60 Minutes - Sunday, January 29, 2017

Episode Date: January 30, 2017

President Trump's executive order banning refugees from predominantly Muslim countries has once again brought up the vetting process of those trying to enter the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 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

What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Grocer $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. I'm establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America. We don't want them here.

With that, on Friday, President Trump signed an order that will temporarily prevent foreign nationals from seven Muslim nations from entering the United States. What did the vetting process look like before the ban? We went to the Middle East last fall to see for ourselves. And tonight, you will too. On January 18th, a series of earthquakes in central Italy triggered an avalanche. It demolished the Hotel Rigopiano, then buried the ruins under 120,000 tons of snow, rocks, and mountain sock. It took 10 hours for rescue crews to arrive at the remote snowed-in resort.

No one expected to find survivors. 29 people died. But miraculously, 11 people did survive, including four children who spent days buried alive. Bravo! Where is the motor in here? Here is the motor. It's here. It motor in here? Here is the motor. It's here. It's in here?

Yeah. He's talking about this. Mini motors fixed inside bicycles. A high-tech stealth form of cheating that many people we spoke with believe have been used in the Tour de France. So if someone came to you and said directly, I want to use your invention to cheat, I'll pay you a lot of money for it, would you sell it to them?

If the money is big, why not? We took a test ride to see how well these motors work. Hello. I'm Steve Croft. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes.

Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network featuring radio and TV personalities talking business, sports, tech, entertainment, and more. Play it at play.it. Friday, after a whirlwind week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order barring citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days. Last night, after a flurry of legal challenges, a federal judge in Brooklyn issued an emergency stay. The executive order, which sparked protests around the world, also stops all refugees from entering the U.S. for 120 days. Syrian refugees are barred indefinitely, pending a review of the screening process.

Once again, Syrian refugees find themselves at the center of a heated debate, pitting our American tradition of altruism against our fear of terrorism. Donald Trump won the presidency, claiming tens of thousands of Syrians, mostly young men, were streaming into the U.S. and that the Obama administration had no system to properly vet them. So what has the vetting process been? We went to the region, as we reported last fall, to see for ourselves. This is Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, about seven miles from the Syrian border. 80,000 Syrian refugees living in tiny steel boxes as far as the eye can see. The camp, run by the UN, sprang out of the Jordanian

desert in 2012 as millions of refugees poured out of Syria. It's now the largest Syrian refugee camp in the Middle East. Every refugee here lives now in a prefab housing. Gina Kasim oversees the refugee resettlement program in the Middle East and North Africa for the U.S. State Department. As of late 2016, the U.S. was processing an additional 21,000 Syrian refugee applications for relocation to the United States. Mostly we focus on victims of torture, survivors of violence, women-headed households, a lot of severe medical cases. Kasim told us each Syrian refugee who makes it to the United States goes through a lengthy process of interviews and background checks. You know, there are many Americans who don't trust government to fix the roads or run the schools. How can you convince them that this process is going to keep them safe. Because they undergo so many steps of vetting, so many interviews,

so many intelligence screenings, so many checks along the way, they're fleeing the terrorists who killed their family members, who destroyed their houses. These are the victims that we are helping through our program. The war in Syria has taken the lives of almost a half million people, leveled entire cities and created the largest refugee crisis since the end of World War II. Syria's neighbor Jordan has been overwhelmed with nearly one and a half million refugees in the camps and in the cities. Any who can make their way here to the capital. For the lucky few, this is where the long road to the U.S. begins. Every day, thousands of Syrian refugees line up

here in Amman, Jordan, to register with the U.N. Every single refugee is interviewed in detail multiple times by the U.N. for their vital statistics, where they came from, who they know. Their irises are scanned to establish their identity. And then they wait for the chance the UN might refer them to the United States. Less than 1% have had that chance. For that 1%, the next step has been this State Department resettlement center in Amman for a background check, led by specially trained Department of Homeland Security interrogators. Like all Syrian refugees being vetted, this family was questioned at least three times by interviewers

looking for gaps or inconsistencies in their stories. All that information is then run through U.S. security databases for any red flags. To be a refugee in Jordan is to be patient. The U.S. security check goes on an average of 18 to 24 months. Those who pass are told to pack up for their new life in the United States. This family had just been told they're moving to Chicago, Illinois. What are you feeling right now? I'm afraid we don't know anything. Just before they go, they're given a crash course on life in the U.S., America 101. English education experience. Most know little about where they're moving. Those we spoke to didn't really care.

They know exactly what they're leaving behind. We met Sulaf and her 15-year-old daughter Judy in Amman this past August. So now you're going to the United States. Do you know where? North Carolina. What do you know about North Carolina? I don't know. I don't know. Nice city. Sulaf was an elementary school teacher back in home Syria, her husband a dentist. She says they had a good life until Syrian President Assad's forces turned their lives into a living hell.

She says they would hear the sound of other buildings collapsing and they would tell themselves, we are next. She started giving her kids sleeping pills so they could sleep. Sulaf's daughter, Judy, was 10 years old at the time. You remember all of this? Yes, I remember everything like it happened yesterday. We were very scared. We cannot go to the school. Most of my friends died. Most of your friends are dead? Yes. Sulaf says she's lucky she made it to Jordan alive with her family and her parents.

She has one sister in bombed-out Aleppo, another in ISIS-controlled territory. But Jordan is where her husband Ahmed's luck ran out. He was found to have Lou Gehrig's disease and died in 2014. Her youngest son, Malaz, was diagnosed with autism, but the family couldn't find treatment. This past August, Sulaf was cleared by Homeland Security to travel to the U.S. It was just in time. She was considering taking her family on the treacherous journey to Europe by boat in order to get Malaz the help he needs. She told us if she tried to cross the ocean to Europe and they made it, they made it. If they died, they died. There's no difference between death and life in this place,

she said. She can't work. She can't educate her children. She's no difference between death and life in this place, she said. She can't work. She can't educate her children. She has no opportunity. So a new life in America is your only hope? Yeah, yeah. So, exactly. We met Ekbal and his wife Iman in their apartment in Jordan this past August as they were preparing to leave for the U.S. Ekbal owned a clothing store in Daraa, Syria before the war. He says he was arrested and tortured, accused of being a foreign spy by Assad's forces just for watching a protest

outside his store. You said that the men who arrested you said, no one will know what happened to you. You believe that the best possible option is that you die quickly, he said. You felt that it might be better if you were to die. Death is mercy at this point. When Ekbal was released, the family fled Syria. After a nearly two-year vetting process, they were cleared by U.S. Homeland Security. In September, they moved into this empty apartment in Riverdale, Maryland. They say it's lonely. But Ekbal has figured out the local bus and just got a part-time job at the

local 7-Eleven. Opening our doors to refugees like Ekbal is a proud part of America's heritage. But just over a year ago, when Paris was attacked by ISIS fighters killing 130 civilians, many Americans wanted to slam the doors shut. A Syrian passport was found on one of the suicide bombers who had entered Europe with the flood of Syrian refugees. That prompted 31 U.S. governors to call for a complete halt to the Syrian refugee program. Georgia's Republican governor, Nathan Deal, went further and signed an executive order denying state services to Syrian refugees. It turned out that bomber wasn't Syrian after all. He was part of a sophisticated ISIS plot to get radicals into Europe. But it cast a shadow of suspicion over all Syrian refugees. Mohamed, his wife Ibtisam, and son Hassan were among the first Syrian refugees to arrive in the U.S.

They settled in Georgia just weeks after the attacks in Paris. At first I was worried, he said, but I told myself there's no way I would be mistreated in this country, because this is a country of laws. Mohammed and his family were sponsored by the Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in deep Republican Marietta, Georgia, just outside Atlanta. In Romans chapter 13, it's very clear that... With Governor Deal banning services, the church stepped in to support the family. Senior Pastor Bryant Wright, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention... The concern is obviously over illegal immigrants.

...found himself in a political firestorm, at odds with the governor, a man he voted for. Well, see, our calling, Bill, is far higher to follow Christ and do what Christ teaches us to do than whether there's an R or D behind your name. And that's what we've got to live by far more than what people are hearing on talk radio or on the news or from political candidates. Wright wrote a letter to Governor Deal asking him to reconsider his position. Did he respond? No, he didn't respond. Governor Deal didn't respond to 60 Minutes either.

Last December, he was forced to withdraw his ban when Georgia's attorney general found it to be illegal. Since then, this Christian church, working with U.S. refugee resettlement agencies, World Relief, and Lutheran Services, has gone on to sponsor seven more Muslim families from Syria. In July, Mohammed, Ibtisan, and Hassan welcomed their cousin, Norris, and his family of six. Welcome to your new home. Here in the Atlanta area, volunteers and caseworkers help newcomers from the beginning, getting them settled into new homes.

And teaching them to use an ATM. The refugees are given English tutoring and help finding jobs. This past summer, Mohammed was able to pay his bills on his own for the first time. He's working at a catering company owned by a church member. Hassan has started kindergarten, and slowly, they say, they're starting to feel at home here. I'm feeling this country, my country. Pastor Wright told us he isn't naive about the potential risks of allowing in Syrian refugees. The government has decided 10,000 Syrian refugees are coming. That's not our decision. Isn't it better to reach out and love these folks than to give them the cold shoulder? Which approach do you think might cause a Muslim refugee

to be more sympathetic to Islamic terrorism? Which approach? To me, it's a no-brainer. For many members of Congress, faith in the government's ability to properly vet refugees is misguided. When we know that ISIL is already telling us that they are trying to infiltrate the refugee population? Don't you think that common sense dictates that we should take a pause and get this right? Can you tell the American people this vetting is safe? I can tell the American people it is

probably the most cumbersome, thorough vetting process by which any immigrant comes into the United States. Then-Secretary of Homeland Security Jay Johnson told us the situation in the U.S. is vastly different from Europe, which saw its borders flooded with unvetted refugees. If we don't feel we know enough about you, we're not going to admit you. Out of all the people you're letting in, how many are being denied? Thousands have been denied admission to this country, and an even larger number who are on hold. There is no known case of a Syrian refugee being involved in any terror plot in the United States.

But in 2009, the U.S. missed this Iraqi refugee and allowed him in even though the military knew he had been an insurgent fighting U.S. forces. He and another Iraqi refugee were then caught in Kentucky trying to buy a Stinger missile to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq. How does this guy walk into America? With every case from years ago, there should be lessons learned. Things have changed? Things have changed considerably since then. We have, on my watch, added social media and other checks, consulting additional databases. We've added those checks in the face of the worldwide refugee crisis that we see right now. Last month, Sulaf and her children flew from Jordan to their new home in Cary, North Carolina.

She says it took 18 months of security checks for her to make it here. She's now learning to navigate an American grocery store. Potato. Potato inside? Yes. There's one opportunity right now. And is anxious to find a job. Their new life in America isn't easy,

but for the first time in a long time, Sulaf says she has hope. On behalf of India, for me and my kids, I would like thanks for American people and American government for this chance. Thank you very, very, very much. Save our children. Since we first broadcast this story, Sulaf found a job in the bakery of a Whole Foods store. And according to the State Department, as of this weekend, the vetting of Syrian refugees has been suspended as a result of President Trump's executive order to review the process.

Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network featuring radio and TV personalities talking business, sports, tech, entertainment, and more. Play it at play.it. America's focus on Washington and our new president has overshadowed a tragic story in Italy, which otherwise would have been a more prominent story here. On January the 18th, a series of earthquakes in central Italy triggered an avalanche. It demolished the Hotel Rigopiano, then buried the ruins under 120,000 tons of snow, rocks, and mountainside. It took 10 hours for rescue crews to arrive at the remote and snowed-in resort, and no one expected survivors. Twenty-nine people died, but miraculously, eleven survived, including four children who spent days buried alive. Steve Croft has been in Italy this week, learning what happened and listening to the survivors' harrowing stories.

It took place on the Gran Sassa, a magnificent mountain range with excellent skiing, just a 90-minute drive from Rome, a perfect getaway for those seeking tranquility at out-of-the-way places like the Rigo Piano Hotel, a small four-star resort that has played host to dignitaries and movie stars. But on the evening of January 18th, it was anything but tranquil. Forty guests and staff were gathered downstairs, trapped by the worst snowstorm in decades and spooked by a series of earthquakes that had rattled the hotel. Everybody wanted to leave. Among the snowed-in guests was Giampiero Perrette, a chef from a nearby town who was there with his wife Adriana and their two young children.

Sometime after 5 o'clock, he went out to the parking lot to get medicine for his son. You went out to your car? Yes, I went outside to the car, opened the car door, and then behind me I heard this noise of branches breaking and then a big cascade, and I started running away. I saw a tree, and I just stood near that tree. Did the snow hit you at all? I mean, did it bury you?

Yes, the snow buried me a bit. Then I got up, and when I turned around, I saw all the cars piled on top of each other, and there was three, four meters of snow on top. All the trees were broken and everything. And the hotel? Then I saw that the hotel was gone, and my world fell apart at that moment. And I said a prayer before making any calls.

Both witness and messenger, Perrette called emergency numbers, but the cell phone signal was so weak, he wasn't sure they understood him. He would eventually run across another survivor, the hotel handyman, and he finally managed to get through to his boss. I said to him, listen, call everybody because my phone isn't working. Call somebody to help us because the hotel's gone. What's going through your mind? My family, my things, everything that mattered was gone.

But I didn't want to lose hope. Maybe I could still do something. You made the phone call, and nothing happened for hours and hours. Did you hear anything? Could you hear anything at all up there? No, we didn't hear anything. We screamed, we cried out.

We couldn't hear anything. There was total silence. Nothing, nothing. The first sign of help came between 3 and 4 a.m., when an Alpine emergency team of 14 men bearing shovels and rescue equipment arrived on skis and snowshoes after a perilous trek through a blinding snowstorm. Paolo Di Quinzio led the patrol. How long did it take you to get there?

It took us nearly four hours in the snowstorm. Dangerous? Very dangerous. Pieces of snow kept falling from the side of the mountain. It was pitch black. De Quinceo and his men knew the area well, and the hotel, but the four-story structure had all but disappeared. They had trouble finding it, even with GPS. Once we got there, we saw the lights of the two survivors in the car, so we knew there were people there.

When we started to move around, we saw bits of material sticking out of the snow, so we knew we were in the right place, and that's where the hotel was. How were you physically and mentally at that point? Destroyed. Physically, my feet were practically frozen and so were my hands. And emotionally, knowing that as they were taking me away with the sled, I was leaving my family there. I was in tremendous pain. Perrette would be airlifted to a hospital in Pescara suffering from hypothermia as daybreak unveiled the extent of the tragedy.

By 7 a.m., helicopters were shuttling more rescue crews to the site, where they delicately began digging with hands and shovels, looking for other survivors. With a mountain cut off from the rest of the countryside and concerns about more avalanches or earthquakes, the government set up a makeshift command center here 17 miles away from the disaster site. It mobilized an emergency force

of more than a thousand hardened professionals and highly skilled volunteers. They were rushed here from all over Italy, mostly organized in well-trained, 34-man teams that would work around the clock, alternating eight-hour shifts off and on the mountain. At first they didn't know where to dig. The force of a hundred and twenty thousand tons of snow and debris slamming into the hotel at 50 miles an hour had crushed the structure and swiveled it off its foundation. They had dogs to smell and all sorts of fancy equipment to listen, tunnelers to dig holes, and snakers to go down in them.

Forty-one hours went by with no signs of life. The rescuers had no way of knowing it, but there were nine survivors down there on the other side of the snow. Among them, Giorgio Galassi and Vincenzo Forti, who were sipping tea when the avalanche exploded through the hotel. What did it sound like? Like a bomb. Yes, it was a roar, and then everything fell. I felt like a wave pushed over me. That's what I felt. And three seconds later, you were in a hole.

A very dark, tiny hole. Their cell phone flashlight revealed that they were trapped in a very small air pocket encased in snow, ice, broken timbers, and tree limbs. We immediately screamed to see if there was anybody else, and we heard that there were other voices and other people, and we communicated with them to know how they were. How many people did you make contact with, or could you hear?

The two of us were close to each other, and there was another girl, but we couldn't see the other girl. And then a guy, I think he was behind us, who we couldn't see but we could hear. And then a mother with a child we could hear. You were there almost 60 hours, 50-some hours. How did you spend the time? We slept, we spoke among each other, we did nothing. Just waited?

Yes. Did you ever lose hope when you were down there? What's going through your mind when you were down there in the dark? No, you're not thinking. We never lost hope that someone would come for us. On January 20th, after two nights of being entombed, they finally heard the voices of rescuers above. It would take ten more hours to get them out. That's a long time. Yes, but it didn't weigh on us because we were so happy they had arrived.

And they always spoke to us and they made us calm. They always kept us in contact with them. They never gave up on us, not even for a moment, not one second in all those hours. It was a miracle. The true miracle was done by the rescuers. I heard somewhere that you said you called them angels. Did that happen? They take you out from underground, so it is fair to say they gave you life for a second time. If you can't call them angels, I don't know who the angels are at this point.

My life, my second life, I owe it to them. You do it because of what's in your heart. Calling. Yes, it's a mission. Giampiero Perrette, the witness and messenger, was still in the hospital when he learned that his son, Gianfilippo, his wife, Adriana, and finally, hours later, his six-year-old daughter, Ludovica,

had all been pulled safely from the rubble. The little girl was evacuated to the hospital along with two other children that she'd been alone with in an air pocket. They didn't know it at the time, but both of the young boys had been orphaned, their parents among the 29 dead. I'm happy for myself, for my family, but I hold the people I met there that day in my heart. We'd become almost like friends because it was a small hotel. I'm very sad for them. I'm not celebrating.

I feel I have a duty to respect their pain, even though I'm happy for my family. What should people take away from this? This story, this tale? I think this story nurtures a sense of family, because once you go through this, you can't help but see that one second you're here and the next you're gone.

Unfortunately, it could have happened to me on the mountain. It could have happened to you in the street. And I think it's reawakened a desire for family, for prayer, for the important things in life. In our society, we're always running around and we'll never sit still. Maybe we have to be reminded about what really matters. Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network featuring radio and TV personalities talking business, sports, tech, entertainment and more. Play it at play.it.

The sport of cycling is notorious for its culture of cheating, made most famous by the rise and fall of Lance Armstrong and his use of performance enhancing drugs. Now, when cycling hopes to be cleansed of the dopers, there's a surprising new twist. Riders enhancing the bike's performance. Some professional racers aren't putting steroids and blood boosters in their veins. They're hiding motors in their bike frames. We followed a lead to Budapest, Hungary and met an engineer who said he built the first secret bike motor back in 1998. And he told us motors have been used in the Tour de France. Our story tonight is not about the latest drugs the riders are using to cheat. It's all about enhancing the bike. Where is the motor in here? Here is the motor. It's here. It's in here?

Yeah. In a bike shop in Budapest, Hungary, we met Istvan Varhas. Stefano, as he is known, is a former cyclist, a businessman and a scientist. His most important invention he placed inside this bike. The frame is fitted with a small motor he designed. Add to it a lithium battery that powers it and a secret button that he installed. This is the first speed. This is the first. Try to keep this piece, okay? Can you see?

Wow. The sound is mostly the chain and the wheels. He said you can't hear it on the road, and all of his motor designs use brushless motors and military-grade metal alloys. How does this work? This is now the latest version of his hidden motor design. Unbelievable. It can be connected to a heart rate monitor by remote control.

When a rider's heartbeat gets too high, it sends a signal for the motor to kick in. We took his hidden motors for some test rides up in the hills above Budapest. This is like I'm on flat ground. It was hard to believe it's real until I put my feet on the pedals. Harder to believe when I took them off the pedals. Hello. And still beat the local talent. As you can tell, it's not like a moped. There's no exhaust pipe or revving engine noise. It's designed to give a short but powerful boost to the rider's own effort. So this is a lower gear or higher gear? Stefano Varha sells complete motorized bikes to wealthy recreational riders for about $20,000. But we went to Budapest to find out who else might have bought a silent, hidden motor for a racing bike.

Do you know are professionals using bikes like these on a professional tour? This one, no. But bikes with motors? Yes. I no. This one, sure, no. But bikes with motors? Yes. I know, I know this. They are? They used, yes. Suspicions of hidden motors are fueled by videos

of riders crashing in races. This bike seems to move by itself without the rider. Not what you wanted. And the first time anyone suspected they were looking at a motor was in 2010, when a famed Swiss racer sped ahead of the pack

at unnatural speeds. These riders all denied they were using motors and no one had ever been caught until last year. Race officials suspended this Belgian rider after they found a motor

inside her spare bike. Jean-Pierre Verdi is the former testing director for the French anti-doping agency, who investigated doping in the Tour de France for 20 years. Have there been motors used in the Tour de France? Oui, bien sûr. Yes, of course. It's been the last three to four years when I was told about the use of the motors. And in 2014, they told me there are motors, and they told me there's a problem.

By 2015, everyone was complaining, and I said, something's got to be done. Verdi said he's been disturbed by how fast some riders are going up the mountains. As a doping investigator, he relied for years on informants among the team managers and racers in the peloton, the word for the pack of riders. These people told Jean-Pierre Verdi that about 12 racers used motors in the 2015 Tour de France. The bikers who use motors, what do you think of them and what they're doing to cycling? They're hurting their sport,

but human nature is like that. Man has always tried to find that magic potion. He now thinks that magic potion is a motor like the one designed by Stefano Varhas. Are you selling your motors to Pro Peloton now? Never ever. Never ever? Never ever.

But I don't know, if a grandfather came and buy a bike, and after it's go to finish in his grandson who is racing, it's not my problem. It sounds like plausible deniability, which means my fingerprints aren't on this when it ends up in the bike of a professional. I just sold it to a client. What the client did with it... Is there a problem? I don't know. So if someone came to you and said directly, I want to use your invention to cheat, I'll pay you a lot of money for it, would you sell it to them? If the money is big, why not? He said he got his first big money in 1998 when a friend saw his hidden motor prototype and thought he could sell

it to a professional racer. So your friend said, with all this doping going on, you're crazy not to try to sell your invention to these professional racers. He proposed me, give me this bike and I fixed up your life. And it happened. He told us his friend found a buyer in 1998 and Stefano swears he has no idea who it was. He gave us this bank record that shows that he had about two million dollars at the time. We also know that he spent time in jail for not paying a substantial tax bill in Hungary. He said whoever paid him all that money wanted an exclusive deal. He couldn't work on the motor, sell it, or talk about it for 10 years. And you were okay with that? For 10 years. Two millions. If you are in Hungary,

if you live in Hungary, if they offer you two million dollars to don't do nothing. You couldn't refuse it? Can you refuse it? I don't think. So you believe that hidden motors have been used by professional cyclists since as far back as 1998? I think yes. In France, where cycling is a religion, the newspaper Le Monde said this past December that the timeline of Stefano's story might implicate Lance Armstrong. Armstrong won his first of seven Tour de France victories in 1999,

just a year after Stefano Vargas said he sold his first motor. Armstrong denied to the paper ever meeting Stefano in person or putting a motor in his bike. We asked Armstrong, too, through his lawyer, and he denied ever using a motor and declined an interview. We contacted Armstrong's former teammate, Tyler Hamilton, who has admitted to being part of all the chemical doping by members of the U.S. Postal Team, and Tyler told us he never knew of any motors on the team back then.

In order to demonstrate that motors existed as far back as 1998, Stefano Varjas suggested to us that we find a carbon fiber 1999 U.S. Postal Service Team bike, the same bike the U.S. Postal Team used in the 1999 Tour de France. We bought this bike off the Internet, and he installed a motor based on his first design into the bike. He charged us $12,000 saying that covered his costs for the parts and labor. We then asked Tyler Hamilton to test out the bike. You can feel the difference? Oh yeah, oh yeah. It's not super obvious you know all of a sudden you're just like oh it seems easier. It feels a little bit, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's not super obvious. You know, all of a sudden you're just like, oh, it seems easier. It feels a little bit smoother. Yeah. Yeah. So you could see how somebody could get away with it? I could see how teams are doing it. Yeah, I could. The motor gives

a limited boost of power for about 20 minutes. Tyler Hamilton said that much motorized assistance during a race on a mountain road could be a game changer for a professional rider. What kind of benefit could this motor give a cyclist? That's the difference between winning and losing, for sure, for sure. Few riders know that better than Tyler Hamilton. When he spoke to 60 Minutes in 2011, he was one of the first to talk openly about chemical doping in the sport. He said riders have always looked for ways to stay ahead of the authorities. They'd find, you know, for a while they didn't have an EPO test. EPO increases your red blood cell production.

And when the new test came out, you'd figure out new ways around them. I guess we should have known this was coming, you know. Because, I mean, there's more pressure in today's cycling world than ever to win. During this car ride in Hungary with Stefano Vargas, we listened as he talked on the phone with one of his clients about delivering some new motorized bikes. He said he was speaking to this man, Dr. Michele Ferrari. Ferrari is the man behind the doping programs of Lance Armstrong and other top cyclists. He has been banned from the sport of cycling. Still, Stefano Vargas told us that Ferrari bought bikes with hidden motors in the past three years. We spoke to Dr. Ferrari by phone, and he denied buying motorized bikes from Stefano, but said he has tested one.

Three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond and his wife Kathy first learned about hidden motors in 2014, when Greg met Stefano Vargas in Paris and took a test ride. Greg was outspoken about chemical doping and now has the same level of concern about the motors. I've watched the last couple of years and I'm going, I know the motor's still in the sport. You know it is still in the sport. Yeah. There's always a few bad apples because it's a lot of money.

He is so concerned about it that while working as a broadcaster at the Tour de France, he and his wife worked secretly with the French police investigating the motors. His best source, it turned out, was Stefano Vargas. I asked Stefano if he would please come and talk to the French police. Did he? Is he cooperating with the police? Completely. Stefano said he told the French police that just before the 2015 Tour de France, he again sold motorized bikes to an unknown client through a middleman.

He said he was directed to deliver the bikes to a locked storage room in the town of Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France. Stefano Varhas told us that in addition to the motors in the bike frames, he's designed a motor that can be hidden inside the hub of the back wheel, seen here in a video he gave us. Stefano had said, weigh the wheels, you'll find the wheels. The wheels are in the Peloton. According to Vargas, the enhanced wheels weigh about 800 grams, or 1.7 pounds more than normal wheels. You could detect it by weight. Yeah. Cycling weight is everything. Your body, your bike.

If your bike weighs a kilo more, you would never race on it. In the 2015 Tour de France, bikes in the peloton were weighed before one of the time trial stages. French authorities told us the British team Sky was the only team with bikes heavier than the rest. Each bike weighed about 800 grams more. A spokesman for team Sky said that during a time trial stage, bikes might be heavier to allow for better aerodynamic performance. He said the team has never used mechanical assistance and that the bikes were checked and cleared by the sports governing body.

A heavy bike doesn't prove anything on its own, but to Greg LeMond, the weight difference should have set off alarm bells. In this case, sources told us the sports governing body would not allow French investigators to remove the Team Sky wheels and weigh them separately to determine if the wheels were enhanced. Le Mans said not enough is being done by the International Cycling Union to prevent cheating with motors. This is curable. This is fixable. I won't trust it until they figure out how to take the motor out. I won't trust any victories of the Tour de France.

I'm Leslie Stahl. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.