The Last of the South FL "Cocaine Cowboys" on the run for 26 years, brought to justice

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Gustavo Falcon, a cocaine cowboy who hid from the feds for 26 years, finally pleaded guilty Thursday to drug trafficking in Miami federal court — where his older brother, Willie, and his partner, Sal Magluta, met their demise long ago.

The younger Falcon, now 56, was arrested last April by the U.S. marshals who captured him in Orlando after he took a long bike ride with his wife. Falcon, initially suspected of being in a foreign country such as Mexico or Colombia, was arrested on April 12 in the Kissimmee area where he had been living with family members under fake names since the late 1990s.

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A police forensic artist was running images of Cuban males over the age of 50 in Miami and saw a fake driver’s license with a photo that looked like Gustavo Falcon. “The forensic artist is trained in identifying faces and age progression, so when the fraudulent image of Falcon popped up, she immediately knew it was him,” spokesman Barry Golden told the Miami Herald in April.

She then forwarded the fake license information and photo to police investigators who had worked on the case, and they confirmed the license was obtained by Falcon. Miami-Dade police contacted the U.S. marshals about the bogus license, which had a Hialeah address. But deputy marshals later learned that the license was obtained in the Kissimmee area, where Falcon had been involved in an accident in 2013. Deputy marshals then trained their investigation on that area.

Falcon had obtained fake driver’s licenses for himself, and his wife, Amelia, in September of 1991, Golden said. The parents went by the names of Luis Andre Reiss and Maria Reiss, he said. In addition, Falcon had obtained fraudulent Social Security cards for himself and the wife.

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