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60 Minutes - Season 58 Episode 30 -
Shots Fired; Ben Sasse; The Pigeon Mafia
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Shots Fired; Ben Sasse; The Pigeon Mafia
tele: https://t.me/TopFilmUSA1
#film#shows#usa#usashows#hot#filmhot
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00:08Last night in Washington, a gunman stormed the security perimeter at the White House
00:14Correspondents' Dinner. The president, the vice president, cabinet members, and more than 2,500
00:21guests were gathered to celebrate freedom of the press. We spoke with President Trump this afternoon.
00:27How worried were you that there were going to be injuries?
00:35You don't have much time, so why are you spending time doing this?
00:39You invited me, so I assume you needed to fill some time.
00:44Precious time with Ben Sasse is well spent. The former U.S. senator and college president has
00:50perhaps only months to live, but time enough for one last lesson in what America can be.
00:59Neither of these parties really have very big or good ideas about 2030 or 2050. The Congress
01:05is not wrestling with big or important questions right now.
01:10Hello, Congress.
01:11It's a whodunit in the heart of Europe, with Mission Impossible break-ins, organized crime,
01:19and international intrigue. We've heard people talking about a pigeon mafia. Is that a thing?
01:25Forget the Maltese Falcon. This mystery is about a Belgian pigeon and a sport god cuckoo.
01:36I'm Scott Pelley. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm John Wertheim.
01:43I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Nora O'Donnell. I'm Leslie Stahl. Those stories, and in our last minute,
01:50an Admiral Charts America's course, tonight on 60 Minutes.
02:02Last night in the nation's capital, a gunman stormed the security perimeter at the White
02:08House Correspondents' Dinner. The president, the first lady, the vice president, cabinet members,
02:13and more than 2,500 guests were gathered to celebrate the First Amendment and freedom of
02:19the press. But after shots were fired, the president was evacuated. It was at the same hotel
02:26where President Ronald Reagan was nearly assassinated by John Hinckley 45 years ago.
02:32Tonight, federal investigators are looking into the motive of the alleged gunman,
02:36a 31-year-old teacher from Torrance, California. He emailed what a senior official called
02:43a manifesto to his family minutes before the attack. He wrote he was targeting members of the
02:49Trump administration. We spoke with President Trump this afternoon at the White House about what
02:55happened. Mr. President, do you know if you were the target of the gunman?
03:01I don't know. It sounded to me, I read a manifesto. He's radicalized. He was a Christian,
03:09a believer, and then he became an anti-Christian, and he had a lot of change. He's been going through
03:15a lot based on what he wrote. His brother complained about him and I think reported him
03:20to the police, and his sister likewise complained about him. His family was very concerned. He was
03:27probably a pretty sick guy. I was in the room, not far from you, Mr. President.
03:35Could hear what sounded like gunshots or commotion. People nearby could smell the gunpowder.
03:41Everybody hit the floor. How worried were you that there were going to be injuries?
03:48I wasn't worried. I understand life. We live in a crazy world.
03:56You are sitting there next to the first lady. The entertainer named Oz Perlman is talking to you.
04:03He's known as the mentalist. When did you know something was wrong?
04:07Right around that point. In fact, you can see the expression on the first lady's face,
04:15and your president of the evening, chairman or president or both, who is doing a great job,
04:21by the way. Weijia Jiang, CBS News.
04:23Yeah, she was a terrific person. They were asking the name of Caroline's child that he didn't know,
04:31I guess.
04:31Your press secretary is expecting, and he was trying to guess the baby's name.
04:34That's right. You mentioned the first lady. Her face, she looked very alarmed.
04:40Was she scared?
04:42Well, I don't want to say, and people don't like having it said that they were scared,
04:47but certainly, I mean, who wouldn't be when you have a situation like that by that time?
04:51I think she realized ahead of time that that was more of a bullet than it was a tray.
04:57And she was, I looked at her face just a little while ago. Before I came, I saw the scene.
05:04They played it for me in pretty good close-up.
05:10And she looked very upset about what just took place. Yeah. Why not?
05:16You see the security moving quickly, within seconds, grabbing the vice president by his coat,
05:23lifting him up, bringing him out.
05:25Then the counter-assault comes in, took 10 seconds for them to flank you, Mr. President,
05:31and then 20 seconds to get you out.
05:34It looked chaotic. At one point, you were down. What was happening?
05:38Well, what happened is it was a little bit me. I wanted to see what was happening.
05:43And I wasn't making it that easy for him. I wanted to see what was going on.
05:49And by that time, we started to realize maybe it was a bad problem, different kind of a problem, bad
05:55one,
05:56and different than what would be normal noise from a ballroom, which you hear all the time.
06:04And I was surrounded by great people, and I probably made them act a little bit more slow.
06:10I said, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let me see. Wait a minute.
06:13So, you know, I'm telling guys...
06:14Just at that moment where it looks like you go sort of down with the service, you were telling them
06:18to wait.
06:18Well, I know what happened is then I started walking with them.
06:21I turned, I started walking, and they said, please go down. Please go down on the floor.
06:26So I went down, and the first lady went down also, but we were asked to go down by the
06:33agents as I was walking.
06:35In other words, I was...
06:36They wanted you almost to crawl out.
06:37I was standing up, pretty much. I was standing up and then turned around the opposite direction
06:43and started pretty much walking out pretty tall, a little bent over because, you know,
06:49I'm not looking to be standing too tall, but I was walking out.
06:55It was pretty about halfway there, and they said, please go down to the floor.
06:58Please go down to the floor. So I dropped to the floor. So did the first lady.
07:02What was your thought at that moment? What did the first lady say?
07:05Well, my thought was, you know, I've been through this before a couple of times,
07:08and she has not, to this extent, she handled it great.
07:14I mean, she was, she's very strong, smart. She got it. She knew what was happening.
07:19She listened. I did too, by the way.
07:21Because this was the first time she was...
07:22Yeah, when they said drop down, that meant trouble. And obviously, I'm the president,
07:27and I listened to what they said. Please drop down. Sir, please drop down.
07:32So I was walking halfway, and then I dropped down at the final because we had little ways to go
07:37where you're exposed to the ballroom surroundings. And then I got up, and we went to a hold room
07:47for a while, and I tried to get them to continue the event, if possible.
07:52You wanted to go back in.
07:53I did. I really did.
07:54You can see the gunman running through the metal detectors, and he fired off one or two rounds.
08:01His speed was rather incredible, actually. It was, he was like a blur.
08:05How did he get that close with the place swarming with security?
08:08I will say, look, I say it because I'm a big fan of the people of law enforcement.
08:15And, you know, some of these people, they may be crazy, but they're not stupid,
08:19and they figure things out. He ran 45 yards, they say, and he just went to it,
08:26and then, boom, he popped through it.
08:28I mean, he ran like, I think the NFL should sign him up. He was fast.
08:33When you look at it on tape, it's almost like a blur.
08:35Right.
08:36But it was amazing, because as soon as they saw that, you could see them draw their guns.
08:41They were so professional, aimed their guns, and then they took them down immediately.
08:46Two hours later, the president was back at the White House to brief reporters.
08:51I saw a room that was just totally unified. It was, in one way, very beautiful.
08:55Do you think this will change your relationship with the press?
08:59Well, look, for whatever reason, we disagree on a lot of subjects.
09:06We talk about crime. I'm very strong on crime. It seems like the press isn't.
09:12It's not so much the press. It's the press plus the Democrats, because they're almost one and the same.
09:17It's like the craziest thing.
09:20I have the strongest border we've ever had in the country.
09:23We're, as you know, it said zero people for nine months came into our country through our southern border.
09:28We have a very tough border.
09:30The so-called manifesto is a stunning thing to read, Mr. President.
09:34He appears to reference a motive in it.
09:38He writes this, quote, administration officials, they are targets.
09:42And he also wrote this.
09:44I'm no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.
09:50What's your reaction to that?
09:51Well, I was waiting for you to read that, because I knew you would, because you're horrible people.
09:56Horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I'm not a rapist. I didn't rape anybody.
10:03I'm not a pedophile.
10:04Do you think he was referring to you?
10:05Excuse me. Excuse me. I'm not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person.
10:11I got associated with stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated.
10:18Your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were involved with, let's say, Epstein or
10:26other things.
10:27But I said to myself, you know, I'll do this interview and they'll probably I read the manifesto.
10:33You know, he's a sick person. But you should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I'm not any of
10:39those things.
10:40Mr. President, I was never. Excuse me. Excuse me. You shouldn't be reading that in 60 minutes.
10:46You're a disgrace. But go ahead. Let's finish the interview.
10:48The other thing that he wrote in the other thing in the manifesto that I think is worth looking at
10:55in terms of determining his motive is he had been staying at the hotel since Friday.
11:00He checked in. He said he had cased the place and he wrote, what the hell is the Secret Service
11:04doing?
11:05And he wrote this quote, I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet,
11:12metal detectors out the wazoo.
11:14What I got is nothing. He wrote like this level of incompetence is insane.
11:19Sir, you have already had two. Well, he was pretty incompetent, too, because he got caught and he got caught
11:25pretty easily.
11:26So I'd say he was pretty incompetent, too. You know, I could take any event having to do with security
11:31or anything else.
11:32I can always find fault. Those guys did a good job last night. They did a really good job.
11:38I mentioned that because, again, as his motive, you brought this up.
11:41He had social media accounts that had anti-Trump and anti-Christian rhetoric.
11:47You should read. Why don't you read all the anti-Trump? Why don't you read it? You just did. So
11:51why don't you read it?
11:53Well, he had a lot of anti-Christian rhetoric. He had he was part of a group called the Wide
11:58Awakes.
11:59He had attended a no kings protest in California. What did security tell you about what may have been his
12:06motives?
12:07The reason you have people like that is you have people doing no kings. I'm not a king.
12:10What I am. If I was a king, I wouldn't be dealing with you.
12:13Also at the dinner last night was your secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
12:18His sister, Kerry Kennedy, was there. They've both witnessed their father and their uncle be assassinated.
12:26Erica Kirk was there. The House Majority Leader, Steve Scalise, was there.
12:32Yeah.
12:32Political violence has touched so many people in that room.
12:38Is there something that you as president can do? What can be done to change the trajectory?
12:43Well, you know, you go back 20 years, 40 years, 100 years, 200 years, 500 years.
12:52It's always been there. People are assassinated. People are injured. People are hurt.
13:00And I'm not sure that there's any more now than there was.
13:03I do think that the hate speech of the Democrats, much more so, is very dangerous.
13:08I really think it's very dangerous to the country.
13:10President Trump told us he hopes to move events like last night's press gala to the new East Wing Ballroom
13:17that he says is ahead of schedule, though it won't be ready until 2028.
13:22But he wants last night's dinner to be rescheduled much sooner than that.
13:27You are committed to doing this event with the White House Correspondent Center that's about freedom of the price.
13:32I want them because I don't want to see it be canceled.
13:35I don't want to have a crazy person.
13:38I think it's really bad for a crazy person to be able to cancel something like this.
13:42There are great people in the press, too, like a name, but I don't want to embarrass your show.
13:47We have some great people in the press, some very fair people, and people that are just on my side.
13:51But for the most part, it's a very liberal or very progressive, let's use the word liberal press.
13:57But I was just really, I was really happy to see the, I don't know how long it will last,
14:06the relationship, the friendship, the spirit after a very bad event took place.
14:12Now, the event turned out to be much less bad because nobody was killed, nobody was hurt.
14:17The Secret Service agent, I spoke to him, he had a bulletproof vest on.
14:23Unbelievable.
14:24He's okay.
14:25Oh, he's 100%.
14:26Yeah, no, he was 100%.
14:27He didn't want to go to the hospital.
14:29He really didn't.
14:30They asked him to go.
14:30He didn't want to go.
14:31He said, I don't need to go to the hospital.
14:33But he went because they asked him to go.
14:35Well, I know the White House Correspondents Association very much appreciates you going
14:41last night and honoring a commitment to do it again.
14:44I hope we're going to do it again.
14:45Nora, tell him to get it going, and we should do it within 30 days, and they'll have even
14:52more security, and they'll have bigger perimeter security.
14:56It'll be fine, but tell him to do it again.
14:59We can't let something, it's not that I want to go.
15:03I'm very busy.
15:04I don't need that.
15:06I think it's very important that they do it again.
15:17Ben Sasse would like a final word.
15:20At the age of 54, the former U.S. Senator of Nebraska is dying of pancreatic cancer.
15:27But a new drug is giving him extra time, time to hear his appeal for reason,
15:34in Washington, and community at home.
15:38Sasse is a conservative Republican of independent thought.
15:42With a Ph.D. in American history, he once told his fellow senators,
15:47the people despise us all because we are not doing our job.
15:53His cancer therapy leaves him looking seriously sunburned, but we found Ben Sasse as insightful,
16:00passionate, and hopeful as ever.
16:05I love America, and I think there's a lot of big and meaty things that we should have been talking
16:13about
16:13and we still can talk about, and having a terminal diagnosis isn't really that unique.
16:19We're all always on the clock.
16:22Some of us have the benefit, maybe.
16:25It's a weird word, but the benefit of knowing our time is finite and defined,
16:30and it becomes an opportunity to talk about bigger stuff.
16:33And you have focus from that.
16:37Yeah, I mean, it's weird to be in your early 50s and get a terminal diagnosis,
16:42and people all of a sudden act like you're 93 or 94, and you have a lot of wisdom.
16:46I don't know that I have a lot of wisdom, but I have a lot of things that I think
16:50we should be reflecting on together.
16:51Reflecting, he told us, on rebuilding communities, neighbor to neighbor,
16:58regulating artificial intelligence before it overwhelms us, and mending broken politics.
17:05Neither of these parties really have very big or good ideas about 2030 or 2050
17:10at a national security level, at a future of work level, at an institution building level.
17:15The Congress is not wrestling with big or important questions right now.
17:19If Congress is looking at the wrong things, what is it missing?
17:24We are living through a digital revolution, which is both glorious and horrific at the same time.
17:30Because what the digital revolution does is it accelerates almost everything about the human experience.
17:37Anything that can be reduced to a series of steps, which is most economic activity,
17:42is going to be routinized and become really, really cheap, really fast, and really ubiquitous.
17:48We've never lived in a world where 22-year-olds couldn't assume that the work they did,
17:54they would be able to do until death or retirement, and we're never going to have that world again.
17:59And Congress doesn't talk about any of those kind of most fundamental issues.
18:03The disruption of work, for good and for ill, should be front and central.
18:08Congress doesn't even know how to have that conversation.
18:10In 2014, Ben Sasse was a college president in Nebraska when he was recruited to run for Senate.
18:18He became one of the most popular politicians in state history,
18:23maybe because during Senate recesses he worked as a garbage man and a vendor at Cornhusker games,
18:31just to stay in touch with the lives of Nebraskans.
18:35What makes you a Republican?
18:37I'm a Republican because I think the Lincoln-Reagan continuum does the best job of building a constraint
18:45on thinking Washington is our fundamental political community.
18:49I think your fundamental political community is your neighborhood and your city hall
18:53and maybe even your state legislature.
18:55And right now, we are sacrificing a lot of our national politics to weird folks
19:01who want their main community to be their political tribe at a federal level.
19:06And that should be like the ninth thing or the 15th thing you care about, not the first or second
19:10thing.
19:11You ended your Republican pantheon with Ronald Reagan.
19:15And I wonder, when you look at the Trump administration today, what do you see?
19:19It's no secret that the current president and I wrestled on lots and lots of issues.
19:26But I don't spend much time commenting on our current politics
19:30because I don't really think our current politics are driving what's happening.
19:35I think it's mostly an echo of what's happening.
19:37I think we have really thin, shallow community right now.
19:43And unless people know the thickness of their local community,
19:46it's hard to make sense of what national politics are for.
19:49I think our national political dysfunction is an echo of larger problems.
19:54In 2020, Sass was re-elected with more votes in Nebraska than Donald Trump.
20:01Then came January 6th.
20:04That day, Sass called out, quote,
20:07the screamers who monetize hate.
20:10You can't do big things together as Americans
20:15if you think other Americans are the enemy.
20:17Later, in Trump's impeachment over January 6th,
20:21Sass was one of seven Republicans who voted to convict.
20:26His stand against the insurrection offended the Nebraska Republican Committee.
20:32So he sent them a message.
20:34Personality cults aren't conservative.
20:37Conspiracy theories aren't conservative.
20:40Lying that an election has been stolen, it's not conservative.
20:43Acting like politics is a religion, it isn't conservative.
20:49In 2023, with four years left in his term,
20:53Sass quit to become president of the University of Florida.
20:57There had been too little substance in the Senate
21:00and too much absence from his wife and three children.
21:04Many senators I know would not be able to breathe without that job.
21:12It would kill them to leave.
21:15I don't want what you said to be true,
21:19but I fear that that is true,
21:22and that is a sign of a much, much deeper problem.
21:25We got a lot of people who serve in government
21:28who really do think the highest and greatest thing you can ever do
21:32is have the title senator or congressman.
21:34Bulls**t.
21:35The best thing you can do is be called dad or mom,
21:39lover, neighbor, friend,
21:42governor, senator, house member.
21:45It's a great way to serve.
21:46It should be your 11th calling,
21:48or maybe 6th,
21:49but never top.
21:50His calling left bipartisan consensus on one thing.
21:55The voice of Ben Sass is missed.
21:59Democrat Mark Warner worked with Sass on the Intelligence Committee.
22:04He never really thought about things as conservative liberal.
22:09He much more thought about issues as future past.
22:14Somebody who was fearless, passionate.
22:19Republican John Thune of South Dakota
22:21is the Senate majority leader.
22:24Concern not just for today,
22:26but for tomorrow and the future,
22:28and someone who wasn't distracted
22:30by all the noise that goes around us on a daily basis.
22:34An example of what the Senate should be.
22:38Yes.
22:39And hopefully,
22:43you know, an inspiration,
22:44an example that many of us can learn from and follow.
22:48The Senate needs to be less like Instagram.
22:51The Senate needs to be more deliberative.
22:53And that means less smackdown nonsense.
22:56One of the fundamental mistakes we've made
22:59over the last 30 or 40 years
23:00is putting cameras everywhere in Washington, D.C.
23:03This is not an argument against transparency.
23:05We should have reporters around.
23:07We should have pen and pad.
23:08We should have people recording what's happening.
23:10But we should make the Senate less of an institution
23:14that is built as a backdrop platform
23:17for people to get sound bites.
23:18That's not what the Senate is for.
23:20The Senate should be plodding and steady
23:23and boring and trustworthy.
23:26To be too frank,
23:28you were expected to be dead by now.
23:31That's frank.
23:32I like it.
23:33Let's be blunt.
23:35What changed?
23:37Let's go with providence, prayer, and a miracle drug.
23:42In mid-December,
23:43I was given a three- to four-month life expectancy.
23:47I am on extended time already.
23:49I have pancreatic origin cancer
23:51that has metastasized a number of places.
23:54So I've got lung, vascular, liver, ether.
23:58Liver's pretty far along.
23:59You have five cancers?
24:01Yes, sir.
24:02He's in a clinical trial for a drug
24:04called daraxonracid,
24:06a new idea in therapy.
24:09In many cancers,
24:11it's a defective gene
24:12that signals cells to grow nonstop.
24:16The drug blocks that signal.
24:19I have much, much less pain
24:21than I had four months ago when I was diagnosed,
24:23and I have a massive 76% reduction
24:27in tumor volume over the last four months.
24:29Just this month,
24:31the drug maker Revolution Medicines
24:33reported that patients who had six months
24:36survived a median 13 months.
24:40You are completely devoted to your faith,
24:44what's known as Reformed Christianity or Calvinism.
24:49And one of the tenets of that faith
24:52is that God ordains everything.
24:54And I wonder why you think
24:58God has put you to this test.
25:04Death is wicked.
25:07Death is evil.
25:09Death is not how it's supposed to be.
25:11And me getting a cancer diagnosis,
25:15again, is pretty small
25:17on the grand scheme of things,
25:19but it's a touch of grace
25:24because it forces me to tell the truth.
25:26And the lie I want to tell myself
25:30is that I'm the center of everything,
25:34and I'm going to be around forever,
25:38and I can work harder
25:40and store up enough
25:42that I can atone for my own brokenness.
25:46I can't.
25:47And so, I hate cancer,
25:50but I'm also grateful for it.
25:52I tell a lot more truth to myself
25:55than I used to do it
25:56when I thought I was
25:57super omni-competent and interesting.
26:02He may have to accept the label interesting.
26:05Ben Sass has lived life in a hurry
26:08with more careers than most
26:10and ends with his favorite,
26:13a teacher.
26:14I make no comparison
26:17to what you're going through.
26:20But there was a moment on 9-11
26:22at the World Trade Center
26:23that I knew I was dead.
26:26And in that lightning flash of an instant,
26:30the only thing that crossed my mind
26:34was leaving my family behind.
26:38And I wonder how you reconcile that.
26:43Yeah.
26:48I'm incredibly blessed.
26:51My wife, Melissa, has been married 31 years.
27:01We're going to be apart for a time.
27:04Um, but she's tough and gritty
27:08and theologically rooted,
27:10and she's going to be fine.
27:12My daughters are 24 and 22,
27:16and they're extraordinary.
27:20I want to walk them down the aisle
27:22when they get married.
27:23Um, that's not likely to be.
27:25That's not the math of my time card.
27:28My son, we have a providential surprise.
27:31He's a decade younger than big sisters.
27:33He's 14, and, uh, he's going to be fine.
27:37He'll have other, uh, other wise men
27:41and women to put a hand on his shoulder.
27:43But I'm super bummed to not be there, um,
27:47at 16 and 18 and 20 years old in his life.
27:51I want to give him more advice than he wants,
27:52and I want to put my arm on his shoulder,
27:54and I want his shoulders to get taller.
27:58But it's not a surprise to God.
28:04And God, you believe, has a plan?
28:07Absolutely.
28:08There are no maverick molecules in the universe.
28:15Decentralize a lot.
28:16More with Ben Sasse and Scott Pelley
28:18in a CBS News Things That Matter conversation.
28:21Watch now on the 60 Minutes YouTube channel,
28:25brought to you by Bank of America.
28:27My detailed, uh...
28:3560 Minutes has reported
28:37on plenty of high-profile crimes before,
28:40but nothing like the foul play
28:42involving the Columba Livia Domestica.
28:45That's not some international crime syndicate.
28:48That's the scientific name for pigeons,
28:51and they're being stolen.
28:53We're talking about elite racing pigeons,
28:55the finest, compete at international events
28:58in which they're released far from home
29:00and must find their way back.
29:02As prizes have risen up into the millions,
29:06the birds have become targets
29:08for what insiders call the pigeon mafia.
29:15The Flemish region of Belgium
29:17is a land of medieval towers and fine chocolate.
29:21It's also home to some of the most sought-after birds on Earth.
29:25Yep, these guys.
29:27What Kentucky is to thoroughbred horses,
29:31Belgium is to racing pigeons.
29:34And there are few better at breeding a champion
29:37than Tom Von Gover.
29:39Where some see a bird
29:41that looks like it's trying to remember how to breathe,
29:44Von Gover sees an elite athlete
29:46with a calculating gaze.
29:48What makes this pigeon a great racer?
29:51Yeah, he has everything
29:52a good racer needs to have,
29:54but of course we cannot look in the head.
29:57You can have a very smart pigeon,
29:59but when the body is not strong enough,
30:01his head wants to go home,
30:02but the body cannot follow the other, so...
30:05Van Gover breeds, sells, and races his pigeons
30:10at events around the world, such as this.
30:13The weight of his dominance
30:15can be seen inside his modest home.
30:18But in his pigeon loft out back
30:20are his real prizes.
30:22Pigeons that can fly hundreds of miles
30:25at highway speeds,
30:26feathered Ferraris worth a fortune.
30:29How much could you get
30:30for all the pigeons out there?
30:32I think around $10 million.
30:34$10 million in pigeons?
30:36Yeah, for these 300 sitting here.
30:39This was his greatest.
30:41His name was Finn.
30:42In a sport in which pedigree is everything,
30:46Finn was the secretariat of the sky.
30:49Pigeon breeders, known as fanciers,
30:51traveled across oceans
30:53just to take a picture with Finn.
30:55People all recognize him because of his color,
30:58but, of course, he was a very good racer
31:00and, of course, a very good breeder.
31:02Finn was not for sale,
31:03but he was a priceless stud.
31:06Fanciers paid up to $100,000
31:09for Finn's offspring.
31:11And then, one night,
31:13as Van Gover slept,
31:15a nightmare unfolded in his pigeon loft.
31:20This surveillance video is from 2024.
31:23Finn was in his favorite spot
31:25when he was snatched by an intruder.
31:28It's like the Mona Lisa
31:29from the pigeon sport they stole.
31:31Why the Mona Lisa?
31:33Yeah, because it's famous.
31:34Maybe it's old and it's not for sale,
31:36but everybody wants to see it.
31:38Six other pigeons were also abducted.
31:41The first time you watch it
31:43and the second time and the third time,
31:45and then start to look,
31:47who is he?
31:48The whodunit was among 35 pigeon robberies
31:53across Belgium over the last three years.
31:55High-value racing pigeons
31:57have also been stolen in Great Britain,
32:00South Africa,
32:00and the United States.
32:02This tape was from an unsolved caper
32:05in 2023 outside Philadelphia.
32:08To understand what's behind
32:10this avian crime wave
32:11and why a member of our species
32:13would risk jail time
32:14to steal a member of this species,
32:16we visited Ryan Zonikin.
32:19So what is different about this pigeon
32:22than the pigeon I'm going to see
32:23in New York defacing a statue?
32:26They're bred for the performance,
32:28for their racing abilities.
32:30Zonikin is a Canadian fancier
32:32who calls himself the pigeon boss.
32:35When you're holding a pigeon in your hand,
32:37what is it you're looking for?
32:39It's got to be like a steel bar,
32:41but then it has to be as light
32:43as an empty soda can.
32:44And the feathers have to be like
32:46the most beautiful woman's hair,
32:48soft and silky.
32:49That's how it's got to be.
32:51And then the eye has to look like
32:52you're at Tiffany's.
32:54Look like you're at Tiffany's?
32:55The pigeon eye?
32:56The eye of the pigeon, yeah.
32:58That eye, to the uninitiated,
33:00looks more like a panic button.
33:03Pigeons don't walk so much as glitch.
33:06Their coloring resembles concrete
33:08tinged with the broken rainbow
33:10of a parking lot oil slick.
33:11And when they take flight,
33:13they can make you look like a Disney princess
33:16that's hit rock bottom.
33:21They fixed your hair for you, see?
33:24Zonikin moved from Canada to Belgium
33:27because he loves pigeons.
33:29Like, a lot.
33:30If this was a room of hens,
33:32of women, pigeons, females, hens,
33:35and you came in here every day.
33:37And I said, hello.
33:38Hi, girls.
33:39Hi.
33:39And I look, I look at her
33:41and she sits up here and I,
33:43ooh, ooh.
33:44You talk to her a little, ooh.
33:45Talk a little bit.
33:46Look at her and you make eye contact with her,
33:48just like a girl at the bar.
33:50The love affair Europe has for pigeon racing
33:53began in the 1800s
33:54and grew into a working class sport.
33:57There's not a feeling like
33:58when you sit there on a weekend
34:00and wait for your pigeons
34:01and you see them come home.
34:02It's like, wow, I did this.
34:05You're the coach.
34:06You're the nutritionist.
34:08You're the scout.
34:09It's the best.
34:12But purists have seen the sport change
34:14as prize money has soared.
34:17It started about 20 years ago
34:20with a new kind of competition
34:21called One Loft Racing.
34:25In which fanciers from around the world
34:28battle for millions of dollars.
34:30It's a beautiful idea
34:32but when there's money involved
34:34it's not the same.
34:37We went to a One Loft race in Portugal
34:40to see how it works.
34:42Months earlier,
34:43fanciers shipped their best young prospects
34:45to the race loft
34:47so the pigeons could learn
34:49to recognize it as their home.
34:51The cost to enter a bird is about $500.
34:54The more pigeons,
34:55the larger the pot of prize money.
34:59All racing pigeons
35:01are identified by leg bands.
35:03Just before the race
35:04each of the 3,300 birds
35:06is scanned into a database
35:08and then driven
35:09300 miles away
35:11to be released.
35:15The first pigeon
35:16to find their way back
35:18into the loft
35:18wins.
35:20Six hours later
35:21a spotter at the finish
35:22blew a whistle.
35:25To signal
35:26the leaders were circling above.
35:28The first into the loft
35:30got the biggest cuts
35:31of the $1.2 million purse.
35:38It's crazy.
35:39You only see the last 30 seconds
35:40of a pigeon race.
35:41Isn't that something?
35:43People refer to it
35:43as a sport.
35:46It's a sport.
35:47Is it a sport?
35:48Sure it is.
35:48Is horse racing a sport?
35:50It's a sport.
35:52And as the prizes have climbed,
35:54so has the demand
35:55for the fastest pigeons.
35:57One hundred thousand is a bid.
35:59One Loft winners
36:00are considered blue chip assets.
36:02Their DNA is like an ATM.
36:07Producing descendants
36:08that can sell
36:09for hundreds of thousands
36:11of dollars.
36:15Ryan Zonikin pays his bills
36:17by auctioning
36:18Belgian birds online.
36:21Take a look.
36:22It all has an infomercial feel.
36:25She's buoyant.
36:26She has it all.
36:27And she's got the look.
36:28Well lubricated
36:29with gin and tonic.
36:31You can actually see
36:32the brains right in them.
36:33Just take a good look.
36:34On this night,
36:35the highest bids
36:36topped three grand.
36:37But that's chicken feed
36:39compared to the largest
36:40auction player in Belgium.
36:41It's called pigeon paradise
36:44or pipa for short.
36:46How many pigeons
36:48do you sell a year
36:49and about how much
36:50total sales
36:52are we talking about?
36:53I think about
36:5440 million euro.
36:56Are you kidding me?
36:57Yeah.
36:58Which is like
36:5946 million dollars
37:01in pigeon sales a year?
37:02Yeah.
37:03Whoa.
37:04I mean,
37:04there is still
37:05a big potential.
37:07Nicholas Hazelbrick
37:08started pipa
37:09when he was 18.
37:11About half of the sales
37:13go to Chinese buyers
37:14who are even more
37:15obsessed with pigeons
37:16than the Belgians.
37:18In 2020,
37:19a Chinese tycoon
37:20paid a record $1.8 million
37:22for one bird.
37:25China has over
37:27400,000
37:28registered pigeon fanciers
37:30with five-star
37:32luxury lofts
37:33and races
37:34offering as much
37:35as $16 million
37:36in prizes.
37:38If we don't have China,
37:41it would be very hard
37:42to run the business.
37:43Because why?
37:45Because they
37:46make the price.
37:48More big spenders
37:50have followed
37:51from the Middle East.
37:52The result?
37:53A global arms race
37:54for wings.
37:55With so much money
37:57at stake,
37:58the bad guys
37:58moved in
37:59and began to steal
38:00the sports superstars.
38:02They'll have the people
38:03come in and look
38:04at the pigeons,
38:05somebody who's
38:06orchestrating it,
38:07and then
38:08they send other people
38:09maybe a week later,
38:11a month later,
38:11a year later,
38:13take them.
38:13And normally the time
38:14when breeding starts
38:15in the end of November,
38:18December, January,
38:19that's when all
38:20the key birds
38:20will be paired together.
38:22Easy stealing, right?
38:24We've heard people
38:24talking about
38:25a pigeon mafia.
38:26Is that a thing?
38:28Yeah, I think there is.
38:29Again, it's money involved.
38:31Fanciers and investigators
38:33told us they believe
38:34international gangs
38:36are behind smuggling networks
38:38that breed
38:38the stolen pigeons
38:39to sell their offspring
38:41on the black market
38:42to fanciers anxious
38:43to supercharge
38:44their bloodlines.
38:45This batch,
38:47stuffed in socks
38:48and hidden in a briefcase,
38:50was stopped in December
38:51at Latvia's border
38:52with Russia.
38:53Have you seen
38:54crazy security
38:55at these lofts now?
38:56Oh, yeah.
38:57What have you seen?
38:57Oh, multiple cameras,
38:59laser beams
39:00going across.
39:01So now,
39:03panicked fanciers
39:04in Belgium
39:04are turning to
39:05this soft-spoken
39:06veterinarian
39:07to help protect
39:08their pigeons.
39:09There's some
39:10droppings on this.
39:11Oh, sure.
39:11That can happen.
39:14Ruben Loncrete
39:15is a pioneer
39:16in genetic testing
39:17on pigeons.
39:18That's a thing.
39:19He maintains
39:20a database
39:21of over 70,000 birds
39:23that stretch back
39:24over 10 generations.
39:26It has been
39:27very important
39:28in proving
39:29parentage,
39:30father, mother,
39:32for sale of pigeons.
39:34He showed us
39:35how he plucks
39:35genetic samples
39:36from feathers.
39:37The idea
39:38is his genetic library
39:40offers some protection
39:41from the pigeon
39:42mafia because
39:43a stolen pigeon
39:44or its offspring
39:45could be identified
39:47by DNA
39:47and make it too risky
39:49to sell or race.
39:52And that gets us
39:53back to Tom Vongover
39:54and his missing
39:56masterpiece,
39:57Finn.
39:58This is the point
40:00in the story
40:00where you might
40:01expect to hear
40:02from hard-charging
40:03detectives
40:03who took on the case.
40:05But the Belgian
40:06federal police
40:07wanted 60 minutes
40:08to agree to
40:09what we might ask
40:10in an interview,
40:10what they might say
40:12and what we could report.
40:13That didn't fly
40:14with us.
40:15So,
40:16here's what we learned
40:17from sources
40:18close to the investigation.
40:20Police combed
40:21through security
40:22camera video,
40:23license plate
40:24reader data,
40:25and cell phone records
40:26tied to a dozen
40:27robberies across Belgium,
40:29including Tom Vongover's.
40:31That led to a raid
40:33in March 2025
40:34in a Brussels suburb
40:36on this yellow house
40:37and a Romanian national.
40:411,200 miles away,
40:43Romanian cops
40:44also searched
40:45the homes
40:45of some of his relatives.
40:47In all,
40:4887 pigeons
40:49were found
40:50that appeared
40:50to be birds
40:51stolen from Belgium.
40:53The identity rings
40:54were gone,
40:55so cops turned
40:56to Ruben Landcrete
40:57and his genetic testing.
40:59His DNA analysis
41:01helped identify
41:0220 of the recovered pigeons,
41:04including two
41:05of Finn's grandchildren.
41:07Pigeon deaths
41:08have been happening.
41:10But now you can
41:11solve them, right?
41:12With DNA?
41:13With DNA, yes.
41:13That's very good.
41:15Now we can close the case.
41:17Well, kind of.
41:19Eight co-conspirators
41:20were convicted
41:20with the mastermind
41:22sentenced to 30 months
41:23in jail.
41:24But he won't reveal
41:25what happened
41:26to the rest
41:27of Tom Vongover's
41:28stolen pigeons,
41:29including Finn.
41:31Where are the pigeons?
41:33Give them back.
41:33This isn't about
41:34the money for you.
41:35This is about the pigeon.
41:36I want my pigeon back.
41:45The last minute
41:46of 60 Minutes
41:48is sponsored
41:48by UnitedHealthcare,
41:50coverage you can count on
41:52for your whole life ahead.
41:56Retired Admiral
41:58William McRaven
41:59had a remarkable
42:0037-year military career,
42:02which included
42:03commanding America's
42:05special operations forces
42:06and the mission
42:08to bring Osama bin Laden
42:09to justice.
42:11We asked McRaven
42:12to reflect on America
42:14and honor.
42:16I've been all over the world
42:17and seen men and women
42:18from every country
42:19exhibit a sense of honor.
42:21I witnessed an Iraqi judge
42:23who refused to be intimidated
42:24by al-Qaeda
42:25and an Afghan father
42:27and an Afghan father
42:27who stood up to the Taliban.
42:28I see honor
42:29everywhere I look.
42:31This idea that we must do
42:32the right thing
42:33even when it's hard.
42:35Honor is what makes humanity
42:36so very, very worthwhile.
42:39But in the American context,
42:41honor to me is about
42:42upholding the values
42:43that were baked
42:44into our national DNA.
42:46The ideas of liberty,
42:48equality,
42:49individualism,
42:50the rule of law
42:51and religious freedom.
42:52Every military officer
42:54swears an oath
42:55to protect and defend
42:56the Constitution.
42:58And consequently,
42:59to maintain our honor
43:00as officers,
43:01we must always do right
43:03by the Constitution,
43:04even when the consequences
43:05might bring our careers
43:07to an end.
43:08Doing the right thing,
43:10even when it's hard,
43:12will always put you
43:14on the right side of history.
43:16I'm Leslie Stahl.
43:17We'll be back next week
43:19with another edition
43:20of 60 Minutes.
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