1. I Work for the CIA

Sometimes, when federal law enforcement agencies investigate crimes, they unwittingly target the informants or undercover agents of other agencies. This season is one of those stories, a simmering alphabet soup with the DEA, the CIA, and the FBI all mixed up in the same case. Also as a warning, this show includes uncensored undercover recordings that contain explicit language. It is intended for adult audiences.

It took a long time to meetium. How are you good? Thank you for coming.

How you.

Okay?

This is for you. I think I know you were coming.

Thank you very much.

How are you?

This may sound like small talk, but what you're hearing is an illegal arms deal.

One.

It's December twenty fourteen, and two Romanian men are in a hotel room in the country of Montenegro. They're meeting with three Colombians. The Romanians are named Flavio georg Escu and Christian Ventilla, and they've arranged for the Colombians to buy millions of dollars in weapons and ammunition anti aircraft cannons, rocket propelled grenades, and assault rifles.

Yeah, I show him the contract. I was pushing to sign the contract.

This is Flavio and yeah, even illegal arms deeals use contracts. Anyway, Flavio's got his paperwork together, but he's stressed.

Christiano has tried to show him things on his laptop, some specifications, anything, but for me is just to put his signature and just leave me alone because I want to get out. That's it. I'm done.

Flavio is at the finish line. He'd brokered the whole deal. All he needs now is to close with a signature from one of the Colombians. But the Colombians they're stalling. They've told Flavio they represent the FARC, the Colombian paramilitary group that, as this is happening, is a US designated foreign terrorist organization. That's a big deal. It's what makes this an illegal arms deal also a big deal. The Romanians were explicitly told that the weapons would be used

No, before he signed it, he said, I have to talk with my people.

The Colombian says he needs final approval from his superiors, and he and his two associates step out of the hotel room. Then agents with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration burst through the door, guns drawn.

You're on the wrist and the v handcuffs me and I said, let me talk with you. Let me use the bathroom.

And this is where things get interesting. Flavio, handcuffed motions with his head to one of the DEA agents. The agent walks with Flavio into the bathroom. They're crowded together in the small room. Flavio looks directly at the agent and motions for him to step closer. In a soft voice, Flavio tells him, I work for the CIA.

When I said, I call it this center for CIA, just call them.

I'm Trevor Aronson from Western Sound and iHeart Podcasts. This is Alphabet Boys. Each season of Alphabet Boys, we bring you into the world of America's alphabet agencies, including the FBI, CIA, DEA, and ATF. Using secret undercover recordings, we take you deep inside a federal investigation. We dive into cases that raise a common question. Are federal agents and their informants catching

If you're trying to implicate that I'm a fucking snitch, check this out.

Three things.

I ain't a punk, I ain't a bitch, and I had a fucking snitch.

In that case, the FBI's informant, Mickey Windecker, tried desperately to preserve his cover after he was accused of being an informant.

You should ask who the real fucking punker bitches or who the real fucking snitches.

But now we have a very different story with some very different federal agents in this season. The guy working with the FEDS isn't trying to hold on to his cover. He's trying to expose it, to reveal himself as a government agent in order to save himself.

In my mind that time was okay, as soon as I'm going to reach United States CIA, they were going to give me all the documents. It shows everything what I did.

Flavio Georgescu, Romanian American businessman, is arrested by the DEA and tells those agents that he's collecting intelligence for the CIA.

Step by step, not even one one step aside of the line I didn't took money, I didn't jeopardize nobody likes and I delivered everything, which I promise.

But who is this guy Flavio? Who is he really?

When I land, there's Flavio in a suit, It's like, follow me?

Is he CIA operative?

And he slams down his badge in my passport and they just stamp it and we walk to the next window, and I'm like, something's going on here?

Is he an international arms dealer?

Then Romanian government on my as right now because they.

Think I'm bullshitting or maybe Flavio is something entirely different.

I see movies with arm dealers on TV. But hold on, I have to learn. I have to create a mindset. Okay, I'm going there for c B. I'm gonna die.

This is Alphabet Boys Season two, up and Arms, episode one. I work for the CIA.

No have a prepaid call.

You will not be charged for this call.

This car is from just an inmate at I said with prison Hi.

Flave you, Hello, good morning, mister Arson.

Hey, thanks so much for calling.

I'm so sorry I didn't realize that this two oh two number was you this whole time.

Sorry about that.

It is not a problem it's not a problem.

It's August twenty twenty and Flavio and I are talking for the first time. He'd been trying to call me, and I had mistakenly ignored his calls.

Normally, when I tried to make new friends or to meet somebody in my life, I don't call them from prison. I wait for this call for probably the last or Mosboro six.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, let me tell you Flavio was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for what happened in Montenegro, even though he told US officials that he was working for the CIA. I get a lot of calls, emails, and texts from people claiming to have been railroaded by the government. They read my articles or hear my podcasts about how federal law enforcement runs very questionable sting operations, and they hope I'll cover their very

What I was trying to talk with you. You study all those cases, and I realized that, and I know how much work you put and how much time.

What I see, what's college?

So a real prison what I see right now?

After that much work, you didn't achieve anything because you didn't make a change out.

Okay, Flavio, go on, but my case.

Is the same like everybody else, because the government use a template and the way they approach people based on trust, based on temptations, based on different ingredients. Everybody on all the cases which you study, they buy the bait, they get temptated, whatever they get played or whatever was the situation.

He's not wrong. In many of these federal cases involving stings, the target of the sting moves forward and tries to or does commit the crime. Think of Post nine eleven terrorism stings. A government agent gives a bomb to the target and the target tries to detonate it, not knowing the weapon is fake. Or here's another example. In twenty thirteen, FBI undercover agents helped the White supremacists build a radiological

Eighty four thousands, so.

All four thousand, this machine, right of four thousand with that machine that doesn't.

Translated the chiefs from.

And then once the supposed death ray was built, federal agents rushed in guns drong. Flavio is trying to tell me that his case started like that, but he didn't fall into the trap myself.

I didn't let myself to be played. I didn't lend myself to touch the bait. My case is so unique based on the facts and based on the evidence.

Flavio says he wasn't an arms dealer.

He never was.

He was the CIA's guy, and he got tangled in a web of federal agencies, each with its own agenda. None of those agendas included him.

I was convicted for no reason, and having my case compared with the thousand cases which you review them, all of my case is the one. But you're gonna clear your work and We're gonna put you in this country, in the place which you deserve to be. You are the only one. That's why I'm so impressed about your work and everything, because you are the only one to address the cause. You are the only one to point the finger on the confidational sources and confinational informant.

He's the good guy in all this, Flavia says, and he insists there's no ambiguity about any of it. He was working with the CIA the whole time, but in the end he was hung out to dry. Flavio maintains that he's innocent, completely innocent.

First, I want to clear my name because as Romanians, we are very proud people and I don't deserve to be labeled as a false terrorist for the rest of my life. I cannot do that.

Said to die.

Just put me to sleep, and that's it.

Flavia wants me to tell a story, and if I agree, he promises to tell me everything.

Thanks so much to talking. We need probably I don't know hours and hours the way you write. I want to be with you and start to choose the journey which I start in this life. I want to start to choose from two thousand that beep sound.

It means the call is about to end. Federal inmates can only talk on the phone for fifteen minutes at a time.

When I was arrested from Montenegro and take you with me everywhere and you document everything, and yeah, we're gonna be a change. Right now, we're gonna get I have only fifteen minutes. I can pull it back in forty minutes. Then you tell me your your opinions and we start from death.

Okay, great, I'll be here. I'll look for your call, transistent.

Thank you.

This would be the first of men he calls between us more after the break.

This college from an inmate at a set of a prison.

This may seem pretty obvious to say now, but when Flavio calls me back forty minutes later, I tell Flavio that I'll do a story. I tell him that I want to figure out the truth. But I also tell him that I'm a journalist. I'll investigate a story and I'll report what I find out. And he may not like everything I discover. So where do I start to understand Flavo and why he might have done the things he says he did. It's important to understand the world.

And Prime Movent.

Chalcescu was a dictator who held on the power for a quarter of a century through a massive police state, brutal repression and mass surveillance. He used the assets of the state to fund an opulent lifestyle. His bathrooms were adorned in real gold. Even as many Romanians lived in poverty.

Teochesku and his family extended their to every facet of Romanian life. The secret police have terrified people for years. Dissidents have been exiled or simply killed.

Chiscu's secret police, known as a Securitate, were all powerful. Those who spoke out against the government could be pulled from their beds in the middle of the night and thrown in horrible prisons, never to be heard.

From villaged positions.

He held power through the ruthless.

Depression of the people by means of his security forces, a network of police and spies said to number one in ten of the population.

Amongst them was.

One very Flavio's parents were both geologists, and his father worked for the state mining company.

Flavio was their only child.

And he was in charge to They'd make a drill in the ground, they put dynamite inside, and when they detonate that thing, they record the seesmic movement and if they sees like X ray, they see if he's oil inside or gas or whatever.

Flavio's father worked with explosives, so the secret police kept a particularly close eye on him.

That means we were so search in our house by the secret police and caps and everything, and we were terrified all the time because my father did never do anything wrong.

Flavio's dad would even have to watch how much he drank during meals on the weekend.

In Romania, we drink when you start to eat the.

Main course.

You drink homemade plums like a brandy okay or a little glass while you were stopping Saturday, because Monday he was going back to work, and if anything happened wrong and they find alcohol in his blood, he was going to jail for his life.

The secure tat was an all consuming concern for Flavio and his parents. It affected every part of their lives.

Let me tell you something else.

You know, I was growing up.

If you go to in the summer, were having a vacation and we go to the Black Sea. If you having a long hair, the cops they will stop you.

Chilchescu's agents who keep hair clippers on hand, they'd shave an X in the back of any long haired man's head.

If you have any jeans, okay, the cops there was having scissors in the packet. Then those cutting your jeans and your jacket because the jeens comes from the West, from cowboys. And if you don't have cows, why do you have to wear jeans?

Yeah?

Actually, so many, so many crazy, crazy things.

Throughout all this, Flavio says he dreamed of another place.

As a child.

In the nineteen eighties, he was completely enamored with the idea of the United States. A few friends showed him how he could illegally listen to American broadcasts on his radio. Networks like Radio Free Europe and Voice of America were then and continue to be US government funded projects, a form of propaganda intended to seduce listeners with American and Western ideas, things like open societies, a free press, unrestricted expression, and rock and roll.

Which gives you their music the insights with the politics and everything.

And Flavio fell for it. He'd tune in as often as he could. But one night Flavio's dad discovered him listening to the American broadcast. He was horrified.

He catched me one time, listened down one huh. He didn't beat me up because they never hit me one time. My mom over my dad. But I got so much theory and explained to me the risk and everything to listen to radio. I you Bob, listened radio for the rest of my life.

But then everything changed.

Mister Gorbachev teared down this wall.

In the late eighties, the Iron Curtain fell, revolutions erupted in Eastern Europe. In Romania's was the bloodiest. Thousands of people were killed. Chelchescu finally fell when the military turned against him. Thousands poured into the streets of the capitol Bucharest, chanting the national anthem as it had been written before Chelchescu took power. Chelchescu and his wife were suddenly stripped of power and arrested just before Christmas nineteen eighty nine, they were both executed.

The deposed Romanian leader, President Chowcescu and his wife have been executed. State television tonight announced a military tribunal found them guilty of genocide and undermining.

The national Following the revolution, Romania began a decades long process of political and economic reforms. Flavio is a natural talker. It can be hard to get them to stop talking.

Honestly.

Read flag for me A boy was the respect was put with some bitter taste in my mind. You don't see me who I am? His father, and he grew up everything like his friendly Right now there are multi billionaires and everything. And he was staying in my house for a few days.

And he excelled at building relationships in Romania. As Romania started changing, he went to work at an exclusive hotel in Bucharest. He became known as a guy who could get things done, who could get guests whatever they desired in the city. Acting that's a kind of fixer. But Romania wasn't changing as quickly as Flavia would have liked, and he still dreamed of living in America. Flavio had a cousin in Las Vegas who was running a gym so he applied for a visa and arrived in the

Myself, I was fascinated about the shows. I was so excited about the Hoover dam ranted those jet ski all day long was beautiful. And what I loved so much was the people. You see Vegas, it is a place which everybody's happy. Nobody cries, nobody said. Even they lose money, they win money, they are happy.

Flavio had several odd jobs during those initial years in the United States, but Flavio built relationships all around, just as he had done in Bucharest years earlier, and Flavio established a transnational reputation too. If a wealthy Romanian was flying into Las Vegas for a good time, Flavio was to go to contact. He would arrange just about anything, shopping trips, exclusive access to casinos and restaurants, whatever could be bought with money in Las Vegas, which is well everything.

I was shipping things cars to Europe all the time, and somebody said, it is a Romanian guy in la.

And that's how Flavio would make a connection that would prove life changing. Andy Georgescu ran a sho shipping company in Los Angeles that prided itself on discretion. Andy didn't ask a whole lot of questions about his cargo.

Then I met him and I said, he's Romanian. We have the same last name.

Flavio and Andy aren't related. George Escu is the most common surname in Romania. It'd be like two unrelated Smiths being friends. In the United States, Flavio was initially skeptical of Andy and a shipping company, but over the years he shipped a lot of cars with Andy.

First of all, I don't want to get affiliated with people which I don't know what they do. Those cars expensive cars and has to be take care of in a specific way, and with the insurance, with everything. With more companies, they cannot offer those things. So no, give him my chance. I was, okay, give you my chance.

The two george Escus made a lot of money together. They were both hustlers, Romanian immigrants who had made it the United States. Their common heritage created such a strong bond that they'd met each other's parents back in the home country. Flavio had even visited Andy's ill father when he was in the hospital in Romania. And one day in twenty twelve, Andy has an idea, a new way for them to make money, a lot of money. He tells Flavio he knows a Colombian looking for a way

That's after the break.

This is this is my plan.

We have called a lot.

We have tried to go this here. I'm there at this point. I do want to see you. Let's see. We got a regroup a little bit. I want to go.

This is one the brash Colombian with the bellowing voice, the guy who was in the hotel room with Flavio just before he was arrested by the DEA. And if there's a turning point in Flavio's story the place where if this were a movie, the dramatic music starts low and slow. It's probably this phone call. The call happens on February nineteenth, twenty fourteen.

I want to come to La maybe next week, Okay, all right?

Like a plan for at least two years.

This guy, Juan has been talking to Andy georg Escu, Flavio's friend in Los Angeles who runs the shipping company.

Juan and Andy have talked about a lot of stuff.

They talked about a potential drug deal for cocaine, using the code word pink stuff. They've talked about a money laundering contact in Hong Kong, and they've talked about their romantic relationships.

But now Wan is.

Asking Andy to put together something much bigger, a deal to sell military grade weapons to the FARC, the Colombian paramilitary group.

At the time.

FARC is officially a terrorist organization according to the US government. Wan tells Andy he's a representative of the FARC. This didn't come out of the blue. Juan first brought up the possibility of a weapons deal to Andy in twenty twelve, and Andy told Wan that he knows people who make things happen. But by the time of this call in twenty fourteen, nothing has materialized. It's all just a bunch of talk. And Wan is frustrated, really straighted, so frustrated.

And maybe we can go to launch. Okay, all right, and see what we can put together. Is especially back in your home country or on that area for that matter.

By home country one means Romania. He thinks Andy can put together a weapons deal in Romania.

All right, bro, I called you next week and we're talking in person. All right, all right, I see that bye, Okay. Preceding phone call, I mean the nine fifteen pm east of the time in the US and the nineteenth of February twenty fourteen be a sky to and your jesuis.

What Andy doesn't know is Ons recording their phone calls, and the next month, on March fourth, twenty fourteen, Ons in Los Angeles. He's made arrangements for Andy to pick him up near the airport.

Well, hey there, hey, hey, I'm here at the budget run a car of century like a like behind the cross from the Mario Hotel. Can you marry here?

Okay, oh yeah, I'll wait you here in about half an hour because I'm.

So started to have an argus I'm need to check him out. The I called to Andy at eleven am March four, twenty fourteen, and the youre adjustment.

Andy picks up one and they meet to discuss a possible arm steel. The global arms market is enormous, worth more than one hundred billion dollars annually. Much of this trade is legitimate and perfectly legal weapons sales to government entities all done in accordance with international regulations, but illegal sales, also known as arms trafficking, are estimated to be worth one billion dollars annually. Brokers or middlemen are commonly involved

Anyway.

Back to Indian One.

By Maria Magdalena, Juan Is referring to Andy's girlfriend.

We need to we lean that, we lean.

That what's going on. We got hey, I never got your heart, you.

Know, No, I didn't send I didn't send it because I'm waiting for the They didn't get back to me on the one paper you.

Got back to me for.

Andy assures Wan that he has contacts who can broke her an arms deel. He just needs a list of the weapons that Wan wants to buy.

So I just need to reconfie some things with him and so I can put it down.

Okay, find out when we can meet at the place that I told you. We can meet at the end place. Okay, you on whoever you have on myself, you know, so I can plan and and do that that go shopping.

Definitely on that sage. Yeah, we need to know. I mean we need to know. I mean I need to explain exactly how the payment is gonna work and stuff like that.

No, well, this is it.

We want to meet there and once we agree that you can have two of these two d and two of the other ones, you know whatever. Okay, then uh I bring the money. I give you the money, right there, No good, That's what I'm think.

I can explain to them, and you know, we'll sit down and discus. I don't want them to see too many faces and you know stuff like that.

That's fine.

Whatever you call you call the shots.

You just you, I mean nothing, you know what I mean?

Oh no, just me, just me? Oh yeah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah. But I got the people on the standby, and they will make the phones available for the for the you know, for the stuff, our peace and all that. Okay, that's right, all right, all right, okay, So I went on not to hear from you.

Will finalize that this this week, this weekend, this.

Should be done.

Brother, all right, thank you, say hello, say hello to Maria Mondalina. I will, okay, okay, I will all right. Uh hold on eleven six pm Eastern seventh time in the US to uh Todays Days throws in March six, twenty fourteen.

What Wan doesn't know is that Andy is talking to Flavio, and Flavio is the one Andy believes is going to put together the arms deal for Wan. Andy expects to get a cut of whatever deal comes from this. When Andy says.

You can't get back to me on the one paper he got back to me for.

A belief, he's referring to Flavio. Andy had called Flavio in April twenty twelve and asked him if he could put together the arms deal. Flavio said maybe he could, but there's something that neither Wan nor Andy knows about. Right after Andy first called Flavio about the arms deal, Flavio called someone else, the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, AH and the CIA. They were recording their calls too good afternoon.

How can I help you, Hi? Her mind is Flavio, and I have an information for you, and I want to be in touchly one of your agency overkill in many order. I know you have an office now with Tria.

That's in the next episode.

This is up in arms, Season two.

Of Alphabet Boys.

Alphabet Boys is a production of Western Sound and iHeart Podcasts. The show is reported, written and hosted by me Trevor Aaronson. For more information about this series, we're going to drop us a tip. Head to our website Alphabet Boys dot xyz. You can contact me on Twitter or Instagram at Trevor Aaronson. The show's instagram is Alphabetboys dot pod. If you're enjoying Alphabet Boys, tell your friends about the show. Personal recommendations

And thanks for listening.