Robert Meinster
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| Robert Meinster | |
|---|---|
| Born | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Shopkeeper; marijuana importer |
| Known for | Partner in the Black Tuna Gang, a Miami marijuana importing ring of the 1970s |
Robert Jay Meinster was a partner of Robert Platshorn in the Black Tuna Gang, a ring based in Miami that imported marijuana from Colombia into the United States in the second half of the 1970s.[1]: 985–986 He was convicted with Platshorn in two federal trials, in North Carolina and in Miami. In 1980 he was sentenced to 53 years in prison.[1]: 985 n. 2 He was released in 2005.[2]
Philadelphia
Meinster was a native of Philadelphia,[3] and he and Platshorn had been friends since childhood.[4] In 1974 he ran two dress shops in the city, which the appeals court found he used as fronts for dealing marijuana. That August, Platshorn arranged with a Florida dealer to supply him. In October 2,000 pounds (900 kg) were trucked to Meinster in Philadelphia, for which he paid about 700,000 dollars in instalments.[1]: 985–986 The historian Eduardo Sáenz Rovner's account has the two men, both then living in Philadelphia, beginning with a long ton of Colombian marijuana bought from a wholesaler in Wisconsin.[5]: 113
In Miami
Meinster moved to Miami when he and Platshorn opened the South Florida Auto Auction in the spring of 1976.[4] The court found that the auction was a cover for the two men's importing and distribution of marijuana. By the middle of 1976 the two had a flourishing business.[1]: 985–986 Time reported in 1979 that the two partners had moved into a suite in a Miami Beach hotel and bought boats, cars, houses and land in Palm Springs.[3]
In late September 1977 Meinster met a man from North Carolina who had joined the ring, to arrange the import of another shipment. On 30 November he took a room at a hotel in Wilmington, where radio equipment was set up so that he and the ring's security chief could listen to law-enforcement communications. He left the town and was back at the hotel for the final arrangements on 7 December. The next day 11 tons of marijuana were transferred at sea to a boat whose owner was working for the government. Customs officers seized the cargo while it was being unloaded. Meinster returned to Florida at once. He and Platshorn later paid the defence costs of a man arrested at the landing.[6]
Trials and sentence
In North Carolina, Meinster and Platshorn were convicted of aiding and abetting the importation of marijuana. The Fourth Circuit upheld the convictions on 18 April 1980.[6] A federal grand jury in Miami indicted the two men with 12 others on 1 May 1979.[5]: 112 Time called them the ring's "alleged bosses".[3] One count of the superseding indictment charged them with running a continuing criminal enterprise.[1] During the trial, which ran from September 1979 to February 1980, the government obtained an indictment alleging that several defendants had plotted to disrupt the proceedings and to kill the judge.[1]: 985 The Miami New Times reported in 2008 that a jury later rejected the allegation that Meinster and Platshorn had plotted the judge's murder.[4]
Meinster was convicted of the continuing-enterprise count and of offences under the racketeering statute (RICO), the Travel Act and the federal drug laws. He was sentenced to 53 years in prison, fines of 270,000 dollars and special parole terms totalling six years. Of the 53 years, 31 were for the continuing-enterprise count, which carries no parole.[1]: 985 n. 2 The Fifth Circuit upheld his convictions and sentence on 28 December 1981.[1]
The Federal Bureau of Prisons released him on 15 June 2005 from the low-security prison at Butner, North Carolina.[2]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 United States v. Phillips 664 F.2d 971. 5th Cir. (1981).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Find an inmate: Robert Meinster". Federal Bureau of Prisons. Retrieved 3 November 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Nation: Tuna Catch". Time. 14 May 1979. Retrieved 3 November 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Hargrove, Brantley (19 June 2008). "Black Tuna Gang Leader Gets Out of Jail". Miami New Times. Retrieved 3 November 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Sáenz Rovner, Eduardo (2011). "Entre Carlos Lehder y los vaqueros de la cocaína. La consolidación de las redes de narcotraficantes colombianos en Miami en los años 70". Cuadernos de Economía (in español). 30 (54): 105–126.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 United States v. Meinster 619 F.2d 1041. 4th Cir. (18 April 1980). Retrieved 2 November 2026.