Skip to playerSkip to main content
  • 15 hours ago

Category

📺
TV
Transcript
00:19Are we rolling yet?
00:21Yeah, anytime.
00:22My name is Jochen Harms, and my dad's name is Abraham Harms,
00:27and I'm here to set the record straight.
00:33It's a famous name.
00:35A lot of people know him, and my brother Enrique.
00:39To me, it was an amazing dad.
00:42I love him.
00:44Weekends when he was coming home after his trips,
00:47played games with us kids at the house,
00:50and we're all exciting.
00:53People that know him love him.
00:58He wasn't this bad person who wanted to be in the drug business.
01:04That wasn't him.
01:06He was a small trafficker.
01:10Like, he was one of the best persons on planet Earth.
01:15He got into this marijuana business, but it wasn't that he wanted it.
01:19He got into this business because of life took him there.
01:25He did it for us.
01:28So can somebody be a drug dealer and be right with God?
01:32That's the question.
02:02that's why he lost hissmown kitty.
02:02Maybe he couldn't help him.
02:02Do you remember.
02:02You look아, you're real estate?
02:02Don't look out.
02:22I think the drug game is never-ending.
02:27Whenever you take out or chop off the head of one snake, another snake arises.
02:35Being an undercover agent is challenging.
02:38It's a mental game.
02:40Thinking in the way the criminal would think.
02:43Trying to be cool under pressure.
02:46Being quiet enough to look normal, but asking enough questions to covertly gather intel.
02:56There's a fine line on being able to execute the mission safely and then really putting
03:05yourself in harm's way and doing yourself a disservice in the investigation.
03:09I think it's the best gig in the world.
03:12You get to go out and play cops and robbers every day.
03:16It's the same stuff you were doing and imagining when you were a kid.
03:20You get to live that out in real life and get paid for it.
03:27Just letting Border Patrol know that we're going to be out there.
03:30One, so they don't mess with us.
03:32And two, we're a long ways from help.
03:36So, they'll be our first call that we make.
03:41Anything pops off.
03:47When the regular citizen thinks of the word Mennonite, they think of a quiet, very religious,
03:53proper group of people that are just doing the right thing and living a good life of the
03:58simple life.
03:59They're very into their agriculture and it's a very peaceful group of people.
04:06But just like every society has, the Mennonite population is a very small fraction of people
04:13who commit crimes and a lot of that crime is drug smuggling.
04:16The majority of the narcotics that we seize at the ports of entry are, we call it, deep concealment.
04:26To where it's concealed inside a non-factory compartment of a vehicle.
04:31Whether it be a gas tank, a frame rail, an engine block.
04:35You can find different compartments in cars and seats in car seats.
04:39Mennonite was so trusted, like at Borders, like when you were approaching Borders, like you were just good to go.
04:45My dad, he told us what he was doing and like what was going on.
04:49And unfortunately we accepted, but he didn't force us.
04:53My understanding is that Abe enlisted the help of his sons, particularly Enrique.
05:01Enrique Harms, he's comparable to the Chapa Guzman of the Sinaloa Cartel.
05:07He's at the top of the food chain.
05:10Anybody along the community, especially in the valley of El Paso,
05:14has heard of the harms.
05:16We knew that the harms are running the Mennonite mafia.
05:19It was kind of like this mythical figure, right?
05:23Quoctemoc, Mexico is a town about two hours south of the U.S.-Mexico border.
05:30And it is a Mennonite colony and home to thousands and thousands of Mennonites.
05:51There's this community laid out in like almost perfect geometry.
05:56The roads are like perfect straight lines.
06:00They're collective style of very efficient cattle farming and dairy farming and making a nationally known cheese in Mexico.
06:10And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
06:12My dad, he was in the cheese business way before he started into the drug trafficking.
06:21Back in Quoctemoc, back then, there were different cheese factories.
06:25So he was working with this company and like, he bought cheese and like, and he went all over Mexico
06:31to look for market.
06:32And he was doing pretty good.
06:34He was making a good living, was good money in it.
06:38Then after some time, he finds it in the American Crisco.
06:42Like, and they love this Crisco in Quoctemoc.
06:44If you could get a load of Crisco, you would be selling it in a day or two.
06:47And he could make good money, double or triple the price.
06:51At first time when he got to Crisco, like he was coming to the Mexican customs and show them the
06:58permit.
06:59Like everything was good.
07:00After the third or four times when he came to customs and showed it the permit note, they were telling
07:05him this is a fake one.
07:07So they just pulled the truck aside and let it sit there.
07:12And like, and it was a middle of May somewhere and like in the desert by Juarez.
07:17Like it gets really warm.
07:19And Crisco would start melting and people that were driving by.
07:23The agent just took boxes of Crisco and just gave it away.
07:27And that was my savings.
07:29That was a really tough time for him.
07:31It was a really tough situation.
07:33All the money that he had been saving up, he spent into it.
07:37And then after like he was getting a loan, trying to get it solved.
07:43And, but it was just not working.
07:46All the years of hard working to get somewhere and to get something start up.
07:53And then just all of a sudden, like you just lose everything.
07:58By that time, like life was like really tough.
08:01He owed the money and he needed to pay and like was a high interest.
08:04And he couldn't, just couldn't make it for it.
08:07Like, and then all of a sudden there this genius comes up with this idea and tells him,
08:13Hey, you know what?
08:14Like I got some marijuana.
08:16Like probably you can get into the business and sell one of this stuff and pay off your debt.
08:22So he did.
08:24He didn't want it to be this drug dealer, but being a drug business isn't easy.
08:34It's a, it's a tough life.
08:37You get used to it and then you don't see it as a sin anymore.
08:45Beneath the surface, there is something much more sinister taking place.
08:49Like many Canadians, I thought Mennonites were God-fearing, law-abiding, hardworking citizens
08:56who had the best interests of their children at heart, who worked an honest life, who believed
09:04that faith was important.
09:07They believed that God rewarded your life of hard work with entry into heaven.
09:12And so prohibitions against riding bikes, radio, TV, rubber tires on the tractors.
09:18You had to wear your overalls until they stank.
09:23You did not wash them.
09:25Weird things like this began to get people excommunicated and then they couldn't be hired.
09:30Eventually a culture of flouting prohibitions takes root in these communities,
09:35which has its final expression, I would argue, in drug trafficking.
09:48Even in the Mennonite community, as religious as they are, sometimes they fall down on their luck.
09:53And there is an opportunity there in that community to smoke on narcotics.
09:59In the 90s, the crop price dropped so bad that year, almost every farmer in Cuauhtému got into big debts.
10:09And that's when a lot of people woke up to you that were judging you for a long time for
10:16what you did.
10:18And now they are coming up to you and asking, what can we do?
10:24How can we survive this, this crisis?
10:29I don't want to be in drug business, I don't want to be a drug dealer,
10:31but I have this farmland and I have been doing this all my life.
10:38My dad did it and my grandpa did it.
10:40Not that they want to be drug dealers, but believe you and me, people will do things that they will
10:46not do.
10:46Like if it comes money, money is money and people do things.
10:54Through the 90s and into the 2000s, the Harms sons, Enrique Harms, Johan Harms, begin to develop the drug business
11:02that their father bequeathed them.
11:05Johan Harms, he decides he's going to use his money to get into the movie business.
11:10In Mexico, there is a long tradition of straight-to-video B-movie narco shoot-'em-ups.
11:19Just about drug trafficking and all that kind of stuff.
11:27Johan Harms apparently decides that this is his life's work and his life's dream.
11:32He puts a lot of money into producing these movies.
11:35And in one movie, which I have seen, takes a guy's head and suffocates the guy by sticking his head
11:42into a big pile of cocaine.
11:56I was living my dream.
11:58I was exciting.
12:00I was getting famous and I was super exciting of the work that I was doing.
12:07Abe was quite content trafficking in pretty poor quality dope.
12:12Enrique seized the opportunity.
12:15And unlike his father, I think was more of a visionary insofar as he knew he had to adapt.
12:25The BC Bud was flooding into the US market.
12:30The Mennonite product was really seedy.
12:33It wasn't very good quality.
12:35And like good businessmen, they anticipated how the market was going to change.
12:40And they adapted to the market.
12:42So they diversified into cocaine, heroin, made a hell of a lot more money.
12:51It's a tough life.
12:52It's not easy.
12:54Like you get into tough situations and you're facing with tough people.
13:00And you got to stand up for yourself.
13:02Not that you want to be this mean person, but sometimes like you really have to stand up for yourself.
13:09And that's in every single business.
13:11Like it's all over.
13:12Like you got to defend your business.
13:14You got to defend yourself.
13:15Because like if you're not going to be standing up for yourself, the people will eat you alive.
13:20Like that's not that you want to be this bad person.
13:23But sometimes like you got to face whatever it presents to you, right?
13:31Like if you really got a tough situation, okay, I would bring a gun along, but not.
13:38That wasn't the normal me, right?
13:43I grew up around Socorro late 80s, early 90s.
13:48The thing about Socorro at that time when one of the main highways that the cartels used to use to
13:54smuggle their drugs into the United States went directly through that main street in Socorro.
14:00So at the time that I was growing up in that area, Socorro was one of the major thoroughfares for
14:06the cocaine and marijuana that was coming in from the Juarez cartel.
14:10So in that little town, everybody knew who was involved.
14:14They either were involved or you knew people that were involved.
14:16It was just common knowledge.
14:19The ironic thing about the Mennonites is that we always heard of the Mennonites being this religious, holy faction that
14:29they would turn away from modern luxuries like electricity and all they wanted to do was, you know, live by
14:36the Bible.
14:37But all we knew growing up is when the Mennonites were in town, when they would come in for the
14:41weekends, they were the hardiest partiers.
14:46We're always ironic because when we would hear that, you know, about the Mennonites, you know, being so religious, we're
14:51like, well, not the ones that we hang out with because those guys come hard and they party.
14:56Downing their bottles of Jack Daniels and partaking in any party drug that they can get their hands on.
15:04In 2003, I was working on a book about Mexican immigration.
15:10I get to know a local social worker.
15:12At one night, he begins to tell me about the Mennonite community, about how the community is really completely in
15:25advance decay.
15:26First, he says, there's a terrible problem with inbreeding.
15:30And I go, I go, what are you?
15:32The Mennonites from Mexico you're talking about now?
15:34I mean, just didn't jive with what I knew about these people.
15:38Right.
15:38And, you know, the other thing is that we're driving along.
15:42The other thing is they're major drug traffickers.
15:45I say, well, pull up.
15:47What do you pull over?
15:48I got to hear this.
15:49You know, he goes on to say, I have a client, a woman whose husband was a huge informant for
15:57the Bureau of Narcotics of Oklahoma,
15:59as they put together the largest drug bust in the history of the state up to that point in 1999.
16:06I don't know if you've heard of a guy by the name of Enrique Harms, and I had like never
16:11heard of that guy before.
16:12I was like, yeah, he's kind of the couple.
16:14His dad was the first one.
16:17This is the most bizarre story I have ever heard as a journalist, man.
16:23And I consider myself to have a highly refined journalistic compass radar right in here somewhere.
16:30And it was going haywire.
16:32It was like, get down to there.
16:33Go start.
16:33Someone's going to do the narco-Mennonite story before you do.
16:38So I went down to Cuauhtémoc, to the Mennonite Campos, as they're called.
16:46I go down there, and the first thing that happens is I realize that I need to rent a car.
16:53So I go into the budget, rent a car, and I say, what's the cheapest car you got?
16:58And they point to, they point to a gold Chevy Love, which is about as large as your kitchen table,
17:06okay?
17:07It's really dinky.
17:08I'm like, okay, I guess I'll rent that.
17:11And I'm driving off the lot, and of course, this is a rural area.
17:15There's trucks and pickup trucks.
17:18That's it.
17:19No one's got a Chevy Love.
17:22And, you know, I got down there, and you could see the remarkable development that was due to the very
17:31industrious, hardworking Mennonite community.
17:34The farms were perfect.
17:38No trash.
17:39No litter.
17:40Very perfect roads, right?
17:43They just go straight.
17:44It's the middle of the desert.
17:46And talk about making the desert bloom.
17:48That's exactly what Mennonites had done by then.
17:52Here I found this entire community that was planted in the middle of the old world that they imposed on
17:58themselves, but unable to avoid the new world that was all around them.
18:02The old world I began to see was definitely damaging, harmful to them because they used this old form of
18:11educating their kids, which was almost useless.
18:15So I went to a one-room schoolhouse.
18:17I mean, you'd think this would be more at home in, like, 1870 Nebraska or something like that.
18:23You know, where you have one teacher, and you have kids of all ages sitting there writing out in chalk
18:29on these little black chalkboard slates scripture.
18:32The teacher was a farmer.
18:35He didn't know anything.
18:35He asked me.
18:36Literally, this guy asked me.
18:38Six times seven, that's 42, right?
18:40Yeah.
18:41Yeah, that's 42, all right.
18:42You know, but this was the level of knowledge that these teachers had.
18:45There's almost none.
18:46And so these kids graduated from this one-room school class, and that's all the education they ever got, right?
18:52And so they were vulnerable.
18:55They could not really get jobs.
18:59Anyway, for the next several days, I drive around the Mennonite colonies and talk to people.
19:06I was asking questions about trafficking, and I saw it was going to be a difficult story to write because
19:12of the fact that I really didn't know much about this community.
19:15I didn't speak the language, and I was clearly an outsider.
19:19I talked to this one guy, and he said, there is a guy who owns a restaurant out on the
19:23main highway, and his name's Enrique Harms.
19:29I go, Enrique Harms, okay.
19:31That's the same name as the Mennonite capo.
19:34And so I go to the restaurant, La Huerta, and I meet Enrique Harms, the owner of the restaurant.
19:41Thin little guy, face like a ferret, and he begins to tell me about how he had a cocaine habit,
19:48but now he's doing better, and now he's got this restaurant.
19:53I stayed there a week.
19:55I go by that Huerta restaurant one more time.
19:58I'm eating there, reading my notes, doing that, and all of a sudden, Enrique Harms sits down in front of
20:04me.
20:05He goes, what are you still doing here?
20:07Now, this does not feel very welcoming.
20:10You know, I'm like, um, I'm here.
20:13I'm leaving, actually.
20:14I'm about to head up, got a plane later today.
20:17Oh, okay.
20:18So I finish up.
20:19I pay the bill.
20:21I walk outside, and all of a sudden, he appears next to me.
20:25Hey, let me take your picture.
20:26And at that point, I start getting like a little defensive.
20:30I'm like, screw you, man.
20:31You're not taking my picture.
20:32I get in my car, and I head off down the very,
20:36very long highway into Koltemuk.
20:39And as I'm driving, I look in my rearview mirror, and I realize I am being followed.
20:52I look, and there's this purple Dodge Stratus.
20:56Smoked windows, no plates.
20:58And that's when I really began to get terrified, honestly.
21:02Nobody really knows I'm here except my girlfriend up in Chicago.
21:05So I realized I just got to make a room for it, you know?
21:08And so I hit the road out of town.
21:11I come to a stoplight, and I see a big, uh, forest green Chevy pickup coming.
21:21And this guy pulls up in his pickup truck.
21:27And he reaches down into the well of his car.
21:30And I think, right there, I believe he's going to pull out a pistol and shoot me.
21:37Up to this point, I had been gripped by the most razor sharp, crystalline terror I have ever felt.
21:49I am in real serious trouble now.
21:55And he reaches down into the well of the truck.
21:59And I really thought he was going to come out with a gun and just kill me right there.
22:05Instead, he comes out with a digital camera.
22:09And he holds it up like this, and he starts taking my picture.
22:12Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching.
22:13Like, the light changes, all the cars go, and I just squeal out of there.
22:18And I drive into the first business I can find.
22:23And I get out of my car, and it's 2 o'clock, lunchtime in Mexico.
22:27Nobody's there but this kid, 20-year-old kid who's kind of minding the store.
22:32And I go up to him, and I'm like, the narcos, the narco Mennonites are after me, man.
22:36Call the cops.
22:38This kid all alone, he begins to hyperventilate.
22:41He begins to try to push me, leave, get out, get out.
22:44We don't want you here, you know.
22:45I tell him, look, man, I'm not moving until you call the cops, get somebody over here.
22:49Finally, he gets a picture.
22:50He calls the cops.
22:52The cops come about 10 minutes later.
22:54It seemed endless.
22:54It seemed like they would never arrive.
22:56And finally, they get there, and they take me up to the police department.
23:00And so, a plan is devised for two of the cops to take me to Chihuahua City Airport.
23:09One guy is driving me, and the other guy is driving my Gold Chubby Love.
23:15Right?
23:17The guy driving me lays his AK-47 on my lap as he drives, and we take off.
23:25It's supposed to take an hour and plus to get to the airport.
23:30I think we did it in 45 minutes.
23:32We were blazing, blazing fast.
23:36We get to the airport.
23:37I get onto the plane.
23:39I'm, like, almost bent down and kissed the plane, you know, as I got onto it.
23:44That was my bizarre experience with the narco Mennonites of Mexico.
24:08That was the manual.
24:08We also got to the parkingros.
24:08And I decided, oh I'd love to go and make this difficult work.
24:12How I'm proud to do the parkingros shop.
24:12Why do you remember our monsters King lost the電 pause and what's the end.
24:20How do you remember our station?
24:21A company took off.
24:21It's a nice city position.
24:21Now, we can only ask all of you.
24:24In fact, we are able to browse.
24:25In 2012, we started seeing a lot more of the marijuana being smuggled through the Presidio Texas Port of Entry.
24:32We would see utility trailers being loaded with marijuana in the frame rails.
24:38Utility gas tanks, like those big diesel tanks that are in the back, they would put a tank within a
24:42tank.
24:43In the regular gas tank of pickups, they would put a steel box full of contraband.
24:51Mennonites are welders by trade.
24:54They are really, really good at welding farm equipment, and they're really, really good at welding non-factory compartments.
25:02And inside those non-factory compartments is where they hide their drugs.
25:07So, during the interviews of these drivers of these vehicles, they would always come up with, you know, we answered
25:14it ahead in the paper.
25:17There were individuals from Mexico.
25:19They were looking for work, and part of their way to look for work is they were looking for different
25:26ads in the newspapers.
25:29Many of them encountered the same ad, someone requesting drivers who had tourist visas to enter the United States.
25:37And they were requesting those drivers either deliver products, legal products, in the United States,
25:44or pick up some farm equipment in the U.S. and transport that equipment back to Mexico.
25:48So, unbeknownst to them, those drivers were given a company car, but that company car had narcotics in it.
25:56And so, they began smuggling drugs into the United States, and they didn't even know what they were doing.
26:03So, were these drivers Mennonites?
26:06No, most of these drivers were Mexican citizens from Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico.
26:11And in Chihuahua, they do see a lot of Mennonites because Cuauhtémoc and Oasis isn't too far from there.
26:19A lot of the drivers that we were encountering were describing the person that hired them and put the ads
26:26in the paper as Mennonites or Menonas.
26:30We named this operation Three Blind Mules.
26:32A mule is a person that smuggles contraband for a criminal organization.
26:40So, part of our investigation was to try to figure out who was putting these ads in the Mexican newspaper.
26:46We started asking, hey, who did you call?
26:50What was the phone number you were given?
26:51What were the instructions you were given?
26:53Do you remember what the guy looked like that delivered you this vehicle?
26:56That happened over a course of several months to where now we started to get a few nicknames.
27:03Some were Juan Weeby.
27:05Mario Blanco was a good one.
27:07Oscar Silva was another one.
27:09There was just a lot of different ones.
27:13You know, we started hearing a lot of Ingeniero.
27:17You know, the Ingeniero Silva or Ingeniero or Inque.
27:20There were several drivers that stated that the engineers are the one to hire me.
27:25And that's all we had to go by at the very beginning.
27:28Once we started to realize that, hey, this is one person that was responsible for this,
27:33we started trying to get as many identifiers, physical characteristics of what that person looked like,
27:39and to start to narrow down a target profile of who we believed was responsible for these newspaper ads.
27:45He was described as a tall white man, a Mennonite man, but spoke Spanish and spoke German.
27:56That person was identified as David Geisbrick-Furr.
28:01So once we identified David Geisbrick-Furr as our main target,
28:05we ran a target profile on him and tried to find every bit of information we could on his past.
28:12David Geisbrick-Furr had a history of narcotics problem.
28:15We found out that he himself used to be a mule.
28:19He was arrested in Presidio, Texas for bringing drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border.
28:24He went to prison, and then he was later deported back to Mexico.
28:30We felt like he hadn't learned his lesson from when he was caught the first time,
28:34and he was back to his old ways, this time a little bit smarter, a little bit wiser.
28:39And so instead of now of being that mule and taking all the risk,
28:44he was assuming very little of the risk and just drawing up the blueprint in Mexico.
28:50And he was the one that was, you know, had the master plan,
28:55and that plan was working for a long time.
28:59David Geisbrick's operation was a well-oiled machine, and so it wasn't.
29:05Marking.
29:14My name is David Geisbrick-Furr.
29:24I'm doing this just because I need to clean my name.
29:29I grew up in a Mennonite family, my dad's.
29:32Born in Mexico, my grandpa's in Canada.
29:35We were nine in the family.
29:37I was the seventh.
29:41I was Peter, Hans, Maria, Willie, Henry, Justina, me, and then Margaret, and then Daniel.
29:48Hans, or John, he died on the 86th when I was 13 years old, drinking and driving.
29:57He was my best brother.
30:00Yeah, things happen in my life, and I had a really hard time for that.
30:09My dad was kicked out before I was born.
30:12He was kicked out from the Mennonites because he started driving trucks.
30:18He started dealing with Mexican people and used electricity.
30:23I never in my life have used overalls.
30:27I never in my life had a Mennonite school.
30:29I never had a Mennonite girlfriend.
30:32Never a Mennonite wife.
30:34I grew up with Mexican people.
30:37The Mennonites, they are like, you're David Geisberg, you're a drug dealer, you're a murderer, or something like that.
30:44They go away from me.
30:45Something.
30:46That's why I'm here.
30:47I'm not a drug dealer.
30:48I'm not a killer.
30:50I'm not a murderer.
30:51I'm a legal person.
30:54That's why I'm coming for this, yes.
30:59The next phase of the investigation, we try to figure out how do we defeat this?
31:04How do we get ahead of this?
31:06Because right now, there is an unlimited amount of people in Mexico that are going to answer these newspaper ads.
31:12And if we don't put a squash to this, we are going to be inundated with it.
31:16The only option that we had was to start delivering those narcotics from the border to their destination in the
31:24United States.
31:24And we needed the blind mules' help to make that happen.
31:29So some of the next steps that we did, we started talking with some of the drivers.
31:34You know, after they tell us they don't know anything about this.
31:36They didn't know anything, that any drugs or contraband was in the vehicles.
31:40And, you know, some of them were like, no, you're lying to us.
31:43You know, we had to go and show them.
31:45In interviewing these blind mules, we would inform them that the vehicle they had that they were driving had narcotics
31:53in it.
31:54Obviously, it was news to them.
31:56They were shocked.
31:58Most of them were really, really upset.
32:00And they wanted to do whatever it took to get back at David Geist McFur for putting him in that
32:06position.
32:06And they agreed to cooperate with the investigation.
32:09Supposedly, they caught the driver, and this driver goes like, yes, it is him.
32:15But it's not me.
32:17The drivers, usually when they caught them, just go home or just be free, they show somebody.
32:23And that's what they tried to do with me.
32:26They want me to show somebody, like, to put somebody in.
32:31Who do you want me to put?
32:34And then they got mad, you know, and they said, hey, you know what, where are you supposed to go?
32:38Well, I'm supposed to go to Albuquerque, or I'm supposed to go to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
32:43And I said, all right, well, are you willing to help the U.S. government?
32:46And, of course, you know, some of them were all for it.
32:49And we did quite a few of these controlled deliveries to different cities in the U.S.
32:54We're going to take it to its final destination in order to apprehend more individuals higher in the cartel.
33:02We're driving these drug-laden vehicles all across the country.
33:08We were all over the map, and it was a really, really big network that we were dealing with.
33:15At that point in my career, this was the biggest thing I'd seen.
33:20One of our controlled deliveries was to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
33:23We arrived in Tulsa late at night.
33:25It was pitch black in this neighborhood, and there was an open house party at the residence
33:31where we're delivering this marijuana-laden truck.
33:34We parked the vehicle with marijuana in the front yard, as we were instructed to do.
33:39And several minutes later, our law enforcement team converged on the property.
33:44We booted the front door in.
33:47We encountered several people in the house, myself and another agent.
33:52As we were walking down the hallway, entered the first bedroom on the left.
33:57When we entered that bedroom, we encountered two people that were having sex.
34:02We were able to get them secured and verify they didn't have any weapons on them,
34:08which was pretty easy to do.
34:10And then we continued to secure people throughout the house until we had 10 or 12 people secured,
34:18and we were running out of handcuffs.
34:21So during some of these controlled deliveries, we know that David Gieschbrick Furr wanted to be in contact with the
34:27driver.
34:28So we had the co-operator, which was the driver that was hired in Mexico.
34:32He's now willing to record some of these phone calls with David Gieschbrick Furr.
34:38You know, and there were phone calls like, hey, where are you at?
34:40I need you to stop here.
34:41I need you to go get a phone.
34:42I need you to get a hotel.
34:44Once you get a hotel, I need you to tell me what hotel it is.
34:47Send me the address.
34:48Send me what room number.
34:49Give me the phone number of the room.
34:52Just different things that he wanted to know, which, to me, was he wanted to know where his product was.
35:01David Gieschbrick Furr just had a unique voice.
35:04It was once you heard it the first time, you knew it was him every other time you heard him.
35:19I was five years old, one that took me to Spanish school.
35:24I learned first German and then Spanish.
35:27I was in primaria and secundaria, we started learning English.
35:32But my English got better on the street, I guess, on my jobs.
35:39And after all, that chill.
35:42David Gieschbrick Furr was well-spoken.
35:45He sounded educated.
35:46He sounded controlled.
35:49Relatively pleasant to talk to.
35:51But he just had that monotone that there was no doubting his voice when you heard him on the other
35:58end of the line.
35:59Do you want to hear some of these recordings?
36:01Yeah, go ahead.
36:02Go ahead.
36:22No, I know why you're asking so much if I'm the guy.
36:25That's not my voice.
36:26That's the same voice that my lawyer had.
36:28That's a makeup.
36:29And I never had to do nothing with those drivers.
36:32It's not my voice.
36:33It's not me.
36:43So he could say that he was Mario Blanco, Ingeniero Silva, Engineer, whoever he was.
36:49But at the end of the day, when I listen to some of these recorded phone calls that we have
36:54with co-operators, I know it's David Gieschbrick Furr.
36:57On one occasion, we're trying to conduct a control delivery.
37:02And we have the co-operator in our office here in Presidio, Texas, which was, we were on a phone
37:08call with David Gieschbrick Furr.
37:10Furr knew that the gig was up.
37:13You know, he knew that his load was intercepted at the port of entry.
37:16He started, you know, talking with agents.
37:19And I basically told him, David, I know it's you.
37:23I know who you are.
37:24You know, we've got you this.
37:25We need you to come in.
37:26We know who you are.
37:28And he kept on denying, well, I don't know who you're talking about.
37:31You know, I don't know that name.
37:32And what's that name that you're telling me?
37:34And who is that?
37:37Who is that?
37:38The American American U.S. Customs.
37:45But later on, he ended up calling us back.
37:53You know, he starts pleading with us that the driver didn't know anything about it.
37:56You know, he's got small kids.
37:58You know, I don't want his kids to go through what my son did or my son went through.
38:03You know, my son was murdered by these individuals.
38:06Perfecto.
38:06Entonces, yo le pido a mal...
38:08Deje a ese muchacho de Colompat.
38:10Él tiene un chico.
38:12Él tiene un bebé.
38:13Y no quiero que le hagan a su bebé lo que le hicieron al mío.
38:15Al mío lo mataron.
38:16Ok, ¿so él no sabía nada?
38:18No, él no sabía nada.
38:20He was telling us that his son was murdered.
38:23Sí, pero ¿cómo quiere que yo trabaje?
38:25Sí, ¿cómo quiere que yo vaya y me apresente?
38:28Sí, ya me secuestraron un hijo.
38:31A mí ya me secuestraron dos veces.
38:33Ya me quitaron todo lo que tenía.
38:35¿Y qué quiere que me maten mis otros hijos?
38:38No, no, claro que no.
38:39Claro que no.
38:40I remember that phone call.
38:43I've seen falling too many people.
38:47I've seen how, like I told you, Mennonites got killed
38:51just to, because they're starting doing jobs for cartels.
38:59And the most important thing is,
39:03this is not, that's not Mennonite problem, the cartels.
39:08That's Mexican problems.
39:09The Mexican abuse from Mennonites.
39:19I think that they kind of looked at it like,
39:20oh, poor Mennonites are getting corrupted by the cartels,
39:23where all this time, the Mennonites were corrupting themselves.
39:29Is it safe for you to be doing this interview?
39:32I feel safe.
39:33Shouldn't I?
39:35Have I seen something what I shouldn't?
39:37I don't think.
39:40I don't think.
39:44On one of the control deliveries,
39:46we ended up in Lumberton, South Carolina.
39:49We were working with the locals, of course,
39:51and then we were working with DEA
39:52in order to secure an indictment
39:54on David Gieschbrick for trafficking of the cocaine.
39:58He was arrested in Mexico, extradited into the U.S.,
40:02and he was sentenced to five years.
40:05So I plead guilty,
40:06and then I went to Georgia, to McCray Prison.
40:11So I did four years, five months in prison.
40:15Before I came out of jail,
40:17every time I talked to my wife or to my brother,
40:20they were like,
40:21don't come back to Mexico, they will kill you.
40:23I go, why?
40:26Because those are cartels.
40:28You have been doing stuff for them, they will kill you.
40:31So the American government told me,
40:34you can choose,
40:35do you want to go to Canada or Mexico?
40:37Because I'm Canadian-Mexican.
40:39I want to go to Mexico.
40:40I want to see my kids.
40:41I want to be with my wife.
40:44And that's what I did.
40:45They sent me back to Mexico.
40:47The first thing what I did,
40:49I went to my cousin,
40:50I go, I need to talk to the big head,
40:53like from the Mennonite mob.
40:55What do you need?
40:56I want to talk to him.
40:57He called me, passed me the phone.
40:59I go, okay, do you have problems?
41:03Am I in dangerous?
41:05He goes, no, don't worry.
41:07Hold on, that's it.
41:10So I was free from the Mennonite mob.
41:13After that, I went to work,
41:15I stopped the police and I go,
41:17I need to talk to the cabeza grande.
41:20And if you want to talk to the mafia,
41:23you must have a reason.
41:25If not, you are in big problems.
41:27You are in big shit.
41:30So, yeah, they took me to the place
41:32and I talked to the guy and I go like,
41:34I am coming from prison.
41:36I only need to know if I have to run
41:39or am I in danger or...
41:41No, there's nothing wrong.
41:44You can go.
41:45That's it.
41:47So from there on,
41:49I have been working again.
41:53After he got out,
41:54he went back to Cuauhtémoc
41:55and from what I heard,
41:58he was back in the business again
41:59of smuggling narcotics.
42:03So long there are addicted people
42:07in Canada, United States
42:09or Europe or wherever,
42:11somebody will sell drugs.
42:15Somebody will sell drugs.
42:18So fur, like anybody else,
42:20had a boss.
42:21We determined that Enrique Harms
42:23was part of the David Giesberg fur organization,
42:26but he was even higher up on the food chain
42:28than David Giesberg fur.
42:30The investigation was a lot bigger
42:32than we even thought.
42:37David Giesberg fur was telling us
42:40that the organization murdered his son
42:44and we believe that the organization
42:47he was talking about
42:48was Enrique Harms organization.
42:55Throughout my career,
42:56from being an agent
42:57to being a supervisor
42:59to being the director
42:59of organized crime
43:00and drug enforcement
43:01for HSI in D.C.,
43:03I always heard the name Harms.
43:04Harms always came up.
43:06You know, reports
43:07and intelligence reports
43:08that were coming out from then.
43:10To me, it was like,
43:11man, it took them that long?
43:12I remember those guys
43:12from high school.
43:14From my knowledge,
43:16historically,
43:17about the Harms organization,
43:19the Mennonite Mafia,
43:20as I like to call it,
43:21it evolved
43:21and it has evolved
43:22throughout the years
43:24just like other cartels
43:25have evolved, right?
43:26So at the time
43:28that the Juarez cartel
43:30had control
43:31of basically
43:31all of Chihuahua
43:33and Durango
43:34and this area,
43:35of course,
43:36they had to fall in
43:36with the Uparis cartel.
43:38There was a time
43:39when they actually
43:39fell in with the Salazaras,
43:41which was a faction
43:43of the Sinaloa cartel
43:44when the Sinaloa cartel
43:45was starting to gain ground.
43:48But just like anything,
43:49you know,
43:49the power shifts
43:50and so I think
43:51that the Mennonite Mafia,
43:52they're very keen
43:53and very smart
43:54in the way,
43:55you know,
43:56that they align themselves
43:57because they align themselves
43:58to whoever
43:58is going to have the power
44:00and is going to align
44:01their interests.
44:03And that's the way
44:04it's been forever
44:05since the cartel started.
44:06It's not only
44:07just the Mennonites.
44:09It's any organization
44:10that wants to survive.
44:12Well,
44:13the Harms drug family
44:14has been untouchable
44:15for so long
44:15and it's the Sable story.
44:18Corruption,
44:19bribes,
44:20and the fact that
44:22they've been offered
44:23this sort of immunity
44:24for years
44:25by the Mexican government.
44:26I believe that
44:27Kiki Harms
44:28has remained in power
44:29for so long,
44:30survived this long,
44:31I believe because
44:33first of all,
44:34he's smart,
44:35remained just
44:37high enough
44:38to where he controls
44:39the Mennonite
44:40smuggling portion of it,
44:42but not so big
44:43that he gains attention
44:45from Mexican authorities
44:47or U.S. authorities
44:49and he uses the fact
44:50that Mennonites
44:51by nature
44:52are very secretive.
44:53They keep
44:54the outside world
44:56for the most part
44:57at bay
44:57and so he's able
44:59to travel
44:59in these communities
45:00with some sort
45:02of protection
45:03because even if
45:04the Mennonites
45:05are not involved
45:06or members
45:06from the Mennonite community
45:07are not involved
45:08in smuggling,
45:09they're going to offer
45:09him protection
45:10because he is a Mennonite
45:11and he is seen
45:12as a leader.
45:13That community
45:14is very secretive.
45:15They keep everything
45:16in a small group.
45:17They don't let
45:18much get out.
45:20It's a close community
45:21within a close community
45:23because cartels
45:24themselves
45:24are very secretive,
45:25right?
45:25The Mexican cartels
45:26have like recently
45:27started doing stupid things
45:29like putting stuff
45:30on social media
45:31where you don't see
45:32the Mennonites
45:33doing that, right?
45:34So Kinky Arms
45:35uses that to its advantage.
45:37Just like any cartel
45:38leader
45:39or any organization,
45:40criminal organization,
45:41if, I mean,
45:43the people
45:44that need to know
45:45that he's a boss
45:45know that he's a boss.
45:46The people
45:47that are actively involved,
45:49right,
45:49that take orders
45:51from him,
45:53nothing where
45:54Mennonite is involved
45:55as far as smuggling
45:56is not going to be known
45:57by Kiki
45:57and authorized
45:58by Kiki.
45:59So the illegal
46:01aspect of them,
46:02Kiki Arms
46:03has control over.
46:10Well, November 6, 1994,
46:13well, it's a Sunday morning,
46:14I wake up
46:15and I did hear
46:18like my dad,
46:18you know,
46:19got a phone call
46:22and he left.
46:24He left the place
46:25and about 45 minutes
46:29or an hour after
46:30somebody comes
46:32and gives us
46:34the news
46:35that he
46:36had a car accident
46:38and
46:41passed away
46:42and died
46:42in a car accident.
46:48I saw the accident.
46:50I walked down
46:51where the car was
46:52because it was
46:53inside the bridge,
46:54flipped over
46:55and I only saw the body
46:57and I saw
46:57a bullet hole
46:58at the door.
47:00driver's door.
47:02Like, you have seen
47:03a bullet hole, right?
47:04Yeah, that's what it was.
47:11Me, personally,
47:12I don't believe
47:13it was an accident
47:15because
47:17a couple of days
47:18after,
47:18like, we found
47:19bullet holes
47:20in one of the fenders
47:21of the car
47:22so that raises
47:24Kvarschkin,
47:25like, who
47:26shot the tires.
47:31There were a lot
47:31of rumors
47:32that he had
47:32a Bible
47:34and he was
47:34away to church
47:37but definitely
47:38he was not
47:38on his way
47:39to church
47:39and he was not,
47:41he,
47:42there was not
47:43a Bible
47:43in the car.
47:44I want to clear
47:45that up,
47:45that bus,
47:48that's not exactly
47:49what happened.
47:56Well, I know
47:57that John,
47:58the actor,
48:00he did a lot
48:00of shit.
48:01Do you think
48:01it's more possible
48:03that John,
48:03Johan,
48:04was actually
48:05the boss
48:06of the Mennonite mafia?
48:07Yes.
48:08That's what I think,
48:09yes.
48:09What do you think?
48:10I think that he
48:11was a good one.
48:12He was a big hat.
48:15What makes you
48:16think that?
48:17Why would he
48:18make movies?
48:18Why would he
48:19like to be a movie star?
48:21Why would he
48:21spend so much money?
48:23Because that's,
48:24that costs
48:25a lot of money.
48:26I bet you
48:27that must be.
48:29And every day
48:30a new pickup
48:31and all that stuff.
48:32I,
48:32I always
48:33stood away
48:34from them.
48:37So you think
48:37John was actually
48:38the guy,
48:38not Enrique?
48:39Yeah,
48:40no,
48:40not Enrique.
48:41I don't,
48:41I don't believe
48:41Enrique is the big hat.
48:45No more questions.
48:48I'm out.
48:55Who's in charge
48:56of the Mennonites
48:57that comes to the business?
48:58Not what I'm taking
48:59up today.
49:05Who's El Dolo's?
49:10I don't want to get
49:11into that.
49:15No,
49:16I don't want to get
49:16into that.
49:21No,
49:32I don't want to get
49:32into that.
49:33Charlie the Bale careisted
49:34me.
49:34yeah,
49:35Oh,
49:41I don't want to get
49:45I love you though.
49:47Oh,
49:50I don't want to get
49:50I don't want to get
49:50Yes,
Comments

Recommended