Fed Explains ＂The Merchant Of Death＂! Why Trading Brittney Griner For Viktor Bout Was An L!
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 20 minutes
Words per Minute
177.42123
Summary
On this episode of Fedit, we cover the case of Victor Boutwell aka The Merchant of Death. He is a former Homeland Security Special Agent who served as a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). He is facing two counts of racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering and money laundering, and racketeering conspiracies.
Transcript
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And we are live. What's up, guys? Welcome to FedIt. Today, we're going to be covering the merchant of death, Victor Boutman.
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As you guys know, he's hitting the news all over the place because of the trade with Brittany Griner.
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I was a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, okay, guys? HSI.
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The cases that I did mostly were human smuggling and drug trafficking.
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Dr. Lafredo confirmed lacerations due to stepping on glass.
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You see him reaching in his jacket. You don't know.
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You're facing two counts of two meditative miracles.
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Young Slime Life here and after referred to as YSL.
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This is 6'9", and then this is Billy Seiko right here.
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Now, when they first started, guys, 6'9 ran with me.
00:01:07.380
Bushai-C arrested after shooting at King of Diamonds, Miami strip club injured one person.
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This is the one that's going to fuck him up because this gun is not tracing.
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Here's your boy, 42 Doug, right here on the left.
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They can effectively link him to paying an underage girl.
00:01:27.840
You can expect to set down a backpack on the site of the second explosion inspired by Al-Qaeda.
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Two terrorists, his brothers, the Zokar Sarnev and Tamerlan Sarnev.
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When the cartel shipped drugs into the country.
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Trading secrets with the Russians for monetary compensation.
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The largest corrupt police bust in New Orleans history.
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We're going to go over his past, the gang time, so that this all makes sense.
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Today, we're going to be talking about Victor Belt, guys.
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Christina, you want to introduce yourself to the people?
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If you guys want us to cover a case, just contact Fed It 1811 on Instagram.
00:02:24.220
You have anything else you want to tell the people?
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They went ahead and gathered some documents with guys.
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So the Young Dolph is coming very, very soon, man.
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As you guys know, we had sent people over there to go ahead and get documents for us.
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So, you know, when you want anything done right, you got to do it yourself.
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So Christina and Zina went up there for me last week and they went ahead and gathered
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the documents and shout out to them for doing that for me.
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And yeah, it was a pain, but she was able to get a couple of the documents.
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And we got some exclusive information that no one else really knows.
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We have some information that I don't know if we have to talk about it before we disclose
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We're going to get more documents soon because they go to court this week and next week.
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Anyway, guys, so today's topic, we're going to be covering Brittany Griner and Victor
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And some of you guys may know who Victor Bell is.
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So I'm going to go ahead and give you guys a very thorough breakdown on how bad this dude
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They didn't call him the merchant of death for no reason.
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OK, so first we're going to start off with the news.
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OK, as you all know, shout out to CNN because they only report certain things.
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Brittany Griner arrives in the U.S. after being released from Russian custody in a prisoner
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OK, Brittany Griner, the American basketball star detained by Russian authorities in February,
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has a safely return to the United States after being released from custody in a prisoner
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You guys might be wondering, well, who is Brittany Griner exactly?
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OK, Brittany Yvette Griner, born October 18th, 1990.
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She just hit 32, is an American professional basketball player from Phoenix, from the Phoenix.
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She played college basketball for the Lord, for the Baylor Lady Bears in Waco, Texas.
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She is the only NCAA basketball player to both score 2,000 points and block 500 shots.
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In 2002, the three-time All-American was named the AP player of the year and the most outstanding
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player of the final four, helping Baylor to win the national championship.
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So, you know, obviously, when it comes to, you know, basketball, she does her thing as
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In February 2022, Griner was detained by Russian customs officials after cartridges
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containing hashish oil were found in her luggage.
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Griner had been entering Russia to play with the Russian Premier League during the WNBA offseason.
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Her trial began on July 1st, and she pleaded guilty to the charges on August 4th.
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November 2022, Griner was transferred to the Russian penal colony, IK2.
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During this time, U.S. officials stated that she was wrongfully detained.
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On December 8th, Griner was released by Russia in a prisoner exchange for the Russian arms
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dealer, Victor Bout, who was convicted of conspiring to kill Americans and had served
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Victor Anteleyevich Bout, OK, born January 13, 1967, is a Russian arms dealer, an entrepreneur
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This guy speaks a bunch of different languages, guys.
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I think he speaks Farsi and potentially even Arabic, multilingual.
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He served as a linguist for the Soviet Union, all right, back in the day.
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And we're going to go over that in this breakdown.
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But anyway, so he used his multiple companies to smuggle weapons starting during the collapse
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of the Soviet Union from Eastern Europe to Africa and the Middle East during the 1990s,
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Bout gained the nicknames the Merchant of Death and Sanctions Buster after British government
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minister Peter Hain read a report to the United Nations in 2003 about Bout's wide-reaching
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operations, extensive clientele, and willingness to bypass embargoes.
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Largos, OK, guys, so they had this dude sanctioned out the Wuza, and he still was able to, you
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know, get business done and make that money, all right?
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And we're going to talk about this a little bit more.
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And the U.S. thing operation Bout was arrested on March 6, 2008 in Thailand on terrorism charges
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by the Royal Thai Police in cooperation with American authorities and Interpol, all right?
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But now you guys know who these individuals are.
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So Griner, 32, arrived at the Joint Base San Antonio, Fort Sam Houston.
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Texas early Friday and was taken to Brook Army Medical Center for a routine evaluation,
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U.S. officials who met Griner said she was in good spirits and incredibly gracious.
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National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told CNN Griner stepped off the plane
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shortly after 5.30 a.m. Eastern time at Kelly Field, all right?
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And I'll just mute it because it's a bunch of weird-ass static.
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As you guys can see, here's Victor Bout walking like a G.
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And these more than likely are probably Russian KGB because they got their faces blurred, right?
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Some of the chicks that come on this goddamn show try to talk smack to me.
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So to be honest with y'all, a lot of people, right?
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And Biden, rightfully so, has been getting a lot of heat in the news because he didn't
00:08:13.280
go ahead and secure Paul Nicholas Whalen's release from Russia.
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He's a Canadian-born former United States Marine with U.S., British, Irish, and Canadian citizenship.
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He was arrested in Russia on December 28, 2018, and accused of spying on June 15, 2020.
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And guys, we did not get him out, but we got Brittany Griner out.
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So big Al Biden and Al fucking Biden for not getting back one of our soldiers who was over
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there, okay, in Russia on U.S. orders, following the chain of command, serving his country.
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Meanwhile, we got someone over here like Brittany Griner, who broke laws, right?
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She broke Russian laws to smoke pot, and we ended up prioritizing her over a real American
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And if I'm not mistaken, I think Griner hasn't even...
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She's taken a kneel a couple of times when the National Anthem was set.
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The point is, guys, is that this whole situation...
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You know, trading a holographic first edition Charizard for a fucking Pikachu.
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But, you know, my personal opinions aside, I'm going to go ahead and break down a documentary.
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You know, me and Christina saw this a couple weeks ago, and I thought you guys would love
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it, from a show called Declassified, which is going to go over the investigation on Victor
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...how bad this dude really is, and why this trade, quite frankly, was a huge L for the United
00:10:03.220
Quite frankly, a damn near terrorist for a WNBA player is very stupid.
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So, anyway, without further ado, now that you guys know who all the players are, you know
00:10:21.300
who Brittany Griner is, you know who Victor Bout is, to a degree.
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You don't know too, too much about him yet, unless you've done your research.
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Let's go ahead and get into the documentary, all right?
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In the 90s, there is chaos and conflict around the world.
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And if someone had the ingenuity and the drive, they can capitalize on the chaos in these conflict
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People are looking to see who is moving the weapons into the war-in-torn areas.
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Victor poured gasoline on the conflicts and provided the weaponry so that the people in
00:11:07.100
What didn't bother him was to support the good guys or the bad guys.
00:11:10.200
And if he had the opportunity to support both sides, that meant more money for him.
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And these are DEA agents that are speaking because it was the DEA that actually went ahead
00:11:29.580
And I know some of you guys are wondering, like, wait, hold on.
00:11:33.200
Why is the DEA going after an armed trafficker?
00:11:35.880
Well, we're going to get into that here in a second.
00:11:38.300
But the DEA had a very good angle with the FARC as to how they were able to kind of get
00:11:43.380
this case going, a.k.a., as you guys know, a Brazilian paramilitary group slash terrorists.
00:11:51.900
A worldwide hunt is on for a Russian weapons dealer who U.S. authorities fear is every bit
00:12:01.040
Victor Bout is one of these incredibly dangerous figures.
00:12:05.440
They don't care who they do business with, and they provide lethal weapons.
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As you guys know, I've explained to you guys kind of how this works.
00:12:16.600
When a DEA, Homeland Security Investigations, FBI, it's all the same.
00:12:26.060
Typically, you know, if it's FBI, it's called a squad.
00:12:31.100
If it's DEA, it's called, like, an enforcement group, right?
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So, the supervisor, typically the supervisor, somewhere between five to ten special agents
00:12:43.580
They're the ones, you know, facilitating, you know, paperwork going up the chain to get
00:12:47.100
funding, to get memorandums through, whatever it may be.
00:12:49.920
It's the actual case agents that are the ones that actually investigate and do the case
00:12:54.840
And then you've got a supervisor that helps facilitate that, all right?
00:12:58.260
So, they're bringing in a couple of different DEA agents to talk about this.
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...weapons to the cesspool of drug traffickers, terrorists, human traffickers.
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They're basically the engine behind those groups.
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He facilitates that death and destruction and the deaths of many innocents.
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What he did is the worst thing that I've ever experienced as a DEA agent.
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You know, the drugs are one thing, because drugs can go away, but the weapons never go
00:13:32.460
He's a part of the Special Operations Division at DEA, guys, which does a lot more international
00:13:39.680
They're more concerned with being out, doing things internationally.
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It's conflict, because nothing good comes out of a weapon.
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Victor Boots spread death and destruction all around the world with the weapons that
00:13:56.400
Victor Boots' background is that he was part of the Soviet military machine, and that
00:14:00.840
machine consisted of him attending a Soviet military school.
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Apparently, a very good athlete, very, very bright, was conscripted and went into the service.
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He picked languages up very quickly, eventually went to the institute where you study languages
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He saw the vulnerability, the fragile governance.
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So after the fall of the Soviet Empire, through his time in the military and other connections
00:14:37.100
that he had developed, he knew that he could access Russian aircraft to transport cargo.
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And in 1991, Victor Boots starts his import-export business.
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And also, you guys got to remember, what also happened in 1991?
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And when the Soviet Union fell, guys, you got to understand that Russia had been stockpiling
00:15:02.100
They had a bunch of AK-47s all over the place, missiles, you know, anti-aircraft, you know,
00:15:13.980
Oh, well, we got all these weapons going for cheap fire sale.
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He ends up transporting them over to other war-torn areas and adding fuel to the fire of war, okay?
00:15:29.100
So Victor Boots, right, being an entrepreneur that he, I guess he is, and seizing an opportunity,
00:15:35.680
he sees all these weapons pretty much on a sail.
00:15:40.280
And he takes advantage, and you guys are going to see the empire that he's able to build up in the process.
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They're just laying around, and Victor saw an opportunity to move Western goods into the former Soviet bloc.
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Goods such as TVs, Coca-Cola, flowers, chicken.
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And from making money from doing this is when he saw an opportunity to build up his fleet of former Russian planes,
00:16:05.920
So he starts with just, you know, bringing some regular stuff, but it's going to change here very soon.
00:16:15.260
He bought his first plane at 25 years of age, and by 30, he was a millionaire.
00:16:23.900
His access to planes, his ability with languages caused him to have this kind of meteoric rise
00:16:32.180
As he brought merchandise, not arms necessarily, into conflict zones,
00:16:39.500
he also made connections, and individuals, sometimes the warlords or those in those countries
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And just so you guys know, as you guys know, I love using the inflation calculator,
00:16:51.720
$1 million in 1991 is the equivalent to the purchasing power of approximately $2,188,000 today, guys, in 2022.
00:17:09.420
Africa is where you may start off doing legitimate cargo,
00:17:12.200
and the next thing it is, someone's approaching you and saying,
00:17:14.540
oh, well, you have the ability to move goods from point A to point B.
00:17:20.060
And in these areas of the former Soviet bloc countries,
00:17:25.620
there's just tons and tons of weapons that are sitting over there that are no longer needed.
00:17:31.020
So if you need weapons to go with the planes, we can provide that.
00:17:38.700
I mean, he was already operating there doing legitimate commodities and cargo,
00:17:43.520
but when he saw an opportunity to move weapons into Africa,
00:17:50.100
What didn't bother him was to support the good guys or the bad guys.
00:17:53.240
And if he had the opportunity to support both sides, that meant more money for him.
00:18:03.840
In 1994, Viktor Boot sells weapons to both sides of the conflict in Angola.
00:18:08.520
In 1995, Boot was selling weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan.
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By 2000, Viktor Boot had contracts with the government of Rwanda
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He chose to do what he was doing and profit from it
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and left behind societies that were completely devastated.
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Children in Africa whose family networks were destroyed.
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Estimates of people that were killed in these genocidal episodes in Africa.
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I know for myself and Wim, we spent a lot of time in Africa.
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We saw firsthand why Viktor is so incredibly dangerous.
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So we traded a WNBA player that could barely dunk for a dude that was responsible
00:18:59.720
for a million plus people dying in Africa in the 90s,
00:19:17.120
So big governments like the United States and the United Kingdom
00:19:26.680
these movement of weapons from point A to point B,
00:19:33.180
You know, it was such a big deal for the United States
00:19:34.900
that the National Security Council got involved and NSA got involved
00:19:38.460
and through their intelligence, the name Viktor Boot kept coming up,
00:19:45.320
He came under a lot of scrutiny and his entire network was looked at.
00:19:50.400
And there was a concern that he was a major destabilizing figure.
00:19:54.140
He shipped everything from tanks to rifles into civil wars and conflicts
00:20:07.580
CNN is actually covering him appropriately for once.
00:20:11.880
There was definitely, I think, the will to try to do something.
00:20:26.400
As you guys know, heroin, one of the main cultivators of heroin, Afghanistan.
00:20:33.820
Nobody that had the ability to go after him in the areas that he was operating.
00:20:40.400
The thing about Africa is there is no governance in Africa.
00:20:44.720
And then the fear of getting in trouble is even less
00:20:53.260
In 2000, the United Nations Security Council restricted Victor Boot's movements
00:20:57.040
based upon his involvement with supplying weapons to Charles Taylor in Liberia.
00:21:04.400
that had between five and seven different aliases, spoke multiple languages.
00:21:07.780
So he was able to navigate restrictions on his travel.
00:21:11.800
In 2005, Office of Foreign Asset Control, OFAC,
00:21:16.080
announced the freezing of Victor Boot's assets.
00:21:22.540
These are some big wigs over here in the government,
00:21:28.960
Going after assets doesn't put somebody in jail.
00:21:46.220
focused on extraterritorial or foreign transnational criminals.
00:21:55.380
Qasar was drug trafficker and an arms trafficker.
00:21:58.000
That definitely gave us the confidence to go forward with Victor Boot.
00:22:01.120
We had the ability to penetrate them and not wait for them to do more crimes,
00:22:10.440
I could cover him as well if you guys are interested.
00:22:12.780
Let me know in the chat if y'all want me to cover Manzhar as well,
00:22:16.060
another armed trafficker that DEA took down back in the day.
00:22:20.120
It infiltrated Victor Boot's organization and demonstrate that nobody is untouchable.
00:22:26.120
Victor Boot is one of the most notorious weapons traffickers in the world.
00:22:41.100
The weapons that he moved fueled conflict, started wars.
00:22:46.960
People killing each other, child soldiers operating.
00:22:51.400
Many people don't realize it because they don't see it and they don't live it.
00:22:56.260
I see the conflict that is still going on today.
00:22:59.460
So what he did as a person is like the ultimate evil.
00:23:03.480
As investigators, we wanted to roll up someone like that
00:23:06.900
and bring them to justice in a transparent U.S. court.
00:23:12.300
For the DEA, the Victor Boot case kicked off at the end of 2007.
00:23:16.760
Lou was our group supervisor at the time, and I was one of the senior agents in the group.
00:23:21.820
At the beginning of any investigation, you're looking at the target and trying to find a way to infiltrate his organization,
00:23:27.240
get the evidence and prosecute them in the United States.
00:23:29.720
For the boot case, we wanted to use the FARC scenario.
00:23:33.140
The plan was to propose about a $15 million to $20 million weapons deal with the FARC.
00:23:44.980
This was a creative way to kind of get their feet into the situation.
00:23:48.360
You guys are going to see here in a second how they did it.
00:23:50.620
The FARC was a designated foreign terrorist organization based in Colombia promoting Marxist ideology,
00:23:57.240
and the FARC has a real need for weapons, and the FARC had kidnapped Americans, had killed Americans, had anti-American sentiment.
00:24:06.440
The U.S. government was supporting the Colombian government to combat the FARC,
00:24:11.360
and the FARC had progressed from a Marxist regime to one of the significant drug trafficking organizations operating globally.
00:24:19.420
So the scenario that we put together was that the FARC needed a number of weapons
00:24:23.560
and specifically serviced the air missiles to counter the U.S. helicopters flying in South America.
00:24:30.560
They had drug proceeds that they wanted to pay for weapons.
00:24:36.360
And these FARC members that he's going to meet with are actually undercover operatives.
00:24:41.340
Sometimes you can use a DEA agent, but sometimes you have to use a source.
00:24:47.560
Source is a confidential informant, guys, okay?
00:24:53.740
He had the ability to talk the lingo of weapons.
00:24:56.940
He had the ability to talk about money laundering.
00:24:59.320
So he was able to pose as a FARC person, not as a FARC guerrilla,
00:25:08.380
But the FARC needs people to move money, to sell drugs, to travel.
00:25:13.540
And Carlos had that ability to pose himself as a FARC supporter.
00:25:19.280
And this is important, guys, that they were able to do that, because here's the thing.
00:25:23.360
When you introduce an informant or anything like that, and I'm telling you guys from my experience from running informants, etc.,
00:25:28.160
you always want to introduce your informant and or the agent or whoever is playing the undercover role
00:25:33.940
as someone who is in a position of authority that can actually move money or be of use to the people that you're dealing with.
00:25:42.200
You don't want to go ahead and be like, oh, yeah, here's my informant.
00:25:45.500
They're going to be like, oh, we don't do business with you.
00:25:47.060
We need to go ahead and talk to a decision maker that can actually pay us or facilitate something for real that's worth our time.
00:25:52.880
So it's very important that you have an image, you stick to the said image,
00:25:58.160
and you're in a position where when you deal with the criminal, you're able to add value,
00:26:02.600
which is hilarious saying it from that perspective.
00:26:05.580
That's how you're able to have the most negotiating power to put yourself in a position
00:26:09.300
where you're able to effectively run that undercover role.
00:26:12.200
In front of Victor Boot, we knew that he would be able to deliver.
00:26:31.120
I am part of the DEA, but I am not a DEA agent.
00:26:37.820
The history of Carlos is that he grew up in Central America.
00:26:41.500
He got involved with the military, and what happens in many of these countries is the military.
00:26:48.100
He doesn't want to say it, but more than likely, the guy's Colombian,
00:26:50.240
because when you speak Spanish in a certain way, they're going to know if you're Colombian or not.
00:26:58.740
He's going to go ahead and have his people that can figure shit out.
00:27:02.980
No, he speaks Spanish because he speaks most of the languages.
00:27:06.640
No, but I'm saying the source is probably from Colombia.
00:27:09.080
So they speak Spanish, so he sounds like a Colombian.
00:27:14.640
Law enforcement, politicians somehow get caught up in corruption.
00:27:22.840
He was helping move money on behalf of the cartels.
00:27:30.740
So on his own will, he went to DEA in this Central American country.
00:27:37.820
And just so you guys know, DEA does have a huge office in Colombia.
00:27:46.360
So that tells you guys how big of a drug trafficking problem the country of Colombia poses.
00:27:53.220
I mean, hell, most cocaine that comes into the United States is manufactured in Colombia.
00:27:58.460
It comes in through Mexico for the most part nowadays.
00:28:01.920
Obviously, in the 80s, it came in through Miami.
00:28:03.680
But predominantly now, I want to say somewhere like 60% of the drugs, of the cocaine that comes into the United States, comes in through Mexico.
00:28:11.380
However, somewhere between like 89% of it is produced in Colombia.
00:28:23.320
And I think it's in Bogota, if I'm not mistaken.
00:28:26.240
It's helpful if they do have that background where they understand the criminal networks and they've lived it.
00:28:32.400
Because if you don't put the right source in front of a legitimate, knowledgeable bad guy, the target will sniff it out in a second.
00:28:45.680
It's very easy to get killed on this type of job.
00:28:49.960
You don't know if the other person see that you are using a microphone.
00:28:56.180
These people are for real and they can kill you.
00:28:58.760
For the Boot investigation, the big challenge was, how do we get close to him?
00:29:06.420
Developing some sources, we were able to identify Andrew Simulian.
00:29:10.020
Andrew Simulian was an old associate of Victor Boot's going back decades.
00:29:13.920
And they had stayed in contact over the years, had worked together from time to time, and Victor Boot clearly trusted him.
00:29:20.600
We had to devise a plan to get to Andrew Simulian.
00:29:24.640
We did our research and we were able to develop a person of interest who we could approach as a potential source, a cooperator.
00:29:33.400
And that person was a gentleman by the name of Mike Snow.
00:29:36.300
And Mike Snow was a British pilot who had spent much of his time operating in Africa.
00:29:42.260
Had never been a criminal, had been a member of the British Special Forces, but Mike Snow knew Andrew Simulian very well.
00:29:53.760
He saw the atrocities that took place in Africa.
00:29:56.420
He flew in Africa, spent a lot of time there, and felt that there was a need for him to get involved and stop it.
00:30:02.820
The approach that we were going to take was Mike was going to reach out to Andrew Simulian and say,
00:30:12.820
And if so, I have people that Victor would be very much interested in meeting.
00:30:20.460
Mike is the type of guy to say, Oh, I'll find out right now.
00:30:24.160
And gets on the phone and spoke to Simulian and Simulian said, Yes, Boris is still out there.
00:30:39.920
When you're dealing with criminal organizations like this, a lot of the times you're dealing with different layers, right?
00:30:44.340
So you got a source that knows the guy that knows the other guy.
00:30:47.020
A lot of the times you got to peel the layers back and work your way towards the actual main target.
00:30:50.680
Because criminals, especially higher level criminals, like someone like Victor Bout or Boot,
00:30:55.440
they're going to insulate themselves where you have to penetrate multiple layers to get to them.
00:31:00.700
This is how they keep themselves from getting in trouble, especially someone like him who's smart,
00:31:04.820
that understands that, yo, I'm selling millions of dollars worth of weapons a year.
00:31:08.900
I'm sanctioned in a bunch of different countries.
00:31:19.700
It was a critical meeting for us because this is going to be the first time that Somalian met Carlos.
00:31:24.540
And if Somalian didn't believe that Carlos was actually a FARC member, this wasn't going anywhere.
00:31:30.560
Mike Snow would introduce Carlos to Somalian and propose a weapons deal that would be worth millions of dollars,
00:31:36.780
hoping he would take it directly to Victor Bout.
00:31:39.780
Someone could say something that sounds a little bit off, Somalian could become suspicious.
00:31:52.420
So at every stage, the whole thing could fall apart.
00:31:55.080
In January of 2008, our plan was to go to Curaçao and have a meeting with Andrew Smulian, a first meeting.
00:32:13.540
Carlos would be there representing the FARC as the FARC role player.
00:32:23.020
Mike Snow is a DEA source that knew Andrew Smulian and vouched for Carlos and the other FARC role players.
00:32:30.220
So as you guys can see, so this is what's happening here.
00:32:32.400
They have an informant that's put introducing another informant, right, to the crook.
00:32:40.160
And that second informant is bringing a third guy who's going to be a FARC associate to build more credibility.
00:32:47.100
So one source introduces another source to the bad guy.
00:32:51.900
That source that's going to meet the bad guy, right, the fake FARC guy, is going to go ahead and bring another one to build a little bit more credibility.
00:33:03.660
I try to veer away from having informants introduce other informants because you typically want things compartmentalized.
00:33:09.640
And you don't want informants knowing who the hell the other guy is, right?
00:33:12.320
And I'm assuming in this case, the sources probably didn't meet each other or they might have spoken on the phone so that they can have a clear cover story.
00:33:18.840
But you typically want to go ahead and have the informant introduce an agent.
00:33:23.700
But knowing DEA, they probably didn't have a Colombian agent that knows as much about the FARC and can be as smooth of a role player as their informant.
00:33:32.760
So therefore, they just went ahead with the informant.
00:33:39.280
There's many different ways to skin a cat, right?
00:33:41.280
I typically wouldn't do this because I don't like having that many informants hands in an investigation.
00:33:46.520
But anytime you're doing things complex, sophisticated like this, hey, you got to you got to find you got to find ways to make things happen.
00:33:58.720
I believe we all believe the Victor boot would do arms business with anyone.
00:34:04.560
Insurgent group, a terrorist group, whatever needs weapons.
00:34:07.020
He has no qualms about providing those weapons.
00:34:16.520
My goal was to convince Smolian that we are for real, that we are from the FARC.
00:34:22.540
That way he can go and tell Victor boot about us.
00:34:28.060
Smolian has no idea that the DEA is nearby, that Carlos is working with us.
00:34:34.940
It was a critical meeting for us because this is going to be the first time that Smolian met Carlos.
00:34:39.740
Carlos, and if Smolian didn't bite it, if he didn't believe that Carlos was actually a FARC member, this wasn't going anywhere.
00:34:48.500
If we failed at that, the case would go to the garbage.
00:34:52.160
When Smolian met with Carlos and they had that initial meeting, he looked at Carlos and said, well, you don't look like a FARC guy.
00:35:13.400
And that's when Carlos relayed back to him, like, no, I don't look like a FARC guy, but I'm a guy that supports the FARC.
00:35:36.400
At any moment, the whole thing could fall apart.
00:35:39.760
Someone could say something that sounds a little bit off.
00:35:41.960
Yeah, you know, informant meetings, guys, sources meeting with high level targets, you know, undercovers.
00:35:47.700
This is always where things can it can make or break the case, man.
00:35:51.300
I've done so many different undercover operations, not as in me doing undercover.
00:35:56.020
So I was always be, you know, overseeing the case.
00:35:59.380
So I'd have my informants in there, maybe with a UC or whatever.
00:36:03.140
We were buying a bunch of guns out in South Texas.
00:36:06.560
And, you know, when you're meeting with dangerous people like this, man, the stakes are high.
00:36:10.400
And, you know, you want to you want to go ahead and secure prosecution.
00:36:15.320
And a lot of time it's contingent upon your sources skill set, the undercover skill set.
00:36:23.000
You know, sometimes they'll just get spooked and not want to do the deal or it takes months to set it up or things flake or things get fickle.
00:36:29.740
So, you know, I can only imagine, you know, the crazy tension in the air here.
00:36:40.440
Victor definitely had coached Smooly to be very careful.
00:36:45.500
And we have several meetings down in Curacao between.
00:36:48.860
You never want to come off too thirsty as well.
00:36:50.780
Whenever you're, you know, doing these meetings, you want to make it very chill, relaxed.
00:36:54.420
Sometimes the first tour meetings, you don't even really talk about criminal activity.
00:36:56.900
You know, you're just shooting the shit to build rapport.
00:36:59.700
Andrew, Mike Snow, and our two sources, Carlos and El Comandante.
00:37:03.900
The Comandante played the role of a FARC commander, a military guy who was operating in the jungles fighting the Colombian government.
00:37:12.220
He is another DEA source, former drug trafficker, knows an awful lot about the FARC, knows an awful lot about weapons and drug trafficking, and is a very, very believable jungle leader.
00:37:23.800
And he talked about what weapons were needed, type of ammunition, and the list went on.
00:37:29.340
It was a deal that would definitely pique Victor's interest.
00:37:32.920
And we knew from our experience that a deal of this size would not take place unless they looked each other in the eye, they shook hands, and they knew who they were dealing with.
00:37:42.920
We had to push it that Somalian go to Russia and actually meet with Boot to make it happen.
00:37:50.140
And Somalian bought the FARC roleplayers as members of the FARC.
00:37:56.180
So after Curacao, the plan was for Somalian to go to Moscow.
00:38:00.180
We believed to meet with Victor Boot and discuss this proposed deal.
00:38:03.800
And what we agreed to do was meet Somalian in Copenhagen to see what we hoped Victor Boot thought about the deal.
00:38:13.520
Once we got to Copenhagen, Carlos was in contact with Somalian.
00:38:17.100
Somalian said that he was returning from Russia.
00:38:21.540
I met him in Copenhagen, and he told me that the person who's going to bring the weapons to us, that he want to know is we're for real.
00:38:32.000
In Russia, Victor presented pictures to Andrew Somalian and said, okay, which one of these FARC commanders did you meet with?
00:38:42.380
This right here, as you guys can see, like, whoa.
00:38:44.860
Like, now they're actually, like, doing their homework.
00:38:49.860
And this happens a lot, where they'll test the informants and or the agents.
00:38:57.360
You showed me photos of all the female officers, everything.
00:39:08.240
But Somalian convinced him that we was from the FARC and that we're going to meet weapons.
00:39:15.620
So, Somalian was the one who really vouched for me.
00:39:22.560
But, you know, as you can see, they got their suspicions.
00:39:25.820
The sources had done their job and convinced them enough that Somalian felt comfortable enough to do that.
00:39:32.040
Carlos had the unassuming personality where people felt comfortable with him.
00:39:36.180
When we needed to get the difficult statements during recordings with the bad guys, he would find a way to address it and get it across the finish line.
00:39:45.100
After the meeting, Carlos said, hey, he pulled me aside when we were walking back from a meal and said who he went to see.
00:39:52.560
I'll tell you the name of my friend so that you know, but that's just what he knew.
00:40:04.900
But it also, in his mind, showed that he had a righteous arms trafficker that could supply to them.
00:40:12.740
And he would get some percentage of whatever the deal was going to be.
00:40:16.260
Once Somalian said, Victor Booth, then we knew that we were in.
00:40:22.500
We could have all the meetings with Andrew Somalian.
00:40:24.820
But if we don't have a sit-down meeting with Victor Booth, we're not going to get what we need.
00:40:33.540
Menon were to get Victor to come in and have a meeting with Carlos and Comandante.
00:40:39.320
And that's where we encountered some curveballs.
00:40:47.160
Guys selling weapons to conflict areas and knowing exactly what his weapons were being used for.
00:41:03.540
So we thought it was really important that once we started taking ground, we needed to get it done as quickly as we could.
00:41:12.480
In Copenhagen, after Somalian had relayed that, yes, it was Victor Booth, that he was interested in pursuing the sale with Somalian and the FARC,
00:41:21.540
we devised a meeting location because for DEA to get the investigation done, we needed to have a sit-down meeting with Victor Booth.
00:41:32.880
There were a bunch of benefits if we made an arrest.
00:41:37.900
In Romania, they have a solid extradition treaty.
00:41:41.100
And they had very good judicial capabilities to monitor phones.
00:41:47.760
And also, they have some of the best internet in the world, guys.
00:41:50.480
There's a reason why Romania is a huge hub for webcam, a huge hub for webcam, some of the best streaming slash internet in the world, man.
00:42:03.140
That's how the Tates made their first million was getting webcam girls from and running it out of Romania.
00:42:09.700
And also, guys, you got to remember, when you're doing international operations like this, where you do meetings and everything else like that is extremely important
00:42:15.320
because you got to make sure that they have certain things in place that could facilitate your undercover operation appropriately, right?
00:42:25.560
Do they have good treaties with the United States?
00:42:31.880
These are all things that come into play when you're trying to conduct an undercover operation, which is a government action, by the way, in a foreign land.
00:42:40.880
Obviously, you can't do something like this in China.
00:42:45.040
So you got to do it where you're still able to conduct your operation in a safe way in a friendly country.
00:42:56.000
Also, you got to keep in mind corruption as well.
00:42:57.680
You know, a lot of places, you know, when you're working with certain countries, right?
00:43:01.180
Like, I remember when I was on the Mexican border and we would work with the Mexican Marines or whatever or the Colombians, right?
00:43:07.840
When I was here in Miami, you always have to deal with something called a vetted unit, which means that they went through a background check, right?
00:43:14.520
A government, a U.S. government background check to ensure that they're not corrupt because a lot of these countries, you know, I hate to say it, man.
00:43:21.080
And I know some people say the police in America are corrupt, too.
00:43:23.760
It doesn't come close to the corruption in some of these other places like South America, especially Eastern Europe.
00:43:28.660
So you really got to make sure that the law enforcement counterparts on the other side also are squared away.
00:43:34.460
Because even though people talk shit about the United States, we still have some of the best.
00:43:37.580
There's a reason why we had the reserve currency.
00:43:40.420
And a big part of it is the United States has rule of law.
00:43:43.960
And I know we're not the best, but we're better than a lot of other places in the world.
00:43:53.020
The other FARC role player, Comandante, was in Romania.
00:43:56.660
All their efforts from that moment on were to get Victor to come in.
00:44:02.060
And that's where we encountered some curveballs in getting Victor to Romania.
00:44:08.960
When we are in Romania waiting for Victor, we talked to him on the phone.
00:44:13.640
And we told him that we need the weapons, that we got the money, and we need to meet face-to-face with him to finalize the business.
00:44:22.140
One of the things that we did say to Victor was that we had money in Romania.
00:44:30.940
That actually made the deal sweeter because Victor wouldn't want money in a bank going to him to pay for this.
00:44:41.420
So that was the enticing carrot to get to Romania.
00:44:44.840
And one thing that you can count on from people like Victor Boop is that it's all about money.
00:44:50.180
He said that he's going to try to get to Romania, and he's trying to get the visa.
00:44:54.320
Victor was trying to get a visa, but it wasn't that easy.
00:44:56.520
He was told that he can get it in a couple of days, and then this progressed for another day.
00:45:00.620
And then Victor said, it might be easier if you just go across the border.
00:45:03.420
And we couldn't do that, so we had to come up with an excuse.
00:45:11.920
Yeah, he wanted to meet them in fucking Moldova, guys.
00:45:15.900
For some of you guys that are wondering, Moldova is in the middle of fucking nowhere.
00:45:19.760
Definitely not somewhere you want to do a meet.
00:45:25.300
I think the Tate brothers told a very interesting story.
00:45:29.720
You guys could go check them out on RumbleRumble.com slash TateSpeech of how they got jumped in Moldova, being with some Moldovan girls.
00:45:37.620
They got some really beautiful women over there, but it's all village land, man.
00:45:40.320
And the men don't take well to, you know, foreigners, especially first world foreigners, taking their women.
00:45:47.160
Another excuse, because we just don't have the ability to go across a border.
00:45:53.340
And there was a lot of discussion with Booth on other locations.
00:45:55.900
If you can't meet in Romania, and he kept coming up with places that were bad for us.
00:46:03.860
None of those countries are places that you want to meet and do an undercover operation.
00:46:11.160
We were worried because every time he came up with something to make it easy, we came back and said, well, it's not that easy for us.
00:46:18.460
And mostly bad guys will change the way that they do things to get it across the finish line.
00:46:24.400
We did not have that ability because we can only work in certain countries that will support our efforts.
00:46:30.180
I was just thinking I have to convince him to come and finish the deal.
00:46:36.800
And what we heard next was the most shocking part.
00:46:39.460
Someone told Victor, it's not safe for you to go to Romania.
00:46:44.920
That was like this is going down the tubes immediately and it's going down fast.
00:46:54.940
Because he couldn't get the visa, because people were telling him that it's not safe for him to go to Romania.
00:47:02.740
The team and I discussed what our next move would be.
00:47:05.260
And we collectively decided that while risky, the right thing to do and the most realistic thing to do was to leave Romania and walk away.
00:47:20.900
And the bad guy is showing up late or whatever.
00:47:29.040
It would plant a seed in Boots' mind that, well, maybe they're going to find another arms trafficker.
00:47:33.560
This may put more pressure on Victor to close the deal.
00:47:38.000
Before the source left, Carlos had a conversation with Victor on the phone.
00:47:58.640
The risk when we left was that he was going to walk away and the case would just die.
00:48:07.640
No quiero cerrar la puerta con usted para que nos mantengamos en contact.
00:48:12.300
Le estoy dejando información al amigo que está aquí, a su amigo.
00:48:23.140
Ah, this was such an L trade for the United States.
00:48:25.400
The guy speaks Russian, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Farsi.
00:48:40.860
Andrew Smulian to give to Victor and said to contact him on that when Victor was ready.
00:48:47.540
We could have stayed there longer, but it just wouldn't look right.
00:48:52.900
But we were like, at some point, if we're real, we've got to get out of there.
00:49:00.000
When we left Romania, we were completely frustrated with ourselves.
00:49:06.420
Guys, it costs thousands upon thousands of dollars to fly agents, equipment, informants,
00:49:12.740
you know, other personnel that might be needed there.
00:49:16.260
You know, getting the hotel rooms, wiring up hotel rooms to go ahead and do the undercover operation.
00:49:20.400
Like, it probably cost them easily 10 grand plus to get all the tickets, hotels, equipment
00:49:27.420
over there, get, you know, plane tickets, all that stuff.
00:49:33.120
So I could see the frustration to make this deal happen and not making it happen and why
00:49:39.140
You know, because you're down significantly, right?
00:49:46.620
It ain't cheap to do undercover operations, especially abroad.
00:49:51.280
We were trying our best to get it across the finish line.
00:49:54.400
We were unsure about what the next step was to make this investigation successful.
00:49:59.760
I was worried we would never hear from Victor again.
00:50:07.460
When we left Romania and went back to the United States, forget how long it was, maybe a week
00:50:16.620
And the email address was registered to Victor Boot.
00:50:22.460
Like, if a guy as notorious as Victor Boot is most wanted, why would he ever register an
00:50:33.320
So, after the email came in, there was some communication between Carlos and Victor to try
00:50:39.120
to figure out where a meeting could take place.
00:50:42.360
And we knew that Russians didn't need a visa to get into Thailand.
00:50:55.700
So, our decision was to have Carlos tell Victor, I'm going to be in Thailand early in March.
00:51:04.120
And when Carlos got the word back that he agreed, it was like elation for all of us.
00:51:09.860
I mean, we were just like, now we can maybe get this across the finish line.
00:51:15.440
So, we traveled over to Thailand, briefed up the ties, and waited to see if Victor would
00:51:22.700
We still thought at any stage, he could get spooked.
00:51:28.980
You don't want it to fall apart when you've come this close.
00:51:35.940
And the reason why they got to brief up the ties, guys, is because the ties, right, they're
00:51:45.600
Yes, you can suggest, hey, this is what we want to do.
00:51:48.740
But at the end of the day, operationally, the Thai law enforcement are the ones in charge
00:52:02.920
We still thought at any stage, he could get spooked.
00:52:10.280
And you don't want it to fall apart when you've come this close.
00:52:14.800
But we had people at the airport doing surveillance.
00:52:17.160
And then we got word that he had landed and got off the plane.
00:52:19.840
And we knew at that point that we were very close.
00:52:24.040
Once Victor arrived in Thailand, he was with another individual.
00:52:27.680
And we learned that that individual was his bodyguard.
00:52:30.640
And both those individuals, Victor and the bodyguard, were surveilled from the time that
00:52:34.640
they exited the plane to the time that they arrived at the Sofitel Hotel.
00:52:37.900
So once they arrived at the hotel, arrangements were made for Victor to meet with Carlos.
00:53:04.120
And Victor came up and sat down with Carlos and with Andrew and with his bodyguard and
00:53:15.200
And I think one of the first things that came out from Victor to Carlos was, I'm sorry about
00:53:23.260
The FARC had just lost one of their senior commanders in Colombia.
00:53:26.540
And Victor had done his research on this and was testing the source.
00:53:32.000
And Carlos was sharp enough to say, yes, thank you very much.
00:53:34.720
And he mentioned the commander's name during that conversation, which probably put Victor
00:53:47.800
But besides that, hey, if I'm going to meet you in person, let me make sure I know who
00:53:54.860
And you want to see if he knew who the guy was.
00:53:58.200
And this is the importance of having good informants that know what the hell is going
00:54:09.340
So we started talking a little bit and we decided it was a good place to have this type
00:54:19.360
And they go up to the meeting room to have the meeting there.
00:54:21.660
Carlos's safety and the safety of the other sources is one of our number one concerns.
00:54:28.120
Victor is one of the most ruthless arms traffickers in the world.
00:54:31.080
Weapons certainly could be smuggled in through Russian criminal networks in Thailand, which
00:54:36.800
So we had no idea if Victor was bringing a gun to that meeting.
00:54:42.320
So they went up to the conference room and what was going to take place next was the
00:54:47.800
commandante, the other source, was going to come into the meeting and really talk about
00:54:54.960
It would draw out the discussion of what particular weapons were needed, what the conflict was
00:55:00.580
about, and what Victor could do to support the needs of the FARC.
00:55:05.380
So as y'all can see, this is very important because they need to be able to establish,
00:55:11.040
And they need to be able to show that not only is, you know, about able to supply said weapons,
00:55:15.740
but that he intends to do it and he's capable of doing it, which at this point,
00:55:22.060
But it's one thing to know one thing and be able to prove one thing.
00:55:25.120
And that's why it's so important that they're, you know, recording this conversation.
00:55:30.420
But I'll tell y'all this, though, them informants 1,000% got fucking burned because this is
00:55:36.220
the thing that sucks about having informants meet bad guys and why you want to get undercovers
00:55:40.020
involved so that you can get rid of the informant is because when you get the undercover involved,
00:55:44.260
well, he can come in and testify later on, right, as a very credible source because he's
00:55:49.160
Well, when you have informants dealing with the bad guy directly and you want to prosecute
00:55:54.920
So if you go ahead and you want to have, they want to go to trial or something like that,
00:56:03.900
When he went to trial, that informant, right, testified against 6ix9ine, the one that they
00:56:08.740
had the truck wired up on that witnessed the robbery.
00:56:13.020
So that's the one thing is that informants, if they're that close to criminal activity
00:56:17.660
where they're actually facilitating it, they got to come in and testify.
00:56:21.120
And after that, they can't be an informant anymore.
00:56:25.020
And DEA always does this shit, man, burning their sources, which is why I don't like having
00:56:31.160
Something like this, you ain't going to be able to get an agent in there to be able to
00:56:34.540
pose as such a good FARC role player like these guys are.
00:56:38.740
We had to establish probable cause, that there was a conspiracy, that he knew who the FARC
00:56:45.060
was, that he knew he was entering into a weapons deal with them.
00:56:48.200
He knew these weapons were going to be used to kill Americans and kill officers and other
00:56:52.520
And it's also important that the FARC guys, a key other thing as well, they said it earlier
00:56:56.300
in the documentary, is that the FARC at this time was designated as a foreign terrorist
00:57:02.620
That is huge for them to be able to prove their case when it comes to material support for
00:57:10.440
So and I'm actually going to show you guys the court documents after this.
00:57:13.900
OK, they got I got the indictment and the criminal complaint.
00:57:17.520
And I've had the Victor Bell stuff here, guys, for a few months now.
00:57:21.580
You guys have been requesting him, but, you know, given the circumstances with him, the
00:57:24.440
Brittany Griner trade, I think a lot more people are going to be wising up now and want
00:57:28.860
to figure out who the hell this guy actually is.
00:57:32.700
...in the U.S. government, that he knew that he was going to be acquiring and using surface
00:57:38.020
And those were the guidelines of what we had to establish.
00:57:42.960
So Comandante explained that he was fighting against the Americans.
00:58:00.080
They talked about how they needed these surface to air missiles to shoot down the American
00:58:04.120
Apache helicopters, how they needed to kill these Americans.
00:58:07.960
They explained that they needed sniper rifles with sights so that the FARC could, as they
00:58:13.460
described, blow the heads off the American pilots.
00:58:38.840
he knew that we were fighting against your mistake he don't care if we want to kill america
00:58:46.200
he was happy that we're going to use his weapons to kill the americans
00:58:49.560
that was bro and we traded brittany griner for this dude bro
00:58:58.040
yo oh and here's the thing like a lot of people don't know this but this is actually recording
00:59:03.960
evidence from that investigation he knows what the hell were these you know these fart guys
00:59:08.360
want to use it for they want to snipe american pilots right off these apache helicopters
00:59:14.200
so that they can go ahead and make sure that these columbians that are trying to kill them
00:59:17.160
in the forest are dead wild bro when we believe them al biden al biden we got all the evidence
00:59:25.960
that we need against him as the meeting was taking place on the 27th floor when the other agents and
00:59:33.560
i were waiting with the thai counterparts in this hotel room we were waiting for a predetermined phone
00:59:39.080
call from carlos that the negotiations were wrapping up all the points had been hit and it was now time
00:59:46.520
for the thai counterparts to go up and make the arrest after he agreed i made the call to tell
00:59:53.480
that we finished the deal and the agent said we need more time we more we need more time what room
00:59:59.160
were you in and that information never got relayed we knew they were on the 27th floor but we just
01:00:03.320
didn't know which room and i don't know which room was i just tell them i was in the conference room
01:00:13.720
so myself blue and all the other thai arresting officers made our way up in the elevator and i'm
01:00:20.440
sitting in the back of this group as they're walking down this this business center with all these
01:00:25.000
doors and they all walked by this one door that was shut and i remember i opened up the door i stuck
01:00:30.840
my head in and i could see victor boot right there and i immediately shut the door oh and i'm like
01:00:39.720
guys over here over here they're here and they all had to turn around and that's when they made the
01:00:44.040
entry into the room the lead thai cops had their guns drawn and told victor and andrew and everyone
01:00:59.720
else in english to get their hands up and victor was frozen was stunned his hands were in a bag his
01:01:05.720
bag and when the head thai commander was telling victor let me see your hands let me see your hands
01:01:10.760
and victor was very hesitant about taking his hands out of his briefcase and i really thought
01:01:18.280
it at one point that thai officer was going to just light him up the thai cops were absolutely
01:01:26.920
dialed in on him and his hands and gave the commands again and then everyone complied
01:01:35.800
everybody was put up against the wall actual real footage of the arrest you know you can see here
01:01:39.960
victor in the orange his friend that fucked up and introduced him to the dea people in the first
01:01:45.720
place and here's the thai police one handcuffed and then the arrests were made
01:01:52.520
after he got arrested he was brought to the thai police station and we sat down with him and we
01:01:57.400
explained to him about who the people that he had been meeting with and that they were all sources of
01:02:02.200
the dea and his first response was i guess you hold all the cards he knew that he'd been beat and when
01:02:10.040
the thai's when they arrest somebody they never just do a very quiet arrest oh this is hilarious what
01:02:15.960
what the thai did here guys christina laughing should remember this yo this was ridiculous what
01:02:21.240
these dudes did after this bro they put the bad guys in front of tv cameras and that's exactly what
01:02:27.080
happened the next day it was on television there were hundreds of people there it was a circus
01:02:32.360
atmosphere it was laid out in front of everyone in front of all the media they announced the charges
01:02:42.040
like bro oh my god yo and here's the thing too i want to let y'all know when you commit
01:02:49.240
when you uh you know conduct an arrest in a foreign country you don't really dictate the terms bro
01:02:54.600
i guarantee you a big part of the thai saying yo we will assist you in this investigation and we will
01:02:59.160
assist you with making this arrest happen whatever they probably told dea just so y'all know we're
01:03:03.720
going to parade them around after we get them bro and they're like all right what can we do we can't
01:03:07.880
tell y'all not to so um bam so they they got him just sitting there where everybody like bro what the
01:03:13.640
they want to claim it they want to show you yeah this is funny because remember guys he's an international
01:03:19.960
armist you know trafficker everyone knows who the hell this dude is bro so this is hilarious
01:03:31.960
guarantee a big part of them uh you know saying yo we'll extradite them and make it as quickly as
01:03:36.280
possible for you was them being able to do this little press release thing that they did here because
01:03:40.600
the extradition process guys is a big pain in the ass man i've done it before and it's 100 contingent
01:03:45.880
upon the country that you deal with when you're dealing with a friendly country the extradition process
01:03:49.480
can take maybe a couple weeks couple months when you're dealing with a country that isn't as friendly
01:03:53.720
bro it could take damn near years so you know this is what it's you know this is being diplomatic
01:03:59.880
having good diplomatic relations and you know hey i do this you do that for me so guaranteed um
01:04:05.960
this the dea you know doing this with ty with the ty police and letting them kind of do this uh
01:04:12.040
and made things it greased the wheels for making this extradition nice and smooth and getting
01:04:15.720
him over to united states fairly quickly but victor knows an awful lot so there was that concern that
01:04:23.960
someone would not want him to cooperate and could have him killed before we could get him
01:04:44.360
today's arrests mark the culmination of a long-term dea undercover investigation
01:04:49.640
that spanned the globe and it marks the end of the reign of one of the world's
01:04:54.200
most wanted arms traffickers through the whole investigation you're worried that this is not
01:05:01.560
going to get across the finish line and that worry even existed after victor boot got arrested because
01:05:07.240
he's still pending extradition you can arrest somebody and say oh i did a great job i arrested
01:05:13.000
him but that doesn't get you across the finish line a successful investigation against victor boot
01:05:19.400
doesn't take place until he sits in a courtroom and he's successfully prosecuted we knew it would
01:05:24.680
take some time but there ended up being an awful lot of meddling pressure from russia behind the
01:05:31.080
scenes attempts at corruption i mean literally there were times with women the agents where they would
01:05:36.040
call me and say are we going to lose this because it was very touching yeah because the russians don't
01:05:40.600
want to lose him i mean hell guys they they waited all this time to get him back why because he's an asset to russia
01:05:49.400
and go and it's the big deal because now we're not talking about a cartel guy we're talking about
01:05:55.880
victor boot here's a guy selling weapons to conflict areas knowing that these weapons are going to be
01:06:02.360
used for people to kill each other and knowing that these weapons will never go away he was an
01:06:06.680
accessory to violence on a scale that is beyond comprehension
01:06:13.080
having traveled to many of these countries whether it was sierra leone we're seeing people with their
01:06:17.640
hands cut off because they didn't want them to use weapons against them or countries like kenya
01:06:23.160
everybody has an ak-47 those weapons are still there causing more and more conflict
01:06:33.000
after more than two years of extradition proceedings a thai court ordered boot extradited to the united
01:06:38.680
states after the extradition had been approved we flew in to fly him out he was transferred from the
01:06:45.880
prison there was certainly a big security risk because victor knows an awful lot lost a lot of
01:06:51.000
way in that thai prison so there was that concern that someone would not want him to cooperate and
01:06:58.280
potentially could have him killed the russian government concerned about his intimate knowledge
01:07:03.160
of military and intelligence operations fought for his return to russia
01:07:07.480
so when he was transferred from the prison the thai counterparts and our agents over there sent a decoy
01:07:16.520
team and then another team was sent with victor to the plane the formal transfer to place and we got
01:07:22.680
him on the plane got him situated and we flew back we had him on the plane and he acted like a complete
01:07:30.280
gentleman he was very articulate no didn't cause any problems he just sat there did his thing it's not
01:07:36.760
entirely game over but i think from their perspective they realize once your wheels up
01:07:41.240
leaving that country and you're heading back to the united states they can't bribe their way out
01:07:45.160
they can't maneuver they're in for the long haul now
01:07:51.640
when we got off the plane got him into an armored vehicle and then caravan down to manhattan
01:07:57.720
correctional facility processed him and turned him over to the bureau of prisons then left and had a drink
01:08:06.920
that's a big case man i was happy that everything is finished that we got the evidence we did
01:08:14.440
everything that we planned to do we went around the world chasing victor boot and we did it we captured
01:08:24.520
the most notorious armed dealer on the world victor boot october 12 2011. lasted approximately three
01:08:39.800
weeks andrew smulian decided to cooperate pled guilty and testified in open court against victor boot
01:08:46.440
oh smulian was ultimately sentenced to five years in prison no wonder he testified i testified against
01:08:52.360
victor boot there was something nice to see him on court he was sitting in front of me when i was
01:08:59.160
testifying against him boot has long denied any connection to arms dealing saying he was simply in
01:09:04.840
the air transport business whatever the case this businessman once said to be untouchable now awaits his
01:09:12.120
fate in federal court the jury came back i believe it was november 2nd 2011 after a few hours of
01:09:18.840
deliberating and announced a unanimous verdict guilty on all counts bam conspiracy conspiracy to kill
01:09:29.080
officers and other united states officials conspiracy to acquire and use surface-to-air missiles
01:09:34.680
and conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization
01:09:42.680
and when he got sentenced and he turned around and pointed at myself and the other agent and said
01:09:47.800
your time will come oh yes i mean that actually shook me up because you know in all my time of
01:09:55.800
law enforcement in all my time of arresting individuals i've never actually felt that way
01:10:01.720
before and we're not talking about some little fish your time we're talking about victor boot
01:10:08.360
he was sentenced april 2012 to 25 years the mandatory minimum putting a guy like victor boot behind bars
01:10:22.760
i live you probably cooperated to get that time and here's the thing guys you would have stayed in prison
01:10:26.920
here's the bop website right here he would have stayed in prison until august 19th 2029 but look at
01:10:32.680
that big fat not in bop custody all right i wonder why
01:10:42.840
in africa i see day in and day out how victor boot had done so much damage in that continent and that
01:10:51.240
damage continues today i was in mozambique not too long ago where there was terrorist attack that
01:10:59.480
took place in the city that was just in the day before and this was done with weapons probably
01:11:03.560
provided by victor boot will it solve this very complicated problem completely no but it's a lot
01:11:09.640
better than just talking about it at least we did something with it
01:11:12.360
i constantly remind myself and say you know what i did something to try to counter that and knowing
01:11:21.400
that people were trying to stop this individual for years and didn't have the ability yet a small group
01:11:27.640
of individuals all banded together to take down somebody as notorious as victor boot and i'm very
01:11:34.760
proud of what the team did in real life so is uh ayudar a capturar a personas como el señor victor boot
01:11:42.200
is it's bastante satisfactory yeah big case guys big case this conviction the case sends a message to
01:11:48.120
all the transnational criminals throughout the world the monster alcazars the victor boots the other
01:11:53.960
transnational criminals that we've investigated and successfully prosecuted that nobody is untouchable
01:12:01.480
well until a wmba player decides to smoke weed and go into a country and then she gets traded for a
01:12:08.280
an armed shavker that decided to go ahead and help foreign terrorist organizations but hey who's
01:12:12.680
counting right so all right guys let me show you guys some of the court documents real quick as you
01:12:16.200
guys can see here's the sealed criminal complaint that they used against boot okay and uh as you guys
01:12:21.960
know the way it goes as you do a criminal complaint a criminal complaint is used right to um can you
01:12:27.400
hit hide there christine on your screen i think it's from yours on the bottom okay yeah yeah just hit
01:12:31.800
the the bottom thing no not not that you gotta wait you gotta hit that thing where it says hide on the
01:12:39.480
corner oh yeah you have to show me because i don't know anything right here oh i can't see that
01:12:47.480
right there that's so tiny give christina the stupid anyway so yeah anyway um so you guys can
01:12:56.280
see 18 usc um scroll down christina because you have to scroll yeah i got it okay yeah 18 usc you
01:13:03.960
write in all the different uh violations two two three nine b and then a two three two three a as you guys
01:13:10.120
know so i've explained this before but the way criminal complaints work is you write an affidavit right
01:13:15.000
and that affidavit is in support of an arrest warrant okay and then you can use that arrest
01:13:20.360
warrant to go pick up your guys so scroll down real quick so it's for victor boo and for andrew smillion
01:13:27.480
keep going keep going so okay boom southern district in new york as robert f um zacharias
01:13:33.720
switz i'm probably butchered that um being duly sworn deposed and says that he is a special agent of
01:13:38.920
the drug enforcement administration and the charges as follows and then bam uh you know because we provide
01:13:43.400
material supports a foreign terrorist organization scroll down keep going uh-huh
01:13:49.960
right different uh all the different charges and this and this goes ahead and outlines all the facts
01:13:54.520
of the case just keep scrolling keep scrolling yeah just keep going right the farc they have to name
01:14:00.360
what the farc is what it does right the background on him right on this investigation right cs1 which
01:14:07.640
stands for confidential source right and they go through all the facts of the investigation all the
01:14:12.920
undercover meetings keep going they met in the netherlands didn't talk about that in the
01:14:18.440
documentary uh copenhagen denmark keep going right bucharest romania
01:14:29.560
so informative yeah this is the actual complaint that outlines all the investigative efforts because
01:14:34.600
and as the agent you're putting out all the facts that you know uh that allow you to establish
01:14:39.400
probable cause to go ahead and get your arrest warrant right so boom so he signs it then after
01:14:43.720
they get boo arrested right they probably came back and indicted him so click that second tab real
01:14:49.160
quick the indictment guys now is a formal charge the diamond now yeah click that yep in the indictment
01:14:54.280
right you got to go ahead and convene a grand jury you present your case and then once you get a
01:14:57.880
true bill of indictment that's the formal charge okay and then here's the official charges they
01:15:02.120
actually hit them with in court uh in trial right because your criminal complaint sometimes you might
01:15:06.760
use a charge and they're like you know what now we don't want to indict on that we're just gonna use
01:15:09.160
this instead so conspiracy to kill united states nationals right keep going keep going right and
01:15:16.120
you guys can find this on pacer as well keep going then they talk about the farc right because that's
01:15:22.840
a very important component to this charge keep going all right conspiracy to kill united states nationals
01:15:29.800
again another count on that overt acts right there and then now these are all the meetings the
01:15:35.640
undercovers right and i could read through all this but i figured you guys you know documentary
01:15:40.600
did a really good job of covering it and it won't i don't want to put you out of sleep but this is
01:15:45.400
the actual document here um the official charging document from the grand jury aka the diamond this
01:15:52.840
was done out of the southern district of new york as you guys know the sun district of new york
01:15:56.040
is probably one of the best prosecutorial venues in the united states they prosecuted some of the biggest
01:16:00.840
cases count two conspiracy scroll up scroll up scroll up scroll back up what is it uh conspiracy
01:16:06.520
to kill officers and uh employees of the united states right aka government employees military guys
01:16:12.360
scroll down more overt acts right because anytime you have a conspiracy guys a conspiracy is basically
01:16:18.120
an agreement account three okay conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles that's a big one
01:16:21.880
right um anytime you you have a conspiracy case guys you need an agreement between two or more parties
01:16:27.400
and you need an overt act and an overt act is doing something in furtherance of said crime okay so
01:16:33.000
it's fairly easy to prove conspiracy conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a foreign
01:16:37.800
terrorist organization which in this case was the farc right that's how the informants and the
01:16:42.600
were able to play it up really well and this is where the agents became uh creative right more overt acts
01:16:47.240
etc but you guys get the idea um and then there's a forfeiture allegations what they're going ahead
01:16:52.120
and trying to actually take from victor bout which in this case i guarantee is probably quite a bit of money
01:16:56.680
and some other things um but yeah cool all right uh so yeah guys that right there covers the victor
01:17:05.400
boot investigation um and yeah now y'all can see for real uh why we traded a holographic charizard
01:17:14.600
for a common level pikachu man but hey you know what l biden
01:17:19.000
what are your thoughts on this christina i mean we spoke about this like how long
01:17:26.440
but i mean yeah stupid i just don't get why they i mean they had been in talks for trading
01:17:31.960
her with to him for a while but i'm actually shocked that they went through with it and
01:17:35.240
they didn't get the marine as well they should have got the marine and her and um and her but
01:17:39.960
they only got her which is but here's the thing though like if you're going to another country you
01:17:43.720
know divorce you can't be smoking and a lot of countries you're not allowed to have that so
01:17:47.880
yeah you got in trouble because you shouldn't be doing it you thought you were an exception
01:17:51.000
yep no what about the marine that's more messed up yeah yeah exactly that's like he that's no he was
01:17:58.760
there serving his country and then we went ahead and brought somebody back that doesn't even you
01:18:02.520
know also uh that takes a kneel during the how about the dea that this did their national anthem
01:18:07.400
what's that the dea's like they're probably just like what the hell's going on oh yeah yeah
01:18:11.400
dea is definitely pissed off about this because they spent a lot of resources he only served 10
01:18:15.160
years of a census not even half yeah dea is definitely tight about this i'll tell you how
01:18:18.920
that yeah and the u.s 30s office probably not happy about it either but hey man you know i'm saying uh
01:18:24.760
sleepy joe got to get those votes but anyway guys hope you enjoyed that podcast hope you guys learned
01:18:29.400
something uh now you guys know the real story behind the merchants of death uh and yeah i'll catch you
01:18:36.040
guys on the next episode of fed it love you all don't forget to like the video on your way out
01:18:39.800
subscribe to the channel i'll catch you guys on the next one peace
01:18:45.720
i was a special agent with homelands investigations okay guys hsi the cases that i did mostly were
01:18:50.680
human smuggling and drug trafficking no one else has these documents by the way here's what fed it
01:18:57.160
covers dr lafredo confirmed lacerations due to stepping on glass murder investigations reaching in
01:19:05.800
this jacket you don't know and he's positioning been on february 13th 2019 you're facing two
01:19:10.680
counts of two meditative racketeering and rico conspiracy young slime life here and after referred
01:19:16.520
to as ysl the defendants uh six nine and then this is billy seiko right here now when they first started
01:19:22.040
guys six nine ran i'm upset i'm watching this music video you know i'm bobbing my head like hey this
01:19:27.320
shit lit but at the same time i'm pausing oh wait who this right well who's that in the back
01:19:32.920
firearms and violent crimes aka bush ic violated you're wanting to stay away from the victim
01:19:38.040
driver tries to arrest after shooting at king of diamonds this is the one that that's gonna
01:19:43.480
him up because this gun is not tracing well it happened at the gun range here's your boy 42 dug right
01:19:47.880
here on the left okay sex trafficking and sex crimes they can effectively link him to paying an underage
01:19:53.720
girl and the first bomb went off right here the second explosion inspired by al-qaeda two terrorists
01:20:04.600
brothers the zokar sarnev and tamarland sarnev when the cartels shipped drugs into the country as this
01:20:10.440
guy got arrested for um espionage okay trading secrets with the russians for monetary compensation
01:20:16.920
the largest corrupt police bust in new orleans history the days of the police are gone