Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing from My Heart Radio. The statistics are staggering.
Speaker 1: Up to a million plant and animal species are expected
Speaker 1: to vanish by the year twenty fifty, and we've experienced
Speaker 1: an almost seventy percent decline in wildlife since nineteen seventy alone.
Speaker 1: My guest today, Andrea Crosta is the founder of Earth
Speaker 1: League International, a nonprofit organization whose objective is to protect
Speaker 1: our oceans, forests, and wildlife through research and investigation. It's
Speaker 1: an intelligence agency like the CIA, but for earth. The
Speaker 1: organization has helped crack down on wildlife trafficking, from a
Speaker 1: cartel moving sea cucumbers in Mexico to a jaguar fang
Speaker 1: ring in Bolivia. The dangerous work of infiltrating the organized
Speaker 1: crime units was recently profiled in the New Yorker article
Speaker 1: entitled Earth League International Hunts the Hunters. The path to
Speaker 1: Andrea Crosto's calling has been a long and winding road.
Speaker 1: Prior to his work as head of EIL, he held
Speaker 1: various positions in security and animal activism before starting the
Speaker 1: online shopping company Think Italy in his native country.
Speaker 2: I Think Italy was we're talking about ninety seven ninety
Speaker 2: eight was the prehistory of shopping online in Italy. So
Speaker 2: there was the second e commerce website ever in Italy
Speaker 2: with Microsoft was the first Casey history of Microsoft in
Speaker 2: Italy free shopping. And I went all the way up,
Speaker 2: and then when the Nazda crashed in two thousand and one,
Speaker 2: I went all the way down and I sold the
Speaker 2: full debts basically, but it was like an Amazon type
Speaker 2: of time. Yeah yeah, yeah, back in the I mean
Speaker 2: ninety eight we were talking really about it. But Dawn
Speaker 2: and you would not believe how many people in ninety
Speaker 2: eight told me e commerce.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's the thing.
Speaker 2: No, never work, You're an idiot and says, okay whatever.
Speaker 2: But then when I then sold Think Italy, I was
Speaker 2: already into business and I did another master degree in
Speaker 2: business administration. My first one was conservation zoology and actually
Speaker 2: that my love was always there. And then I started
Speaker 2: to work as a business consultant for those companies that
Speaker 2: was pre snowed and those companies who that produce technologies
Speaker 2: for spying basically who taught you that I was just
Speaker 2: doing the business part, so I was just no, I
Speaker 2: was help selling stuff to spies, but not me. But
Speaker 2: I got in contact with a lot of them, of course.
Speaker 1: But I see you go from animal rights activists to businessman,
Speaker 1: security consultant, and then it says he occasionally trained park.
Speaker 2: Rangers, correct, and that trained you. My job was to
Speaker 2: find people to train them. So I was always you know.
Speaker 1: In the train them in terms of but not with
Speaker 1: weaponry as well. Oh really yeah, until trained you, nobody
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 3: My job was just okay, let's find the great trainer
Speaker 3: or you would.
Speaker 1: Have especially the man yeah, exactly doing the train.
Speaker 2: And I was going down in the middle of nowhere
Speaker 2: in Kenya when the Kenye Wildlife Service has a sort
Speaker 2: of a shooting range and the training center, and we
Speaker 2: were there for two weeks, three weeks trying to help
Speaker 2: these rangers too.
Speaker 3: That was was twenty ten.
Speaker 2: We were right in the middle of the elephant poaching
Speaker 2: crisis and we were losing twenty five.
Speaker 1: Where's the training center, what part of the.
Speaker 3: It's near Sao National So when.
Speaker 1: You're there, those rangers are under what flag? Meaning they
Speaker 1: were service Keny that's the National wild to protect all cares.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they were very undertrained there in their whip
Speaker 2: you know they were.
Speaker 1: I think that the wealth of Kenya interns.
Speaker 2: I know that they didn't some of them didn't have shoes,
Speaker 2: I mean really really, and they were up to train poachers.
Speaker 1: And they couldn't pay them very much. No, not very much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. We thought, okay, let's that was the beginning.
Speaker 2: And that I and this is when you know, the
Speaker 2: will started to in my head said, okay, wait a second.
Speaker 2: I went out many times with them. I witnessed those terribles,
Speaker 2: you know, seeing that you can imagine, you know, an
Speaker 2: entire family of elephants Gonne down with Ak forty seven
Speaker 2: and and I could see almost you know when you're
Speaker 2: see in comics like a question mark on the head
Speaker 2: of the Rangers. And back then the whole world international
Speaker 2: community was asking them, the Rangers.
Speaker 3: To solve the problem. And I thought, that's unfair.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, elephant poaching and ivory trafficking is
Speaker 2: like you can it's under environmental crime. We're talking about
Speaker 2: the fourth largest criminal enterprise in the world, up more
Speaker 2: than two hundred billions of dollars every year, and you're
Speaker 2: asking the Rangers to solve the problem. It's like asking
Speaker 2: for exactly so It's like it's like asking your you know,
Speaker 2: the La County sheriff to solve narco trafficking.
Speaker 3: It's not their job.
Speaker 2: So because of my past and here we come to
Speaker 2: you know, the circle is because of my past and
Speaker 2: working with intelligence agency. I asked, okay, but who is
Speaker 2: using professional intelligence. I'm talking about CIA kind of intelligence
Speaker 2: to fight back because the problem is not the poachers,
Speaker 2: is the traffickers in international traffickers, trafficking networks, organized crime.
Speaker 2: And the answer was nobody. And so I said, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do it. I mean, I didn't know
Speaker 2: how difficult it would would be big, but I said, okay,
Speaker 2: So I stopped what I was doing. Back then, I
Speaker 2: was in Kenya. My job was a security consultant again,
Speaker 2: hiring the right people for the former Prime Minister of
Speaker 2: Somalia who had huge security problems with the terrorist group
Speaker 2: al Shabab. You know, that was the time when al
Speaker 2: Shabab controlled all Somalia and also part of Kenya. So
Speaker 2: this guy had and I was there for this reason,
Speaker 2: and I said, okay, I think it's time to go
Speaker 2: back to my roots today. And I was born with
Speaker 2: this huge love for animals and for wild life and
Speaker 2: this huge desire to protect them.
Speaker 3: And I said, how I'm going to do it.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to create the first intelligence agency for
Speaker 2: the first CIA for the planet. And I start looking
Speaker 2: for the right people because it's not easy, of course,
Speaker 2: form a CIA from FBI crime analyst under separators to point.
Speaker 2: The selling point was, I remember to Mark Davis is
Speaker 2: my right hand right now, twenty eight years with the FBI,
Speaker 2: one of the most successful undercover agents in the history
Speaker 2: of the FBI. We're actually doing a documentary about him.
Speaker 2: And I told him, listen, Mark, you were under cover
Speaker 2: with Chapon, Escobar, Russia mafia, Italian mafia, pedophile, corrupt government official.
Speaker 2: I have the biggest, most important war you ever fought
Speaker 2: in your life, and it's the war for Earth. And
Speaker 2: that's it was sold. It's instantaneously.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And he is best San Diego and he's an incredible person.
Speaker 2: You can imagine twenty eight years with and the agency
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: And what did you tell him that you wanted him
Speaker 1: to do? You wanted him to do what.
Speaker 2: The task was to build, to build a brand new
Speaker 2: organization with former CIA FBI.
Speaker 1: What budget?
Speaker 2: Now I have the budget, but back back then I
Speaker 2: was I was really crazy. I mean I was, and
Speaker 2: he marked to his credit he has been working for me,
Speaker 2: for us for many years. We started to pay him
Speaker 2: this year. Okay, this is extraordinary.
Speaker 1: People.
Speaker 2: So they volunteered, volunteer, some of them absolutely him first
Speaker 2: of all. So and so slowly we started to create
Speaker 2: this mini Meani Intelligence Agency with the task. The objective
Speaker 2: is to investigate and collect intelligence at the highest possible
Speaker 2: level from these international trafficking networks. And when you go
Speaker 2: so high in the network as not environmental crime anymore,
Speaker 2: there is a lot of what is called crime convergence,
Speaker 2: so the convergence of environmental crimes with other serious crimes,
Speaker 2: money laundering, human smuggling, human trafficking, arco traffic, same people,
Speaker 2: same networks.
Speaker 3: They can offer you.
Speaker 2: Same infrastructure, same infrastructure, same people to bribe and during
Speaker 2: a meeting, they can offer you three tons of shark fins,
Speaker 2: three under jaguar fanks, two tons of ivory. But I
Speaker 2: also I also smuggled exactly exactly, and that's what was
Speaker 2: till now, that was the layer of the problem, completely
Speaker 2: misunderstood actually unknown also by law enforcement. And that's why
Speaker 2: it's precious what we do because we're we have under
Speaker 2: COVID teams who are that are in the field.
Speaker 3: Get you know, the.
Speaker 2: Kind of work we do is a sort of sophisticated
Speaker 2: social engineering work. In other words, we are really good
Speaker 2: in becoming your friend. And when we are friends, you
Speaker 2: are gonna tell me everything I need to know of
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: And why do you think I'm going to get to
Speaker 1: that in terms of your methodology, because I have read
Speaker 1: that in the article. That was a great article. So
Speaker 1: how do you get them to talk? How do you
Speaker 1: get them to trust?
Speaker 3: Your trust?
Speaker 2: That's the magic world, and so you have to take
Speaker 2: your time to establish trust with these people.
Speaker 1: Give me an example of someone you're after, why and
Speaker 1: what do you do? What do you say to him
Speaker 1: or her?
Speaker 2: So, first of all, there's work done before through our
Speaker 2: content because we operate like a small agency, so we
Speaker 2: are crude sources and informants on the ground, doesn't matter
Speaker 2: where Colombia, South Africa, Mexico doesn't matter. And they tell
Speaker 2: us who are the big players, and then we send
Speaker 2: another team and their team is to become their friends.
Speaker 2: So they introduce themselves as businessmen, as potential traffickers. We
Speaker 2: never do anything illegal. We never buy anything illegal, which
Speaker 2: is really good in listening. We also use a lot
Speaker 2: of under COVID devices to capture videos and conversations, so
Speaker 2: we produce a ton of intelligence and over a period
Speaker 2: of time, their job is to become their friends. And
Speaker 2: so they these people, the targets, the traffickers. They have
Speaker 2: to see in our people a potential gain and put
Speaker 2: potential money down the road. Okay, so we have to play.
Speaker 2: It's like acting for these people pretty much. And until
Speaker 2: you get to a point where there is trust, there
Speaker 2: is friendship. So they invite you, Hey, when are you
Speaker 2: coming back again to Columbia? When are you coming back
Speaker 2: again to Thailand? Because we have I have have these
Speaker 2: have that are you in. They want to do business,
Speaker 2: They want to do business. You lead them to you
Speaker 2: lead them to believe you're there to do business or
Speaker 2: or even better not me business, but I know somebody
Speaker 2: because this money. Yeah, and this allows us to stretch
Speaker 2: it even more because the point is to spend with
Speaker 2: them as much time as possible. Right, So if you
Speaker 2: say I'm the buy exactly, if I'm the buyer, okay,
Speaker 2: how many time you want to meet them with exactly?
Speaker 2: So it's no my boss is in here, isn't there?
Speaker 2: And so with that we sometimes stay with them two
Speaker 2: three years, so dangling, and they invite us to family
Speaker 2: events wedding, birthday, and we go there and we film
Speaker 2: and record everything and everything is then passed to our
Speaker 2: crime analyst who receives like an incredible amount of information.
Speaker 2: And that's the second part, very interesting, so data processing
Speaker 2: and they understand figured out what we get.
Speaker 3: But that's this is how we work.
Speaker 1: And I'm seeing a movie now. Oh yeah, I'm seeing
Speaker 1: a movie now where like The Godfather, you're at the
Speaker 1: airport and all the containers are filled with rhino horn
Speaker 1: and the cops come to bust the guy that you've
Speaker 1: been soliciting for two years and he's in shock because
Speaker 1: he thought you and he were best friends, and you
Speaker 1: just kiss him on the mouth of Francesco. I am
Speaker 1: so sorry, and he just take it up. He goes
Speaker 1: to prison for twenty years and you've been working on
Speaker 1: this case for a while.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And what happens with the exception is that we
Speaker 2: usually disappear a little before the arrest or the action,
Speaker 2: and best case scenario is when the bad guys do
Speaker 2: not understand what went wrong, Okay, well, I don't even
Speaker 2: think you're to blame exactly, and we were so.
Speaker 1: Operating in that sphere with us.
Speaker 3: Exactly, wise it will be over right.
Speaker 2: So, of course, as you can imagine, our field operators,
Speaker 2: their identity is confidential even within our organization. There are
Speaker 2: no pictures of them, and of course it's it's a
Speaker 2: very delicate job they do.
Speaker 1: Of course, are you Are you concerned since the article
Speaker 1: came out now that people know who you are?
Speaker 3: No about me, not really, I mean that ship. You're
Speaker 3: not the sale already.
Speaker 1: I mean you're not the face of a lot of
Speaker 1: these operations.
Speaker 3: You never No, I cannot be people who you've.
Speaker 1: Trained and who work for you there the operative.
Speaker 3: Absolutely No.
Speaker 2: My job is when we have enough information is to
Speaker 2: engage government agency and local enforcement, including in the US,
Speaker 2: and say hey, we have this information, we have this intelligence.
Speaker 3: I think it's interesting.
Speaker 2: And the beauty of crime convergence, or the convergence without
Speaker 2: a serious crime, is that if you approach like it
Speaker 2: happened in a US law enforcement agency, a big one,
Speaker 2: and say hey, I have a case about this guy
Speaker 2: and he's a big shark trafficker, they say thank you,
Speaker 2: But you know, we have a lot of work. But
Speaker 2: if I say that the same guy is into international
Speaker 2: money laundering and human smuggling, human trafficking, all of.
Speaker 3: A sudden, you just have their attention. And that's my
Speaker 3: whole point. Okay, I'm going to bring you a good case.
Speaker 1: It's like a poison pill.
Speaker 3: You can take the credit, you can arrest them.
Speaker 2: It's fine as long as I can work behind the scene,
Speaker 2: as long as you put them away for a longer
Speaker 2: period of time. Because sometimes if you arrest these people
Speaker 2: for environmental crime or wildlife trafficking, they get maybe a
Speaker 2: few weeks or a year of if but if you're
Speaker 2: arresting for money laundering, oh that's different.
Speaker 1: Is that typically the goal is is that the reality
Speaker 1: meaning you have to accept this compromise. And I'm gladly
Speaker 1: because you're getting your work done, but you have to
Speaker 1: accept this compromise whereby you have to embed it inside
Speaker 1: these other things. They're never going to act just on
Speaker 1: the spirit of the animal protection and animal rights alone.
Speaker 1: They won't do that.
Speaker 3: No, they will do it. Only they started to do it.
Speaker 2: You know, there are for example, US Homeland Security just
Speaker 2: launcher like a new unit deDion.
Speaker 3: Correct, So that's great news.
Speaker 2: So they will they will have money and they have
Speaker 2: certainly they have the mandate now to do it. And
Speaker 2: we also help them as well with information. So that's
Speaker 2: the that's the goal, is to have these big agencies
Speaker 2: like gorillas, Yeah, with money jumping into the fight.
Speaker 1: Where around the world would you say, do you enjoy
Speaker 1: the highest level of cooperation.
Speaker 3: One for sure?
Speaker 2: The US, it is yes, absolutely, we WI We have
Speaker 2: been sharing confidential information. We produce those reports that we
Speaker 2: call confidential intelligence briefs and with many US agency and
Speaker 2: they're acting on the information. In the past couple of years,
Speaker 2: we help a public prosecutor in Mexico to arrest people,
Speaker 2: We help a public prosecutor in Bolivia to arrest people.
Speaker 3: They do it.
Speaker 2: The problem is that a like the US in almost
Speaker 2: any other country, they don't have the capability.
Speaker 3: To investigate these people.
Speaker 2: Just too high, okay, And so when we give information
Speaker 2: to the US authorities, they can redo what we did
Speaker 2: and collect evidence and actually do even more than that.
Speaker 3: Of course you can imagine, right, But.
Speaker 2: When you share information with Bolivia, Colombian, Thai or South Africa,
Speaker 2: you just have to direct them toward Okay, go to
Speaker 2: this place now and you will find these and these
Speaker 2: and these, and you can arrest them and they do it. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: they don't have the capacity to do more.
Speaker 1: So you're like dogs who sniff out the crime and
Speaker 1: sniff out the people. Then you have to turn it
Speaker 1: over to somebody else.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Now, one would assume only because of money. I don't
Speaker 1: want to speak ill of the policies or the people
Speaker 1: for that matter, of places like Africa and India, but
Speaker 1: I would imagine because of budgets and money that those
Speaker 1: are some of the toughest places for you to deal
Speaker 1: with what you are rich in these resources and have
Speaker 1: no money to defend.
Speaker 2: Them, sometimes also no interest Sadly, environmental crime in many
Speaker 2: countries is not a priority. It's saying okay, it's nature,
Speaker 2: it's animals, whatever, you know.
Speaker 1: So the human compoundent is viewed as part of the cycle.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: So the agents not only under resources but also underfunded,
Speaker 2: but also the people are are not people of the will, no,
Speaker 2: and they from the top, from policy makers, from the officials,
Speaker 2: big of you know, important officials or minis. Even the
Speaker 2: minis sometimes they don't have a clear mandate or what
Speaker 2: to do on.
Speaker 3: Top of it.
Speaker 2: What we do in the field, we often uncover corruption
Speaker 2: at the highest level.
Speaker 3: Okay, and they what do you do them? And they
Speaker 3: don't like exactly and they don't like it?
Speaker 1: What are you doing? You go home?
Speaker 3: No, we share with US authorities days.
Speaker 1: So the US ever taken any actions on that information.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely they did.
Speaker 2: They did, And actually there was an important arrest in
Speaker 2: southern California, San Diego end of May this year, and
Speaker 2: that was I cannot give you too many details, but
Speaker 2: it's basically that was our work for almost two years
Speaker 2: and they took down three of the most important, in
Speaker 2: my opinion, whilelife traffics that've been operating between Mexico and
Speaker 2: the US and China, because a lot of stuff goes
Speaker 2: to China. And that's a great example of us doing
Speaker 2: the first part of the job, and they do.
Speaker 3: What they're supposed to do.
Speaker 1: Of course, Earth League internationals Andrea Krosta. If you enjoy
Speaker 1: conversations with activists fighting for animal rights, check out my
Speaker 1: episode with the co founder of People for the Ethical
Speaker 1: Treatment of Animals, Ingrid Newkirk.
Speaker 4: There was a time when hunting was what many people
Speaker 4: had to do to survive, and just as other animals hunt,
Speaker 4: some humans had to hunt. I think those times have
Speaker 4: also largely gone, and most people who hunt today are
Speaker 4: not just getting one caribou to put it on the table.
Speaker 3: It does happen.
Speaker 4: I think being pragmatic is very good. You have to
Speaker 4: have your head in the sky and your feet on
Speaker 4: the ground. But we're looking at you know, Donald Trump
Speaker 4: Junior going out to put a head on his wall.
Speaker 1: That's a different story. To hear more of my conversation
Speaker 1: with Ingrid Newkirk, go to Hear's Thething dot org. After
Speaker 1: the break, Andrea Crosta shares how we are at a
Speaker 1: now or never moment for rescuing our ecosystem. I'm Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. The illegal
Speaker 1: slaughter of wildlife for human consumption in food or medicine
Speaker 1: is well documented. Most of us are aware of shark
Speaker 1: vin soup or rhino horn virility pills. But there is
Speaker 1: a rare animal, very much at risk that is not
Speaker 1: getting the same attention as the others. Earth League International's
Speaker 1: founder Andrea Crosta is fighting to save a porpoise called
Speaker 1: the Wakita in the Sea of Cortez. This little known
Speaker 1: marine mammal is dying in the guild nets of fishermen
Speaker 1: as they pursue a fish called the toto waba.
Speaker 2: So the whole story of the wakita is one of
Speaker 2: the most bizarre stories I ever because it's the wakita
Speaker 2: is the rarest marine mammal in the world, you know.
Speaker 3: And sadly now.
Speaker 1: The baby whale, it's sort of a baby.
Speaker 2: Was really exactly a miniature twin whale and dolphin. Correct,
Speaker 2: And it's endemic of the Sea of Cortes. Ba Californas
Speaker 2: are only there and now probably less than ten survive
Speaker 2: in the whole Sea of Cortez. Okay, they are at
Speaker 2: what like on literally on the brink of extinction, and
Speaker 2: the reason.
Speaker 3: Is because they die as bycatch in those nets.
Speaker 2: But those nets are actually for a fish called toto aba,
Speaker 2: and the swim bladder of the toto aaba is actually
Speaker 2: they what we're looking for. So it's from medicine, for
Speaker 2: traditional Chinese medicine.
Speaker 3: So they put this.
Speaker 1: The Chinese wanted to toaba from Mexico.
Speaker 3: Swim bladder just swim describe.
Speaker 1: Of the Chinese allowed by any kind of territorial agreements.
Speaker 1: I mean that water off the coast of Baja California
Speaker 1: must belong to some government entity in Mexico, of course,
Speaker 1: allowing the Chinese to take all that.
Speaker 3: No, but there is not nothing that is being smuggled.
Speaker 3: It's crime. It's one hundred percent crime living.
Speaker 1: Based on the other things you said that a lot
Speaker 1: of the people who are doing the smuggling are also
Speaker 1: drug dealers who are.
Speaker 3: Smuggling because they make a lot of money.
Speaker 1: You know, you have the pathways the rahaps.
Speaker 2: Imagine one swim bladder, which is a swim better Okay,
Speaker 2: we're talking about a swim letter of a fish. In
Speaker 2: Baja California, the fishing cooperatives and the fishers make three
Speaker 2: thousand dollars per swim bladder. Usually they make six hundred
Speaker 2: dollars a month fishing.
Speaker 1: So you can.
Speaker 2: Imagine the temptation. How That's why sometimes my whole bottle
Speaker 2: was Hey, stop pointing the finger towards to theatres and
Speaker 2: the illegal fishermen.
Speaker 3: You don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: You don't know what is to live there in the
Speaker 2: middle of nowhere, with no state, no jobs, no nothing,
Speaker 2: no security.
Speaker 3: Of course they do it.
Speaker 2: The problem are the traffickers go after them, not after
Speaker 2: the posers. Okay, you make six hundred dollars a month fishing,
Speaker 2: and one swim bladder is three thousand dollars, of course
Speaker 2: you do it. So the swim bladder three thousand dollars
Speaker 2: apiece in the Sea of Cortes and then this strange
Speaker 2: illegal supply chain begins through Mexico, through the US all
Speaker 2: the way to China, and in China the same swim
Speaker 2: bladder goes for forty fifty, sixty, even seventy thousand dollars
Speaker 2: third piece. And that's why then art courts and organized
Speaker 2: crime jump in because it's a lot of money with
Speaker 2: almost zero resk. Because you're not dealing with cocaine or stuff.
Speaker 2: You're right be dealing with swim bladders. Nobody cares, but
Speaker 2: it's a lot of money.
Speaker 1: It's ironic to me, and it's not lost on me
Speaker 1: that there's duplicative in terms of this. They toto waba
Speaker 1: swim bladder issue in the Sea of Cortez and the
Speaker 1: drugs themselves. Meaning we've had a policy for forty something
Speaker 1: years in this country of interdiction and only going after
Speaker 1: the producers and not going to the demand and trying
Speaker 1: to stop the demand because these poor people are going
Speaker 1: to produce it and trying to make money anyway that
Speaker 1: they can, and it mimics the same thing in the
Speaker 1: drug world as it does.
Speaker 2: And they today I read that in Colombia for another year,
Speaker 2: they're cultivating more cocaine than last year. So it's growing
Speaker 2: because these are poor people who have nothing else to do,
Speaker 2: and yet they became the villain. And what I'm keep
Speaker 2: saying is the villain is not the poacher. The villain
Speaker 2: is not the compass, you know. The villain is the
Speaker 2: trafficker who lives in Park.
Speaker 1: Avenue by the way, Miami.
Speaker 3: Oh exactly.
Speaker 1: Now, when I was younger, the portal for me into
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff was my ex wife, who
Speaker 1: was a big animal rights person and is a big
Speaker 1: animal rights person, and she introduced me to different people.
Speaker 1: We met, you know, in the early days. We met
Speaker 1: Alex Pacheco when he was still involved with Peter and
Speaker 1: then he left, Ingrid Newkirk, who co founded with Alex.
Speaker 1: There's people who this is such a cause for them,
Speaker 1: this is such a burning ache in them, how these
Speaker 1: animals are treated. They open up there will they give
Speaker 1: you a lot of money, They give you a lot
Speaker 1: of money, and I'm wondering if that same with you.
Speaker 1: Do you find people who really are No, we gotta
Speaker 1: work on. I gotta give you a phone couple of
Speaker 1: phone numbers.
Speaker 3: I know one reason. One reason, because I really suck.
Speaker 2: If you put me in a room fundraising, I will
Speaker 2: leave the room giving money to somebody. So my team said, Andrea,
Speaker 2: come at the very end. Okay, But the point is
Speaker 2: it's easier to raise money when you deal with animals directly.
Speaker 2: I mean, you rescue elephants, you rescue dogs, or you
Speaker 2: rescue baby elephants in Kenya.
Speaker 3: Then you have what they're.
Speaker 2: Buying, so to speak, when they give you the money.
Speaker 2: Is this the emotion of rescuing a creature living creature?
Speaker 2: I mean on the spot, probably right, because you can
Speaker 2: give them money so I know that the elephant is
Speaker 2: safe in our case, they first to I mean the
Speaker 2: business of keeping the animals alive in the wild. In
Speaker 2: terms of visual, for example, I produce a lot of
Speaker 2: undercover footage of bad, bad people trafficking parts. Okay, that's
Speaker 2: it's not that as sexy as Okay, look at this
Speaker 2: baby elephant or look at this. Please help me if
Speaker 2: I always make the joke in Los Angeles if I
Speaker 2: go around with the photo of a baby elf and
Speaker 2: there is millions of dollars in an evening. But if
Speaker 2: I go around like I do, say, actually, we need
Speaker 2: time to work on this network for two years, but
Speaker 2: they're responsible for the killing of thousands of elephants for
Speaker 2: the ivory. But any time, and maybe you will not
Speaker 2: see everything we do because it's dangerous. It's confidentially, so
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I will share with you so that you
Speaker 2: see where I'm going. So the whole thing is way
Speaker 2: more complicated for us. From our website, you understand, but
Speaker 2: not so much. The only way to understand what we
Speaker 2: do is to it's meeting with me or Mark Davis,
Speaker 2: my right art. Otherwise you will miss most of the
Speaker 2: work that we do. So law enforcement and other professionals
Speaker 2: appreciate a lot what we do because they get it.
Speaker 2: But with the public, it's a whole different story.
Speaker 1: Now this also leads me to you know, I'm in
Speaker 1: rooms with people all over the country. In Washington, New York, LA.
Speaker 1: When Tom Freston ran Paramount Pictures and his wife his
Speaker 1: ex wife Kathy Preston, was a huge and is a
Speaker 1: huge animal rights supporter. This was how we got to
Speaker 1: have the PEEDA fundraiser on the lot of paramount. But
Speaker 1: the idea is for most people, beyond pets, beyond a
Speaker 1: dog or a cated domestic animal, the relationship with all
Speaker 1: other animals is a meal on plates. How do you
Speaker 1: get people who have the money, perhaps, how do you
Speaker 1: get them to care? But what do they give a
Speaker 1: shit about rhino horn?
Speaker 3: Exactly? What do you tell them exactly?
Speaker 2: So my pitch now is that at the level we work,
Speaker 2: we are really talking about industrial scale criminal exploitation of nature.
Speaker 3: So it's destroying the planet.
Speaker 2: It's destroying and entire We have a project now in
Speaker 2: the Amazon on deforestation, land grabbing, and then how they
Speaker 2: use this land for cattle and the meat. So they're
Speaker 2: destroying our planets. So even if you don't care about animals,
Speaker 2: it's important for our future to stop these criminal enterprises.
Speaker 3: And by the way, what they do also has.
Speaker 2: An impact on climate change as well. When destroying the forest,
Speaker 2: when you're emptying the oceans, it will have repercussions also
Speaker 2: on climate change. Unfortunately, climate change, in my opinion, is
Speaker 2: a very self center narrative. It's mostly about us human
Speaker 2: We are afraid. Okay, you're going very rarely. You hear
Speaker 2: what about biodiversity? I mean we are destroying what's that?
Speaker 1: What's that word?
Speaker 3: Anthropocent interpose totally intra percent. You know, we are afraid
Speaker 3: of we are afraid. But that's that's what it is about. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: so I tried.
Speaker 2: For example, we are we've been working on a network
Speaker 2: of track trafficing network in operating between Peru Ecuador. They're
Speaker 2: responsible alone for half a million sharks every year. Okay,
Speaker 2: so before understanding our impact, you have to understand the
Speaker 2: impact of these networks, how they're destroyed, and how it
Speaker 2: is important to stop them. Otherwise the next generation we
Speaker 2: keep talking about, oh hey, let's do our best to
Speaker 2: protect as much as we can, so the next generation
Speaker 2: will find something. Well, I app news for you. If
Speaker 2: you continue like this, they will find nothing. There's nothing
Speaker 2: to protect. Even if they will come up with the
Speaker 2: best possible solution, there will be nothing to protect. So
Speaker 2: most of the species and ecosystem and wild spaces do
Speaker 2: not have the time for a generational change.
Speaker 3: It's now or never.
Speaker 1: Animal activist Andrea Crosta, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell
Speaker 1: a friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: When we come back, Andrea Croster shares his experiences meeting
Speaker 1: wildlife traffickers on the ground. I'm Alec Baldwin and you
Speaker 1: were listening to Here's the Thing. In the early days
Speaker 1: of Earth League International, Andrea Kroster was given a crash
Speaker 1: course in some of the darkest parts of humanity, those
Speaker 1: people willing to hurt vulnerable animals for profit. That knowledge
Speaker 1: came at a price, one which included his marriage at
Speaker 1: the time. Kroster has since rebounded and re partnered.
Speaker 2: That was the early days when I had to go
Speaker 2: through educate myself. So I it took a toll on you.
Speaker 2: Of course, it was a cost for you. It was painful,
Speaker 2: was paid. It would be for anybody. No, and I
Speaker 2: was also probably not prepared. But I had to do
Speaker 2: it because you had to see what you're fighting. And
Speaker 2: so progress at Detroy, my soul at destroy and the
Speaker 2: marriage by the way, and that makes you sick and
Speaker 2: makes you sick. I moved to Los Angeles. I got
Speaker 2: an informa in Los Angeles. I took you know and
Speaker 2: all this while trying to fundraise and work right, and
Speaker 2: and then after the informat it was COVID for two
Speaker 2: three years. So it was just a mess. And I
Speaker 2: never gave up. I never saw okay, that's that's enough.
Speaker 2: Maybe okay the tallest tootle now, I never said that
Speaker 2: we could, you know, with my small team, we continue
Speaker 2: to work throughout well informa throughout the COVID, But on
Speaker 2: a personal level, I was dead broken, broken completely. I
Speaker 2: was just living with my dog Argus in Marianda in
Speaker 2: my apartment. And then that's of course you Argosia from
Speaker 2: from the Olysses, So Argus first and Sophia later.
Speaker 3: Literally you know when you when where did you meet her? Friends?
Speaker 3: In in in Los Angeles?
Speaker 2: And and she has a really she is a nurse
Speaker 2: for you know, for working or children. I see us
Speaker 2: are really you can imagine the grounded, grounded or and
Speaker 2: I needed somebody like this to, you know, to pull
Speaker 2: me up. I was ready to continue with my work,
Speaker 2: but trading off my personal life. You know, when you think, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going.
Speaker 1: To sacrifice one, you're going to continue, We're.
Speaker 2: Going to continue, going to bust the ass of these people.
Speaker 2: That's what I The reason I'm on this earth is
Speaker 2: to protect the animals and doesn't matter what happens to me.
Speaker 1: Do you think things have changed in the time you've
Speaker 1: done this, Have things gotten better or people's attitudes towards
Speaker 1: I mean to me, the most profound thing, or among
Speaker 1: the many profound things you say, is their understanding of
Speaker 1: the entire ecosystem correct, and that wildlife conservation is a
Speaker 1: part of the ecosystem. Especially with fishing. You see what
Speaker 1: you can take all those fish out of the water.
Speaker 1: What's going to happen? Do you think things are improving?
Speaker 2: Maybe locally here and there. It's all about you know,
Speaker 2: with everything, it's all about people. If the right people
Speaker 2: is doing the right thing in the right place, things
Speaker 2: will change. Globally, I don't think so, And I think
Speaker 2: one of the reasons is because again, environmental protection is
Speaker 2: still not a priority. The climate change movement is ultra
Speaker 2: focus on fossil fuel and this and that, but it's
Speaker 2: not it comprehensive enough, exactly, not comprehensive enough. On the
Speaker 2: other hand, what is moving finally, especially in the US,
Speaker 2: is that the government, government agencies and big law enforcement
Speaker 2: agencies are finally getting what is happening, and they're willing
Speaker 2: to do something about it. But of course the US,
Speaker 2: I mean, what you're going to do, and you know,
Speaker 2: to change things in the Amazon, for example, you need
Speaker 2: the Brazilian government, you need the Columbian government to do something,
Speaker 2: and how.
Speaker 3: How do you do it? I honestly, I don't have
Speaker 3: the answer for that.
Speaker 2: I mean I see myself as you know, running, you
Speaker 2: know the relay run in the Olympics. You know, when
Speaker 2: you run and you pass the baton to somebody else.
Speaker 3: That's my role.
Speaker 2: So I'm running as fast as I can, and I'm
Speaker 2: doing as much as I can, and then I will
Speaker 2: pass the baton to someone else and someone else because
Speaker 2: I'm the more I work now and the more he
Speaker 2: or she will find alive, and then it's her job
Speaker 2: or his job to continue. I don't think I will
Speaker 2: see a change in my life.
Speaker 1: I want you to describe two different people you may
Speaker 1: have met. I'm assuming you have met, and I want
Speaker 1: to start with have you ever met a trafficker? Have
Speaker 1: you ever seen it? Talk to a traffic Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we described the country, where were you the circumstances? What
Speaker 1: did they tell you?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: It's a long lead.
Speaker 2: I have a long I mean, we can do ten
Speaker 2: different movies just from our stories. It's funny because we
Speaker 2: recently started to produce also on top of our intelligence,
Speaker 2: were also producing profiles, psychological profiles of the traffickers to
Speaker 2: help law enforcement and agencies to understand who is this
Speaker 2: who this guy. The big difference is that on top
Speaker 2: of environmental criminal networks and trafficking networks, unlike narco trafficking,
Speaker 2: they are businessmen. So first of all, they're business and
Speaker 2: they do a lot of criminal stuff, but they're business.
Speaker 2: They make a lot of money also from legal stuff.
Speaker 2: Actually they are masters in overlapping legal and illegal. So
Speaker 2: they have import, export, supermarket, restaurants, all kinds of businesses,
Speaker 2: real estate, and on top of it, they also do
Speaker 2: all kinds of trafficking and also not only I mean
Speaker 2: we're not talking about again, while trafficing, illegal log illegal fishing,
Speaker 2: illegal mining is a big thing as well.
Speaker 3: Some of them are I would say, funny people.
Speaker 2: I having a couple of them in mind, and every
Speaker 2: time my mind, the COVID team comes back home and
Speaker 2: we do the debrief and we discuss what they did.
Speaker 2: They also they always say this guy are funny. They
Speaker 2: know how to live. They have no clue what they're doing,
Speaker 2: I mean the destruction that they don't care about it.
Speaker 3: They are usually very rich.
Speaker 2: They have ties with hundred percent criminal organizations and narco
Speaker 2: trafficking for example, and they are really really good in
Speaker 2: doing certain things without doing too much. For example, a
Speaker 2: lot of the traffickers we have been investigating in the
Speaker 2: past few years, they lounder the money for organized crime
Speaker 2: and arco traffickers. They will never do drugs themselves, but
Speaker 2: they are really good in laundering the money. And organized
Speaker 2: crime and arco trafficing organization have the need of a
Speaker 2: big they have to lounder a lot of money, a
Speaker 2: lot of cash. They sit on cash in the US
Speaker 2: as well, right, they don't know what to do with
Speaker 2: all this cash. They're really good in doing that, so
Speaker 2: they mix. They constantly mixed cousins. Absolutely, yeah, and that's
Speaker 2: the same family. Absolutely, And that's the opportunity actually, because
Speaker 2: while environmental crime and while trafficking and illegal logging whatever,
Speaker 2: it has a lot of similarities with narco trafficking, with
Speaker 2: one very important difference. At the top of an arco
Speaker 2: trafficking organization, you have a big narcos, a big trafficker,
Speaker 2: and you have zero average on this person. You kill
Speaker 2: him or jailim. It's not you cannot do anything else.
Speaker 2: And if you kill him somebody else, we can't part
Speaker 2: with him. On the top of who runs the show,
Speaker 2: environmental crime, the trafficking, they are businessmen. They make a
Speaker 2: lot of money also from legal businesses. So my job
Speaker 2: is to raise their cost of business, going after them
Speaker 2: in a way there were nobody else, nobody ever, you know,
Speaker 2: went after them like that, raise the cost of business,
Speaker 2: arrest a bunch of them, and eventually hopefully push them
Speaker 2: out of it.
Speaker 1: They don't want to but they don't want to go
Speaker 1: to prison. Of course. People on the narco trafficking, then
Speaker 1: they assume either they're going to pay off the cops
Speaker 1: they shoot their way exactly. But eventually they realized they
Speaker 1: might go to prison exactly.
Speaker 3: And they know they know right, but not these people.
Speaker 2: I don't want to go to the prison, of course,
Speaker 2: so Mike, no, So I'm trying to change the game
Speaker 2: in this way. Forget about the ports, forget about the
Speaker 2: little little fish, go after these people, show them that
Speaker 2: they are not ghosts anymore. Because these people are ghosts
Speaker 2: are no names, no face. My job is to give
Speaker 2: a face and a name to ghost, and to do
Speaker 2: that I use my ghost. Okay, so it's a battle
Speaker 2: between ghosts. But the end game is at the end
Speaker 2: this guy will have a name, will have a face,
Speaker 2: and usually we provide intelligence about these people with you.
Speaker 2: You had to understand you our reports are maybe you
Speaker 2: will find fifty pages of intelligence about one single person.
Speaker 2: So imagine how much you can do as law enforcement
Speaker 2: agency about this person if you want to.
Speaker 1: You know John Hume, the character movie Trophy. In the
Speaker 1: movie Trophy, what did you think about that argument where
Speaker 1: he says, I've got to we have to kill some
Speaker 1: of these animals, and we have to let people come
Speaker 1: here and shoot some of these animals so I can
Speaker 1: monetize the product to save the animals. I don't have
Speaker 1: any budget. What do you think of that?
Speaker 3: So I know stuff about him that I cannot share here, just.
Speaker 1: To begin, I would imagine, but he it.
Speaker 3: Wasn't the news a few days ago.
Speaker 2: He recently managed finally to sell his property, the whole
Speaker 2: property thing, with all the rhinos included.
Speaker 1: And he has a huge vault of horn.
Speaker 2: Exactly, So apparently when I heard the news, because he's
Speaker 2: selling this this I don't know how many rhinos I think,
Speaker 2: I don't know to Angil. Actually it's a big one
Speaker 2: of the largest environmental organization in the world to African parks.
Speaker 2: So they take in it and they it's a great
Speaker 2: It's a strange idea, but okay, I can see the point.
Speaker 2: And when I when someone asked me, you know, in
Speaker 2: an interview, my reaction, the first thing I said was,
Speaker 2: is he allowed to keep this stockpile because.
Speaker 3: He's sitting on hundreds of millions.
Speaker 1: Of dollars of horns But there's a band on horns still.
Speaker 2: Absolutely apparently apparently, I don't know, if it's true, he will,
Speaker 2: he will be forced to destroy it. But because of course,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you cannot. I'm completely against the
Speaker 2: legal trade of this, of ivory or rhino.
Speaker 3: You just fuel the demand.
Speaker 2: And again, let's not forget we are dealing with Asia,
Speaker 2: so two three billion people.
Speaker 3: You don't want to fuel the demand.
Speaker 2: Of anything with exactly it's not Rhode Island, okay, it's Asia, Okay.
Speaker 2: So so yeah, it's an interesting story. And he for
Speaker 2: mister Hume, for many years kept saying Okay, we have
Speaker 2: to sell Rhino a bit of fuel horns to sustain
Speaker 2: the expenses. And I was always against absolutely.
Speaker 1: Someone you worked with and they don't have to be
Speaker 1: somebody who put their lives at risk. But I'm obviously
Speaker 1: I'm thinking along those lines. Someone you work with, who
Speaker 1: you really admired, someone you worked with you thought, my god,
Speaker 1: this person like yourself. They're really committed to the scores
Speaker 1: and they're willing to risk almost anything to follow through. Well.
Speaker 2: One of my is our chief investigator, the head of
Speaker 2: our UNDERCOVID team, is incredible and he does things that,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, nobody else in the world can do.
Speaker 1: And he's not out of it in the press. He
Speaker 1: is still is.
Speaker 2: Not American, and he does He's able to with his
Speaker 2: team and also our guidance because there's a lot of
Speaker 2: preparation before the mission, you know, we try to improvise
Speaker 2: as lot as possible. He's able to really become good
Speaker 2: friend of the worst possible people that you can imagine
Speaker 2: on the planet and then get the kind of information
Speaker 2: that not even the government can get from these people.
Speaker 2: And I'm really proud of my team. I always say
Speaker 2: I'm just I mean Most of the work is my team,
Speaker 2: the undercover guys, the analysts, the people in the field.
Speaker 3: So I coordinated the whole thing. I had the idea.
Speaker 1: But they do that.
Speaker 3: They have to be praised, not really mean.
Speaker 2: I can tell you a little story just to tell
Speaker 2: you how sometimes the value of why is important to
Speaker 2: become their friends.
Speaker 3: Friends of these people.
Speaker 2: We work for more than a year in a Latin
Speaker 2: American country on jaguar trafficking, so that they traffic parts
Speaker 2: of jaguar, mostly.
Speaker 1: South America.
Speaker 2: In Brazil is Pantanalia, but they do it in Colombia
Speaker 2: and Bolivia and Peru and Ecuadora and Surina everywhere, and
Speaker 2: then they ship bones and fangs to Asia because with fangs,
Speaker 2: they like to have fangs, you know, like jewelry and bones.
Speaker 3: They actually do like they do with tiger.
Speaker 2: They actually jaguar bones in Asia is then sold as
Speaker 2: tiger and they do bone wine tiger bone wine to
Speaker 2: enhance your you know, sexuality and stuff like that. But
Speaker 2: they're destroying entire population of jaguars and Latin America. So
Speaker 2: we help a local public prosecutor in Latin America to
Speaker 2: a as the five most important jaguar traffickers in the
Speaker 2: country and we did it very successful.
Speaker 3: We also published something. Then we went back to.
Speaker 2: The same country six months later last year to see
Speaker 2: you know what happened. So the good news is that
Speaker 2: everyone else stopped buying Jaguar, which is exactly my point.
Speaker 2: If you scare them, they will stop, unlike narcle traffickers.
Speaker 2: Believe me, if it's all about the right pressure points.
Speaker 2: If you identify the right pressure point and then you
Speaker 2: have fly pressure, they have fear, they stop. The funny
Speaker 2: thing is that you're out of a movie.
Speaker 3: Believe me. Is true.
Speaker 2: While we were meeting these traffickers, one of them received
Speaker 2: first and SMS and then a call from a policeman
Speaker 2: alerting them about us because they knew but they didn't
Speaker 2: know exactly who we were. So this guy and we
Speaker 2: were filming everything right away in the same time, so
Speaker 2: filming up the cover of course. So this guy the
Speaker 2: traffickers was telling my guy about us without knowing it
Speaker 2: was us.
Speaker 1: Right do you think AI? I mean, AI has become
Speaker 1: a huge watchword in my business, was replaced by AI.
Speaker 1: AI can help you in the work.
Speaker 2: You do eventually, probably, yeah, I mean in terms of
Speaker 2: finding connection when you have a lot of data, and you.
Speaker 3: Have a lot of forks.
Speaker 2: Imagine you have a lot of names and address and
Speaker 2: telephone numbers and emails and reach out accounts and all
Speaker 2: kinds of names, all kinds of alienses, all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 3: I think, Yes, the problem is.
Speaker 2: That all this information you should we should you know,
Speaker 2: there should be one repository, one database with all this information,
Speaker 2: or find a way to in this. Yeah, but I
Speaker 2: want to say, you know, because every time people coming
Speaker 2: up with all kinds of technologies and try to help us,
Speaker 2: and what I answer is yes, but first of all,
Speaker 2: you need human intelligence that only people can do. You
Speaker 2: have to go there, get dirty, go in the middle
Speaker 2: of nowhere, meet these people, understand these people. Okay, intelligence
Speaker 2: come from the Latin intelligure. It doesn't mean to know,
Speaker 2: it means to understand. And if you don't understand, you
Speaker 2: will never have the right tools to fight back.
Speaker 1: Now, in my travels around the world, many places of world,
Speaker 1: no one knows how to relax and enjoy life and
Speaker 1: and and get the most out of like the Italians.
Speaker 3: And you are an Italian and American recently.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're an Italian American, but you are Italian, yeah,
Speaker 1: by birth, and I'm wondering, do you ever get to
Speaker 1: unplug and live like Italians do and enjoy yourself or
Speaker 1: you always plugged in. I'm a bad example of bad Italian.
Speaker 2: I'm an Argus and Sofia again are helping me a
Speaker 2: lot to unplug. And it's so so important because if
Speaker 2: you break, everything breaks.
Speaker 1: Down with you, right, you put a lot of pressure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But on the other hand, I think Italians have
Speaker 2: in their DNA we know how to enjoy ourselves.
Speaker 1: So what do you do when you want to unplug?
Speaker 2: I usually hike on the Santa Monica Mountains with Argus
Speaker 2: and Sofia or on the beach.
Speaker 3: That's it. I love.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm a big, big lover of the Pacific
Speaker 2: Northwest and Rocky Mountains, so whenever is possible, I go
Speaker 2: there and just disappear for a while.
Speaker 1: If I want to wish you the best of luck,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've read this article and I'm so admiring
Speaker 1: of what you do, because you really are fighting what
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the great battles to bring
Speaker 1: to people the understanding that these environmental crimes all are
Speaker 1: of one. Thank you, Andrea Crosta. This episode was recorded
Speaker 1: at CDM Studios in New York City. We're produced by
Speaker 1: Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice, and Maureen Hobin. Our engineer is
Speaker 1: Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing that is brought to you
Speaker 1: by iHeart Radio. The company can make the company