Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Hey listeners, it's Jake So Today we're sharing the first
Speaker 2: episode of this brand new podcast, Spotlight Snitch City. It's
Speaker 2: produced by the Boston Globes Award winning Spotlight team. Snitch
Speaker 2: City brings you inside the secret world of police informants
Speaker 2: through one small city right at the forefront of America's
Speaker 2: drug war, New Bedford, Massachusetts. Featuring never before told cases,
Speaker 2: this podcast looks at how officers have exploited the secrecy
Speaker 2: of the informant system to enrich themselves, break laws, protect
Speaker 2: drug dealers, and attack perceived enemies, all with impunity. In
Speaker 2: this episode, you'll find yourself on the docks in New
Speaker 2: Bedford hearing whispers about a rogue police officer who's harassing
Speaker 2: fishermen and stealing drugs, all of which comes to a
Speaker 2: head on late night aboard a scalloping boat. And it
Speaker 2: turns out this officer's abuse is just the tip of
Speaker 2: the iceberg in this historic city. Before we get into
Speaker 2: the full episode, be sure to follow Spotlight Snitch City
Speaker 2: on your favorite listening app Now here's the episode.
Speaker 3: Before we begin. This story includes strong language, Please take
Speaker 3: care when listening. It's a warm summer night in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: and there's a strange situation unfolding a board a scalloping boat, Doctor,
Speaker 3: New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Speaker 4: Not one accordlane.
Speaker 5: We can earncy, yes, but you know that no proner
Speaker 5: to be on this boat.
Speaker 3: The caller says, there's an intruder on board.
Speaker 5: And you say that someone on your boat, and that
Speaker 5: not to be on the boat.
Speaker 6: Whereat therest In New bb Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: The caller is a fisherman on the Little two, a
Speaker 3: boat docked for the night along the city's waterfront, and
Speaker 3: he said the call comes in at about nine to thirty.
Speaker 3: Some crew members are sleeping, others are making final preparations
Speaker 3: for the next day's fishing trip down the Atlantic coast,
Speaker 3: when suddenly there's a loud banging on the door and
Speaker 3: a frenzied man pushes his way inside.
Speaker 5: Does he have many elevens on him?
Speaker 4: Yeah, he has set the tide.
Speaker 3: He's dressed in all black, his eyes are bloodshot, and
Speaker 3: he has a gun there.
Speaker 5: I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 3: The scene is chaotic moment, and the dispatcher's trying to
Speaker 3: figure out what's going on.
Speaker 5: It's a he said, but he doesn't have the wars.
Speaker 3: The fisherman is telling the dispatcher that the guy on
Speaker 3: his boat claims he's a police officer.
Speaker 4: So you think he's lying.
Speaker 5: He's not an officer.
Speaker 7: No, but you guys have a badge said, he's security something.
Speaker 3: Around this time, a call goes out to police radios across.
Speaker 5: Town control to all units, do I have anybody out
Speaker 5: at the Crystal Ice Stock We have a mail calling
Speaker 5: stating that he's speaking with somebody who's claiming to be
Speaker 5: a police officer. But he thinks that this person is lying,
Speaker 5: and could you make your way down to the Crystal
Speaker 5: Ice squarehouse just to see exactly what's going on. Room.
Speaker 3: As police try to figure out exactly what's going on,
Speaker 3: the message reaches an officer in a nearby patrol car.
Speaker 4: A mail identifying himself as a police officers breaking into
Speaker 4: a boat.
Speaker 3: Here's Mark Roposo.
Speaker 4: I think at that point I'm probably already putting two
Speaker 4: and two together.
Speaker 3: Immediately, he has a bad feeling because he suspects he
Speaker 3: knows who might be causing the trouble, a colleague he's
Speaker 3: spent the past year trying to avoid, a young officer
Speaker 3: named George Santos. The waterfront is quiet. When Roposo arrives,
Speaker 3: he parks his cruiser, makes his way down to the dock,
Speaker 3: cautiously steps aboard the boat and into a scene that
Speaker 3: defies explanation.
Speaker 4: And it's it's George wearing a black Marine SRT shirt, sweatpants.
Speaker 4: He's there in his own car. Let's get a gun.
Speaker 3: Riposa's colleague, George Santos is off duty.
Speaker 4: And I don't even think he has a radio. What
Speaker 4: is going on yet? And I'm already going on, Man,
Speaker 4: give me a break, like, why did I have to
Speaker 4: be working right now?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 3: Dispatch? Lets the caller know.
Speaker 5: Okay, so that is an officer. We checked, you said, yes,
Speaker 5: it is an officer.
Speaker 3: When Roposo boards the boat, he finds a bunch of
Speaker 3: angry fishermen shouting over each other. They're convinced that this
Speaker 3: officer with bloodshot eyes is here to rob them.
Speaker 4: He just shows up and he just says, I'm looking
Speaker 4: for drugs. I know there's drugs on the boat.
Speaker 3: Nothing about the situation makes sense to Riposo. What possible
Speaker 3: reason could Santos have to be here?
Speaker 4: Jud What the what the fuck are you doing?
Speaker 1: What is this?
Speaker 4: Well? They got drugs? My CI says there's drugs on
Speaker 4: the boat.
Speaker 3: Santos tells Riposo he's got a confidential informant who told
Speaker 3: him that there were drugs aboard the Little Tuti. These
Speaker 3: two words confidential informant are like magic. As soon as
Speaker 3: they're uttered, a cloak of secrecy takes over. What's exchanged
Speaker 3: between a cop and a CI is known only to them,
Speaker 3: and can open doors that are otherwise closed shut. These
Speaker 3: words triple wire.
Speaker 4: For Raposo, I'm like, and I immediately start to back out,
Speaker 4: back out of the boat, and I think, I tell
Speaker 4: George A Jorge, get out of the boat, Get out
Speaker 4: of the boat. And I tell one of the crewmen
Speaker 4: lock the boat, call these doors. Don't anybody in you.
Speaker 3: This whole situation looks really bad to Riposo, he thinks
Speaker 3: it's a crime scene. It looks like George Santos is
Speaker 3: here using his power as a cop and the supposed
Speaker 3: word of a confidential informant to force his way onto
Speaker 3: a boat and steal drugs.
Speaker 4: You know, is this really what's is this really happening?
Speaker 4: It look look it looked like a drug rip. It
Speaker 4: looked like a drug rip. It looked like something out
Speaker 4: of a fucking movie.
Speaker 3: A drug rip.
Speaker 4: Pretty much, bad guy Robin a drug dealer. That's what
Speaker 4: it is, except in this insense, the bad guy is
Speaker 4: a cop.
Speaker 3: The cop who showed up on the Little two D
Speaker 3: that night, wild eyed, flashing a gun and demanding drugs
Speaker 3: says he was tipped off by a confidential informant, a
Speaker 3: claim he knew would grant him a police officer certain
Speaker 3: liberties is the informants are the backbone of nearly every
Speaker 3: drug investigation in America. With little more than the word
Speaker 3: of a CI, cops can launch investigations, break down doors,
Speaker 3: and upend lives. Today, police are allowed to direct and
Speaker 3: oversee this vast, anonymous army with no oversight, no regulation,
Speaker 3: and no transparency. Until relatively recently, many departments didn't even
Speaker 3: have rules in place about using informants. Surprisingly, some still don't.
Speaker 3: How it works is all up to police, and it's
Speaker 3: nearly all done in secret.
Speaker 8: It is shadowy, it is underground, and it's a game
Speaker 8: to allot of these police officers and to when they
Speaker 8: have to think like the criminal and they start acting
Speaker 8: like the criminal.
Speaker 3: I'm Dugan Arnett, an investigative reporter with the Boston Globe
Speaker 3: Spotlight Team. I've spent the last two years in side
Speaker 3: this secret world of police informants, where the stakes can
Speaker 3: be life and death, and no one wants you to
Speaker 3: know how it really works, not prosecutors, not judges, not police,
Speaker 3: and certainly not the informants themselves, who can pay dearly
Speaker 3: for cooperating with cops. Trying to get to the bottom
Speaker 3: of all this has taken me to the heart of
Speaker 3: one small city at the forefront of America's drug war,
Speaker 3: New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Speaker 4: Snitch informant CI you didn't want to be labeled a rat,
Speaker 4: not around here.
Speaker 3: In a nation addicted to drugs, police across the country
Speaker 3: have become addicted to informants, And nowhere is that more
Speaker 3: apparent than in this historic port city, the backdrop of
Speaker 3: Moby Dick, where police have been empowered to use informants
Speaker 3: to take down dealers by almost any means necessary.
Speaker 1: If there's a have a playing field, there'd be no
Speaker 1: war on drugs because they wouldn't succeed.
Speaker 4: You live and die in this business on informants and information.
Speaker 1: Did I lie?
Speaker 4: Yes? Do your officers lie?
Speaker 7: Yes? Everybody lie?
Speaker 3: My investigation has taken me from the docks of New Bedford,
Speaker 3: to the homes of drug traffickers, to remote parking lots
Speaker 3: where skittish cops will only meet at night. I'm going
Speaker 3: to tell you about several cases of police misconduct, all
Speaker 3: involving informants, and you'll hear from the people on all
Speaker 3: sides of this, concluding informants themselves reluctant to snitch and
Speaker 3: yet still caught up. I've reviewed thousands of pages of
Speaker 3: court records and internal police documents going back more than
Speaker 3: three decades, and what I've found in case after case
Speaker 3: is officers who've exploited this informant system in almost every
Speaker 3: way imaginable to enrich themselves, break laws, protect king is
Speaker 3: an attack perceived enemies, and they've done it all with impunity.
Speaker 3: This podcast is an unvarnished behind the scenes look at
Speaker 3: this clandestine world where total secrecy has allowed corruption and
Speaker 3: misconduct to fester. From the Boston Globe Spotlight Team, this
Speaker 3: is Snitch City, Episode one, Officer pests.
Speaker 9: All Right, dude, I'm busy today and it looks like
Speaker 9: a construction type I'm at New Bedford's waterfront with my
Speaker 9: editor Brendon, walking the docks where the fishermen made that
Speaker 9: nine to one one call.
Speaker 3: This story begins at the sight of the little two
Speaker 3: d because what happened here is a glaring example of
Speaker 3: abuse within the confidential informant system. All right, give me
Speaker 3: a little walk the talk here, heading back to the docks,
Speaker 3: hoping to run into some fishermen throughout the day to
Speaker 3: day and see what we can find out. In many ways,
Speaker 3: the waterfront is the heart of New Bedford, and Officer
Speaker 3: George Santos was detailed of the city's marine unit. This
Speaker 3: was his territory. His job was to check boat licenses,
Speaker 3: patrol the harbor, that sort of thing. Beautiful morning, clear sky,
Speaker 3: its weird looks vision. I've been told that the fishing
Speaker 3: community here is tight knit, and that if I want
Speaker 3: to learn more about Santos, this is the place to start. No,
Speaker 3: he can follow me, Brendon and I approach a couple
Speaker 3: of grizzled fishermen throwing lobster traps.
Speaker 10: So, for those who don't understand or know New Bedford,
Speaker 10: how important is the industry?
Speaker 3: How important are folks like you to the city, to
Speaker 3: the state, to the country.
Speaker 10: Well, lou Beffort's the law I just produced in fishing
Speaker 10: port in the entire world.
Speaker 3: He tells us he's been fishing here for fifty years.
Speaker 10: What are you piloting today, Aaron, a boat named Max Andama,
Speaker 10: a ninety foot steal off shoal ops Crobbo.
Speaker 3: New Bedford's fortunes have always been tied to the ocean.
Speaker 3: If you know anything about the place, it's probably that
Speaker 3: it was once the hub of the whaling industry, and
Speaker 3: in the nineteenth century that made it one of the
Speaker 3: richest cities in the world. This is where Herman Melville
Speaker 3: set off on the whaling voyage that inspired Moby Dick.
Speaker 3: Today New Bedford still has an old world feel, with
Speaker 3: cobblestone streets running through the city center. They're fish houses
Speaker 3: lining the waterfront, and the scent of briny ocean air
Speaker 3: is hard to escape. The city's fishing port still brings
Speaker 3: in the most valuable hall in the country, but few
Speaker 3: people here actually perceive that, and the city can feel
Speaker 3: a little down on its luck.
Speaker 10: Drugs were a big problem clinics they got in the city.
Speaker 3: Yet and you've seen it. You've noticed that, You've seen
Speaker 3: that play out of the docks.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 10: Absolutely. The reason I sold my boat I was in
Speaker 10: West Pole Point. We couldn't get no help. I had
Speaker 10: to get rid of at least five or six different
Speaker 10: American kids because of drugs. They can't show up, they
Speaker 10: don't show up on time. If they show up, they're
Speaker 10: screwed up.
Speaker 3: In this city of one hundred thousand, overdoses are routine.
Speaker 3: The local drug court is one of the busiest in
Speaker 3: the state.
Speaker 4: It seems like there's a bit of a pill problem
Speaker 4: in New Bedford.
Speaker 6: I mean a little bit, yeah, a little bit, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: real bad.
Speaker 4: Everywhere you're god.
Speaker 3: The search for drugs and especially pills draws a lot
Speaker 3: of folks to the docks. Santos included.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. The yelpies are now involved.
Speaker 7: The nick name is the people we said Pastillas because
Speaker 7: he all time looking for drops. You know. He has
Speaker 7: told me like two times he said, Hey, I'm looking
Speaker 7: for for drugs, man, I'm here for job.
Speaker 3: You know this fisherman Tony says he's had multiple run
Speaker 3: ins with Santos, and then everyone down here knew the
Speaker 3: officer by a nickname Pastias. Pills in Spanish stopped.
Speaker 7: You everywhere, everywhere, everywhere when they stopped when they got
Speaker 7: they stop, you know, he said, hey, Jimmans driving lines nothing, No,
Speaker 7: you put the window down and looking for pastilla?
Speaker 4: What the fuck man, what are you fucking doing?
Speaker 7: You know, he looking for pastilla? You know what ideas
Speaker 7: like that?
Speaker 1: You know, see incredible moment.
Speaker 3: Everybody is scared, you know, Tony says, Santos would pull
Speaker 3: people over and immediately begin searching their cars, squeezing them
Speaker 3: for information, and he pushed, oh, do you go to
Speaker 3: the jail. You got a lot of drugs.
Speaker 7: Let me know who moved drug Let me know who
Speaker 7: do it.
Speaker 3: He wants people to get the informants to it to
Speaker 3: tell him forgiving information. Yeah, that's what he wants.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I did.
Speaker 3: What Tony's describing is wild. Santo's stopping people without cause,
Speaker 3: searching them for drugs, and then pressuring them to become informants.
Speaker 3: But he wasn't a drug cop, and cultivating informants wasn't
Speaker 3: part of his job description. When I first came to
Speaker 3: the story, I had the same sense of how police
Speaker 3: use informants that you might. They build relationships with people
Speaker 3: who are supposedly in or close to the drug trade
Speaker 3: and offered them a pass, a plea bargain, occasionally a
Speaker 3: few bucks in exchange for information. Now, more than fifty
Speaker 3: years into America's War on drugs, law enforcement's reliance upon
Speaker 3: confidential informants has become nearly absolute. Still, it's not supposed
Speaker 3: to look anything like what Santos was doing. George Santos
Speaker 3: was a local kid. He attended the city's vocational High school.
Speaker 3: He's short, and photos I've seen he's got round cheeks,
Speaker 3: a bit of dark stubble, and a sweet smile. People
Speaker 3: who know him say he's friendly, hard working, if a
Speaker 3: little unpolished. One story I heard sticks out to me
Speaker 3: that as a police cadet he sometimes had to be
Speaker 3: told not to wear sweatpants to work. But as an officer,
Speaker 3: Santos quickly got a reputation. Other cops were wary of him.
Speaker 3: Some kept their distance, including Mark Roposo.
Speaker 4: You know, George is a street guy. Reputation is kind
Speaker 4: of a reckless and wild guy. He made a lot
Speaker 4: of contacts on the street, made a lot of brazen,
Speaker 4: bold moves on the street, chased people into houses, surges
Speaker 4: extraordinary amount of vehicle surges.
Speaker 3: Before his life collided with Santos, Riposa was part of
Speaker 3: New Bedford's Police Marine Unit a dream job.
Speaker 4: When I got the job, I was a static. I
Speaker 4: love being on the water. I loved about the job,
Speaker 4: the boats, the waterfront, the people, the fishermen. The best
Speaker 4: job in the department. In my opinion.
Speaker 3: Working on the marine unit was pretty straightforward. Maintain relationships
Speaker 3: with fishermen and boat owners and provide security on the docks.
Speaker 4: You get to ride around on boats in the summer,
Speaker 4: you got to take home car. You're diving, you're not
Speaker 4: dealing with you know, you're dealing with some fishermen, but
Speaker 4: you're not dealing with very difficult people.
Speaker 3: That job is a prize, but it also required a
Speaker 3: lot of training, diving certifications, coast Guard licenses, years of experience,
Speaker 3: qualifications that George Santos didn't have.
Speaker 4: So to my surprise, when I start hearing George's name
Speaker 4: being floated around, I can't even really believe it. He
Speaker 4: doesn't not to run the boats, he doesn't dive, he
Speaker 4: doesn't know anything we do down there at all.
Speaker 3: Nonetheless, Santos gets the job, and almost immediately there's fireworks.
Speaker 3: One night after training exercise on Martha's Vineyard, a bunch
Speaker 3: of cops go out for drinks. Riposo says he watches
Speaker 3: Santos try to pick a fight with one of the
Speaker 3: police instructors.
Speaker 4: And the worst of it all is well wearing shirts
Speaker 4: that say New Bedford Police like, what the fuck are
Speaker 4: you doing? We're not even in US city. Well, guests,
Speaker 4: Sylvie here, what are you doing.
Speaker 3: Santos gets sent back to his hotel room, and from
Speaker 3: there he calls Riposo screaming and threatening to tear the
Speaker 3: hotel room apart.
Speaker 4: Now I'm nervous now because he's in there. My gun's
Speaker 4: in there, and he's hanging out of our hotel room
Speaker 4: windows screaming, suck my dick, loud like loud.
Speaker 3: Their boss, the marine unit supervisor, is there too, so
Speaker 3: Riposo expects some kind of fallout. The next day, I
Speaker 3: thought that was it.
Speaker 4: I say, oh, he's done. I said this, there's no way.
Speaker 4: You know, he's not gonna be able to stay here.
Speaker 3: But there are no consequences. And this wouldn't be the
Speaker 3: last time police higher ups let things slide when it
Speaker 3: came to Santos. Riposo says that's because the department valued
Speaker 3: one thing above all else, stats car stops, citations, arrests,
Speaker 3: These numbers are the lifeblood of modern policing. They make
Speaker 3: for good headlines, lead to promotions. Bosses can point to
Speaker 3: them to show they're getting results. And in New Bedford,
Speaker 3: nobody could fill a stat sheet like George Santos. He
Speaker 3: was constantly among the department's most active officers. Supervisors raved
Speaker 3: about his work ethic. His numbers were written up in
Speaker 3: the local news.
Speaker 4: The only reason George was leat is because they look
Speaker 4: at a piece of paper and if those numbers are high,
Speaker 4: that's it. It doesn't matter the baggage that you bring.
Speaker 4: Nobody cares about what you did or what rules you
Speaker 4: bent to get them at that point in time that
Speaker 4: would put you on the top.
Speaker 3: Bring it.
Speaker 4: Numbers, numbers, numbers.
Speaker 3: Many officers told me what Santos really wanted was to
Speaker 3: be a drug cop, and he tried to turn his
Speaker 3: cushy marine gig into just that, searching for pills, squeezing people,
Speaker 3: and trying to build up a stable of informants.
Speaker 4: He would mention that he was always working to cultivate
Speaker 4: informance because his real goal was to get into the narcotics,
Speaker 4: but they would never take them.
Speaker 3: Now, drug cops are encouraged to develop informants, and they
Speaker 3: do this by finding people who are on the outs
Speaker 3: informing a relationship. Of course, it's largely one sided and
Speaker 3: fraud in a lot of ways, but still a partnership,
Speaker 3: one that shrouded in secrecy. In theory, this protects informants
Speaker 3: and their identities because it's dangerous to snitch. But the
Speaker 3: secrecy has another effect. It leaves the role of police
Speaker 3: and the rules they play by completely unknowable and opaque
Speaker 3: to anyone else. Trust me, I tried. The Globe requested
Speaker 3: information about informants from every law enforcement agency in the state.
Speaker 3: We weren't asking for names or identifying information, but basic things,
Speaker 3: how many do you have? How much do you pay them?
Speaker 3: If at all? And a number of the four hundred
Speaker 3: or so agencies just didn't respond. New Bedford was especially
Speaker 3: resistant to my questions. For over a year, I requested
Speaker 3: records that are supposed to be available to the public,
Speaker 3: time and again the department delayed or didn't respond at all.
Speaker 3: New Bedford City attorney got involved, then the Globes attorney
Speaker 3: got involved. We're still battling with the city over the records,
Speaker 3: but we're using some of the ones we did receive
Speaker 3: to tell this story. All told, this secrecy makes accountability
Speaker 3: almost impossible. Riposo says it was this lack of transparency
Speaker 3: that enabled Santos to get away with everything.
Speaker 4: There were cis who were even reporting this stuff back
Speaker 4: to certain people, and still nothing was getting done. See
Speaker 4: eyes that were telling guys in the drug unit that
Speaker 4: this kid is doing stuff that he ain't supposed to do,
Speaker 4: and it just carried on and on and on.
Speaker 3: Around this time, another person was watching George Santos become
Speaker 3: increasingly erratic. A fisherman named Freddie Layer who's been coming
Speaker 3: into New Bedford's Port for nearly thirty five years.
Speaker 1: I was born in Texas, raised in Mexico ninety one.
Speaker 1: I got here at the man Patusses.
Speaker 3: Freddy's a jovial guy with long salt and pepper hair.
Speaker 3: He's also captain of the Little tut Tell me about
Speaker 3: the first time you encountered pastillas.
Speaker 1: Honestly, he was polite and he didn't have no reason
Speaker 1: to pull us over, you know, so he's blained to me,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of a task force to combat those these
Speaker 1: opiois and peels and smuggling and dealing, you know, like
Speaker 1: he was doing a good thing.
Speaker 3: At first, Freddy was glad to hear that someone might
Speaker 3: actually be doing something about the pill problem plaguing the docks.
Speaker 3: But then Santos pulled him over again and again and again.
Speaker 1: So it got to the point where we'll be here
Speaker 1: for a week. We get pulled over for four times
Speaker 1: on a week, you know, trying to search for drugs
Speaker 1: and drugs and pills.
Speaker 3: And one afternoon it all comes to a head and he.
Speaker 1: Pulls me over. Oh, you know the drill. We got
Speaker 1: to check the car and so so he still checked
Speaker 1: the car. He said, okay, you can go.
Speaker 3: Santos doesn't find anything and sends Freddy on his way.
Speaker 3: But soon after, Freddy's son in law, who was in
Speaker 3: the truck with him, notices something. There'd been a bottle
Speaker 3: of prescription pills AfterAll in the truck, medicine that Freddy's
Speaker 3: wife had legally, and now it's missing.
Speaker 1: I said, what, No, he didn't, Yes, he did, Freddy,
Speaker 1: I saw him. So I opened the middle compartment and
Speaker 1: checked for the pills. The pills were in there.
Speaker 3: Freddy speeds back to the waterfront and finding Santos park
Speaker 3: near the docks.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was peace. I ain't gonna lie. I
Speaker 1: was peace. So I go and made it up to
Speaker 1: him and he's seating. It's like his card. He didn't
Speaker 1: don't even butter. He says, like, sitting here, what do
Speaker 1: you want talking to me like he's the big bulls
Speaker 1: or something. I said, I want my pills back. I says,
Speaker 1: those are not your pills, those are my wise pills.
Speaker 1: And she's gonna be piace on me if I don't
Speaker 1: got those pills when I get bad.
Speaker 3: Santos says he'll give Freddy the pills back, but he
Speaker 3: wants something in return, so he's like.
Speaker 1: Well, you're gonna help me out. He wanted to know
Speaker 1: what people is bringing drugs, and then efort I said, I,
Speaker 1: oh know nothing about it, you know.
Speaker 3: So he steals your pills and then when you go
Speaker 3: to get him back, tries to basically turn you into
Speaker 3: an informant for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of what he wanted. Yeah, like an exchange.
Speaker 3: Say Santos wants Freddy to snitch to Freddie. It seems
Speaker 3: more like extortion than a police tactic. Either way, he
Speaker 3: has no intention of working with Santos. Eventually, he gets
Speaker 3: his wife's pills. And they go their separate ways.
Speaker 1: Why can you do put a complaint on the police.
Speaker 1: To the captain of the police, Nothing's going to happen.
Speaker 3: Freddie's lack of faith in the new Bedford Police would
Speaker 3: turn out to be pretty well founded. I examined countless
Speaker 3: police reports, internal affairs files, and department disciplinary records, and
Speaker 3: I can say Freddie and the other fishermen I talked
Speaker 3: to are just the tip of the iceberg. I've identified
Speaker 3: half a dozen people who say they had drugs taken
Speaker 3: from them by Santos, not seized as part of a
Speaker 3: drug arrest, but stolen. Many of their stories are remarkably similar.
Speaker 3: A questionable car stop and a legal search and then
Speaker 3: a robbery.
Speaker 4: George his people he would deal with specifically due to
Speaker 4: their immigration status.
Speaker 3: Officer Mark Roposo.
Speaker 4: They don't speak English, you know, I think in his mind,
Speaker 4: I believe less likely to complain, less likely to understand
Speaker 4: that they're being subjected to an illegal search.
Speaker 3: Santos cast a pall over the waterfront. For decades, the
Speaker 3: docks had served as a gathering place for immigrant fishermen,
Speaker 3: a kind of safe haven where they could swap stories
Speaker 3: or blow off steam. But as his behavior escalated. Even
Speaker 3: those who never touched drugs grew increasingly uneasy. Some began
Speaker 3: avoiding the waterfront altogether, and Freddy says fishermen began to
Speaker 3: whisper about taking matters into their own hands.
Speaker 1: It starts getting the frustration out. They start getting mad,
Speaker 1: you know, like, yeah, we should do something about him,
Speaker 1: and fum, he's just a paw. He's only one, you know,
Speaker 1: where a lot you know this, and that, you know,
Speaker 1: people was thinking, you know, about really getting rid of him.
Speaker 3: You know, it could have just been some alcohol infused bravado.
Speaker 3: But to hear him tell it, there were honest conversations
Speaker 3: about violent revenge and around this time. Early one morning
Speaker 3: in September twenty seventeen, there was a suspicious fire at
Speaker 3: Santo's home.
Speaker 4: His Crown Vic. The front of it just caught on fire.
Speaker 4: It was early early in the morning, four five, six
Speaker 4: in the morning.
Speaker 3: George Santos's take home cruiser was on fire. Authorities said
Speaker 3: the blaze was likely caused by an electrical issue or
Speaker 3: equipment failure, but Riposo and a bunch of current and
Speaker 3: former officers I spoke with don't believe the official version.
Speaker 4: He ruffles so many feathers that someone lights as well.
Speaker 4: His cruiser catches itself on fire in front of his house.
Speaker 3: A mysterious fire, threats, illegal search, and seizures. It was
Speaker 3: all getting to be too much for Reposo. At one point,
Speaker 3: he tells his supervisor he no longer wants anything to
Speaker 3: do with George Santos.
Speaker 4: And I said, you know, I'm not gonna be part
Speaker 4: of this. This this is not a secret. What this
Speaker 4: guy does. I flat out to on him. I'm not
Speaker 4: backing that kid up. I'm not doing it.
Speaker 3: But Riposo is complaining about a guy who is a
Speaker 3: rock star in the department, and he quickly learns that
Speaker 3: speaking up against a fellow officer can have consequences. Riposa
Speaker 3: says it happens fast. The schedule he's had for years
Speaker 3: suddenly changes. He loses his take home cruiser, his supervisor
Speaker 3: starts to target him for minor infractions. It's clear to
Speaker 3: him that this is the price of sticking his neck out.
Speaker 4: Okay, no problem, I'll take the hit.
Speaker 3: Raposa's a veteran cop. He's seen a lot in his
Speaker 3: twenty years on the job, but his problems with Santos
Speaker 3: were far from over and even he couldn't foresee what
Speaker 3: was coming.
Speaker 4: I was thinking, I can't be around the stuff. This
Speaker 4: guy's going to get him make trouble, and then I
Speaker 4: get into trouble.
Speaker 3: The night of the nine one one call aboard the
Speaker 3: Little Totty in summer twenty eighteen, that's when the stories
Speaker 3: of George Santos, Mark Roposo, and Freddy Layer converge. So
Speaker 3: tell us tell us about that that night.
Speaker 1: So you're you're docked well one night. Uh, it was
Speaker 1: the end of a long day for me.
Speaker 3: Freddy was exhausted after a day aboard the Little tut
Speaker 3: captaining a crew of a half dozen, He hopped into
Speaker 3: his truck to run an errand before bed, I think.
Speaker 1: I will live in the way.
Speaker 3: When I got the called, it was a member of
Speaker 3: his crew, and the guy sounded panicked.
Speaker 1: He calls me. He tells me there's a call here
Speaker 1: and now he's searching. Say, how do you how this
Speaker 1: cop looks? So he started describing me the cop I
Speaker 1: need exactly the description of Santos. And then he tells me,
Speaker 1: but he's not more on a uniform.
Speaker 3: What What's what's going through your head when you get
Speaker 3: this call?
Speaker 1: First of all, I'm a fed and start getting upset
Speaker 1: and mad immediately, you know. The second of all, as
Speaker 1: I am on the call, you know, I realized that
Speaker 1: he's doing this illegally and that he's not on duty,
Speaker 1: you know. So that's when I asked to call nine
Speaker 1: one one.
Speaker 5: Don't go.
Speaker 3: Within minutes, Mark or Poso steps aboard the little two
Speaker 3: D and tries to make sense of what he's seeing.
Speaker 4: I mean, he's he's a cop, but he's not working
Speaker 4: as a cop. He's not really dressed as a cop.
Speaker 4: He tells us, hey, I have information in this drugs
Speaker 4: on this boat, but he doesn't call anybody about it.
Speaker 4: I see what I can grab, and I'm gonna make
Speaker 4: my way home.
Speaker 3: It's yet another of Santos's questionable searches, another push for drugs,
Speaker 3: vague talk about informants, but this time Freddy's certain that
Speaker 3: Santos has taken it too far. As he races back
Speaker 3: to the boat, he slams the steering wheel.
Speaker 1: He's elated, Oh I finally got you, motherfucker. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: never gonna forget that ever. Yeah, finally he made that
Speaker 1: mistake that I was kind of waiting, you.
Speaker 3: Know, despite all the chaos and tension aboard the boat.
Speaker 3: The encounter on the Little tu d ends pretty Anticlimactically,
Speaker 3: Riposo coaxes Santos from the boat. A supervisor arrives, They
Speaker 3: tell the fishermen to lock up. Everyone goes their separate ways.
Speaker 3: Riposa returns to the station and tries to tell a
Speaker 3: sergeant what he just witnessed.
Speaker 4: I even get a fucking piece of paper.
Speaker 5: Night.
Speaker 4: We're back at the station after everybody leaves, and I
Speaker 4: write drug rip. I folded him. I put it on
Speaker 4: his desk.
Speaker 3: In the most blunt terms possible, Riposo advises the sergeant
Speaker 3: that another officer just tried to rob some fishermen of drugs.
Speaker 3: In his words, a drug writ like Freddie. Riposo is
Speaker 3: sure that the Little Tuti has to be the final straw.
Speaker 3: Both of these guys each terrorized by Santos in their
Speaker 3: own way. I think this time police can't ignore Santos anymore,
Speaker 3: and they were right.
Speaker 6: This is an administrative interview taking place at the Office
Speaker 6: of Professional Standards of the Nuvesto Police Department. Subject of
Speaker 6: this interview is Officer George Santos, and he's accompanied by
Speaker 6: representation mister Andrew Gambissini, could you state your name for
Speaker 6: the record, Police George Santos.
Speaker 3: I got my hands on the internal affairs file, as
Speaker 3: well as recordings of some of the interviews, including this
Speaker 3: one with Santos where he struggles to recall even basic details.
Speaker 1: I can't recall him.
Speaker 6: I've been on a lot of stress, understandable.
Speaker 1: Financially, everything going on home.
Speaker 6: I mean to expect me to remember every detail. That's
Speaker 6: why we never just ask, okay.
Speaker 3: I've read a lot of internal affairs reports from many
Speaker 3: different police departments, and they all tend to follow a
Speaker 3: similar pattern. But the two hundred and thirty pages dedicated
Speaker 3: to George Santos and the Little Tutty are unlike anything
Speaker 3: I've ever seen. And what quickly becomes clear with each
Speaker 3: new interview is that the department's George Santos problem extends
Speaker 3: far beyond a single night aboard a scalloping boat.
Speaker 10: I'm familiar with Santo's outside of work, so I kind
Speaker 10: of know his behaviors, so I kind of figured that
Speaker 10: it was something that I would.
Speaker 1: Suspect for him to do.
Speaker 3: Caitlin Sylvia was working nine to one to one dispatch
Speaker 3: when the call from the little tutty came in.
Speaker 11: I mean, it's not a call we get every day.
Speaker 10: It's never happened before, so I would say, hope's never
Speaker 10: come across it again.
Speaker 11: At first, it was frightening.
Speaker 3: I mean, she tells police she immediately had an inkling
Speaker 3: that Santos might be involved, because by then she'd already
Speaker 3: had some troubling experiences with him.
Speaker 10: He should just come on over the radio screaming, and
Speaker 10: then when you try to raise him, you can't.
Speaker 5: Get him, and you have no idea where he is.
Speaker 3: She's not the only one who tells police about his misconduct.
Speaker 3: A half dozen fishermen also come forward saying that Santos
Speaker 3: took their drugs. Some said they were harassed, searched illegally,
Speaker 3: and almost all say there are other victims, people who
Speaker 3: are too nervous to speak up.
Speaker 6: Say your name for the record. Police Michael Hussell and.
Speaker 3: Michael Investigators also interview a former police officer who now
Speaker 3: works security at a hotel where a lot of fishermen stay.
Speaker 3: Michael Roussel tells police that Santos was illegally searching hotel guests.
Speaker 11: They told him he could not be bothered in our
Speaker 11: customers like that.
Speaker 3: Rousselle says he repeatedly heard stories from fishermen about a
Speaker 3: rogue cop obsessed with pills.
Speaker 11: What I was told by the guys was that he
Speaker 11: was stopped them if they had drugs, if they had pills,
Speaker 11: do you have pills on you? And if they had
Speaker 11: pills on him, he would take the pills, give him back.
Speaker 11: A couple keep the pills. Even a couple of them
Speaker 11: had cocin heroin. He gave him the cocin heroin back,
Speaker 11: and he kept the pills.
Speaker 1: No arrest, no chidges.
Speaker 4: I says, look, you guys are gonna come forward.
Speaker 11: I says, he can't do this, But they're afraid to
Speaker 11: come forward because of it.
Speaker 3: He says, Listen, I don't know why Santos was stealing pills.
Speaker 3: After the little tuty, he was ordered to take a
Speaker 3: drug test and the results came back negative. That surprised
Speaker 3: some of his colleagues, who told me they believe he
Speaker 3: had a drug addiction. Either way, it's clear that Santos's
Speaker 3: behavior was an open secret to almost anyone working on
Speaker 3: or near the waterfront. That's why when Riposo got that
Speaker 3: call from dispatch, right away he figured it with Santos
Speaker 3: on the acting erratically, and he suspected Santos had no
Speaker 3: good reason for being there, that it wasn't police work.
Speaker 3: Here's what Santos told investigators about what happened that night.
Speaker 3: He's home that evening when an informant calls with a tip.
Speaker 3: It's big one hundred grams of opiates aboard a scalloping
Speaker 3: boat docked in the harbor. Santos says, he tells a supervisor,
Speaker 3: hurries over boards the boat, and you've heard the rest.
Speaker 3: But as the investigation unfolds, police records show significant problems
Speaker 3: with that story. After reviewing all these police files, listening
Speaker 3: to the tapes, and talking to dozens of sources, I
Speaker 3: can tell you his account doesn't really hold water. Crewmembers
Speaker 3: say they never gave Santos permission to board the boat.
Speaker 3: Phone records suggest he lied about notifying a supervisor. But
Speaker 3: the biggest, most glaring issue is the supposed confidential informant.
Speaker 6: At some point during the June twenty first, when you
Speaker 6: contacted by yes, sir.
Speaker 3: The audio from the police department is heavily redacted, and
Speaker 3: what time was that?
Speaker 2: I don't want to call the exact time.
Speaker 6: How do you contact him when you call him?
Speaker 1: How how do you contact he calls me? We have Coughton.
Speaker 6: Do you have his cell phone number on you?
Speaker 1: He has different numbers.
Speaker 6: Would you be able? Would you be willing to share
Speaker 6: your call records with the Department?
Speaker 3: Santos's attorney jumps in no, Sir. Santos repeatedly tells investigators
Speaker 3: that his story about the CI is true, but when
Speaker 3: they try to drill down on details, he's evasive and cagy.
Speaker 1: I'm not on if I called him that that night
Speaker 1: or he called me.
Speaker 4: I'm not one.
Speaker 3: When they try to push him further about his justification
Speaker 3: for boarding the boat, his answer is pretty telling.
Speaker 1: Based upon the advice on my attorneys, I invoked my
Speaker 1: federal state constitutional rights to remain silent and declined to
Speaker 1: answer that question.
Speaker 3: Okay, George Santos said an informant told him there were
Speaker 3: drugs on the Little Tutty, But after months of investigating
Speaker 3: the story, I can tell you there was no informant
Speaker 3: that night, at least not by any reasonable definition of
Speaker 3: the word. In fact, it doesn't appear Santos ever had
Speaker 3: any registered informants. I wish I could tell you for sure,
Speaker 3: but the Department refused to hand over that information. So
Speaker 3: either Santos invented a CI out of thin air or
Speaker 3: he took the word of an off the book source.
Speaker 3: And remember Santos isn't a drug cop. He's in the
Speaker 3: marine unit. So no, Santo's story doesn't hold up. And
Speaker 3: Mark Roposo, well, he's blunt about what he saw a
Speaker 3: drug rip.
Speaker 4: Even if he did, it's say a perfect world. He
Speaker 4: does have this person to the CI. They tell him, hey,
Speaker 4: we stuff on the boat. The last thing anybody's going
Speaker 4: to do is put their sweatbants on, throw a radio
Speaker 4: in their back pocket, drive their car down there, not
Speaker 4: tell anybody what they're doing, and start ransacking a boat
Speaker 4: with four or five guys in it.
Speaker 3: In New Bedford, as internal investigators work the Santos case,
Speaker 3: officer Mark Roposo gets a letter a subpoena. Prosecutors are
Speaker 3: considering potential criminal charges against Santos, and a grand jury
Speaker 3: has been convened. Raposo is asked to testify.
Speaker 4: So get I get the grand jury summons and I
Speaker 4: go there. I want to say, I go there to
Speaker 4: testify that day and I walk in and I said, hey,
Speaker 4: let's have a little sit down let's talk.
Speaker 3: He's leary. For months, he'd been sounding the alarm on Santos,
Speaker 3: having his complaints ignored. Now he's being asked to breach
Speaker 3: policing's most fundamental code, to testify against another officer, to
Speaker 3: break the blue wall of silence. In a way, he's
Speaker 3: being asked to snitch. Think about it. Prosecutors are asking
Speaker 3: Raposo to work with them. It's a big step. And
Speaker 3: he wants reassurances, and.
Speaker 4: I says, it depends what you're gonna do. Are you
Speaker 4: gonna are you gonna follow this through? And his words
Speaker 4: to me is, I'm gonna take this wherever the evidence
Speaker 4: takes me. He tells me this.
Speaker 3: So Riposo agrees.
Speaker 4: You know, you can't manipulate. This is a grand jury.
Speaker 4: Now you can't. This can't be manipulated. Now, this is
Speaker 4: just this is gonna go. This is this has wheels. Now,
Speaker 4: this is it. These guys are these guys are gonna
Speaker 4: have to answer now.
Speaker 3: Still, a number of anxiety inducing scenarios play out in
Speaker 3: his head. Will he be targeted or scapegoated? Is he
Speaker 3: a whistleblower? Most importantly, Raposo wonders whether he and his
Speaker 3: family are.
Speaker 4: Safe George at the time was erradic as can be.
Speaker 4: And this is a guy who's proficient with firearms, not
Speaker 4: only on patrol level, this guy worked on SWAP for
Speaker 4: a little while. You know, he was off the wall
Speaker 4: at this time. You know, he was really upset with
Speaker 4: with his former co workers, and I can't imagine he
Speaker 4: was upset with any of them more than he was
Speaker 4: with me.
Speaker 3: Expecting an indictment, Riposo even makes plans to send his
Speaker 3: wife and kids to stay with his in laws.
Speaker 4: My wife knew, you know. I confide in her and
Speaker 4: told her a lot about what was going on, and
Speaker 4: she was very nervous.
Speaker 3: Eventually, the grand jury wraps and Riposo's worst case scenario
Speaker 3: plays out. There are no charges, no arrests, and no
Speaker 3: one gives Reposo a heads up. He only finds out
Speaker 3: when he calls the prosecutor for an update. And this
Speaker 3: is when Mark Roposo, police officer for nearly two decades,
Speaker 3: seemingly loses faith in the criminal justice system.
Speaker 4: You can be a police officer asked to testify at
Speaker 4: a grand jury, stick your neck out there, go in
Speaker 4: there and tell the truth. If I knew this was
Speaker 4: going to happen, I would refuse to testify. I took
Speaker 4: a lot of grief over this. It is not not
Speaker 4: a great place to be. We have to testify against
Speaker 4: another police officer. Culturally, you keep your mouth shut and
Speaker 4: that's it. And at this point I kind of throw
Speaker 4: my hands up, as I can't do anything else.
Speaker 3: While the criminal case Peter's out, the internal affairs case
Speaker 3: is much more definitive. Investigators don't ignore the evidence they gathered.
Speaker 3: The findings are scathing. They show that Santos essentially turned
Speaker 3: a mile long stretch of the waterfront into his own
Speaker 3: personal pharmacy, systematically targeting and preying upon some of the
Speaker 3: cities most vulnerable, and it makes clear that people in
Speaker 3: the department knew about it. I found at least four
Speaker 3: complaints that went directly to the deputy chief. So when
Speaker 3: it comes time to hand down punishment, it looks like
Speaker 3: there could be some accountability, something that would send a message. Nope,
Speaker 3: not here. Santos was allowed to resign before any discipline
Speaker 3: was handed out. He's free to go on his way,
Speaker 3: no penalty, no problem. Today he lives on a quiet
Speaker 3: street and a small Florida town not far from the
Speaker 3: Gulf Coast. Shortly before wrapping this podcast, I knocked on
Speaker 3: Santos's door.
Speaker 9: Hi, George.
Speaker 3: My name is Stugen Arnett. I'm a writer at the
Speaker 3: Boston Globe newspaper. He answered the door in sweatpants and
Speaker 3: a T shirt. He was soft spoken and polite. He
Speaker 3: invited me in and we chatted for a few minutes.
Speaker 3: I told him what would be in the story, and
Speaker 3: he made clear that he didn't want to comment at all.
Speaker 3: The new Bedford Police Department wouldn't make anyone available for
Speaker 3: an intervi In response to my written questions, They email
Speaker 3: the statement. It's said that these allegations have been quote
Speaker 3: investigated to resolution and made public or lacked a credible
Speaker 3: basis to pursue further investigation. The department also pointed to
Speaker 3: a twenty twenty three audit with roughly ninety recommendations, including
Speaker 3: two generic ones related to the use of CIS. One
Speaker 3: recommends that officers be aware of the informant policy. As
Speaker 3: for Mark Roposo, after the Santos court case collapsed, things
Speaker 3: get complicated.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you they made my life pretty hard over this.
Speaker 4: They took years off my life with this.
Speaker 3: He feels ostracized by other officers. The bosses change his
Speaker 3: job duties and his work schedule, and it's impossible for
Speaker 3: him to see it as anything other than retaliation.
Speaker 4: The most upsetting thing was the people who were leaders
Speaker 4: during this that let this all ride. I mean, George
Speaker 4: is one thing, but to have my supervisor, have the
Speaker 4: deputy chief of police brush these concerns off, a DA's
Speaker 4: office brush them off, and then on top of it,
Speaker 4: I get removed from my position. It was pretty disheartening.
Speaker 3: Not long after the grand jury and IA cases peter out,
Speaker 3: it occurs to Riposo, there's one last option, one more
Speaker 3: call he can make. Did you have to sort of
Speaker 3: talk yourself into making that call, like build yourself up
Speaker 3: to it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because what I figured was, Hey, I'm now going
Speaker 4: to have to go on the record with a federal agency,
Speaker 4: and I'm gonna get fucking fried.
Speaker 3: The FBI is his last hope. He's on a side
Speaker 3: job at a shipyard. He finds a quiet spot, pulls
Speaker 3: out his cell phone and dials.
Speaker 4: I make a call to the Lakeville FBI office. I
Speaker 4: talk to a female FBI agent, give him my full
Speaker 4: it's some issues in New Bedford. I'm a police officer.
Speaker 3: My editor Brendan is with me for the interview.
Speaker 1: Did you say exactly what the issues were?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I told her, they listen to this up. There's
Speaker 4: a police officer who was uh involved in criminal activity.
Speaker 4: I think it's going to get covered up. I'd like
Speaker 4: somebody to talk to. And that was it.
Speaker 3: FBI.
Speaker 1: That's a big deal.
Speaker 4: You would think, you would think.
Speaker 3: After making the call, he waits and waits.
Speaker 4: And I never heard back ever. I mean even I
Speaker 4: call the FBI and they don't fucking call me back.
Speaker 4: It's it's fucking mind numbing.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could have been an informer for that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, right, I mean you were like, hey, I'm willing. Yeah.
Speaker 4: They yeah, they weren't interested. I guess.
Speaker 3: I reached out to the FBI for comment. They said, quote,
Speaker 3: as a matter of long standing policy, we cannot confirm
Speaker 3: or deny the existence of investigations. Mark Orposo took a
Speaker 3: huge risk talking to me, going on the record with
Speaker 3: his name, to speak out against the police department where
Speaker 3: he's still employed today.
Speaker 4: It's any interest of the leadership to keep it quiet.
Speaker 4: They don't want that brought to light because it casts
Speaker 4: a negative light on the department.
Speaker 3: I don't know. He doesn't know what kind of consequences
Speaker 3: he'll face when this comes out.
Speaker 4: Because I know that these guys always they always pay
Speaker 4: you back, you know, And they're not known for the this.
Speaker 4: You know this, the upper uschelon that are involved in this,
Speaker 4: they're not known for letting things go.
Speaker 3: If the saga of George Santos sparked even a hint
Speaker 3: of departmental soul searching, I haven't found any evidence of it.
Speaker 3: In fact, I found a lot of other cases like
Speaker 3: this in New Bedford, involving many of the same players,
Speaker 3: and it goes all the way to the top of
Speaker 3: the department. Mark or Poso is not the only one
Speaker 3: who's tried to get the attention of the FBI. The
Speaker 3: FEDS know a lot about the police department's problems and
Speaker 3: a legend misconduct, and you're going to hear all about it.
Speaker 3: But first I'm going to tell you about an informant
Speaker 3: whose life is in danger.
Speaker 9: Right now, we heard you you is working with the
Speaker 9: police issues.
Speaker 6: Now you got to get the fuck up out of here.
Speaker 3: You're gonna get that he trusted New Bedford police and
Speaker 3: they burned him. Now he's cowering in a prison cell.
Speaker 4: I mean you knowing, not where I could call it.
Speaker 3: Yuh, Just so, I'm going to tell you his story next.
Speaker 3: Through the course of this podcast, you'll hear how America's
Speaker 3: informant system has been corrupted. My investigation has uncovered numerous
Speaker 3: cases of informant misconduct, lies, corruption, cover ups, of cover ups,
Speaker 3: misdeeds that could cast doubt on countless drug cases with
Speaker 3: consequences for drug enforcement everywhere.
Speaker 5: Regular people who do not spend a lot of time
Speaker 5: around the criminal system would just be shocked that we
Speaker 5: permit this kind of thing to happen in a modern
Speaker 5: constitutional democracy.
Speaker 3: Did he try to turn you?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he tried to turn all of us.
Speaker 6: This is very serious allegation.
Speaker 4: We can't have offices involved in anything like what's being
Speaker 4: alleged here. You're a drug dealer who has the advocacy
Speaker 4: of one of the top police detectives we used to
Speaker 4: call a license to deal. There is absolutely no way
Speaker 4: that they're telling the truth.
Speaker 11: I am one hundred thousand percent sure I am the informant.
Speaker 1: You motherfuckers go run on each other.
Speaker 2: So don't start telling my client what dell he or
Speaker 2: she should do.
Speaker 3: Now shut the fuck up and leave Me Alone that's
Speaker 3: coming up on Snitch City. Spotlight. Snitch City is reported
Speaker 3: and hosted by Me, Duke and Our Name, additional reporting
Speaker 3: by Andrew Ryan and Brendan McCarthy. The podcast is written
Speaker 3: by Max Green and Kristin Nelson along with Me and
Speaker 3: Brendan McCarthy. Max Green is senior producer. Executive producers are
Speaker 3: Spotlight editor, Brendan McCarthy and Kristin Nelson, the Globes head
Speaker 3: of Audio. Additional editing and support from Gordon Russell and
Speaker 3: Kathleen Goldar. Thanks also to Taylor Dolvin for her help
Speaker 3: translating on the docs. Nancy Barnes is the Boston Globes
Speaker 3: Executive Editor. Sound design and mix by Stephen Jackson. Episode
Speaker 3: artwork by Julian D. Paulsen, Art direction by Ryan Huddle,
Speaker 3: Podcast visualization by Olivia Jarvis and a nush Elbakian. Heather
Speaker 3: Cyrus is the audience editor. Tim Rasmussen is visuals editor.
Speaker 3: Legal review by John Albano, fact checking by Matt Mahoney.
Speaker 3: Marketing support for this podcast comes from the Podnglomerate.
Speaker 2: Hey, it's Jake again. If you've enjoyed this episode, well
Speaker 2: here in luck There are plenty of other episodes from
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