Russell Brothers

Russell Brothers, born Russell White Brothers, Jr. (June, 1937), is an American businessman in Nashville, Tennessee.

He was born into a prosperous and socially prominent family in Nashville, and had considerable advantages as far as education and upbringing.

Despite this, his avocation as an airplane pilot turned to cocaine trafficking on a large scale.

According to one judge, Brothers became "the giant among giants" in international smuggling.

Brothers made his money by flying planes loaded with large amounts of cocaine from Colombia to the Bahamas, then transporting the cocaine by high-speed boats to south Florida and from there to Tennessee, and eventually to Canada.

The millions of dollars in profits were directed to banks in Belgium, Gibraltar, Montreal, Panama, and Costa Rica.

These funds were then reinvested locally in order to launder the money.

Brothers testified that he would fly as much as 600 kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to the Bahamas, then to Nashville, unload the bags into a van, then take them to his Belle Meade home.

From there he would take the cocaine to his family's Williamson County farm, where Canadian purchasers would pick it up.

Brothers grew up in Belle Meade, a well-to-do suburb of Nashville.

His grandfather and father jointly ran a wholesale grocery business, the M.P. Brothers Company.

His father, Russell W. Brothers Sr., was one of the founders of Nashville's Baptist Hospital and owned three businesses: the Velvet Ice Cream Company (1949–1970), the Anthony Pure Milk Company, and the Russell W. Brothers Insurance Company.

The junior Brothers attended Montgomery Bell Academy (MBA), a private Nashville prep school for boys.

In 1956, his senior year, he played fullback for MBA's state championship football team.

The quarterback was Thomas F. Frist, Jr. who later co-founded Hospital Corporation of America and became one of the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans.

The halfback was Frank Drowota, who later became the Chief Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court.

Brothers was awarded a football scholarship to Vanderbilt University.

He is the father of four children.

His businesses included a coal company, an insurance agency, and a brokerage company for airplanes.

In his airplane brokerage business during the 1980s, he began selling planes for cash to clients who were cocaine smugglers.

When his coal business developed financial problems he turned to criminal activity.

Testifying in federal court, Brothers stated, "Through my connection of knowing these people, I asked them if I could become involved in their business.. . . I did, and I was successful".

As a private attorney before being appointed judge, Judge Thomas Brothers did some work for his cousin, Russell Brothers, in 1986.

Federal prosecutors tried to prove that Thomas Brothers knowingly helped Russell Brothers conceal a source of his income and channel almost $1 million into a farm on West Harpeth Road, near Franklin, Tennessee.

At his own trial, Thomas Brothers was acquitted on the charges, as well as two money-laundering charges.

Nebel was an attorney who had previously represented Russell Brothers, his former golf partner.

Federal prosecutors contended that Nebel invested more than $5 million of Brothers' drug-smuggling profits and then lied to investigators when asked about his role in the case.

The U.S. Attorney, Janice Bossing, was accused of legal misconduct in obtaining this information.

Nebel was offered immunity from prosecution if he would testify as to Brothers' criminal activities, including setting up companies that received drug money.

He was convicted in Florida's Broward County Circuit Court on October 24, 1988, on charges of racketeering, trafficking, and conspiracy to traffic in cocaine.

According to Broward Circuit Judge Patti Englander Henning, Brothers' operation included bribing U.S. Customs officials.

The conviction allowed the state to confiscate Brothers' property because it was deemed obtained by illegal means.

Approximately $6 million in real estate and other assets was confiscated in what authorities called the largest seizure of property in Florida's history at that time.

It included a 248-acre farm near Nashville, a restaurant, two airplanes, two boats, a $600,000 loan to a ranch in Limestone County, Texas, and an aircraft-chartering firm.

He was fined $1 million and sentenced to 60 years in prison, of which he served 11 years.

In 1992, while incarcerated, Brothers was served with a federal criminal complaint charging him with money-laundering and additional drug trafficking.

Brothers' attorney, G. Thomas Nebel, was suspected as having a role on the laundering of the money and was charged, as well as Brothers' cousin, Thomas Brothers, a Davidson County (Nashville) Circuit Court Judge.

Also in 1992, Russell Brothers offered substantial assistance to prosecutors, including testifying and giving information in the federal prosecution of another accused drug trafficker, Allan Ross.

For this testimony, Brothers' sentence was subsequently reduced making him eligible for immediate release on parole.

The testimony resulted in Brothers being convicted in 1993 on charges of money-laundering and additional counts of cocaine trafficking.