Speaker 1: President phone call I mean a nine fifteen pm East
Speaker 1: some of the time in the US and the nineteenth
Speaker 1: of February twenty fourteen, be as kind to and the Georgescos.
Speaker 2: This is one the Colombian phone call.
Speaker 1: To Flavio on the fourteenth day of My two thousand
Speaker 1: and fourteen at eight am immediately.
Speaker 2: For two years now, Wan's been recording his phone calls
Speaker 2: with the two unrelated George Escus, Flavio and Flavio's friend
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles, Andy.
Speaker 3: He leaves me the name, a phone number, and a
Speaker 3: great message.
Speaker 2: He even records the voicemails. He leads for them.
Speaker 1: Thank you, so call me back. Lizen doesn't man all
Speaker 1: the time. Just call me back. It's one thank you,
Speaker 1: I will plays A call to Flavio is twelve forty
Speaker 1: eight a m. Eastern time on the nice of July
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen.
Speaker 2: Want's also been keeping a secret. He is Colombian, that
Speaker 2: part's true, but he isn't working for the farc rebel group.
Speaker 2: He's working for the FEDS, and he's trying to build
Speaker 2: a so called narco terrorism case for the Drug Enforcement
Speaker 2: Administration the DEA.
Speaker 1: The local time in eight thirty five pm. Go, I
Speaker 1: about to go to the cafeteria at the Mario Hotel
Speaker 1: to me where the flood and a compani your hairs
Speaker 1: with him. We are right now in for the inn book.
Speaker 2: In some of wants undercover recordings, you can hear his
Speaker 2: Dea colleagues. They're helping Wan create some elaborate theater arms,
Speaker 2: trafficking theater, all designed to ensnare Flavio Georgescu. I'm Trevorarensen
Speaker 2: from Western Sound and iHeart Podcasts. This is Alphabet Boys,
Speaker 2: episode six. The ramp rat Wan sting operation targeting Flavio
Speaker 2: is complex, but this thing isn't unique. It's not some
Speaker 2: sort of one off. It's part of a much larger
Speaker 2: Dea tactic that drug agents adopted during America's post nine
Speaker 2: eleven era. To explain, I need to go on a
Speaker 2: short tangent and tell you about another similar sting.
Speaker 4: Yeah everything, Yeah, sorry.
Speaker 1: Time, no no problem.
Speaker 2: How I'm sitting in a conference room in Lower Manhattan.
Speaker 2: I'm here to interview Joshua dre Tell, a criminal defense
Speaker 2: lawyer specializing in terrorism cases. So so topically, I want
Speaker 2: to talk to you about the kind of narco terrorism
Speaker 2: things in general, and also this idea of the Southern
Speaker 2: District being kind of the world Police. And then and
Speaker 2: then also about the Jamal Yusuf case. Sure in particular,
Speaker 2: one of Joshua's clients was a man named Jamal Yusuf, and.
Speaker 5: Jamal Yusseff was a hustler, a successful hustler. The parlayed
Speaker 5: knowledge of certain geographical regions such as the Middle East
Speaker 5: and Latin America into being an effective broker for many
Speaker 5: deals that were mostly hustles.
Speaker 2: Jamal, like Flavio, was targeted in a so called narco
Speaker 2: terrorism sting operation. Neither Flavio nor Jamal had anything to
Speaker 2: do with drugs or really narco terrorism. Now, the DEA
Speaker 2: is meant to be investigating cases involving drugs, that's obvious,
Speaker 2: But the DEA built cases around both Jamal and Flavio
Speaker 2: that centered on the idea that they were supporting terrorism
Speaker 2: by attempting to sell weapons to people who earned money
Speaker 2: running drugs. In this episode, I'm going to explain how
Speaker 2: people like Jamal and Flavio, no real connections to terrorists,
Speaker 2: no real connections to drugs, could become in the DEA's
Speaker 2: eyes narco terrorists with the help of course of informants
Speaker 2: like jan Jamal Yusuf was born and raised in Lebanon,
Speaker 2: but he was a Syrian citizen. His background is shadowy
Speaker 2: and suggest possible connections to Syrian intelligence. As a young man,
Speaker 2: Jamal lived and worked in several countries, including Greece, Nigeria, Germany,
Speaker 2: and the United Arab Emirates.
Speaker 5: You could trace his evolution through the geographical areas that
Speaker 5: he basically burned bridges and could go back to.
Speaker 2: At some point, Jamal moved to Norway, where he ran
Speaker 2: several small businesses, including a restaurant, a store selling baby
Speaker 2: clothes and cosmetics, and a kiosk offering cigarettes and candy.
Speaker 5: And he had a good history of disappearing himself and
Speaker 5: then appearing somewhere else in a different identity or in
Speaker 5: a different context. That's how he got out of the
Speaker 5: Middle East in the first place.
Speaker 2: Eventually, by two thousand and six, Jamal makes it to
Speaker 2: Latin America, where he starts a new hustle. He negotiates
Speaker 2: a deal to borrow two hundred thousand dollars from a
Speaker 2: group of Mexican men connected to organized crime. Jamal said
Speaker 2: he could repay the loan with weapons secretly shipped from Lebanon.
Speaker 2: Jamal has this picture of himself in front of a
Speaker 2: room full of military grade weapons. He shows the photo
Speaker 2: to the Mexicans as proof of the weapons that he
Speaker 2: can deliver. But what the Mexicans don't know is Jamal
Speaker 2: is talking to someone else, the FBI agent stationed at
Speaker 2: the US embassy in Mexico City. It's a complicated web
Speaker 2: of people around the world. To sound familiar, but there's more.
Speaker 2: Jamal claims to the FBI agent that the weapons in
Speaker 2: the photo belonged to the US military and that they
Speaker 2: were stolen by American soldiers in Iraq. He says those
Speaker 2: soldiers then sold the weapons to the Hesbala terrorist group
Speaker 2: in Lebanon.
Speaker 5: As any sophisticated hustler would do. Jamal's trying to play
Speaker 5: both sides.
Speaker 2: Jamal also tells the FBI agent that he has a
Speaker 2: deal to sell those weapons to some Mexican guys, and
Speaker 2: he's willing to cooperate with the US government.
Speaker 5: He's trying to ingratiate himself to the government so he
Speaker 5: has protection, which is why he operated overseas all the time,
Speaker 5: you know, in his original environment, and when that played out,
Speaker 5: you know, to the point where he couldn't do it anymore.
Speaker 5: He wound up in Latin America, so he's just doing
Speaker 5: the same thing.
Speaker 2: But the deal with the Mexicans falls through. They don't
Speaker 2: provide any money and no weapons are shipped. In two
Speaker 2: thousand and six, Jamal is arrested in Honduras on charges
Speaker 2: of using a fake passport and possessing a handgun, and
Speaker 2: by two thousand and eight, two years into his prison sentence,
Speaker 2: Jamal is desperate, so he comes up with a new hustle.
Speaker 2: Jamal meets a Colombian who claims to represent get this,
Speaker 2: the FARK rebel group. He shows the guy another photo
Speaker 2: of a room full of guns, and Jamal tells the
Speaker 2: Colombian that he can deliver these weapons. But this photo
Speaker 2: it's not real, at least not real to Jamal. It's
Speaker 2: an image that he found online.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was just a photo of a room full
Speaker 5: of like RPGs and stuff in boxes, you know, crates,
Speaker 5: like typical kind of armament crates, and had a couple
Speaker 5: of stray aks and things like that lying around. It
Speaker 5: was on the internet.
Speaker 2: Jamal arranges to sell these weapons to the FARC, but
Speaker 2: the Colombians don't know that Jamal's trying to run a scam.
Speaker 2: Once he gets the advanced payment, he plans to bounce
Speaker 2: with no weapons delivered.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, he was being hustled at the same time.
Speaker 2: This might not be surprising now, but the Colombians, like
Speaker 2: Flavio's friend Juan, aren't really with the FARC. They're with
Speaker 2: the DEA. And once the DEA has built its case
Speaker 2: against Jamal, armed agents grab him off the street and
Speaker 2: hounder us throw them into an suv and speed toward
Speaker 2: the airport.
Speaker 5: He thinks he's being killed, you know, guys with automatic
Speaker 5: weapons hooded in the back of a suv hurtling down
Speaker 5: the highway and openly gets to the airport and he
Speaker 5: gets thrown on a plane to the US.
Speaker 1: That's how it's started.
Speaker 5: Even though we have an extradition treaty with the hunters,
Speaker 5: this is how it's stuck.
Speaker 2: Jamal's taken to Manhattan, where federal prosecutors charge him with
Speaker 2: conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. Jamal's charge was
Speaker 2: supporting FARC, even though in his case, FARC wasn't really FARK.
Speaker 2: They're the DEA, and he's brought to New York to
Speaker 2: face those charges even though the alleged crime didn't happen
Speaker 2: in New York or even in the United States. Under
Speaker 2: federal conspiracy law, a defendant doesn't need to help an
Speaker 2: actual terrorist, he just needs to think he's helping a terrorist.
Speaker 2: Jamal's scam attempt caught him in what's known as a
Speaker 2: narco terrorism sting. These things occur exclusively outside the United States,
Speaker 2: using paid informants employed by the DEA, and then the
Speaker 2: person caught is sent to Manhattan to be prosecuted, even
Speaker 2: though there is no connection at all between the crime
Speaker 2: and New York City. The Southern District of New York
Speaker 2: in Manhattan, the most influential and powerful US Attorney's office
Speaker 2: in the nation, has turned narco terrorism stings into its
Speaker 2: own little cottage industry.
Speaker 4: They're imagined an event and ambitious in that way. And
Speaker 4: I don't mean that in a bad way.
Speaker 1: I mean that in a way of like.
Speaker 5: We're going to do these things, and we're going to
Speaker 5: cultivate a group of FBI and DA people who will
Speaker 5: master this and bring all the cases to us, will
Speaker 5: own the informants, Our network will be hours.
Speaker 2: Joshua, the defense lawyer, says that narco terrorism stings aren't
Speaker 2: really about stopping narco terrorism. They're about numbers, arrests, prosecutions, convictions,
Speaker 2: which to federal law enforcement agents mean paychecks and promotions.
Speaker 5: They cultivated the informants and they cultivated the people overseas
Speaker 5: as a reliable actor in the process.
Speaker 4: You're not wasting your time.
Speaker 5: You are going to get convictions, you're going to get paid,
Speaker 5: and you're going to have work next time.
Speaker 2: Jamal Yusuf pleaded guilty in his case and served ten
Speaker 2: years in prison. His ultimate crime making the mistake of
Speaker 2: trying to scam a much more powerful scammer, the US government.
Speaker 2: So what does this have to do with Flavio? A lot, actually,
Speaker 2: and I'll get to that, But first I need to
Speaker 2: tell you about the guy who was Flavio in his crosshairs,
Speaker 2: the guy running the governments Wan, the wide bellied, brash Columbia.
Speaker 2: That's after the break. One is a Dea informant, but
Speaker 2: one isn't his real name. That's Alex Diaz. The current
Speaker 2: whereabouts of Wan or Alex are difficult to pin down.
Speaker 2: He's lived at various times in Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Kansas,
Speaker 2: and Colorado. The most recently available public records suggest that
Speaker 2: one lives at least part of the time in a
Speaker 2: condo in Centennial, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. I'm in
Speaker 2: a large middle class complex of three story buildings, each
Speaker 2: with wood paneledy accents on the outside. Wan's condo, or
Speaker 2: what I think is Wan's condo, is here seven. His
Speaker 2: unit is on the third floor of the building. The
Speaker 2: doormat reads welcome to the shit Show, which seems fitting
Speaker 2: for Wan. No one's answering, so I leave a note,
Speaker 2: tucking it slightly under the welcome to the shit Show Matt.
Speaker 2: In the note, I write that I'm searching for Wan
Speaker 2: or Alex ds and then I want to discuss his
Speaker 2: work for the DEA. Jan has never contacted me, which
Speaker 2: honestly isn't surprising. Federal drug agents pay him lots of
Speaker 2: money not to talk to journalists like me. Want's a
Speaker 2: seasoned hand for the DEA. His specialty narco terrorism cases.
Speaker 2: Narco terrorism. It sounds scary, right. Take two of the
Speaker 2: world's most villainous evildoers, drug runners or narcos and terrorists,
Speaker 2: and well combine them you get narco terrorists. They must
Speaker 2: be the world's super villains, right, or maybe and hear
Speaker 2: me out, maybe they don't exist, not really, maybe they're
Speaker 2: just inventions. To understand how American law enforcement might have
Speaker 2: conjured up so called narco terrorists, you really have to
Speaker 2: go back to the so called war on drugs.
Speaker 6: America's public enemy Number one in the United States is
Speaker 6: drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy,
Speaker 6: it is necessary to wage a new, all out offensive.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy one, well in the middle of a
Speaker 2: fight for his political life, President Richard Nixon formally announced
Speaker 2: the War on Drugs. In hindsight, now a half century later,
Speaker 2: the rhetoric was clearly the product of a moral panic,
Speaker 2: but it was being pushed by America's highest elected officials.
Speaker 4: Drugs are menacing our society.
Speaker 7: They're threatening our values and undercutting our institutions.
Speaker 4: They're killing our children.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty six, as part of the Just Say
Speaker 2: No campaign, President Ronald Reagan boasted in a televised address
Speaker 2: from the Oval Office that thirty seven federal agencies were
Speaker 2: engaged in the War on drugs and that funding for
Speaker 2: drug related federal law enforcement had tripled. The drug war
Speaker 2: was a feeding frenzy, an alphabet soup of dozens of
Speaker 2: federal agencies all seeking a spot at the time table,
Speaker 2: and the FBI, at the time, not tasked with investigating
Speaker 2: drug crimes, was left out. The Bureau saw all that
Speaker 2: government money flowing to much smaller agencies, including the Drug
Speaker 2: Enforcement Administration the DEA, and so around the time that
Speaker 2: Reagan gave this national address, the FBI muscled in on
Speaker 2: the drug war, successfully lobbying Congress to give the Bureau
Speaker 2: concurrent jurisdiction with the DEA over drug crimes. Undercover stings,
Speaker 2: in which federal agents pretended to be drug buyers or
Speaker 2: drug sellers, became one of the FBI's primary tools, racking
Speaker 2: up arrests, prosecutions, and convictions. There were so many cases
Speaker 2: and so many prosecutions that the war on drugs became
Speaker 2: self fueling. The moral panic meant more law enforcement funding.
Speaker 2: More law enforcement funding meant more undercover stings and more arrests.
Speaker 2: More stings and more arrests meant more hysteria. A cycle.
Speaker 7: This This is crack cocaine.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty nine, President George H. W. Bush gave
Speaker 2: a national address from the Oval Office in which he
Speaker 2: held up a bag containing crack cocaine.
Speaker 7: Seized a few days ago by drug enforcement agents in
Speaker 7: a park just across the street from the White House.
Speaker 2: America's panic about drugs at the time made President Bush's
Speaker 2: claim seem believable. A drug dealer was selling crackouts at
Speaker 2: the White House, but it was all nothing more than
Speaker 2: drug theater. The Washington Post later reported that DEA agents
Speaker 2: had to manipulate a drug dealer to come to a
Speaker 2: park near the White House. A decade later, America was
Speaker 2: on to a new war.
Speaker 8: We understand that there has been a plane crash on
Speaker 8: the southern tip of Manhattan. You're looking at the World
Speaker 8: Trade Center. We understand that a plane has crashed into
Speaker 8: the World Trade Center.
Speaker 1: We don't know anything.
Speaker 2: The War on Terror, billions and billions of dollars poured out,
Speaker 2: and among the biggest beneficiaries was the FBI, which overnight
Speaker 2: transformed into an agency whose number one priority is counter terrorism.
Speaker 2: The administration of President George W. Bush then launched something
Speaker 2: of a pr campaign to combine the old war his
Speaker 2: dad fought with the new war he was fighting. Combining
Speaker 2: the War on drugs with the War on Terror.
Speaker 1: I helped murder families in Colombia.
Speaker 2: It was just innocent fun.
Speaker 4: I helped kidnap people's dads.
Speaker 2: Hey, some harmless fun.
Speaker 4: I help kids learn how to kill.
Speaker 2: This was a public service announcement that ran during the
Speaker 2: two thousand and two Super Bowl, just a few months
Speaker 2: after nine to eleven.
Speaker 6: I was just having some fun, you know.
Speaker 2: I helped kill policemen.
Speaker 4: I was just having fun.
Speaker 7: I helped the bomber get a fake passport.
Speaker 4: All the kids do it.
Speaker 1: I helped kill a judge.
Speaker 4: I helped blow a building.
Speaker 2: My life, my body. The ad ends with large white
Speaker 2: letters on a black screen. Drug money supports terror, it reads.
Speaker 2: The intended message was clear, if you use drugs, dear Americans,
Speaker 2: you support those evil terrorists with the war on terror. Suddenly,
Speaker 2: the DEA found itself in the same position the FBI
Speaker 2: was in in the nineteen eighties, shut out of the
Speaker 2: biggest funding game in town. Here's Joshua dre Tell again,
Speaker 2: the lawyer specializing in terrorism cases.
Speaker 4: They were losing their budgetary control, they were losing their
Speaker 4: career advancement through these kinds of investigations, and they were
Speaker 4: also losing their status essentially within the law enforcement and
Speaker 4: criminal justice community.
Speaker 2: So the DEA took a lesson from the FBI and
Speaker 2: petitioned Congress to give the agency a peace of the
Speaker 2: War on terror.
Speaker 5: So what better way to sort of reaffirm their importance
Speaker 5: by saying, Oh, this is narco terrorism problem that's out there.
Speaker 2: The DEA was then given jurisdiction over narco terrorism, a
Speaker 2: mandate to travel the world and investigate how drug smuggling
Speaker 2: operations were secretly funding terrorist networks and terrorist attacks. The
Speaker 2: gambit worked, the money came flowing into the DEA. In
Speaker 2: two thousand and six, Congress allocated two hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: seven million dollars in the DEA budget for international enforcement.
Speaker 2: A decade later, that number had ballooned to four hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty seven million dollars. Suddenly, the DEA has nearly
Speaker 2: half a billion dollars every year to search the world
Speaker 2: for narco terrorists, a lot of money to hire informants.
Speaker 2: And among those enlisted to help the DEA in this
Speaker 2: global search is one liason.
Speaker 1: I want you have this thing. I know you don't
Speaker 1: want to talk to no one, and I agree, but
Speaker 1: I just wanted to go business people that I have
Speaker 1: a man this time that can make it happen.
Speaker 2: Wan wasn't always a DEA informant, but he's been one
Speaker 2: for a very long time. Want's a former drug runner
Speaker 2: who spent decades working for the DEA, and he's earned
Speaker 2: millions of dollars in the process. And here's what I
Speaker 2: can say as fact about Wan or Alex ds. He's
Speaker 2: an only child from Colombia.
Speaker 1: My mother hardly helped me. My mother is Moke locust Stride. However,
Speaker 1: lockus strike many and many of you.
Speaker 2: He was born in nineteen fifty, making him about sixty
Speaker 2: four years old. When communicating with Flavio, anytime someone brings
Speaker 2: up one's age, he's quick with a joke.
Speaker 1: O you, I'll tell you too.
Speaker 2: One came to the United States from Colombia at age
Speaker 2: seventeen and has strong ties there.
Speaker 1: Am miss Is. It's a good count, very big counter.
Speaker 1: It's big.
Speaker 2: As a young man, Juan began working for American Airlines
Speaker 2: sky Chef, you know, the guys responsible for loading food
Speaker 2: and drinks on the planes. Jan eventually took a position
Speaker 2: with sky Chef in Miami. Miami International is a key
Speaker 2: hub for American airlines and a US gateway to Latin America.
Speaker 2: Miami at the time was basking in the afterglow of
Speaker 2: Miami Vice. The city had a reputation for drugs, fast cars,
Speaker 2: skimpy bikinis, and free flowing money.
Speaker 7: That dude you showed up with tonight works undercover for
Speaker 7: the DEEA pal.
Speaker 2: His name Scott Wheeler. And as for Leon, he's on
Speaker 2: the payroll of a Columbian. I've been too stiff. As
Speaker 2: if you were a character straight out of Miami Vice.
Speaker 2: Juan had a sideline gig at Miami International Airport. He
Speaker 2: used his position with American Airlines to smuggle a daggering
Speaker 2: amount of drugs into the United States three thousand kilos
Speaker 2: of marijuana and four thousand kilos of cocaine. But federal
Speaker 2: drug agents figured out what Wan was up to, and
Speaker 2: he was arrested and hit with federal criminal charges and
Speaker 2: a ten year prison sentence for drug smuggling. So Wan
Speaker 2: cut a deal with the DEA. He agreed to work
Speaker 2: with drug agents as an informant in exchange for knocking
Speaker 2: down his decade long prison sentence to just three years.
Speaker 2: Around the time that Jan was released from prison, federal
Speaker 2: agents in Miami had been noticing that baggage handlers at
Speaker 2: the airport, so called ramp rats were driving around in
Speaker 2: fancy cars and living large, which was odd for guys
Speaker 2: earning about ten dollars an hour. Of course, the DEA
Speaker 2: had a pretty good idea of how these low paid
Speaker 2: workers might afford such a lifestyle, so federal agents launched
Speaker 2: two undercover investigations at Miami intern National Airport called Operation
Speaker 2: sky Chef and Operation ramp Rap, resulting in scores of
Speaker 2: arrest of airport workers who were helping to smuggle in cocaine, heroin,
Speaker 2: and other drugs. The Miami Herald in nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 2: published a front page story about the DEA investigations at
Speaker 2: the airport. The newspaper described the DEA's lead informant as
Speaker 2: quote a fat man with an annoying habit of spitting
Speaker 2: an agent's faces as he talked. One is, in fact,
Speaker 2: Shorten Stocky, a fat man and spitting an agent's faces
Speaker 2: as he talked. Well, I mean, just listen to one.
Speaker 1: Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. If you cannot do it,
Speaker 1: then let's forget about this. And and you're killing I
Speaker 1: don't care about you. I don't care only about my business.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna work with me with it to be
Speaker 1: serious about working.
Speaker 2: You can almost feel this hitting you in these recordings.
Speaker 2: Wan's been at this informant game for nearly thirty years,
Speaker 2: and he's been rewarded handsomely. In addition to getting to
Speaker 2: skip those last seven years of his prison sentence back
Speaker 2: in the nineties, Wan has earned nearly five million dollars
Speaker 2: working for the DEA and other federal law enforcement agencies.
Speaker 1: If you go to Rome, I have a list of
Speaker 1: hotels that I've built, like American hotels.
Speaker 2: Want's traveled the world with undercover work, funding a lifestyle
Speaker 2: filled with nice hotels.
Speaker 1: You'll find was built as an American hotel because they
Speaker 1: are the biggest rooms, all.
Speaker 2: That exclusive restaurants.
Speaker 1: I want the ottobush and women, Oh, beautiful, women, beautiful.
Speaker 1: I'm friendly, friendly, It's good, It's good.
Speaker 2: Wan's been delivering federal cases for decades. Experienced operator and
Speaker 2: his current target, Flavio George Escom that's after the break
Speaker 2: One makes big money as a DEA informant in part
Speaker 2: because he's the ideal frontman for a narco terrorism sting,
Speaker 2: the perfect guy to play the part of a fark agent.
Speaker 2: He's Colombian.
Speaker 1: Maybe when you saw me, you know it was because
Speaker 1: I'm the only Latin people Columbia.
Speaker 2: He's a native Spanish speaker, have a part head on,
Speaker 2: and he has plenty of firsthand experience with cocaine.
Speaker 1: You have to like cocaine leaves fresh to keep your
Speaker 1: your blood pressure right.
Speaker 2: But neither of the de nor the Justice Department maintains
Speaker 2: a publicly accessible list of so called narco terrorism stings.
Speaker 2: So we scoured federal court records and press releases to
Speaker 2: create one of the DEA's narco terrorism cases. Half involved
Speaker 2: in foremants like Juan pretending to be from the FARC.
Speaker 2: The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia or FARC FAARC for
Speaker 2: the acronym in Spanish, is a gorilla group that has
Speaker 2: been in conflict with Columbia central government since nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 2: Most of farc' supporters are in rural areas, which the
Speaker 2: Colombian government has historically neglected. As a result of the
Speaker 2: FARC's presence in remote areas where coca plants are cultivated
Speaker 2: and cocaine processed, the group's funding has come in part
Speaker 2: from the drug trade, and if you're a federal drug
Speaker 2: agent with funding to travel the world trying to prove
Speaker 2: that drugs fund terrorism. Then well, FARC is perfect for you.
Speaker 2: So I think when you talk about FARC, you really.
Speaker 9: Kind of have this almost perfect organization from the government's purposes,
Speaker 9: sort of out of central casting.
Speaker 2: This is what Dsie, a law professor at the University
Speaker 2: of South Carolina who has studied narco terrorism stings.
Speaker 9: It's a kind of an association that people will make
Speaker 9: in their minds almost automatically, And of course it leaves
Speaker 9: out the Colombian government's role in the war on drugs,
Speaker 9: which has not been to say it in exceedingly simple terms,
Speaker 9: it hasn't been a clean one. So the FARC is
Speaker 9: a useful dupe in this whole exercise. Not to say
Speaker 9: its hands are clean either, but certainly it's kind of
Speaker 9: almost like heaven sent for the government as a kind
Speaker 9: of a prosecutorial foil.
Speaker 2: In twenty eleven, one gets a big lead to offer
Speaker 2: the dea. I'd a Romanian guy living in Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: Andy Georgescu. Juan met Andy through another confidential informant. But
Speaker 2: I've never been able to figure out those details. What
Speaker 2: I know is that Wan tells the Dea that this
Speaker 2: Andy guy is involved in smuggling and money laundering. Wan
Speaker 2: suggests to the agents that he spent some time getting
Speaker 2: to know Andy to see where things might lead, and
Speaker 2: of course doing that means money for Wan and so
Speaker 2: testing Andy. Wan says he wants to buy weapons for
Speaker 2: the FARC. Andy suggests his friend Flavio Georgescu, a guy
Speaker 2: over in Europe who can make things happen. Based on
Speaker 2: that and not much more, Wan starts targeting Flavio and
Speaker 2: at the same time Flavio, if you're inclined to believe
Speaker 2: his story, thinks he's collecting information for the CIA, so
Speaker 2: he works to put together the weapons deal.
Speaker 1: For one, you're saying that you have the person. Now,
Speaker 1: what's with you that he could take care of at least.
Speaker 4: I hear it right, Yeah, he is the person who
Speaker 4: is not the reason.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not reforcement. Uh huh, Okay, well I call
Speaker 1: them people. I call them people in Colombia, the fire people. Okay,
Speaker 1: and tell me that I want to look and see
Speaker 1: if I can program perhaps meeting with you.
Speaker 2: Flavio tells one that if he wants to move forward,
Speaker 2: he has to come to Romania. But one having been
Speaker 2: stood up once already in Rome, and now tired of
Speaker 2: Flavio's constantly changing plans, says he doesn't want to go
Speaker 2: to Romania. In this call, Flavio is sitting in his
Speaker 2: car in Bucharest. Also in the car is a man
Speaker 2: Flavio has lined up to help negotiate the arms deal.
Speaker 1: It is either you mide me in Rome or no.
Speaker 1: If not, I appreciate you very much, he all due respect.
Speaker 1: You do your business because you don't have time for me,
Speaker 1: because that means you never will get it done right.
Speaker 1: Then I'm going If you come to Rome, you mean me,
Speaker 1: I'll go with you to Romania. That's the deal. I
Speaker 1: can'not go to Romania every time you change me, or
Speaker 1: to Parish, or to Italy or to the other guy
Speaker 1: who you put me in Liverpool. Because everybody has a plan.
Speaker 1: I have a plan and the one who show up
Speaker 1: and I want to show it up. I just need
Speaker 1: you to come, and once you come, I know you there.
Speaker 1: I mean you face to face, we like each other,
Speaker 1: you like while talking, and then we go to wherever
Speaker 1: we need to go. That's all.
Speaker 2: That just there might have been hard to hear, but
Speaker 2: it's another person, a guy who says, I don't think
Speaker 2: so that's the guy Flavio has recruited to help him
Speaker 2: complete the arms deal. He's willing to meet with one,
Speaker 2: but only in Romania.
Speaker 3: My friend, he said, it is not interesting when I
Speaker 3: talk with them, you find a solution.
Speaker 1: What can I do? Okay, tell your friend that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't even kind off to get on
Speaker 1: the phone. I'll tell me that. That right, but no
Speaker 1: problem you you know, Kim talk with Shila, talk with
Speaker 1: him well, I mean, well what I want to talk
Speaker 1: to him about. He doesn't understand what I've been here.
Speaker 3: Because if you if you, if you come, if you
Speaker 3: come to Romania, I have the meeting granted one hundred
Speaker 3: percent and talk with the real people. If I come
Speaker 3: to I don't know if I can come or not.
Speaker 3: But if I come, I come like a luster. I
Speaker 3: don't know nothing about this business.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 3: It's like you said, this is a business for me
Speaker 3: to know. This is a help for me. I want
Speaker 3: to help you out. I don't need any business. I
Speaker 3: don't need any money. I don't need nothing. Believe me,
Speaker 3: an your kids.
Speaker 2: Flavio is telling one that he doesn't want any money
Speaker 2: that he's putting one in touch with people in order
Speaker 2: to help him, which, to Flavio's credit, does seem consistent
Speaker 2: with his claims of believing that he's working for the CIA.
Speaker 2: In Flavio's mind, accepting any money as part of the
Speaker 2: deal would compromise him. So he's making it clear to
Speaker 2: one that he's not doing this for money. He doesn't
Speaker 2: want one's money.
Speaker 1: Well me to men too. But I can't listen, I
Speaker 1: can't look. I cannot come to Romania until I meet
Speaker 1: you in Rome. I go from Rome to Romania. If
Speaker 1: I meet you in Rome, he doesn't have to come.
Speaker 1: I don't need to talk. I don't need to talk
Speaker 1: to him, or we don't need to do business. That's
Speaker 1: not because you don't need my business. That's it. In
Speaker 1: all due respect to you, you a glem.
Speaker 3: He cannot come, What can I do?
Speaker 1: I understand that, then then I'm not coming. That's I
Speaker 1: cannot go because I cannot take a change every day
Speaker 1: from you trying to help me, okay, which is a business,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna get help of yourself, okay. So I
Speaker 1: can't know you go to Romania thinking that I want
Speaker 1: to miss someone that said brother don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: Don't worry you change your mind, let me know you do.
Speaker 1: I want to be in Rome. Okay. Hello.
Speaker 2: The call gets disconnected and at this point the arms
Speaker 2: deal appears to be dead. It's all a hot mess,
Speaker 2: but one he does change his mind. He's trying to
Speaker 2: build a case for the DEA after all, and he
Speaker 2: spent months grooming Flavio as a target. He's not ready
Speaker 2: to give up just yet, so he travels to Europe
Speaker 2: again and one finally comes face to face with his target.
Speaker 1: Here I am in your town, and here I am
Speaker 1: to to doc. Okay do you I'm the Mariota Hotel.
Speaker 4: M h okay?
Speaker 1: Uh? True?
Speaker 8: One.
Speaker 2: That's in the next episode. This is up in arms,
Speaker 2: season two of Alphabet Boys. Alphabet Boys is a production
Speaker 2: of Western Sound and iHeart Podcasts. The show is reported,
Speaker 2: written and hosted by me, Trevor Aronson. For more information
Speaker 2: about the series or to drop us a tip, head
Speaker 2: to our website Alphabet Boys dot x y Z. You
Speaker 2: can contact me on Twitter or Instagram at Trevor Aronson.
Speaker 2: The show's instagram is Alphabet Boys dot pod. If you're
Speaker 2: enjoying Alphabet Boys, tell your friends about the show, personal
Speaker 2: recommendations are the best recommendations and want to see an
Speaker 2: illegal arms deal from the inside. At Alphabet Boys dot
Speaker 2: x y Z you'll find undercover recordings and documents related
Speaker 2: to Flavio's case. Finally, you can help us ride the
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Speaker 2: for listening.