60 Minutes - 01/18/2026: Minneapolis, Inside CECOT, Salties

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

Cecilia Vega reports on rising tensions following the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent. Sharyn Alfonsi speaks with some of the Venezuelans sent to CECOT, one of El Salvador's harshest prisons. The Australian saltwater crocodile population is surging, creating friction with their human neighbors. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We've all been there, the unexpected hosting panic. Like when the watch party finally makes it out of the group chat, but you volunteered to host, and suddenly you need snacks, drinks, dips, cups, and all the other party essentials no one else planned for. With Instacart, you can get all those groceries delivered in as fast as 60 minutes. No extra errands for you. One quick order for everyone. That way, everything shows up right on time, making hosting easy and making it look like you had it planned all along. Download the Instacard app today and get no markups at select retailers. Fees and in-store offer exclusions apply. Two week after an ICE agent shot Renee Good, this was the scene in Minneapolis.

It is exactly what police chief Brian O'Hara feared. I'm afraid we're going to have another moment where it all explodes. Are you bothered by seeing American citizens getting detained in these operations? I'm bothered by seeing people take action against my officers. Get out! It began as soon as the planes landed. The deportees thought they were headed from the U.S. back to Venezuela, but instead, they were shackled, paraded in front of cameras,

and delivered to Seacot, the notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador, where they told 60 Minutes they endured four months of hell. Did you think you were going to die there? We thought we were already the living dead, honestly. Oh, Ghalihan, Golihan, Galiana, Goliang, Galiang, and Galiang, and you run into this creature. So it's just luck. Yeah, luck. You could go for a swim here.

I wouldn't go for a swim down. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonci. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Scott Pelly.

Those stories tonight, on 60 Minutes. By now, you have no doubt seen many of the scenes from Minneapolis. Immigration agents demanding proof of citizenship, even from some American citizens, protesters swarming as agents make arrests, the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer. This past week, we went to Minneapolis and spoke with two men at the center of the crisis, the chief of police and the head of ICE's deportation operation, both veteran law enforcement officers with two very different views of what is unfolding.

Tonight, there were 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents in the Minneapolis area. That's nearly five times the number of police on the city's force, making it the largest ever deployment of federal immigration officers to an American city. One week after an ICE officer shot Renee Good, this was the scene on the streets of Minneapolis. Federal immigration agents facing off against angry protesters. It is exactly what Minneapolis police chief Brian O'Hara feared. He's been tasked with rebuilding trust between the community. and police in the wake of George Floyd's murder nearly six years ago.

We're in this 2020 moment where all these tensions have been building. And I'm afraid we're going to have another moment where it all explodes. Late Wednesday night, we witness the anger ourselves. It's not a good place to beat, bro. We're just hours after meeting with the police chief here in Minneapolis, where he told us that tensions were so high. He was worried that violence would take. that violence would take place.

Something else would happen in this community. You can hear flashbangs behind me. We are now just a few blocks away from where federal immigration agents have been involved in another shooting here in Minneapolis. ICE says one of its officers shot a Venezuelan man in the leg after he and two other migrants attacked the officer with the snow shovel and broom handle.

Ice says the three men are in the country illegally. The Trump administration says the government goal is to crack down on illegal immigration and weed out fraud. They call it Operation Metro Surge. Elected officials in Minneapolis call it an occupation. Administration officials are adamant that this action that they are undertaking in Minneapolis right now is making this city safer. Targeted, precise, pre-planned operations on violent offenders.

That is a good thing. But I'm concerned that people in the administration don't actually understand the reality of what's happening on the street. Chief O'Hara told us the city's 911 system is overwhelmed by complaints about immigration enforcement. What are you seeing? I've seen multiple calls of people who have been subjected to tear gas, pepper spray. At least one case, a person was removed from a vehicle and the car wasn't even placed in park. And it was rolling down the roadway. In an ideal world...

It is a city on edge. And as we walked with the chief, we heard it from a man in a passing car. How dare you let this happen here? You should be being ashamed. You should be sick. Fibre you want someone like that who just yelled at you and said,

you let this happen to know? Well, I have been very publicly saying this has been a risk for several. weeks, trying to get anyone in a position of authority to understand that tragedy, tragedy was imminent. The fatal shooting of Renee Good by ICE Officer Jonathan Ross has become a kind of Rorschach test. Some see a senseless killing. Others see an officer defending his life. I've seen the videos, and it's not clear to me why he appears to be in the path of the vehicle. more than once.

When you approach someone in a vehicle in a law enforcement encounter, there's very basic steps you take to ensure the officer's safety and to de-escalate the situation. But the day after the shooting, Vice President J.D. Vance put the blame squarely on Renee Good.

Homeland Security officials have accused Good and her wife of, quote, stalking immigration agents and impeding their rights. work. I said go get yourself some lunch, big boy. Go ahead. Top federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned in part, sources told CBS News, because they were told to investigate the actions of Renee Good and her wife rather than Officer Ross.

Shame! State investigators were blocked from the investigation altogether. Can Americans trust what's coming out about the status of this investigation right now? The rhetoric that's coming out from a lot of our politicians is to not trust us, which is very odd to me when a lot of Americans would rather believe what they see on TikTok compared to a government agency. We spoke to ICE's Marcos Charles, who oversees arrests and deportations nationwide, including Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis. Could you see why some Americans might think that what's happening on the streets of some of these cities leads them to see ICE's feeling emboldened right now? I would tell those people or ask those people to become educated on what we do and how we do it

and what our authorizations are and the laws in general. Videos of confrontations between protesters and immigration agents seem to go viral nearly every day. They have a right to observe, record, and object to police activity. Do they have a right to get in an agent's face and call them a Nazi? People have a right to say disrespectful things. As a professional, I have an obligation not to take that personally and not to retaliate. However, they cannot physically obstruct law enforcement from performing a function.

Those things are illegal. This past week, the Department of Homeland Security posted a message from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller telling ICE agents, you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. Does that mean that immigration agents can go into American cities and carry out immigration enforcement with no accountability, no consequences? I'm not going to comment on Mr. Miller's statement as far as in the context that you're asking. However, I will tell you that everywhere we go in the United States, our officers are out there conducting enforcement actions, and they're doing it lawfully and with professionalism. But scenes like this in Minneapolis,

where one officer drags a woman and another points his gun at bystanders, have raised questions about their conduct. No one has been disciplined in any of these actions? No. No. I think a lot of people would be surprised to hear you say that. If you assault one of our officers, an assault would be putting hands on one of my officers spitting in their face, pushing them,

you're going to get arrested. I don't think most Americans would disagree with you on that. What concerns a lot of people is some of the images that they've seen. There's a perception out there that immigration agents in Minneapolis and many other cities are acting with impunity. You're not seeing the entirety of the situation. Not only that, mainstream media is picking up those social

media post and putting them out as real news without looking at the whole story. We did look into this story. Six days after and two blocks away from where Renee Good was killed, Alia Rahman, a U.S. citizen, was trying to get to an appointment at a traumatic brain injury clinic when she came upon ICE officers who were blocking traffic after arresting four people. We reviewed footage of the entire incident. Rahman's lawyer told us she was overwhelmed by conflicting commands from ICE. In the chaos, you can hear her say she is disabled.

Chief O'Hara hadn't seen the video before we showed it to him. You were shaking, watching that. Obviously, I don't know why law enforcement officers initially approached the vehicle. It pisses me off to see that. to see men doing that to a woman who's disabled. It pisses me off. If those cops works for me, they'd have a problem right now. Marco's Charles of Ice had a different take.

He said Alia Rahman was given repeated warnings. She was arrested but never charged. Our officers are told that they give one warning to follow the lawful instruction to stop impeding. If she did not obey that lawful order, then she was going to get arrested. You know, I showed this same clip to the Minneapolis police chief, and he said, if those cops worked for him, they'd have a problem.

We're not Minneapolis, PD. Are you bothered by seeing American citizens getting detained in these operations? I'm bothered by seeing people take action against my officers, using vehicles to try to ram them, assaulting my officers. our officers are humans, you know, they're people. The Department of Homeland Security released these images of injured ICE officers. According to the agency, attacks on ICE officers nationwide jumped from 19 and 2024 to 275 last year.

In many cases, those injuries were sustained as agents were carrying out what ICE calls targeted enforcement. In Minneapolis, many residents say it seems to be less targeted every day. American citizens are getting stopped and questioned, including a woman walking down the street. Man, where were you born? It doesn't matter where I was born. I belong here. I am here a citizen. And this Uber driver. I can hear you don't have the same accent as me. That's why I'm asking.

Oh, so you're going by accents now? People have been stopped for simply appearing to be Somali or appearing to be. Latino or appearing to be foreign. And it's concerning because we also know we're not getting these stories from Irish folks and Norwegian folks here. Our officers are conducting targeted enforcement looking for the worst of the worst, but they encounter anybody in the area of which they're operating. They're okay to talk to those people.

They've been authorized to talk to anybody that's around there and establish citizenship. How is that targeted enforcement? If they were in that area looking for a target and they were en route or coming from that target and encountered that individual, they are authorized to talk to somebody and speak somebody. How do you define the area? Officers are walking down the street, driving down the street, the entire city in Minneapolis. Is everybody potentially under suspicion? No.

Nobody's under suspicion, but we're looking for those targets. And again, if we walk, encounter somebody as we're walking up to a building, as we're en route to that building, that's still part of that operation as they proceed to that target. On Friday, sources told CBS News the Justice Department is investigating the city's mayor, Jacob Fry, and the state's governor, Tim Walz, both Democrats. The allegation that their public statements about ICE enforcement amount to criminal interference. To ice, get the f*** out of Minneapolis. Ryan Walls called the investigation political intimidation.

What could happen today, tomorrow, to bring this temperature down out there? I think it requires the president to say, we're still going to go after the worst of the worst. But we're not going to be treating American citizens in ways that risk destroying a beautiful American city. What's up guys? I'm Candace Dillard Bassett, and you may know me from my time on the Real Housewives of Potomac or as a part of the latest cast of The Traders. And I'm Michael Arsinoe, author of The New York Times Bestseller, I Can't Date Jesus. On our podcast, Undomesticated, we don't just say the quiet parents out loud, we're putting it all in the kitchen table and inviting you into the chaos. If you're ready for bold takes, real talk, and a little fun, come join us. Listen to and follow Undomesticated and Odyssey Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Nicholas Maduro, the former president of Venezuela, now sits in a federal jail in New York, awaiting trial. After a high-stakes raid, the White House touted Maduro's capture as a blow to narco terrorists, who, it says, flooded U.S. streets with drugs. The repression of the Maduro regime, over more than a decade, forced eight million Venezuelans to flee, nearly a million of them to the United States. Last year, in the biggest U.S. immigration crackdown in recent history, hundreds of those Venezuelans were deported to El Salvador, the country most had no connection to. The White House claimed they were part of a violent gang and designated them as terrorists.

The administration invoked a centuries-old wartime power, the Alien Enemies Act, to rapidly deport some of the men. Between March and April of last year, the U.S. sent 250, Venezuela and men to a brutal maximum security prison in El Salvador, known as Seacott. You'll hear from two of those men. They describe torture, sexual, and physical abuse inside the prison. Since November, 60 Minutes has made several attempts to interview key Trump administration officials

on camera about our story. They declined our requests. Tonight, our report from Inside Seacot. It began as soon as the planes landed. The deportees thought they were headed back to Venezuela, but then saw hundreds of Salvador and police waiting for them on the tarmac. Shackled, they were paraded in front of cameras, pushed onto buses, and delivered to Seacott, El Salvador's notorious maximum security prison.

When we got there, the Secoot director was talking to us. The first thing he told us was that we would never see the light of day or night again. He said, welcome to hell. I'll make sure you never leave. Did you think you were going to die there? We thought we were already the living dead, honestly. We met Luis Munoz Pinto in Colombia. He was a college student in repressive Venezuela and hoped to seek asylum in the United States.

In 2024, he says he waited in Mexico until his scheduled appointment with U.S. Customs and Border Protection in California. During that interview, they just looked at me and told me I was a danger to society. You have no criminal record? I don't even, I never even got a traffic ticket. Nevertheless, he was detained by customs. He says he spent six months locked up in the U.S. waiting for a decision on his asylum case when he was deported. One of 252 Venezuelans sent to sea cot between March and April. Inside, he says, their hands and feet were tied, forced to their knees, their heads were shaved. There was blood everywhere, screams, people crying, people who couldn't take it and were urinating and vomiting on themselves.

When you get there, you already know you're in. hell. You don't need anyone else to tell you. He says the guards began savagely beating them with their fists and batons. Tell me about what they did to you personally. Four guards grabbed me, and they beat me until I bled. To the point of agony, they knocked our faces against the wall. That was when they broke one of my teeth. Seacott, the Terrorism Confirminement Center, was built in 2022 as a key part of Salvador and President Nayy Bukhali sweeping anti-gang crackdown.

The massive prison, designed to hold 40,000 inmates and its harsh reputation, are a point of pride for Buckele, who regularly allow social media influencers to tour it. Guards show off cramped cells, where metal bunks are stacked four high. There are no mattresses or sheets. Inmates said they had no access to the deserts. the outdoors and no contact with relatives. International observers warned Seacott was violating the UN standard for minimum treatment of prisoners. And two years ago, during the Biden administration, the U.S. State Department cited torture

and life-threatening prison conditions in its report on El Salvador. But this year, during a meeting with President Bukali at the White House, President Trump expressed admiration for El Salvador's prison system. They're great facilities, very strong facilities, and they don't play games. In March, the U.S. struck a deal to pay El Salvador $4.7 million to house Venezuelan deportees at Seacott. These are heinous monsters, rapists, murderers, kidnappers, sexual assaulters, predators who have no right to be in this country, and they must be held accountable. The U.S. government said, these people are the worst of the worst. These people are migrants.

And the sad reality is that the U.S. government tried to make an example out of them. They send them to a place where they were likely to be tortured to send migrants across Latin America the message that they should not come to the United States. Juan Papier is a deputy director at the nonprofit Human Rights Watch. In an 81-page report released in November, The organization concluded there was systematic torture and other abuses at Seacott and that nearly half of the Venezuelans the U.S. sent there had no criminal history. Only eight of the men had been convicted of a violent or potentially violent offense.

How do you know they weren't gang members? We cross-referenced federal databases, databases in all 50 states in the United States, and also obtained criminal records in Venezuela and in the U.S.uela. countries where these people lived. And the information we obtained in the United States is based on data provided by ICE. So ICE's own records said... ICE's own records say that only 3% of them had been sentenced for a violent or potentially violent crime. 60 Minutes reviewed the available ICE data. It confirms the findings of Human Rights Watch. It shows 70 men had pending criminal charges in the U.S., which could include

immigration violations. We don't know because the Department of Homeland Security has never released a complete list of the names or criminal histories of the men it's sent to seek out. Rapid deportations have been a key part of the Trump administration's immigration overhaul. The administration considers anyone who crosses the border illegally to be a criminal. Illegal crossings are now at a historic low. But some immigration attorneys say the administration has used flawed criteria to justify deportations. I have some tattoos. None of them have anything to do with any criminal group.

I explained to them saying that I didn't belong to any gang, to which the agent responded, but you are Venezuelan. 60 Minutes reviewed this document agents used to assess Venezuelans. A person with eight points was designated as a Trend de Aragua gang. member and a portable. Tattoos and immigration officers suspected of being gang related earned four points. But criminologists who study gangs say tattoos are not a reliable way to identify Venezuelan gang members. Because, unlike some Central American gangs such as MS-13, Trendyaragua does not use tattoos to signal membership. Venezuelan National, William Lazada Sanchez, was also deported to Seacott.

He told us the guards there also accused Venezuelans with tattoos of being gang members. He detailed months of abuse and being forced in distress positions. So you had to be on your knees for 24 hours? Yes, because they put a guard there to watch us so that we wouldn't move. And what would happen if you could make it? They'd take us to the island. What's the island? The island is a little room where there's no light, no ventilation, nothing.

It's a cell for punishment where you can't see your hand in front of your face. After they locked us in, they came to beat us every half hour, and they pounded on the door with their sticks to traumatize us while we were in there. The torture was never ending. They would take you there and beat you for hours and leave you locked in there for days. Some of the deportees described being sexually assaulted by the guards. They were hitting your private parts?

With a baton? No, they took it them with their hands. And they did that to multiple people? To most of us. The men say they grew weaker by the day. They claim the prison lights were left on 24 hours a day, making it difficult to sleep, and that food and medicine were all.

often withheld. Did you have access to clean water? They never gave us access to clean water. The same water from our baths and toilets was the same water that we had to drink and survive on. If we had serious injuries, when the doctors examined us, they told us that drinking water would heal it. So they're telling the injured prisoners to drink water,

and the water's filthy. Super filthy. The sicker and more injured we were, were, the better it was for them. In late March, about 10 days after the first U.S. deportees arrived, Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Christy Noem, toward the prison. Did they speak to anybody, any of the prisoners? Never.

Not with any of the detainees. They never spoke to us. We only saw the cameras. At some point, Secretary Noam went to another area of the prison to record this video. First of all, I want to thank El Salvador and their president for their brief. partnership with the United States of America to bring our terrorists here and to incarcerate them and have consequences. There were men standing behind her heavily tattooed. Who are those men? Do we know? We know that those men in her video are not Venezuelans. They are Salvadorians, probably accused of being

gang leaders, probably people who have been in jail for many, many years in El Salvador. Human Rights Watch was able to confirm that with the help of this intrepid team of students at UC Berkeley's Human Rights Center. All the visible men have either an MS on their chest or a 13 or an ES for El Salvador, and all those gangs are associated with El Salvador. Not the Venezuelans. To help verify the deportee stories for Human Rights Watch, the team of students combed through open source data for weeks.

Students are trained in advanced techniques and follow strict international standards for obtaining digital evidence that can be used in courts. analyzing satellite imagery, they mapped the prison and identified the building where the Venezuelans were held. And remember all those influencers who filmed inside Seacot? One, toward an isolation cell. These are the rooms of solidity confinement that matched the description of the so-called island where the deportees described being tortured. And they get absolutely nothing to use to sleep or to rest.

Just pure common. A show and tell of the armory confirmed Seekot had the weapons the Venezuelan say guards used on them. We did see in these videos was the use of the T-batons on prisoners. Additionally, we also saw the use of painful body positions. They were showing that off in the videos. And they do that. It's sort of a practice. But it was this interview with the prison warden that proved to be most helpful.

The light system is 24 hours a day. One of the questions that we had was, are the lights on 24-7? He said, yes, they are. So he's talking about how hot it can get in the prison. So there's this sort of pride around the poor conditions and around the suffering. Using extreme temperatures or light to disorient inmates is also prohibited under UN standards. I think one of the things that the work of this team has really shown is that a lot of these stories can be believed.

Alexa Kainig is the director of Berkeley's Investigations Lab, which trains students to research war crimes and human rights violations. And it's those little details that I think then, if you can bring that together with the physical evidence, I think you have the strongest possible case for accountability, whether it's a court of public opinion or at some point in a court of law. The Department of Homeland Security declined our request for an interview and referred all questions about Seacot to El Salvador.

The government there did not respond to our request. In July, after four months, the 252 Venezuelan men were finally released from Seacot and sent back to Caracas in exchange for 10 Americans that had been imprisoned in Venezuela. The Trump administration has arranged more deals, some valued at millions of dollars to offload U.S. deportees to other so-called third countries, nations to which they have no connection. Among them, war-torn South Sudan and Uganda,

which have well-documented histories of torturing prisoners. 60 Minutes has repeatedly asked the Department of Homeland Security for the complete records and criminal backgrounds of all 252 Venezuelan men the U.S. sent to Seacot. It would not provide them. This past week, DHS told us, we are confident in our law enforcement's intelligence, and we aren't going to share intelligence reports and undermine national security every time a gang member denies he is one. That would be insane.

Because of this, we relied on the ICE data that is available for our reporting. Of the 252 men, that data shows that 33 had been convicted of a crime in the U.S. Again, eight of them for violent or potentially violent crimes. Another 70 had pending charges, but we don't know the nature of those charges because DHS refuses to share that information. Neither of the two detainees in our story has been convicted of any crimes in the U.S. Nine days ago, DHS sent 60 minutes a photo of William Lazada Sanchez's left arm with this swastika tattoo. When we interviewed Lazada in November, this is what his arm looked like. He told us he got the offensive tattoo at 15 and didn't know what it meant.

He claims he regretted it and had it changed just before the U.S. sent him to Seacot. Five gang experts told us that swastikas and 666, another tattoo on Lazada's arm, have no connection to the violent Venezuelan gang, Trendieragua. In a statement to 60 minutes, the White House, said, President Trump is committed to keeping his promises to the American people by removing dangerous criminal and terrorist illegal aliens. The administration's statements are available in full online. DHS deflected all questions about abuse allegations at Seacott, saying the men were not

under U.S. jurisdiction while in El Salvador. But last month, a federal judge ruled that the U.S. had maintained what's called constructive custody over the Venezuelans who were sent to Seacot under the Alien Enemies Act. He ordered the Trump administration to give those men the due process they were denied. In a declaration to the court, Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained in part that bringing the deported Venezuelans to the U.S. for hearings or holding remote ones at this time would risk, quote, material damage to U.S. foreign policy interests in Venezuela. Now, Holly Williams on assignment for 60 minutes.

Australia's infamous for the variety of ways its wildlife can kill you, deadly snakes, spiders and jellyfish. But when it comes to inspiring fear, Australia's saltwater crocodiles are in a category of their own. They can grow to more than 20 feet, weigh over a ton, and have a bite force strong enough to crush a human skull. Salties, as Australians call the apex predators, live across swathes of the country's north. They're protected by law, and because of that, their numbers have surged in recent years,

creating friction with another species, humans. In the tropical city of Darwin, the sunsets on the beach are spectacular, though most people stay well away from the water. Darwin's surrounded by crocodile habitat and salties are known for being territorial. A quick dip in the sea would be over in a flash if you ran into this creature. So it's just luck?

Yeah, luck. You could go for a swim here and be fine. I wouldn't go for a swim, no. On the shores of Darwin's idyllic harbour, crocodiles sometimes show up in backyards. Anywhere they get too close to humans, Tom Nichols and his team of government rangers have the job of removing them.

One of those crocs that doesn't want to open his mouth. They're known as problem crocodiles. Though catching them is fairly easy in cages baited with wild boar meat. It's getting an angry, salty out of a floating trap with a rope and a zip tie that's an art form. Nichols told us this six-footer wasn't fully grown yet, but could easily kill a human.

Now this size crocodile, he wouldn't kill you by biting unless he bit you in a certain place, but he would drown you quite easily. Take you down and under water and then he'll come back up and then start spinning around. And that's what they call the death roll? The death roll, that's correct. That's how a crocodile took off half of Nichols' left hand, just over 20 years ago in this exact spot. With the crock, or if it didn't spin, I would have been all right. What trouble is he spinning, he spun all my hand around. You operate just fine with three fingers on your left hand. Is there anything you can't do?

Yeah, pick my nose with my left hand. All joking aside, Salties are the largest reptiles on the planet. Much bigger than alligators, and according to some scientists, the Australian crocs are the world's most aggressive. But that didn't protect them for. hunters. The huge reptile is mastered. One of 33 captured on this exciting trip. By the 1970s, they were so close to extinction with just a few thousand left that Australian officials banned nearly all crocodile hunting.

Since then, the populations bounced back to over 150,000 and counting. That's a conservation success story to some. A menace to others. Crocodiles are way misunderstood. They've survived the times of the dinosaurs and that is a question of respect. They're also pretty scary. Not really. Humans are far more scary. We kill each other for a lot less, for money.

And crocodiles only kill for food. Trevor Sullivan keeps 10 saltwater crocodiles in his backyard behind patched up chain link fencing. Can I stand up on the back here? Oh my God. He feeds them whole chickens by hand. He rescued most of them from crocodile farms and research facilities, including the biggest one,

Shah, who's over 120 years old and missing part of his jaw. Trevor, what would happen if this fence wasn't here? Nothing. What do you mean nothing? I'll feed him in there, I've gone in and feed him. You go over the fence? Yeah. With a 16-foot crocodile.

He's not a problem. That one is. It's all right, yeah. It's all right, yeah. Sullivan's a self-described conservationist and told us he keeps crocodiles to prove they can coexist safely with humans. They answer to their name. They come when you can teach them. You can train them.

Get them into a routine. They're not just pet. Their family. I'm sorry. They're family. They're family. Okay, so just for the sake of clarity, they don't see you as food? No, I bring food.

You're also a big chunk of protein. Yes. Dogs eat meat. They don't generally see you as food. Rangers are searching for a killer crocodile. The truth is that crocodiles do kill people. Though we were surprised to learn that only around 50 deaths have been reported in Australia since hunting was back. since hunting was banned half a century ago.

That might be because of public education campaigns, warning people to keep a distance. Many of those who've been killed by Salties misjudged where it was safe to swim or go fishing. But there's also anger in Australia that the law protects crocodiles instead of people. They die? Yeah, well so do we at the end of the day. Bob Katter is a member of Australia's Parliament,

with a reputation as a combative lawmaker. You're going to get a big bath. Order. You're going to get a big bath. Order. Order. You're a very popular man in these parts. One of Kata's most controversial positions

is that he wants the crocodile hunting ban repealed. Yes. Yes. His electorate is about a thousand miles southeast of Darwin, much of its farmland, where cattle are sometimes eaten by salties. When you were growing up in Northern Australia, did you used to go swimming in the rivers here? Absolutely. You know, every Saturday, Sunday you've been down the river.

Can the children do that now? Can they go swimming in the river? No way. No way you would risk your life if you went near any of these waterways. He told us he's tempted to risk arrest by shooting a crocodile himself. You think the law is evil? Yes, absolutely. A law that puts the value of crocodile, over a human being, that is a definition of evil. Bob Catter believes that legalising crocodile hunting would make waterways safe again

and turn a profit by attracting big game hunters. Other Australians disagree with his science and his economics. They say Salties are worth more alive than dead. Darwin's roaring tourism trade relies in large part on crocodiles. Wow, look at that, guys. Great time to see crocodiles, Stinger. Beautiful.

Oh yeah. Just outside the city, you can pay for a close encounter with some cold-blooded killers. He'll be waiting for you to look away. He'll move real quick. Oh my god! Oh, my God! If he grabbed hold of you, that's it. You're gone.

Humans and crocodiles have shared this land for around 50,000 years. We drove to Kakadu National Park. Kakadu National Park to meet some of Australia's indigenous people. Kakadu is bigger than Connecticut, home to a few hundred people, and around 10,000 crocodiles. Oh, thank you. This way. Yeah. Gleeson Nebulward is an Indigenous Australian who works as a river guide.

Look like something in there. Like other traditional owners, he's permitted by law to hunt crocodiles for food. How do you hunt it? Spear. With a spear. Is it good eating? Yeah, that tastes like fish. Like fish.

Nibulward and his friend, Robert Narmarniulk, told us indigenous Australians disagree about salties just like other Australians. Some favour commercial hunting. Others prize them as a totem or spiritual emblem that should be left alone. It's like a crocodile in us. We've been together for a very long time. You have a special connection? Yes.

Trevor Sullivan is also of Indigenous ancestry. He believes living with saltwater crocodiles is not just possible, but a privilege. It's the best fun. Being able to coexist with saltwater crocodiles, the most dangerous predator on earth, and your crock attacks are almost non-existing. But isn't one fatal attack of a human being too many attacks?

Well, what are we supposed to die from? Millions of years, Before people ever set foot on this wild land, Australia was crock country. As humans debate their future, the crocodiles are a lesson in survival. I'm Scott Pelly. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes. Have a news tip to send a 60 Minutes? Learn how you can send information to our journalists securely at 60 MinutesOvertime.com. The Volkswagen Beetle started out as Hitler's dream car. It wound up as a beloved hippie icon and the best-selling car of all time.

How did that happen? I'm Jacob Goldstein. And I'm Robert Smith. On business history, we tell the surprising stories behind the inventions and entrepreneurs that shaped our economy. And the story of the beetle is truly surprising. It has so much in it. He says, you should be able to mount machine guns on it. Sure.

Not for the family vacation, but, you know, for other things. You never know. Listen wherever you get your podcast. And for full video episodes, search Business History Podcasts on YouTube.