I had already been working on the script for about two years. I was trying to get financing and I was sitting across the table from someone who said, “Well, have you talked to the Mayor of Little Colombia?” And I hadn’t even heard of this person. The Little Colombia they are referring to is a section of Jackson Heights, Queens, where the Colombian community is the strongest. They said, “Well, you know, he’s also known as the undertaker for the mules.” So I tracked this guy down. I called him up and told him I wanted to meet him about this project.
The interesting thing from his point of view is that he’s repatriated hundreds of bodies of people who have died coming to the USA as drug mules. What he does in the movie, he’s done hundreds of times in real life. When I told him about the project, he was very supportive. He allowed me to sit in his office, he has a tiny travel agency in Queens that is constantly full of people out the door. When I say tiny, I’m talking like 10’ by 14’. It’s really small. He’s like the fixer in the community, whether it’s papers for work or to help people get an apartment. I just sort of watched him working in the community and realized that if I wanted to represent the community, he was an important component of it. So I went back and rewrote the script and developed a character inspired by him. And then when it came time to do the casting, it was such a specific character because it was an actual human being that I met, he was the best person for the role. He just played himself.
Has the film made it more difficult or less difficult for him to do what he does?
He just a couple of days ago got a call from someone who said her sister died in a hotel room. He’s, as we speak, trying to raise some money to have the body buried. So he’s still doing it and people are still turning to him. I think it’s helped him because it’s raised his profile maybe a little bit outside of the community. Not that he needed it, but it’s further established him as doing good work within the community.
Is he ever hassled by law enforcement?
He was hassled by law enforcement years ago. I think the DEA and the FBI were very suspicious of him as to why he was having these interactions. Now, after many years, it’s come to a point where they call him after the find a body.
He had a story he told me once where there was this guy who heard about what he was doing and came to his office and gave him money to have a body sent back to Colombia. And then on a regular basis, would stop out of nowhere and give him money. It just seemed he was this kind-hearted man who wanted to help Orlando with these situations. Then all of a sudden, an FBI agent showed up at his office and said, “Can we talk to you?” They led him out to a car where they showed him a photograph and said, “Do you know this man?” And it was the guy. It turned out he was a drug trafficker and was sort of cleaning his conscious by sort of closing the circle by giving Orlando the money to take care of the mules who weren’t surviving.
