Modern Wisdom - #339 - Jeremy McDermott - Hunting An Invisible Drug Lord

Episode Date: June 26, 2021

Jeremy McDermott is an investigative reporter and the Director of Insight Crime. Modern drug lords in South America learned that anonymity is a better defence than a well armed militia. Jeremy has spent the last decade of his life chasing one of the most notorious members of The Invisibles, Memo Fantasma "The Ghost". Expect to learn how the Vice President of Colombia was implicated in a drug lord's operations, how The Ghost deleted his entire identity, why Jeremy turned up on a kingpin's doorstep in Madrid, why the DEA probably had Memo on their payroll and much more... Sponsors: Get 20% discount on all pillows at https://thehybridpillow.com (use code: MW20) Reclaim your fitness and book a Free Consultation Call with ActiveLifeRX at http://bit.ly/rxwisdom Extra Stuff: Read the full article on Insight Crime - https://insightcrime.org/investigations/invisible-drug-lord-ghost/  Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh, hello people in podcast land, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Jeremy McDermott, he's an investigative reporter and the director of Insight Crime. We are talking about how you hunt an invisible drug lord. Modern drug lords in South America learned that anonymity is a better defense than a well-armed militia. Jeremy has spent the last decade of his life chasing one of the most notorious members of the Invisibles, memo Phantasma, otherwise known as the Ghost. Today, I expect to learn how the vice president of Columbia was implicated in a drug lord's operations,

how the Ghost deleted his entire identity, why Jeremy turned up on a kingpin's doorstep in Madrid? Why the DEA probably had memo on their payroll and much more? This story is one of the most mental things that I've ever heard in my life. I can't believe that it's not already a movie. That if you enjoy tales about organized crime and political backb biting and financial institutions

and corruption, this is so for you. Now just sit back and enjoy. You don't need to remember anything. There's no hacks to take away. There's no self-development. It's just an awesome tale told by someone with a beautiful British accent and a ton of experience. If you enjoy the episode, the best thing that you can do is share it with a friend.

The only way that this show grows is from people like you, sharing it with people like you, and if you do it, it'll make me very happy. It was hard to find someone as interesting as Jeremy. Jeremy, Jeremy. It was hard to find someone whose name I could pronounce as badly as Jeremy's. So just share it with a friend who'd make me very pleased. I thank you. But now it's time to hunt invisible drug lord with Jeremy McDermott, welcome to the show. Many thanks, glad to be here.

Pleasure to have you here. Are you being sued by a drug lord? I am, unfortunately, in criminal court, and is convicted face up to five years in prison and a hefty fine and I won't be allowed to continue my work as a journalist so long as I am still under sentence. That seems like an intense position to be in. It's an unusual position to be in the sense that we get sued a lot, but I've never been sued by a drug trafficker who's actually been named, but not yet convicted, nor indeed been arrested. So, yeah, strange position to be in, but we're still plowing on. What are the Invisibles?

The Invisibles Chris is a name we've been giving to drug traffickers here in Latin America, particularly in Colombia, where I live, that decided a while back that their best protection was not a private army, but was being anonymous, simply not being on anybody's radar. And, you know, if you have a look at the Colombian drug world going back to Pablo Escobar, you know, he had his army of cicadillas, and then after Pablo Escobar we have the paramilitaries and they end up demobilizing more than 30,000 heavily armed fighters. Then of course we've got the Marxist guerrillas. So there is a tradition of extreme violence, very, very heavily armed cartel structures in Colombia and still today in Mexico. And the, um, this generation or this group of drug traffickers realized that, uh, they would left leave Pablo Escobar to take all the heat. Um, and Memor Fantasma actually started his career in the Medellín cartel. So he goes all the way back. He's been,

he's been in the business for 30 years. And so he's been quietly moving, we think, anything up to 100 tons of cocaine over the last three decades, living in the shadows, living under Pablo Escobar and then after the paramilitaries, always operating initially in and out of Medellin, and simply been able to do his business without appearing on certainly the public's radar, although he was on the US radar and Colombian police radar, but he was an informant for the DEA, and that seems to have protected him.

It doesn't surprise me that it's become a better strategy for drug lords to not be wearing a floral shirt and a gold embossed AK-47 and riding around in the back of open back trucks and building their own jails and stuff like this. Every time that you speak to someone about the new top 100 richest people on the planet, everybody says, yeah, yeah, but those are the ones whose money we know about. There's got to be some CD underworld crime bosses or some Arab prints that's hidden all of his money away. There has to be some of them that also has it. So I guess even to someone that's an initiate, the crime world, it makes sense, right?

That someone would do that. That there wouldn't be quite so flash that being unseen via stealth, as opposed to untouchable via aggression is perhaps an even better strategy. I think also Chris the way to think about it is a drug trafficker usually starts at the coal face and the coal face in the drug world is your crocodile boots, is your gold chain, is your pistol stuff down your trousers. And of course, this is a very violent, unpredictable world. And so, as you advance, you probably want to get further and further away from the call face. And the other thing, and this is particularly the case with Memor Phantasma, is when you earn an enormous amount of money,

that provides different challenges. You have to be able to hide that money. You have to be able to spend that money. And so when I speak to people that knew Memor Phantasma when he was young and starting in the call phase and those that saw the evolution of Memor Phantasma, they said that, you know, quite quickly, after about six or seven years, he is beginning to wear suits and he had a penchant for European clothing. And he decided that he didn't want to be in the coke of fields, he didn't want to be in the drug labs.

He wanted to be in the United States, in Spain, making the deals. And that when people who had known him early met him later, they, it was hard to recognize him. So yes, you can see from a business point of view, it makes perfect sense. From a drug trafficking point of view, it makes perfect sense. And perhaps the key thing, I think,

is from a survival point of view. It makes perfect sense and perhaps the key thing I think is from a survival point of view. It makes perfect sense. You want to get away from the cold face of drug trafficking, the guns blazing, the extreme violence and narco culture and you want to be sitting in a penthouse in Madrid rather than a coca-field in Colombia, don't you? Who is this memo, phantasmaguy, then? What's his story? OK. His real name is Guillermo Acevedo. And I came across him, or I came across an alias of his back in 2005,

where the Colombian government is negotiating with this right-wing paramilitary army. They end up demobilizing 30,000 guys. This was probably the most powerful cartel ever on the planet. And they controlled most of drug trafficking. The government was negotiating with them and they all had different aliases and they were signing different documents as they move towards a piece process. And I was looking through the signatories at one of the bottom of these documents and there was a name I didn't recognize and I met most of these guys over the years.

And it was Sebastian Colmianadis and so I'm going, okay, who is Sebastian Colman-Aris? And he never appeared when it was time to demobilize. And the name stuck with me and I was never able to make any progress. So I sort of put that on the back burner and rather rebuted to myself for not making any serious investigative progress. And then I'd also heard of a drug traffic a kicking around Medell in where I've been living

for more than 20 years called Memor Fantasna, which is Will the Ghost, if you like. And again, you know, I'd heard all, his name kept popping up, but I'd never been able to find out who he was. And it was a bit frustrating, and again, it just kind of went on to the back burner. There's the, there are dozens and dozens of these names that you never really, really are able to get

to grips with. And then in 2015, there's a newspaper article that suggests Sebastian Colmenares and Memor Fantasma, the same guy. And so I get very excited. There are two names that have been gathering dust on the shelves and they both appear to be the same guy and so I go, okay enough, we need to get to the bottom of this because this guy has been kicking around. Memo Fantasmaid had been since the days of Pablo Escobar and Sebastian Colmenadas had been sitting at the top table with these paramilitary drug lords

the Angolan Menadas had been sitting at the top table with these paramilitary drug lords. And so began the investigation. And the perhaps the most alarming thing, Chris, in this world, when you investigate organized crime, you rely very heavily on security force, sources, you know, law enforcement. And you know, I've got a great relationship with the DEA, same with the British NCA, you know, the Italians, and of course the Colombians, because I've been here for so long, nobody would help me with this guy. And so the alarm bells went off. And in the end, it was a source, an underwater source, that was able to give me several things. One was, yes, it's the same person.

Yes, he exists. And if you go to this reality TV show going back a while, you're gonna get, you're gonna see him. And as soon as I have an image, then I could go around all my sources and go, okay, is this the guy you know as MemoFantasma? And that's what happens on the reality show.

It's one of those where they put up embarrassing situations and they see how people react. And this situation is in a cafe in Bogota where a man begins to mistreat the woman he's with. And so the camera is panning to how people are going to react to this show of domestic violence or whatever. And it pans to a chap who's sitting there with two others drinking a cup of coffee who looks across, seems totally uninterested and goes back to his conversation.

And this was, he did my semi-demo, my mum and what happened during this very popular show was a group of paramilitaries in prison went, hey, that's Memofantasma. And this message came to me. And so I had a photo and so the investigation really took a life of its own. Before you had that photo, what happened when you went to your sources? What were they saying to you? They said to me, yeah, we've all heard of Memo Fantasmo. Yes, of course there was this guy called Sebastian Golminares. Yes, Memo Fantasma was a senior drug trafficker

in the Medellin cartel. Yes, Sebastian Golminares was a big heavy hitter in the paramilitary world. But then I go, well,, how do I find him? And they go, well, I don't know. I can tell you it was a small, rather uninteresting looking guy. We didn't know what his real name was. But I can tell you everything about his criminal career that we saw. But of course, it didn't help me find the guy and get a real name. it didn't help me find the guy and get a real name. So part of the issue was that he had hidden his own history and was so, um, unbecoming

that people couldn't really remember him or or give you much information, but I imagine as well that there were other people who might have known a little bit more and knew just how dangerous this guy was. So it was a combination of ignorance and fear. On top of that, he was very clever, in the sense that he never allowed any photos to be taken of himself, from being in the background of a reality TV show broadcast. Which of course he didn't know he was going to be on, you know, it was one of the hidden camera one He should have sued them forget suing you. Remember if you're listening If you didn't sign a release form my friend Get the suit. He did he did try to sue them and you now can't find it Chris

Okay, so um he took your advice Um, but no memo what he did was he was never in any of the photos and you know the paramilitaries like to dress up in uniform when they all posed with their guns and he was never there. He was never there. The other thing is and during my interviews with the people who have come across him, he's apparently pretty scary dude in the sense that he is prepared to use surgical violence to eliminate rivals and anybody who threatens his business. So he's quiet but extremely ruthless. And even today, now that he's been exposed and he's been named by the Columbia Attorney General's Office,

the fact that he is still free reinforces the terror that he has held and everyone believes, including myself, that he has very senior people on the payroll in the police force and in the attorney general's office and perhaps in the political world, as one of the big detonators for this story was that I named the Colombian Vice President as a partner in one of his money laundering businesses,

and she also sued me using exactly the same legal tool that Memo Fantasma is using today, but under international pressure, she dropped the case. How did Memor get so high up in the cartel? Did you find that out? Yes. He developed links with Mexican cartels. As part of his paramilitary expansion, he took a very important part of Colombia through blood and massacre, which had along the Pacific coast, which is a perfect departure point for drug shipments. He was one of the innovators in using drug submarines, and he also diversified the market. So while everybody in Colombia was

moving stuff to Mexico, he was still moving stuff to Mexico and he was in bed with the Bells-Bran Leyva cartel. But for example, in the Olympics held in Sydney, he moved a huge consignment of drugs to a time with the opening of the Olympics. He made alliances with a top Spanish drug trafficker. And so he's moving drugs all around the world. And he controls the most important thing in the drug trafficking world, which are the roots, because the money, Chris, is not made in the production of drugs. So the guy who, you know, who harvests the coca and then runs the cocaine laboratory,

she's short, great business. And even the one that's in New York or in London selling the drugs, again, great business. So the percentage for the drug production guys is 150% which in any business world great. If you're in the retail end of the business, you're probably making 300% profit. Again, brilliant. But if you're the guy that takes the kilo of cocaine from Colombia and drops it into Sydney, you are making 3,000% profit. And so this is where the real money is. This is where the huge profits are. So anyone who controls the routes everybody wants to do business with them. And that was Memor Fantasma. Wasn't there a situation where he... Someone died high up in a cartel

and he was just left with loads of drugs. Wasn't this kind of... This is come to power moment. Well, this is... This is part of the urban myth. I think it's true and I've got some sources said it was true but other sources say no. So I'm not going to put my hand in the fire for this one, but the story is that he is in the United States

having just received a shipment of cocaine from the Medellin cartel when Pablo Escobar is killed on a Medellín rooftop. So the Medellín Cartel goes into meltdown. Nobody knows what the hell is going on and he is sitting on a very large shipment of cocaine. He sells it and of course, he doesn't know who to push the money back up to because there's chaos, the Medellín Cartel is in chaos, so he just keeps the money. Well, when you're fighting for leadership, you're not calling in your debtors quite

exactly. And also, I think that so much of this stuff is in people's head. So when people get killed, all record of their business dealings gets lost as well. Quickbox.com doesn't have a backup. Exactly, exactly. He returns to Colombia with a pile of cash. We have it confirmed. He sets up his first small company and he sets up his own drug laboratory He sets up his first small company and he sets up his own drug laboratory about four miles north of Medellin and he starts processing his cocaine and using his Mexican and US

context to go into business for himself. Why are you living where you're living given what you're doing for work? You're just talking about four miles away from this place and then you're happily living in that region for two decades. Well, first of all, it's absolutely beautiful, part of the world, Colombia, breathtakingly beautiful. The people are, you know, those that aren't trying to sue you are absolutely lovely. And I think for us, particularly those of us from a European background, where, you know, people moan about mortgage rates and the weather, living in a place where they have real problems and still seem to

have way more fun than us. It's been, for me, a very rewarding life. Does it have, of course, its downsides and living in a less developed world than a world where there is enormous amounts of violence, of course? But do you not have personal security concerns? I mean, are you constantly walking around with an armed guard or something? No, absolutely not. I mean, yes, I have the personal security concerns, but I'm not walking around with the armed guard.

We have moved our kids out of Colombia with the most recent raft of threats. What would they? You have to... This was linked with Memo and my wife is a journalist as well and she had received separate threats for... Oh fantastic, okay so you're getting a pincer movement, yeah exactly fantastic. But you, I guess you have to make a decision either you pack up and go into something else or you stick with it and we've decided to stick with it. And also, I think Chris, without beating one's chest or anything, this guy can't get away with it. He cannot sue a journalist who has proven not only his existence but his criminal record and get away with it.

I mean, you can't. You can't back down in that. And one has to point out to the Colombian judicial system, the irony of them not issuing an arrest warrant for Memor Phantasmus, someone who's already been identified by the attorney general and they've seized two of his properties as well. So it's not like there isn't a case there. And then the same justice system, which is seeing him walking free, being used against a journalist to attempt to silence him.

So yeah, that will not stand, Chris. That will not stand. All right, so how did he get rid of his history? Because everyone is born somewhere, everyone has a history. You have come into this world. Okay. He got rid of his initial judicial history by bribing two fiscalers who are prosecutors in the prosecution service of the Attorney General's office. We have their names. I haven't published them yet because not ready for another couple of lawsuits and these two are now Jeremy, yes

in a baby steps baby steps for this. They are now both very successful defense lawyers. So if we take them on, I'm gonna have to be ready. And my lawyer has gone, God, do we really have to do that right now? So we're not doing that right now. And so these two were in the Antinar-Cottix section of the Attorney General's Office. And so they were able to bury his cases. Then he had two judicial policemen

judicial policeman, also on the payroll, who were also able to bury or mislead various different investigations around him. And then he started being an informant for the DEA, which sealed the two indictments he has in the United States that I have not been able to get at. I have the name of his DEA agent, I have the name of the prosecutor that put the two cases against him, neither have engaged with me, despite me, ambushing them on various different social media and emails.

And I understand why, you know, it's sealed indictments and etc, etc. It's a bit frustrating. And then what he did was somehow, as part of this this paramounts-itary piece process, I mentioned before, Chris, they got a sweet heart deal whereby all these paramilitary drug lords, if they cooperated with the justice system, got minimal sentences eight years, no matter what they've done. And during this process, Memor's name came up several times and his real name was mentioned. And I didn't know this,

but what I did do is what I put an official freedom of information request to this is called peace and justice. And I got the information they had. And then when we went through and we listened to hundreds of hours of interviews, we went, this is a name, it's mentioned here. This guy says his name, but it's not registered anywhere, which leads us to suspect that he had someone in peace and justice who also manipulated and buried testimony. So this guy has been everywhere. Clinical.

He's been everywhere. Yeah, absolutely brilliant. He's been everywhere and he's managed to wipe the footsteps, which they were there. It's just no one was looking. And even if you started looking, they were so well-buried that you had to listen to hundreds and hundreds of hours and go through hundreds and hundreds of documents to find the nugget that you needed.

So he's not just got political contacts in Columbia. He's also working with the DEA, which is America and peace and justice. Well the peace and justice is part of the Colombian justice system. He's no longer working with the DEA, but he was. He was. And his DEA agent actually retired two weeks ago. So, but what I do know is that when I went to confront Memor in Madrid, he immediately contacted the DEA to go,

what do I do? This guy has just appeared on my doorstep. Okay, so how did he stay out of jail during his period of running drugs? Well, one by ensuring that no investigation was opened against him, or by diverting or manipulating those. So it was only in the US that they got to the point of an indictment. They never in Columbia got to a point of an indictment.

And then the US authorities buried the indictment because they wanted him out there. And they flipped him and turned him into a source? I don't think they flipped him. I think he offered. I think he's that smart that he saw that the way to remain invisible and to stay out of prison was to offer his services to the one agency that is quite hard to bribe. and that you can't mess with their paperwork. It's not like you can go into the US, attorney general's office and start burying, manipulating, and then mending files. So I think he made a conscious decision. The other thing that's quite extraordinary about him is,

most of the guys who have flipped still have to spend some time in prison. It may be a laughable sentence, particularly when one looks at the crimes they've committed, but they do spend anything from three to ten years in an American prison. Memo has not spent a minute in prison, and that is either a testament to the information he delivered or a testament to the fact that he knows how to play the system, and I think it's a bit of both. So he must have been contacted at some point by the DEA.

I mean, no matter how much foresight this guy has, I can't imagine that he's just rung up and said, hi, is this the DEA? Yeah, by the way, you're probably looking for me. So they've perhaps contacted him and he's precluded. I think he, he's reached out to them. Yeah, he's reached out to them and it's actually very easy to do because there are. Become an informant.com or something. No, there are dozens of American lawyers who specialize in this, which is defending Colombian drug traffickers. So what you do is one of your mates has been extradited or gotten a rest warrant. And you go, oh, which American lawyer are you

going to use? And you go, I'm going to use this one. And then he goes, all right, well, can you use that one? Who's already negotiating with a DEA? Try to get a plea deal, can you say, oh wait, do you fancy a chat with me? Scottie, got you, got you, got you. How much was he worth at the peak of his wealth? I don't know whether the peak of his wealth is now, or whether it was back in the day? Well, I can tell you what we found,

which is probably a tithe of what he really has. It's between 20 and 30 million dollars. So I would suspect that we're not that good and he's probably worth well over 100 million. Not bad days work. I mean, crime pays, Chris. Can I just say that? In his case, crime has paid at least so far. But we're not going to give up. We're about to publish a new series of articles on him. What happened after the first raft of articles was underworld sources just came forward. So the day after publication on Twitter, So the day after publication on Twitter, I got a like a 12 page document sent to me, which basically had all memos family tree. And at the bottom I said, if you fancy a chat, you know, I'm here and I read all this and I was like, yeah, I fancy a chat.

And with this particular source, I've now registered 80 hours of interviews. I met him, I met him, and he worked with Memal for 13 years. So we've got some really great stuff. The problem always with this, Chris, is all these guys are criminals and you can't trust the word that comes out of their mouth. So you have to verify it. And that has been a long and exhaustive process because I've had no help from police or law enforcement. I've had to verify and I am having to verify it with other underworld sources. And so when three underworld sources say the same thing and they're not connected, you go, well, actually, you know what? Yeah. I'm prepared to go with that. And this particular sort, yeah, and

this source over the 80 hours, I haven't caught him in a single lie yet. So he seems to be he seems to be the real deal. This is only going to be part one in that case. Oh, part one has been published. This is going to be part two. Okay, yeah, so we've got to, I mean, to the podcast, we're going to get ourselves into the stage of where we're at with, with these articles. And then when the next part comes out, there can be the, the difficult sequel. Absolutely, I hope so.

And then I'm hoping that the last one, Chris, will be my final interview with Memo from his prison cell. Okay. Fantastic. Okay, so going back, how did you get onto his trail more seriously? You've got his photo from the background of Ashton Kutcher, doing a punk episode or whatever it is. And then Killambi and Ashton Kutcher. And then you go, right, okay, I have his image, I can show it to people, people can say, yes, that is him. But I mean, that doesn't mean much more either, does it? We found his real name in these files from Peace and Justice.

One of his partners in the paramilitary army says his name. And the name that I was given that they had for him was a Was a false alias was an alias that he used in the paramilitary So actually that was a dead end to begin with but then when we went through all of the all of the the transcripts and we heard it Then we find another name and it with that name we are able to start following a money trail. So there's stuff that were businesses that were associated with Memo Fantasma, particularly in the airport

in Medellin. He had a hangar there. And we've been told by so many different sources, oh, Memo was the owner of that, but I'm going, I haven't got a name. And I can't go through every single hangar and find out if that's Memor Fantasma, but then we got this name from the paramilitary piece process. And once you've got a name and you've got the companies, we got his ID card from the Chamber of Commerce, because you know, when you you register a company you have to put your ID in there So they he had to scan his ID card and that was it We had him dead to rights after that because then we find he's got a legal company

We follow the legal company because Of course the more and more successful you become as a drug trafficker, the less and less you put under your name for obvious reasons. And so what we did is we find his legal company, we find the names of his relatives, his wife who's up to her neck in it as well. And then we start following those names. And so suddenly, the business begins to move further and further and further. And this is where we found his mum had bought a series of properties in the most expensive part of Bogota. So these were old houses in a neighborhood in the north of Bogota. He uses his mum and another couple of companies to buy

almost an entire city block. He then goes to the husband of the now vice president of Colombia, who is a construction magnet, who goes, hey, you should, you know, are now sitting on some of the most prime real estate in Bogota. Jifantsy putting up a development here, and of course he goes, oh yeah, and they build what is called as Tower 85, because it's on the 85 block of Bogota. It's an emblematic development, huge. And so Memo Fantasma gets into bed without Verorinkon, who is the vice president's husband.

And the other, well, the major shareholder of that company, Ito Sorbanos, was the current vice president. And of course, the question is, did she or did she not know who she was getting in the bed with? And anyway, I spoke to her. I interviewed her as part of the process. I interviewed her husband as part of the process. He said, yeah, we did the business deal with him, which they couldn't deny because I had all the papers. But they said we had no idea. He was a drug trafficker. He had no a

rest warrant, which he didn't. And so, you know, why are you accusing us of irregular activity? To which, of course, I replied, so this guy comes in off the street. He's not from Bogotá, he's from Medellín, and this is the late 1990s in Colombia. You don't think to do any due diligence on him. And so they say, yes, we did. And we rang the chief of police to check if this guy had any record. So I spoke to the chief of police.

And he said, I don't remember that, but it could have happened. So he was, he really hedged himself. He said, people always ring me to check. And yeah, of course, I'm sure she could have done because she was then the defense minister. So, you know, probably. But it didn't, it doesn't smell right to me. And something happened. But Memor not only does this amazing development, but he gets his children into the Eaton of Bogota, or the Eaton of Columbia, but his children go to the top school in the country where there's a line going around the block to get into the school, somehow and outside, gets into the school, apparently someone wrote a letter on his behalf, and that person might have been the

Colombian vice president, because if you're going to get into the Eaton of Colombia, you probably need a reference from someone like that. So he suddenly is driving around Bolta like a businessman in his European suits, legit, legit, with his daughter, his daughters in this exclusive school, one of his daughters now international show jumper, you know, represents, yeah, exactly, living in, you know, the richest part of the city and he's clean. But Chris, he disappears to Madrid in 2015, which is when I find that, when that article is published, which I said, which says that Memor Fanthausma and Sebastian Colmanardis are the same person.

And I don't find that a coincidence. You know, this article is published by a Spanish, by a Columbia newspaper, saying, look at this guy, you know, he's these two people, but they don't have a name. Well, they do have a name, and it's the wrong name, because it's the name that he planted. But he knows that someone's now looking for him. And so he disappears off and sets up a multi-million-euro business in Madrid, moves his family there, puts them into a really good school in Madrid, has a lovely flat in the center of Madrid, and a lovely house on the outskirts of Madrid.

And he's living in the life until I arrive and knock on the door. He's now sold all his Spanish properties and he's back in Bogota. Wow. So talk me through flying out to Madrid and how you find where he is and then you end up through flying out to Madrid and how you find where he is and then you end up giving him a casual chat. Well, I didn't, he wouldn't see me. What I did was I stake out, I've got two addresses because we follow the money and we see that this company, he sets up two companies in Madrid under his name. So, you know, I'm able to follow their companies

and we're able to see what resources he bought through those companies. So he's bought this flat, he's bought this house, he's got a Land Rover, he's got a BMW motorbike. So we've got all this stuff. But again, he clever, the apartment has a porter downstairs, so you can't doorstep, and the apartment has got two exits. One is the car exit, and one is the foot exit, and you can't cover them both at once, at least not if you're a poor journalist with just you.

And then the House is in one of those close neighborhoods. Apparently, there's lots of Vale, Madrid, and all these other, you know, it's a very popular close neighborhood for those who don't want to be photographed. And so I can't ambush in there. And so I create a ruckus by going, well, I go to the apartment and to the house. And he's in the house, I think, when I call. Because the guard says there's a guy here

who wants to speak to Senor Gujero more. And I can hear a male voice through the intercom, and then the guard goes, oh no, he's not at home. But then I go to his lawyer's office, because it isn't a company has the lawyer, and so I go to the lawyer's office, and I say, look, I'd like to leave a message for Gujaramo, I say, well, I'd like to leave a message for Guidjadruma Serelo.

And they go, sure. And then I say, you know, would it be possible for fear to give them a call? Because it's really quite urgent. And just let them know that I'm here. And see if he wants to speak to me. And so they call. And then they come back into the room and everything is completely changed. You need to leave now.

We don't work for Kedia and my sister, we're not taking any message for him. And so I then start screaming, you know, this company works for terrorists and drug traffickers. Is that what you do? You know, I'm going to have to write an article on you guys, are you facilitators for the underworld? And I get thrown out. But the point is, of course, that he now knows that I'm here. I've now created a scene at his lawyers, and the lawyers obviously didn't know.

And so he rings me. And he goes, you know, what the hell is going on? How dare you create all this thing? Did you threaten the lawyers? How dare you threaten lawyers? And I said, well, actually, I was here to threaten you, not the lawyers. And so we have this conversation for 22 minutes where he seeks to persuade me that he's not Sebastian Golmanadez or Memor Phantasma and that I'm some poor Gringo foreign journalist who's been led stray by various underworld sources. But through the conversation, I am mentioning the names and aliases of underworld figures that no one should know, and he clearly knows.

Because he never questions me once, such as who the hell is Domberna or who the hell is. And so at the end of it, he's obviously flatly denied that he is Memor Phantasma, but he has convinced me beyond belief, any kind of doubt that he is Memor Phantasma, but he still thinks he can persuade me. So he says, I'll contact you by email and I will answer any questions you have, but he never did. He did contact me by email, but he never answered any questions. And then what I kept doing to try and provoke response, as I would send him an email going, is it true that you were involved in the killing

of Julio Fierro and he would write back, that's outrageous. I'm not a, you know, I never involved in killing anyone, which was enough for me to keep, you know, getting something which we used in the articles. And then there we are. He's won. He's still out there. And he is still enjoying his fortune. Okay, so how did you come to be sued by the vice president of Columbia? Okay, well, after the publication of the articles... What was that last year? That was March last year? That was March, last year. Yeah. Yeah.

There's, you know, it's on the front page of all the newspapers in Columbia. And she's called by every radio and TV program to explain. And so she sends me via a lawyer, a cease and desist, and then you must rectify which I refuse to do. I said, I'm not going to change a comma in this. Everything is stood up.

There is all the documentation, which is included in the articles if you see. And so I refuse. And so Colombia is one of the few nations on earth which has criminal libel. Because most cases are just civil libel, whereby if I call Chris Williamson an idiot and say, he's a drug trafficker, you can prove you're not a drug trafficker. And then I have to pay you a fine because I have libeled you. Well, in Colombia, they have criminal libel. They also have the civil libel. There's criminal libel, which is this person has, with criminal intent, set out to black and my name and therefore it's

criminal charge and it comes with a criminal sentence which is up to 72 months in prison which is five years. Now the reason that everybody, all the bad guys, use the criminal libel is not only because it comes with a prison sentence but they don't have to prove that it's a lie. So if they, if Memor or the Vice President had sued me in civil court to say you're, you're lying to me, I would go prove it. Here's the stuff I've said, prove it's not true, which they can't do because I've got all the documentary evidence, but in that criminal case, they don't. What do they have to prove? They don't have to prove anything. They just have to have

to have to have having the criminal I will. Because what it does is it passes it to the Attorney General's office and the Attorney General's office has to investigate it because it's a criminal report. Now, the attorney general now has to decide whether there is a criminal case to answer. And then it goes to trial, or it doesn't go to trial. The thing that we are worried about, or I am worried about, is it is going to go to trial because he has some people in the attorney general's office. However, I do not believe that Colombia wants to imprison a British journalist who has investigated, who is being sued by a Colombian drug trafficker who's already been

identified by the attorney general because that is a public relations nightmare for Colombia. But that doesn't mean that the judicial process cannot go forward. My aim is obviously to make it as high profile as possible so that they can't do any manipulation of evidence and case. So if they do, I can go screaming, you know, how can I, what crime have I committed? So that's where we are. Am I worried about spending five years in prison? I'm not. Am I worried about it going to court? I am. And is he trying to, is he hoping that it's going to cost me so much money that I will, you know, back away? He maybe is, but now I have pro bono lawyers now who have taken on the case because they think it's that rage as I do.

So he's not going to be able to outspend me either. So it's difficult to outspend someone that's getting stuff for free. Exactly. Although I think they will come a point where my pro bono lawyers might go, you know what, we just thought this was on for a bit of a laugh we didn't realize, you know, three years later

that we're still having to defend you. But we'll see. And of course, we're going to continue publishing. And so I think the next round of articles, which are pretty damning and have got so much detail from these inside sources, are going to do one of two things. The first is the Colombian Attorney General's office is going to be so embarrassed that they're actually going to wish you're in a rest warrant, which is what I'm hoping is going to happen, or he's going to go on the run again, because at the moment he's living, as we say, in Spanish

comel Pedro, in Picasso, like Peter in his house. I thought he said he came back to Bogota. Yeah, he's in Bogota. Oh, OK. In Picasso and Bogota. Yeah. OK. That's where he left to Spain. He was living in Bogota as I told you.

Yeah. In the top school and in the top school and then he's gone to Spain. So why come back to Bogota? Because we were speaking to the Guadaladus of Yl in Spain when we were looking on information for him. And he just didn't have as many people in there. He doesn't think he's quite effective in Spain. He doesn't have any. And the Guadaladas have really wanted his money,

because they wanted to freeze his accounts, because there was at least 11 million euros in there, and they thought, we'll have a bit of that. But again, the Columbia, they needed documentation from the Columbia and Attorney General's Office, which they didn't get. Why didn't they get it? They made an official request.

But Memor knows somehow about it all. He's flocked everything it seems and he's left. And pulled all of his money out, all of his euros have gone. And all this money here. Another guard of this reveal, you know, I spoke to my contact a few months back and he said, yeah, the flat sold the houses on the market and he's gone. No money for you to banish people. And then yeah, and then I found he was in he was in Bogota and then he came to Medellin. His mom lives about 800 meters from my house in Medellin.

I can't sorry, I need Jeremy. Why? I can't wrap my head around the fact that this is superstar underworld invisible drug lord, lawsuits, someone that's by your own definition, criminally insane. He's killing people with criminally sane. Criminally sane. Okay, killing people with surgical precision, obviously very little recourse or fear about doing anything to anyone. And you live 800 meters from his mum, he's in the same place. I just can't get my head around how...

I mean, you've said, I'm worried about going to jail, no. I'm worried about going to jail, no. I'm not worried about going to court slightly. At no point if you said worried about perhaps being killed. Yeah, and I had a long chat with a couple of underworld sources about whether he would be the sort of chap who would go down that route. And one source said, yeah, you'll probably have an accident. Someone will try to rob you,

except they're not really there to rob you, and you'll get killed in the attempt. And that's how it will happen. But then another, all the others, including this source, said now, he's not that stupid, because he knows that once you kill an international journalist, that everybody's going to run for cover. that everybody's gonna run for cover. Your DA guys will run for cover, your political protection will run for cover, and there'll be no way. And also, Chris, he's not gonna sue me and kill me.

I really think that's a one or the other situation here, you know? And so I should be slightly relieved that he's suing me, I guess. The Vice President, what was the come up ends of the criminal case by her? She just dropped it. But then didn't she step down as well? No, she didn't. Oh, so she's still in office? Oh, yeah. And she's the foreign minister as well.

And she may be running for the presidency next year, but probably not now. Because of what you've... But I mean, in part... Fly in the oil state. It's all my own work, but it's not. No, no, no, she's been involved in a series of scandals. Her brother was convicted of drug trafficking. And yeah, there's all sorts of other stuff.

And she's not been a particularly competent vice president. So... Well, she's busy. She's got lots of other stuff and she's not been a particularly competent vice president. So she's busy, she's got lots of other stuff to do. You can't run a facilitate a criminal underworld and repurpose real estate in the heart of a big city if you've got a job to do sorting out politics, get in the way. To be fair to her and I should be, you know, she was never, there was never any proof that she was hands on, on criminal activity. Absolutely never any suggestion. A husband is a different matter, but she, no, I've never found anything to say that she has actively, you know, helped drug traffickers remain off the radar or that sort of thing. The only thing that we had proven was Memor Phantasma laundered millions of dollars

through this construction. And he's still to this day has a lot of offices in the tower, 85 and a lot of the shops at the bottom and it generates him vast rents every year. How is it that drug lords laundered their money through real estate? Because presumably you can't just pay everyone in cash, or can you? Is it because there's so many labourers and contractors that you can just repurpose

your ill-gotten games that way? Well, there are several loopholes. One is, well, perhaps the rather than get all technical about this, there are two things that are really useful for a drug trafficker and real estate. One is what Memor did. He buys land, okay, and then he makes a deal with the construction company to say, I'm going to give you this land and then you're going to give me 15 offices, 50 parking spaces and three of the shops. And so the constructor goes, okay, so he doesn't appear in the construction.

So when they're building it, no more phantasm is name was nowhere because there was just a deal signed and we've managed to get it from the notary between him and the company to say, we're going to give you this bit of land and you're going to give us the stuff afterwards. So, but how that appears from outside is suddenly he is the legal owner of 15 offices, 40 parking spaces and five shops, and it's legal. You know, he hasn't put 50 million in drug money into a bank and into a construction company. He has simply got the titles now of the, so nothing's gone through the bank. Because, you know, if he put $10,000 in a bank, you know, there's supposed to be a red flag.

Well, of course, in this system, there are no red flags. But he's had to buy the land. He had to buy the land, which he did in his mum's name and the company's name. And it was, you know, he did it over several months and it didn't raise any red flags. But he didn't sell that money and then give it to the construction company and then, no, no, there's this back door deal done. And then the other thing which he which Memor did is he's the proud owner now of 15 offices. He then pays his drug debts by giving the titles of these offices to various of his people. So they are now, his drug debts are all paid, no money has changed hands. And the people have now got a nice, shiny title.

And of course, what isn't happening is no one's looking at the buying and selling of every property to see if it's dodgy or not, they're just looking at banks. Is there money moving around that can't be justified? But if I, Jeremy McDermott, give Chris Williams an office, Williams at an office, the attorney general and the police aren't really going to look at that, are they? They're just going to see that an office has changed hands. Even the long term that office might generate half a million pounds a year or something

like that. Absolutely, in terms of rent, and the rent has to be declared, but that's the beauty of it, because now he's declaring money that he can then go on to spend, that you can now go on to spend. And Memo owns many different buildings and properties in Bogota now, and we reckon he makes up to $2 million a year just from the rents on these properties. Which is also been, yeah, legit spend it on a car by a house with it, go on holiday with it. Well, you know, you can live on two million surely. Well, it depends on how many children, ping-pongies the daughter needs us. That is true, but I still think, you know, there's a, there's some wiggle room there for a good legit life. Got you. What's

happening next? You've got this new set of articles. So this, this first set of articles is on Insight Crime. It'll be linked in the show notes below. If you've enjoyed this story, it goes into so much more depth. You've got all the photos and the scans of the documents. It's an unbelievable read. And now you've got this 80 hours of underworld interviews and all of the next stuff. And that's what's coming out next. Another series of articles. That's coming out. Yeah, there'll be another between four and six articles. The reason it's taken so long is the verification. And then the other is the money. We've really tried to follow the money. And the reason for this, Chris, is that the drug trafficking is now so far in the past that he could go away with it.

Is there a statute of limitations? Yes, there is. If there's not murder involved, there does seem to be a statute of limitations, which is why the DEA turned around him and said, if you behave yourself for the next 10 years, these indictments will disappear. for the next 10 years, these indictments will disappear. So on the drug trafficking, it looks like there's statue of limitations. The murders are very hard for us to prove, but the money he can't hide. And he has to justify where this $30 million from a guy who's born into nothing in Medellin has come from.

And so we think that this is the best way to get him into prison will be whether or this money come from because the money laundering every time that office that he bought with the drug money earns money, it's money laundering. So there's no statute of limitations because he's still earning the money on it. And so we think that's the way, you know, it's Al Capone and the taxes. We think that's the way we'll get in is through the money. It's so crazy. It's so mad to think about how many other people are probably in this situation as well. You know, this is one guy that you've managed to track down. I imagine that there must be many others who've managed to get to his sort of status.

And it's also such as, you know, for all that his tactics might be nefarious. It's a very admirable, shrewd business acumen understanding of the world and the way that it works that you can front load your wealth acquisition by trying to get into the position of distribution as fast as possible, that you can make some deals to protect yourself when it happens, that you can have the political allies to ensure

that you stay free. And then once you've front loaded that wealth, you move into legitimate business and go quiet having removed your past as fast as possible to then be this ghost of a person for 10 years, 15 years, let the indictments go with the statute of limitations come back in, remove the money back into the system. And you are now a relatively functioning member of society with a bunch of legitimate business and status and wealth. Just one thing you missed there is I think he deliberately went into business with people

who would protect him. So like the husband of the vice president. I don't think that is coincidence. I think he's thinking how do I tie in powerful people? I will give them a deal they can't turn down. So he goes to the husband and he says, listen, I'm going to give you this prime real estate at a really good deal. He jumps at it. Of course, he jumps at it, but that's it. Now he's tied in and his wife's tied in. And we think he's done this. Well, and also they don't want this to come out. They don't want this to come out. So they are now invested in maintaining his legitimacy

and his legal facade. I brilliant, don't you think it's brilliant. Yeah it's a shame that he applied his talents to criminality because you know we'd probably be living in a utopia and surfing on Mars if he'd actually managed to apply this talent to something a bit more ultrasonic. Unfortunately and you know I'll put this to you, Chris, you have a choice. You can enter the legal world in Colombia where the minimum wage is $2,000 a year and you can go to school and work your way up. And maybe you will earn $500,000 over the course of your life, okay? Which is what the average company gets nowhere near. Or you can move 10 kilos of cocaine just once. And you will earn the same amount as you're going to earn in your entire legal

existence. Would you take that risk, Chris? Well, I'm a Laura Beington citizen. and as you know, Jeremy, we're both very orderly, we're both very orderly British fellas, we stick to the rules. Yeah, I mean, you can see the temptation. Absolutely, and this also highlights what often gets brought up to do with wealth inequality, right, that when you have these disparities in wealth, when you have some people that have a lot

and some people that have none at all, that is one of the sparks for crime. And it kind of makes sense. If it's so much of a grind to make an amount of money that in another, I imagine that it's not hard to get into drugs if you want to in Colombia or in Mexico still today. It's not hard to get into crime. That's, you know, and then you get into the drug world as well. But yeah, the rewards are so high. And what Memo, the reason that Memo Phanthausima is such an emblematic figure is that the fact

he's still out there shows that the risks are sufficiently low for you to make it worthwhile. And that's the message we have to send is that he can't get away with it. And he has so far. Jeremy McDermott, ladies and gentlemen, if people want to check out more about this where should they go? Please come to the Insight Crime website. We're a big team of 45 journalists scattered around Latin America and the Caribbean. We do organize crime day in day out. Please come and visit. Please come and visit. Awesome. Thanks so much for the day.

Cheers Chris.