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Left to rot: Collapsed condo born of botched
construction and evidence of money laundering

Original Article

Posted By: earlybird, 10/15/2021 11:59:34 AM

When Champlain Towers South ascended from the beachfront 40 years ago in the quaint Miami suburb of Surfside, the new condominium gleamed with promise. It was the first swanky high-rise condo in the tiny town, and it solidified the neighborhood as a gathering place for the rich and famous such as Frank Sinatra, who hung out down the road. For its residents (snip) it was all about landing their little slice of paradise. But even before developers sold off the 136 condominiums to their first owners, the construction had been botched and the building had been set on a course to rot from the foundation up, a USA TODAY

Comments:

This is a long, detailed investigative piece that tracks the sorry history of this doomed building...

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Reply 1 - Posted by: red1066 10/15/2021 12:31:49 PM (No. 946503)
Don't forget that 40plus years ago Miami was the drug capitol of the country. There were probably at least a few people trying to launder money legally. What better way than to invest in condos. Build a condo building using less than ideal materials, and then sell the condos for outrageous money. Now your money is clean with a large profit.
7 people like this.

Reply 2 - Posted by: DVC 10/15/2021 12:43:49 PM (No. 946519)
A good friend, college house mate and now college professor lived in Miami in the early 80s, and we visited regularly. Wild and wide open times. Long haired hippies with no shirt, ripped cutoffs and flip flops walking into a bank with a pair of grocery sacks of 100s to open an account wasn't unheard of. Crime was wild, and college profs frequently discussed what kind of a handgun they were illegally carrying....in those days before Florida passed one of the first in the nation "shall issue" objective standards concealed carry laws. Much of the pressure was in response to the very widespread illegal carrying of handguns by the normally law abiding citizens who grasped that their safety was at serious risk. Even college profs "got it" and armed themselves, laws be damned. Very easy to believe that all this corruption, drug money, money laundering and construction fraud was going on in Miami in those times. Cutting corners on building safety would have been perfectly normal in the course of their business dealings. Remember the TV show "Miami Vice"....not much of an exaggeration, if any. Glenn Frey captures the flavor of the times down there pretty darned well..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSXKyHM133c
4 people like this.

Reply 3 - Posted by: bamapreacher 10/15/2021 12:53:23 PM (No. 946540)
More and more I wonder why cocaine and other drugs aren't simply legalized and controlled. Set up government run stores to sell them, with posters warning of their danger and counseling available. Take away the profits and the cartels will fade away and with them all the crime they entail.
8 people like this.

Reply 4 - Posted by: curious1 10/15/2021 1:24:53 PM (No. 946586)
#3, then where would the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats get their rake-off of the money?
14 people like this.

Reply 5 - Posted by: BarryNo 10/15/2021 4:48:42 PM (No. 946807)
Decades of Democrat governence led to certain disasterous colapse. Sounds awfully familiar.
4 people like this.

Reply 6 - Posted by: Hazymac 10/15/2021 5:01:06 PM (No. 946822)
Miami was a wild place in the late Seventies and throughout the Eighties. In about 1985 a local television reporter, glancing around downtown Miami, counted twenty-two construction cranes on top of high rises being built, and wondered how much was drug related. Probably a lot. The Miami Federal Reserve branch of that time took in as much cash as all other branches combined! There were so many murder victims that at some point the Miami PD had to rent refrigerated trucks from Burger King to keep the stiffs comfortable and not smelling too bad before their appointment with the overworked coroner. Medellin Cartel leader Griselda Blando (The Godmother) was responsible for at least 200 murders, leaving some of her enemies cut into pieces in roadside boxes. For many of us, Miami Vice was the most real police drama we'd ever seen, with a lot of the episodes seemingly torn from the news.. Re #3 and #4: I lost my 45 year best friend to drug addiction nine weeks ago. Half of my sky is gone. There's no replacing him, and I utterly hated the drugs that wrecked his life and the scum who sold them to him. Thus, recognizing that illegality of the substances maintains a criminal underworld, I do support ending the so-called War on Drugs, which has been a comprehensive failure, rewarding the worst people, and not saving enough sick addicts.
5 people like this.

Reply 7 - Posted by: Subsuburban 10/15/2021 5:59:56 PM (No. 946884)
You might think it a stretch to link this story with the recent Nobel Prize in Economics, but they are inextricably intertwined. I highly recommend you take the time to click on this link and read the entire article. It illustrates that shoddy construction and shoddy intellect are unfortunately all too common. https://www.takimag.com/article/the-nobel-prize-and-the-cocaine-gold-rush/
3 people like this.

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