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The captain is South Korean. The drug lords are brothers from Miami. The fixer is a drunk and his lawyer knows too much. And when everything is said and done, when the all the drugs are sold and all the arrests have been made and everyone is in jail, no one — no one — will admit to owning the ship.

This is the day: May 28, 1985. The weather off the mouth of the Columbia River is warm and a little windy. The ship is named the Saja. She’s a refrigerator ship and end to end is as long as the Statue of Liberty is tall. This is end of a 10,000 mile trip. The black grouper the captain and his crew bought in Senegal are frozen in the hold. The 23 tons of marijuana they picked up in Columbia — the biggest smuggling job in Oregon’s history — is safely hidden.

Mouth of the Columbia River. Photo via U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

In a few years, the Saja will become a footnote in a sprawling criminal investigation marked by suicide, sexual scandal and countless near-misses by the federal government. And then, twenty years later, an energy giant will fight to build a $650 million liquefied natural gas plant, coincidentally, on the site of the Saja’s remote landfall in Oregon. But in 1985, history has yet to be written. And the Saja is pulling up to the docks in Astoria, just inside the mouth of the Columbia River.

The town the Saja arrives in is still a frontier town. The heady days of logging and fishing are coming to an end. Downtown is filled with decaying businesses and prehistoric bars. It will take another decade before city officials and Chamber of Commerce types begin to reclaim the city as their own. Charles Goldman, the fixer for the smuggling operation, had paid a Portland, Ore. company to help clear the Saja through customs on the docks in Astoria. But he forgot to take into account simple geography: Black grouper is from the South Atlantic. Which is a long way away. When the Saja unloads the fish, the questions begin. Enter the U.S. Customs Service. They detain the South Korean crew. They search. And search. But all they find is ice.

Tolonen Boat Shop, Astoria, Ore. 1987. Photo via Historic Fishing.

The ice is the secret. There is a secret hold in the ship. After filling it with the marijuana, the smugglers let ice form over its access hatch. Then they board over the hatch and let ice form over the boards. “Absolutely undetectable” is how a Customs agent would describe it three years later. And with that, the Saja is free to go.

This isn’t Goldman’s first smuggling job, nor his last. As the Saja arrives in Astoria, he’s 38 years old, splitting his time between New York City and Portland, and trying to figure out ways to get rid of the grouper once it’s offloaded. Goldman’s the main smuggling distributor for a guy named Acqulino Melo, who’s 41 and lives in Miami with his brother. The Melo’s are big shit.  Between 1982 and 1985, they’ll smuggle somewhere around 88 tons of marijuana into the U.S. How much is that worth? About $116 million wholesale in today’s dollars. Goldman is well paid; he’ll walk away with about $5 million. But that doesn’t mean the Melo’s like him. They think he’s a drunk and a druggy. After major smuggling operations, Acqulino sends his enforcer to Goldman’s house to pick up the earnings from the deal. And then, in one case, he gives his enforcer permission to strong-arm $75,000 in cash from Goldman to pay for the enforcer’s “services.”

Fish cannery, Astoria, Ore. Photo via Jody Miller/Flickr.

Goldman’s biggest problem isn’t the Melos. He’s busy trying figure out what to do with all of his cash. And he’s screwing up pretty badly. He keeps some at his mom’s house and some with his lawyer. His lawyer, David Arnold, helps him buy houses and cars under different names — a bumbling attempt at money laundering. Goldman gives Arnold power of attorney when Goldman flees to France and the Philippines as the feds are closing in after the Saja deal. Every clumsy step he takes at hiding money is fodder for investigators. Arnold’s mistakes are, too. Prosecutors will eventually try and convict Arnold of money laundering and aiding in racketeering. Thanks to Goldman that case will bounce from court to court. Because by then Goldman has turned on his fellow smugglers and is the government’s lead witness. But he’s also sleeping with an IRS agent who’s part of the prosecution. Mistrials abound.

That’s getting ahead of the story. Today is May 28, 1985. And Goldman is not screwing anything up. The opposite, in fact. He and the rest of the smuggling network are watching from their respective viewpoints across the country as their plan continues to unfold: The ice is opaque. The agents’ search is done. And so a tugboat begins towing the Saja up the Columbia. It’s going, the crew says, somewhere for “repairs.” Its destination: an abandoned mill town named Bradwood Landing.

Next week, part 2: The town, the Texans and how the deal went down.

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Sources:

United States of America v. David Carlton Arnold and Armando Coto, 117 F.3d 1308 (11th Cir. 1997)

Interviews with Paul Benoit, City of Astoria, city manager; Charles Deister, NorthernStar Natural Gas, spokesman

“Phase I Environmental Site Assessment – Revised.” Prepared by AMEC Earth & Environmental, Inc. for NorthernStar Natural Gas, August, 2005

“Summary of Bradwood Industrial Site,” presentation to Clatsop County Board of Commissioners by NorthernStar Natural Gas, Oct. 19, 2007

The Oregonian, Aug. 4, 1988, “10 Face Federal Charges In ‘85 Smuggling Scheme”

The Oregonian, Aug. 17, 1988, “Investigators Detail Big Marijuana-Smuggling Operation”

The Oregonian, Feb. 19, 1989, “Drug Case Figure Gets Protection”

The Oregonian, Sept. 12, 1989, “Drug Smuggler Admits To Charges”

The Oregonian, March 20, 1990, “New Yorker Draws 15-Year Term In Record Oregon Narcotics Case”

Over at OurPDX I’ve written a piece about the fate of niche publications in light of the larger crisis in the newspaper industry. I use Just Out, Portland’s leading gay and lesbian newspaper, as an example of the difficulties niche papers face, and how a digital future is a scary place:

The problem is, print media is tragically unable to find online ad dollars. Tom Corbett, an analyst with Morningstar, estimates that in 2008, print publishers made 1.7 cents in online ad revenue for every dollar they lost.  That’s like walking 1.7 feet forward only to turn around and sprint 100 feet in the other direction. Niche publications can barely stand to lose inches, much less feet. Those with viable digital revenue models are … I don’t know. I haven’t seen any.

Read the rest at OurPDX.

Today is Nowruz — New Year’s day in the Persian world. And at midnight last night, the president released a brief video — subtitled in Farsi — wishing Iranians everywhere a happy New Year. The underlying reason for the video was diplomacy; Obama challenged Iran to engage in peaceful dialogue with the U.S. “This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect,” he said.

I have no idea what kind of impact the video will have. In all likelihood it will be forgotten in a few months. But the simple act of creating it amazes me. There are countless examples of how different this administration is from the last. But I can’t think of one that feels as radically divergent as this.

As Ezra Klien pointed out, “It is hard to believe that five years after we were ordering “freedom fries” in the congressional cafeteria, we’re posting Persian translations at Whitehouse.gov.”

Watch the video. Watch the video with Farsi subtitles. Read the transcript. Download the Farsi version of the transcript.

An excerpt:

So in this season of new beginnings I would like to speak clearly to Iran’s leaders. We have serious differences that have grown over time. My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community. This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.

You, too, have a choice. The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right — but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization. And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create.

So on the occasion of your New Year, I want you, the people and leaders of Iran, to understand the future that we seek. It’s a future with renewed exchanges among our people, and greater opportunities for partnership and commerce. It’s a future where the old divisions are overcome, where you and all of your neighbors and the wider world can live in greater security and greater peace.

I know that this won’t be reached easily. There are those who insist that we be defined by our differences. But let us remember the words that were written by the poet Saadi, so many years ago: “The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence.”

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Oregon Understory is a behind-the-scenes look at stories from the Pacific Northwest’s best reporters, editors, and bloggers.

This week’s edition features work by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Rich Read from the Oregonian, and Kelly Moyer, news editor at the South County Spotlight. (Direct download.)

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