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00:04it's being touted as the biggest drug bust in canadian history and probably the most dramatic
00:10a story covering two continents a plane chase and up to a billion dollars worth of cocaine
00:16this was a big case i considered it the largest case i'd ever worked we did not know anything
00:21about the pilot 23 years for the pilot boulanger his name is raymond boulanger raymond boulanger
00:29well i don't forget it was a hell of a lot of fun let me tell you it was quite
00:33a ride
00:35i was involved in a lot of different operations operations supervised by the cia i used to think
00:43the cia were the good guys and then you start to realize the more you work for them we're not
00:47the
00:47good guys we're actually the bad guys i talked with pablo many times and then he was well into the
00:53cia
00:53they were all in bed with him cocaine that's when it got interesting i was considered one of the
01:01biggest traffickers at that time they asked me if i can help him and i did the cartels have a
01:11history
01:11of violence a wide trail of destruction and death bad people this was it's the far west it's all part
01:19of the game my grandfather said there's three ways you can live life you can lead you can follow
01:26or you can get the fuck out the way i prefer to lead
01:46pablo escobar is a roughneck guy he got around quite a bit you know he hustled he was good
01:50hustler and then he got into the cocaine that's when it got interesting
01:57in those days that was mostly high class people that did cocaine partying you know
02:00movie stars lawyers it was called the recreational drug of the rich the demand was enormous here in
02:07the united states for cocaine the cia are the biggest drug dealers in the world bar none
02:17the cia created phony air carriers during that time because there was a conflict in nicaragua
02:25we were also doing uh counter insurgency which meant locating the enemy and then uh annihilating
02:32them you'd find out where they were and then you go in and bomb the living shit out of them
02:38if you're not uh strong psychologically then find another line of work
02:50to do charter flights there had to be a chief pilot raymond's name came up it was pretty random
02:56actually but he had all the qualifications needed to be a chief pilot
03:01he had a boy he likes a challenge he he's landed in pretty tight places we were coming back from
03:08hunting and louis paul was on the ground and he was pointing at a shed at the airport the antennas
03:13were shaking inside i almost shit my pants back you're still alive yeah yeah that's raymond
03:25i don't know why we get you get married it's women that wanted that it was up to me i
03:29wouldn't
03:29have got married well i met her at the rainbow barn grill we were having a few beers i met
03:34her and we
03:34started dating she was interesting you know she had an attractive uh look about her we started chatting
03:40it up and that's it we started dating and then the rest happened amber i think she was born in
03:4876
03:49and then my son was born in 77 but anyway the call of the wild came and i had to
03:55go back to work and
03:56get back out of there the nature the business necessitates that it be kept a secret you certainly
04:04have a double life you can't that's all takes place in the darkness that stuff on vacation what does
04:11he do on vacation that's none of our business it was his private life but we always heard rumors
04:17i'd always ask raymond hey what happened there nothing you know on vacation taking time off
04:25but really there's no proof
04:30i always work for myself i'm a freelancer you know i'm an individual i take contracts or i don't take
04:35them i'm approached if they want my services for a job and i'll evaluate whether i want to do it
04:40or not
04:41we have the option to take a contract or not i'll turn down more than i actually take
04:48you're a mercenary and mercenaries were apolitical you know if we're a mercenary we're hired professionals
04:52to do a particular job we're not hired for a political opinion they're the ones that are paying
04:57us we don't care what their politics are that's all word of mouth people get around so when jobs come
05:04up people contact you when you say on the rolodex it's just the word means you're on the list
05:09and that rolodex is those things you used to put on your decks alphabetic where you flip through for
05:12names and you're looking for somebody's name you went for the first letter and you go under b
05:17it so when operations come up they say oh yeah i remember this guy with that guy that guy so
05:22you
05:23call up the people and you put together a group so we get contracts from all these different
05:29organizations that was all cia people you have to be careful when you say working for the cia we're
05:36not working for the cia we're doing the cia's dirty work in black operations under dummy companies
05:41that have no name that appear and disappear in day's notice so one of their transport companies
05:48which was southern air transport southern air transport southern air transport was a fake
05:54company it was a front for the cia the american secret service used it for various clandestine missions
06:04the cia created phony air carriers during that time because there was a conflict in nicaragua
06:12the target was to overthrow the nicaraguan government run by daniel ortega the communist
06:16they wanted them out of there since the bolded amendment was passed in congress in 1985 the
06:22americans weren't allowed to interfere in any kind of a government or allow monetary or financial or
06:27military assistance into overthrowing a government that had been democratically elected so they have
06:33to do it in black operations so they don't they don't get caught i see that's when the cia brings
06:38guys
06:38like us into the picture and that's our job it's the oversaw the government that's in place that's it
06:48the sandinista national liberation front took over in nicaragua so it was a regime that was
06:56sympathetic to cuba a communist regime was being established in nicaragua and for americans that
07:04was completely and utterly unacceptable well you're in an armed conflict people are trying to kill you
07:11so it does get a little testy at times yes but you know that that's what you're paid for yeah
07:17they
07:17shoot at you with missiles and small arms fire and all that we were also doing uh counter insurgency
07:25which meant locating the enemy and then uh annihilating them you find out where they were and then you
07:31go in and bomb the living out of them you know and then you come in and check the next
07:35day if there
07:35were any survivors you'd go in there and finish them off too it's war we're not going out there playing
07:41tiddly weeks serious business so quite rapidly weapons were distributed the contras received equipment and arms
07:56the contras it's a movement that was created as a response to the sandinista movement to end the
08:03communist takeover of nicaragua i believe it was mostly financed by the united states i have every
08:10intention of seeing that these people receive humanitarian support and how that comes about we'll
08:16just have to wait and see the cia was supplying them with weapons supplies and money in order to
08:30overthrow the new sandinista government you start the kind of business you want everybody know about
08:38the contras we supply them with the weapons the guns the ammunition the food yeah it was all planned
08:44we did we did what we had to do we had the manifests and they loaded the plane i didn't
08:48check what was
08:49on board and that wasn't my job over time raymond noticed that when he delivered weapons or supplies
08:56to the contras the planes never came back empty i was on my way up to miami and uh i
09:03went in the back
09:04of there and i saw a bag and i lifted the tarpaulin on it it was a bill of bills
09:07of cocaine and then when i got
09:09back i told my boss i said by the way i said we got cocaine in the airplane says you
09:12know about that i said yeah
09:13i said mind your own business you're paid to fly the airplane believe me it's nasty world out there
09:20financing the counterinsurgency required money and that money came from cocaine trafficking
09:27that's what was financing the purchase of weapons there is a number of documents that indicate that
09:33the cia used drug trafficking to finance the counterinsurgency mainly in central america and nicaragua
09:40yeah they were taking money from escobar they were taking the drugs from escobar and it was getting
09:44it was all getting patched around manuel noriega had been a cia asset since he was a student in university
09:52yeah the guy that really searched shit up as regan he didn't even know what the cia was really up
09:57to
09:57and then his buddy george bush who became his vice president he's the one who was in charge of the
10:02cia
10:04i even saw them talking in the corner you know noriega there escobar right there and his brother
10:09there and george bush sitting over there with felix rodriguez right beside him because they were keeping
10:13an eye on their little operation because don't forget bush he was the head of the cia at the time
10:17if i saw it with my own eyes and i don't give a shit what people think or other things
10:21they can go
10:22yeah i don't care what people think and i'm not out here to convince anybody anything
10:26i'm just telling you what it is and that's it the cia are the biggest drug dealers in the world
10:33bar none
10:35and it's still the case today
10:39and when it comes to drugs and alcohol just say no
10:46they were flying the cocaine into los angeles and florida and texas and that's how they pay for
10:51their legal operations they got caught red-handed there was an investigation
10:56and they all got caught and they all got convicted and they all got pardoned
11:00past contractors we don't panic the operation is shut down we just go somewhere else we're not
11:05involved in their politics that's their problem
11:11he was moving around all the time he never stayed put for long in fact he was always doing many
11:17things
11:17at once sometimes he'd try to settle down for a while but he clearly wasn't meant for that
11:27and i spent my whole life on the road in airplanes and traveling around the world so it's not very
11:32conducive to being married you're never home so it's one or the other you can't have everything
11:37your way and my entire career i get home and just enough time to change my clothes and pack another
11:44suitcase and leave again so in 86 i divorced my second wife in 1986 she thought i wasn't home
11:51enough so i told her sorry but oh yeah she moved out to out west to ottawa for a while
11:58she got remarried
12:00so the kids stay with their mother yeah how are you gonna stay with me i'm working in the jungles
12:05in the desert southeast asia and south america yeah i'm gonna have my kids with me right doesn't
12:10work that way well i have a good relationship with my kids never changed they know who their dad is
12:17they don't think i'm a criminal
12:24it's a difficult life if you're raising a family it doesn't work very well you know you're never home
12:28and i don't regret it one inch i love it wouldn't change it
12:42it was late afternoon in panama we were walking on the golf course at the howard air base and we
12:48saw a bunch of guys playing soccer over there they kicked the ball at one point they came rolling out
12:53where we were so we kicked the ball back in and they just waved over to us and come over
12:58and they
12:58wave some beer in the air and we went over to have a few beers with them and i recognized
13:02the face
13:03i hadn't met him before but i'd recognized him right away and that's the first time i saw him
13:10pablo escobar is a roughneck guy he got around quite a bit you know he hustled he was a good
13:13hustler
13:13and then he got into the cocaine that's when it got interesting
13:21he got into the cocaine 84 85 somewhere around there that's when cocaine started to go big
13:25pablo realized the potential how much money was to be made on that because everybody lost interest
13:30in the marijuana business you know there wasn't much profit in it to begin with
13:36one of the pablo's close friends actually was his cousin gustavo said rey well you why not the hell
13:40don't you come and fly with us
13:44cocaine didn't hit the market and become widely known until the mid-80s
13:50in those days that was mostly high-class people that did cocaine partying you know movie stars
13:55lawyers executives people with money it was called the recreational drug of the rich and it still is
14:01demand was starting to increase quite drastically and a new market was created as a result
14:06yeah you could say that the united states were the first major market for cocaine and other
14:12countries followed suit and cocaine got popular all over the world cocaine is a drug meant for pleasure
14:18for partying it has a market it makes its way to anyone who wants it
14:25at one point drug trafficking supposedly accounted for five percent of colombia's gdp
14:31i think it's more than that okay let's say the global cocaine market is 900 metric tons a year colombia
14:39produces 80 percent of that
14:44it seems that the climate the geography and the armed conflict created just just the right conditions
14:51for colombia to produce a huge amount in fact a huge amount of cocaine
15:01and that became uh the industrialization of the cocaine business so it started to be going
15:07from two or three hundred kilos at a time to tons
15:15because he had the roots into miami into texas into uh south california and it was being controlled by
15:22pablo and pablo's people and that's what the cartel was so pablo had not only his own cocaine
15:28but he had the cut of everybody else's who was piggybacking with him because he had the doors
15:32he had a lot of coke to sell or it didn't cost him anything and the others would go through
15:37him and
15:38that's how that's how it was that's how cartels work
15:43you have cartels that form together to control the prices control the quality of the product control
15:49the distribution control the territories they have agreements that are put in place that makes it
15:54function it's like a corporation in colombia 10 people can get together and start a laboratory
16:02they can produce and sell a ton of cocaine the buyer has the responsibility of transporting it
16:10and delivering it to the us australia and canada where it is sold
16:17i would tell what this is the kind of airplane you got to use and you can't load it more
16:21than
16:21that you would show them technique how would they pay me many ways money uh property vehicles jewelry
16:31art they don't write checks it's all cash because you have to understand each producer has his own
16:38trademark each producer has his own brand and they can't mix that around that thing can be traced from
16:44the moment it leaves the lab until the moment it's delivered and some of them are wrapped in gold leaf
16:48paper quite proud of those ones it said on them the very best for our very best customers
17:00and the best way to get cocaine into the united states and to supply other markets
17:07was by airplane
17:08the other one is
17:14pablo escobar used to say that the real heroes in drug trafficking were his first plane pilots
17:21piloting schools started popping up throughout the country
17:26a lot of people got their piloting license and a whole air fleet was created for colombia's drug
17:34traffickers yeah they didn't do any training they just send guys out there randomly the guys weren't
17:40used to it at all they had many flying hours and so a lot of them crashed messed up
17:46while you're flying overloaded airplanes you're flying in extremely dangerous weather
17:50it's dangerous it's extremely dangerous yeah you want me to tell you more about it it's dangerous
17:57the first years i i got involved in that they were dropping off uh aircraft out of cali to the
18:02rate
18:02of 20 30 a year by using inexperienced pilots flying in bad conditions when they didn't have
18:07to at night when they didn't have to do that because they were overloading grossly overloading
18:10their airplanes and i remember many occasions where i i knew people that were doing that and
18:15i said you're going to kill people maybe even here up front in the luggage compartment
18:20we could easily put up to 60 kilos in here they didn't understand aerodynamics and
18:25like that that the airplane will fly at that weight way beyond that it won't fly
18:32this is the entire cruise you can't bring them back they're all dead
18:41the caribbean sea is full of planes it's a drug trafficking cemetery
18:48being a pilot in the drug trafficking industry was very lucrative
18:52all the poor kids wanted to become hitmen all the middle class kids wanted to become pilots
19:01the lifespan of those planes wasn't long
19:05well the way they ran their operations they obviously didn't understand much about aviation
19:09seriously and i sat around the table i said why are you doing this well you're all rare and that
19:14i said well you don't understand what's going on do you because there's no percentage in losing a guy in
19:18the ocean and an aircraft and your load just because you know you're being stupid i said
19:23there's smart ways to do it and that's the way we change our tactics a little so i flipped all
19:29that
19:29around i had started doing flights in the daytime and i showed them how to penetrate their roots
19:33and hide among all the air traffic in the daytime that's why we gave checkouts to the pilots that
19:37were able to handle those flights but we trained them well and we taught them how to stay safe
19:44they don't understand the nature what the radar is and all that the radar can't track you more than
19:49200 miles or 250 miles away it doesn't have the range even if you fly at night you're not going
19:55to
19:55hide from the radar no matter what the weather or what the time either radar is going to be there
19:58they're not all geniuses these drug traffickers you know i explained how to use air routes
20:04how to use them to hide from air traffic they went from losing 20 30 airplanes a year down to
20:09one or
20:10two or three and the one or two or three was due to incompetence that had taken off way overloaded
20:14but
20:15nothing to do with the people that i work with that was raymond boulanger's uh heyday working with drug
20:26cartels he was really there during the golden age when uh cocaine made it to montreal and everywhere else in
20:35north america in 1977 dea at the time seized 600 kilograms of cocaine for the whole year in the
20:46united states 1988 dea seized 60 000 kilos so the demand was enormous here in the united states for cocaine
21:02we basically were going after the the air wing of the cartels and eventually we would catch up to
21:11them and we would start having seizures and we would start penetrating different areas of their their
21:16production pablo didn't like the dea there was 500 000 u.s rewards for anybody who shoot a dea they
21:26were scared shitless put it that way they didn't dare they killed anyone linked to the dea they had
21:33their tongues cut off and threw them in the street the dea agents were very scared of him as well
21:39very
21:40scared so you can believe me the dea weren't hanging around in public places the colombians called us the
21:47ugly ones dea they didn't like us yeah we always played hard ball with them always we never gave
22:00anybody a break bad people yeah so yeah you had to play hard ball with them
22:12sometimes you get a contract you'd only be on it for two or three weeks sometimes it could be a
22:16month
22:16or two months first flight i did to mexico for the median cartel and that was into the desert in
22:25nuevo leon southwest of monterey you take a look here there was a strip here called llanos de batuti
22:36it's an old 12 mile long lake that dried up it was 12 miles long and we used to land
22:41jets there
22:46and when i arrived here they didn't tell me uh who the reception was you know i i knew it
22:50was all
22:50taken care of and all that kind of shit i didn't really know who's there i just want to be
22:54sure it's
22:54the right place and that's the coordinates and yeah and when i got there and all the lights i land
22:59and all
22:59the lights came on like i could see with soldiers and saw soldiers all around it
23:10just off you know the jig is up or something like that you know we're done first trip into here
23:15and
23:15we're caught and you could tell that we're military these weren't half hazard you know hired thugs you
23:21know no these were guys in military uniform and sure enough when i opened the door it was a full
23:26lieutenant
23:26colonel that came to the aircraft and he knew my name already because he was expecting me
23:31and he called me by my name commandante john and hey come on okay we'll take you we had a
23:35cognac
23:36he said i'll drive you out of here i'm the one that's going to drive you out of here
23:41i was pretty relieved after that about 20 minutes later we left in a truck
23:46i didn't know they didn't tell me that this was all arranged and i got used to that after that
23:51because
23:51it was either the military or the police it was the either or everybody's on their payroll that's
23:55either it you either work for them or you get killed it's that simple
24:18colombia is one of the most corrupt countries in the world
24:21i think that if corruption were to stop hypothetically for a month the colombian economy
24:27would completely fall apart immediately i left cali with drugs on the plane
24:34i left medin with drugs on the plane the police cleared it all it's simple
24:40they're bought and paid for it it's outrageous the corruption in colombia it's
24:47you know it's it's a way of life the corruption so
24:54i had an informant that worked in the u.s embassy i would pay him five thousand dollars every
24:59saturday and he would supply me with the whole map of the caribbean and all the different zones
25:04they had because they had different zones where they would send the aircraft to patrol the u.s
25:08customs the coast guard and the dea i knew where they would take off from what time they would
25:13leave what type of aircraft it was and that was good for us because we knew where they were going
25:18and we went the other way very efficient and uh it was taking us time in law enforcement to catch
25:24up
25:24to where they were at we used to make a joke that we were dancing the macarena and they were
25:28on a whole
25:29new dance oh everybody was in on the business the politicians the rebels you name it everybody was in
25:34on it they're all corrupt to the yin yang some people will do anything for money you know you
25:43can pay 50 bucks to get your neighbor shot if you want you get the picture if you can get
25:48a guy shot
25:48for 50 bucks nothing is complicated the country has been destroyed by narco trafficking the proportion
25:58of corruption is terrifying it smells of death people know that a whole slew of people have blood
26:07on their hands when escobar was around and narco terrorism journalists were being killed like flies
26:17in the country i have nine bodyguards and two bulletproof vehicles i'd be dead or else and that's
26:27just because i'm a journalist i'm not involved in narco trafficking 23 days ago i was told i have one
26:35month to live today i have seven left if you get caught in a crossfire in the drug business tough
26:42shit buddy you shouldn't have been there you know there's no such a thing as an innocent victim don't
26:47give me that shit so you think i'm going to feel empathy for dead people in the drug business get
26:52the
26:52hell out of my face i'm not ever going to feel empathy for that if you're not strong psychologically
26:58then find another line to work there's all kinds of greed people involved you're dealing with criminal
27:03elements of the the lowest kind you know from all the way to the bottom of the scum bucket to
27:08the
27:08top to the elite the ruling class and some of them you know the little crooks around there we call
27:12the little chichipadas they'll pass the word around to their friends you know well there's a shipment's
27:17going to be passing up there it's going to go yeah so they'll get together a little gang of them
27:21and
27:21they'll arm themselves to the teeth and try and hijack the load see yeah they really survive you know so
27:27we're armed to the teeth too we were very heavily armed i always had my a beretta nine millimeter
27:33in the back of my jeans even for normal traveling around in columbia i used it sure enough they had
27:41laid logs across the trail so that you couldn't get around you had to actually get out so the other
27:45truck held off in the back and then one truck got up close enough when the shooting started and that
27:50was it we expected it it lasted probably maybe 20 minutes and when it was finished there was none of
27:55them
27:55left well we're armed to the teeth we reacted it's just either shoot or get shots one or the other
28:04when the shooting starts like that there's a lot of noise going on it goes and you could actually feel
28:08the heat off the bugger if it comes close enough it's not it's not a job and that helps you
28:16live a long time yeah i'm here today and they're not so there's your answer i survived they didn't
28:32it's just really it's exhilarating and after that you just say hot damn okay and that's all over
28:37and then you get over there and you go get whiskey and smoke a few cigars and then we go
28:42on to the
28:42next job you know it takes a couple of days for adrenaline to wear off even after a long uh
28:46drug
28:47flight you know a successful drug fight we did take three or four days and we do nothing but hang
28:51around the pool and get drunk you know and fool around with the girls and you know smoke a few
28:57joints and chill out until the next job but after three or four days you get antsy it's okay where's
29:03the next job you know you you want to be going all the time you know it takes a while
29:11he was really excited by it he'd take his plane and fly it rained he went through the jungle
29:18it was all about all about the adrenaline he thrived on it it was his drug of choice
29:27he was his own worst enemy when you think about it he always wanted a bigger rush more excitement
29:35he knew how to fly he knew the risk he was taking he was an adrenaline freak probably like they
29:42all are
29:43dangerous it's fun it's adrenaline bus it's a boost you know you get you become an adrenaline junkie
29:49and frankly we're all adrenaline junkies when we're in that business we thrive on the adrenaline the
29:54buzz is extraordinary the money's secondary
29:59but it was a tug of war we were going back and forth and then many times it didn't
30:03feel like we were winning the war but at times we did
30:08we can't do what the cartels do they could kill people they could pay off people they could threaten
30:14people uh so they have that capability and we didn't have it so there were people in colombia
30:22that were very much affected in the citizens of colombia the amount of violence that they had to put up
30:28with and and innocent people that were in the crossfire the united states bears a burden because we
30:35create the demand it's not worth lying to ourselves anymore if drugs enter the united states it's
30:44because the united states is letting them in there isn't a shortage of cocaine for users in canada or
30:51the united states there isn't a single dose missing so where is the fight against drugs happening
30:58who's taking care of it it's a joke this is drug war is a sham it's false it's fake that's
31:06called
31:06corruption and greed you know money is evil don't forget the old saying the root of evil is money
31:19i know pilots that were making an average of three to four million dollars every two or three days
31:26after 85 i don't think i ever did a flight under three million dollars i kept money up here yeah
31:30and my dad used to hide it in his double wall because i knew young guys that were 25 30
31:35years
31:35old and had 15 20 million dollars in their basement stashed but they were so nervous they would go to
31:40the restaurant and after about an hour they're all nervous they want to go home the money ruined their
31:44life it's all cash and so much of it they weigh it they don't even count it anymore they just
31:50weigh it
31:51that pallet that's that's 10 million that's 50 million that's 100 billion
31:57i saw warehouses in cali stacked to the ceiling
32:03that led to huge fortunes appearing throughout colombia the fortunes were so large there was
32:12so much money it became obvious because drug traffickers were spending so much
32:19the flashers are always there the fancy cars in miami and all that the miami vice scene
32:23these huge houses with all the art to death to show off that they got money so i don't understand
32:27people's fascination with money you want it you want it because you don't have it but when you got too
32:31much of it you don't want it that much believe me it's more problems than it really brings that'd be
32:39good question to ask them where's his money fuck off don't like it complicated i know where my box is
32:47and it isn't in some bank
32:58the business of the dea now was not going after the damn drugs anymore they were going after the money
33:03the whole idea was to seize the money we uh conducted our investigation into the colombian
33:11aviation units the original strategy would start out with the purchase of an aircraft
33:16as they went up in size the cost of the plane went up they could afford to walk away from
33:22that expense
33:23because they were making so much money on the cocaine their the real difficulty was to purchase
33:29the plane and and try to keep it as long as they could you take the airplanes away from them
33:35they
33:35had a hard time uh transporting into cocaine well the aircraft gets seized on drug loads i would get
33:41a call and they would say well we got this one seized such and such a time it'll be up
33:45for auction
33:45on that date and that date and that was it so i would call up and i would check the
33:49list and all that
33:49i'd call the sheriff and i'd register my company in there yeah i'm going to be there i want to
33:53bid on
33:53that aircraft that aircraft and that aircraft to help the colombians out he went to the united states
34:01with cash he'd buy back the planes the dea had seized and he'd bring them back to colombia but you
34:08know i would never specifically uh go there and register to bid on a particular aircraft i would bid on
34:14five or six or seven which i had no intention of of acquiring but i would focus on the one
34:19that they
34:20wanted me they said that's the one we want go get it some of those planes were four hundred thousand
34:24five hundred thousand up up to a million dollars and it made sense you follow the money you could
34:29find where the bad guys are i had got a call to pick up a mitsubishi a marquee i said
34:35yeah okay and
34:37then you choose that belong to one of the medin's rings and i got a call from uh the cartel
34:43so i had brought 10 with me in cash that day i had 65 000 us dollars in my briefcase
34:49to go
34:49for that deal usually you leave a deposit now if you go to the bank you pay the rest and
34:54you get
34:54the plane but that time i drove with my dad to burlington to take a flight down there
35:01and i had it in my briefcase and i was in a rush to get to florida because the auction
35:05was the next
35:06day anyway uh they pulled me in and they said what you have in the briefcase i said money they
35:10said
35:11did you declare it no i said park your car there park the car search the car all that
35:19what do you have in your briefcase well i said money and documents where are you going i'm going
35:24to an auction well so in the office so they take it out and then they counted every bill and
35:29they
35:29registered every serial number so that took about three and a half hours we had a direct link between
35:35drug money being used to buy aircraft that were used to fly cocaine into mexico that was targeted for
35:41the united states and as an enforcement technique we would use those opportunities for surveillance and
35:47for tracing the money back to the colombian organizations and not only that when they
35:52requested me and all that they sent a fax to the sheriff office in broward county and he returned by
35:58oh yeah we know this guy very well he comes here often his company's registered yes he does come here
36:02yes he's registered to come he's going to be at the auction tomorrow that's probably and the dea said no
36:07no no you're going there to buy drugs because once they get their hands on the money you ain't that's
36:11it
36:11my dad was with me and he had 20 grand on him because he was going down to play the
36:15casinos and
36:16have some fun so he got arrested too because he didn't declare it i did uh 13 months in the
36:21penitentiary in the states for that my dad did 12 months the charge read failure to declare a monetary
36:30transaction exceeding ten thousand dollars and they sent me and my dad to danbury connecticut after that
36:35oh he took a big my dad just laughed he just you know we get on with it you know
36:39just deal with it
36:44we had fun you know it was pretty relaxed and we had you know there was some very high level
36:49of
36:49financial criminals yeah but he had his own little sideline going on and i won't talk about it
36:55that was his business my old man had his own little dealings
37:00but he was very generously compensated for his uh his time according to him it was fun
37:07he taught inmates french and all he doesn't seem scarred by the experience
37:15oh yeah i enjoyed myself and you know it was good time and during his incarceration in an american
37:21prison he met a belgian man who sold weapons and other stuff to various countries but i got into the
37:31arms business with him we sold weapons to various clients that needed them for various reasons let's
37:39say we oversaw local distribution in the middle east and africa i had ecuador peru and colombia's clients
37:52i supplied them with bullets for the police nine millimeter actually
37:58as a businessman raymond balanger's career was opportunistic weapons trafficking drug trafficking
38:05aren't ends in themselves for him they're a means to a living and adventurous lifestyle my dad was like
38:11that and i'm like him i do things my way i've always been like that
38:21when he got out of jail raymond turned to selling weapons aircraft parts and aircrafts in countries
38:31that needed to be supplied clandestinely because they were on the us's blacklist he served as liaison
38:38between the buyer and the seller he was the middleman that both parties knew and that delivered the
38:44merchandise he was the one trusted with the merchandise and he ensured that everything was
38:50delivered according to plan belgium is really the center for arms businesses you know everybody's
39:00represented it's also the headquarters for nato yeah actually we were just down the street from nato
39:04kitty cat across the corner was the nato headquarters and that was our office just right next to them
39:09so you get to meet all the people from these countries and make your contacts and take your
39:16orders so we would meet all the different people the military attaches and all that you know and
39:21diplomatic soirees or he sent me a list every month a list of what he needed i made the purchases
39:29there are lenient laws in belgium belgian regulations work in favor let's say of clandestine and illegal
39:38operations of weapons trafficking as they are of course quite lucrative i think it's sick what
39:45people do to make a buck in it so i would go out and shop for that kept me pretty
39:50well on the go it's
39:51quite exciting sometimes i had to ride people to get certain parts made because they were strict with
39:57military specification numbers on them so i bribed people i only remember a couple of occasions i had to
40:03collect money and we won't discuss the collection techniques here they were given a choice they
40:08either cooperated or they got shot and they would be confronted with the the briefcase and the gun
40:15you either cooperate with this or you get killed it's as simple as that
40:24my clientele in my portfolio was iran iran was my number one client
40:32weapons were being trafficked because of the united states embargo on the middle east
40:38that actually created business opportunities for some
40:44so merix would call on raymond's services to sell radar parts and weapons parts i would buy the
40:51products they needed and sell them for a swiss company a belgian company and another one the
40:56stuff eventually made it to iran missiles that kind of stuff mines grenades those kind of
41:03explosives i was mostly specialized in aircraft engines and parts i sold all kinds of stuff for
41:09airplanes because brake parts propeller parts b-drive parts i would make a bunch of purchases and
41:16delivered them all at once i was having tires made for the iranians for their f4 phantom jets which
41:23were american jets so they couldn't really fly them anymore because they weren't allowed to get
41:26any more parts so i would buy all the different parts for that ship through cleared through a duty
41:31free zone that i had here in a warehouse in montreal but the the product actually never came here and
41:37sold them to a dummy company in switzerland which was really the iranians so you get the idea you
41:42know we don't mind americans can embargo everything all they goddamn well want we couldn't give a
41:46there's always a way to get around it but i also had other clients libya was one of my clients
41:54and i
41:55went to libya on a regular basis libya at the time was under a dictator's control colonel kadhafi
42:05things were very heated with the united states and of course libya needed parts for its civil
42:13aircrafts and military aircrafts and since belgium is home to an international weapons market
42:23it was probably the easiest place or one of the easiest places to buy those kinds of parts
42:32i would leave from geneva and go to tripoli yeah and once in tripoli i would leave tripoli and i'd
42:38go
42:38do my inspections in the middle of the desert here little point here it's called beta that was an oil
42:43rig basically there was an operating base that was they had a big runway built there they had a
42:48hangar they had people that rotated in and out of there so i'd arrive in libya they'd escort me to
42:53the hotel i'd spend the night in the hotel next morning i'd get on libyan airlines i'd go into the
42:57desert in beta do all my thing there the colonels there would meet me i had an envelope that i
43:03used to
43:03carry it was a bribe that was not mine it was being carried on behalf of another company there was
43:09a
43:09canadian company that was doing business in there and that was who belonged to the envelope that i gave
43:14to the colonel i mean i didn't get to open the envelopers you know but i knew what was in
43:21it and
43:21i knew why and i knew who who where it came from of course i got paid for that i
43:26didn't do that free
43:28every time i dropped the stupid envelope that cost him fifty thousand dollars
43:36i'm sure that when he was working in belgium and he'd go off on missions whether in iran libya or
43:41any other country i'm sure he was perfectly well kept he must have been wearing the best suits he was
43:47probably wearing a rolex i am absolutely certain that he knew how to present himself well the americans
43:54were really curious and they wanted to know what the hell was going on because i'm traveling into libya
43:59and i'm traveling into iran who had been declared enemies of the united states and embargoed yeah so
44:05i'm i was actually trading with their enemy you know and but they really couldn't charge me i'm a
44:10canadian citizen and canadians we're allowed to do business with iran oh so i did that for a few years
44:16i had a good run over there
44:21but at some point remember that in the 90s there was a conflict in iraq between the u.s and
44:28iraq
44:29that's when the gulf war happened and raymond boulanger at that point felt things were going
44:34to fall apart he decided to completely retire from that line of commerce
44:44that's one of the reasons why when raymond boulanger got that phone call asking to import
44:50large quantities of cocaine into quebec he was interested people had tried and said they said
44:59it was impossible it couldn't be done and i said that's ridiculous of course it could be done there's
45:02no such thing as impossible it just takes a little longer to do the impossible that's all but you know
45:07it's a matter it's all that becomes a question of competence
45:12for about three months the dea was investigating a colombian ring that was preparing to import cocaine
45:22this was a big case i considered it the largest case i'd ever worked
45:26and uh the fact that it's still the largest seizure in canada today gives you an idea of
45:32its uh scope and how important it was we did not know anything about the pilot
45:39in the casey case i never heard of anyone having this degree of experience with that type of risk
45:46it was probably a somewhat unique type of a pilot that would take on this kind of a challenge
46:19so
46:24you
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