June 28, 2022 • 52 mins
In the first part of this two-episode series, the guys interview the legendary US Customs and Drug Enforcement agent Robert Mazur. Using the cover identity of Bob Musella, Mazur and his team tracked the shadowy financial dealings of drug traffickers all the way to the international bank that aided them - and brought that bank down. Listen in as Mazur gives an eyewitness account of his harrowing experience, close calls, ultimate victory and more.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So every so often we dive into a subject that
we know we're going to return to in the future,
or a subject that is just too big to be
one episode. And that's what we ran into when we
started asking ourselves about banks, drugs, and money. We didn't
do this alone. We did this as part of a
(00:23):
long interview segment with Robert Maser, who is, by the way,
as you'll find in in Part one m Part two,
a really cool guy. He is. We watched a movie
that was based on Robert's work, and it was a
fictionalized telling of his story, but we actually got to
sit down with him and hear it from his own mouth.
(00:44):
It was awesome, cool movie too, by the way, the
Infiltrator check it out and check out this classic episode
right now. From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies,
history is riddled with unexplained events you can turn back
now or and the stuff they don't want you to know.
(01:10):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel, I'm Ben you or you that makes
this stuff they don't want you to know, but not
the average episode of stuff they don't want you to know?
Isn't that right? Guys, we've got a little added value
here in this particular pair of episodes. This is this
our first ever two partner No, I don't think so.
(01:31):
I know we've we split DARPA up into two and
there were a couple other ones that well, this is
definitely our first ever two part interview episode. That's true
about the same thing. So, by way of explanation, ladies
and gentlemen, you have heard Matt Nolan I refer to
UH or allude to various adventures that we've taken, or
(01:52):
new things that we said we're coming or we're on
the way, we get around, we get around and UH,
this time we around to Uh. We got around to
a part of the world, at least socially speaking, that
we haven't really explored into much depth. And that was
a it concerned a tail that is stranger than fiction.
(02:20):
So you've heard of undercover operations, right, Like, what what
exactly is an undercover operation? It's pretty simple. One person
who is usually in law enforcement in some way, pretends
to be let's say, uh, a nefarious gang member from
a different part of town or new to town. But
(02:42):
I'm into all this bad stuff, Like I I like
to let's say launder money, or maybe deal drugs, maybe
torture kittens. Yeah, do one of those things. Get in
with a crew like low level maybe something like that.
And that's a distinction that we need to make right
up front. There are certainly different kinds of undercover operations.
Some might just be for a particular sting where you
(03:05):
have a cop posing as as one of these various
types that you mentioned. But what we're talking about today
is long term, deep undercover operations, which is a whole
another ball game, a very dangerous one indeed. So just
to illustrate the difference pretty quickly, one of the rules
has always keep things as close to the truth as possible,
(03:27):
so you don't compromise your actual identity. So Matt Frederick then,
for instance, if is it okay if we make you
street level? Sure, okay. So Matt Frederick then is assigned
to do some street level infiltration of maybe someone's selling
what's a drug? Well, I have to go in and
(03:48):
infiltrate stringer bells like low level crew. So I've got
again get in with the the group who's selling drugs
out of the the apartment. Yeah, so okay, So you
become Matt Frederick is gone and replaced by Murdoch Farnsworth.
(04:08):
That name I've ever heard of my life, Murdoch Farnsworth.
I think people just call your Murdoch. Murdoch Farnsworth has
a c I or an informant who comes along with
him to vouch for him from their days in an
outlaw biker gang or something. Right, And the weird thing
is that at some points, Uh Murdoch is going to
(04:32):
have to do things that Matt Frederick would never do,
you know, probably sample a drug at some point, possibly
because there's a lot of the streets order people might yeah,
other illegal stuff, aiding a bet, crimes, maybe rough someone
up to show that you are Murdoch. Possibly even witness
a murder that you could have prevented. Possibly possibly not
(04:56):
because you know, I'm a little squeamish. And the line
blurs in. This line is even blurrier if we take,
for instance, uh, Noel Brown, and while Matt Frederick is
working at the street level operation, let's say Noel Brown
is infiltrating a human trafficking ring. This is even stickier
(05:18):
human trafficking ring because let's see, he changes his name,
what's his name now? Matt Nicholas Barnaby. Yes, Nicholas Barnaby
two first names, Nick Nicholas Barnaby. A well old money,
wealthy philanthropist who has and philanderer who has decided that
(05:38):
the only people you could trust in this world are
people that you own, and so he is infiltrating. Uh.
Sadly this is true because of Hartsfield Airport here in Atlanta,
it is a hub for human trafficking. So it is
you you would see, hopefully, ladies and gentlemen, how this
undercover sting kind of stuff can happen as a little
(06:02):
set for variety of recents. So we've got Murdoch on
there for maybe a few months, right, pulling everyone you
can maybe nab somebody, maybe the maybe there's something political
where you're involved, where they say, okay, now we need
the bust because someone's coming up for election, which unfortunately happens.
But in the other case, we we have Mr Barnaby.
(06:23):
I am like embedded in this world. Yeah, yeah, I
am making I am playing the long game. I am
making connections, meeting people above those connections, and doing everything
in my power to make it as high up the
chain as possible so that I can turn those people
into my um, the people that I answered to, and
should you, should either of you survive? Uh, this strange
(06:46):
and terrifying thing is that neither of you will be
able to live fully return to your natural life because
there will always be concerns for your safety. Right. What's
going to happen when uh the foreign connection for whatever
drug empire Murdoch bust learns that Murdoch Farnsworth is fictitious,
(07:12):
but someone who looks a lot like them lives in
the same area. Sure, even if we successfully put people
away for years, maybe even a life sentence for twenty years,
in the future, those people will be out of jail. Well,
not only that, I mean, if watching shows like OZ
or you know, the Sopranos teaches you anything, it's that
(07:33):
being in prison is not the end all be all.
You still have associates on the outside that you can
communicate with quite easily, especially if you're uh, you know,
a big player, and in that scene, you are protected
and you are surrounded by your people in prison, and
it's very easy to get a message out, to put
out a hit, even from prison. So why are we
(07:54):
beating around the bush with all of this fantasy. Ah, yes,
excellent question. Perhaps we're more painting the background of the
picture of today's topic, which is undercover policing, which which
is uh, these sting operations, these long term embedded things,
(08:16):
Ladies and gentlemen, Matt and Noel and I spoke with
someone who has done this in real life, and uh,
during the course of our interview, we got a first
hand look at how these how these operations occur, both
for the good and the bad. And we do want
you to know that due to security concerns, we have
(08:40):
had to mask this person's voice. Uh. This man's name
is Robert Maser. Now, last Friday, Ben and All and
I got to go and see the film The Infiltrator,
which is based on the book that this man, Robert Maser,
wrote about his time infiltrating the the Medine cartel in Colombia. Now,
(09:04):
this show is going to focus a lot on that
film and what we saw and the experiences because it
is based on what this guy actually did, and you're
going to see as we get into some of these questions,
he's kind of separating what became the film as opposed
to what was, you know, his real life and what
he experienced fascinating in and of itself, because it's how
(09:27):
cool was it to be able to talk to the
subject of a biopic like this and say, hey, so,
what's up with that scene where you had to go
into the Santa Ria temple and um, you know, be
kind of given a test by you know, this practitioner
Padrino exactly, and you know what, how did that really
go down? This is a question that you will hear.
(09:48):
And just just to give you a little context, this
is a scene that happened in the movie where this
band is being vetted by these high level drug officials.
Spoiler alerts a little bit of a spoiler alert, but
I just wanted to give you a sense of how
cool it was to be able to separate what happened
in the film with what happened in real in the
actual operation the course of the operation. And there's a
lot of moments like that. It's a great film. I
(10:10):
really would recommend it. It was a lot. It reminded me.
It kind of had the the feel of Good Fellas
in a way that kind of really dynamic, interesting kind
of um ensemble cast, and it was very funny. It
moves very quickly and it doesn't pull any punches. It
really gives you a sense there's no glorification of either
what this man is doing, because he has to do
(10:32):
some pretty intense stuff in the name of his operation
and getting it done. And then of course you see
the havoc that drugs and drug violence and smuggling and
money laundering can wreak on people's lives. So Robert Maser
began something called Operation c Chase, and with a team
(10:55):
at its height hundreds and hundreds of people. Uh, he
and his group did something extraordinary at the time, which
is they began to follow the financial footprints rather than
the narcotic footprints, by which we mean they didn't just
(11:17):
start chasing cocaine shipments from c I s or whatever
or can you know informants. What they started doing was
finding out what banks handled, what money, where it went,
how it changed hands. And over the course of this
he became Bob Maser, became somebody named Bob Mussella. We
(11:38):
were given the opportunity to interview Mr Maser because of
his involvement in this movie. Um An agency reached out
to us and asked if we were interested in speaking
with him, and it was something we just could not
pass up. And while the Infiltrator did not sponsor this episode,
we do have a sponsor and we're gonna get to
that now and then get right into the interview with
Mr Maser. So, first things first, Mr Maser, how satisfied
(12:12):
are you with the adaptation of the story? Well, you know, um,
and I'm not say that. You know, it's very difficult
for me to compare because we're talking apples and oranges,
you know, those films for entertainment. Um, And my book
is my attempt to tell my version of the truth.
And I say it that way because you know, this
(12:33):
was no individual effort. This was a team effort by
about two and fifty at the height of the operation,
about two and fifty people. So, and I think if
you asked each of them to write a book, you'd
probably have some variations. And it's not because anyone who's
not being truthful, just because they have their own perspectives.
And so for me, um, you know, I think that
(12:54):
the film adaptation certainly brings across a lot of the
the issues that need to be brought across. And of course,
when they want to go from point to point B
if it took me twenty five steps to do it.
They just obviously can't do it and that medium. But um,
they get to the end point, and I think deliver
(13:17):
um the type of end result on a given topic,
like the the relationship between let's say the me Brian
Cranston and Benjamin Bratt in the film. You know some
of the things that are in there that are that
build to helping the movie goer to recognize that this
(13:38):
is um beyond just an undercover agent and a bad
guy dealing together and and being an undercover agent causes
you to have to to build some bonds with with
a person. Um is different. It happened a little bit
differently with me, but the end result is all the same.
(14:00):
You you still had a recognition by both characters that
you got to know each other over a period of
time and that that involves much more than just um
the give clinical contact as undercover agent and bad guy.
If if, if I'm getting through on that, it's so
fascinating to me. This is known by the way UM
(14:20):
watching this film and thinking of it in kind of
a meta sense where you know, clearly we're watching this
very excellent character actor Brian Cranston play this role of
a man that is essentially being a character actor and
playing a role and having to disappear into a part um.
I just find that very fascinating. I'm just wondering if
that aspect of it felt did it ring true to you?
(14:43):
Just the need to completely disappear into these covert characters
that you're essentially creating. Yeah, you know, and and and
you bring up a good point about character because the
character that I created, because when I was trained to
be along term undercover agents. I mean I was an
agent traditional in a traditional sense for fourteen years before
(15:06):
I went through the undercover school and then began to develop,
um the undercover identity of Robert Mosella. But one of
the things that was taught to me right from the
very beginning, um it was that I really needed to
build a persona that would put me in a position
to lie the least so because it's so hard to
(15:28):
keep track over years period of time if you're not
naturally working within your own skin and so to speak.
So I'm originally from New York. I have previously before
working for law enforcement, I worked at a bank, and
then I've worked in a brokerage, firm, and I UM,
I have some of the family experiences that I lived
(15:51):
in a neighborhood and was in around some people who
were UM certainly connected to another part of the world.
And I then I became connected with UM and and
so I had a sense of what Italian American organized
crime was about. And and so I didn't really have
to That's that's what Bob Mascella had in him too.
(16:12):
Bob Moselle I was was a guy who had my
My degree was in business administration finance, and I had
a heavy emphasis in accounting, and and so was Bob Mascella.
He was a guy who uh knew how to deal
in the business world and had a financial background. Then
was from the New York area and had these connections
(16:35):
with organized crime and and so a lot of that
stuff is stuff that I was very very comfortable with.
I didn't create a persona where you know, I would
turn on a switch and now I was this big
flamboyant guy that UM that was a completely different person
my personality. I think UM that I poor trade was
probably similar to what UM my real personality is. I think,
(16:59):
you know what I would hear back from the traffickers
about why they were interested in doing business with me
was because I was stable, I was I knew about
the things that they didn't know about in the financial markets.
I was cautious, UM, I was loky. Um. All of
those things were very important to them. And all of
(17:22):
those things, those things were really a part about major
And this, this is a this is a fascinating aspect
of the story because, as you say, being in someone
else's skin for the duration of this operation. Uh that
the operation specifically cited is called C Chase. And one
(17:45):
thing that really impacted us and impacts our audience as well,
is the recognition of just how long term this operation became.
Could could you tell us in our audience a little
bit about the origin or the genesis of C Chase
And Bob Masella sure well, having worked on a multi
(18:10):
agency task force that's whose principal responsibility was attempting to
identify the commanding control of the cartels as well as
identifying the problem the money launderers who were servicing the
commanding control. UM, we had been using search warrant's wire taps,
(18:32):
historical witnesses that type of thing, and came to the
conclusion um, and I was really blessed with working with
a leadership that was willing to hear out the idea
of this plan. Um Um. My view was, and it
was shared by a few of my colleagues, that the
(18:53):
best way to accomplish our goal was to infiltrate their
money laundering systems, and that that was embraced. So that
got me through the undercover schools. That got me through
then about eighteen months of time where we put together
the undercover front, and that was put together with the
(19:14):
help of several informants and concerned citizens. Um. There were
two guys that were informants of mine who were um
we would call them in in the underworld, knock around guys.
They didn't work for any one particular crew, but they
were certainly part of a family and um they they
(19:35):
they and they're under their their organized crime contacts enabled
us to be able to use certain businesses. Actually, both
those guys played the roles in the undercover operation. From
time to time I would bring them in in cameos
as my cousins. And one of the guys used to
be a bodyguard for a capo in a crime family.
(19:57):
And you can't I mean he would walk in a
room and p I would look at him and nobody
had to say anything. They immediately recognized what he was
really all about, very much like the dominic figure in
the movie UM that is played by Joe Gillen and UH.
The other guy was much more pro polished and had
(20:18):
some Wall Street contacts and UM and then we also
had an informant from Columbia. And then I had a
couple of lifelong friends of mine who were bankers and
brokers who enabled me to establish accounts at various institutions UM.
This took about an eighteen month period of time, and
(20:40):
as I emerged from that, I was embedded in real
businesses finance company and mortgage brokerage business. We had a
air shorter service with a private jet, a jewelry chain
with thirty locations on the East Coast, and even a
brokerage firm UM with a seat on the New York
Stock Exchange. So I didn't have to be the best
undercut age in the world. I was less with leadership
(21:02):
that gave me the latitude to put that together. And
then UM we were waiting for a unique opportunity to
use the trojan horse that was built and lo and
behold my gentleman who became my partner and is now
a brother to me. Amor Obray who played by John
Leguizamo in the movie. UM had an informant who had
(21:26):
made connections with a money broker. That money broker being
someone who personally knew U members of the Ochoa family
who were sitting on a median cartel, and who was
trying to get himself well established in the money laundering business.
So with with that opportunity, we engaged the trojan horse
(21:48):
and marched into the median cartel. And it took about
two years to get to the end. UM. And and
believe me, along the way, we were very lucky. UM.
So times as they say, it's better to be lucky
than good, and I'm proof of that. H the good
things that happened along the way. For example, UM, the
(22:11):
people in the cartel wanted me to pay out in
dollar accounts that they preferred that they beat. Dollar accounts
established in institutions in Panama. For obvious reasons, accessed by
US law enforcement was more restricted, So I needed to
open that up. And I had just happened to be
driving through downtown Tampa and noticed this big buld sign
(22:33):
that's a Bank of Credit and Commerce International b c
C I and assumed that they must have the ability
to help you bank in in their foreign locations. I
didn't really know much about the bank, so I called
and like anyone else who approaches an international bank that
had a private client division, UM, I was asked to
(22:55):
provide a resume copies of bank statements, UM copies. I
needed references in the bank and business world. UM I
had all that stuff. I needed to have a million
dollars at I could potentially they could manage. All of
that was verifiable and um and I was invited to
have a meeting at the bank. And I mean, here's
(23:17):
an example of lucky instead of good. UM. I go
in and I sit down, and um the guy asked
me what it is I'm looking for, and I explained, well,
you know, most of my clients are from Medie in Columbia,
and they have businesses. They have business activity here in
the United States that generates a huge, huge amount of
(23:37):
capital and it's my responsibility to help them to move
that money in a very discreet and quiet way. And
um and I didn't get much past all of that,
and the guy said to me, what do you do
you think you'll have a need because I was telling
about moving money in from Panama to buy real estate
in the US, and he said, do you think you'll
have a need to move it in the other direction?
(23:58):
And I said, well, yeah, there's no doubt about that.
And then then they broke into this discussion about well,
I know what you're talking about. That's the black money market.
And we have clients like you that have sensitive clients
and and we were helping them to open accounts and
grand came and until this treaty was signed with the
US government. Um, and I knew the treaty. The treaty
(24:20):
had to do with turning bank records over in drug cases.
And he said, you know, but we're now we're recommending Panama.
And ultimately he drifted into saying, well, you know, you've
got to be careful on the stupid people get caught,
get yourself involved in cash businesses. You've got to cover
to take in the cash. And I left that meeting
and went contacted my office and said, you're not going
(24:42):
to believe the meeting I just had. This is like
every red flag I've ever been taught in my entire
government career, uh to look for. And this is not
an individual banker looking to do something against management. This
is this sounds like an institutional plan. And lo and
behold of we're probably a year and a half period
(25:02):
of time. I was able to uh get the evidence
through discussions with more than a dozen senior bank officials
at that bank about the bank's institutional plan to market
the other world. Um, that sounds like an easy thing
to do. It wasn't, but but it was amazing. How
(25:25):
lucky breaks, you know. I guess some people say luck
is just being well planned for the opportunity when it
comes by. And the opportunity came. Um again, really, when
we opened up an account in Panama and one of
the checks written by one of the bad guys, because
I would just signed the checks, one of the checks
(25:45):
written by the bad guys, UM was filled out improperly.
It was supposed to be for what's just for example sake,
to say a hundred and three thousand, and it was
written in words A hundred and three thousand and numbers
a hundred three thousand, five hundred and So the officer
assigned to my account in Panama called me and said
(26:06):
what amounts should it be? Honor? And I said, well,
you probably know I can't answer that. I'll have to
call Columbia and I'll call you back. And I did,
and I explained what the amount was to pay, and
he said to me, Um, you know we need to
meet because you're gonna get caught and there's a lot
better way to do what you're doing. And so there
was no doubt in my mind that the people managing
(26:28):
my account in Panama could tell just from the movements
and the accounts that we were marketing Narco dollars on
the black money market, and Beho, because of that mistake,
back got flushed out. He came to Miami, we sat down.
Of course, all these conversations were being recorded, and Um,
he explained how it is that I could better launder
(26:51):
drug money. And then and then I said to him, well,
it's great, you're getting back on a plane and going
back to Panama. Um, I'm here in Florida, and if
there's a problem and I need to see someone quickly,
are there any people in your Miami office that are
on your team handling these kinds of sensitive accounts. And
at that stage he said yes, and there were two people,
and he named them. And when I called back to
(27:14):
the office and explained that one of them was a
fellow named Amada One, all the bills and whistles between
Florida and Washington went off because that was the financial
advisor that US government was eager to try to pin down.
He was managing the illicit fortune of Menuel Noriega. And
(27:34):
so when you know, we went from there to Paris,
to London, to the Bahamas UM and eventually we got
to the end of the end of the story. But
it was pretty well proven that the bank was marketing
the underworld anybody with money that was seeking secrecy from governments.
And the Bank of Credit and Commerce International was at
this time one of the ten biggest banks in the world,
(27:57):
is that correct, seventh largest really held ank in the world.
At the time of their assets were I think about
nineteen billion dollars. They were in seventy two countries, more
than five seven branches UM. As we substantiated later there
their clients included UM not just arms dealers and terrorists
(28:18):
and drug traffickers and tactivators UM, but also UM some
of the bigger politicians in the world and the intelligence
community as well, actually wanted to clarify something. Um. As
(28:41):
as as your relationship with these folks in the film,
at least as it was portraying, the film progressed and
you had to earn their trust and and get their
business and close the deal. It seemed to me that
there was more going on than just moving money around,
that you needed to show them that you could actually
grow their money. Is that accurate or did I miss
misinterpret that? Well, I had to. I had to be
(29:01):
able to show that their money would be secure. I
had to be able to as they put, we need guarantees,
you know, people with illicit fortunes. Unlike what I think
some people suggest that they may have tried to trick
a bank into laundry money. Um, we never tricked anybody,
and and my my clients and the cartel never tried
(29:25):
to trick anybody. Um. It was something that required uh,
an agreement and an acceptance of responsibility, knowing full well
that the consequences of lost funds could be your life. Um.
So I was trying to get them too, and I
(29:46):
think through a degree, succeeded to get them, not just
to wander money through my accounts. That doesn't really accomplish
much after you've wandered money for the same guy a
couple of times. If you continue to laund their money
for the same person and the money is going into
the same place, all you're doing is facilitating crime. UM.
(30:08):
And so the mantra by what we we move forward
was if you're not meeting any new bad guys and
you're not uncovering any new crime, we could shut down.
We should shut down UM. And so we were always
on the move of trying to to do just that,
and we were also on the move to try to
get them to keep money with us as long as
(30:31):
we could, because if we get them to use us
to invest their funds will have more disease at the end.
But even more importantly and clearly more importantly, in order
to be able to have the responsibility to invest funds
for someone, in all likelihood you're going to be able
to force a meeting with the beneficial owner of the funds.
(30:52):
And that's really what it was all about, getting past
all these middlemen and trying to deal directly with the
type of people, as Benjamin Bratt portrayed, who were major
players within the cartel. So you know, the the investment
um angle. Although it was nice to get investments, to
(31:13):
manage with a technique, to be able to meet people
of responsibility important an authority within the cartel. I have
to ask about that Santa Ria scene that was so
compelling the way it was portrayed in the film. It
was just as a life or death situation that you know,
from where we sat was tied to you know, what
some might call superstition. Um, what was walking into that
(31:35):
situation like, well, nobody got killed sitting next to me,
but I you know, it was pretty controversial. Um. I
was dealing with a guy who his wife was related
to Gotta Rivera, one of the members out of the cartel,
(31:57):
and I think it was his wife was a niece
and he was a practicing uh he was practicing somebody.
And as I got to know him some he said,
you know, I'm very interested in doing business with you,
but I need to make sure that my prio, my
(32:19):
priest um believes in you, and so i'd like him,
I'd like you to come to Miami and we'll go visit,
uh the Santero and will we'll see what he has
to say. Well, some people back in the office thought
that was kind of way too risky that if the guy,
(32:42):
for whatever reason said no, didn't matter how good we were,
what we did, you know we were going to lose
the relationship. Um. But I knew we weren't going to
get a relationship with him if we didn't do it.
So you have to lose really so Um. It was
in an area called Sweetwater in Miami. Um, very low, well,
(33:02):
I would say low blue collar at best kind of area. Um.
The house itself had burglar bars on it, so once
you were in, you were in a bird cage. It
couldn't get out. Um. I went there with him. He
went into the room with the priest. The room was
(33:23):
just like a bedroom with a wooden floor. Um. And
I could see, I mean, there was an altar there. Um.
I could see the candles and statues and all that
kind of stuff. And I could see that there had
been sacrifices there. There's dried blood on the floor and
you know, checking parts and stuff like that. And UM,
(33:44):
so I came into the room and he wasn't The
guy wasn't a big, imposing muscular guy like the guy
in the film. But it's important to show that because
he had a lot of power and you know, that's
the kind of thing that I think, you know, you
need to appreciate as a movie go or when you
look at that, when you see that guy you in
(34:06):
the movie, you know he's powerful. You could tell from
his body style. Well, the guy that I dealt with
wasn't like that. He was much much lighter. But all
he did was come and embraced me and turned back
to the altar. And then he came back to me,
held my hands and asked me to step outside, and
(34:26):
I did, and then he brought a trafficker in there,
and and then I waited outside, and when he came out,
the trafficker came out, he was all smiles and hugged
me and said, you know, Petrino says you're a good
and honorable man and that I should do business with you.
So we will. And and and when I told that
story to the people in the office, some of them
(34:48):
kind of chuckled because they said, well, you know, the
the priest wasn't that wrong. You're you are a good
and honorable guy. It's just that you're not You're just
not a money lownder, really a money lownder. So you know,
I don't know whether there's much to them or not,
but it worked for them and it worked for me. Yeah,
and it's uh. That was one of the scenes that
(35:10):
really that really stayed with us. Uh. And also the
it seems like one of the most important currencies involved
in this operation was trust. Was earning the trust of
these people through as you said, uh, the personality traits
that they prized, the stability, consistency, reliability, and when when
(35:33):
we were looking at this this larger network from Bank
of Credit and Commerce International. Uh. One thing that we
noticed that a lot of our audience we'll have questions about,
is the nuts and bolts of converting drug money into
something that appeared to be legitimate. And ultimately what happened
(35:58):
to the funds and the asked that's that were seized
at the conclusion of Operation c Chase. Well, you know,
as far as laundering goes, it's like snowflakes. I mean,
there's so many different ways in which you can do it. Um,
very few are alike, but there are some fundamental issues.
I mean, you've got suitcases and boxes full of cash,
and you need to get it into the financial system
(36:19):
so that you can make a payout UM and either
a wire transfer or a check. So what bcc I
was doing at the time, and it's something that continues
to happen today. You know, I've read the deferred prostitution
agreements and and the toothless indictments that have been brought
against banks in the in the recent past. I say
(36:40):
toothless indictments because if you're indicted and you're a bank,
you should lose your license. But that doesn't happen. Um,
when indictments are returned against banks these days, Um they
wind up paying a fine, and um, not a whole
lot of people go to jail and and life goes on.
But when you to look at those deferred prosecutions, there's
(37:01):
a section in there, um called a manner of means
by which the crime of how they're committing a crime
for an account holder is done. And and I've looked
at them, you know there's one for well, they all
have a lot of a very very similar techniques that
we're being used by b c c I back in
(37:23):
the day, or are clearly still being used based upon
my reading of the deferred prosecutions in the last five
or six years. But anyway, the long and short of
it is that number one they offered to take the
cash from US and deposited into their branches. But they
they were very mindful at the time to do that
in the U S branch needed needed a very fine
(37:47):
twist to it. So UM I was offered to take
the money to the Bahamas. I was offered to take
the money to Uruguay. I was offered to take the
money to UM Panama. UM I do that. In other instances, UH,
they were bringing in cash in Miami, booking it in
as though it was cash shipped back from the Bahamas
(38:09):
branch UM and being deposited in b c I in Miami. UM.
But once you get the cash in the next step
was to take the capital and put it into a CD,
which was normally done in Luxembourg. UM. They had to
find form a lot of UM. They either had to
form or I needed to give another lawyer to form
(38:32):
one way or the other. The accounts needed to be
in the name of an offshore entity, and most often
those entities were in U, b v I, Panma, Gibraltar UM.
Those who don't want to Hong Kong UM. So a
c D gets established. Let's use as an example, a
million dollars and it's a ninety days c D with
(38:52):
an automatic payout. UM. What they did then was they
would go to another part of the world and they
would open up a facility, a luan facility UM, so
a totally different entity would be issued ALAN based upon
in the papers of the bank, just the financial worthiness
(39:12):
of the and of the corporation. So there was an
off book loan against the capitol. No auditor would be
able to link the two together. The loan proceeds would
then moved to yet a third, fourth, and fifth farm jurisdiction.
And the reason for that is any time the US
government or any government wants to try to get bank
records in a jurisdiction, they've got to go through the
(39:33):
legal process that takes a very very long period of time.
If you've got a string of Luxembourg, Lippenstein, Switzerland, France
and Panama that you've got to get get through UM,
the theory is that it will take him fifteen years
to get through all that stuff. So now the money
(39:55):
it leads the loan facility, it winds up going to Panama.
UH was at that stage put into a checking account
and then based upon UM. Their preference was based upon
oral instructions, payouts would be made to different accounts in
parts of the world that we're controlled by the cartel.
(40:17):
Of course, their accounts were opened up in the name
of nominees um and then those would be moved through
other accounts. So you know, there was a long, long
line of of bridges that had to be crossed before
you could ever work your way back to the original
cash deposit. And that is the first hand history of
(40:43):
operation see Chase from the Inside. We will be returning
next week with part two of our interview with Mr Maser,
wherein he details the present and the future of banks
that practice money laundry in one way or another and
(41:04):
what if any consequences befall those organizations. Not to be
too much of a tease here, but we get into
some really interesting territory, including Mr Maser's perspective on the
War on drugs as a whole, on things like marijuana legalization,
where we're heading as a country in that direction. And
this is an authority on this stuff, and he's got
some really interesting things to say, so look forward to that.
(41:27):
But first, I feel like we would say but first,
very often as we're setting this stuff up. But first,
this is the part of the show where we would
typically do a shout out corner. However, we're going to
do something a little different today. We're going to have
and in the news segment because something popped up recently,
probably on your news feeds, if you participate in social media,
(41:51):
maybe you have seen a bunch of people walking around,
staring at their phones even more so than usual, running
into walls, perhaps tripping over park benches, stopping cars in
the street, any number of bizarro scenarios. No, my friends,
it is not the zombie apocalypse. It is, in fact,
(42:11):
the gaming craze. Dare I say of our generation? App wise,
Pokemon Go, pomon Go. I've been looking forward to it, honestly.
I mean, I'm I'm into that stuff. So you know, so, uh, what,
what the blue blazes? What the smali Shenanigans? What the
heck is Pokemon Go? If you never heard of it
(42:32):
or played it before, which would be rather astounding if
this is the first time you're hearing about it. But
it's an augmented reality game. It's an app that you
get on your smart device and it uses your geo
location as well as a lot of other information that's
there resides within your phone, your accounts, your Google account. Uh,
(42:53):
just to know exactly where you are, where you're going,
where the Pokemon exists around you in the real world. Matt,
You've got to catch them all. It's you take take
my information, Just give me Pokemon. Just put a Squirtle
in my kitchen. That's all I ever wanted. That's you
said that the day we met you, Like, I just
(43:14):
want I could just have a squirtl in my kitchen.
I would be happy, man. But seriously, now I have
a seven year old, which is my excuse for playing
the game, you know, ye, Now, honestly, it's a it's
a it's a very thin um disguise for the fact
that I am a bit of a nerd for this
kind of stuff as well. But yeah, we played it,
and it's it's it's it's one of these situations we
(43:35):
talked about in the past with privacy, with buying and
selling of your personal information. You submit to it, you know,
on Facebook. It's like, I want my news feed. I
want to be able to have all this great free
stuff take my information. I know that's a very odd
opinion to have me being on a conspiracy podcast, but
I really am just like, just just have it. It's fine,
you're gonna take it anyway. But also would be it's
(44:00):
similar to the secondhand smoking argument because when people are
walking around, so you think about Google Earth, for instance,
Google Earth did second hand compromising of people, possibly in
terms of the information that was available on you know,
street view things like that, but still that's a public place.
(44:22):
The street is a public domain sort of situation. One
thing that Google and other companies of this nature couldn't
do as easily is get into buildings have a Google
floor view. Right, But now this stuff that's being captured
on camera every time somebody chases a char rezard or whatever,
(44:45):
it is going somewhere, right, So the second hand smoke
in this situation would be let's say one of our coworkers.
Name a coworker who wouldn't like this. Jonathan Strickland, he
would love Scott Benjamin. Scott Benjamin. Yeah, Scott Benjamin, the
man with no Gmail address by the way, he okay,
(45:08):
So Scott Benjamin, one of the co hosts of our
vehicle show Car Stuff. Scott Benjamin would probably never sign
on to compromise the information on on his phone or
in whatever accounts he has floating out there in the cloud. However,
if say Jonathan Strickland is walking around hunting Pokemon, then
(45:31):
the camera feed and the audio feed that his app
is using could easily capture Scott Benjamin sits here during
this time of day to this time of day. Now,
of course that's a somewhat of an extremist view that
someone would care where a single person sits for a
(45:53):
few hours every day, but it's generated a lot of concern,
and we'd like to give a shout out to a
couple of folks in particular who sent some information about
this our way or asked about it. Yes, and Nicole
Harris and Rob Phillips both were they had they were
on the cusp, They knew what was going on, and
they reached out to us immediately and said that we
(46:15):
should cover this. And there it actually was referencing a
pretty cool article on black Bag, which is Gawker's kind
of conspiracy type blog. And um, the most interesting thing
from this article to me is the fact that the
company that developed Pokemon Go as a company called Neantic,
which was founded by a guy named John Hanker. I
(46:37):
think I'm pronouncing that right. Might just be hank Um.
And he also founded a company called Keyhole that specializes
in geo positioning location software. Now Google Earth uses key
Holes technology. As far as I'm aware, they absorbed Keyhole
and likely folded some of the research and technology that
(46:59):
company had done in to Google Earth. But there's one
more step, and long time listeners you might recognize this
next one. That's right. Keyhole got a pretty sizeable amount
of funding from a firm called in q Tel. This
is a firm that we have mentioned several times on
this show, and we talked about the FBI and other
(47:20):
front agencies or front companies that agencies use UH to
put forward new technologies, emerging technologies. They'll get money from
places like in q Tel injected into let's say our
company that's looking into geo, you know, GPS technology, and
then they're like, hey, now we've got a flower that
we created from this soil. And here's the thing. I'm
(47:43):
joking mainly when I say I'm being a bit nihilistic
and saying give me my squirtle, take my information. I'm
fine with it. I don't really feel that way exactly.
I just kind of feel like we are living in
a situation where we are being monitored, and it's almost
like either do you live in fear and panic all
the time or you just kind of accept it and
(48:04):
move on with your life and you know, enjoy the
free stuff that that allows you. Or are those the
only two choices? Maybe not. And that's a good point, Matt.
But what this makes me think of is um There
was a great interview with Edward Snowden on Vice recently
where he was showing you how to disconnect the cameras
in your iPhone and all of the microphones and kind
(48:24):
of showing you where the different chips were and all
this stuff, and he made a wonderful point where he
was sort of like, yeah, I mean, now, okay, really
it's not super nefarious what's being done with this information.
You know, no one is being UM monitored in any
kind of nefarious way, No one is being targeted because
of any of this stuff. It's just the technology is there.
(48:46):
But what happens if we have a regime change where
all of a sudden we're in more of a totalitarian
system and all of a sudden the man or woman
in charge flips the switch and decides to really start
using this against us right. And also it could be
something a little more insidious, a progression by degree. So
(49:06):
for instance, what if instead of a switch being flipped,
it becomes a matter of insurance rates changing for someone.
Because the privacy agreement in Pokemon Go does explicitly allow
the selling of this data or the transmission of this
data to a third party, it's basically, ah, we'll do
(49:28):
what we want and good luck finding a squirrel sort
of agreement. So this does mean that if, if, if
they wished, the makers of Pokemon Go, could uh take
your geolocation data. Let's say you're at let's say you're
always at some crazy place. What's a crazy place to be?
(49:53):
Crazy Town, Crazy Atlanta. Isn't there a restaurant called Let's
say you're at a place called Crazy Atlanta Town and
it's a known drugged in and uh, your information about
that is is sent out and maybe your car insurance
folks say, well, statistically, because we know that this person
(50:15):
is a Crazy Atlanta Town, the notorious drugg Den bar,
then their insurance rate is going to go up because
we can't say that they're taking drugs and driving or whatever.
But they're there for two hours between one and uh,
between one and three am every night and they're driving
home after that. So this, I mean, is this substantiated?
(50:39):
I don't think so. Is it possible? Yes? But is
it probable? That's a whole another bag of badgers. So
we want to know what you guys think. Is Pokemon
Go is an example of a r that's just a
game changer, teaching us the capabilities of this amazing technology
we hold or is it something a little bit more perfidious?
(51:03):
Is it something a little bit disingenuous? Uh? And do
you play Pokemon Go? Also, what do you think about
all this stuff that Robert Maser was talking about in
in this interview about banks and just taking money, just
taking billions of dollars of drug dealers money and just
converting it because they make a huge profit and they
(51:26):
don't really get in trouble for it. Yes, let us
know what you think about all of the above. You
can find us on Facebook and Twitter where we are
Conspiracy Stuff. You can also find us on Instagram speaking
of privacy violations. Conspiracy Stuff Show. And that's the end
of this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or
(51:48):
questions about this episode, you can get into contact with
us in a number of different ways. One of the
best is to give us a call. Our number is
one eight three three std w y t K. If
you don't want to do that, you can send us
a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at i
heart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to
(52:09):
know is a production of I heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
So every so often we dive into a subject that
we know we're going to return to in the future,
or a subject that is just too big to be
one episode. And that's what we ran into when we
started asking ourselves about banks, drugs, and money. We didn't
do this alone. We did this as part of a
(00:23):
long interview segment with Robert Maser, who is, by the way,
as you'll find in in Part one m Part two,
a really cool guy. He is. We watched a movie
that was based on Robert's work, and it was a
fictionalized telling of his story, but we actually got to
sit down with him and hear it from his own mouth.
(00:44):
It was awesome, cool movie too, by the way, the
Infiltrator check it out and check out this classic episode
right now. From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies,
history is riddled with unexplained events you can turn back
now or and the stuff they don't want you to know.
(01:10):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel, I'm Ben you or you that makes
this stuff they don't want you to know, but not
the average episode of stuff they don't want you to know?
Isn't that right? Guys, we've got a little added value
here in this particular pair of episodes. This is this
our first ever two partner No, I don't think so.
(01:31):
I know we've we split DARPA up into two and
there were a couple other ones that well, this is
definitely our first ever two part interview episode. That's true
about the same thing. So, by way of explanation, ladies
and gentlemen, you have heard Matt Nolan I refer to
UH or allude to various adventures that we've taken, or
(01:52):
new things that we said we're coming or we're on
the way, we get around, we get around and UH,
this time we around to Uh. We got around to
a part of the world, at least socially speaking, that
we haven't really explored into much depth. And that was
a it concerned a tail that is stranger than fiction.
(02:20):
So you've heard of undercover operations, right, Like, what what
exactly is an undercover operation? It's pretty simple. One person
who is usually in law enforcement in some way, pretends
to be let's say, uh, a nefarious gang member from
a different part of town or new to town. But
(02:42):
I'm into all this bad stuff, Like I I like
to let's say launder money, or maybe deal drugs, maybe
torture kittens. Yeah, do one of those things. Get in
with a crew like low level maybe something like that.
And that's a distinction that we need to make right
up front. There are certainly different kinds of undercover operations.
Some might just be for a particular sting where you
(03:05):
have a cop posing as as one of these various
types that you mentioned. But what we're talking about today
is long term, deep undercover operations, which is a whole
another ball game, a very dangerous one indeed. So just
to illustrate the difference pretty quickly, one of the rules
has always keep things as close to the truth as possible,
(03:27):
so you don't compromise your actual identity. So Matt Frederick then,
for instance, if is it okay if we make you
street level? Sure, okay. So Matt Frederick then is assigned
to do some street level infiltration of maybe someone's selling
what's a drug? Well, I have to go in and
(03:48):
infiltrate stringer bells like low level crew. So I've got
again get in with the the group who's selling drugs
out of the the apartment. Yeah, so okay, So you
become Matt Frederick is gone and replaced by Murdoch Farnsworth.
(04:08):
That name I've ever heard of my life, Murdoch Farnsworth.
I think people just call your Murdoch. Murdoch Farnsworth has
a c I or an informant who comes along with
him to vouch for him from their days in an
outlaw biker gang or something. Right, And the weird thing
is that at some points, Uh Murdoch is going to
(04:32):
have to do things that Matt Frederick would never do,
you know, probably sample a drug at some point, possibly
because there's a lot of the streets order people might yeah,
other illegal stuff, aiding a bet, crimes, maybe rough someone
up to show that you are Murdoch. Possibly even witness
a murder that you could have prevented. Possibly possibly not
(04:56):
because you know, I'm a little squeamish. And the line
blurs in. This line is even blurrier if we take,
for instance, uh, Noel Brown, and while Matt Frederick is
working at the street level operation, let's say Noel Brown
is infiltrating a human trafficking ring. This is even stickier
(05:18):
human trafficking ring because let's see, he changes his name,
what's his name now? Matt Nicholas Barnaby. Yes, Nicholas Barnaby
two first names, Nick Nicholas Barnaby. A well old money,
wealthy philanthropist who has and philanderer who has decided that
(05:38):
the only people you could trust in this world are
people that you own, and so he is infiltrating. Uh.
Sadly this is true because of Hartsfield Airport here in Atlanta,
it is a hub for human trafficking. So it is
you you would see, hopefully, ladies and gentlemen, how this
undercover sting kind of stuff can happen as a little
(06:02):
set for variety of recents. So we've got Murdoch on
there for maybe a few months, right, pulling everyone you
can maybe nab somebody, maybe the maybe there's something political
where you're involved, where they say, okay, now we need
the bust because someone's coming up for election, which unfortunately happens.
But in the other case, we we have Mr Barnaby.
(06:23):
I am like embedded in this world. Yeah, yeah, I
am making I am playing the long game. I am
making connections, meeting people above those connections, and doing everything
in my power to make it as high up the
chain as possible so that I can turn those people
into my um, the people that I answered to, and
should you, should either of you survive? Uh, this strange
(06:46):
and terrifying thing is that neither of you will be
able to live fully return to your natural life because
there will always be concerns for your safety. Right. What's
going to happen when uh the foreign connection for whatever
drug empire Murdoch bust learns that Murdoch Farnsworth is fictitious,
(07:12):
but someone who looks a lot like them lives in
the same area. Sure, even if we successfully put people
away for years, maybe even a life sentence for twenty years,
in the future, those people will be out of jail. Well,
not only that, I mean, if watching shows like OZ
or you know, the Sopranos teaches you anything, it's that
(07:33):
being in prison is not the end all be all.
You still have associates on the outside that you can
communicate with quite easily, especially if you're uh, you know,
a big player, and in that scene, you are protected
and you are surrounded by your people in prison, and
it's very easy to get a message out, to put
out a hit, even from prison. So why are we
(07:54):
beating around the bush with all of this fantasy. Ah, yes,
excellent question. Perhaps we're more painting the background of the
picture of today's topic, which is undercover policing, which which
is uh, these sting operations, these long term embedded things,
(08:16):
Ladies and gentlemen, Matt and Noel and I spoke with
someone who has done this in real life, and uh,
during the course of our interview, we got a first
hand look at how these how these operations occur, both
for the good and the bad. And we do want
you to know that due to security concerns, we have
(08:40):
had to mask this person's voice. Uh. This man's name
is Robert Maser. Now, last Friday, Ben and All and
I got to go and see the film The Infiltrator,
which is based on the book that this man, Robert Maser,
wrote about his time infiltrating the the Medine cartel in Colombia. Now,
(09:04):
this show is going to focus a lot on that
film and what we saw and the experiences because it
is based on what this guy actually did, and you're
going to see as we get into some of these questions,
he's kind of separating what became the film as opposed
to what was, you know, his real life and what
he experienced fascinating in and of itself, because it's how
(09:27):
cool was it to be able to talk to the
subject of a biopic like this and say, hey, so,
what's up with that scene where you had to go
into the Santa Ria temple and um, you know, be
kind of given a test by you know, this practitioner
Padrino exactly, and you know what, how did that really
go down? This is a question that you will hear.
(09:48):
And just just to give you a little context, this
is a scene that happened in the movie where this
band is being vetted by these high level drug officials.
Spoiler alerts a little bit of a spoiler alert, but
I just wanted to give you a sense of how
cool it was to be able to separate what happened
in the film with what happened in real in the
actual operation the course of the operation. And there's a
lot of moments like that. It's a great film. I
(10:10):
really would recommend it. It was a lot. It reminded me.
It kind of had the the feel of Good Fellas
in a way that kind of really dynamic, interesting kind
of um ensemble cast, and it was very funny. It
moves very quickly and it doesn't pull any punches. It
really gives you a sense there's no glorification of either
what this man is doing, because he has to do
(10:32):
some pretty intense stuff in the name of his operation
and getting it done. And then of course you see
the havoc that drugs and drug violence and smuggling and
money laundering can wreak on people's lives. So Robert Maser
began something called Operation c Chase, and with a team
(10:55):
at its height hundreds and hundreds of people. Uh, he
and his group did something extraordinary at the time, which
is they began to follow the financial footprints rather than
the narcotic footprints, by which we mean they didn't just
(11:17):
start chasing cocaine shipments from c I s or whatever
or can you know informants. What they started doing was
finding out what banks handled, what money, where it went,
how it changed hands. And over the course of this
he became Bob Maser, became somebody named Bob Mussella. We
(11:38):
were given the opportunity to interview Mr Maser because of
his involvement in this movie. Um An agency reached out
to us and asked if we were interested in speaking
with him, and it was something we just could not
pass up. And while the Infiltrator did not sponsor this episode,
we do have a sponsor and we're gonna get to
that now and then get right into the interview with
Mr Maser. So, first things first, Mr Maser, how satisfied
(12:12):
are you with the adaptation of the story? Well, you know, um,
and I'm not say that. You know, it's very difficult
for me to compare because we're talking apples and oranges,
you know, those films for entertainment. Um, And my book
is my attempt to tell my version of the truth.
And I say it that way because you know, this
(12:33):
was no individual effort. This was a team effort by
about two and fifty at the height of the operation,
about two and fifty people. So, and I think if
you asked each of them to write a book, you'd
probably have some variations. And it's not because anyone who's
not being truthful, just because they have their own perspectives.
And so for me, um, you know, I think that
(12:54):
the film adaptation certainly brings across a lot of the
the issues that need to be brought across. And of course,
when they want to go from point to point B
if it took me twenty five steps to do it.
They just obviously can't do it and that medium. But um,
they get to the end point, and I think deliver
(13:17):
um the type of end result on a given topic,
like the the relationship between let's say the me Brian
Cranston and Benjamin Bratt in the film. You know some
of the things that are in there that are that
build to helping the movie goer to recognize that this
(13:38):
is um beyond just an undercover agent and a bad
guy dealing together and and being an undercover agent causes
you to have to to build some bonds with with
a person. Um is different. It happened a little bit
differently with me, but the end result is all the same.
(14:00):
You you still had a recognition by both characters that
you got to know each other over a period of
time and that that involves much more than just um
the give clinical contact as undercover agent and bad guy.
If if, if I'm getting through on that, it's so
fascinating to me. This is known by the way UM
(14:20):
watching this film and thinking of it in kind of
a meta sense where you know, clearly we're watching this
very excellent character actor Brian Cranston play this role of
a man that is essentially being a character actor and
playing a role and having to disappear into a part um.
I just find that very fascinating. I'm just wondering if
that aspect of it felt did it ring true to you?
(14:43):
Just the need to completely disappear into these covert characters
that you're essentially creating. Yeah, you know, and and and
you bring up a good point about character because the
character that I created, because when I was trained to
be along term undercover agents. I mean I was an
agent traditional in a traditional sense for fourteen years before
(15:06):
I went through the undercover school and then began to develop,
um the undercover identity of Robert Mosella. But one of
the things that was taught to me right from the
very beginning, um it was that I really needed to
build a persona that would put me in a position
to lie the least so because it's so hard to
(15:28):
keep track over years period of time if you're not
naturally working within your own skin and so to speak.
So I'm originally from New York. I have previously before
working for law enforcement, I worked at a bank, and
then I've worked in a brokerage, firm, and I UM,
I have some of the family experiences that I lived
(15:51):
in a neighborhood and was in around some people who
were UM certainly connected to another part of the world.
And I then I became connected with UM and and
so I had a sense of what Italian American organized
crime was about. And and so I didn't really have
to That's that's what Bob Mascella had in him too.
(16:12):
Bob Moselle I was was a guy who had my
My degree was in business administration finance, and I had
a heavy emphasis in accounting, and and so was Bob Mascella.
He was a guy who uh knew how to deal
in the business world and had a financial background. Then
was from the New York area and had these connections
(16:35):
with organized crime and and so a lot of that
stuff is stuff that I was very very comfortable with.
I didn't create a persona where you know, I would
turn on a switch and now I was this big
flamboyant guy that UM that was a completely different person
my personality. I think UM that I poor trade was
probably similar to what UM my real personality is. I think,
(16:59):
you know what I would hear back from the traffickers
about why they were interested in doing business with me
was because I was stable, I was I knew about
the things that they didn't know about in the financial markets.
I was cautious, UM, I was loky. Um. All of
those things were very important to them. And all of
(17:22):
those things, those things were really a part about major
And this, this is a this is a fascinating aspect
of the story because, as you say, being in someone
else's skin for the duration of this operation. Uh that
the operation specifically cited is called C Chase. And one
(17:45):
thing that really impacted us and impacts our audience as well,
is the recognition of just how long term this operation became.
Could could you tell us in our audience a little
bit about the origin or the genesis of C Chase
And Bob Masella sure well, having worked on a multi
(18:10):
agency task force that's whose principal responsibility was attempting to
identify the commanding control of the cartels as well as
identifying the problem the money launderers who were servicing the
commanding control. UM, we had been using search warrant's wire taps,
(18:32):
historical witnesses that type of thing, and came to the
conclusion um, and I was really blessed with working with
a leadership that was willing to hear out the idea
of this plan. Um Um. My view was, and it
was shared by a few of my colleagues, that the
(18:53):
best way to accomplish our goal was to infiltrate their
money laundering systems, and that that was embraced. So that
got me through the undercover schools. That got me through
then about eighteen months of time where we put together
the undercover front, and that was put together with the
(19:14):
help of several informants and concerned citizens. Um. There were
two guys that were informants of mine who were um
we would call them in in the underworld, knock around guys.
They didn't work for any one particular crew, but they
were certainly part of a family and um they they
(19:35):
they and they're under their their organized crime contacts enabled
us to be able to use certain businesses. Actually, both
those guys played the roles in the undercover operation. From
time to time I would bring them in in cameos
as my cousins. And one of the guys used to
be a bodyguard for a capo in a crime family.
(19:57):
And you can't I mean he would walk in a
room and p I would look at him and nobody
had to say anything. They immediately recognized what he was
really all about, very much like the dominic figure in
the movie UM that is played by Joe Gillen and UH.
The other guy was much more pro polished and had
(20:18):
some Wall Street contacts and UM and then we also
had an informant from Columbia. And then I had a
couple of lifelong friends of mine who were bankers and
brokers who enabled me to establish accounts at various institutions UM.
This took about an eighteen month period of time, and
(20:40):
as I emerged from that, I was embedded in real
businesses finance company and mortgage brokerage business. We had a
air shorter service with a private jet, a jewelry chain
with thirty locations on the East Coast, and even a
brokerage firm UM with a seat on the New York
Stock Exchange. So I didn't have to be the best
undercut age in the world. I was less with leadership
(21:02):
that gave me the latitude to put that together. And
then UM we were waiting for a unique opportunity to
use the trojan horse that was built and lo and
behold my gentleman who became my partner and is now
a brother to me. Amor Obray who played by John
Leguizamo in the movie. UM had an informant who had
(21:26):
made connections with a money broker. That money broker being
someone who personally knew U members of the Ochoa family
who were sitting on a median cartel, and who was
trying to get himself well established in the money laundering business.
So with with that opportunity, we engaged the trojan horse
(21:48):
and marched into the median cartel. And it took about
two years to get to the end. UM. And and
believe me, along the way, we were very lucky. UM.
So times as they say, it's better to be lucky
than good, and I'm proof of that. H the good
things that happened along the way. For example, UM, the
(22:11):
people in the cartel wanted me to pay out in
dollar accounts that they preferred that they beat. Dollar accounts
established in institutions in Panama. For obvious reasons, accessed by
US law enforcement was more restricted, So I needed to
open that up. And I had just happened to be
driving through downtown Tampa and noticed this big buld sign
(22:33):
that's a Bank of Credit and Commerce International b c
C I and assumed that they must have the ability
to help you bank in in their foreign locations. I
didn't really know much about the bank, so I called
and like anyone else who approaches an international bank that
had a private client division, UM, I was asked to
(22:55):
provide a resume copies of bank statements, UM copies. I
needed references in the bank and business world. UM I
had all that stuff. I needed to have a million
dollars at I could potentially they could manage. All of
that was verifiable and um and I was invited to
have a meeting at the bank. And I mean, here's
(23:17):
an example of lucky instead of good. UM. I go
in and I sit down, and um the guy asked
me what it is I'm looking for, and I explained, well,
you know, most of my clients are from Medie in Columbia,
and they have businesses. They have business activity here in
the United States that generates a huge, huge amount of
(23:37):
capital and it's my responsibility to help them to move
that money in a very discreet and quiet way. And
um and I didn't get much past all of that,
and the guy said to me, what do you do
you think you'll have a need because I was telling
about moving money in from Panama to buy real estate
in the US, and he said, do you think you'll
have a need to move it in the other direction?
(23:58):
And I said, well, yeah, there's no doubt about that.
And then then they broke into this discussion about well,
I know what you're talking about. That's the black money market.
And we have clients like you that have sensitive clients
and and we were helping them to open accounts and
grand came and until this treaty was signed with the
US government. Um, and I knew the treaty. The treaty
(24:20):
had to do with turning bank records over in drug cases.
And he said, you know, but we're now we're recommending Panama.
And ultimately he drifted into saying, well, you know, you've
got to be careful on the stupid people get caught,
get yourself involved in cash businesses. You've got to cover
to take in the cash. And I left that meeting
and went contacted my office and said, you're not going
(24:42):
to believe the meeting I just had. This is like
every red flag I've ever been taught in my entire
government career, uh to look for. And this is not
an individual banker looking to do something against management. This
is this sounds like an institutional plan. And lo and
behold of we're probably a year and a half period
(25:02):
of time. I was able to uh get the evidence
through discussions with more than a dozen senior bank officials
at that bank about the bank's institutional plan to market
the other world. Um, that sounds like an easy thing
to do. It wasn't, but but it was amazing. How
(25:25):
lucky breaks, you know. I guess some people say luck
is just being well planned for the opportunity when it
comes by. And the opportunity came. Um again, really, when
we opened up an account in Panama and one of
the checks written by one of the bad guys, because
I would just signed the checks, one of the checks
(25:45):
written by the bad guys, UM was filled out improperly.
It was supposed to be for what's just for example sake,
to say a hundred and three thousand, and it was
written in words A hundred and three thousand and numbers
a hundred three thousand, five hundred and So the officer
assigned to my account in Panama called me and said
(26:06):
what amounts should it be? Honor? And I said, well,
you probably know I can't answer that. I'll have to
call Columbia and I'll call you back. And I did,
and I explained what the amount was to pay, and
he said to me, Um, you know we need to
meet because you're gonna get caught and there's a lot
better way to do what you're doing. And so there
was no doubt in my mind that the people managing
(26:28):
my account in Panama could tell just from the movements
and the accounts that we were marketing Narco dollars on
the black money market, and Beho, because of that mistake,
back got flushed out. He came to Miami, we sat down.
Of course, all these conversations were being recorded, and Um,
he explained how it is that I could better launder
(26:51):
drug money. And then and then I said to him, well,
it's great, you're getting back on a plane and going
back to Panama. Um, I'm here in Florida, and if
there's a problem and I need to see someone quickly,
are there any people in your Miami office that are
on your team handling these kinds of sensitive accounts. And
at that stage he said yes, and there were two people,
and he named them. And when I called back to
(27:14):
the office and explained that one of them was a
fellow named Amada One, all the bills and whistles between
Florida and Washington went off because that was the financial
advisor that US government was eager to try to pin down.
He was managing the illicit fortune of Menuel Noriega. And
(27:34):
so when you know, we went from there to Paris,
to London, to the Bahamas UM and eventually we got
to the end of the end of the story. But
it was pretty well proven that the bank was marketing
the underworld anybody with money that was seeking secrecy from governments.
And the Bank of Credit and Commerce International was at
this time one of the ten biggest banks in the world,
(27:57):
is that correct, seventh largest really held ank in the world.
At the time of their assets were I think about
nineteen billion dollars. They were in seventy two countries, more
than five seven branches UM. As we substantiated later there
their clients included UM not just arms dealers and terrorists
(28:18):
and drug traffickers and tactivators UM, but also UM some
of the bigger politicians in the world and the intelligence
community as well, actually wanted to clarify something. Um. As
(28:41):
as as your relationship with these folks in the film,
at least as it was portraying, the film progressed and
you had to earn their trust and and get their
business and close the deal. It seemed to me that
there was more going on than just moving money around,
that you needed to show them that you could actually
grow their money. Is that accurate or did I miss
misinterpret that? Well, I had to. I had to be
(29:01):
able to show that their money would be secure. I
had to be able to as they put, we need guarantees,
you know, people with illicit fortunes. Unlike what I think
some people suggest that they may have tried to trick
a bank into laundry money. Um, we never tricked anybody,
and and my my clients and the cartel never tried
(29:25):
to trick anybody. Um. It was something that required uh,
an agreement and an acceptance of responsibility, knowing full well
that the consequences of lost funds could be your life. Um.
So I was trying to get them too, and I
(29:46):
think through a degree, succeeded to get them, not just
to wander money through my accounts. That doesn't really accomplish
much after you've wandered money for the same guy a
couple of times. If you continue to laund their money
for the same person and the money is going into
the same place, all you're doing is facilitating crime. UM.
(30:08):
And so the mantra by what we we move forward
was if you're not meeting any new bad guys and
you're not uncovering any new crime, we could shut down.
We should shut down UM. And so we were always
on the move of trying to to do just that,
and we were also on the move to try to
get them to keep money with us as long as
(30:31):
we could, because if we get them to use us
to invest their funds will have more disease at the end.
But even more importantly and clearly more importantly, in order
to be able to have the responsibility to invest funds
for someone, in all likelihood you're going to be able
to force a meeting with the beneficial owner of the funds.
(30:52):
And that's really what it was all about, getting past
all these middlemen and trying to deal directly with the
type of people, as Benjamin Bratt portrayed, who were major
players within the cartel. So you know, the the investment
um angle. Although it was nice to get investments, to
(31:13):
manage with a technique, to be able to meet people
of responsibility important an authority within the cartel. I have
to ask about that Santa Ria scene that was so
compelling the way it was portrayed in the film. It
was just as a life or death situation that you know,
from where we sat was tied to you know, what
some might call superstition. Um, what was walking into that
(31:35):
situation like, well, nobody got killed sitting next to me,
but I you know, it was pretty controversial. Um. I
was dealing with a guy who his wife was related
to Gotta Rivera, one of the members out of the cartel,
(31:57):
and I think it was his wife was a niece
and he was a practicing uh he was practicing somebody.
And as I got to know him some he said,
you know, I'm very interested in doing business with you,
but I need to make sure that my prio, my
(32:19):
priest um believes in you, and so i'd like him,
I'd like you to come to Miami and we'll go visit,
uh the Santero and will we'll see what he has
to say. Well, some people back in the office thought
that was kind of way too risky that if the guy,
(32:42):
for whatever reason said no, didn't matter how good we were,
what we did, you know we were going to lose
the relationship. Um. But I knew we weren't going to
get a relationship with him if we didn't do it.
So you have to lose really so Um. It was
in an area called Sweetwater in Miami. Um, very low, well,
(33:02):
I would say low blue collar at best kind of area. Um.
The house itself had burglar bars on it, so once
you were in, you were in a bird cage. It
couldn't get out. Um. I went there with him. He
went into the room with the priest. The room was
(33:23):
just like a bedroom with a wooden floor. Um. And
I could see, I mean, there was an altar there. Um.
I could see the candles and statues and all that
kind of stuff. And I could see that there had
been sacrifices there. There's dried blood on the floor and
you know, checking parts and stuff like that. And UM,
(33:44):
so I came into the room and he wasn't The
guy wasn't a big, imposing muscular guy like the guy
in the film. But it's important to show that because
he had a lot of power and you know, that's
the kind of thing that I think, you know, you
need to appreciate as a movie go or when you
look at that, when you see that guy you in
(34:06):
the movie, you know he's powerful. You could tell from
his body style. Well, the guy that I dealt with
wasn't like that. He was much much lighter. But all
he did was come and embraced me and turned back
to the altar. And then he came back to me,
held my hands and asked me to step outside, and
(34:26):
I did, and then he brought a trafficker in there,
and and then I waited outside, and when he came out,
the trafficker came out, he was all smiles and hugged
me and said, you know, Petrino says you're a good
and honorable man and that I should do business with you.
So we will. And and and when I told that
story to the people in the office, some of them
(34:48):
kind of chuckled because they said, well, you know, the
the priest wasn't that wrong. You're you are a good
and honorable guy. It's just that you're not You're just
not a money lownder, really a money lownder. So you know,
I don't know whether there's much to them or not,
but it worked for them and it worked for me. Yeah,
and it's uh. That was one of the scenes that
(35:10):
really that really stayed with us. Uh. And also the
it seems like one of the most important currencies involved
in this operation was trust. Was earning the trust of
these people through as you said, uh, the personality traits
that they prized, the stability, consistency, reliability, and when when
(35:33):
we were looking at this this larger network from Bank
of Credit and Commerce International. Uh. One thing that we
noticed that a lot of our audience we'll have questions about,
is the nuts and bolts of converting drug money into
something that appeared to be legitimate. And ultimately what happened
(35:58):
to the funds and the asked that's that were seized
at the conclusion of Operation c Chase. Well, you know,
as far as laundering goes, it's like snowflakes. I mean,
there's so many different ways in which you can do it. Um,
very few are alike, but there are some fundamental issues.
I mean, you've got suitcases and boxes full of cash,
and you need to get it into the financial system
(36:19):
so that you can make a payout UM and either
a wire transfer or a check. So what bcc I
was doing at the time, and it's something that continues
to happen today. You know, I've read the deferred prostitution
agreements and and the toothless indictments that have been brought
against banks in the in the recent past. I say
(36:40):
toothless indictments because if you're indicted and you're a bank,
you should lose your license. But that doesn't happen. Um,
when indictments are returned against banks these days, Um they
wind up paying a fine, and um, not a whole
lot of people go to jail and and life goes on.
But when you to look at those deferred prosecutions, there's
(37:01):
a section in there, um called a manner of means
by which the crime of how they're committing a crime
for an account holder is done. And and I've looked
at them, you know there's one for well, they all
have a lot of a very very similar techniques that
we're being used by b c c I back in
(37:23):
the day, or are clearly still being used based upon
my reading of the deferred prosecutions in the last five
or six years. But anyway, the long and short of
it is that number one they offered to take the
cash from US and deposited into their branches. But they
they were very mindful at the time to do that
in the U S branch needed needed a very fine
(37:47):
twist to it. So UM I was offered to take
the money to the Bahamas. I was offered to take
the money to Uruguay. I was offered to take the
money to UM Panama. UM I do that. In other instances, UH,
they were bringing in cash in Miami, booking it in
as though it was cash shipped back from the Bahamas
(38:09):
branch UM and being deposited in b c I in Miami. UM.
But once you get the cash in the next step
was to take the capital and put it into a CD,
which was normally done in Luxembourg. UM. They had to
find form a lot of UM. They either had to
form or I needed to give another lawyer to form
(38:32):
one way or the other. The accounts needed to be
in the name of an offshore entity, and most often
those entities were in U, b v I, Panma, Gibraltar UM.
Those who don't want to Hong Kong UM. So a
c D gets established. Let's use as an example, a
million dollars and it's a ninety days c D with
(38:52):
an automatic payout. UM. What they did then was they
would go to another part of the world and they
would open up a facility, a luan facility UM, so
a totally different entity would be issued ALAN based upon
in the papers of the bank, just the financial worthiness
(39:12):
of the and of the corporation. So there was an
off book loan against the capitol. No auditor would be
able to link the two together. The loan proceeds would
then moved to yet a third, fourth, and fifth farm jurisdiction.
And the reason for that is any time the US
government or any government wants to try to get bank
records in a jurisdiction, they've got to go through the
(39:33):
legal process that takes a very very long period of time.
If you've got a string of Luxembourg, Lippenstein, Switzerland, France
and Panama that you've got to get get through UM,
the theory is that it will take him fifteen years
to get through all that stuff. So now the money
(39:55):
it leads the loan facility, it winds up going to Panama.
UH was at that stage put into a checking account
and then based upon UM. Their preference was based upon
oral instructions, payouts would be made to different accounts in
parts of the world that we're controlled by the cartel.
(40:17):
Of course, their accounts were opened up in the name
of nominees um and then those would be moved through
other accounts. So you know, there was a long, long
line of of bridges that had to be crossed before
you could ever work your way back to the original
cash deposit. And that is the first hand history of
(40:43):
operation see Chase from the Inside. We will be returning
next week with part two of our interview with Mr Maser,
wherein he details the present and the future of banks
that practice money laundry in one way or another and
(41:04):
what if any consequences befall those organizations. Not to be
too much of a tease here, but we get into
some really interesting territory, including Mr Maser's perspective on the
War on drugs as a whole, on things like marijuana legalization,
where we're heading as a country in that direction. And
this is an authority on this stuff, and he's got
some really interesting things to say, so look forward to that.
(41:27):
But first, I feel like we would say but first,
very often as we're setting this stuff up. But first,
this is the part of the show where we would
typically do a shout out corner. However, we're going to
do something a little different today. We're going to have
and in the news segment because something popped up recently,
probably on your news feeds, if you participate in social media,
(41:51):
maybe you have seen a bunch of people walking around,
staring at their phones even more so than usual, running
into walls, perhaps tripping over park benches, stopping cars in
the street, any number of bizarro scenarios. No, my friends,
it is not the zombie apocalypse. It is, in fact,
(42:11):
the gaming craze. Dare I say of our generation? App wise,
Pokemon Go, pomon Go. I've been looking forward to it, honestly.
I mean, I'm I'm into that stuff. So you know, so, uh, what,
what the blue blazes? What the smali Shenanigans? What the
heck is Pokemon Go? If you never heard of it
(42:32):
or played it before, which would be rather astounding if
this is the first time you're hearing about it. But
it's an augmented reality game. It's an app that you
get on your smart device and it uses your geo
location as well as a lot of other information that's
there resides within your phone, your accounts, your Google account. Uh,
(42:53):
just to know exactly where you are, where you're going,
where the Pokemon exists around you in the real world. Matt,
You've got to catch them all. It's you take take
my information, Just give me Pokemon. Just put a Squirtle
in my kitchen. That's all I ever wanted. That's you
said that the day we met you, Like, I just
(43:14):
want I could just have a squirtl in my kitchen.
I would be happy, man. But seriously, now I have
a seven year old, which is my excuse for playing
the game, you know, ye, Now, honestly, it's a it's
a it's a very thin um disguise for the fact
that I am a bit of a nerd for this
kind of stuff as well. But yeah, we played it,
and it's it's it's it's one of these situations we
(43:35):
talked about in the past with privacy, with buying and
selling of your personal information. You submit to it, you know,
on Facebook. It's like, I want my news feed. I
want to be able to have all this great free
stuff take my information. I know that's a very odd
opinion to have me being on a conspiracy podcast, but
I really am just like, just just have it. It's fine,
you're gonna take it anyway. But also would be it's
(44:00):
similar to the secondhand smoking argument because when people are
walking around, so you think about Google Earth, for instance,
Google Earth did second hand compromising of people, possibly in
terms of the information that was available on you know,
street view things like that, but still that's a public place.
(44:22):
The street is a public domain sort of situation. One
thing that Google and other companies of this nature couldn't
do as easily is get into buildings have a Google
floor view. Right, But now this stuff that's being captured
on camera every time somebody chases a char rezard or whatever,
(44:45):
it is going somewhere, right, So the second hand smoke
in this situation would be let's say one of our coworkers.
Name a coworker who wouldn't like this. Jonathan Strickland, he
would love Scott Benjamin. Scott Benjamin. Yeah, Scott Benjamin, the
man with no Gmail address by the way, he okay,
(45:08):
So Scott Benjamin, one of the co hosts of our
vehicle show Car Stuff. Scott Benjamin would probably never sign
on to compromise the information on on his phone or
in whatever accounts he has floating out there in the cloud. However,
if say Jonathan Strickland is walking around hunting Pokemon, then
(45:31):
the camera feed and the audio feed that his app
is using could easily capture Scott Benjamin sits here during
this time of day to this time of day. Now,
of course that's a somewhat of an extremist view that
someone would care where a single person sits for a
(45:53):
few hours every day, but it's generated a lot of concern,
and we'd like to give a shout out to a
couple of folks in particular who sent some information about
this our way or asked about it. Yes, and Nicole
Harris and Rob Phillips both were they had they were
on the cusp, They knew what was going on, and
they reached out to us immediately and said that we
(46:15):
should cover this. And there it actually was referencing a
pretty cool article on black Bag, which is Gawker's kind
of conspiracy type blog. And um, the most interesting thing
from this article to me is the fact that the
company that developed Pokemon Go as a company called Neantic,
which was founded by a guy named John Hanker. I
(46:37):
think I'm pronouncing that right. Might just be hank Um.
And he also founded a company called Keyhole that specializes
in geo positioning location software. Now Google Earth uses key
Holes technology. As far as I'm aware, they absorbed Keyhole
and likely folded some of the research and technology that
(46:59):
company had done in to Google Earth. But there's one
more step, and long time listeners you might recognize this
next one. That's right. Keyhole got a pretty sizeable amount
of funding from a firm called in q Tel. This
is a firm that we have mentioned several times on
this show, and we talked about the FBI and other
(47:20):
front agencies or front companies that agencies use UH to
put forward new technologies, emerging technologies. They'll get money from
places like in q Tel injected into let's say our
company that's looking into geo, you know, GPS technology, and
then they're like, hey, now we've got a flower that
we created from this soil. And here's the thing. I'm
(47:43):
joking mainly when I say I'm being a bit nihilistic
and saying give me my squirtle, take my information. I'm
fine with it. I don't really feel that way exactly.
I just kind of feel like we are living in
a situation where we are being monitored, and it's almost
like either do you live in fear and panic all
the time or you just kind of accept it and
(48:04):
move on with your life and you know, enjoy the
free stuff that that allows you. Or are those the
only two choices? Maybe not. And that's a good point, Matt.
But what this makes me think of is um There
was a great interview with Edward Snowden on Vice recently
where he was showing you how to disconnect the cameras
in your iPhone and all of the microphones and kind
(48:24):
of showing you where the different chips were and all
this stuff, and he made a wonderful point where he
was sort of like, yeah, I mean, now, okay, really
it's not super nefarious what's being done with this information.
You know, no one is being UM monitored in any
kind of nefarious way, No one is being targeted because
of any of this stuff. It's just the technology is there.
(48:46):
But what happens if we have a regime change where
all of a sudden we're in more of a totalitarian
system and all of a sudden the man or woman
in charge flips the switch and decides to really start
using this against us right. And also it could be
something a little more insidious, a progression by degree. So
(49:06):
for instance, what if instead of a switch being flipped,
it becomes a matter of insurance rates changing for someone.
Because the privacy agreement in Pokemon Go does explicitly allow
the selling of this data or the transmission of this
data to a third party, it's basically, ah, we'll do
(49:28):
what we want and good luck finding a squirrel sort
of agreement. So this does mean that if, if, if
they wished, the makers of Pokemon Go, could uh take
your geolocation data. Let's say you're at let's say you're
always at some crazy place. What's a crazy place to be?
(49:53):
Crazy Town, Crazy Atlanta. Isn't there a restaurant called Let's
say you're at a place called Crazy Atlanta Town and
it's a known drugged in and uh, your information about
that is is sent out and maybe your car insurance
folks say, well, statistically, because we know that this person
(50:15):
is a Crazy Atlanta Town, the notorious drugg Den bar,
then their insurance rate is going to go up because
we can't say that they're taking drugs and driving or whatever.
But they're there for two hours between one and uh,
between one and three am every night and they're driving
home after that. So this, I mean, is this substantiated?
(50:39):
I don't think so. Is it possible? Yes? But is
it probable? That's a whole another bag of badgers. So
we want to know what you guys think. Is Pokemon
Go is an example of a r that's just a
game changer, teaching us the capabilities of this amazing technology
we hold or is it something a little bit more perfidious?
(51:03):
Is it something a little bit disingenuous? Uh? And do
you play Pokemon Go? Also, what do you think about
all this stuff that Robert Maser was talking about in
in this interview about banks and just taking money, just
taking billions of dollars of drug dealers money and just
converting it because they make a huge profit and they
(51:26):
don't really get in trouble for it. Yes, let us
know what you think about all of the above. You
can find us on Facebook and Twitter where we are
Conspiracy Stuff. You can also find us on Instagram speaking
of privacy violations. Conspiracy Stuff Show. And that's the end
of this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or
(51:48):
questions about this episode, you can get into contact with
us in a number of different ways. One of the
best is to give us a call. Our number is
one eight three three std w y t K. If
you don't want to do that, you can send us
a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at i
heart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to
(52:09):
know is a production of I heart Radio. For more
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