The Hunt for Maan Singh

by Hipólito Acosta

  “Well, if you want to dump some money my way, I’ll be happy to take it off your hands,” said Babaco.

  “And God was with me. They let me go. They raided us at 2 o’clock, and I was out by 8.”

  “Okay, so we can pick up and go from here, right?” said Poli.

  “Um . . . ” Gunvantla was still a little wary of “Fernando.”

  “What about Nick Díaz,” Babaco said. “He’s in the Bahamas with a charter plane, but he doesn’t answer any of my calls.”

  “Nick takes care of the flight from Havana to Nassau. Ten people come, ten people go. He always have about forty people in pipeline,” said Gunvantla.

  “That’s too much risk, too many people,” Babaco said.

  “Seventy people this year arrested here. Maybe you right,” agreed Gunvantla.

  “Yeah. . . . ”

  “Yes, Immigration looking at me . . . very risky, very risky,” said Gunvantla, tending to repeat himself with a bad case of nerves.

  “Okay,” said Babaco, “me and Fernando got things covered in Miami. Maybe you can tell me how to contact Nick, and we can pick it up from there.”

  “No problem,” said Gunvantla. “I talk to Nicky, tell him Babaco is very good people.”

  “But how can I contact him? I only have one number . . . ”

  Gunvantla volunteered, “Everything canceled. I give you new number. When you move my people?”

  “Next week,” chimed in Poli, elated that Gunvantla had taken the bait.

  “Good, good.”

  From then on, the four of them went over details, listing the names of the aliens coming up via Miami to Newark. After a while, Babaco suggested they get Nick Díaz on the phone.

  “No, no good,” said Gunvantla, “His mind no good. He lost too much money from raid. Twelve of his people picked up by their family and went home after raid. They lose ten, fifteen thousand each. The total was three hundred thousand.”

  “But this is America,” continued Gunvantla. “I trust my God. I give money in garbage. This is my God talking to me. This God is for me good. No money inside pocket. Me caught, and maybe ten, fifteen years in jail because of this.”

  “Uh, Gunvantla, who’s this guy Ishwar you work with?” Babaco asked.

  “Oh, Ishwar, he bring the people from Miami to here.”

  “But is he working for Nicky or for you?”

  “Nicky, Nicky, Nicky . . . no me. Nicky take care of Miami. Ishwar pick up the money, pick up the people. Twenty-two people come in, take to motel. After second day, maybe bus, maybe plane, they come here.”

  “Is he in jail?” Poli asked.

  “Jail, yes,” said Gunvantla.

  “But you have no problem that he spills the beans about you?” asked Babaco.

  “No, but I find out. If he open mouth, I go home to India. Close down here,” Gunvantla answered, visibly nervous.

  “Why don’t you join us in Dallas?” volunteered Poli.

  “No, no, no, I don’t come to Dallas . . . we got too many problems. I go to India . . . eight times. Ten years I have been here. Ten years stupid. I go to Indian only eight times.” Gunvantla said, nostalgically.

  “Next group, last group. No workin’ more for me. One more month go, good for you, Babaco, because this problem everywhere, not just Miami. Maybe Bahamas, maybe here . . . everywhere. Immigration everywhere.”

  “It’s different,” Babaco said. “No problem bringing in one-by-one, two-by-two. The problem is Nicky bringing in fifteen at one time. You should never have twenty, forty guys in one apartment. That’s crazy!”

  Then Gunvantla dropped the bombshell that even had A. J. gasping in the next room. “Babaco, we receive a call from India at 9 Saturday night. It say, ‘Move the people out, Immigration comin’ Sunday morning.’ Call say, ‘There are eighteen people inside the house. Please move everybody out, ’cause Immigration coming 10 in morning.’”

  “If they knew Immigration was coming, why didn’t they leave?” said Poli.

  “Because all money not collected,” answered Gunvantla, regretfully.

  “Gunvantla, I have a company in Dallas, you can send the money through us,” ventured Poli, attempting to see how Gunvantla moved money.

  “No, you come here with these people, I give you money. You come here, I give you cash money, here. I no send money Western Union. That’s maybe no good.”

  “Well, we need money for expenses,” Babaco said. “Do you cover expenses?”

  “Look, I spent $2000 on people in South America that you delayed. It cost me every day $50, every day because delay . . . and you don’t give me back the $2000,” Gunvantla complained.

  “Well,” said Babaco, “they needed to get visas. That took time.”

  “No, Babaco, you don’t understand. You know nothin’ what I can do. You don’t understand what I talking about. You waste time,” said Gunvantla.

  “Gunvantla, that’s why I came here. I want to move faster . . . so that there’s no money lost. That’s why next week, I’ll make sure that George comes with your passen…” Poli was saying.

  “You guys give money to George,” interjected Gunvantla. “If you want to transfer money outside the country, I can do that, no problem, more than $1000, $5000. . . . Because America is cash money, is very much problem.”

  “I’ll take care of that, Gunvantla,” said Poli.

  “No, even when I come here, if you have $10,000 inside pocket, this is a problem for me. I lost the money in the garbage that I have in my pocket.”

  “Was that money from Nick?” asked Poli.

  “Yes, it belong to Nick.”

  “Well if you have money to throw away, how about throwing some my way,” laughed Poli, the joke now going stale.

  “It no good for the people to go to Dallas,” said Gunvantla, “because it cost me $1000 more when you take them to Dallas.”

  “We understand,” said Poli, “but what’s the problem in going to Dallas?”

  “Well, the driver, if he get caught, he get thirteen years.”

  “The problem is Nicky. He’s bringing in the people all together,” volunteered Babaco.

  “Babaco, Babaco, . . . you think your mind and my mind is equal. But mine not equal, my friend,” said Gunvantla.

  Babaco changed tack: “Maybe I’ll go to the Bahamas to meet with Nick.”

  “Do not use my name, Babaco. Not tell I refer you,” warned Gunvantla.

  “We have to move the people because the Patels eat too much, and drink too much, and smoke too much. And I lost my profits,” said Babaco, referring to all of the South Asians as “Patels.”

  “I lose $4000 too. Too many delays” said Gunvantla. “Remember?”

  “I know, Gunvantla. Do you send it to me now, or do I wait for you?” said Babaco

  “Okay, I will send Babaco $4000,” said Gunvantla, as he got up and exited the room.

  Poli, A. J., Babaco and George were satisfied. They had recorded Gunvantla’s complicity in financing and money-laundering, and they had set up a meeting with the master of the Bahamas axis, Nick Díaz. What had happened behind the scenes, however, was not evident to Gunvantla about his arrest and release from jail. It had been a major snafu that had occurred as once again the Keystone Cops factor had popped up. Two clients were being held in the stash house in Newark, but relatives refused to pay the remaining money and, instead, called Immigration. Now, all of INS knew that Poli and A. J.’s team were about to execute the first wiretap in INS history and about to record Gunvantla at the hotel. But the head of the Newark Office, territorial and vengeful, called for the raid on the stash house on May 10, 1998, that could have disrupted the whole operation. As reported by Gunvantla in his meeting with the undercover agents, the Newark office conducted the surprise raid on Sunday morning and hauled him, Ishwar and all the aliens off to the Immigration Detention Center in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The Newark agents bragged throughout the INS network that they had seized $200,000 in cash and ledger books, and arrested th
e three key players. The reports went up the chain of command and landed on the desk of Lou Nardi. Lou was livid, to say the least. Having executed the first wiretap under his command was a feather in his cap, but now the whole operation was in danger of exploding like a grenade.

  The phone wires from DC to Newark and back were burning up with Lou Nardi and his team chewing out the good old boys in Newark and looking for a way to salvage the operation. Finally, it came down to supervisor Mike Ryan, Poli and A. J.

  “The only way I can see to get somewhat back on track, Mike, is to un-arrest Gunvantla,” said A. J., on the horn from Dallas, trying to enjoy one of his few days off. “Let’s bring Ishwar to Dallas, before the Newark assholes dig their claws into him.”

  “Okay, sounds like a plan. Let me talk to some people.”

  So, on a Sunday evening when everyone was at home, supposedly enjoying a break, the phone wires kept burning. Mike talked to Lou Nardi, Lou Nardi talked to Michael Pearson, Executive Associate Commissioner for Field Operations, and Pearson called Georgeakopoulos, head of the investigations branch in Newark, who had been behind the sabotage.

  “This was a historic case for the agency, George, and you’re going to stand down. Call back your damn dogs and cooperate with the Dallas office that’s running this op or else,” Pearson spat out in disgust.

  Reluctantly, the Newark office released Gunvantla, supposedly “because his God had been good to him,” and Ishwar and all of the aliens were flown to Dallas and interviewed there. Although having suffered a blow, the case limped back on track, and Nick Díaz was the next target of the undercover investigation.

  CHAPTER 6

  The dark-complexioned and neatly dressed Ishwar Barot was under custody at a hotel in Dallas. Wisely, he decided to cooperate and possibly receive a lighter sentence. A. J. had just arrived when Ishwar was ushered into the hotel room. A. J. immediately noticed that Ishwar was wide-eyed, scared. That only raised A. J.’s confidence that something would come out of this debriefing.

  After introducing himself, A. J. read Ishwar his Miranda warning.

  “I want to cooperate, Mr. Irwin. I just don’t want to go back to India.”

  “You can call me A. J. and what you say to me will determine whether you go to jail or get deported or . . . perhaps none of the above,” said A. J., with concern in his voice.

  “Okay, I just want to tell you that I work for Nick Díaz. He’s a smuggler, works out of the Bahamas.”

  “Does he know you’ve been burned?”

  “I haven’t talked to him . . . er, personally, but I did receive a voice message on my phone. It was someone speaking Gujerati that wanted to know about the missing money from the raid at the stash house.”

  “Did you call him back?”

  “No.”

  “Did he leave any phone numbers for the call back?”

  “Uh, yes,” said Ishwar, and he recited two phone numbers from memory.

  “Tell me about the money. Why was this guy calling you about the missing money?”

  “Because he thinks I stole it. And . . . he’ll kill me if I did.”

  “Well, did you steal the money?” asked A. J.

  “No, but I think . . . Mistery, he runs the stash house, did. Usually a couple of police officers in the Bahamas, Nick’s guys, pick up the money at the stash house and take it to the Bahamas from Miami. This time, the day before the raid, they collected the cash and left thousands in operating money. Mistery must have taken what was left, knowing he could blame it on the INS agents. But Nick is blaming me because I’m usually responsible for the cash, you know. I’m the money guy.”

  “How did you get into the smuggling business and involved with Nick Díaz.”

  “Well, one of my friends being smuggled by Díaz referred me. Nick needed someone in the United States with a green card . . . and, well, if my buddy could line me up, Díaz was not going to charge him the usual fee.”

  “Yeah, and . . . ?”

  “Look, I never have met Nick. I’ve never traveled to the Bahamas. I’ve only talked to him on the phone. I know he’s from India. He’s lived in Ecuador and speaks Spanish and English fluently. But he only speaks to me in Hindi, which I think is his native tongue.”

  “Yeah, trilingual, that helps in that line of work.”

  “Nick said the fee is $15,000 from the Bahamas to the East Coast. Nick brings ’em over in boats and drops ’em off on the beach in South Florida. He’s got Bahamian cops working for him. Nick would call me and say, like, go to this hotel in Ft. Lauderdale, to a specific room. So I’d fly down there, I’d go to the room and there’d always be a group of Indians in the room. Then, my job was to arrange for transportation. I’d usually put them on buses to Newark, to the stash house. From there they’d be sent to their final destinations . . . Boston, Philly, Chicago, etc. I’d never travel with them—I’d fly back to Newark.”

  “Is that it? Was that your whole job?”

  “No, I also kept the ledgers. I kept account of the money, the expenses, you know. Between February, when I started, and May 10, when INS kicked in the door, we moved over two hundred people, collecting at minimum $15,000 for each of them.”

  “Have you ever heard the name Maan Singh mentioned?”

  “Yes, oh yes, Nick is moving some of the aliens that Maan Singh sends from Ecuador. He slips them in through the Bahamas, too. And Nick instructs me not to collect any money for them, because he’s already made financial arrangements for them.”

  “So, how did you get involved with Gunvantla?”

  “Well, I had known that Gunvantla is the hawala broker for the region. I met Gunvantla on several occasions at the stash house. He’d come and pick up the passengers and the fees for them. Twice, yes it was twice, I delivered a group of them to his house in North Bergen.”

  “What was your cut?”

  “Uh, I guess I made about $150,000 during these ten weeks.”

  That was about it. Ishwar agreed to cooperate in exchange for a good word with the U.S. Attorney’s office. A. J. took Ishwar’s cell phone and obtained a subpoena for his phone tolls, which corroborated that numerous calls had been made to and from the Bahamas and South Florida. Then the INS team in Dallas matched up the ledgers that had been seized with the phone records. With the phone tolls and the ledgers and Ishwar’s testimony, the INS estimated that Nick Díaz was generating about $1 million a month in business, and Gunvantla, the target for the upcoming wiretap, was right in the middle of it.

  But there were many layers of red tape they had to cut through, plus there were other protocols. They would have to get a coordinator for the daily wiretap functions and proper evidence recording—someone who got along with prosecutors, other agencies and management at the INS district offices. They also had to hire interpreters for Gujurati, a language they had very little experience with. They would have to purchase equipment and assign temporary officers to the task force group in Dallas, which would be operating twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

  All excited, A. J. called Poli and gave him the rundown about Nick Díaz. They said in unison, “Let’s go get this motherfucker.”

  While still putting aliens on American Airlines through Miami and maintaining other parts of the operation that spanned the hemisphere from Ecuador to Mexico and the U.S. Southwest, Poli and A. J. decided to open up another front in the investigation, one that would take Poli, as “Fernando” once again, to the Bahamas.

  On July 29, 1998, “Fernando” made phone contact with Nick Díaz.

  “I know who you are, Fernando,” Nick Díaz said in Spanish. “Babaco has told me a lot about you. But, man, I don’t need you. I have a yacht that I use in the business. I have pilots that I use at my disposal. I have all types of employees. I don’t need to work with anybody I don’t know.”

  “Look, Mr. Díaz, I have an airplane. I can move six to nine aliens per week. I travel to the Dominican Republic with cargo. When I fly back, I’m empty. I can move people each week, and I
move cash each week to the D. R.,” Poli said, trying to bait Díaz on this recorded call.

  “Fernando, I have control of the airport in the Bahamas. I move a 150 people per month, but I’m willing to meet to discuss your airplane.”

  “Okay, Mr. Díaz, I’ll be happy to meet with you . . . but I’m hesitant to meet in the Bahamas because my plane costs a pretty buck. I can’t afford to have it seized,” said Poli.

  “Don’t worry, I have everything under control at the airport. You and your pilot come here, and I can teach you how to do it better.”

  “Okay, we’ll be in touch.”

  Poli and A. J. had devised a plan, and now it was time to try to sell it to their own agency. Their proposal included having a second undercover agent working as a pilot to fly down with Poli to the Bahamas. They’d stay at a resort hotel, with security personnel backing them up. If Nick Díaz agreed to it, they’d bring five or six aliens on a first flight to Dallas. On the second trip, they’d invite Díaz to fly with them to the Dominican Republic, where with agreement from the authorities, Díaz would be arrested as an undesirable alien and expelled to the United States. The duo requested two months to complete the operation. That would be a big mistake.

  But now was the time to find an undercover partner, an airplane and a pilot.

  “Harry,” said Poli by phone talking to his brother-in-law in Customs, “we need a jet, we need a pilot with the balls to go undercover with me into the Bahamas.”

  “Hey, not a problem. I got a friend in the air branch in Jacksonville, Florida.”

  A. J. and Poli along with Mike Ryan, an INS task force supervisor, and Tim “Rico” Tubbs flew to Jacksonville to provide a briefing to the Customs branch there. And that was that: Customs consigned a jet and two gutsy pilots. Next was to fly down to the Bahamas on a commercial airline and meet with the U.S. ambassador to get his concurrence. That turned out to be no problem. The last step was to find a female agent to work undercover as “Fernando’s” girlfriend.