The Underworld Podcast - A Romanian Mob Illicit Arms Deal With a Twist - with Trevor Aaronson

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

Trevor Aaronson is a contributing writer at The Intercept. The second season of his show Alphabet Boys digs into the strange story of Flaviu Georgescu, a Romanian-American “fixer” who got tangled up in Eastern European crime in Vegas, before falling prey to a DEA arms trafficking sting in Montenegro. The catch? He claims he was working for the CIA all along. And he may just have a point. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Whether you want to create flyers for that thing, make presentations for that thing, or design merch for that thing, you can do anything so people can see your thing feel your thing love your thing the next thing you know it's a thing canva the thing that makes anything a thing hey guys and welcome to a bonus underworld podcast episode i'm sean williams in wellington you know that already because you're the best people on earth and you subscribe to the show of course and i'm joined today by reporter trevor arinson a contributing writer at the intercept and creator of podcast alphabet boys which is about

stings and the so-called alphabet agencies of the US, that's your CIA, your FBI, DEA, ATF and so on. And Trevor's second season, and we'll get to the first one later on, it's all about an arms deal, the FARC, government infighting, the mob in Vegas, and a Romanian fixer named Flavio Gorgescu. I mean, that sounds just like right in our wheelhouse, doesn't it? So, first of all, welcome to the show, Trevor. This story's pretty crazy. you follow a lot of stuff about sort of government overreach government agencies, the alphabet boys, of course. Where did you come across Flavio and what kind of piqued your interest about this particular guy?

I imagine you speak to many, many sources of a kind of similar ilk, I guess, with stories about the government in various ways. Yeah, so I remember very vaguely hearing about Flavio's arrest, you know, in large part because I follow terrorism. prosecutions and have alerts set up for Justice Department and National Security Division press releases. And I think my first introduction of Flavio's case was seeing a press release about the arrest, which at the time,

based solely on that, seemed very serious, right? The idea that this Romanian guy partnered with another Romanian, as well as this former Italian politician, were brokering this $14 million arms deal for the FARC, the Colombian rebel group that at the time was a U.S. designated terrorist organization.

And I, you know, I just kind of made a mental note of that, and I didn't really pursue it in any substantial way. And as it happens, on the eve of Flavio's trial, his wife at the time, Andra had reached out to me because she had seen that in the past, I had written about cases involving government entrapment,

and they felt that I would be a good person to talk to. And so at that point is when I really started diving into Flavio's case, because what I didn't know until his wife, Andra had told me, was that as the trial was coming up, The defense was going to be that he wasn't brokering this arms deal as a criminal. In fact, he was cooperating with the Central Intelligence Agency, and he was providing intelligence to them,

and the government is basically hanging him out to dry, which, of course, is a very provocative claim and, you know, started my interest in the case. And so that would have been roughly 2017, that that was 2016, 2017, that that was happening. How does a journalist like yourself go about investigating, something as kind of, you know, weird. And I guess in many ways, a sort of closed box with the agencies that involves as well.

Yeah, so, you know, a lot of the cases that are prosecuted in federal courts in the U.S., the vast majority of defendants plead guilty. And what that prevents is the disclosure of a lot of what's called discovery material, the evidence in the case. And so in many ways, we are not always given a glimpse into allegedly egregious behavior by government agents like the FBI or the DEA, because so much of the evidence of that behavior never comes to light because of the plea that happens.

The defendants often will plead guilty before they're even given access to the full discovery, the full set of evidence. And in some ways, you can't necessarily blame them because if you're facing terrorism-related charges, you could face 20, 30 life in prison. If you're convicted at trial, a plea deal, they'll sometimes offer 8 to 12.

And so there's an incentive for these defendants to plead guilty, and that is often what happens. So a lot of my work in looking at entrapment schemes run by the FBI and the DEA and others is it really depends on the ability to access the evidence in the case, the undercover recordings that were made as part of the investigation. And because Flavio went to trial, so much of the evidence that the DEA had produced was then put into the public record as a result of that trial. And I think I should note and say that, you know, as I mentioned, Flavio's defense and Flavio's story to this day is that he was working with the Central Intelligence Agency to bring information about this supposed arms deal.

Effectively, you know, reporting to the CIA, the DEA's own undercover agent in this sting operation that was essentially targeting Flavio. I mean, it's kind of this robin wheel of allegations, right? But what's substantial about Flavio's case and the reason I have covered it for as long as I did, and I think were it not for this, I probably would have rushed the case aside, is that as part of the evidence in his prosecution, the CIA turned over recordings of Flavio's calls. And to me, this is significant in two ways. One is that Flavio's claim that he was working for the CIA would have otherwise been entirely, it would have been impossible to corroborate in any way, right? you can't call to CIA and say, was Flavio one of your sources? They'll, of course, say no comment. And then the second was that even though the CIA did not make any claims that Flavio was working for the agency,

the fact that the CIA turned over the recordings showing that he had made these calls and talked to agents and basically reported the very crime that he would later be charged with before having committed it, you know, to me that was significant. You know, what Flavio would allege is that that's proof that he was working for the CIA. I don't know if I'm willing to go that far, but I think it's at least proof that the CIA is saying, like, hey, there might be something to the claims, at least that Flavio thought he was working for the agency because he makes these calls. And I think that's what's always really intrigued me about the stories that these calls exist and were turned over, because otherwise I wouldn't have pursued it. But I think what's also really interesting, and this is in episode two of the show, is that the calls, there's a level of ambiguity to the calls about whether Flavio really. really was reporting the information to the CIA and whether the CIA was enlisting Flavio as

an informant or whether none of that really happened. And, you know, the calls are so ambiguous that it leaves open this question of, you know, was Flavio working for the CIA as he alleged? Or as the government alleged, was this some elaborate cover for, you know, to give him an insurance policy in case he was arrested, which ultimately he was. And so I think what we try to present to the listener in this show in this season is all of the evidence that we know and all of the circumstances around these calls and this sting and try to let the listener, you know, come to the conclusion on their own, whether they believe Flavio, you know, really was working for the CIA or maybe thought he was working for the CIA or if it was, in fact, as the government

alleged, you know, a part of a cover to, you know, be able to use in case he was arrested and charged as he was. So help us unpick this deal that's at the center of everything then. What was actually going on, where did it happen, and who are the parties involved? Yeah, so there was actually two Georgescu's involved. Georgescu is actually the most common surname in Romania. It's like Smith in the United States. And Flavio had grown up in Romania under Nikolai Chochaskou, moved to the

United States and settled in Las Vegas. And he had this job of basically being an all-around fixer for wealthy people, mainly Eastern Europeans. And through that, he meets a man named Andy Georgescu, and they'd become fast friends. Andy ran this business where he shipped automobiles and other

items out of the port of Los Angeles. And Flavio's clients would buy expensive cars in Las Vegas, and he would then deliver those cars to Andy Georgescu to ship them to Vegas. This went on for a decade in the early 2000s. And one day in 2012, Andy Giorgescu calls Flavio and says, you know, I know this guy who is interested in brokering an arms deal for the FARC, the FARC being the rebel group in Colombia.

And he asks Flavio because Flavio tends to be a connected guy if he knows how anyone who could make that happen. And that if he does know anyone who could make that happen, they could make a lot of money on a commission as a middleman for an arms transaction. and Flavio says maybe he could and hangs up the phone with this friend Andy and that's when he calls immediately the CIA you know quite literally you know the CIA's 1-800 number if you will is no longer listed on the website but back in 2012

it was and as ridiculous as it sounds Flavio goes to cia.gov finds the number and gets an agent on the phone and it's basically like hey this guy Andy I know introduced me to this Colombian the Colombian wants me to help him broker arms for the FARC do you guys want to know more information about this? And, you know, what increases the level of intrigue in this whole thing is that when Flavio

calls the CIA, one of the things he mentions is that he basically says, I'm a known source. I worked with you guys in the past. And what he meant is that in the early 2000s when he was living in Las Vegas, Flavio was an informant for the FBI and had provided information about Eastern European organized crime. And then even after he moved back to Europe, he was still providing information to the FBI. And this is all documented. And so, you know, that fact kind of lends some credibility to the claim that Flavio may have been, at least thought he was working for the CIA when he makes that call. And so, but at the same time, he makes this call in 2012, reports this arms deal.

But nothing really happens until 2014, two years later, when Flavio is then introduced. to Juan the Colombian in person. And, you know, what's interesting and what kind of cuts against Flavio's story, if you will, is that he then meets with Juan, but never calls the CIA back, never says, hey, I talked to you guys two years ago. I'm meeting with this guy now. What should I do? Instead, he meets with Juan, and then they carry forward in discussions about how they

would put together this arm seal. And ultimately, Flavio spends months recruiting other people to help him. He meets a Romanian government minister named Christian Ventilla, whose job was to liaise between the government of Romania and the NATO alliance. And Christian is very familiar with weapons and arms manufacturers. And he brings on Christian to help him find the factory to sell the weapons. And then, you know, in order to ship weapons internationally, you need a regulatory document called an end-user certificate,

which basically is like a legal document that says, these weapons will be shipped to this country, and it guarantees that the weapons aren't being shipped to terrorists or governments like Syria or Iran or the Colombian FARC that are prohibited from receiving these under international sanctions or regulations. And so with the help of a former Italian parliament member named Massimo Romanioli, they obtain an end-user certificate that claims the weapons are bound for Ethiopia, even though the intention is to ship them to Colombia.

And so over the course of months, never getting any money for his efforts, Flavio knits together the entire, you know, network to deliver these weapons to the Colombian FARC. So then the question becomes, did Flavio deliver this network, this whole arms deal, arrange this, just make this arrangement in order to make a lot of money because potentially he could have? Or was he doing it in order to kind of figure it? out who the players were and how the FARC would get these weapons in order to deliver it to the CIA. And when I'd asked Flavio, you know, why he didn't call the CIA back, you know, two years after the initial call, you know, his response is, well, I was doing the work to figure out who these people were so I could then go and provide that information to the CIA. And I, I wasn't finished yet by the time I was arrested by the DEA. And so, you know, the conclusion, which is actually kind of,

where we start the show, we start the show at kind of the penultimate moment, is when Flavio puts together this arms deal, he's got an end-user certificate, he's got an arms manufacturer in Bulgaria, willing to ship the weapons, and then he meets Juan, the Colombian in Montenegro, provides him with the contract,

needs a signature, Juan would have to wire the money, but before any of that happens, the DEA rushes in and arrest Flavio and his partner, Christian Ventilla. And at that point, Flavio motions to the arresting agent asked to speak to him privately in the bathroom

in this hotel room and says, I work for the CIA. And of course, the DEA guy is like, yeah, right, man, whatever. You don't work for the CIA and arrests him. And that really kind of, you know, triggers the trial and the questions about whether, in fact, Flavia was really working for the CIA. It's kind of the old Victor Boot entrapment as well, right? This is exactly the same method

they got him with it. It's like a FARC leader. Oh, by the way, just so you know, we're definitely going to shoot down American helicopters with these RPGs just to kind of ram it home. Yes. No, you're exactly right. I mean, we actually mentioned Victor Boots case in the last episode. We talked about narco-terrorism stings in general. And that's what this is.

So, you know, the backstory, of course, is, you know, if you play that, if you wind the clock all the way back, you know, and you go back to the drug war in the 1980s, you know, one of the things that was, happening was that the FBI was kind of initially cut out of the drug war. And so in 19, I believe 1986, the FBI went to the Reagan administration and Congress and asked for concurrent jurisdiction over drugs. And that was a funding gambit, right? Like the FBI saw lots of money going to the drug war. And so then the DEA and the FBI get concurrent jurisdiction. And if you fast forward then

to the post-911 era, the opposite was happened. And terrorism was the large funding game. And the DEA was largely cut out of it. And so in 2006, the DEA did what the FBI did in the 1980s. They went to Congress and they said, hey, look, we think there's this real issue of narco-terrorism. And we need lots of funding to find these narco-terrorists. And, you know, narco-terrorism, the definition of it is basically terrorist organizations or terrorists individually who are funding their activities through the drug trade. And there's a real question in the academic research about whether this is really a thing, right? Like you can point to limited examples,

the Taliban's use of the poppy trade to fund some of its activities. But there's no real substantial evidence to suggest organizations like Al-Qaeda or ISIS fund their activities and their violence through the drug trade. But one exception, of course, is the FARC,

the Colombian rebel group, because of its location in rural areas of Columbia, does fund its activities in part through cocaine cultivation and production. and what the DEA started doing once they got funding for narco-terrorism is they would take undercover agents or more commonly undercover informants and have them pose as FARC officials.

And they would travel the world mostly in Europe, you know, looking for people who would then sell them weapons. And they would make clear, like, this money comes from drug proceeds and the weapons you're going to sell to us are going to be used to kill Americans, and shoot down American helicopters. you know, and that was, that's what they did in Flavio's case. But as you noted, they did the exact same thing to Victor Boot. They had initially approached one of Victor Boots colleagues and then set up a very similar

sting where they ultimately arrested Victor Boot in Thailand. And then another man, Manzraal Casar, this, this arms dealer who's known as the Prince of Marbeah for this enormous mansion he owned in southern Spain, was caught in a similar sting. And I think you can argue credibly that Victor Boot and Monser Rale Khasar were legitimate arms dealers, right? Where there's a gray area is that both of these guys at various times have, you know, traded in illegal arms that were actually in the U.S. interests through proxy wars and others.

So it's a very complicated picture, but these were, in fact, arms dealers. But the other case, but aside from those cases, when you look at DEA narco-terrorism stings, it's more commonly, the question is more commonly whether the person targeted in the sting like Flavia, really is a legitimate arms dealer. You know, it's just another example of this. There was a case where the DEA, just like in Flavio's case, just like in Victor Boots, sent undercover informants claiming to be Colombian FARC rebels to Africa.

And they entrap three Malian men in this supposed scheme to fund both the FARC and Al-Qaeda by moving weapons through parts of Africa. and they'd offered these three young Mali and men a lot of money to do this, ultimately arrested them, brought them back to the United States, and prosecuted them under terrorism charges. And the ambassador to the United States from Mali, you know, made public statements to the Justice Department that basically said,

hey, look, we are a very, very poor country. And if you're going to send undercover agents in, you know, with, you know, offering thousands and thousands of dollars to commit crimes, you're going to find a lot of criminals. And, you know, that's, and that's, true, I think, in some of these narco-terrorism sting cases, this idea that would this crime have been committed,

were it not for the DEA kind of making everything possible through this, right? There's not a whole lot of evidence that I've seen that real FARC officials are traveling around the world buying weapons using cocaine proceeds, but the DEA as a result of this expanded mandate

in the post-911 era, really turned it into this cottage industry and arrested more than two dozen people worldwide. I mean, and keep in mind, all of these, all of these, all of these crimes happen outside the United States, right? So it also raises these questions of, you know, the United States being kind of the world prosecutor and world police, because ultimately, as in Flavio's case, as in Victor Boots case, all of the crime happens outside the United States. No American is ever, you know, harmed in the crime. And yet the crime is then prosecuted, always in New York

city, you know, even though there was no connection in the United States or New York City whatsoever. Yeah, it's really crazy how all those agencies have worked together and then kind of like at different times pounced on these sort of chimeras of various organized crime groups, the terror linkups. We've covered it sometimes on the pod as well. When Flavio kind of takes this guy from the sting and kind of goes, P.S. I'm working for you guys.

it really tumbles into this fascinating history about him being I mean he's a grafto essentially right he's this kind of fixer bringing cars over into Vegas and then he gets involved with the FBI you thought this was your run club era

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Yeah, so we tell the, we tell his history. Las Vegas through his FBI handler, a man named Mark Pinto. And Mark Pinto in the early 2000s, his job for the FBI was to investigate the growing organized crime threat, specifically among Eastern European groups. And so, you know, obviously the quick history of the, of Las Vegas, is that this was a city largely founded by Lacosa Nostra, the Italian Mafia. And for years, would funnel money to, you know, mob operations in Chicago and Kansas city in New York and elsewhere. But starting in the 90s, the influence of the Italian mafia in Las Vegas began to wane.

And there was really this increase in Eastern European organized crime groups in Las Vegas, you know, Romanians, Armenians, Russians. And one of the things that the Eastern European crime groups adopted from the Italian crime groups that had preceded them was this idea that Las Vegas was what's called an open city. So in cities like Los Angeles or New York, the Armenians wouldn't work with the Romanians. They were rivals.

Because Las Vegas was an open city to the Eastern European groups, just like it was to the Italian groups before them, it allowed these groups to work together. And so what Mark Pinto, the FBI agent, was seeing in Las Vegas was this burgeoning partnership between the Armenians and

the Romanians. And he didn't quite know what was happening. All he knew is that they were involved in some sort of credit card fraud scheme. And Mark had, you know, tried to kind of crack his way into the group and really struggled. And then one day in 2001, Flavio Gorgescu walks into the FBI's office in Las Vegas and just offers the help. And what Flavio says is that, you know, he had worked really hard to come to the United States and he really loved the United States. And he really dislikes the way that corruption happened in his home country in Romania. And he was disgusted

to see Romanians come to the United States and then abuse the system and commit these crimes and put these organized crime groups together. And so he offered to provide information. But it was in a very unique way in the sense that Flavio, Flavio is a very personal guy. He's very social. He gets to know everyone. And so he had built this social network in Las Vegas among Romanians. And there were a lot of Romanians who had information about this credit card fraud scheme,

but were afraid to bring that information to law enforcement for fear that they would be harmed by the mob, or their family members in Romania would be harmed by organized crime figures there. And so Flavio acted as a kind of conduit where he would get that information and then deliver it to Mark Pinto and the FBI. And the information proved quite credible, and it was substantiated by FBI documents that we were able to obtain. And what was happening and what Flavio helped expose was that, that the Romanians and the Armenians were working together nationwide, but primarily in Las Vegas. And what they would do would be the Romanian groups in Las Vegas

would work with Armenian groups in other cities, Seattle, Miami. And they had a racket where they would largely go into gyms and they would steal credit card information from wallets and gym lockers. And then they would curry that information over to the Romanians in Las Vegas, who would then using special equipment, print credit cards and get IDs and fake IDs. And then they would walk into the casinos and go to the cages and use those manufactured credit cards

or stolen credit cards to get cash advances. And they were raking in tens of thousands of dollars every night. And it was a sophisticated operation that was happening nationwide. But even in Las Vegas, an example of like how hard they would work, you know, Mark Pinto documents how, how, or describes how, you know, in Las Vegas there was this fancy gym, and the Armenians and the Romanians working together had this whole setup where the gym was one of those where each gym locker had its own unique lock.

And so when you checked in, you got your key, which was unique to that locker. And you put your stuff in and then you walk away with your key. And so one of the members of the crime ring would go in and over the course of months make copies of each of those keys, you know, just getting one key each time he goes in, So that over time they have the full set, and then they would have the full set of keys, and then they'd rifle through wallets and write down information. And what they would also do was put a very attractive woman on the gym floor who would then be the lookout. And if they were kind of pulling credit cards from the Las Vegas gym locker,

and one of the guys whose credit cards they were stealing was coming back too soon, the very attractive woman would then intercede and stop the person and delay them from getting there, and then they would take that information and get cash advances. And this was something that was, you know, pulling in, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars over time. And it took the FBI a little over two years to build a case against the organized crime group, but ultimately, you know, indicted more than two dozen people, some of whom fled the country after the indictments came down and are still, you know,

fugitives. But as part of Flavio's work, but prior to the indictments coming, down the head Romanian of the organized crime group, for some reason, discovered that Flavio was providing information. And another informant that the FBI had was able to document that they put a hit on Flavio for $500. And Flavio then leaves Las Vegas and returns to Europe. And there's questions about how credible that threat was. Flavio believes it was incredibly credible. Mark Pinto, the FBI agent, kind of dismisses it as just bluster. But, again, again, it shows you that prior to calling the CIA and claiming that he had information about

an arms deal, you know, Flavio had a history of being a credible informant for the FBI. And in fact, you know, you know, having, you know, his life kind of altered in a drastic way, having to leave the United States because of threats that came about as a result of his cooperation with the government. Yes, there's a kind of funny moment where Mark is saying, these guys are so painstaking and patient and kind of studious in the way that they're doing these scams. I mean, they could almost, you know, if they turned that on the, on the regular market, they could probably make millions entrepreneur. I mean, it's so, it's kind of so painstaking this

credit card stuff that they were doing. Yeah, I mean, in a way, like Mark kind of admired their hard work, right? Which is true that like, you know, and if they like, if they would have applied themselves in a, I think the quote he has is like, you know, if they would apply themselves in a similar way to like the real job they would have made tons of money they would be so successful but you know they're working so hard to be criminals and and it is painstaking work you know and and in some ways i mean it was like what i i kind of like that aspect of mark's description of the organized crime in las Vegas because i think when a lot of people think about crime they think about criminals as being kind of very like uh you know quick to in the decision and not

necessarily making the best decisions and not being organized and looking at kind of fast money crimes, whereas the Eastern European groups in Las Vegas at that time were really focused on sophisticated crimes that took, you know, months and months to build. And, you know, they really had a network going that was that was quite sophisticated. And, you know, to such a degree that it was a challenge ultimately for the FBI to figure out what was happening. So Flavio's kind of, he's run this gauntlet with the organized criminal was in Vegas. He's provided, and a very crucial information to the FBI gets asked by his pal back in Bucharest

hey you've been sending cars over why don't we send a few RPGs and he's like yeah all right maybe as I'm sure anyone would I mean I guess from your perspective having actually spoken to this guy at length

over the course of what well over a year or two years what's your kind of a sense of him because I mean listening to the show my own opinion was kind of shifting and wending with the episodes as like is this guy gangster is he is he is he a patriot is he an informant I like I couldn't quite it's hard to pin him down and I think I mean obviously that's because he is hard to pin down but what's your what's your kind of read on him yeah I think I went through all of those thoughts in the years that I've been in conversation with him and I have to admit that I can

can't say with certainty either way at this point. And I know that's kind of a dissatisfying answer. You know, I tend to think that it is more likely that Flavio thought he was working for the CIA than any other possible

situation. I don't think he was officially working for the CIA. And I also can't rule out entirely that this was a cover story. I tend to think that's less likely. And the reason I think that is, you know, the story itself, this idea that someone would call up the CIA and, you know, tell them everything about this crime they're going to

commit and then commit that crime and then say, like, hey, I didn't do it. I was actually working for the CIA. You should get the calls. I think, like, you know, the government's allegation that that was all a cover is a reasonable assessment when looked at in isolation. You know, I think that's that, you know, that is the most logical explanation for what is happening here. But I think Flavio is such kind of a unique character in a sense that his history really informs a different way to look at that. So I think

so that's a way of saying I think when I first saw the case and I saw the circumstances, I tended to be sympathetic to the government's assessment of the case because that seemed to be the most logical. But as I became to know more and more about Flavio and understand better what he did in Las Vegas for the FBI and understand his history a bit better, I became open to the possibility that he, this was some big cultural misunderstanding

and that Flavio really thought he was working for the CIA. And the reason I say that is that I think Flavio believed, you know, in the United States and the idea of the United States, in a way that I think most Americans don't. You know, one of the things he would say to me is like, you know, there was the, there was a slogan in the United States, after 9-11, if you see something, say something, right? Like, we see a bomb on the bus stop, say something, right?

And most Americans would, like, kind of chuckle at that. There was a cynical take on that. I mean, at the time, we were all making fun of the color-coded threat assessments that TSA put out. Like, that was very much an American response to the government, anti-terrorism policies. But to Flavio, this is something he took very seriously. If you see something, say something. And so his feeling was that when he went to Las Vegas and he saw organized, Romanian organized criminals stealing credit cards,

you know, if you see something, say something. So he did. So he went to the, went to the FBI in Las Vegas. And with, when he gets the call from Andy Georgescu, his friend who ships cars for him from Los Angeles, he immediately calls the CIA seemingly under the same incentive. You know, if you see something, say something. So he calls the CIA any, any, and he, you know, describes everything that that happens. One of the things that Flavio points to you in the recordings of the calls, and I think it's important to point out, and we talk about it in one of the episodes, is that there's a possibility that there was kind of a rough language misunderstanding or cultural difference. When Flavio has two different

calls with the CIA, the second call with a mail agent is more serious. And in that second call, the CIA agent says something to the effect of, you know, if we can verify this information, this is something we would look into. And, you know, he's, you know, he's, using kind of the royal we, what he really means, I think any native English speaker would interpret as meaning the CIA will look into it. And what Flavio says, with English being his second language, is he said, we'll look into this. And Flavio believes he was being kind of included in that. Whether you find that to be a credible explanation, I think is entirely, you know, a personal decision. What I would say is that, you know, I asked this very question to Mark Pinto,

the FBI agent who was his handler, thinking that if anyone could have a bead on whether this was a cover story or whether Flavio really thought he was working for the CIA, it would be Mark. And what Mark says is that he doesn't think Flavio was really putting together in arms still. He really thinks Flavio's story is the correct one

that he thought he was helping the CIA. But he also blames Flavio in the sense that he says Flavio really should have known better, right? like Flavio had worked for the FBI. He really should have known that if you're going to do this, you need something in writing from the CIA saying this is what's happening. And he didn't get that. And that's a fair point because if we have FBI files about Flavio's cooperation with the FBI,

and in those files, there is a document that Flavio signed, you know, basically when they opened him as an informant. So there was an official record of him being an informant, and he doesn't have anything like that for the CIA. And Flavio admits that. And so again, I think that that issue alone kind of helps raise the question again. Like, was he, did he really think he was working for the CIA? Or did he know better and knew that this created a kind of ambiguity that he could then use to claim his innocence?

Yeah, that linguistic moment actually was one of the most fascinating parts that pops up around the middle of the series, I think. It's like one of the few moments where I think following the story along, I thought, oh, wait, maybe that. is an interesting legal point. That was one of the few things I thought, maybe that is going to hold up in the courtroom because, I mean, a lot of the story are like, oh, buddy, you're pretty screwed here. I mean, how does it tie into, because your previous series, of course, dealt with kind of different agencies getting very stuck into the BLM movement as well. Different, very different context, different stories, different characters. but sort of similar themes running throughout.

How do you think the two stories kind of interact with each other or kind of compliment each other? What are the themes running through them, do you think? Yeah, so this is the second season of Alpert Boys, and the first season, as you mentioned, was about the FBI's infiltration of the racial justice movement in Denver. And in that particular case, the FBI used a violent felon named Mickey Windecker as an informant, and he, over time, became a leader of the Black Lives Matter, movement in Denver and was encouraging violence. You know, we can attribute a fair amount of the violence and unrest to his incitement

and encouragement, but then also was was individually trying to entrap black activists in crimes, including this over-the-top plot to assassinate the state's attorney general, which went nowhere. And that story, like Flavio's story, really gets at the central theme that we try to explore in each season of Alpha Boys, which is, you know, to what degree the government and intelligence agencies use of sting operations to either... Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money.

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The jurors sat in a dark room, hands resting on a Ouija board. They weren't guessing. They were asking the victim who killed them. Sounds unbelievable, right? But it happened. And that's just one of thousands of stories waiting for you on Morning Cup of Murder. Hi, I'm Karina B. Miniserfer. And every single day on Morning Cup of Murder, I bring you a real, chilling, true crime story connected to that exact day in history. From Killer Cannibal Brothers to the Boy Scout who was obsessed with the occult.

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Go listen to Morning Cup of Murder wherever you get. your podcasts. And remember, stay safe. You know, get people involved in crimes that can be prosecuted or to gather intelligence in some way is creating the very criminals that they are, that they are searching for. And in the case of the first season, it was very clear that the government was not finding black activists willing to commit substantial crimes. You know, in fact, it was, the FBI had considered it a domestic terrorism investigation. So they were looking for people to commit very, you know, deadly serious crimes and they couldn't find anyone.

And so the informant is then encouraging people to do it and ultimately failing to do it. And then in Flavio's case, you know, what the DEA is doing in these sting operations is, you know, essentially the same thing, right? They are presenting the opportunity for someone to commit crime to help deliver weapons to the FARC that might not otherwise happen were it not for the DEA presenting the opportunity. And Flavio's story kind of is, it takes it up, it creates another layer to this, which is that what's interesting about Flavio's case is that the DEA ends up investigating Flavio, who had previously worked for the FBI as a source, and who had called the CIA and reported the entire crime before he commits it. And so the DEA sting not only is potentially creating the very kind of narco-terrorist the agency is looking for, but also ends up wrapping up wrapping up two other agents. the FBI and the CIA in the same case.

And it just creates this general kind of sense of confusion among the agencies where, you know, you have this kind of farcical, this potentially farcical situation where basically the DEA is investigating a source of another agency. And, you know, the, the art that we have for the second season tries to kind of distill this, which is a, it's a play on that the Superman mean where the three Superman are, or, or Spider-R-Wyter I'm sorry, the Spider-Man mean where the three Spider-Man are pointing at each other instead we swapped out like G-man-looking guys doing it. Because that's very much what this case ultimately becomes where, you know, the FBI says

it's the DEA's fault. The CIA says they had nothing to do with it. It was the DEA and the FBI. And to me, that's really fascinating. The other thing I think is that Flavio would argue, and one of the reasons that Flavio had spent so much time talking to me is that a lot of my work has focused on the use of sting operations in various contexts, including for terrorism. And a very simple and often used formula for this is that they will, you know, in the post-9-11

era, the FBI had found, you know, an impressionable young Muslim man who wanted to commit violence or said he did. And they would provide him with a bomb. And then he would go and plant it somewhere and dial a phone that he expects to detonate it. And when it doesn't detonate, he's arrested and charged with, you know, conspiracy is a weapon of mass destruction. and Flavio's argument is like, look, my case is like those, right? It started just like those cases.

But mine is different because I didn't, as Flavio says, I didn't bite the bait. I called up the CIA and said, hey, they're doing this. You want to know more. And to me, that was kind of this fascinating question about, you know, not only does it kind of allow you to kind of look at the efficacy and ethics of doing these kinds of sting operations, but then it also kind of in Flavio's case kind of helps point out maybe the potential absurdity of it which is that

not only are these agencies potentially creating crimes but they are perhaps even investigating each other at times unwittingly in that sense. Yeah in case anyone doesn't realize already I thought this show was awesome

it's such a fascinating topic to dig into we'll stick up links to the show with this episode as well. Were you kind of working on at the moment, Trevor? You got series three in the hopper, or are you working on any other other kind of stuff?

Yeah, so I hope we were guaranteed of first two seasons, second season is out now. Our hope is that we'll be renewed for seasons three and four. So I have some ideas about what I'd like to pursue, and I'm working on kind of the early research of that. Our hope is that we can, you know, one of the agencies that we really want to look at next

is the ATF, alcohol, tobacco and firearms and explosives, which is an agency that often doesn't get the level of attention that the FBI or the DEA or even the CIA does, but is really an agency that's involved in a lot of kind of similar behavior and gun-running conspiracies and others. So I hope that is that either for season three or four will be able to kind of look at a similar ATF case. But our goal in all of these cases, I should mention as well,

is obviously that what we want to try to put on display and put forward for the listener is that, you know, a requirement for any season or any case that we'll explore is getting access to the undercover recordings. And so, you know, as in seasons one and two, you know, a lot of the story is told through the undercover recording. So you hear the agents speaking to the targets, in this case, Flavio, you know, talking about what happens. And then we compliment that with interviews with people involved to kind of give the full picture of what's happened. And so, you know, I think what's unique about the series and the reason I hope it will continue, you in the future seasons is that we are able to kind of bring listeners into this very kind of,

you know, this world that few people are able, usually able to access, which is kind of the behind the scenes view of an undercover investigation. Yes, fascinating stuff. Well, thanks ever so much for joining us, Trevor. Hopefully we can catch up some more about season three then when that appears. Great. Yeah, thanks for me. All right.

Cheers. Take care. Thanks.