MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Root of All Evil

Episode Date: June 30, 2022

Today’s podcast features two separate, unique stories that share a theme: The terrifying things people will do for money. The audio from these stories has been pulled from my YouTube channel, which is just called MrBallen, and has been remastered for today's podcast.Story names, previews & links to original YouTube videos:Story 1 -- “Graphic Content" -- A popular TV show in Brazil reveals their awful secret. (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj1nh-qnv0E)Story 2 -- "Inside a Nigerian Death Factory" -- A horrible thing was discovered inside of a warehouse in the middle of a Nigerian forest… (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT3y8ZTgrtY)For 100s more stories like these, check out my YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @MrBallenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today's podcast features two separate, unique stories that share a theme, the terrifying things people will do for money. The audio from both of these stories has been pulled from my YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called Graphic Content, and it's about a TV show that was extremely popular in Brazil until its secret was revealed. The second story you'll hear is called Inside a Nigerian Death Factory, and it

is about the horrible thing that was discovered inside of a warehouse in the middle of a Nigerian forest. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious Deliberative Story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do. And we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please offer the five-star review button

a free acupuncture session. But once they're lying down, give them a full body allergy test. Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Ballant podcast wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Hello, I am Alice Levine and I am one of the hosts of Wondery's podcast, British Scandal. On our latest series, The Race to Ruin, we tell the story of a British man who took part in the first ever round the world sailing race.

Good on him, I hear you say. But there is a problem, as there always is in this show. The man in question hadn't actually sailed before. Oh, and his boat wasn't seaworthy. Oh, and also tiny little detail almost didn't mention it. He bet his family home on making it to the finish line. What ensued was one of the most complex cheating plots in British sporting history. To find out the full story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. Okay, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about.

No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? Okay, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's stone-cold icon George Michael.

From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making, with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts,

or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Okay, let's get into our first story called Graphic Content. If I told you to picture the Amazon rainforest in your head, you would likely picture a dense tropical wilderness full of amazing and exotic animals. And you'd be right, that is a good representation of the Amazon rainforest. But what a lot of people don't know is that the Amazon rainforest is also home to a massive city. It's called Manaus and it sits right in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, right

along the Amazon River. And it happens to be one of the most violent places in the entire world. All it takes in Manaus is simply walking down the wrong street or crossing the wrong person and you can get shot or stabbed in broad daylight and there's virtually nothing anyone can do to stop it. In 1989, a 31-year-old former police officer named Wallace Souza decided to make a TV show about what it was actually like to live in his hometown of Manaus. And unlike other crime shows in Brazil that often censored out the most graphic content they covered,

Wallace decided he wasn't going to do that. He wanted to expose the harsh reality of life in Manaus, and he felt like the only way to do that was to show everything. And so that year, he launched this show, which he called Canal Livre, which translates roughly to free channel. And true to form, there was no filter on what went on the air. And so this show was shocking. Viewers were given a front row seat to freshly murdered victims that are lying out in the road and slumped over chairs in restaurants and behind steering wheels.

And the cameraman would zoom in on their fatal injuries. And they would zoom in on the faces of these people that have just died. Every gratuitous detail, every blood spatter, every grieving family member of the victim who's crying out in pain, all of it was shown on this TV show. And then in between these

very dark and violent segments about gang killings and drug deals gone wrong, Canal Livre also had a much lighter side. They would bring on local artists to talk about what they're working on, to maybe try to sell some of their goods. The show would also focus on down-on-their-luck families that needed help raising some money, and so the show was designed to get people to donate. And then also, for really no reason at all, there was a segment on the show where this puppet character would get into a fight with a man selling bread. It was a totally bizarre and shocking spectacle, and the people of Manaus loved it. And then eventually, the people of Brazil loved it. I mean, this was an extremely popular show.

Because Wallace was often on camera on Canal Livre, he became very famous and very recognizable. And so when he would walk around Manaus, people would see him and literally just start clapping and cheering for him. And as he and his show became more and more popular across South America, Wallace decided he didn't just want to report on crime, he wanted to fight crime. So on air, Wallace began berating the government for not being able to protect its citizens, and he berated the police for not being able to catch the criminals. And then off the air, Wallace campaigned for and was elected to political office in Manaus, where he continued to push hard to reduce crime in the city. And so it wasn't long before Wallace went from just being a relatively well-known TV host

to being one of the most beloved and influential and trustworthy people in all of Brazil. However, over the years, there was one strange thing about his show, Canal Livre, that people just couldn't wrap their heads around. This oddity was most obvious in a now famous episode of Canal Livre that aired sometime in the mid-2000s. This episode opens with a Canal Livre reporter making their way through a jungle, and there's a cameraman filming them from behind. And this reporter, they're very carefully walking through, kind of

pushing branches out of the way and high-stepping over all the underbrush. And then at some point up ahead, you see there is a clearing, and there is a third person standing in this clearing, and they're clearly looking straight down at something on the ground that we can't see. But this third person is very occupied with whatever is on the ground that we can't see. But this third person is very occupied with whatever is on the ground. And so eventually this reporter makes their way through the jungle into this clearing. And then as soon as the cameraman gets into the clearing as well, he looks down at what is on the ground. And what you see is what appears to be a log that has previously been lit on fire because it's still smoking and it's black and it's charred. But as the cameraman zooms in, you see there are hands on this log. So you

realize it's not a log, it's a human being who's obviously deceased. And based on how badly charred they are and how much they're still smoking, you realize very quickly that this person must have been on fire very recently. As recently as probably just a couple of minutes ago. Like right before the camera got here, this person was on fire. And so as you're kind of seeing this shocking image, the reporter suddenly talks about this person like he knows all the details of them already. He says, you know, this person, you know, it's a man and they were not shot to death. They were doused with gasoline and burned alive. But at this point, the police had not come out. They had not seen

this dead person yet. And so it made no sense that the reporter would have all this information on hand because no one knows this stuff yet. And based on just looking at this person's body, it was too badly burned to be able to tell whether it was a man or whether they had been shot or not or whether gasoline was used. But when Wallace was questioned about where he and his reporters got their information from, he just said, look, you know, we're a very popular show and people call us often before they call the police and they give us information about what's happening in the city. And we have a huge team.

We watch the police headquarters. We listen to the police's radio. We watch the morgue. We have loads of informants all over the city. And so we just get our information really, really quickly. And this answer was enough until 2008. That year, in October, the police arrested a former Manaus police officer who just went by the name Moa, and they accused him of nine murders. And so they throw him in jail, but Moa, despite the seriousness of the charges against him,

seems totally unfazed. It was obvious he had some sort of powerful connection outside of prison, some person or some entity that he fully expected was going to, at any moment, swoop in and magically get him out of prison. But that didn't happen. Moa just continued to sit in jail, and at some point, that began to sink in that he was kind of on his own, and so he began to talk, and the story he would tell would shock Brazil. Moa would admit to having killed some people, but he would tell police, look, I'm just the assassin. The person who hired me for these killings is Wallace Souza. It would turn out Wallace Souza started his show, Canal Livre, with the best of intentions.

But when his show became massively popular and it in turn made him, Wallace, also massively popular and powerful, he became corrupt. And at some point after his meteoric rise, he formed this very powerful drug cartel and then in an effort to bolster his illegal dealings and to boost his show's ratings, he decided to start contracting hitmen like Moa to start taking out rival gang members in Manaus. And he would tell the hitman how he wanted them killed, and where he wanted them killed, and at what time. And then after the hitman agreed to do this, he, Wallace, would go tell his camera crews exactly where to go and at what time so that they would be arriving at the murder scene

literally right as it was happening or right afterwards, allowing them the opportunity to get all the gory footage before anybody else. It would take the police a year to finally compile enough evidence to charge Wallace with murder, but they would do it in October of 2009, and eventually Wallace would turn himself in. However, he denied everything, and then before he went to trial, he would die of a heart attack in prison. And so we never actually got to learn the full extent of what exactly Wallace Souza had done, how many people he had had assassinated, and how many of them were shown on his TV show, but we do know that at least three of his assassination

victims were shown on his TV show, one of them being the person that was found out in the jungle. They really were a man. They really had not been shot. They had been burned alive with gasoline at Wallace's discretion. But in the end, the person who paid the highest price for the Canal Livre killings was Moa, the hitman who blew the whistle on what was going on with the show. On New Year's Day in 2017, a crime syndicate overran the prison where Moa was being held. Now, they had lots of targets of people they were going there to kill, and one of them was Moa. They were furious with him that he spoke to police and gave up information about the drug trade in Brazil.

And so eventually, this angry mob of gangsters made their way over to Moa's cell, and when they found him, he was pressed up against the back of his cell wall, basically as far away from the bars as he possibly could be, and he began pleading for his life. And this horde was not having it. They were only there to kill him. And so they all have machetes and knives and they're looking at him through the bars and they say, you know, we're going to come in there. We're going to cut you to pieces. And so then they start banging on the door. They're trying to hack the lock open. And Moa, he can't do anything. All he can do is kind of just keep himself all the way to the back of the cell and hope they don't get in. And eventually they can't open the door and they know it. And so they do the next best thing.

They reach through the bars with a lighter and they light Moa's mattress on fire. And so Moa was trapped. He had nowhere to go. And so eventually the fire reached him and he burned alive. I'm Peter Frankopan. And I'm Afua Hirsch. And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy, covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone. Full disclosure, this is a big one for me. Nina Simone, one of my favourite artists of all time, somebody who's had a huge impact on me,

who I think objectively stands apart for the level of her talent, the audacity of her message. If I was a first year at university, the first time I sat down and really listened to her and engaged with her message, it totally floored me. And the truth and pain and messiness of her message, it totally floored me. And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle, that's all captured in

unforgettable music that has stood the test of time. You think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across is so powerful, no matter what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and he seemed really unwell. So she wound up taking him to the hospital right away so he could get treatment. While Dorothy's friend waited for his prescription,

Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit. But she would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and so many more. week hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try and discover what really happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. The next and final story of today's episode is called Inside a Nigerian Death Factory. In Nigeria, motorcycle taxi drivers are called Okadas,

and in Ibadan, which is one of Nigeria's biggest cities, home to 3.5 million people, there are a lot of Okadas. However, despite their massive numbers, these Ibadan Okadas are actually a fairly tight-knit community made up primarily of young men. And so, in early 2014, when two of these Okadas went missing, the community immediately found out about it and was really concerned. And when the police did not appear to be doing much to actually go out and find these two guys, the community of Okadas decided to launch a search of their own. Basically, as they went about their day driving around the city dropping fares off, all of these Okadas would be going down side streets and looking in back

alleys and checking all over the city for their missing members. But despite their best efforts, they never could find them. Then, on March 22nd of that year, a third Ibadan Okada vanished. He was a young man named Lanre Sidiku, and unlike the other two riders who went missing while they were at home, Lanre went missing while he was working. Lanre was part of a group of Okadas within the city who all kind of met up on the same city street, and that's where they stayed throughout the course of their day, trying to wave down fares as they came up. And so everyone in that meetup point all knew each other, and so they all knew Lanre. And on the day he went missing, they recalled seeing him driving away from this meetup point with two passengers on the back of his bike. Now, typically, the rides these Okadas would offer to their passengers were very short.

They're only driving them just around the city. And so it was very quickly noticed that Lanre had left, and after several hours, had still not come back yet. When it was noticed by the other Okadas, they began talking about it, and someone said, you know, give him a call, make sure he's okay. And so they called his cell phone, and Lanrei did not pick up, which was highly unusual, not just for Lanrei, but amongst the other Okadas. They always had their phones on because they're looking for new customers and customers could be calling them.

And so their cell phone is a vital part of their work. And so his phone is off. They don't really know what to make of that. And then out of nowhere, Lanre actually calls this group of riders. However, he was calling them on his second cell phone. Lanre would keep a work phone and a personal phone. So he was calling them on his personal phone. And so when this other Okada answered the phone and heard Lanre's voice, he put the phone on speaker so the others who were concerned could hear what was going on. And what they heard was Lanre totally hysterical,

screaming into the phone that he needed help. He said that he and eight other people he was with, who he didn't even know, had been kidnapped, and their kidnappers had brought them to this underground prison cell. They couldn't see anything, but they could hear people walking above them. Lanre also explained that when they had been kidnapped, the captors had taken all of their belongings, but they hadn't recognized that Lanrei had this secondary cell phone, which is why

he was calling from it. And so in between Lanrei's frantic descriptions of what was going on and what had happened to him, these Okadas that received this call, they can hear in the background these other eight people that are with Lanrei in this underground cell screaming out as loud as they can, probably to get the attention of someone, anyone who was above ground who might be able to come down and save them. And so these Okada riders who are getting this call from Lanre, they're horrified and they're trying to calm Lanre down so he can explain where he is so they can go find him. And finally, Lanre, he does compose himself and he gives them really specific directions to this footpath that led into the Sokha Forest

where he said he had been taken. The Sokha Forest was a very dense stretch of wilderness right on the outskirts of Ibadan. Lanre would tell them that he had no idea where specifically in the Sokha Forest he was. However, he said, if you just keep walking on that path, eventually you'll hear us calling out from underground and you can come and save us. in the Sokka forest he was. However, he said, if you just keep walking on that path, eventually you'll hear us calling out from underground and you can come and save us. And so as the riders

turned on their bikes and they got ready to head out and go rescue their friend, they told Lanrei to stay on the line. Let us keep talking to you until we find you. But as they're telling him that, his phone abruptly cuts out. And then when they tried calling him back, his phone was off. About 40 Okadas from Lanre's meetup spot took off together and sped down city streets until they hit this major highway that would take them out of the city, and then once they were out of the city, they went down this other road that brought them right towards the Soka Forest, and then as this road put them right up against the tree line on their left side of the Soka Forest, they all began looking for the two burned out cars that Lanre had said marked the beginning of this footpath they were looking for. And so sure enough, they find these burned out cars, they park all their bikes off on the shoulder of the road, and they quickly realize that this really is a footpath only. There's no way they can get their motorcycles onto the path, not only because the burned out cars are blocking their way, but because the path itself is so

overgrown with vegetation. I mean, they can barely see the path, let alone drive something through it. And so the men leave their bikes by the side of the road, and then unarmed, they walk past the burned out cars onto this path, and then because it was so narrow, they had to walk more or less in a single file line into the Soka forest. And so as these men are basically marching into the woods, they're not making any sound because again, they're trying to listen for the sound of their friend and the other people that have been taken captive somewhere underground. And so they're silently marching through this forest when all of a sudden, the guy at the front of the line thinks he hears something way up ahead. And so he holds his hand up to stop the line

and they all stop and they're trying to listen. And then all of a sudden, about 50 feet ahead of them through the trees, this man they didn't recognize suddenly jumped out from behind a tree. He yelled something at them and then he raised his gun and began firing in their direction.

The 40 Okadas immediately turn around and just sprint back down the path, right back out to the road. They hop on their bikes and they peel back out towards the city. When they finally get back to the meetup spot they had all originated from, they realized they can't just leave Lanre and the other people he was with out to dry. They have to go back and rescue them. They considered calling the police, but given the lackluster response to the other two missing Okadas, they realized they probably would have a higher chance of saving their friend and the others if they just went themselves. And so the 40 Okadas rounded up another 60 from other neighboring meetup spots, and this huge posse

of over a hundred men all hopped on their bikes and headed back towards that footpath that led into the forest. When they got there, they put their bikes on the side of the road, and this time when they started walking down that path, they had guns, knives, bats, all sorts of weapons, and they were not trying to be quiet. They were actually yelling like these loud war cries to let the gunmen and any other gunman in the woods know that there was a horde of angry people that were coming into the woods for a fight. And so as they're marching down this trail, kind of expecting to get shot at at any point, it doesn't happen. Instead, after quite a while, they walk out of the thick forest into this huge opening. And right in the middle of this huge

clearing is this fairly small river, but it's big enough that it would be very difficult to cross. However, they can see there's a bridge, this kind of crumbling old stone bridge that goes over this river. And then on the other side of the bridge, on the other side of the river, they can see there are two dilapidated buildings. The one that is closer to the bridge is this small black shack that has a window looking out towards them. And from their perspective, they're maybe 100 feet away from the shack. They can't tell if anybody's inside of this building. And then the other building was much bigger than the shack. It was this huge kind of broken down warehouse that had big tall cement walls.

And then all around it was this huge chain-link fence with barbed wire wrapped around the tops. And so this huge posse of Okadas, they come storming out of the forest and they run over to that bridge, which is the one way across. And as they get on the bridge, they're kind of scanning the two buildings. They're not seeing anybody. And then one of the men, they look down underneath the bridge and they actually see Lanre's motorcycle. It's lying on the banks of this river, kind of tucked up underneath the bridge as if someone had stolen it And so everyone already knows Lanre is somewhere over here. We're gonna go find him

And so the men they get over the bridge they go to that first building that black shack and they open up the door It's a plywood door and there's no one inside but the shack is literally stuffed full of hundreds and hundreds of articles of clothing and shoes and so after kind of looking this over and not really sure what to make of it, the posse moved on from the Black Shack and made their way up to the fence right in front of this huge warehouse.

And when they reached the fence, they're kind of expecting to be met with some sort of resistance. I mean, the last time they were out here, they got shot at. And so they began yelling into the warehouse for anyone in there to show yourselves, come out here. But it was silent. And so one of the Okadas warehouse for anyone in there to show yourselves, come out here. But it was silent.

And so one of the Okadas that was part of the posse had brought along bolt cutters as a weapon to use as a club if he needed to. But as it happened, he began to use the bolt cutters for their actual purpose. And he bent down and actually cut a huge hole in this fence so they could go in and explore this warehouse. in this fence so they could go in and explore this warehouse. And so after a large percentage of this posse had gotten inside the fence line, they began walking around this huge warehouse to try to find an entrance inside. And so as they're walking, the windows that lead into this warehouse, they're too high up, so you can't actually see what's going on inside. It's silent, there's a pretty bad smell, but they don't really know what to make of this. They walk around the structure, and when they get to the very back, they find an entrance. All it is is this big

rusted piece of tin metal, like sheet metal, that's propped up against a gap in the walls of the warehouse. And so one of the Okadas grabs this piece of metal, and he pushes it out of the way, and then as soon as he did that, a few other Okadas quickly stepped through the threshold into the warehouse, preparing themselves to have to fight potentially if there are gunmen or anybody else inside that might want to do them harm. But as soon as they see what is inside of this warehouse, they immediately lower their weapons and just stare in abject horror. According to the locals who lived actually in the forest relatively near where this warehouse was, they said there was actually

another way to get to this particular area, to get to the warehouse. There was another path that was very rough, but it was big enough for one vehicle that came in from the other direction. Now, the locals said they didn't use this path at all. They didn't even know where it originated from. But they said for the last 10 years or more, they have seen one vehicle use this road all the time to get to the warehouse. And it was this black Jeep with black tinted out windows. And they said it would typically show up most nights of the week around 8 p.m. And they said it would just go down the road. It would make its way over to the warehouse area. And then around 9.30 p.m., they would hear or see the black jeep leaving

now none of the locals knew who was driving this jeep although they knew it was a man that was really all they knew and they had no idea what this man did when he got over near the warehouse however for the last 10 years every time this guy was over near the warehouse from 8 to 9 30 at night they would typically hear screams coming from that part of the woods, coming from the warehouse. And when the locals brought their concerns to police, the police just kind of blew it off and didn't do anything about it, and actually told the people, don't worry about it. And so over the years, the locals had kind of just accepted that this man in his black jeep and the screams coming from this warehouse were just a part of

life. And so no one even reported it anymore. Had the police followed up on the locals' concerns about this Jeep and the screams, they would have discovered that that warehouse was actually a storage facility for a very in-demand and very illegal product. And that man who drove that black Jeep, he would take this illegal product and he would bring it back with him in batches and he would sell it on the black market. When this posse of 100 plus Okadas pulled that metal door aside and they stepped into the warehouse, they were not met with any resistance. Anyone that had been there, any other gunmen or guards or anything like that, they had fled when they heard the sound of this massive posse whooping and yelling on their way in.

And so as these Okadas are standing inside of the structure surveying what's in front of them, the first thing they noticed is right in the middle of the structure on the ground is this cement slab. It's about four feet by four feet. And one corner of this slab was elevated slightly by some rocks that had been placed under it, kind of propping it up, pitching it on an angle. And then just off of the side of the lowest point of the slab was this wooden bowl that had dark stains inside of it that was positioned in such a way that if you put water on the slab, the water would drain off of that corner directly into this bowl. Basically, it was there to catch any runoff from whatever was happening on this slab. Around this cement slab, all over the dirt floor,

were bones, some with meat on them. And then beyond the bones and beyond the slab, all around the perimeter of the inside of this building were extremely malnourished, of this building were extremely malnourished catatonic people chained up to the walls. These people were the highly in demand, highly illegal product. More specifically, their body parts were the product. In Nigeria, a stunning number of people believe that certain magic potions and charms will grant you wealth and success and in some cases infinite life. But the catch is, the herbalists who will perform the magical rituals and give these potions and charms to people that pay for them, they often require human body parts for them to work. And so human body part factories, like this warehouse in Soka Forest were established in order to meet the high

demand of people that needed these parts. And so the way it's believed it worked at the Soka Forest warehouse was the man in the black jeep, he would get orders from people that wanted specific body parts for their magical potions and charms and whatever else they needed, and he would make a list of those parts, and then at 8 p.m. he would show up at the warehouse, and he would communicate with the people that worked at that warehouse, and they would determine out of all the captives they had, who had the parts they needed, and then after figuring out which captives were going to be used that night, they would go into the main section of the warehouse, and one by one, they would unchain these people, they would drag them to the center of the room, and in full view of all the other captives, they would put

them on the slab, known as the slaughtering slab, and they would hack off the required body parts, and bag them up, put them in coolers, and then the man with the black jeep, he would take those parts and he would leave, and then the person who's just been butchered if they were still alive and might have a chance of surviving they'd just be brought back to the wall and chained up again if they did not have a good chance of survival then they'd be brought to the very back of the warehouse in the back rooms where they would be discarded now the means of execution varied but in the back rooms of this warehouse, they found a makeshift guillotine which cuts off people's heads, and they also found a large crocodile that was chained up. And so it's likely that those were at least two of the methods used to discard of the people they could no longer

harvest organs from. After the Okadas kind of broke out of their initial shock of what they were seeing inside of this warehouse, they went around and began freeing people that were still chained up to the walls. And in total, there were 23 people that were still barely alive still inside of this warehouse, but none of them were Lanre Sidiku. And then after checking all of the dead bodies and body parts that were inside of the warehouse and then also right outside where there were a number of shallow mass graves, they couldn't find Lanre amongst them either. And so this huge posse began looking all over the property for an entrance to this underground prison that Lanre had described being in. But they couldn't find it and so eventually this posse made their way back over

to these survivors who were being tended to by locals that had come over and they asked the survivors, you know, are you aware of any underground prison cells somewhere around here where other people were being held? But the survivors either didn't know or just were unable to speak anymore. And so later that day when the police did come out because word got out about this huge find out in this forest, the posse went to the police and begged them to please begin digging up this entire property. We need to find the entrance to this underground prison cell. Lonray and eight others, and who knows how many others beyond them, are trapped underground in these cells, and we've got to get to them. But the police just kind of refused and immediately just demolished the warehouse. And then after kind of cordoning off

that area for a couple of days, the police basically just left and stopped caring about it altogether. And so the Okadas once again came together as a community and would spend the next several weeks going back out to this forest and just manually begin digging up all over this entire property in hopes of finding their friend and the rest of these people that were trapped underground. But they never did. And so we don't know what happened to Lanre and the other people who were trapped in that underground cell. We don't know what happened to the other two Okada riders who went missing right before Lanre did, although it's generally assumed they most likely were kidnapped as well and probably met a similar fate. We also have no

idea how many people were butchered inside of the Soka Forest warehouse. However, given the massive amount of clothing and shoes inside of that black shack, it's believed the total number of victims is easily in the hundreds. No one has ever been officially held accountable for the atrocities that took place in the Soka forest. However, a couple of days after the warehouse was discovered by the Okada posse, the posse was back digging, looking for Lanre, when they discovered there was this man who was there who was kind of walking around, acting suspicious, and so the posse confronted him, and it would turn out this guy had several human tongues in his pockets

along with dozens and dozens of cell phone SIM cards. And so assuming he was part of whatever happened there, the Okada posse proceeded to kill the man on sight. Later on, a woman who was a survivor from the warehouse would tell reporters how she got kidnapped. She said she lived in Ibadan, she was well educated, she had a good family, she was just sitting outside of her house, when all of the sudden this van pulled up in front of her, and these very official looking men were inside of this van, and they got out, and they told her, you know, you're under arrest, you gotta come with us

to the police station. And the woman was so confused, but the men were very professional and seemed very convincing, and so she got inside the van, they shut the door, and they drove off. And very quickly, once she was inside of the van and couldn't go anywhere, she realized they were not police, she had been kidnapped. And within the hour, she, along with several other people who had probably been kidnapped in the same way, were stripping their clothes off right outside of that black shack on the other side of the river. And they were told to put their clothes and belongings inside of the shack while they were being held at gunpoint, and then once they were naked, they were promptly marched into that warehouse where virtually everyone around her would be butchered and killed.

Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast. If you got something out of this episode and you haven't done this already, please offer the five-star review button a free acupuncture session. But once they're lying down, give them a full-body allergy test. Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Ballin Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Google, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. This podcast airs every Monday and Thursday morning. But in the meantime, you can

always watch one of the hundreds of stories I have posted on my YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to get in touch with me, please follow me on any major social media platform and then send me a direct message. My username is just at Mr. Ballin, and I really do read the majority of my DMs. Lastly, we have some really cool merchandise, so head on over to shopmrballin.com to have a look. So, that's going to do it. I episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. If you're listening to this podcast,

then chances are good you are a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious. And if that's the case, then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new Strange, Dark, and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years, and we finally decided to take the plunge, and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're a Prime member, you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music.