord has an instinct for the family business.
He knows that to maintain his grip on power, he must rule through fear.
[Ford.]
He was violent.
He was an outside child.
So as a result of that, his legitimacy to the real organization and clan was a kind of bit rocky.
I honestly believe that's why he turned out to be that.
People would say "monster.
" [narrator.]
Coke wants to transform his father's firm into a vast empire.
[Vigil.]
Dudus Coke was driven by power and wealth.
And he knew that if he kept the Shower Posse at a low level, in terms of its drug trafficking capabilities, it was never gonna move forward.
So he wanted to expand the business.
[narrator.]
And he's in the perfect spot to make it happen.
Jamaica is ideally placed to traffic cocaine from South America to North America.
Passing through the busiest port in the Caribbean, Kingston Harbour.
He was buying the cocaine in Colombia for about $4,000 a kilo, and then selling that for anywhere from $28,000 to $40,000, and probably even more in Canada and then also in the UK.
[narrator.]
By now, Coke is moving huge quantities of drugs into North America.
So, there were all sorts of ingenious methods that were used.
There were cases where metal cylinders were welded to the hulls of ships at a port in Jamaica, and removed similarly at a port in the US.
[narrator.]
And Coke has insiders on his payroll, to make sure the business runs without a hitch.
On commercial airline flights, they would find ways to get it into the cargo hold and have a confederate who worked in the baggage handling on the other side.
[narrator.]
As drugs flood American cities, Jamaica increasingly appears on the DEA's radar.
[Eric Baldus.]
We knew the existence of Christopher Coke, but their direct connection to the Jamaican gangs here in the United States wasn't all that apparent.
A lot of 'em use very, uh, complex methods, laundering money into offshore bank accounts, for example, in Panama.
[John Zach.]
And that was law enforcement's task, to find these pockets of people that were, you know, involved in in extraordinary criminal activity and weed that out.
[narrator.]
But there's a problem.
To gather any intel at all, the DEA must penetrate the Shower Posse's fortress in Kingston.
Tivoli Gardens.
The most dangerous place for an outsider in all of Jamaica.
[Ford.]
When Tivoli Gardens was just built or established, it was a model community.
But over the years, it has grown so that people has come to fear it.
[Zach.]
You had to have Coke's authorization to get in there.
And from there, he controlled many people that had spread out throughout the world.
[Ford.]
Down in Tivoli, down there is where they store all of the cocaine and the drugs and the guns, and Coke only gets part payment in guns and in cash.
So, as a result of that, that community was really, really closed off.
[narrator.]
Even the police feared to go in.
[Bunting.]
The commissioner of police, who had been there 30-odd years, he said that in his entire career, he had never been into Tivoli Gardens, he had never policed Tivoli Gardens.
It was just a sort of no-policing zone.
[narrator.]
In his Tivoli Gardens headquarters, Coke thinks he's above the law and loads up enough ammunition to challenge anyone who disagrees.
[Mark Shields.]
The weaponry that the Shower Posse had access to was enough to start a small war.
Anything from small hand-launched missiles all the way through, of course, to AK-47s, M16s, and every sort of handgun that you can possibly imagine.
[narrator.]
The authorities make the decision to show Coke who's boss.
When a rival don is murdered, police choose the moment to sweep the Shower Posse headquarters for weapons.
So, on July 7th, 2001, armed to the teeth, police invade Tivoli.
But Coke's men are waiting for them.
For days, the determined police unit throws all their firepower at Tivoli residents.
[gunfire.]
[Ford.]
There was a massive firefight in Tivoli Gardens community.
Everybody come out with guns and fire at the police, and the police is seen now as enemy number one.
[narrator.]
The cops have the area on lockdown, shooting anyone who moves.
[Captain.]
They can't just run into the place like that.
Not the way they came in, blazing guns.
On the building top, firing shots.
I don't see no sense in that, you know? [narrator.]
But the Shower Posse managed to hold the police back.
[news anchor.]
Members of the giant police-military force are pinned down at the Carnation Street command post.
[Captain.]
You have to fire your shot.
You have to do what you have to do.
Who died, died.
Who lived, lived.
[indistinct shouting.]
[narrator.]
Finally, after four days, the police retreat.
The police were repelled by the criminal gunmen.
[narrator.]
Twenty-seven civilians and two cops lose their lives.
Coke's victory reveals a chilling truth in Jamaica.
His Shower Posse is beyond the authorities' control.
But Christopher Coke is more than just a ruthless fighter.
His strength within Kingston is not just down to firepower.
He has built total loyalty among the community.
Not just a protector, but also a provider.
People of Tivoli Gardens actually love Christopher.
They view him as a leader of the community as somewhat of their protector, a Robin Hood type of character.
[Bunting.]
It would have not been uncommon for, uh, children's treats to be held at Christmas and at holiday times, school fees to be paid, medical bills to be paid.
Nobody who lived in the community had to pay for any utility, electricity, water, cable, but they could only live in the units at the gift of the Don.
The loyalty was acquired on the one hand by fear, but on the other hand by patronage.
[dogs barking.]
[Captain.]
Yeah, man, we're more effective than the police sometimes, man.
Anything the people could call upon us on, we will always there for them.
Police not protect them as we'd have protect them.
[reggae music playing.]
[narrator.]
Under Coke's rule, regular street parties unite the people.
The Don reaches hero status in Kingston.
[Bunting.]
He was, sort of, almost a celebrity in some communities, and, you know, you would just see a crowd of guys come in and hear people whispering in hushed tones, "It's Dudus," or "Presi.
" And with a certain amount of awe.
[Captain.]
You have to really wonder if it was him, you know.
And when you see him you'd say, "Who's that man?" "That's the Presi.
" [Zach.]
Coke was an enigma.
He was this cult of personality.
I've never seen someone who had such a tremendous influence on people and who people credited with having almost supernatural powers of being able to reach out.
[narrator.]
But the velvet glove hides an iron fist.
[Shields.]
There's an expectation of this 100% loyalty to the organization.
And if you stepped out of line, the chances are you would be killed.
The theory was there was a cell or a compartment down in Tivoli where they would beat you or chop you or shoot you.
[narrator.]
And in this secret cell, Christopher Coke himself allegedly metes out the violence.
You would never find a body, a corpse, inside Tivoli Gardens.
The practice was that the bodies were put into barrels and then they were delivered and deposited in other areas of Kingston or farther afield.
[narrator.]
Coke denies such accounts and they remain unproven.
As the violence spirals in Kingston, over in the Bronx, the feds are following every trail which might lead them to the Jamaican importers.
[Zach.]
We spent time focusing on what was going on in the Bronx, going on in the United States, in an effort to reach out to Jamaica, and eventually, you know, build the case that would bring Coke to the United States.
[narrator.]
In 2003, the trail suddenly gets hotter.
A local Jamaican gang known as the John Shop Crew catches the attention of DEA Special Agent Baldus.
[Baldus.]
Although we couldn't have realized it at the time, DEA's investigation of Christopher Coke and the Jamaican Shower Posse started in this alleyway in the Bronx.
Myself and my partner observed a couple of John Shop Crew members, watched them load their vehicle up with 400 pounds of marijuana.
Subsequently arrested them.
After that arrest, we searched a couple of locations and were able to recover an additional 200 pounds of marijuana, approximately $300,000 in cash and two loaded handguns.
[narrator.]
They discovered these huge quantities of contraband are flooding the Bronx on a daily basis.
When they follow the money, it leads them straight back to Jamaica and the Shower Posse.
[Baldus.]
From that point on, we really dug our heels in, conducted tremendous amounts of surveillance, many more arrests, many more seizures of drugs and guns.
[narrator.]
Nearly 2,000 miles south, Coke continues running his international drugs business, unaware the DEA is now closing in from afar.
[Baldus.]
It was thousands upon thousands of hours of recorded telephone conversations.
[Coke.]
I'm angry because every man wants to go up there and mow down the place.
What's the matter with these idiots? [narrator.]
The wiretaps reveal a drug lord managing a vast criminal network with ruthless efficiency.
[Coke.]
You can't go and force the war, man.
If war come, war come.
But we can't go out of the way to create or start a war.
[narrator.]
As the drugs flow into America, guns flow back in the other direction, as payment.
They would talk about the movement of drugs.
They would talk about the movement of weapons.
[narrator.]
Hidden from the tourists and their walled resorts, the tiny island of Jamaica is filling up with firearms.
By 2005, Christopher Coke's brutal operation is overwhelming the nation's authorities.
[Ford.]
Always difficult to police, once you are going up against people or youngsters or men with rifles.
Prior to the '80s, they weren't armed with M16 rifles and AK-47s, and the other sophisticated handguns.
Even grenades came into play.
[narrator.]
For the Shower Posse, arms are currency.
They carefully signed each American gun in and out of Tivoli Gardens and the weapons leaked out across the island.
[Shields.]
The fact is that these weapons were here.
That the amount of firepower and ammunition that was available is frankly frightening.
[narrator.]
As Dudus rakes in the riches, the murder rate rises to 1,600 people in a single year.
[Captain.]
Something I really don't want to remember.
Some people you love and you try to love them more, and you just lose them.
A lot of people.
Thousands of people I know have died.
It's mad, mad thing, you know? [narrator.]
On May 3rd, 2005, the violence reaches fever pitch.
[Ford.]
What actually happened that night Two boys rode up on a bike, shot and killed a man at the stoplight.
An unmarked police car was about two cars behind.
They saw what was happening and they reacted.
As a result, Coke's smaller brother and another man were shot and killed.
[narrator.]
Dudus already counts the police as enemies.
Now that they've killed Coke's brother, the retaliation is brutal.
It set off a series of attacks on the police.
[Shields.]
There was an escalation over the next 24 hours, and I can particularly remember a police inspector who was literally killed when he was sitting on his traffic motorcycle.
The Jamaica Constabulary Force was in total disarray, because clearly this wasn't just an attack on the police, it was an attack on the State.
[narrator.]
In one day, gang members kill three police officers and a security guard.
[Shields.]
There was some intelligence that, even within the Shower Posse, between Dudus and others, about whether or not they should back off or continue attacking police officers.
In the end, they backed off, because they knew that if they went too far, we could get into almost, like, a conflict war situation within Kingston.
We lost some members.
Good, good members.
They left behind families, friends and a lot of people to mourn them.
[narrator.]
Reeling after the carnage, Jamaicans are even more determined to bring down the drug lord once and for all.
Their new strategy, extradition.
There was a conclusion that the likelihood of getting a successful conviction of him in Jamaica was remote, and that the best chance to bring him to justice was working with our international partners.
In this case, the United States.
[Baldus.]
It was like putting a big jigsaw puzzle together.
An investigation like the Coke investigation definitely requires a little bit of cat and mouse.
Um you don't wanna make your presence known, but at the same time, you do wanna make arrests.
[narrator.]
The DEA continued targeting the Jamaicans.
[Zach.]
We scoured the world, frankly, for people and witnesses and evidence to build the case against him.
And I can tell you that when you would sit in a room with someone who had, uh, you know A real criminal, someone who had been involved in robberies and guns, you know, tough guys.
And, inevitably, at some point, when it turned to Coke, their demeanor changed.
When they really understood, we're like, "Tell us what you know directly about Coke," they would they would clam up.
Sometimes, they would even cry, because they were so afraid to talk about it.
[narrator.]
So, Special Agent Baldus tries a different tack.
While interrogating two of Coke's suppliers, he doesn't threaten them.
He plays them.
At one point, I pretended to take a phone call from a prosecutor.
I become irate.
I started yelling into the phone.
And I convinced them we were going to be dropping charges.
We let them go, and this was all big-picture thinking.
We wanted to keep the case going, we wanted to keep the phones spinning.
[narrator.]
And it pays off in 2006.
The investigation alerts them to a vicious criminal who appears to be one of Coke's ringleaders.
It was at that point the investigation, uh, took a major turn.
[narrator.]
He's known as Rooster and has a reputation for extreme violence.
Even with his dead enemies.
[Baldus.]
I was told that Rooster went to the morgue and used something similar to a samurai sword and chopped the head off right there.
From that point on, Rooster had walked around with that head in Kingston for several days.
Rooster had placed the head on a wall, put a lit cigarette in its mouth, would speak for the head.
They played soccer with it for a while, and ultimately roasted it on a fire.
[narrator.]
Rooster denies any involvement, claiming his supporters removed the head.
This was why people feared him.
I received information that Rooster was back in the United States.
We located him in an area in Florida.
We made a plan of action.
We rolled up to the house, covered the back, covered the front.
Made a very quick entry.
[indistinct commands.]
Lo and behold, one of those individuals was Rooster.
[narrator.]
But Rooster isn't all Agent Baldus finds.
[Baldus.]
What I saw turned out to be between 13,000 to 14,000 rounds of handgun and rifle ammunition, a semiautomatic rifle nose-down in a cardboard box, with marijuana wrappings and a scale.
All the ammunition that we found in the house was destined for Christopher Coke in Tivoli Gardens.
[narrator.]
Finally, after years of hard work the evidence they need to bring down the boss, Christopher Coke.
[Zach.]
You wanna make sure that you've got the goods and that you can prove your case, and so the DEA and our team, the US attorney's office, we worked very hard to make sure we had all of our ducks in a row, so that if he were arrested we could make sure that he was convicted.
[narrator.]
In August 2009, America issues an extradition order for Coke's arrest, just like they did for his father, 20 years earlier.
The extradition paperwork is refused, and there's public reporting on this where the Jamaican government does not, uh, honor it immediately, and they have questions about it.
[narrator.]
His loyal community want Coke to walk free, but outside the walls of Tivoli, Jamaica is turning against him.
The outcry and the groundswell and the public demand for the government to act became overwhelming, and the government had no choice.
[narrator.]
Nine months after the extradition order, Christopher hears the news he fears most.
The Jamaican prime minister, Golding, has buckled under pressure and approved his extradition.
I thought, "Finally.
Here we go.
We're finally gonna be able to get Christopher Coke.
" [narrator.]
But despair hits Tivoli.
All of the people start crying and Well, everybody starts to wonder what was gonna happen next.
[Bunting.]
There was a march, predominantly of women, and they were carrying placards, and one said, "Jesus died for us.
We will die for Dudus!" [Shields.]
I drove around the Tivoli area in downtown Kingston, and it was quite clear something was gonna happen.
Barricades that were built from cars, from metal, from piping, from barbed wire.
There was some serious concern and tension in the country that we realized we were getting to a point now where this was gonna go one way or the other.
My worst fear is that a lot of people would be killed.
I was even told by a lady who resided there for over 35 years, it was the first time she saw Dudus with a gun.
[indistinct chatter.]
[narrator.]
On Sunday, May 23rd, 2010, armed forces order law-abiding Tivoli residents to leave the community.
[soldier.]
Stop! [narrator.]
But the buses they provide for the evacuation come back empty, and 400 heavily-armed locals, loyal to their don, go into battle.
[rapid gunfire.]
They started to preemptively attack the security forces.
[explosions.]
[gunfire.]
[Bunting.]
There was an ambush along Mountain View Avenue, while police patrolled, they burnt the Hannah Town police station to the ground.
Two or three other police stations were set on fire.
[Ford.]
I went down to the market along with a team of people, and a lot of shots were being fired.
You know, it was just total, total chaos.
[gunfire.]
[gunfire continues.]
[narrator.]
With a media blackout in place, dozens are feared dead.
But Coke is still nowhere to be seen.
We were on the edge of an abyss.
The State itself was on the verge of being captured by a criminal organization.
[narrator.]
Finally, the Jamaican authorities take decisive action, mobilizing a force 1,000-strong.
[Ford.]
Over the years, the police would just go in and they would shoot their way out.
- This time, it wasn't like that.
- [gunfire.]
We had aerial support, all kinds of support.
[narrator.]
The battle on Kingston's streets forces the prime minster's hand.
This afternoon, the cabinet took the decision to advise the governor general to issue a proclamation, declaring a state of public emergency, effective 6:00 p.
m.
today.
[narrator.]
As the fighting engulfs Tivoli, thousands of people are left stranded, without food and water, watching their neighbors die.
[Ford.]
Once he knew the warrant was there, he should not have subjected the people in Tivoli Gardens, the people in the surrounding community, who he said he loves He shouldn't have subjected the people to that.
He should have just surrendered.
In any, any law enforcement operation, it is a tragedy if people are hurt or people die.
You never wanna see that.
You never wanna see that.
But the question is, you have these tremendously powerful people who will commit extraordinary and violent crimes, and the question you have to ask is, "Should society prosecute these people? Is it worth going after them?" And I think it is.
[narrator.]
Eventually, after three days of fighting, Tivoli Gardens is overwhelmed.
The death toll stands at 73, including three of the security forces.
But despite almost 1,000 arrests, the man himself, Christopher Coke, mysteriously slips away.
Some believe that he had fled the island and he had been taken by boat to Haiti or Colombia.
[Ford.]
A lot of rumors was going around then, that he had left on a plane from one of those illegal airports.
They thought he could be anywhere.
He was Superman.
He could be anywhere in the world.
But a lot of people, they were saying that he'd gone underground in Tivoli.
[narrator.]
Coke's location remains a mystery for a month.
The police lock down Kingston with roadblocks and checkpoints.
Then, on June 22nd, 2010, they stop a suspicious-looking woman en route to the US Embassy.
On closer inspection, they discover it's none other than Dudus in disguise.
Christopher Coke was wearing a woman's wig, a very, very curly wig, with female sunglasses.
He looked ridiculous, you know, 'cause you could tell he was a man.
[narrator.]
He's trying to bypass Jamaican police and turn himself in to the Americans.
Maybe the reason why he never wanted to surrender to the government, his father died in prison that way.
So he never wanted what happened to his father to happen to him in Jamaican prison.
[Zach.]
Coke did not contest his extradition, he waived it.
He did that so he could come to the United States right away.
And what that meant is he bypassed being jailed in Jamaica.
[narrator.]
DEA Special Agent Baldus makes the flight to Jamaica, to personally collect the don for extradition.
When we landed, we were on the tarmac, and I saw three military helicopters hovering above us.
One finally landed and when it landed men had jumped out, all wearing balaclavas.
They all had long guns, and with them was Christopher Coke.
At that point, we'd taken custody of him and put him on the jet and we flew him back to New York.
For the three-plus-hour flight, Christopher Coke was sitting right across from me.
And whenever you have an investigation like this against someone, I think you're always surprised at the person they turn out to be.
He was very talkative, he was It was very easy, very easy conversation.
He asked me if I knew who his father was and how his father passed.
I told him that I did.
The DEA places Coke in the New York Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he faces charges of conspiracy to distribute narcotics and illegally traffic in firearms.
You know, in the succeeding three or four-year period after that operation, um the murder rate in Jamaica fell by about 35-40%.
[Zach.]
The reputation as a Robin Hood, as someone who's living this life outside of the law, you can see the romance in it for a second but you can never lose sight of what that actually means in reality.
Because the flip side of that story is death and harm and the wrecking of society, frankly.
And Christopher Coke was president.
The violence was always there.
Each year, it'd get more gruesome, more chilling, more burdensome.
People who are not his friend, people from outside, say, "Yeah, the man is a monster, the man is a devil.
" If you are in dispute or conflict with them, most of those conflicts would settle by people getting killed.
[man screaming.]
[theme music playing.]
[narrator.]
May 2010.
Kingston, Jamaica.
[gunfire.]
The Caribbean island is wracked by gang wars Come out of the road, man! in a state of emergency, as police pursue a drug lord at the height of his power.
Christopher Coke was one of the world's most prominent drug lords.
At its peak, 20% of the cocaine going into the USA was trafficked through Jamaica.
[narrator.]
Christopher Coke, AKA Dudus or Presi, controls a multi-million dollar drug empire through his violent gang, the Shower Posse.
[dog barking.]
They were fearless, they were hard-nosed, and they had a lot of firepower.
Shower Posse was a brand name in New York, Miami, Atlanta, Toronto, the UK, and Christopher Coke was the president and CEO.
[Coke.]
The more they try test me, the more I come, more I come.
[narrator.]
Coke's war against the police will bring Jamaica to its knees.
[gunfire continues.]
[woman screaming.]
[officer.]
Get your hands up! Head over here! [narrator.]
Jamaica, the 1970s.
Christopher Coke grows up in the violent heart of Kingston, in a family of gangsters led by his father, Lester.
Lester Coke started a very large criminal network in Jamaica, highly powerful, and he had a lot of public officials that were being paid bribes to protect his enterprise.
[narrator.]
To the Kingston community, Lester Coke is known as Jim Brown or the Don.
[Duane Blake.]
The don system in Kingston is similar to a community leader.
Dons aren't necessarily gangsters.
Dons are leaders, pillars, helpers of the community.
[narrator.]
But the dons have a dark side.
And the future drug lord watches and learns.
[Peter Bunting.]
They really use fear to intimidate, and the reputation for ruthless cruelty to to keep, um, one order, so to speak.
[narrator.]
The Coke family keeps that order through their notorious gang, the Shower Posse.
[Bunting.]
The Shower Posse got its name from their reputation for showering a hail of bullets on their opponents.
The so-called Shower Posse was a very violent, ruthless drug gang operating in West Kingston.
They were trafficking primarily cocaine, but also marijuana that was grown on the island.
[narrator.]
By the late '80s, Jim Brown's ruthless control has a large part of West Kingston under his sway.
But his reign is about to come crashing down.
The United States requested his extradition, and in 1992, the Jamaican government put him in jail.
[narrator.]
But Jim Brown knows too much.
It's expected he'll testify against corrupt Jamaican police and politicians in court.
The night before he was gonna be extradited to the United States, a mysterious fire broke out in his cell and he died as a result.
[narrator.]
The Don has been silenced.
The manner of his father's death will haunt Christopher Coke for the rest of his life.
[indistinct chatter.]
[narrator.]
Control of the Shower Posse should now pass to Jim Brown's eldest legitimate son, Tony, AKA Jah T.
[Captain.]
That man was a cool guy, Tony, man.
That Sunday changed everything, you know? Big, big problem that Sunday evening.
[narrator.]
One night, in February 1992, a rival gang member is trailing Jah T.
[Ford.]
Jah T was riding down Maxfield Avenue.
Several shots were fired at him.
He was hit, and died subsequently.
And then as a result, he being killed, his brother now came into the picture, and that was Christopher.
[narrator.]
At just 22 years old, Christopher "Dudus" Coke ascends to the throne.
The young drug lord has an instinct for the family business.
He knows that to maintain his grip on power, he must rule through fear.
[Ford.]
He was violent.
He was an outside child.
So as a result of that, his legitimacy to the real organization and clan was a kind of bit rocky.
I honestly believe that's why he turned out to be that.
People would say "monster.
" [narrator.]
Coke wants to transform his father's firm into a vast empire.
[Vigil.]
Dudus Coke was driven by power and wealth.
And he knew that if he kept the Shower Posse at a low level, in terms of its drug trafficking capabilities, it was never gonna move forward.
So he wanted to expand the business.
[narrator.]
And he's in the perfect spot to make it happen.
Jamaica is ideally placed to traffic cocaine from South America to North America.
Passing through the busiest port in the Caribbean, Kingston Harbour.
He was buying the cocaine in Colombia for about $4,000 a kilo, and then selling that for anywhere from $28,000 to $40,000, and probably even more in Canada and then also in the UK.
[narrator.]
By now, Coke is moving huge quantities of drugs into North America.
So, there were all sorts of ingenious methods that were used.
There were cases where metal cylinders were welded to the hulls of ships at a port in Jamaica, and removed similarly at a port in the US.
[narrator.]
And Coke has insiders on his payroll, to make sure the business runs without a hitch.
On commercial airline flights, they would find ways to get it into the cargo hold and have a confederate who worked in the baggage handling on the other side.
[narrator.]
As drugs flood American cities, Jamaica increasingly appears on the DEA's radar.
[Eric Baldus.]
We knew the existence of Christopher Coke, but their direct connection to the Jamaican gangs here in the United States wasn't all that apparent.
A lot of 'em use very, uh, complex methods, laundering money into offshore bank accounts, for example, in Panama.
[John Zach.]
And that was law enforcement's task, to find these pockets of people that were, you know, involved in in extraordinary criminal activity and weed that out.
[narrator.]
But there's a problem.
To gather any intel at all, the DEA must penetrate the Shower Posse's fortress in Kingston.
Tivoli Gardens.
The most dangerous place for an outsider in all of Jamaica.
[Ford.]
When Tivoli Gardens was just built or established, it was a model community.
But over the years, it has grown so that people has come to fear it.
[Zach.]
You had to have Coke's authorization to get in there.
And from there, he controlled many people that had spread out throughout the world.
[Ford.]
Down in Tivoli, down there is where they store all of the cocaine and the drugs and the guns, and Coke only gets part payment in guns and in cash.
So, as a result of that, that community was really, really closed off.
[narrator.]
Even the police feared to go in.
[Bunting.]
The commissioner of police, who had been there 30-odd years, he said that in his entire career, he had never been into Tivoli Gardens, he had never policed Tivoli Gardens.
It was just a sort of no-policing zone.
[narrator.]
In his Tivoli Gardens headquarters, Coke thinks he's above the law and loads up enough ammunition to challenge anyone who disagrees.
[Mark Shields.]
The weaponry that the Shower Posse had access to was enough to start a small war.
Anything from small hand-launched missiles all the way through, of course, to AK-47s, M16s, and every sort of handgun that you can possibly imagine.
[narrator.]
The authorities make the decision to show Coke who's boss.
When a rival don is murdered, police choose the moment to sweep the Shower Posse headquarters for weapons.
So, on July 7th, 2001, armed to the teeth, police invade Tivoli.
But Coke's men are waiting for them.
For days, the determined police unit throws all their firepower at Tivoli residents.
[gunfire.]
[Ford.]
There was a massive firefight in Tivoli Gardens community.
Everybody come out with guns and fire at the police, and the police is seen now as enemy number one.
[narrator.]
The cops have the area on lockdown, shooting anyone who moves.
[Captain.]
They can't just run into the place like that.
Not the way they came in, blazing guns.
On the building top, firing shots.
I don't see no sense in that, you know? [narrator.]
But the Shower Posse managed to hold the police back.
[news anchor.]
Members of the giant police-military force are pinned down at the Carnation Street command post.
[Captain.]
You have to fire your shot.
You have to do what you have to do.
Who died, died.
Who lived, lived.
[indistinct shouting.]
[narrator.]
Finally, after four days, the police retreat.
The police were repelled by the criminal gunmen.
[narrator.]
Twenty-seven civilians and two cops lose their lives.
Coke's victory reveals a chilling truth in Jamaica.
His Shower Posse is beyond the authorities' control.
But Christopher Coke is more than just a ruthless fighter.
His strength within Kingston is not just down to firepower.
He has built total loyalty among the community.
Not just a protector, but also a provider.
People of Tivoli Gardens actually love Christopher.
They view him as a leader of the community as somewhat of their protector, a Robin Hood type of character.
[Bunting.]
It would have not been uncommon for, uh, children's treats to be held at Christmas and at holiday times, school fees to be paid, medical bills to be paid.
Nobody who lived in the community had to pay for any utility, electricity, water, cable, but they could only live in the units at the gift of the Don.
The loyalty was acquired on the one hand by fear, but on the other hand by patronage.
[dogs barking.]
[Captain.]
Yeah, man, we're more effective than the police sometimes, man.
Anything the people could call upon us on, we will always there for them.
Police not protect them as we'd have protect them.
[reggae music playing.]
[narrator.]
Under Coke's rule, regular street parties unite the people.
The Don reaches hero status in Kingston.
[Bunting.]
He was, sort of, almost a celebrity in some communities, and, you know, you would just see a crowd of guys come in and hear people whispering in hushed tones, "It's Dudus," or "Presi.
" And with a certain amount of awe.
[Captain.]
You have to really wonder if it was him, you know.
And when you see him you'd say, "Who's that man?" "That's the Presi.
" [Zach.]
Coke was an enigma.
He was this cult of personality.
I've never seen someone who had such a tremendous influence on people and who people credited with having almost supernatural powers of being able to reach out.
[narrator.]
But the velvet glove hides an iron fist.
[Shields.]
There's an expectation of this 100% loyalty to the organization.
And if you stepped out of line, the chances are you would be killed.
The theory was there was a cell or a compartment down in Tivoli where they would beat you or chop you or shoot you.
[narrator.]
And in this secret cell, Christopher Coke himself allegedly metes out the violence.
You would never find a body, a corpse, inside Tivoli Gardens.
The practice was that the bodies were put into barrels and then they were delivered and deposited in other areas of Kingston or farther afield.
[narrator.]
Coke denies such accounts and they remain unproven.
As the violence spirals in Kingston, over in the Bronx, the feds are following every trail which might lead them to the Jamaican importers.
[Zach.]
We spent time focusing on what was going on in the Bronx, going on in the United States, in an effort to reach out to Jamaica, and eventually, you know, build the case that would bring Coke to the United States.
[narrator.]
In 2003, the trail suddenly gets hotter.
A local Jamaican gang known as the John Shop Crew catches the attention of DEA Special Agent Baldus.
[Baldus.]
Although we couldn't have realized it at the time, DEA's investigation of Christopher Coke and the Jamaican Shower Posse started in this alleyway in the Bronx.
Myself and my partner observed a couple of John Shop Crew members, watched them load their vehicle up with 400 pounds of marijuana.
Subsequently arrested them.
After that arrest, we searched a couple of locations and were able to recover an additional 200 pounds of marijuana, approximately $300,000 in cash and two loaded handguns.
[narrator.]
They discovered these huge quantities of contraband are flooding the Bronx on a daily basis.
When they follow the money, it leads them straight back to Jamaica and the Shower Posse.
[Baldus.]
From that point on, we really dug our heels in, conducted tremendous amounts of surveillance, many more arrests, many more seizures of drugs and guns.
[narrator.]
Nearly 2,000 miles south, Coke continues running his international drugs business, unaware the DEA is now closing in from afar.
[Baldus.]
It was thousands upon thousands of hours of recorded telephone conversations.
[Coke.]
I'm angry because every man wants to go up there and mow down the place.
What's the matter with these idiots? [narrator.]
The wiretaps reveal a drug lord managing a vast criminal network with ruthless efficiency.
[Coke.]
You can't go and force the war, man.
If war come, war come.
But we can't go out of the way to create or start a war.
[narrator.]
As the drugs flow into America, guns flow back in the other direction, as payment.
They would talk about the movement of drugs.
They would talk about the movement of weapons.
[narrator.]
Hidden from the tourists and their walled resorts, the tiny island of Jamaica is filling up with firearms.
By 2005, Christopher Coke's brutal operation is overwhelming the nation's authorities.
[Ford.]
Always difficult to police, once you are going up against people or youngsters or men with rifles.
Prior to the '80s, they weren't armed with M16 rifles and AK-47s, and the other sophisticated handguns.
Even grenades came into play.
[narrator.]
For the Shower Posse, arms are currency.
They carefully signed each American gun in and out of Tivoli Gardens and the weapons leaked out across the island.
[Shields.]
The fact is that these weapons were here.
That the amount of firepower and ammunition that was available is frankly frightening.
[narrator.]
As Dudus rakes in the riches, the murder rate rises to 1,600 people in a single year.
[Captain.]
Something I really don't want to remember.
Some people you love and you try to love them more, and you just lose them.
A lot of people.
Thousands of people I know have died.
It's mad, mad thing, you know? [narrator.]
On May 3rd, 2005, the violence reaches fever pitch.
[Ford.]
What actually happened that night Two boys rode up on a bike, shot and killed a man at the stoplight.
An unmarked police car was about two cars behind.
They saw what was happening and they reacted.
As a result, Coke's smaller brother and another man were shot and killed.
[narrator.]
Dudus already counts the police as enemies.
Now that they've killed Coke's brother, the retaliation is brutal.
It set off a series of attacks on the police.
[Shields.]
There was an escalation over the next 24 hours, and I can particularly remember a police inspector who was literally killed when he was sitting on his traffic motorcycle.
The Jamaica Constabulary Force was in total disarray, because clearly this wasn't just an attack on the police, it was an attack on the State.
[narrator.]
In one day, gang members kill three police officers and a security guard.
[Shields.]
There was some intelligence that, even within the Shower Posse, between Dudus and others, about whether or not they should back off or continue attacking police officers.
In the end, they backed off, because they knew that if they went too far, we could get into almost, like, a conflict war situation within Kingston.
We lost some members.
Good, good members.
They left behind families, friends and a lot of people to mourn them.
[narrator.]
Reeling after the carnage, Jamaicans are even more determined to bring down the drug lord once and for all.
Their new strategy, extradition.
There was a conclusion that the likelihood of getting a successful conviction of him in Jamaica was remote, and that the best chance to bring him to justice was working with our international partners.
In this case, the United States.
[Baldus.]
It was like putting a big jigsaw puzzle together.
An investigation like the Coke investigation definitely requires a little bit of cat and mouse.
Um you don't wanna make your presence known, but at the same time, you do wanna make arrests.
[narrator.]
The DEA continued targeting the Jamaicans.
[Zach.]
We scoured the world, frankly, for people and witnesses and evidence to build the case against him.
And I can tell you that when you would sit in a room with someone who had, uh, you know A real criminal, someone who had been involved in robberies and guns, you know, tough guys.
And, inevitably, at some point, when it turned to Coke, their demeanor changed.
When they really understood, we're like, "Tell us what you know directly about Coke," they would they would clam up.
Sometimes, they would even cry, because they were so afraid to talk about it.
[narrator.]
So, Special Agent Baldus tries a different tack.
While interrogating two of Coke's suppliers, he doesn't threaten them.
He plays them.
At one point, I pretended to take a phone call from a prosecutor.
I become irate.
I started yelling into the phone.
And I convinced them we were going to be dropping charges.
We let them go, and this was all big-picture thinking.
We wanted to keep the case going, we wanted to keep the phones spinning.
[narrator.]
And it pays off in 2006.
The investigation alerts them to a vicious criminal who appears to be one of Coke's ringleaders.
It was at that point the investigation, uh, took a major turn.
[narrator.]
He's known as Rooster and has a reputation for extreme violence.
Even with his dead enemies.
[Baldus.]
I was told that Rooster went to the morgue and used something similar to a samurai sword and chopped the head off right there.
From that point on, Rooster had walked around with that head in Kingston for several days.
Rooster had placed the head on a wall, put a lit cigarette in its mouth, would speak for the head.
They played soccer with it for a while, and ultimately roasted it on a fire.
[narrator.]
Rooster denies any involvement, claiming his supporters removed the head.
This was why people feared him.
I received information that Rooster was back in the United States.
We located him in an area in Florida.
We made a plan of action.
We rolled up to the house, covered the back, covered the front.
Made a very quick entry.
[indistinct commands.]
Lo and behold, one of those individuals was Rooster.
[narrator.]
But Rooster isn't all Agent Baldus finds.
[Baldus.]
What I saw turned out to be between 13,000 to 14,000 rounds of handgun and rifle ammunition, a semiautomatic rifle nose-down in a cardboard box, with marijuana wrappings and a scale.
All the ammunition that we found in the house was destined for Christopher Coke in Tivoli Gardens.
[narrator.]
Finally, after years of hard work the evidence they need to bring down the boss, Christopher Coke.
[Zach.]
You wanna make sure that you've got the goods and that you can prove your case, and so the DEA and our team, the US attorney's office, we worked very hard to make sure we had all of our ducks in a row, so that if he were arrested we could make sure that he was convicted.
[narrator.]
In August 2009, America issues an extradition order for Coke's arrest, just like they did for his father, 20 years earlier.
The extradition paperwork is refused, and there's public reporting on this where the Jamaican government does not, uh, honor it immediately, and they have questions about it.
[narrator.]
His loyal community want Coke to walk free, but outside the walls of Tivoli, Jamaica is turning against him.
The outcry and the groundswell and the public demand for the government to act became overwhelming, and the government had no choice.
[narrator.]
Nine months after the extradition order, Christopher hears the news he fears most.
The Jamaican prime minister, Golding, has buckled under pressure and approved his extradition.
I thought, "Finally.
Here we go.
We're finally gonna be able to get Christopher Coke.
" [narrator.]
But despair hits Tivoli.
All of the people start crying and Well, everybody starts to wonder what was gonna happen next.
[Bunting.]
There was a march, predominantly of women, and they were carrying placards, and one said, "Jesus died for us.
We will die for Dudus!" [Shields.]
I drove around the Tivoli area in downtown Kingston, and it was quite clear something was gonna happen.
Barricades that were built from cars, from metal, from piping, from barbed wire.
There was some serious concern and tension in the country that we realized we were getting to a point now where this was gonna go one way or the other.
My worst fear is that a lot of people would be killed.
I was even told by a lady who resided there for over 35 years, it was the first time she saw Dudus with a gun.
[indistinct chatter.]
[narrator.]
On Sunday, May 23rd, 2010, armed forces order law-abiding Tivoli residents to leave the community.
[soldier.]
Stop! [narrator.]
But the buses they provide for the evacuation come back empty, and 400 heavily-armed locals, loyal to their don, go into battle.
[rapid gunfire.]
They started to preemptively attack the security forces.
[explosions.]
[gunfire.]
[Bunting.]
There was an ambush along Mountain View Avenue, while police patrolled, they burnt the Hannah Town police station to the ground.
Two or three other police stations were set on fire.
[Ford.]
I went down to the market along with a team of people, and a lot of shots were being fired.
You know, it was just total, total chaos.
[gunfire.]
[gunfire continues.]
[narrator.]
With a media blackout in place, dozens are feared dead.
But Coke is still nowhere to be seen.
We were on the edge of an abyss.
The State itself was on the verge of being captured by a criminal organization.
[narrator.]
Finally, the Jamaican authorities take decisive action, mobilizing a force 1,000-strong.
[Ford.]
Over the years, the police would just go in and they would shoot their way out.
- This time, it wasn't like that.
- [gunfire.]
We had aerial support, all kinds of support.
[narrator.]
The battle on Kingston's streets forces the prime minster's hand.
This afternoon, the cabinet took the decision to advise the governor general to issue a proclamation, declaring a state of public emergency, effective 6:00 p.
m.
today.
[narrator.]
As the fighting engulfs Tivoli, thousands of people are left stranded, without food and water, watching their neighbors die.
[Ford.]
Once he knew the warrant was there, he should not have subjected the people in Tivoli Gardens, the people in the surrounding community, who he said he loves He shouldn't have subjected the people to that.
He should have just surrendered.
In any, any law enforcement operation, it is a tragedy if people are hurt or people die.
You never wanna see that.
You never wanna see that.
But the question is, you have these tremendously powerful people who will commit extraordinary and violent crimes, and the question you have to ask is, "Should society prosecute these people? Is it worth going after them?" And I think it is.
[narrator.]
Eventually, after three days of fighting, Tivoli Gardens is overwhelmed.
The death toll stands at 73, including three of the security forces.
But despite almost 1,000 arrests, the man himself, Christopher Coke, mysteriously slips away.
Some believe that he had fled the island and he had been taken by boat to Haiti or Colombia.
[Ford.]
A lot of rumors was going around then, that he had left on a plane from one of those illegal airports.
They thought he could be anywhere.
He was Superman.
He could be anywhere in the world.
But a lot of people, they were saying that he'd gone underground in Tivoli.
[narrator.]
Coke's location remains a mystery for a month.
The police lock down Kingston with roadblocks and checkpoints.
Then, on June 22nd, 2010, they stop a suspicious-looking woman en route to the US Embassy.
On closer inspection, they discover it's none other than Dudus in disguise.
Christopher Coke was wearing a woman's wig, a very, very curly wig, with female sunglasses.
He looked ridiculous, you know, 'cause you could tell he was a man.
[narrator.]
He's trying to bypass Jamaican police and turn himself in to the Americans.
Maybe the reason why he never wanted to surrender to the government, his father died in prison that way.
So he never wanted what happened to his father to happen to him in Jamaican prison.
[Zach.]
Coke did not contest his extradition, he waived it.
He did that so he could come to the United States right away.
And what that meant is he bypassed being jailed in Jamaica.
[narrator.]
DEA Special Agent Baldus makes the flight to Jamaica, to personally collect the don for extradition.
When we landed, we were on the tarmac, and I saw three military helicopters hovering above us.
One finally landed and when it landed men had jumped out, all wearing balaclavas.
They all had long guns, and with them was Christopher Coke.
At that point, we'd taken custody of him and put him on the jet and we flew him back to New York.
For the three-plus-hour flight, Christopher Coke was sitting right across from me.
And whenever you have an investigation like this against someone, I think you're always surprised at the person they turn out to be.
He was very talkative, he was It was very easy, very easy conversation.
He asked me if I knew who his father was and how his father passed.
I told him that I did.
The DEA places Coke in the New York Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he faces charges of conspiracy to distribute narcotics and illegally traffic in firearms.
You know, in the succeeding three or four-year period after that operation, um the murder rate in Jamaica fell by about 35-40%.
[Zach.]
The reputation as a Robin Hood, as someone who's living this life outside of the law, you can see the romance in it for a second but you can never lose sight of what that actually means in reality.
Because the flip side of that story is death and harm and the wrecking of society, frankly.