Speaker 1: I was assigned working Eurasian organized crime, Russian organized crime.
Speaker 1: You know, one day your supervisor comes in and just says, hey,
Speaker 1: you're the expert. Become an expert in organized crime. We
Speaker 1: had to start a new squad and that was it,
Speaker 1: and that was my entree.
Speaker 2: In January two thousand and two, FBI Special Agent Mark
Speaker 2: Pinto had a lead that some Romanians were running a
Speaker 2: credit card fraud operation in Las Vegas. They'd steal credit
Speaker 2: cards and get cash advances, always moving from casino to
Speaker 2: casino to avoid suspicion. A lot of stolen cards, a
Speaker 2: lot of Romanian runners, a lot of casinos. In other words,
Speaker 2: a lot of money in play.
Speaker 1: We didn't know who's who, We didn't know names. We
Speaker 1: just had like a thunbnail sketch of what we thought
Speaker 1: was going on.
Speaker 2: But Mark eventually got a big lead. He learned that
Speaker 2: all the important players among the Romanians were gathering for
Speaker 2: a private event at an Italian restaurant in Vegas. Mark
Speaker 2: knew there was no way he could get into the restaurant,
Speaker 2: and he didn't have an informant in the organization, so
Speaker 2: he needed a clever way to collect the names of
Speaker 2: the Romanians who were there. The solution an old FBI trick.
Speaker 1: So i did the old homeless routine where I'm hanging
Speaker 1: out where the kitchen cafe was cold concrete, you know,
Speaker 1: and you're just sitting there.
Speaker 2: Mark, dressed like a homeless guy, sat outside the restaurant
Speaker 2: for several hours, radioing in license plates.
Speaker 1: And they're riding down the lice plate information so we
Speaker 1: get an idea of who's coming in, who's going out,
Speaker 1: get an eye on them.
Speaker 2: Eventually, he and his FBI colleagues had enough they called
Speaker 2: it a night. An hour after they left, there was
Speaker 2: a shooting at the restaurant.
Speaker 1: An argument ensued and random shots were fired and one
Speaker 1: of the Romanians get hit.
Speaker 2: A Romanian took a bullet and a leg, but the
Speaker 2: guy refused to go to the hospital.
Speaker 1: He winds up dying. So now it's sort of like, Hey,
Speaker 1: we've got this credit card fraud case we're working, and
Speaker 1: some dude just get shot in a credit card fraud case.
Speaker 1: It's like, that's not supposed to happen.
Speaker 2: Mark had no idea what was going on. He was
Speaker 2: on the outside and he really needed a way in.
Speaker 2: But the FBI had a new source, a guy with
Speaker 2: inside information, a Romanian guy, a connected guy, a guy
Speaker 2: who said he knew all the players in Las Vegas.
Speaker 3: Guys said sure, in your country. As soon as you come,
Speaker 3: any fourth of entry stays. You see something, you say something.
Speaker 2: I'm Trevor Aronson from Western Sound and iHeart Podcasts. This
Speaker 2: is Alphabet Boys, Episode three, Code Name card Member. As
Speaker 2: you probably know, Las Vegas has a long storied history
Speaker 2: with organized crime. The mafia turned this patch of desert
Speaker 2: into a city of casinos and showgirl theaters to entertain
Speaker 2: the men building the nearby Hoover Dam, and from there,
Speaker 2: Las Vegas expanded into a global entertainment capital, all while
Speaker 2: funneling millions back to organize crime families in other cities.
Speaker 2: Vegas has always been with the mafia, calls and open city.
Speaker 2: It's a big place to make loads of money. Different
Speaker 2: groups that might kill each other for infringing on territories
Speaker 2: and say New York or Chicago, will work together in
Speaker 2: a place like Vegas. It's a place where rivals can
Speaker 2: become partners.
Speaker 1: So it was like the old days in LCNA Coast
Speaker 1: and Ustra where they come here where this is an
Speaker 1: open city.
Speaker 2: This is Mark pinto the FBI agent again.
Speaker 1: And so you'll have some crossover for groups that don't
Speaker 1: agree with each other. They were kind of working together
Speaker 1: on the QT to commit crimes in Las Vegas because
Speaker 1: it's so easy and you don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: getting shot in the back, you know, because you're in
Speaker 1: the wrong neighborhood.
Speaker 2: Now, what you probably don't know about Vegas is that
Speaker 2: when the old East Coast and Midwest crime families started
Speaker 2: to klient in the eighties and nineties, the Eastern Europeans
Speaker 2: moved in. Today, in Vegas you're more likely to find Russian, Armenian,
Speaker 2: Bulgarian and Romanian criminal syndicates. But surprisingly Vegas, as an
Speaker 2: open city, has remained. The money in Vegas is still
Speaker 2: just too good.
Speaker 1: So someone from one group may come here and do
Speaker 1: a little extortion. Someone from another group may do some
Speaker 1: medicaid fraud. But you'll find that if they have some
Speaker 1: common interests here in Las Vegas, that sort of sidesteps
Speaker 1: they're loyalties in Los Angeles because the bosses don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on, so it's an opportunity to make money,
Speaker 1: kind of freelancy.
Speaker 2: This became Marx beeat for the FBI the nexus of
Speaker 2: these various Eastern European organized crime groups.
Speaker 1: And so you have these weird, weird mix and one
Speaker 1: of the oddest mixes were the Romanian Armenian connection.
Speaker 2: Mark had a hunch he suspected Romanian and Armenian organized
Speaker 2: crime groups, despite being rivals in cities like New York
Speaker 2: and Los Angeles, had partnered in Las Vegas to make
Speaker 2: money using stolen credit cards. But Mark didn't have much
Speaker 2: concrete information, and he didn't have anyone providing him with
Speaker 2: eyes and ears on the inside. He needed an inn,
Speaker 2: and that's when he first heard the name Flavio George Escu.
Speaker 2: In August two thousand and one, Mark went to a
Speaker 2: hotel where Mark's partner and another agent were meeting upstairs
Speaker 2: with Flavio.
Speaker 1: And I'm waiting down in the lobby and I get
Speaker 1: a phone call and in the background, I hear the
Speaker 1: primary agent in an animated discussion with Flavio, and all
Speaker 1: my partner says is you need to get up here.
Speaker 2: This animated thescussion arose from a basic misunderstanding at the
Speaker 2: very beginning of Flavio's relationship with the FBI. Back in
Speaker 2: June two thousand and one, Flavio first walked into the
Speaker 2: FBI's Las Vegas office offering information about various crimes. The
Speaker 2: FBI signed him up as a confidential human source, an informant.
Speaker 2: Flavio insisted though, that he wasn't an informant, but instead
Speaker 2: a friend of the bureau. As someone who grew up
Speaker 2: under constant threat from police informants, this language was very
Speaker 2: important to him. Now, the bureau hadn't figured out exactly
Speaker 2: what to do with Flavio and his information, So a
Speaker 2: couple of months after being signed up with the FBI,
Speaker 2: Flavio had this first meeting at the hotel.
Speaker 4: He wanted to be known as a friend of the bureau,
Speaker 4: which is fine by me, it doesn't matter, but we
Speaker 4: still have all these regulations.
Speaker 2: That's Robert Kleimer, the FBI agent in the room with Flavio.
Speaker 4: You know, I was one of these agents that was
Speaker 4: you know by the book.
Speaker 2: What happened was that Flavio had brought his friend a gift, and.
Speaker 4: He brought I don't know, it's a few bottles of
Speaker 4: wine as a gift, and one of the rules as
Speaker 4: an FBI agent, you can't take gifts from your informants,
Speaker 4: and I was like, I can't, can't take it. And
Speaker 4: I proceeded to tell him all the rules and this,
Speaker 4: and then he didn't. That didn't bother him, and he's like, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: By the time Mark made it from the lobby to
Speaker 2: the hotel room door, the no no nos had turned
Speaker 2: into a full throated shouting match between Flavio and Robert.
Speaker 2: Flavio was insistent the FBI agents must accept the wine.
Speaker 2: It's a gift from a friend. But Robert was just
Speaker 2: as dogmatic. He couldn't accept the wine. That's against FBI rules.
Speaker 2: Neither man would back down. Finally Mark entered the room.
Speaker 4: Mark Pinto's there and he's like, yeah, I can take it.
Speaker 2: Mark grabbed the wine bottles.
Speaker 4: They're probably still sitting in some evidence vault or something.
Speaker 4: I don't know, probably aging really well.
Speaker 2: Mark wasn't as by the books as Robert.
Speaker 1: I would do whatever needed to be done for the
Speaker 1: good of the case that didn't violate the Constitution and
Speaker 1: didn't provide false testimony against any of the bad guys
Speaker 1: because you got to play about the rules. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that on occasion I didn't skirt some administrative policy.
Speaker 2: The FBI rule in this particular situation was in venting
Speaker 2: the agents from doing the work in Marx's estimation, so
Speaker 2: he ignored the rule, and now that the wine issue
Speaker 2: was settled, Flavio and the FBI agents could talk. Mark,
Speaker 2: dressed in a suit, took a seat on the hotel
Speaker 2: bed and listened. Flavio had brought someone with him to
Speaker 2: meet with the FBI agents.
Speaker 1: That other person that was there was a young Romanian
Speaker 1: I believe was a waiter at a restaurant and he
Speaker 1: was being forced into stealing credit cards.
Speaker 2: Flavio knew the FBI was trying to crack the stolen
Speaker 2: credit card fraud ring. Then he heard about this waiter,
Speaker 2: so Flavio was facilitating an information exchange.
Speaker 1: Flavio was not involved in criminal activity at all, and
Speaker 1: what he would do is he would just talk to
Speaker 1: people in the Romaining community and hear their concerns and
Speaker 1: provide that information. The main reason he did that is
Speaker 1: because he knew that if anyone else provided that information,
Speaker 1: they would be in danger, and that's unusual. You usually
Speaker 1: don't run across people like that.
Speaker 2: Flavio knew that Romanians providing information about organized crime in
Speaker 2: Las Vegas faced not only threats to themselves in the
Speaker 2: United States, but also threats to their family members still
Speaker 2: back in Romania.
Speaker 1: If you think you're protected here, your sister's house will
Speaker 1: be burned down, or the government will somehow seize the
Speaker 1: land and you'll be screwed. And where can they go.
Speaker 1: You're lucky if your house just gets burned down, because
Speaker 1: they're making a point.
Speaker 2: If you remember, when Flavio calls the CIA in twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: the response he receives is cold and detached, uninterested, almost
Speaker 2: But that's not how it went with the FBI. As
Speaker 2: it came clear that Flavio could provide information relevant to
Speaker 2: the credit card fraud ring, Mark became one of Flavio's
Speaker 2: FBI handlers.
Speaker 1: I don't believe he was ever paid except for expenses,
Speaker 1: because he wouldn't accept money for he was a hard
Speaker 1: worker and he really believed in keeping the United States
Speaker 1: the way it was. It was such a great place.
Speaker 2: FBI internal reports confirmed that Flavio never accepted money from
Speaker 2: the FBI, which is very uncommon for an informant, or
Speaker 2: to use Flavio's preferred language, a friend of the bureau.
Speaker 2: The FBI has more than fifteen thousand registered informants, and
Speaker 2: most of them are in the game for the money,
Speaker 2: and informants can make a lot of money, in excess
Speaker 2: of six figures a year. But Flavio, he wasn't in
Speaker 2: it for the money. Informants get paid for information friends,
Speaker 2: they do it as a favor. Flavio is working with
Speaker 2: the FBI out of a patriotic duty, out of a desire,
Speaker 2: in Flavio's view, to defend the country. One of the
Speaker 2: earliest FBI reports about Flavio lists his code name.
Speaker 1: I can still remember everyone by their code name because
Speaker 1: you'd referred to them by their code name when you
Speaker 1: had conversations with other investigators.
Speaker 2: In the report, an FBI agent lists Flavio's code name
Speaker 2: as Rolls Royce, no doubt, a reference to Flavio's business
Speaker 2: of shipping high end cars from Las Vegas to Europe.
Speaker 2: But Rolls Royce is scratched out, and above it in
Speaker 2: handwriting is Flavio's final code name, a reference to the
Speaker 2: Vegas credit card ring card Member.
Speaker 1: My partner probably changed it when he started working with Flavio,
Speaker 1: just so we could remember what code name goes with who.
Speaker 2: And code name card member was ready to get to
Speaker 2: work more after the break.
Speaker 3: With the AHBA, when I connect contact them the first time,
Speaker 3: first time in my life, what I wanted In Vegas.
Speaker 2: I'm having a phone conversation with Flavio George Escu, who's
Speaker 2: in a federal prison following a failed arms deal with
Speaker 2: some Colombians. I've asked Flavio what he remembers from over
Speaker 2: a decade earlier, when he approached the FBI in Las
Speaker 2: Vegas offering information about Romanian organized crime.
Speaker 3: They asked me, why you come to us? Why you
Speaker 3: need what you need? You need money, you need protection,
Speaker 3: you need of what you need? Do you have any
Speaker 3: charges you did something wrong? Because there's no people to
Speaker 3: come to our office and stand up and say something.
Speaker 3: I said, Sir, in your country, as soon as you
Speaker 3: come any port of entries says you see something, you
Speaker 3: say something. And I said, I'm going to be one
Speaker 3: day American citizens. But does organized crime destroyed the financial
Speaker 3: system in the United States and makes me to be
Speaker 3: ashamed to say I am Romanian? That's why I came
Speaker 3: to your office, sir, And they said okay.
Speaker 2: Flavio says he always wanted to live in America to
Speaker 2: be an American ever since his father caught him listening
Speaker 2: to Americans on the radio, and now that he was
Speaker 2: in the United States, he hated to see fellow Romanians
Speaker 2: committing crimes or abusing the system that was. As he says,
Speaker 2: his entire motivation for working with the FBI and naive
Speaker 2: believe that the post nine eleven slogan, if you see something,
Speaker 2: say something, we're words to live by. We're words that
Speaker 2: we Americans took seriously.
Speaker 3: I consider just this my country right now. They acceed
Speaker 3: me over here. They gave me citizenship, they give me everything.
Speaker 3: They said. You know, I have to pay my debt
Speaker 3: back to the United.
Speaker 2: States after a youth spent under a brutal dictatorship. Flavio
Speaker 2: tends to see the world in black and white, good
Speaker 2: and bad, and that view influenced his decision to cooperate
Speaker 2: with the FBI.
Speaker 3: This is always just my drive to you know, under
Speaker 3: the US Romanians we taxt and myself, I participate in
Speaker 3: a revolution in nineteen eighty nine. I was in the
Speaker 3: street between the bullets and everything we take those sprout.
Speaker 3: We have a mindset to still on the side of
Speaker 3: the government and save license, save the country and fight
Speaker 3: for the country.
Speaker 2: So, working with Mark Pinto, Flavio started helping the FBI
Speaker 2: figure out how the Romanians ran their credit card fraud
Speaker 2: ring and who inside the organization could be recruited as
Speaker 2: other informants. Flavio acted as a kind of spymaster for
Speaker 2: the FBI, putting together his own network of informants within
Speaker 2: the Romanian community and then funneling the information he received
Speaker 2: to Mark another federal agents, all while protecting the identities
Speaker 2: of his Romanian contacts.
Speaker 1: I know that he would reach out to certain people
Speaker 1: and say, hey, what's the problem. I could help you,
Speaker 1: And of course, being an investigator, you want where'd you
Speaker 1: get that information? I want to talk to that person,
Speaker 1: and then that's now a process of getting that person
Speaker 1: to agree to take the risks that are going to
Speaker 1: be involved. And Flavio didn't like these young people taking
Speaker 1: those risks. He'd rather be the go between. The problem
Speaker 1: is he is not a criminal, and so he doesn't
Speaker 1: talk like a criminal. He doesn't talk about the things
Speaker 1: regular criminal guys would talk about, you know, about the
Speaker 1: drinking and going to strip clubs and you know, lavishly
Speaker 1: spending their ill gotten gains. He wasn't that guy. So
Speaker 1: he was able to get some of the baseline information.
Speaker 1: But basically he had his own group of informants, if
Speaker 1: you will.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 2: Mark's opinion is that Flavio didn't have an angle. Unlike
Speaker 2: most informants. He didn't want money.
Speaker 1: We didn't pay him for the information we paid for.
Speaker 1: I believe some expenses when he traveled when we directed
Speaker 1: him to travel and go somewhere and meet some people.
Speaker 2: But that was it. But could Flavio have had an
Speaker 2: angle other than money? Mark says no. Flavio says no.
Speaker 2: But ultimately this is something that is impossible to fact check.
Speaker 2: It's a question mark, maybe not one in big boldface type,
Speaker 2: but it's there. Perhaps Flavio really was providing information to
Speaker 2: the FBI out of a sense of patriotic duty, or
Speaker 2: maybe Flavio had some other angle, an angle I can't
Speaker 2: figure out, an angle Mark could never figure out. Because
Speaker 2: let's be clear, what Flavio did, providing information for years
Speaker 2: to the FBI for no benefit. That's unusual anyway, whatever
Speaker 2: is motivation, Flavio was helping the FBI find informants and
Speaker 2: building a list of names of the players involved in
Speaker 2: the Las Vegas crime ring but he was also helping
Speaker 2: the FBI figure out how the Romanians were stealing the
Speaker 2: credit cards. It turns out that the whole operation was huge.
Speaker 1: So one of the higher end gyms here you pay
Speaker 1: to go in and or you have this outrageous membership,
Speaker 1: they have those little key locks. You know the issue.
Speaker 1: You are key, and what this guy would do is
Speaker 1: you go in and he'd pay and he'd work out
Speaker 1: and then he would send out one of the guys
Speaker 1: or go outside to a van and he'd copy the key.
Speaker 1: And you're like, that's a lot of work for one key,
Speaker 1: but he would do it over the course of month
Speaker 1: a year, so you'd have a copy of just about
Speaker 1: every key that was in there.
Speaker 2: After time, Once the Romanians had copies of keys for
Speaker 2: all the lockers, they'd systematically steal credit cards from the wallets. Well,
Speaker 2: the owners of those cards were working out in the gym.
Speaker 2: This wasn't quick and dirty, grab and go theft either.
Speaker 2: The Romanians had developed a sophisticated system.
Speaker 1: That's what gets me. These guys work so hard at
Speaker 1: doing this stuff. If they got a legitimate job, they'd
Speaker 1: be rich. I mean, because they're willing to put in
Speaker 1: the work they I mean, they work harder at not working,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It would just crack me up.
Speaker 1: But yeah, one of the guys here had a little
Speaker 1: ban a key service, and that's what he would do.
Speaker 1: He'd cut the keys.
Speaker 2: Sometimes the thief would just write down the credit card
Speaker 2: and driver's license information, and the credit card and ID
Speaker 2: would be duplicated later using special equipment. Other Times he'd
Speaker 2: take a card, but always the one in the back
Speaker 2: of the wallet, the one you're least likely to notice
Speaker 2: is missing.
Speaker 1: Would they take that single credit card? If they're going
Speaker 1: to physically steal the credit card, then put everything back,
Speaker 1: don't take anything else. There could be ten thousand dollars
Speaker 1: in the wallet. They're not going to take it because
Speaker 1: it'll compromise it.
Speaker 2: A lookout always, an attractive woman would be stationed on
Speaker 2: the gym floor keeping an eye out for anyone who
Speaker 2: might be headed back to the locker room too soon.
Speaker 1: And if it looked like they were going to finish
Speaker 1: working out, they might have a pretty young thing go
Speaker 1: up to them and start chatting to help with them,
Speaker 1: to distract them so they had enough time to get
Speaker 1: a number of credit cards. This is throughout the whole country,
Speaker 1: and gym's are the favorite because that's where you leave
Speaker 1: your wallet. I mean, it's obvious.
Speaker 2: The Romanians in Las Vegas had partnered with Armenians throughout
Speaker 2: the country in cities from Seattle to Miami. The Armenians
Speaker 2: would steal credit card information from someone in one city,
Speaker 2: and within hours, the Romanians would print a fake credit
Speaker 2: card and take that card to one of Vegas's casinos.
Speaker 2: It was quite the operation, and Flavio's assistance to the
Speaker 2: FBI was invaluable in helping agents penetrate the credit card ring,
Speaker 2: an operation that was bringing in obscene amounts of cash
Speaker 2: using cards from across the country. That's up to the break.
Speaker 1: He's a little bit of a strange guy. He's gregarious,
Speaker 1: he's a nice guy, but you kind of push away
Speaker 1: from a little bit because he's just strange. You don't
Speaker 1: know what he's after.
Speaker 2: This is Mark Pinto. He's talking about Flavio George.
Speaker 1: Escu and maybe his i'll just call it technique wasn't
Speaker 1: refined enough, but it's his person. If he wore jeans,
Speaker 1: they were obviously designer jeans. When he wore clothes, he
Speaker 1: wore a lot of linen never needed to shave. His
Speaker 1: hair is never tozzled.
Speaker 2: Mark had a reputation for forming bonds with his informants,
Speaker 2: becoming perhaps closer than his FBI supervisors would have preferred,
Speaker 2: and he and Flavio became friendly with a common appreciation
Speaker 2: for the finer things in life.
Speaker 1: I'd take him to restaurants once a while, nice restaurants
Speaker 1: because he knew about good food. Because he said, Hey,
Speaker 1: this place has really good foiguah. Now I don't have
Speaker 1: any kids, so we had some money and then go, hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna I'll take you to foiguah. And it's funny
Speaker 1: because he's one of those guys that orders it then
Speaker 1: sends it back to get overcooked, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of they sound like a snob, but
Speaker 1: I mean, that's disposable income. You do whatever you want
Speaker 1: with it. But that was my entertainment and it just
Speaker 1: cracked me up because he was that's the way he was.
Speaker 1: He'd only eat organic chicken. He's one of those guys.
Speaker 2: Well. Working together in Las Vegas, Mark and Flavia formed
Speaker 2: a bond, a kind of bond that isn't typical between
Speaker 2: an agent and informant. Friends. That's the term Flavio prefers,
Speaker 2: but I don't think that's right. They're more like colleagues,
Speaker 2: like equals.
Speaker 1: He's just telling me to stop chewing tobacco. It's bad
Speaker 1: for your health. Stop chewing tobacco. I'm like, but I
Speaker 1: love tobacco and I'm going to be dead at fifty anyway,
Speaker 1: so what's it matter. Well, it turns out I'm not
Speaker 1: dead at fifty, and I stopped chewing tobacco, so that
Speaker 1: was it.
Speaker 2: Normally, there's a power imbalance in the relationship between an
Speaker 2: agent and his informant. The agent, usually cold and detached,
Speaker 2: holds the power. But Mark and Flavio trusted each other,
Speaker 2: so there was a kind of mutual respect, and that
Speaker 2: isn't common. Mark and Flavia would ultimately spend a couple
Speaker 2: of years working together to crack the credit card fraud ring,
Speaker 2: and what they discovered was that some of the credit
Speaker 2: cards that the Romanians stole came from Vegas, but most
Speaker 2: were from far away from cities like Seattle, Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: New York, Miami, and that's where the Armenians came into play.
Speaker 1: The Armenians had a nationwide network of thief teams that
Speaker 1: would travel throughout the United States and steal credit cards.
Speaker 2: Within hours of stealing credit card information across the country,
Speaker 2: the Armenians would transfer the card information to the Romanians
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas, who would print fake IDs and cards
Speaker 2: and then go to casinos to request cash advances.
Speaker 4: Vegas makes it easy to get your hands on money,
Speaker 4: because that's kind of how Vegas prospers.
Speaker 2: This is Robert Climber, the Buy the Books FBI agent
Speaker 2: who was working with Flavio and Mark Pinto.
Speaker 4: So they would go into the casinos and go right
Speaker 4: up to the cage and get cash. These casinos want
Speaker 4: your money, so they'll give you the money off the
Speaker 4: credit card, thinking you're going to stay in the casino
Speaker 4: and gamble, and you know, long and short of it
Speaker 4: is the casino gets to keep the cash, but not
Speaker 4: in this case. They'd walk right out of the casino
Speaker 4: with the cash and they were doing close to like
Speaker 4: fifty thousand dollars in a week.
Speaker 2: In Yeah, the Romanians were making serious money.
Speaker 1: I mean they're drinking crystal, they're waving money around, getting
Speaker 1: the best tables at places, and that's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: As just one example. According to these internal FBI reports,
Speaker 2: based on Flavio's information, John Badia, one of the alleged
Speaker 2: leaders of the ring, was a frequent visitor to Crazy
Speaker 2: Horse IWO, a now closed strip club that had been
Speaker 2: a favorite among mob guys since the late nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: It was also a destination for a list celebrities visiting Vegas,
Speaker 2: with reports of Brad Pitt, Robert de Niro, James Kahn,
Speaker 2: and Mike Tyson being among the club's patrons. But Dia
Speaker 2: would drop seven to eight thousand dollars a night at
Speaker 2: Crazy Horse two, according to FBI reports. But Dia is
Speaker 2: currently serving a federal prison sentence for an unrelated case.
Speaker 2: One of the FBI reports, based on Flavio's information, described
Speaker 2: a wild and expensive party the Romanians through. I think
Speaker 2: it was Crazy Horse. It might have been another club,
Speaker 2: but it was this Romanian band. I guess had come
Speaker 2: from Romanian play do you know this story? And they
Speaker 2: I guess they were throwing money at the stage.
Speaker 1: No, that's a regular thing. So what happens is it
Speaker 1: Bill go to a restaurant and usually it's a proprior
Speaker 1: to the They know and the proprietor knows, they're probably
Speaker 1: doing something sketchy because you you don't throw cash around
Speaker 1: like that. But they'd have these Romanian bands come in
Speaker 1: and they'd throw these big parties. And remember, most of
Speaker 1: these people are not from here. They're from somewhere else,
Speaker 1: which means La or Seattle or wherever else they're hailing
Speaker 1: from to come to our fine city to commit crime.
Speaker 1: So what they would do is they would reserve the
Speaker 1: restaurant for night, whatever restaurant it is, and the band
Speaker 1: would play and you know, the food's brought out and
Speaker 1: the wine's flowing. When it was a good song, they
Speaker 1: just throw money on the ground and at the end
Speaker 1: of the night they would fill up trash bags full
Speaker 1: of cash. And it was funny because the bands used
Speaker 1: to play on the competitive nature of the two teams,
Speaker 1: and so whoever threw out the most money, you know,
Speaker 1: at a higher position, So they just throw out more
Speaker 1: money and someone requests that saying, hey, this song is
Speaker 1: for so and so, and they just throw money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had that on some videotapes. It was incredible watch
Speaker 1: because they would have to take breaks to clean the
Speaker 1: money off the floor because it was getting dangerous. People
Speaker 1: were slipping on the money when they were dancing.
Speaker 2: So much money, so many bills that the Romanians would
Speaker 2: slip on the piles of cash beneath their feet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just it's insane. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: huge amount of money and we only scraped the surface.
Speaker 1: There's only so many of us, and we did the
Speaker 1: best we could. But it was a good couple of years,
Speaker 1: you know, working this stuff.
Speaker 2: But Flavio, the FBI's secret spymaster, could outwit his fellow
Speaker 2: Romanians forever. The guy in charge of the Vegas crew
Speaker 2: somehow figured out that Flavio was working with the FEDS,
Speaker 2: and he put a price on Flavio's.
Speaker 3: Head, but not whole crime organization. They to everyone to
Speaker 3: kill me, to pay somebody to kill me, and somebody
Speaker 3: should my cart and everything. And I didn't say one
Speaker 3: word to I didn't go, I didn't try, I didn't claim,
Speaker 3: I didn't do anything.
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 was reported,
Speaker 2: written and hosted by me Trevor Aronson. For more information
Speaker 2: about the series or to drop as 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 pot. If you're
Speaker 2: enjoying Alphabet Boys, tell your friends about the show. Personal
Speaker 2: recommendations are the best recommendations. And if you want to
Speaker 2: see an illegal arms deal from the inside again, it's
Speaker 2: Alphabet Boys do xyz. You'll find undercover recordings and documents
Speaker 2: related to Flavio's case. Finally, you can help us ride
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Speaker 2: favorite podcast app that helps other people find us. And
Speaker 2: thanks for listening.