WEBVTT - Episode 2: The Trapdoor 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:09.000 Campsite Media. Do you know where the name Project Mygale? Like, 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:11.719 could you say what it means? That means tarantula? Right. 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:15.160 That's Michelle, my editor, and we're sitting down at a 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:20.320 dinner table with Italian sandwiches, soda cans, and this guy 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:24.160 this question. He's an investigator, a retired cop of forty 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:28.000 years who worked on an undercover sting operation called Project 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.200 my Gal. He asked to be anonymous, so we're disguising 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:34.279 his voice with a filter. So my Gal refers to 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:39.080 a family of spiders that build trap doors. Did you 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.519 ever see on like the National Geographic Channel, spiders that 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:46.639 make little holes in the ground and then above them 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.040 they weave little sticks and grass together and literally make 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:52.560 a trap door, and they wait for a bug to 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:58.560 come on and wham, they fucking nail it. When Project 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:01.320 Miguel got started in routine, it was one of the 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:05.600 biggest cross border police operations in US Canadian history. It 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.840 employed hundreds of officers and several law enforcement agencies, including 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:13.800 the d e A and Homeland Security. The operation targeted 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:17.880 cartel runners, money launders, and narcotics traffickers on both sides 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:21.440 of the Atlantic Ocean. Duffel bags of cash, zip blos 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.959 full of hills and bricks of cocaine. Classic bad guy stuff, 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.200 My gal, I guess we could say it was a 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.920 trap door that bag I just walked Then what would 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:35.759 you say? That trapdoor was of easy money and these 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:39.080 people would just go down that hole. And one of 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:41.560 the people who walked right into that trap was an 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:49.160 enterprising businessman named Derek White Card A Little Amazing Love 0:01:49.280 --> 0:02:02.360 It Yeah from Camps Media and Dan Patrick Productions. I'm 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:21.240 Roger Gola and this is Running Smoke, Episode two, The Trapdoor. 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:25.920 When Derek made a deal to take raw tobacco as 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.799 payment for renting out as race cars, it turned out 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:32.400 to be much more than a simple business transaction. Derek 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:36.320 had unknowingly stepped right into a gigantic undercover police operation 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:39.840 that had been building for months. Police sketched a profile 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:42.400 of Derek as a major figure in the criminal organization. 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:45.560 But from what I could tell, all he was doing 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:48.919 was buying and selling raw tobacco on his mohawk territory. 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:52.880 So you're probably wondering, how the hell did that make 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:57.480 him a criminal? Isn't tobacco legal? Answering that question turned 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:01.040 out to be more difficult than I anticipated. The problem 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:03.720 was every time we reached out to a law enforcement agency, 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.240 they told us they couldn't comment on an open case. 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:09.880 But after months of calling around, we did find someone 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:13.040 who would speak to us, A retired police officer who 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:16.720 helped investigate the case against Derek, the same investigator you 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:20.040 heard earlier through a voice changer. His name was never 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:23.280 revealed in the court proceedings or media reports around Project Miguel, 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:25.640 so he asked that we don't reveal his name either, 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:29.639 so we'll call him Jimmy. When I started doing this, 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:34.440 I had this have somebody explained to me what a 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:38.760 list of tobacco was, and I guess after ten years 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.640 of doing this, they become a subject matter expertal and 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.840 basically all I focused on was contraband tobacco between the 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:51.760 States and Canada, specifically how New York plays into it. Now, 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:55.120 on its face, the phrase contraband tobacco doesn't make a 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.320 whole lot of sense, because, well, tobacco is legal just 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.600 about everywhere in the world. But the difference between regular 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:06.920 legal tobacco and illicit or contraband tobacco comes down to taxes. 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:11.360 Almost every government in the world taxes tobacco. So someone 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:15.880 manages to sneak tobacco into a country without paying those taxes, Well, 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:19.880 now that's considered contraband, which comes with the criminal charge 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.400 of defrauding the government. Jimmy has been working as a 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:26.320 cop since he was nineteen, but after he retired about 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:29.840 ten years ago, he started working on contraband tobacco investigations 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:33.160 for different law enforcement agencies. He was eager to peel 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:35.080 back the curtain on an issue that not a whole 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:38.560 lot of people understand. He had packs of smuggled cigarettes 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:40.880 and stacks of printed documents laid out on his dinner 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:43.440 table for me to flip through. He'd also been up 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.040 late the previous night working on a power point presentation 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:48.960 just for us. The numbers that all get into here 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.960 with you are just staggering, just staggering, the billions of dollars. 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.080 One thing I wanted to know is one pound of tobacco, 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.320 one pound of royal leaf process tobacco, or what I 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:03.080 call cut rag. You could fit one pound of cut 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:07.440 rag tobacco approximately in a one gallon zip block back 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:14.560 no plugment for zip block, zip block the bag for smugglers, 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:16.599 and the choice of smugglers around the world. Black please 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.719 sponsor s okay. So one pound of tobacco makes five 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:23.520 hundred cigarettes or roughly two and a half corns. A 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:28.280 tractor trailer holds thirty four thousand pounds of cut rack tobacco. 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:33.039 So here's the problem for Canada. Thirty four thousand pounds 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:35.880 of cut rag times five hundred cigarettes per pound. If 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.040 you run all the numbers, what you come out with 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.440 is that a single tractor trailer of contraband tobacco that 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:45.600 illegally crosses the Canadian border comes out two around seven 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:49.520 and a half million dollars innovated taxes, and those trucks 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:54.080 cross every day. It was a massive logistical accomplishment. I mean, 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:57.040 we can organize a coffee and donut run without an 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:00.880 argument for ten minutes. These people are doing international money laundering. 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:07.240 They're they're transporting contraband for thousands of miles. Tobacco brought 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:09.920 a lot of different groups together. The project my Gal 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:15.280 exposed that if you want to bring tobacco attractor trailers 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:19.640 worth up into your facility, you need an organized network 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:25.480 to do that. Who better than organized crime. Tobacco is 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.960 a commodity for organized crime. Whenever they could make money 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:35.200 off of their going to exploit it's funding their other businesses. 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:38.120 They used to use cash to fund their drug businesses, 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.400 They used to use cash to fund their human trafficking business, 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:46.080 to fund their their gun business. Elicit tobacco has become 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:51.560 the new currency for organized crime. They use cigarettes and 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:57.120 it makes my skin crawl. And the thing about organized 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.520 crime is that it needs someone at the top to 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:03.880 or nize the crime. In this case, investigators had their 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.440 eyes on a man named Sylvan et Tier by Day. 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:10.520 Etia was the owner and operator of a prohibition themed 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:15.920 bar in Montreal's suburbs called Well Prohibition by Night. Though 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.400 he was an alleged associate of the Hell's Angels, managing 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:23.840 tobacco transport and money movement among various criminal organizations. Sylvan 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:30.800 Sylvain's function was he was the sort of the the frontman, 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.920 if you will, for for the organized crime slash Hell's 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:37.920 Angels organization that was running these operations, or I should 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:42.600 say that was profiting from these operations. Sylvan's operation worked 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:46.280 like this. First, he would have his guy's wire money 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:48.640 to a broker in North Carolina to purchase a load 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.360 of tobacco attractor trailer's worth, which would run you about 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:56.600 eighty thousand dollars. Then Sylvan's guys would arrange for drivers 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:58.760 to go pick up the tobacco with a semi truck. 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:01.680 Under Cover police would be staked out at the North 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:05.400 Carolina warehouse, writing down license plate numbers of suspicious trucks 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.480 and sending them to colleagues at the border, But the 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.960 smugglers were one step ahead. The drivers would stop and 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:15.160 we're in Jersey or New York, unload their tobacco and 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.800 swap trailers to throw cops off the trail. Then they 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:21.760 would drive on up to the border. This was the 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:25.720 most policed part of the tobacco route. Customs agents from 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:29.520 both countries would be watching every vehicle going across that line, 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:33.680 and they were trained to spot illegal shipments. If the 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:36.920 cops were gonna nab one of sylvan etsgates trucks, this 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:43.520 is where it would happen. They will take those tractor 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:47.240 trailers in regular commerce and drive into a regular border, 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:50.400 crossing like you or I could cross, like tractor trailers 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:53.679 cross each and every single day, and it's welcome to candidly, 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:56.280 what do you have in your truck at that point. 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:59.199 The driver will show the border agent paperwork that documents 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:03.360 what the truck is caring, except that paperwork doesn't say tobacco. 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:08.480 It's false, but from legitimate companies like Thomasville Furniture. Everybody 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:12.280 knows Thomasville. So the Canadian border service guy looks at 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:16.040 that paperwork and sees Thomasville. Well, hey, it's a legitimate load, 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:19.079 and he'll let them go through. And some of it 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.000 was pretty ingenious, but some of it was pretty stupid too. 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:25.680 Sometimes we've also seen idiots. We're on the bill of lading. 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:32.199 They put sawdust. Sawdust going into Canada, the number one 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.200 producer of lumber in the entire world. You think they 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:39.120 got to import fucking sawdust. Groundballs like that were easy 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.040 to catch for border agents. But truth be told, a 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:44.760 lot of trucks full of illicit goods across that checkpoint 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:48.440 every single day with no problem. You have to remember 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:52.400 these are busy international borders. Agents can't open up and 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.120 search every single semi truck that comes through, or the 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:57.360 line would be backed up all the way down to Florida. 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:00.600 So more often than not, so then it's eight trucks 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.920 got into Canada without a hitch from there it was 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.319 smooth sail in the Silvan's warehouse on the outskirts of Montreal. 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:11.400 According to Jimmy, this is where the Hell's Angels come in. 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:16.680 Now it gets to these warehouses where literally you now 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:21.760 have millions of dollars worth of cut rag tobacco store 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:25.240 in your facility. Bad guys steal from bad guys all 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:30.439 the time. That's where God invent the guns. You need security. Oh, 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:32.520 you can't call up the local police and ask them 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.040 to guards of contraband, not, can't you? And that was 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:39.720 the talian with organized crime and Hell's Angels. So the 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.960 current rate is about six fifty to sixty thou dollars 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:47.760 to both smuggle attractor trailer load up into Canada and 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.600 to guard it until it's done. And that number is 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:56.720 the cut that the Hell's Angels and truck drivers would 0:10:56.720 --> 0:11:01.440 get for both the smuggling and storage, so it'll be 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:04.360 like a smuggling fee of transportation fee. You break it 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:07.320 up how you want. It cost sixty dollars to get 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:10.600 the stuff from North Carolina into Counda's safely and securely, 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:14.720 so it's quite profitable just for the muscle on the street. 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:21.199 Solvan's operation was massive. It involves brokers, money, launders, outlaw bikers, 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:24.280 and truck drivers in two different countries. He got in 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:26.960 the entire supply chain down to his science, and the 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:30.840 folks involved were making money hand over fist. But as 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.880 the organization got bigger, it also became more vulnerable. When 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:38.080 you have an operation the size and scope of Mygale, 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.720 with so many loads of cut rag moving back and forth, 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:46.840 it is inevitable that one of those loads is going 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:51.200 to get picked off by Canadian Border Services, or a 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:53.960 tractor trailer is going to have an accident and the 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:57.360 back's gonna open up and tobacco is gonna spread out everywhere. 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:02.040 Stuff is gonna happen. Flukes and freak accidents were one thing. 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:06.360 What Stivan was really worried about, though, was being infiltrated 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:10.560 by cops. When you have cases of this scope and 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:16.880 you have players from warehouse employees to forklift drivers, to brokers, 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:23.439 to bankers, to truck drivers, to sled operators to boat operators, 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:32.880 you have a great opportunity to insert and undercover coming 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:47.800 up after the break. You saw me declared to that 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:51.000 you just wanting that we will get is the truth 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:53.760 and nothing but the truth I do. I do. The 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.400 tape you're hearing, we got it from the Montreal courthouse 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.839 after months of waiting through forums and files. It's a 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.199 recording of a testimony from one of Sylvan's key collaborators, 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:07.440 a convicted money launderer named Martin Grennier. He was an 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:09.920 asset for a guy like Sylvan because he had a 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:13.319 skill set that was central to any smuggling operation, money 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.360 laundering and transport. So this is a message I received 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:21.160 from its He he's asking me if I know well 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:25.640 the driver of the truck that brings the tobacco from 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:31.480 the US to Canada, the transfer I was able to 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:35.839 move money to UH to outside of Canada, the the 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.640 the contact and I also had contacts in the transport 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:44.720 world for bouge in order to remove some tobacco. He 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:46.400 was put in charge of running the nuts and bolts 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:49.240 of the smuggling operation and making sure things went smoothly. 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:51.439 Here he is telling the court about a time that 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:54.480 Sylvan centem a text asking if he knew why cops 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.439 were sniffing around the warehouse. The reason he gives me 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.280 is that after we went to pick up a load 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:04.240 of tobacco in Buffalo, three or four weeks after the 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.600 police went there because then the libor, so the police 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:12.720 went there to verify everything. And then he tells me 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:18.719 also that after we dropped the load of tobacco at 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:27.240 Saint me there was four cars watching or following the 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:33.080 dirt truck. That dirt truck that pick up the tobacco, 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.000 saying to me and to bring it to another destination. 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:40.160 Police were swarming at the DRA applications and tailing his trucks, 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:42.560 and he was starting to get nervous. Et A wanted 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:44.840 to know if the drivers could be working with the cops. 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:49.520 Grant told him not to worry. His guys were legit batties. 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:53.760 They were experienced narcotic smugglers. And so when when he 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:58.240 says that, how do you answer him? So I'm telling him, 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:02.040 I don't think the proble limids coming from us, because 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:06.920 my driver is also crossing white referring to cocaine. So 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.680 I don't guarantee you that he's not hot, mean that 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:17.120 he doesn't have police following him. But I confirmed to 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:20.000 him that my driver is sitting down at his house, 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:24.000 so there's no problem from my side. But all of 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:27.200 that was a lie because the man still then et 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:31.520 C was texting was a double agent. Martin Grenier had 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.080 been working with the cops for years, feeding information back 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.400 to his handlers on every single money transfer and tobacco shipment. 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:42.480 Oh and the drivers that Sylvan was worried about, Yeah, 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:46.240 they were undercover officers too. Do you know who did 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:53.600 the transporting for you? Yeah? HSI don't tell. So it 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:58.080 was HSI um so undercover agents working honor and security 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:09.040 in the United States. What my gal offered was a 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:14.800 very unique opportunity to insert undercover agents anywhere along the line, 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:19.240 from the truck driver to a warehouse operator. It was 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:23.880 a very complete and complex operation. Tell me about how 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:29.000 you place undercover officers in key positions in this trade. 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:32.640 You need an informant, You need an inform at the 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.720 vouch for you. You need an informant to say, hey, 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:37.840 this guy is buying from you, or this guy is 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:47.160 looking for a new whatever, and it's an introduction. Fortunately 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.200 for investigators, they had the perfect person for the job, 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:54.440 Martin Grenier. You got arrested in the United States for 0:16:54.520 --> 0:17:00.640 money laundry, Is that right, Okay? And it was. It 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.640 was as a result of that arrest for money laundering 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:07.360 in the us that you started to work for the police. 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:12.960 Is that correct? Okay, yes, all right, so can you 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:16.000 tell us day? Long story short. He worked with criminal 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:19.320 organizations for years until he was arrested in twenty twelve 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:22.720 on money laundering charges. Not long after that he made 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:24.400 a deal with the d e A and the Quebec 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.240 Police Force. We're unclear on the exact terms of that deal, 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:32.679 but beginning in Martin Grenier was back on the street 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:34.800 and put word out that he wanted to work with 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:38.400 his old boss again. And how do you know, Mr 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:46.040 at Enormous. I know him for having done some criminal 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.080 activities for him over two periods. Back in the day, 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:53.440 Grenier had been part of Savant Ettier's crew, and after 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:57.040 his arrest, he managed to rejoin the group. For years, 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:00.160 Grenier worked as a double agent, managing the legist six 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:03.280 of Besier's tobacco business and feeding all that information back 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:06.600 to the cops. Grenier was particularly well placed to get 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.679 high level intel on all the wire transfers and semi trucks, 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:12.119 and when an order came in for a load of 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:15.160 tobacco heading to a Native territory on the south shore 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:19.280 of Montreal, Grenier got a message directly from sylvan Etta. 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:22.399 I received a message from Chia attended to nine. He 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.119 was asking me if I know someone buy a class 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:30.800 bar the same good transport I from Sarah. Why they 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:36.720 y house is to the client client being an individual 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:41.639 on an engine reservation. When you said the um, you 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:45.040 had mentioned where the client was located? Sorry, where was 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:50.040 the client located? Don't so like a yeah, on an 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:55.480 engine reservation on the south shore. Did you know exactly where? No? 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:03.640 Did you know the name of the reservation. So during 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.320 a meeting face to face with you, we talked about 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:13.480 the kawanaki A Reserve and from stage left from the 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:27.200 Gnawaga Reserve enters Derek White will be right back. What 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:31.840 debut dis invades you? So at the beginning, who are 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:36.719 investigating the organization? What you're hearing is court testimony from 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:39.560 a Canadian border officer who worked on Project My Gael. 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:43.160 Somehows combed a little bit later on on the during 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:47.200 the investigation, we can to realize that Mr right On 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:53.400 is on organization. Also, as it so happened, Paul John, 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.359 the driver that offered Derek Tobacco in exchange for renting 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:58.879 his race car, well he turned out to be a 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:02.560 close associate Sylvan Etier, So when Derek made a deal 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:05.080 with Paul Jean for raw tobacco, it meant he was 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:09.400 now doing business with Sylvan Ettier's organization. Now, to be clear, 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:12.320 Paul Jean was never a Hell's Angel or associated with 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:14.879 them in any way, and he denies having any knowledge 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:19.119 of Silvan's associations with any criminal organizations. But the fact 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.400 is that because Sylvan was already under heavy surveillance, Paul 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.760 Jean unknowingly wrote Derek into the traps set by law enforcement. 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:30.040 Derek wasn't the intended target, but now he was impossible 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:33.240 to ignore, and according to Jimmy, he played a vital 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:36.479 role in the larger operation that Sylvan was running. White's 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:41.280 role in this was he was making money and he 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:44.720 was using, in my opinion on what it appears, his 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:49.280 native status as sort of like let's run it through me. 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.960 Nobody's going to touch the tobacco on the Indian Reservation. 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:57.119 A to some extent, He's right, more or less police 0:20:57.119 --> 0:20:59.600 won't go on the Indian reservation certainly and offered tobacco. 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:04.800 So it's sort of having somebody like White afforded that 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:08.280 like home plate, like just get it here and we'll 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:12.280 be safe. Derek was now caught up in the massive 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.639 surveillance operation that had been wired, tapping and tailing Etta's 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:19.040 crew for months. His text and phone calls were intercepted 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:22.840 and disseminated to investigators. So the first communication four old 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:27.480 tweet Mr Derrick White, Texas Mr Samuel Baker sur Baker. 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:33.560 Mr White, Hey buddy period, which White replies the letter 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:37.680 k at eight a m. From Mr Jason Hill. Let's 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:40.320 hear the phone call. These one thirty three in transcripted 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:46.120 might have camera though fight your fight a remadurant teeth. 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:51.520 The truck broke down hopefully Tuesday or Wednesday. Attack to 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:54.600 be legal. These are text messages between Mr Derrick White 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:59.200 and Samuel Make need the tires. I'll send sponsorship a 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:06.320 am Monday work question mark. Yeah. That last message might 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:09.840 sound unrelated and innocuus on its face. Derek is a 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:12.639 race car driver. Of course he's buying tires and looking 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:17.200 for sponsors. But investigators already knew who Mr sam Baker 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:22.280 was one of North Carolina's biggest illicit tobacco brokers. He 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:24.840 was the guy buying tobacco from growers and processors. In 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:27.960 the States and selling it to buyers in Canada or 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:32.240 in Mohawk territories. Derek was using code words to speak 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:34.960 with Sam Baker, and over the course of the investigation, 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:38.960 Derek had sent him over two million dollars with memo 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:44.359 lines like racing expenses and NASCAR parts. Derek wasn't just 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:47.080 a small player in a tas game anymore. He was 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:52.439 running his own operation wet Phy. So at the beginning 0:22:52.480 --> 0:23:00.720 he was doing business with the organization Little One. And 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:08.760 in October twenty fifteen and some rounds roundscomb so we 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:13.360 we came to the realization that he had his own 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:19.800 truck the amountain to pick up to tobacco from us. 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:26.560 Turns out Derek had been buying and selling wholesale tobacco 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:30.360 for years before he met Paul Jean, but until then 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:33.359 cops had no idea what he was up to. As 0:23:33.440 --> 0:23:36.359 soon as he shook hands with Paul john though, cops 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:40.000 started paying attention very closely and they started filling in 0:23:40.080 --> 0:23:43.359 the picture of Derek's tobacco operation. And from all the 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:47.399 intercepted messages, investigators figured out how Derek was wiring his 0:23:47.480 --> 0:23:51.720 money and handling his logistics. Maybe we could uh, moved 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:54.480 it up maybe a two a week or three a 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:57.680 week or something, you know, for you and they don't 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:00.359 bring into him anymore. It's going to make you, Lauren, 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:06.640 everybody will be at our circle. And how he organized 0:24:06.720 --> 0:24:09.720 for someone to warehouse's product, a guy they code named 0:24:09.880 --> 0:24:21.440 the old Man. Yeah, okay, And how Derek directed his 0:24:21.560 --> 0:24:27.720 driver's once the tobacco got into Kenny, the trailer riding 0:24:28.560 --> 0:24:33.200 loaded and then be ready to go Sunday nine. Yeah. 0:24:34.119 --> 0:24:37.040 There were heavy criminal elements to the larger organization that 0:24:37.119 --> 0:24:40.320 project Mygale was investigating folks that were even bigger than 0:24:40.359 --> 0:24:44.560 Sylvannetti and who were dealing narcotics and hard drugs, but 0:24:44.760 --> 0:24:48.959 Derek seemed to be totally independent of it. Derek never 0:24:49.040 --> 0:24:51.879 met silvan Ettier, never spoke to him, texted him, or 0:24:51.960 --> 0:24:56.439 communicated with him at all. From what investigators found, Derek 0:24:56.560 --> 0:24:59.359 was only dealing with tobacco and he never had any 0:24:59.440 --> 0:25:03.240 contact the rest of the criminal operation. But that didn't matter. 0:25:03.600 --> 0:25:06.760 Derek was on the Mygale radar and investigators were on 0:25:06.880 --> 0:25:10.240 Derek's trail. They had an informant inside his warehouse and 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:14.640 undercover officers driving his trucks. Cops knew exactly where every 0:25:14.680 --> 0:25:18.040 shipment was coming from and where it was going, And 0:25:18.119 --> 0:25:20.040 even though they could stop every truck at the border, 0:25:20.600 --> 0:25:23.400 they didn't. They wanted to pounce at the right moment 0:25:23.880 --> 0:25:26.440 when they had enough evidence to go after the Kingpins. 0:25:27.320 --> 0:25:31.040 Jimmy the Anonymous Investigator explained the logic to us, So 0:25:31.520 --> 0:25:36.240 you typically don't want to take off a load if 0:25:36.320 --> 0:25:39.720 you don't have to, because imagine going through this multi 0:25:39.840 --> 0:25:44.080 year operation like Mygale, and then do something at the 0:25:44.280 --> 0:25:47.520 end that screws it up, that makes the bag. I say, 0:25:47.760 --> 0:25:49.960 we're not doing this for two years, we're backing out. 0:25:51.240 --> 0:25:53.320 But when you've got as many trucks going across the 0:25:53.400 --> 0:25:56.200 border as Derek and Sylvanne did, there's gonna be some 0:25:56.359 --> 0:26:00.320 surprises no matter what. Stuff is gonna happen. And it 0:26:00.440 --> 0:26:04.360 always sends a wrench in the works when that happens, 0:26:04.400 --> 0:26:07.040 because the first thing the bad guys do is close 0:26:07.160 --> 0:26:10.400 ranks and go, we have an informant here. But truck 0:26:10.440 --> 0:26:12.600 could have been hit by a fucking meteor, right, and 0:26:12.720 --> 0:26:16.159 they're going to think they have an informant, which is 0:26:16.240 --> 0:26:20.520 exactly what happened in November, just a few days after 0:26:20.640 --> 0:26:23.440 Derek got back from a NASCAR race at Texas Motor Speedway, 0:26:23.880 --> 0:26:25.840 he got the news that one of his money runners 0:26:25.920 --> 0:26:29.239 was pinched by the cops. Investigators saw the whole thing 0:26:29.400 --> 0:26:32.600 unfold from the texts and calls they intercepted from Derek's 0:26:32.600 --> 0:26:36.560 cell phone. They start at eight thirty six A and 0:26:36.800 --> 0:26:41.000 Mr White writes to Mr Hill, they jacked my friend. 0:26:41.720 --> 0:26:44.840 I'll let you know later. Don't want to talk too much. 0:26:48.240 --> 0:26:53.320 The car fucking a little made, fucking loved it. I'm 0:26:53.400 --> 0:26:55.280 just bringing it to what the fucking deal is to 0:26:55.320 --> 0:27:01.840 get rid of it. Yeah, a lot of your Fortunately 0:27:01.920 --> 0:27:04.600 for the cops working this case. Derek got over it 0:27:04.720 --> 0:27:08.520 quickly and chalked up the arrest to bad luck. My 0:27:08.640 --> 0:27:11.040 lawyers said the same thing. It was just a fucking 0:27:11.600 --> 0:27:16.720 arrest of food. I saw silent saying, you know anything, 0:27:16.960 --> 0:27:25.000 fucking sitting anything old verdable that when I said, they really, 0:27:25.680 --> 0:27:31.360