Man Arrested For Kayaking With 26 Pounds Of Cocaine (2023)

That's A Crime
Episode 65: Man Arrested For Kayaking With 26 Pounds Of Cocaine (2023)

Jason Connell and Sal Rodriguez break down the true crime story of the Man Arrested For Kayaking With 26 Pounds Of Cocaine in 2023. On September 19, 2023, 38-year-old Freddy Rodriguez from West Warwick, RI, was arrested on Lake Champlain with 26 pounds of cocaine in his kayak.

Recorded: 10-04-23
Studio: Just Curious Media
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Transcript

Jason Connell: 0:01

Whoa, just curious. Welcome to Just curious media. This is that's a crime. I'm Jason Connell.

Sal Rodriguez: 0:10

And I'm Sal Rodriguez.

Jason Connell: 0:12

All right sound we are back with another crime.

Sal Rodriguez: 0:17

It's good to be back.

Jason Connell: 0:18

It's good to know that crimes are happening. Crimes

Sal Rodriguez: 0:21

will never, ever ever stop

Jason Connell: 0:23

with or without us how they're going to be happening.

Sal Rodriguez: 0:26

In fact, I think there might be actually less crime because of us. Oh, less crime

Jason Connell: 0:32

show on the show cops came out, which was a total hit and scary reality. And you had seen it. And I remember hearing that Oh, cops is gonna come to Tulsa, Oklahoma. And we're like in high school like, oh, man, can we see the show? Can they pull us over?

Sal Rodriguez: 0:48

Can I arrest us can

Jason Connell: 0:49

not arrest but can they pull us over with our friends or just being a party that they say it's funny, like, oh, wow, we're young. And we talk stupid. We didn't mean it. But you know, so is this show doing that or having the opposite impact? Do you think it's cleaning up the streets? You think that less people are committing crime because their shows focusing on that? I don't know. So I think it's the opposite.

Sal Rodriguez: 1:15

I feel like we have the opportunity, though, to kind of roast some people if they're deserving of it. There you go. So yeah, who wants to be roasted? I don't know. I mean, if you're a comedian already, you want probably want to be roasted. But I don't think your average criminal out there wants to be roasted.

Jason Connell: 1:27

That's true. What today so we are breaking down the true crime story of the man arrested for kayaking with 26 pounds of cocaine in 2023. Now, so I have kayaked. I have it's fun solo. And I don't know if there's room for five pounds of cocaine in a kayak this guy squeezed in 26 pounds, and his kayak hit it. I don't know. The title says a lot. Have you ever heard of such a thing?

Sal Rodriguez: 2:01

Well, like you, Jason, I have kayak in the Marina. Marina del Rey, I think to be exact. And I'm just imagining 26 pounds, you know, because I'm imagining a 26 pound weight. That's like a dead weight like, like a kettlebell or something. But then when you have like bags of cocaine, it will take up more space. Exactly. Yeah, that was a large amount of cocaine. I don't know where he would place that. Because yeah, you barely have room for your legs. Your average kayak

Jason Connell: 2:26

click on you. Maybe it's a bigger? No, maybe it was sitting there. Well, very interesting. It caught my eye for a few reasons. There's not a lot of information. And some of our episodes are shorter, and other ones are much deeper dives. But there were a couple things that tied in to us. And I thought, oh my gosh, we just have to just talk about this. It just happened. I just saw it recently. And so here we go. Yes, I think you'll enjoy on September 19th 2023. Not that long ago. Sound 38 year old Freddy Rodriguez. Oh, now Sal, this is a total mash up from the Karate Kid. And let's talk Cobra Kai. Freddy being Friday Fernandez from the Karate Kid. And Rodrigo has been sound Rodriguez. I saw that. And just this is a true story. I swear. Earlier tonight we recorded an episode all about Freddy Fernandez.

Sal Rodriguez: 3:34

Yes. And it was also spelled the same Freddy Fernandez rd dy don't why? Okay like because Freddy from Scooby Doo I think is DD i e.

Jason Connell: 3:44

E. So this is an our Karate Kid reference fighter with a why

Sal Rodriguez: 3:49

and that is spelled Rodriguez is a you know some people spell Rodriguez with a Q qu

Jason Connell: 3:53

e z. Oh, that's we wouldn't be friend Sal. No, no.

Sal Rodriguez: 3:57

I've never met a person who spells it that way. But some people spell it that way. But yeah, what a mash up Freddy Rodriguez.

Jason Connell: 4:04

So funny. Do you know Freddy? Is this a distant cousin of ours?

Sal Rodriguez: 4:08

No, no, no, no, I have no knowledge of who this drug perpetrator is? Officer because

Jason Connell: 4:16

if you're aware related our show that's a crime is not working with Freddie and your idea of cleaning up the streets or the kayaks. Well,

Sal Rodriguez: 4:25

you know, you have to disavow someone arrested. I think the mafia does the same.

Jason Connell: 4:29

Okay. So Friday back to the case at hand is from Rhode Island. Here's another tie

Sal Rodriguez: 4:37

in Do you know him?

Jason Connell: 4:40

Okay, I wasn't gonna say anything. He's my neighbor. No, crazy don't know Freddie. Rhode Island is small. It's a smallest state but it's not that small. But he was arrested actually not in Rhode Island but in Highgate Vermont, also in New England not far away and charged with cocaine possession with intent to distribute So Freddie wasn't just rolling around 26 pounds of cocaine for self. Right? It wasn't just that he was looking to distribute. Well,

Sal Rodriguez: 5:12

kids, you can't try to say, actually, this is for my own use self medication. Yeah, no, it doesn't work that way. If you have a little bit, you could be like, Oh, this for me, and you know, and my friends for the weekend. But if you have a large sum, yeah, you can't really use the it's my personal use excuse. No, probably

Jason Connell: 5:30

not. So according to court records, Rodriguez was encountered by federal agents near a rented camp in Highgate during the evening of September 18. Into the morning of September 19. He was seen reportedly walking to the Lake Champlain shoreline just after midnight with the bag, a 26 pound bag, like you said, a medicine ball or a kettlebell in said bag, looking a little suspicious, I would think so.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:02

What Jason You have to consider? What the hell are federal agents doing? They're a campsite, which means that they probably had this guy on their radar ahead of time, or they knew that some sort of transaction was going to take place there. But yeah, we're not specifying that because we don't have the information ourselves. But the fact that there's federal agents at a campsite, I think implies that true

Jason Connell: 6:23

well, Rodriguez was then seen moving items from his bag into the kayak just before dragging the kayak into the water. It was then federal agents confronted Rodriguez, who attempted to flee I guess on the kayak. Oh, but

Sal Rodriguez: 6:40

think about how close he was because they probably were like, Hey, stop. He could have just started paddling. Yeah, and he probably would have gotten away because they were probably in vehicles. It probably didn't have kayaks of their own. I bet he could have possibly gotten away in the kayak.

Jason Connell: 6:54

And they could just shout at him. Or they could call it a Tuesday. Hey,

Sal Rodriguez: 6:57

Freddie. Yeah. Hey, buddy, stop.

Jason Connell: 7:00

We know where you live. Yeah, I don't know. Was he being you know, monitored? Were they doing surveillance on him? Is this an area this has happened before? I don't know much about this particular area. I do know Vermont, but I'm not familiar with Lake Champlain. Very interesting. Yeah. And Vermont also is more inland if for New England. Like we're a coastal town, I can walk outside, and my office here in Newport and see the ocean. You can't do that in Vermont, as far as I know. There are lakes. So I guess he was on this lake that says Lake. But where's he going?

Sal Rodriguez: 7:36

Yeah, where's the lake gonna take?

Jason Connell: 7:37

I mean, what was the plan here Friday? Do you need like is that just like, I could drive? Or I could just take the kayak? And who's going to look for Yeah, so I want to know more honestly, it is fascinating. This popped up on the news. And it was even less information they shared. I was like, that's interesting. So yeah. Has he done this before? Is that why they were monitoring him? But where are you going

Sal Rodriguez: 8:01

on a lake? No. It just occurred to me, I think Lake Champlain is one of the large Great Lakes, I think. So he could have been using it to actually traverse somewhere. When I think of a lake, I think of you're not really gonna you're kind of, you know, bound by what's just like a big circle of speak. But no, no, I think that he could have potentially been going somewhere up or down, and actually, you know, getting somewhere else. That's

Jason Connell: 8:25

true. So I just looked this up, because I've heard of it before, too. But Lake Champlain is a natural freshwater lake in North America. It mostly lies between the US states of New York and Vermont, but also extends north into the Canadian province of Quebec. So yeah, it's not just this leg that like a pond, there was an opportunity to take it somewhere even if he wasn't on the coastal line, which is actually tougher and a kayak. So So yeah, there you go. He had a plan. I don't know where he was headed. But he was toying with him 26 pounds of blow. It's

Sal Rodriguez: 9:01

almost like they could have just maybe done additional surveillance, maybe from a distance evolving binocular. Just

Jason Connell: 9:06

follow them.

Sal Rodriguez: 9:07

Yeah. And see what like, where is he gonna go with this?

Jason Connell: 9:10

Yeah, just having a drone follow him? Yeah,

Sal Rodriguez: 9:13

they could probably have a drone high enough so that they could follow him, and he would not know it. And then we'll see where the next step is. Because when it comes to this whole thing with drug distribution, you want to find all the steps, obviously, you want to aim high, but you want to see the avenues of where the drugs wind up. It's entirely possible if he was going to sell these he was going to take these are the 26 pounds to someone else, and that person was probably going to die from him.

Jason Connell: 9:36

And where do you get it from?

Sal Rodriguez: 9:37

There you go. So yeah, very, very interesting. The whole distribution chain is of drugs, like probably a lot of things, maybe even foods, some person has the tons that person breaks the tonnes, two pounds, the person breaks the pounds to I think kilos or kilograms and you have ounces, and it just kills Down, Down down. I think that's what it is that metric system. That's that metric system. Yeah.

Jason Connell: 10:01

When do you get in the food chain? So

Sal Rodriguez: 10:04

it has to make its way down to the weekend party level, then that's when I come on board and you'll be heard about me.

Jason Connell: 10:09

Okay, fair enough. I like that I bet. Now, according to the US Attorney's Office, the objects in his bag or

Sal Rodriguez: 10:18

brick like objects wrapped in black cellophane style packaging containing a white powder that tested presumptively positive for the presence of cocaine, presumptively

Jason Connell: 10:32

something so it was cocaine. Was it like the movies or just like curled up with a knife? Yeah.

Sal Rodriguez: 10:40

I've always wondered if police really do that. Do they actually taste test it? I

Jason Connell: 10:43

don't know. I know, I know. Exactly.

Sal Rodriguez: 10:46

tasting it, or rubbing it on their on the gums is what they do. By the way, I'm just saying I was messing around earlier. I don't indulge in cocaine. And by the way, just to be clear, not because I'm a prude, but because for what it costs for what you get,

Jason Connell: 10:59

not worth it, not worth it. So what I hear and I see every movie, it's like the guys are going down. Now the objects weighed, meaning the cocaine was about 26.4 pounds. So just a little bit more than 26. Yep, a lot of cocaine. Had it been five pounds, maybe Friday, almost at 40. Fernandez. 30. Rodriguez is not in trouble. But this is 26 pounds intent to distribute. So if he's convicted, Sal, Freddie would be facing five to 40 years in prison. That is a huge swing. Now notice how you know a lot about sentencing. And this, that and the other. Where do you put this? What do

Sal Rodriguez: 11:47

you think circuit? Well, harsh that that sentencing is very harsh, because very hard. Yeah, depending on the judge, you're gonna have these real anti drug judges, because, you know, I was just reading about another crime about some stalker breaking into a celebrity's home, and he only gets 30 days so he gets 30 days for breaking into someone's home could

Jason Connell: 12:05

easily kill people. Yeah, it's Friday. Kayaking, and outdoorsman. Yes. You don't put him away.

Sal Rodriguez: 12:14

What I noticed we're not getting though is is the quintessential classic street value. We don't know the street value of what 26 pounds of cocaine, Sal?

Jason Connell: 12:25

Yeah, that's gonna be one of your new side. Things like the inflation calculator. Yeah, we need street value from you. Well, in

Sal Rodriguez: 12:32

this case, Lake value. What's the Oh, yeah.

Jason Connell: 12:36

Lake Champlain. Oh, that sounds so sophisticated.

Sal Rodriguez: 12:39

I bet just higher ups the price? Yes, it does. Because what you imagine if you're basically selling cocaine along Lake Champlain to vacationers, you know, people standard Airbnbs along the lake, selling, you know, it's almost becomes a cottage industry, I would imagine at that point.

Jason Connell: 12:55

I love it. I think it's great. So well, I don't think it's great. But I like what we're talking about here. So I'm anxious to see what happens to frontier Rodriguez, that is a huge swing, even five years. It's like he's 38 You're gonna go wait for five years for this. Maybe he'll get a slap on the wrist? Or maybe he'll get a misdemeanor, but we don't even know his track. Right. Yeah, we followed for a reason, Jason

Sal Rodriguez: 13:17

and also a priors. We don't know about his prior arrest that make that makes a huge difference. If This Is Us defense, then rent May and if it's second or third big difference.

Jason Connell: 13:26

Absolutely. So I also read that Rodriguez was released on pretrial supervision conditions following a detention hearing that they had. So you know, he's not even in jail, waiting. But whatever these conditions are a low jack or what have you. Maybe he's not at flight risk. Maybe he's a kayak risk, though. He's already proven that so we got to keep our eye

Sal Rodriguez: 13:48

on he would not be allowed to rent or purchase a kayak

Jason Connell: 13:52

a seconder. Looks like Freddy Rodriguez, Lake Champlain, these guys stop him. But he can get up to call back from here. So anyway, very interesting. It struck me funny. I know it's not funny, because this guy could be in prison for a long time. So there's that and it's a true crime. And this isn't just funny because it's 26 pounds of cocaine then going in the food chain. And it winds up where it winds up. So yeah, not good. But the name likeness, the fact that he's from Rhode Island. It just brought it home and we had to talk about it here on that's a crime because Sally cover,

Sal Rodriguez: 14:30

we cover everything from a misdemeanor to a murder on that's a crime. But I just want to specify folks, the name Rodriguez is a very common Spanish name. Very, very common. I mean, obviously, at some point in time, Freddie and I were related back who knows how many hundreds of years back to the original origins of Spain, but along the way, no, I have no relation to Freddy Rodriguez and do not indulge in any of these vices such as hardcore narcotics use.

Jason Connell: 14:58

That's good to hear. So that's good to hear. And that covers the true crime story of the man arrested for kayaking with 26 pounds of cocaine in 2023. So we will come back with more crimes but something new we're going to start doing if we remember, is just to kind of highlight a crime from the past that we have covered. Sure. And I brought one up just total random, because sometimes we're just like, hey, check them out. There's a lot of episodes, but I'm gonna call one out here. Driver evades armored vehicle heist. 2021 Oh, yeah. Yeah, great episode, Episode 25. For those interested, check that one out. There's a YouTube video that was viral. And this is the story of the driver who evades this heist. It's really fascinating as well. Yeah,

Sal Rodriguez: 15:51

this driver is badass. You watch this guy. This guy is a badass dude. Because I think he had like a prior military background or something. Oh,

Jason Connell: 15:58

he did. He trains people how to deal with these types of situations. So he was the right guy for the job. It had over 40 million views after our episode went up. So it had a little more than 40 million views. I know. So just a couple more now. But there

Sal Rodriguez: 16:14

was the new guy next to him was like the UB it was Leo.

Jason Connell: 16:18

Leo was the driver and Lloyd. Great episode, so check that one out. We're gonna give you direction. Episode 25 driver evades armored vehicle heist. 2021 you will not be disappointed when

Sal Rodriguez: 16:32

your coworker saves your life. I mean, coffee is on you for several months.

Jason Connell: 16:37

Totally. I got I got you, buddy. I gotcha. So thank you so much for listening. And please be sure to subscribe to the that's a crime podcast and the that's a crime YouTube Live Channel. You can also really help us by giving this show a five star rating on Apple podcast. And

Sal Rodriguez: 16:54

for all your listeners that enjoy sharing your thoughts. You can leave us a review on Apple podcasts, send us a direct message or post a comment on any that's a crime social media platform.

Jason Connell: 17:03

We also highly recommend checking out our other podcast and visiting just curious media.com