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The Downfall of Gotti_ Escobar_ Riina _ Boucher _ The Greatest Crimes of All Time(M4A_128K) · NO FILTER

0:02
Speaker 1: They rule the underworld, and their power seems endless. Gang
0:08
Speaker 1: bosses in Colombia, Pablo Escobar, his illegal drug dealings terrorize
0:16
Speaker 1: an entire country.
0:21
Speaker 2: Can show that he believed that he was somehow semi divine.
0:27
Speaker 1: In Canada, Maurice Bouchet, the boss of the Hells Angels,
0:32
Speaker 1: wages a brutal gang war.
0:34
Speaker 3: Car bonds, jail fights are drug trade worth millions. They're
0:38
Speaker 3: all part of a vicious war.
0:41
Speaker 1: And in Italy, Salvatore Rena, the head of Cozonostra, kills
0:46
Speaker 1: everyone who gets in his way.
0:49
Speaker 4: Rina makes Sta Mafia a terrorist organization. How do investigators
0:55
Speaker 4: get them behind bars? The most powerful gang bosses.
0:59
Speaker 1: Of all time New York in the nineteen eighties. The
1:25
Speaker 1: mafia controls large parts of the city and he wants
1:30
Speaker 1: to rise to the very top. John Gotti, a thug
1:35
Speaker 1: from the Bronx. His specialty robberies and drug trafficking. The
1:43
Speaker 1: FBI uses all its power to crush the mafia. One
1:47
Speaker 1: of the lead investigators, Special Agent George Gabriel.
1:53
Speaker 5: Well, the only way you're going to put the mafia
1:55
Speaker 5: in jail is you've got to catch them committing their crime.
2:00
Speaker 5: And a big part of Their crime, especially when you're
2:02
Speaker 5: the boss of the family, is conversations. It's meeting with
2:06
Speaker 5: people giving orders, and in order to do that, you
2:12
Speaker 5: either have to get their conversations or you have to
2:15
Speaker 5: put them together. And the meetings are very important to cover.
2:18
Speaker 1: What FBI agent Gabrielle does not suspect at the time
2:25
Speaker 1: in December nineteen eighty five, an assassination will upset the
2:29
Speaker 1: balance of power in the New York underworld. The victim
2:36
Speaker 1: Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino family and mafia boss
2:41
Speaker 1: number one, shot on the street in plain sight.
2:47
Speaker 5: The way he was killed, there was no doubt in
2:49
Speaker 5: anyone's mind who did it. We knew John Gotti was responsible.
2:52
Speaker 5: We also knew that was a big challenge how we
2:55
Speaker 5: were going to be able to prove that those guys
2:58
Speaker 5: did it. So it's frustrating when you know who did
3:00
Speaker 5: it and you care prove that they did.
3:03
Speaker 1: Witness testimony provides only vague information about eleven alleged culprits
3:09
Speaker 1: wearing Russian hats. Otherwise nothing.
3:13
Speaker 6: Why did gottikills on boss? His on boss had become
3:17
Speaker 6: distant from the family, had become greedy, and so was
3:24
Speaker 6: asking for a lot of money from the members of
3:28
Speaker 6: the family and wasn't sharing as much, and so there
3:33
Speaker 6: was a lot of uneasyness.
3:35
Speaker 2: Castellano's mistake was that he didn't understand the extent of
3:40
Speaker 2: Gotti's ambition.
3:43
Speaker 1: After the attack in front of Spark's steakhouse, John Gotti
3:47
Speaker 1: takes power in New York and completely shakes up the
3:50
Speaker 1: mafia's organization. His goal to make as much money as
3:55
Speaker 1: possible in the waste management and the construction industry with
3:59
Speaker 1: drug trafficking and racketeering. FBI agents are presented with a
4:05
Speaker 1: challenge to find out who works for Gotty and how
4:09
Speaker 1: his newly structured mafia functions. The mafia is well connected
4:14
Speaker 1: and knows exactly who works for the FBI, and that
4:18
Speaker 1: is what the agents are using to their advantage.
4:21
Speaker 5: We wanted to get in their face, but also we
4:24
Speaker 5: could put pressure on because if we went and talked
4:27
Speaker 5: to a wise guy at any time, they're supposed to
4:31
Speaker 5: go back and report that to their boss. We wait
4:34
Speaker 5: and we saw them on the street and then pull over,
4:36
Speaker 5: get out of the car, go talk to them. They
4:39
Speaker 5: hated it, absolutely drove them crazy.
4:43
Speaker 1: The FBI keeps Gotty under surveillance but he doesn't let
4:46
Speaker 1: it get to him. He presents himself as a man
4:49
Speaker 1: of the people and celebrates himself as New York's open handed,
4:53
Speaker 1: good looking Robin Hood.
4:56
Speaker 6: So one of the key features of John Gott is
5:00
Speaker 6: that he cared very much about his appearance, and so
5:05
Speaker 6: he used to go to the barber every day. He
5:08
Speaker 6: was dressed in a very fashionable way.
5:11
Speaker 1: Gotti's nickname the Dappa don tailored suits, expensive cars. Gotti
5:16
Speaker 1: makes about fifty millions a year. At the same time,
5:20
Speaker 1: the mafia boss mocks the FBI. He bribes juries and
5:24
Speaker 1: hands out death sentences at will.
5:27
Speaker 5: So one of the problems when you bring people like
5:30
Speaker 5: John to trial is they do everything they can to
5:33
Speaker 5: compromise the trial. They try to buy the jurors, they
5:36
Speaker 5: try to intimidate their witnesses.
5:38
Speaker 6: He was very good at being be acquitted at trials.
5:42
Speaker 2: He threatened witnesses, he threatened judges, he threatened prosecutors.
5:49
Speaker 1: Time and again, the FBI tries to take Gotty down.
5:55
Speaker 1: The witnesses all suffer from sudden memory loss.
6:02
Speaker 6: He thought he was untouchable, and so he continued to
6:05
Speaker 6: commit serious crime, thinking he will never be arrested.
6:09
Speaker 1: In five years Gotti stands trial three times for drug
6:14
Speaker 1: trafficking and murder. Each time he goes free. Then the
6:19
Speaker 1: presumed big chance, the state of New York itself indicts
6:23
Speaker 1: the gang boss for murdering a union official, but once
6:27
Speaker 1: again the evidence is spotty.
6:30
Speaker 5: When John got acquitted on that case, when the jury
6:33
Speaker 5: came back night guilty, the pressure really mounted because now
6:36
Speaker 5: John went from the Dapradan to the Teflondae.
6:40
Speaker 1: John Gotty gets over confident his new mafia headquarters in
6:44
Speaker 1: the middle of downtown New York City, in plain sight
6:48
Speaker 1: of the FBI.
6:49
Speaker 2: I think it was probably a complacency, which is something
6:54
Speaker 2: that comes with power. People believe that they're untouchable, they're unassailable,
7:00
Speaker 2: and Gotti certainly had such an elevated sense of himself.
7:05
Speaker 1: Agent George Gabriel smells his chance. Using a special NASA camera,
7:10
Speaker 1: his team films the Ravenight Social Club day and night.
7:15
Speaker 1: It's a popular venue for mafiusie and in the first
7:18
Speaker 1: floor Gotti's headquarters. For all underworld bosses have to visit
7:23
Speaker 1: the Mafia don once a week.
7:27
Speaker 5: When we first started surveiling this club, we didn't know
7:29
Speaker 5: who almost half the people were because we'd never seen
7:32
Speaker 5: them before. He brought them right into view so we
7:36
Speaker 5: could take beautiful pictures of them, beautiful video of them identifying.
7:40
Speaker 5: So what he did was he identified who and what
7:44
Speaker 5: the Gambiino family was. And that's something that could take
7:47
Speaker 5: years to though. He did it for us and.
7:49
Speaker 1: Once at great boom for investigators. But knowing who works
7:55
Speaker 1: for Gotty is not enough. They have to know what
7:58
Speaker 1: happens behind his doors at number two hundred and forty seven.
8:03
Speaker 1: They use highly sensible directional microphones hidden in the bumper
8:07
Speaker 1: and wheelcases of a car.
8:11
Speaker 2: What the FBI need is proof that he is associated
8:16
Speaker 2: with criminal conspiracies that are carrying out crimes that they
8:22
Speaker 2: have been able to identify.
8:25
Speaker 1: After three months the breakthrough, the FBI manages to get
8:30
Speaker 1: into the club unnoticed and uses its chance. From now on,
8:35
Speaker 1: they won't miss a single word.
8:39
Speaker 5: Because we know this is where John was conducting his
8:41
Speaker 5: more serious business. We put a bug in the club,
8:45
Speaker 5: which was on the first floor. Then we found out
8:47
Speaker 5: he was using the hallway, so that rack door down
8:51
Speaker 5: that hallway, he'd come out from behind the club. We
8:53
Speaker 5: put a bug there. We were getting good conversations, but
8:56
Speaker 5: then we found out the secret hiding spot was in
9:00
Speaker 5: one of the apartment's two stories up, so he put
9:03
Speaker 5: about there.
9:06
Speaker 1: The FBI gathers crucial evidence from the bugs about drug deals, blackmailings,
9:11
Speaker 1: and contract killings. They arrest Gotty.
9:15
Speaker 6: And that was the basis of the trial and that
9:19
Speaker 6: was how the main evidence was collected over several months
9:24
Speaker 6: of the orders he was giving to the crew.
9:29
Speaker 1: Fourteen months later, the trial begins and the investigators now
9:34
Speaker 1: have yet another ace of their sleeve.
9:38
Speaker 2: People decided to go to the police and squeal on him,
9:43
Speaker 2: and in Gotti's case, this is very famous because it's
9:49
Speaker 2: a man named Sammy the Bull Gravano.
9:51
Speaker 6: At that point some of the Bull decided to become
9:55
Speaker 6: a whistle brower witness for the prosecution and was the
9:59
Speaker 6: key witness that confirmed what the police had overheard in
10:04
Speaker 6: his club, and that led to his downfall and his
10:07
Speaker 6: conviction for life.
10:10
Speaker 1: Johnny Gravano long Gotti's closest a lie. Now he is
10:15
Speaker 1: a crucial principal witness.
10:17
Speaker 5: When you walk into a courtroom, it's fifty to fifty.
10:22
Speaker 5: It's like theater. Both sides put on their little movie
10:27
Speaker 5: and it's kind of a scary feeling that you still
10:29
Speaker 5: have to recognize. As good as it is, you could
10:32
Speaker 5: still lose.
10:35
Speaker 1: But this time the teflon don was played out. The
10:39
Speaker 1: witness confirms nineteen murders ordered by Gotty, the sentence life
10:45
Speaker 1: in prison. The gang was finally under lock and key.
10:52
Speaker 1: For FBI agent George Gabriel, Gottie's conviction is the greatest
10:57
Speaker 1: success of his career so far.
11:03
Speaker 5: It was very warning at the end to put John
11:05
Speaker 5: Guardi away, to win a trial and put him away
11:08
Speaker 5: for life after that. While it was the case of
11:11
Speaker 5: a lifetime, and I knew that there wasn't going to
11:14
Speaker 5: be anybody to chase like John Guardi again, it was
11:17
Speaker 5: going to be boring, and it was gott.
11:19
Speaker 1: He dies in prison of throat cancer at the age
11:22
Speaker 1: of sixty one, and thus is finally history. But there
11:30
Speaker 1: are more of these gang bosses.
11:34
Speaker 2: He and his group massacred over a thousand people in
11:38
Speaker 2: the space of two or three years.
11:41
Speaker 1: Drugs, blackmail, murder. Gang bosses are addicted to parlor. Their
11:47
Speaker 1: deeds are among the worst crimes of all time. Canada
11:53
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties, a war between biker gangs is
11:57
Speaker 1: raging in Montreal. It's over money and not got it
12:00
Speaker 1: a multimillion dollar business. Hell's Angel's boss Maurice Bouchet uses
12:06
Speaker 1: every means available.
12:08
Speaker 6: We wanted these gang, the Hell's Angels, to become the
12:11
Speaker 6: only people involved in selling drugs in the area.
12:16
Speaker 1: Investigator Andre Bouchard hunts down the gang boss.
12:20
Speaker 7: Mombousche was a ruthless killer.
12:23
Speaker 1: The protracted battle begins that will cost many lives. Maurice
12:30
Speaker 1: Bouchet's rise begins in nineteen eighty seven, but this time
12:35
Speaker 1: the Hell's Angels control seventy five percent of the drug trade.
12:39
Speaker 1: A war looms between two motorcycle clubs.
12:42
Speaker 3: In Montreal, Carbonds Jail fights a drug trade worth millions.
12:48
Speaker 3: They're all part of a vicious war being fought in
12:50
Speaker 3: and around Montreal between biker gangs, the war of.
12:55
Speaker 1: The dominance in the cocaine and heroine business. Hell's Angels
12:59
Speaker 1: boss Boushe also wants to bring the Red Light District
13:02
Speaker 1: under his control. To do so, he must eliminate the
13:06
Speaker 1: competition the rock Machine biker gang. Andre Bouchard's job stopped
13:15
Speaker 1: the murderous rocker War of Quebec and protect the populace
13:20
Speaker 1: from Maurice's mom Bouchet.
13:24
Speaker 7: He was a greedy person.
13:26
Speaker 8: He had no morals at all, and instead of accepting
13:30
Speaker 8: to share, you wanted everything.
13:32
Speaker 3: Mom.
13:32
Speaker 7: Bouche at the end was making six million dollars.
13:35
Speaker 8: A month, but he didn't want to share. He was
13:37
Speaker 8: too greedy, and that's what started the war.
13:42
Speaker 1: Violence in Montreal escalates. In nineteen ninety four, Bouchet issues
13:48
Speaker 1: an ultimatum for the drug dealers they either work for
13:51
Speaker 1: him or for nobody else. The result biker gang's duel
13:57
Speaker 1: in the streets. Time and again, bombing terrify the city.
14:01
Speaker 1: Dozens of people in and around Montreal died during the
14:05
Speaker 1: Biker War. People fear for their lives.
14:10
Speaker 6: The moment you want to become the only one in
14:12
Speaker 6: that market, I think you go one step further, one
14:15
Speaker 6: step above or dinary criminal, and you become what I
14:18
Speaker 6: would call him mafia in mafia both.
14:21
Speaker 1: Then Maurice Bouchet crosses the line. The Hell's Angels set
14:26
Speaker 1: off another car bomb in front of a rock machine hangout.
14:32
Speaker 1: One of the victims is an eleven year old child,
14:35
Speaker 1: Danielle de Rochet.
14:42
Speaker 8: They saw the children playing across the street. The guy
14:45
Speaker 8: who pushed the bomb he knew that that jeep would
14:48
Speaker 8: blow up and that the kids were in danger, and
14:51
Speaker 8: yet he still pushed the bomb. So to me that
14:53
Speaker 8: that's a heartless act and an act of a coward
14:57
Speaker 8: even and it showed to us that that as angels
15:01
Speaker 8: didn't get and it was time to take them up.
15:05
Speaker 2: The killing of an eleven year old boy, a middle
15:07
Speaker 2: class kid, brings public opprobrium with it and pressure on
15:12
Speaker 2: the police and politicians to do something about it, and
15:16
Speaker 2: that killing was the turning point.
15:20
Speaker 1: Immediately Montreal forms a one hundred man special task force,
15:26
Speaker 1: the so called Wolverines. The Bouchet strikes back. He kills
15:32
Speaker 1: Dim Lavigne, the correctional officer, a randomly chosen victim.
15:41
Speaker 6: They are not psychopaths trist in my opinion. They are
15:44
Speaker 6: certainly not sensitive to the damage they inflict on the people,
15:49
Speaker 6: but what they do is part of their strategy to
15:51
Speaker 6: pursue their empire building.
15:55
Speaker 1: Bouchet's goal with the murders is to frighten the police
15:59
Speaker 1: and under mind their authority, but there is no solid
16:04
Speaker 1: evidence that the gang boss is behind it.
16:07
Speaker 8: Nobody knew at that time what had happened, because she
16:11
Speaker 8: was a mother of two children, not a guard who
16:15
Speaker 8: was known to be an aggressive guard at all, there
16:19
Speaker 8: was no reason for it, you know, and everybody was
16:22
Speaker 8: looking for a reason, and the investigated and interrogated, everybody checked,
16:26
Speaker 8: but no reason was found at the beginning.
16:30
Speaker 1: A short time later, Hell's Angels boss Bouchet has another
16:34
Speaker 1: correctional officer killed, the assassin shoot Pierre Rondeau, a prison
16:40
Speaker 1: bus driver. Meanwhile, investigators are certain the boss of the
16:51
Speaker 1: Hell's Angels is behind everything. They decide to take action.
17:01
Speaker 7: Now it was a confirmation. Now they came at us.
17:04
Speaker 8: Now it was sure that they were trying to get
17:07
Speaker 8: the system, the justice system. They were trying to frighten them.
17:11
Speaker 8: We were one hundred percent sure it was their Health Angels.
17:13
Speaker 8: That for us was a turning point because that gave
17:16
Speaker 8: us the goal to hit and hit and hit and hit,
17:19
Speaker 8: and we had to bring the war to them.
17:22
Speaker 7: And as of September, we brought the war to.
17:24
Speaker 1: Them, whether Rock Machine or Hell's Angels. The task force
17:29
Speaker 1: seizes weapons and arrests more and more gang members. Bouchet
17:34
Speaker 1: can no longer protect his people.
17:36
Speaker 2: People with whom he had worked had decided that they
17:41
Speaker 2: had been betrayed and went to the police.
17:45
Speaker 1: One of them, Stefan Gangnu, one of Bouchet's closest confidence.
17:51
Speaker 1: He confirms that the gang bosses behind the murders. Investigators
17:57
Speaker 1: strike immediately and arrest the leader of the Hell's Angels,
18:05
Speaker 1: Maurice Bouchet is indicted from multiple homicide. The public and
18:11
Speaker 1: investigators tensely await his conviction, but then something incredible happens.
18:20
Speaker 1: The court acquits Bouchet for lack of evidence. It's a
18:25
Speaker 1: slap in the face for Bouchard.
18:32
Speaker 7: To see him walk out.
18:35
Speaker 8: You can't understand how you feel inside, and you feel empty.
18:39
Speaker 8: One of the worst days of our life because all
18:43
Speaker 8: the work that we put in, hundreds and thousands of
18:46
Speaker 8: hours of work to get him, we had him buff
18:50
Speaker 8: and it was gone.
18:51
Speaker 1: The acquittal is an unparalleled defeat for police. Bouche, the
18:56
Speaker 1: boss of the Hell's Angels, is in fact released.
19:00
Speaker 2: It's never No one's really understood why he was let
19:03
Speaker 2: off in that original child. It could be that he
19:05
Speaker 2: was intimidating witnesses or intimidating the jury. One doesn'tny.
19:11
Speaker 1: But investigators and the prosecutor appeal the case, and this
19:16
Speaker 1: time the court appears to be neither biased nor bribed.
19:20
Speaker 1: Bouchet is guilty. The sentence life in prison.
19:26
Speaker 8: My police officer was at the scene when he arrested him,
19:29
Speaker 8: said to mum, look outside.
19:31
Speaker 7: The last time you're going to see the sun.
19:33
Speaker 1: Bouchet, a man who makes millions a year with blackmail
19:38
Speaker 1: and drugs behind bars. The biker war is over, leaving
19:44
Speaker 1: behind an estimated death tolle of over one hundred and.
19:47
Speaker 7: Sixty mom Bousche was a rootless killer.
19:55
Speaker 8: He killed children, he killed a woman. He preyed on
19:59
Speaker 8: the most vulnerable will people here in Montreal. He is
20:02
Speaker 8: presently in jail. I think he'll stay in jail. I
20:06
Speaker 8: think he'll die in jail, and that's what he deserves.
20:12
Speaker 1: Bouche is still in a high security prison. The fate
20:16
Speaker 1: of this one's Mighty Hell's Angels boss seems forever sealed,
20:21
Speaker 1: although rumor has it up to this day that Bouche
20:25
Speaker 1: and his former gang members are still right in control.
20:33
Speaker 1: Gang bosses, they commit terror attacks and kill the innocent, bribery, drugs,
20:42
Speaker 1: contract killings. Their greed knows no limits.
20:46
Speaker 2: He believed that he was somehow semi divine.
20:55
Speaker 1: Sicily home to the legendary mafia clan calls on Nostra
21:03
Speaker 1: for a good twenty years. One underworld boss rules the
21:07
Speaker 1: Italian island. Salvatore Rina a ruthless killer. Everyone who gets
21:15
Speaker 1: in his way must reckon with death.
21:23
Speaker 2: He and his group massacred over a thousand people in
21:27
Speaker 2: the space of two or three years.
21:30
Speaker 4: The gang was wages of war against all of Italy.
21:35
Speaker 4: The mafia was always brutal and shrewd. Barina makes it
21:39
Speaker 4: a terrorist organization.
21:41
Speaker 7: In the ter.
21:43
Speaker 1: How can investigators stop the brutal mafioso. Palermo, Sicily's capital.
21:54
Speaker 1: Since the early nineteenth century, the idyllic Mediterranean island has
21:58
Speaker 1: been home to the most notorious mafia clan of all.
22:02
Speaker 1: Its name calls a nostra in English our thing. Its
22:11
Speaker 1: most brutal leader ever, Salvatore Arena. The press also calls
22:16
Speaker 1: him La Belva, the Beast. Pierre Giorgio Morroscinidio votes just
22:22
Speaker 1: about his entire career to fighting the gang boss. He's
22:26
Speaker 1: one of Italy's most famous mafia hunters.
22:31
Speaker 4: Without the mafia, I probably wouldn't be here today. It's
22:36
Speaker 4: a criminal organization. It always stands opposed to justice and
22:42
Speaker 4: is terribly brutal. I simply can't accept that finding the
22:49
Speaker 4: mafia was always unbelievably important for our country. It is
22:55
Speaker 4: a defense of democracy.
23:00
Speaker 1: Between Morosini, the mafia hunter and Rena, the gang boss
23:04
Speaker 1: has been tightly interwoven for decades. It all begins in
23:12
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty. Salvatore Rena is born, the son of humble
23:17
Speaker 1: farmers in the Sicilian town of Corleoni. At the age
23:22
Speaker 1: of twelve, he unexpectedly loses his father to a World
23:26
Speaker 1: War two bomb. Rena must feed his family and finds
23:32
Speaker 1: a new role model, the mafia boss Stefano Liggio Bontati.
23:37
Speaker 2: The organization and the Kapo. The big boss becomes a substitute,
23:43
Speaker 2: a substitute father and mentor for the young man, and
23:48
Speaker 2: so Rena would do anything for Ligio and very quickly
23:53
Speaker 2: made his way up the hierarchy.
23:55
Speaker 1: To become a member of the mafia, Rena must first
23:58
Speaker 1: earn the organizations trust. The rules are strict. Rena must
24:03
Speaker 1: commit a murder.
24:07
Speaker 6: Such an important job such as murdering somebody is a
24:10
Speaker 6: way to give your credentials to the family that you
24:14
Speaker 6: can be trusted in the future.
24:17
Speaker 1: At the age of nineteen, Rena kills for the first
24:20
Speaker 1: time in the name of the mafia and goes to
24:24
Speaker 1: prison for it. With this killing, the future gangos Was
24:30
Speaker 1: embarks on a path that will soon cost hundreds of
24:33
Speaker 1: people in Sicily their lives.
24:41
Speaker 2: Certainly, going to prison is seen as part of the
24:46
Speaker 2: part of the game. You learn a great deal in prison,
24:49
Speaker 2: you gain respect in the outside world when you're in prison.
24:54
Speaker 1: Rena is released after seven years and continues killing for
24:58
Speaker 1: the mafia, his goal to get all the way to
25:03
Speaker 1: the top. In Sicily's capital, Palermo, he kills about fifty
25:08
Speaker 1: people who are standing in the way of Causa nostra
25:13
Speaker 1: and of his own rise to power. Rena pursues a
25:19
Speaker 1: bloody power struggle and comes to the attention of investigators
25:23
Speaker 1: for the first time.
25:28
Speaker 2: Rina came at them unexpectedly because the authorities were actually
25:33
Speaker 2: not policing Sicily.
25:37
Speaker 1: But at first everyone thinks the gang boss is small fry.
25:42
Speaker 7: That changes.
25:43
Speaker 1: In December of sixty nine, Rena gathers allies and storms
25:48
Speaker 1: the house of a rival mafia boss. A war between
25:51
Speaker 1: the clans ensues Westo Michido.
25:58
Speaker 4: Not all the mafia families accepted this hit, many opposed it.
26:07
Speaker 4: It was a full scale assault. With Wiena in the lead,
26:11
Speaker 4: a leader.
26:13
Speaker 1: The gang boss stages a massacre. The investigation shows the
26:19
Speaker 1: hit squad fires one hundred and eight shots at its foes.
26:25
Speaker 4: The upshot was that Legio, the most important rival boss,
26:29
Speaker 4: handed over power to Total Rena. This was the crucial moment.
26:34
Speaker 7: In restablic at the time.
26:37
Speaker 1: Pierre Giorgio Morosini is part of the anti mafia unit
26:42
Speaker 1: and wants to take down the gang boss, but Rena
26:46
Speaker 1: infiltrates the police, bribes investigators, and expands his extortion and
26:53
Speaker 1: drug business.
26:55
Speaker 6: The Sicilian math is a federation of kind families. He
26:59
Speaker 6: wants to become the boss of all of them. That
27:02
Speaker 6: was his goal.
27:03
Speaker 1: Ultimately, for nearly twenty years, Rena wages a war against
27:09
Speaker 1: other mafia clans and the Italian state. At first, Morossini's
27:21
Speaker 1: hands are tied. He doesn't know who we can trust
27:24
Speaker 1: and who we can't, and not even one photograph of
27:30
Speaker 1: Rena exists. No one knows who he is a nightmare
27:35
Speaker 1: for investigators.
27:43
Speaker 4: It was very hard to find Rena in Palermo. He
27:48
Speaker 4: was invisible and had a large network helping him, including
27:55
Speaker 4: the police.
27:55
Speaker 9: Deviati de liston.
27:59
Speaker 1: Gang whats Rena uses. This impotence becomes more brutal than before.
28:09
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty three, he eliminates the leaders of the
28:13
Speaker 1: last big rival mafia family and definitively takes power in Palermo.
28:21
Speaker 2: Violence didn't really affect him emotionally. He and his group
28:28
Speaker 2: massacred over one thousand people in the space of two
28:31
Speaker 2: or three years, and.
28:34
Speaker 1: The few investigators Rena can't bribe try to find out
28:38
Speaker 1: where the gangbos is hiding. But even the people protect
28:44
Speaker 1: and respect Rena.
28:46
Speaker 6: I mean, the Mafiusa is not just an ordinary criminal.
28:48
Speaker 6: It's not just a robber or a thief or a rapist.
28:52
Speaker 6: He's somebody who has a standing in the community, and
28:55
Speaker 6: the community recognizes authority, and so that's why it's much
28:59
Speaker 6: harder to catch these mafia bosses.
29:03
Speaker 1: Morosini's combined efforts to track down the boss of the
29:08
Speaker 1: bosses go up in smoke.
29:12
Speaker 4: The situation was very hard for us. Rena was invisible,
29:19
Speaker 4: but it was still committing brutal killings. Term Achieving our
29:24
Speaker 4: goal required a lot of patients.
29:31
Speaker 1: Investigators develop a plan largely unnoticed by the mafia. They
29:37
Speaker 1: managed to expand the anti mafia unit with people they trust.
29:43
Speaker 1: They monitor bank accounts, spy on Vena's confidence, and try
29:49
Speaker 1: to win over the people.
29:52
Speaker 6: It has taken a long time for the police to
29:54
Speaker 6: be trusted so that people could inform on mafia bosses.
30:00
Speaker 1: And then Rena's cruelty itself provokes the crucial turning point.
30:09
Speaker 4: For years we found the mafia. We remain very patient,
30:15
Speaker 4: surveiled all Rena's contacts, all the people in his circle,
30:20
Speaker 4: and the biggest contribution came from the Mafiosi themselves, when
30:25
Speaker 4: the mafia bosses working for Rena decided to talk to.
30:29
Speaker 1: Us after ten years of extremely brutal violence. Even the
30:36
Speaker 1: mafiosi themselves fear the boss of the bosses and spill
30:41
Speaker 1: the beams. Their offer mild prison sentences in return for information.
30:48
Speaker 1: The result is the so called Maxi trials.
30:53
Speaker 6: Imagine if you have five hundred defendants, Imagine each of
30:56
Speaker 6: them has got a team of lawyers. Imagine how much
31:00
Speaker 6: many thousands of people have to be accommodated.
31:04
Speaker 1: The mafia insiders give everything away about the structure of
31:08
Speaker 1: Rena's organization, his hit men, and much more.
31:13
Speaker 2: This was a serious blow to him in terms of
31:16
Speaker 2: human resources for his organization.
31:20
Speaker 1: Each mafiosi who comes clean brings Investigator Morosini and his
31:25
Speaker 1: team closer to the boss of the bosses. The mafia
31:30
Speaker 1: kingpin's reaction is surprising.
31:35
Speaker 4: After so many killings, so much bloodshed. There is actually
31:40
Speaker 4: a respite, but it was a calm based on fear.
31:46
Speaker 4: Rena still controlled everything, but he was out of sight,
31:51
Speaker 4: untraceable in hiding. This was possible because hundreds of people
31:58
Speaker 4: were still protecting him, people who owed him something CAUs.
32:05
Speaker 1: Rena secretly plans his revenge. The brutal assassination follows. The
32:14
Speaker 1: gang boss sets off a carbon its goal to kill
32:17
Speaker 1: Paolo Borsellino, high ranking judge and sworn enemy of the mafia. Borsolino,
32:24
Speaker 1: when five others died.
32:31
Speaker 6: His decision was to kill the prosecutors and the police
32:35
Speaker 6: officers that were investigating the mafia, and that was just
32:38
Speaker 6: a step too much.
32:41
Speaker 1: But Rena goes even further. A little later, he kills
32:45
Speaker 1: a magistrate, Italy's number one mafia hunter.
32:52
Speaker 4: For Italians. The Capacci massacre is like the murder of
32:56
Speaker 4: the Kennedy brothers. It was terrible Bobby and John Kennedy,
33:01
Speaker 4: or even like Martin Luther King Martin Kin.
33:07
Speaker 1: In May of ninety two, an assassin plants four hundred
33:12
Speaker 1: kilograms of TNT under the highway. The target magistrate Giovanni Falconi.
33:21
Speaker 1: The explosion kills him, his wife and three bodyguards. Investigator
33:28
Speaker 1: Morosini still mourns the loss of the mafia hunter, one
33:33
Speaker 1: of his best friends.
33:37
Speaker 4: I remember it very well. These images are burnt into
33:41
Speaker 4: the memory of thousands of Italians. There was a huge.
33:47
Speaker 1: Hole, the earth opened up.
33:51
Speaker 4: It was dramatic, the whole highway destroyed. It looked like
33:57
Speaker 4: pictures after a bombing.
34:02
Speaker 1: The assassination rocks all of Italy. The public's mood shifts.
34:09
Speaker 1: They fear the terrorism ripping their home. No one forgives
34:14
Speaker 1: Rena for the murder of Falcone and his wife.
34:24
Speaker 2: They were finally all united in their opposition to Rena
34:27
Speaker 2: and the mafia organization which was destroying their lives, and
34:32
Speaker 2: this was enough to destroy Rena and all of his people.
34:36
Speaker 2: It was game over for the Sicilian mafia for the
34:39
Speaker 2: foreseeable future.
34:40
Speaker 6: And eventually somebody within his own team informed the authorities
34:46
Speaker 6: of where he was.
34:49
Speaker 1: What the anonymous witness reveals sounds unbelievable to investigate us.
34:56
Speaker 1: After a good twenty years of bloodshed, they realize Rena
35:01
Speaker 1: has lived the whole time in Palermo, protected by Mafiusi
35:06
Speaker 1: and corrupt police. January of ninety three, investigators arrest Italy's
35:14
Speaker 1: most brutal mafia boss in his hideout. The trial lasts
35:19
Speaker 1: a whole three years. The verdict thirteen life sentences.
35:27
Speaker 4: The fight is over. Rena's arrest was a big win
35:34
Speaker 4: for the state. It avenged the sacrifice of so many Italians,
35:39
Speaker 4: and where Salvatorina used to live is now a symbol
35:43
Speaker 4: of Italy, a police station. It is the proof that
35:51
Speaker 4: Italy stood up to Cosa Nostra, and of course we
35:57
Speaker 4: will continue to fight.
36:01
Speaker 1: Salvatore Arena has been behind bars for about thirty years,
36:06
Speaker 1: waiting to die. The drug lord of Columbia Pablo Escobar
36:17
Speaker 1: for power and wealth. He even risks peace in his
36:20
Speaker 1: own country.
36:24
Speaker 2: Or sue.
36:25
Speaker 10: His crimes made him the mightiest boss of all.
36:31
Speaker 1: For decades. He's always a step ahead of his hunters.
36:36
Speaker 9: We had to wait for Escobar to make his first
36:39
Speaker 9: ever mistake.
36:42
Speaker 1: Burnt out drug huts in the jungle, soldiers in the streets.
36:46
Speaker 1: A war is raging in Colombia. How does Escobar manage
36:53
Speaker 1: to bring an entire country to its knees? Car theft, kidnapping,
37:02
Speaker 1: even in his youth, Escobar had one goal, in particular,
37:06
Speaker 1: to make as much money as possible.
37:09
Speaker 6: It's only with drugs that the amount of profit you
37:12
Speaker 6: make is just kyrocketing.
37:15
Speaker 1: At the age of only twenty six, Escobar begins smuggling
37:19
Speaker 1: hard drugs on a large scale. His drug farms quickly
37:23
Speaker 1: produce an unbelievable three hundred tons of cocaine per year.
37:31
Speaker 1: Columbia is marked by corruption and poverty. In this period,
37:35
Speaker 1: Escubar does what all gang bosses do. He bribes everyone
37:40
Speaker 1: who can help him or who could become dangerous. General
37:45
Speaker 1: Octavior Vaga Silva's task to hunt Escobar and put him
37:50
Speaker 1: and his men under lock and key.
37:54
Speaker 9: In nineteen eighty nine, we started investigating the many in cartel,
38:00
Speaker 9: so the state court qut me personally in charge of
38:04
Speaker 9: and made me responsible for investigating the cartel's criminal activities.
38:09
Speaker 1: That response, Vargas' approach is to catch the little fish first,
38:19
Speaker 1: above all dealers and hitman from whom he hopes to
38:23
Speaker 1: get more information. Investigators arrest cocaine dealers, conduct raids, sees
38:33
Speaker 1: millions without making the crucial breakthrough the problem. Escobar uses
38:44
Speaker 1: his drug money in part to build hospitals social housing
38:49
Speaker 1: and schools. He's considered a kind of good Samaritan styles
38:54
Speaker 1: himself a pop star of the people.
39:00
Speaker 6: Is that reputation to be protected by the community.
39:03
Speaker 2: As soon as anything suspicious from the outside was going
39:07
Speaker 2: on in medayin Bablo would know about it straight away.
39:13
Speaker 1: The homeless, poor families, even children, work for Escobar. They
39:18
Speaker 1: spy everywhere and warm the gang boss. Vagas and Escobar
39:23
Speaker 1: are often only a few hundred meters apart. But every
39:27
Speaker 1: time the drug lord manages to give the Bloodhounds the slip,
39:33
Speaker 1: then Escobar has had enough of playing cat and mouse
39:37
Speaker 1: and sets an example. The gorilla force occupies Columbia's Palace
39:42
Speaker 1: of Justice.
39:46
Speaker 9: The assault was fierce and cruel, an assault on democracy.
39:53
Speaker 10: It's still difficult to talk about.
39:58
Speaker 7: It hurts.
40:01
Speaker 1: The intruders take three hundred hostages, over one hundred of
40:05
Speaker 1: them die. The rebels also destroy all the documents.
40:11
Speaker 2: He loved the power, he loved the money, he loved
40:14
Speaker 2: everything that went that went with it, the control over people.
40:18
Speaker 2: I'm sure that he believed that he was somehow semi divine.
40:23
Speaker 1: And this is only the beginning. Escobar's next step is
40:27
Speaker 1: to have himself elected to parliament.
40:36
Speaker 9: Escobar's motive for going into politics was primarily immunity, and thus.
40:42
Speaker 10: To remain unpunished for his crimes.
40:47
Speaker 1: Vargas does not seize his investigations. With the support of
40:52
Speaker 1: Columbia's Justice minister, he manages to destroy numerous drug labs.
41:02
Speaker 1: But Escobar doesn't dither for long. He simply has a
41:06
Speaker 1: justice minister killed. Columbia sinks into chaos.
41:12
Speaker 2: This is not just a police investigation, this is a war.
41:18
Speaker 1: Next, Escobar's assassins kill presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan, an
41:25
Speaker 1: avowed enemy of the drug mafia. The government responds by
41:31
Speaker 1: setting a bounty two million US dollars for Escobar's capture,
41:36
Speaker 1: and investigators change their tactics.
41:43
Speaker 9: Now all it was was an intelligence operation Deihesia.
41:50
Speaker 1: Vargas needs insider information, and indeed an informant reveals where
41:56
Speaker 1: Escobar is hiding, but the gang.
41:58
Speaker 10: Was is clever.
42:00
Speaker 1: There are also numerous children in the house. The police
42:03
Speaker 1: can't risk their death. Mission aborted, Escobar escapes and continues
42:12
Speaker 1: with his war of terror. First, he blows up the
42:16
Speaker 1: Colombian intelligence headquarters in Miday. Then he blows up the
42:21
Speaker 1: fully booked AVIANCA flight two hundred and three, all those
42:25
Speaker 1: on board die.
42:27
Speaker 6: Escobar overstepped the boundaries and that's when the state had
42:30
Speaker 6: to react and it was a full frontal fight.
42:35
Speaker 1: Once again, Investigator Vargas must change his tactics. He starts
42:40
Speaker 1: the elite unit Search Block. It is Colombia's last hope
42:47
Speaker 1: in the fight against Escobar.
42:51
Speaker 9: Okay, that search block's goal was first to discover who
42:55
Speaker 9: belonged to the cartel, secondly to disarm them, and.
43:05
Speaker 10: Thirdly to arrest their leaders and all others.
43:10
Speaker 1: This actually seems to scare the powerful drug lord. He
43:15
Speaker 1: fears getting caught and extradited to the US. Escobar turns
43:21
Speaker 1: himself in that the gangster boss has demands. He wants
43:27
Speaker 1: a private prison built according to his own design.
43:32
Speaker 2: What he saw in that was a recognition from the
43:35
Speaker 2: Colombian state that he is an equal actor and player.
43:41
Speaker 1: In the mountains of the city of Medein, the gang
43:45
Speaker 1: boss builds his own prison, the so called Cathedral. The
43:54
Speaker 1: prison is like a palace, luxury kitchen, roulette table, and
44:00
Speaker 1: the prison bed that Escobar from time to time shares
44:04
Speaker 1: with prostitutes, all included the Vargas. It is a bitter setback.
44:12
Speaker 1: The gang boss is playing games with the entire country.
44:17
Speaker 10: It was never a prison.
44:20
Speaker 9: It is a disgrace to the murdered and to the
44:23
Speaker 9: victims that Pablo Escobar has on his consciences.
44:31
Speaker 1: Escobar makes exactly the same drug deals as before, just
44:35
Speaker 1: using his own prison as a base. The Colombian government
44:39
Speaker 1: permits it.
44:42
Speaker 7: In a sense.
44:42
Speaker 6: The government is not as strong as we might think
44:46
Speaker 6: of other governments, so that it's better to try to
44:49
Speaker 6: find a way to accommodate, or to discuss, or to
44:53
Speaker 6: reduce some of his activities, as opposed to try to
44:57
Speaker 6: make him pay for the crimes he committeed.
45:01
Speaker 1: A good year later, things change. Vargas convinces the government
45:08
Speaker 1: to put Escobar in a real prison. The gang boss
45:13
Speaker 1: flees its downfall. Escobar has a satellite telephone with him.
45:20
Speaker 1: The police know it and hope to locate him.
45:27
Speaker 10: We knew we were close.
45:31
Speaker 1: The drug lord moves around aimlessly, trying to hide his tracks,
45:41
Speaker 1: but the noose around Escobar's neck continues to tighten.
45:50
Speaker 9: We had to wait for Escobar to make his first
45:53
Speaker 9: ever mistake, and.
45:57
Speaker 1: Then it happens. Escobar uses the telephone repeatedly. He calls
46:02
Speaker 1: his family again and again, he wants to know if
46:05
Speaker 1: his wife and children are okay. Investigators locate the signal
46:10
Speaker 1: and find the house where the drug lord is hiding.
46:15
Speaker 10: Pablo Escobar was here.
46:19
Speaker 1: The Special Unit storms the house, a wild firefight breaks out.
46:24
Speaker 1: Escobar tries to escape from the roof.
46:33
Speaker 2: They had very little scruples about whether they got him
46:37
Speaker 2: alive or dead, and they were as happy to see
46:40
Speaker 2: him dead as they were alive.
46:41
Speaker 6: Famously said it's better to die in Columbia than in
46:44
Speaker 6: an American jail, and eventually that's what happened to him.
46:49
Speaker 1: Vargas's Special Unit shoots Escobar during his attempted escape, his
46:54
Speaker 1: body riddled with bullets. Escobar death means the end of
47:01
Speaker 1: General Vargas's grueling hunt for the perhaps mightiest drug boss
47:06
Speaker 1: in history.
47:14
Speaker 9: It was all finally over on December two, nineteen ninety three.
47:20
Speaker 1: Who are Hockey investigators and all of Columbia can finally
47:26
Speaker 1: breathe a sigh of relief. The long lasting drug war
47:32
Speaker 1: that the gang boss waged against his own country is over.
47:41
Speaker 1: Gang bosses all crave power, money, and control. These criminals
47:48
Speaker 1: will stop at absolutely nothing until investigators catch them or
47:54
Speaker 1: they suffer the same fate as their victims h