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September 15, 2021 18 mins

In the international drug trafficking industry, everyone combines truth and lies. John searches for the reason why Transportista contacted reporters to tell his story and concludes that this pilot actually wants to sell “his truth”.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
American reports or the story here, and he hasn't told
me about that. That's Daniel Hopsicker, the Florida based reporter
who penned the Moniker and has written extensively about cocaine. One.
It seems to think that Fernando Blanco s is hiding something.
We're hiding a lot of things. Blankio is we've heard,

(00:30):
claims to be the man behind the d C nine
with five plus tons of cocaine that got busted in
Compech on April ten, two thousand six. In his first
round of recorded interviews with the Reward Manuelatios, blank You
insisted that he had purchased the d C nine, that
the previous owners, Fred Geffen and Royal Son's Inc. Had
committed a major error by not immediately canceling the plane's registration.

(00:55):
Here's what he told many owner in our own people.

(01:19):
It was their mistake, he says, the grave one, because
the plane was flying as if it still belonged to
its US owners, and no one will believe them when
they say that they had already sold it. Blankfield claims
that he had nothing to do with Geffen and Royal Sons.
He claims that Jorge whom he describes the business partner
in his legal companies coordinated the purchase at the DC

(01:41):
nine without any knowledge of Blankiell's plans for the plane.
Hop Sticker, however, just doesn't buy it. Were you growers
in the airplane and in that plane when it was
questioned owned Fred given Oh if you read again, his

(02:07):
willing document had been mosted by d A and rolled
over and was working for them ever since. Perfect Yes,
although actually thank you does mention the CIA so very briefly.
Here's what he told Menu yet, which means I can

(02:39):
send you those documents, that the planes really were connected
to the CIA, that the plane was in Montanamo, that
the plane was in Paris with the CIA, that the plane,
my plane really made flights for the CIA. Thank You'll
never sent those documents. But he told Manuel that the
d e A sent an agent on April eleven, the

(02:59):
day after the drug bust. That agent interviewed local airport
authorities from Blankio says, we're on his payroll. Those authorities,
confronted with the evidence from the Falcon twenty, also confiscated
in Campeche, told the d e A agent that Raoul
Himenes Alfaro was the owner of the plane and that
Raoul Himenez Alfaro was Fernando Blanco Scena. From that moment,

(03:24):
Blankio says, the d A spent two years confiscating businesses, properties,
and bank accounts belonging to Fernando Blanco Scena and Raoul
Himenez al Faro. But the d A never charged Blancio
or Raoul with any crimes related to the DC nine,
not even when they realized that they had arrested him

(03:45):
or rather both of them in the Dominican Republic by mistake,
perhaps illegally. The plane shows up on a runway but
a small coastal airport in Mexico, stuffed with coke. The
Mexican Army says that irregular flight behavior raised suspicions and
that the plane and the blow belonged to El Chapo Busman.

(04:06):
The Venezuelan government investigates the plane and produces witnesses who
say the plane was empty as it was being repaired
on the runway in Caracas. Fred Geffon says he sold
the plane through a broker and does not know the
identity of the purchaser. Jorge Coles says that Geffon does
know who the purchaser was, though he declines to name him.
Two reporters and Fernando Blancio, who was also Raoul Himenes

(04:32):
Alfaro and Luis Albert Ortega sal and Jorge Alberto Mario
Serrano and Luis Fernando luch Castillo says that the plane
and half of the coke were his, that the other
half belonged to his Columbian partner. Blanco also says that
he loaded the plane there in Venezuela before the first

(04:55):
of the two doomed take off attempts, And he says
that he never had anything to do with Geff and
royal Son's Inc. And that, by the way, the plane
used to make CIA flights to Wantnamo. And you know what,
I think they all lie. They mixed pieces of truth
with bits of lies and try to tell captivating story,
an exciting story, a useful story for moving whatever it

(05:18):
is they're trying to move. What we can gather from
all these stories, however, is that a single airplane loaded
with cocaine brings together the d e A, the CIA,
the Mexican Army, the Venezuela National Guard, and Fernando Blancos,
a mid level pilot an air logistics manager for illegal
drug corporations, with some thirty years of experience under his belt,

(05:43):
now serving time in the US for things he didn't
even do. My name for now is John Gibbler, and
this like Jacob Homer is Transportista episode ten in a

(06:08):
sense m H. When Fernando Blanco Sisna reached out to Detective,
he promised the story that would be better than the
Zapatista rebellion of January and the murder of presidential candidate
Luis Donaldo Colosio nearly three months later. Here again is
how many Latios described Blankio's first getting in touch with

(06:31):
Diego so Orno and Detective, pitching them his life story. First,
he was like, really mysterious guy because he only gave
me a phone number, and he told me, you gotta
call this guy. He's supposed to be in jail. He
he's been telling me that he has a great, great

(06:51):
story to tell us that is better than a documentary
that we released couple of months months earlier. In in
ethics started like I don't know if the right name.
He was looking for the age and he was really
anxious to talk to him. So Dego gave me the

(07:15):
assignment and so I called him. When I read through
the transcripts of Blankie's interviews with Menue, I noticed that
blank You mentioned a few other reporters with whom he
had been in contact. I decided to call him up
and asked them about their experiences speaking with and the
impressions of blank You. The first reporter I called agreed
only to speak to me off the record. The second

(07:37):
reporter I called this herd reis a remarkable Colombia investigator journalist,
the director of UNIVISILS investigated Unit, the author of many books,
including most recently alex sob The Truth About the Businessmen
who Became a multi Millionaire Nicolas Malulu's Shadow. An episode
two of this podcast, I mentioned that when I first

(07:58):
reached out to Raise an early one, he was surprised
to hear that I was working on a story about
link Field. Raise told me that Blink he had long
promised him the exclusive rights his story, that he would
tell rays all that he had done and all that
he knew for a book or a film that would
blow people's minds. Raya said that while he was still

(08:18):
hoping for the promised permission to materialize, he had not
been in touch with things recently, as we heard an
episode two, Rays was getting ready to release the television
segment using interviews with BLENK Hill in two thousand seventeen
when blink Hill sent him a strange letter. Here again
is what Ray has told me. So when we were
preparing a special program about the Chappo Bushman, I convinced

(08:43):
blank Hire to go on the record. My idea was
recording him from jail by using his voice over with
a video and image. As the people from the Making
a Morder documentary did greatly. He was very helpful. He
not only described Goose Money, his different stage of his

(09:05):
lives and basically he's playing out the air force of
the Sinaloa cartel, operates the procedures to land a small
plane in Aclandestine, track of the Sierra Madre, the international
routes of the drug trade, and how they refuel the
planes on Earth. He explained that step by step. But

(09:29):
days before we were going toward the program, blame him
a step back and he said that he would not
authorize the interview. He sent a letter in legal terms
arguing that the revelation of his sustainments will put him
and his family and risk, or something like that despite

(09:52):
that I have his authorization on the record, I decided
not to use the interview. Then I learned that you
guys been in contact with several reporters offering his life story.

(10:17):
The letter, in legal terms that Rais mentions, is an
affidavid that Blankholl wrote, signed, had notarized, and filed in
his own court case in November two thousand seventeen. The
affidavit summarizes blank Hill's correspondence with Rays and then forbids
Rays from using any of the material from those interviews.
The document, written after Blankholl gave Raise his authorization, as

(10:42):
far as I can see, has no legal standing whatsoever.
If two people sign a contract, one person alone cannot
rescind or change the terms of that contract. When two
parties established an initial agreement, both parties must similarly establish
any alterations to that agreement. Pretty basic right. Thus, finding

(11:02):
an affidavit about his interviews with the journalist in his
drug trafficking court case, which he pleaded guilty and then
unsuccessfully tried to alter his plea, seems to me to
be a kind of legal oid trick designed to intimidate reporters.
Rais says that he had Blankiell's authorization on the record,
but decided not to use the interview that He was

(11:23):
thus surprised when I reached out to him and said
that Blankio had been telling his life story to defective.
When I accessed Blinkiell's court case, I found another affidavit
filed in January, and this time naming Daniel Hopsicker. Hop
Sicker told me he didn't even know that this affidavit existed.

(11:43):
It seems that Blankio filed the affidavit after speaking with
Hopsicker in person. Blinkio had reached out the Hopsicker and
invited him to visit him and talk in prison, just
as he had done with Reis. When I first called
hop Sicker, I didn't know that he'd been to meet
blank You in prison. Here's how he described that meeting
to me. I guess you wanted to talk a little

(12:03):
bit a bit about Fernando who I went up to
see UM three or four years ago. Um, there's nobody
even knew, Okay, I mean, I had written been writing
about the the bust of the DC nine with five
and a half tons of cocaine UM, and he was arrested,

(12:26):
UM extradited too. The U S um, convicted to trial
and sent to prison, all before anyone. And you know,
you could see I probably did five a couple of
hundred stories about it um without anyone knowing, without without
without anyone knowing that he had been involved with five

(12:49):
and a half turns of cocaine um, which is pretty amazing.
But but but it's the way, it's the way things go.
It's the way things go here in the stage. He
wouldn't he UM. I mean he would he talked, but
he wouldn't talk talk. I mean it was like he
would like late he was. He was attempting to market

(13:13):
what he knew two prosecutors in Nil Chapel case. And
I don't know if he was distressful or not, because
I got disgusted. Oh, I don't know if we're still
in prison or not. The god forsaken prison in North
Carolina that hop Sicker mentions is the River's Correctional Institution
from which Blankfield spoke with Menu on a smuggle the cellphone.

(13:35):
The two thousand sixteen Department of Justice report had this
to say about the place Rivers had the highest rats
of contraband finds excluding cell phones, inmate assaults on staff
uses the force, guilty findings on inmate discipline cases and
made grievances positive drug tests inmate on inmate sexual misconduct,

(13:56):
and the lowest phone monitoring rate. God for sinking. Indeed,
Blink You apparently was moved to another prison in Georgia
during the pandemic. I told the hop sicker that Blinks
he was still in prison though he seems to have
been moved, and asked him if you could tell me
a bit more about what impression blinks You made on
him when they met. Oh, I feel sorry for him

(14:17):
when I met him. Um, by time I left, I
didn't bet. But um, you know, the people are in
prisoned in the United States and in conditions that that
I should be international scandal. Um. I mean it wasn't
as if he had things any harder than anybody else there.
But I mean it wasn't. It was only you know,

(14:39):
it was like a media mock up. But it just looked,
I mean, still divine. And then he had been there
every four years already, and and he had solicited me
to come see him, and so I should left all
the way up there, you know, a day and a
half drive up there, and he had decided, well, he
would talk just a little bit because he was trying

(15:01):
to retail his story to the plasticators in the JAPO case.
He worked for Jack, so I disgussed. Didn't want to
tell the truth, he wanted to sell the truth. Hop
stickers appraisal here find some support in the court documents.
U S. Attorney's initially presented blink Yo as a star
cooperating witness before cutting ties with him and accusing him

(15:23):
of trying to sell his testimony. Blink Hill says that
U S attorneys lie. He told Menu that the U
S Attorneys told him not to include any information in
his testimony while acts of violence carried out against him
and his family by another drug trafficker. He was also
collaborating with the d e A. Such evidence retarnished that

(15:45):
person standing as a reputable witness in other cases. Blinkyo
says that the U S. Attorney has told him, I
wouldn't be surprised if both the d e A and
blink Kill's accusations against each other were actually true or
true in part regardless, the idea of a man marketing
the truth resonates with me. Here what I've heard in

(16:07):
how Blinkio tells his stories, and in the experiences of
the reporters who have spoken with him, gives me the
impression of a mid level executive in a global illegal industry,
an industry that depends upon the constant production of official
invisibility and thus on the marketing of stories told with
facts and lies. An executive who, upon being stripped of

(16:30):
his airplanes and bank accounts and multiple passports and taken
off to prison, turns to the only resource he has
left to try and keep his business afloat. A man who,
after decades of ups and downs flying cocaine all over
the world, finds himself behind bars and becomes a trafficker
of his own story, as Hopstaker says, a man who

(16:53):
does not want to tell the truth, but to sell
the truth. Over the ten plus years he has been
imprisoned during a thirteen years sentence, he has sought out
and spoken with several reporters, and then filed legal oid
documents attempting to forbid those reporters from publishing anything he
told them. The affidavits naming Herradorius and Daniel hop Saker

(17:16):
are not the only ones in his file, and all
these affidavits and a glorious twist of Irony are signed
by one Luis Fernando Bertolo, a man arrested by the
d e A in the Dominican Republic, taken to Miami
and sentenced for drug trafficking crimes he had not yet committed.

(17:36):
A man who in a sense does not even exist,
but on Sportista is that that the Diva production with
Exiled Content Studio in partnership with iHeart Radio's Michael Tura
podcast Network, Directed and narrated by John Gibbler, Transportista's voice

(17:57):
by jaquinoo At Its ing and sound design by Ferdandolo
La Rosa and Pedro Garcia. Reporting by John Gibbler, Emmanuel
Adios produced by Juli Gonzalez. Voice recording by Ugo Merino
and Rene Garcia. Transports interviews translated by Cardinal Ries Arguys.
Production supervision by Nando Vila and Albertosespees. Associate producers Alonso

(18:23):
Hilar and Alexandro Duran Diego and Drique Orno Is the
creator and executive producer along with Daniel Eilenberg and Eesactly.
Executive producers for I Heeart Media are Conald Burne and
just Sell Bunces. For more podcasts from my Heart, Is
it the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever

(18:45):
you listen to your favorite shows.
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