July 13, 2020 • 55 mins
Episode 8 - One of the biggest challenges of getting to the bottom of the femicides is knowing who to trust, and who is metido - involved with the dark side. FBI agent Hardrick Crawford begins speaking out, calling the murders "crimes against humanity." But as he becomes involved with the Juárez elite, he makes powerful enemies.
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of ihut Media and unusual productions. Before we start. This
podcast contains accounts which some listeners will find disturbing, but
without them, the story can't be fully understood. Please take
care while listening. Previously on Forgotten, it was like a
(01:54):
perfect store. You have the women coming from southern Mexico,
desperate for work to help their families, to come work
at the Mikheila Doors. It's like antelopes at the water hole.
I had a night witness who alleged that he had
been at these parties where these women would be brought
into It's not here are the bad guys and you
are the good guys. There were no good guys. Everybody
(02:17):
was involved. That's Another misnomer about drug trafficking is that
it's Mexican groups invading, and I'd say it's no, it's
Mexicans and Americans working together to produce, to transport, to smuggle,
to sell drugs. The first time Monica took me to
(02:39):
meet Dinah Washington Valdez, I was overwhelmed. Over the course
of three hours, she talked about young women being selected
for murder and about a network of computer schools used
to get details on victims who vanished from crowded streets.
She also told us that she had to stop reporting
in Juarez because of death threat she received. One was
(03:00):
traced back to Mexican military intelligence with the help of
a source in US law enforcement, And among all of
Diana's law enforcement sources, there was one person she suggested
that we try to track down for an interview, and
he talked to Hardrick Crawford. Yet he's very friendly and
he probably will be a very good source of information
for you Herdrick Crawford was one of the most senior
(03:24):
government officials on the US Mexico border. He became a
Special Agent in charge of the FBI's l Pass Office
in two thousand and one that was the year that
Lilia Alejandro was abducted on her way home from work
and the year that eight women's bodies were discovered at
the cotton Field, and Hardrick took a special interest in
the fate of the women, even traveling across the border
(03:46):
to better understand what was happening to them. Hardrick Crawford says,
when he made a trip to Huardas and downtown with
one of his assistants, they looked around and they said, yeah,
this is where they picked their victims. This is where
they see them. I'm coming, and this is where they're taken.
The slogan of the activist community against the murder of
(04:06):
women in Huarez is neat on amass not one more.
It's a phrase Diana inscribed in my copy of her book,
and with an ally of Hardrick's influence, the goal seemed
within reach. Then something happened. I murdering him because there
are a lot of weird things about what was going
on with him. To this day, it's inexplicable. It's comforting
(04:31):
to imagine that the weird and inexplicable parts of this
story take place on the Mexican side of the border.
But Hardrick's fate disturbs that narrative. To understand it, we
had to talk to him ourselves about how he became
outspoken on the women's murders and about what happened to him.
By the time I get to El Passel, I'm stunned
(04:55):
and amazed at the response of our carlege in Mexico
to an enormous crime, A my numbing crime, but also
not stupid. I know that's not our country. Hardrick was
well aware that back in nineteen ninety nine, the FBI
had offered to help local Houire's police solve the women's
(05:17):
murders as part of Operation Plaza Sweep. In fact, by coincidence,
the agent who led the operation, Frank Evans, had been
Hardrick's former partner from their rookie days in Cleveland, Ohio,
So Hardrick knew that the Howire's authorities had twisted the
bureau's findings before to pay on more blame on scapegoats.
(05:38):
But looking out the window of his office towards Houirez,
where young women were being brutally murdered with impunity, Hardrick
felt he had to try to do something. I have
members in my own office who have women in their
family in Mexico and the fact that I have two daughters.
It affects you. It affects you on a personal level.
(06:02):
How could I face my own office and sit there
and do nothing like punch his pilot, just wash my hands.
So it was a delicate balance of Okay, how do
I perform this mission and at the same time not
medal in the affairs of a sovereign nation. And that
was the crux these murders. They were happening within sight
(06:23):
of Hardrick's office, but outside of his jurisdiction. I was
keenly aware that you can step on a landmine in
that regard. You did, but maybe I just got injured
instead of blown the bits. So what did happen to Hardrick?
(06:46):
And did his fate connect in any way to the
list of people who'd investigated these murders and ended up threatened, discredited,
or dead. I'm as Voloshin and I'm got him. The
women of Guirescano Baramo Rara lov you know, so you
(07:19):
know masque a la Felicia. Since the early nineteen nineties,
(07:42):
young women had been disappearing from the streets of Juarez
and Tony Up dead, often dumped in the desert. There
were forced confessions and changed statements. Paula Flores was far
from alone amongst the victim's mothers in believing that the
authors of the crimes remained free. Oscar Menez, the huara's
chief forensics officer, resigned after being asked to plant evidence
(08:05):
on two bus drivers at the cotton field, and the
lawyers who defended them, Mary Escobado Junior and Dante Amaras
were both assassinated. Even reporters who were American citizens like
Diana Washington Valdez and Alfredo Cocardo, received death threats as
they got closer to the truth. That's what made Hardrick's
arrival at the border in two thousand and one and
(08:27):
his personal interest in solving these crimes a potentially huge
turning point. It looked like the authors of the crimes
might finally have met their match. But how did the
special agents in charge of El Paso get so deeply
invested in crimes taking place in another country? To understand that,
we have to go back to Hardrick's assignment to the
(08:48):
border was angry with god forday. I worked hard and
as you can imagine, you know, let's be candid, you're
not a black sac unless you're on top of your game.
And Hardrick was on top of his game. He was
the most senior FBI agent on the African continent when
(09:09):
he responded to Osama bin Laden's bombing of the American
embassy in Kenya, and he'd been the number two in
the bureau's Miami office taking on the Columbian cartel and
their drug smoking operations. The danger was tons of cocaine
flooding our cities, making zombies out of American citizens. Come on,
let's face it, I'm an African American. I saw up
(09:31):
front and close in Cleveland what cocaine did to my community.
And so the way I saw this is war. You're
destroying my country from within, and so there was no
hesitation to take them on. In two thousand and one,
Hardrick was up for promotion to the coveted position of SAC,
(09:53):
or Special Agents in Charge. There were two such openings
at the time, El Paso and Cleveland, Ohio, where Hardrick
had grown up, and he made an impassioned case to
the FBI Deputy director to return home, and I went,
I'm a Cleveland kind of guy. He says, you want
to be an SAC, You're an El Pastle kind of guy.
(10:13):
I called the wife and said, we're going to El Pastle.
She was one little down. Number one, Cleveland was open
and we didn't get it. But number two, and almost
nearly as important, is that all speak Spanish. I felt
that all those times that I risked my life for
the bureau, and you reward me by sending me to
the border where I can't speak Spanish. So I was hurt.
(10:35):
But I'm a professional. So you've given the job in
some sense because you're an outsider, correct, an outsider with
a sterling reputation for management and leadership. So the FBI
office in El Paso kind of has a reputation Monica.
(10:56):
One of the early special agents in charge had to
resign in disgrace after being caught selling weapons to Mexican revolutionaries,
and another special agent from that office was murdered, which
is the only unsolved murder of an FBI agent in
the line of duty in the bureau's history. So what
(11:19):
makes the posting so hard? And I'll passo. We all
have some sort of ties to Huadis to Mexico, So
the opportunities for corruption or vast for law enforcement that
presents a huge challenge unlike anywhere else in the country
because of these binational ties, those connections can get you
(11:41):
in trouble family, culture, business, and in fact, it's absolutely
necessary for the black market to thrive, for the corruption
to exist on both sides of the border. And so yeah,
you could see the mentality behind sending an outsider like
Hardrick Crawford in thinking, alright, he's not going to be
susceptible to these same kinds of weaknesses. Central to Hardrick's
(12:08):
mission in El Paso was stopping the flow of drugs
into the US. To do this, he'd have to keep
an eye not just on Mexican drug traffickers, but on
his own colleagues. After all, he'd been assigned to the
border partly because his background made conflicts of interest unlikely.
And in two thousand and two, Hardrick led an investigation
(12:29):
that revealed a translator in his office was selling information
to the cartel. It's like one of your family has
because we were a family in a field office. And
to discover that, because you trust everybody implicitly, so yeah,
that was like a dagger to the heart. Yes, and
that was one of our prime missions public corruption cartels.
(12:50):
They're bad guys. But if it's a corrupt US official,
vary institutions or at stake. I spoke to Frank Evans.
I guess it's your partner in Cleveland, right, I remember
for me yea, And he said that basically the cartels
couldn't operate. That's not the operations if it weren't for
corrupted US officials. He's correct. They're much more efficient if
(13:12):
they can bribe at that point of entry instead of
having a sneak in, just drive it right through. In Juarez,
La Lina enforced the cartel's power by corrupting officials to
the extent the policemen were kidnapping women. This wasn't happening
in El Paso, but the same money could buy silence
or complicity on either side of the border. So Hardrick
(13:36):
had his hands full, but he was still in search
of a higher purpose in El Paso. That's when he
received the letter from a group of activists in Juarez.
And they sent me this passionate letter asking for assistance
in addressing this horrible, tragic crime of the murder of
these women in wars. Was caught off guard. It was
(13:56):
not US helpers, No, it was Hardrick Crawford helpers hit
me on a personal level, more soul than it did
on a professional level. It sound funny, but I thought, Okay,
now I know why Goad sent me to our pessel.
Was this? This was the reason I was sent here.
Hardrick had been angry with God for his posting, but
(14:17):
after receiving this letter, the situation was beginning to make
sense to him. It was two thousand and two, just
a few months after eight women's bodies had been discovered
at the cotton Field, and in response to the letter,
Hardly offered the FBI's resources in profiling, forensics, and even
training to the Hore's police. But he recognized that stopping
(14:38):
the murders of women required political will, and that's when
he took the highly unusual step of appearing on ABC
News to publicly criticize Mexico's response to the crimes. Increasingly,
Mexican police and government officials are under fire from people
here in the US. There appears to be no meaning
(15:00):
effort to solve the disappearances. All of the resources of
the FBI are available to our Mexican colleagues, such a
matter as DNA blood typing, profiling. The response from the
Mexicans to that offer heretofore the response has been they've
had these matters in hand and don't require our assistance.
(15:20):
Hardrick's words were cloaked in official language, but there was
no doubting a message. He was claiming on national television
that the murders of women in Huarez were not being
solved because Mexican officials didn't want to solve them. Not
just the street corps who abducted women, but their bosses,
perhaps even their bosses bosses. And this accusation wasn't coming
(15:44):
from a journalist or an activist. It was coming from
a US government official. But Hardrick's strategy wasn't just about
public complaints. It was also about private alliances. When we
come back, the FBI agent begins to make power friends
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(18:06):
the same time, as Hardrick was castigating Mexican officials on television,
he made it his mission to develop personal relationships with Juarez,
his power brokers. I used to travel to war As
quite frequently. I became friends with a Mexican businessman at
the racetrack at Warriors, and when you're on the border,
you're liaison, and it includes foreign liaison, which the other
(18:27):
field houses don here the friend Hardrick mentions is Jose
Maria Guardia. He was a complicated figure. He'd been invited
to George W. Bush's presidential inauguration, but he'd also been
caught up in a bribery scandal with the US consular official.
In fact, it would later come to light that when
Hardrick arrived at the border, Guardia was a confidential informant
(18:51):
for the FBI. That's something Hardrick told us he was
never informed of by his own office who made the
initial introduction. That was to him by my media rep
who fully understood that liaison was critical to my performance.
So I struck up a relationship with him likable fellow,
went to the racetrack with him, and at the racetrack
(19:12):
he would bring various officials. Racetracks have a long history
of association with corruption and organized crime, a problem endemic
to Juarez. But Guardia had friends who vouched for him,
and one in particular made a big impression on Hardrick.
His really really close friendship with Cardinal Sandoval, who was
(19:33):
on the shortlist for the pope when the Pope died.
That to a large extent, assuaged any concerns or fears
that I might have. Not only did the Cardinal endorse Guardia,
but he became something of a spiritual guide for Hardrake.
Hardrick described the Cardinal as a great ally in the
fight against corruption and for justice for the women. I
(19:55):
was baptized by the Cardinal and my religious faith. Yes,
they did have a part to play, and it was
a not quite the mission that Diana Vllebars Washington has
with regard to these terrible crimes. But I had an
official and a moral mission that I felt that I
was empowered on a different level than the US Constitution.
(20:19):
Hardry was beginning to see his mission in terms of
a higher calling, superseding even his duty to the Constitution.
And at the same time as he was publicly corning
out officials in Huarez, he was privately trying to get
buy in from the right people, and he saw the
racetrack as the ideal place to do it. It was
a place that was insulated from cartel violence because it
(20:42):
was a useful place for all kinds of people to
do business. Criminals almost certainly, but also the city's wealthy
industrialists and official powerbrokers. From my ability to be at
the Warrior's Racetrack, I became really, really good liaison friends
with a cardinal, with the mayor of war Is, with
the chief of Police of Warriors, with the Governor of Chihuahua.
(21:05):
They would all come to the race track. What a
great place to effect liaison. I wasn't stupid. I was
aware that at any time any one individual that I'm
meeting could have been corrupted by the cartel, of course,
but he can't do business with that premise. Did you
talk about the kidings of the women that any of
those days on the meetings with the Mayor of Warres
(21:27):
and with the chief of police. Yes, I was very
impressed with the Chief of war is not so impressed
with his police officers. But at the same time I
was also aware that there are certain things that the
chief of police of wars would never do because he
wants to live. He doesn't want to harm his family,
so there are limitations. I don't care how honest you are,
(21:49):
how competent you are. The cartel looms large these meetings
that the race track were taking place before La Lina
became acknowledge thanks to Alfredo's reporting, but the cartel's ability
to enforce silence was clear to Hardrick. The chief of
police seemed like an ally in stopping the murders of women,
(22:12):
but if he stuck out his neck too far, he
might well end up dead himself. Whereas Hardrick's informants indicated
that the cartel considered him untouchable, they reported back that
the cartel is scratching or hiss, what do we do
about this guy? Crawford, and one of the responses was,
(22:33):
are you crazy you do something to the FBI sac
do you have any idea where their crazy cowboy Bush
would do so? I kind of chuckled. Hardrick felt emboldened,
even obliged, to use his protected status to speak out,
to force a conversation that would go way above local
officials and catch the attention of Mexico's federal government. In
(22:57):
other words, to generate the kind of political pressure that
went beyond even what activists like Estra Chavezcano and mothers
like Paula Flores could achieve alone. There appears to be
no meaningful effort to solve the disappearances. Hardrick was consciously
stoking international media attention on the femicides. For someone in
(23:18):
Huirez like Dante or Mario Escobado, this was fatal, but
especial agents in charge of El Paso Herdrick didn't believe
he had as much to fear from La Ligne. Nonetheless,
after his interview, he did receive a warning, but it
came from the last place he expected. There was no
question it annoyed and infuriated some. I'm sure I do
(23:42):
recall some suggesting that I might temper my words, because
big businesses involved, and I'm going would you meet big
businesses involved? Well, the Miquela Doors are American companies, and
if the Mikuela Door are getting bad press because of
the murderer of women it were as many of them
(24:04):
mar Machueladora workers, it looks bad for American companies who
are doing business down there. And you might wind up
making enemies of people on this side of the border
without being aware that you are who gave me that morning.
You know, I can't remember, but it was seventeen years ago. Yeah,
I'm not remembering it, but I was being told to
knock it off, leave it alone, it's not your problem.
(24:32):
In his interview with ABC News, Herdrich didn't make any
explicit connection between the victims and Immaculadoras, but elsewhere in
the broadcast, the journalist John Quinonez did. Prominent in the
piece was an account of the last day of Cloudier
Veet Gonzalez, who was turned away from her job at
the Leakop factory for being a few minutes late. Her
(24:54):
body was subsequently discovered in the cotton fields. The inherent
vulnerability of these young women because of their work was clear.
And then there was an interview with Roberto Urea, the
spokesman for the Maquila Association in Juarez. He was asked
what responsibility the factories had for the murder of so
(25:14):
many young female employees. This was his response, Where were
these young ladies, where they were seen last? Were they drinking? Right?
Were their parting? Were they in a dark street? Victim
blaming just as Huire's authorities had done before broadcast on
(25:37):
national television in the US. It was not a good
look for the industry, and it was unfortunate that Hardrick
didn't remember the key detail of who had warned him
against bringing more bad press to the maquilas, because it
was reminiscent of the warnings Alfredo had received in Mexico
when he started asking questions about La Ligna. Thank with
(25:58):
Allo careful. We've already established how the drug traffickers used
the murder of women to create bonds of loyalty, and
how they had local police on their payroll. But the
idea that quires is legitimate businesses which will often run
with American partners, might also want to hush up the
(26:18):
murders of women. This was opening up a whole new
web of potential responsibility for these women's deaths. So, up
until this point, the Maculadoras the factories have been looming
in the background of our reporting. But his Hardrick Monica
saying that his activism basically led to him getting a
(26:42):
warning to leave the maquilas alone. And I'm frankly surprised
they would have enough influence to deliver that kind of
warning to a senior FBI agent. How powerful are these
economic interests. The marquila industry is the back bone of
the Wattas economy, and trade between the US and Mexico
(27:06):
generates more than half a trillion dollars every year. Millions
of jobs in the US are tied to trade, and
in Wattas you'll find companies like Boeing, like Dell, General Electric,
Johnson and Johnson manufacturing things. There's probably something you use
(27:29):
in your everyday life that was made in Hoattas. Whether
it's the seat cover in your forward or maybe your
Mercedes Benz, the inside of your washing machine, your laptop computer,
or your dog's chew toy. It doesn't matter if you
live hundreds of miles away, you touch something that came
(27:50):
from Hottas. Every day, And why have all these factory
set up shopping houarres. The short answer is because it's cheaper.
These companies go to hottas to cut costs, and the
number one cost they cut is labor. I'll give you
an example. The La Times did an excellent article looking
(28:13):
at Delphi, which is an American company that makes car parts.
It was once owned by General Motors. Delphi used to
have a plant in Warren, Ohio, where one of its
workers got paid thirty dollars an hour. He was able
to buy a house with a swimming pool and drove
(28:34):
a good car. Then Delphi moved that factory to Hottis,
where it paid its workers just one dollar an hour.
One dollar an hour. That's not a wage you can
live on, not in Hoattas, not anywhere. That low of
a wage is a form of exploitation, and it leaves
(28:57):
a whole group of people vulnerable, unable to defend themselves,
and so they're preyed upon. Whether it's an adolescent boy
like Manualio who gets recruited by gangs or a young
woman like Sagrario who gets kidnapped and brutally murdered, they
both become easy prey. Hendrick believed that the best way
(29:23):
to stop people praying on the women in Juarez was
to get powerful interests in Mexico to take the crime seriously,
and he was trying to use the press to achieve
that goal. That's not a crime that's going to be
solved in a day. It takes money invested in women
who don't mean anything to the people that are in
the upper class. They're throwaway humans. They're unimportant. If it
(29:47):
was their daughters, it would be different, but it was
poor people, and to throw their bodies away like they
were garbage, that shocks the conscience type crime as far
as Hardrick was concerned. When he gave that interview to
ABC News, the pressure he was exerting was directed towards
(30:09):
government officials in Mexico, But in light of the warning
he received, he started to worry he may have accidentally
kicked an even bigger hornet's nest. No, it didn't scare me,
but it made me passe. It did. It made me pass,
But Hardrick didn't pause for long. In a two thousand
(30:29):
and three interview with a Mexican newspaper, he described the
women's murders as quote crimes against humanity, and for a
while it looked like he was right on the cusp
of interrupting the status quo and achieving his mission. A
few months after Hardrick's appearance on ABC News, the FBI
office in El Paso received a facts inviting him to
(30:50):
a meeting in Juarez concerning the women's murders. And it
wasn't just any meeting. The Federal Drugs are who Alfredo
Corcado met in Mexico City. Vasconcellos was in attendance, and
after the meeting, the President of Mexico, Vicente Fox, spoke
in public about the possibility of working with the FBI
(31:11):
to solve the murders of women in Juarez once and
for all. This was everything that Hardrick had been working
so hard towards, and finally it felt like his efforts
were bearing fruit. But that feeling wouldn't last long. Head
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three and Handrick was using the media to pressure a
foreign government. He was meeting with high level officials on
foreign soil, and he was getting around his lack of
jurisdiction in Mexico by focusing on the lack of effort
to solve the murders. Meanwhile, his relationship with Jose Maria Aguardia,
the racetrack owner, was already straining the definition of official
(34:06):
liaison when it crossed a definitive line. Gordia offered my
wife a job as the public relations person at the
Warrior's racetrack to Lura Americans over there to gamble. My
wife has always been at my shadow from my whole life,
and I said, oh, man, she'd have the opportunity to
(34:28):
be an executive. Hardrick's career had taken him and his
wife Linda to Nairobi, Miami, and now El Paso when
they both wanted to move home to Cleveland. A job
at the racetrack could give Linda her own professional satisfaction,
and it also came with a salary of sixty thousand
dollars a year and plenty of perks. But as far
(34:51):
as Hardrick's former partner, Frank Evans was concerned, the job
offer should have been a clear red flag. I was
brief that of the things that would probably occur is
that I would be approached officially from the Mexican side
in a gesture of friendship. And that's precisely what happened.
My wife and I were invited to the Mexican consulate
(35:13):
here in El Paso, and while we were there, you know,
several Mexican businessmen from Juarez were also there, and they
came up and you know, it was the oh, we're
so glad to have you here. You know, the FBI
can correct all these wrongs that are happening in Uarez.
And then subtly it was you know, is your wife
planning to work? You know, if someone with her talent could,
(35:35):
we could certainly find a spot for I always remember
David Albo who brought me to El Paso. Dave was
born in Mexico. I can always remember Dave telling me
you always have to remember that a snake will smile
before it bites. Frank was describing more or less exactly
(35:57):
what Hendrick could experienced the flash followed by the offer,
and according to Frank, Hodrick should have recognized what was happening,
especially considering a big part of his mandate was public
corruption and the slippery slope was a well known tactic
for the cartels. You have a concept on the border
called mordita. Mordita is a bite. It's where people pay
(36:22):
policemen not to get a ticket. All the way up
the line. When you're dealing with the folks in Mexico,
nothing is as it seems. Everybody over there has an agenda.
And even you know, your most prominent businessmen, if they're
going to conduct business, they're going to have to deal
(36:43):
with the cartel. From their perspective, they may not be
doing anything wrong. However, from our perspective, you know a
bribe as a bribe. Frank and his wife kept that
distance from the Mexican businessman, but Hardrick and Linda accepted
Guadia's offer, and word of his decision reached Frank, who
(37:06):
was still living in El Paso after retiring in two thousand.
When I first heard that his wife was working for
the war as racetrack, my first thought was, now, that
cannot be true. It is not true. Frank had known
Hardrick for more than a decade. They'd come through FBI
training at the same time, and then she had a
(37:27):
car afterwards. They even responded to their first bank robbery
together on a snowy day in Cleveland. Right after graduating
from the FBI academy, Frank had worked on mafia busts
in Ohio, while Hardrick had attacked Columbian cartels in Florida.
In nineteen ninety six, Frank responded to the Olympic Park
bombing in Atlanta, and in nineteen ninety eight, Hardrick responded
(37:50):
to the US embassy bombing in Nairobi. And Frank had
been the number two in the FBI's El Paso office
before Hardrick was assigned to lead it. Haudrey cooled Frank
before moving to al Passo to us for advice. So
when Frank heard about Linda taking the job at the racetrack,
he felt he had to intervene. He jumped in his
(38:11):
car and drove to Haudrey's house, expecting his old partner
to hear him out. I pulled up when he was
pulling weeds, and I got out and say, hey, how's
it going now? And I started talking. I said, what's
going on? What are you thinking? Is this true? If
it's true, don't you realize what it looks like. Never
(38:31):
went inside his house. We talked in the front yard.
He just let me know he was in charge and
he knew what he was doing. And basically I was
retired and no longer had any official input into, you know,
what the FBI was doing, which was absolutely correct. It
was kind of a slap in the face. I kept thinking,
you know, after all this time and the guy that
(38:52):
you know, both of us stood in the snow at
that first bank robbery, and I thought time has changed,
you know, on fort he's taken a path that is
going to lead to us destruction. Within months of Linda
taking the job at the racetrack, Frank's concerns about Hardrick's
friendships were realized in spectacular fashion. Mister Warrior and the
(39:18):
Cardinal were accused of collusion with cartels. I was like,
oh my god, moment, and so what did I do.
I send a communication immediately the FBI headquarters. Two men
who I associate with very closely have been accused of
being implicated in organized crime. So I self reported immediately
(39:38):
that same day, specifically, Guardia and Sandoval were accused of
colluding with the cartel to laund the money at the racetrack.
And although Hardrick did self report, he didn't believe his
friends had done anything wrong. In fact, the official in
Mexico City who accused them had himself previously been accused
(39:58):
of being on the cartel payroll by Santoval. His unceasing
pressure on the Mexican government cost him once one good
way to neutralize somebody make a counter accusation. He's a member,
He's operating with the cartail. At the request of his
two friends, Hardrick made the extraordinary decision of speaking at
(40:20):
a press conference in Juarez to defend them, and when
he was asked if he was speaking as a private
citizen or the head of the FBI and al Passo,
he answered both. I believe, I said, if they are
involved with the organized crying, shame on them. I said,
I have no knowledge that they are, but if they are,
(40:41):
a shame on them. I know him to be a man,
a guy at him to be a good man. Santoval
and Guardia was subsequently both cleared of any wrongdoing, but
for an FBI agent who'd been sent to the border
to avoid by national entanglements and conflicts of interest, Hardrick's
actions were unacceptable. A representative of the Mexican foreign ministry
(41:03):
who was close to the government official who had originally
accused Guardia and Sandoval, complained about Hardrick to the US ambassador.
The ambassador revoked Hardrick's travel privilege in two thousand and three,
and that same year, Hardrick abruptly resigned from the FBI.
By two thousand and six, he was indicted by a
grand jury for false statements regarding his relationship with Guardia
(41:26):
and his wife's employment at the racetrack. One of the
things I was charged with was I've misled and I
feeled to report to headquarters that mister Guardia and the
cardinal were accused of serious crimes. Now I self reported myself,
what are you talking about? The Justice Department was digging
into Hardrick's financial relationship with the racetrack owner. FBI policy
(41:51):
prohibits employees from quote engaging in private business and financial
relationships with subjects, witnesses, or individuals furnishing information to the
FBI without prior FBI headquarters approval. Hardrick maintains that he
himself was not employed by Guardia and that he never
tried to disguise the fact that his wife was, but
(42:13):
they did accept perks like a country club membership and
a trip Las Vegas. But on Hardrick's financial disclosure form
in the gifts and reimbursement section, he listed none. It's
almost laughable. It wasn't soul. Depressing her income in her
job was in my tax return. The charges that I'm
(42:36):
accused of are things normally that are handled internally by
internal affairs. Noah indictment. In January two thousand and seven,
Hardrick was found guilty on two of the five counts
relating to full statements around financial disclosures. He was fined
ten thousand dollars and sentenced to six months at the
(42:57):
Louisbow Prison camp in central Pennsylvania. Yeah, it's a prison
known for holding drug offenders and members of organized crime.
The implication was huge, without a doubt. They've clearly believed
that I had been seduced and stepped over the line
or was acting to aid. And I bet those who
(43:20):
were on the dark side, the dark side, the powerful
men who were raping and murdering the women in Juarez
with impunity. Was it possible that Hardrick, wittingly or not,
had allied himself with the very people who were responsible
for the crimes he was outspoken about preventing. To this day,
(43:43):
Hardrick maintains his innocence. My brother said directly, did you
ever think about eating your gun? I said, I did.
I did seriously consider and killing myself. Why because I've
just been dishonored. I'm a knight now I'm a tarnished knight.
And I thought about stick and mcnai millimeter in my
(44:05):
mova and then I said no. Then that just says that, yeah,
he did it because he was guilty. So that's why
I didn't I do talk to my Lord about it
and say, yeah, I understand prior go off before the fall,
and you lured me a little bit on this one, didn't,
your lord. But still the bottom line is those women
(44:25):
were as nobody seems to be caring about them. The
timing of Hardrick's downfall was uncanny and tragic. Just as
his activism was forcing the President of Mexico to acknowledge
the unsolved murders of women and promise action, Hardrick's wife
(44:46):
took a job at the racetrack, and that began a
series of events that culminated with the release of the
pressure that had been building to finally take action on
behalf of the women. Diana told us she still angry
with Hardrick, but in her book she does entertain the
possibility that he was set up. She writes a confidential
(45:08):
intelligence source in Mexico City claimed Guardia was a US
intelligence asset, Crawford's wife was clean, and the quote unquote
mafia wanted to get rid of the FBI official. The
tip was impossible to corroborate, and in the end, Diana
simply says that Hardrick's behavior was inexplicable. We asked Frank
(45:31):
Evans how he understood his former partner's story. Here's a
guy Crawford who's charismatic, successful, on track for all these promotions,
seemingly with the world at his feet in one of
the most exciting field officers of the FBI. You're telling
me for sixty thousand dollars a year. He throws all
that away. You know, sixty thousand is what we are
(45:54):
looking at hypothetically. Could there have been something else? Yes,
I do not know that there was. But you know,
you got to remember, even Adam took a bite of
the apple. Is it a character flaw? Like I said,
I don't know. I still have a hard time sometimes
wrapping my hands around it and thinking about it. It's like,
(46:15):
you know, what the heck happened? Crawford could have had
any door opened he wanted. In Washington, DC, Crowford mentioned
he felt a high emission, like a mission from God
to intervene in his case, he was out in front
on TV criticizing the Mexican government, quoting this a crime
against humanity? Why did he got out in front on
this particular issue. You're dealing with the lives of hundreds
(46:37):
of women. But frequently when you work organized crime, you
don't necessarily want to call the Godfather an soob to
his face. You want to kind of keep it on
the sportsman like footing, and then you continue to put
the sob in jail. It's the same way with who's
ever killing those women. You may go home and cry
at night, especially when you see some of those girls
(47:00):
or the remains, but you cry in your home alone
or with your family calling the governor of Chihuahua a
murderer when you need to be able to perhaps operate
inside of the state of Chihuahua. That's not going to
get anybody helping you. So was Hardrick undone by his ego?
(47:21):
Was he actually corrupted or was it possible that there
was some kind of conspiracy against him? I was curious
how Hardrick himself interpreted what had happened to him, first
his country clearance being revoked, then his indictment, and ultimately
his conviction and imprisonment. To my surprise, he returned to
(47:42):
that warning he received after his appearance on ABC News.
It occurred to me, I mean enemies, and now this
is the cost. This is the cost. I'm not stupid,
I'm above average intelligence. I could see the connection. Okay,
big business, some US ambassador Mexicans. Okay, I get it.
(48:05):
You know, if I was a conspiracy theorist, I you know,
I would say that, Yes, the State Department and the
US corporations, who were incensed that all his attention being
directed to the Michela Doras, you know, went to the
administration and said, look, this guy is harming the Michela
Dora industry, and Mexico is upset, so we're going to
(48:28):
have to make a sacrifice out of him. The moment
that Padrick dropped this explosive hint that he was silenced
by the US government who wants to hush up the
murders of women in order to protect business interests, he
WoT it back. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I
would think things like that. But in the end I
(48:51):
just chalk it up to over zealous Department of Justice
OYG said, oh, look, we can get a high rank
and FBI official. In the end, that's what my mind
is settled on. So Diana as usual, Monica is right.
This saga is weird and inexplicable, and is tempting to
dismiss it entirely, except we know what happened to so
(49:14):
many other people who investigated the women's murders and how
one way or another they met unpleasant fates of their own.
And it's also true that these business interests are very,
very significant and they profit by keeping people vulnerable. So
what do you make of Hardrick's story? Like Diana, I
(49:36):
would say it's ambiguous. As an outsider, Hardrick was supposed
to be immune from becoming midido or involved, and you
might say he did so naively because he was an outsider.
But you could also say, yeah, right, I don't buy
that an FBI supervisor with his level of experience couldn't
(50:00):
see that the path he was going down would get
him into trouble. But no matter what, you had this
outspoken head of the FBI in al Passo highlighting the
most controversial crimes on the US Mexico border, and that
no doubt would disturb the authors of those crimes, and
(50:24):
more than likely they would want to get rid of
someone like Hardrick. But they can't get rid of him
in the same way they got rid of Mario Escovedo
or Dante al Maras. So it's plausible that the powers
that be in Mexico could have used Hardrick's relationship with
(50:44):
Guadia and the cardinal to push him out. Mexico is
the land of smoke and mirrors. You don't know who
you're dealing with, who they're allied with, whether you can
trust them, who their friends are, whether or not they
have ties to the dark side. It makes it very
difficult to navigate and do your job. I couldn't stop
(51:09):
thinking about Hardrick's quote conspiracy theory, which went all the
way from murdered women to Mexican business interests to his
downfall to the State Department. So we called the US
ambassador who withdrew Hardrick's country clearance in two thousand and three,
to ask him what happened next time. I've forgotten that conversation.
(51:31):
Antonio Rza, formerly the United States Ambassador to Mexico from
the period November two thousand and two through January two
thousand and nine, And we returned to Dinah Washington Valdes,
who suggests that powerful businessmen in Huirez who profited from
immaculadora industry were also involved in the murders of women.
(51:54):
These are people that are well known not just as
border but in Mexico nationally. You know they have global
business interests. It was scary when you sit down and
think about who may be involved in the names. Oh
my god. It's like, oh my god, I'm as Velosen
(52:19):
and I'm Monique will be
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conditions at une st dot CEO. Forgotten is a production
of ihut Media and unusual productions. Before we start. This
podcast contains accounts which some listeners will find disturbing, but
without them, the story can't be fully understood. Please take
care while listening. Previously on Forgotten, it was like a
(01:54):
perfect store. You have the women coming from southern Mexico,
desperate for work to help their families, to come work
at the Mikheila Doors. It's like antelopes at the water hole.
I had a night witness who alleged that he had
been at these parties where these women would be brought
into It's not here are the bad guys and you
are the good guys. There were no good guys. Everybody
(02:17):
was involved. That's Another misnomer about drug trafficking is that
it's Mexican groups invading, and I'd say it's no, it's
Mexicans and Americans working together to produce, to transport, to smuggle,
to sell drugs. The first time Monica took me to
(02:39):
meet Dinah Washington Valdez, I was overwhelmed. Over the course
of three hours, she talked about young women being selected
for murder and about a network of computer schools used
to get details on victims who vanished from crowded streets.
She also told us that she had to stop reporting
in Juarez because of death threat she received. One was
(03:00):
traced back to Mexican military intelligence with the help of
a source in US law enforcement, And among all of
Diana's law enforcement sources, there was one person she suggested
that we try to track down for an interview, and
he talked to Hardrick Crawford. Yet he's very friendly and
he probably will be a very good source of information
for you Herdrick Crawford was one of the most senior
(03:24):
government officials on the US Mexico border. He became a
Special Agent in charge of the FBI's l Pass Office
in two thousand and one that was the year that
Lilia Alejandro was abducted on her way home from work
and the year that eight women's bodies were discovered at
the cotton Field, and Hardrick took a special interest in
the fate of the women, even traveling across the border
(03:46):
to better understand what was happening to them. Hardrick Crawford says,
when he made a trip to Huardas and downtown with
one of his assistants, they looked around and they said, yeah,
this is where they picked their victims. This is where
they see them. I'm coming, and this is where they're taken.
The slogan of the activist community against the murder of
(04:06):
women in Huarez is neat on amass not one more.
It's a phrase Diana inscribed in my copy of her book,
and with an ally of Hardrick's influence, the goal seemed
within reach. Then something happened. I murdering him because there
are a lot of weird things about what was going
on with him. To this day, it's inexplicable. It's comforting
(04:31):
to imagine that the weird and inexplicable parts of this
story take place on the Mexican side of the border.
But Hardrick's fate disturbs that narrative. To understand it, we
had to talk to him ourselves about how he became
outspoken on the women's murders and about what happened to him.
By the time I get to El Passel, I'm stunned
(04:55):
and amazed at the response of our carlege in Mexico
to an enormous crime, A my numbing crime, but also
not stupid. I know that's not our country. Hardrick was
well aware that back in nineteen ninety nine, the FBI
had offered to help local Houire's police solve the women's
(05:17):
murders as part of Operation Plaza Sweep. In fact, by coincidence,
the agent who led the operation, Frank Evans, had been
Hardrick's former partner from their rookie days in Cleveland, Ohio,
So Hardrick knew that the Howire's authorities had twisted the
bureau's findings before to pay on more blame on scapegoats.
(05:38):
But looking out the window of his office towards Houirez,
where young women were being brutally murdered with impunity, Hardrick
felt he had to try to do something. I have
members in my own office who have women in their
family in Mexico and the fact that I have two daughters.
It affects you. It affects you on a personal level.
(06:02):
How could I face my own office and sit there
and do nothing like punch his pilot, just wash my hands.
So it was a delicate balance of Okay, how do
I perform this mission and at the same time not
medal in the affairs of a sovereign nation. And that
was the crux these murders. They were happening within sight
(06:23):
of Hardrick's office, but outside of his jurisdiction. I was
keenly aware that you can step on a landmine in
that regard. You did, but maybe I just got injured
instead of blown the bits. So what did happen to Hardrick?
(06:46):
And did his fate connect in any way to the
list of people who'd investigated these murders and ended up threatened, discredited,
or dead. I'm as Voloshin and I'm got him. The
women of Guirescano Baramo Rara lov you know, so you
(07:19):
know masque a la Felicia. Since the early nineteen nineties,
(07:42):
young women had been disappearing from the streets of Juarez
and Tony Up dead, often dumped in the desert. There
were forced confessions and changed statements. Paula Flores was far
from alone amongst the victim's mothers in believing that the
authors of the crimes remained free. Oscar Menez, the huara's
chief forensics officer, resigned after being asked to plant evidence
(08:05):
on two bus drivers at the cotton field, and the
lawyers who defended them, Mary Escobado Junior and Dante Amaras
were both assassinated. Even reporters who were American citizens like
Diana Washington Valdez and Alfredo Cocardo, received death threats as
they got closer to the truth. That's what made Hardrick's
arrival at the border in two thousand and one and
(08:27):
his personal interest in solving these crimes a potentially huge
turning point. It looked like the authors of the crimes
might finally have met their match. But how did the
special agents in charge of El Paso get so deeply
invested in crimes taking place in another country? To understand that,
we have to go back to Hardrick's assignment to the
(08:48):
border was angry with god forday. I worked hard and
as you can imagine, you know, let's be candid, you're
not a black sac unless you're on top of your game.
And Hardrick was on top of his game. He was
the most senior FBI agent on the African continent when
(09:09):
he responded to Osama bin Laden's bombing of the American
embassy in Kenya, and he'd been the number two in
the bureau's Miami office taking on the Columbian cartel and
their drug smoking operations. The danger was tons of cocaine
flooding our cities, making zombies out of American citizens. Come on,
let's face it, I'm an African American. I saw up
(09:31):
front and close in Cleveland what cocaine did to my community.
And so the way I saw this is war. You're
destroying my country from within, and so there was no
hesitation to take them on. In two thousand and one,
Hardrick was up for promotion to the coveted position of SAC,
(09:53):
or Special Agents in Charge. There were two such openings
at the time, El Paso and Cleveland, Ohio, where Hardrick
had grown up, and he made an impassioned case to
the FBI Deputy director to return home, and I went,
I'm a Cleveland kind of guy. He says, you want
to be an SAC, You're an El Pastle kind of guy.
(10:13):
I called the wife and said, we're going to El Pastle.
She was one little down. Number one, Cleveland was open
and we didn't get it. But number two, and almost
nearly as important, is that all speak Spanish. I felt
that all those times that I risked my life for
the bureau, and you reward me by sending me to
the border where I can't speak Spanish. So I was hurt.
(10:35):
But I'm a professional. So you've given the job in
some sense because you're an outsider, correct, an outsider with
a sterling reputation for management and leadership. So the FBI
office in El Paso kind of has a reputation Monica.
(10:56):
One of the early special agents in charge had to
resign in disgrace after being caught selling weapons to Mexican revolutionaries,
and another special agent from that office was murdered, which
is the only unsolved murder of an FBI agent in
the line of duty in the bureau's history. So what
(11:19):
makes the posting so hard? And I'll passo. We all
have some sort of ties to Huadis to Mexico, So
the opportunities for corruption or vast for law enforcement that
presents a huge challenge unlike anywhere else in the country
because of these binational ties, those connections can get you
(11:41):
in trouble family, culture, business, and in fact, it's absolutely
necessary for the black market to thrive, for the corruption
to exist on both sides of the border. And so yeah,
you could see the mentality behind sending an outsider like
Hardrick Crawford in thinking, alright, he's not going to be
susceptible to these same kinds of weaknesses. Central to Hardrick's
(12:08):
mission in El Paso was stopping the flow of drugs
into the US. To do this, he'd have to keep
an eye not just on Mexican drug traffickers, but on
his own colleagues. After all, he'd been assigned to the
border partly because his background made conflicts of interest unlikely.
And in two thousand and two, Hardrick led an investigation
(12:29):
that revealed a translator in his office was selling information
to the cartel. It's like one of your family has
because we were a family in a field office. And
to discover that, because you trust everybody implicitly, so yeah,
that was like a dagger to the heart. Yes, and
that was one of our prime missions public corruption cartels.
(12:50):
They're bad guys. But if it's a corrupt US official,
vary institutions or at stake. I spoke to Frank Evans.
I guess it's your partner in Cleveland, right, I remember
for me yea, And he said that basically the cartels
couldn't operate. That's not the operations if it weren't for
corrupted US officials. He's correct. They're much more efficient if
(13:12):
they can bribe at that point of entry instead of
having a sneak in, just drive it right through. In Juarez,
La Lina enforced the cartel's power by corrupting officials to
the extent the policemen were kidnapping women. This wasn't happening
in El Paso, but the same money could buy silence
or complicity on either side of the border. So Hardrick
(13:36):
had his hands full, but he was still in search
of a higher purpose in El Paso. That's when he
received the letter from a group of activists in Juarez.
And they sent me this passionate letter asking for assistance
in addressing this horrible, tragic crime of the murder of
these women in wars. Was caught off guard. It was
(13:56):
not US helpers, No, it was Hardrick Crawford helpers hit
me on a personal level, more soul than it did
on a professional level. It sound funny, but I thought, Okay,
now I know why Goad sent me to our pessel.
Was this? This was the reason I was sent here.
Hardrick had been angry with God for his posting, but
(14:17):
after receiving this letter, the situation was beginning to make
sense to him. It was two thousand and two, just
a few months after eight women's bodies had been discovered
at the cotton Field, and in response to the letter,
Hardly offered the FBI's resources in profiling, forensics, and even
training to the Hore's police. But he recognized that stopping
(14:38):
the murders of women required political will, and that's when
he took the highly unusual step of appearing on ABC
News to publicly criticize Mexico's response to the crimes. Increasingly,
Mexican police and government officials are under fire from people
here in the US. There appears to be no meaning
(15:00):
effort to solve the disappearances. All of the resources of
the FBI are available to our Mexican colleagues, such a
matter as DNA blood typing, profiling. The response from the
Mexicans to that offer heretofore the response has been they've
had these matters in hand and don't require our assistance.
(15:20):
Hardrick's words were cloaked in official language, but there was
no doubting a message. He was claiming on national television
that the murders of women in Huarez were not being
solved because Mexican officials didn't want to solve them. Not
just the street corps who abducted women, but their bosses,
perhaps even their bosses bosses. And this accusation wasn't coming
(15:44):
from a journalist or an activist. It was coming from
a US government official. But Hardrick's strategy wasn't just about
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(18:06):
the same time, as Hardrick was castigating Mexican officials on television,
he made it his mission to develop personal relationships with Juarez,
his power brokers. I used to travel to war As
quite frequently. I became friends with a Mexican businessman at
the racetrack at Warriors, and when you're on the border,
you're liaison, and it includes foreign liaison, which the other
(18:27):
field houses don here the friend Hardrick mentions is Jose
Maria Guardia. He was a complicated figure. He'd been invited
to George W. Bush's presidential inauguration, but he'd also been
caught up in a bribery scandal with the US consular official.
In fact, it would later come to light that when
Hardrick arrived at the border, Guardia was a confidential informant
(18:51):
for the FBI. That's something Hardrick told us he was
never informed of by his own office who made the
initial introduction. That was to him by my media rep
who fully understood that liaison was critical to my performance.
So I struck up a relationship with him likable fellow,
went to the racetrack with him, and at the racetrack
(19:12):
he would bring various officials. Racetracks have a long history
of association with corruption and organized crime, a problem endemic
to Juarez. But Guardia had friends who vouched for him,
and one in particular made a big impression on Hardrick.
His really really close friendship with Cardinal Sandoval, who was
(19:33):
on the shortlist for the pope when the Pope died.
That to a large extent, assuaged any concerns or fears
that I might have. Not only did the Cardinal endorse Guardia,
but he became something of a spiritual guide for Hardrake.
Hardrick described the Cardinal as a great ally in the
fight against corruption and for justice for the women. I
(19:55):
was baptized by the Cardinal and my religious faith. Yes,
they did have a part to play, and it was
a not quite the mission that Diana Vllebars Washington has
with regard to these terrible crimes. But I had an
official and a moral mission that I felt that I
was empowered on a different level than the US Constitution.
(20:19):
Hardry was beginning to see his mission in terms of
a higher calling, superseding even his duty to the Constitution.
And at the same time as he was publicly corning
out officials in Huarez, he was privately trying to get
buy in from the right people, and he saw the
racetrack as the ideal place to do it. It was
a place that was insulated from cartel violence because it
(20:42):
was a useful place for all kinds of people to
do business. Criminals almost certainly, but also the city's wealthy
industrialists and official powerbrokers. From my ability to be at
the Warrior's Racetrack, I became really, really good liaison friends
with a cardinal, with the mayor of war Is, with
the chief of Police of Warriors, with the Governor of Chihuahua.
(21:05):
They would all come to the race track. What a
great place to effect liaison. I wasn't stupid. I was
aware that at any time any one individual that I'm
meeting could have been corrupted by the cartel, of course,
but he can't do business with that premise. Did you
talk about the kidings of the women that any of
those days on the meetings with the Mayor of Warres
(21:27):
and with the chief of police. Yes, I was very
impressed with the Chief of war is not so impressed
with his police officers. But at the same time I
was also aware that there are certain things that the
chief of police of wars would never do because he
wants to live. He doesn't want to harm his family,
so there are limitations. I don't care how honest you are,
(21:49):
how competent you are. The cartel looms large these meetings
that the race track were taking place before La Lina
became acknowledge thanks to Alfredo's reporting, but the cartel's ability
to enforce silence was clear to Hardrick. The chief of
police seemed like an ally in stopping the murders of women,
(22:12):
but if he stuck out his neck too far, he
might well end up dead himself. Whereas Hardrick's informants indicated
that the cartel considered him untouchable, they reported back that
the cartel is scratching or hiss, what do we do
about this guy? Crawford, and one of the responses was,
(22:33):
are you crazy you do something to the FBI sac
do you have any idea where their crazy cowboy Bush
would do so? I kind of chuckled. Hardrick felt emboldened,
even obliged, to use his protected status to speak out,
to force a conversation that would go way above local
officials and catch the attention of Mexico's federal government. In
(22:57):
other words, to generate the kind of political pressure that
went beyond even what activists like Estra Chavezcano and mothers
like Paula Flores could achieve alone. There appears to be
no meaningful effort to solve the disappearances. Hardrick was consciously
stoking international media attention on the femicides. For someone in
(23:18):
Huirez like Dante or Mario Escobado, this was fatal, but
especial agents in charge of El Paso Herdrick didn't believe
he had as much to fear from La Ligne. Nonetheless,
after his interview, he did receive a warning, but it
came from the last place he expected. There was no
question it annoyed and infuriated some. I'm sure I do
(23:42):
recall some suggesting that I might temper my words, because
big businesses involved, and I'm going would you meet big
businesses involved? Well, the Miquela Doors are American companies, and
if the Mikuela Door are getting bad press because of
the murderer of women it were as many of them
(24:04):
mar Machueladora workers, it looks bad for American companies who
are doing business down there. And you might wind up
making enemies of people on this side of the border
without being aware that you are who gave me that morning.
You know, I can't remember, but it was seventeen years ago. Yeah,
I'm not remembering it, but I was being told to
knock it off, leave it alone, it's not your problem.
(24:32):
In his interview with ABC News, Herdrich didn't make any
explicit connection between the victims and Immaculadoras, but elsewhere in
the broadcast, the journalist John Quinonez did. Prominent in the
piece was an account of the last day of Cloudier
Veet Gonzalez, who was turned away from her job at
the Leakop factory for being a few minutes late. Her
(24:54):
body was subsequently discovered in the cotton fields. The inherent
vulnerability of these young women because of their work was clear.
And then there was an interview with Roberto Urea, the
spokesman for the Maquila Association in Juarez. He was asked
what responsibility the factories had for the murder of so
(25:14):
many young female employees. This was his response, Where were
these young ladies, where they were seen last? Were they drinking? Right?
Were their parting? Were they in a dark street? Victim
blaming just as Huire's authorities had done before broadcast on
(25:37):
national television in the US. It was not a good
look for the industry, and it was unfortunate that Hardrick
didn't remember the key detail of who had warned him
against bringing more bad press to the maquilas, because it
was reminiscent of the warnings Alfredo had received in Mexico
when he started asking questions about La Ligna. Thank with
(25:58):
Allo careful. We've already established how the drug traffickers used
the murder of women to create bonds of loyalty, and
how they had local police on their payroll. But the
idea that quires is legitimate businesses which will often run
with American partners, might also want to hush up the
(26:18):
murders of women. This was opening up a whole new
web of potential responsibility for these women's deaths. So, up
until this point, the Maculadoras the factories have been looming
in the background of our reporting. But his Hardrick Monica
saying that his activism basically led to him getting a
(26:42):
warning to leave the maquilas alone. And I'm frankly surprised
they would have enough influence to deliver that kind of
warning to a senior FBI agent. How powerful are these
economic interests. The marquila industry is the back bone of
the Wattas economy, and trade between the US and Mexico
(27:06):
generates more than half a trillion dollars every year. Millions
of jobs in the US are tied to trade, and
in Wattas you'll find companies like Boeing, like Dell, General Electric,
Johnson and Johnson manufacturing things. There's probably something you use
(27:29):
in your everyday life that was made in Hoattas. Whether
it's the seat cover in your forward or maybe your
Mercedes Benz, the inside of your washing machine, your laptop computer,
or your dog's chew toy. It doesn't matter if you
live hundreds of miles away, you touch something that came
(27:50):
from Hottas. Every day, And why have all these factory
set up shopping houarres. The short answer is because it's cheaper.
These companies go to hottas to cut costs, and the
number one cost they cut is labor. I'll give you
an example. The La Times did an excellent article looking
(28:13):
at Delphi, which is an American company that makes car parts.
It was once owned by General Motors. Delphi used to
have a plant in Warren, Ohio, where one of its
workers got paid thirty dollars an hour. He was able
to buy a house with a swimming pool and drove
(28:34):
a good car. Then Delphi moved that factory to Hottis,
where it paid its workers just one dollar an hour.
One dollar an hour. That's not a wage you can
live on, not in Hoattas, not anywhere. That low of
a wage is a form of exploitation, and it leaves
(28:57):
a whole group of people vulnerable, unable to defend themselves,
and so they're preyed upon. Whether it's an adolescent boy
like Manualio who gets recruited by gangs or a young
woman like Sagrario who gets kidnapped and brutally murdered, they
both become easy prey. Hendrick believed that the best way
(29:23):
to stop people praying on the women in Juarez was
to get powerful interests in Mexico to take the crime seriously,
and he was trying to use the press to achieve
that goal. That's not a crime that's going to be
solved in a day. It takes money invested in women
who don't mean anything to the people that are in
the upper class. They're throwaway humans. They're unimportant. If it
(29:47):
was their daughters, it would be different, but it was
poor people, and to throw their bodies away like they
were garbage, that shocks the conscience type crime as far
as Hardrick was concerned. When he gave that interview to
ABC News, the pressure he was exerting was directed towards
(30:09):
government officials in Mexico, But in light of the warning
he received, he started to worry he may have accidentally
kicked an even bigger hornet's nest. No, it didn't scare me,
but it made me passe. It did. It made me pass,
But Hardrick didn't pause for long. In a two thousand
(30:29):
and three interview with a Mexican newspaper, he described the
women's murders as quote crimes against humanity, and for a
while it looked like he was right on the cusp
of interrupting the status quo and achieving his mission. A
few months after Hardrick's appearance on ABC News, the FBI
office in El Paso received a facts inviting him to
(30:50):
a meeting in Juarez concerning the women's murders. And it
wasn't just any meeting. The Federal Drugs are who Alfredo
Corcado met in Mexico City. Vasconcellos was in attendance, and
after the meeting, the President of Mexico, Vicente Fox, spoke
in public about the possibility of working with the FBI
(31:11):
to solve the murders of women in Juarez once and
for all. This was everything that Hardrick had been working
so hard towards, and finally it felt like his efforts
were bearing fruit. But that feeling wouldn't last long. Head
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(32:37):
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(32:59):
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(33:22):
Listen to Help Discovered on the iHeartRadio app or wherever
you get your podcasts. It was early two thousand and
(33:44):
three and Handrick was using the media to pressure a
foreign government. He was meeting with high level officials on
foreign soil, and he was getting around his lack of
jurisdiction in Mexico by focusing on the lack of effort
to solve the murders. Meanwhile, his relationship with Jose Maria Aguardia,
the racetrack owner, was already straining the definition of official
(34:06):
liaison when it crossed a definitive line. Gordia offered my
wife a job as the public relations person at the
Warrior's racetrack to Lura Americans over there to gamble. My
wife has always been at my shadow from my whole life,
and I said, oh, man, she'd have the opportunity to
(34:28):
be an executive. Hardrick's career had taken him and his
wife Linda to Nairobi, Miami, and now El Paso when
they both wanted to move home to Cleveland. A job
at the racetrack could give Linda her own professional satisfaction,
and it also came with a salary of sixty thousand
dollars a year and plenty of perks. But as far
(34:51):
as Hardrick's former partner, Frank Evans was concerned, the job
offer should have been a clear red flag. I was
brief that of the things that would probably occur is
that I would be approached officially from the Mexican side
in a gesture of friendship. And that's precisely what happened.
My wife and I were invited to the Mexican consulate
(35:13):
here in El Paso, and while we were there, you know,
several Mexican businessmen from Juarez were also there, and they
came up and you know, it was the oh, we're
so glad to have you here. You know, the FBI
can correct all these wrongs that are happening in Uarez.
And then subtly it was you know, is your wife
planning to work? You know, if someone with her talent could,
(35:35):
we could certainly find a spot for I always remember
David Albo who brought me to El Paso. Dave was
born in Mexico. I can always remember Dave telling me
you always have to remember that a snake will smile
before it bites. Frank was describing more or less exactly
(35:57):
what Hendrick could experienced the flash followed by the offer,
and according to Frank, Hodrick should have recognized what was happening,
especially considering a big part of his mandate was public
corruption and the slippery slope was a well known tactic
for the cartels. You have a concept on the border
called mordita. Mordita is a bite. It's where people pay
(36:22):
policemen not to get a ticket. All the way up
the line. When you're dealing with the folks in Mexico,
nothing is as it seems. Everybody over there has an agenda.
And even you know, your most prominent businessmen, if they're
going to conduct business, they're going to have to deal
(36:43):
with the cartel. From their perspective, they may not be
doing anything wrong. However, from our perspective, you know a
bribe as a bribe. Frank and his wife kept that
distance from the Mexican businessman, but Hardrick and Linda accepted
Guadia's offer, and word of his decision reached Frank, who
(37:06):
was still living in El Paso after retiring in two thousand.
When I first heard that his wife was working for
the war as racetrack, my first thought was, now, that
cannot be true. It is not true. Frank had known
Hardrick for more than a decade. They'd come through FBI
training at the same time, and then she had a
(37:27):
car afterwards. They even responded to their first bank robbery
together on a snowy day in Cleveland. Right after graduating
from the FBI academy, Frank had worked on mafia busts
in Ohio, while Hardrick had attacked Columbian cartels in Florida.
In nineteen ninety six, Frank responded to the Olympic Park
bombing in Atlanta, and in nineteen ninety eight, Hardrick responded
(37:50):
to the US embassy bombing in Nairobi. And Frank had
been the number two in the FBI's El Paso office
before Hardrick was assigned to lead it. Haudrey cooled Frank
before moving to al Passo to us for advice. So
when Frank heard about Linda taking the job at the racetrack,
he felt he had to intervene. He jumped in his
(38:11):
car and drove to Haudrey's house, expecting his old partner
to hear him out. I pulled up when he was
pulling weeds, and I got out and say, hey, how's
it going now? And I started talking. I said, what's
going on? What are you thinking? Is this true? If
it's true, don't you realize what it looks like. Never
(38:31):
went inside his house. We talked in the front yard.
He just let me know he was in charge and
he knew what he was doing. And basically I was
retired and no longer had any official input into, you know,
what the FBI was doing, which was absolutely correct. It
was kind of a slap in the face. I kept thinking,
you know, after all this time and the guy that
(38:52):
you know, both of us stood in the snow at
that first bank robbery, and I thought time has changed,
you know, on fort he's taken a path that is
going to lead to us destruction. Within months of Linda
taking the job at the racetrack, Frank's concerns about Hardrick's
friendships were realized in spectacular fashion. Mister Warrior and the
(39:18):
Cardinal were accused of collusion with cartels. I was like,
oh my god, moment, and so what did I do.
I send a communication immediately the FBI headquarters. Two men
who I associate with very closely have been accused of
being implicated in organized crime. So I self reported immediately
(39:38):
that same day, specifically, Guardia and Sandoval were accused of
colluding with the cartel to laund the money at the racetrack.
And although Hardrick did self report, he didn't believe his
friends had done anything wrong. In fact, the official in
Mexico City who accused them had himself previously been accused
(39:58):
of being on the cartel payroll by Santoval. His unceasing
pressure on the Mexican government cost him once one good
way to neutralize somebody make a counter accusation. He's a member,
He's operating with the cartail. At the request of his
two friends, Hardrick made the extraordinary decision of speaking at
(40:20):
a press conference in Juarez to defend them, and when
he was asked if he was speaking as a private
citizen or the head of the FBI and al Passo,
he answered both. I believe, I said, if they are
involved with the organized crying, shame on them. I said,
I have no knowledge that they are, but if they are,
(40:41):
a shame on them. I know him to be a man,
a guy at him to be a good man. Santoval
and Guardia was subsequently both cleared of any wrongdoing, but
for an FBI agent who'd been sent to the border
to avoid by national entanglements and conflicts of interest, Hardrick's
actions were unacceptable. A representative of the Mexican foreign ministry
(41:03):
who was close to the government official who had originally
accused Guardia and Sandoval, complained about Hardrick to the US ambassador.
The ambassador revoked Hardrick's travel privilege in two thousand and three,
and that same year, Hardrick abruptly resigned from the FBI.
By two thousand and six, he was indicted by a
grand jury for false statements regarding his relationship with Guardia
(41:26):
and his wife's employment at the racetrack. One of the
things I was charged with was I've misled and I
feeled to report to headquarters that mister Guardia and the
cardinal were accused of serious crimes. Now I self reported myself,
what are you talking about? The Justice Department was digging
into Hardrick's financial relationship with the racetrack owner. FBI policy
(41:51):
prohibits employees from quote engaging in private business and financial
relationships with subjects, witnesses, or individuals furnishing information to the
FBI without prior FBI headquarters approval. Hardrick maintains that he
himself was not employed by Guardia and that he never
tried to disguise the fact that his wife was, but
(42:13):
they did accept perks like a country club membership and
a trip Las Vegas. But on Hardrick's financial disclosure form
in the gifts and reimbursement section, he listed none. It's
almost laughable. It wasn't soul. Depressing her income in her
job was in my tax return. The charges that I'm
(42:36):
accused of are things normally that are handled internally by
internal affairs. Noah indictment. In January two thousand and seven,
Hardrick was found guilty on two of the five counts
relating to full statements around financial disclosures. He was fined
ten thousand dollars and sentenced to six months at the
(42:57):
Louisbow Prison camp in central Pennsylvania. Yeah, it's a prison
known for holding drug offenders and members of organized crime.
The implication was huge, without a doubt. They've clearly believed
that I had been seduced and stepped over the line
or was acting to aid. And I bet those who
(43:20):
were on the dark side, the dark side, the powerful
men who were raping and murdering the women in Juarez
with impunity. Was it possible that Hardrick, wittingly or not,
had allied himself with the very people who were responsible
for the crimes he was outspoken about preventing. To this day,
(43:43):
Hardrick maintains his innocence. My brother said directly, did you
ever think about eating your gun? I said, I did.
I did seriously consider and killing myself. Why because I've
just been dishonored. I'm a knight now I'm a tarnished knight.
And I thought about stick and mcnai millimeter in my
(44:05):
mova and then I said no. Then that just says that, yeah,
he did it because he was guilty. So that's why
I didn't I do talk to my Lord about it
and say, yeah, I understand prior go off before the fall,
and you lured me a little bit on this one, didn't,
your lord. But still the bottom line is those women
(44:25):
were as nobody seems to be caring about them. The
timing of Hardrick's downfall was uncanny and tragic. Just as
his activism was forcing the President of Mexico to acknowledge
the unsolved murders of women and promise action, Hardrick's wife
(44:46):
took a job at the racetrack, and that began a
series of events that culminated with the release of the
pressure that had been building to finally take action on
behalf of the women. Diana told us she still angry
with Hardrick, but in her book she does entertain the
possibility that he was set up. She writes a confidential
(45:08):
intelligence source in Mexico City claimed Guardia was a US
intelligence asset, Crawford's wife was clean, and the quote unquote
mafia wanted to get rid of the FBI official. The
tip was impossible to corroborate, and in the end, Diana
simply says that Hardrick's behavior was inexplicable. We asked Frank
(45:31):
Evans how he understood his former partner's story. Here's a
guy Crawford who's charismatic, successful, on track for all these promotions,
seemingly with the world at his feet in one of
the most exciting field officers of the FBI. You're telling
me for sixty thousand dollars a year. He throws all
that away. You know, sixty thousand is what we are
(45:54):
looking at hypothetically. Could there have been something else? Yes,
I do not know that there was. But you know,
you got to remember, even Adam took a bite of
the apple. Is it a character flaw? Like I said,
I don't know. I still have a hard time sometimes
wrapping my hands around it and thinking about it. It's like,
(46:15):
you know, what the heck happened? Crawford could have had
any door opened he wanted. In Washington, DC, Crowford mentioned
he felt a high emission, like a mission from God
to intervene in his case, he was out in front
on TV criticizing the Mexican government, quoting this a crime
against humanity? Why did he got out in front on
this particular issue. You're dealing with the lives of hundreds
(46:37):
of women. But frequently when you work organized crime, you
don't necessarily want to call the Godfather an soob to
his face. You want to kind of keep it on
the sportsman like footing, and then you continue to put
the sob in jail. It's the same way with who's
ever killing those women. You may go home and cry
at night, especially when you see some of those girls
(47:00):
or the remains, but you cry in your home alone
or with your family calling the governor of Chihuahua a
murderer when you need to be able to perhaps operate
inside of the state of Chihuahua. That's not going to
get anybody helping you. So was Hardrick undone by his ego?
(47:21):
Was he actually corrupted or was it possible that there
was some kind of conspiracy against him? I was curious
how Hardrick himself interpreted what had happened to him, first
his country clearance being revoked, then his indictment, and ultimately
his conviction and imprisonment. To my surprise, he returned to
(47:42):
that warning he received after his appearance on ABC News.
It occurred to me, I mean enemies, and now this
is the cost. This is the cost. I'm not stupid,
I'm above average intelligence. I could see the connection. Okay,
big business, some US ambassador Mexicans. Okay, I get it.
(48:05):
You know, if I was a conspiracy theorist, I you know,
I would say that, Yes, the State Department and the
US corporations, who were incensed that all his attention being
directed to the Michela Doras, you know, went to the
administration and said, look, this guy is harming the Michela
Dora industry, and Mexico is upset, so we're going to
(48:28):
have to make a sacrifice out of him. The moment
that Padrick dropped this explosive hint that he was silenced
by the US government who wants to hush up the
murders of women in order to protect business interests, he
WoT it back. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I
would think things like that. But in the end I
(48:51):
just chalk it up to over zealous Department of Justice
OYG said, oh, look, we can get a high rank
and FBI official. In the end, that's what my mind
is settled on. So Diana as usual, Monica is right.
This saga is weird and inexplicable, and is tempting to
dismiss it entirely, except we know what happened to so
(49:14):
many other people who investigated the women's murders and how
one way or another they met unpleasant fates of their own.
And it's also true that these business interests are very,
very significant and they profit by keeping people vulnerable. So
what do you make of Hardrick's story? Like Diana, I
(49:36):
would say it's ambiguous. As an outsider, Hardrick was supposed
to be immune from becoming midido or involved, and you
might say he did so naively because he was an outsider.
But you could also say, yeah, right, I don't buy
that an FBI supervisor with his level of experience couldn't
(50:00):
see that the path he was going down would get
him into trouble. But no matter what, you had this
outspoken head of the FBI in al Passo highlighting the
most controversial crimes on the US Mexico border, and that
no doubt would disturb the authors of those crimes, and
(50:24):
more than likely they would want to get rid of
someone like Hardrick. But they can't get rid of him
in the same way they got rid of Mario Escovedo
or Dante al Maras. So it's plausible that the powers
that be in Mexico could have used Hardrick's relationship with
(50:44):
Guadia and the cardinal to push him out. Mexico is
the land of smoke and mirrors. You don't know who
you're dealing with, who they're allied with, whether you can
trust them, who their friends are, whether or not they
have ties to the dark side. It makes it very
difficult to navigate and do your job. I couldn't stop
(51:09):
thinking about Hardrick's quote conspiracy theory, which went all the
way from murdered women to Mexican business interests to his
downfall to the State Department. So we called the US
ambassador who withdrew Hardrick's country clearance in two thousand and three,
to ask him what happened next time. I've forgotten that conversation.
(51:31):
Antonio Rza, formerly the United States Ambassador to Mexico from
the period November two thousand and two through January two
thousand and nine, And we returned to Dinah Washington Valdes,
who suggests that powerful businessmen in Huirez who profited from
immaculadora industry were also involved in the murders of women.
(51:54):
These are people that are well known not just as
border but in Mexico nationally. You know they have global
business interests. It was scary when you sit down and
think about who may be involved in the names. Oh
my god. It's like, oh my god, I'm as Velosen
(52:19):
and I'm Monique will be
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