Speaker 1: Forgotten is a production of ihont Media and Unusual Productions
Speaker 1: Before we start. This podcast contains accounts which some listeners
Speaker 1: will find disturbing, but without them, the story can't be
Speaker 1: fully understood. Please take care while listening. Previously on Forgotten,
Speaker 1: it was like a perfect storm. You have the women
Speaker 1: coming from southern Mexico, desperate for work, to help their families,
Speaker 1: to come work at the Mikheila Doors. It's like antelopes
Speaker 1: at the water hole. I had a night witness who
Speaker 1: alleged that he had been at these parties where these
Speaker 1: women would be brought into. It's not here are the
Speaker 1: bad guys and you are the good guys. There were
Speaker 1: no good guys. Everybody was involved. That's another misnomer about
Speaker 1: drug trafficking is that it's Mexican groups invading. And I'd
Speaker 1: say it's no, it's Mexicans and Americans working together to produce,
Speaker 1: to transport, to smuggle, to sell drugs. The first time
Speaker 1: Monica took me to meet Dinah Washington Valders, I was overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: Over the course of three hours, she talked about young
Speaker 1: women being selected for murder and about a network of
Speaker 1: computer schools used to get details on victims who vanished
Speaker 1: from crowded streets. She also told us that she had
Speaker 1: to stop reporting in Huirez because of death threat she received.
Speaker 1: One was traced back to Mexican military intelligence with the
Speaker 1: help of a source in US law enforcement. And among
Speaker 1: all of Dina's law enforcement sources, there was one person
Speaker 1: she suggested that we try to track down for an interview,
Speaker 1: and he talked to Hardrick Crawford. Yet he's very friendly
Speaker 1: and he probably will be a very good source of
Speaker 1: information for you. Hardrick Crawford was one of the most
Speaker 1: senior government officials on the US Mexico border. He became
Speaker 1: a special Agent in charge of the FBI's law office
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one. That was the year that
Speaker 1: Lilia Alejandro was abducted on her way home from work
Speaker 1: and the year that eight women's bodies were discovered at
Speaker 1: the Cotton Field, and Hardrick took a special interest in
Speaker 1: the fate of the women, even traveling across the border
Speaker 1: to better understand what was happening to them. Hardrick Crawford
Speaker 1: says when he made a trip to Huards and downtown
Speaker 1: with one of his assistants, they looked around and they said, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is where they picked their victims, this is where
Speaker 1: they see them coming, and this is where they're taken.
Speaker 1: The slogan of the activist community against the murder of
Speaker 1: women in Juarez is neat on namass, not one more.
Speaker 1: It's a phrase Diana inscribed in my copy of her book,
Speaker 1: and with an ally of Hardrick's influence, the goal seemed
Speaker 1: within reach. Then something happened. I met him, Because there
Speaker 1: are a lot of weird things about what was going
Speaker 1: on with him to this day, it is inexplicable. It's
Speaker 1: comforting to imagine that the weird and inexplicable parts of
Speaker 1: this story take place on the Mexican side of the border,
Speaker 1: but Hardrick's fate disturbs that narrative. To understand it, we
Speaker 1: had to talk to him ourselves about how he became
Speaker 1: outspoken on the women's murders and about what happened to him.
Speaker 1: By the time I get to El Pasol, I'm stunned
Speaker 1: and amazed at the response of our colleagues in Mexico
Speaker 1: to an enormous crime. Are my numbing crime, but also
Speaker 1: not stupid. I know that's not our country. Hardrick was
Speaker 1: well aware that back in nineteen ninety nine, the FBI
Speaker 1: had offered to help local Houire's police solve the women's
Speaker 1: murders as part of Operation Plaza Sweep. In fact, by coincidence,
Speaker 1: the agent who led the operation, Frank Evans, had been
Speaker 1: Hardrick's former partner from their rookie days in Cleveland, Ohio,
Speaker 1: So Hardrick knew that the Howire's authorities had twisted the
Speaker 1: bureau's findings before to pile more blame on scapegoats. But
Speaker 1: looking out the window of his office towards Houirez, where
Speaker 1: young women were being brutally murdered with impunity, Hardrick felt
Speaker 1: he had to try to do something. I have members
Speaker 1: in my own office who have women in their family
Speaker 1: in Mexico, and the fact that I have two daughters.
Speaker 1: It affects you. It affects you on a personal level.
Speaker 1: How could I face my own office and sit there
Speaker 1: and do nothing like Punch's pilot, just wash my hands.
Speaker 1: So it was a delicate balance of Okay, how do
Speaker 1: I perform this mission and at the same time not
Speaker 1: meddle in the affairs of a sovereign nation. And that
Speaker 1: was the crux these murders. They were happening within sight
Speaker 1: of Hardrick's office, but outside of his jurisdiction. I was
Speaker 1: keenly aware that you can step on a and mine
Speaker 1: in that regard. You did, But maybe I just got
Speaker 1: injured instead of blownely bits. So what did happen to Hardrich?
Speaker 1: And did his fate connect in any way to the
Speaker 1: list of people who had investigated these murders and ended
Speaker 1: up threatened, discredited, or dead. I'm as Voloshin and I'm Monica.
Speaker 1: This is forgotten. The women of Quires Baramo, lasciv you
Speaker 1: know not see, you know not squee. Since the early
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, young women had been disappearing from the streets
Speaker 1: of Juarez and turning up dead, often dumped in the desert.
Speaker 1: There were forced confessions and changed statements. Paula Flores was
Speaker 1: far from alone amongst the victim's mothers in believing that
Speaker 1: the authors of the crimes remained free. Oscar Menez, the
Speaker 1: Huire's chief forensics officer, resigned after being asked to plant
Speaker 1: evidence on two bus drivers at the cotton Field, and
Speaker 1: the lawyers who defended them married. Escobado Junior and Dante
Speaker 1: Amaras were both assassinated. Even reporters who were American citizens,
Speaker 1: like Dina Washington Valdez and Alfredo Corciardo received death threats
Speaker 1: as they got closer to the truth. That's what made
Speaker 1: Hardrick's arrival at the border in two thousand and one
Speaker 1: and his personal interest in solving these crimes potentially huge
Speaker 1: turning point. It looked like the authors of the crimes
Speaker 1: might finally have met their match. But how did the
Speaker 1: special agents in charge of El Paso get so deeply
Speaker 1: invested in crimes taking place in another country? To understand that,
Speaker 1: we have to go back to Hardrick's assignment to the border.
Speaker 1: I was angry with God for day. I worked hard
Speaker 1: and as you can imagine, you know, let's be candid,
Speaker 1: you're not a black sac unless you're on top of
Speaker 1: your game. And Hardrick was on top of his game.
Speaker 1: He was the most senior FBI agent on the African
Speaker 1: continent when he responded to Osama bin Laden's bombing of
Speaker 1: the American embassy in Kenya, and he'd been the number
Speaker 1: two in the bureau's Miami office taking on the Columbian
Speaker 1: cartel and their drug smoking operations. The danger was tons
Speaker 1: of colecaine flooding our cities, making zombies out of American citizens.
Speaker 1: Come on, let's face it. I'm an African American. I
Speaker 1: saw up front and close in Cleveland what cocaine did
Speaker 1: to my community, and so the way I saw it,
Speaker 1: this is war. You're destroying my country from within, and
Speaker 1: so there was no hesitation to take them on. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, Herdrick was up for promotion to
Speaker 1: the coveted position of SAC, or Special Agents in Charge.
Speaker 1: There were two such openings at the time, El Paso
Speaker 1: and Cleveland, Ohio, where Hardrick had grown up, and he
Speaker 1: made an impassioned case to the FBI deputy director to
Speaker 1: return home. And I went, I'm a Cleveland kind of guy.
Speaker 1: He says, you want to be an SAC, You're an
Speaker 1: El Pastle kind of guy. I called the wife and said,
Speaker 1: we're going to El Pastle. She was one little down.
Speaker 1: Number one Cleveland was open and we didn't get it.
Speaker 1: But number two and almost nearly as important as that,
Speaker 1: all speak Spanish. I felt that all those times that
Speaker 1: I risked my life for the Bureau and you reward
Speaker 1: me by enemy through the border where I can't speak Spanish.
Speaker 1: So I was hurt. But I'm a professional. So you've
Speaker 1: given the job in some sense because you're an outsider, correct,
Speaker 1: an outsider with a stirling reputation for management and leadership.
Speaker 1: So the FBI office in El Paso kind of has
Speaker 1: a reputation monica. One of the early special agents in
Speaker 1: charge had to resign in disgrace after being caught selling
Speaker 1: weapons to Mexican revolutionaries, and another special agent from that
Speaker 1: office was murdered, which is the only unsolved murder of
Speaker 1: an FBI agent in the line of duty in the
Speaker 1: bureau's history. So what makes the posting so hard In
Speaker 1: El Paso? We all have some sort of ties to Huats,
Speaker 1: to Mexico, so the opportunities for corruption are vast for line.
Speaker 1: For sent that presents a huge challenge unlike anywhere else
Speaker 1: in the country because of these binational ties. Those connections
Speaker 1: can get you in trouble family, culture, business, and in fact,
Speaker 1: it's absolutely necessary for the black market to thrive for
Speaker 1: the corruption to exist on both sides of the border.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, you could see the mentality behind sending
Speaker 1: an outsider like Hardrick Crawford in thinking, all right, he's
Speaker 1: not going to be susceptible to these same kinds of
Speaker 1: weaknesses central to Hardrick's mission in Alpasso was stopping the
Speaker 1: flow of drugs into the US. To do this, he'd
Speaker 1: have to keep an eye not just on Mexican drug traffickers,
Speaker 1: but on his own colleagues. After all, he'd been assigned
Speaker 1: to the border partly because his background made conflicts of
Speaker 1: interest unlikely. And in two thousand and two Hardrick led
Speaker 1: an investigation that revealed a translator in his office was
Speaker 1: selling information to the cartel. It's like one of your
Speaker 1: family has, because we were a family in a field office.
Speaker 1: And to discover that because you trust everybody implicitly. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that was like a dagger to the heart. Yes, and
Speaker 1: that was one of our prime missions public corruption. Cartels
Speaker 1: they're bad guys, but if it's a corrupt US official,
Speaker 1: our very institutions are at stake. I spoke to Frank Evans.
Speaker 1: I guess it's your partner in Cleveland, right, I remember Frank? Yes,
Speaker 1: And he said that by the cartels couldn't operate. That's
Speaker 1: not the operations if it weren't for corrupted US officials.
Speaker 1: He's correct, they're much more efficient if they can bribe
Speaker 1: at that point of entry instead of having a sneak in.
Speaker 1: Just drive it, right, through in Horez La Lina enforced
Speaker 1: the cartel's power by corrupting officials to the extent the
Speaker 1: policemen were kidnapping women. This wasn't happening in El Paso,
Speaker 1: but the same month could buy silence or complicity on
Speaker 1: either side of the border. So Hardrick had his hands full,
Speaker 1: but he was still in search of a higher purpose
Speaker 1: in El Paso. That's when he received a letter from
Speaker 1: a group of activists in Juarez. They sent me this
Speaker 1: passionate letter asking for assistance in addressing this horrible, tragic
Speaker 1: crime of the murder of these women in wars. That
Speaker 1: was caught off guard. It was not us helpers, No,
Speaker 1: it was Hardrick Crawford help us. It hit me on
Speaker 1: a personal level, more soul than it did on a
Speaker 1: professional level. It sound funny, but I thought, Okay, now
Speaker 1: I know why God sent me to al Paso. Was this?
Speaker 1: This was the reason I was sent here Herdrick had
Speaker 1: been angry with God for his posting, but after receiving
Speaker 1: this letter, the situation was beginning to make sense to him.
Speaker 1: It was two thousand and two, just a few months
Speaker 1: after eight women's bodies had been discovered at the cotton Field,
Speaker 1: and in response to the letter, offered the FBI's resources
Speaker 1: in profiling, forensics, and even training to the Juarez police.
Speaker 1: But he recognized that stopping the murders of women required
Speaker 1: political will, and that's when he took the highly unusual
Speaker 1: step of appearing on ABC News to publicly criticize Mexico's
Speaker 1: response to the crimes. Increasingly Mexican police and government officials
Speaker 1: are under fire from people here in the US. There
Speaker 1: appears to be no meaningful effort to solve the disappearances.
Speaker 1: All of the resources of the FBI are available to
Speaker 1: our Mexican colleagues, such a matter as DNA blood typing, profiling.
Speaker 1: The response from the Mexicans to that offer, heretofore, the
Speaker 1: response has been They've had these matters in hand and
Speaker 1: don't require our assistance. Hardrick's words were cloaked in official language,
Speaker 1: but there was no doubting a message. He was claiming
Speaker 1: on national television that the murders of women in Juarez
Speaker 1: were not being solved because Mexican officials didn't want to
Speaker 1: solve them. Not just the street corps who abducted women,
Speaker 1: but their bosses, perhaps even their bosses. Bosses and this
Speaker 1: accusation wasn't coming from a journalist or an activist, it
Speaker 1: was coming from a US government official. But hardrick strategy
Speaker 1: wasn't just about public complaints. It was also about private alliances.
Speaker 1: When we come back, the FBI agent begins to make
Speaker 1: powerful friends in Juarez. At the same time as Hardrick
Speaker 1: was castigating Mexican officials on television, he made it his
Speaker 1: mission to develop personal relationships with Juarez's powerbrokers. I used
Speaker 1: to travel to war As quite frequently became friends with
Speaker 1: a Mexican businessman at the racetrack at Warriors, And when
Speaker 1: you're on the border, ear liaison includes foreign liaison, which
Speaker 1: the other field houses don't have. The friend Hardrick mentions
Speaker 1: is Jose Maria Guardia. He was a complicated figure. He'd
Speaker 1: been invited to George W. Bush's presidential inauguration, but he'd
Speaker 1: also been caught up in a bribery scandal with the
Speaker 1: US consular official. In fact, it would later come to
Speaker 1: light that when Hardrick arrived at the border, Guardia was
Speaker 1: a confidential informant for the FBI. That's something Hardrick told
Speaker 1: us he was never informed of by his own office,
Speaker 1: who made the initial introduction, but was led to him
Speaker 1: by my media rep who fully understood that liaison was
Speaker 1: critical to my performance. So I struck up a relationship
Speaker 1: with him. Likable fellow went to the racetrack with him,
Speaker 1: and at the racetrack he would bring various officials. Racetracks
Speaker 1: have a long history of association with corruption and organized crime,
Speaker 1: a problem endemic to Juarez. But Guardia I had friends
Speaker 1: who vouched for him, and one in particular made a
Speaker 1: big impression on Hardrick. His really really close friendship with
Speaker 1: Cardinal Sandoval, who was on the shortlist for the pope
Speaker 1: when the Pope died. That to a large extent, assuaged
Speaker 1: any concerns or fears that I might have. Not only
Speaker 1: did the Cardinal endorse Guardia, but he became something of
Speaker 1: a spiritual guide for Hardrake. Hardrick described the Cardinal as
Speaker 1: a great ally in the fight against corruption and for
Speaker 1: justice for the women. I was baptized by the cardinal
Speaker 1: and my religious faith. Yes, they did have a part
Speaker 1: to play, and it was a not quite the mission
Speaker 1: that Diana Llebears Washington has with regard to these terrible crimes.
Speaker 1: But I had an official and a moral mission that
Speaker 1: I felt that I was empowered on a different level
Speaker 1: than the US Constitution. Hardrick was beginning to see his
Speaker 1: mission in terms of a higher calling, superseding even his
Speaker 1: duty to the Constitution. And at the same time as
Speaker 1: he was publicly corning out officials in Huarez, he was
Speaker 1: privately trying to get buy in from the right people,
Speaker 1: and he saw the racetrack as the ideal place to
Speaker 1: do it. It was a place that was insulated from
Speaker 1: cartel violence because it was a useful place for all
Speaker 1: kinds of people to do business. Criminals almost certainly, but
Speaker 1: also the city's wealthy industrialists and official powerbrokers. From my
Speaker 1: ability to be at the Warrior's Racetrack, I became really
Speaker 1: really good liaison. Friends with a cardinal, with the mayor
Speaker 1: of Warriors, with the chief of Police of Warriors, with
Speaker 1: the governor of Chihuahua. They would all come to the racetrack.
Speaker 1: What a great place to affect liaison. I wasn't stupid.
Speaker 1: I was aware that at any time any one individual
Speaker 1: that I'm meeting could have been corrupted by the cartel.
Speaker 1: Of course, but you can't do business with that premise.
Speaker 1: Did you talk about the killings of the women any
Speaker 1: of those days. On the meeting with the Mayor of
Speaker 1: Warres and with the chief of police, yes, I was
Speaker 1: very impressed with the Chief of Warriors, not so impressed
Speaker 1: with his police officers. But at the same time I
Speaker 1: was also aware that there are certain things that the
Speaker 1: chief of police of wars would never do because he
Speaker 1: wants to live. He doesn't want to harm his family,
Speaker 1: So there are limitations. No, I don't care how honest
Speaker 1: you are, how competent you are. The cortail looms large.
Speaker 1: These meetings at the racetrack were taking place before La
Speaker 1: Lina became public knowledge thanks to Alfredo's reporting, but the
Speaker 1: Cartail's ability to enforce silence was clear. To Hardrach. The
Speaker 1: chief of police seemed like an ally in stopping the
Speaker 1: murders of women, but if he stuck out his neck
Speaker 1: too far, he might well end up dead himself. Whereas
Speaker 1: Hardrick's informants into Cater that the cartel considered him untouchable,
Speaker 1: they reported back that the cartel is scratching her hiss
Speaker 1: what do we do about this guy Crawford, And one
Speaker 1: of the responses was are you crazy you do something
Speaker 1: to the FBI sac do you have any idea what
Speaker 1: their crazy cowboy Bush would do, so I kind of chuckled.
Speaker 1: Hardrick felt emboldened, even obliged, to use his protected status
Speaker 1: to speak out, to force a conversation that would go
Speaker 1: way above local officials and catch the attention of Mexico's
Speaker 1: federal government. In other words, to generate the kind of
Speaker 1: political pressure that went beyond even what activists like Esta
Speaker 1: Chavezcano and mothers like Paula Flores could achieve alone. There
Speaker 1: appears to be no meaningful effort to solve the disappearances.
Speaker 1: Hardrick was consciously stoking international media attention on the femicides.
Speaker 1: For someone in Huirez Dante or Mario Escobeto, this was fatal,
Speaker 1: but especial agents in charge of El Paso. Hendrick didn't
Speaker 1: believe he had as much to fear from La Ligna. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: after his interview, he did receive a warning, but it
Speaker 1: came from the last place he expected. There was no
Speaker 1: question it annoyed and infuriated some. I'm sure I do
Speaker 1: recall some suggesting that I might temper my words because
Speaker 1: big businesses involved, and I'm going with you need big
Speaker 1: businesses involved. Well, the Mikuela doors are American companies, and
Speaker 1: if the Mikuela doors are getting bad pressed because of
Speaker 1: the murder of women, it were as many of them
Speaker 1: mar Michuela door workers, it looks bad for American companies
Speaker 1: who are doing business down there. And you might wind
Speaker 1: up making enemies of people on this side of the border,
Speaker 1: without being aware that you are who gave me that warning.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't remember, but it was seventeen years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not remembering it, but I was being told to
Speaker 1: knock it off, leave it alone, It's not your problem.
Speaker 1: In his interview with ABC News, Hardrich didn't make any
Speaker 1: explicit connection between the victims and Immaculadoras, but elsewhere in
Speaker 1: the broadcast the journalist John Quinnonez did. Prominent in the
Speaker 1: piece was an account of the last day of Cloudier
Speaker 1: Vet Gonzalez, who was turned away from her job at
Speaker 1: the Lear Corp Factory for being a few minutes late.
Speaker 1: Her body was subsequently discovered in the cotton fields. The
Speaker 1: inherent vulnerability of these young women because of their work
Speaker 1: was clear. And then there was an interview with Roberto Urea,
Speaker 1: the spokesman for the Macula Association in Juarez. He was
Speaker 1: asked what responsibility the factories had for the murder of
Speaker 1: so many young female employees. This was his response. Where
Speaker 1: were these young ladies where they were seen last? Were
Speaker 1: they drinking? Right? Were they parting? Were they in a
Speaker 1: dark street? Victim blaming, just as Huire's authorities had done
Speaker 1: before broadcast on national television in the US. It was
Speaker 1: not a good look for the industry, and it was
Speaker 1: unfortunate that Hardrick didn't remember the key detail of who
Speaker 1: had warned him against bringing more bad press to the maquilas,
Speaker 1: because it was reminiscent of the warnings Alfredo had received
Speaker 1: in Mexico when he started asking questions about La Ligna.
Speaker 1: Thank with Ado, be careful. We've already established how the
Speaker 1: drug traffickers used the murder of women to create bonds
Speaker 1: of loyalty, and how they had local police on their payroll.
Speaker 1: But the idea that quires is legitimate businesses, which were
Speaker 1: often run with American partners, might also want to hush
Speaker 1: up them of women. This was opening up a whole
Speaker 1: new web of potential responsibility for these women's deaths. So
Speaker 1: up until this point, the Maculadoras the factories have been
Speaker 1: looming in the background of our reporting, but his Hardrick
Speaker 1: Monica saying that his activism basically led to him getting
Speaker 1: a warning to leave the maquilas alone. And I'm frankly
Speaker 1: surprised they would have enough influence to deliver that kind
Speaker 1: of warning to a senior FBI agent. How powerful are
Speaker 1: these economic interests. The maquila industry is the backbone of
Speaker 1: the waist economy, and trade between the US and Mexico
Speaker 1: generates more than half a trillion dollars every year. Millions
Speaker 1: of jobs in the US are tied to trade. And
Speaker 1: in what is you'll find companies like bow Like Dell,
Speaker 1: General Electric, Johnson and Johnson manufacturing things. There's probably something
Speaker 1: you use in your everyday life that was made in hottas.
Speaker 1: Whether it's the seat cover in your forward or maybe
Speaker 1: your Mercedes Benz, the inside of your washing machine, your
Speaker 1: laptop computer, or your dog's chew toy. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if you live hundreds of miles away. You touch something
Speaker 1: that came from hottas every day. And why have all
Speaker 1: these factory set up shopping huaras. The short answer is
Speaker 1: because it's cheaper. These companies go to hottas to cut costs,
Speaker 1: and the number one cost they cut is labor. I'll
Speaker 1: give you an example. The La Times did an excellent
Speaker 1: article looking at Delphi, which is an American company that
Speaker 1: makes car parts. It was once owned by General Motors.
Speaker 1: Delphi used to have a plant in Warren, Ohio, where
Speaker 1: one of its workers got paid thirty dollars an hour.
Speaker 1: He was able to buy a house with a swimming
Speaker 1: pool and drove a good car. Then Delphi moved that
Speaker 1: factory to Hottis, where it paid its workers just one
Speaker 1: dollar an hour. One dollar an hour, that's not a
Speaker 1: wage you can live on, not in Hoattas, not anywhere.
Speaker 1: That low of a wage is a form of exploitation,
Speaker 1: and it leaves a whole group of people vulnerable, unable
Speaker 1: to defend themselves, and so they're preyed upon. Whether it's
Speaker 1: an adolescent boy like Manulio who gets recruited by gangs
Speaker 1: or a young woman like Sagrario who gets kidnapped and
Speaker 1: brutally murdered, they both become easy per Hardrick believed that
Speaker 1: the best way to stop people praying on the women
Speaker 1: in Huarez was to get powerful interests in Mexico to
Speaker 1: take the crime seriously, and he was trying to use
Speaker 1: the press to achieve that goal. That's not a crime
Speaker 1: that's going to be solved in a day. It takes
Speaker 1: money invested in women who don't mean anything to the
Speaker 1: people that are in the upper class. They're throwaway humans,
Speaker 1: They're unimportant. If it was their daughters, it would be different.
Speaker 1: But it was poor people, and to throw their bodies
Speaker 1: away like they were garbage, that shocks the conscience type
Speaker 1: crime as far as Hardrick was concerned. When he gave
Speaker 1: that interview to ABC News, the pressure he was exerting
Speaker 1: was directed towards government officials in Mexico. But in light
Speaker 1: of the warning he received, he started to worry he
Speaker 1: may have accidentally kicked an even bigger hornet's nest. No,
Speaker 1: it didn't scare me, but it made me pass. It did.
Speaker 1: It made me pass, But Hardrick didn't pause for long.
Speaker 1: In a two thousand and three interview with a Mexican newspaper,
Speaker 1: he described the women's murders as quote, crimes against humanity,
Speaker 1: and for a while it looked like he was right
Speaker 1: on the cusp of interrupting the status quo and achieving
Speaker 1: his mission. A few months after Hardrick's appearance on ABC News,
Speaker 1: the FBI office in El Paso received a facts inviting
Speaker 1: him to a meeting in Juarez concerning the women's murders.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just any meeting. The federal drugs are
Speaker 1: who Alfredo Corcado met in Mexico City. Jose Vasconcellos was
Speaker 1: in attendance, and after the meeting, the President of Mexico,
Speaker 1: Vicente Fox, spoke in public about the possibility of working
Speaker 1: with the FBI to solve the murders of women in
Speaker 1: Juarez once and for all. This was everything that Hardrick
Speaker 1: had been working so hard towards, and finally it felt
Speaker 1: like his efforts were bearing fruit. But that feeling wouldn't
Speaker 1: last long. It was early two thousand and three and
Speaker 1: Hardrick was using the media to pressure a foreign government.
Speaker 1: He was meeting with high level officials on foreign soil,
Speaker 1: and he was getting around his lack of jurisdiction in
Speaker 1: Mexico by focusing on the lack of effort to solve
Speaker 1: the murders. Meanwhile, his relationship with Jose Maria Guardia, the
Speaker 1: racetrack owner, was already straining the definition of official liaison.
Speaker 1: When it crossed a definitive line. Gordia offered my wife
Speaker 1: a job as the public relations person at the Warrior's
Speaker 1: Racetrack to lure Americans over there to gam. My wife
Speaker 1: has always been at my shattle for my whole life,
Speaker 1: and I said, oh man, she'd have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: be an executive. Hardrick's career had taken him and his
Speaker 1: wife Linda to Nairobi, Miami, and now El Paso when
Speaker 1: they both wanted to move home to Cleveland. A job
Speaker 1: at the racetrack could give Linda her own professional satisfaction,
Speaker 1: and it also came with a salary of sixty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year and plenty of perks. But as far
Speaker 1: as Hardrick's former partner, Frank Evans was concerned, the job
Speaker 1: offer should have been a clear red flag. I was
Speaker 1: brief that one of the things that would probably occur
Speaker 1: is that I would be approached officially from the Mexican
Speaker 1: side in a gesture of friendship. And that's precisely what happened.
Speaker 1: My wife and I were invited to the Mexican Consulate
Speaker 1: here in El Paso, and while we were there, you know,
Speaker 1: several Mexican businessmen from Arras were also there they came
Speaker 1: up and you know, it was the oh, we're so
Speaker 1: glad to have you here. You know, the FBI can
Speaker 1: correct all these wrongs that are happening in wars. And
Speaker 1: then subtly it was you know, is your wife planning
Speaker 1: to work? You know, if someone with her talent could,
Speaker 1: we could certainly find a spot for I always remember
Speaker 1: David Albo who brought me to ol Paso. Dave was
Speaker 1: born in Mexico. I can always remember Dave telling me
Speaker 1: you always have to remember that a snake will smile
Speaker 1: before it bites. Frank was describing more or less exactly
Speaker 1: what Herdrick could experienced the flattery followed by the offer,
Speaker 1: and according to Frank, Haddrick should have recognized what was happening,
Speaker 1: especially considering a big part of his mandate was public
Speaker 1: corruption and the slippery slope was a well known tactic
Speaker 1: for the cartels. You have a concept on the border
Speaker 1: called Mordita Mordita the eight. It's where people pay policemen
Speaker 1: not to get a ticket. All the way up the line.
Speaker 1: When you're dealing with the folks in Mexico, nothing is
Speaker 1: as it seems. Everybody over there has an agenda and
Speaker 1: even you know, your most prominent businessmen, if they're going
Speaker 1: to conduct business, they're going to have to deal with
Speaker 1: the cartel. From their perspective, they may not be doing
Speaker 1: anything wrong. However, from our perspective, you know, a bribe
Speaker 1: as a bribe. Frank and his wife kept that distance
Speaker 1: from the Mexican businessmen, but Rodrick and Linda accepted Gladia's offer,
Speaker 1: And what if his decision reached Frank, who was still
Speaker 1: living in El Paso after retiring in two thousand. When
Speaker 1: I first heard that his wife was working for the
Speaker 1: war as racetrack, my first thought was not it cannot
Speaker 1: be true. It is not true. Frank had known Hardrick
Speaker 1: for more than a decade. They'd come through FBI training
Speaker 1: at the same time, and they she had a car afterwards.
Speaker 1: They even responded to their first bank robbery together on
Speaker 1: a snowy day in Cleveland. Right after graduating from the
Speaker 1: FBI academy, Frank had worked on Matthia busts in Ohio,
Speaker 1: while Hardrick had attacked Columbian cartels in Florida. In nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six, Frank responded to the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: and in nineteen ninety eight, Hardrick responded to the US
Speaker 1: embassy bombing in Nairobi, and Frank had been the number
Speaker 1: two in the FBI's El Paso office before Hardrick was
Speaker 1: assigned to lead it. Hardrick called Frank before moving to
Speaker 1: El Paso to ask for advice. So when Frank heard
Speaker 1: about Linda taking the job at the racetrack, he felt
Speaker 1: he had to intervene. He jumped in his car and
Speaker 1: drove to Hardrick's house, expecting his old partner to hear
Speaker 1: him out. I pulled up when he was pulling weed,
Speaker 1: and I got out and say, hey, how's it going now?
Speaker 1: And I started talking. I said, what's going on? What
Speaker 1: are you thinking? Is this true? If it's true, don't
Speaker 1: you realize what it looks like. Never went inside his house.
Speaker 1: We talked in the front yard. He just let me
Speaker 1: know he was in charge and he knew what he
Speaker 1: was doing. And basically I was retired and no longer
Speaker 1: had any official input into, you know, what the FBI
Speaker 1: was doing, which was absolutely correct. It was kind of
Speaker 1: a slap in the face. I kept thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: after all this time, and the guy that you know,
Speaker 1: both of us stood in the snow at that first
Speaker 1: bank robbery, and I thought time has changed, you know.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately he's taken a path that is going to lead
Speaker 1: to his destruction. Within months of Linda taking the job
Speaker 1: at the racetrack, Frank's concerns about Hadrick's friendships were realized
Speaker 1: in spectacular fashion. Mister Warrior and the Cardinal were accused
Speaker 1: of illusion with cartels. I was an oh my god moment,
Speaker 1: and so what did I do. I send a communication
Speaker 1: immediately the FBI headquarters. Two men who I associate with
Speaker 1: very closely have been accused of being implicated in organized crime.
Speaker 1: So I self reported immediately that same day, specifically, Guardia
Speaker 1: and Santaval were accused of colluding with the cartel to
Speaker 1: laun the money at the racetrack. And although Hardrick did
Speaker 1: self report, he didn't believe his friends had done anything wrong.
Speaker 1: In fact, the official in Mexico City who accused them
Speaker 1: had himself previously been accused of being on the cartel's
Speaker 1: payroll by Santaval. His unceasing pressure on the Mexican government
Speaker 1: cost him once one good way to neutralize somebody make
Speaker 1: a counter accusation. He's a member, He's operating with the
Speaker 1: cartel at the request of his two friends. Hardrick made
Speaker 1: the extraordinary decision of speaking at a press conference in
Speaker 1: Juarez to defend them, and when he was asked if
Speaker 1: he was speaking as a private citizen or the head
Speaker 1: of the FBI and al Passo, he answered both. I believe,
Speaker 1: I said. If they are involved with the organized crime,
Speaker 1: shame on them. I said, I have no knowledge that
Speaker 1: they are. But if they are, a shame on them.
Speaker 1: I know him to be a man, a girl, him
Speaker 1: to be a good man. Sandoval and Guardia was subsequently
Speaker 1: both cleared of any wrongdoing, but for an FBI agent
Speaker 1: who had been sent to the border to avoid by
Speaker 1: national entanglements and conflicts of interest, Hardrick's actions were unacceptable.
Speaker 1: A representative of the Mexican Foreign Ministry, who was close
Speaker 1: to the government official who'd originally accused Guardia and Sandoval,
Speaker 1: complained about Hardrick to the US ambassador. The ambassador revoked
Speaker 1: Hardrick's travel privilege in two thousand and three, and that
Speaker 1: same year, Hardrick abruptly resigned from the FBI. By two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, he was indicted by a grand jury
Speaker 1: for false statements regarding his relationship with Guardia and his
Speaker 1: wife's employment at the racetrack. One of the things I
Speaker 1: was charged with was I've misled and I feeled to
Speaker 1: report to headquarters that mister Guardia and the cardinal were
Speaker 1: accused of serious crimes. Now I self reported myself, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about? The Justice Department was digging into
Speaker 1: Hardrick's financial relationship with the racetrack owner. FBI policy prohibits
Speaker 1: employees from quote engaging in private business and financial relationships
Speaker 1: with subjects, witnesses, or individuals furnishing information to the FBI
Speaker 1: without prior FBI headquarters approval. Hardrick maintains that he himself
Speaker 1: was not employed by Guardia and that he never tried
Speaker 1: to disguise the fact that his wife was. But they
Speaker 1: did accept perks like a country club membership and a
Speaker 1: trip to Las Vegas. But on Hardrick's finance disclosure form,
Speaker 1: in the gifts and reimbursement section, he listed none. It's
Speaker 1: almost laughable if it wasn't so depressing her income and
Speaker 1: her job was in my tax return. The charges that
Speaker 1: I'm accused of are things normally that are handled internally
Speaker 1: by internal affairs. Noah indictment. In January two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: Hardick was found guilty on two of the five counts
Speaker 1: relating to full statements around financial disclosures. He was fined
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars and sentenced to six months at the
Speaker 1: Louis Blow Prison camp in central Pennsylvania. It's a prison
Speaker 1: known for holding drug offenders and members of organized crime.
Speaker 1: The implication was huge, without a doubt, They've clearly believed
Speaker 1: that I had been seduced and stepped over the line,
Speaker 1: or was acting to aid and a bet those who
Speaker 1: were on the dark side, the dark side, the powerful
Speaker 1: men who were raping and murdering the women in Huarez
Speaker 1: with impunity. Was it possible that Hardrick, wittingly or not,
Speaker 1: had allied himself with the very people who were responsible
Speaker 1: for the crimes he was outspoken about preventing. To this day,
Speaker 1: Hardrick maintains his innocence. My brother said, Dick, did you
Speaker 1: ever think about eating your gun? I said, I did.
Speaker 1: I did seriously consider killing myself. Why because I've just
Speaker 1: been dishonored. I'm a knight, but now I'm a tarnished knight.
Speaker 1: And I thought about sticking mcni millimeter in my mouth,
Speaker 1: and then I said no. Then that just says that, yeah,
Speaker 1: he did it because he was guilty, So that's why
Speaker 1: I didn't I do talk to my Lord about it
Speaker 1: and say, yeah, I understand pride before the fall. Do
Speaker 1: you lured me a little bit on this one, didn'ya? Lord?
Speaker 1: But still the bottom line is those women in war
Speaker 1: as nobody's seems to be curing about them. The timing
Speaker 1: of Hardrick's downfall was uncanny and tragic. Just as his
Speaker 1: activism was forcing the President of Mexico to acknowledge the
Speaker 1: unsolved murders of women and promise action, Hardrick's wife took
Speaker 1: a job at the racetrack, and that began a series
Speaker 1: of events that culminated with the release of the pressure
Speaker 1: that had been building to finally take action on behalf
Speaker 1: of the women. Diana told us she's still angry with Hardrick,
Speaker 1: but in her book she does entertain the possibility that
Speaker 1: he was set up. She writes a confidential intelligence source
Speaker 1: in Mexico City claimed Guardia was a US intelligence asset,
Speaker 1: Crawford's wife was clean, and the quote unquote mafia wanted
Speaker 1: to get rid of the FBI official. The tip was
Speaker 1: impossible to corroborate, and in the end, Diana simply says
Speaker 1: that Haddrick's behavior was inexplicable. We ask Frank Evans how
Speaker 1: he understood his former partner's story. Here's a guy, Crawford
Speaker 1: who's charismatic, successful, on track for all these promotions, seemingly
Speaker 1: with the world at his feet, in one of the
Speaker 1: most exciting field officers of the FBI. You're telling me
Speaker 1: for sixty thousand dollars a year. He throws a let away.
Speaker 1: You know, sixty thousand is what we are looking at hypothetically.
Speaker 1: Could there have been something else? Yes, I do not
Speaker 1: know that there was. But you know, you got to remember,
Speaker 1: even Adam took a bite of the apple. Is it
Speaker 1: a character flaw? Like I said, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: still have a hard time sometimes wrapping my hands around
Speaker 1: it and thinking about it. It's like, you know, what
Speaker 1: the heck happened? Crawford could have had any door were
Speaker 1: opened he wanted. In Washington, d C. Crowford mentioned he
Speaker 1: felt a high emission, like a mission from God to
Speaker 1: intervene in his case. He was out in front on
Speaker 1: TV criticizing the Mexican government, quoting this a crime against humanity.
Speaker 1: Why he got out in front on this particular issue
Speaker 1: you're dealing with the lives of hundreds of women. But
Speaker 1: frequently when you work organize crime, you don't necessarily want
Speaker 1: to call the godfather an SB to his face. You
Speaker 1: want to kind of keep it on the sportsman like footing,
Speaker 1: and then you continue to put the SB in jail.
Speaker 1: It's the same way with who's ever killing those women.
Speaker 1: You may go home and cry at night, especially when
Speaker 1: you see some of those girls or their remains, but
Speaker 1: you cry in your home alone or with your family
Speaker 1: calling the governor of Chihuahua a murderer when you need
Speaker 1: to be able to perhaps operate inside of the state
Speaker 1: of Chihuahua. That's not going to get anybody helping you.
Speaker 1: So was Audrick undone by his Was he actually corrupted
Speaker 1: or was it possible that there was some kind of
Speaker 1: conspiracy against him? I was curious how Hardrick himself interpreted
Speaker 1: what had happened to him, first his country clearance being revoked,
Speaker 1: then his indictment, and ultimately his conviction and imprisonment. To
Speaker 1: my surprise, he returned to that warning he received after
Speaker 1: his appearance on ABC News. It had occurred to me,
Speaker 1: I mean enemies, and now this is the cost. This
Speaker 1: is the cost I'm not stupid. I'm above average intelligence.
Speaker 1: I could see the connection. Okay, big businessman, US ambassador Mexicans, Okay,
Speaker 1: I get it. You know, if that was a conspiracy
Speaker 1: theorist that you know, I would say that, Yes, the
Speaker 1: State Department and the US corporations, who were incensed that
Speaker 1: all his attention being directed to Mikheila Doors, you know,
Speaker 1: went to the administration and said, look, this guy is
Speaker 1: harming the Mikula Dora industry and Mexico is upset, so
Speaker 1: we're going to have to make a sacrifice at him.
Speaker 1: The moment that Ardrick dropped this explosive hint that he
Speaker 1: was silenced by the US government who wanted to hush
Speaker 1: up the murders of women in order to protect business interests,
Speaker 1: he walked it back. If I was a conspiracy theorist,
Speaker 1: I would think things like that. But in the end,
Speaker 1: I just chalk it up to over a zealous Department
Speaker 1: of Justice or igcay. Oh, look we can get a
Speaker 1: high REK and FBI official. In the end, That's what
Speaker 1: my mind has settled on. So Diana as usual, Monica
Speaker 1: is right. This saga is weird and inexplicable and is
Speaker 1: tempting to dismiss it entirely, except we know what happened
Speaker 1: to so many other people who investigated the women's murders,
Speaker 1: and how one way or another they met unpleasant of
Speaker 1: their own. And it's also true that these business interests
Speaker 1: are very, very significant, and they profit by keeping people vulnerable.
Speaker 1: So what do you make of Hardrick's story? Like Diana,
Speaker 1: I would say it's ambiguous. As an outsider, Hardrick was
Speaker 1: supposed to be immune from becoming medieval or involved. And
Speaker 1: you might say he did so naively because he was
Speaker 1: an outsider. But you could also say, yeah, right, I
Speaker 1: don't buy that an FBI supervisor with his level of
Speaker 1: experience couldn't see that the path he was going down
Speaker 1: would get him into trouble. But no matter what, you
Speaker 1: had this outspoken head of the FBI in al Passo
Speaker 1: highlighting the most controversial crimes on the US Mexico border,
Speaker 1: and that, no doubt would disturb the authors of those crimes,
Speaker 1: and more than likely they would want to get rid
Speaker 1: of someone like Hardrick. But they can't get rid of
Speaker 1: him in the same way they got rid of Mario
Speaker 1: Escobvo or Dante al Maras. So it's plausible that the
Speaker 1: powers that be in Mexico could have used Hardrick's relationship
Speaker 1: with Guardia and the Cardinal to push him out. Mexico
Speaker 1: is the land of smoke and mirrors. You don't know
Speaker 1: who you're dealing with, who they're allied with, whether you
Speaker 1: can trust them, who their friends are, whether or not
Speaker 1: they have ties to the dark side. It makes it
Speaker 1: very difficult to navigate and do your job. I couldn't
Speaker 1: stop thinking about Hardrick's quote conspiracy theory, which went all
Speaker 1: the way from murdered women to Mexican business interests to
Speaker 1: his downfall to the State Department. So we called the
Speaker 1: US ambassador who withdrew Hardrick's country clearance in two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, to ask him what happened next time. I've
Speaker 1: forgotten that conversation. Antonio Rza, formerly the United States Ambassador
Speaker 1: to Mexico from the period November two thousand and two
Speaker 1: through January two thousand and nine. And we returned to
Speaker 1: Dinah Washington Valdes, who suggests that powerful businessman in Huirez
Speaker 1: who profited from the maculadora industry, were also involved in
Speaker 1: the murders of women. These are people that are well known,
Speaker 1: not just at the border, but in Mexico nationally. You know,
Speaker 1: they have global business interests. It was scary when you
Speaker 1: sit down and think about who may be involved in
Speaker 1: the names. Oh my god, It's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm oz Veloshin and I'm money. See you next time?
Speaker 1: Do you know? See? Do you know my Sequela Felicia Forgotten.
Speaker 1: The Women of Juarez is co hosted by Me Monica
Speaker 1: and me Oswooshin. Forgotten is executive produced by Me and
Speaker 1: Mangesh Hatia. Our producers are Julian Weller and Katrina Norvelle.
Speaker 1: Sound editing by Julian Weller and Jacopo Penzo. Lucas Riley
Speaker 1: is our story editor. Caitlin Thompson is our consulting producer.
Speaker 1: Production support from Emily Maronoff and Aaron Kaufman. Recording assistance
Speaker 1: this episode from Melissa Kaplan. Music by Leonardo Hablum and
Speaker 1: Hakkabo Libermann. Additional music by Aaron Kaufman.