“If you don’t find those fuckin’ aliens, we’re gonna have to shut this fuckin’ thing down,” Lou Nardi shouted at Poli over the phone.
“Lou, that’s not gonna bring them back!”
“I don’t appreciate your sarcasm, Poli.”
“I’m not being sarcastic.”
“Yeah, yeah . . . ”
“I’ll fuckin’ find them, Lou, just give me time.”
“Yeah, yeah, you always say that!”
“Lou, Lou, man, just give me time. Cut me some slack, brother.”
“Okay, we’ll leave it at that. BUT GET THAT DAMN BOAT BACK! YOU HAVE TILL DECEMBER 30 TO GET IT BACK, OR THE OPERATION IS SHUT DOWN—NO ARGUMENTS!”
Day in and day out, Poli was pushing Babaco for news, but it was to no effect. The boat was lost. It then occurred to Poli to contact his brother-in-law, Harry Betz, head of the U.S. Customs air branch in Homestead, Florida, and he put Poli in contact with the U.S. Customs attaché in Panama. The attaché agreed to look for “El Almirante” in their routine fly-overs. Poli provided pictures of the boat and other information. After about a week of search, all reports were negative. There was no “El Almirante,” but there was also no evidence of boats breaking up or being stranded. The customs people gave some hope to Poli, surmising that the smugglers’ vessel must have docked at some small port to weather the storm.
Around Christmas time, about a month had passed without word from “El Almirante.” Poli and A. J., however, received a belated Christmas gift. On December 28, Babaco called to tell Poli he had heard from the boats’ captain. The vessel was back at Port Esmeralda in Ecuador. Evidently, the captain had disembarked the aliens at Isla Cañón off the coast of Nicaragua.
Poli immediately called Lou Nardi. “Hey, Lou, we found the people, man. They’re safe in Nicaragua.”
“Bullshit!”
“Yeah, man, they’re safe. They’re on land. They got lost at sea, they got diverted. They’re on their way north.”
“We want them arrested in Nicaragua.”
“No way, Lou, we’re not gonna do that. We’re gonna continue with the plan, continue monitoring them.”
“We’re gonna have to talk about this shit.”
“Okay, talk to you later,” Poli signed off, ready to continue with the plan.
It just was not going to be that easy. Most of the group of “El Almirante” aliens was stuck in Nicaragua, their money having run out. Some made their way into Guatemala and up to Tecun Uman, named after the last Mayan emperor, on the Mexican border. But Lou Nardi and the DOJ undercover committee were not convinced, and almost daily they’d call for reports. They wanted proof. Three months had gone by; it was now March 1998, and the aliens were supposedly still stuck down there. So Poli, A. J. and Arthur Nieto, who had replaced Poli as Officer-in-Charge of INS Monterrey, decided that a picture was worth a thousand words. They flew to Guatemala City and met up with Babaco and headed straight north for Tecun Uman.
Babaco, as a former smuggler who was born in Mexico City but raised in part in El Salvador, was on familiar ground. He had smuggled aliens from the region in trailers filled with bananas. Babaco told the trio that the aliens were camped out at a flop house named El Buganvilla. On the way there they bought a Polaroid camera, and Babaco said he’d bring all the travelers out of the house for a photo.
“Babaco, that’s gonna take too much time. Fuck it, let’s go in,” said Poli, headstrong as usual.
Babaco got the room number and the four of them proceeded to the door. Carlos knocked, the door opened and the four stepped inside the room. Unhindered, not even challenged, they snapped shots that would soon be on their way to DC. The photos captured a disheveled, hungry-looking group of nine or ten South Asian men lounging on beds and the floor, propped up against the walls. Incredibly, they welcomed the visitors and modeled for their photos.
“Hey, guys,” said Poli, “now that we’re here, let’s check out Tecun. This is smuggling central. We can find out a lot o’ shit.”
“Yeah, okay, loco,” said Babaco, “but don’t speak English here. You take your lives into your hands.”
“Hey, you still get along with Doña Cristina,” said Poli, remembering the name of the Grand Dame of alien smuggling.
“Yeah, her hotel is right down the street.”
And off they went.
As the group approached, they could see a group of men milling around large vats of rice and beans on open fires. Dinner was being prepared to feed the horde waiting to go north. Chinese, South Asians, Central and South Americans and, among them stood out Chepo Bonilla! One of the top tier human smugglers, he was Babaco’s rival and had earlier threatened to kill him because he believed Babaco had betrayed him to the Border Patrol, which led to his arrest.
Uneasily, Babaco stretched his hand out to Bonilla, they shook hands, and then Babaco introduced his associates. Next, Babaco took the agents into the building and introduced them to Doña Cristina. While they were all having drinks and chatting, Babaco asked Doña Cristina about the passports for the aliens stashed at the Buganvilla. Without batting an eye, she went and retrieved them for Babaco, and he took his leave under some pretext and went and had copies made.
When Babaco returned, he mentioned that Dr. Humberto León Duque, Maan Singh’s major Mexican link in his smuggling route, was just across the border from Guatemala in Hidalgo, Mexico.
Immediately, Poli piped up like a kid at Disneyland ready for the next ride: “Well, let’s go make the man’s acquaintance.”
“Oh, shit, Poli! You know we’re not authorized to go into Mexico. Man, they give us a hand and we always end up taking an arm!” said A. J.
“Come on, man, this is smugglers paradise. When are we gonna get another chance like this?”
“Hey, guys, I can’t cross legally into Mexico. You guys go ahead, but I’ll have to cross the river to get there,” said Babaco.
To which A. J. added, “Poli, look, I don’t have a diplomatic passport like you, so I can’t go.”
“A. J., you can come with me, the river route. We’ll even beat them,” said Babaco.
A. J. remembered that everywhere he looked in Tecun Uman, there were rickshaws with large inner tubes on their canvas roofs. He guessed right. He and Carlos were soon being pulled by rope across the Suchiate River on a plywood platform mounted on a large tractor inner tube. Once on the other side, they walked to the town plaza and within a few minutes met up with Poli and Art Nieto, who had crossed legally into the border town. Art was Poli’s compadre; one of his most trusted partners. When the shit hit the fan, Poli knew Art would be by his side.
Poli, Art and Babaco went to Dr. León Duque’s pharmacy while A. J. waited across the street and killed time by playing soccer with some kids. León Duque was taken aback to see Babaco at his door, having stiffed Maan Singh for some $15,000 and also having owed money to Babaco. León Duque had already been advanced a fair amount for the “El Almirante” group but had not as yet provided services. Babaco invited the uneasy León Duque outside to the front of the pharmacy, which gave A. J. a vantage point for taking photos. Feeling the pressure from the surprise visit, León Duque confirmed the details of the deal and that he would soon be speeding the aliens to their next stop in Puebla, Mexico.
Poli, Art and A. J. had completed their mission. They had met with and documented not only the South Asian aliens from “El Almirante,” but they had been to where no agents had treaded before and met important figures in the smuggling network. In the initial undercover proposal, after Mann Singh, Dr. Humberto León Duque had been the second-most important target identified.
The undercover committee’s doubts, which led to their agents’ incursion into Guatemala, had produced unforeseen benefits that would be of critical importance for taking down Maan Singh and his associates.
From Tecun Uman, an elated Poli called Lou Nardi to report they had photographed and documented the aliens. Nardi’s response was to order their immediate take-down. This
would have effectively shut the operation down, as well. So as soon as the trio got back from Guatemala, A. J. sent a written memorandum to Lou Nardi justifying why the aliens should not be arrested. He specified that if they were arrested, that would burn Babaco, their primary confidential informant who was working directly with Maan Singh. If that happened, then all of their goals for a RICO investigation, a wiretap, money laundering, etc. would be killed. Even the federal judge in Dallas, “Barefoot” Sanders, was waiting for the go-ahead on the wiretap—the first one in the history of the INS. Ultimately, if Babaco’s cover was blown they would never be able to lure Maan Singh to a place where he could be arrested, and they were already carrying a warrant for him.
So A. J. begged for a sixty-day extension, during which time he said they would put the remaining aliens on an American Airlines flight to Dallas, if these ten were not able to proceed from Tecun Uman. That way, the INS agents would be able to take back control of the smuggling operations. Luckily, within a week after the phone call, the aliens made their way up to Mexico and back into the pipeline to the United States. It had become a moot point, and what was now “Operation Sikh and Keep” was still alive.
CHAPTER 5
Back in Dallas, the first action by A. J., as supervisor of the case, was to name the special agents to the task force who would actually implement “Sikh and Keep.” The force consisted of George Ramírez who would be the primary undercover agent; Fidencio Rangel who would provide surveillance and backup to the undercover agents; a young ambitious Marc Sanders, the case agent who had worked with A. J. to bust the Pappas corporation; Tim “Rico” Tubbs, a new agent to do surveillance and backup; Steve Van Geem for surveillance abroad; and Judd Granger who volunteered to do whatever it took.
It was in November 1997, that the second prong of “Operation Seek and Keep”—“Sikh” had been changed to “Seek” so as not to slur ethnicity or religion—was initiated when Babaco proposed to Maan Singh putting the aliens on American Airlines flights to Miami. Hesitant at first, Singh sent only one passenger on December 6. His name was Pravin Kumar Patel and he was twenty-four years of age. Worrying that it was a set-up, Singh immediately went into hiding. After the unwitting alien was delivered to a La Quinta hotel in Irving, Texas, Singh gained some confidence. Patel’s room had already been wired for sound and the phone was tapped. His phone conversations revealed negotiations with Maan Singh’s cohorts on the amount of money Mr. Patel owed. Payment was made through Western Union and traced to Gunvantla in New Jersey.
Based on the success of the deal, Maan Singh decided to venture two more passengers on December 22nd. Once again, the smuggled aliens were successfully delivered to their final destinations; of course, INS videotaping and phone monitoring concurrently, unbeknownst to them. After hearing of the successful transit, Maan Singh came out of hiding and returned to Quito. Soon, Singh was lining up numbers of people for the air pipeline. Singh began to put pressure on Babaco to become the exclusive air travel agent for his clients and to increase the number sent to Miami. Just as soon, the INS agents in Miami were regularly receiving the illegal aliens in Miami and ferrying them over to Dallas, always tracking their communications and payments to reveal all the corners of the network.
The rich trove of information gathered by the agents listening, tapping phones, and surveilling the aliens in transit revealed that Gunvantla, unsuspected by his neighbors, was running a major money-laundering operation, receiving at least 200 calls a day to and from all over the world during twenty-four hours of business. To handle this traffic, Gunvantla had his daughter and son-in-law working for him, and business was so plentiful that he seldom left his house in North Bergen, not even to walk to the corner store to buy toilet paper. Besides the phone tapping, the INS set up a camera on a telephone pole across from his house to monitor comings and goings.
Surveillance of this kind required utmost secrecy and discretion, but once again the Keystone Cops factor came into play. INS had sent a technician, somewhat overzealous, to install the camera and also to wire a hotel room where a meeting would be set up with Gunvantla. As usual for him, he was dressed in khakis and combat boots. During the Gunvantla surveillance, he also took to carrying an AR-15 rifle around. As soon as he set up the camera on the pole across from the subject’s house, the technician called Poli and A. J. and asked them to pull up the image on their computer in the adjoining room of the hotel.
“Hey, guys, can you see ’em? There’s Gunvantla and his daughter next to him at the window. . . . ”
“Yeah, it’s nice and clear,” said A. J., “but what’s the red dot on her forehead?”
“Oh, that’s my laser site. Just checkin’ to see if it works.”
“Are you crazy?!!! You’re pointing a rifle at her?!!!!”
“Uh, just checkin’.”
“And you don’t think they can see that?” Poli said, somewhat understated.
“You want to blow this operation? You want to scare the shit outta people with that gun?!” shouted A. J. into the phone.
“Man, you never can tell when things are gonna get violent. I’m up here in a tree next to the pole, like a sitting duck.”
“These people are money launderers, not gangbangers or terrorists. They probably don’t even own a firearm. Now, get your ass down from that tree and get back to the hotel . . . and don’t let anybody see you carrying that gun.”
If the technician’s rifle wielding and laser pointing were not enough to call attention to the operation, what he had done to set up the pole camera certainly was. In plain sight, he had chopped down large branches of the tree he had climbed in order to clear the sight line for his camera. Months later, it turned out that the City of North Bergen had discovered the origin of the tree maiming and sued the INS for $15,000.
Despite the inauspicious and too public surveillance that was set up both across from his home and at the hotel, it soon became evident to the INS agents that Gunvantla’s was one of the top three hawala businesses in the United States. What also became evident was that Gunvantla was not just working for Maan Singh. Hundreds of calls were made to and from Nassau, in the Bahamas, to a Mr. Nittin Shetty, alias “Nick Díaz,” a former protégé of Maan Singh. Díaz was now running his own smuggling operation and it was even larger than Maan Singh’s. He aspired to put Maan Singh out of business. Díaz was an empire builder. Unlike Maan Singh, Díaz was a handsome, pony-tailed A-type who had a flare for parties and bodyguards. He was a flamboyant gangster where Maan Singh was the discreet godfather.
Nick Díaz had expanded on his mentor’s concepts, assembling a route for South Asian aliens that led north to Russia and from there to Cuba, where they were flown to headquarters in the Bahamas en route via fast boat to Florida. But Díaz still maintained the circuits in South America and continued to work with Maan Singh. While the two master smugglers were vying with each other, it was Gunvantla who actually provided the wherewithal to facilitate their business, keeping dollars flowing through the system and across borders like blood coursing its way to the various organs of the body.
Despite uncovering all of these relationships, Poli and A. J. were becoming frustrated because the case was not being furthered: the INS itself was smuggling aliens but not assembling enough evidence to take down the masterminds. It was time for “Fernando” to make his appearance once again. Poli had Babaco call Gunvantla to set up a meeting with his boss man, Fernando, who worked out of Mexico City. But it was a no-go with Gunvantla, so Poli as “Fernando” called Gunvantla himself.
“Mr. Gunvantla, I’m Fernando. The guys you work with, they work for me. Hey, we’ve given you some good business, at least twenty clients by now. So, I’m gonna be up in your neck o’ the woods, man. Let’s go out for lunch and get to know each other.”
“No time, no time.”
“Look, I’m gonna be up there soon, I really want us to get together to discuss business. It’ll be worth your while.”
“Okay, okay, call when you’re up he
re.”
The day came, and Poli, A. J. and the others rented two adjoining rooms and wired them at the Holiday Inn. They had to fly a team in from Chicago because the Newark office was not cooperating. Apparently they were having ego or territorial issues, or were simply embarrassed to have the biggest money-laundering business happening right under their noses.
Poli called Gunvantla and once again met resistance to meeting, but finally Gunvantla acceded and made his way to the Holiday Inn in Secaucus.
Late in the evening, when Gunvantla entered the hotel room, he was greeted by Poli, Babaco and George “Jorge” Ramírez, the primary undercover agent who was meeting the aliens at the Miami airport. A. J. was in the next room with the sound equipment to monitor the conversation that the agents hoped would incriminate the notorious money launderer.
After the hellos, handshakes and pleasantries, all sat down in a semicircle. “Mr. Gunvantla, this is my boss, Fernando, and, of course, you already know Jorge.”
Looking at “Fernando,” Gunvantla said, “Babaco is good man . . . good man. But there is problem . . . ”
“A problem?” said Babaco.
“I am very nervous. Somebody called Immigration, and nineteen-twenty people arrested at stash house in Newark. My collector, Ishwar, arrested with $60,000 in cash and all the passports . . . twenty-two passports.”
“Goddamn,” said Poli as “Fernando.”
“I was there, goin’ to pick up people when it happen. I lost $43 K. Had to dump it in the trash,” announced Gunvantla.
“That was bad luck,” said Babaco, commiserating.
“No, very good luck,” countered Gunvantla. “God was with me. They no see me dump the money.”
The Hunt for Maan Singh Page 5