FILE - This undated photo provided by Orange County Corrections shows Gustavo Falcon, the last of South Florida's "Cocaine Cowboys". Falcon was arrested Wednesday, April 12, 2017, some 26 years after... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - This undated photo provided by Orange County Corrections shows Gustavo Falcon, the last of South Florida's "Cocaine Cowboys". Falcon was arrested Wednesday, April 12, 2017, some 26 years after he went on the lam, while on a 40-mile bike ride with his wife near the Orlando suburb where they apparently... (Associated Press) 
 
 MIAMI (AP) — A quarter-century after he vanished on the eve of a major drug indictment, the last of Miami's fabled "cocaine cowboys" was in custody Thursday, nabbed on a suburban bike ride with his wife near Disney World. 
 
 Prosecutors say the man living under an assumed name is Gustavo "Taby" Falcon, who was part of a homegrown drug gang that used super-fast speedboats to smuggle 75 tons of cocaine in the 1980s "Miami Vice" era. 
 
 Falcon, 55, had been on the lam since 1991, when his older brother Augusto "Willie" Falcon and fellow drug kingpin Salvador "Sal" Magluta were indicted by a federal grand jury. U.S. Marshals spokesman Barry Golden said investigators were surprised to find him living in a typical pink stucco home in a quiet, middle-class Kissimmee suburb. 
 
 "Nobody thought Gustavo Falcon was still in the United States," Golden said. 
 
 At his initial court hearing Thursday in Orlando, Gustavo Falcon agreed to be sent to South Florida to face charges of conspiracy to import cocaine into the U.S. He was ordered held without bond, court records show. 
 
 Augusto Falcon and Magluta were small-time drug dealers when they dropped out of high school in the late 1970s to begin building their cocaine empire that would amass more than $2 billion, according to trial evidence. They eventually owned world-class ocean racing boats and lived like royalty. 
 
 Mickey Munday, who did prison time for flying cocaine loads for Colombia's Medellin Cartel, said the pair was known for their honesty in business deals — legal or otherwise — and the expertise of their boat-building operation. 
 
 They also drove flashy cars and lived in seaside mansions, even when murders and shootings linked to their organization brought police scrutiny. 
 
 "They were so flamboyant," Munday said. "Everybody in the world knew what they were doing. Why attract attention to yourself?" 
 
 Gustavo Falcon was not viewed as a top leader of the organization, and vanished just ahead of a 1991 indictment that charged him along with his brother, Magluta and others. He had not been seen since until Wednesday, when U.S. marshals surveilling his rented home in Kissimmee watched him and his wife leave their garage for a bike ride. 
 
 A neighbor, David Pera, said he frequently saw the couple riding their bikes and never saw them in a car. An older model pickup truck sitting in the driveway never moved, he said. 
 
 "I'd say hi, they would say hi, and that was about it," Pera said Thursday. 
 
 It took an exhaustive records search to bring the marshals there. Weeks earlier, they discovered a Florida driver's license issued to a Luis Reiss, traced back to a South Florida home that had been owned by Gustavo Falcon. Then they found 2013 car accident involving Reiss, which eventually led to the house he was sharing with his wife, Amelia. She also had fake identification, in the name of Maria Reiss. 
 
 Marshals followed as the couple got on their bikes and headed out Wednesday for what turned into a 40-mile ride. Because they were both wearing helmets and sunglasses, it took a while for investigators to make a positive identification, Golden said. Once they felt sure enough, marshals with guns drawn stopped the couple at an intersection a few blocks from their house. 
 
 "We had to be 100 percent certain this was the guy," Golden said. 
 
 After his arrest, Gustavo Falcon told authorities he had been living in the Orlando area since 2009 and in the rental house since 2012. It's not clear where he was during all the other years, but officials say it's believed he was living overseas for some of that time. Authorities said they did not know if Falcon had a job. His wife was not arrested. 
 
 His brother and Magluta were acquitted of all charges at their trial in 1996, leading to the resignation of then-Miami U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey. Despondent at the loss, Coffey and others went to a strip club where he got into an altercation involving the biting of a stripper. 
 
 Later, it turned out that Augusto Falcon and Magluta had bought off witnesses and at least one member of the jury, a foreman who did 17 years in prison after accepting $400,000. Magluta, now 62, was tried a second time, convicted of drug-related money laundering in 2002 and sentenced to 205 years in prison. That was reduced to 195 years in 2006. 
 
 Augusto Falcon, now 61, then accepted a plea deal in 2003 on similar charges. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and is scheduled for release from a Kentucky facility on June 17. 
 
 Their mansions, boats, cars, planes, bank accounts and other ill-gotten gains are long gone, seized and sold by the government. 
 
 Munday, the former cartel pilot, said Augusto Falcon and Magluta should have disappeared as well, after their initial not-guilty verdicts. 
 
 "They were guys who went from nothing to having just about anything they could imagine that they wanted," he said. "As soon as they got the innocent verdict, they should have hauled out of here to Argentina." 
 
 _____ 
 
 Associated Press contributors include John Raoux. Follow Curt Anderson at http://twitter.com/miamicurt ||||| The arrest warrant for Gustavo Falcon, one of the infamous "Cocaine Cowboys," was first issued on April 10, 1991. Twenty-six years and two days later, Falcon was finally in custody. 
 
 Falcon, now 55, was nabbed while riding his bike Wednesday in Kissimmee, Florida, according to the U.S. Marshals for the Southern District of Florida. 
 
 Falcon — whose brother, kingpin Augusto “Willie” Falcon, is in prison after smuggling 75 tons of cocaine into South Florida with his partner Salvador Magluta — was last spotted in Miami. He had evaded U.S. law enforcement, who suspected Falcon was living in Mexico or Colombia, according to the Miami Herald. 
 
 This Wednesday April 12, 2017 mugshot shows Gustavo Falcon after he was captured by U.S. Marshals in Kissimmee, Florida. Orange County Jail 
 
 The case finally turned after a group of U.S. Marshals traveled from Miami to the Orlando-Kissimmee area, according to U.S. Marshals in Southern District of Florida Spokesman Barry Golden. 
 
 There, the U.S. Marshals performed surveillance on a rental property, Golden said. It is unclear how long the U.S. Marshals monitored Falcon before confirming his identity on Wednesday. 
 
 When the man the U.S. Marshals suspected of being Falcon and his wife went for a bike ride, the officers followed. Golden said the U.S. Marshals were able to confirm the man was Falcon, and stopped him at a traffic light before taking him in to custody. 
 
 Officers discovered fraudulent driver’s licenses, which were dated back to 1997, according to Golden. 
 
 The driver’s licenses, some of which were for Falcon’s wife and adult children, were listed under Miami addresses. 
 
 Golden said although Falcon tried to maintain the name on his license, he eventually confirmed his identity before being booked without resistance in the Orange County Jail. ||||| It began nearly four decades ago when a British-flagged yacht fled police during a night chase at sea. At the helm: A man hinted to be a federal drug informant. 
 
 It ended last month in Mexico, where the fleeing skipper was run to ground by a lucky tip. 
 
 Now, Robert Woodring is serving the prison term he artfully avoided for so many years — at age 81. 
 
 Woodring, who used to live in Fort Lauderdale, Boynton Beach and Pompano Beach, was supposed to start serving a federal prison sentence in 1977 for crimes committed earlier that decade. But he escaped to live free — until authorities tracked him down last month in Mexico, federal prosecutors said Friday. 
 
 His capture was a lucky break. 
 
 FBI agents were seeking another fugitive in the Guadalajara area and received a tip that Woodring was a wanted man and living in the region, U.S. Marshals spokesman Barry Golden said. 
 
 Robert Woodring captured poster Sun Sentinel Robert Woodring, 82, was a South Florida fugitive who hid out for 37 years, authorities said. He was caught in Mexico in December 2014. Robert Woodring, 82, was a South Florida fugitive who hid out for 37 years, authorities said. He was caught in Mexico in December 2014. (Sun Sentinel) (Sun Sentinel) 
 
 Mexican authorities questioned Woodring and turned him over to the feds after concluding he had no legal right to remain in Mexico. 
 
 It was unclear Friday how long Woodring had been there or what he was doing, but Golden said Woodring lived with a Nicaraguan woman there. 
 
 "For someone to be on the run for 37 years, I can only imagine that guy was bragging that he eluded capture for more than three decades because, after all this time, how would anyone in Guadalajara have known anything about this?" Golden said. 
 
 Woodring first tried to elude authorities on Jan. 14, 1975, when U.S. Customs Service agents went to Haulover Inlet to seize the Gemini, Woodring's 60-foot Pacemaker twin-screw motor yacht, appeals court records show. 
 
 But as the agents, accompanied by Dade County police officers, arrived on an unmarked boat, Woodring headed south, not stopping his British-registered vessel, records show. 
 
 Officials chased him into the Atlantic Ocean. Two police helicopters and a Coast Guard cutter joined the pursuit. They made radio contact with Woodring and told him to "heave to" and let them board. He refused to stop. 
 
 "He [later] testified that he believed that he was not required to do so because he was by then in international waters … did not know the identity of his pursuers or that they were officers and … was fearful of harm to his vessel or his person," the appellate judges wrote. 
 
 Woodring cut off radio contact and the chase was abandoned at nightfall. He was arrested in South Florida three days later, without the boat. 
 
 He was later convicted of removing a yacht to prevent authorized government seizure and was sentenced to 10 months in prison in October 1975. 
 
 For reasons that were unclear Friday, Woodring remained free and was later found guilty of mail fraud and mail fraud conspiracy for a scam involving the yacht. He was sentenced to serve a total of 7 1/2 years for the 1975 and 1977 convictions and ordered to surrender in September 1977. 
 
 A Sun Sentinel newspaper article from 1986 identified Woodring as a Drug Enforcement Administration informant who was caught on surveillance tapes from 1977 making incriminating statements to another man about Fort Lauderdale lawyer Ray Sandstrom. Sandstrom, who was never charged, called Woodring a "con man" at the time and said he did nothing wrong. 
 
 Authorities charged Woodring — in his absence in 1984 — with bond-jumping and failing to surrender to prison. He was recently transferred from Los Angeles to the federal detention center in Miami and is due in court Jan. 14 to tell a judge if he plans to fight the bond-jumping case. He has already begun serving the 7 1/2 year prison term for his convictions from the 1970s. 
 
 pmcmahon@tribune.com, 954-356-4533 or Twitter @SentinelPaula
– The "last of the Cocaine Cowboys"—on the lam for almost exactly 26 years—was finally arrested Wednesday while on a 40-mile bike ride with his wife, the Miami Herald reports. During South Florida's "Miami Vice era," Gustavo Falcon allegedly helped his brother, kingpin Augusto Falcon, smuggle tons of cocaine into the US via speedboat, according to the AP. The so-called Cocaine Cowboys, apparently unworried about drawing attention to themselves, lived large in fast cars and oceanfront mansions. Gustavo Falcon disappeared in 1991, just before indictments that would land his brother in prison. A warrant was issued for his arrest on April 10 of that year, NBC News reports. Twenty-six years and two days later, Falcon and his wife were stopped at an intersection on their bikes when they were confronted by a gaggle of armed US marshals. Falcon, 55, was arrested without incident. "Nobody thought he was in the United States," says Barry Golden, a spokesperson for the US Marshals Service, which believed Falcon was living out his days in Mexico or Colombia. Instead, he was renting a forgettable home in a suburb near Disney World. Authorities were tipped off by a fake driver's license used by Falcon during a 2013 car accident. "We figured this all out a month ago," Golden says. Falcon is facing charges of conspiracy to import cocaine. His brother, the former kingpin, is scheduled to be released from prison in June.