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203: Your Podcast on Drug Crimes
31 Plays17 hours ago
Welcome back, this week we dive into some drug-related crimes. Kelsey shares the scary tale of the Paraquat Vending Machine Murders in Japan- we are sad to say we'd never heard of it. A motive is nothing but senseless murder of strangers, so it's especially hard to fathom. So random.
Then we move to the Canadian Maritimes where the story might be called Cocaine Plane, but it doesn't really get off the ground? It's been called the biggest drug bust in the country's history, but what really went down is more unexpected than we ever guessed. Tune in but party on responsibly with Drug Crimes. Oh did we mention Mounties and Mustaches, Canada's Country-wide fake Girlfriends and boyfriends alibis, and some facts about Pablo Escobar and his thwarted-New Brunswick jailbreak. Keep it Cocaine-free and cryptic!
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Transcript
Introduction to Castles and Cryptids Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
The End
00:00:35
Speaker
Darkcast Network. Indie pods with a dark side.
00:01:00
Speaker
Welcome back to Castles and Cryptids, where the castles are haunted and the cryptids are cryptic as fuck. And I'm Alanna. I'm Kelsey. And I think this is episode 203! Yeah.
00:01:13
Speaker
yeah. yeah Gordo just looked at me weird when I said my name. he was like, what? Who are you talking to? Are you?
00:01:24
Speaker
Who are you talking to?
Stephen King: Hits, Misses, and Adaptations
00:01:28
Speaker
Apparently there's one of the old, one of those older Stephen King ones that get made into a movie where they're like aliens and cats or something. And it's just one of those, you're not expecting it to go that way. I don't know. I heard about it on the, how did this get made podcast? I think haven't watched that one myself, but we did watch the long walk.
00:01:53
Speaker
Oh no. Yeah. No, I think that one's called like the Tommy knockers or something. I could be wrong. it's
00:02:01
Speaker
He's got his hits and misses, that's for sure, Mr. King. Yeah, i don't think I've ever particularly loved any of the books of his that I've read. so
00:02:15
Speaker
It's interesting. it's like it's That's what Pat put on the series Mr. Mercedes after um he has a book the series.
00:02:26
Speaker
that starts it's a trilogy that starts with mr mercedes and i like that one and ah sometimes it's a real good mix of like that one i find it's like very true crimey realistic horror because ah the guy plows a mercedes into a crowd of people waiting outside of a job fair it's very like yeah that could fucking happen and that really sucks but then like there's sprinkles of supernatural stuff and it's i like that kind of shit But yeah, it's Some of his are weaker in story and things like that. Yeah. I just find some of them I couldn't get into at all. And then some of the other ones I'd like 90% of the book. And then I would hate the ending.
00:03:16
Speaker
It's like... Well, as his character famously says in It, like, endings are hard. The the writer guy says that. oh Did you watch The Long Walk, though?
00:03:32
Speaker
ah know I don't know if I'm going to. I don't know. They just changed, like, quite a bit from the book. So...
00:03:42
Speaker
I would say it was well done. Yeah. And... ah can i Can I also say that and say that I kind of hated it? Because it's like, it's just rough. Just the material is rough. And you're like, don't want to see these people get like shot.
00:04:00
Speaker
It's like so much bleaker. i don't know. Hunger Games, that stuff's pretty bleak. But then they like dress it up a bit with the little pomp and circumstance and whatnot. And it seems like Nazi concentration camp type And they're like, oh yeah, we're doing it for the good of the people. And you're like, in what way? This motivates people?
00:04:20
Speaker
Like, they just have to... Just because these people can walk in in a weird plodding marathon where everybody dies at the end but one person? What the hell?
00:04:32
Speaker
Yeah. um I think the long walk was like one of maybe only a handful of Stephen King books that I actually finished, but... ah Yeah, like they changed the ending. They changed to who lived and in the movie versus the book. They changed the fact that like the speed was faster in the book. Like they had to be walking.
00:05:01
Speaker
It was basically like speed walking. Like you were almost about to break out into like a run almost walking. Like you had to be walking extremely fast. Yeah. And then there was sure there was definitely a tension that like you could not yeah slow down or yeah. Or like you were fucked and then people like, and they can't stop to like,
00:05:25
Speaker
move out of cramp or if someone's gonna poop you're like oh oh my god there was just like a lot of descriptions of people walking and shitting themselves and their feet turning into mush and like oozing out of their shoes and blisters and oh yeah all of that yeah that was a lot of the book but then they also had the added thing that they cut out of the movie gory was the fact that like all of their friends and family and the general public was like lining the road the whole way especially during the day and was like watching them and like cheering them on yeah um and they cut all of that out of the movie um they're basically just like by themselves with the like armed guard keeping them on the road But in the book, like... For most part, yeah.
00:06:14
Speaker
Yeah, their friends and family are watching and cheering them on and witnessing. But, like, then, are the friends and family, like, moving after them? Because they walk for so long. It's not like marathon where you can just, like, wait at the end. Do you know what i mean? Yeah, there was, like, certain points that, like, because they were walking through different towns, there was, like, the different towns of people that would be there, and they would kind of know about what time they would be passing through certain areas.
00:06:41
Speaker
So they would kind of meet up with them. Yeah, they would kind of meet up with them from what I remember at like certain kind of points. But yeah, they didn't really do any of that in the movie, my understanding.
Upcoming Horror Movies Discussion
00:06:55
Speaker
So I was like, oh, my it was good, though.
00:07:02
Speaker
watch it on day when you're just like great the world is coming to an end this is what we're going to I'm fine with this don't watch it on a bad day in your menstrual cycle where you're liable to weep over everything because oh my god it's just I was like I knew this was gonna be bad from what Kelsey told me i knew it was but then there's good actors and Judy Greer is the mom the main guy oh yeah it was anyway yeah yeah there's definitely like there's one coming out that I keep hearing about that I want to see the one called Keeper so like it's still been horror movies still been having a pretty good year don't know which is nice yeah that's that um um is it like Osgood Perkins or whatever his name is
00:08:00
Speaker
Oh, yes. There's, yes. Somebody Perkins was responsible for some of it. And the Tatiana Maslany girls in it that was in Orphan Black, I think.
00:08:13
Speaker
She's supposed a really good Canadian actress. Yeah, that's pretty cool. it keeps coming up on my Reddit feed.
True Crime: Paraquat Vending Machine Murders
00:08:23
Speaker
don't know. just keep getting ads for it, but it does. So I haven't watched any ads with any sound but it does look good from the trailer where it's like, this person says it's terrifying. Like Josh Whedon or I don't know other people.
00:08:38
Speaker
Who's the guy? Was that the guy? doesn't matter. Um, but yeah, and we can watch that too. Um,
00:08:49
Speaker
still love it going out to a movie it's one of the only times a enjoy going out nowadays right yeah yeah
00:09:02
Speaker
um but wherever you guys are hopefully we're gonna make your day a little more enjoyable with some ah stories we're back and um we were little late Kelsey was a little bit sick yeah that's always what's new
00:09:23
Speaker
excuse me no as yeah it's just like address it but sometimes I don't even notice when I haven't listened to a podcast in couple weeks and they're like it's like oh wait where's their co-host or like something sometimes I'll have other people step in sometimes and you're like oh okay ah But then it's just like, yeah, yeah, no, we're all good. We're all good. We're all still alive.
00:09:47
Speaker
Everything's fine. Yeah. But we're going to do some more true crimey stories today some some drugs, possibly some smuggling.
00:10:04
Speaker
And it's funny we've never done that before, specifically, i guess. No. ah I ended up going a different route because I couldn't even remember.
00:10:16
Speaker
all I remembered was drug crimes. So went a little bit different. yeah I have like a, like they use drugs to contaminate something like poison people. was like, ooh.
00:10:29
Speaker
Some of those. No, I, yeah, I think that's all we really said was involving some sort of narcotics. Yeah.
00:10:41
Speaker
Narc crimes. No, not really. But yeah, you can go so many different ways. Yeah. Yeah. It's true crime, so it's always going to be a little bit horrific, but we'll see. Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:59
Speaker
I mean, I'm sure there's more too said details you could find out about mine. ah There wasn't a whole lot though. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:11:12
Speaker
Okay, maybe I won't know it then. i'm intrigued. I didn't know it at all. It's called, often referred to as the Paraquat Vending Machine Murders. Para what?
00:11:27
Speaker
Paraquat.
00:11:31
Speaker
That's the, machine um like, drug that was put in the, like, contaminated with. I hadn't heard of this one, but.
00:11:46
Speaker
No, you don't get a lot of actual tampering with products. Like, you know what's happened, and that's why you get safety seals on things. but Yeah, exactly. often talks about the actual cases.
00:11:58
Speaker
We're really shining an awareness on this, and and I thank you for that. Yeah, this one was kind of interesting, like how it came about. I feel like it was multiple things that kind of allowed this to happen, or maybe somebody heard about what was going on and kind of took advantage and was like, oh, if I'm going to do it, like now's the time to do it kind of thing. Just like, yeah. Opportunistic.
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah. ah So this happened from April to November of 1985, when at least 35 people all around Japan in a bunch of different cities and counties became seriously ill. And according to most reports, at least ended up leading to the deaths of at least 10 people as a result of consuming...
00:12:53
Speaker
contaminated drinks from vending machines so oh drinks yeah these were nobody told me drinking could kill me though i wasn't expecting that right i feel i was like oh vending machines ah This is like, yeah obviously it wouldn't be like cans or anything like that. It was like the twist off like plastic bottles. So like the caps.
00:13:24
Speaker
right um Yeah, I guess it'd be hard. It's harder to to breach a can and then make it look. Yeah, I feel like you'd have to put something on the top of it.
00:13:35
Speaker
Like, right yeah that's yeah, that's where you put your mouth. Yeah. yeah But the, so there was quite a number of drinks, I guess, that were targeted because it did happen in a bunch of different cities.
00:13:54
Speaker
ah but the most common one that they were able to, figure out was contaminated was a drink, uh, or raw or Ron a men.
00:14:06
Speaker
So I just watched a commercial for it. It was like a Ron a man. See a man. Uh, so i like ah It's like a vitamin enriched juice. ah Most of the articles I read called it an energy drink, though.
00:14:25
Speaker
And yeah, hi, Gordo. I guess it was popular among middle-aged men and was reported to be the most frequently tampered with drink. I think because of its popularity, it was selling in the billions of units a year back in 1985, like billions. So that's a lot.
00:14:47
Speaker
So it could have just been like, seriously. Yeah. Where's Coke and Pepsi? They did have that money. They did have a bit. Um, Another energy drink was also targeted, another one called Real Gold.
00:15:07
Speaker
And then i think just one of those was targeted. and then along one person ended up dying after drinking a Coca-Cola.
00:15:20
Speaker
But wow I think out of the other... like deaths and people that became ill everything else was that Aroniman C drink other than those two damn that's pretty rough ah yeah Gordo we have space ah so out of the 35 drinks that they identified as being contaminated 34 of them were laced with paraquat which is a herbicide
00:15:54
Speaker
and yeah so really toxic if ingested or anything it was easily obtained and used ah one of the articles said it was easily obtained and used in the u.s in america by drug enforcement groups in order to kill marijuana plants so like it did have some sort of like toxic uh things and then One of the other drinks, because again, there was 35 in total, only one was laced with diaquat or diaquat. Another herbicide must be like part of the same. Holy shit.
00:16:38
Speaker
Yeah. That's nasty. and why do they need herbicide to kill off my herbs, man?
00:16:50
Speaker
Are they tired of burning them up when they get all stoned? They're whoa, this big bonfire. fucking gosh. I was really getting me going. Burning the fields of marijuana backfired. Right? You guys could cut it down. But the cops only want the drugs when they're already prepackaged for them in evidence. Then they go missing.
00:17:11
Speaker
Already processed. I mean. i mean I was just saying, I do like some characters on TV because I'm like, he's a good cop character. He'll do anything because it's the right. You know?
00:17:29
Speaker
You're like, sometimes rare nowadays. Yeah.
00:17:36
Speaker
ah So that's kind of like an overview of what's going on. um But how I think it was kind of the perfect storm is it seems to have come about during this time when ah the vending machine companies as a marketing ploy ah would had rigged the machines actually to sometimes, like every once in a while, give out two drinks from the dispensing thing in for the price of just one.
00:18:06
Speaker
So like every once in a while it was programmed to just dispense two drinks instead of one at random. um So what happened is this led to police suspecting that ah that the individual tampering with the drinks was like buying or taking drinks out of the vending machine and then contaminating the drinks and then putting it back in the slot and then hoping that the person that's buying the drink will not notice that both of them didn't fall and just see the one and then think, hey, I got the one free and take both of them.
00:18:48
Speaker
So I think that's what the plan Yeah, because otherwise you'd have to like work for the company or something. How else would you get them in the machine? So they were like leaving them there or some... Yeah, so they were leaving the contaminated drink in the vending machine dispenser slot, like putting it back in the bottom where it drops down, like where that door thing is. And in some cases, the drink was actually just left near the vending machine, sometimes on the ground, sometimes on top of it, like just wherever.
00:19:18
Speaker
Oh. Because sometimes it can get, like, once something thing gets down to the bottom, it can get stuck at the bottom, too. You get that bag of chips, and then you're like, no! It's too puffy! can't get this out the door. Beating up the machine.
00:19:32
Speaker
Yes! Remember Karen from Cruise? She used to just ream on our old machine. Oh, yeah. She'd, like, get it rocking, and I'd be like, you want me to pull up the statistics on, like, vending machine desks?
00:19:46
Speaker
She'd be like, it owes me a quarter. right loved her. She was a little crazy.
00:19:57
Speaker
Gorda looks so confused at me. He's like, what's happening?
00:20:02
Speaker
He doesn't call? What's your favorite thing? Mommy's working. So, yeah I think that's why They decided to do this because easy access if the things are dispensing too. And sometimes people wouldn't question why there's two. They'd just be like, oh, that's so cool. I got the free one. You wouldn't question why a drink was being left by the machine or in the machine.
00:20:29
Speaker
um but it was having like toxic um
00:20:35
Speaker
consequences on people um really the only thing i found that directly talked about how sick people got other than the fact that people died was this little snippet from wikipedia that had a couple of the victims um details in it one of them was on september 5th it said 44 year old executive Takashi Sakai drank two vitamin drinks and then he died, which he died from six weeks later. And then gosh me a few days later, 52 year old Haro Otsu drank from a free bottle of the Aranomin C in Tokyo and he just thought he died just 52 hours later.
00:21:27
Speaker
so just a couple days.
00:21:31
Speaker
Makes you wonder what their purpose was. Right. They aren't motivated by personal, like it doesn't matter who the victim is. Yeah. Um, and you can't presumably know when and how they die. just so random and so sick. It's like, I don't know, crazy.
00:21:56
Speaker
Another one, September 25th, a man in Wakayama Prefecture was hospitalized after falling ill. And then on September 26th, the 40-year-old woman also fell ill.
00:22:12
Speaker
And then they're either that Takashi Sakai, which was the first one I talked about, or It says, or a 17-year-old girl from Satama was the last victim of the murders.
00:22:30
Speaker
I think it's because they said that one guy might have died like six weeks later. yeah, and it kind Right, guess it depends how you count last victim or whatever. Yeah. Still, a 17-year-old.
00:22:46
Speaker
Like, that's just say it. You don't even know. yeah So it wasn't like targeting specific people. funny. exactly um and because of this like the randomness of the killings and the inability of the police to identify a culprit caused a rise actually in copycat crimes that started of happening
00:23:10
Speaker
yeah and then so there was like other people that served poisoning i think also vending machines there was a couple other things And then there was also two times in a few weeks where tainted milk was left inside of schools, like targeting kids. Yeah, also around this time. oh yeah, like toxic, poisonous.
00:23:40
Speaker
Yeah, and it was left inside of the school, which you think would need like a certain level of access, but.
00:23:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's unfortunate the ah lack of security at some schools and the fact that we need so much security at other schools. Like, for the, like, they're gonna come in with a gun and, excuse me, like, school shootings.
00:24:09
Speaker
But, oh my god. You know where the danger's gonna come from. Within or somebody bringing it in from... elsewhere yeah um so the like vending machine companies i guess didn't really want to a whole lot i guess oh um great yeah it was little weird it's not really their fault no and keep in mind like they're selling if that one drink is selling billions a year
00:24:46
Speaker
think about their combined drinks all across Japan like ah so and what and it wasn't happening all across Japan right it wasn't like the people like they weren't getting at them at the factory level you said they're doing it right at the vending machine yeah it's like the last the last line basically yeah difficult to police that Yeah. So they did do a couple things. Like, I guess they made these stickers.
00:25:19
Speaker
ah There were warning stickers that they put on the outside of the vending machines. They made like 1.3 million of them and distributed them to all these machines.
00:25:30
Speaker
And they warned customers to be careful um of like, and described how a drink could be tampered with or like that they shouldn't be drinking something that looks like it's previously been opened or anything like that I guess yeah
00:25:47
Speaker
uh yeah it's really um but during this time interestingly enough I guess soft drink companies stated that they never even saw a decrease in the number of their sales so like it looked like the general public like wasn't even thinking about it really like it didn't make them think twice about like getting a drink out of the vending machine or anything so yeah that's kind of crazy yeah didn't seem to have affected them at all we just living in more of a terrified kind of culture now or is it just because things are getting lot scarier these days it's oh hard to tell sometimes
00:26:31
Speaker
ah Yeah, and I think because of that, like them not seeing a decrease in sales, the company declined to add any more additional tamper-proof seals or anything like that, um basically other than those stickers, stating that they would, or stating that the customers or consumers should be paying attention if the top seal had already been broken.
00:26:56
Speaker
so They kind of just like left it up to the consumer. Which I mean, if you're looking at like 35 drinks out of billions, it's not like that outrageous, yeah I feel like.
00:27:12
Speaker
you can't Yeah, I agree. You can't really put the onus on the company. They already have the the twisting usually 99% the time cracks the the bottle seal correctly and then you don't need...
00:27:26
Speaker
Something like you'll get with your mustards and your other sauces where you have to take an actual like tab off the top of the mayo or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:38
Speaker
But
00:27:41
Speaker
sucky. Yeah. So some individuals that worked in the soft drink industry actually believe that some of the 35 deaths were actually suicides.
00:27:54
Speaker
That had, like, incorrectly been attributed to the vending machines. be part That's a touchy subject. I guess partly because besides that paraquat herbicide was the most the most point most common poison found.
00:28:16
Speaker
It was used in over 1,400 suicide attempts the year before in Japan. Yeah, so it was extremely commonly used in suicides in Japan at the time, Well, that's slightly more compelling than someone who's been found supposedly stabbed to death by themselves or something.
00:28:44
Speaker
Yeah. herbicide it just sounds so like drinking bleach or something terrible that you would never do to like i have a peaceful passing i don't think people cared um yeah over like 1400 suicides just in the year before that's not even like a total effort that's just the year before the case damn japan yeah um i think normal like oh i'm not laughing i'm i just that's crazy yeah uh partly i think because it could be easily found on thousands of farms or bought over the counter some things saying you needed to provide a name and address and other things saying you didn't need to provide any information to buy it so that also made it really hard um
00:29:38
Speaker
for them to investigate because basically anybody could get um so some were arguing trying to monitor who was purchasing the paraquat and other people were arguing more control over the vending machines stating that the machines could be adjusted so that i guess like coins could not be inserted um and like and another drink dispensed if there were bottles already in the dispensers.
Vending Machine Culture in Japan
00:30:12
Speaker
So trying to say like, oh, it won't be marked when you drink if there's like, if it senses weight in the bottom, which I guess sort of would help, but those kinds of things can also break too. So it's not good to just rely on that.
00:30:28
Speaker
Yeah. More helpful to have that in your... self-scans at your grocery store or something. So, yeah, because of this, manufacturers were not quick to make changes that would cost them millions and millions of dollars to do any sort of upgrade because at the time in 1985, they had about 5.1 million vending machines in operation that they would need to...
00:31:01
Speaker
update so even if something only costs a dollar that's still 5.1 million dollars so it's a lot yeah and yeah we didn't have your fancy vending machines with the oh let me grab that drink for you and pull it down and i'm sure they've really upgraded in japan since then they seem to them and china seem to be so ahead of everybody else ah Yeah, aren't they? is Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they love a vending machine? Like, here's a piece of cake. or here's Yeah, i have a list of other things that you can get in vending machines.
00:31:40
Speaker
I'm pretty sure I do. do i Yeah, do. We saw the cake one in Vegas, I think, right? Yeah. Everyone could get a piece of cake. I was like, what? um Yeah, so... Weird enough, the ones at the airport. Sorry. Sorry. out of their like 5.1 million vending machines it wasn't just drinks that they're selling but that's a lot of it um they also sell things like dried squid bags of rice coffee cigarettes whiskey magazines bread kegs of beer that one fascinated me i would like to know more they also sell eggs shirts
00:32:21
Speaker
uh shinto shrine oracles milk pantyhose and rice crackers shrine oracles you got your alcohol you got your religious artifacts i got it all here like i got your bar no mag uh i just want to know how you're looking for good night how big the vending machine is that's dispensing kegs of beer That's gotta mean like a mini keg. Like something you can sit on a desk. Not a full ass keg. Those things are fucking huge. But I want i want to know.
00:32:58
Speaker
Because you need you need one very strong or two strong people to move a keg. yeah i don't know, man. Just from like the ones that have an actual bars and stuff where you like damn.
00:33:13
Speaker
Fuck off. Yeah, I thought that was funny. That being said, even the the pop that you have to do in the fast food places is like you get the big CO2 fucking canisters. They're giant and heavy. And then you have like really heavy um boxes full of bags of pop syrup.
00:33:34
Speaker
It's all heavy. Anyway, kegs, all of it. I'm just like, yeah, I can't. Oh my God. Can you imagine somehow rolls out an entire like keg of beer?
00:33:46
Speaker
And like,
00:33:49
Speaker
you're like, it would have to be a giant vending machine for giants. Yeah. Oh my God. um One, one article had a little interesting fact that was, well, at the time the USA had more vending machines overall, like they had more than 5.1 million.
00:34:10
Speaker
ah Japan had a ratio of one vending machine for every 23 people. And that actually surpassed see that ratio in the U.S. of, like, how many vending machines there were versus the population. So even though the U.S. had more vending machines, Japan's ratio was higher, I guess.
00:34:34
Speaker
Right. I mean, they got a lot of people too, don't they? But definitely very much smaller country. There's a little island compared to the U.S. Yeah. um But their sales were tremendous. ah Their sales in 1985 totaled billion. B-b-billion in 1985. 16 whole billion.
00:34:57
Speaker
That's a Yeah.
00:35:01
Speaker
that's a why Or the Dr. Evil pinky to the lip. One billion dollars. Well, sir, that's not very much nowadays. um Yeah, so when the investigations were going on ah the soft drink companies were also contacted, and they never reported publicly, at least, any extortion attempts, anybody like threatening them or anything like that.
00:35:28
Speaker
um as often would be the case in like random poisonings being like hey we'll keep poisoning however many unless you give us money there was nothing like that yeah some so yeah exactly some sort of freaking reason behind it yeah or vendetta or whatever it's so weird um yeah and then the cases like were really far apart so I don't think I have it in here. I don't know why it disappeared.
00:36:00
Speaker
But one thing... oh yeah. Sometimes the attacks like on the vending machines that were targeted were happening hundreds of miles away from each other. it was huge distances.
00:36:13
Speaker
so like you have totally different prefectures trying to yeah like investigate in everything and Yeah. So they're hitting multiple vending machines, obviously. and then But people could also travel with them and whatever. it could spread.
00:36:32
Speaker
yeah but yeah, like I think one thing said like this vending machine that was targeted on this day was like 200 miles away from this vending machine that was targeted like a week later. like it was crazy.
00:36:47
Speaker
um Yeah. um The culprits were... More than one person, you'd think. ah Yeah, whoever it was, culprit or culprits, they were never caught on any security cameras, never left behind any evidence leads or clues as to their motive.
00:37:04
Speaker
um And because of that, in the end, the case went cold and technically remains unsolved. Nobody's ever figured out who did it, which is crazy. Fuck.
00:37:16
Speaker
Yeah. It went ice cold with carbonated bubbles. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. mr sch No, that's really fucking creepy, though. Right? and Yeah, they have no idea why it happened, what they wanted, anything. There were a couple updates I found, and, like, little things that have happened since.
00:37:41
Speaker
um So about a year later, in 1986, adjustments were made to the paraquat and diquat. herbicides to make them less toxic.
00:37:52
Speaker
um Yeah, but it didn't really help because decades later 2002, these herbicides still accounted for 40% of the pesticide poisoning deaths that were occurring. So still crazy amount.
00:38:13
Speaker
They're still incredibly toxic. Yeah, why would that it'd be the avenue to go down. Because, like, you're like, that Agent Orange or whatever it was was so bad. Let's just, like, make try and reinvent and make it a little less toxic. You're like, no. The problem was that it, like, got to people at all and made them sick. like Yeah, I say that DDT stuff, I can't remember.
00:38:44
Speaker
That's just horrible. Yeah. In 1998, Japan experienced ah their first other like wave of poisoning drinks.
00:38:57
Speaker
um The drinks targeted again were sold in vending machines, but this time also in convenience stores, and they were targeted. And then in 2019, there was another case of Paraquat poisoning in Japan.
00:39:15
Speaker
Didn't really have time to look into the details about that, but it was still going on. 2019. Okay. Yeah.
00:39:27
Speaker
And then I guess in 2012, CBC reported that the death toll may have actually been as high as 12, not the original 10 that everybody was saying, which I guess...
00:39:40
Speaker
apparently it would make it the deadliest product tampering case in history um okay i think in the world because it never like specified everything just said in history so like it's a lot yeah i can only think of one other case that it reminds me of and that's the chicago tylenol murders yeah because they just tampered with like like literal tylenol that they didn't know who was gonna buy it or whatever it's still fucking crazy to this day yeah also unsolved um yeah uh if the culprit however was ever identified they could still be held legally liable as i guess japan abolished their statute of limitations for murder only 2010
00:40:32
Speaker
only in two thousand and ten So that still feels recent. Murder, that's one of those if you want to keep. Yeah, keep that open. Yeah.
00:40:44
Speaker
You want to be able to prosecute those people on that one. Yeah. yeah Really on the minor stuff, I'm fine with. You're jaywalking. You're drug charges that are not trafficking.
00:40:57
Speaker
Whatever. man. So that's the end. who we may We may never know. i don't know. i just thought it was kind of interesting because like I don't know what... i don't know necessarily if it would have happened if that little like promotion thing wasn't going on where you like buy one drink, get two every once in a while. I don't know if that if this necessarily would have worked.
00:41:25
Speaker
as well if ah that was it that yeah yeah if that wasn't going on at the same time. I can see it giving people ideas because I do remember when they had certain things like well in Canada we have things like roll up the rim with Tim Horton's coffee cups where you roll up the rim and win stuff but they used to do it with like Pepsi caps and stuff too right you'd find something underneath the cap that would say you like yeah maybe you want a free bottle or whatever like it's definitely not unheard of and they're great in theory but sometimes yeah some person on one side or the other like
00:42:07
Speaker
In the McDonald's monopoly. They had one where the an insider was screwing them over. But that's different. That's people wanting to get money. That's ones I don't understand. People that want randomly murder.
00:42:21
Speaker
Yeah. Like there was no no ransom. No threats to anybody ever made. So. No. You can't wrap your mind around it. Because there's no motive.
00:42:32
Speaker
Yeah. Nobody ever really said any anything. Randomly. And it wasn't targeting like a specific drink or a specific company or a specific vending machine company.
00:42:48
Speaker
True. It seemed enough variation. widespread than the Chicago one. Yeah. So. Yeah, just a little a little tricky.
00:43:01
Speaker
Right.
00:43:04
Speaker
Damn. And whoever they were, like, they at least took out almost a dozen people or, like, a dozen people. Yeah. And then, like, 35 other people became seriously ill, too.
00:43:19
Speaker
So. Right. Yeah. Clearly they meant some serious shit. Some absolute chaos. Yeah, right? And it's weird because it seems like it.
00:43:31
Speaker
didn't really work because the vending machine companies were like, we're going to put stickers on the vending machine and do nothing else. And then their sales didn't decline. So people weren't scared out of buying drinks anyway. So like.
00:43:46
Speaker
That's true. Like. Which is kind of scary in itself how complacent we are to like. Yeah. Random almost you know oh it's a side effect just yeah some people are obviously gonna die like no not this time that didn't have to happen like yeah yeah it's just like I guess we didn't make too much of a fuss out of it because less than 20 people maybe died or it would have like billions of drinks it's like still guys that's messed up man oh man
00:44:27
Speaker
Sorry, that's my nervous laughter again where you're like, that's not cool, guys. We should be more concerned. oh don't think i ever heard of that one.
00:44:42
Speaker
No, I hadn't either. and i was, yeah, it's kind of interesting because I'd heard about, I like the Tylenol ones. I think that's an interesting case. And then,
00:44:56
Speaker
there was Oh, she's a big fan. No. Yeah. I'm just kidding. Love the Thailand. My favorite murder. No, they're though. And then there's another one that was...
00:45:13
Speaker
can't remember what it was. Well, there's, like, the people that, like, poison their family members, whatever. um But there's another case that happened...
00:45:26
Speaker
um somewhere in asia too that was it's called the something with 21 faces it's like that um yeah it was like really famous the guy got kidnapped and his company got threatened that somebody was gonna poison i remember if they were a candy company or what But yeah, he got kidnapped and like extorted or whatever and then yeah, it was like a whole crazy thing.
00:46:02
Speaker
Yeah, well see nothing's come to mind specific to that. sometimes Sometimes I'm like, wasn't there a tea killer? But there's one of those everywhere.
00:46:14
Speaker
That's different. Yeah, it's the tampering the mass food items that is very concerning, obviously. Yeah.
00:46:26
Speaker
Or the... What is it The opposite of a a victimless crime? Like, a victim-you-don't-know crime. a random victim crime. Yeah.
00:46:37
Speaker
Oh, it's called the... That's very difficult to understand. The monster with 21 faces. And they were targeting... um it's a group that led a series of blackmail and kidnapping events in Japan um
00:46:56
Speaker
in 1984 so a year before this one yeah they sent like rant some notes to companies being like we're gonna poison your food unless you like give us money or whatever and they sent it to like rival companies of each other and then I think If I'm remembering correctly, like one of the people they believe might not have actually been kidnapped, they might have been in on it and their kidnapping was faked or something. Yeah. i don't know if I know that one. i know sometimes the, yeah, the ones I hear, I'm like, Japan, that fucking hits hard. Like, you,
00:47:43
Speaker
It was some serious folklore and some serious, crazy, like true crime stories and stuff where sometimes the consequences, I feel like I remember hearing of one, don't remember the details, but like that the CEO took his own life after the controversy or something at his company. It's just like, cause they really, yeah, I've heard, I think I've heard that one too.
00:48:07
Speaker
Does that sound familiar? Cause it's like those, you know, Asian cultures can take that kind of respect. Very, very seriously. For sure. Yeah, they take it, like, very personally.
00:48:21
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, you'd feel responsible if a bunch of people in your company died or something, and that's, I can't remember if that's what it was, but, you know. Yeah.
00:48:32
Speaker
Bunch of deaths. Yikes. And they got that one that got nicknamed the Suicide Forest. Yeah. Also dark.
00:48:44
Speaker
Oh, yeah. In Japan. Yeah. Oh, yeah, people just tend to go out there and kill themselves. Well, that's not as quaint as a Scottish bridge where dogs commit suicide. Ha ha ha ha. Although that's also when I heard about that sounded very tragic and weird. And a like, sometimes I just don't know if it's too dark for the pod, you know? like, I can't laugh about that.
00:49:10
Speaker
I can't. Yeah. Not that I, not that you can laugh about true crime, but I can laugh uncomfortably at certain things.
00:49:20
Speaker
Yikes. Well, that was crazy. I don't think i heard that one. Gordo's trying to get me. Oh, you missed the paw.
00:49:31
Speaker
It like just so made it into frame. I made the mic earlier. I thought I heard him sneeze or something when he was first settling down. Here's Gardo!
00:49:45
Speaker
And then he's like, yeah, you want me to butt up against the mic? i Get on mic.
00:49:56
Speaker
he's ah he does look He's nuzzling the mic right now. I can't hear you. You're not coming in. You're gonna hit it though, baby. Little baby.
00:50:07
Speaker
Little buddy baby.
Major Drug Bust in Canada
00:50:12
Speaker
Well, we'll take a break.
00:50:15
Speaker
Back for round two. Yes, I have a relatively non-violent one. Oh, interesting.
00:50:29
Speaker
Can't say fun, but... Ah, yay. Yeah.
00:50:36
Speaker
I guess we'll stop this one then.
00:50:55
Speaker
Have you ever wondered how in the hell did I get here? You are not alone. My podcast is called True Crime Connections.
00:51:07
Speaker
It's an advocacy podcast where I talk with survivors of toxic relationships, abusive marriages. We all have one thing in common. How in the hell did we get here?
00:51:20
Speaker
And how do we get out? How do we find our self-worth again? Well, if you feel that way, come check out my podcast. Because not only do you get actionable steps to take to help you take your life back,
00:51:36
Speaker
But you can listen to how others have dealt with their own situations, including addiction, suicidal ideation, and low self-worth and respect.
00:51:48
Speaker
We can get you on the right track. Make sure to check out True Crime Connections. See you there.
00:52:08
Speaker
All right. Well, we're all back for babies. no like Yes. Send us pictures of yours.
00:52:20
Speaker
I love that when people are like, here's the, the pet tax. And it's not you bringing food to them. It's I have to show you my pets. Cause they're so cute. If I'm going to talk about them.
00:52:34
Speaker
And then, yeah, i always use something was trying to, show me a special rag dog doll cat. I was like, that doesn't sound any more pretty than Gordo. And then I couldn't find it anyway. So it was the worst cat clickbait ever. but Yeah. Yeah. Gordo is pretty cute.
00:52:52
Speaker
He's like, he can sure play it up his little derpy, slightly cross-eyed face. I know. I also think my Fenrir is pretty photogenic with his trash panda markings. Yes. I like his little blep tongue. Yes.
00:53:13
Speaker
Oh. Yes. That one for me is so... It's cute. It it comes out when he's sleeping. like He's so relaxed. And our our old dog never did... Like, never did that.
00:53:27
Speaker
Yeah. Gordo's... ah He doesn't really do... That kind of stuff, but he has, he drools a lot. So, um when he's like snuggling with you or anything like that, he's like soaking through your shirt because he's just drooling.
00:53:51
Speaker
Or if it's on your bare skin, it's just soaking wet after. That's kind of weird for a cat. I've met some drooly dogs, mostly boxers, whom that belong to our friends and neighbors. You're like, oh shit, you guys can drool.
00:54:06
Speaker
Yeah. Not so much. Yep.
00:54:12
Speaker
Yeah, it makes me laugh. He's not as bad as when I first got him with it. He was... a lot worse about it but he's he's simmered down a bit hey i snore and recently i was told by pat that i talked in my sleep once or twice oh no you never know what's gonna happen yeah right
00:54:39
Speaker
um um oh yeah i guess send us pictures of your cats and dogs. i say that We love it. Of your budgies of your snakes.
00:54:59
Speaker
So Gordo is just down and listen to the story about i what one article called Canada's biggest drug bust.
00:55:13
Speaker
Oh damn, really? I guess. It is big. Walter White? Walter White? Big yet somehow not big in the news where I was like this happened where and i never heard of it? Okay. Oh.
00:55:32
Speaker
Right here and you know it was Eastern Canada. I'm like I should have maybe heard about this. Nope. no And it's not the... Nothing to do with that maple syrup heist or whatever. oh yeah. That's a fun one that's been covered a few times, but... Yeah, no, it's like a TV show.
00:55:55
Speaker
it called Sticky or something, i think? Oh, my God. Oh, shit. Is that the one with character actor Marlene, whatever they call her? Yes.
00:56:07
Speaker
They always introduce her on BoJack Horseman. It's character actor Margo Martindale. That's her name. Yeah. um I haven't watched that, but I've seen it. I think I've seen the ad for it. I kept seeing it on YouTube. YouTube ads.
00:56:23
Speaker
Okay. No, that's an interesting one, though. because people Yeah, it was like a... They were funneling... they like that the right word? Yeah, they weren't they were skimming off the tops of the maple syrup profits. It was definitely... the Big maple syrup.
00:56:41
Speaker
Yeah. Well, it's a big industry in the East Coast, so I don't... I get it. But this is a little further east. But yeah, it does... The location is key.
00:56:57
Speaker
And... Oh, fine. That's not something you can always say with stories about New Brunswick. Not a lot goes on there.
00:57:05
Speaker
oh my province it couldn't happen anywhere else literally the tiniest little place um uh like yeah the cbc article was like bird's corner like home of canada's biggest drug bust and i was like what barely even heard of bird's corner except i think my childhood BFF's mom made a grown up there like you know what i mean like your little dot on the map kind of place yeah
00:57:41
Speaker
um but it's an exciting story it involves a plane crash a possible prison break and piles of Colombian cocaine so why why would the cartel choose this tiny town to funnel heaps of hard drugs um let's find out
00:58:00
Speaker
Um, it's also back in, well, it's drugs. So of course it's the eighties. Wait, yours was okay also. eighty five Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. And then it kept going, but yeah. Yeah. There's a few copycats.
00:58:19
Speaker
The eighties were quite the time for drugs, I think. Yeah. Gordo, you can't rub your face on the mic.
00:58:30
Speaker
Well, I couldn't hear him, for what it's worth.
00:58:38
Speaker
So we begin in April of 1989, when two men make their way over eastern Canada's airspace with a plane full of 500 kilograms of cocaine on a teeny strip of space amidst heavy forests.
00:58:51
Speaker
The plane is coming in hot, but can they clear the trees? Nope. But we'll go back. Enter cocaine bear. Exactly.
00:59:04
Speaker
I kept typing cocaine plane. Search up the sources. New Brunswick.
00:59:13
Speaker
Nothing is more catchy than cocaine plane. yeah
00:59:21
Speaker
I got some motherfucking coked up bears on this motherfucking plane. Sorry. You've heard of snakes on a plane. Now it's cocaine bear on a plane.
00:59:35
Speaker
Sharknado, but it's cocaine bearnado. Bearnado? No. Cocaine bearnado. At least bearnado would make more sense. They wouldn't have to keep inventing things that got the sharks up in the air.
00:59:52
Speaker
How do they breathe? No idea. It's still alive. It's in the pool with you, but I can just get out of the pool. Oh no! Yeah. oh So in December, ah December 16th of 1988 at Toronto's Pearson International Terminal 2, this airport, we see a man called Douglas Jaworski and he approaches an RCMP officer there.
01:00:21
Speaker
And he basically asked, would the RCMPs like to catch a bunch of drug cartel dudes just red-handed? Because he's got the down low. As one does. Just approach the police. hey would you you like to make the biggest bust of your career?
01:00:40
Speaker
i would like to know more information on how he just- With zero effort? Yeah. How did you know he was an RCP officer? Like, was it obvious? This was a big risk. Just full Mountie.
01:00:54
Speaker
Yeah, they're not always on a horse, by the way, you guys. I know everybody loves to picture our Mounties with the big hats and the red. But, like, yeah, they're just kind of our feds for the most part. um And this guy looked like an average Joe from the 80s era coming up to the Mountie. Porn stash.
01:01:17
Speaker
but and There was a description in a book by Peter Edwards that said he was not this not about this meeting, but that said he he was sitting in an interview room office wearing a blue knit polo sweater, acid wash, blue jeans, Italian fila running shoes, a gold Rolex watch and Ray-Ban sunglasses.
01:01:42
Speaker
Wow. It's all about the brands, baby. yeah And that's how author and reporter Peter Edwards first described Douglas in his book, The Big Sting.
01:01:55
Speaker
So ah the target or the cartel was the Medellin cartel. Hopefully I'm saying that right. But it is spelled M-E-D-E-L-L-I-N. So I don't know how else you would say that one.
01:02:13
Speaker
Gordo.
01:02:18
Speaker
He's had enough, has he? Sorry. Yeah. I just saw his ass leaving the frame.
01:02:30
Speaker
Um, so yes, the, the Medellin cartel led by the very famous Pablo Escobar himself. Oh, okay. I've heard of him. Right. I didn't know the name of his cartel, but yes, that's the one.
01:02:45
Speaker
Um, And he was in deep with these guys. He had gotten in with the cartel through his extensive knowledge and of aircraft and flight plans.
01:02:58
Speaker
So whether they recruited him or I'm not quite sure exactly how that came about, but like that was his role. was like knowing, yeah, all this extensive aircraft and flight plan knowledge that was used in their smuggling ops.
01:03:17
Speaker
Yeah. Who thinks to look in Canada?
01:03:23
Speaker
They always discount us. Yeah, we could be criminals too. We're everybody's um fake girlfriend on every TV show. Yeah!
01:03:33
Speaker
Yeah, she's real. and's thinking She's in Canada. doesn't have a cell phone.
01:03:40
Speaker
Yeah. She's mysterious and Canadian. Yeah, that's why I can't name a specific place where she lives. Just Canada. Yeah. Vancouver, Toronto? Only those two. Nothing else exists. They can even say the two two city names they know. yeah be like, I'm an American boyfriend. Where's he from?
01:04:03
Speaker
America. like Yeah, you can't be like, New York, Texas. Los Angeles. We know all the fucking states almost better than you do. Sorry, anyway.
01:04:14
Speaker
It's the American TV. That's why. yeah um So, yeah, they were they were big at this time.
01:04:25
Speaker
Pablo's cartel bringing in an estimated 80% of the coke in the U.S. The king of cocaine, he was called. Excuse me.
01:04:40
Speaker
Pardon me. So the king of cocaine was wanted for trafficking drugs, also bombing places in his native Colombia, building a prison there, and running for office. Wait, that's just something else he did.
01:04:56
Speaker
He was really going for it. Well, also... I will be tough on crime. So tough on crime. I will build a prison. I will later. That I will probably be in shortly. Yeah. I'll be sentenced to life in prison. in And then I'll escape it because I know. Send myself to jail and go there.
01:05:18
Speaker
And then I will escape the prison that I designed. Oh, yes. I put this secret bookshelf here. yeah in the deluxe room
01:05:34
Speaker
yeah yeah but he was big he was worth about one billion dollars billion yeah my brother likes to spout off facts about him about like how how many thousands of dollars a week they spent on rubber bands it's like something ridiculous to just like put on their wads of money like okay Like, yeah he's living like a rock star. Yeah. like it's Yeah, it's like insane.
01:06:05
Speaker
Yeah. um But yeah, he had people like Doug Jaworski, or however you say his last name, under his thumb. And Doug was a cunning and smart man in his own right. Not just about flight plans and stuff, but like he wanted to be more in control of his own life and not living under this cartel that he got mixed up with.
01:06:29
Speaker
and
01:06:34
Speaker
Sorry, I just put in a... Oh yeah, I guess I just... Okay, this is where I put in one of the quotes about the whole case itself. ah Because like one of my... Like, I got two major sources, and one was... ah It was called Narcos Fredericton.
01:06:53
Speaker
It was an article... by Andrew McGilligan, and it was on MaritimeEdit.com. So shout out to Andrew and them. And his intro said, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. 29 years ago, a plane crashed just outside Fredericton, setting off one of the strangest tales in maritime history.
01:07:13
Speaker
It involves chance encounters, an opera singing smuggler, members of armed revolutionary force, spies, Pablo Escobar, a jailbreak, and more than 500 kilograms of cocaine.
01:07:27
Speaker
really nice puts it into perspective um so yeah basically we start because douglas wants to get out of the cartel and he doesn't want to go out with a columbian necktie he wants to like maybe go into witness protection so he doesn't be hiding for the rest of his life hoping that they don't i don't know if they could protect you from pablo escartheon right like chew my fingernails do you know what a columbian necktie is by the way it's awful Yeah, when they cut your throat and they pull your tongue through it.
01:08:01
Speaker
How the fuck do you know that? Do you know that? Of course.
01:08:09
Speaker
You sound like Gloria in Modern Family. She's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's just a kidnapping. It's just so nonchalant when Manny gets kidnapped. I'll call off the hit. I had not heard of that particular one before. Really?
01:08:24
Speaker
Oh, I feel like I've heard it multiple. Like movies, TV shows. Like maybe in passing, but I didn't know what it was.
01:08:36
Speaker
had to write it down. That was disgusting. And you were so excited tell me a fun fact that I already knew. As excited as I am when I explain to someone what a Glasgow kiss is.
01:08:51
Speaker
but okay no I know enter Colombian born cartel pilots Fernando Augusto Mendoza Jaramillo aka Penguino or penguin for his walk oh so I'm gonna be calling him penguin if I have to or penguino take penguino is so good I like that
01:09:22
Speaker
And the other guy was a Jose Ali Galindo Escobar, AKA Jay. So, Panguino and Jay, they both have bird names.
01:09:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:36
Speaker
But also, sorry, Spanish names are so long, and you know, it's definitely easier to shorten them. So i appreciate that.
01:09:45
Speaker
These were the pilots pivotal in getting the fur first batch of drugs to North America They were trying to spread it out, obviously, just distribute it as they do. and But they wanted to kind of spread out, yeah, from the East Coast, from New Brunswick. They could, like, it's a quick flight to Montreal, you know, places in Quebec, you can get over, or like not even a flight. you From there, you can drive. you don't have to go back over the border again, which, yeah, at this time, like 19, what did I say, 80s again? Yeah. You could still go back and forth over the border with just a driver's license.
01:10:26
Speaker
So they could hit places like New York City and Boston pretty easily. Like, okay. They could drive there in like a day or two. It's yeah, it's all very close over on the East coast there.
01:10:40
Speaker
So they land the plane in New Brunswick and drive it to various locations from there. But on the day they flew in April 3rd, 1989, there was so much of the forest encroaching on the runway area, they hit a tree.
01:10:55
Speaker
And it was a tree that was supposed to have been trimmed back before their arrival.
01:11:04
Speaker
So um the RCMP had been fully aware of the plan for the plane to arrive in a little town called Keswick Ridge. At Wayman Field, thanks to their mole, Douglas J. Oh, okay.
01:11:18
Speaker
And they're there on the runway, waiting for its arrival. Pushing trees into its way, no. Yeah, planting new ones. No, but there was a funny quote from this article. I was like, sums it up. The undercover police were told, we can land the plane in this field, but you've got to cut down, chop some of the trees that were in the flight path. said Martin Kerbel, a Toronto-based criminal defense attorney who represented Jeremio and Alec Aligalindo Escobar.
01:11:50
Speaker
The police forgot to do that. ah
01:11:56
Speaker
Way to make ah their cops sound so inept. um And then a quote from one of the officers on site that day.
01:12:06
Speaker
Corporal Joseph Hine of the RCMP recalled watching the planes descend. When the plane was on short final approach, it struck a tree off the end of the runway and shortly thereafter they appeared to touch down very hard on the airstrip.
01:12:19
Speaker
The aircraft appeared to have made a successful landing for a short time, however, it began swerving left and right. One of the landing gear legs appeared to break off and the aircraft ended up on a snowbank alongside the runway.
01:12:37
Speaker
You know. What's Canada of for You're to end up in the ditch sometimes. yeah no drive Drive into the ditch. no
01:12:48
Speaker
Clipped a tree, you know. But everyone was unhurt. Maybe a bit dazed. They check out their cargo and all the drugs are there. so they They're safe.
01:13:00
Speaker
Yeah. They're friends with their large cube van and a black pickup truck pull up. The two pilots leave in the truck while the occupants of the other vehicle load the drugs into the van to take to the next location. So the RCMP is just like watching all this because unbeknownst to the smugglers, everyone else on the ground that day was RCMP and it was all on tape.
01:13:23
Speaker
They were like, oh, yes. Where are these drugs going? Yeah, let's go there. Okay. Great. Where's the rest of your drug ring?
01:13:35
Speaker
Um, And RCMP Sergeant Mark Fleming was an undercover on site that day. and he noticed the plane was wrecked enough to need repairs before it could fly again. So they were grounded for the time being.
01:13:49
Speaker
He said, it wasn't for the crash. What? it's Like that. I said, that was probably good. i know. It's like, did they forget to turn the trees? I don't know. Um,
01:14:05
Speaker
And they he said if it wasn't for the crash, the pilots never would have come back.
01:14:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:13
Speaker
But they would have touched down and you did know where they were. Yeah. But I think it did help them, like the cops quite a bit. and So. Huh. they were stuck.
01:14:28
Speaker
They were stuck touring around Fredericton with the undercover officers waiting for the repairs to be completed. easeless lounging around they stayed at the city motel and rendezvoused with uh doug and they had some steaks they did some shopping they took took a nap they really had a day that's so funny i know you love all their movements because of the undercovers
01:15:00
Speaker
And the cops are like, we're having the best day ever. have to pretend to from... Steak? You want steak? Sure. steak. You want to go shopping? You take a nap? Okay. No, they even detailed what they had for supper, which was some St. Hubert's barbecued chicken, which is like... It's it's like kind of like Swiss chalet.
01:15:22
Speaker
Like we have Swiss chalet out here with the rotisserie. Yeah. Very good rotisserie chicken. lovely chicken gravy like that's all um they have at my mom my mom's place for their poutan and stuff St. Hubert's gravy um but then they switched hotels to throw off any heat it's just hilarious these these poor Canadian undercover gobs are just like how do we do this quick what have you seen in movies right
01:15:56
Speaker
Yeah, sure, we'll go to another hotel. They got great beds. Yeah.
01:16:04
Speaker
So the next day, they then flew to Toronto to await for their instructions from the cartel. And meanwhile, the other undercovers are tracking the drugs to a Montreal townhouse. So I assume they had been driven from New Brunswick by car.
01:16:22
Speaker
It's really... quick like well not quick but within a day you could get there so yeah it makes sense okay and they did gradeid that that place in montreal the following day on april 5th they arrested multiple colombians tied to the medellin cartel and the two pilots were taking an into custody straight from their hotel in toronto which was the constellation hotel if anyone was wondering ah And I do know they were taken back to Fredericton and the York County Jail located at 668 Brunswick Street, which I have been in and other fun facts.
01:17:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's literally the old ass jail in Fredericton that got, you know, i didn't even know it was still in use as of the, what, 80s? Because when i was a kid. It's that bad?
01:17:21
Speaker
Well, it's old, right? You know, you get your old little jails. Like, that it's not a big prison. It's not like the provincial prison. It's an old fucking ass jailhouse that's tiny and stuff.
01:17:33
Speaker
And, like, um yeah, when I was a kid, that was when it was in disuse. So my mom was, and we were refurbishing it, and she was putting up a science center there called Science East. And, like,
01:17:49
Speaker
Completely. was like, we need to turn this whole jail into a science center. And so that's what it was for a while. and like, you could go there and like, we tore down some of the walls and shit and they kept some of the cells like downstairs in the basement, like with the old ass. Oh, crazy. bars and stuff Yeah.
01:18:07
Speaker
It's very cool. um But now I think it's just back to being like a old historical building.
01:18:18
Speaker
That's what happened. My mom, they they didn't let my mom stay on Science East and then it all went downhill from there. Anyway, it was very cool. it had like one of those shadow walls where like you would go and stand in front of it and it like takes your like shadow picture and stuff. would do that Oh, those are creepy.
01:18:39
Speaker
but It's like look like I survive a radiation blast from a nuclear bomb. No, it's just like your shadow however it looks against the wall. I don't know.
01:18:52
Speaker
They're kind of fun. Yeah, I've done them before. It's creepy. So, oh yeah, and there was a fun fact and callback to one of our earliest episodes because it that jail held serial killer Alan Legere.
01:19:11
Speaker
who I talked about on like our first Canada True Crime episode. Oh, wow. Way back in episode two. Thank God, I guess so. Isn't that crazy? almost want to expunge that one from the records.
01:19:25
Speaker
Right? It's just so long. Oops, accidentally d delete one through probably 25. I know, like Sinisterhood did. they Their first episode starts at 13 now. Oh, damn. like So the two jailbirds, Jay and Panguino, were quite pleasant, according to their lawyer, Martin Kerbel.
01:19:51
Speaker
He said they were pretty nice guys, to be frank. just thought it was funny that everybody kind liked them. and I mean, they're only the pilots, so they're not...
01:20:05
Speaker
Not the crazy people in the drug cartel that you probably need to be scared of. They're just the pilots. Who knows?
01:20:17
Speaker
Maybe your're your, uh, your enforcers also happen to be pilots. Yeah. Yeah. No, but they did sound really kind of almost harmless. they ah from former warden at the jail there, Paul Stewart.
01:20:32
Speaker
He remembers when Jay got a guitar. He didn't remember exactly where. He thought, like, maybe from a music program at the jail. And he he played and he sang.
01:20:43
Speaker
And as the warden remembered, every once in a while, we but we would get a watermelon brought in. Every time we got it, he would sing. He had a big, booming voice. He could sing like an opera singer in Spanish. Yeah.
01:21:00
Speaker
Are we not entertained? Yep.
01:21:06
Speaker
And if the men ever did talk shop while they were in the in the jail, so to speak, it was about the hefty paycheck they had got from the cartel for ah a flight, about They would be paid for every freaking flight they went on, I guess.
01:21:23
Speaker
Holy, that's allowed. Right? That's your cut, man. It's probably just a portion of what they would make. How how many flights are you doing in a year?
01:21:35
Speaker
i know. Like, I don't even think they have to do any of the other distributing. Yeah. Yeah. you So like Penguin or Pinguino's wife came to visit him.
01:21:49
Speaker
um
01:21:52
Speaker
Allegedly. or purportedly, that was her reason for visiting, but some thought she was kind of case in the joint. Oh,
01:22:05
Speaker
The warden, Paul Stewart, said, if it was his wife, she was gorgeous. um And then initially, Stewart resisted having her enter the jail for a visit. This is a quote, sorry. But she wouldn't be denied and receive permission from the Justice Department.
01:22:22
Speaker
She cased the joint, Stuart says. The guards were enthralled by her, and she likely saw some things she shouldn't have. She knew where the doors were, the setup of the jail, and she knew we had no weapons and none were allowed.
01:22:35
Speaker
It was my understanding she went back and gave the cartel the layout and information. Of course, that's her multi-millionaire husband.
01:22:46
Speaker
She didn't even have to stick a... nail file up there. Yeah, she just has to walk in and remember what she sees. And that it's really a, like, not a very fortified building. It was just... They're Canadians. They don't even have weapons. Not even in jail. Right?
01:23:06
Speaker
They'll blow a whistle at you you. will get to Yeah, we're like the British with their little billy clubs. Hey you, stop! Stop that! That's illegal! Stop!
01:23:19
Speaker
Oh, they tried to take advantage. so yeah You can't do that. That's illegal.
01:23:25
Speaker
You're so foreshadowing. Or as they say on other podcasts, oh, we'll get to it. So on September 13th, 1989, guess that'd be the year after. guess they'll be a year after Yeah. A group of Latino guys go to, sorry, on September 13th, 1989, a group of Latino guys go to a convenience store near Edmonston, New Brunswick.
01:23:51
Speaker
Yes, there is an Edmonston. Wow. We did have a friend that moved from Edmonston to Edmonton. So one guy came in to use the phone while the others moved items from a van to a white Buick.
01:24:07
Speaker
And the cashier thought it was a little weird and ended up reporting it to the RCMP, who then told the Edmonston police. And subsequently, four men were arrested from that.
01:24:21
Speaker
Sorry for the pronunciation of the Spanish your names.
01:24:29
Speaker
This is a tough one. Eulogio.
01:24:36
Speaker
Never seen it before my life. That's how it's spelled. e hello ge io E-U-L-O-G-I-O. Eulogio Manzana Bustamante, Juan Carlos Hernandez, Wilmer Ramon Zanabria, and Tito Sanchez Ruiz.
01:24:53
Speaker
Only the first one really threw me for a loop. yeah I was going to say Juan Carlos. I worked with two Juan Carlos because this Juan Carlos Sr. and Juan Carlos Jr. And we only called the young one Juan Carlos.
01:25:10
Speaker
um So later that day, a Plymouth pulls into a gas station just outside of Fredericton itself. lot going on with people pulling into a stores here. i got a little confused with my notes, so hopefully it makes sense, but At this gas station, the attendant at the store happened to work part-time there, his day job being a reporter for the local paper.
01:25:34
Speaker
So happened to be reporter Must not pay very well? No. It's Fredericton.
01:25:45
Speaker
What if he ever happens except the biggest drug bust in can Canadian history? What he already moves from freaking the Maritimes out west to make money? ah Yeah, he worked part time at the gas station.
01:26:03
Speaker
And his day job, his name was Richard Duplain. His day job was working at the Daily Gleaner. I'd been working at the Daily Gleaner for about 10 years at the time and for several months working part-time for the late Merle Kugel at the Silverwood Irving, Duplaine says, which I only included because Silverwood was the neighborhood I lived in.
01:26:22
Speaker
that ah that was funny. I was like, yeah, I'm familiar with this gas station. And he was certainly familiar with current events at the time.
01:26:34
Speaker
um And that's partly why he took note of the plates... um on the car of these guys and his suspicion was also piqued by both or yeah guys guy look at the guy and the timing um which i put in today's might be like world might be a bit racial profile-y because it was just like kind of saw latino guy coming into a gas station but yeah sort of thing but also
01:27:07
Speaker
it it It is not a super diverse area, and I can't imagine it was in the 80s, so that, you know, thing, yeah, it might seem a little odd to see, like, a Latino guy here or there near the hearing and stuff.
01:27:21
Speaker
um He filled up the vehicle. The passenger, a Latino man named William Jose Rodriguez, didn't want any of the promotional apples he offered, but he did give him a $1 tip, a loony he has to this day.
01:27:39
Speaker
Duplane also took note of the license plate number. Rodriguez tweaked my curiosity because it was a day or so before a scheduled preliminary hearing for the pilots, Duplane says. Oh,
01:27:51
Speaker
He says that's why he took note of the license plate number of the guy, just because he was Latino in the area. Yeah. Guilty for being Latino. That sounds like...
01:28:05
Speaker
Yeah. i
Failed Jailbreak and Legal Proceedings
01:28:07
Speaker
Yeah, that's why I had to add something, because i was like, nowadays, we've we've had issues where it's like something happens, and then you're you're guilty by looking brown or whatever, and it's not cool.
01:28:17
Speaker
Yeah. So, Richard Duplaine is thinking about this as he works, and then an off-duty cop happens to come in just after. so he tells the cop...
01:28:30
Speaker
ah uh what he saw and as he recalls the cop made a call and then all hell broke loose quote unquote damn
01:28:41
Speaker
so some of that is how they got tipped off to be ready and waiting on september 14th when a man was to walk into the car rental agency in st john and new brunswick to return his car car rental vehicle my god they arrested him it was william rodriguez And that's when they learned how seriously close to a violent jailbreak they had come.
01:29:05
Speaker
Okay, so Sergeant Mark Fleming of the RCMP was by then working on the case and discovered the absolute arsenal that was in the men's possession when they were arrested. um Yeah, several sources had the same list, which was an Uzi, a Racina 672-320,
01:29:26
Speaker
by 369 rifle. i don't even know what that means. It sounds like a clothing no collaboration. but Something by something.
01:29:36
Speaker
Six 9mm pistols, one.22 caliber pistol, tear gas, a deactivated Japanese grenade. i meant to ask Pat what the fuck that meant.
01:29:49
Speaker
Maybe they took the pin out of it. I don't know. um a taser, berkeleyer burglary equipment, camping gear, and over 3,000 rounds of ammo. Damn. That's a lot. They had some shit.
01:30:07
Speaker
They meant some business. So they also had maps to St. Stephen, which is ah nearer to the main border. Main capital M-A-I-N-E. Yeah.
01:30:21
Speaker
and directions and stuff on the back of a rubber boat warranty uh this would become apparent to the plan in a second they also had seven passports between the five men they later learned that pablo escobar and his guys had been playing the jailbreak for a while at that point he had assembled two teams to go at it nice people with like yeah like heist teams like if it was a movie I would love it like an oceans movie i it was like let's go but instead it's just like super violent and scary yeah and real life yeah this guy's good at killing he's really good at robbing the bank and like yeah all those type of people yeah so one group was on one side of the Canada US border the other was on the other
01:31:17
Speaker
And somehow they all had ties to the revolutionary armed forces. Columbia,
01:31:26
Speaker
well, that had a different acronym. Sounded scary. The group in Canada was led by Julio Cesar Broncho Sucre, who was to take group one to the York County jail.
01:31:38
Speaker
They would be armed to the teeth and traveling in a van with tinted windows. Although there would be extra security on hand for the trial, The jail had still no such luxury against a breach just while holding the men.
01:31:57
Speaker
And the the quote that had here from with one article was, there was a joke that the guards at the Fredericton jail would shout, stop! Or I'll shout, stop again, according to Edwards.
01:32:11
Speaker
That's what you made me think about.
01:32:15
Speaker
We're just so inept because we don't have guns. No, that's not true. Guns don't solve problems always. Come But I did think that was pretty funny.
01:32:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty good. I like that. Used to be like that. That... a ah that What was it It's some some commercial. I can't even remember what it's for, but it has, like, a Canadian car chase, and it's, oh like...
01:32:47
Speaker
yes You know the one I'm talking about? They're like, the bad guys are in the car and then the police are in the car behind them and both vehicles are stuck in the snow. and so slippery! And both sets of people are outside trying to push their vehicle instead of the cops just walking over and arresting the criminals. They're all just trying to push their vehicles, but they're like five feet away from each other. funny. It's like a Canadian car chase.
01:33:13
Speaker
That's assuming they have terrible tires, but I do feel that because this year I learned my tires were bald. Oh, yeah. Drive Pat's car if it's going to get snowy again.
01:33:26
Speaker
But then, because he's got his winter tires, guess what he forgot to do? Renew his registration. laughed. Oh, no. is It's like you said, your family would be the same way. Hey, did we renew this year? It's like, yeah, every year on this month.
01:33:45
Speaker
I just remember because I go, at least I'm an A, so I just go January, just check everything in January. you see Exactly. driver's license is January. My
01:33:59
Speaker
registration is in January. The only thing that's not is my insurance. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that they still remind So I just go, oh, every January, I just pull everything out and go, am I good for this year? or no?
01:34:12
Speaker
Happy birthday. Time to pay your shit. Yeah. Yeah. No, but same. He was like, what? good Yeah, okay. I'm like, yeah, yeah. you want me to? I said, do you want me to just, when I start going through and I'm at work and I'm, oh, all these last names start with E. I should probably remind that.
01:34:31
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, excuse me.
01:34:35
Speaker
Oh, sorry. Gassy.
01:34:39
Speaker
Um, okay. Almost. We're getting there. It's just kind of crazy. They had, as they found out, not once but twice come close to putting the whole plan into action and, uh, breaking the guys at the Fredericton jail.
01:35:00
Speaker
Damn. They had planned to cut the fence around the perimeter, hole in the wall of the jail, and pull them out. Honestly, it doesn't sound that hard knowing. It's not like maximum security person. It doesn't sound exciting. It's a fucking jail. Yeah. It does not sound like an Oceans movie.
01:35:20
Speaker
No, it's like I want tunnels dug underground reinforced. Okay. But it's not a prison. Did you know mean though? Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I was thinking of like, I don't the movie's like 30 days a night or somewhere where they're like, Oh, we've got someone in the jail and that there's the cell. And then there's like the sheriff's desk, like five feet away. They're like, yeah.
01:35:41
Speaker
Yeah. It's so small. Um, so yeah, they're, we're gonna get them out any way they could probably kill anyone in their way. And then their getaway car would take them to St. Stephen in another vehicle. They would then cross the St.
01:35:58
Speaker
Croix River into Maine, where they would then fly into Miami and then home. So they have it all mapped out. Okay. awesome It's not terrible. Switch ups. Yeah.
01:36:13
Speaker
I know. It's like, okay, they're getting them off their trail and all that. They would be... They had literally been in the van, locked and loaded, and pulled up at the jail in Fredericton when they heard over the radio or whatever their communications were that the other team in America was not ready. So they called it off twice.
01:36:34
Speaker
Oh, damn. was just like, holy shit. third time they would try, tip-off from the witnesses at the gas station and the convenience store were literally the last line of defense that stopped the plot and probably saved a lot of lives, honestly.
01:36:51
Speaker
Yeah. um So yeah, that was thwarted. And it was people like them and Douglas Jaworski, the mole in the cartel, who was paid, you know, $200,000 for his help in bringing them down. And hopefully, I think he got to go live his life out in Witsack or whatever. Yeah.
01:37:15
Speaker
Like, I feel like they just shouldn't have been kept in that... jail though like you have to think they're pretty high priority inmates true this is this is true and yeah like the yeah but like it's like because they only keep them in a jail until they're actually convicted and then they can go to an actual long term like prison because as I'll mention later like we do have a prison in New Brunswick but like
01:37:49
Speaker
when you're still being held before trial and stuff, you're still usually at the, but yeah, it's not, it was not a very secure place for these guys to be. this Yeah. o Um, could have gone very wrong, obviously. Um, yeah, so weird.
01:38:07
Speaker
oh but
01:38:12
Speaker
so weird the Even their lawyer, Martin Kerbel, who had represented the Playot Can't talk, what the fuck?
01:38:23
Speaker
Playots?
01:38:27
Speaker
um Their lawyer, Martin Kerbel, who represented the Pilots, had said or had had suspicions of a group of Hispanic guys on his flight to his client's hearing he had made casual conversation and asked if they were there for the pilots, to which they appeared scared and said, no we're just going to St. John, which to him seemed odd for a small plane going to New Brunswick in the 80s.
01:38:51
Speaker
and And it it is. Yeah. They didn't go, oh, what pilots? They go, no, not those pilots. No.
01:39:02
Speaker
And as mentioned, it's not like super diverse of an area. So it's like, i don't know. And although Kerbal said he asked a local lawyer who had been acting in his stead to warn the RCMP about the suspicions he had of the men, but he didn't. Who's to say?
01:39:22
Speaker
like who dropped the ball there?
01:39:28
Speaker
And, oh yeah, another fun fact was that These newly arrested men in the case wanted Kerbal to represent them too and he said, thanks, but nah, I'm good representing the pilot guys. I got nothing on my plate.
01:39:41
Speaker
For now. Yeah. Gorda, what are you doing? You little baby.
01:39:49
Speaker
Gorda?
01:39:52
Speaker
You look so cute though. Class is almost over. but
01:40:01
Speaker
Oh, here we go. Yeah. This is my last page. Cause the next one was just the sources. It was only two.
01:40:09
Speaker
They pled guilty to conspiring. Sorry. I'm going to try English again here. They pled guilty to conspiring to commit a prison breach. They went to trial.
01:40:21
Speaker
and There was increased security in place at both the trial and the surrounding areas. There was police up on the roof of the nearby city hall to act as snipers. ah There were closed down parking lots around the jail and the courthouse.
01:40:44
Speaker
And it would be hard to like secure that area because the courthouse is right downtown right beside the river so i feel like you could also like probably have someone across the river or somewhere there where you couldn't like you really couldn't contain it anyway but they tried shutting down areas around of 1989 Jay and Penguino um so on november thirteenth of nineteen eighty nine j and penguino
01:41:17
Speaker
or Jeremio and Alec Galindo Escobar, pleaded guilty to importing cocaine. And though they tried to cut a deal, they were given 22 years in prison.
01:41:29
Speaker
um Their lawyer kept in touch with them during their time in prison in, think it's Renews. And I should know how to pronounce that because I used to because it's in New Brunswick.
01:41:42
Speaker
But sometimes for French, I'm like, is it French? And I don't pronounce the S in the end. I can't remember. It's Renu or Renus. That's the prison. They would be eligible for parole after six years. And they did teach some Spanish to the other inmates. um They're singing. They're teaching Spanish. They're so fun.
01:42:06
Speaker
Or at least they seem fun. They were quite popular and for probably good behavior reasons they were released after about three or four years and sent back to Colombia. So that's the pilot's tale ending, i guess. And the other four that were arrested in regards this were yet another story. um so these smugglers, one of them Tito Sanchez Ruiz, he had his defense argue that he was actually innocent but good caught got caught up in the bust anyway.
01:42:39
Speaker
um Cause basically had he had been visiting New Brunswick after having lived there for a while and then moving back home to Venezuela.
01:42:50
Speaker
and like his argument that was just mix up that he was driving the van with the others like oh to the getaway. so I don't know.
01:43:01
Speaker
like It was a ride share, I promise. Obviously a little skeptical.
01:43:07
Speaker
Yeah. But, long story short... I just got in a stranger's vehicle and it just happened to be filled with cocaine. was just holding this van for a friend that wanted me to bet them.
01:43:22
Speaker
Um, he got like nine years where the other ones got like ten, it wasn't that big of a deal.
01:43:31
Speaker
Um... They served a portion of their sentence in Canada before being sent back to their native countries.
01:43:39
Speaker
But they only got to Miami before things went awry again. Things often go gang-aggly. They were arrested again and charged with four counts of indictments for racketeering, conspiracy, and harboring illegal aliens, interstate travel in aid of racketeering, etc.
01:43:59
Speaker
Which is, I don't know why the u.s s was like oh they're here let's get them now just yeah then they were because it had to do with like like the drugs were coming back into the u.s even though they were being smuggled into canada that you can charge them with both in both countries oh yeah it was like clearly all of north america was the target and like they were gonna make it a hub for pumping drugs into the u.s into the east coast of the u.s and canada for sure yeah yeah i could see why they'd be mad
01:44:38
Speaker
but like it was so weird it said they were like taken back up north to bangor maine to await trial which i was like did they even get into maine from new brems last i checked i thought they were still trying to escape from across the border Anyway, they awaited and they awaited and no trial came to them. So it said that as far as we know, they were all sent back home again to their home countries, but their ultimate fates are unknown.
01:45:11
Speaker
so there's a little bit conspiracy theories about. Like, did somebody go back home to Venezuela and then get killed back there? Which, like, I wouldn't be ultimately surprised if you got back home to one of those countries and the drug lords there were like, yeah, you're dead.
01:45:29
Speaker
Yeah. But... Never trust you again. Yeah. Pablo Escobar himself, just an ending, the head of the cartel was shot to death on December 1993 by National Police.
01:45:43
Speaker
One day after his 44th birthday. So that's when his reign came to an end. so Damn. Yeah, that was the end of her. And I don't know what happened to these guys, but i kind of feel bad. I don't know.
01:46:00
Speaker
well Yeah, it's like you said, some of them are just pilots. Yeah. Yeah.
01:46:10
Speaker
kind of rough Definitely people get caught up in stuff and they shouldn't. Yeah. Like, obviously they should serve jail time and everything, but they should be able to more easily go after yeah the worst people.
01:46:31
Speaker
yeah Because I don't know how the dog Douglas guy got roped into it, perhaps. Yeah. Perhaps because he had the knowledge of planes and and flight paths and radar and such that they were like, ooh, you'd be great.
01:46:50
Speaker
Like, we don't know what they used to entice someone to get working with them. and Money. Yeah, and people can make a mistake. Hopefully we're not all as bad as our worst mistake or whatever. Yeah.
01:47:04
Speaker
Damn. Like, they used his name. I don't know. Hopefully he got to live out the rest of his life in safety and it was not. Yeah, hopefully. shoulder But yeah, thought that was pretty crazy. i never heard of it. And it was, I'm like, I'm from New Brunswick. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I've never heard of that.
01:47:24
Speaker
No. ah Well, anyway, i liked that nobody died. I got to. Yeah, that's true.
01:47:36
Speaker
I got to giggle a little bit more. Yeah, I don't think. Well, unless they, well, we don't know. They might get killed when they got back.
01:47:47
Speaker
Nobody got killed in Canada. We're like Disneyland. Nobody dies here. you you go home to do that. No. okay
01:47:58
Speaker
Oh my God.
01:48:01
Speaker
Well, we'll be back next time for a non-true crimey one. So might be a little bit more uplifting.
01:48:10
Speaker
Use your psychic powers to tell us what it's about.
01:48:18
Speaker
was a terrible clue. Yeah, whatever good it means.
01:48:27
Speaker
I'm so glad to have you back. That was fun. guys enjoyed. Catch next time. Bye-bye.