The Chronicles of Willy & Sal: Miami’s Cocaine Cowboys

The Chronicles of Willy & Sal: Miami’s Cocaine Cowboys

A hardcover collection of archival 1990s Miami New Times coverage by Jim DeFede, published by Letter 16 Press

In late 1991, Jim DeFede moved to Miami to take a new job as a staff writer for New Times. An up-and-coming cops and courts reporter, the Brooklyn native had spent the prior five years at a daily in Spokane, Washington, and was looking forward to a new challenge. He had no idea what he was in for. No sooner did he hit town than the U.S. government announced it had indicted Willy Falcon and Sal Magluta, aka Los Muchachos — the Magic City’s infamous Cocaine Cowboys. 

In February 1992, New Times published DeFede’s first story, a 7,000-word yarn tracing the alleged multibillionaire coke kingpins’ rise and fall. He would continue to cover the bizarre twists and turns of the case — from escapes to jury tampering, murder, and assorted mayhem — as it wound its way through the federal court system.

The Chronicles of Willy & Sal takes readers through this improbable only-in-Miami tale exactly as local readers experienced it in real time in the 1990s, with the addition of scores of visuals — evidence photos, courtroom sketches, reproductions of the original newsprint layouts, and more. The book includes an afterword by DeFede as well as foreword by documentary filmmakers Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman, cofounders of the rakontur production company — whose Cocaine Cowboys draws heavily on New Times’ contemporaneous coverage — and an introduction by New Times editor Tom Finkel.