WEBVTT - Episode 6: The Gray Market 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:11.479 School of Humans. 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:15.760 The Gibson Guitar Plant in Nashville is not much to 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:19.200 look at. It's a one story brick building seven miles 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:21.919 east of downtown, wedged between a bend in the road 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:26.360 and a few parking lots. But this is where music 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:31.720 history is literally made. Bb King, Joan Jett, Eric Clapton, 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:36.959 Keith Richards, Sister Rosetta Tharp, Eddie van Halen, and Muddy Waters, 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:41.440 even Sheryl Crowe. Gibson is the guitar choice of legends. 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:44.280 That magic is what attracted Bill Gibbs to take a 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:44.840 job there. 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:48.560 Imagine growing up being a kid who played guitar all 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:50.960 your life, and now you get to work at the 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:53.680 candy store where all the goodies are made. 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:57.920 It was a dream job, at least at first. Gibbons 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.760 admits the work wore him down. The demands were high, 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:07.319 the hours long. And then on November seventeenth, two thousand and. 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:11.200 Nine, I was on a lunch break. One of my 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:15.240 Gibson friends from the plant texted me and said, dude, 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:16.080 we're being raided. 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:20.560 Dozens of armed officers, federal marshals, and special agents with 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:24.319 the US Fish and Wildlife Service storm the floor. They 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:27.880 tell everybody to stop working and begin rummaging through the shop. 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:34.080 Agents tear through containers, boxes and palaces. They rifle through 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:39.679 papers and filing cabins, and then they crack open four 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:44.919 green tubs holding planks of wood, deep black in color. 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:49.600 Bingo, my friend that text me back. Apparently it's about 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:50.480 illegal wood. 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:56.240 The wooden question is called Diospyros pararii, but most people 0:01:56.440 --> 0:02:01.360 know it as ebony. It's from Madagascar. It's dense, rare, 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:05.640 and perfect for making high end guitars. Givens and the 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:10.160 team are confused. Ebeny is precious, sure, but it's also 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.240 been used on guitars for decades. Like, what's the deal. 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.080 They're like, ah, you know, it's probably nothing. You know, 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:18.000 might have been a mistake or whatever. 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:23.360 The government confiscates all the wood, and eventually Givens would 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:27.760 go back to work and forget all about it until 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:32.720 two years later, August twenty eleven, and it happens again. 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:37.120 It was one of those days where we knew it 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:38.680 was going to be a long night. I think we 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:41.720 were all exhausted and they came in. We heard we're 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.200 being rated. We're being rated. Everyone to the back and 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:48.120 they all gathered us all into like the lumberyard area. 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:53.200 Thirty federal officers entered the guitar factory. Many of them aren't. 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:57.160 Apparently there were ar fifteens. It was never like a 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:01.160 threatening or scary environment at all. It was just like, okay, well, 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:01.960 let's let them in. 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.359 The Feds turn the place upside down. All in all, 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:10.120 they seize an estimated half a million dollars worth of 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:13.560 Dalbergia sissu, a rosewood from India. 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:15.680 And it was just like, oh God, here we go again. 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:28.240 I'm Summer rain Oaks from School of Humans and iHeart podcasts. 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:38.520 This is bad seeds. Okay, do you want to say 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:39.040 something dad? 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:41.120 Hello? Yeah? 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:46.600 Okay, that's working perfect, all right? So you brought over 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:51.640 your black less Paul. This has been yours for how long? 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:52.480 When did you get this? 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:56.760 I boked this in nineteen seventy three? 0:03:57.960 --> 0:03:59.800 And why did you buy it? What was the allure? 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:03.160 The allure was a friend of mine was in a 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:07.760 band and he had a black less Paul custom. I said, 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:09.040 if you ever want to sell it, let me know. 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.640 So he said, yeah, I'll sell it to you. I 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.600 played it in garage bands when I was up and coming, and. 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:18.520 I mean it is black. It's black as night. 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:20.799 I mean, is this like a like? Is this ebony 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:21.080 or like? 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:22.480 What kind of Is it a hardwood? 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:24.320 It's got an ebony fretboard. 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:30.560 Gibson guitars are frankly part of my family, especially they're 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:33.440 less Pall models, which is considered one of the finest 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:37.559 guitars ever made. I remember seeing it around the house, 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.400 hearing my dad play it a bit, but I never 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:42.839 really thought much about the black wood it was made 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:47.640 of or where it came from. At Gibson Gene Knicks 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:51.160 had to think about those questions. In June of two 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.440 thousand and eight, he boarded a flight for Madagascar, and 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:56.479 for the next two and a half weeks, he and 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.720 two other major guitar makers explored the country as part 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.640 of a fact finding mission, learning if it was still 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:09.560 possible to legally harvest Diospiro's Parade Madagascar ebony. After the trip, 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:12.800 Nix discussed the challenges in an email with his colleagues. 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.520 The true ebony species preferred by Gibson Musical instruments is 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.880 found only in Madagascar. This is a slow growing tree 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:24.200 species with very little conservation protection and supplies are considered 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.440 to be highly threatened in its native environment due to overexploitation. 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:32.760 High end musical instrument manufacturers you should know, are picky 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.840 about their wood, and for good reason. Every tree has 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:40.400 a different density that affects the quality of an instrument's sound, 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:45.040 and certain woods are better than others. Alan Schwartz is 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:48.080 a good friend of mine and he's supplied wood for instruments, 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:49.960 and it's a tough job. 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.880 I have for a while supplied African blackwood, which has 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:58.320 been used to make woodwend instruments because it's extreme stability 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:01.040 and the fact that I don't know if you've ever 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:03.960 played a woodwind instrument, I mean they get really disgusting 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:07.200 in guy and messy and full of spitz and mucus 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:09.760 and god knows what else when you play it. It 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.480 has to be a material that does not change with moisture, 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.240 because otherwise the notes will change. 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:19.760 Each instrument is different. High end clarinets sound best made 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:24.400 from woods like grenadilla from Eritrea, ukuleles from the Flowering 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:29.760 Poetry of Hawaii, and piano soundboards spruce, and the more 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:35.520 high end and instrument, the pickier a manufacturer is. Take pianos, 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.560 American maid steinways only use Sitka spruce from British Columbia. 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:45.160 The Austrian brand Buzendorferm only uses Austrian spruce grown at 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:50.040 a very specific elevation, and Betzioli in Italy only uses 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:53.479 spruce from the Fima Valley of northern Italy, the same 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:59.600 forest that produced the world famous Strata Varius violins. Problem 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:02.800 is what's good for the instrument isn't always good for 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:06.520 the tree, like the African blackwood. Alan once supplied. 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.880 African blackwood, which grows in all of Dry Africa and 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.760 even up the Rift Valley as far north as Armenia 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.680 as a plant, was used in Biblical times for woodwind instruments, 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:22.200 but it has become successively rarer. 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:26.040 As one's gone along, a lot of musical woods are 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:30.200 becoming exceedingly rare, and it's putting manufacturers in a bind. 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.040 In the violin world, the best bows are made from 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:40.480 Brazilian pernambuco aka pow Brasilia echinata, but today the tree 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:45.120 is endangered. Guitar makers face the same problem making fingerboards. 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:49.720 Diospiro's Paraii or Madagascar ebony, is one of the woods 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:53.800 of choice. It's dense and handsome, deep black in color, 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.720 but it's slow to grow and difficult to replace, and 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:01.080 now it's illegal to harvest unless an act of God, 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:05.560 such as a storm, causes the tree to fall. In fact, 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:09.040 according to side the International Treaty Guiding the Trade of 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:13.240 Plants and Animals, quote, nearly all of the large diospirros 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:17.280 parie trees have disappeared from western Madagascar. 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:21.200 When you watch the movies of Madagascar, you really have 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:26.440 this expectation of a tremendously feaken place, and when you 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:31.280 get there it is definitely not that. It really just 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:33.520 doesn't have any of that biodversity left. 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:39.240 In two thousand and eight, Gibson execs landed in Madagascar 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:43.080 in hopes of finding some of that lost biodiversity. When 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:46.760 they returned, they came home with news of a miracle. 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:51.840 A local ebony supplier had all the right paperwork. All 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:55.280 of the boxes were checked with notorizations and signatures from 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:59.520 all the proper government officials. When Gibson began exporting the 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.440 ebony to custom officials in Africa and Europe gave shipments 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.679 a thumbs up. But when it got to the Gibson warehouse, 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:09.840 well you know the rest of the story. The Feds 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:14.360 pounced and Gibson CEO Henry Juskowitz was livid. 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:18.520 At first. I thought it was a joke because we 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.120 make guitars and I'm not aware of any threatening issues 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:23.560 with the guitar business. 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:27.760 Bill Gibbons remembers the company blasting the government for overreach. 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:30.720 They got their media team together because I think they 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:32.600 knew they were going to be under the radar, and 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:37.000 they put together this short film talking about the government 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:38.880 coming after them. 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.760 In a letter to the court, the company's lawyers argued 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:44.480 that the wood was perfectly legal, and they had the 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:45.560 paperwork to prove it. 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:48.559 This is not a case of inaction by the Maticascer government, 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:51.080 nor is it a case where ebony wood was cut 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:53.960 and shipped under cover of darkness without the knowledge of 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:55.160 Madagascar officials. 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.680 With this statement, the Gibson legal team was alluding to 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:04.080 a very real problem in the United States and the 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:08.120 Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington State, a ring of 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:11.120 wood thieves stole about eight hundred thousand dollars worth of 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:16.160 protected timber, and they were trafficking it to musical instrument manufacturers, 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:20.360 including PRS Guitars, an American company that makes guitars for 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:26.480 musicians like Carlos Santana. Gibson's lawyers were adamant, hey, we're 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:29.800 not doing that. They were sourcing wood from a German 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:34.000 supplier with a century's worth of experience. The wood was 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:37.839 certified by NGOs like the Rainforest Alliance and the Forest 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:42.560 Stewardship Council. But was this seizure really a miscarriage of 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:53.160 justice or did the government know something we don't. The 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:55.679 raid at Gibson happened because of a one hundred and 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.720 twenty two year old law, one that originally had nothing 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:02.040 to do with guitars or wood, or, for that matter, 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:10.679 plants at all. The law was originally about feathers. It's 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:14.040 the late nineteenth century, and if you're a Manhattan socialite 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:16.720 looking to turn heads, then you've got to wear a hat, 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:20.520 be dazzled in flowers, jewels and ribbons. But if you 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.760 really want to impress, you got to have bird feathers. 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:28.720 Feather hats are all the rage at some department stores. 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.800 They sell for more than three thousand dollars in today's money. 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:36.560 In fact, the feather fashion industry employs some eighty thousand people. 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:40.600 Folks living in wetlands from Massachusetts to Florida are happy 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:43.520 to meet the demand too, with bird feathers selling for 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:47.360 more than fifteen dollars an ounce. They slaughter approximately five 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:52.640 million birds a year, but not everybody is happy about this. 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:57.320 By the late eighteen hundreds, Americans have watched beavers and 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:02.720 bison nearly disappear. Birds are next. The newly founded Audubon 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:08.520 Society begins pleading with the government do something. Audubon finds 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:13.200 a sympathetic ear in Congressman John F. Lacey, a conservationist. 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:16.400 Lacey authors a bill making it a federal crime to 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:20.800 transport wildlife from one state to another. The new Lacy 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:25.080 Act has an immediate impact. It becomes illegal to kill 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:28.000 birds in Florida and sell the feathers in New York. 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.880 It effectively kills the trend and saves many birds from extinction. 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:37.760 Over the century, the Lacy Act would balloon. By two 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:41.040 thousand and eight, it would expand to protect plants and trees, 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.640 and its enforcement powers are wide because if you or 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:49.960 your supplier commit a wildlife crime outside the country, the 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:54.400 US still has the authority to enforce the law. When 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:58.920 Feds raided Gibson, they pointed to the Lacy Act. Somewhere 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:03.880 along the supply chain. They claimed there was wrongdoing. Gibson 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:06.559 CEO did not like that explanation. 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:12.360 We have affid davids from government officials in Madagascar that 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.400 say that it's perfectly legal to do what we did. 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:19.040 The issue became a cause celeb among the political right, 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.079 even making its way into the halls of Congress. 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.840 Last month, agents rated the Gibson Guitar factory in Tennessee. 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:32.520 Why because Gibson bought wood overseas to make guitars in 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:33.439 America And. 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:36.760 There's no Grizzly Bears in downtown Nashville or in Gibson 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:38.600 Guitar that we need to be concerned with. 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:43.760 But inside Gibson, people like Gibbons were starting to wonder. 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:46.480 I figured maybe there was nothing to see here. I 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:49.480 don't know what this is the second rate I'm aware of. 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:52.000 At this point, I'm thinking something's going on. 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.320 None of this makes sense, Neither did the paper trail. 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:59.439 Court filings show that Gibson ordered the wood through a 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:03.880 company in Hamburg, Germany. The Germans had purchased the ebony 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:07.640 from an exporter in Madagascar, a guy named Roger Tuna. 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:11.800 The wood was sign at Tunam's mill, placed on a 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:15.120 vessel from Portavuima and stowed on a ship called the 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:19.320 Liverpool Express, which traveled from Hamburg to New York to Charleston, 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:24.360 South Carolina. In court documents, Gibson's lawyers argued the paperwork 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:27.400 proved there was no violation of the Laciact. 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.920 Neither the import from madagasc Or into Germany nor the 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:35.040 subsequent export from Germany to the USA were objected by 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:38.000 the German or European community authorities. 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.239 Lawyers for the wood supplier in Germany were even more forceful. 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:47.200 My client protests with all emphasis against the allegations said 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:50.440 he as a member or supporter of a worldwide Lumba mafia, 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:53.320 said unlawfully exploits topic rainforests. 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.360 But all the paperwork in the world and all these 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:01.120 claims of innocence didn't wipe away the fact that something 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:06.280 was fishy, because Roger Tuna, the man running the mill 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:09.640 in Madagascar, was not who he was made out to be, 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.640 and it would take a retired marine working under cover 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:17.720 to unmask him. 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:20.600 My name is Alexander von Bismarck, and I'm the executive 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:25.160 director of the Environmental Investigation Agency the problem is that 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:27.720 when you buy the furniture or something, it's really hard 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:32.080 to know what criminality is at the beginning, and who 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:34.040 knew in the middle right of the chain. 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.120 The person selling to you can say I had no idea. 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:38.880 Everybody told me this was fine. 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:43.040 But von Bismarck's a smart guy. He's a Harvard grad 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:47.520 and an expert on wildlife poaching. He's heard these excuses before, 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:48.440 and for. 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:51.520 That reason particularly, we tend to go undercovered. 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:55.280 In two thousand and nine, Alexander von Bismarck assumes a 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:58.560 new identity. He sets up a fake timber company with 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.640 a phony website and fake business cards. He flies south 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:08.160 to Madagascar and weasels his way into the country's timber mafia, 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:12.080 claiming he's a businessman on the hunt for a legal rosewood. 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:16.760 When you're having open business to business conversations, the truth 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:18.760 reveals itself pretty quickly. 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:23.520 Von Bismarck comes to the timber barons armed with questions, how. 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:25.440 Do you do this, how much does the wood cost, 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:27.560 how many bribes do you have to pay, who do 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:29.400 you have to pay? How do you get it out? 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.040 Even though there's a zero export quota. 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:36.560 In fact, those conversations lead him right into the office 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:40.560 of Roger Tuna. The timber baron has no clue that 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:45.040 his guest is carrying hidden cameras and a GPS. Tunam 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:48.480 shows him around the lumberyard and discussions quickly turn to 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:52.600 how Tunam sources his trees. They're not being felled by 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:57.760 acts of God, They're being deliberately and illegally chopped down 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:03.880 from a national For von Bismarck, this confession isn't enough. 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:12.560 He asks to see the product for himself. Tunam agrees, 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:15.560 and a logger leads von Bismarck deep into the nationally 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:19.760 protected forest. He sees the stumps with his own eyes. 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:24.760 He tags locations with the GPS. His guides even show 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.320 him the towering trees that are quite literally on the 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:32.320 chopping block. When they take von Bismarck down to a 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:36.359 nearby river, he floats past two hundred boats hauling the 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:41.640 trunks of illegally logged trees, and then he visits Tunam's mill. 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:46.199 There are saw blades screaming with stacks of ebony piled 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:50.960 four hundred yards deep. At one point, he asks his 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:55.000 guides about a stack of dark planks. They speak nonchalantly. 0:17:55.359 --> 0:18:00.600 How that would it's being cut for guitars. I can't 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.480 say it's the same as going under cover, but I 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:07.159 remember having a similar experience. I was lucky enough to 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:10.520 visit Madagascar ten years ago, and I remember we were 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:13.600 walking this large field with our guide and I kept 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:17.000 seeing these ferns growing and I thought, this is weird. 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:21.560 Ferns don't grow in fields. Ferns grow in and around forests. 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.720 And when I spotted this chameleon, this poor chameleon, and 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.240 I thought, again, you'd expect it to be living in 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:31.480 a bunch of trees. And then we started seeing the 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:37.000 stumps and I realized this is the forest or it was. 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.840 It's gutting, and not only does it hurt the forest, 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:46.159 it hurts the people who live around it. My friend Alan, 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.000 the guy who sourced wood for instruments, he was there 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:52.000 with me, and he recalls seeing people carving a plain 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:54.520 white wood and then treating it with something. 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:57.120 What they were doing is taking a mix of red 0:18:57.160 --> 0:18:59.560 and black shoe polish to kind of give. 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:04.119 It a with the most beautiful woods destroyed. People recovering 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:07.440 plain woods with shoe polish to pass them off as ebony. 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:11.480 Allan who does most of his work in Mozambique, has 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.840 seen the effects of this indiscriminate cutting firsthand. 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:22.280 The number of timber exporters has diminished dramatically. The government 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:25.159 claims that it is clamped down and it has reduced 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:30.360 the log exports, but it's not reduced because the government 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:34.000 did anything, because they did nothing. It's reduced because there 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:36.800 isn't anything left to sell. 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:41.760 Madagascar has technically tried to avoid this same fate. It's 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:48.120 passed laws to keep lumber collection sustainable. In two thousand, 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:51.919 the government made it illegal to explore unfinished wood products 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:55.800 from the country. This included the sawed down wood Gibson 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:59.040 was received, and in two thousand and six they banned 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:01.680 the cutting and extra action of any type of rosewood 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:05.200 or ebony. Then in two thousand and nine they made 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:07.919 a list of just thirteen people who were licensed to 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:12.639 export rosewood and ebony. Roger Tunam was not on that list. 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:17.840 Gibson's ebony collection violated all of those laws, and it 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:22.640 was very likely coming from a national protected park. Faced 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:26.879 with this information, Gibson's lawyers appear to have moved the goalposts. 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:31.840 If the wood had been illegal, or if Tunam did 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:35.400 not have government authorization to export the wood, then one 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:38.640 of the many Malagasy officials involved in the process would 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:41.240 have prevented the shipments from leaving the country. 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:46.400 If the wood was so illegal, then how did Tunam 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:50.160 get these shipments rubber stamped by the government? How did 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:55.040 he sneak it past NGOs like the Rainforest Alliance. Alexander 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:57.000 von Bismarck has an answer to that. 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:01.320 The corruption was so high level that paperwork could be 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:07.440 really seem pristine enough to get through even neighboring countries 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:10.119 that are supposed to not allow that trade. 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:12.560 In fact, it was good enough to fool the Forest 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:15.720 Stewardship Council or FSC if you don't. 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:19.159 Know exactly where it's from. Unfortunately, even a sticker like 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:22.480 FSC is not a guarantee these days at all. 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:27.440 That's because at the time FC didn't verify or control 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:31.080 the legitimacy of a wood harvest. It based its ratings 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:35.439 on risk assessments, and apparently the risks were higher than 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:39.119 they had imagined. In a country where the majority of 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:41.560 the nation lives on a dollar a day and the 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:47.000 rule of law is weak, bribes go far. Here's what 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:50.920 one malagassy official told the Environmental Investigation. 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:58.480 Agency Rumorzebat ve carription of our agents circulate where involvement 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:03.560 would consist of closing their eyes when vice surprise lagers 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:07.440 in the park in exchange for a c amount. 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:10.960 In fact, not long before von Bismarck had made his 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:15.159 undercover visit, the district head of environment and Forests, the 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:18.359 person with the power to issue and collect permits, was 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:22.960 arrested and Roger tunam while it was an open secret 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:26.119 that he was a timber bearer. In the words of 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:27.120 one local. 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:31.359 Official, Tuna mis not a business man, He's a traffica. 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:36.240 The question is did Gibson know this and if they did, 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:48.600 when did they know it. Here are the facts. The 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:52.120 man supplying Gibson with the goods was a known documented poacher. 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:57.439 The wood was extracted illegally, it was exported illegally with 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:02.000 phony paperwork, and since Gibson was in possession of illegal timber, 0:23:02.600 --> 0:23:05.399 the Leasy Act gave the federal government a right to 0:23:05.480 --> 0:23:10.399 seize it. But Gibson's management still cried foul. After all, 0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:13.920 it wasn't their fault. They were just trusting their supplier 0:23:13.960 --> 0:23:18.560 in Germany. They were trusting the certifications from prominent NGOs. 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:25.359 This sounds fair at first, blush, but Alan doesn't have 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:26.160 much sympathy. 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:31.360 You look at the guys who relied on a certifier 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:34.320 to say that they would was fine a third party, 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:37.920 and they bought timber from Madagascar, and they got into 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:41.920 terrible trouble because even though it was certified, when somebody 0:23:41.960 --> 0:23:45.760 actually looked at it closely, it may have had a certificate, 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:48.680 but it was actually illegal. And that was Gibson. They're 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:50.640 gone in a terrible trouble, and they deserve to get 0:23:50.680 --> 0:23:54.200 into trouble because they bought stuff which they didn't actually 0:23:54.280 --> 0:23:57.040 check properly, and they relied on some bloody tick box 0:23:57.359 --> 0:23:58.800 to tell them that it was okay. 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:03.879 In court documents, Fed suggests that Gibson could file a 0:24:03.920 --> 0:24:09.200 civil lawsuit if they had unknowingly bought corrupted wood, then 0:24:09.240 --> 0:24:14.280 that made them victims of fraud, but Gibson never sued. 0:24:16.400 --> 0:24:21.800 The reason why is anybody's guess. But according to court documents, 0:24:22.320 --> 0:24:28.120 Gibson's top brass allegedly knew about Roger Tunam because remember 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:31.800 Gene Nix, the Gibson employee who visited Madagascar in two 0:24:31.800 --> 0:24:34.200 thousand and eight in search of a solid legal source 0:24:34.200 --> 0:24:38.880 of ebony, he had visited Tunam's lumberyard. In an email, 0:24:39.280 --> 0:24:43.040 he wrote that Tunam's supply was under seizure from the 0:24:43.040 --> 0:24:44.280 Madagascar government. 0:24:44.960 --> 0:24:48.560 It's under temporary seizure. It cannot be moved, substantial stored 0:24:48.640 --> 0:24:52.840 quantities of cut items for export, including blanks for various instruments, 0:24:53.080 --> 0:24:54.000 mostly ebony. 0:24:54.920 --> 0:24:58.960 In another email, Nis openly told his colleagues that at 0:24:58.960 --> 0:25:02.119 the time exporting wood was banned. 0:25:02.520 --> 0:25:05.240 All legal timber and wood exports are prohibited because of 0:25:05.280 --> 0:25:09.080 widespread corruption and theft of valuable woods like rosewood in ebony. 0:25:09.840 --> 0:25:13.520 In other words, Gibson's own man on the ground notified 0:25:13.600 --> 0:25:18.360 leadership of the risks. The following year, an email received 0:25:18.400 --> 0:25:21.720 by eleven top people at the company contained an attachment 0:25:21.760 --> 0:25:24.919 showing that only one person had any legal right to 0:25:24.960 --> 0:25:31.679 export Madagascar ebony. That person was not Roger Tunam. In fact, 0:25:31.800 --> 0:25:35.800 a government affidavit shows that quote all the legal ebony 0:25:35.840 --> 0:25:39.480 stock inventories which had been approved by the Madagascar government 0:25:39.840 --> 0:25:44.239 had been exported prior to April two thousand and nine. 0:25:44.480 --> 0:25:48.840 Yet the guitar maker continued ordering wood from Tunam through 0:25:48.840 --> 0:25:52.600 its middleman in Germany. As Nicks put it in. 0:25:52.600 --> 0:25:55.639 An email, mister Tunam should now be able to supply 0:25:55.680 --> 0:25:58.000 our middleman with all the rosewood and ebony for the 0:25:58.000 --> 0:25:58.600 gray market. 0:25:59.560 --> 0:26:03.919 The market a shady market that put the survival of 0:26:03.960 --> 0:26:08.959