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This outpost on the Rio, Leticia, was the sortation centre of all the cocaine coming in from Peru.
At the time most of it actually came from Peru and Colombia.
So the mules, these Peruvians that transported the drugs were sometimes killed once they went back.
To be more precise they organized what was called the “Indio safari”.
Think what a terrible thing. Yes, they would kill them.
These rich people, I don't know from what country, would pay to shoot at these Indio that would try and run away.
They knew, “be careful when you head back home” but many didn't make it.
This was the atmosphere. Cocaine was everywhere and travelled in every direction.
There was one particular figure who had a Coca-Cola factory, I think he had a production facility where he actually made Coca-Cola.
Anyway, he had a brother who was a pilot and you can see him driving that little airplane in Cannibal Holocaust.
He [Mike] controlled all the fishing business at the port.
They would put the drugs in the fish and then send the cargo to Bogota.
They would cut the fish open and place these little sacks of cocaine in them.
The crew immediately understood where they could find coke, which wasn't difficult because they offered it to you everywhere you went.
They all dove into mountains of cocaine.
Was he Greek? Yes, if he was, I think he was the guy who organized the drugs in the fish.
Tsalickis... I remember he had a surname that ended with an "s", but this name doesn't sound as familiar anymore... but it was surely this guy.
Yes, Monkey Island was his. He owned nearly everything in that area.
Everything from Tabatinga, that is a small Brazilian town, right up to Leticia and even going higher towards the Peruvian border.
Everything was controlled by him.
I think he had been befriended by my producer and he definitely helped us to have the extras, boats to rent, and so on.
But nothing more [with me], he didn't do more than that.
Also because he was packed with money and was always moving around and travelling.
He would often go to Bogota, we hardly saw him at all. He had a lot of business going on, a lot of affairs.
I met him at dinner during the first few days we were there.
It was kind of something you had to do, he was sort of the Mayor in a way.
Well, more than a Mayor, he was a boss.
The director is always the last to know anything. I mean I was the last to know that everybody was on drugs.
First they try to understand what kind of person you are, what vices you have but once they discover that you have none...
When you begin working on a film everybody wants to hang out with you because they think that they'll have fun with you,
but then they realize you are a loner, that has his own thing going on, and nobody wants to have dinner with you and they start hiding stuff.
I have another story I can tell you. I had a friendship with a girl originally from Bogota, half Indio, very cute.
She had come to Leticia with her boyfriend who was a drug trafficker.
The local port mob didn't appreciate this new competition and he went into hiding with his girlfriend.
Finally, he tried to escape and reached the airport to get back to Bogota but at customs he was stopped by local police and was not let onto the plane.
He had to die, it had been decided, and the police was in bed with the drug lords. He was eventually killed.
I remember I would see this girl who would sometimes burst out crying.
She was worried about her boyfriend, he was hiding somewhere and they couldn't communicate.
There were no cell phones at that time...
Anyway, I thought it was dangerous having all the crew doped up on drugs, even people of sixty years of age...
There was only one American I think that didn't take any, and then of course Sergio D'Offizi, the cinematographer, and myself.
The rest were a disaster. It has happened to me often in South America, in Caracas for example...
Everybody would invite me to participate. "Come on! Join us...” They would not believe that I didn't take drugs.
“You? Really?!” People saw me always so full of energy and up and about but I couldn't care less about that stuff.
- Er war quasi der Pate von Leticia",
eagle ein amerikanischer Offizieller in Bogota.
After “Cannibal Holocaust”, Carl Gabriele Yorke moved from acting to working as a story analyst for some major Hollywood labels.
He no longer acts, but he continues to live and work in San Francisco.
Until Covid-19 he made appearances on the convention circuit, attesting to the ongoing success of "Cannibal Holocaust" and his character Alan Yates.
Gregory Snegoff still splits his time between California and Rome. He remains a dubber to this day, although his work is frequently on Japanese anime series.
His favourite of the Italian films is “Yor, The Hunter of the Future” (Antonio Margheriti, 1983).
Phil Stoneman was married shortly after this interview.
He has no interest in returning back to Boris Johnson's England and fiercely opposes Brexit.
Danilo Abadia went on to assist Umberto Lenzi on "Cannibal Ferox" (1981) before opening a grocery store in Leticia.
He sadly passed away in 2021.
Beforehand, he suggested that some kind of monument should be built in acknowledgement of both films in Leticia itself.
Ronaldo Blanca and his mother still live deep in the Amazonas.
Tana Chowning continues to spread the good word, along with her family, in the challenging climate of the Amazonas.
We don't know if she ever watched "Cannibal Holocaust".
Ruggero Deodato has become an icon of Italian genre cinema, with subsequent cult favourites including "Raiders of Atlantis" (1983), "Cut and Run" (1985) and "The Barbarians" (1987).
His last feature film was "Ballad in Blood" in 2016.
He has softened with age and loves his pet cat.
"Jungle" Mike Tsalickis passed away in Florida on December 17th, 2018. He was 91 years of age.
In 2015 he released his autobiography Jungle Mike - From Animal Trapper to Being Caged like an Animal: This is the True Story of the “Largest Cocaine Bust in Florida”.
An article in The Tampa Bay Times remembered him as the man who "built a business selling exotic animals to zoos and monkeys to researchers, he transformed a muddy outpost
in the South American jungle into a thriving town with a hospital, hotel and bona fide airport. It was no exaggeration to say Jungle Mike put the Amazon on the map for tourism."
Tsalickis spent 20 years in prison after being found guilty of his involvement with the second biggest transportation of cocaine in American history.
He always stated that he was innocent and that his business ventures in Leticia were legal and not fronts for the thriving drugs trade.
"Cannibal Holocaust" as we all know it could not have happened without his input.