The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #2092 - Mariana van Zeller

00:00:01.000 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!

00:00:04.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

00:00:06.000 Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day!

00:00:12.000 Hello, good to see you, my friend.

00:00:14.000 How's things?

00:00:15.000 Great, thanks so much for having me again.

00:00:16.000 I'm so happy every time I see you that you're alive and well, because you do some wild stuff, lady.

00:00:22.000 You get involved in some situations.

00:00:26.000 I do.

00:00:26.000 This past year was crazy.

00:00:28.000 Yeah?

00:00:29.000 Yeah.

00:00:30.000 We just had season four come out, and it's my favorite season for many reasons, but also because it was quite the adventure.

00:00:36.000 What did you get involved with this season?

00:00:40.000 Well, it ended with a military coup in Africa where my team and I got stuck.

00:00:46.000 What part of Africa?

00:00:48.000 It was in Niger, so it's in the Sahel region of Africa.

00:00:53.000 The U.S. has actually a military presence.

00:00:55.000 Remember a few years ago when there were these four U.S. Marines that were killed in the Sahel in Niger and nobody even knew they were there?

00:01:03.000 Well, there's actually over a thousand troops stationed in Niger.

00:01:07.000 And we were there in a little town called Agadez, which is sort of the southern border of the Sahara Desert.

00:01:15.000 And we were doing a story about gold mining.

00:01:16.000 So the story itself was incredible.

00:01:18.000 We had to, you know, we had a military convoy with us because it's an incredibly dangerous part of the world.

00:01:23.000 You've got terrorism, you've got ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram.

00:01:27.000 We've got kidnappers, so it's very, very dangerous.

00:01:29.000 We'd gone there with the permission of the government, but only if we had to have a military convoy with us at all times.

00:01:36.000 So we're talking about four armored trucks with lots of trained soldiers that every time we stopped, they'd get out of the trucks and basically point their guns all around.

00:01:45.000 They were very well trained.

00:01:46.000 A lot of them are actually trained by the American military.

00:01:49.000 And we went out into the desert and visited these gold mines, which are crazy.

00:01:54.000 It was an eight-hour off-roading into the desert to arrive at these illegal, unregulated mines.

00:01:59.000 We're going down these tunnels, and it's, you know, 100 meters down, hand-dug tunnels with nothing to buttress them, no safety precautions or anything.

00:02:10.000 But we filmed it all, and we get to the end, and there's people basically...

00:02:15.000 Mining for gold.

00:02:16.000 And again, constantly with the idea that the military is telling us, okay, we have to film fast.

00:02:22.000 We have to do this fast.

00:02:23.000 We can't be out at night.

00:02:24.000 So we went to a sort of safety, more safe location to sleep that night under the stars.

00:02:31.000 And then the next day it's time to come back to Agadez, the town, which is about 100 miles but takes anywhere between like 3 to 12 hours to get because lots of things can happen along the way.

00:02:43.000 And we arrived in Agadez and we got word that there had been a military coup and the president had been deposed and he was now being kidnapped inside the presidential palace.

00:02:53.000 Basically he was stuck there with his family.

00:02:56.000 And that we were about to lose our military compound and security.

00:03:01.000 And they closed all the land borders and the airspace.

00:03:05.000 And we were stuck with no way out.

00:03:08.000 Because you can't travel by road without security in that part of the world.

00:03:12.000 And there were no planes leaving.

00:03:13.000 So we were stuck.

00:03:15.000 Wow.

00:03:16.000 How long were you stuck for?

00:03:18.000 It was about nine days.

00:03:20.000 The military coup happened on a Wednesday and we left on a Thursday, sorry.

00:03:25.000 So eight days.

00:03:26.000 But it was eight incredibly scary days.

00:03:28.000 You know, I've been a journalist covering black markets and going to war zones and conflict areas all my life.

00:03:34.000 But this was, I think, the most uncomfortable and scared I've ever been because...

00:03:38.000 First of all, the uncertainty of not knowing.

00:03:41.000 The West African states were threatening invasion.

00:03:45.000 The Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary group, were saying that they were going to come and protect the new military coup leaders.

00:03:53.000 And so it was a power struggle between the United States and Russia.

00:03:56.000 And that's sort of the last place you want to be, right?

00:04:00.000 And again, no protection.

00:04:02.000 I'm there with my team.

00:04:03.000 I'm sort of the boss in that situation because I'm the owner of the company that produces this.

00:04:10.000 I'm the host of the show.

00:04:11.000 I'm the executive producer.

00:04:13.000 And I felt very responsible for my team as well.

00:04:16.000 And yeah, the clock is ticking.

00:04:18.000 And they're telling us that in a few days we're going to invade and there's going to be a massive possibility of a massive war.

00:04:25.000 And we're stuck with, again, no protection and no way out.

00:04:29.000 So it was really, really scary.

00:04:30.000 How did it get resolved?

00:04:33.000 That's the interesting part.

00:04:34.000 So the funny thing is that there was an American military base, actually, one of the biggest Air Force bases ever built.

00:04:42.000 It cost over $100 million to build just two miles from our little hotel in Agadez.

00:04:47.000 We were the only foreigners there apart from aid workers that sort of live behind barbed wire and in compounds.

00:04:54.000 But we were the only foreigners staying in a hotel.

00:04:56.000 This hotel, interestingly enough, was actually built when Gaddafi came to visit in the 90s or late 80s.

00:05:04.000 And it was a rundown hotel.

00:05:05.000 We were there, again, no protection, nothing.

00:05:09.000 And the military base is just two miles from us.

00:05:11.000 And we'd tried to get inside the base to film, and we'd been denied access to the base.

00:05:17.000 But when the coup happened...

00:05:18.000 We managed to get a contact inside and started asking them, we're here with no security, can you guys come and help us and figure out, you know, take us into the base, something.

00:05:29.000 We're all American citizens, except for our fixer, our local guy, who was actually from Mali, but everybody else was American.

00:05:36.000 And they were stuck in the situation that all the other countries had started calling this a coup, but the U.S. government did not.

00:05:44.000 And because the moment they called it a coup, they would have to remove...

00:05:49.000 Possibly remove military, remove their aid from the country.

00:05:52.000 And that's the last thing you want to do.

00:05:54.000 So they didn't want to evacuate us.

00:05:56.000 They didn't want to call it a coup.

00:05:58.000 They didn't want to get us out of there.

00:05:59.000 Their hands were sort of tied.

00:06:00.000 That's how they told us.

00:06:02.000 And we started seeing slowly as the days started passing and the situation was deteriorating.

00:06:07.000 We started seeing, you know, the French were sending planes to take all the French nationals, the British, the Portuguese, which is where...

00:06:14.000 I'm a double nationality where I'm from.

00:06:17.000 And I'm on the phone with the ambassador for Portugal telling me there's a plane for you.

00:06:21.000 There's like seats for you in the capital, but the capital is eight hours away or 12 hours away by land and we can't go because it's too dangerous.

00:06:29.000 No airplanes would take us there.

00:06:32.000 And eventually we realized that the only way that we'd be able to get out is if we took matters into our own hands.

00:06:37.000 So actually my team in LA found an evacuation company willing to fly a plane in the middle of the night to get us out.

00:06:46.000 That sounds like a Chuck Norris movie.

00:06:49.000 An evacuation company?

00:06:51.000 It was actually Argo.

00:06:53.000 Have you watched the movie Argo with Ben Affleck about the guys in Iran and how they don't know until the last minute if they're going to leave or not?

00:07:01.000 It was exactly that situation.

00:07:03.000 So we get to the airport in the middle of the night.

00:07:05.000 So they told us that we had to be at the airport at this time, that we had to take security with us because the pilot was refusing to land unless we had security there, police.

00:07:16.000 The police were supposed to show up, they never did.

00:07:19.000 We arrive at the airport, it's sunrise, and the military is there waiting for us.

00:07:26.000 Yeah, it's one of those.

00:07:28.000 And they start creating all sorts of problems, saying we don't have the right paperwork, they're not going to let us leave.

00:07:34.000 Meanwhile, there's this amazing man, local man, who worked at the airport that I'd met a few days before when I went there to try to see if there's any plane leaving, let us know.

00:07:43.000 And so I stayed in touch with him.

00:07:44.000 And I had told him that it was my son's birthday, which was partially not true.

00:07:50.000 It wasn't his birthday, but he was about to leave camp.

00:07:52.000 And I've got this tradition as a working mother who travels all the time.

00:07:56.000 We have this tradition that I always pick him up from camp, and it's performing arts camp.

00:08:00.000 And so I told him, sorry, this is a very long story.

00:08:03.000 No, no, it's good.

00:08:04.000 So I told him, you know, so he was there to help us, but the military was also there and they didn't want us to leave and creating all sorts of problems.

00:08:12.000 And then we see the plane land and we see the pilot come out and we see the military start...

00:08:20.000 We're good to go.

00:08:41.000 Yeah.

00:09:01.000 And he was Portuguese, and he decided to take the risk of getting us on the plane, and we managed to get out of it. 1.00

00:09:08.000 But the guy from the military was still yelling as the door closes.

00:09:12.000 But so was the guy that I'd met at the airport, who turns to me, yells my name, and I look back, and he says, Hey, Mariana, say happy birthday to your son.

00:09:21.000 So in the midst of the craziness, it was also a beautiful moment of connection and humanity.

00:09:28.000 You've done so many of these.

00:09:31.000 Boots on the ground, dangerous investigative journalist shows.

00:09:35.000 Do you, at a certain point in time, do you like say, okay, I've rolled the dice enough?

00:09:41.000 No.

00:09:42.000 Wow.

00:09:43.000 No, it's really, it's what I love to do.

00:09:45.000 Obviously, that was a moment of a lot of uncertainty, but still when we spent a week on the ground and we still kept on reporting on the story we were there for, we kept, we're stuck in this dilemma.

00:09:55.000 Do we stay closed in our hotel or do we go out and continue reporting on the story we decided to keep reporting?

00:10:00.000 But it is, you know, there's a lot of sacrifice that goes into it, but it's what I love to do.

00:10:07.000 It's so sketchy.

00:10:08.000 Yeah, sometimes it's sketchy.

00:10:10.000 Not always, but sometimes.

00:10:10.000 Well, the gold mine itself, just going down these hand, with no buttresses, hand-carved gold mines, like, ugh.

00:10:17.000 Yeah, and these guys do it every single day, for hours on end.

00:10:20.000 Ugh.

00:10:21.000 And who are they digging gold for?

00:10:24.000 No.

00:10:45.000 The finite amount of gold that exists on Earth is shockingly small.

00:10:52.000 Shockingly small.

00:10:53.000 Jamie, see if you can find that.

00:10:55.000 The amount of gold that exists on Earth.

00:10:57.000 I forget what the exact unit of measurement that they used, but you go, what?

00:11:02.000 What?

00:11:03.000 That's it.

00:11:06.000 244,000 metric tons of gold has been discovered to date.

00:11:10.000 Most of that gold has come from three countries, China, Australia, and South Africa.

00:11:14.000 Wow.

00:11:15.000 Wow.

00:11:17.000 Yeah, this is why it's expensive.

00:11:18.000 I've seen it represented.

00:11:20.000 There it is.

00:11:21.000 That's it.

00:11:24.000 No way.

00:11:25.000 Yep.

00:11:26.000 That's it.

00:11:27.000 It's all the gold.

00:11:28.000 So what we're seeing, folks, is a couple of large trucks and what looks like a half a football field of gold.

00:11:37.000 Is that about right?

00:11:38.000 About a half a football field?

00:11:39.000 Yeah.

00:11:40.000 About a half a football field full of gold.

00:11:43.000 And it's stacked up about, looks like it's about five feet high.

00:11:46.000 Wow.

00:11:46.000 No, maybe a little higher.

00:11:47.000 Maybe six feet high.

00:11:48.000 That's it.

00:11:49.000 It's all the gold.

00:11:50.000 Yeah, which is why the price fluctuates.

00:11:52.000 Sort of, but I don't get it.

00:11:54.000 I don't even like it.

00:11:55.000 I don't like gold jewelry.

00:11:58.000 I like silver.

00:11:59.000 Silver looks prettier to me.

00:12:00.000 Yeah.

00:12:01.000 It's just like I get it.

00:12:03.000 I get it that people like it.

00:12:04.000 It's rare.

00:12:06.000 But it's weird that it's rare.

00:12:08.000 Not that it's rare, but it's weird that we care.

00:12:11.000 Like it doesn't even do anything.

00:12:12.000 It's not like you can make a weapon out of it.

00:12:15.000 It's not like – how did that stuff ever become the thing that is universally regarded as the most valuable thing?

00:12:23.000 And backed our currency forever until the 70s.

00:12:26.000 Yeah.

00:12:27.000 What?

00:12:27.000 Yeah.

00:12:28.000 What is that?

00:12:29.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:12:29.000 Why are we obsessed with that stupid soft metal? 1.00

00:12:32.000 It's pretty. 1.00

00:12:32.000 Because there's not a lot of it. 1.00

00:12:33.000 There's a lot of shit that's pretty. 0.99

00:12:35.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:12:36.000 Absolutely.

00:12:37.000 How come rubies aren't worth as much?

00:12:39.000 Yeah.

00:12:39.000 Maybe they are.

00:12:40.000 I don't know.

00:12:41.000 But there's a lot of stuff that's pretty.

00:12:43.000 Yeah.

00:12:43.000 Why is that stuff the thing that everybody wants to trade?

00:12:46.000 Yeah.

00:12:46.000 And diamonds as well is another one that I don't quite get.

00:12:49.000 Yeah.

00:12:49.000 Yeah, diamonds are really weird.

00:12:51.000 Because diamonds, they can make now, but women don't want the made ones. 1.00

00:12:57.000 Isn't that crazy?

00:12:58.000 It is, but you can barely tell, apparently, the difference.

00:13:01.000 How can you tell?

00:13:03.000 What kind of psycho?

00:13:04.000 And why do you care? 0.79

00:13:05.000 Yeah, are you going over your diamond with a magnifying glass before you decide whether or not it's worthy of you wearing it?

00:13:12.000 Right.

00:13:12.000 What's happening here?

00:13:14.000 Yeah, agreed.

00:13:15.000 It's a rarity thing, you know?

00:13:17.000 Yeah.

00:13:18.000 It's like there's something sick about it.

00:13:20.000 Like you want the ones that are created by the earth only, that people had to risk their life to get.

00:13:24.000 Not like some really fascinating piece of innovation that has allowed them.

00:13:28.000 I mean, they can make large diamonds now.

00:13:30.000 Yeah.

00:13:31.000 And they look exactly like the real ones.

00:13:33.000 Yeah, but they're not.

00:13:34.000 Yeah, I know.

00:13:34.000 But they're not.

00:13:35.000 It's fake.

00:13:36.000 It's not even fake.

00:13:37.000 It's a real diamond.

00:13:39.000 But it's a diamond that's made by humans.

00:13:41.000 But do you think women really don't... 1.00

00:13:43.000 I haven't heard people really say, I don't want this because it's not...

00:13:46.000 Oh yeah, I've had a conversation.

00:13:48.000 With somebody who said that?

00:13:49.000 Yeah, Mrs. Rogan.

00:13:53.000 I'm not going to criticize your wife.

00:13:56.000 She's just like, I'd rather have a real one.

00:13:59.000 I'm like, that is a real one.

00:14:01.000 This doesn't make any sense.

00:14:02.000 I'm like, help me out.

00:14:04.000 It wasn't an argument or anything, but I'm like, I don't get it.

00:14:07.000 Why is that?

00:14:09.000 I don't either.

00:14:10.000 You know, we had, when I was, one of the first stories I did with my husband back in the day, when we were still traveling and reporting together, was actually in the Brazilian Amazon.

00:14:18.000 And it was about this, one of the biggest diamond mines they've ever found. 0.91

00:14:21.000 And it was on Indian land and white miners came in and the Indians decided to revolt and killed and tortured and cut off the penises of 30 of them. 0.93

00:14:33.000 And, you know, they killed 30 people, massacred and tortured lots of them. 0.97

00:14:38.000 And it was horrible.

00:14:38.000 And we went there and started investigating this.

00:14:41.000 And we weren't married.

00:14:43.000 He was my boyfriend at the time.

00:14:44.000 We were planning on getting married.

00:14:45.000 But we were in these little tiny, you know, wild west towns in the Amazon.

00:14:50.000 And the amount of people that we had come up to us and actually with little paper bags, like rolled paper with little diamonds on the side, asking us if we wanted to buy it for nothing, like close to nothing.

00:15:01.000 We thought about it, but we didn't.

00:15:03.000 Yeah.

00:15:04.000 It doesn't seem like you should.

00:15:06.000 No.

00:15:06.000 Maybe if you've found one.

00:15:09.000 We actually went to the mines, and I remember.

00:15:12.000 That's what happens.

00:15:13.000 We went to gold mines in the Amazon as well for another story, is that when you're in these places, you can't stop looking at the ground.

00:15:21.000 By any chance, you find anything, but obviously...

00:15:24.000 Yeah.

00:15:25.000 How difficult is it for them to find diamonds?

00:15:28.000 Because that's the thing about the De Beers.

00:15:29.000 They're so smart with what they've done.

00:15:31.000 They basically have warehouses filled with diamonds.

00:15:34.000 I know.

00:15:34.000 And they've elevated the price to pretend that they're rare.

00:15:37.000 But they're not really rare anymore.

00:15:38.000 Because of their mining abilities, the technology has increased.

00:15:43.000 Right.

00:15:43.000 They control the price that way.

00:15:45.000 Yeah.

00:15:45.000 It's pretty smart.

00:15:46.000 Very smart, yeah.

00:15:48.000 It's difficult to find a diamond.

00:15:50.000 It's really difficult.

00:15:51.000 I mean, there's a lot of back-breaking work.

00:15:53.000 We went to Sierra Leone and did another story about that, too.

00:15:56.000 It's back-breaking work.

00:15:57.000 It's not easy.

00:15:58.000 And they make nothing.

00:15:59.000 You know, the miners make nothing.

00:16:00.000 Yeah, that's where it's really creepy.

00:16:02.000 Well, that's why they revolted.

00:16:04.000 Yeah.

00:16:04.000 So it paid those guys better.

00:16:05.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:16:05.000 Wouldn't have lost your penis. 1.00

00:16:08.000 Sure. 1.00

00:16:10.000 Well, that's also the story of cell phones, right?

00:16:14.000 I mean, Siddharth Kara was on and he discussed his work in the Congo where they were investigating these cobalt mines.

00:16:23.000 And in everyone's cell phone is a piece of cobalt.

00:16:26.000 And there's a very high likelihood that was pulled out of one of these artesian mines by people who are working For basically slave wages, women with babies on their backs while they're doing it. 0.89

00:16:37.000 They're hand digging this stuff.

00:16:39.000 So you're inhaling these toxic fumes from this cobalt.

00:16:44.000 It's so...

00:16:49.000 I mean, I want to say that we're capable of better, but what we are as a species, that is like one of the best indicators of how twisted we are.

00:17:00.000 The very height of technology that is carried by all these social justice warriors and all these virtue signaling people online, you're literally doing it from a device that's made by slaves. 0.65

00:17:13.000 At the root of it is slave labor. 0.99

00:17:16.000 Right.

00:17:16.000 And it's unavoidable.

00:17:18.000 Yeah.

00:17:18.000 I mean, yeah.

00:17:19.000 But the same people that would probably never buy a diamond ring, right?

00:17:23.000 Yeah.

00:17:23.000 I guess.

00:17:24.000 I don't know.

00:17:24.000 Yeah.

00:17:25.000 Yeah.

00:17:26.000 I mean, it's just weird.

00:17:29.000 It's just weird that we know that that is where the stuff comes from.

00:17:33.000 Right.

00:17:34.000 Well, it's also weird that we don't even manufacture a single cell phone in America with all parts sourced and put together in America.

00:17:42.000 That's totally possible that you could buy a phone that is completely ethical, that's made by people that were paid a fair wage and they work normal hours and they have great health care and all that stuff.

00:17:57.000 That's possible.

00:17:59.000 And you would think that a device that is literally owned by every single human...

00:18:04.000 There are more cell phones in this country than there are human beings.

00:18:06.000 Oh, wow.

00:18:07.000 And yet, no.

00:18:09.000 We don't make a single one over here.

00:18:11.000 Because it's cheaper.

00:18:12.000 It's cheaper.

00:18:13.000 Yeah.

00:18:14.000 I mean, even places like China where they make the cell phones, where they have the Foxconn factory that's covered with nets to keep people from jumping off the roof.

00:18:22.000 Mm-hmm.

00:18:23.000 Because so many people are committing suicide because their life sucks so hard that instead of fixing their life, they just put nets up.

00:18:31.000 That's insane.

00:18:32.000 Have you ever seen that?

00:18:32.000 The Foxconn building?

00:18:33.000 No.

00:18:33.000 It's so dystopian.

00:18:35.000 Really?

00:18:35.000 They have nets at the bottom of the building?

00:18:37.000 All around the building.

00:18:38.000 All around the outside edge of the building to keep people from jumping.

00:18:42.000 That's crazy.

00:18:43.000 That is insane.

00:18:44.000 I've tried to go to China so many times to report on it.

00:18:47.000 It's almost impossible to get in.

00:18:48.000 Yeah, they know you.

00:18:49.000 That lady's not coming in. 1.00

00:18:50.000 She's not coming in.

00:18:51.000 That lady spills the beans! 1.00

00:18:54.000 Congo is really interesting.

00:18:56.000 We were there for an ape story.

00:18:58.000 And, you know, one of the things that happened with the rare earth minerals and all of that is that the U.S. used to control a lot of those mines.

00:19:06.000 And then China, they sold them to China.

00:19:08.000 And now a lot of the stuff we need for the future is in the hands of China. 1.00

00:19:12.000 It's so stupid. 1.00

00:19:14.000 That's very American. 1.00

00:19:15.000 Yeah, very American.

00:19:16.000 Yeah, very, yeah.

00:19:18.000 Yeah, it's dark.

00:19:20.000 It's just crazy that there's so much exploitation in that country.

00:19:25.000 That continent is just flooded with exploitation.

00:19:29.000 And it's stunningly beautiful.

00:19:31.000 We were doing a story about ape trafficking.

00:19:33.000 And it really is.

00:19:34.000 It's the second largest country in Africa in terms of land.

00:19:38.000 And it's got the most beautiful parks and rivers.

00:19:41.000 It's stunning.

00:19:42.000 It could be, you know, a huge tourism destination.

00:19:47.000 We had the opportunity of hiking up this Kahuzi Viega National Park that leads up to the gorillas where we saw...

00:19:54.000 Gorillas in the wild.

00:19:55.000 And it was beautiful, beautiful.

00:19:57.000 Stunningly beautiful.

00:19:58.000 Who's trafficking in apes? 0.94

00:20:01.000 Well, a lot of them are ending up in the Arabian Gulf in Dubai.

00:20:05.000 What do they do with them?

00:20:06.000 They put them in private zoos that they then charge visitors to come and see.

00:20:12.000 They put them in private homes, people that want to have exotic pets in their house. 0.80

00:20:17.000 Someone has a gorilla in their house?

00:20:18.000 Oh, they do.

00:20:19.000 Gorillas go for $500,000 or more.

00:20:23.000 And it's a crazy gorilla that they catch in the wild.

00:20:26.000 And the sad part about it is that to be able to catch that gorilla, they then...

00:20:30.000 And the same thing with chimpanzees.

00:20:31.000 They have to kill the whole family because, you know, they're very social and...

00:20:37.000 Baby apes are being stolen for pets, needles being done to stop it. 0.97

00:20:40.000 Yeah.

00:20:41.000 $550,000 was a trade bin for African Greek apes in China, Middle East, and Pakistan.

00:20:47.000 Yeah.

00:20:48.000 Wow. 0.99

00:20:49.000 So they have to kill the whole family? 1.00

00:20:50.000 They kill the whole family, Joe. 1.00

00:20:51.000 It's horrible. 0.65

00:20:52.000 Why do they have to kill the whole family?

00:20:54.000 Because, for example, if baby chimps, you can't carry your life chimp, for example, because they're too dangerous. 1.00

00:21:01.000 And so it's the Batwa Pygmies. 1.00

00:21:03.000 We did a whole chain of who hunts them, who kills them, who transports them, and then who buys them.

00:21:09.000 And we started in the park with the Batwa Pygmies. 1.00

00:21:13.000 You had a guest that I remember when I was doing research for this story I listened to.

00:21:17.000 Didn't you have a guest here who did a story about that?

00:21:22.000 So the pygmies, you know, they've sort of lost their home, which is the forest.

00:21:26.000 The Congolese government says they can't be there, and they have no money and no schools and no education and nothing.

00:21:32.000 Desperate situations.

00:21:33.000 So these people come out and say, if you get us a baby chimp, we'll pay you $10.

00:21:38.000 $10 for a baby chimp.

00:21:40.000 And they go out, and the problem with baby chimps is that until they're five years old, they live at the hip of the mother, like always next to the mother.

00:21:49.000 It's the way their family is.

00:21:53.000 And so to be able to take and kidnap the child, they have to kill the whole family because the estimate, the average is like 10 chimps have to be killed in order to be able to take away one baby. 0.81

00:22:04.000 Because they'll attack?

00:22:06.000 Because they'll attack, yeah.

00:22:07.000 They won't let you leave with a baby.

00:22:10.000 Yeah, it's very, very sad.

00:22:12.000 So we're talking to these guys who have done this.

00:22:16.000 How much of a market is there?

00:22:18.000 How many are they trading?

00:22:20.000 There's lots being sold.

00:22:22.000 So we then went online and did this whole investigation and found that it's actually super easy.

00:22:27.000 There are people online that you can reach out to and they will get you a chimpanzee or a baby gorilla.

00:22:32.000 It's crazy.

00:22:33.000 And then, yeah, they're transported in sometimes private planes to these places.

00:22:38.000 And then, you know, tourists in Dubai can take photos with little baby chimps.

00:22:42.000 Jesus Christ.

00:22:43.000 Or baby gorillas.

00:22:45.000 Yeah.

00:22:45.000 Whew.

00:22:46.000 I'm sure you know about that lady in Connecticut that had a full-grown chimpanzee in her home, and then her friend came over and the chimp decided he didn't like her friend, so he ripped her face off.

00:22:56.000 Just tore apart.

00:22:57.000 Yeah.

00:22:58.000 Yeah.

00:22:58.000 Yeah, they're ruthless.

00:23:00.000 They are.

00:23:00.000 You should have one in your home, that's for sure.

00:23:03.000 And you're not going to stop them unless you shoot them. 0.99

00:23:06.000 They're so powerful. 1.00

00:23:07.000 There's not a damn thing you can do to stop them from ripping your face off. 0.96

00:23:11.000 It's the Doc Antle of it all. 0.96

00:23:14.000 Remember Doc Antle?

00:23:16.000 Tiger King?

00:23:17.000 Do you remember that guy?

00:23:18.000 A lot of them, it's basically people around the world wanting to be Doc Antle and having a private safari that celebrities come to.

00:23:25.000 What a bizarre need.

00:23:27.000 What a bizarre want.

00:23:29.000 Have a bunch of locked up exotic primates in cages you can just stare at.

00:23:36.000 But also what a bizarre need it is that we want to take photos and selfies with tigers and apes.

00:23:42.000 Like why?

00:23:43.000 I went to a tiger sanctuary in Thailand with my family a few years back.

00:23:49.000 The beginning is kind of cool because the beginning you're around the kittens and the cubs are like super energetic and they're jumping around and attacking things these little tiny tigers they're really cool but it's just like wow and there's a lot of people in the room make sure that the tigers don't go crazy and they're little and then it gets to a slightly larger tiger and there's men with sticks and you could sit there there's like a picture of my daughter when she was 10 she's like sitting there smiling she's sitting next to a tiger A small tiger.

00:24:19.000 It's like 40 pounds or something like that.

00:24:20.000 Then when they get bigger, they're drugged.

00:24:23.000 So these people go in the cage with this massive tiger, and the tiger is just like... 0.84

00:24:28.000 They're just all fucking heroin-ed out, and these people take selfies. 0.89

00:24:32.000 And it was so sad. 0.99

00:24:34.000 I'm like, we have to leave.

00:24:35.000 I'm so depressed.

00:24:36.000 Do you remember the name of that place?

00:24:37.000 I do not.

00:24:38.000 It was in Chiang Mai.

00:24:41.000 Yeah.

00:24:42.000 Yeah, it's really sad.

00:24:43.000 And the babies are also taken from their mothers.

00:24:46.000 You're not supposed to be handling baby cubs that young.

00:24:49.000 Yes.

00:24:49.000 All of it is bad.

00:24:50.000 Exactly.

00:24:50.000 It's all bad.

00:24:51.000 But it's just like I didn't realize they were drugged.

00:24:54.000 I thought they just fed them a lot and the tigers are cool.

00:24:57.000 Nope.

00:24:58.000 No.

00:24:59.000 No, they're drugged.

00:25:00.000 They're really drugged.

00:25:01.000 Like you see them.

00:25:02.000 They're just like not – they don't move at all.

00:25:03.000 They just lay around.

00:25:05.000 So they just get these tigers hooked on heroin.

00:25:08.000 Is it heroin?

00:25:10.000 I mean, it must be.

00:25:11.000 It must be some sort of an opiate.

00:25:13.000 Something like that.

00:25:14.000 Morphine, something.

00:25:15.000 Something that just conks them out.

00:25:17.000 So they were just sitting there like nodding.

00:25:19.000 And he's this massive, gorgeous apex predator.

00:25:23.000 And it's all just so that people could take pictures with him.

00:25:26.000 And so you decided to leave them?

00:25:27.000 Yeah, I'm like, no, we're not going in there.

00:25:29.000 I got weirded out when we got to the mid-sized cats because I was like, that cat is a little dangerous.

00:25:35.000 Even though it's only like 40 pounds, they're still a little sketchy.

00:25:38.000 Like, this is a little weird.

00:25:39.000 And I went in there and I was like, it seems like it's okay.

00:25:42.000 Let's just take a picture real quick.

00:25:43.000 Let's get out of here.

00:25:44.000 But then when you get to the big cats, it's like massive depression sets in.

00:25:48.000 You're like, oh, no.

00:25:49.000 Yeah, so terrible.

00:25:50.000 Because I'm just enamored with cats, especially tigers.

00:25:55.000 I just think...

00:25:56.000 Nature created, like, the most beautiful, terrifying thing.

00:26:01.000 I mean, if a tiger wasn't real, it's right out of Avatar.

00:26:06.000 I mean, with their insane colorations and their fangs and the way they can leap their capabilities.

00:26:14.000 I'm sure you've seen that video of the guy who was on the elephant.

00:26:16.000 And the tiger leaps through the grass and gets him while he's on the...

00:26:19.000 You ever seen that?

00:26:19.000 No.

00:26:20.000 Oh, it's one of my favorites.

00:26:21.000 Because this guy is in India.

00:26:23.000 And he's on this elephant.

00:26:24.000 And he's riding this elephant.

00:26:26.000 And you see the grass move ahead of him.

00:26:28.000 And this tiger leaps like 15 feet in the air.

00:26:32.000 And slashes at this guy.

00:26:35.000 And he's just lucky he got out of it with just getting cut up.

00:26:38.000 Watch this.

00:26:40.000 So the guy's on the elephant.

00:26:42.000 Look at this cat.

00:26:43.000 Oh my...

00:26:44.000 Look how it leaps.

00:26:45.000 I mean, look at the size of this thing.

00:26:48.000 But watch out.

00:26:49.000 And he's like, all he's got is like a little stick.

00:26:51.000 He's like, stop!

00:26:53.000 Don't do this to me!

00:26:54.000 Don't do it!

00:26:56.000 Look at that thing just catch air.

00:26:59.000 Look at it catch air.

00:27:00.000 Like, oh my god.

00:27:01.000 It just flies at him. 0.99

00:27:03.000 Holy shit. 1.00

00:27:03.000 And swipes. 1.00

00:27:05.000 And just ripped his arm apart.

00:27:07.000 That is insane.

00:27:08.000 And ripped his arm apart?

00:27:09.000 Yeah, at the end of it, his arm's like half down.

00:27:12.000 That is insane.

00:27:13.000 Oh my god.

00:27:15.000 Such a terrifying creature.

00:27:18.000 That scares me to death.

00:27:20.000 When people always ask if I'm scared of the work that I do.

00:27:23.000 I'm much more scared of animals than I am of people.

00:27:26.000 Well, there's a place in India called the Sundarbans.

00:27:30.000 The problem with that area is that tigers have been actively targeting people there for over 100 years.

00:27:36.000 And so I think the numbers over the last 100 years, 300,000 people there have been killed by tigers.

00:27:43.000 Oh my, that is insane.

00:27:45.000 Yeah.

00:27:46.000 People that just live there and work, probably farmers that are working in the farms.

00:27:49.000 Just villagers.

00:27:49.000 Well, there's a bunch of things that happens.

00:27:51.000 One, the typhoons come in and people die and they drown and they wind up in the river and the tigers eat them.

00:27:57.000 And then two, there's an issue.

00:28:00.000 300 people and 46 tigers have been killed since 2000 in human-tiger conflicts in the Sundarbans.

00:28:07.000 They've done a lot to mitigate it.

00:28:10.000 That's only one of the last...

00:28:11.000 That's since 2000. That's over the last 23 years.

00:28:14.000 It used to be a lot worse.

00:28:15.000 And also the problem is that the water is brackish.

00:28:21.000 And so the tigers are drinking salt water...

00:28:24.000 And apparently it irritates them.

00:28:26.000 It's like very painful.

00:28:28.000 So you got these angry, pissed off tigers that actively hunt humans.

00:28:34.000 And so these guys that go out to try to survey, they're always trying to figure out how many tigers are there.

00:28:40.000 They have to wear these helmets that protect the back of their heads, and the helmet have a mask on the back of the head so that the tigers like to sneak up on you.

00:28:50.000 And if they see your face, they're less likely to attack.

00:28:54.000 They like to attack you when your back is turned.

00:28:56.000 So they have these helmets with a mask on the back to confuse the tigers.

00:29:01.000 And what are they doing to try and protect the villagers now?

00:29:04.000 Guns.

00:29:04.000 That's it.

00:29:05.000 I mean, what are they going to do?

00:29:06.000 There's so many of them.

00:29:08.000 I mean, it's where they live, and it's like a dense jungle.

00:29:11.000 So good luck finding all of them.

00:29:13.000 Oh, that's so crazy.

00:29:14.000 We did a story on tiger trafficking in season one, I think.

00:29:18.000 And we spent a night in Thailand in one of these jungles where the last remaining tigers in Thailand are.

00:29:25.000 And I mean, we were camping out with hammocks, and I didn't sleep at all because we'd been spending the day, they're showing us videos of the camera, the little cameras that they have.

00:29:36.000 Activated all throughout the park, the jungle, so that when they step on it, it activates, right?

00:29:41.000 So you see the tigers in the wild, and they're beautiful.

00:29:43.000 But then you have to sleep.

00:29:46.000 I didn't sleep at all.

00:29:48.000 It was the worst night of my life.

00:29:49.000 Yeah.

00:29:50.000 Yeah.

00:29:51.000 God.

00:29:52.000 It's an amazing animal, though.

00:29:54.000 I mean, it's fascinating and incredible that they exist, but...

00:29:58.000 This desire that people have to kidnap them and bring them to America and put them in a cage so they could just point to them and stare at them.

00:30:05.000 It's crazy.

00:30:06.000 Weird.

00:30:07.000 Yeah.

00:30:07.000 It's really weird.

00:30:08.000 Yeah.

00:30:09.000 It is very strange.

00:30:10.000 Yeah.

00:30:10.000 People, again, the people that go to these places as well to take photos.

00:30:14.000 I don't get it.

00:30:15.000 What else did you cover this season?

00:30:18.000 The season was a good one.

00:30:20.000 You know, we started the first episode, we went back to my hometown, Portugal.

00:30:23.000 We did an episode on hash, hash trafficking.

00:30:28.000 Most Americans don't know a lot about hash, actually.

00:30:31.000 Most Americans you don't know.

00:30:39.000 But it's the first drug that people in Europe usually try.

00:30:43.000 It's the marijuana of Europe, we'd say, or the rest of the world, actually.

00:30:47.000 Well, it is THC, right?

00:30:47.000 It is, yeah.

00:30:48.000 It's from the resin glands.

00:30:49.000 Yeah, it's just super-duper potent.

00:30:51.000 Super potent, yeah.

00:30:53.000 So it's the first drug I tried, the first drug that any of my friends in Portugal tried.

00:30:58.000 And, you know, back then, when I was a kid and trying hash for the first time, I always sort of wondered, where does this come from?

00:31:05.000 And we knew that it was Morocco.

00:31:07.000 Everybody knows that the majority of hash in the world comes from Morocco.

00:31:09.000 But now I thought, wow, the unique opportunity to actually go and try to figure out how it gets here.

00:31:15.000 And so we started in Portugal, and I reached out to a bunch of my girlfriends in Portugal and said, hey, let's meet at this time in the rocks where we used to, like, hang out and hide and smoke hash.

00:31:26.000 And, uh...

00:31:28.000 And we'll film a scene of us talking about while we're smoking.

00:31:31.000 So I actually smoked on camera for the first time, did drugs on camera.

00:31:35.000 In Portugal it's all decriminalized, correct?

00:31:37.000 Yeah, it's been decriminalized since 2001, so completely legal to do.

00:31:40.000 And it's an amazing success story.

00:31:42.000 Amazing success story.

00:31:43.000 In terms of addiction, crime, violence, everything went down.

00:31:46.000 HIV rates, incarceration, all of it.

00:31:49.000 So what they did is they decriminalized it.

00:31:53.000 Right.

00:31:58.000 Right.

00:32:01.000 Right.

00:32:17.000 Using heroin, they can go up to you and say, look, we'll give you the opportunity.

00:32:20.000 Do you want to go to prison or do you want to go to treatment?

00:32:22.000 The vast majority of people will say treatment.

00:32:24.000 And the government actually pays less for treatment than they do for incarceration.

00:32:29.000 That's wild.

00:32:29.000 It's wild.

00:32:30.000 And you'd think that people would have used this example and it would have spread around the world.

00:32:36.000 Well, the problem with America is the system is...

00:32:39.000 It's so deeply unjust that there's privatized prisons and there's union guards.

00:32:46.000 So the guards union, the prison guards union, actively campaign to stop drugs from being decriminalized and made legal because that would take them out of work.

00:32:59.000 And the private prison complex, too.

00:33:02.000 Yeah.

00:33:02.000 It's a business.

00:33:04.000 They use human beings as batteries to generate money.

00:33:08.000 Yeah.

00:33:09.000 Just put them inside this box and you can generate money with human beings.

00:33:13.000 So you find reasons to put them in.

00:33:15.000 I'm sure you heard about that.

00:33:17.000 There was a judge in Pennsylvania that got arrested because he was sending children to prison.

00:33:23.000 He was sending children to juvenile detention centers that were innocent.

00:33:27.000 Every kid that went through his court system, he just shipped away.

00:33:30.000 He got a kickback?

00:33:31.000 He got a kickback, yeah.

00:33:33.000 Right.

00:33:34.000 Yeah, so this guy, how many lives did he ruin?

00:33:36.000 Yeah.

00:33:36.000 Who knows?

00:33:37.000 And how many lives did they ruin because of the abuse that they suffered and wound up having this tortured existence and they went out and committed more crimes and ruined more lives and this one fucking judge. 1.00

00:33:48.000 Yeah, it's sick. 0.99

00:33:49.000 And it's the wrong people that end up going to prison.

00:33:51.000 Well, that guy fortunately did go to prison, the judge.

00:33:55.000 But how many similar situations are there out there?

00:33:58.000 How many people have not been caught?

00:33:59.000 How many people are more subtle about it?

00:34:01.000 Yeah.

00:34:02.000 Yeah, it's pretty twisted.

00:34:04.000 It's horrible.

00:34:05.000 It's really bad.

00:34:08.000 When they go and they kidnap these chimpanzees and kill their families, is there anything that's being done to stop this?

00:34:19.000 Are there organizations that go out and police?

00:34:23.000 Is there anything?

00:34:25.000 Yeah, there's definitely a bunch of organizations.

00:34:27.000 We spent time with one called Conserve Congo, a local Congolese man who's trying to sort of investigate and stop it.

00:34:35.000 We also spent one of the best days of filming was spent when we went to see the gorillas.

00:34:39.000 We spent time with these park rangers.

00:34:42.000 This guy is incredible who's basically devoted his life to trying to protect these gorillas. 0.51

00:34:47.000 So they go out with AK-47s every day up in the mountains and go up and spend time with this family or these families of gorillas to try and make sure that No one is coming and hurting them. 0.67

00:34:58.000 But it's really dangerous work.

00:34:59.000 It takes resources.

00:35:01.000 The hope is that they can sort of turn a little bit of this area of the Congo to what has Rwanda nowadays. 0.91

00:35:09.000 You can go to Rwanda and you can go to Uganda and see gorillas. 0.65

00:35:12.000 And as tourists, you can pay a lot of money, but it provides jobs and helps the local economy.

00:35:18.000 So basically the idea is that you dissuade poachers from coming in, right?

00:35:23.000 And you give up jobs to people who would otherwise perhaps become poachers.

00:35:28.000 And so, yeah, that's being done.

00:35:30.000 And, yeah, it was actually incredible when you – we spent, I don't know, like three hours hiking through very thick jungle.

00:35:39.000 And then suddenly – and you're seeing the signs that the gorillas are there. 0.99

00:35:42.000 You're seeing they – you know, their poop is there.

00:35:46.000 They nested here.

00:35:47.000 And he's telling us along the way, but you're still unsure if you're actually going to see a gorilla – And suddenly they're completely nonchalantly say, oh, it's right here.

00:35:54.000 I was like, what?

00:35:56.000 And there's this huge silverback gorilla just sitting there.

00:36:00.000 And the whole family is there.

00:36:02.000 They had had a baby.

00:36:03.000 The mother had had a baby just the week before.

00:36:06.000 And this is, you know, animals that are being pushed to the brink of extinction.

00:36:09.000 So it was really special.

00:36:10.000 It was a week of celebration at the park.

00:36:13.000 And we saw the little baby.

00:36:15.000 And there was a moment that we're filming and my producer and my team is like next to me and then another huge gorilla comes jumping and rushes right by them.

00:36:25.000 So they don't bother people at all?

00:36:27.000 No.

00:36:28.000 So I think that they have to become used to the presence of humans.

00:36:32.000 So a lot of the park rangers' job is actually to get them used to presence with the hope that they can bring in tourism again.

00:36:41.000 So I think that's part of what they do.

00:36:42.000 So this family of guerrillas was used to people and they don't bother you at all.

00:36:46.000 And we were this distance from the guerrilla, me to you.

00:36:49.000 What country are the traffickers coming from?

00:36:52.000 Most of them, the hunters are from the Congo.

00:36:56.000 They're the pygmies, the Batwa pygmies. 1.00

00:36:58.000 The middlemen are Congolese men that see an opportunity. 0.84

00:37:01.000 And then the buyers, which is the raw problem, always lies on demand, right, are from the Gulf countries, the majority of them. 0.69

00:37:09.000 But, you know, it's not very different from all the other trades and the tigers that you can see at Doc Hansel's facility and all that.

00:37:16.000 So we blame ourselves as well here.

00:37:19.000 Yeah, I guess.

00:37:21.000 People are so weird.

00:37:23.000 Right.

00:37:23.000 So weird and cruel.

00:37:25.000 So weird.

00:37:26.000 Wait, you talked about hash for a second.

00:37:28.000 You've tried hash, yeah?

00:37:29.000 Yep.

00:37:29.000 And?

00:37:30.000 It's great.

00:37:31.000 Yeah.

00:37:31.000 I like it.

00:37:33.000 You think it is stronger than weed?

00:37:36.000 Well, it's just concentrated.

00:37:37.000 Yeah.

00:37:38.000 You know, it's like high THC. It's resin.

00:37:40.000 And if you saw how it's made, it's incredible.

00:37:43.000 We went up to the, it's the Kif Mountains in Morocco.

00:37:48.000 They basically, it's these like farmers and they beat these drums so that the resin and the little seeds come out and then they mix it all into like this paste.

00:37:59.000 And yeah, it's actually a beautiful process.

00:38:01.000 Very dangerous because obviously when there's a lot of money in black markets...

00:38:06.000 Yeah.

00:38:06.000 What do they do with the rest of the plant, the leaves and all that stuff?

00:38:10.000 I think they don't use it.

00:38:11.000 It was just there.

00:38:12.000 Interesting.

00:38:12.000 They dry the whole plant and the leaves and then, yeah, it's this like drum process where the stuff they want falls to the bottom and then...

00:38:20.000 I wonder why some countries gravitated towards that method of using cannabis.

00:38:26.000 Right.

00:38:26.000 And not just smoking it like they do in most of the country.

00:38:29.000 Right.

00:38:30.000 Most of the world, rather.

00:38:30.000 Yeah.

00:38:31.000 And I wonder what came first.

00:38:32.000 I don't know either.

00:38:33.000 Yeah.

00:38:34.000 But I'd probably think that hash came first and then...

00:38:37.000 Really?

00:38:37.000 The Americans came up with weed.

00:38:39.000 I'm not sure.

00:38:39.000 I don't know.

00:38:39.000 I bet it was the opposite.

00:38:41.000 I bet weed came first.

00:38:45.000 It's a strange thing that it's still illegal in so many parts of the world.

00:38:52.000 And then, you know, fentanyl isn't, heroin isn't, or opiates aren't.

00:38:57.000 Yeah, Oxycontin.

00:38:58.000 Yeah.

00:38:59.000 Yep, I know.

00:39:00.000 It's wild.

00:39:02.000 Yeah.

00:39:02.000 Well, I mean, unfortunately, because of our prison industrial complex, I just don't see a mass decriminalization akin to what's happening in Portugal.

00:39:13.000 Despite what's going on on our southern border and the fentanyl trafficking and the fact that it's propping up These cartels, and they're worth billions and billions of dollars because of that.

00:39:25.000 They are, and they're mixing it in all sorts of drugs, as you know.

00:39:28.000 We're working on an episode on fentanyl.

00:39:30.000 We've done the whole opiate crisis and everything.

00:39:33.000 Smoking did not become common in Old World until after the introduction of tobacco in the 1500s.

00:39:38.000 Hashish was consumed as an edible in the Muslim world.

00:39:42.000 Interesting.

00:39:44.000 The first attestation of the term hashish is a pamphlet published in Cairo in 1123, current era, accusing Nizari Muslims of being hashish eaters.

00:39:58.000 The cult of Nizari militants, which emerged after the fall of the Fatimid Caliphate, is commonly called the sect of the assassins.

00:40:08.000 A corruption of hashishin.

00:40:11.000 Persian for hashish smokers.

00:40:14.000 Wow, so assassins?

00:40:16.000 A corruption of the order of the assassins.

00:40:19.000 Simply the assassins were Nazari. 0.83

00:40:22.000 Is that the original term of assassin?

00:40:24.000 Is that where it came from?

00:40:27.000 I don't know.

00:40:28.000 Let's see.

00:40:29.000 I mean, this might take a little more...

00:40:31.000 Yeah, how weird.

00:40:35.000 Huh.

00:40:36.000 The modern term assassination is believed to stem from the tactics used by the assassins.

00:40:42.000 Wow, so it's all about hash!

00:40:47.000 Assassin comes from hash.

00:40:48.000 That's nuts!

00:40:50.000 We did an episode on assassins this season as well.

00:40:53.000 Oh, really? 0.99

00:40:54.000 Yeah, that was fucking wild. 0.99

00:40:56.000 I was insane. 0.97

00:40:58.000 I mean, obviously, it's a subject matter that I've wanted to do for a long time.

00:41:03.000 It's almost an impossible one to do for many reasons, as you can imagine.

00:41:07.000 But we actually found, all started with an interview that we did with an assassin in L.A., Yeah?

00:41:12.000 About 15 minutes from my house in L.A. And we have a contact in L.A. that whenever we're looking at the black markets, we contact him and ask him, hey, do you know anyone who's basically making meth or drugs or guns or whatnot?

00:41:29.000 And the off chance that he knew an assassin, we contacted him.

00:41:33.000 And he said he actually did.

00:41:35.000 He knew a guy.

00:41:36.000 He didn't think he was going to talk to us, but maybe he did because he was close to him.

00:41:41.000 I think?

00:42:03.000 He's really hard, difficult to deal with.

00:42:06.000 And I asked him, are you sure he's an assassin?

00:42:09.000 Or is it possible that he's just boasting if that happens sometimes?

00:42:12.000 And he said, no, no, no.

00:42:13.000 I've seen this guy being offered $80,000 to go and kill someone.

00:42:17.000 And I know this is what he does.

00:42:19.000 Everybody knows this guy in his community, in his group.

00:42:22.000 So he operates in America?

00:42:24.000 He does, yeah.

00:42:25.000 I asked him where.

00:42:26.000 He's based in LA, but he says it's all over the United States mainly.

00:42:30.000 Wow. 1.00

00:42:31.000 And he, yeah, as soon as I met him, he took out his gun and he said, you guys, if this is a fucking setup, you guys are all, it's going to be really easy to kill you all right now. 0.99

00:42:42.000 And it was me and three or four other people. 0.99

00:42:44.000 And my fear, we told him, it's not a setup. 0.99

00:42:48.000 He says, I just came here because I trust my buddy, but, you know, you don't fuck me. 1.00

00:42:52.000 If the police shows up, you guys are all dead. 0.99

00:42:54.000 So we're in a corner of L.A., close to downtown, and I'm constantly looking at the end of the road thinking, if the police shows up for any reason, he's going to think it's us.

00:43:06.000 Yeah.

00:43:07.000 And this is not good.

00:43:09.000 So, yeah, it was a quick interview, but a chilling one.

00:43:12.000 How many people has this guy whacked?

00:43:14.000 Thank you.

00:43:15.000 He said more than 10. He didn't say exactly how many.

00:43:19.000 I asked him.

00:43:21.000 I also started asking him personal questions about, do you have a family?

00:43:25.000 Because he was saying he doesn't kill women or children.

00:43:28.000 I asked him, but do you have kids?

00:43:29.000 And do you realize, like, what would it be like for your kids to live without you?

00:43:33.000 You're doing the same to other kids, right? 0.97

00:43:35.000 He got really mad at my questions and said, don't fucking ask me emotional questions or something like that, personal questions. 0.68

00:43:41.000 And this interview is over and left. 0.84

00:43:44.000 What was his background?

00:43:46.000 He said he came from a really tough family and that, yeah, involved in drugs and guns and all of it.

00:43:55.000 And he, I think, realized early on that he could do this and a lot of other people can't.

00:44:00.000 And he was able to do it and he gets well paid and he does it.

00:44:03.000 How does one even apply to a job like that?

00:44:05.000 Yeah.

00:44:05.000 And you, I mean, that was my fear when we started looking into this story because it's a little bit of a Hollywood myth, right?

00:44:11.000 Yeah.

00:44:11.000 Like, this doesn't really exist.

00:44:13.000 And all those stories that you can go on the dark web and find an assassin, most of that is bullshit. 0.99

00:44:17.000 So that was my fear. 0.97

00:44:18.000 But I do trust this contact.

00:44:20.000 And we actually then ended up going to South Africa that has one of the highest assassination rates in the world and spent time with a bunch of different inkabi, which are, as they are called, in South Africa. 1.00

00:44:32.000 And that was fucking crazy as well. 0.83

00:44:35.000 So we spent time with one, his name is Jojo, young guy, and his story is insane. 0.99

00:44:40.000 And that he was a lot nicer, a lot more approachable, but has killed like over 30 people and gets paid $1,500 per hit.

00:44:49.000 And, you know, thousands of people have died in just the past few years at the hands of assassins in South Africa.

00:44:55.000 Wow.

00:44:56.000 And a lot of it happens in the taxi industry.

00:45:00.000 So there's like 70% I think of commuters in South Africa commute on these taxis.

00:45:05.000 Basically it's like these vans.

00:45:07.000 And they're worth a lot of money and it's sort of a cash business.

00:45:11.000 And the owners of these taxi companies are routinely being killed.

00:45:16.000 So we spent time with a taxi owner who owns one of these companies, and he had a bullet for AK-47 on his head that he showed us.

00:45:23.000 It was a $1 million prize for anyone who killed him. 0.98

00:45:28.000 And this is a crazy guy. 0.96

00:45:30.000 And his rivals were just across the street with all their taxis, the other company, that he says are trying to kill him. 0.96

00:45:36.000 So he's surrounded by bodyguards with AK-47s at all times.

00:45:41.000 And he was like, do you want to go across the street with me and film me as I get close to the other guys and see what happens?

00:45:47.000 I was like, sure.

00:45:48.000 So we start walking towards the rivals, and immediately there's a group of heavily armed men walking towards us.

00:45:55.000 Immediately, within, like, seconds.

00:45:57.000 And this happens every day.

00:45:58.000 Like, people are killed every day.

00:46:01.000 So, yeah.

00:46:02.000 And then back to the assassin.

00:46:03.000 Yeah.

00:46:03.000 And they don't have a hard time talking to you about this?

00:46:07.000 I would think that there's no upside to them discussing this with you, but potentially they could get caught.

00:46:12.000 Yeah.

00:46:13.000 We go through a lot, you know, to make sure that we protect their identities.

00:46:19.000 But I think Jojo, this assassin, is a good example of why they talk to us. 0.98

00:46:23.000 So we spent an hour and a half, more or less, two hours talking to him.

00:46:26.000 I think?

00:46:43.000 And then eventually he got involved in the drug business and then eventually people were paying him much more money to go out and kill.

00:46:50.000 And he says, yeah, at the beginning I had to get drugged and drunk to be able to do it.

00:46:55.000 But now I'm used to it.

00:46:56.000 I'm cold-blooded and I'm used to it.

00:46:58.000 And we started talking about the cycle of violence, right?

00:47:00.000 Because he also said he doesn't kill women and children.

00:47:03.000 And I asked him, but do you realize...

00:47:04.000 That you are traumatized from the experience that you had that your parents were killed.

00:47:09.000 And now you're doing the same thing to other kids.

00:47:11.000 It's like, I actually never thought of that.

00:47:13.000 And then he started talking about, hey, he really wants to quit.

00:47:16.000 And he's been thinking, but he doesn't have, he can't get a job and all of that.

00:47:21.000 So I think people talk to us for a variety of reasons.

00:47:23.000 I think there's a lot of boasting, a lot of people that want to just talk about what they do.

00:47:28.000 Sometimes their families don't even know they do what they do.

00:47:30.000 I think in places like Sinaloa, where I've spent a lot of time with a cartel, it's impunity.

00:47:35.000 They don't see a downside because the authorities aren't really going to do anything, even if they know who they are.

00:47:40.000 Wow.

00:47:41.000 How do you feel safe in a place like that?

00:47:44.000 Actually, I sometimes feel in certain countries, say for—in Sinaloa, for example, if you've been given the green light to go into the cartel,

00:48:01.000 the territory controlled by the cartel, to talk to cartel members, and it takes weeks, months, sometimes years to get that access— Once we're under their protection, we're under their protection.

00:48:12.000 Like, we have their protection to be there.

00:48:14.000 But, you know, then certain things happen.

00:48:17.000 Like, we were filming in Sinaloa once, and we were filming these Sicarios, and they had their walkie-talkies.

00:48:24.000 And so they're communicating with the whole group, and they know everybody that comes in and out of their territory.

00:48:29.000 And suddenly they started panicking because the Marines had a helicopter coming their way.

00:48:34.000 And the Marines in Mexico are known to shoot first and ask questions after.

00:48:38.000 Yeah.

00:48:38.000 And they started freaking out.

00:48:39.000 And they basically jumped into the cars and left us.

00:48:42.000 And we didn't know what to do.

00:48:44.000 Should we go after them?

00:48:45.000 And they're going to think we're part of a group and they can start shooting at us.

00:48:48.000 Or should we stay behind?

00:48:49.000 But we were in an open area, in a sort of forested area.

00:48:54.000 Should we try to hide?

00:48:55.000 And then we're going to really look suspicious.

00:48:58.000 So it was crazy.

00:48:59.000 What did you do?

00:49:00.000 We got in a car and followed them.

00:49:02.000 And then spent the day with them doing cocaine all day.

00:49:05.000 Because it wasn't safe for us to leave until the night.

00:49:08.000 So they just do cocaine all the time?

00:49:09.000 They do a lot of cocaine.

00:49:11.000 And funny story, my director of photography, Fred Manu, who was the director of photography for Bourdain on Parts Unknown before.

00:49:19.000 And he got, we were filming the scene and we'd driven into the Sierra Madre mountains and then we had to walk for...

00:49:27.000 A mile or two to a place where they felt comfortable showing us their guns and they were going to start shooting and they were going to give us the interview.

00:49:36.000 It was the story about the American guns flowing down south and how they're used in the violence.

00:49:42.000 And we're walking there and suddenly Fred basically turns to us and says, I don't feel good.

00:49:48.000 And he had a massive case of, what is it that you call it?

00:49:52.000 The revenge?

00:49:53.000 Oh, Montezuma's revenge.

00:49:57.000 Massive case.

00:49:58.000 And so we walk to the place.

00:50:00.000 Fred's on the floor.

00:50:01.000 They managed to put like some sort of cloth on the floor for him.

00:50:04.000 He's like walking on the floor, can barely breathe, is like puking and going to the bathroom and all of it is happening at the same time.

00:50:12.000 And the guy is constantly offering him cocaine and telling him, dude...

00:50:17.000 This will fix you, my friend.

00:50:19.000 You have no idea.

00:50:20.000 Do this.

00:50:21.000 I am telling you.

00:50:22.000 Fred did not take the cocaine.

00:50:24.000 Would the cocaine have helped him, he thinks?

00:50:25.000 He was absolutely sure the cocaine would have helped him.

00:50:28.000 I don't know.

00:50:29.000 What if it did?

00:50:29.000 Yeah.

00:50:30.000 What if that's the cure?

00:50:32.000 What else is in the cocaine?

00:50:33.000 We don't know.

00:50:34.000 Well, these guys are probably getting pure cocaine.

00:50:36.000 Oh, yeah.

00:50:37.000 I'm sure.

00:50:37.000 I mean, why would they cut it?

00:50:39.000 And they're snorting it all day long.

00:50:40.000 Oh, my God.

00:50:41.000 And then it wasn't actually a very good idea for us to stay with them for so long.

00:50:45.000 It was a learning lesson for all of us because that night we were filming with them in a bunker where they kept a lot of their guns.

00:50:52.000 And one of them had been snorting cocaine all day and basically pulled the trigger on the floor and the bullet came out just like two inches from Fred's head because he was in the bunker right in that hole.

00:51:05.000 And it could have been really bad.

00:51:07.000 Oh, Jesus.

00:51:08.000 Yeah.

00:51:10.000 Coped up Sicarios in Mexico. 0.97

00:51:14.000 Oh my goodness.

00:51:15.000 Yeah.

00:51:16.000 And how often are those guys killing people?

00:51:19.000 Oh, very often.

00:51:20.000 They also told us all.

00:51:21.000 So they're not considered assassins per se.

00:51:25.000 They're Sicarius. 0.53

00:51:26.000 They're hitmen, right?

00:51:26.000 Because they're not...

00:51:27.000 It's part of what they do for the cartel, amongst many other things, like transporting drugs and guns and all of it.

00:51:33.000 But, yeah, a lot of people.

00:51:35.000 And he also told me the story of the first person he ever killed.

00:51:37.000 And he was ordered to kill, and it was a friend of his.

00:51:40.000 He went to his house and knocked on the door, and the guy opens the door, and he shoots him. 0.98

00:51:43.000 And the guy is yelling, don't kill me, don't kill me, and he shoots him right in the face. 0.97

00:51:47.000 Oh, boy. 0.98

00:51:48.000 Yeah.

00:51:50.000 Terrible.

00:51:50.000 That's all what happens when you make drugs illegal.

00:51:54.000 Then the criminals are selling them.

00:51:55.000 Yeah.

00:51:57.000 So that we can consume them.

00:51:58.000 Let's not forget.

00:52:00.000 Yeah.

00:52:01.000 It's dirty.

00:52:04.000 Yeah, it is dirty.

00:52:07.000 I've had conversations with people about this, like what is the solution in America?

00:52:11.000 Because if you legalize drugs, all drugs in America, and sold them, like if pharmaceutical drug companies sold heroin, cocaine, all that.

00:52:21.000 I don't want the pharmaceutical companies involved in that.

00:52:23.000 Right.

00:52:24.000 Who sells it if it's not them?

00:52:27.000 So either the cartel sells it or they sell it.

00:52:30.000 Or no one can sell it?

00:52:31.000 Well, that's not going to be the case.

00:52:32.000 Someone's going to sell it.

00:52:33.000 And if you make it legal, you're going to have more people doing it.

00:52:36.000 We're not accustomed to things being legal.

00:52:39.000 If you made cocaine legal in this country, a bunch of people would try it that wouldn't ordinarily try it because they wouldn't know who to get it from.

00:52:47.000 They wouldn't know how to do it.

00:52:48.000 If you could just walk into Walgreens and buy cocaine...

00:52:51.000 I guarantee you we'll have more overdoses, more addicts.

00:52:55.000 But what is the solution to that?

00:52:57.000 Is it education?

00:52:59.000 Does that even work?

00:53:00.000 Is it counseling?

00:53:02.000 Is it drug rehabilitation centers everywhere?

00:53:04.000 Is it Ibogaine?

00:53:06.000 What's the solution?

00:53:08.000 I don't know, but I think looking at the example of Portugal is a good idea.

00:53:12.000 Yeah, but we're not in Portugal.

00:53:13.000 The problem is what we talked about, like prison guard unions, privatized prisons.

00:53:18.000 The state of the policing in this country and the way it's done and the amount of people that are in jail in this country is so insane.

00:53:29.000 Yeah.

00:53:30.000 Yeah, there's no easy answer, which is why we haven't, no one has tried to solve this.

00:53:36.000 And then there's this bizarre trend to let people out that have committed violent crimes in this country.

00:53:42.000 It's almost like someone's engineering the deterioration of the country and ensuring civil unrest.

00:53:50.000 So they're keeping the people for minor crimes that shouldn't be there, like the guy selling weed on the corner...

00:53:57.000 Well, they're not even keeping them anymore.

00:53:58.000 Now? 0.67

00:53:59.000 No, I mean, it's like Los Angeles in particular is just nuts. 0.98

00:54:03.000 It's just nuts.

00:54:04.000 They have these district attorneys that are funded by George Soros, and they put them in, and their mandate is to let as many people out as possible.

00:54:13.000 And violent crime, whatever it is, no cash bail, they're just letting people out.

00:54:18.000 And they're letting people out of prison that are violent prisoners.

00:54:21.000 And what's the idea behind that?

00:54:24.000 That the prison system is unjust.

00:54:26.000 That's the narrative.

00:54:27.000 But the end result is people are unsafe.

00:54:30.000 Because you've already created this environment with prisons and with a lifetime of crime.

00:54:36.000 These people are habitualized.

00:54:39.000 They're criminals.

00:54:39.000 And then they've committed violent crimes and then you let them right back out on the street.

00:54:47.000 Yeah, it's wrong.

00:54:48.000 I don't know enough about it.

00:54:49.000 But I do think that we tend to look at the problem the other way around.

00:54:53.000 I think that we tend to look at how to try to stop the problem when it's already a problem without actually tackling the root causes of what is happening and why it's happening.

00:55:04.000 Yeah, we've talked about that many times in this podcast.

00:55:07.000 If you wanted to solve the root cause, you would clean up inner cities.

00:55:10.000 That's what you would do.

00:55:11.000 You'd take these crime-ridden, drug-ridden, gang-infested communities, and you'd invest a massive amount of money and resources into fixing and rehabilitating them.

00:55:21.000 And the money that we have spent just in the Ukraine war could have done that many times over in this country.

00:55:28.000 And they've not lifted a finger to stop it.

00:55:32.000 It's almost like there's a formula to ensure control and power, and you need a certain amount of crime and violence.

00:55:40.000 You need a certain amount of people in prison.

00:55:42.000 You need a certain amount of despair in the inner cities to ensure that people don't rise up and figure out the system and realize they've been screwed over.

00:55:50.000 Yeah, also talking about security helps a lot of politicians, right?

00:55:53.000 Oh, yeah.

00:55:54.000 They have something that they're going to do to make it better.

00:55:56.000 Both of those things are true, yeah.

00:55:59.000 Prop up the problems and offer you as the solution.

00:56:03.000 Yeah.

00:56:04.000 But even outside of the U.S., I mean, these black markets, you know, so much of it, the lesson for me has always been when reporting on these black markets, it's all about inequality, right? 0.98

00:56:16.000 Your choices are only as good as the opportunities you're given, right?

00:56:21.000 Sure.

00:56:22.000 If you don't have those opportunities, you're going to become, you know, first like a watcher for the cartel and then eventually climb the ladder and become a sicario.

00:56:31.000 100%.

00:56:31.000 It's the only job you have available for you.

00:56:33.000 Yeah, what else are you going to do?

00:56:34.000 And again, if you're living in the Congo and you're in the area where they're mining cobalt, what are you going to do?

00:56:39.000 Are you going to start your own business?

00:56:41.000 What are you going to do?

00:56:42.000 Right. 1.00

00:56:42.000 And if your family doesn't have anything on the table to eat and they offer you $10, which will feed your family for a week to go and kill the chimp, you're going to go and kill the chimp. 1.00

00:56:54.000 Exactly. 1.00

00:56:55.000 That's the biggest problem.

00:56:57.000 So what else did you investigate?

00:56:59.000 How many episodes did you do this year?

00:57:00.000 Ten.

00:57:01.000 Eight are now on Hulu.

00:57:03.000 Two more are coming soon.

00:57:05.000 But one of them, another one, cartel involvement, is about fake pharmaceutical pills.

00:57:13.000 It's really interesting.

00:57:14.000 We spent time with a group called La Union in Mexico City, where 80% of their job, of their money right now, comes from fake pharmaceutical pills.

00:57:23.000 Yeah, I mean, they're making these pills.

00:57:25.000 And then we went to Wendy as well, which is another source of pharmaceutical pills.

00:57:28.000 You have like 40,000 online pharmacies that you can go to and buy prescription drugs without a prescription.

00:57:34.000 So a lot of Americans are doing that because it's much cheaper.

00:57:36.000 I think it's something like 20 million Americans are using the black market for their pills, for their drugs, because they can't afford them here, which is crazy.

00:57:43.000 20 million.

00:57:44.000 20 million.

00:57:45.000 It's crazy.

00:57:46.000 And people that can't afford, that need these medications to survive, and they can't afford them here because we have the highest drug prices in the entire world.

00:57:54.000 And so when you say fake, it's not manufactured by Pfizer or whatever, but is it the same components?

00:58:03.000 It looks exactly the same, but a lot of these pills don't actually have any active ingredients.

00:58:08.000 So we spent time with a guy making 20,000 pills a night out of this little, you know, back house with a machine, a pill presser.

00:58:17.000 And it was just calcium and food dye to make it look the color, whatever color he wanted.

00:58:23.000 And he was selling it as amoxicillin and, you know, very likely ending up in American homes because they ship it all around the world.

00:58:31.000 Wow.

00:58:32.000 And in that case, you know, the good luck of the buyer is that it was just calcium, but in many cases it gets mixed with cement and rat poison and all sorts of things. 0.99

00:58:44.000 They don't give a fuck. 1.00

00:58:45.000 They don't give a fuck. 1.00

00:58:46.000 And even worse is the cartel in Mexico we found out. 0.99

00:58:50.000 There's a great LA Times investigation on this, and then we sort of started doing our own investigation.

00:58:55.000 But they're mixing these drugs together.

00:58:57.000 I think?

00:59:15.000 For doing this, but it's all our fault.

00:59:18.000 It's the broken system that we have in our country.

00:59:20.000 Why are we paying, you know, why are we, this woman that we filmed with, she was paying $700 for this medication that she needs and she couldn't afford it. 0.99

00:59:29.000 Her health insurance wasn't covering it.

00:59:31.000 So she would go across the border and pay $60 for it. 0.99

00:59:34.000 In Mexico, of course.

00:59:35.000 Is any of it the real medication?

00:59:37.000 Yeah, some of it is.

00:59:39.000 Is there a way to tell?

00:59:40.000 And they're real pharmacies.

00:59:42.000 So some of the real pharmacies have fake drugs?

00:59:44.000 So that's what's so interesting is that even pharmacies that are real, that are completely authentic and legitimate.

00:59:52.000 There's a town that we filmed at called Algodones, for example, that's on the other side of the Arizona border.

00:59:58.000 That has more hospitals and orthodontists and optometrists than anywhere else in the world.

01:00:09.000 It's basically you drive around and it's like doctor's office, pharmacy.

01:00:14.000 We're good to go.

01:00:29.000 But what we did with the cartel is we were trying to figure out how they get their medications in these shelves.

01:00:35.000 And we filmed one cartel member.

01:00:37.000 He allowed us to film.

01:00:38.000 We couldn't go inside, but he had a mic, so I was able to listen to everything from the car.

01:00:43.000 He goes into a pharmacy and basically tells the woman, they're like this.

01:00:48.000 And the meds, we saw them making them.

01:00:49.000 They look exactly like the real thing, the packaging, everything.

01:00:52.000 Some of it actually comes from the legitimate places that they steal from the factories, like the packaging and all of it.

01:00:59.000 But they basically tell them, okay, you put this on your shelves, and if you don't, we're going to burn your pharmacy.

01:01:04.000 So we heard that.

01:01:06.000 We saw that.

01:01:07.000 And so a lot of them are forced to carry them.

01:01:10.000 And they're forced to carry fake drugs.

01:01:12.000 Yeah.

01:01:12.000 And do they have any idea what's in them when they're selling them, or they're just...

01:01:16.000 I don't think they do, no.

01:01:17.000 I doubt that they knew, for example, there was fentanyl and meth mixed in with some of their other medications because that creates a huge problem for them.

01:01:26.000 And so for the consumer, how do they find the legitimate stuff?

01:01:31.000 They don't, which is why it's so hard.

01:01:32.000 So this woman that we followed, she goes there, she buys her medication, and I asked her, do you know what's in there?

01:01:37.000 Oh, no, but my friend told me that it's a legitimate pharmacy.

01:01:40.000 Of course, she has no idea that this is happening, that the cartel is actually threatening them to death if they don't stock their shelves with their fake pharmaceuticals.

01:01:49.000 Did you take any of that stuff and test it?

01:01:51.000 We did.

01:01:51.000 It's a lot more complicated than it seems.

01:01:55.000 The LA Times, again, did an amazing investigation where they did test it.

01:01:59.000 And again, I think it was something like seven or eight out of their ten that they tested had fentanyl and meth, which was crazy, out of two pharmacies, I think.

01:02:06.000 And what kind of drugs are they talking about that have fentanyl and meth in it?

01:02:09.000 Oh, I can't remember.

01:02:10.000 But I think it was Adderall, maybe.

01:02:14.000 I can't remember exactly.

01:02:15.000 But it was a great investigation.

01:02:17.000 And yeah, in our story, we sort of looked at how it ends up in the shelves and who's making it and how it's being produced.

01:02:23.000 There's an amazing doctor in Mexico City called Dr. Loco, who we spend time with, a doctor, a crazy doctor, Dr. Loco.

01:02:31.000 Who was a chemist himself, a doctor as well, and his father owned a pharmacy, so he sort of knew how to, and he showed us, he's putting the little silicone pouch inside, and the cotton ball that goes inside, and it looks exactly the same.

01:02:48.000 Like, no one would have been able to tell.

01:02:51.000 God, that's so scary.

01:02:52.000 So scary.

01:02:54.000 Yeah.

01:02:55.000 Is there any evidence that that happens in America?

01:02:59.000 That it's being sold in America.

01:03:00.000 Yeah, we went with a raid with the L.A. Sheriff's Department where we saw a sort of a grocery store in the back.

01:03:07.000 They were selling these medications mainly to underprivileged immigrant communities because they couldn't sell real stuff.

01:03:14.000 But they're not in legitimate pharmacies?

01:03:16.000 Not yet.

01:03:18.000 Not yet.

01:03:19.000 No.

01:03:19.000 That we know of.

01:03:20.000 No, not yet that we know of.

01:03:22.000 But again, at the end we went and visited a spokesperson for a group called Pharma that is a lobby group that represents the pharmaceutical companies.

01:03:32.000 And she was very happy to talk about how counterfeit medications are very damaging for America, right?

01:03:39.000 Yeah, so are the real ones.

01:03:41.000 And that's why I asked her, but why is it that 20 million Americans have to resort to a black market?

01:03:46.000 Because they can't afford their medications here.

01:03:48.000 Yeah.

01:03:48.000 And that whole conversation, as you know, is fascinating.

01:03:52.000 Yeah, what did she say about that?

01:03:54.000 Well, she says that they need the money for innovation, R&D, right?

01:03:58.000 Research and development.

01:03:59.000 And that's how they can get new drugs that are important for Americans.

01:04:02.000 I said, that's all great.

01:04:03.000 But if the Americans can't afford these medications...

01:04:06.000 They're not going to be treated by them because they can't afford them.

01:04:09.000 And then I asked her, have you actually spent any time with any of these Americans that cannot afford their life-saving medications?

01:04:15.000 She said no.

01:04:17.000 That's the biggest problem, right?

01:04:19.000 Yeah.

01:04:19.000 But she keeps saying that without that expense, without that money, they wouldn't be able to look for all these new drugs.

01:04:27.000 Which is also BS because I think it's something like 34% or 35% of the money that was spent or it was 35% more money spent on advertisement and trying to sell the drug than it was on actual R&D research and development.

01:04:45.000 Of course.

01:04:46.000 Not only that, to say that they're not profitable after all that. 0.84

01:04:50.000 Oh, I mean, like $100 billion at top 10 companies in the last year alone or two years, something ridiculous like that.

01:04:57.000 Yeah, they make plenty.

01:04:59.000 It's greed.

01:05:01.000 It's pure greed.

01:05:02.000 And it's evil.

01:05:03.000 Especially, I mean, I'm sure, have you seen the Netflix series Painkiller?

01:05:07.000 Peter Berg's documentary?

01:05:09.000 I mean, that's how I found out about you through the OxyContin Express.

01:05:12.000 I mean, what year was that?

01:05:14.000 That was quite a long time ago.

01:05:15.000 That was 2008. When did we first talk?

01:05:19.000 I think 2008 or 9. It had to be 9 because the podcast didn't start until 9. Okay, so it was 9. It might have been 10. 2010. Oh, maybe, maybe.

01:05:28.000 Because you came to the studio.

01:05:29.000 I wasn't doing it at my house anymore.

01:05:30.000 No, you were doing it at your house.

01:05:32.000 Really?

01:05:32.000 The first time you did it was at my house?

01:05:33.000 I'm quite sure.

01:05:34.000 No kidding.

01:05:35.000 Didn't you live like in Sherman Oaks or something?

01:05:37.000 Woodland Hills.

01:05:37.000 Woodland Hills, yeah.

01:05:39.000 I'm quite sure I went to your house.

01:05:41.000 Now I'm thinking, yeah.

01:05:42.000 Yeah, you were one of my first guests, I think, then.

01:05:44.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:05:45.000 Yeah, that OxyContin Express story was insane.

01:05:48.000 And I think part of the exposure from your work led to them changing the laws because they had no database.

01:05:56.000 So the way it would work, I'll explain it to people, is that there was no database.

01:06:00.000 So if you got a prescription from a doctor and you went in to get OxyContin, you could go to another doctor down the street and get another prescription.

01:06:08.000 And they clearly had it set up like that so that there could be abuse because that was how to maximize profits.

01:06:15.000 And they have these pain management centers.

01:06:18.000 And I used to see them when I would do stand-up in Florida, where you would go and it would be called a pain management center.

01:06:25.000 And it's essentially You would go to a doctor, and all the doctors there is to write a prescription for OxyContin.

01:06:31.000 And then you go right next door to their little pharmacy that they had on site, and all they had was OxyContin.

01:06:38.000 And you had just a parking lot filled with zombies.

01:06:41.000 These people that were just like, zonked out.

01:06:45.000 Overdosing in the front steps.

01:06:47.000 Like crazy.

01:06:48.000 So my husband did an amazing follow-up documentary.

01:06:51.000 If you remember the OxyContin Express, do you remember that we were investigating this one pain clinic called American Pain?

01:06:57.000 And the owners were identical twins, born identical twins, and they owned this pain clinic.

01:07:04.000 And they followed us down I-95 because they saw us filming outside their door.

01:07:09.000 And they followed us down I-95.

01:07:12.000 And, you know, I'm at the wheel and I'm seeing that we're running low on gas.

01:07:19.000 So I stop at the gas station and they park right behind us.

01:07:21.000 And these two big guys with...

01:07:24.000 You know, big muscles come out and start yelling at us.

01:07:27.000 And so I take off.

01:07:28.000 And they follow us and keep following us.

01:07:30.000 And at one point, I run out of gas.

01:07:32.000 And I go to the side of the—and we're on a freeway on the I-95.

01:07:36.000 And I'd been calling—contact in law enforcement, DEA, that we'd been talking to.

01:07:41.000 And she said, call 911 right now. 0.67

01:07:43.000 I know these guys are bad news.

01:07:44.000 Call 911 right now.

01:07:45.000 So we called 911, told them what was happening.

01:07:47.000 We were being chased on the freeway.

01:07:51.000 I think?

01:08:06.000 And then we took down their license plate and my husband started looking into them.

01:08:11.000 They ended up in prison at federal time.

01:08:14.000 Part of it they were using, the surveillance tapes they used was part of our conversations.

01:08:19.000 They were talking about us and our investigation into them and the OxyContin Express.

01:08:24.000 But my husband stayed in touch, basically wrote them a letter when they were in prison.

01:08:28.000 And we were deciding on whether he should say, hey, I was the guy who directed OxyContin Express, but he didn't.

01:08:34.000 And he just said, hey, my name is Darren Foster.

01:08:36.000 I'm a documentary filmmaker.

01:08:38.000 I've been fascinated by your...

01:08:39.000 They ran the biggest prescription pill operation in American history.

01:08:42.000 Like they were the Pablo Escobar of America, basically.

01:08:44.000 They were making millions and millions of dollars out of a couple of storefronts in Florida.

01:08:49.000 And so he contacted them and they wrote back and said, yeah, I'm interested.

01:08:53.000 And by the way, say hi to your wife.

01:08:55.000 So they knew full well who he was.

01:08:57.000 And he ended up doing an amazing doc.

01:09:00.000 It's called American Pain.

01:09:00.000 You should watch it.

01:09:01.000 But it's about them, the rise and fall of these twin brothers, but also the complicity of the pharmaceutical companies.

01:09:07.000 And they full well knew exactly what was happening and did nothing about it.

01:09:12.000 It's a great way to maximize profits.

01:09:13.000 Yeah.

01:09:13.000 And the fact that they were taking these and buying them in bulk and buying them off all these people and then shipping them up north.

01:09:20.000 Yeah.

01:09:21.000 And then you see the trail of devastation everywhere these pharmaceutical drugs went.

01:09:26.000 And all these communities that got hooked on the pills and then when they changed the regulation and made them more difficult to get, then these people started doing heroin.

01:09:34.000 And then fentanyl.

01:09:35.000 Yeah.

01:09:36.000 And then the exact same thing happened.

01:09:38.000 We did another documentary called Death by Fentanyl where we looked at the fentanyl and we investigated this one pharmaceutical company called Insys Pharmaceuticals, or Insys Therapeutics, where they were selling subsys, which was a fentanyl product.

01:09:53.000 And they were doing the exact same thing that Purdue had done just, you know, a few years before, where they were paying doctors for fees to basically prescribe.

01:10:02.000 They were prescribing fentanyl to people with headaches and, like, shoulder pain.

01:10:06.000 And we got a whistleblower to tell us exactly how it was happening and how they were, you know, calling because the pills or this product was really, really expensive, so insurance companies were paying for it.

01:10:16.000 So she would call insurance companies and say, oh, and they would ask, but, you know, this is only supposed to be prescribed to cancer patients.

01:10:23.000 Does this patient have cancer?

01:10:25.000 And they knew how to answer in a way that the person would believe they did, even though they didn't.

01:10:30.000 They were making millions of dollars.

01:10:32.000 It was the only executive that has ever gone to trial and been found guilty.

01:10:37.000 Yeah, it's sick.

01:10:41.000 Are those two twins still in jail?

01:10:43.000 No.

01:10:44.000 One of them still is.

01:10:45.000 The other one left and my husband Darren was there.

01:10:47.000 How did one get out?

01:10:49.000 They had different sentences.

01:10:52.000 And I think the other one is still in federal prison.

01:10:56.000 But it's George, Jeff and Chris George, George's last name.

01:11:01.000 And yeah, Darren was there, filmed him the day he came out.

01:11:04.000 What's he doing now?

01:11:06.000 They're involved in other businesses.

01:11:08.000 They were involved in real estate before with their father.

01:11:11.000 And then they started a, I think it was a steroids, they were selling growth hormone.

01:11:16.000 And then they realized, wait a second, we can be selling Oxycontin and making a lot more money from this.

01:11:22.000 And literally, they had like stash of cash hidden in their mother's basement.

01:11:28.000 It was millions of dollars.

01:11:30.000 It was insane how much money they were making.

01:11:33.000 Yeah, it's a good doc.

01:11:35.000 It really shows you the complexity.

01:11:37.000 How much do you worry about your safety, uncovering all these things?

01:11:42.000 Sometimes, a little bit.

01:11:45.000 Funnily enough, I worry more when we're going after people in high positions of power than I do after, you know, months of trying to get access to the cartel, for example, and when they say yes, it's a yes,

01:12:01.000 it's a yes.

01:12:03.000 But in some situations, yeah, I mean, I've gotten lots of...

01:12:07.000 Hate emails.

01:12:08.000 And the guy that owned that in CIS Therapeutics, for example, threatened to sue us.

01:12:14.000 Because we compared him to El Chapo and said basically he saw an opportunity in fentanyl just like El Chapo from the Sinaloa cartel saw an opportunity in selling fentanyl.

01:12:24.000 And how they were sort of the same in different parts.

01:12:27.000 And they threatened to sue you for that, for the truth?

01:12:29.000 Yeah.

01:12:29.000 He didn't like the fact that we were comparing him to El Chapo.

01:12:32.000 How can you sue someone for that?

01:12:34.000 It seems like that's a...

01:12:35.000 Yeah, he didn't go far.

01:12:37.000 Nothing happened.

01:12:38.000 Get that in front of a jury.

01:12:40.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:12:41.000 I don't like the comparison.

01:12:44.000 He didn't like to be called a drug dealer, but guess what?

01:12:46.000 That's exactly what he was.

01:12:47.000 You're dealing drugs and you don't like being called a drug dealer.

01:12:50.000 Maybe stop dealing drugs.

01:12:54.000 What do you think is the most dangerous thing that you've ever investigated?

01:12:59.000 I was terrified for you when you were in the cocaine laboratories.

01:13:04.000 I know you were right here telling me about it, but I was like, oh my god, she's gonna die.

01:13:08.000 When you were watching?

01:13:10.000 Even though I knew that you were okay!

01:13:12.000 This is so insane that you did that, and that you went through the jungle with the people that were carting out the cocaine. 0.83

01:13:22.000 You could have easily gotten killed.

01:13:26.000 Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of situations like that on the show.

01:13:29.000 Like almost every episode there's a crazy situation.

01:13:31.000 Are you addicted to the thrill?

01:13:33.000 No, not at all.

01:13:33.000 I don't do it at all.

01:13:35.000 People think I'm adrenaline junkie.

01:13:37.000 Not at all.

01:13:38.000 I don't do it for the adrenaline.

01:13:39.000 I really, I'm very curious.

01:13:43.000 I think as a journalist, if you tell you there's a part of the world that you can never see, that's exactly where you want to go.

01:13:49.000 I also find these black markets fascinating.

01:13:52.000 That's like something like half of the world's economy are these black and gray markets.

01:13:55.000 Half of the world's economy is black and gray markets?

01:13:59.000 Half?

01:14:00.000 Almost half.

01:14:01.000 I mean less, but it's like these black and gray markets.

01:14:03.000 And gray markets can be anything from people selling counterfeit goods or anything that's basically not – or like gray markets basically.

01:14:10.000 Cash in hand and you're not actually working in an office.

01:14:15.000 Yeah.

01:14:16.000 So yeah, so it's a lot.

01:14:18.000 And no one knows anything about these worlds.

01:14:20.000 And I'm fascinated not by the pointing of the finger of these guys are the bad guys and we're spending time with the bad guys, but more about what is the motivation and why, how is the system broken that got us to this place?

01:14:32.000 Because again, it's trying to figure out the root cause instead of the enforcement side of it.

01:14:37.000 Yeah, I did not know it was that much.

01:14:40.000 Yeah, it is crazy.

01:14:41.000 And I think this is the only show that is devoted only to black markets out there.

01:14:46.000 Yeah.

01:14:46.000 But one of the other things you did that was terrifying was, and just terrifying to know this, was that Los Angeles police were confiscating weapons and then selling them to the cartels in Mexico.

01:14:58.000 And that you could just go to Mexico easy.

01:15:01.000 It's easy to go straight across the border into Mexico.

01:15:04.000 So you can go to Mexico with a trunk full of weapons.

01:15:09.000 And no one stops you?

01:15:10.000 No, there's no control whatsoever going south, only coming north.

01:15:13.000 Which is wild.

01:15:14.000 Which is wild, I know.

01:15:16.000 And guess what?

01:15:17.000 These are the same guns that are being used to create the violence, that create the reason why many people want to leave Mexico and come to the United States.

01:15:26.000 Sort of a cycle, right?

01:15:28.000 God.

01:15:29.000 Yeah.

01:15:31.000 Do you think you'll ever run out of topics?

01:15:33.000 No, we have such a long list that you think people think...

01:15:38.000 Are there any that you look at and you go, that's too much?

01:15:40.000 That's too heavy?

01:15:41.000 No, not yet.

01:15:42.000 Not yet.

01:15:43.000 Like Taliban in Afghanistan?

01:15:44.000 Oh, yeah.

01:15:45.000 Terrorism. 1.00

01:15:45.000 You don't fuck with terrorism. 1.00

01:15:46.000 That's for sure. 1.00

01:15:47.000 Yeah.

01:15:48.000 And that's why when we went to Niger, we only went because we knew that we were going to have military convoy with us and people protecting us because we knew.

01:15:57.000 But yet, I mean, it was months of planning because we were all, yeah, you don't...

01:16:02.000 And you still get caught in a coup.

01:16:03.000 And we got caught in a coup.

01:16:04.000 That's the thing.

01:16:05.000 It's like you can plan.

01:16:07.000 What is there?

01:16:07.000 It's like that Mike Tyson.

01:16:10.000 Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face.

01:16:12.000 Yes, I love that. 0.73

01:16:13.000 I love that.

01:16:13.000 Because that is exactly what happens with us.

01:16:16.000 It's months and months of planning for shit that never happens. 0.99

01:16:20.000 And what happens is always the thing you didn't prepare for or weren't ready for. 0.99

01:16:26.000 Wow.

01:16:26.000 Yeah.

01:16:27.000 What else did you cover this year?

01:16:30.000 What else we did?

01:16:31.000 We did Apes Sextortion. 0.93

01:16:33.000 Have you heard of Sextortion?

01:16:34.000 Sextortion?

01:16:35.000 Yeah.

01:16:36.000 How's that work?

01:16:37.000 That one's airing tonight, actually.

01:16:39.000 But it's out on Hulu already.

01:16:41.000 But it's a horrible crime.

01:16:43.000 It's a crime that's growing.

01:16:45.000 And it's basically you...

01:16:49.000 Start chatting with somebody online.

01:16:51.000 That person eventually asks you to send a photo of yourself, a compromising photo or video of yourself, and they'll send you a photo or video back.

01:16:59.000 And it's mainly targeting teens, which is really sad, American teenagers.

01:17:04.000 And then once you do send those photos or videos, the person says, well, I have all the contact information on Facebook of all your friends and your work and your parents and your school, whatever, and I'm going to send this to everyone if you don't send us money right now.

01:17:17.000 And the really sad part of that is that we spent time with parents whose kids committed suicide.

01:17:23.000 And within the span of like a couple of days.

01:17:27.000 So they started chatting online.

01:17:28.000 There was this kid called Jake in Utah.

01:17:31.000 So sad.

01:17:33.000 He was contacted by what looked like a beautiful girl on a Sunday night.

01:17:38.000 By Thursday or Friday, he committed suicide because he was too embarrassed that his friends and his family would see those photos.

01:17:46.000 Oh, yeah.

01:17:47.000 It is horrible.

01:17:48.000 But amazingly, he left behind a letter for his mother and instructions on how to access his phone so she could see what had happened to him and also who he had sent money to in the hopes that she would be able to investigate or send people to investigate.

01:18:05.000 And the American authorities did.

01:18:07.000 They found that the people that he was sending money to were in the Philippines, but that was it.

01:18:12.000 Like, there was nothing else they could do because it was a foreign country. 0.97

01:18:15.000 And so we set out to the Philippines and tried to figure out who it was behind this scam.

01:18:20.000 And we found the whole community of people involved in the scam and scamming millions out of Americans.

01:18:26.000 And do they just use stock photos of girls?

01:18:30.000 Yeah, stock photos of girls.

01:18:31.000 A lot of them, interestingly enough, are actually trans people.

01:18:34.000 In the trans community, we spoke to a drag queen, for example, who was scamming a lot of people. 1.00

01:18:40.000 And during COVID, what happened is that they usually do drag queen contests.

01:18:48.000 They make money that way or work at clubs or...

01:18:51.000 And a lot of them lost their jobs during COVID and they had no government assistance and so they found a way to make some money this way by sextorting Americans.

01:19:03.000 Yeah.

01:19:04.000 And that was super, a crazy journey too.

01:19:08.000 Just one of the scenes we filmed was we spent time in a prison with a guy that was in prison for extorting Filipino women.

01:19:18.000 And it was sort of the beginning of our investigation.

01:19:21.000 We were trying to figure out if he was connected to anyone else, thinking he was like sort of small fish just extorting people in the Philippines.

01:19:28.000 And then by talking to him, he basically admits on camera while talking to me.

01:19:33.000 Actually, I've done this to many, many Americans, and one of them...

01:19:37.000 And I asked him, do you know anyone who's committed suicide?

01:19:40.000 Because it's a huge problem in the U.S. He was like, yes.

01:19:42.000 There was one man who was married.

01:19:44.000 He was an engineer, I believe.

01:19:46.000 And he committed suicide after we extorted him.

01:19:51.000 And I said, how do you know?

01:19:52.000 He says, because his camera laptop was on, and we could see it.

01:19:55.000 I was like, wait, did you not try to stop him?

01:19:57.000 I was like, no, because we heard people saying that they were going to commit suicide, but they never did, so we thought he was bluffing.

01:20:02.000 And then we saw him as he dies on camera.

01:20:05.000 Jesus.

01:20:06.000 I know.

01:20:07.000 I'm sorry.

01:20:07.000 This is the most depressing podcast you've ever done.

01:20:12.000 No, it's not, unfortunately.

01:20:16.000 But it's horrifying.

01:20:17.000 It's just horrifying the cruelty that people are capable of that they would do to strangers just for money.

01:20:24.000 Yeah.

01:20:25.000 And especially for young kids to take some teenager, some easily manipulated young kid and trick them into doing something.

01:20:33.000 Yeah.

01:20:34.000 Or the desperation also that leads to it.

01:20:37.000 Yeah.

01:20:38.000 Yeah, exactly, right?

01:20:40.000 Like, that's your only option to do that?

01:20:43.000 Yeah.

01:20:44.000 Right.

01:20:45.000 Yeah, that was a heavy one.

01:20:49.000 Yeah, but...

01:20:51.000 But I mean, sextortion is essentially the whole theme behind this whole Jeffrey Epstein thing.

01:20:56.000 That was just a massive intelligence operation to compromise very wealthy and powerful people and to, I mean, probably influence all sorts of things.

01:21:09.000 If you have a bunch of information on someone, videotapes of someone.

01:21:14.000 You think that's what he was doing?

01:21:15.000 100%. 0.94

01:21:16.000 That he was filming powerful people having sex with girls? 0.98

01:21:20.000 Probably underage girls. 1.00

01:21:22.000 Really?

01:21:22.000 Is this public information?

01:21:25.000 This is what the whole Jeffrey Epstein thing is about.

01:21:27.000 Yeah, you didn't know that?

01:21:29.000 I mean, I knew that he was flying people, powerful people to an island, but I didn't know that he was filming without their knowledge.

01:21:35.000 Yeah.

01:21:36.000 Yeah, that's the story.

01:21:38.000 The story was that the whole thing was an intelligence operation and that what they were doing was compromising these people.

01:21:44.000 You get them to go there.

01:21:45.000 A bunch of celebrities are going to be there.

01:21:47.000 A bunch of wealthy people are going to be there.

01:21:49.000 A bunch of famous scientists are going to be there.

01:21:51.000 Everyone's having a wonderful time.

01:21:53.000 And you figure like, oh, look, all these Nobel Prize winning scientists and Nobel laureates and actors and singers.

01:22:00.000 All these people are going to be there.

01:22:01.000 This sounds like a great place to be.

01:22:03.000 This guy, he gets endorsed by all these other people.

01:22:06.000 Oh, Jeffrey Epstein is this wonderful billionaire philanthropist and he's just very eccentric and he loves to have these incredible parties and all the most interesting people.

01:22:15.000 And then you go there and next thing you know you're doing drugs and You lose your little inhibitions, and there's a bunch of lovely young ladies. 1.00

01:22:23.000 You don't know how old they are.

01:22:24.000 And they take you into a room and film you, and now he's got the goods on you.

01:22:28.000 Wait, this lasted so long.

01:22:30.000 Do you think people would have talked about it to each other?

01:22:33.000 Like, say, don't go to that island because this guy is...

01:22:35.000 I think the opposite.

01:22:37.000 I think once they have information on you, they get you to talk to other people.

01:22:41.000 We would like to meet this guy.

01:22:43.000 Why don't you bring him?

01:22:44.000 Come get him to come hang out with us.

01:22:47.000 And then now you got that guy.

01:22:48.000 And so maybe you've got some guy who's on a television show and, you know, a news channel and he's talking.

01:22:54.000 And then you've got some guy who's a scientist and he's talking to other people.

01:22:58.000 And then they're all going to this island.

01:22:59.000 And you go there and you're like, look, Bill Clinton's here.

01:23:02.000 It's got to be fine to be here.

01:23:03.000 There's all these incredible, powerful people here.

01:23:06.000 Oh, I found a place where they all get together and, you know, where they can be protected.

01:23:10.000 And so you feel safe.

01:23:12.000 Right.

01:23:12.000 Yeah.

01:23:13.000 And then they have you.

01:23:15.000 Wasn't everybody expecting some big names to come out of the documents?

01:23:19.000 They still haven't released all of them.

01:23:21.000 And what I understand is the list is only one victim's encounters with people.

01:23:27.000 And she's relaying the list of the people.

01:23:30.000 The list of people that were at the island.

01:23:32.000 That she interacted with and that she knows of and that she either had sex with or knows people that had sex with and that knows that they were all filmed.

01:23:41.000 Right.

01:23:42.000 And do you also think that he was killed?

01:23:46.000 Yeah.

01:23:46.000 That he didn't commit suicide?

01:23:48.000 100%.

01:23:48.000 Yeah.

01:23:49.000 A lot of people do.

01:23:50.000 Yeah.

01:23:50.000 Well, Michael Badden, the famous forensic doctor that was in that HBO series Autopsy.

01:23:57.000 Did you ever see that show?

01:23:58.000 It's a fascinating show that was on...

01:24:01.000 A while back that it was basically how this guy, Michael Baden, who's this brilliant forensic specialist, would examine these bodies and find evidence of them being murdered when, you know, they'd said they'd fell down a flight of stairs or this or that.

01:24:18.000 When he examined Jeffrey Epstein's neck, he said that the injuries were indicative of someone being strangled, ligature strangulation, not hanging.

01:24:29.000 And that it was at the base of his neck, which is not where you get strangled if you hang yourself.

01:24:34.000 If you hang yourself, all your weight goes up here, and he gets strangled up like near where your jawline is.

01:24:40.000 But this was down at the base of his neck.

01:24:41.000 Indicating like someone strangled him from behind.

01:24:44.000 And his bones in his neck were fractured.

01:24:47.000 Which is also indicative of someone who's strangled to death.

01:24:51.000 Not being hung.

01:24:52.000 And why was this made public?

01:24:54.000 Or was it?

01:24:55.000 Well his findings were made public.

01:24:58.000 This is without doubt a bunch of incredibly powerful people who are using their influence to make sure that this information doesn't get out.

01:25:07.000 Or that the impact of this information getting out is very minimal.

01:25:11.000 And that it just gets swept under the rug.

01:25:13.000 And every time more information comes out, there's a brief little burst of outrage, but no one goes to jail, no one gets caught.

01:25:21.000 Ghislaine Maxwell is in jail for sex trafficking, right?

01:25:24.000 But to who?

01:25:26.000 To who?

01:25:27.000 You have to sex traffic to someone to be arrested for sex trafficking.

01:25:33.000 And when there's no one that's being listed as the people that you sex trafficked, but the implication is that these people who you're sex trafficking to are the most powerful people in the world.

01:25:46.000 That these powerful, influential people are the ones that were the ones that were using this, the ones that were there, the ones that were victimized by the scheme.

01:25:55.000 Or I wouldn't say victimized.

01:25:57.000 They were caught by this scheme.

01:26:00.000 None of them are arrested.

01:26:01.000 None of them are going to jail.

01:26:02.000 But wasn't she trafficking girls for Jeffrey Epstein? 0.91

01:26:05.000 Wasn't that the whole thing?

01:26:06.000 She was trafficking girls for Jeffrey Epstein, but to who?

01:26:10.000 To who?

01:26:10.000 To him, no?

01:26:12.000 Wasn't she recruiting girls to come and have sex with him? 1.00

01:26:14.000 Right, but to who were the men? 0.99

01:26:16.000 Who were the men?

01:26:17.000 Oh, because if it's not just Jeffrey...

01:26:18.000 It's not like Jeffrey Epstein is having sex with all of them.

01:26:21.000 It was a bunch of other people.

01:26:23.000 So who are those people?

01:26:25.000 And how come there's zero effort in the media to uncover this?

01:26:31.000 Yeah, I don't know.

01:26:32.000 It's kind of insane.

01:26:33.000 It is insane.

01:26:34.000 It's really insane.

01:26:36.000 But there was a doc done about it, a documentary done, right?

01:26:39.000 I believe so.

01:26:40.000 Yeah, I remember seeing it.

01:26:41.000 Yeah, but it just goes in and out of the news.

01:26:44.000 The news cycle today is so weird.

01:26:46.000 It's like something comes in and comes out and it's gone.

01:26:48.000 Right.

01:26:50.000 It's very bizarre.

01:26:51.000 It's very, very, very bizarre.

01:26:53.000 But wait, the findings of this expert didn't make it to the final report on how he got killed?

01:26:59.000 No, this was post the, look, there was an official autopsy, so he hung himself, and then they brought in, the family brought in Dr. Michael Badden to examine it.

01:27:08.000 I think it was Jeffrey Epstein's brother brought him in.

01:27:10.000 I forget who brought him in, but Dr. Michael Badden goes in there and he's like, no, this guy was killed.

01:27:16.000 And nothing changed in the official report.

01:27:18.000 They didn't change it.

01:27:19.000 No.

01:27:19.000 Why would they do that?

01:27:20.000 I mean, everything about it is so crazy.

01:27:23.000 First of all, the cameras didn't work.

01:27:24.000 How convenient.

01:27:25.000 How convenient.

01:27:27.000 And this guy is not being watched 24 hours a day.

01:27:31.000 He's one of the most important witnesses.

01:27:34.000 Wasn't there something about the person supposed to be watching him had just gone to the bathroom or something?

01:27:38.000 They were asleep or something. 0.98

01:27:40.000 I don't know what happened, but those people kind of shut the fuck up, and then it just... 0.99

01:27:45.000 Right. 0.99

01:27:45.000 Just get swept away. 0.99

01:27:47.000 That's insane.

01:27:48.000 Yeah.

01:27:48.000 But the idea is that he was either, you know, intelligence agency from America or Mossad and that this was a long-term tactic to control people and to get influence over them.

01:28:03.000 I mean, you take these men and most of these men that are in these positions of power, these politicians and heads of enormous corporations and I mean, look, the guy who was the CEO of Victoria's Secrets donated a $60 million house to him in Manhattan.

01:28:21.000 And there was another guy who was a big CEO who wound up giving him over $100 million.

01:28:25.000 There was a bunch of people that gave him sizable chunks of money.

01:28:30.000 Out of the kindness of their heart.

01:28:32.000 And, you know, some of them had to step down from their corporations because there was insinuation they were attached to him.

01:28:37.000 Like, what happened with...

01:28:38.000 No one's in jail.

01:28:39.000 No one went to jail for it.

01:28:41.000 That's so crazy.

01:28:42.000 Yeah, it's high-level sextortion.

01:28:44.000 Yeah.

01:28:44.000 If that's the case.

01:28:45.000 But I think that's what they've always done.

01:28:47.000 Look, if I was an intelligence agent, and if I was the head of an intelligence agency, it was like, well, how do you manipulate people?

01:28:53.000 You've got all these powerful people.

01:28:55.000 How do we get them under our control?

01:28:56.000 That is one of the best ways.

01:28:58.000 Especially if you can get loose in their inhibitions, get them drunk, give them coke.

01:29:02.000 And then, you know, all of a sudden some beautiful girl's giving him a back massage. 0.74

01:29:06.000 And, you know, you're told, it's fine.

01:29:08.000 Don't worry about it.

01:29:09.000 Don't worry.

01:29:09.000 Have a good time on the island.

01:29:10.000 You're my guest.

01:29:11.000 Okay.

01:29:12.000 And then you're in some room and there's, you know, cameras everywhere.

01:29:15.000 You don't realize it.

01:29:16.000 And then they go, we have to talk.

01:29:18.000 That is so nuts.

01:29:19.000 I want to show you something.

01:29:19.000 This doesn't have to get out, but, you know, we need something from you.

01:29:22.000 Yeah.

01:29:23.000 It is crazy that it's not a bigger thing.

01:29:25.000 It's crazy.

01:29:26.000 Yeah.

01:29:26.000 It's crazy.

01:29:27.000 Yeah.

01:29:27.000 It's also crazy that that is probably going on right now somewhere else.

01:29:31.000 There's probably another version of that happening, whether it's in other countries or other sort of similar situations.

01:29:40.000 Look, intelligence agencies have always infiltrated shady groups, and for a good reason.

01:29:46.000 I mean like this is my argument about where people are saying all these feds instigated January 6th.

01:29:51.000 I'm sure they did. 0.98

01:29:53.000 But also you would want like legitimate good intelligence agents on the ground January 6th just so that things don't go south so that you know what the fuck is happening. 0.90

01:30:03.000 If you've got a bunch of people that are like some crazy militia group and they're planning on detonating a nuclear bomb in the capital, the only way to find out is to have people on the ground, right?

01:30:11.000 But what happens is Those people then have a vested interest in getting people to do things so that they can arrest them, which is like the Governor Whitmer case, where the 14 people that kidnapped, or were planning to kidnap, 12 of them were FBI informants,

01:30:29.000 and two of them were FBI agents.

01:30:31.000 The one who was the fake demolition expert who was going to blow up the bridge, and the other one who was the getaway driver.

01:30:36.000 They're federal agents.

01:30:37.000 Like, it's all fake.

01:30:38.000 The whole thing was fake. 0.98

01:30:39.000 There was two dummies. 0.78

01:30:40.000 They were like, what are we doing?

01:30:42.000 And those guys were the ones who wound up going to jail.

01:30:45.000 Wait, do you think that they weren't actually planning?

01:30:47.000 It wasn't their idea. 0.99

01:30:48.000 They were just dopes. 0.99

01:30:50.000 They were convinced by somebody who was... 0.98

01:30:52.000 They got roped into this thing, and the next thing you know, they're being talked into some crazy plan where they're, you know...

01:31:00.000 Kidnapping the governor.

01:31:01.000 And the guys who were doing, they were like, we never thought it was really going to happen. 0.98

01:31:05.000 Like they were just losers who all of a sudden they're a part of like some crazy rebellious organization that's supposed to do something that's going to – we're going to stand up against tyranny and we're going to arrest that bitch and what they were really doing was being tricked by federal informants. 1.00

01:31:22.000 I don't know enough about that case. 0.98

01:31:24.000 But I would say, the only thing I would say is that there is some responsibility.

01:31:27.000 I mean, they can be dummies, but that's not self-defense for not being found guilty of committing a crime.

01:31:34.000 That's true. 0.96

01:31:34.000 But also, there is a sizable percent of this population that has an IQ lower than 85. It's pretty big. 0.96

01:31:41.000 All of which vote.

01:31:43.000 What is the number?

01:31:45.000 What's the number of people, I know we've looked this up before, but it's pretty confusing.

01:31:50.000 The number of people that are under 85 IQ is pretty high.

01:31:55.000 And if you can get one of them and tell them that you're going to kidnap the governor, the next thing you know, oh god, you have nothing going on in your life, your life is meaningless, and all of a sudden it's exciting, and you think you're a part of a good group, like, we're doing the right thing. 1.00

01:32:10.000 Because you're fucking dumb. 1.00

01:32:11.000 You have an 85 IQ. Right. 1.00

01:32:14.000 You're incapable of seeing big pictures. 0.96

01:32:16.000 You have a 9-volt brain. 0.93

01:32:19.000 There's a lot of people out there like that.

01:32:21.000 A lot.

01:32:22.000 And that's the problem with incentivizing people to arrest people.

01:32:28.000 Like, well, you've got to get them to do something to arrest them.

01:32:30.000 Right.

01:32:31.000 The same thing happened right after 9-11, right?

01:32:33.000 All these people were...

01:32:36.000 We're good to go.

01:32:53.000 They convinced him.

01:32:54.000 They radicalized him and convinced him.

01:32:56.000 They gave him a bomb and gave him a cell phone to detonate the bomb and then arrested him.

01:33:01.000 There was no real bomb. 0.99

01:33:02.000 Cell phone didn't do shit. 0.94

01:33:04.000 It didn't really activate the bomb. 0.97

01:33:05.000 But that guy's in jail.

01:33:06.000 And they talked him into the whole thing.

01:33:08.000 They provided him with the materials.

01:33:09.000 They gave him the plan.

01:33:11.000 I do wonder, is there something that we don't know?

01:33:13.000 Is it possible that the—I mean, what led them to that kid or to those people that were wanting to kidnap the governor?

01:33:20.000 Like, were there any pre-planning?

01:33:22.000 Maybe they knew that they were doing something, and in order to catch them, they had to sort of give them a little bit of fuel or— Yeah, they're probably radical. 1.00

01:33:29.000 They're probably online talking a lot of shit. 0.98

01:33:31.000 And then someone contacted them and took it to the next level. 0.99

01:33:36.000 But there's a lot of people that say things. 1.00

01:33:38.000 They talk shit online. 0.99

01:33:39.000 There's a lot of death to America people out there that don't actually do anything. 1.00

01:33:42.000 Right.

01:33:43.000 It is a difficult, I have to say, and I'm playing the devil's advocate here, but if you're a law enforcement and you're constantly being accused of showing up after the crime happens, if you're trying to prevent crime, then that's what you do.

01:33:56.000 You're monitoring chat groups and trying to figure out how you can stop this from happening in the future.

01:34:00.000 Absolutely, and I fully support that.

01:34:01.000 The problem is law enforcement agents are just like everything else, just like plumbers or mechanics.

01:34:09.000 Some of them are really good. 1.00

01:34:12.000 And some of them are fucking terrible. 1.00

01:34:14.000 And some of them are corrupt. 1.00

01:34:15.000 And some of them are jaded. 1.00

01:34:17.000 And at the end of the day, all they give a shit about is catching people. 0.99

01:34:21.000 And they have a career, and their career is all about catching people. 0.98

01:34:25.000 And so if you can trick people into doing something and then catch them, that counts as a catch.

01:34:29.000 And so if there's not enough going on, you make something happen.

01:34:33.000 I'm trying to climb the ladder over here, Mariana. 0.98

01:34:36.000 Time for fucking ethics and morals and these little finer details. 1.00

01:34:42.000 This is all bullshit. 1.00

01:34:43.000 I'm trying to arrest people. 1.00

01:34:44.000 Yeah.

01:34:44.000 They are like everybody else, but they should be held to a higher standard.

01:34:48.000 Yes, they should.

01:34:49.000 But, you know, it's like all their businesses.

01:34:51.000 It's just like the pharmaceutical drug business.

01:34:53.000 Like, we need pharmaceutical drugs.

01:34:54.000 They help people.

01:34:55.000 They save lives.

01:34:56.000 They enhance people's life.

01:34:58.000 I fully support...

01:35:07.000 We're good to go.

01:35:21.000 Right.

01:35:21.000 You know, it's like the story of the Sackler family.

01:35:23.000 How can I make more?

01:35:24.000 Absolutely.

01:35:25.000 Yeah.

01:35:26.000 Profit, profit, profit.

01:35:27.000 That's all.

01:35:27.000 Let's twist this narrative into, like, this is what you're going to take, and it's going to make you better.

01:35:32.000 Right.

01:35:32.000 And you're going to keep taking it forever.

01:35:34.000 Yeah.

01:35:35.000 Yeah.

01:35:36.000 It's an interesting conversation, right?

01:35:38.000 I don't want to get into politics at all, but it's an interesting conversation about how much do we want the government to regulate more or less, right?

01:35:48.000 It's all about regulation and so many of these.

01:35:50.000 And for my investigations, a lot of what happens actually happens because of lack of regulation.

01:35:58.000 We did an episode on body parts.

01:36:01.000 Not organs, but this time it was actually body parts.

01:36:03.000 So most people think that when you die, you have a say in what happens to your body, right?

01:36:07.000 You can be cremated, you can be buried, or you donate it to science.

01:36:11.000 But actually, the U.S. is pretty much the Wild West of the body parts business.

01:36:17.000 And there's people who are chopping up your body and selling them from the back door without any of your knowledge, which is crazy.

01:36:25.000 And a lot of it is legal.

01:36:26.000 A lot of it is illegal, and it's being done, and people are being caught.

01:36:28.000 There was a mother and daughter.

01:36:31.000 A mother and daughter in Colorado who had a funeral home, and they also had a donation center on the side.

01:36:38.000 And they had people come in and say they wanted their loved ones to be cremated, and instead of cremating them, they were, again, chopping up body parts and selling them to biogenetics and scientific centers around the world.

01:36:54.000 Thank you.

01:37:06.000 I had heard of this story where this one family, their grandmother died, and they found out that she was used as like a crash test dummy.

01:37:13.000 Yeah, and they had no idea that that was going to happen, but they had donated her body for science.

01:37:19.000 Yeah, that is science.

01:37:20.000 Right, it is.

01:37:21.000 And, you know, having surgeons operate on your hip, practicing with a hip, all of that is science.

01:37:28.000 But that's better, I think, because at least you're aware that you donated the body.

01:37:32.000 In these cases, they thought they'd received ashes that contained their loved ones, and instead there was like batteries, burnt batteries, and other bodies mixed in.

01:37:42.000 Oh, God.

01:37:43.000 People would go, this is such a crazy story, people would go into this funeral home, and as they're signing the paperwork for the cremation, they would hear a chainsaw in the back.

01:37:52.000 Oh, God.

01:37:53.000 For real.

01:37:53.000 And it was the mother whose job it was to cut up the body parts.

01:37:57.000 Oh, God.

01:37:57.000 Oh my God, with a chainsaw.

01:37:59.000 Yes.

01:37:59.000 Like a welder's goggle on.

01:38:01.000 Exactly.

01:38:03.000 And complained.

01:38:04.000 And they would say that they were building something in the back.

01:38:07.000 But this lasted like months or years.

01:38:09.000 And they're constantly building something in the back.

01:38:11.000 Oh my God, they're just hacking up bodies.

01:38:14.000 Hacking up bodies.

01:38:15.000 Isn't it crazy? 1.00

01:38:15.000 Holy shit. 1.00

01:38:16.000 It's so insane. 0.99

01:38:18.000 But that all happens, a lot of this, of the for-profit body trade because of lack of regulations.

01:38:24.000 And there's not enough laws out there.

01:38:26.000 We're the Wild West.

01:38:27.000 Every other country has these laws, and we don't, because it's all about money.

01:38:30.000 How can we make money out of people's donating, people's, you know...

01:38:35.000 How much money is involved in donating bodies?

01:38:38.000 Oh, a lot.

01:38:39.000 We heard of skulls being sold for $5,000, so we met with a funeral director that brought us a pen like this, and inside the pen there was a little human skull.

01:38:48.000 And he told us all about how it works, like how they were...

01:38:53.000 Selling, again, instead of cremating the bodies, they were selling their parts.

01:38:57.000 There was a skin wallet being sold online for $2,500.

01:39:02.000 A tongue can go for $1,000.

01:39:05.000 A human tongue?

01:39:06.000 A human tongue.

01:39:07.000 This is part of the oddities market where people like to have human parts, body parts.

01:39:11.000 Also like have it in formaldehyde on their mantelpiece or something?

01:39:14.000 Yeah, and make wallets out of skin.

01:39:16.000 Tattooed skin goes for more money.

01:39:17.000 Jesus Christ.

01:39:19.000 Wallets out of skin, really?

01:39:20.000 Yeah, uh-huh.

01:39:21.000 You could buy those in America?

01:39:22.000 You can buy them online.

01:39:24.000 You can find them.

01:39:24.000 Oh, my God.

01:39:25.000 Why do I want to look right now?

01:39:27.000 I have a story.

01:39:29.000 Before you even said it, I saw it, so now I'm seeing the context.

01:39:32.000 On the video, I'm not even listening to the words, but this Harvard Morgue manager.

01:39:38.000 Yeah, that's true.

01:39:39.000 That was the case.

01:39:41.000 What is that?

01:39:42.000 Is that a real body?

01:39:43.000 Look, cats, creepy creations.

01:39:44.000 No, I don't think so.

01:39:46.000 No?

01:39:46.000 I mean, I think the skulls are definitely real, but a lot of it is like mixed with other things.

01:39:50.000 But it's interesting.

01:39:52.000 So the Facebook groups that we got access to were sort of secret.

01:39:58.000 That's one of the guys we tried researching out to.

01:40:00.000 The guy with the...

01:40:00.000 Allegedly trafficking stolen human remains.

01:40:06.000 Yep.

01:40:06.000 And that's the Harvard Medical School.

01:40:08.000 The person working at the morgue was selling some of their body parts and procuring, also buying from that other guy.

01:40:18.000 Yeah, it's...

01:40:19.000 People are so creepy.

01:40:20.000 So strange.

01:40:21.000 And so these groups, you would see the tongues and wombs. 1.00

01:40:25.000 There was one that had a uterus in a formaldehyde, and they're being sold, but it's these secretive groups that you need somebody who's been accepted into the group, but we saw all the listings.

01:40:35.000 Have you ever looked into the bodies exhibit?

01:40:38.000 So that was made with prisoners from China, I heard, right?

01:40:43.000 Yeah.

01:40:43.000 If you Google the definition or the explanation of where the bodies come from, it's Chinese unclaimed bodies, which may include political prisoners.

01:40:54.000 That's what it says.

01:40:55.000 It actually says that?

01:40:57.000 Which may include political prisoners?

01:40:59.000 Right.

01:40:59.000 But here's the problem.

01:41:00.000 The process that they use to Turn people into statues for the exhibit.

01:41:04.000 It's called plastination. 0.92

01:41:06.000 You must do it within 48 hours of death.

01:41:09.000 But a Chinese unclaimed body is only unclaimed when it's been sitting there for 30 days.

01:41:14.000 Wow.

01:41:15.000 So that means all those people got murdered.

01:41:16.000 Oh my God.

01:41:17.000 Not only that, one of the wildest stories was there was a mayor in a city in China that was having an affair with a local television anchor.

01:41:26.000 The wife found out about it.

01:41:30.000 The woman went missing.

01:41:31.000 Her name was scrubbed off the internet.

01:41:35.000 Months later, a new exhibit was in the body's exhibit of a pregnant woman who's exactly the same size and exactly the same amount pregnant that was when she went, lady, when she went missing.

01:41:47.000 She was eight months pregnant when she went missing.

01:41:50.000 And the woman, who is the wife, who is married to the mayor who is having an affair, was the manager of the plastination factory. 0.99

01:41:59.000 So she killed the lady that her husband was having an affair with, allegedly, and then turned that lady and her eight-month-old fetus into a fucking statue, which is still on display. 0.99

01:42:12.000 No, it is not. 1.00

01:42:13.000 Yes, it is.

01:42:14.000 It's part of that exhibition?

01:42:15.000 Yes, it's part of that exhibition.

01:42:16.000 And they've resisted all attempts to do DNA tests.

01:42:20.000 No way.

01:42:21.000 And the woman is essentially scrubbed for the internet. 1.00

01:42:24.000 The woman that was murdered, you can't find her.

01:42:27.000 But the woman who was the wife who was accused of murdering the pregnant lady also got arrested for murdering an English businessman after that.

01:42:38.000 So she poisoned this English businessman.

01:42:41.000 Mm-hmm.

01:42:41.000 And then was tried.

01:42:43.000 But in her place in the trial was another woman. 1.00

01:42:46.000 So she hired someone.

01:42:48.000 She probably went to some poor family, got their daughter, and paid them. 1.00

01:42:52.000 We'll give you X amount of money.

01:42:53.000 Your daughter's going to stay in trial for me. 1.00

01:42:55.000 Like your buddy double.

01:42:56.000 Pretend it's me.

01:42:57.000 Didn't even look anything like her.

01:42:58.000 But this woman's on the stand. 1.00

01:42:59.000 She says she did it.

01:43:00.000 That lady went to jail. 1.00

01:43:01.000 No way.

01:43:02.000 100%.

01:43:02.000 How do you know all this?

01:43:03.000 Because I did a deep dive in it.

01:43:05.000 That is insane.

01:43:06.000 I have a bit in my act about the bodies exhibit.

01:43:08.000 Wow. 0.99

01:43:09.000 It's fucking crazy. 1.00

01:43:11.000 Crazy. 0.99

01:43:11.000 Because there's a shitload of these exhibits. 0.99

01:43:13.000 Oh, there's a permanent one at the Luxor in Las Vegas that is almost definitely filled with murdered people. 0.73

01:43:19.000 That is so good.

01:43:19.000 And people pay money to go and look at these photos.

01:43:21.000 It's science!

01:43:22.000 Oh, right.

01:43:23.000 It's science.

01:43:24.000 You go there, it's science.

01:43:25.000 Look, it's science.

01:43:26.000 Yeah.

01:43:27.000 Yeah.

01:43:28.000 The plastination is interesting because that's what these family members thought was happening to their loved ones' bodies.

01:43:33.000 And they cut them up, right?

01:43:35.000 There's a lot of versions of it.

01:43:37.000 There's some where the muscles are completely stripped off the body and they're hovering above the body.

01:43:42.000 So you have like the frame of the bones and then you see all the individual muscles that are removed and like elevated.

01:43:50.000 And then you have other ones where...

01:43:51.000 The arm is sectioned into pieces.

01:43:53.000 So an arm is stretched out like 10 feet long.

01:43:56.000 And it's like sections of it. 0.89

01:43:58.000 They leave their genitals on, which is very strange. 0.97

01:44:01.000 Like that one. 0.99

01:44:01.000 Look at that one. 0.99

01:44:02.000 The person's sectioned. 1.00

01:44:03.000 I mean, this is like serial killer freak shit. 1.00

01:44:06.000 Oh my God. 0.99

01:44:06.000 And if you see like what they do, they remove all of the blood vessels and they have them on display. 0.99

01:44:15.000 There's also like these bizarre erotic ones where they have people having sex.

01:44:20.000 It's like super serial killer vibes that you get from this.

01:44:25.000 Like look how this person's split down the middle.

01:44:27.000 The heart is in the center.

01:44:28.000 The head is on both sides. 1.00

01:44:29.000 Holy shit. 1.00

01:44:30.000 It's complete macabre serial killer. 1.00

01:44:32.000 Look at that one down there. 0.98

01:44:33.000 Those are the people having sex. 1.00

01:44:34.000 So there's people having sex, including like penises inserted into vaginas, breast tissue still on. 1.00

01:44:41.000 So it's indicative of a woman. 1.00

01:44:43.000 You know that it's a woman. 1.00

01:44:44.000 There's people wrestling.

01:44:46.000 There's people playing basketball. 0.90

01:44:48.000 People having sex over there, yeah. 0.99

01:44:49.000 It's very fucking strange. 0.99

01:44:50.000 I've never been to one of these. 0.99

01:44:51.000 I mean, I've heard all about them, but I didn't know there were people having sex.

01:44:54.000 Yeah, I've been to it three times.

01:44:56.000 The reason why I looked into it is because my daughter asked me where they get the bodies from.

01:45:00.000 Is that how it all started for you?

01:45:01.000 Yeah, my daughter was 10. She was like, where do they get these bodies?

01:45:04.000 And I was like, my first thought was, why didn't I ask that question?

01:45:09.000 And then I started doing a deep dive.

01:45:11.000 I believe they pulled it from Australia because of concern.

01:45:14.000 Is that what it says?

01:45:15.000 Yeah, I think they pulled the exhibit from Australia.

01:45:17.000 Yeah, call to shut real bodies exhibition over fears it uses executed prisoners.

01:45:21.000 Organizers of the Sydney exhibit deny human rights groups claims that the bodies are from Chinese political prisoners.

01:45:27.000 Yeah, I'm sure you'd deny it.

01:45:29.000 But there's bullet holes in some of them.

01:45:30.000 So if they're not, who are they from?

01:45:32.000 Like have the people that organized this or came up with this idea said who they come from?

01:45:35.000 Well, they've done investigative journalist reports on this.

01:45:37.000 And one of the things they did is they went to one of the plastination factories and you see on the ground they have bodies laid out with pillow covers over their heads with blood on them.

01:45:47.000 So these people are tied up, they're executed, there's a bullet hole in their head, and they're all laid out.

01:45:53.000 And then the factory's right there.

01:45:55.000 So they're taking these people because they have to do this within 48 hours of death.

01:45:58.000 They take them, they skin them, they put them in this fluid.

01:46:02.000 I don't know exactly what the process is.

01:46:04.000 But essentially they use this process to stop the body from decaying.

01:46:10.000 And they're selling them.

01:46:11.000 They're making money out of it.

01:46:12.000 Oh, yeah.

01:46:13.000 Of course.

01:46:13.000 They sell them.

01:46:14.000 And then also these exhibits generate a lot of money because they're fascinating.

01:46:18.000 When I went in Los Angeles, there's a giant line.

01:46:21.000 Look at this. 1.00

01:46:21.000 They keep their penis on. 1.00

01:46:23.000 This guy's holding his skin to the right. 1.00

01:46:25.000 That is so crazy.

01:46:25.000 It's so insane.

01:46:27.000 It's so insane that that is science.

01:46:31.000 That's a guy that was executed and they turned him into a statue.

01:46:35.000 Yeah.

01:46:35.000 And now people go and pay to...

01:46:37.000 How many of the...

01:46:37.000 Look at that.

01:46:38.000 There's a bunch of these. 0.99

01:46:39.000 So, look, he's got his penis still on, but he's holding his skin. 1.00

01:46:42.000 It's fucking creepy. 1.00

01:46:44.000 Oh, my God. 0.99

01:46:45.000 And how many of them are there worldwide?

01:46:48.000 Wow.

01:46:48.000 I think there's a ton of them.

01:46:50.000 Really?

01:46:51.000 So hundreds and hundreds, thousands of these bodies?

01:46:53.000 Yeah, a bunch of different cities, probably thousands of bodies.

01:46:57.000 I've never been to one.

01:46:58.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:46:59.000 Well, if you're in Vegas, go to the Luxor before they pull it, before people realize it's a fucking murder exhibit. 0.99

01:47:06.000 It's a Chinese murder exhibit. 0.99

01:47:07.000 Do you think they're going to realize and shut it down? 0.98

01:47:11.000 No, they haven't fucking arrested anybody for Jeffrey Epstein's Island. 0.89

01:47:14.000 They're not going to arrest anybody for this. 0.98

01:47:15.000 These are prisoners.

01:47:16.000 They're already dead.

01:47:16.000 What are you going to do?

01:47:17.000 We're trying to make money over here. 1.00

01:47:18.000 Shut the fuck up. 1.00

01:47:19.000 Go to the buffet. 1.00

01:47:20.000 This has been on for, what, 15 years or more?

01:47:21.000 Forever.

01:47:22.000 I don't remember the first time I went to one, but it was in the 2000s.

01:47:26.000 I remember it came to Los Angeles and me and my buddies went. 0.99

01:47:28.000 We were like, what the fuck? 0.99

01:47:31.000 And we were really high. 1.00

01:47:32.000 So we're really high walking around this exhibit of all these dead people like, this is fucking twisted. 0.98

01:47:37.000 Because it doesn't, it's not just the anatomy. 0.95

01:47:40.000 It'd be one thing if it was these bodies and they remove the skin and you see all of the muscle doing all the different, it's fascinating, right?

01:47:49.000 But it's weird what they're doing to these bodies.

01:47:53.000 Like, you know, the guy holding his skin, the people's heads split in half, and the brain is floating in the air above it.

01:47:59.000 Like, what are you doing? 0.87

01:48:00.000 Right, having sex, all of that. 1.00

01:48:01.000 Yeah, having sex. 0.99

01:48:02.000 In the middle of sex, there's two dead people. 1.00

01:48:07.000 Fucking bizarre. 1.00

01:48:08.000 Do you think they kill them first, and then have the bodies to have sex, and then cut them up? 1.00

01:48:13.000 Yeah, they probably stuck something in the penis to keep it erect, and then put it inside the girl's body, and then... 1.00

01:48:19.000 And then there's ones of women where they split them right down the middle. 1.00

01:48:23.000 And so they split them through their vagina and they cut them in half. 1.00

01:48:26.000 And you see like the ovaries and the womb and you see all that. 1.00

01:48:31.000 That is fucking crazy. 1.00

01:48:32.000 It's fucking crazy. 1.00

01:48:33.000 But go find the pregnant woman one because that's the most bizarre one. 1.00

01:48:37.000 See if you can find the story.

01:48:39.000 Because the story of the pregnant woman is really horrible. 0.98

01:48:42.000 And these were journalists that were able to track her back and figure out who she was?

01:48:46.000 Yes.

01:48:47.000 So this is the woman.

01:48:48.000 Oh my god, that's also so disturbing.

01:48:50.000 That is the woman, allegedly, who was having the affair with the man who is the mayor of this Chinese city.

01:48:58.000 Oh, that's so sad.

01:49:01.000 Oh, another one. 1.00

01:49:02.000 Well, found another buddy who fucked up. 1.00

01:49:04.000 It's like, they're just killing people. 1.00

01:49:05.000 They kill people and turn them into fucking statues and then put it in a museum. 1.00

01:49:10.000 And it's okay because it's at a museum. 1.00

01:49:12.000 Right.

01:49:13.000 Look, it's the science.

01:49:14.000 It's a science museum.

01:49:15.000 This has to be legitimate.

01:49:16.000 So because of this, like, appeal to authority that you get from being at a science museum, nobody questions it, except Sydney. 0.99

01:49:23.000 Australia is the only—they're like, hey, mate, what the fuck? 0.99

01:49:26.000 Why the fuck did you get this body, mate? 1.00

01:49:30.000 They're like, I don't know. 1.00

01:49:31.000 I don't know how this is okay, but...

01:49:34.000 I think this is the only link that exists.

01:49:36.000 So that's the woman. 1.00

01:49:37.000 She's a TV news anchor, rumored to have been Beau Gilles' mistress during his term as Dalian mayor.

01:49:46.000 Buxton speculates that her pregnant body may have been plastinated in a body world exhibit. 0.96

01:49:53.000 Yeah.

01:49:54.000 They obviously deny it.

01:49:55.000 Of course they deny it.

01:49:56.000 Hold on, stop right there.

01:49:57.000 The skull shape and other features of the pregnant woman's body at the Body World exhibit are said to resemble those of Zhang.

01:50:03.000 Also, the nearly mature fetus inside the pregnant woman suggests the woman had been the victim of an officially sanctioned execution.

01:50:11.000 The bodies displayed by Body Works were prepared by Voss Hagens Plastination Company in Dalian.

01:50:17.000 Some Nietzsens have suggested that Bo himself may have approved the company's registration in 1999 when the mayor of Dalian.

01:50:26.000 All the bodies used for the exhibit are said to be from Dalian.

01:50:29.000 Gunther von Hagens, the company founder, is rumored to have special connection with Bo.

01:50:33.000 Now, you have to see the guy who invented The Body Works exhibit. 0.98

01:50:39.000 Because he's right out of a fucking Indiana Jones movie. 0.99

01:50:43.000 He wears creepy hats. 1.00

01:50:44.000 He looks very bizarre.

01:50:46.000 Yeah, see if you can see some of the other images of him. 0.99

01:50:49.000 He always wears that fucking creepy hat. 0.99

01:50:52.000 Where is he from? 1.00

01:50:53.000 Gunther von Hagen.

01:50:54.000 I think he's from Austria.

01:50:56.000 German.

01:50:56.000 German anatomist.

01:50:59.000 He's an anatomist and businessman. 1.00

01:51:01.000 But he always wears that fucking creepy hat. 1.00

01:51:04.000 He looks like the kind of guy who would be selling executed people on display. 1.00

01:51:09.000 That's him. 1.00

01:51:10.000 I mean, he looks fucking creepy as shit. 1.00

01:51:13.000 That fucking hat alone. 1.00

01:51:15.000 That is not the kind of hat you want to wear if you want to tell me you've got a legitimate business of selling dead people. 1.00

01:51:21.000 Look, he looks evil.

01:51:22.000 Doesn't he?

01:51:23.000 See if we can find some other pictures of him because some pictures of him that are like ultra creepy.

01:51:27.000 Has he been interviewed?

01:51:28.000 Has anyone asked him about the bodies? 0.99

01:51:29.000 I think he probably shuts the fuck up. 0.99

01:51:30.000 He did say that he's donating his body when he dies. 0.99

01:51:33.000 To the exhibit?

01:51:34.000 Yeah.

01:51:35.000 He probably feels guilty.

01:51:36.000 Yeah.

01:51:36.000 You know?

01:51:38.000 Yeah.

01:51:38.000 I think some of them have come from Russian prisoners as well.

01:51:41.000 It's not just Chinese prisoners, but some of them are from Russian prisoners.

01:51:44.000 Right.

01:51:46.000 Probably none of them are actually people that, oh, we have this body.

01:51:50.000 What are we going to do with it?

01:51:51.000 It's been sitting around for 30 days.

01:51:52.000 You can't.

01:51:53.000 It's literally not possible because it has to take place within 48 hours of death.

01:51:58.000 Just the process alone would lead people to be very suspicious. 0.99

01:52:03.000 What the fuck are you doing over here? 0.99

01:52:05.000 Yeah, zero consent. 0.99

01:52:06.000 Yeah, but meanwhile, it's science.

01:52:08.000 It's science.

01:52:09.000 I mean, that's what I saw when I first saw it.

01:52:11.000 They're like, the bodies exhibit.

01:52:13.000 Like, oh, this is amazing.

01:52:14.000 Von Hagen faces investigation over use of bodies without consent.

01:52:18.000 Gunther Von Hagen is a pioneer of body plastination, the technique of preserving bodies using saturating them with polymer resin, who was criticized for his televised autopsy in London, is under investigation in the former Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan.

01:52:31.000 And in Heidelberg, Germany.

01:52:33.000 He's accused of using bodies without permission and falsely carrying the title of professor.

01:52:37.000 Professor.

01:52:37.000 Oh, I like that.

01:52:38.000 Oh, great.

01:52:38.000 He's a fake professor too.

01:52:39.000 He's one of those. 0.81

01:52:40.000 Creepy hat.

01:52:41.000 From Heidelberg University.

01:52:42.000 However, in both cases, he denies any illegal acts and accuses the other side of misinformation.

01:52:48.000 Oh, the old misinformation term.

01:52:51.000 He'd make for a great documentary subject.

01:52:53.000 Oh, yeah, he would.

01:52:54.000 I wonder if he'll let you talk to him.

01:52:55.000 After about 200 bodies of unexplained origin were recently found in his institute, a Kyrgyz, how do you say that? 0.96

01:53:02.000 Kyrgyz. 0.74

01:53:03.000 Kyrgyz, member of the parliament, Abakan Tashkhtanbeko, accused Professor Von Hagen of having illegally abducted several hundred bodies from former Soviet prisoners, hospitals, and psychiatric asylums.

01:53:19.000 Abducted.

01:53:19.000 Yeah.

01:53:20.000 How many bodies exhibits are there worldwide?

01:53:23.000 They're not all the same company or whatever, you know.

01:53:26.000 They started copying it, of course.

01:53:28.000 One company says they have nine with more coming.

01:53:30.000 Right.

01:53:31.000 Yeah, there's a lot.

01:53:32.000 I think there's more than 100. I think there's more than 100 exhibits worldwide.

01:53:36.000 I'm not sure about that, though.

01:53:40.000 We could start one if we found some of their old bodies.

01:53:42.000 Ooh, JRE Body Works.

01:53:46.000 But that's the thing.

01:53:47.000 It might not be just Russian and Chinese.

01:53:49.000 There might be American bodies.

01:53:50.000 Oh, for sure.

01:53:51.000 That's what they thought, that their family members' bodies were ending up in plastination companies. 0.99

01:53:58.000 It's fucking crazy. 0.90

01:53:59.000 Well, if they can get it within 48 hours. 0.99

01:54:02.000 They just got to get you to sign papers within 48 hours of death.

01:54:05.000 Yeah, I wonder if there's a plastination, there has to be a plastination company here as well, right?

01:54:09.000 That does it?

01:54:10.000 I don't know.

01:54:10.000 In the U.S. Boy, I don't know.

01:54:13.000 Fucking sketchy, though. 0.99

01:54:16.000 Yeah, so sketchy. 1.00

01:54:17.000 The whole body parts, all of it, was just sketchy as shit. 0.99

01:54:21.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:54:21.000 We went to a cemetery in the middle of the night, grave digging. 0.99

01:54:26.000 Oh, yeah.

01:54:27.000 And saw them, like, picking out parts of a body.

01:54:30.000 Yeah.

01:54:32.000 Whoa, did you get creeped out?

01:54:33.000 Yeah, absolutely. 0.99

01:54:34.000 I mean, shit that you didn't think existed, but it does. 0.99

01:54:37.000 You think of ghosts and shit? 1.00

01:54:37.000 No, I'm not afraid of ghosts. 1.00

01:54:39.000 You're not afraid of ghosts?

01:54:41.000 I would be afraid of ghosts if I was at a cemetery digging up bodies.

01:54:45.000 I mean, that's when they come.

01:54:46.000 I wasn't the one digging, though.

01:54:47.000 I know, but you're there.

01:54:48.000 You get caught.

01:54:50.000 It was a crazy scene.

01:54:52.000 It's like middle of the night, totally pitch dark, and we're going in with the digger and his team.

01:54:57.000 Did you investigate it all in organ harvesting?

01:55:00.000 We did, yeah.

01:55:01.000 Illegal organs?

01:55:02.000 Like, they do that with prisoners too, right?

01:55:06.000 Yes, perhaps.

01:55:07.000 The ones we found were telling us that they were doing it with immigrants, which is very sad.

01:55:13.000 Immigrants that were trying to come, doing the journey to make it to the U.S., and so the most desperate and vulnerable people.

01:55:19.000 And we spent time with a cartel in Colombia and then in Mexico.

01:55:24.000 And they were saying, yeah, they're going out to even like homeless camps with immigrants in all parts of Mexico.

01:55:32.000 It's very, very hard to prove that what they're saying is right.

01:55:36.000 We interviewed a guy called the Wrecker.

01:55:38.000 He calls himself the Wrecker.

01:55:39.000 He works for this cartel.

01:55:43.000 The Gulf Cartel in Colombia.

01:55:44.000 And he basically told us the most horrific story.

01:55:47.000 Like, he's in charge of basically killing people and gathering all the stuff, the organs and all that, with the doctor that comes that they pay.

01:55:55.000 But it was one of those interviews that when he left, I was like...

01:56:00.000 I'm not sure how much of this is actually true.

01:56:03.000 And I talk about it on camera and talk about how it's so hard to verify.

01:56:07.000 But then we went to Mexico and actually interviewed a doctor who was basically threatened by the cartel if he didn't do some of these operations.

01:56:15.000 So he had no interest in lying to us and told us how this whole thing worked.

01:56:22.000 And then we interviewed an American that went and got an organ in Mexico.

01:56:26.000 And so this American, did he know that it came from a murdered immigrant? 0.98

01:56:31.000 Yeah, I asked him that.

01:56:32.000 I mean, there's no way of verifying that it came from the black market, so we don't know where the source is.

01:56:38.000 And he said, basically, you can judge me all you want, but if you were dying or if your son or daughter was dying and you knew that the only way you could get this organ was on the black market, wouldn't you do it?

01:56:49.000 Oh...

01:56:50.000 And it's a really good question.

01:56:51.000 Yeah, I mean, right?

01:56:54.000 Depends on who they're killing.

01:56:55.000 Right, but he, yes, of course.

01:56:58.000 Show me a bad guy? 0.71

01:56:59.000 Can I get a bad guy's liver, you know? 0.67

01:57:02.000 Yeah.

01:57:03.000 You know what I mean?

01:57:03.000 If you know someone's evil.

01:57:05.000 Depends if it's healthy or not.

01:57:06.000 Yeah, right.

01:57:07.000 Probably not.

01:57:09.000 Yeah, it's horrible.

01:57:10.000 But again, broken system.

01:57:12.000 17 Americans die every day waiting for an organ.

01:57:15.000 And the system is broken, so people have to go and look in the black market.

01:57:19.000 And I do think that if you go, you know, most people don't probably think that this is coming from vulnerable, poor immigrants.

01:57:26.000 They probably don't want to know.

01:57:27.000 No.

01:57:27.000 And there's plenty of people out there that are willing to sell their organs, you know, in places like India and even Mexico.

01:57:37.000 Do you know when they do like a liver donation, like say if you needed a liver and you and I were the same blood type, they could take half my liver and give it to you and my body would regenerate that liver to full size in six to eight weeks?

01:57:51.000 No.

01:57:52.000 That's why I love to come to your shows.

01:57:53.000 I'm here doing this reporting and I had no idea that was the case.

01:57:56.000 I have this wealth of knowledge about this show.

01:57:58.000 The livers are fascinating.

01:57:59.000 That is insane.

01:58:00.000 I didn't know that.

01:58:00.000 You could donate part of your liver and I could save you with my liver and my liver would go back to full size in two months.

01:58:07.000 Why aren't we all donating half of our livers then?

01:58:11.000 You know, if by the time your liver's failing, there's a lot going on.

01:58:15.000 Like, you're probably on death's door anyway.

01:58:17.000 You probably have a host of problems.

01:58:20.000 It's usually, other than, you know, obviously genetic issues and cancer and all sorts of other stuff.

01:58:25.000 Like, some people just are, it's abuse.

01:58:27.000 It's, you know, you're drinking.

01:58:29.000 You know, I know a guy who died of liver failure.

01:58:31.000 He died of liver failure from drinking.

01:58:33.000 He's just drinking constantly.

01:58:35.000 And he was on the wait list for a new liver?

01:58:37.000 Nope.

01:58:37.000 I don't think he was.

01:58:38.000 He just died of liver failure.

01:58:40.000 So have they tried that?

01:58:41.000 They've actually given people half a liver?

01:58:44.000 Oh yeah, that's a real thing.

01:58:45.000 They do that.

01:58:46.000 Yeah.

01:58:46.000 And your body regenerates it.

01:58:47.000 Liver is the only organ in the body that can replace loss or injured tissue, regenerate.

01:58:51.000 Donor's liver will soon go back to normal size after surgery.

01:58:53.000 The part that you receive is part of the new liver will also grow to normal size in a few weeks.

01:58:58.000 So if you take half of my liver, I still have half, I'll have a full one in a few weeks and so will you.

01:59:03.000 Wow.

01:59:04.000 I had no idea.

01:59:05.000 Yeah.

01:59:05.000 It's incredible.

01:59:06.000 It's pretty crazy.

01:59:06.000 Yeah.

01:59:07.000 Liver is a pretty amazing organ.

01:59:08.000 Yeah.

01:59:09.000 That's amazing.

01:59:10.000 Yeah.

01:59:10.000 Are you on the donor's list?

01:59:14.000 That's a good question.

01:59:15.000 I think when I signed up for my driver's license, I did that.

01:59:19.000 Yeah.

01:59:19.000 Yeah, I am too.

01:59:21.000 And even with this Body Parts episode, just knowing what happens out there.

01:59:25.000 It does help.

01:59:26.000 Look, a friend of mine has a heart from someone.

01:59:29.000 He had a heart transplant.

01:59:31.000 He had a heart attack and his heart was deteriorating and he's still alive.

01:59:36.000 He's got a heart of some other person.

01:59:38.000 Right.

01:59:39.000 That's amazing.

01:59:40.000 He thinks it's an Asian woman.

01:59:41.000 That's like his feeling.

01:59:43.000 Really?

01:59:44.000 And they haven't told him?

01:59:45.000 I don't think they'll tell you.

01:59:47.000 I think if the donor wants the person that gets it to know, they can know, right?

01:59:52.000 I believe so.

01:59:52.000 Because I've seen stories of people reunite, like a donor.

01:59:56.000 Yeah, that's got to be crazy.

01:59:58.000 Like someone's carrying around your loved one's heart.

02:00:02.000 That was a story I saw.

02:00:04.000 Exactly that.

02:00:05.000 The daughter had died and the mother wanted to meet the person whose heart.

02:00:08.000 Well, that's noble.

02:00:11.000 Yeah, that's beautiful.

02:00:12.000 I think there's a place.

02:00:13.000 I mean, I definitely am encouraged donations.

02:00:15.000 Well, they're going to be able to regenerate tissue independently in labs.

02:00:19.000 They've already done that with skin cells where they've recreated bladders and they've recreated...

02:00:26.000 Different organ parts.

02:00:28.000 They're going to be able to do that and just swap you out for a new body. 0.65

02:00:31.000 Like, Mariana, it's about time to swap you out for a 20-year-old version of yourself. 0.99

02:00:36.000 That would be great. 0.99

02:00:37.000 Your brain and stick it in a 20-year-old body. 0.98

02:00:39.000 That would be fantastic. 0.97

02:00:40.000 Wake up in the morning, oh, nothing hurts.

02:00:42.000 That was great.

02:00:44.000 Yes, please.

02:00:45.000 Yeah.

02:00:46.000 Well, that's probably going to happen.

02:00:48.000 That's probably in our future.

02:00:50.000 Or an AI version of ourselves.

02:00:51.000 Yeah, that's more likely.

02:00:53.000 Yeah, that's more likely.

02:00:55.000 And more likely it will be integrated with AI. That's what I think.

02:00:59.000 Yeah.

02:00:59.000 I think that's definitely happening.

02:01:01.000 Yeah.

02:01:02.000 Have you had people on this show talking about AI? Oh yeah, quite a few.

02:01:05.000 Yeah, quite a few.

02:01:06.000 It's kind of a constant conversation because Sam Altman was on.

02:01:11.000 Oh right, I love Sam Altman.

02:01:12.000 Yes.

02:01:13.000 He's great.

02:01:13.000 And then I had the gentleman from Tristan Harrison.

02:01:17.000 What was the other guy's name again?

02:01:20.000 Aza Raskin.

02:01:21.000 Yes, from The Social Dilemma.

02:01:23.000 And they came on and they are extremely concerned about AI and the race to sentient AI and who controls it and what happens when it gets released and what it does.

02:01:38.000 And it also seems inevitable.

02:01:40.000 It seems like it's just going to happen.

02:01:41.000 And China is involved in it, Russia is involved in it, the United States is involved in it, and who knows how many other countries are involved in this research as well.

02:01:47.000 And they're getting really close.

02:01:49.000 Yeah, it's how do you fight against progress, right?

02:01:53.000 That's, I think, the hard thing.

02:01:54.000 Right.

02:01:55.000 I think it's happening.

02:01:57.000 Yeah, I just think we are the last biological people.

02:02:04.000 That's what I think.

02:02:05.000 Yeah.

02:02:05.000 I think we're the last.

02:02:07.000 I think we're going to be integrated.

02:02:09.000 While we're alive still?

02:02:11.000 Yeah.

02:02:11.000 Or in our lifetime?

02:02:12.000 Within our lifetime, I think there's going to be artificial people.

02:02:16.000 Yeah.

02:02:18.000 You know, that's one of the big speculations that people have about these aliens and that what we're seeing is an alternative dimension or an alternative timeline and what these things are is us in the future.

02:02:32.000 Oh yeah, exactly.

02:02:33.000 That we are a creation of them and they're watching us and we're a creation of something that was done in the future.

02:02:38.000 And we become that.

02:02:39.000 Right.

02:02:39.000 And the likelihood, mathematically, is much more likely, right?

02:02:43.000 That we are that.

02:02:44.000 Yeah.

02:02:45.000 That we're sort of a video game for people in the future that are playing our characters.

02:02:50.000 Or that we're some sort of a farm.

02:02:52.000 Right.

02:02:53.000 You know, this is how they develop intelligent life.

02:02:58.000 Right.

02:02:59.000 Right.

02:03:00.000 Yeah.

02:03:03.000 Yeah, I don't know.

02:03:05.000 Have you ever seen anything crazy when you're out in any of these?

02:03:07.000 Have you ever seen anything weird in the sky or anything?

02:03:09.000 Not in the sky. 0.99

02:03:10.000 I see so much crazy shit right here. 0.99

02:03:12.000 Right on the ground. 0.99

02:03:13.000 I don't really need to be looking at the sky.

02:03:15.000 What else have you just done this year?

02:03:18.000 There's one, a really good one.

02:03:22.000 It's an episode I'm really proud of.

02:03:24.000 I mean, all of them.

02:03:25.000 But this one, it started with a DM, a direct message from a woman in Minnesota who told me that her father was in prison in Mozambique, Africa.

02:03:34.000 And that she was absolutely sure he was not guilty.

02:03:37.000 And it started a huge investigation into Mozambique used to be Portuguese.

02:03:41.000 They speak Portuguese.

02:03:42.000 I have friends that live in Mozambique.

02:03:43.000 So I immediately piqued my curiosity.

02:03:45.000 Why is an older American guy stuck in prison and his daughter is...

02:03:49.000 Desperate enough to contact me because she wants to try to figure out how to free her dad.

02:03:54.000 And so we started an investigation.

02:03:55.000 Turns out this guy was scammed.

02:03:57.000 Terrible scam.

02:03:58.000 He was told he was a retired truck driver, former military.

02:04:02.000 He was told that his wife had just died.

02:04:05.000 He was told he had gotten an inheritance and that the inheritance was in Europe.

02:04:08.000 His wife had connections to families in Europe, so it was totally believable according to him.

02:04:14.000 I think?

02:04:34.000 And as he's in the airport about to board his flight to Europe, he was stopped by the authorities, and he was carrying five kilos of heroin inside these chocolates that he was completely unaware.

02:04:45.000 And I completely believe he had no idea.

02:04:48.000 So he's sent to prison.

02:04:49.000 He's given one-day trial, 17-year sentence.

02:04:53.000 He's almost 70 years old, so he's probably going to die in prison.

02:04:57.000 And it turns out he wasn't the only American there.

02:04:59.000 There was another American from California and a Canadian, all victims of the same scam, and within two, three days, all three of them.

02:05:07.000 And this is just one high-security prison in Mozambique out of all prisons around the world.

02:05:12.000 So we went, we visited him, we saw him, we brought his daughter to see him.

02:05:15.000 She hadn't seen him in four years.

02:05:16.000 Super emotional.

02:05:18.000 And then we went to South Africa.

02:05:19.000 We basically investigated the trail of money and who had paid for what, the hotel, the flights, everything.

02:05:26.000 And we came face to face with one of his scammers.

02:05:29.000 We filmed undercover in a hotel in South Africa where I basically confronted this guy who scammed him.

02:05:36.000 I pretended that I was a friend and I was looking for that inheritance as well and that I had...

02:05:41.000 You know, that I was willing to travel and do whatever for that money. 0.99

02:05:45.000 I pretended I was what they call a MAGA, which is a dumb, gullible American. 0.99

02:05:52.000 They call them MAGAs. 0.99

02:05:53.000 Like Make America Great Again MAGA? Yeah, it's interestingly the same name, but I don't think it comes from that.

02:05:58.000 It has to be.

02:05:58.000 It's a Nigerian saying for a gullible person.

02:06:01.000 I don't think it's new.

02:06:03.000 So it predates MAGA? I think so.

02:06:05.000 Wow.

02:06:06.000 It's interestingly the same, yeah.

02:06:08.000 That's the first thing I thought when I saw it as well when they said it to me.

02:06:10.000 But I pretended I was a MAGA. And then, yeah, came face to face with this guy.

02:06:17.000 It was crazy.

02:06:17.000 What was that like?

02:06:19.000 It was interesting because at first we sat down and I was saying that Rodney Baldus, which is this man's name, the Rodney Baldus name, and you have his inheritance.

02:06:28.000 And I said, I think it's $2.7 million and is that money still available?

02:06:33.000 And he was like, actually, it's 2.4, 2.5.

02:06:36.000 I was like, okay.

02:06:37.000 So he's corroborating what I'm saying.

02:06:40.000 So I started talking with him a little bit more.

02:06:58.000 I'm a journalist.

02:07:04.000 And he was like, pretended that he had no idea what I was talking about, that he didn't know, that he had called me Zoe.

02:07:12.000 And then he was like, no, no, no, I'm here to meet, what's her name?

02:07:15.000 Catherine.

02:07:16.000 I was like, wait, aren't you Mr. Wilson, the man that I just spoke to?

02:07:19.000 And he was like, no, no, no, I'm not Mr. Wilson.

02:07:21.000 My name is Robert or whatever.

02:07:23.000 I was like, dude, I have you on camera.

02:07:25.000 I'm filming.

02:07:26.000 He's like, We're doing what?

02:07:27.000 I'm filming.

02:07:28.000 I filmed this whole interaction.

02:07:29.000 And then he stands up and left.

02:07:32.000 And it was a whole thing because, you know, he's part of this bigger group that is a criminal group and kind of scary and dangerous.

02:07:39.000 But we presented this.

02:07:41.000 We reached out to the State Department to see if they could investigate because they have done very little for Rodney.

02:07:48.000 And if they could investigate his case.

02:07:50.000 And crickets.

02:07:52.000 Nothing.

02:07:53.000 They didn't refuse to talk to us.

02:07:54.000 They say they're doing what they can to help him, but he's in completely substandard conditions in this prison with no real access to good health care.

02:08:05.000 And the guy's going to die in prison.

02:08:07.000 And there's no way to get him out?

02:08:09.000 That's what we're trying.

02:08:10.000 I hope that when this talk airs, it's not on Hulu yet.

02:08:15.000 It will be on Hulu and it will be on Naccio soon.

02:08:17.000 But when it airs, the government will take another look and try to do something for this guy.

02:08:22.000 It's like a former military guy.

02:08:24.000 It's so obvious that he's innocent.

02:08:26.000 And they're not even trying.

02:08:27.000 That's what upset us.

02:08:29.000 There isn't real help there in getting him his medication.

02:08:35.000 His food has to be paid, has to be brought from the outside because they don't give him actual food in prison.

02:08:41.000 So his daughter has to send money via me.

02:08:45.000 To a friend of mine who lives in Mozambique.

02:08:47.000 So it's this whole bank exchange in order to provide food for this guy in prison.

02:08:52.000 They give you like a really bad porridge once a day or something like that.

02:08:55.000 Not something that's any good for your health.

02:08:57.000 And he has diabetes and has a bunch of other.

02:09:01.000 So they hire this woman to cook food and bring him to prison every day. 1.00

02:09:08.000 What a way to end your life.

02:09:10.000 It's so crazy, right?

02:09:11.000 Scammed like that. 0.94

02:09:12.000 Just used as a drug mule.

02:09:14.000 And abandoned by your government.

02:09:15.000 No one's doing anything.

02:09:18.000 At least that's my...

02:09:20.000 Yeah.

02:09:21.000 And realizing that this is actually big and is happening all around.

02:09:24.000 How do you maintain your faith in humanity?

02:09:32.000 I do.

02:09:33.000 I know you do.

02:09:34.000 You're a very friendly, nice, smiling person.

02:09:38.000 I'm very, very optimistic.

02:09:39.000 Very optimistic about the world.

02:09:40.000 Which is crazy, considering what you've seen.

02:09:42.000 But it's not, because when you're able to sit down with a cartel member, you know, or a scammer in the Philippines or all these people that I meet around the world, and I'm able to find humanity in them, I'm able to find commonalities between me and him, I'm able to see that if this person in the majority of cases was given other opportunities that he wouldn't be the person he turned out to be.

02:10:05.000 That shows me that it's not entirely humanity that's broken.

02:10:10.000 It's the system.

02:10:10.000 Yeah.

02:10:26.000 It's amazing that you can maintain that perspective and that just really is an amazing testament to your character that you're able to see that for what it is and not lose faith in people.

02:10:38.000 Yeah.

02:10:38.000 Because you're confronted constantly with these scenarios but that is the one thing to have in common is desperate people.

02:10:46.000 Absolutely.

02:10:46.000 It's always the most vulnerable people.

02:10:48.000 Nobody is born wanting to be a criminal, right?

02:10:51.000 You are put in that position and that's what I see again and again.

02:10:55.000 Yeah.

02:10:56.000 Listen, Mariana, what you do is amazing.

02:10:59.000 I mean, I'm stunned by your courage.

02:11:02.000 You're one of the real last boots on the ground journalists who goes into terrifying places and consistently exposes these incredibly fascinating, horrific scenes.

02:11:17.000 And if it wasn't for you, a lot of people wouldn't know about a lot of these things.

02:11:21.000 So thank you.

02:11:22.000 Thank you for everything you do.

02:11:23.000 Thank you so much for having me and you're such a supporter of my work.

02:11:27.000 I really appreciate you.

02:11:28.000 I appreciate you too.

02:11:29.000 Stay safe.

02:11:30.000 I will.

02:11:30.000 And tell everybody, Trafficked, it's available on Hulu.

02:11:33.000 How many episodes are available right now?

02:11:35.000 Ten episodes.

02:11:36.000 Eight are out on Hulu too.

02:11:37.000 It will come on very soon and you can watch it also on Netgeo every Wednesday at 9pm.

02:11:41.000 And you have how many previous seasons?

02:11:43.000 This is the fourth season, so we have three more.

02:11:46.000 Wow, and they're all awesome.

02:11:48.000 Trafficked, Mariana Banzeller. 1.00

02:11:51.000 Yeah, that's season three right there.

02:11:52.000 Go watch it, folks.

02:11:54.000 Thank you very much.

02:11:54.000 Appreciate you.

02:11:55.000 Bye, everybody.

The Joe Rogan Experience - January 25, 2024

Joe Rogan Experience #2092 - Mariana van Zeller

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Summary

Transcript