The Debrief With MyronGainesX - Fed Explains ＂The Merchant Of Death＂! Why Trading Brittney Griner For Viktor Bout Was An L!

00:00:00.900 And we are live. What's up, guys? Welcome to FedIt. Today, we're going to be covering the merchant of death, Victor Boutman.

00:00:06.900 As you guys know, he's hitting the news all over the place because of the trade with Brittany Griner.

00:00:10.340 But who is he really? Let's get into it.

00:00:14.900 I was a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, okay, guys? HSI.

00:00:18.200 The cases that I did mostly were human smuggling and drug trafficking.

00:00:23.380 No one else has these documents, by the way.

00:00:25.600 Here's what FedIt covers.

00:00:26.700 Dr. Lafredo confirmed lacerations due to stepping on glass.

00:00:33.560 Murder Investigations.

00:00:34.560 You see him reaching in his jacket. You don't know.

00:00:36.840 And he's positioning.

00:00:37.500 Been on February 13, 2019.

00:00:39.180 You're facing two counts of two meditative miracles.

00:00:42.320 Racketeering and Rico conspiracies.

00:00:44.160 Young Slime Life here and after referred to as YSL.

00:00:46.720 This is 6'9", and then this is Billy Seiko right here.

00:00:50.180 Now, when they first started, guys, 6'9 ran with me.

00:00:52.800 I'm a Fed. I'm watching this music video.

00:00:54.280 You know, I'm Bob and Mahala. 0.99

00:00:56.360 Hey, this shit lit. 0.99

00:00:57.140 But at the same time, I'm pausing. 0.99

00:00:58.640 Oh, wait, who this?

00:00:59.860 Right?

00:01:00.300 Who's that in the back? 0.73

00:01:02.440 Firearms and violent crime.

00:01:03.840 A.K.A. Bushai-C violated.

00:01:05.640 You're wanting to stay away from the victim.

00:01:07.380 Bushai-C arrested after shooting at King of Diamonds, Miami strip club injured one person. 0.99

00:01:11.400 This is the one that's going to fuck him up because this gun is not tracing. 0.98

00:01:14.920 Well, it happened at the gun range. 0.99

00:01:16.080 Here's your boy, 42 Doug, right here on the left.

00:01:18.320 Okay. 0.99

00:01:18.660 Sex trafficking and sex crimes. 0.72

00:01:20.080 They can effectively link him to paying an underage girl. 0.63

00:01:23.220 And the first bomb went off right here.

00:01:27.840 You can expect to set down a backpack on the site of the second explosion inspired by Al-Qaeda.

00:01:32.960 Two terrorists, his brothers, the Zokar Sarnev and Tamerlan Sarnev.

00:01:37.520 When the cartel shipped drugs into the country.

00:01:39.560 This guy got arrested for espionage, okay?

00:01:42.260 Trading secrets with the Russians for monetary compensation. 0.57

00:01:45.940 The largest corrupt police bust in New Orleans history.

00:01:50.500 The days of the police are gone.

00:01:52.160 So he was in this bad boy.

00:01:53.660 We're going to go over his past, the gang time, so that this all makes sense.

00:02:03.680 All right.

00:02:04.240 We're back.

00:02:04.700 What's up, guys?

00:02:05.160 Welcome to Fed It.

00:02:05.720 Today, we're going to be talking about Victor Belt, guys.

00:02:07.500 We're going to get right into it.

00:02:08.940 Let me go ahead and adjust some of this stuff.

00:02:10.400 Actually, hold on.

00:02:10.960 I got a special guest with me.

00:02:12.380 Christina, you want to introduce yourself to the people?

00:02:14.740 Been on many times.

00:02:15.800 Yeah.

00:02:16.480 Hi, Christina.

00:02:17.120 If you guys want us to cover a case, just contact Fed It 1811 on Instagram.

00:02:22.480 Bam.

00:02:22.940 That's what I'm saying.

00:02:23.580 Sure and sweet.

00:02:24.220 You have anything else you want to tell the people?

00:02:26.880 We got some info for Young Dolph.

00:02:28.860 Yeah.

00:02:29.440 Actually, yeah.

00:02:30.940 She went out to Memphis with Zina. 0.79

00:02:33.060 They went ahead and gathered some documents with guys.

00:02:35.060 So the Young Dolph is coming very, very soon, man.

00:02:38.060 As you guys know, we had sent people over there to go ahead and get documents for us.

00:02:40.780 They started asking a bunch of questions.

00:02:41.920 So, you know, when you want anything done right, you got to do it yourself.

00:02:44.580 So Christina and Zina went up there for me last week and they went ahead and gathered

00:02:49.180 the documents and shout out to them for doing that for me.

00:02:52.480 And yeah, it was a pain, but she was able to get a couple of the documents.

00:02:55.860 Right.

00:02:56.120 And we got some exclusive information that no one else really knows.

00:02:58.760 Yeah.

00:02:58.980 We have some information that I don't know if we have to talk about it before we disclose

00:03:02.300 it.

00:03:02.680 Yeah.

00:03:02.880 We'll figure it out for you.

00:03:04.340 We're going to get more documents soon because they go to court this week and next week.

00:03:10.780 For the first time.

00:03:11.920 All right.

00:03:12.700 Cool.

00:03:13.560 Anyway, guys, so today's topic, we're going to be covering Brittany Griner and Victor

00:03:17.780 Bell.

00:03:18.240 And some of you guys may know who Victor Bell is.

00:03:20.580 Some of you guys don't.

00:03:21.360 So I'm going to go ahead and give you guys a very thorough breakdown on how bad this dude

00:03:25.080 really is, man.

00:03:25.700 They didn't call him the merchant of death for no reason.

00:03:28.180 OK, so first we're going to start off with the news.

00:03:30.840 OK, as you all know, shout out to CNN because they only report certain things.

00:03:35.420 But this is as of today.

00:03:37.160 Brittany Griner arrives in the U.S. after being released from Russian custody in a prisoner 0.87

00:03:40.740 exchange.

00:03:41.880 OK, Brittany Griner, the American basketball star detained by Russian authorities in February,

00:03:47.340 has a safely return to the United States after being released from custody in a prisoner

00:03:50.640 exchange.

00:03:50.960 You guys might be wondering, well, who is Brittany Griner exactly?

00:03:52.940 Guys, here she is. 1.00

00:03:53.780 OK, Brittany Yvette Griner, born October 18th, 1990.

00:03:56.880 She's 30.

00:03:57.300 She's about to be 32 or no. 0.99

00:03:58.420 She just hit 32, is an American professional basketball player from Phoenix, from the Phoenix. 1.00

00:04:03.920 Hold on, let me learn this for y'all.

00:04:06.640 From the Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA.

00:04:09.320 She played college basketball for the Lord, for the Baylor Lady Bears in Waco, Texas.

00:04:13.720 She is the only NCAA basketball player to both score 2,000 points and block 500 shots.

00:04:17.920 In 2002, the three-time All-American was named the AP player of the year and the most outstanding

00:04:22.160 player of the final four, helping Baylor to win the national championship.

00:04:25.540 So, you know, obviously, when it comes to, you know, basketball, she does her thing as 0.99

00:04:30.820 far as, well, in the female world. 0.85

00:04:32.840 Griner led the United States.

00:04:34.620 Let's see here.

00:04:35.360 Let's go here.

00:04:36.400 OK.

00:04:37.020 In February 2022, Griner was detained by Russian customs officials after cartridges

00:04:40.860 containing hashish oil were found in her luggage.

00:04:43.640 She was later arrested on smuggling charges.

00:04:45.160 Griner had been entering Russia to play with the Russian Premier League during the WNBA offseason. 1.00

00:04:51.260 Her trial began on July 1st, and she pleaded guilty to the charges on August 4th.

00:04:54.460 She was sentenced to nine years in prison.

00:04:57.080 November 2022, Griner was transferred to the Russian penal colony, IK2.

00:05:01.940 During this time, U.S. officials stated that she was wrongfully detained.

00:05:05.760 On December 8th, Griner was released by Russia in a prisoner exchange for the Russian arms

00:05:09.340 dealer, Victor Bout, who was convicted of conspiring to kill Americans and had served

00:05:12.720 10 years of a 25-year sentence.

00:05:14.900 Now, who is Victor Bout?

00:05:16.140 Here he is right here, guys.

00:05:17.020 Victor Anteleyevich Bout, OK, born January 13, 1967, is a Russian arms dealer, an entrepreneur

00:05:23.620 and former Soviet military translator.

00:05:26.020 This guy speaks a bunch of different languages, guys.

00:05:27.620 He speaks Russian, English, Portuguese.

00:05:30.840 I think he speaks Farsi and potentially even Arabic, multilingual.

00:05:36.140 He served as a linguist for the Soviet Union, all right, back in the day.

00:05:39.220 And we're going to go over that in this breakdown.

00:05:41.020 But anyway, so he used his multiple companies to smuggle weapons starting during the collapse

00:05:49.840 of the Soviet Union from Eastern Europe to Africa and the Middle East during the 1990s,

00:05:53.820 early 2000s.

00:05:54.620 Bout gained the nicknames the Merchant of Death and Sanctions Buster after British government

00:05:59.480 minister Peter Hain read a report to the United Nations in 2003 about Bout's wide-reaching

00:06:03.960 operations, extensive clientele, and willingness to bypass embargoes.

00:06:08.020 Largos, OK, guys, so they had this dude sanctioned out the Wuza, and he still was able to, you 0.99

00:06:13.940 know, get business done and make that money, all right?

00:06:16.960 And we're going to talk about this a little bit more.

00:06:18.960 And the U.S. thing operation Bout was arrested on March 6, 2008 in Thailand on terrorism charges

00:06:23.160 by the Royal Thai Police in cooperation with American authorities and Interpol, all right?

00:06:27.620 We're going to go into this in more detail.

00:06:29.480 But now you guys know who these individuals are.

00:06:31.980 So Griner, 32, arrived at the Joint Base San Antonio, Fort Sam Houston.

00:06:36.340 Let me enlarge this for you all as well, OK?

00:06:40.160 Texas early Friday and was taken to Brook Army Medical Center for a routine evaluation,

00:06:45.400 a State Department official told CNN.

00:06:47.240 U.S. officials who met Griner said she was in good spirits and incredibly gracious.

00:06:51.260 National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told CNN Griner stepped off the plane

00:06:55.760 shortly after 5.30 a.m. Eastern time at Kelly Field, all right?

00:07:00.560 So here she is getting off the plane, guys.

00:07:03.380 Actually, you know what?

00:07:03.920 Let's go ahead and show the exchange first.

00:07:05.560 This was done in UAE, right? 0.76

00:07:08.300 This is where they did the exchange.

00:07:11.000 And I'll just mute it because it's a bunch of weird-ass static.

00:07:13.240 As you guys can see, here's Victor Bout walking like a G.

00:07:16.500 Here's Griner walking.

00:07:19.500 And this is them facilitating the exchange.

00:07:21.700 Is he smiling?

00:07:22.820 This guy?

00:07:23.600 Yeah.

00:07:23.960 Yeah, it looks like it.

00:07:24.680 He exactly is.

00:07:25.100 And these more than likely are probably Russian KGB because they got their faces blurred, right?

00:07:33.720 And there we go.

00:07:35.080 Griner making it back out.

00:07:38.700 She's pretty tall.

00:07:39.780 I wonder how tall she is.

00:07:40.720 Let's see.

00:07:41.120 She's 6'9".

00:07:41.440 She's what? 1.00

00:07:42.460 6'9".

00:07:43.160 She's 6'9"? 1.00

00:07:43.920 Yeah, she's taller than you. 1.00

00:07:45.240 God damn. 1.00

00:07:46.640 Yeah, 6'9". 1.00

00:07:47.680 Holy.

00:07:48.260 She weighs 205 pounds.

00:07:49.780 She weighs as much as I do.

00:07:51.920 See?

00:07:52.600 6'9".

00:07:53.360 Professional athlete. 1.00

00:07:54.220 Some of the chicks that come on this goddamn show try to talk smack to me. 1.00

00:07:57.220 And it's like, bruh, y'all weigh 200 pounds. 1.00

00:07:59.640 You're five foot fucking three. 1.00

00:08:01.060 Unacceptable. 1.00

00:08:01.580 That's obese.

00:08:02.220 Yeah, man.

00:08:02.940 Unacceptable.

00:08:04.440 So to be honest with y'all, a lot of people, right?

00:08:08.120 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.

00:08:17.180 He's a Canadian-born former United States Marine with U.S., British, Irish, and Canadian citizenship.

00:08:21.760 He was arrested in Russia on December 28, 2018, and accused of spying on June 15, 2020.

00:08:27.260 He was received a 16-year prison sentence.

00:08:29.940 And guys, we did not get him out, but we got Brittany Griner out. 0.94

00:08:32.780 So big Al Biden and Al fucking Biden for not getting back one of our soldiers who was over 0.95

00:08:42.440 there, okay, in Russia on U.S. orders, following the chain of command, serving his country. 0.98

00:08:49.500 Meanwhile, we got someone over here like Brittany Griner, who broke laws, right? 1.00

00:08:56.740 She broke Russian laws to smoke pot, and we ended up prioritizing her over a real American 1.00

00:09:06.080 hero over here.

00:09:07.060 So it is what it is, man.

00:09:08.780 And if I'm not mistaken, I think Griner hasn't even...

00:09:10.780 She's taken a kneel a couple of times when the National Anthem was set.

00:09:14.920 So, L for Brittany Griner.

00:09:18.760 But anyway, it is what it is.

00:09:20.500 The point is, guys, is that this whole situation...

00:09:23.360 This is the equivalent of charging a... 0.99

00:09:25.880 You know, trading a holographic first edition Charizard for a fucking Pikachu. 1.00

00:09:31.480 This is ridiculous. 0.98

00:09:32.200 But, you know, my personal opinions aside, I'm going to go ahead and break down a documentary.

00:09:40.700 You know, me and Christina saw this a couple weeks ago, and I thought you guys would love

00:09:43.280 it, from a show called Declassified, which is going to go over the investigation on Victor

00:09:51.060 Bell.

00:09:51.320 And you guys are going to see...

00:09:52.220 It's actually really good, too.

00:09:53.420 ...how bad this dude really is, and why this trade, quite frankly, was a huge L for the United

00:09:59.580 States, you know, to trade away a... 1.00

00:10:03.220 Quite frankly, a damn near terrorist for a WNBA player is very stupid. 1.00

00:10:09.980 But, hey, you know what? 1.00

00:10:11.280 I'm going to take my opinions aside.

00:10:13.060 I want to go ahead and...

00:10:13.940 I'm going to show you guys this documentary.

00:10:15.500 You can tell me what y'all think, all right?

00:10:17.080 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.

00:10:23.380 You don't know too, too much about him yet, unless you've done your research.

00:10:26.240 And you know who Paul Whelan is.

00:10:28.340 Let's go ahead and get into the documentary, all right?

00:10:35.500 The Merchant of Death, Declassified.

00:10:39.160 In the 90s, there is chaos and conflict around the world.

00:10:43.740 And if someone had the ingenuity and the drive, they can capitalize on the chaos in these conflict

00:10:50.240 zones by supplying weapons.

00:10:53.180 People are looking to see who is moving the weapons into the war-in-torn areas.

00:10:56.760 And constantly, the name Victor Bout came up.

00:10:59.760 Victor poured gasoline on the conflicts and provided the weaponry so that the people in

00:11:05.200 these countries could slaughter one another. 0.59

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.

00:11:14.580 This guy was the Merchant of Death.

00:11:16.320 And nobody was able to touch him.

00:11:20.740 As a former FBI.

00:11:22.200 And these are DEA agents that are speaking because it was the DEA that actually went ahead

00:11:28.060 and took Victor Bout down.

00:11:29.580 And I know some of you guys are wondering, like, wait, hold on.

00:11:31.380 Whoa, whoa, whoa.

00:11:32.700 DEA?

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

00:11:57.700 as dangerous as Osama bin Laden.

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.

00:12:10.040 Okay, so he's a group supervisor for the DEA.

00:12:13.480 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.

00:12:21.600 A supervisor is a GS-14, okay?

00:12:24.460 They supervise a group of agents.

00:12:26.060 Typically, you know, if it's FBI, it's called a squad.

00:12:28.100 If it's HSI, it's called a group.

00:12:31.100 If it's DEA, it's called, like, an enforcement group, right?

00:12:33.740 So, the supervisor, typically the supervisor, somewhere between five to ten special agents

00:12:40.260 and or task force officers.

00:12:41.780 They're the ones signing off on the reports.

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

00:12:53.340 and lead the investigation.

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.

00:13:01.040 ...weapons to the cesspool of drug traffickers, terrorists, human traffickers.

00:13:07.560 They're basically the engine behind those groups.

00:13:12.000 He facilitates that death and destruction and the deaths of many innocents.

00:13:17.480 What he did is the worst thing that I've ever experienced as a DEA agent.

00:13:25.220 You know, the drugs are one thing, because drugs can go away, but the weapons never go

00:13:29.740 away.

00:13:30.000 They live on.

00:13:31.060 They continue to cause...

00:13:32.160 All right.

00:13:32.460 He's a part of the Special Operations Division at DEA, guys, which does a lot more international

00:13:37.080 type drug enforcement.

00:13:39.380 Okay?

00:13:39.680 They're more concerned with being out, doing things internationally.

00:13:44.200 It's conflict, because nothing good comes out of a weapon.

00:13:49.040 Victor Boots spread death and destruction all around the world with the weapons that

00:13:54.920 he sold.

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.

00:14:03.840 Apparently, a very good athlete, very, very bright, was conscripted and went into the service.

00:14:09.620 He picked languages up very quickly, eventually went to the institute where you study languages

00:14:15.840 in Russia.

00:14:17.240 He was an army translator.

00:14:19.260 He also was based in Angola and Mozambique.

00:14:22.420 So he saw what was going on in Africa.

00:14:25.840 He saw the regimes that were operating there.

00:14:29.060 He saw the vulnerability, the fragile governance.

00:14:32.400 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.

00:14:43.460 And in 1991, Victor Boots starts his import-export business.

00:14:47.420 As the Cold War ended, all these planes...

00:14:49.980 And also, you guys got to remember, what also happened in 1991?

00:14:52.980 Well, the fall of the Soviet Union.

00:14:54.960 And when the Soviet Union fell, guys, you got to understand that Russia had been stockpiling

00:14:59.740 weapons throughout the Cold War, okay?

00:15:02.100 They had a bunch of AK-47s all over the place, missiles, you know, anti-aircraft, you know,

00:15:09.300 rocket launchers, all this stuff, right?

00:15:11.240 So Victor Boots, right?

00:15:13.180 What's he able to do?

00:15:13.980 Oh, well, we got all these weapons going for cheap fire sale.

00:15:17.360 Everyone needs money.

00:15:18.380 I'll buy these weapons from you for cheap.

00:15:20.100 And then what does he do?

00:15:21.000 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.

00:15:44.640 They're just laying around, and Victor saw an opportunity to move Western goods into the former Soviet bloc.

00:15:54.040 Goods such as TVs, Coca-Cola, flowers, chicken.

00:15:58.380 And from making money from doing this is when he saw an opportunity to build up his fleet of former Russian planes,

00:16:05.140 and it went from there.

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.

00:16:20.760 He became a transport king, in a sense.

00:16:23.900 His access to planes, his ability with languages caused him to have this kind of meteoric rise

00:16:29.860 and expand his network all around the world.

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

00:16:45.140 that were in power, needed weapons.

00:16:48.060 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.

00:17:00.160 So he was raking in the dough, man.

00:17:02.940 30 years old, millionaire, 1991.

00:17:05.720 He was very willing to satisfy that need.

00:17:08.740 That's Africa. 0.99

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.

00:17:18.640 Can you move weapons?

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.

00:17:35.920 And Viktor saw an opportunity to make money.

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,

00:17:47.640 there was an ability to make more money.

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.

00:17:57.300 Exactly.

00:17:59.460 Viktor Boot cared about money.

00:18:01.660 Take Angola, for example.

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.

00:18:13.940 By 2000, Viktor Boot had contracts with the government of Rwanda

00:18:17.120 to arm and train their military personnel.

00:18:20.280 He chose to do what he was doing and profit from it

00:18:23.080 and left behind societies that were completely devastated.

00:18:28.240 Children in Africa whose family networks were destroyed.

00:18:31.960 Child soldiers.

00:18:33.400 He facilitated that.

00:18:34.940 Estimates of people that were killed in these genocidal episodes in Africa.

00:18:38.520 And elsewhere, well over a million.

00:18:40.620 I know for myself and Wim, we spent a lot of time in Africa.

00:18:44.320 We saw firsthand why Viktor is so incredibly dangerous.

00:18:49.360 So we traded a WNBA player that could barely dunk for a dude that was responsible 1.00

00:18:59.720 for a million plus people dying in Africa in the 90s,

00:19:04.000 that could speak multiple languages,

00:19:06.460 was involved in intelligence for Russia,

00:19:08.520 Yeah.

00:19:10.920 Oh my God.

00:19:14.220 We haven't even gotten to the good stuff yet.

00:19:16.520 Let's keep going.

00:19:17.120 So big governments like the United States and the United Kingdom

00:19:23.500 who were observing these atrocities,

00:19:26.680 these movement of weapons from point A to point B,

00:19:29.620 they felt a responsibility to address it.

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,

00:19:41.560 coming up, coming up.

00:19:42.800 And people were like, who is this guy?

00:19:45.320 He came under a lot of scrutiny and his entire network was looked at.

00:19:49.500 It was fleshed out.

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

00:19:58.980 in numerous countries across Africa and Asia.

00:20:01.880 Oh, look, CVS is actually covering him.

00:20:04.060 Sorry, CNN is actually covering him.

00:20:06.000 It's at CVS.

00:20:07.580 CNN is actually covering him appropriately for once.

00:20:09.940 But this is back before everyone was woke.

00:20:11.880 There was definitely, I think, the will to try to do something.

00:20:25.380 But there was no...

00:20:26.400 As you guys know, heroin, one of the main cultivators of heroin, Afghanistan. 0.56

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. 0.94

00:20:44.720 And then the fear of getting in trouble is even less

00:20:47.260 because who's going to cause you problems?

00:20:49.960 People had to try to find a way to stop that.

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.

00:21:01.720 But Victor Boot was an elusive figure

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.

00:21:20.700 So they're going pretty hard, man.

00:21:22.540 These are some big wigs over here in the government, 1.00

00:21:25.240 like, trying to fuck with his money. 1.00

00:21:27.320 Let's see what happens. 0.99

00:21:28.960 Going after assets doesn't put somebody in jail.

00:21:31.720 So here, Victor Boot was still flying around

00:21:34.480 doing all the things that he wanted to do

00:21:36.280 with no fear of someone coming after him.

00:21:39.640 How do you catch them like that?

00:21:40.660 And then who would catch him?

00:21:43.060 DEA's Special Operations Division, or SOD,

00:21:46.220 focused on extraterritorial or foreign transnational criminals.

00:21:50.960 In June of 2007, we arrested Manzhar Al-Qasar.

00:21:55.380 Qasar was drug trafficker and an arms trafficker. 0.93

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,

00:22:05.220 but to get involved and stop it.

00:22:07.280 We're going to put boots on the ground.

00:22:09.480 We're going to find a way.

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.

00:22:19.000 A pretty big case as well.

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.

00:22:54.300 I live in these areas.

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.

00:23:43.820 I got to give them credit.

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.

00:24:28.880 The FARC was looking for weapons.

00:24:30.560 They had drug proceeds that they wanted to pay for weapons.

00:24:33.320 The proceeds are in Europe.

00:24:34.720 We need to meet and discuss this.

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.

00:24:46.120 My source, Carlos, was...

00:24:47.560 Source is a confidential informant, guys, okay?

00:24:50.020 Documented confidential informant.

00:24:51.420 He was the right person for this case.

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,

00:25:03.400 because FARC guerrillas operate in the jungle.

00:25:06.200 They shoot people.

00:25:07.220 They're on the front lines.

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.

00:25:17.660 If we could get Carlos...

00:25:19.280 And this is important, guys, that they were able to do that, because here's the thing.

00:25:22.340 You want to be able...

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.

00:25:44.500 He's a grunt with the FARC.

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.

00:26:04.160 But that's really what it comes down to.

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.

00:26:17.680 No doubt, Carlos was the kingest thing.

00:26:20.480 Working with the DEA is a danger business.

00:26:23.480 It's not a game.

00:26:25.560 It's not a movie.

00:26:27.220 It's real life. 0.99

00:26:29.240 You can get killed.

00:26:31.120 I am part of the DEA, but I am not a DEA agent. 0.98

00:26:36.080 I am the source.

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.

00:26:54.000 Someone like Victor Boot, very smart.

00:26:55.620 I don't know if he spoke Spanish.

00:26:56.980 I don't think he did.

00:26:57.980 He was in Spain, though. 0.99

00:26:58.740 He's going to go ahead and have his people that can figure shit out. 0.99

00:27:02.060 What? 0.98

00:27:02.980 No, he speaks Spanish because he speaks most of the languages.

00:27:06.320 Yeah, yeah.

00:27:06.640 No, but I'm saying the source is probably from Colombia.

00:27:08.680 Yeah.

00:27:09.080 So they speak Spanish, so he sounds like a Colombian.

00:27:11.800 No, I'm thinking from way back in the show.

00:27:14.080 Okay.

00:27:14.640 Law enforcement, politicians somehow get caught up in corruption.

00:27:18.180 And Carlos found himself in that situation.

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.

00:27:42.980 It's a special agent in charge office.

00:27:44.640 They got a couple hundred agents in DEA.

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.

00:28:16.360 Okay.

00:28:16.860 So that's why they have an office down there.

00:28:19.200 Got a lot of agents.

00:28:21.120 And said, this is what I'm doing.

00:28:23.320 And I think it's in Bogota, if I'm not mistaken.

00:28:25.280 I want to make amends.

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.

00:28:42.880 Do you know people who have been killed?

00:28:44.280 Yes, I know.

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.

00:28:54.680 Anything can get wrong. 0.96

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.

00:29:50.420 And Mike agreed to cooperate with us.

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,

00:30:09.820 Hey, are you still in contact with Victor?

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.

00:30:30.660 Boris is Victor Boot.

00:30:31.620 That was his nickname.

00:30:33.020 The most Russian name ever, Boris.

00:30:35.840 So this is good, man.

00:30:37.040 They got, so you guys can see, right?

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.

00:31:11.340 I got to move intelligently.

00:31:15.360 Andrew agreed to meet.

00:31:16.800 Andrew flew into Curaçao.

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. 1.00

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.

00:32:17.080 His FARC associate.

00:32:18.600 Remember, guys, he's a DEA informant.

00:32:20.800 Another operative.

00:32:21.780 And Mike Snow.

00:32:23.020 Mike Snow is a DEA source that knew Andrew Smulian and vouched for Carlos and the other FARC role players.

00:32:29.920 All right.

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.

00:32:46.820 Okay.

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.

00:32:58.820 Now, okay.

00:33:01.120 I go a lot of y'all.

00:33:02.420 I typically wouldn't have.

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.

00:33:37.360 But, hey, you know what I'm saying?

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.

00:33:53.660 So I ain't going to knock him for it.

00:33:57.660 DEA believed.

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.

00:34:12.020 That's why Victor is so incredibly dangerous.

00:34:16.520 My goal was to convince Smolian that we are for real, that we are from the FARC. 0.99

00:34:22.540 That way he can go and tell Victor boot about us.

00:34:26.240 Andrew Smolian was a target.

00:34:28.060 Smolian has no idea that the DEA is nearby, that Carlos is working with us.

00:34:33.600 Smolian has no idea. 0.89

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.

00:34:46.760 It was a lot of pressure.

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. 0.71

00:35:28.680 I go off and I collect the money.

00:35:30.920 I help get the weapons and put the orders in.

00:35:34.220 Andrew Smolian was testing the waters.

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.

00:35:55.000 No, I was always the case agent.

00:35:56.020 So I was always be, you know, overseeing the case.

00:35:58.280 I'm the one running the thing.

00:35:59.380 So I'd have my informants in there, maybe with a UC or whatever.

00:36:01.780 I remember we did one.

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.

00:36:13.820 You want to secure evidence.

00:36:15.320 And a lot of time it's contingent upon your sources skill set, the undercover skill set.

00:36:20.880 And, you know, does it always go?

00:36:22.560 No.

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.

00:36:38.380 Smooly could become suspicious.

00:36:40.440 Victor definitely had coached Smooly to be very careful.

00:36:43.600 So there was a lot riding on it.

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. 0.98

00:36:56.900 You know, you're just shooting the shit to build rapport. 0.95

00:36:59.700 Andrew, Mike Snow, and our two sources, Carlos and El Comandante. 0.99

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. 0.84

00:37:54.160 Somalian was very interested in the deal.

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.

00:38:20.240 There was a meeting that was set up.

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?

00:38:40.500 So, guys, hold on, man.

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.

00:38:48.380 We can't sure are these guys legit, etc.

00:38:49.860 And this happens a lot, where they'll test the informants and or the agents.

00:38:52.880 So, you got to be on your game.

00:38:57.360 You showed me photos of all the female officers, everything.

00:39:00.820 You told me identify the people you saw.

00:39:03.040 I said, I can't.

00:39:06.120 Of course, there was no pictures in there.

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.

00:39:18.780 He trusts me completely.

00:39:19.540 So, that's huge.

00:39:20.780 That one of the crooks vouched for him.

00:39:22.560 But, you know, as you can see, they got their suspicions.

00:39:24.580 Completely.

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.

00:39:57.940 Uh-huh.

00:39:58.340 It's Victor Booth. 1.00

00:39:59.280 Oh, shit. 1.00

00:40:01.000 Why did he do that? 1.00

00:40:01.920 I don't know.

00:40:02.840 I don't know.

00:40:02.960 He was trying to impress me.

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. 0.99

00:40:20.920 But that's only part of it.

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.

00:40:29.760 All their efforts from that moment.

00:40:31.900 You can see Victor lost quite a bit of weight.

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.

00:40:59.020 It wasn't for peacekeeping purposes.

00:41:01.120 It was for death and destruction.

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.

00:41:30.280 So we chose Romania for that meeting.

00:41:31.280 So we chose Romania for that meeting.

00:41:32.880 There were a bunch of benefits if we made an arrest.

00:41:35.800 Hey, shout out to Romania.

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.

00:41:45.580 So that was our first thing to meet.

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.

00:42:01.640 And they were kind of like innovators.

00:42:03.140 That's how the Tates made their first million was getting webcam girls from and running it out of Romania. 0.90

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?

00:42:21.460 Like, oh, do they have up-to-date technology?

00:42:23.940 Can we bring our technology in there?

00:42:25.560 Do they have good treaties with the United States?

00:42:27.520 Do we have good foreign relations with them?

00:42:30.260 Are we going to be able to extradite?

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.

00:42:42.620 They would never allow it, right?

00:42:43.640 Or Russia.

00:42:44.180 Hell no.

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.

00:42:50.520 With the Romanian counterparts. 0.59

00:42:52.620 Once we did that, we set the time.

00:42:55.060 Smulean came into it.

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. 0.93

00:43:34.460 Because even though people talk shit about the United States, we still have some of the best. 0.90

00:43:37.580 There's a reason why we had the reserve currency. 0.98

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.

00:43:50.020 Romania, Carlos was in Romania.

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.

00:44:27.120 It was millions of dollars in cash.

00:44:29.060 And that cash was waiting for him 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.

00:44:37.260 Because he's already been sanctioned.

00:44:39.700 He wanted the cash.

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.

00:45:10.440 My bad, Mr. Producer. 0.99

00:45:11.920 Yeah, he wanted to meet them in fucking Moldova, guys. 1.00

00:45:15.080 What the hell? 0.99

00:45:15.900 For some of you guys that are wondering, Moldova is in the middle of fucking nowhere. 0.99

00:45:19.760 Definitely not somewhere you want to do a meet. 0.96

00:45:22.120 Not safe either.

00:45:23.460 It's like mountain lands.

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. 0.97

00:45:40.320 And the men don't take well to, you know, foreigners, especially first world foreigners, taking their women. 1.00

00:45:47.160 Another excuse, because we just don't have the ability to go across a border.

00:45:51.720 These things have to be coordinated.

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.

00:45:59.600 Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam.

00:46:02.120 Yeah, hell no.

00:46:03.860 None of those countries are places that you want to meet and do an undercover operation. 1.00

00:46:08.620 Cuba, fuck no. 1.00

00:46:09.800 You would never be able to do it. 1.00

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.

00:46:43.220 That was like the kill switch.

00:46:44.920 That was like this is going down the tubes immediately and it's going down fast.

00:46:49.020 And we're going to lose this.

00:46:51.480 Our big concern was like, is he playing us?

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.

00:47:00.720 We needed to regroup.

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.

00:47:15.020 Good call.

00:47:15.620 Only cops wait, my friends.

00:47:18.580 You know, this happens all the time.

00:47:19.660 We're trying to do a deal or whatever.

00:47:20.900 And the bad guy is showing up late or whatever. 1.00

00:47:22.800 Nah, you fucking leave. 0.99

00:47:24.100 Can't make it like, oh, yeah, let's just wait. 1.00

00:47:25.760 Like, nah, man.

00:47:26.640 Only cops and feds wait.

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.

00:47:41.560 Carlos made it clear.

00:47:56.620 He said, I have to leave.

00:47:57.660 Let's be back in touch.

00:47:58.640 The risk when we left was that he was going to walk away and the case would just die.

00:48:05.460 It was a calculated risk.

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.

00:48:16.100 Carlos provided an email.

00:48:18.180 So Victor also speaks Spanish.

00:48:21.040 Oh, man.

00:48:23.140 Ah, this was such an L trade for the United States. 0.99

00:48:25.400 The guy speaks Russian, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Farsi.

00:48:35.040 I think he speaks Arabic as well. 0.95

00:48:37.080 Crazy. 0.64

00:48:38.260 He was a linguist for the Soviet Union.

00:48:40.860 Andrew Smulian to give to Victor and said to contact him on that when Victor was ready.

00:48:46.100 It was a risk to leave Romania.

00:48:47.540 We could have stayed there longer, but it just wouldn't look right.

00:48:50.300 Cops would wait.

00:48:51.180 Cops would wait till whenever.

00:48:52.480 You'd wait.

00:48:52.900 But we were like, at some point, if we're real, we've got to get out of there.

00:48:56.720 Yep.

00:48:57.560 Good call.

00:49:00.000 When we left Romania, we were completely frustrated with ourselves.

00:49:04.140 The sources were...

00:49:05.060 And I could see why they would be mad.

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.

00:49:31.980 Very expensive, man.

00:49:33.120 So I could see the frustration to make this deal happen and not making it happen and why 1.00

00:49:37.920 they're like, fuck. 0.99

00:49:39.140 You know, because you're down significantly, right? 1.00

00:49:41.700 From a cost-benefit analysis, right?

00:49:44.820 As far as covering the trip.

00:49:46.620 It ain't cheap to do undercover operations, especially abroad.

00:49:50.540 Frustrated.

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

00:50:11.840 or so, an email came in.

00:50:14.040 It says, this is a friend of Andrew.

00:50:16.620 And the email address was registered to Victor Boot.

00:50:20.300 We were all like, this is not possible.

00:50:22.460 Like, if a guy as notorious as Victor Boot is most wanted, why would he ever register an

00:50:27.820 email address under his own name? 1.00

00:50:29.580 It sounds stupid. 1.00

00:50:30.480 Stupid. 1.00

00:50:31.340 It certainly does. 1.00

00:50:32.460 We all thought it was stupid. 0.99

00:50:33.320 So, after the email came in, there was some communication between Carlos and Victor to try 0.98

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.

00:50:46.740 We had a great office in Thailand.

00:50:48.800 We had great counterparts.

00:50:49.960 And there was an extradition treaty there.

00:50:52.000 Bam.

00:50:52.380 So, that right there is the key.

00:50:55.700 So, our decision was to have Carlos tell Victor, I'm going to be in Thailand early in March.

00:51:02.600 Can you meet me there?

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

00:51:21.580 show up.

00:51:22.700 We still thought at any stage, he could get spooked.

00:51:25.500 He might not get in.

00:51:26.580 It's all talk.

00:51:27.820 He's not going to come.

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

00:51:41.200 the ones that are going to run the operation.

00:51:43.560 You're operating in a foreign country.

00:51:45.600 Yes, you can suggest, hey, this is what we want to do.

00:51:47.960 This is what we're trying to get done.

00:51:48.740 But at the end of the day, operationally, the Thai law enforcement are the ones in charge

00:51:52.820 because it's their country, right?

00:51:54.460 You're just there as a guest.

00:51:58.000 March 6th, 2008.

00:52:00.440 We hoped that Victor would show up.

00:52:02.920 We still thought at any stage, he could get spooked.

00:52:05.440 He might not get in.

00:52:06.540 It's all talk.

00:52:07.760 He's not going to come.

00:52:08.940 That creates some anxiety.

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.

00:53:01.740 Carlos was located in the mezzanine area.

00:53:04.120 And Victor came up and sat down with Carlos and with Andrew and with his bodyguard and

00:53:12.520 proceeded to do introductions.

00:53:15.200 And I think one of the first things that came out from Victor to Carlos was, I'm sorry about

00:53:21.240 your loss.

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

00:53:40.380 at ease. 0.99

00:53:41.420 Ah, see, man, this dude is not stupid, guys. 0.96

00:53:44.940 You know what I mean? 1.00

00:53:45.660 So I sent him a dumb email. 1.00

00:53:47.480 Stupid. 1.00

00:53:47.800 But besides that, hey, if I'm going to meet you in person, let me make sure I know who 1.00

00:53:51.260 the hell I'm talking to. 0.53

00:53:52.280 Oh, yeah. 0.95

00:53:52.640 One of your commanders died, bro.

00:53:54.020 All right.

00:53:54.260 Rest in peace.

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

00:54:01.280 on and know how to play that role.

00:54:04.580 We were sitting on the bar.

00:54:07.100 We were drinking tea.

00:54:09.340 So we started talking a little bit and we decided it was a good place to have this type

00:54:14.240 of conversation.

00:54:16.000 Victor said, let's go up to the 27th floor.

00:54:18.160 There's a business center up there.

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

00:54:35.320 are rampant.

00:54:36.800 So we had no idea if Victor was bringing a gun to that meeting.

00:54:40.700 There are so many unknowns.

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

00:54:52.300 what was needed on the ground with the FARC.

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.

00:55:04.480 All right.

00:55:05.380 So as y'all can see, this is very important because they need to be able to establish,

00:55:09.080 hey, this is what we need, et cetera.

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,

00:55:20.420 they know that he's capable of doing it.

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.

00:55:29.180 They have the informants there, et cetera. 0.95

00:55:30.420 But I'll tell y'all this, though, them informants 1,000% got fucking burned because this is 0.96

00:55:36.220 the thing that sucks about having informants meet bad guys and why you want to get undercovers 0.94

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

00:55:48.360 an undercover agent.

00:55:49.160 Well, when you have informants dealing with the bad guy directly and you want to prosecute

00:55:51.800 the case, well, guess what?

00:55:53.340 They're witnesses to the investigation.

00:55:54.920 So if you go ahead and you want to have, they want to go to trial or something like that,

00:55:59.400 well, guess what?

00:55:59.880 Those sources got to come in and testify.

00:56:02.340 This happened on 6ix9ine's case.

00:56:03.900 When he went to trial, that informant, right, testified against 6ix9ine, the one that they 1.00

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.

00:56:23.500 So they burn their sources for sure. 0.99

00:56:25.020 And DEA always does this shit, man, burning their sources, which is why I don't like having 0.99

00:56:28.820 so many informants involved. 1.00

00:56:30.480 But I get it.

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. 0.76

00:56:48.200 He knew these weapons were going to be used to kill Americans and kill officers and other 0.99

00:56:52.140 officials.

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

00:57:01.600 organization.

00:57:02.620 That is huge for them to be able to prove their case when it comes to material support for

00:57:08.020 a terrorist organization.

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. 0.94

00:57:16.100 Only I'll fucking find it. 0.78

00:57:17.520 And I've had the Victor Bell stuff here, guys, for a few months now. 0.93

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.

00:57:31.280 Let's get back into it.

00:57:32.700 ...in the U.S. government, that he knew that he was going to be acquiring and using surface

00:57:36.840 to air missiles.

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.

00:57:46.620 The Americans were killing his people. 1.00

00:57:48.220 They were helping the Colombian government.

00:57:50.440 And Boot said, this is my fight, too.

00:57:52.220 They are my enemy also. 1.00

00:57:55.080 Fuck the Americans. 1.00

00:57:57.100 The Comandante really brought it home. 1.00

00:58:00.080 They talked about how they needed these surface to air missiles to shoot down the American 0.98

00:58:04.120 Apache helicopters, how they needed to kill these Americans. 1.00

00:58:07.960 They explained that they needed sniper rifles with sights so that the FARC could, as they 0.99

00:58:13.460 described, blow the heads off the American pilots. 0.75

00:58:16.620 Now, those are 1.00

00:58:38.840 he knew that we were fighting against your mistake he don't care if we want to kill america 1.00

00:58:46.200 he was happy that we're going to use his weapons to kill the americans 0.99

00:58:49.560 that was bro and we traded brittany griner for this dude bro 0.99

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 0.90

00:59:08.360 want to use it for they want to snipe american pilots right off these apache helicopters 0.97

00:59:14.200 so that they can go ahead and make sure that these columbians that are trying to kill them 1.00

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

01:00:09.320 there was a moment of panic

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 0.98

01:01:45.720 place and here's the thai police one handcuffed and then the arrests were made 0.94

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 0.87

01:02:15.960 what the thai did here guys christina laughing should remember this yo this was ridiculous what 0.54

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 0.66

01:03:26.760 and then we began the extradition process

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 0.77

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 0.85

01:03:45.880 upon the country that you deal with when you're dealing with a friendly country the extradition process 0.91

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

01:04:30.200 back to the united states to face justice

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 1.00

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 1.00

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

01:10:17.080 for 25 years i feel good about it

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 1.00

01:11:53.960 transnational criminals that we've investigated and successfully prosecuted that nobody is untouchable 0.99

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 0.78

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 0.79

01:12:47.480 right there that's so tiny give christina the stupid anyway so yeah anyway um so you guys can 0.79

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 0.92

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 0.59

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 0.80

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 0.58

01:17:31.960 her with to him for a while but i'm actually shocked that they went through with it and 0.98

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 1.00

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 0.98

01:19:32.920 firearms and violent crimes aka bush ic violated you're wanting to stay away from the victim 0.99

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

The Debrief With MyronGainesX - December 12, 2022

Fed Explains ＂The Merchant Of Death＂! Why Trading Brittney Griner For Viktor Bout Was An L!

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript