The Drug Game From The Inside
Dan "Tito" Davis comes from a town in South Dakota that's so small everyone knows their neighbor's cat's name. But once he got out, he made some noise. While at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, he started manufacturing White Crosses, aka speed, and soon had the Banditos Motorcycle Club distributing ten million pills a week.
Life On The Run
After serving a nickel, he got into the weed game, but just when he got going, he was set up by a childhood friend. Facing thirty years, Davis slipped into Mexico, not knowing a word of Spanish, which began a thirteen-year odyssey that led him to an underground hideout for a Medellin cartel, through the jungles of the Darien Gap, the middle of Mumbai's madness, and much more.
The Ultimate Fugitive Story
Tito didn’t have a mega-mansion filled with pretty girls and expensive cars. He survived in the Third World facing adversity at every turn. Millions of dollars came and went as Tito stayed one step ahead of the Feds and the Federales.
As an international fugitive you traveled the world with stolen passports. What is your opinion of the city of Miami in comparison to all of the other cities you have visited or lived in around the world?
I absolutely love Miami, its people and especially its Latin flare! Not to mention all of the different types of food and ethnic areas. Miami has it all; professional sports teams, beaches, sun, malls, nightlife, culture and weather to name a few. Miami is also a major gateway to Latin America. If I weren’t a fugitive I would have loved to live in Miami. In my opinion Miami is one of the greatest cities in the world to visit and to reside in.
So why were you an international fugitive?
I was a marijuana smuggler about 30 years ahead of my time. It is like trying to cross a street, and timing. When things are all clear you can stroll across with no problem. But at other times you are going to get hit crossing the same street. It is all in the timing. Back when I was in the marijuana business they had posts calling it the "Devils Weed" and how it made you have bad babies! Now it is legal for medical and recreational use in several states!!
As a college student you also basically invented the white cross pill, the Red Bull of the day. Your pills were then legal since they were making of ephedrine not methamphetamine. You were selling these pills to the Bandito Motorcycle Club. You were in fact selling them fake drugs.
From our research we have found out that the Banditos did not take it lightly being sold the fake drugs. You were selling them ephedrine, which was legal, and they thought that they were purchasing methamphetamine, which isn't legal.
Shortly before you began selling your ephedrine tablets to them two people in Texas had sold them baking soda as methamphetamine. Three Banditos including their founder Don Chambers took these two individuals out into the desert, where they forced them dig their own graves, before murdering them. Those three Banditos received life sentences for the murders.
Were you not scared selling the Banditos the fake drugs? You were basically doing the same thing that the two people in Texas were killed for by The Banditos.
At the time I was just a college student, young and ignorant. I didn't think I would get killed or get busted. I was totally ignorant to the dangers involved with the people I was dealing with. I didn't believe that I was doing anything wrong. The Banditos could and would sell my product marketing great profits. They could not sell baking soda and make money!
The bottom line was that my product was so close to the real thing that I believed I could pull it off and I did. What saved me was that they were able to successfully market and distribute the product I was supplying to them. We all did extremely well.
You are now a Best Selling Author!! You have done world tours promoting your book. You have met and rubbed shoulders with many influential individuals and famous people. You have received a huge amount of positive publicity in a multitude of different forms. You are now a famous American writer, it looks like since you were released from prison that you have turned lemons into lemonade.
So tell us about the upcoming release of your Best Selling Book GRINGO: My Life On The Edge As an International Fugitive in the Audio Version.
Many of my readers and my friends asked when GRINGO was going to be released in an audio book. They told me that they were very busy with their jobs and children; so busy that basically the only free time they had was when they were driving in their cars. Also various professional truck driver friends told me that they only listened to audio books. One of my buddies told me that he had his wife read the book to him. Another friend told me that he read it to his wife. After hearing this I thought that we should release an audio book, so that everyone that didn't actually read the hardcover could enjoy GRINGO.
Why do you think your book has been getting so much publicity and so many positive reviews?
On my world book tour, in India, I had a private audience with the Dalai Lama. He basically asked me the same thing. I told him that this book is not about drugs! It is about perseverance, survival, and hope. He replied to me that those were very important qualities. It is the way that these qualities are described, the environments and situations that I was in, that is why the book is so entertaining.