June 26, 2026 • 63 mins
Throughout history, war has continually resulted in hostages -- these could be soldiers, spies, or civilians. And, even in the heat of conflict, opposing forces will often agree to exchange prisoners through various agreements. On paper, it sounds downright civilized. However, as Ben and Matt discover in tonight's episode, that's often not the case. Tune in to learn more about the controversy and conspiracy surrounding 'prisoner swaps'.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Noel is on an adventure.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
And will be returning soon. They called me Ben, you
can too. We're joined as always with our super producer
Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know now. This has been a long
time in coming for us. I asked Dylan and Matt
(00:55):
before we were rolling if either of them had ever
been jammed in a prison or jail or another detainment facility,
And thankfully, it turns out we're all pretty good boys,
except for one incident in a mall So, Dylan, can
you tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I got frame for pushing people off of escalators when
I was in seventh grade. It wasn't me, crooked.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Mall up.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
We're talking all the way all the way down an escalator.
What sounds like a real crime. Physics don't even make sense.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
They don't they don't, and a lot of people, as
we know, do get jammed up unfairly in these United
States and indeed across the world. But I think it
gets me about this, guys, is if you have ever
been held against your will, you know that there is
a complex, deep and unspoken culture of negotiation and visible
(01:55):
to outsiders. And if you luckily are good kid or
a fortunate son, there we go. You have probably heard
a few like therein gone reports over the years about
what we call prisoner swaps or prisoner exchanges. They're usually
going to be prisoners of war POWs, or spies or
(02:17):
political detainees. And these are flash in the headlines. You know,
you get, you get a name, and if it's not
a celebrity, then those names get tamped down as soon
as the media reports them. Well, what's really going on?
What's your take on this map?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Well, the one that comes to mind most frequently, most
recently is the Britney Griner thing, because it was being
talked about so much, reported on so much in the
standard news outlets, right, and just the idea that oh
there's a there's an athlete that is being detained for
(02:58):
one reason or another, and now they're has to be
intense negotiation. Well, first, there has to be a desire
to have intense negotiation, right, because I guess the big
takeaway for me Ben in looking at this is that
the concessions that a country generally makes to get some
(03:18):
people of theirs back from another country that's holding them
captive are immense. The things that will be given up
are like they seem to be a bigger deal than
is especially made on the news.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
I agree with that, and they're often these prisoner exchanges
are often controversial because they involve things that the public
would probably not agree to. We're going to take a
pause for a word from our sponsors and we'll dive
into the hidden world of prisoner swaps. Here are the
(03:59):
fact I mean, Matt Tennessee, we know the game at
this point. It's a pretty simple concept. You're war with
another social group, right, You're beefed up, and in the
course of that conflict, you and your enemies manage to
take some people alive.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Right.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
The enemy may have some high value targets. Historically, these
are going to be one of three categories. They're going
to be military members, they're going to be criminals, or
they're going to be aristocrats, and you and the enemy,
who don't like each other at all, are still actively
in conflict. You say, okay, we're not going to end
(04:44):
our war with each other, you know, in Ukraine or
Uslavia or any insert any two countries, honestly, but we
will hatch a little gentleman's agreement and will hand over
captured individuals to You. Might be a ruler in the
Middle Ages and you would say, hey, we have the
(05:06):
duke's son. We'll give them back to you unharmed if
you return the nephew of our caliph.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Well, yeah, aren't there also instances way way back, We're
talking like some of the earliest recorded instances of this
kind of thing where children end up being a bargaining piece,
but not in the way you may imagine, So not
like getting your child back, but more like something you
have to give up, are your children?
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Yeah, So.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Notable things in the historical record that show us how
ancient prisoner exchanges can be are stuff like the Romans
when they were conquering various tribes during their conquest. They
would go back and say, hey, we want those concessions
(05:59):
right to our empire and then we will release your
holy figure, your tribal head. The stuff we're talking about there,
as far as capturing children is called hostage diplomacy, and
hostage diplomacy was a practice where you're a dominant empire
(06:21):
and you have a couple vassal or puppet states. Right,
they swear fealty to you, but the very far away.
So the best insurance policy you can have to guarantee
their loyalty is to take their children. You're not necessarily
abusing these children, you're not killing them. They're in a
gilded cage. You're probably giving them an education. In many cases.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
That's one of the things we've talked about in the past.
A strategy when you are a conquering force that is
going forward and perhaps colonizing an area or taking over
land that is occupied by people, is to assimilate some
of the population into your culture, into your way, so
(07:08):
that you've got essentially what would you call that ben
almost almost these diplomatic liaisons that you can use in
the future that you've you've customized their education and their
upbringing to kind of function for your purposes as the
colonizer in the population of those you're trying to colonize.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
We have no statements about the Iradian gentleman educated at Harvard,
you know what I mean? Like, that's that's a modern
version of this.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, it's we're just saying there, that is one strategy
that is not the whole goal, right, that's not the
big picture of it, but that is one thing that
has been used and continues.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
As you said, Yeah, hostage diplomacy is really interesting to
me and I hope to all of us, because if
you if we put the ethics aside, this is a
brilliant way to ensure that your vassal states don't get,
you know, don't get a hankering for sovereignity because communication
(08:11):
lines and travel across vast, harsh terrain is impractical. So
imagine saying, you know, I'm the sultan.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
I have your child.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
His name is vlad Dracul, And that's a reference a
few folks will get. But yeah, you're absolutely right, Matt.
If we fast forward a little bit further, we see
things like the Treaty of Paris from seventeen sixty three.
This was something that codified internationally, right for a few countries,
(08:43):
it coudified a structured approach for exchanging prisoners of war,
and this led us to the current civilizations attempts at
agreeing to basic human rights during conflict, and obviously you
know in hostage diplomacy and the post Treaty of Paris,
(09:08):
a lot of these prisoners were treated horrifically. They were tortured,
they were abused, they were murdered. This leads us back
to the related concept of diplomatic immunity. We have a
three part series on diplomatic immunity, and folks, I'm going
to be honest with you, the best part is the
third chapter, Shadow Diplomacy. But yeah, for my money, that
(09:33):
was the best one of the series.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
It's really great. If you are watching this on Netflix
and you're used to watching it on Netflix, you will
have to find our audio feed to listen to those episodes,
and we encourage you to do that.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
And diplomatic immunity, just like hostage diplomacy, did not always work,
by which we mean it didn't always have the intended outcomes.
You can find no shortage of stories throughout history. Shout
out to Jenghis Khan where somebody sent a courier or
(10:07):
a diplomat to the court of the con and his
reply was to send back their head, you know, like
it didn't always work.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
It's not the best way to go about things.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
They're messengers that that saying is around for a reason.
You don't have to kill the messenger or decapitate her
or him.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah, he did it, though he did it pretty often,
but it wasn't until fairly recently in history. As we
know that the world overall, what we call the modern
world today, said we're going to lay out some standards
for the treatment of POW's and the big watershed moment
(10:51):
for this comes courtesy of what we call the Geneva Conventions.
They're called the Geneva Conventions in a burst of creativity
because they were signed over and over again in the
town of Geneva. Ough Man, these conventions, you guys there.
(11:13):
I mean, the paperwork is so crazy. Long story short.
They date back to eighteen sixty four. The modern version
you have now is for international treaties and a handful
of addendums that were enacted in nineteen forty nine. They
were forged in the bloody wake of World War two.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, you can maybe imagine why there needed to be
some kind of codification of how to treat other combatants
and especially non combatants in a wartime, a standard that
everyone would be held to right, and if someone discovers
any side, discovers that you are not holding up these conventions,
(11:55):
you will be targeted by everybody, or at least looked
at by everybody as hey, somebody is doing some heinous crap.
It makes sense, it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Yeah, yeah, what is it bad? Pooh old sun, that
kind of thing? Would you get just a shame thing
or a strongly worded letter, or would we invade you,
which is always in the cards.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, And that's why international courts exist to hold these
kind of standards as a law and to say, hey,
there are punishments for breaking these laws. But we do see,
we have seen in the past those international courts work
let's say, one percent of the time. No, that's not real.
It's not a real percentage. We've just seen that those
(12:42):
courts can be shrugged away if you're powerful enough.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Yeahs.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
As we said in a previous episode, this is a
true story. And I'm laughing because it's gallows humor. The
United States has a law on the books that says
we will literally invade the hay if any of our
high value targets aka politicians and business tyrants if any
(13:11):
of them are captured or accused of war crimes. That
is still nuts that we have the thing that the
US that played such a huge role in instituting these
international norms and agreements, also went back and said, yeah,
rules for THEE, but not for we.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
It is kind of weird. It's a bit of an
admission when you start saying, hey, that law that's supposed
to call out the evildoers is the one that you're
so against being enforced.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Right, Yeah, it's your chain smoking uncle telling you that
he's going to kick your butt if he catches you
with a camel light, which is a brand of cigarettes.
So that joke would have been better. That analogy would
have been better without overexplaining cigarettes. But we do know,
like you're saying, Matt, we do know the Geneva Conventions
(14:05):
are a huge deal and if everybody followed the letter
of the law on paper, this world would be in
a much better place. That's objectively true, you know, But
it like it allowed for a bunch of nations to say, look,
if you have a prisoner of war, by which we
(14:26):
mean a uniformed official soldier a member of a military
and they are ill or they've been injured, and you
know that they're not going to be skidadaline over the
border to wage more chaos. Then you have to send
them back to their home country.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Right.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
You have to treat them with a modicum of respect,
provide for their basic physical needs, and then you know,
you can call them persona no grata or p and
gum as you wish, but you got to ship them off.
This is a matter of basic rights in times of
conflict for not just prisoners, but also people who were
(15:11):
shipwrecked or lost at sea and civilians.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Those are like the big things.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah, we don't think about the shipwrecks so much anymore.
It just doesn't happen as often as it once did.
Oh gosh, I just watched a movie, you guys, where
the two people get shipwrecked on an island and it's
like the CEO of a company and like a technology
(15:38):
expert in the company, and it was called Send Help,
And it just made me think of that movie right
now we're talking about shipwrecks. It was pretty great, and
didn't We don't need this at all, so no it matters.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
We got to keep it in because being shipwrecked can
happen to any right, and one of the biggest flash
points for global conflict now is the strait of horror moves.
So if we're talking about the Geneva Conventions, this means
(16:14):
that if Tennessee, if you are Iran, right, you're running
the strait of horror moves and you find people, even
if they're US sailors and they're flailing around in the water.
The Geneva Conventions say you have to rescue them, right,
and you can take them into detainment, and then you
(16:38):
should give them back because they're POW's unless you can
do a little Chavealan plot twist right and call them
spies or call them another term we'll get to, which
is where the US showed its own chaos.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
You hit on something massive we're gonna get into a
little further in the episode. That that someone is spying
is used so often as a way to just snatch
somebody up who happens in your territory that you don't
want to be there, or you know is just a
member of a group that you are at war with
or ideologically opposed to. That thing is so sneaky because
(17:17):
how do you prove it. Do you have to do
a whole trial to prove that they were spying? Nah,
you can just say.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
It right right, exactly, And you can have such a
flimsy fig leaf of an excuse with this kind of stuff.
For instance, if you like here in the United States,
you can take photographs of any place or any person
in a public sphere that leads to good and bad things,
(17:47):
especially in you know, the age of social media. But
in many other countries it is not only considered impolite,
it can get you in jail. So, for instance, if
you're in Santiago, Chile, or you're in the DPRK or
pretty much any of the stands and you take a
(18:08):
photograph without explicit permission, that can be enough to jam
you up. That can be enough for the militia or
the police or even the state level authority to say, hey,
this guy's spye, why else would he be taking photographs
of you know, this really sick plane? And again yeah
(18:33):
again dy scope of May Chile, so.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Let's take pictures of planes? Makes me think about the
brand new Kutari jet.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Yes, yes, which is Oh that's an interesting that's an
interesting deal, is it not. We also know like we're
saying that prisoner swaps have led to historical controversy that
only seems to accelerate in the modern day. Because when
these prisoner exchanges happen, when they occur, folks, you have
(19:07):
to realize, it's not like all angel farts and trumpets
and hashtag free our boys and kumbaya. For the last
one hundred or so modern years of modern statecraft, this
practice has been riddled with ethical quaundaries, accusations of corruption,
accusations of conspiracy. We're going to get into some specific examples,
(19:31):
but before we do that, we're going to pause for
a word from our sponsors and let everybody take a
deep breath in because you're going to need it. We're
going into the deep water. Here's where it gets crazy. Okay, Matt,
you know this, Ido, this Tennessee, you know this Ido. This.
(19:55):
The big issue is that these exchanges are not always
one to one swaps of POW's.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
You know.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
It's not like it's not like the World War two
stuff where you would say, hey, we got three guys
from your infantry, you have three from hours. You know,
let's just call it even and then reset for war tomorrow.
They it's often unbalanced, and the decision makers in every
(20:28):
country that make the calls in these negotiations, they're not
talking to the public about it, not usually unless it's
a celebrity. Instead, they're going behind the public's back. And
the public is paying for this, and that gives prisoner
exchanges a sour reputation because you are probably not going
(20:52):
to know the full details of whatever negotiation took place,
Even if you're one of the people be rescued, like
Britney Grinder, phenomenal Olympic athlete US National we'll get to
them in a second, did not know the full details
of their release. The only people who know what actually happens,
(21:14):
how the sausage gets made. They're the negotiators. They're the
experts directly involved. They're your creepy professor of international relations
who just occasionally beat me here Dylan thought for four
months and then comes back and gives everybody a.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Be Yeah, well, think about how strange that must feel
for Britney Griner, who now knows the exchange was, Oh
I'm so sorry. Let's just take a moment to think
about how strange it must be for Brittany Griner to
now know that she was exchanged an athlete, a star
(21:57):
of someone who was well known, but she was exchanged
for a convicted arms dealer, like a scary individual that
causes death with his line of work. Just knowing that you,
as an entertainer, ultimately are being exchanged for a person
that sells literally death and is massively important to a
(22:20):
country for those strategic things and for we've talked a
lot about how the United States, one of the biggest
things we export is culture, right, That's one of our
biggest in a weird way, soft power weapons that we
have to wield. So I guess in some way it
makes sense that an athlete entertainer gets exchanged for an
(22:41):
arms dealer, But I can't imagine what that feels like
internally to know that's who you got swapped with.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Yeah, And we'll get into the specifics of that case, folks,
So stay tuned. Well, I'd love for us to step
back and talk about something that speaks to the quandaries
of that specific example. The first is that, yes, we
said countries often never acknowledge the details to the public
(23:10):
at large, domestic or international. But we have to add
to that, countries also increasingly disagree on what makes somebody
a civilian, a POW or a straight up criminal. You know,
we know the state of modern warfare has shifted in
the wake of September eleventh and the War on Terror.
(23:33):
So people are still fighting over what fighting Jesus, Jesus
hubor Christ. People are still fighting over what qualifies someone
as a soldier versus an enemy combatant. As we all recall,
in the wake of September eleventh, the George W. Bush
(23:53):
administration started using the term enemy combatant as a euphemism
or another fig leaf to describe what they called unlaw
what they saw as unlawful combatants. And that means if
you're an unlawful combatant, if you're not part of a
state military, you do not qualify for POW status under
(24:17):
the Geneva Conventions. This is a hugely controversial perspective because
the Bush administration argued that even though everyone earlier agreed
that unlawful combatants still have some rights under the Geneva Conventions,
enemy combatants, per the Bush administration, had no rights whatsoever,
(24:42):
so they could torture the heck out of you or
excuse us enhance their interrogations.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
It reminds you that documentary from Alex Gibney Taxi to
the Dark Side from eight oh seven something like that,
where justscussing who could be who could be considered an
enemy combatant? Is it just your age and where you
happen to be, right, does that make you an enemy combatant?
(25:12):
And you know, then you've got White House attorneys and
you know, US attorneys looking at how how what's the
best way to make sure anybody we happen to pick
up and don't like we get to torture, I mean
enhance their interrogations.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Right, Yeah, And Uncle Sam was pretty from the hip
with this. Uh. From the US perspective, anybody suspected of
or proven to be engaged in terroristic activities was a criminal,
not a soldier. And that meant that they even if
they're treated as a criminal. You know, look no further
(25:50):
than Guintanamo or the black sites. These individuals, even if
they weren't convicted, they were not given the few rights
that even ordinary criminals get in the US judicial system.
It's a bag of legalistic, terrifying badgers. And it's just
the beginning. Because Matt, you and I know this, and
(26:13):
I'm not sure how many of us in the crowding
of this as well. Sometimes another controversy is that prisoners
are not exchanged for other people at all. Instead, you
negotiate or release in return for like wid propo policy agreements.
You might see relax sanctions, your funds get unfrozen. There
(26:35):
might be promises of ceasefires, will give up a little territory,
or we promise you, guys, scouts honor, we're not going
to escalate a conflict further. And that doesn't even count
the backroom stuff, which is where we see well connected
private companies getting in and setting up shop in an area.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Didn't that kind of thing happen pretty recently with Iran
before we attacked Iran, So like Biden administration, and in exchange,
I think there were I think there were civilians on
either side.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
There were ten. Yeah, we've got a specific example of that, right.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
But the thing, the big deal in that exchange was
relaxing of billions of dollars of money that Iran had
controlled before that was being iced out right.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Six billion coming via the Republic of Korea, South Korea.
So the best way for us to for you, fellow
conspiracy realists, to understand the full scope of the forest
here is for us to get into some specific examples.
So let's step back to one we tease a little
bit earlier. On December eighth of twenty twenty two, Russia
(27:54):
and the United States, who have never been super friendly
with each other after World War Two, they conducted what
we would call a quiproquo or one for one prisoner exchange.
One of these people is a US national, Britney Griner,
super famous Olympic athlete basketball star. Griner had been detained
(28:17):
in Russia earlier that year on charges of smuggling and
possessing cannabis. Reiner was convicted in a Russian court and
sentenced to nine years in Russian prison. But on the
other side of the negotiation table, we've got a very
different dude.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
His name is Victor.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Bout bout like I'm about to He's a Russian national.
He's an arms dealer who was quite successful in Africa,
associated with the kleptocracy in the oligarchy of post Soviet Russia.
And he was known and is known in international circles
(28:57):
as get this, folks, the merchant of Death. And he
earned that name. It's not an ironic nickname at all.
It's not like little.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
John, didn't we mention this guy is the person upon
which the Lord of War was based or like loosely,
I think this was the.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Dude Armsteelers like him?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, the Nicholas Ky I want to see Nicholas Cage movie.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
You're correct?
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yeah, okay, cool but legitimate. Oh there's also a Merchant
of Death movie from ninety seven.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
H h.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Don't know about how that one is related. Sorry, just
found that, Ben. Yeah, this guy is a legitimate human being.
That is the kind of dude that sells AK forty
seven's to a group that wants to start an uprising
in a country, let's say in Africa.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
Ed about our guy.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Victor Baut got apprehended in Thailand in two thousand and eight,
and he already had you every warrant you could imagine
and help for his arrest internationally, So it was only
a matter of time that he got clocked or went
to a non extradition country. He was transferred to the US,
(30:11):
where he was tried on charges of terrorism and money laundry,
and a lot of other countries wanted to get in
the game as well. He was convicted in a US court.
He was sentenced to twenty five years in prison, and
now we're seeing that these are two very different individuals
(30:31):
right being proposed for this trade. Originally, when this is
all going down, this is under the administration of former
President Joe Biden. Originally they were also pushing for the
release of a US marine named Paul Whelan, and that
guy had been held in Russian prison since twenty eighteen.
(30:53):
I want to say, on some pretty serious charges of
spying vespionage, Ussia said pretty coldly. They said, nope, that
one of them is a basketball player who broke our
drug laws. The other guy is a straight up spy.
So we will release this marine if you the United
(31:18):
States will release someone who is worth as much to us.
And there's a guy in Germany we want you to
release in exchange for Wailan. The thing is, oh, fellow
conspiracy realist. The guy they wanted out of Germany is
a convicted assassin named Vadim Krasikov, and Vadim definitely did
(31:45):
all the stuff that Germany sentenced him to life for doing.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yeah, you know this, dude, is I imagine most of this
comes through windows of fiction, depictions of things, but then
you were imagining real human beings who do the actual thing.
Like in any hit Man movie, you imagine someone casing
(32:12):
a human being of locations following someone waiting for an
opportunity to murder that person. That is the kind of
stuff this guy did successfully. Unfortunately.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Yeah, yeah, in broad daylight, Like in broad daylight in Berlin,
a very populated, very busy place, Vadim shoots fatally a
Georgia national and we're not sure what else he did
in betweens. So imagine if we get exercise empathy. We're
the diplomatic team from the United States and we want
(32:46):
to keep this out of the news. So we quietly
go to Germany hat in hand and we say, hey,
can you help us out here? And Germany very reasonably
says that no, and this guy murders people in broad daylight.
The good news is eventually our marine Whalen is released
(33:09):
with several other people in another deal from August of
twenty twenty four. It's called the Ankara prisoner exchange, and
it was the biggest prisoner exchange that we know of
since the end of the Cold War. So he eventually
got out. There's other stuff, like all wrapped up in
(33:32):
this Russian people as currency thing there was an American
named Mark Vogel. He was detained in Russia for a
possession of cannabis, like again, seventeen rams or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's an easy way to get people, and especially if
they don't respect the laws of a country.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
And he's a good dude, he's a teacher, he's.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Not doing any shenanigans. He was not included in the
exchange because Russia wanted to save him, just like trading
Pokemon or baseball cards. They wanted to save him for
a separate deal in February of twenty twenty five, when
(34:15):
they released this guy who was not famous, just a
good dude who's a teacher who likes a little bit, right,
they released him in exchange for the release of a
very serious cyber criminal Russian national named Alexander Vinnick. So
(34:36):
Russia feels like they got the better end of the
deal on both sides. Right, They're probably still mad they
didn't get their assassin back, but you know, that's why
you have more than one mm.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
I wonder what what did Vinnick do? I don't know
anything about this dude.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Yeah, he pled guilty to money laundering. That's technically what
they got him for because he ran a cryptocurrency exchange,
which is an easy way to move money past sanctions.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yes, and to smugle a lot of money out of
other people's bank accounts.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yes, absolutely, and the guy did it. Just to be clear,
he definitely did that stuff. Another thing that gives us
a little bit of a backdoor peek here is the
case of Sarah Krivenek, who was a US national detained
and imprisoned in Russia on domestic violence charges. She was
(35:36):
not officially part of the Bout Griner deal, but she
was deported from Russia on the very same day that
Griner was released. Can you imagine, folks, I mean all
of us who saw it, we know. Can you imagine
how controversial this is? Political opponents of the Biden administration said, Hey,
(36:00):
this is like paying blackmailers.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Dude.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
If you do this, if you play this game with
the Russians, they're going to be incentivized. They're going to
arrest more US nationals on BS charges, and then they're
going to keep jamming them up and they're going to
use them for political gain. The current President of the
United States, Donald J. Trump, said, this exchange is a
(36:27):
quote stupid, unpatriotic embarrassment for the USA.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
End quote.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
I mean they were kind of Look, I know we're
in a politically divided time, but they're the critics are
making some good points, which is, I think the most
disturbing thing is Griner, who definitely should have been released.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
I agree with that.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Did Griner get prioritized for release because she had a
celebrity athlete status? And also more disturbing, what's our boy, Victor,
the Merchant of Death bout going to do once he's
back on the prowl.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
If he's not building drones, it's not really going to
matter at least as far as war goes. Right, That's
all that matters now, guys, explosive suicide drones.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
And with that, we're going to pause for a word
from our sponsors and return to some more examples of
prisoner exchanges, which takes us to Iran Venezuela and beyond
journey with US folks to September eighteenth, twenty twenty three.
(37:42):
The US and Iran, who famously are not super close
these days, they struck a deal that we were teasing earlier.
They traded five US nationals in Iranian custody. For five
Iranian prisoners in US custody and six billion dollars of
(38:04):
frozen Irotian oil money.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
This, this is crazy.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
This is a very controversial one even now because the critics,
again it's always politically divided in the United States. But
the critics said, look, we've got our usual complaints about
releasing spies or war criminals, but our big concern now
is why did you give these guys six billion dollars.
(38:29):
You were going to strengthen their complex, effective proxy network
of terrorist and secessionists throughout the Middle East. And more importantly,
six billion dollars is a huge alley oop and any
for anybody racing to build a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
But ben according to the waiver that was signed, because
it was a waiver, I guess that allowed it to happen,
and the funds went from South Korea to Qatar and
then Iran. The waiver says they're only permitted to use
the funds for food, medicine, and humanitarian items allowed under
US economic sanctions.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yeah, yeah, my centrifuges are so humanitarian.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Dog But it's crazy to imagine this happening in twenty
twenty three, right when there there were active negotiations about
all of that stuff before bombs fell again on Iran
in the next you know, administration that came through diplomacy
(39:33):
was happening. But I guess this is a part of
diplomacy where you have to make that kind of concession.
I guess what I'm saying is, if it truly was
for humanitarian aid, right, that's six billion dollars, right, that's
not a big deal. That's probably strengthening whatever you're building
in at those tables when you're having discussions. That's strengthening
(39:55):
something and goodwill probably, and that's I would say a
positive thing. It is weird though, that that's on the
table at the same time there's an equal exchange number
of human beings.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Yeah, yeah, man.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
In addition to that, first off, we have to say
I feel like we need to say this every time.
The government of a country is never the people of
the country, not in practical terms like the public members
of a country. If you just walk around, you're going
to see people incredibly similar to where you reside tonight.
(40:35):
They're going to want you know, safe drinking water, right,
They're going to want to know where their next meal
is coming from. They want their lives, their kids' lives
to be better than their own lives. They are universal
things that happen right with ordinary people. But these controversies
come into play in the case of the twenty twenty
(40:56):
three RAW and US deal, which gets studied pretty often. Now,
one thing that really put the public off is that
we don't know the identity of two of the five
Americans released. They are listed as quote unnamed businessman and
(41:18):
unnamed woman and former un employee. So that raises some
pretty considerable questions about spycraft trade.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah, well, I can imagine it would also make most
human beings in the United States a little bit angry. Oh,
can can we get six billion dollars in humanitarian aid?
Speaker 4 (41:38):
Please?
Speaker 2 (41:40):
R please? Yes, that would be cool.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
What happened to Social Security? Right?
Speaker 3 (41:46):
We're six billion and be a drop in the bucket?
Speaker 4 (41:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Help us?
Speaker 4 (41:52):
Right?
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Come on, like, I voted for you, you had you
were so sweet during the campaign season.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
What's with the switch?
Speaker 2 (42:01):
It feels imbalanced, as imbalanced as that deal that was
struck there. It feels like there's an imbalance when that
kind of thing. Again, this isn't US dollars going for aid, right,
this is money that was frozen that is being unlocked
via waiver, But it still feels as though we're losing
something more than we're gaining.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Yeah, they held the money hostage, and we see this,
We see these similar imbalances in other cases. You know,
I think all three of us are very interested in
the specific interactions between Venezuela and the United States. It
(42:43):
was just last year the Associated Press broke a story
about how, in July of twenty twenty five, so little
little less than a year ago now, Venezuela agreed to
release ten US citizens and permanent restsvidence in exchange for
two hundred and fifty something Venezuelan migrants making it back
(43:09):
to Venezuela. Because the US had originally taken these folks
in multiple planeloads, and two planeloads, they had deported these
folks on what I think are trumped up charges to
a notorious prison in El Salvador. There's a big win
for Maduro for everybody playing long at home. Maduro was
(43:31):
still in charge of the country in July of twenty
twenty five. It was not until January of twenty twenty
six that he would be captured and himself incarcerated. In
a beyond controversial raid by US forces.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
It's so crazy looking at the CNN article now from
July eighteenth, title of his El Salvador releases hundreds of
US deportees from notorious prison in US Venezuela swamp and
just looking through here, and as crazy as this is,
as you said, Ben, almost a year ago, it feels
like this kind of this thing just happened. Some of
(44:09):
these huge things, so many, so many things occurred in
twenty twenty five that required all of our attention to
feel that way, like massive things like this. Wait, you're
telling me there's a system in the United States where
human beings are being deported to other countries like third
countries that they don't live in and where they're not from,
(44:30):
to go to notorious prisons. That's just the thing that's happening.
And that is somehow being used to release American hostages
held in third or four, like fourth or fifth countries.
What Okay, this is a thing that's just happening. And
if you go through the article here, it's just astounding
(44:50):
to me.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
Yeah, agreed, you know, and you and I talked about
this a little bit off air. We're looking at two
hundred and fifty two Venezuelan nationals were deported from the
United States to Seacott Cecot in El Salvador. Look it
up if you want to ruin your day. Their personal
(45:12):
safety is in periled here. Seacott is infamous for gang activity,
the denial of basic human rights. These detainees are largely civilians,
and the rationale for their mass deportation was the accusation
that they were old members of a crime syndicate, an
(45:34):
international gang called Trend de Aragua.
Speaker 4 (45:37):
This is strange.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
We also should mention it didn't get reported as much
in the headlines, but in exchange for these two hundred
and fifty two people, the US got their ten Americans,
but they also got the release of an unnamed number
of Venezuelan political prisoners and detainees. So again the obscurity here, right,
(46:03):
The hiding of those people's identities only lends more fire
to accusations of espionage.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Yeah, well, it's super weird that they were all declared
by the US government to be in this gang, right, Yes,
two hundred and fifty people. Makes no sense with a
little thing called the Alien Enemies Act of seventeen ninety eight,
where you can just declare, oh, no, this group, they're
actually not a gang, they're not an affiliated organization. They
(46:31):
are the state actually of Venezuela, so we can treat
them as those enemy combatants things. Remember how we talked
about that earlier. All you got to do is, you know,
make sure legally people are enemy combatants, and now we
can do whatever we want with them. Goodbye.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Yeah, exactly. The Alien Enemies Act was a very weird
and dangerous flex for the administration because it means you
can remove people with little to no due process. And
Uncle Sam's legal beagles said, yeah, all two hundred and
fifty two folks being hauled off to this hellish prison
(47:11):
are definitely part of this gang and trend. De Aragua
is a hybrid criminal state. They are actively invaded America.
This is war. And naturally the families and the attorneys
go back and say, look, these folks maybe Venezuela nationals
(47:33):
by birth, but they don't have any criminal records. The
United States responded, and keep in mind, folks, is a
verbatim quote. We're going to do it in an asshole voice. Well,
it is true that many of the gang members were
moved under the AEA do not have criminal records in
the United States. That is because they have only been
(47:54):
in the United States for a short period of time.
The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they
pose unlimited threats. Come on, you're saying, Okay, we know
these folks have not done anything, but based on what vibes,
we know that they will. That's not how the law works.
(48:15):
It's crazy that you would have a legal degree and
think that's how the law works. I can't. I thought, dude,
I thought law school was stressful. I thought you were
supposed to pay attention.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Well, it goes back to everything we've talked about on
this show. Ever, the folks at the top, all they
want is precognition. They want to know what's coming so
they can react before it happens. Right, And that's in
all things, from the modeling out of the entire globe
and all the political systems and how if you change
(48:48):
one thing, how does that affect the rest of the system,
that whole thing we've talked about for years, and all
these other ways. They want to just be able to
be ahead of the curve. Ben I was looking on
DARPA's website this morning randomly, I just decided I've been
checked in on DARPA for a while here and looked
at some of their R and D opportunities that you
can find right now on DARPA dot mill. That'sil there
(49:12):
are so many open contracts right now. All these companies
just have to send in a proposal to win that contract.
Speaker 4 (49:21):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
There's stuff in here about seeing seeing a patient's potential
problems in all the ways that those problems can be
fixed before the patient gets to the hospital. So modeling
out when there's a nine to one to one call
or something, and then you have a first responder get there,
(49:42):
modeling that patient virtually before they arrive at a hospital,
so that basically either a human being or a quote
future automated healthcare service member would be let's say, performing
a life saving surgery. And that there's millions of dollars
(50:02):
in contracts out there that are available for people that
can learn how to do that stuff. And it just
makes me think, with all the palenteer of it all,
with all the predictive things that the government is trying
to get into and governments across the world are attempting
to do, it's all about this thing. Then the potential
of a limited threat that someone might pose, or in
(50:27):
this the darker thing to how to see the future
and fix somebody before they're even really hurt.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
How to prognosticate. That's always been the golden grail, right
or golden goose, holy grail right. It's it's happening, It
definitely is. It's going to affect the immense calculations of
prisoner exchanges, and we the public are not going to
know the ins and outs, right, We're never going to
(50:56):
get under.
Speaker 4 (50:57):
The hood of this stuff. Right.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
There are countless other examples. DPRK or in the US
you hear called North Korea they had arrested an American
national in twenty sixteen or returned them in twenty seventeen
in a vegetative state. His name otto Frederick Warmbeir. Unfortunately
he died shortly thereafter. As we record now, Russian forces
(51:22):
are negotiating with Ukraine to get POWs from North Korea
DPRK released, even though that's a death sentence because a
lot of those POWs want to defect. So if they
get sent back home, you know, just like getting caught
on the Chinese mainland, they're going to a death camp.
(51:44):
Don't get us started on Israel. We don't have time
for it right now. It's another episode. But Matt, is
it fair to say that we don't know how many
prisoner exchanges actually occur?
Speaker 4 (51:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Absolutely. Sometimes you'll get something in the news like CBS
posting May eighth, twenty twenty six, Trump announces Russia Ukraine
prisoner swap as part of three day ceasefire, and then
there you're talking about one thousand prisoners getting swapped as
a way to bolster this ceasefire that was happening at
(52:17):
the time, like a short term thing, right, right. But
most of the prisoner exchanges that we have seen are
like the Bridge of Spies stuff, the nineteen sixties stuff,
where there's a bridge, there's there are two opposing forces
armed with guns.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
And its generally red rover, red rover.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
Yeah, but that and it can it can be quiet,
and it just happens, and it's two people that are
really important generally to the spy game, and okay, hey,
you got one ours. Hey it's okay, we got one
of yours. Let's just let's go to this bridge and
we get this thing done. It'll all be over. It
just nobody point their weapons at anybody else, just put
your hand on it and we'll be good. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
And you know, the weird thing is the Cold War
got so strange that at multiple points in those situations
the admins or the not the top spymasters, but you know,
like the on the ground shift lead guys.
Speaker 4 (53:18):
They knew each other.
Speaker 3 (53:20):
You know, they were like, oh hey Klaus, Like oh hey, Bill,
how's it going, you know, staying on my side of
the bridge. You should tell your boy to do that
next time. And they're like, ah, classic, Bill. So they
did know each other. But to that point, the reason
we the public will never know the full extent of
(53:42):
these prisoner exchanges is because neither of the countries involved
want the public to know these are off the books negotiations.
They want plausible deniability. That's why, like, if you enjoy
a rabbit hole, folks start looking into Pakistan prison breaks.
(54:02):
The surface headline you're going to see is from a
little earlier, when two hundred and something Pakistani prisoners escaped
during an earthquake back in twenty twenty five. That story
is true, but it is also possible that some factions
of US and Western allies new political prisoner terrorist actor
(54:28):
releases would be too charge, too sensitive for the public.
So what better way to frame a secret prisoner release
than to have it look like a jail break. That way,
you're Pakistan your US. You can save face. But then
it spins out, right, It always spins out in the games.
(54:49):
So if Pakistan wants to make nice with some of
the US enemies in the terrorism industry, they make a
prison break of their own, and later they could throw
their hands up when they're talking diplomats and say, oh
my gosh, you guys, we're as upset as you. Don't
you worry. We're gonna have some strong words for the warded. Also,
(55:10):
keep in mind, Pakistan is the same country that hid
Osama bin Laden very well until it was diplomatically advantageous
to discover his location.
Speaker 4 (55:22):
Yuah, creepy, creepy.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
Isn't it a little weird that Alexi Navalny never got exchanged.
I know he's well, see, I don't know. To me,
he it always felt like there was more going on
with Navalney and he wasn't, you know, just an opposition
leader there in Russia. Felt like there was more to
him or there was something else going on with him,
(55:46):
and he would be an important bargaining chip, and maybe
that is why he ended up getting killed or I
mean why he died. Sorry, Uh, it's that kind of thing.
When there's somebody important enough, it seems like you wouldn't
allow that individual to be released to the other side. Right,
(56:11):
you've captured somebody extremely important, you realize how important they are.
It feels like you wouldn't let that person go. It
takes me back to this concept been actionable intelligence. Right,
if you pick someone up that has actionable intelligence, Let's
say someone in the spy game, isn't that person kind
(56:35):
of useless now to decide they represented because now they're captured.
Like we've talked about that before in the spy game,
how how deadly it is for a spy once they
get captured, because you kind of have to either you're
gonna give up your stuff no matter what generally, or
(56:55):
you're gonna have to take your own life to prevent
that from happening to pay any on how patriotic sauce
you are, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (57:05):
Or you get turned right or bonus points if you
can appear to be turned so they least.
Speaker 4 (57:12):
Yeah. So then with that part of that, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
Well, would that be the thing if you get turned
wouldn't you wouldn't your originating country be wary of you?
Or look, wouldn't they beware of you knowing that you
had that information. You were in there for so long.
Speaker 3 (57:27):
Yeah, you're you're never gonna have the same gig after that.
The debrief, we can only imagine is incredibly intense should
you survive. We we know that one of the other
big things, at least on the side of the democratic
(57:47):
or capitalistic part of the world, is that it's terrible
for morale to not savior Joe's to not save your guys.
So if there is a fit in getting them back,
because if they're good the entire time they're interrogated, they're
(58:07):
going to be learning stuff as well. So maybe we
can learn more about methods and means, right, another holy grail,
another piece of treasure.
Speaker 4 (58:16):
But the issue was.
Speaker 3 (58:17):
You know, during the Cold War, there was this kind
of gentleman's agreement, right, like you said, Bridges bis Bridge diplomacy.
We are exchanging our guys, right are joes and our
ivans to use some old problematic terms, And our understanding
is that these folks, their personas are going to be
(58:39):
burned they are not going to be in use again.
And despite the you know, the high drama and gravity
of a lot of spy films, prisoner negotiations often like
the decision for them to happen. They often occur in
third party places like Doha and cutter like Vienna in
(59:01):
Austria or Geneva, right, or Switzerland. But now the actual
exchanges can happen anywhere, and if you are not directly
involved in those negotiations, you're not going to know much
about it. You'll see some theata, you'll see some arousing
sound bites from your politician d joure, but there's a
(59:24):
deep undergurrent at play and you're never going to hear
about it. Life for an oil dill right, several lives
for some extra funding. This is pay for play. I
don't know, Matt, There's so much more to go to
but I know it went long on this one. What
are some of your last thoughts?
Speaker 2 (59:43):
I would just say if you search around the internet
for prisoner exchange, you were going to see a lot
more than you expected to find of individual prisoner exchanges.
Like if you do do prisoner exchange Comma, whatever country
you want to put in there, that you're interested in,
and you will see stories and click on a news
(01:00:05):
tab if you've got one of those in your browser
or wherever you're searching, and you will see stuff and
it just goes under the radar kind of or because
Ben I'm seeing it. These exchanges are often reported on
the granular details of an individual that's involved in one
of these exchanges. Often isn't there unless it's somebody's extremely
(01:00:26):
high profile. I would just say if it's someone who
is not high profile or not being spoken about a lot,
not a lot of details, that might be the most
interesting person or set of persons in these exchanges, the
ones that it's either a name or it's.
Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
For an unnamed businessman.
Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Yes, or for citizens of whatever country Okay, interesting.
Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
Yeah, yeah, because they will they'll usually give the country
information because as even the conspiracist understand that, it's a
little too sketchy, a little too obtuse to say, yeah,
you know, like six guys, Yeah, were they were they military?
Well they were guys, there were six of them. Are
(01:01:17):
they from the United States? There are definitely guys.
Speaker 4 (01:01:19):
There was more fact.
Speaker 3 (01:01:24):
I mean, that's that's how those conversations happen. Sometimes folks,
we want to hear your thoughts on this murky practice,
and we'll open the door here. If you have been
involved in these conversations and are legally allowed to share
your experience, we would love to hear it, because for
now on pretty much all sides of the negotiating table,
(01:01:48):
the details of prisoner exchanges remain the stuff they don't
want you to know. Thank you for tuning in. Check
out our future episodes, the episodes we mentioned in the past.
You can find us on the line at Conspiracy Stuff,
at Conspiracy Stuff Show, et cetera, et cetera, find us
before we find you. You can also give us a
(01:02:08):
phone call.
Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
You sure can. Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK.
It's a voicemail system. Give yourself a cool nickname when
you call in and let us know if we can
use your name and message on the air. It might
show up in one of our listener mail episodes that
you'll find in the audio feed. So it's not on Netflix.
You got to go find the RSS somewhere in audio land.
(01:02:31):
If you want to send us an email.
Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware yet o't afraid. Sometimes the
void writes back. If you would like more information on
stuff we didn't get to or little things we mentioned,
either in our episodes or in our weekly strange news
and listener mail segments, hit us up here and we
(01:02:53):
are available twenty four hours in evening, seven evenings a week.
We'll see you in the dark yours at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Noel is on an adventure.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
And will be returning soon. They called me Ben, you
can too. We're joined as always with our super producer
Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know now. This has been a long
time in coming for us. I asked Dylan and Matt
(00:55):
before we were rolling if either of them had ever
been jammed in a prison or jail or another detainment facility,
And thankfully, it turns out we're all pretty good boys,
except for one incident in a mall So, Dylan, can
you tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I got frame for pushing people off of escalators when
I was in seventh grade. It wasn't me, crooked.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Mall up.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
We're talking all the way all the way down an escalator.
What sounds like a real crime. Physics don't even make sense.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
They don't they don't, and a lot of people, as
we know, do get jammed up unfairly in these United
States and indeed across the world. But I think it
gets me about this, guys, is if you have ever
been held against your will, you know that there is
a complex, deep and unspoken culture of negotiation and visible
(01:55):
to outsiders. And if you luckily are good kid or
a fortunate son, there we go. You have probably heard
a few like therein gone reports over the years about
what we call prisoner swaps or prisoner exchanges. They're usually
going to be prisoners of war POWs, or spies or
(02:17):
political detainees. And these are flash in the headlines. You know,
you get, you get a name, and if it's not
a celebrity, then those names get tamped down as soon
as the media reports them. Well, what's really going on?
What's your take on this map?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Well, the one that comes to mind most frequently, most
recently is the Britney Griner thing, because it was being
talked about so much, reported on so much in the
standard news outlets, right, and just the idea that oh
there's a there's an athlete that is being detained for
(02:58):
one reason or another, and now they're has to be
intense negotiation. Well, first, there has to be a desire
to have intense negotiation, right, because I guess the big
takeaway for me Ben in looking at this is that
the concessions that a country generally makes to get some
(03:18):
people of theirs back from another country that's holding them
captive are immense. The things that will be given up
are like they seem to be a bigger deal than
is especially made on the news.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
I agree with that, and they're often these prisoner exchanges
are often controversial because they involve things that the public
would probably not agree to. We're going to take a
pause for a word from our sponsors and we'll dive
into the hidden world of prisoner swaps. Here are the
(03:59):
fact I mean, Matt Tennessee, we know the game at
this point. It's a pretty simple concept. You're war with
another social group, right, You're beefed up, and in the
course of that conflict, you and your enemies manage to
take some people alive.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Right.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
The enemy may have some high value targets. Historically, these
are going to be one of three categories. They're going
to be military members, they're going to be criminals, or
they're going to be aristocrats, and you and the enemy,
who don't like each other at all, are still actively
in conflict. You say, okay, we're not going to end
(04:44):
our war with each other, you know, in Ukraine or
Uslavia or any insert any two countries, honestly, but we
will hatch a little gentleman's agreement and will hand over
captured individuals to You. Might be a ruler in the
Middle Ages and you would say, hey, we have the
(05:06):
duke's son. We'll give them back to you unharmed if
you return the nephew of our caliph.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Well, yeah, aren't there also instances way way back, We're
talking like some of the earliest recorded instances of this
kind of thing where children end up being a bargaining piece,
but not in the way you may imagine, So not
like getting your child back, but more like something you
have to give up, are your children?
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Yeah, So.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Notable things in the historical record that show us how
ancient prisoner exchanges can be are stuff like the Romans
when they were conquering various tribes during their conquest. They
would go back and say, hey, we want those concessions
(05:59):
right to our empire and then we will release your
holy figure, your tribal head. The stuff we're talking about there,
as far as capturing children is called hostage diplomacy, and
hostage diplomacy was a practice where you're a dominant empire
(06:21):
and you have a couple vassal or puppet states. Right,
they swear fealty to you, but the very far away.
So the best insurance policy you can have to guarantee
their loyalty is to take their children. You're not necessarily
abusing these children, you're not killing them. They're in a
gilded cage. You're probably giving them an education. In many cases.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
That's one of the things we've talked about in the past.
A strategy when you are a conquering force that is
going forward and perhaps colonizing an area or taking over
land that is occupied by people, is to assimilate some
of the population into your culture, into your way, so
(07:08):
that you've got essentially what would you call that ben
almost almost these diplomatic liaisons that you can use in
the future that you've you've customized their education and their
upbringing to kind of function for your purposes as the
colonizer in the population of those you're trying to colonize.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
We have no statements about the Iradian gentleman educated at Harvard,
you know what I mean? Like, that's that's a modern
version of this.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, it's we're just saying there, that is one strategy
that is not the whole goal, right, that's not the
big picture of it, but that is one thing that
has been used and continues.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
As you said, Yeah, hostage diplomacy is really interesting to
me and I hope to all of us, because if
you if we put the ethics aside, this is a
brilliant way to ensure that your vassal states don't get,
you know, don't get a hankering for sovereignity because communication
(08:11):
lines and travel across vast, harsh terrain is impractical. So
imagine saying, you know, I'm the sultan.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
I have your child.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
His name is vlad Dracul, And that's a reference a
few folks will get. But yeah, you're absolutely right, Matt.
If we fast forward a little bit further, we see
things like the Treaty of Paris from seventeen sixty three.
This was something that codified internationally, right for a few countries,
(08:43):
it coudified a structured approach for exchanging prisoners of war,
and this led us to the current civilizations attempts at
agreeing to basic human rights during conflict, and obviously you
know in hostage diplomacy and the post Treaty of Paris,
(09:08):
a lot of these prisoners were treated horrifically. They were tortured,
they were abused, they were murdered. This leads us back
to the related concept of diplomatic immunity. We have a
three part series on diplomatic immunity, and folks, I'm going
to be honest with you, the best part is the
third chapter, Shadow Diplomacy. But yeah, for my money, that
(09:33):
was the best one of the series.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
It's really great. If you are watching this on Netflix
and you're used to watching it on Netflix, you will
have to find our audio feed to listen to those episodes,
and we encourage you to do that.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
And diplomatic immunity, just like hostage diplomacy, did not always work,
by which we mean it didn't always have the intended outcomes.
You can find no shortage of stories throughout history. Shout
out to Jenghis Khan where somebody sent a courier or
(10:07):
a diplomat to the court of the con and his
reply was to send back their head, you know, like
it didn't always work.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
It's not the best way to go about things.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
They're messengers that that saying is around for a reason.
You don't have to kill the messenger or decapitate her
or him.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah, he did it, though he did it pretty often,
but it wasn't until fairly recently in history. As we
know that the world overall, what we call the modern
world today, said we're going to lay out some standards
for the treatment of POW's and the big watershed moment
(10:51):
for this comes courtesy of what we call the Geneva Conventions.
They're called the Geneva Conventions in a burst of creativity
because they were signed over and over again in the
town of Geneva. Ough Man, these conventions, you guys there.
(11:13):
I mean, the paperwork is so crazy. Long story short.
They date back to eighteen sixty four. The modern version
you have now is for international treaties and a handful
of addendums that were enacted in nineteen forty nine. They
were forged in the bloody wake of World War two.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, you can maybe imagine why there needed to be
some kind of codification of how to treat other combatants
and especially non combatants in a wartime, a standard that
everyone would be held to right, and if someone discovers
any side, discovers that you are not holding up these conventions,
(11:55):
you will be targeted by everybody, or at least looked
at by everybody as hey, somebody is doing some heinous crap.
It makes sense, it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Yeah, yeah, what is it bad? Pooh old sun, that
kind of thing? Would you get just a shame thing
or a strongly worded letter, or would we invade you,
which is always in the cards.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, And that's why international courts exist to hold these
kind of standards as a law and to say, hey,
there are punishments for breaking these laws. But we do see,
we have seen in the past those international courts work
let's say, one percent of the time. No, that's not real.
It's not a real percentage. We've just seen that those
(12:42):
courts can be shrugged away if you're powerful enough.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Yeahs.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
As we said in a previous episode, this is a
true story. And I'm laughing because it's gallows humor. The
United States has a law on the books that says
we will literally invade the hay if any of our
high value targets aka politicians and business tyrants if any
(13:11):
of them are captured or accused of war crimes. That
is still nuts that we have the thing that the
US that played such a huge role in instituting these
international norms and agreements, also went back and said, yeah,
rules for THEE, but not for we.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
It is kind of weird. It's a bit of an
admission when you start saying, hey, that law that's supposed
to call out the evildoers is the one that you're
so against being enforced.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Right, Yeah, it's your chain smoking uncle telling you that
he's going to kick your butt if he catches you
with a camel light, which is a brand of cigarettes.
So that joke would have been better. That analogy would
have been better without overexplaining cigarettes. But we do know,
like you're saying, Matt, we do know the Geneva Conventions
(14:05):
are a huge deal and if everybody followed the letter
of the law on paper, this world would be in
a much better place. That's objectively true, you know, But
it like it allowed for a bunch of nations to say, look,
if you have a prisoner of war, by which we
(14:26):
mean a uniformed official soldier a member of a military
and they are ill or they've been injured, and you
know that they're not going to be skidadaline over the
border to wage more chaos. Then you have to send
them back to their home country.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Right.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
You have to treat them with a modicum of respect,
provide for their basic physical needs, and then you know,
you can call them persona no grata or p and
gum as you wish, but you got to ship them off.
This is a matter of basic rights in times of
conflict for not just prisoners, but also people who were
(15:11):
shipwrecked or lost at sea and civilians.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Those are like the big things.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah, we don't think about the shipwrecks so much anymore.
It just doesn't happen as often as it once did.
Oh gosh, I just watched a movie, you guys, where
the two people get shipwrecked on an island and it's
like the CEO of a company and like a technology
(15:38):
expert in the company, and it was called Send Help,
And it just made me think of that movie right
now we're talking about shipwrecks. It was pretty great, and
didn't We don't need this at all, so no it matters.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
We got to keep it in because being shipwrecked can
happen to any right, and one of the biggest flash
points for global conflict now is the strait of horror moves.
So if we're talking about the Geneva Conventions, this means
(16:14):
that if Tennessee, if you are Iran, right, you're running
the strait of horror moves and you find people, even
if they're US sailors and they're flailing around in the water.
The Geneva Conventions say you have to rescue them, right,
and you can take them into detainment, and then you
(16:38):
should give them back because they're POW's unless you can
do a little Chavealan plot twist right and call them
spies or call them another term we'll get to, which
is where the US showed its own chaos.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
You hit on something massive we're gonna get into a
little further in the episode. That that someone is spying
is used so often as a way to just snatch
somebody up who happens in your territory that you don't
want to be there, or you know is just a
member of a group that you are at war with
or ideologically opposed to. That thing is so sneaky because
(17:17):
how do you prove it. Do you have to do
a whole trial to prove that they were spying? Nah,
you can just say.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
It right right, exactly, And you can have such a
flimsy fig leaf of an excuse with this kind of stuff.
For instance, if you like here in the United States,
you can take photographs of any place or any person
in a public sphere that leads to good and bad things,
(17:47):
especially in you know, the age of social media. But
in many other countries it is not only considered impolite,
it can get you in jail. So, for instance, if
you're in Santiago, Chile, or you're in the DPRK or
pretty much any of the stands and you take a
(18:08):
photograph without explicit permission, that can be enough to jam
you up. That can be enough for the militia or
the police or even the state level authority to say, hey,
this guy's spye, why else would he be taking photographs
of you know, this really sick plane? And again yeah
(18:33):
again dy scope of May Chile, so.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Let's take pictures of planes? Makes me think about the
brand new Kutari jet.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Yes, yes, which is Oh that's an interesting that's an
interesting deal, is it not. We also know like we're
saying that prisoner swaps have led to historical controversy that
only seems to accelerate in the modern day. Because when
these prisoner exchanges happen, when they occur, folks, you have
(19:07):
to realize, it's not like all angel farts and trumpets
and hashtag free our boys and kumbaya. For the last
one hundred or so modern years of modern statecraft, this
practice has been riddled with ethical quaundaries, accusations of corruption,
accusations of conspiracy. We're going to get into some specific examples,
(19:31):
but before we do that, we're going to pause for
a word from our sponsors and let everybody take a
deep breath in because you're going to need it. We're
going into the deep water. Here's where it gets crazy. Okay, Matt,
you know this, Ido, this Tennessee, you know this Ido. This.
(19:55):
The big issue is that these exchanges are not always
one to one swaps of POW's.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
You know.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
It's not like it's not like the World War two
stuff where you would say, hey, we got three guys
from your infantry, you have three from hours. You know,
let's just call it even and then reset for war tomorrow.
They it's often unbalanced, and the decision makers in every
(20:28):
country that make the calls in these negotiations, they're not
talking to the public about it, not usually unless it's
a celebrity. Instead, they're going behind the public's back. And
the public is paying for this, and that gives prisoner
exchanges a sour reputation because you are probably not going
(20:52):
to know the full details of whatever negotiation took place,
Even if you're one of the people be rescued, like
Britney Grinder, phenomenal Olympic athlete US National we'll get to
them in a second, did not know the full details
of their release. The only people who know what actually happens,
(21:14):
how the sausage gets made. They're the negotiators. They're the
experts directly involved. They're your creepy professor of international relations
who just occasionally beat me here Dylan thought for four
months and then comes back and gives everybody a.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Be Yeah, well, think about how strange that must feel
for Britney Griner, who now knows the exchange was, Oh
I'm so sorry. Let's just take a moment to think
about how strange it must be for Brittany Griner to
now know that she was exchanged an athlete, a star
(21:57):
of someone who was well known, but she was exchanged
for a convicted arms dealer, like a scary individual that
causes death with his line of work. Just knowing that you,
as an entertainer, ultimately are being exchanged for a person
that sells literally death and is massively important to a
(22:20):
country for those strategic things and for we've talked a
lot about how the United States, one of the biggest
things we export is culture, right, That's one of our
biggest in a weird way, soft power weapons that we
have to wield. So I guess in some way it
makes sense that an athlete entertainer gets exchanged for an
(22:41):
arms dealer, But I can't imagine what that feels like
internally to know that's who you got swapped with.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Yeah, And we'll get into the specifics of that case, folks,
So stay tuned. Well, I'd love for us to step
back and talk about something that speaks to the quandaries
of that specific example. The first is that, yes, we
said countries often never acknowledge the details to the public
(23:10):
at large, domestic or international. But we have to add
to that, countries also increasingly disagree on what makes somebody
a civilian, a POW or a straight up criminal. You know,
we know the state of modern warfare has shifted in
the wake of September eleventh and the War on Terror.
(23:33):
So people are still fighting over what fighting Jesus, Jesus
hubor Christ. People are still fighting over what qualifies someone
as a soldier versus an enemy combatant. As we all recall,
in the wake of September eleventh, the George W. Bush
(23:53):
administration started using the term enemy combatant as a euphemism
or another fig leaf to describe what they called unlaw
what they saw as unlawful combatants. And that means if
you're an unlawful combatant, if you're not part of a
state military, you do not qualify for POW status under
(24:17):
the Geneva Conventions. This is a hugely controversial perspective because
the Bush administration argued that even though everyone earlier agreed
that unlawful combatants still have some rights under the Geneva Conventions,
enemy combatants, per the Bush administration, had no rights whatsoever,
(24:42):
so they could torture the heck out of you or
excuse us enhance their interrogations.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
It reminds you that documentary from Alex Gibney Taxi to
the Dark Side from eight oh seven something like that,
where justscussing who could be who could be considered an
enemy combatant? Is it just your age and where you
happen to be, right, does that make you an enemy combatant?
(25:12):
And you know, then you've got White House attorneys and
you know, US attorneys looking at how how what's the
best way to make sure anybody we happen to pick
up and don't like we get to torture, I mean
enhance their interrogations.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Right, Yeah, And Uncle Sam was pretty from the hip
with this. Uh. From the US perspective, anybody suspected of
or proven to be engaged in terroristic activities was a criminal,
not a soldier. And that meant that they even if
they're treated as a criminal. You know, look no further
(25:50):
than Guintanamo or the black sites. These individuals, even if
they weren't convicted, they were not given the few rights
that even ordinary criminals get in the US judicial system.
It's a bag of legalistic, terrifying badgers. And it's just
the beginning. Because Matt, you and I know this, and
(26:13):
I'm not sure how many of us in the crowding
of this as well. Sometimes another controversy is that prisoners
are not exchanged for other people at all. Instead, you
negotiate or release in return for like wid propo policy agreements.
You might see relax sanctions, your funds get unfrozen. There
(26:35):
might be promises of ceasefires, will give up a little territory,
or we promise you, guys, scouts honor, we're not going
to escalate a conflict further. And that doesn't even count
the backroom stuff, which is where we see well connected
private companies getting in and setting up shop in an area.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Didn't that kind of thing happen pretty recently with Iran
before we attacked Iran, So like Biden administration, and in exchange,
I think there were I think there were civilians on
either side.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
There were ten. Yeah, we've got a specific example of that, right.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
But the thing, the big deal in that exchange was
relaxing of billions of dollars of money that Iran had
controlled before that was being iced out right.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Six billion coming via the Republic of Korea, South Korea.
So the best way for us to for you, fellow
conspiracy realists, to understand the full scope of the forest
here is for us to get into some specific examples.
So let's step back to one we tease a little
bit earlier. On December eighth of twenty twenty two, Russia
(27:54):
and the United States, who have never been super friendly
with each other after World War Two, they conducted what
we would call a quiproquo or one for one prisoner exchange.
One of these people is a US national, Britney Griner,
super famous Olympic athlete basketball star. Griner had been detained
(28:17):
in Russia earlier that year on charges of smuggling and
possessing cannabis. Reiner was convicted in a Russian court and
sentenced to nine years in Russian prison. But on the
other side of the negotiation table, we've got a very
different dude.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
His name is Victor.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Bout bout like I'm about to He's a Russian national.
He's an arms dealer who was quite successful in Africa,
associated with the kleptocracy in the oligarchy of post Soviet Russia.
And he was known and is known in international circles
(28:57):
as get this, folks, the merchant of Death. And he
earned that name. It's not an ironic nickname at all.
It's not like little.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
John, didn't we mention this guy is the person upon
which the Lord of War was based or like loosely,
I think this was the.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Dude Armsteelers like him?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, the Nicholas Ky I want to see Nicholas Cage movie.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
You're correct?
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yeah, okay, cool but legitimate. Oh there's also a Merchant
of Death movie from ninety seven.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
H h.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Don't know about how that one is related. Sorry, just
found that, Ben. Yeah, this guy is a legitimate human being.
That is the kind of dude that sells AK forty
seven's to a group that wants to start an uprising
in a country, let's say in Africa.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
Ed about our guy.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Victor Baut got apprehended in Thailand in two thousand and eight,
and he already had you every warrant you could imagine
and help for his arrest internationally, So it was only
a matter of time that he got clocked or went
to a non extradition country. He was transferred to the US,
(30:11):
where he was tried on charges of terrorism and money laundry,
and a lot of other countries wanted to get in
the game as well. He was convicted in a US court.
He was sentenced to twenty five years in prison, and
now we're seeing that these are two very different individuals
(30:31):
right being proposed for this trade. Originally, when this is
all going down, this is under the administration of former
President Joe Biden. Originally they were also pushing for the
release of a US marine named Paul Whelan, and that
guy had been held in Russian prison since twenty eighteen.
(30:53):
I want to say, on some pretty serious charges of
spying vespionage, Ussia said pretty coldly. They said, nope, that
one of them is a basketball player who broke our
drug laws. The other guy is a straight up spy.
So we will release this marine if you the United
(31:18):
States will release someone who is worth as much to us.
And there's a guy in Germany we want you to
release in exchange for Wailan. The thing is, oh, fellow
conspiracy realist. The guy they wanted out of Germany is
a convicted assassin named Vadim Krasikov, and Vadim definitely did
(31:45):
all the stuff that Germany sentenced him to life for doing.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yeah, you know this, dude, is I imagine most of this
comes through windows of fiction, depictions of things, but then
you were imagining real human beings who do the actual thing.
Like in any hit Man movie, you imagine someone casing
(32:12):
a human being of locations following someone waiting for an
opportunity to murder that person. That is the kind of
stuff this guy did successfully. Unfortunately.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Yeah, yeah, in broad daylight, Like in broad daylight in Berlin,
a very populated, very busy place, Vadim shoots fatally a
Georgia national and we're not sure what else he did
in betweens. So imagine if we get exercise empathy. We're
the diplomatic team from the United States and we want
(32:46):
to keep this out of the news. So we quietly
go to Germany hat in hand and we say, hey,
can you help us out here? And Germany very reasonably
says that no, and this guy murders people in broad daylight.
The good news is eventually our marine Whalen is released
(33:09):
with several other people in another deal from August of
twenty twenty four. It's called the Ankara prisoner exchange, and
it was the biggest prisoner exchange that we know of
since the end of the Cold War. So he eventually
got out. There's other stuff, like all wrapped up in
(33:32):
this Russian people as currency thing there was an American
named Mark Vogel. He was detained in Russia for a
possession of cannabis, like again, seventeen rams or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's an easy way to get people, and especially if
they don't respect the laws of a country.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
And he's a good dude, he's a teacher, he's.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Not doing any shenanigans. He was not included in the
exchange because Russia wanted to save him, just like trading
Pokemon or baseball cards. They wanted to save him for
a separate deal in February of twenty twenty five, when
(34:15):
they released this guy who was not famous, just a
good dude who's a teacher who likes a little bit, right,
they released him in exchange for the release of a
very serious cyber criminal Russian national named Alexander Vinnick. So
(34:36):
Russia feels like they got the better end of the
deal on both sides. Right, They're probably still mad they
didn't get their assassin back, but you know, that's why
you have more than one mm.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
I wonder what what did Vinnick do? I don't know
anything about this dude.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Yeah, he pled guilty to money laundering. That's technically what
they got him for because he ran a cryptocurrency exchange,
which is an easy way to move money past sanctions.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yes, and to smugle a lot of money out of
other people's bank accounts.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yes, absolutely, and the guy did it. Just to be clear,
he definitely did that stuff. Another thing that gives us
a little bit of a backdoor peek here is the
case of Sarah Krivenek, who was a US national detained
and imprisoned in Russia on domestic violence charges. She was
(35:36):
not officially part of the Bout Griner deal, but she
was deported from Russia on the very same day that
Griner was released. Can you imagine, folks, I mean all
of us who saw it, we know. Can you imagine
how controversial this is? Political opponents of the Biden administration said, Hey,
(36:00):
this is like paying blackmailers.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Dude.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
If you do this, if you play this game with
the Russians, they're going to be incentivized. They're going to
arrest more US nationals on BS charges, and then they're
going to keep jamming them up and they're going to
use them for political gain. The current President of the
United States, Donald J. Trump, said, this exchange is a
(36:27):
quote stupid, unpatriotic embarrassment for the USA.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
End quote.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
I mean they were kind of Look, I know we're
in a politically divided time, but they're the critics are
making some good points, which is, I think the most
disturbing thing is Griner, who definitely should have been released.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
I agree with that.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Did Griner get prioritized for release because she had a
celebrity athlete status? And also more disturbing, what's our boy, Victor,
the Merchant of Death bout going to do once he's
back on the prowl.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
If he's not building drones, it's not really going to
matter at least as far as war goes. Right, That's
all that matters now, guys, explosive suicide drones.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
And with that, we're going to pause for a word
from our sponsors and return to some more examples of
prisoner exchanges, which takes us to Iran Venezuela and beyond
journey with US folks to September eighteenth, twenty twenty three.
(37:42):
The US and Iran, who famously are not super close
these days, they struck a deal that we were teasing earlier.
They traded five US nationals in Iranian custody. For five
Iranian prisoners in US custody and six billion dollars of
(38:04):
frozen Irotian oil money.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
This, this is crazy.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
This is a very controversial one even now because the critics,
again it's always politically divided in the United States. But
the critics said, look, we've got our usual complaints about
releasing spies or war criminals, but our big concern now
is why did you give these guys six billion dollars.
(38:29):
You were going to strengthen their complex, effective proxy network
of terrorist and secessionists throughout the Middle East. And more importantly,
six billion dollars is a huge alley oop and any
for anybody racing to build a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
But ben according to the waiver that was signed, because
it was a waiver, I guess that allowed it to happen,
and the funds went from South Korea to Qatar and
then Iran. The waiver says they're only permitted to use
the funds for food, medicine, and humanitarian items allowed under
US economic sanctions.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yeah, yeah, my centrifuges are so humanitarian.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Dog But it's crazy to imagine this happening in twenty
twenty three, right when there there were active negotiations about
all of that stuff before bombs fell again on Iran
in the next you know, administration that came through diplomacy
(39:33):
was happening. But I guess this is a part of
diplomacy where you have to make that kind of concession.
I guess what I'm saying is, if it truly was
for humanitarian aid, right, that's six billion dollars, right, that's
not a big deal. That's probably strengthening whatever you're building
in at those tables when you're having discussions. That's strengthening
(39:55):
something and goodwill probably, and that's I would say a
positive thing. It is weird though, that that's on the
table at the same time there's an equal exchange number
of human beings.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Yeah, yeah, man.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
In addition to that, first off, we have to say
I feel like we need to say this every time.
The government of a country is never the people of
the country, not in practical terms like the public members
of a country. If you just walk around, you're going
to see people incredibly similar to where you reside tonight.
(40:35):
They're going to want you know, safe drinking water, right,
They're going to want to know where their next meal
is coming from. They want their lives, their kids' lives
to be better than their own lives. They are universal
things that happen right with ordinary people. But these controversies
come into play in the case of the twenty twenty
(40:56):
three RAW and US deal, which gets studied pretty often. Now,
one thing that really put the public off is that
we don't know the identity of two of the five
Americans released. They are listed as quote unnamed businessman and
(41:18):
unnamed woman and former un employee. So that raises some
pretty considerable questions about spycraft trade.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah, well, I can imagine it would also make most
human beings in the United States a little bit angry. Oh,
can can we get six billion dollars in humanitarian aid?
Speaker 4 (41:38):
Please?
Speaker 2 (41:40):
R please? Yes, that would be cool.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
What happened to Social Security? Right?
Speaker 3 (41:46):
We're six billion and be a drop in the bucket?
Speaker 4 (41:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Help us?
Speaker 4 (41:52):
Right?
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Come on, like, I voted for you, you had you
were so sweet during the campaign season.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
What's with the switch?
Speaker 2 (42:01):
It feels imbalanced, as imbalanced as that deal that was
struck there. It feels like there's an imbalance when that
kind of thing. Again, this isn't US dollars going for aid, right,
this is money that was frozen that is being unlocked
via waiver, But it still feels as though we're losing
something more than we're gaining.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Yeah, they held the money hostage, and we see this,
We see these similar imbalances in other cases. You know,
I think all three of us are very interested in
the specific interactions between Venezuela and the United States. It
(42:43):
was just last year the Associated Press broke a story
about how, in July of twenty twenty five, so little
little less than a year ago now, Venezuela agreed to
release ten US citizens and permanent restsvidence in exchange for
two hundred and fifty something Venezuelan migrants making it back
(43:09):
to Venezuela. Because the US had originally taken these folks
in multiple planeloads, and two planeloads, they had deported these
folks on what I think are trumped up charges to
a notorious prison in El Salvador. There's a big win
for Maduro for everybody playing long at home. Maduro was
(43:31):
still in charge of the country in July of twenty
twenty five. It was not until January of twenty twenty
six that he would be captured and himself incarcerated. In
a beyond controversial raid by US forces.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
It's so crazy looking at the CNN article now from
July eighteenth, title of his El Salvador releases hundreds of
US deportees from notorious prison in US Venezuela swamp and
just looking through here, and as crazy as this is,
as you said, Ben, almost a year ago, it feels
like this kind of this thing just happened. Some of
(44:09):
these huge things, so many, so many things occurred in
twenty twenty five that required all of our attention to
feel that way, like massive things like this. Wait, you're
telling me there's a system in the United States where
human beings are being deported to other countries like third
countries that they don't live in and where they're not from,
(44:30):
to go to notorious prisons. That's just the thing that's happening.
And that is somehow being used to release American hostages
held in third or four, like fourth or fifth countries.
What Okay, this is a thing that's just happening. And
if you go through the article here, it's just astounding
(44:50):
to me.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
Yeah, agreed, you know, and you and I talked about
this a little bit off air. We're looking at two
hundred and fifty two Venezuelan nationals were deported from the
United States to Seacott Cecot in El Salvador. Look it
up if you want to ruin your day. Their personal
(45:12):
safety is in periled here. Seacott is infamous for gang activity,
the denial of basic human rights. These detainees are largely civilians,
and the rationale for their mass deportation was the accusation
that they were old members of a crime syndicate, an
(45:34):
international gang called Trend de Aragua.
Speaker 4 (45:37):
This is strange.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
We also should mention it didn't get reported as much
in the headlines, but in exchange for these two hundred
and fifty two people, the US got their ten Americans,
but they also got the release of an unnamed number
of Venezuelan political prisoners and detainees. So again the obscurity here, right,
(46:03):
The hiding of those people's identities only lends more fire
to accusations of espionage.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Yeah, well, it's super weird that they were all declared
by the US government to be in this gang, right, Yes,
two hundred and fifty people. Makes no sense with a
little thing called the Alien Enemies Act of seventeen ninety eight,
where you can just declare, oh, no, this group, they're
actually not a gang, they're not an affiliated organization. They
(46:31):
are the state actually of Venezuela, so we can treat
them as those enemy combatants things. Remember how we talked
about that earlier. All you got to do is, you know,
make sure legally people are enemy combatants, and now we
can do whatever we want with them. Goodbye.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Yeah, exactly. The Alien Enemies Act was a very weird
and dangerous flex for the administration because it means you
can remove people with little to no due process. And
Uncle Sam's legal beagles said, yeah, all two hundred and
fifty two folks being hauled off to this hellish prison
(47:11):
are definitely part of this gang and trend. De Aragua
is a hybrid criminal state. They are actively invaded America.
This is war. And naturally the families and the attorneys
go back and say, look, these folks maybe Venezuela nationals
(47:33):
by birth, but they don't have any criminal records. The
United States responded, and keep in mind, folks, is a
verbatim quote. We're going to do it in an asshole voice. Well,
it is true that many of the gang members were
moved under the AEA do not have criminal records in
the United States. That is because they have only been
(47:54):
in the United States for a short period of time.
The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they
pose unlimited threats. Come on, you're saying, Okay, we know
these folks have not done anything, but based on what vibes,
we know that they will. That's not how the law works.
(48:15):
It's crazy that you would have a legal degree and
think that's how the law works. I can't. I thought, dude,
I thought law school was stressful. I thought you were
supposed to pay attention.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Well, it goes back to everything we've talked about on
this show. Ever, the folks at the top, all they
want is precognition. They want to know what's coming so
they can react before it happens. Right, And that's in
all things, from the modeling out of the entire globe
and all the political systems and how if you change
(48:48):
one thing, how does that affect the rest of the system,
that whole thing we've talked about for years, and all
these other ways. They want to just be able to
be ahead of the curve. Ben I was looking on
DARPA's website this morning randomly, I just decided I've been
checked in on DARPA for a while here and looked
at some of their R and D opportunities that you
can find right now on DARPA dot mill. That'sil there
(49:12):
are so many open contracts right now. All these companies
just have to send in a proposal to win that contract.
Speaker 4 (49:21):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
There's stuff in here about seeing seeing a patient's potential
problems in all the ways that those problems can be
fixed before the patient gets to the hospital. So modeling
out when there's a nine to one to one call
or something, and then you have a first responder get there,
(49:42):
modeling that patient virtually before they arrive at a hospital,
so that basically either a human being or a quote
future automated healthcare service member would be let's say, performing
a life saving surgery. And that there's millions of dollars
(50:02):
in contracts out there that are available for people that
can learn how to do that stuff. And it just
makes me think, with all the palenteer of it all,
with all the predictive things that the government is trying
to get into and governments across the world are attempting
to do, it's all about this thing. Then the potential
of a limited threat that someone might pose, or in
(50:27):
this the darker thing to how to see the future
and fix somebody before they're even really hurt.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
How to prognosticate. That's always been the golden grail, right
or golden goose, holy grail right. It's it's happening, It
definitely is. It's going to affect the immense calculations of
prisoner exchanges, and we the public are not going to
know the ins and outs, right, We're never going to
(50:56):
get under.
Speaker 4 (50:57):
The hood of this stuff. Right.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
There are countless other examples. DPRK or in the US
you hear called North Korea they had arrested an American
national in twenty sixteen or returned them in twenty seventeen
in a vegetative state. His name otto Frederick Warmbeir. Unfortunately
he died shortly thereafter. As we record now, Russian forces
(51:22):
are negotiating with Ukraine to get POWs from North Korea
DPRK released, even though that's a death sentence because a
lot of those POWs want to defect. So if they
get sent back home, you know, just like getting caught
on the Chinese mainland, they're going to a death camp.
(51:44):
Don't get us started on Israel. We don't have time
for it right now. It's another episode. But Matt, is
it fair to say that we don't know how many
prisoner exchanges actually occur?
Speaker 4 (51:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Absolutely. Sometimes you'll get something in the news like CBS
posting May eighth, twenty twenty six, Trump announces Russia Ukraine
prisoner swap as part of three day ceasefire, and then
there you're talking about one thousand prisoners getting swapped as
a way to bolster this ceasefire that was happening at
(52:17):
the time, like a short term thing, right, right. But
most of the prisoner exchanges that we have seen are
like the Bridge of Spies stuff, the nineteen sixties stuff,
where there's a bridge, there's there are two opposing forces
armed with guns.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
And its generally red rover, red rover.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
Yeah, but that and it can it can be quiet,
and it just happens, and it's two people that are
really important generally to the spy game, and okay, hey,
you got one ours. Hey it's okay, we got one
of yours. Let's just let's go to this bridge and
we get this thing done. It'll all be over. It
just nobody point their weapons at anybody else, just put
your hand on it and we'll be good. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
And you know, the weird thing is the Cold War
got so strange that at multiple points in those situations
the admins or the not the top spymasters, but you know,
like the on the ground shift lead guys.
Speaker 4 (53:18):
They knew each other.
Speaker 3 (53:20):
You know, they were like, oh hey Klaus, Like oh hey, Bill,
how's it going, you know, staying on my side of
the bridge. You should tell your boy to do that
next time. And they're like, ah, classic, Bill. So they
did know each other. But to that point, the reason
we the public will never know the full extent of
(53:42):
these prisoner exchanges is because neither of the countries involved
want the public to know these are off the books negotiations.
They want plausible deniability. That's why, like, if you enjoy
a rabbit hole, folks start looking into Pakistan prison breaks.
(54:02):
The surface headline you're going to see is from a
little earlier, when two hundred and something Pakistani prisoners escaped
during an earthquake back in twenty twenty five. That story
is true, but it is also possible that some factions
of US and Western allies new political prisoner terrorist actor
(54:28):
releases would be too charge, too sensitive for the public.
So what better way to frame a secret prisoner release
than to have it look like a jail break. That way,
you're Pakistan your US. You can save face. But then
it spins out, right, It always spins out in the games.
(54:49):
So if Pakistan wants to make nice with some of
the US enemies in the terrorism industry, they make a
prison break of their own, and later they could throw
their hands up when they're talking diplomats and say, oh
my gosh, you guys, we're as upset as you. Don't
you worry. We're gonna have some strong words for the warded. Also,
(55:10):
keep in mind, Pakistan is the same country that hid
Osama bin Laden very well until it was diplomatically advantageous
to discover his location.
Speaker 4 (55:22):
Yuah, creepy, creepy.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
Isn't it a little weird that Alexi Navalny never got exchanged.
I know he's well, see, I don't know. To me,
he it always felt like there was more going on
with Navalney and he wasn't, you know, just an opposition
leader there in Russia. Felt like there was more to
him or there was something else going on with him,
(55:46):
and he would be an important bargaining chip, and maybe
that is why he ended up getting killed or I
mean why he died. Sorry, Uh, it's that kind of thing.
When there's somebody important enough, it seems like you wouldn't
allow that individual to be released to the other side. Right,
(56:11):
you've captured somebody extremely important, you realize how important they are.
It feels like you wouldn't let that person go. It
takes me back to this concept been actionable intelligence. Right,
if you pick someone up that has actionable intelligence, Let's
say someone in the spy game, isn't that person kind
(56:35):
of useless now to decide they represented because now they're captured.
Like we've talked about that before in the spy game,
how how deadly it is for a spy once they
get captured, because you kind of have to either you're
gonna give up your stuff no matter what generally, or
(56:55):
you're gonna have to take your own life to prevent
that from happening to pay any on how patriotic sauce
you are, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (57:05):
Or you get turned right or bonus points if you
can appear to be turned so they least.
Speaker 4 (57:12):
Yeah. So then with that part of that, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
Well, would that be the thing if you get turned
wouldn't you wouldn't your originating country be wary of you?
Or look, wouldn't they beware of you knowing that you
had that information. You were in there for so long.
Speaker 3 (57:27):
Yeah, you're you're never gonna have the same gig after that.
The debrief, we can only imagine is incredibly intense should
you survive. We we know that one of the other
big things, at least on the side of the democratic
(57:47):
or capitalistic part of the world, is that it's terrible
for morale to not savior Joe's to not save your guys.
So if there is a fit in getting them back,
because if they're good the entire time they're interrogated, they're
(58:07):
going to be learning stuff as well. So maybe we
can learn more about methods and means, right, another holy grail,
another piece of treasure.
Speaker 4 (58:16):
But the issue was.
Speaker 3 (58:17):
You know, during the Cold War, there was this kind
of gentleman's agreement, right, like you said, Bridges bis Bridge diplomacy.
We are exchanging our guys, right are joes and our
ivans to use some old problematic terms, And our understanding
is that these folks, their personas are going to be
(58:39):
burned they are not going to be in use again.
And despite the you know, the high drama and gravity
of a lot of spy films, prisoner negotiations often like
the decision for them to happen. They often occur in
third party places like Doha and cutter like Vienna in
(59:01):
Austria or Geneva, right, or Switzerland. But now the actual
exchanges can happen anywhere, and if you are not directly
involved in those negotiations, you're not going to know much
about it. You'll see some theata, you'll see some arousing
sound bites from your politician d joure, but there's a
(59:24):
deep undergurrent at play and you're never going to hear
about it. Life for an oil dill right, several lives
for some extra funding. This is pay for play. I
don't know, Matt, There's so much more to go to
but I know it went long on this one. What
are some of your last thoughts?
Speaker 2 (59:43):
I would just say if you search around the internet
for prisoner exchange, you were going to see a lot
more than you expected to find of individual prisoner exchanges.
Like if you do do prisoner exchange Comma, whatever country
you want to put in there, that you're interested in,
and you will see stories and click on a news
(01:00:05):
tab if you've got one of those in your browser
or wherever you're searching, and you will see stuff and
it just goes under the radar kind of or because
Ben I'm seeing it. These exchanges are often reported on
the granular details of an individual that's involved in one
of these exchanges. Often isn't there unless it's somebody's extremely
(01:00:26):
high profile. I would just say if it's someone who
is not high profile or not being spoken about a lot,
not a lot of details, that might be the most
interesting person or set of persons in these exchanges, the
ones that it's either a name or it's.
Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
For an unnamed businessman.
Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Yes, or for citizens of whatever country Okay, interesting.
Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
Yeah, yeah, because they will they'll usually give the country
information because as even the conspiracist understand that, it's a
little too sketchy, a little too obtuse to say, yeah,
you know, like six guys, Yeah, were they were they military?
Well they were guys, there were six of them. Are
(01:01:17):
they from the United States? There are definitely guys.
Speaker 4 (01:01:19):
There was more fact.
Speaker 3 (01:01:24):
I mean, that's that's how those conversations happen. Sometimes folks,
we want to hear your thoughts on this murky practice,
and we'll open the door here. If you have been
involved in these conversations and are legally allowed to share
your experience, we would love to hear it, because for
now on pretty much all sides of the negotiating table,
(01:01:48):
the details of prisoner exchanges remain the stuff they don't
want you to know. Thank you for tuning in. Check
out our future episodes, the episodes we mentioned in the past.
You can find us on the line at Conspiracy Stuff,
at Conspiracy Stuff Show, et cetera, et cetera, find us
before we find you. You can also give us a
(01:02:08):
phone call.
Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
You sure can. Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK.
It's a voicemail system. Give yourself a cool nickname when
you call in and let us know if we can
use your name and message on the air. It might
show up in one of our listener mail episodes that
you'll find in the audio feed. So it's not on Netflix.
You got to go find the RSS somewhere in audio land.
(01:02:31):
If you want to send us an email.
Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware yet o't afraid. Sometimes the
void writes back. If you would like more information on
stuff we didn't get to or little things we mentioned,
either in our episodes or in our weekly strange news
and listener mail segments, hit us up here and we
(01:02:53):
are available twenty four hours in evening, seven evenings a week.
We'll see you in the dark yours at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.