Also media. Hi everyone, and welcome to it could happen here. It's me James today here to bring you more terrible news about migration and deportation. And I'm joined to share that terrible news by Gillian Bruckel, a journalist who has been tracking deportation flights to Djibouti. Hi, Gillian, Hi, how are you?
James?
I'm good. Well, amidst the crumbling of everything, that's wonderful.
Yeah, I mean, this is terrible news, but I'm also very excited to be in the Cool Zone universe.
I love all of the shows.
Yeah, welcome, welcome to the called own universe. It's a Sophie Lichtman comic universe.
Oh my god, such a fangirl.
Okay. The United States government attempted to deport twelve men, all of whom are Libyan, to Libya on the seventh of May. Right, it got so far as to them to the.
Airport right in San Antonio.
In San Antonio, Texas. And then thanks to a injunction, a court injunction, those people were not taken to Libya. Those people were said returned to an intention center, where as listeners the show will now be aware they were informed that they were being deported renditioned, howe you want
to say it to South Sudan. This news broke a couple of days ago, now, I think Tuesday, Tuesday afternoon, Yeah, yeah, and that was when you were able to begin using your ocent aviation knowledge looking for like this this flight right that was taken them to South Sudan, because at the time the United States government was claiming that the
flight was was classified or like a state secret. And even in court the judge wasn't aware of the flight was in the air on the ground, could it turn around judging the anthony was going to ask you to turn around? So I wonder if you could like walk listeners through the time none of this deportation, and then how you were able to find millions of maybe not million, thousands of planes in the sky the one that was taking these people to as it turned out to Djibooty.
Sure.
Yeah, So I've been a journalist for fifteen years, but before that, I was a flight attendant and you know, I'm in av geek in aviation enthusiast the shorthand you know, the hashtag for that is af geek, And so you know, I'm always looking at flight Radar twenty four. It's an app where you can track different aircraft and so when I heard that the flight might still be in.
The air, I just thought, I wonder if I can find it.
So I went first, I went on to flight Radar twenty four, and first I looked at all of the departures out of San Antonio for like the previous twenty four hours since the previous flight that was supposed to go to Libya that was stopped, that departed from San Antonio.
And so I was.
Looking there and you know, didn't see anything. Just commercial flights, very obviously military flights, and I know they've used military aircraft sometimes, but I said, I'm not going to try and touch that right now. I want to see if it's one of these charter companies, you know, Global x a Vello, that have been doing these deportation flights.
Can you explain those to people, because I don't think everyone's aware of those.
So these are you know, commercial carriers, but they're they're contracting with DHS to deport people on their aircraft. So you know, the A three twenty that you take across the country is sometimes used to deport people to other countries, and the main companies that are doing that right now are a Vello, global X. I think Omni does some of them sometimes. And I should say there are a lot of people, especially on Blue Sky, a lot of av geeks who are tracking and cataloging all of these flights.
I wasn't even aware of that community until I started looking for so I didn't see anything, you know, in San Antonio, and then I realized, oh, these people had been transferred to Port Isabelle in the last few weeks, so they would have departed out of Harlingen Airport, which is nearby. It's you know, a deep deep South Texas And so I looked at departures out of harling and it's a small airport. They have like ten departures a day and it's generally puddle jumpers from one small Texas
town to another small Texas town, you know. And there was one global X flight to Miami the day before. The timeline wasn't exactly right, but I know that DHS, you know, has been slow to notify attorneys, so I thought, well, maybe this is the flight. They just didn't tell the attorneys till the next day. So then I spent way too much time looking at all of the departures out of Miami to see if there were any global ex flits. I saw a few things, but you know, nothing heading
across the Atlantic. And so at that point, flight Radar twenty four will show you publicly available information on flights.
It won't show you all flights.
But there is another you know, for like deep deep ab geeks, there's another website called ADSB Exchange, and this is a pool of all feeder data all over the world of all aircraft in the air that aviation enthusiasts maintained themselves, and they will have military flights that aren't going to be on Flight Radar twenty four. They also have a lot more information about planes that have a
LAD designation, which stands for limited Aviation Data displayed. I don't know how much you want me to explain about that.
Yeah, explain, explain because I think it's interesting for people.
Sure, So LAD designation is used most often for like private jet owners, like celebrities and you know, the ultra rich, And basically it means that they have an extra layer of privacy for their movements in their private jets. So if you try and find a specific private jet on flight radar twenty four, it won't come up. You know. So like the tail of this plane that did the Jabooty flight is N five AA eight eight a T. If you search for that in flight radar twenty four,
you won't see it. Nothing will come up. However, if you know what you're looking for, if you know, like, oh, I think the flight is heading to Djibouti right now, you can see on flight radar twenty five for that, there's a gulf Stream five had a to Djibooty right now, but the registration information is obscured.
Okay, you know it's not like that on the ADSB.
You can you could see it.
Yeah, your filters have a lot more power.
Basically, you know your search terms, they're going to go around different designations, okay, And so some people hate that. You know, Taylor Swift had beef with some guy a couple of years ago because she has a LAD designation on her private jet. He was using ADSB Exchange to post her flights, you know, ostensibly for to shame her for her carbon footprint. But then she like threatened to sue him, and she was like, I have stalkers, Like I don't want them.
To know when I'm landing in Nashville.
You know, yeah, not going to get into that, but you know, that's basically the LAD designation, and ADSB doesn't care. And so I went on ADSB and I said, well, since I've already seen all the publicly available flights, let me just look at LAD flights, okay, And so I set that filter and that took it down to a couple hundred planes in the air, and I honestly just got lucky. I just started clicking on planes because I don't know how to search for all departures out of
one airport on ADSP Exchange. I'm sure AV geeks who are better at it do, but I just started clicking on planes and I clicked. I think like the third plane that I clicked on had taken off out of Harlingen a couple hours earlier and was over the middle of the Atlantic, which is not a usual departure for Harlingen.
Right, Yeah, that's quite.
And so you know, I posted on Blue Sky to the other AV geeks who were looking for it.
I think this might be it.
You know, it's a private jet with a LAD designation that took off from this very obscure airport and it's traveling internationally. Nothing else really fit the right, so we all started looking at it. Another reporter named Jacqueline Sweet. You know, I looked up the registration. It's registered to a man named Igor Smirnov, which there are a lot of Igor Smirnov's.
Yeah, yeah, it's a pretty common name.
He's not the Chess guy, he's not the Moldovan guy. He appears to have once owned an airline in his Pakistan and has been in the US for some time. So he has, you know, this private jet. And then Jacqueline Sweet looked up that yes, he has DHS contracts.
Okay.
Then the other thing was I just googled the tail number M five eight eight eight. One of the first things that came up was that this was the private jet that carried Britney Griner home from Russia when she had been.
Released in a prisoner swat.
Yeah, and so that, you know, was the thing where I was like, Okay, this this plane's been used for like weird government business before. Yeah, Like I think I think this might be it. Yeah, So that's when I posted. Once I realized the Britney Grinder thing, then I posted it and other people, other av geeks were.
Saying, yeah, I think that might be it.
And then you know, Jacqueline got more info on the contracts and so this is for about two hours we watched it and JJ and DC said, I think it's about to land in Shannon, and you know, soon enough it descended and landed at Shannon. Yep.
So Shannon Airport in Ireland.
Is a frequent refueling stop for the US military, and you know that's something that a lot of Irish people really fucking hate.
Yeah, not a US base, to be clear, if people.
On a way, Yeah, it's not a US base. These are this is US military that are just they're just refueling, but they're refueling to you know, do a lot of things that the Irish are not okay with.
Yeah.
And so there's there's an organization there called Shannon Watch, who you know, they're watching all these US activities and you know, pressuring the government to stop this. So you know, I tried to email them before the plane even landed, and I don't know if it was user error on my end or you know, if I don't know why I didn't work, but they didn't get the message. I
only found that out like half an hour ago. Yeah, but so I messaged them, and then I like messaged a couple friends in Ireland, like, hey, wake up, wake up. You didn't call somebody, you know, but there's two thirty in the morning.
I'm glad my friends were asleep.
And yeah, So I don't know how how much I wanted to get into my personal hedging or my journey. But you know, I used to be like a neutral, objective journalist at the Washington Post for ten years, and I left a year and a half ago, and I've been enjoying being an opinionated journalist. I've been writing a book. But you know, there's a difference between being an opinionated journalist and actually interfering in a story. Yeah, and so I kind of hedged for a minute of like should
I should I do anything else? Should I actively participate in trying to stop this flight?
You know?
Am I not going to get a column this job someday if I do that?
Yeah?
You know, I'm ashamed to say that, But I have to tell the truth. That's what I thought. And then I just decided, you know, screw it, I have to do the right thing. So I called the Shannon Airport Police. I called the Shannon Garda. They called the police, the Garda in Ireland, and I talked to you know whatever man answered for like a minute, and then he was like, let me let me, you know, knock you up the chain. And I was forwarded to someone else, to a woman
who you know. She sounded smart, urgent, interested, It sounded like she was taking notes. It sounded like she was taking this seriously. And I was saying, there is a plane with this tail number that landed fifteen minutes ago that may have people on board who have been illegally removed from the United States, who have not consented to go to their destination, who are being sent to Susudan
when they are not from Sau Sudan, you know. And I made clear that like, I don't know that this is the right plane, but I'm pretty sure that it is. This plane has been used before for US government business. And I said, I know that our judges' orders don't matter in your sovereign country, but a judge has said
this is not allowed, and it might be happening. And I don't know what your human trafficking laws are like, but you should know that if there are human trafficking or kidnapping laws in Ireland that might apply to this, like maybe check the plane. Yeah, and you know, I didn't record the call and I didn't take notes, but I do recall her saying that she was trying to send someone to check the plane, and she was, you know, taking detailed notes.
What are their nationalities? How many are are there?
Yeah, you know, and yes, so you know, the call lasted thirteen minutes and then I waited, you know, was talking with the other av geeks on Blue Sky who were at this point.
You know, this is around ten pm. It's getting a little late.
And then yeah, I don't know what happened, but the plane taxi to a parking stamp near the terminal for a while, and I thought, oh, it's been it's been turned off. It's parked for the night. I don't think they're going to let him leave.
Yeah, and then the plane took off. It was two hours after it landed.
Yeah, yeah, and it went to Jabooty where it remains at a time of recording. Yeah, it's been raised since you first kind of identified this plane, it's been raised. I talked to Dallas or like an Irish member of Parliament raised it today. I saw there was an exchange about it. I spoke to Paul Murphy, who's the TV for Dublin's Southwest. Oh, Paul, get me a statement I'm
going to read here. The very least Sierrish government must do is to inform the US authorities that no more deportation flights are permitted to use our airspace, in our airports. We must not facilitate this in humane and illegal deportation policy. So it does seem like even if nothing was done in this instance, hopefully this isn't something that will be able to happen again. I know, as you said, people
have been upset about that use of Shannon. I think they used Knock Airport as well, like for a long time, because the US use them a lot in its war on terror. An Ireland has been a neutral country for a long time, and that's a feeling that it compromises
that among some people. But this raise is a really interesting question for those of us who are following the deportations right, which is like we've been thinking that it was on military or commercial flights, like you said, but there's this possibility that these smaller planes are being used for deportation, and like that's very concerning. It means we could have missed things absolutely. It also shows the timeline here is extraordinarily rapid, right from the people being informed
at six pm. I believe it's six pm Pacific. I've been spending a lot of time on Pacer this week.
Yeah, good old Pacer yep, A.
Lot of the money generated by the adverts in this show on Pacer. So six thirty five Central time, NM who is one of the Burmese people in this this class action lawsuit? Right? So, the lawsuit a number of people trying to get an attentative restraining order against being Center South who done now previously Libya? Six thirty five Central Time. That person's lawyer was told that they had an order of removal at nine am Pacific. The lawyer had scheduled
of video conference eight twenty seven Pacific. They were told that that person had already been removed. Yeah, so pretty fast, And like perhaps that's why they're using these like small can you give an idea of like, I guess a lot of people wear in a phone and small aircraft, but these are quite like this isn't a usual thing, right to be.
No this is a luxury jet, yeah, that you know is moonlighting as a prisoner vessel for kidnappers. And I just I'm so struck by the dichotomy of the luxury of this vessel transporting them to Hell, to a country where they do not speak the language, they have no family or friends, to you know, a prison where people are being tortured that is about to descend into civil war, may already be in civil war. I mean, the dicotomy of that is so strike to me. Yeah, and so perverse.
Yeah, perverse is the right word. It is, like it's uh,
perversely ludicrous. I don't know, Like it's so striking to me as well that somebody who has the financial means to own a private luxury jet to find themselves around the world is also profiting off the rendition of people who are trying now to plead in Convention against torture, right, they will be tortured if they are flown via luxury private jet to South Sudan, And that South Sudanese government seems to have stated that it would just return them
to their countries from which they have withholding it for removement in the first place. Is why the US can't send them to their countries. Right.
That's why the US hasn't done it, right. It's like, you know, it's a diplomatic pickle, but like the solution isn't well, just you know, dump them somewhere else.
Right, yeah, and then have someone else do our daily work, like send them back.
Right.
You found these contracts. Do you know how much DHS is spending like perf light on these things?
I have no idea.
I mean that is something that other reporters, I think, are you know, going to be better sources of that information. I've really just begun tracking these flights. You know, I like to track flights all the time, just because I have ADHD. You know, it's a wonderful activity if you're neurodivergent to spend some time on ADSP exchange. But like I said, I was just like, I wonder if I can find this plane. And I did, And that has opened up a whole world to me of you know,
really dedicated people. Tom Cartwright is one, and then JJ and d C is another. He wants to remain anonymous, who have been tracking these planes for some time, and I'm really inspired by them and you know, want to join them. And help them.
We see a number of issues like that, we can questions that we can answer with these things. Right, the United States abording people to Venezuela, but there are lots of in Venezuela which are under sanctions, right, So like how is it doing that? Who is it paying to do that? Like where is our taxpayer money going? How much is it costing to achieve this rendition of a dozen people? Right who at the current time of our recording, which is Thursday afternoon Pacific time, the twenty second of May,
they go. I just checked the pacer again, which is what I do all day now. And Judge Murphy's most recent order had clarified that these people would have ten days to present their reasonable fear right, so to present their reasonable fear and convention against torture proceedings that they would be it could face torture right if they were
sent to these these places. If the Department of Homeland Security determined that they didn't have credible fear, then they would have fifteen days to again petition for reopening of their migration case. So that's twenty five days for those who accounting that these people will presumably now have to be accommodated in Jubouty. The DHS is claiming that they can do all these interviews and that when they saystate translators, like one of them speaks Korent, not a language that
we have. I mean that there are lots of Kren speaking people in the United States, but it's you know, it's not language that many immigration lawyers speak. So I'm guessing there will have to be a translator provided. And so all that is now happening in Jubouty, and like, we wouldn't have known that if we hadn't been able to track these flights, right, And so it's a very interesting way of approaching this. And I think like increasingly the government have recently lost a number of fire requests.
I guess, like public records do not move at the same speed as in news site does. Like I file a lot of public records requests, most of them I don't get anything back, the ones.
That they take like eight years sometimes.
Yeah, literally, Yeah, I mean I have public records requests that I made under the previous Trump administration that I believe are still ongoing. Yeah, it's infuriatingly slowly. You have a right to inspect these records, but you don't have a right to inspect them in any particular time period. And so doing this kind of open source tracking offers us a window into this deportation machine that the government is building right exactly in cooperation with the super rich,
like using your taxpayer resources. I would if people are interested in doing this, like, how would you suggest they kind of get going? They could explainers out there.
I mean the first thing I would do is that I would follow Tom Cartwright and JJ and DC on Blue Sky. Then you know, get the flight Radar twenty four app. You can see a lot of the charter planes on app. Adsp exchange is pretty buggy and hard to use if you don't have any aviation experience.
At all, but you know you can learn. Yeah, and uh yeah, I mean.
Like I said, if you're neuro divergent, this is a terrific activity to just kind of like massage your brain and hyper focus, and you know, putting it to good purpose to maybe witness or maybe even stop some of these activities from happening, you know, would be great.
Yeah, No, I think that's uh, Like there are countries which have strong legislation that can possibly prevent these You know, these either planes transiting their airspace or if they're refueling there as you as you said in an Ireland like perhaps prevent these people being renditioned to somewhere where they might face torture. And I think it's a really valuable absolutely thing to try, Like we should try whatever we can right now.
Yeah, and I mean now that Ireland knows this is happening. You know, I don't know what happened with the Garda on Tuesday night early Wednesday morning. I don't know if they were able to board the plane, if they tried to stop it and couldn't.
I have no idea.
Yeah, now that they know this is happening, maybe they can look a little bit deeper into their laws and regulations and find a justification so that if this happens again, they can be prepared to respond. You know, I know that the Irish are exemplars in human rights, and so you know, if anybody is going to do something, it might be them.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Artie and now camped out at the airport wing for the plane to come back, which yeah.
I know, I wish they had checked with the av geeks first, because the plane's not on the way.
Yeah, no it's not.
It hasn't left.
Look at the coat proceedings. It's going to be three weeks. But yeah, it's great. You've made this an issue there, which I think, Yeah, it helps, Like all this stuff makes a difference.
I mean, I just I want the Irish people to realize, because none of their lawmakers have said it yet, that Irish authorities knew when the plane was on the ground at Shannon that there were people who are possibly being illegally detained on this specific airplane.
I just want them to know that. Yeah, yeah, you know.
And I'm I hear that their public information laws are also not great. But the police there recorded the call, so there's a recording somewhere if they can find it.
Right, I guess I can't find anyone who can answer the satisfactory the question of like whose jurisdiction the plane is under?
Yeah, I mean, and it really depends too, like was the plane parked in the international transit area? Was it in a place where you know, the guard I didn't even have authority, I have no idea, you know.
Yeah, these are real questions we can now ask because we know right that it was there. And I think that's very valuable. Glean where can people follow your work? Said? You published this on your ghost newsletter first.
Right, Yeah, I'm writing a book, so I post extremely sporadically, but I do have a ghost newsletter. It's hard g History because it's hard. G Gillian Hard, Ghistory dot ghost dot io. And then I'm on Blue Sky at g Brackel Nice.
Do you want to plug your book where you have the opportunity.
I mean, there's not like a you know, pre order links.
I'm very much still writing it, but you know, my agent will be mad at me for saying this. The working title is people didn't know what was wrong back then, the lie at the heart of American History.
I will look forward to reading that.
Thank you. Thanks for having me, James, I really appreciate it.
Thanks for joining us.
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