The Unbelievable Truth

Through his attorney, Johnson declined comment for this story, as did Martin. "Chris is a good kid," Carlos maintains of his former friend. "He just got swamped the same way I did."

Meanwhile Carlos realized he couldn't handle the debt. He called the bank and told it to repossess the Suburbans, even helping the repo man load SUVs onto the trailer. He declared bankruptcy in 2003, and moved farther north along Florida's Atlantic coast. He is bitter about losing an estimated $180,000, but coping. "I wanted to bury him in the Everglades and leave his head for the mosquitoes. But I got into therapy instead."

Mark Poutenis

Mark Poutenis

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More About

• Roberto Martin
• Chris Johnson
• Juan Rene Caro
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Christopher Johnson

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Carlos started to hear from some of his old friends, whom he'd said goodbye to once they sided with Martin against him. "We should have believed you!" they lamented. He urged one friend to go to the FBI, and gave him the documentation he had.

Juan Rene Caro, Jr. doesn't want to talk about Roberto Martin Cabrera. Caro, the owner of La Bamba Check Cashing, off Bird Road in Kendall, emerges warily from a back room. A reporter hands him a business card. "You got ID besides this?" he asks, tapping the card. "I got fooled before."

Court documents filed in the case indicate that Martin promised to pay Caro at least three million dollars. "Man, the stories I could tell," Caro says. "You'd think I was lying." Caro appears about to spill the goods. Then he reconsiders. "You know, a story like this is bad for business," he says. "What's in it for me?" He asks about the possibility of a book and maybe even a movie deal if he talks. Even now, Caro is grabbing for the profit angle. Suddenly it is easy to see how he got taken by Roberto Martin.