Speaker 1: Pushkin.
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Speaker 2: p per month. Currently only available on iOS. There's a
Speaker 2: link in the show notes. Previously on Hot Money, in
Speaker 2: the Netherlands, the government expelled two Iranian diplomats because of
Speaker 2: an assassination connected to the Supercartel, while high tech police
Speaker 2: hacked into the secret world of organized crime. This time,
Speaker 2: we're in New York, so we picked.
Speaker 3: It up in a high end vehicle. We were driven
Speaker 3: to somewhere in Brooklyn, stopped buy a small restaurant. It
Speaker 3: was nice and simple.
Speaker 2: Angel's an international businessman. He arranges deals worth hundreds of
Speaker 2: millions of dollars in his black book, has contacts from
Speaker 2: all around the world.
Speaker 1: He's telling me about a meeting.
Speaker 2: It took place in New York in October twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: one day around lunchtime. Angel drives over to the Waldorf
Speaker 2: Astoria in Manhattan. He picks up a woman who's flown
Speaker 2: in from abroad. She gets inside Angel's luxury car and
Speaker 2: they start talking deals.
Speaker 3: I remember she just was she got comfortable, she opened up.
Speaker 2: There's something you need to know about Angel. He isn't
Speaker 2: your average international businessman.
Speaker 3: She already knew. We were high leveled blog classickers, probably
Speaker 3: multi tan. We were blog clasfickers from South America looking
Speaker 3: to London.
Speaker 2: The money and the woman, she's a professional money launderer.
Speaker 2: Angel's been working with her for a while, figuring out
Speaker 2: ways to clean his cocaine money through various banks, all
Speaker 2: of course for a fee. When they arrived at the
Speaker 2: Brooks and Diner, they order some food and as they're
Speaker 2: sitting at the table, she takes out her phone and
Speaker 2: removes the battery. It's the sort of thing that someone
Speaker 2: does in a spy show to avoid being tracked or recorded.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's very common. Actually, we've seen that plenty of times. Yeah,
Speaker 3: she was very security conscious.
Speaker 2: They talked for a while about money and drugs, and
Speaker 2: then the woman tells Angel she wants to talk about
Speaker 2: something else today. She's looking to buy something high end
Speaker 2: military equipment, tons of it.
Speaker 1: It's a serious shopping list.
Speaker 2: She wants rocket propelled grenades and sniper rifles and automatic weapons.
Speaker 2: Angel well, he's clearly a well connected guy, and she's
Speaker 2: wondering perhaps he knows someone who can help her out.
Speaker 2: Luckily for her, he does.
Speaker 3: So. You know, at that time, we had connections to
Speaker 3: South America, so we offer that we offer them weapons
Speaker 3: and any double weapon we could get from the military
Speaker 3: in South America. If you're looking for Russian weapons and
Speaker 3: stuff like that, you've got Venezuela. You look for American workers,
Speaker 3: you got to Columbia. So we have that background, which
Speaker 3: I think helped us a lot.
Speaker 2: Laundering drug money is one thing, but it's quite another
Speaker 2: to just jump into an international arms deal. The Angel
Speaker 2: doesn't miss a beat. He just smiles because Angel isn't
Speaker 2: a drug trafficker. He's an undercover agent working for the DEA.
Speaker 2: He's wearing a wire recording everything. And this woman at
Speaker 2: the Brooklyn Diner, she's about to tell him who her
Speaker 2: client is, and it will transform our understanding of how
Speaker 2: the European drug trade really works. I'm Myles Johnson and
Speaker 2: from the Financial Times and Pushkin industries. This is Hot
Speaker 2: Money season two the New Narcos episode six Ties with Tehran.
Speaker 4: Angel got transferred into the group and almost immediately became
Speaker 4: a very productive part of the group.
Speaker 5: I said almost, and to be more candid on that,
Speaker 5: I think no, no no.
Speaker 3: I was having issues with other groups the group I
Speaker 3: was in. I felt that they weren't aggressive enough.
Speaker 4: I just took to him because I immediately respected his
Speaker 4: work ethic. We shared an outlook, uh on how to
Speaker 4: go after our job.
Speaker 2: Setting up an interview with a former undercovered drug agent
Speaker 2: isn't that straightforward. It takes a lot of planning and
Speaker 2: some convincing, a little bit of cajoling. Of course, Angel
Speaker 2: isn't his real name. During his career, he's infiltrated some
Speaker 2: of the most dangerous organized crime groups in the world
Speaker 2: from former undercover agents. We have to be very careful
Speaker 2: about who they speak with because criminals, especially murderous cartel bosses,
Speaker 2: they can have long memories. But after quite a few
Speaker 2: phone calls, Angel agreed to talk to me on tape.
Speaker 2: Alongside him is his longtime DEA colleague John Post. Like Angel,
Speaker 2: John worked in the Drug Enforcement Administration the DEA for decades.
Speaker 1: And he's seen it all.
Speaker 4: We noticed that all the all of your European traffickers
Speaker 4: like to go hang out in a place called Marbella, Spain. Marbello, Marbella, Marbella,
Speaker 4: it's the haven of you. Tell me, Miles, have you
Speaker 4: ever been there?
Speaker 2: I actually lived in Spain for four years. I was
Speaker 2: reporting there for the Ft and it turns out I
Speaker 2: was there at the exact same time as the Kinnahans
Speaker 2: who were in Marbella, although I hadn't heard of them
Speaker 2: back then. Anyway, I wanted to talk to Angel and
Speaker 2: John because I think they can help us figure out
Speaker 2: the connection between two things I've learned during my reporting. First,
Speaker 2: we know the Iranian regime order the assassination of Alimtomed
Speaker 2: in the Netherlands in twenty fifteen, and second, the man
Speaker 2: who arranged the murder. He was found in a flat
Speaker 2: belonging to the Kinnahans, the Irish family at the center
Speaker 2: of the Dubai supercartel. John and Angel now work with
Speaker 2: a private security company called Albatross Consultants, but they used
Speaker 2: to work out of a dea Field office in Newark,
Speaker 2: New Jersey, until twenty eighteen. John was in charge of
Speaker 2: complex investigations into the nastiest international criminals you can imagine.
Speaker 2: And Angel was the guy who was sent in undercover
Speaker 2: to infiltrate these groups and win the confidence of notorious
Speaker 2: gangsters and then gather the evidence needed to take them down.
Speaker 2: He retired a few months ago.
Speaker 3: For some reason. Ever since I was a kid and
Speaker 3: I was going to be a D agent. I don't
Speaker 3: really know why. I think I must have seen it
Speaker 3: in the movies or something. I was in junior high
Speaker 3: school and I remember actually telling a friend of mine
Speaker 3: that I was going to be a D agent.
Speaker 2: Once he gets the job, it's not long before Angel
Speaker 2: goes under cover, quickly learns the tools of the trade,
Speaker 2: how to talk, how to dress, how to walk.
Speaker 3: One of the things that I learned was actually watching
Speaker 3: people on the street or people in that environment. Right,
Speaker 3: if you go into a corporate world, you canno dress
Speaker 3: like a schmock. Right, if you're going to be on
Speaker 3: the street, you can all show up with a clippy suit.
Speaker 3: It's common sense, right, So you have to know where
Speaker 3: you're going into and try to fit the part number one.
Speaker 3: Number two. The other important thing, obviously is that your
Speaker 3: safety and in worst case scenarios in case something happens,
Speaker 3: because it's up you have to have a plan to
Speaker 3: survive the situation. The rest is just you being charming,
Speaker 3: using your personality.
Speaker 2: And in those early days he hones his craft. He
Speaker 2: spends hours listening to the tapes of previous operations.
Speaker 3: I've made mistakes in the past where I listened to
Speaker 3: recordings of what I was doing, and I just rolled
Speaker 3: my eyes up myself, and I think I learned a
Speaker 3: lot from it.
Speaker 2: I think gets good, very good. Angel becomes a critical
Speaker 2: part of how John's unit works the major criminal cases.
Speaker 2: John starts up in operation by targeting someone in the
Speaker 2: middle of the hierarchy of a top crime group. He
Speaker 2: figures out exactly where to begin by talking to his
Speaker 2: network of sources, their informants he's developed over the years.
Speaker 2: The first target needs to be big enough and scary
Speaker 2: enough to be moving in the right circles.
Speaker 4: If you're dealing with some dude that's the best dope
Speaker 4: Daily ever did in his life was a key lower coke.
Speaker 4: You're not going to be able to do a thousand
Speaker 4: keylock case with him. You'll be able to do maybe
Speaker 4: a five keylock case. And that's stretching it. But as
Speaker 4: you move up the ladder with higher level targets, you
Speaker 4: get higher level informants, and your higher level informants get
Speaker 4: you into the top level of the sophisticated organizations. I'm
Speaker 4: talking high credential, confidential sources who go way back into
Speaker 4: drug world and their credibility has been well established. So
Speaker 4: when that person and walks through the door with Angel,
Speaker 4: that's half of the job.
Speaker 2: Once Angel's been introduced, he has to do more than
Speaker 2: just look the part. He has to withstand and he
Speaker 2: tests to challenge his credibility as a serious criminal.
Speaker 3: You want to see the cocaine, I'll show you the cocaine.
Speaker 3: If you want to go see the laboratories, I'll show
Speaker 3: you the laboratories. It can be worked out, and.
Speaker 2: At the same time, Angel needs to gather the evidence
Speaker 2: that's needed to build a case. It's the critical skill
Speaker 2: for any undercover agent.
Speaker 3: Every law has different prongs that need to be met
Speaker 3: for the person to be convicted of it. Did he
Speaker 3: have knowledge, did he know it was dlug money? Whatever
Speaker 3: it may be as an undercovery, if you have a
Speaker 3: good relationship with the prosecutor, I know exactly what prongs
Speaker 3: he needs to have met so he can feel comfortable
Speaker 3: making a charge, so you can be glamorous about it
Speaker 3: and spend your time wasting your time. Really, you know,
Speaker 3: you're just shooting the shit with the guy right, clinking
Speaker 3: or whatever you're doing, but you're not addressing those prongs.
Speaker 2: Finally, that's the sting. And when on sens angel In,
Speaker 2: he's always close by with the backup team.
Speaker 4: He's always got a danger signal or you know, a
Speaker 4: way to let us know if something's going bad and
Speaker 4: we're ready to react. And I have been in situations where, yeah,
Speaker 4: that signals giving. And the one particular what I'm talking
Speaker 4: about was an undercover in the project's in a very
Speaker 4: tough area and they actually said, don't kill me. I
Speaker 4: have kids, And that wasn't the danger signal. That was
Speaker 4: that was letting us know that there was a gun
Speaker 4: on them, and like we're within seconds.
Speaker 5: We were there and he.
Speaker 4: Had a gun point that I'm in the car, and
Speaker 4: we were able to extract him. The bad guy target
Speaker 4: dropped the weapon when he saw four cars converge on him.
Speaker 4: But you know, like I said, everything else stops when
Speaker 4: there's a risk to the undercover and boom. The priority
Speaker 4: is getting the safety the undercover, getting him out of there,
Speaker 4: and you know, make it your rest.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's situations where I've been in basements in retrospect.
Speaker 3: It was so stupid, you know, meeting some guys from
Speaker 3: Yemen and the basement is dark, there's nobody there. I know,
Speaker 3: if I was wearing a transmitter, no one could hear
Speaker 3: me because I'm deep in a basement, you know, and
Speaker 3: I'm like Jesus, I could easily get chopped up. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was in Brooklyn, you know, in retrospect. Right, So
Speaker 3: it's an undercover assignment worth that risk, right for that prosecution.
Speaker 3: What's the case that important that you're putting your life
Speaker 3: on the line. John has had a lot of background
Speaker 3: Mexican cartels and Columbian wald clafficers, and some of them
Speaker 3: are killers. Once they get to know, they love us.
Speaker 3: But but the killers, you know, we joke about it.
Speaker 3: Such a great guy, Well he's a killer, but that
Speaker 3: happens quite often.
Speaker 2: Over the years, John and Angel forge a formidable partnership
Speaker 2: working around the world targeting top gangsters that becomes one
Speaker 2: of the most decorated in the whole of the DEA
Speaker 2: for bringing in a slew of major cases. Angel even
Speaker 2: wins DA National Agent of the Year.
Speaker 1: One time.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and eight, they get a tip out
Speaker 2: of Panama that an Irish gang is looking to source
Speaker 2: a huge shipment of cocaine.
Speaker 4: So hey, these guys want what three thousand kilos I
Speaker 4: think it was three thousand kilos man, you know, and like, okay,
Speaker 4: let's call them, meet them, well them, send them down.
Speaker 4: What they were asking for was one hundred percent out
Speaker 4: of money, three thousand kilo load and they were asking
Speaker 4: us to transport it.
Speaker 2: That's three thousand kilos three tons paid for entirely in cash.
Speaker 2: At street value, that quantity itself one hundreds of millions
Speaker 2: of euros.
Speaker 4: Based on the intel we developed later, we're pretty sure
Speaker 4: it was the Kennehans that we were introduced through.
Speaker 5: And they weren't blowing smoke. They were for real.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they don't heavy hit us.
Speaker 2: This two thousand and eight running with the Hands in Panama.
Speaker 2: It happened back when Christie was living in mar Baya,
Speaker 2: two years before Operation Shovel.
Speaker 1: It's never been.
Speaker 2: Reported before, and it just confirms to me how big
Speaker 2: they were even back then.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but they slipt through our fingers. We didn't get them, Yeah,
Speaker 5: to get away.
Speaker 1: We might come back.
Speaker 5: Now you tell us they're in Dubai. Huh.
Speaker 2: But I want to tell you about another one of
Speaker 2: John and Angel's sting operations. It's one that sheds a
Speaker 2: whole new light on the booming European cocaine trade. A
Speaker 2: story that took place in twenty fourteen when they were
Speaker 2: with that money launderer in a small Brooklyn restaurant and
Speaker 2: things took an unexpected turn.
Speaker 3: Now, when we do a money laundering case, it just
Speaker 3: splits in different ways, like the trunk of a tree. Really,
Speaker 3: you could take one branch you have Mondey laundering, you'd
Speaker 3: take another branch blog grafficking, weapons trafficking. There's always other
Speaker 3: criminal activity associated with that one crime. So this split
Speaker 3: into the Kobaesi case. By chances, happened to be coming
Speaker 3: to New York at the time.
Speaker 1: The Kobazi case.
Speaker 2: It's October twenty fourteen, and John and angel A deep
Speaker 2: into a multi country investigation. It started in the Dominican Republic,
Speaker 2: where they busted a gang trying to ship a thousand
Speaker 2: kilos of cocaine into Belgium on a private plane, and
Speaker 2: after following the leads from that case, a new targets
Speaker 2: come into view. Her name's i Man Kabazi and she's
Speaker 2: a Lebanese woman in her late forties. She has dark
Speaker 2: black hair, she wears expensive clothes and she's a professional
Speaker 2: money launderer who works with cocaine traffickers in Europe. Angel,
Speaker 2: working under cover, has been cultivating her for months.
Speaker 3: Well, we got into a source. We have eventually met her.
Speaker 3: Through sources, we were able to have a meeting with her.
Speaker 3: During the meeting, we stock up a great relationship. Myself
Speaker 3: and another person went out to dinner, lunch. We met
Speaker 3: in different countries. We developed the personal relationship.
Speaker 2: As some went on, Angel gets close enough to Kebasi
Speaker 2: to feel comfortable planning a sting. The first thing is
Speaker 2: to set up a meeting. One of the DA's informants
Speaker 2: tells her that they're expecting a large cocaine shipment to
Speaker 2: come through Belgium and want to discuss how to launder
Speaker 2: the proceeds.
Speaker 1: And that's no problem for Kebaesi.
Speaker 2: She's able to move large amounts of cash anywhere in
Speaker 2: the world for a fee of twenty percent.
Speaker 1: Kabazi travels to New York.
Speaker 2: She's staying at a fancy hotel, the Waldorf Astoria on
Speaker 2: Park Avenue. Angel fixes up a lunch meeting so they
Speaker 2: can discuss business.
Speaker 3: So we picked her up in a high end vehicle.
Speaker 3: We were driven to somewhere in Brooklyn. We stopped buy
Speaker 3: a small restaurant.
Speaker 2: Angel knows John is nearby, listening to the y and
Speaker 2: ready to jump in if anything gets out of hand.
Speaker 5: You're not picking up everything.
Speaker 4: Just to be honest with you, it's it's grainy, there's
Speaker 4: background noise. He's in a restaurund. You know you're listening
Speaker 4: for key safety elements.
Speaker 1: At the table.
Speaker 2: It's clear to Angel the Kobazi's serious player. She says,
Speaker 2: if he wants, she can arrange for planes containing multi
Speaker 2: ton shipments of cocaine to land in Africa for him.
Speaker 2: On their way to Europe, they paused for a moment
Speaker 2: and order lunch.
Speaker 3: I was some sort of American food, like something of
Speaker 3: a fries it was.
Speaker 5: It was he drank.
Speaker 3: I drank a Lado.
Speaker 5: What brand did you drink?
Speaker 3: You should do tequila, but the high end tequila.
Speaker 2: On John's kidding. Angel wasn't drinking on the job. And
Speaker 2: it's a good thing. He wasn't because suddenly Kabazi throws
Speaker 2: him a curveball.
Speaker 3: So she after we established the relationship through the money
Speaker 3: lundering side, then she to our sistance in getting weapons.
Speaker 2: She wants them to help us source military grade arms
Speaker 2: and blueprints for heavy weaponry. She needs a lot of them.
Speaker 2: In fact, she says their clients looking to buy as
Speaker 2: much as possible. They need everything, and she suggests a
Speaker 2: code word for the deal, fireworks.
Speaker 1: It's not the most subtle choice. I know.
Speaker 2: Now, this isn't entirely out of the ordinary for Angel
Speaker 2: drug traffickers or they like big guns.
Speaker 3: So I mean, we didn't miss a beat, you know.
Speaker 3: I think that's another thing. With the people that were
Speaker 3: there doing the meeting, the experience level that we had,
Speaker 3: we jump right on board, right. We quickly pulled our
Speaker 3: military connections. In South America usually drug clafforcas, like many
Speaker 3: other places in Latin America, they have high connections to
Speaker 3: the military. In many countries, it's actually the military that's
Speaker 3: unloading the drugs or from the dog shipments coming in
Speaker 3: from the drug craffickers.
Speaker 2: An Angel knows that if needed, his confidential sources can
Speaker 2: make it look authentic.
Speaker 3: We're ready to produce generals. We're ready to prove who
Speaker 3: we are. We're ready to show you the weapons, whatever
Speaker 3: we need to do. We have that experience where I
Speaker 3: know I can pull up a general if I need
Speaker 3: it in Latin America somewhere. I know I can put
Speaker 3: a ship in a weapis together if I need it.
Speaker 2: At this point, Angels lunchr Kabaesi is paying off big time.
Speaker 2: They've got way more in play now than just money laundering.
Speaker 2: And then suddenly she stops the conversation. Look, she says,
Speaker 2: I'll be very transparent. Angel's playing it cool and nodding
Speaker 2: his head. He tells her now is the time to
Speaker 2: be straight with one another before they jump into an
Speaker 2: international weapons conspiracy together. And then she drops a bomb
Speaker 2: the people she wants to buy the arms for.
Speaker 1: It's the Iranian government.
Speaker 3: I remember my jod loved Actually remember looking at a
Speaker 3: camera that I had. I looked at a camera that
Speaker 3: was looking at me like like just making her face
Speaker 3: just for myself. You know, sometimes you put down you're
Speaker 3: on TV or something, but you can't believe what you're hearing.
Speaker 1: So here's where we are.
Speaker 2: Angels in a Brooklyn restaurant, sitting opposite a woman who
Speaker 2: wants him to help her smuggle weapons for Iran. He
Speaker 2: has to try and stay cool. But this is a
Speaker 2: huge deal. What started out as a money laundering case
Speaker 2: has turned into something much bigger.
Speaker 3: That was a great moment. Actually, just surprised, extreme surprise.
Speaker 3: You know that I didn't know right from the beginning.
Speaker 3: We're going to hit a home run.
Speaker 2: And there's a reason why someone like Kabzi would be
Speaker 2: trying to buy guns on behalf of Iran. Until Russia's
Speaker 2: invasion of Ukraine, Iran was the most sanctioned country in
Speaker 2: the world. It's been under US sanctions for more than
Speaker 2: forty years since the nineteen seventy nine revolution, when over
Speaker 2: fifty Americans were taken hostage at the embassy in Tehran.
Speaker 2: Since then, there's been wave after wave. There are response
Speaker 2: to things like Iran's involvement in terrorist attacks around the
Speaker 2: world and its nuclear enrichment program. Sanctions are away for
Speaker 2: Western governments to punish the regime by cutting the country
Speaker 2: off from the global financial system. It means that mostly
Speaker 2: it's illegal for American companies to do business with critical
Speaker 2: sectors of the Iranian economy. Things like banking and shipping
Speaker 2: and oil, so it's inflicted a major cost, starving the
Speaker 2: country of foreign investment and blocking imports of Western technology.
Speaker 2: They can't just go and buy things on the open
Speaker 2: market like other countries. All of this means they have
Speaker 2: to come up with elaborate schemes to circumvent the sanctions
Speaker 2: to get the things they want. It also means that
Speaker 2: doing business with Iran it can land you in extremely
Speaker 2: hot water. But that's exactly where Kobzi is hoping Angel
Speaker 2: might be willing to do. She says, they're looking for
Speaker 2: some serious kit. They want two hundred and fifty Cha
Speaker 2: tac M two hundred sniper rifles, which are capable of
Speaker 2: killing a target from two kilometers away. They want five
Speaker 2: hundred M four assault rifles, and they want blueprints for
Speaker 2: what she calls heavy weaponry. She starts telling Angel about
Speaker 2: her high level contacts in the Iranian government and he
Speaker 2: can meet with them to discuss specifications. They can meet
Speaker 2: in Cyprus or the UAE. They're already planning on how
Speaker 2: to get the weapons into Iran.
Speaker 3: So when she starts talking about details of Iran Kish
Speaker 3: Island etce in where her plan is, then.
Speaker 2: It was a surprise.
Speaker 3: Let's put it that way.
Speaker 2: Kish Island is a free trade zone on an island
Speaker 2: off the south coast of Iran. It's a regional tourism hub,
Speaker 2: but Western governments say it's overflowing with smugglers.
Speaker 1: And organized crime.
Speaker 2: Kobazi tells Angel that she can get him diplomatic clearance
Speaker 2: to land a plane full of weapons there.
Speaker 3: I don't know if she actually mentioned the Cuds Force
Speaker 3: for the military or Gorman personnel will actually unload the weapons.
Speaker 2: The Kuds Force is the wing of the Iranian Revolutionary
Speaker 2: Guard that's responsible for overseas operations. It's sort of an
Speaker 2: Iranian equivalent of the CIA, combined with special forces. It's
Speaker 2: all quite a lot to process, but Angel, he's just
Speaker 2: nodding along. He tells her he lands planes on secret
Speaker 2: airfields all the time. This is already pretty big. But
Speaker 2: then she brings up yet another business opportunity, the drugs
Speaker 2: and the weapons.
Speaker 1: She tells Angel they're.
Speaker 2: Good, but if they really want to make some serious cash,
Speaker 2: they need to source spare commercial airline parts from Boeing.
Speaker 2: Now that might sound a little odd, but plain parts
Speaker 2: they're unbelievably difficult to source. For a country that's been
Speaker 2: under Western sanctions for decades, and parts for Boeing planes.
Speaker 2: You can't just swap them out for some other brand.
Speaker 2: Kabazi tis Angel that her Iranian contacts are saying they
Speaker 2: have fifteen planes that need new parts and they're willing
Speaker 2: to pay top dollar.
Speaker 1: Too much money, she says, billions.
Speaker 3: Obviously she was in this world. She was hooked up
Speaker 3: with the military. We happen to get lucky.
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 2: After the meeting, Angel and John track a Baisi for
Speaker 2: several more months. When they hear she's due to fly
Speaker 2: into Atlanta, Georgia, they decide the times come to bring
Speaker 2: her in. She's arrested. So let's pause it for a
Speaker 2: minute and go back over exactly what's going on. We
Speaker 2: have a money launderer who moves cash for cocaine traffickers
Speaker 2: through Europe, and she says she works for the Iranian government.
Speaker 2: She's offering top diplomatic clearance from Tehran to land weapon
Speaker 2: shipments on islands, and she's also trying to find a
Speaker 2: way around Western sanctions on things like plane parts. There
Speaker 2: are lots of people in the murky world of drugs
Speaker 2: and weapons who claim they have high level connections in governments,
Speaker 2: it makes them seem more credible. So what I want
Speaker 2: to know is just how serious she really was about
Speaker 2: the arms deal, just how connected she really is in
Speaker 2: the regime. In the court files for her case, US
Speaker 2: government prosecutors say that her actions are quote hallmarks of
Speaker 2: a person who's a professional arms trafficker, not a first
Speaker 2: time neophyte. But that doesn't really answer my questions. I
Speaker 2: tried calling her American defense attorney from the time, but
Speaker 2: they said they couldn't contact her for me. According to
Speaker 2: multiple sources I've spoken to, in the face of all
Speaker 2: the evidence Angel and John had gathered, Kabazi pled guilty
Speaker 2: to charges of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization,
Speaker 2: conspiracy to laun the drug money, and conspiracy to provide
Speaker 2: illegal weapons. But then I discovered something. It was something
Speaker 2: that completely changed my understanding of who a man Kobazi is.
Speaker 2: It shows that she wasn't exaggerating about her top level
Speaker 2: contacts in Iran. What I didn't know, and what's never
Speaker 2: been reported before, is that US authorities believed Kobesi was
Speaker 2: a close associate of a man called Abdullah Safiyar Dean,
Speaker 2: and he's a very big deal in Iran. In fact,
Speaker 2: US intelligence believe Kobesi was previously married to Safiyar Dein.
Speaker 2: I've confirmed it with five former officials from several different countries.
Speaker 2: She even told investigators herself about the marriage. Safiy aal Dean.
Speaker 2: He's the Tehran based representative of Hespoller, the Iranian backed
Speaker 2: Lebanese political party, a militant group is designated as a
Speaker 2: terrorist organization by the US, UK, Germany and many other
Speaker 2: Western governments. Hespaala is Iran's most important proxy military force.
Speaker 2: That's a way for a country to fight armed conflicts
Speaker 2: against its rivals through a third party or a militia
Speaker 2: that it sponsors, but without getting directly involved itself. And
Speaker 2: that makes Safiya Dean one of the most influential people
Speaker 2: in Iran. And he's still in Tehran today and regularly
Speaker 2: appears on state television meeting with people like the country's
Speaker 2: foreign minister. I was first told about Kobaesi's connection to
Speaker 2: safi al Dean by a source of the record, so
Speaker 2: I spoke with several more people who had direct knowledge
Speaker 2: of the case in different countries. It's not easy to
Speaker 2: find people who are willing to talk about this sort
Speaker 2: of sensitive stuff on the record. But I did find
Speaker 2: one person. His name's Udi Levy and he's a retired
Speaker 2: Israeli spy. Udi's the former head of the mossads Economic
Speaker 2: Warfare Division, a unit that tracked money secretly being moved
Speaker 2: around the world by Iran, Hespoala and others. He spent
Speaker 2: thirty five years in Israeli intelligence and worked on the
Speaker 2: country's National Security Council. And I asked him what did
Speaker 2: he know about the Iman Kobeesi case?
Speaker 5: What they didn't publish?
Speaker 6: And if you asked me, it was most of the
Speaker 6: sensitive issue in the first time is the real connection
Speaker 6: between the highest level in Iran to that case. From
Speaker 6: that point of view, it was a very sensitive and
Speaker 6: the European country afraid to blame directly the highest level
Speaker 6: in Iran and his Balah in their involvement in that case.
Speaker 2: Iran and Haspola are sworn enemies of Israel, and the
Speaker 2: Mossad spends a lot of effort tracking the activity of
Speaker 2: the senior officials and Abdalla Safi ald he's been a
Speaker 2: person of interest to people at Udi for a very
Speaker 2: long time.
Speaker 6: Oh Dalla Safia dian is I think it is today
Speaker 6: number three or number four in the his Bolah leadership.
Speaker 6: It was his Baalah at the sha if, we can
Speaker 6: call it like that in Iran and the main connector
Speaker 6: between Iran and his Bala, very very senior, a lot
Speaker 6: of influence involved directly in the decise making in his Bala,
Speaker 6: well well connected to the Iranian directly. I think it
Speaker 6: was the highest level in this system, the dealing with
Speaker 6: drug trafficking with the full knowledge of the other leaders
Speaker 6: of the Iranian and Risbala.
Speaker 2: Udis saying that this is not your average diplomat, He's
Speaker 2: more like royalty. Safi Al Dean is the brother of
Speaker 2: Hesbala's second in command and a cousin of its top leader.
Speaker 2: His nephew's married to the daughter of Cassim Sulamani, the
Speaker 2: infamous Iranian commander of the Kuds Force who was killed
Speaker 2: in the US missile strike in Iraq in twenty twenty. Basically,
Speaker 2: Safil Dein is one of the most well connected men
Speaker 2: in the Iranian regime. But for John and Angel, his
Speaker 2: connection to Kobesi was just another detail in a case
Speaker 2: that took an unexpected turn.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it didn't mean much. Times I met moderwere our headquarters.
Speaker 4: People we're failed investigators, were out in the street going
Speaker 4: to the targets, gathering evidence.
Speaker 3: We didn't know she was married to or hooked up
Speaker 3: that well until she brought it up, right, it was
Speaker 3: her idea to bring up this weapons trafficking thing and
Speaker 3: trying to court US to supply weapons.
Speaker 4: Was she significant, Yes, she was significant. She pled guilty
Speaker 4: to material support of terrorism and that you don't get
Speaker 4: a charge like that every day of the week.
Speaker 2: But there's something else that seems to me even more
Speaker 2: significant about this case. Safia al Dean is accused by
Speaker 2: the US government of being a mastermind behind various sanction
Speaker 2: busting schemes. According to the US Treasury, he's the person
Speaker 2: who acts as an advisor to Iran on financial matters.
Speaker 2: They say he worked with Iran's central bank to move
Speaker 2: hundreds of millions of dollars to avoid American sanctions. And
Speaker 2: we know that Kobes she wasn't just laundering money through
Speaker 2: Europe's cocaine trade. She was trying to circumvent US sanctions too.
Speaker 2: She was trying to source weapons and vital industrial components.
Speaker 2: I've tried to track down Kobesi to ask her about
Speaker 2: all of this, but she's disappeared. She served several years
Speaker 2: in the US prison and then she vanished. I spoke
Speaker 2: with other people involved in the case, and they couldn't
Speaker 2: tell me where she is now either. Some told me
Speaker 2: they thought she was back in the Middle East, but
Speaker 2: I haven't been able to find her. But now I've
Speaker 2: found an indirect connection between one of the most powerful
Speaker 2: officials in Iran and drug traffickers in Europe. And this
Speaker 2: brings us right back to where we started this investigation,
Speaker 2: the long Arm of Iran. So here's what we know.
Speaker 2: According to the Dutch government, the Iranian regime ordered the
Speaker 2: murder of Ali Muhammed in the Netherlands in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: It was the targeted assassination of a man living under
Speaker 2: a false identity, a man who was near the top
Speaker 2: of Iran's list for revenge after he carried out a
Speaker 2: huge terrorist attack in the early nineteen eighties. Finding him
Speaker 2: and then assassinating him in the heart of Europe, it
Speaker 2: would have required high level intelligence and authorization, someone at
Speaker 2: the top of the Iranian government.
Speaker 1: And we know that the who arranged.
Speaker 2: The murder he was being protected in a Dublin flat
Speaker 2: belonging to the Kinahans, the Irish family at the center
Speaker 2: of the Dubai supercartel. John and Angel, they discovered that
Speaker 2: money laundering connects cocaine traffickers in Europe with officials in Iran.
Speaker 2: So could that explain what connects the Kinahans to the
Speaker 2: assassination of Alimtomit.
Speaker 1: That's what we're going to find.
Speaker 2: Out next time, and we'll meet a US attorney who's
Speaker 2: digging deeper into the Kinahan money machine.
Speaker 7: It became clear to me as a prosecutor that what
Speaker 7: they were doing is they were using the fighters as
Speaker 7: a way to move money through the system.
Speaker 2: Hot Money is a production of The Financial Times and
Speaker 2: Pushkin Industries. It was written and reported by me Myles
Speaker 2: John and if you've got any leads or information about
Speaker 2: this story, you can email me at new narcosat FT
Speaker 2: dot com. The series producer is Peggy Sutton. Edith Russello
Speaker 2: is the associate producer. Fact checking is by Arthur Gompertz,
Speaker 2: engineering by Sarah Bruguerer, sound design from Jake Gorsky. Jeremy
Speaker 2: Warmsley wrote the original music. Our editor is Sarah Niss
Speaker 2: and the executive producers are Jacob Goldstein and Cheryl Brumley.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Laura Clark, Alistair Mackie Breen Turner, Rya
Speaker 2: Jalabi and David Fooks.