MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - YouTube Murder (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

In May of 2009, someone in Guatemala uploaded an 18 minute long video to YouTube titled, “YouTube Murder." Within hours of it being published, the video had gone massively viral to the point where YouTube’s servers began to crash, and in Guatemala, angry crowds of people began forming up in the streets demanding justice. When the president of Guatemala reluctantly authorized an investigation into what the video actually meant, no one was ready for the insane truth it would reveal. Today's story includes graphic violence, so listener discretion is advised.For 100s more stories like this one, 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.

In May of 2009, someone in Guatemala uploaded an 18-minute long video to YouTube titled YouTube Murder. Within hours of it being published, the video went massively viral to the point where YouTube servers began to crash. And in Guatemala, angry crowds of people demanding justice began forming in the streets. When the president of Guatemala reluctantly authorized an investigation into what this video actually meant, no one was ready for the insane truth it revealed. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in 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 to tint the five-star review buttons car windows free of charge. And then when they say yes, spray paint all of their windows black. Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Boland 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. 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

struggle, that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time. I 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. Okay, let's get into today's story. In May of 2009, 48-year-old Rodrigo Rosenberg was at the peak of his career as one of Guatemala's most prominent lawyers. Tall, handsome, and charismatic, Rodrigo had law degrees from both Cambridge University and Harvard University, and he was the co-founder of a very successful corporate law office in Guatemala City, the country's capital. And while it was obvious that Rodrigo had worked very hard for all of the nice things he had, like his luxury Mercedes-Benz car, in reality, he didn't really

have to work for a living. Rodrigo had been born into privilege. There was wealth on both sides of his family, his mother had brought a large inheritance to her marriage, and his father had built a massive business empire that included a chain of movie cinemas. When Rodrigo stepped out of his office building in downtown Guatemala City to meet a client for lunch at one of the upscale restaurants tucked away in the capital's maze of boutiques and little markets, he looked exactly like what he was, a member, like his parents before him, of the Guatemalan oligarchy, a small group of rich, upper-class, conservative Guatemalans who had connections and influence in government and business. He always wore a dark, perfectly

tailored suit, an immaculate white shirt, and a pale blue tie, an expensive uniform that set off his dark features and the ring of black hair cut short around the crown of his bald head. And when Rodrigo talked to his client in one of those hacienda-style eateries with red clay-tiled roofs and cool stucco interiors that he especially favored, it wouldn't be long before his client, like all of Rodrigo's clients, realized that it wasn't just the money or influence that drove Rodrigo. Like his friends and associates like to say, Rodrigo had a strong sense of purpose as well as ambition, and a very strong sense of right and wrong. He had chosen a career in law because he liked the clarity of the law. If it was practiced fairly, he felt like it was

the best way of settling disagreements and disputes. But the thing that really made Rodrigo stand out in this Central American country of 16 million people was not just his brilliance and his drive, it was the fact that he had a reputation for absolute honesty. Because Guatemala was a country best known in the world for its incredible levels of corruption and violence. Even though 36 years of civil war between authoritarian rulers and leftist guerrillas had ended back in 1994, that conflict had left more than 200,000 people, many of them civilians, dead, and another 45,000 people, quote, disappeared, which meant either killed or kidnapped, mostly the work of government forces or right-wing paramilitary groups. But after the 1994 peace

agreement was signed, most of the people in Guatemala who had committed the murders and rapes and other widespread human rights violations that took place during the Civil War were never prosecuted or called to account for their crimes. Instead, in the post-Civil War Guatemala, these should-be war criminals simply turned to new careers, such as participating in organized crime, becoming assassins for hire, or getting in on the very lucrative Central and South American drug trade. And 15 years later, even though Guatemala had a democratically elected civilian president who had promised to root out crime and government corruption, these criminals and their criminal

networks had still been able to reach their tentacles into almost every government and law enforcement agency, and nearly half the country wasn't under any government control at all. By 2009, Guatemala had the third highest murder rate of any country in the world, averaging more than 123 homicides every week, and 97% of those murders went unsolved. And the few cases that did go to trial often ended with the alleged killers going free after judges or prosecutors or witnesses were bribed, threatened, or even murdered. So in this sea of corruption where everyone with power seemed to have dirt on their hands, Rodrigo stood out for his willingness to shamelessly call out criminal behavior wherever he saw it. So to anyone who knew Rodrigo, it didn't come as

any surprise when he wasn't just horrified when one of his very own clients was assassinated in broad daylight. He was absolutely furious, especially since this particular client, Musa Khalil, had a reputation for being a very ethical businessman who treated his workers fairly. Since arriving in Guatemala from Lebanon when he was just a young man, 76-year-old Musa had worked his way up from poverty to become a successful coffee producer and textile manufacturer. Although Rodrigo was not personally close to Musa, Rodrigo admired and respected the older man because the man refused to steal from the state or make payoffs to get favorable deals on his coffee or manufacturing companies. Musa was a straight shooter, just like

Rodrigo. The assassination took place in Guatemala City on April 14, 2009, as Musa and his 37-year-old daughter Marjorie were waiting in their car at a traffic light while on their way to lunch. According to eyewitnesses, a car pulled up quickly behind them and a man hopped out and approached the front passenger seat of the Khalil's car where Musa was sitting. Musa and his daughter likely assumed that this man just wanted to ask them a question, but as soon as this man reached their car window, he pulled out a 9mm pistol and he fired 9 shots into Musa's head and torso. By the time the police arrived, the gunman had fled the scene on the back of a motorcycle driven by an accomplice,

and Musa, along with his daughter, were both dead. It would turn out one of those 9 bullets that were fired at Musa had passed right through his body and struck and killed his daughter, were both dead. It would turn out one of those nine bullets that were fired at Musa had passed right through his body and struck and killed his daughter. She was not the intended target, she was just collateral damage. On the day of the murders, right after Rodrigo had found out about them, he contacted his 24-year-old son Eduardo, who was also a lawyer at Rodrigo's law firm, and told him to meet him at the crime scene. When Eduardo arrived, he found his father pacing back and forth in front of the yellow crime scene tape, demanding answers from the police who had converged on the scene along with medical

personnel. Turning to his approaching son, Rodrigo swept his arms out to either side in a gesture of helplessness and frustration that took in the whole chaotic scene in front of them. There was also an expression of shock and sadness on his father's face that Eduardo didn't see very often. You couldn't live in Guatemala without feeling like violence, even murder, was just business as usual. But Eduardo also understood that there was something different about this crime, something that made it stand out, especially to members of the city's wealthy upper class. Because, like them, Musa and his whole family were people with power and influence. They had personal ties with people inside the administration of Guatemala's president, Alvaro Colom.

If Musa could be gunned down in cold blood in the middle of the day, others among the Guatemalan elite worried that the same thing could happen to them too. Before leaving the crime scene, Rodrigo told his son in a bitter voice that the police, like always, would probably never find and prosecute the people who killed Musa and Marjorie, and even if they did, they'd never be able to touch whoever it was that had organized the assassination in the first place. It didn't take long for Rodrigo's prediction to come true. Even though thousands of people turned out for the funeral service of Musa and his daughter, including President Colom's powerful private secretary, police made absolutely no progress

on tracking down the killers, and it wasn't long before the murders just seemed like all the others in Guatemala, just numbers on a stat sheet. Except this time, Rodrigo had had enough. Musa had been a good man, and his innocent daughter, Marjorie, had left behind a husband and two children. And so if the police were not going to catch their killers, then Rodrigo would. Rodrigo told his son that one way or another, he was going to get to the bottom of this and figure out exactly who did it and why. But almost as soon as he got started asking questions, Rodrigo noticed that even by Guatemalan standards, the police seemed to have gathered virtually no information outside of taking the obligatory statements from witnesses who saw the assassination and asking Musa's family if he had had any

business or money troubles. And as Rodrigo began calling some of his contacts within the government about the police investigation, he began to wonder whether there was an active attempt going on inside President Colom's circle of advisors to cover up some connection that the government itself might have to the assassination. So just a few days after Musa's funeral, Rodrigo turned to another one of his clients, a man named Luis Mendizabal, who was also a close friend of Rodrigo's. After calling Luis to arrange a visit, Rodrigo slipped out of his law office

and drove to the exclusive men's clothing store that Luis owned in one of the capital's most fashionable districts. But the fitting and sale of handmade suits was just part of the business that Luis operated out of that storefront. To those who knew him well, they knew that Luis's real skill was in the collection of secrets and information. With his flowing white hair and trim mustache and his easy banter about his family and his grandchildren, Luis did not look the part of a spy. But as he measured and cut fabric and chatted with a wealthy clientele that included criminals, businessmen, military, police, and government bureaucrats, Luis gathered huge

amounts of insider intel on what was going on in their country. And so if there was anyone who could help Rodrigo find out who killed Musa and Marjorie, it was Luis. Rodrigo's hunch paid off. Before long, Luis had come up with a possible lead in the Musa murder case. A few months before the assassination, at the very beginning of 2009, Musa had been nominated to serve on the board of directors for two institutions that both had ties to something called the Rural Development Bank, or the Ban Rural. The Ban Rural was the major funding source for the president's popular social programs, and these two institutions that had invited Musa to join them were engaged in a power struggle over which one of them would control the bank. But since rumors of sketchy financial dealings

were already swirling around Ban Rural, when Musa was offered these two board positions, Rodrigo had actually advised him not to accept either of them. However, Rodrigo had no idea what Musa's final decision had been. Luis suspected that Musa, as he began to do his own research on these two institutions, had uncovered that one or both of them were engaged in financial mismanagement. More conversations with Musa's family seemed to confirm this theory. One of Musa's surviving daughters told Rodrigo that her father had received threatening letters from officials on the two boards and that Musa had apparently written back to them saying, you can't tell me what to do and I will protect myself from my enemies. During the three weeks that followed Musa's assassination,

Eduardo saw less and less of his father, who was spending more and more of his time on his own private investigation into these murders. It seemed to everyone who knew Rodrigo that his outrage over the murders had turned into an unhealthy obsession. Rodrigo basically stopped going into the law office or returning calls to his regular clients, and instead just stayed home in his apartment where he lived alone to pour over his notes on the murders. And when Eduardo did meet his father for lunch or for dinner, Rodrigo barely touched his food, and all he wanted to talk about was his theory that Musa had somehow become the target of a

conspiracy at the highest levels of government. His father, who had been an avid cyclist, had completely stopped going on his morning bike rides. He'd lost weight, his perfectly tailored suits hung on him just loosely enough that he looked disheveled, and his eyes never stopped moving, constantly checking his phone for calls and messages, and showing no interest at all about how things were going back at the office. Eduardo knew that both his parents were still struggling after having separated the year before. Rodrigo's own father had abandoned his family when Rodrigo was very young, and Rodrigo had never forgiven him, even refusing to accept the inheritance his father had left for him. given him, even refusing to accept the inheritance his father had left for him. So after Rodrigo's separation, when his estranged wife moved to neighboring Mexico with their four children,

Rodrigo was crushed. He felt like he had abandoned his own family. Looking at his father now, Eduardo worried that any progress his father might have made in adjusting to his new situation and moving on with his personal life was now being completely consumed by this private murder investigation. It was obvious to Eduardo that this investigation had become more than just finding the killers. It was about trying to actually stop corruption at the heart of Guatemala's politics. And in early May of that year, Rodrigo suddenly knew, without a doubt, that all that digging and all the documents he was putting together about corruption

at Ban Rural, all the names and dates of meetings, the involvement of President Colom and his wife, all of it was finally getting him closer to the people who had murdered his client. For weeks, he'd had the feeling that he was being followed, that everywhere he went outside of his apartment, someone was watching him. But now he had proof, because now Rodrigo, like Musa, had started receiving threats. Except his threats were phone calls, not letters. The first call came on May 5th. It only lasted long enough for the caller to tell Rodrigo to stop his investigation into the murders. After that, the calls came once a day with the same message. And even though Rodrigo couldn't recognize the deliberately distorted voice on the other end of the line, he started to suspect that

the threats were coming directly from within President Colom's inner circle, from Colom's private secretary himself, a man named Gustavo Alejos, who actually had an office directly across from the apartment where Rodrigo lived. Not only was Gustavo an influential advisor to the president, his brother was the head of the Guatemalan Congress. After these threatening calls started coming in, Rodrigo, who was far more excited at this development than afraid, Rodrigo, who was far more excited at this development than afraid, called his spy friend Luis to tell him about how he thought Gustavo Alejos was the caller. Rodrigo also asked Luis to write down the unknown telephone number that belonged to this threatening caller. Even though he didn't say it explicitly, it was clear to Luis that he was being told to take this number down

in case something happened to Rodrigo. After the two friends hung up, Luis felt very concerned. He felt like Rodrigo was aware of the danger he was in but wasn't fully appreciating it. And so on May 8th, after Rodrigo met Luis at his clothing shop, Luis quickly pulled his friend into a back room and once the door was shut and they were alone, Luis told Rodrigo in a hushed tone that not only should he stop his investigation into the murders, but that he should flee Guatemala altogether. Clearly, his life was in danger given the threatening phone calls he was getting, but Rodrigo said he could not stop now. He knew he was close to getting the name of Musa's killer and solid proof that the government

had been involved in the assassination. He also told Luis, as a way of reassuring him, that once he had all the evidence he needed, he was not about to go to the Guatemalan police, who very well could have even played a role in the murders. Instead, he planned to present his findings to the powerful and high-profile International Criminal Court that is seated in The Hague in the Netherlands. The ICC is known around the world for trying cases that involve genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression, and for trying criminals like the ones in Guatemala who all received immunity from the Guatemalan government at the end of the Guatemalan Civil

War. By going directly to The Hague, Rodrigo would finally be taking action against a system of government corruption that had, in the words of one of his friends, been eating at his guts for years. However, before he could go any further with this case, Rodrigo told Luis, as they sat in the back of Luis's shop, that there was one very specific thing that Rodrigo still Luis as they sat in the back of Luis's shop that there was one very specific thing that Rodrigo still had to do, and in order to do it, he needed Luis's help. It was a favor, and it was an insurance policy that no matter what happened in any court of law, the information that Rodrigo had uncovered was guaranteed to become public knowledge. Reluctantly, Luis agreed, and after

discussing the details, they arranged to meet again the next day. As Rodrigo left the store, Luis had a bad feeling. He was certain that whatever the outcome of Rodrigo's plan, it was sure to bring a lot of pain to his family and to his friends. Two days later, on Sunday, May 10th, at eight o'clock in the morning, Rodrigo stepped into one of the bedrooms of his trendy luxury apartment in the Zona One neighborhood of Guatemala City. Glancing out the window, he could see the faint outlines of the mountains that ringed the capital. But his mind was on other things. Luis had been as good as his word and had helped Rodrigo put together the final pieces of the case

that he had been building one fact at a time against the Guatemalan government. His bodyguard, who also served as his driver, had also been willing to help, running a couple of errands the week before that Rodrigo had not been able to see to himself, including taking Rodrigo's bike in for a tune-up. It had been more than a month since Rodrigo had done any serious cycling, but the night before, he'd made up his mind that this morning, he was going to go out and go for a ride, even if it was just a short one. He was lucky with the day's weather. May was one of Guatemala's rainiest months, but that morning was dry, and the sun was breaking through the clouds. Rodrigo pulled on his navy blue bike shorts and blue short-sleeved top and laced up his white sneakers. Leaving his bedroom, he checked the gold watch on his left

wrist and then walked toward the front door, pausing long enough to grab the red and white mountain bike that was leaning against the wall in the front hallway. He wheeled his bike to the elevator, and a minute later, he was pushing the bike out of the apartment complex onto the sidewalk that led to the main street that ran left to right in front of the building. Once Rodrigo made it to the edge of this main road, he looked both ways along the road to see if any cars were coming and as he did that the sun broke through and suddenly lit up the grass and trees along either side of the street. Just before getting on his bike, Rodrigo checked to make sure his iPod was queued up to his favorite band, Santana. He hit play, and then he pushed his bike off the curb into the road. He turned right, then hopped on his bike, and began pedaling down

the street. After only a few hundred yards, Rodrigo turned right again off of the main road onto a service road. The sun reflected off the windows of a brown and white high-rise apartment just ahead of him on the left. Minutes later, Rodrigo noticed a man running across the street in front of him from the left to the right, and at first, Rodrigo thought it was a jogger, but then he noticed this man was wearing jeans and a dark jacket with a high collar. The running man, after he crossed the street and was on the right side, he slowed and then looked intently at Rodrigo. And for a second, their eyes met. And then this man with the jeans and the jacket began running at full speed towards Rodrigo.

Hello, I'm Emily, and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you 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. 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, 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. Every 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 story. to the story. Before Rodrigo could do anything except make a final erratic swerve to the right that took his bike right to the edge of the curb, the man had closed the distance between them, reached into the waistband of his jeans, and pulled out a gun. Rodrigo felt the thud of the

first three bullets and heard the loud crack of each shot. His bike clattered to the pavement as he fell backward over the curb until he was half laying in the grassy median. By the time the second two bullets shattered Rodrigo's jaw and forehead, Rodrigo was dead. A few seconds later, nearby residents heard the sound of a car gunning its engine and roaring off into the distance. Within minutes, those same residents of the Zona 1 neighborhood were on their phones making frantic calls to 911 to report the sound of gunfire. Police were on the scene almost immediately. On his way to Rodrigo's apartment, Rodrigo's bodyguard heard the sirens and saw the police cars that were blocking the service road near his employer's apartment. He slowed down, and as police started setting up a perimeter, he thought he caught a glimpse of a red and white bike on the pavement.

He parked his car at the top of the service road, and as he jumped out and headed towards the knot of police and emergency personnel, he pulled out his phone and called Rodrigo's son, Eduardo. Because by now, the bodyguard could clearly see that the body sprawled on the edge of the service road near that red and white bike belonged to his employer. Rodrigo's bodyguard had known what Rodrigo was working on. He'd even run some errands that he'd suspected were related to the case his boss was investigating. He'd warned Rodrigo to be careful. He wished now that he had insisted

on staying over last night and accompanying Rodrigo on this bike ride. A few minutes later, Eduardo, as well as his father's friend, Luis, showed up at the crime scene. Ashen-faced, Eduardo identified himself as Rodrigo's son. But before he and Luis had time to process what they were seeing, they were both approached by Guatemala police officers who were eager to start gathering information about what had happened. Right as the two men stepped back away from the carnage in front of them, Eduardo noticed his father was wearing a wedding ring on his finger again. And instantly when he saw that, Eduardo recalled a secret his father had told him right around the

time Musa and Marjorie had been killed. And as he thought of the secret, Eduardo felt an unexpected rush of grief come over him, and his eyes started to fill with tears. He felt so sorry for his father, and he just hoped that the police would be able to find his killer and bring them to justice. But before the police could really even begin their investigation, something happened that would push the Guatemalan government to the edge of total collapse. On May 12th, two days after Rodrigo's murder, hundreds of people crowded into a church to attend Rodrigo's funeral service. The pews were filled wall to wall with his family, friends, clients, government officials, business leaders, and the fashionably dressed members of the

capital's wealthy oligarchy. Right after Eduardo had delivered his father's eulogy, Rodrigo's friend, Luis, stepped forward and addressed the mourners who looked like a who's who of the Guatemalan elite. Taking a deep breath, Luis said to the crowd that he knew they were all asking themselves the same question. Why would anyone want to kill Rodrigo Rosenberg? Then Luis held up his hand, showing the crowd a case that contained a DVD. This, he said, contained the answer to that question. Once these surprised and excited murmurs quieted down, Luis went on to say that Rodrigo had left instructions that if he was murdered, then Luis should go public with the 18-minute long video that he now held in his hand. Luis, who said that

he himself had only seen the video after his friend's death, invited anyone in the crowd interested to take a copy of the DVD with them when they left. One of the mourners who took Luis up on that offer was a government minister who immediately called President Colom's personal secretary, Gustavo Alejos, to tell him what had just happened. A few minutes later, the minister slipped out of the church and drove straight to the National Palace in the center of Guatemala City, where President Colom lived with his wife. As President Colom, along with his vice president and closest advisors, gathered in the president's office, an aide

slipped the disc into the president's computer and then hit play. A second later, they were all staring at an image of Rodrigo sitting alone behind a table with a blue screen behind him. He was wearing his usual navy blue suit, pressed white shirt, light blue tie, and wedding ring. In front of him was a microphone. There was nothing professional or polished about the production of the video that filled the computer screen in front of the president and his aides. And for some reason, that made the message that Rodrigo delivered

even more believable and chilling. After stating his name for the record, Rodrigo wasted no time dropping the bombshell that would soon be heard all over the world as the 18-minute long video was uploaded to YouTube where it would go viral under the simple title, YouTube Murder. On the video, Rodrigo very calmly states, if you are seeing or hearing this message, it means that

I've been murdered by President Alvaro Colombe with the help of his personal secretary, Gustavo Alejos. Rodrigo would also blame the president, his wife, and Gustavo Alejos for the assassination of Musa Khalil and his daughter. Rodrigo stated that they were killed because Musa's involvement with the rural development bank, Ban Rural, had put him in a position to reveal the president and first lady's abuse and misappropriation of Ban Rural funds. Rodrigo said the president's motive for killing him, Rodrigo, was because Rodrigo had direct knowledge of the conspiracy to kill Musa and that Rodrigo also had proof that the president and first lady were using Ban Rural to embezzle and launder millions of dollars. Rodrigo warned Guatemalans against believing the smear campaign and cover-ups that would greet these accusations,

ending with a plea to all Guatemalans that it was time for massive government reform. And the first step was to get rid of President Colom and replace him with the vice president, who was not a thief or assassin, and whose duty it would be to bring the rule of law back to Guatemala. Rodrigo's video would have a massive ripple effect. Within hours of its upload to YouTube, Guatemala was plunged into a sudden and totally unexpected political crisis. The people of Guatemala, for the most part, believed what Rodrigo was saying. Even some of the president's own advisors wondered if the accusations were true. The president's initial reaction was not to respond to the accusations

himself, but rather to send two of his aides out to publicly dismiss the video as a fake. However, this would have the opposite effect. And so that night, under lots of mounting pressure, President Colombe went on national TV to deny the accusations himself. However, he looked more scared and nervous than convincing. Meanwhile, so many people from all over the world were watching this video that YouTube servers started to crash and protesters wearing white shirts to symbolize their demand for a clean government started to flood the streets of Guatemala's capital city. Alvaro Colom knew before the end of that Tuesday, May 12th, that his presidency was hanging on by just a thread. So when protesters and the Guatemalan elite demanded that a United Nations-backed

agency, rather than the Guatemalan police, handle the investigation into Rodrigo's death, the president knew he had to agree. By the next morning, May 13th, the whole investigation was in the hands of an international commission called the CICIG. This organization had been created by the United Nations in 2007 to investigate specific cases of systemic violence and corruption. And under the direction of Spanish judge Carlos Castrezana, who took up residence in Guatemala City, an international group of investigators did what Guatemalan police either couldn't do or wouldn't do. They began relentlessly drilling down into who was behind the assassination of Rodrigo Rosenberg. The first break in the case happened almost immediately. Whoever had organized the hit on Rodrigo had chosen one of the most heavily videotaped neighborhoods in Guatemala. While investigators couldn't find a reliable

eyewitness to the crime, footage gathered from dozens of security cameras near Rodrigo's apartment had captured almost the entire assassination on camera. Almost immediately after getting onto his bicycle at 8.05 a.m., Rodrigo was followed by a black late model Mazda. Security cameras also caught clear enough images of that black getaway car that investigators were eventually able to track down the car and then its owner. And when they examined the car owner's phone records and location data, investigators were able to place him and several calls he made on the day of the murder at or near the crime scene. Investigators immediately set up a wiretap operation on the car owner and for the next four months they listened

in on his conversations and quickly they discovered that he was part of a criminal gang made up of 10 men, most of them former national police officers. Meanwhile, using the CICIG powers, Judge Castrosana started identifying and arresting corrupt members of the Guatemalan government, and as Rodrigo had predicted in his 18-minute video, investigators were up against a disinformation campaign organized by the president or his top advisors aimed at interfering with the investigation and smearing the vice president, the man Rodrigo had tapped as Colom's successor. But it wasn't until September, four months after Rodrigo was killed, that Judge Castrezana

got the breakthrough he was looking for. After a massive raid on 10 different locations throughout Guatemala, investigators arrested all 10 members of the criminal gang whose phones investigators had been tapping. Once in custody, it didn't take long for members of this gang to start giving up information in exchange for lighter sentences. And so quickly, investigators were able to start to piece together how the murder was carried out. Except they were missing a crucial piece of information. The 10-person gang clearly didn't know Rodrigo.

They were just following orders to have him killed. But what the investigators couldn't figure out was who gave them that order. Who was the person behind the scenes making this assassination happen? Judge Castrosana and his team believed this person was an inside man, someone who had been close enough to Rodrigo, who had not ridden his bike in over a month, to know that Rodrigo had chosen that morning to go for a bike ride down that service road. But it wouldn't be until investigators tracked down a small piece of paper with a faded signature on it that the so-called inside man would be revealed. Based on all the information investigators found, this is a reconstruction of what really happened to Rodrigo Rosenberg.

On Friday, May 1st, 16 days after the murder of Musa and his daughter Marjorie, and nine days before Rodrigo's murder, the inside man who would mastermind Rodrigo's assassination contacted one of his most trusted lieutenants. He told him to go buy two prepaid mobile phones. He told the man to pay cash and warned him not to sign his name on any paperwork or sales receipt. The lieutenant did as he was told and dropped both phones along with the sales receipt off at the office of the inside man. By this point, the inside man had already arranged the hit on Rodrigo. He had reached out to two men who were actually close friends and relatives of Rodrigo,

two powerful brothers who owned one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in Guatemala. The inside man had told them that he needed their help arranging a hit on a man he described as a, quote, extortionist. The brothers said they knew of a criminal gang that would probably do the hit for about forty thousand dollars the three men settled the details the brothers told the inside man that they would contact the hitman and arrange the payment along with the delivery of a burner phone that the hitmen would use to communicate with the inside man the inside man set the murder date for sunday may 10th and told the hitman that he would be in touch with them

before that day with a detailed physical description of their target, along with information on where and when they should actually commit the murder. Then, starting on Monday, May 4th, the inside man used the second prepaid cell phone to start calling Rodrigo's personal cell phone. He called Rodrigo at least once a day for the next five days, speaking only long enough to make a single threat, telling the lawyer to stop investigating the assassination of Musa Khalil. On May 9th, one day before Rodrigo's murder, the inside man called the hitman to tell them that Rodrigo would be on a bike and would be most vulnerable shortly after leaving his apartment

when he turned onto a nearby service road. The next day, shortly before 8 a.m., the two hitmen sitting outside Rodrigo's apartment in the black Mazda with tinted windows heard their phone buzz. The driver took the call and turned on the speakerphone, and then they heard the sound of the inside man's voice. The shooter sat up and listened while he double-checked that his 9mm pistol was loaded. The voice on the phone was low and calm. Their target, he told them, was a tall, thin man dressed in navy shorts,

a light blue top, and white sneakers. He would be leaving the apartment building at about 8.05 a.m. He'd be riding a red and white mountain bike. He told them to follow Rodrigo onto that service road and then ambush him there. He told them to approach Rodrigo from behind and shoot him in the back, and then once he was down, fire at least four more shots into Rodrigo's neck, up into his jaw, and a final shot into his forehead. The inside man told the hitman to be sure they destroyed the cell phone he had given them, along with its SIM card, once the assassination was complete.

The hitman said they understood, and they hung up. At the same time, Rodrigo was standing in one of his bedrooms in his apartment, looking out the window. And then a couple of seconds later, he turned around and went into the kitchen, where he made sure his coffee maker was turned off. Then he collected his bike from the hallway. Pushing his bike next to him, he headed to the apartment elevator and punched the button for the ground floor where he exited the building. Once outside, Rodrigo made his way towards the main street,

taking a few seconds to enjoy the cool temperatures and the sudden sunshine that was pouring through a break in the clouds. Then he cued up a song by Santana on his iPod, and despite feeling a little rusty and stiff, he hopped onto his bike, he turned right, and he began heading down the main street. After a few hundred yards, he turned onto the service road. When he saw the man in jeans and the dark jacket running towards him, he tensed up, but only for a second. Then he quickly turned his bike towards the side of the road where he jammed on his brakes, coming to a complete and sudden stop. Then he got off of his bike, dropping it onto the pavement in front of him, and then he sat down on the curb with his back to the man running toward him.

A moment later, Rodrigo would have felt the first bullet hit him in the back. Before he could even absorb the punch or feel any pain, he felt the next four bullets hit. Before he could even absorb the punch or feel any pain, he felt the next four bullets hit. One in his cheek, one in his neck, one just below his jaw, and finally, with the killer standing right in front of him, another round into his forehead, knocking his upper body backward onto the grassy median. Seconds later, residents of the apartments in Zona 1 called the police. It would turn out the inside man, the person responsible for Rodrigo's assassination, was Rodrigo himself. He had been devastated by the assassination not only of his

client Musa, but of Musa's daughter Marjorie. As Rodrigo had secretly told his son Eduardo and his friend Luis, Rodrigo was deeply in love with Marjorie and they were planning to get married as soon as Marjorie divorced her husband. The wedding ring that Rodrigo had been wearing at the time of his death and when he was seen on camera in the YouTube murder video had been a gift from Marjorie just before she was killed. The raw grief Rodrigo felt over the senseless killing of the woman he loved, along with his absolute conviction that the hit on Musa had been planned by a corrupt president, his wife, and personal secretary, had combined to create a feeling of total hopelessness in Rodrigo's investigation into Musa's assassination, Rodrigo realized that even if he could prove his allegations of corruption against the government, there was no way that anyone that high up in government would ever be charged or punished for their crimes. So early in May,

Rodrigo, crushed by despair, came up with a plan that would both end his own personal misery and, he hoped, would set Guatemala on the road to real reform. It would be a suicide dressed up to look like an assassination. And with the video he planned to make before his death, Rodrigo hoped that his staged assassination would result in a bloodless coup that would take down the presidency of Alvaro Colón. So it was Rodrigo who had contacted his wife's cousins, the owners of the giant pharmaceutical company, and told them that he wanted to arrange a hit on an extortionist, a man, he told them, who had been after Rodrigo for money. His cousins had agreed, never once suspecting that the extortionist was actually Rodrigo himself. And the trusted lieutenant

that Rodrigo had asked to go by the two prepaid cell phones, that was Rodrigo's trusted bodyguard slash driver. Rodrigo had made sure one of those two prepaid phones was delivered to the hitman, and he used the other phone to make threatening calls to his own personal cell phone, and to give his killers his own personal description and to tell them exactly when and where they could find and kill him. And so on the morning of his own death, when Rodrigo saw the man in jeans and a jacket running toward him, he knew it was his killer. So he just pulled over, sat on the curb, and waited to be killed. As for the 18-minute long YouTube murder video,

the insurance policy that guaranteed Rodrigo's allegations of corruption could not be swept under the rug, that was produced by Guatemala's top spy and Rodrigo's friend, Luis, with the help of one of Luis's contacts in Guatemala's right-wing press. Although he eventually admitted his hand in making the video, Luis claimed he had no idea that Rodrigo was planning his own assassination. It is possible that Rodrigo's identity as the inside man might have gone undiscovered, except for the security footage that led investigators to the owner of that black Mazda, and the fact that Rodrigo's bodyguard made a critical mistake that linked the prepaid cell phones to his boss. When the bodyguard purchased those two burner

phones, he did what Rodrigo said not to. He signed his name on one of the sales tax slips and submitted that slip of paper with his faded signature on it to a secretary at Rodrigo's law office. Even though Rodrigo's videotaped allegations of widespread government corruption were true and resulted in the CICIG removing hundreds of corrupt government officials from their jobs, it would turn out Musa Khalil's assassination and the unintended murder of his daughter Marjorie were not the work of Guatemalan government officials. Just as Guatemala's one honest lawyer was prepared to stage an assassination that could send his own cousins to prison,

apparently the honest and incorruptible Musa was buying contraband from criminal networks for use in his textile factory. When Musa refused to pay those suppliers, they had him killed. Once Judge Castrosana released his findings and named Rodrigo as his own killer, the CICIG and government brought charges against Rodrigo's cousins, as well as the 10 members of the criminal gang that helped facilitate the hit. As for President Colombe, the YouTube murder video scandal would end up actually strengthening his presidency.

His decision to turn over the investigation into Rodrigo's death to a third party, the CICIG, and wait for their report, gave him the public appearance of being a calm and confident leader. 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 to tint the five-star review buttons car windows free of charge. And then when they say yes, spray paint all of their windows black.

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