WEBVTT - Caught and Captured 0:00:01.639 --> 0:00:06.279 We've spent two days and night trying to locate the plane. 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:12.600 We hoped to find. Unfortunately, the bodies and what was 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:20.919 left on the garago, we couldn't find him. Fernando Blancos 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:24.280 Ascenda spent months coordinating a major cooka in sight from 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:28.840 Columbia Tobacco, California. It arranged for clandestine runways to be 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:32.920 built in the desert, and then it rained. The pilots 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:36.080 couldn't find the washed out runway. They lost communication with 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:38.280 blank Hill and were forced to crash the end of 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:41.479 the dunes. But for two days of looking for the 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:44.479 crash site, some fishermen arrived at the gas station in 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:48.360 the area asking for blank Hill's cousin. They knew where 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:51.440 the plane was. They quickly mobilized to find the plane. 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:56.400 The goods were practically intact, maybe a few package torn. 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:00.440 There were six people on board, two of them in 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:03.440 one piece. Blink said about getting the wounded to the 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:07.000 hospital and the coke to expire and nest of bias Mota. 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:11.520 They sent for them and were stabilized. They injured, They 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:15.840 were very hurt. I had my plane register as an 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.600 air ambulance, so I flew them toward Senda. He wanted 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:22.080 to fly the wounded to Cardillo's secret clinic in New 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:27.080 Mexico City, but Bias Mota insisted they treat them locally well. 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:29.959 Mota was overseeing the shipment of the cocaine across the border. 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:33.040 Linkhio says that he hired some people to take dynamite 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:35.840 out to the crash site and blew up the plane. 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:41.000 Then he got word from Mota. It was said, the 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:44.520 last kid has crossed the border, meaning the last killo 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:47.320 had that right to the state heire. Blankhio says that 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.520 they all celebrated by partying for two days. He refers 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:53.840 to what would be international sex trafficking in the following terms. 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:58.080 We went on a bush, she wrote, as the girls 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:05.120 from Vega and the room, but began today's sparking non 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:10.000 stop if you can't imagine those sputies. As I noted earlier, 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:12.919 the use of such violent sexist language is common in 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:16.079 blank Hill's tales and throughout what often gets called the 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:21.720 Narco cultura. Blank Your continues, we were staying at the 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.440 Holiday Inn, and we moved with the girls to the 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:28.520 Colonial hotel, precisely to avoid attracting unnecessary attention At the 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:33.000 Holiday Inn. The next day, we decided not to sleep 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:35.800 at the Holiday Inn because we felt like we were 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:39.680 being followed. Having just recovered five tons of cocaine from 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.720 a plane that has flown from Colombia and crashed in 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:46.320 the desert, beaking four people critically wounded in a local hospital, 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:48.840 and then moving that coke across the border into the 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:52.359 United States, it makes sense that Blankio and his cohort 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:56.560 would feel a bit apprehensive, feel, for example, as if 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.519 they were being followed. You walk around your tail and 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:04.680 so some strange stuff. I had even seen some flu 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:09.680 when I left, and indeed there was something they didn't know. 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:13.000 Yet those guys didn't blow up the plane. Someone found 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.160 the plane and tipped off the authorities. Federal police have 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.079 been tracking blank you on his team for days. So, 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:22.920 to paraphrase Kurt Cobain, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:26.640 the Feds aren't following you. On edge Link. You and 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:29.080 buy as more as half brother decided to pick up 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.680 their things from the holiday and leave town. The cops 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:36.880 are waiting for them. Heard as ambushed us. There are 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:41.240 your kill. They took us to the back. They lock 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:46.200 us up in our rooms. They knew who we were. 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:53.800 They knew practically everything. Then the Calindada began, and his 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:58.120 interviews with TV Thank You exhibits an unusual relationship to 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:02.560 acts of violence, often orients his life story around violence. 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:06.520 He suffered multiple kidnappings and torture sessions, but he does 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.920 not describe those events in detail. He also shies away 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:14.400 from discussing other acts of violence, whether obscure or famous, 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.560 that are related to his story. Only at one point 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.440 in his interviews that he seemed to hint that he 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.599 had to commit an extreme act of violence to defend himself. 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:28.719 He often describes very close friendships with people like Maloka 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:34.479 Fuentti and who were involved in countless kidnappings and murders. 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:37.960 He talks about flying their families, but does not mention 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:41.839 anything about the violence they carried out, but that Aleva 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.520 himself was killed by Mexican marines in two thousand nine, 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:50.000 commandos repelled from helicopters to storm Leva's luxury apartment in Cordovaca. 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:55.000 Those same commandos also placed bloody baso and dollar bills 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:58.839 on his lifeless torso and led the press photographers through 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:02.040 the apartment to take the pa sure this for me 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:04.560 was a key moment in the so called drug war, 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:10.360 the state openly speaking the language of narco terrorism. Some 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.800 say that Elapauzman ordered the Marines to produce that image, 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:16.320 which would only add one more turn of the screw. 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.640 Throughout his story, Blinkio will often say the name of 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:24.200 a good friend and colleague, someone like Miguel Basan or 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:28.080 Juan al Gomez, and then quickly say they killed him, 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:32.440 without ever saying who they were, what happened, or why. 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:35.800 Violent seems to always hover on the edge of his story, 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.400 having just passed through or lingering just out of you. 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:43.039 Reading Blinkfield's transcripts, I was struck by the casual way 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:44.800 he had mentioned that so many of his friends had 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.840 been murdered. Was he so inured to the violence of 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:50.960 his trade? Was he avoiding details so as not to 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:54.200 draw attention to himself and have to face questions about 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.800 his involvement in such acts of violence? Is it possible 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:01.159 to imagine that a man and old for nearly thirty 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:06.080 years in international drug trafficking would not have participated in kidnappings, torture, 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:17.960 and murder. In January two one colleagues that reached out 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.240 to me about a curious individual they've been interviewing using 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.919 a clandestine cell phone from inside of prison in North Carolina. 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.359 The man claimed to have worked as a pilot, entrepreneur 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:32.159 and air logistics coordinator in the international drug trade for 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.839 some thirty years. My friends at the Dictive produced a 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:38.719 podcast in Spanish and wanted to know if I'd be 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.679 interested in working on a sister podcast in English looking 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.279 into this man and his story. Sure, I said, but 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:47.160 I need to do my own investigations see what I 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:51.719 can find. Thetieve invited the legendary Mexican actor Joaquin Coco 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:56.080 to read the English translations of Transportista's quoted interviews with 0:06:56.160 --> 0:07:01.279 Manue Latius. My name, I guess is John Gibbler, and this, 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:08.440 in a sense is Transportista episode six. Las Callin tell 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:21.160 us the police rushed to blink you in his colleague 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.200 as they approached the holiday in. They took them into 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:27.200 a back entrance and up the blink Hill's room, where 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:29.840 they began to torture them. They put us both in 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:34.480 there in my room, and that's when it all went down. 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:38.000 We could listen to the complete ciasco through the radios. 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:42.440 There we are getting the beating of our lives. Blink 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:44.480 Hill says that he and his colleague tried to deny 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:46.840 who they were and what they had done, but it 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:50.480 was obvious that the police knew everything. They took them 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:55.360 both to a federal police station and continued to beat them. 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.080 After a while, it became clear that the two million 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.520 dollars Blinkyo's employer had paid to the police have been 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:06.560 stolen by a subordinate. The truth came out the commandante 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:12.040 had stolen the bribe money. The police commander thus realized 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:14.480 that the people he had been torturing were not responsible 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:18.200 for the mishap, and offered to write their supposed confessions 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:20.520 in such a way that a judge would be forced 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:23.560 to throw them out. Thank you. To thank the man 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.400 who had tortured him, offered to give him a collector's 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:31.200 watch man. They say, thank you very much. Commandante over there, 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:35.440 I had a goal GMT Master too. I'm going to 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:37.520 give it to you. No, no, no, no, he said, 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:42.200 I don't need anything. I have plenty of watches. Keep 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.200 your stuff, you're gonna need it, he said. Thank your 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.920 story here, assuming it's true, illustrates a common feature of 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:52.359 the drug war. The federal police don't arrest drug traffickers 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:56.000 when they traffic drugs, but rather they kidnap and torture 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.520 drug traffickers who haven't paid them. Once the police found 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.280 out who owned the cocaine shipment and that they had 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:05.320 made the proper payment, they lost all interest in blank 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.600 you on his colleague. One can only imagine, however, what 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:14.120 happened to the subcommandante. So blink You in jail then 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.760 faced an unusual problem. From the beginning. They said it 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:21.200 was a total nobody, but it was in the room 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:25.480 place of the room time, which obviously wasn't the case. 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:28.800 He said he was a nobody and his confession was admissible. 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.880 It seemed he'd be released quickly, But then his various 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.880 employers got worried and they all sent their best lawyers 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.720 to help him out. But with all those lawyers, they're waiting, 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:47.200 speaking with the prosecutor, speaking with the judge. The judge said, no, no, no, 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:51.640 I'm not letting you go at the preliminary huting man. 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:55.560 I'll pass and leave the problem into a district judge 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:59.160 or some other judge who gets your case. Blink You 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:02.120 goes into detail, naming the famous Narco lawyers who went 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:04.760 to defend him, but in the end he would be 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:08.719 in prison for eighteen months and then released. And his interviews, 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:11.839 he recalls those eighteen months in jail and the rather 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:15.920 offensive terms we already heard an episode four. The way 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:18.800 Blankiell talks about women was the first thing that struck 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:22.240 me when I listened to a story, but we won't 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:26.120 repeat that here. Once out of jail, blank he says 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:28.679 that he moved around quite a bit. My first traveled 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:33.280 to Tijuana, Mexicali to get myself together, so to say. 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:37.559 I divided my time between Mexico City and SENAA Mexicali, 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:41.760 Tijuana and got to work. I did a few jobs. 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:46.760 It was coordinating with some Colombian friends, and got back 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:51.560 to work. And we keep going doing pretty well, driving 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:58.679 with some lucky strikes, magnificent negotiations. Everything was moved sailing. 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.400 During this time, blank as that he was kidnapped and 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:04.000 forced to fly for the nephew of a well known trafficker. 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.240 After his plane broke down on one of those flights, 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:10.680 he fled to Los Angeles. There he worked for a 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:16.840 time selling planes to drug traffickers. Then Amalo Carrillo once 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.520 again sought him out, and asked for a favor. He 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.200 wanted to know if Linkio could fly a lear Jet 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.600 thirty five for a friend. Blenko went to Chihuahua to 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:28.319 meet this friend, and there he also met a man. 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:31.319 He asked that the divette not to name. I'll call 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:35.000 him Steve. Steve is in prison for many years. He 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:37.640 was released some ten years ago in a technicality, with 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:41.840 the Mexican Federal Attorney General immediately appealed. He is known 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.160 to be given to extreme acts of violence, and he 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:50.560 is currently at large. Back in the mid nineties, Blinkio 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.680 decided to work with both Amalo Carrio's friend and with Steve. 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:57.040 He went to Vanna's, California to take some lear Jet 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:00.559 flight courses while he was off studying. However, and my 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:03.960 look Ario's friend was murdered, so it would just be 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:08.000 blank Hill and Steve. In the beginning, my business was 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:12.520 using my planes in exchange for a percentage for the transportation. 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:16.360 That's how it began. I did a couple of world 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:19.600 It is around this time that Blinkio says he became 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:23.800 close friends with Artur and started working with him as well. 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.840 Blankio charged Steve around two hundred thousand dollars per flight. 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:32.080 Steve decided this was too expensive. Instead of taking his 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:35.600 business elsewhere, however, he decided to buy blank Hill's business 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.079 from him and then hire him as a pilot. Wait, 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:40.160 when I buy the planes and helps you on a 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:45.120 pay your role. It wasn't a suggestion, but rather an order. 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:50.559 So he bowed the planes. Steve started plankling. He was 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:53.800 sixty five thousand dollars of light. Blank Hill says he 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:57.199 quickly became tired of this arrangement. He started flying more 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:00.480 with Artur beltran Leva, who he says, for a time 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.720 would only fly on turboprop planes with blank He as 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:08.360 a pilot. In this context, Blanko tells a long and 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:12.200 convoluted tale of multiple airplane acquisitions and sales gone wrong 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.560 that led Steve to accuse Blankio trying to rip him off. So, 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:20.599 even though I hadn't done anything, they called me to 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:26.200 Toluca there in Alamalatia restaurant. We had a couple of 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:30.520 rings and some delicious stakes, and we left for Mexico 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:36.680 City to an apartment that belonged to police commandant. I 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:42.679 wasn't guilty of anything, like I said, thank you, insists 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:44.920 that he did not try to rip Steve off, but 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.160 that he was the victim of other people's ill will 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.320 and nefarious dealings. He also makes it clear that he 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:53.880 did not like his arrangement with Steve. I was looking 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:56.880 for a way out still while he was chewing on 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:00.439 his fine stick, he didn't foresee what lay ahead without 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:05.400 expecting it. Of course, Fiesta here does not refer to 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:08.040 the kind of party he probably wished for. She started 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:11.600 complaining and abusing me in a way I don't even 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:18.560 want to describe, man and that kind of things. They 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:23.920 time me up literally means the heating up, but a 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:29.280 more sober terms, it means torture. Coincidentally, perhaps after having 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:31.600 been tortured by a federal police commander in his own 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:36.560 hotel room, here it was Blankio's business partner torturing him 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:40.960 in a federal police commander's luxury apartment. And once again 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:44.280 we see that violence is not exercised in the battle 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:47.440 between the infringement and the enforcement of the rule of law, 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.800 but rather as the preferred manner of conflict resolution in 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:57.440 an industry that depends on official invisibility. Having been captured 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:00.920 and tortured by Steve, the possibility of jail was the 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:12.840 least of Blankio's worries next Time. Transportista is a detective 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:16.760 a production with Exile Content Studio in partnership with iHeart 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:21.920 Radios Michael Dura podcast Network. Directed and narrated by John Gibbler, 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:27.160 Transportista's voice by jrquin Cosio, Editing and sound design by 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:31.320 Ferrando de la Rossa and Pedro Garcia. Reporting by John 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:36.600 Gibbler Emanuelarios produced by Juli Gonzales. Voice recording by Ugo 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:42.440 Merino and Rene Garcia. Transportisas interviews translated by Carlo Rice Arguis. 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:48.320 Production supervision by Nando Vila and Alberto Cespedes. Associate producers 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:52.840 Alonzo Hilar and Alejandro Duran Diego and Riquez rro Is 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:56.840 the creator and executive producer, along with Daniel Eilenberg and Eakle. 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.600 Executive producers for I Heart Media are Comma Burn and 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:05.840 just Sell Bunches. For more podcasts from my Heart, visit 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:09.160 the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.560 listen to your favorite shows. H