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Speaker 1: conditions at une st dot CEO. Forgotten is a production
Speaker 1: of ihut Media and unusual productions. Before we start. This
Speaker 1: podcast contains accounts which some listeners will find disturbing, but
Speaker 1: without them, the story can't be fully understood. Please take
Speaker 1: care while listening. Previously on Forgotten, it was like a
Speaker 1: perfect store. You have the women coming from southern Mexico,
Speaker 1: desperate for work to help their families, to come work
Speaker 1: at the Mikheila Doors. It's like antelopes at the water hole.
Speaker 1: I had a night witness who alleged that he had
Speaker 1: been at these parties where these women would be brought
Speaker 1: into It's not here are the bad guys and you
Speaker 1: are the good guys. There were no good guys. Everybody
Speaker 1: was involved. That's Another misnomer about drug trafficking is that
Speaker 1: it's Mexican groups invading, and I'd say it's no, it's
Speaker 1: Mexicans and Americans working together to produce, to transport, to smuggle,
Speaker 1: to sell drugs. The first time Monica took me to
Speaker 1: meet Dinah Washington Valdez, I was overwhelmed. Over the course
Speaker 1: of three hours, she talked about young women being selected
Speaker 1: for murder and about a network of computer schools used
Speaker 1: to get details on victims who vanished from crowded streets.
Speaker 1: She also told us that she had to stop reporting
Speaker 1: in Juarez because of death threat she received. One was
Speaker 1: traced back to Mexican military intelligence with the help of
Speaker 1: a source in US law enforcement, And among all of
Speaker 1: Diana's law enforcement sources, there was one person she suggested
Speaker 1: that we try to track down for an interview, and
Speaker 1: he talked to Hardrick Crawford. Yet he's very friendly and
Speaker 1: he probably will be a very good source of information
Speaker 1: for you Herdrick Crawford was one of the most senior
Speaker 1: government officials on the US Mexico border. He became a
Speaker 1: Special Agent in charge of the FBI's l Pass Office
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one that was the year that
Speaker 1: Lilia Alejandro was abducted on her way home from work
Speaker 1: and the year that eight women's bodies were discovered at
Speaker 1: the cotton Field, and Hardrick took a special interest in
Speaker 1: the fate of the women, even traveling across the border
Speaker 1: to better understand what was happening to them. Hardrick Crawford says,
Speaker 1: when he made a trip to Huardas and downtown with
Speaker 1: one of his assistants, they looked around and they said, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is where they picked their victims. This is where
Speaker 1: they see them. I'm coming, and this is where they're taken.
Speaker 1: The slogan of the activist community against the murder of
Speaker 1: women in Huarez is neat on amass not one more.
Speaker 1: It's a phrase Diana inscribed in my copy of her book,
Speaker 1: and with an ally of Hardrick's influence, the goal seemed
Speaker 1: within reach. Then something happened. I murdering him because there
Speaker 1: are a lot of weird things about what was going
Speaker 1: on with him. To this day, it's inexplicable. It's comforting
Speaker 1: to imagine that the weird and inexplicable parts of this
Speaker 1: story take place on the Mexican side of the border.
Speaker 1: But Hardrick's fate disturbs that narrative. To understand it, we
Speaker 1: had to talk to him ourselves about how he became
Speaker 1: outspoken on the women's murders and about what happened to him.
Speaker 1: By the time I get to El Passel, I'm stunned
Speaker 1: and amazed at the response of our carlege in Mexico
Speaker 1: to an enormous crime, A my numbing crime, but also
Speaker 1: not stupid. I know that's not our country. Hardrick was
Speaker 1: well aware that back in nineteen ninety nine, the FBI
Speaker 1: had offered to help local Houire's police solve the women's
Speaker 1: murders as part of Operation Plaza Sweep. In fact, by coincidence,
Speaker 1: the agent who led the operation, Frank Evans, had been
Speaker 1: Hardrick's former partner from their rookie days in Cleveland, Ohio,
Speaker 1: So Hardrick knew that the Howire's authorities had twisted the
Speaker 1: bureau's findings before to pay on more blame on scapegoats.
Speaker 1: But looking out the window of his office towards Houirez,
Speaker 1: where young women were being brutally murdered with impunity, Hardrick
Speaker 1: felt he had to try to do something. I have
Speaker 1: members in my own office who have women in their
Speaker 1: family in Mexico and the fact that I have two daughters.
Speaker 1: It affects you. It affects you on a personal level.
Speaker 1: How could I face my own office and sit there
Speaker 1: and do nothing like punch his pilot, just wash my hands.
Speaker 1: So it was a delicate balance of Okay, how do
Speaker 1: I perform this mission and at the same time not
Speaker 1: medal in the affairs of a sovereign nation. And that
Speaker 1: was the crux these murders. They were happening within sight
Speaker 1: of Hardrick's office, but outside of his jurisdiction. I was
Speaker 1: keenly aware that you can step on a landmine in
Speaker 1: that regard. You did, but maybe I just got injured
Speaker 1: instead of blown the bits. So what did happen to Hardrick?
Speaker 1: And did his fate connect in any way to the
Speaker 1: list of people who'd investigated these murders and ended up threatened, discredited,
Speaker 1: or dead. I'm as Voloshin and I'm got him. The
Speaker 1: women of Guirescano Baramo Rara lov you know, so you
Speaker 1: know masque a la Felicia. Since the early nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: young women had been disappearing from the streets of Juarez
Speaker 1: and Tony Up dead, often dumped in the desert. There
Speaker 1: were forced confessions and changed statements. Paula Flores was far
Speaker 1: from alone amongst the victim's mothers in believing that the
Speaker 1: authors of the crimes remained free. Oscar Menez, the huara's
Speaker 1: chief forensics officer, resigned after being asked to plant evidence
Speaker 1: on two bus drivers at the cotton field, and the
Speaker 1: lawyers who defended them, Mary Escobado Junior and Dante Amaras
Speaker 1: were both assassinated. Even reporters who were American citizens like
Speaker 1: Diana Washington Valdez and Alfredo Cocardo, received death threats as
Speaker 1: they got closer to the truth. That's what made Hardrick's
Speaker 1: arrival at the border in two thousand and one and
Speaker 1: his personal interest in solving these crimes a potentially huge
Speaker 1: turning point. It looked like the authors of the crimes
Speaker 1: might finally have met their match. But how did the
Speaker 1: special agents in charge of El Paso get so deeply
Speaker 1: invested in crimes taking place in another country? To understand that,
Speaker 1: we have to go back to Hardrick's assignment to the
Speaker 1: border was angry with god forday. I worked hard and
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, you know, let's be candid, you're
Speaker 1: not a black sac unless you're on top of your game.
Speaker 1: And Hardrick was on top of his game. He was
Speaker 1: the most senior FBI agent on the African continent when
Speaker 1: he responded to Osama bin Laden's bombing of the American
Speaker 1: embassy in Kenya, and he'd been the number two in
Speaker 1: the bureau's Miami office taking on the Columbian cartel and
Speaker 1: their drug smoking operations. The danger was tons of cocaine
Speaker 1: flooding our cities, making zombies out of American citizens. Come on,
Speaker 1: let's face it, I'm an African American. I saw up
Speaker 1: front and close in Cleveland what cocaine did to my community.
Speaker 1: And so the way I saw this is war. You're
Speaker 1: destroying my country from within, and so there was no
Speaker 1: hesitation to take them on. In two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: Hardrick was up for promotion to the coveted position of SAC,
Speaker 1: or Special Agents in Charge. There were two such openings
Speaker 1: at the time, El Paso and Cleveland, Ohio, where Hardrick
Speaker 1: had grown up, and he made an impassioned case to
Speaker 1: the FBI Deputy director to return home, and I went,
Speaker 1: I'm a Cleveland kind of guy. He says, you want
Speaker 1: to be an SAC, You're an El Pastle kind of guy.
Speaker 1: I called the wife and said, we're going to El Pastle.
Speaker 1: She was one little down. Number one, Cleveland was open
Speaker 1: and we didn't get it. But number two, and almost
Speaker 1: nearly as important, is that all speak Spanish. I felt
Speaker 1: that all those times that I risked my life for
Speaker 1: the bureau, and you reward me by sending me to
Speaker 1: the border where I can't speak Spanish. So I was hurt.
Speaker 1: But I'm a professional. So you've given the job in
Speaker 1: some sense because you're an outsider, correct, an outsider with
Speaker 1: a sterling reputation for management and leadership. So the FBI
Speaker 1: office in El Paso kind of has a reputation Monica.
Speaker 1: One of the early special agents in charge had to
Speaker 1: resign in disgrace after being caught selling weapons to Mexican revolutionaries,
Speaker 1: and another special agent from that office was murdered, which
Speaker 1: is the only unsolved murder of an FBI agent in
Speaker 1: the line of duty in the bureau's history. So what
Speaker 1: makes the posting so hard? And I'll passo. We all
Speaker 1: have some sort of ties to Huadis to Mexico, So
Speaker 1: the opportunities for corruption or vast for law enforcement that
Speaker 1: presents a huge challenge unlike anywhere else in the country
Speaker 1: because of these binational ties, those connections can get you
Speaker 1: in trouble family, culture, business, and in fact, it's absolutely
Speaker 1: necessary for the black market to thrive, for the corruption
Speaker 1: to exist on both sides of the border. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: you could see the mentality behind sending an outsider like
Speaker 1: Hardrick Crawford in thinking, alright, he's not going to be
Speaker 1: susceptible to these same kinds of weaknesses. Central to Hardrick's
Speaker 1: mission in El Paso was stopping the flow of drugs
Speaker 1: into the US. To do this, he'd have to keep
Speaker 1: an eye not just on Mexican drug traffickers, but on
Speaker 1: his own colleagues. After all, he'd been assigned to the
Speaker 1: border partly because his background made conflicts of interest unlikely.
Speaker 1: And in two thousand and two, Hardrick led an investigation
Speaker 1: that revealed a translator in his office was selling information
Speaker 1: to the cartel. It's like one of your family has
Speaker 1: because we were a family in a field office. And
Speaker 1: to discover that, because you trust everybody implicitly, so yeah,
Speaker 1: that was like a dagger to the heart. Yes, and
Speaker 1: that was one of our prime missions public corruption cartels.
Speaker 1: They're bad guys. But if it's a corrupt US official,
Speaker 1: vary institutions or at stake. I spoke to Frank Evans.
Speaker 1: I guess it's your partner in Cleveland, right, I remember
Speaker 1: for me yea, And he said that basically the cartels
Speaker 1: couldn't operate. That's not the operations if it weren't for
Speaker 1: corrupted US officials. He's correct. They're much more efficient if
Speaker 1: they can bribe at that point of entry instead of
Speaker 1: having a sneak in, just drive it right through. In Juarez,
Speaker 1: La Lina enforced the cartel's power by corrupting officials to
Speaker 1: the extent the policemen were kidnapping women. This wasn't happening
Speaker 1: in El Paso, but the same money could buy silence
Speaker 1: or complicity on either side of the border. So Hardrick
Speaker 1: had his hands full, but he was still in search
Speaker 1: of a higher purpose in El Paso. That's when he
Speaker 1: received the letter from a group of activists in Juarez.
Speaker 1: And they sent me this passionate letter asking for assistance
Speaker 1: in addressing this horrible, tragic crime of the murder of
Speaker 1: these women in wars. Was caught off guard. It was
Speaker 1: not US helpers, No, it was Hardrick Crawford helpers hit
Speaker 1: me on a personal level, more soul than it did
Speaker 1: on a professional level. It sound funny, but I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I know why Goad sent me to our pessel.
Speaker 1: Was this? This was the reason I was sent here.
Speaker 1: Hardrick had been angry with God for his posting, but
Speaker 1: after receiving this letter, the situation was beginning to make
Speaker 1: sense to him. It was two thousand and two, just
Speaker 1: a few months after eight women's bodies had been discovered
Speaker 1: at the cotton Field, and in response to the letter,
Speaker 1: Hardly offered the FBI's resources in profiling, forensics, and even
Speaker 1: training to the Hore's police. But he recognized that stopping
Speaker 1: the murders of women required political will, and that's when
Speaker 1: he took the highly unusual step of appearing on ABC
Speaker 1: News to publicly criticize Mexico's response to the crimes. Increasingly,
Speaker 1: Mexican police and government officials are under fire from people
Speaker 1: here in the US. There appears to be no meaning
Speaker 1: effort to solve the disappearances. All of the resources of
Speaker 1: the FBI are available to our Mexican colleagues, such a
Speaker 1: matter as DNA blood typing, profiling. The response from the
Speaker 1: Mexicans to that offer heretofore the response has been they've
Speaker 1: had these matters in hand and don't require our assistance.
Speaker 1: Hardrick's words were cloaked in official language, but there was
Speaker 1: no doubting a message. He was claiming on national television
Speaker 1: that the murders of women in Huarez were not being
Speaker 1: solved because Mexican officials didn't want to solve them. Not
Speaker 1: just the street corps who abducted women, but their bosses,
Speaker 1: perhaps even their bosses bosses. And this accusation wasn't coming
Speaker 1: from a journalist or an activist. It was coming from
Speaker 1: a US government official. But Hardrick's strategy wasn't just about
Speaker 1: public complaints. It was also about private alliances. When we
Speaker 1: come back, the FBI agent begins to make power friends
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Speaker 1: the same time, as Hardrick was castigating Mexican officials on television,
Speaker 1: he made it his mission to develop personal relationships with Juarez,
Speaker 1: his power brokers. I used to travel to war As
Speaker 1: quite frequently. I became friends with a Mexican businessman at
Speaker 1: the racetrack at Warriors, and when you're on the border,
Speaker 1: you're liaison, and it includes foreign liaison, which the other
Speaker 1: field houses don here the friend Hardrick mentions is Jose
Speaker 1: Maria Guardia. He was a complicated figure. He'd been invited
Speaker 1: to George W. Bush's presidential inauguration, but he'd also been
Speaker 1: caught up in a bribery scandal with the US consular official.
Speaker 1: In fact, it would later come to light that when
Speaker 1: Hardrick arrived at the border, Guardia was a confidential informant
Speaker 1: for the FBI. That's something Hardrick told us he was
Speaker 1: never informed of by his own office who made the
Speaker 1: initial introduction. That was to him by my media rep
Speaker 1: who fully understood that liaison was critical to my performance.
Speaker 1: So I struck up a relationship with him likable fellow,
Speaker 1: went to the racetrack with him, and at the racetrack
Speaker 1: he would bring various officials. Racetracks have a long history
Speaker 1: of association with corruption and organized crime, a problem endemic
Speaker 1: to Juarez. But Guardia had friends who vouched for him,
Speaker 1: and one in particular made a big impression on Hardrick.
Speaker 1: His really really close friendship with Cardinal Sandoval, who was
Speaker 1: on the shortlist for the pope when the Pope died.
Speaker 1: That to a large extent, assuaged any concerns or fears
Speaker 1: that I might have. Not only did the Cardinal endorse Guardia,
Speaker 1: but he became something of a spiritual guide for Hardrake.
Speaker 1: Hardrick described the Cardinal as a great ally in the
Speaker 1: fight against corruption and for justice for the women. I
Speaker 1: was baptized by the Cardinal and my religious faith. Yes,
Speaker 1: they did have a part to play, and it was
Speaker 1: a not quite the mission that Diana Vllebars Washington has
Speaker 1: with regard to these terrible crimes. But I had an
Speaker 1: official and a moral mission that I felt that I
Speaker 1: was empowered on a different level than the US Constitution.
Speaker 1: Hardry was beginning to see his mission in terms of
Speaker 1: a higher calling, superseding even his duty to the Constitution.
Speaker 1: And at the same time as he was publicly corning
Speaker 1: out officials in Huarez, he was privately trying to get
Speaker 1: buy in from the right people, and he saw the
Speaker 1: racetrack as the ideal place to do it. It was
Speaker 1: a place that was insulated from cartel violence because it
Speaker 1: was a useful place for all kinds of people to
Speaker 1: do business. Criminals almost certainly, but also the city's wealthy
Speaker 1: industrialists and official powerbrokers. From my ability to be at
Speaker 1: the Warrior's Racetrack, I became really, really good liaison friends
Speaker 1: with a cardinal, with the mayor of war Is, with
Speaker 1: the chief of Police of Warriors, with the Governor of Chihuahua.
Speaker 1: They would all come to the race track. What a
Speaker 1: great place to effect liaison. I wasn't stupid. I was
Speaker 1: aware that at any time any one individual that I'm
Speaker 1: meeting could have been corrupted by the cartel, of course,
Speaker 1: but he can't do business with that premise. Did you
Speaker 1: talk about the kidings of the women that any of
Speaker 1: those days on the meetings with the Mayor of Warres
Speaker 1: and with the chief of police. Yes, I was very
Speaker 1: impressed with the Chief of war is not so impressed
Speaker 1: with his police officers. But at the same time I
Speaker 1: was also aware that there are certain things that the
Speaker 1: chief of police of wars would never do because he
Speaker 1: wants to live. He doesn't want to harm his family,
Speaker 1: so there are limitations. I don't care how honest you are,
Speaker 1: how competent you are. The cartel looms large these meetings
Speaker 1: that the race track were taking place before La Lina
Speaker 1: became acknowledge thanks to Alfredo's reporting, but the cartel's ability
Speaker 1: to enforce silence was clear to Hardrick. The chief of
Speaker 1: police seemed like an ally in stopping the murders of women,
Speaker 1: but if he stuck out his neck too far, he
Speaker 1: might well end up dead himself. Whereas Hardrick's informants indicated
Speaker 1: that the cartel considered him untouchable, they reported back that
Speaker 1: the cartel is scratching or hiss, what do we do
Speaker 1: about this guy? Crawford, and one of the responses was,
Speaker 1: are you crazy you do something to the FBI sac
Speaker 1: do you have any idea where their crazy cowboy Bush
Speaker 1: would do so? I kind of chuckled. Hardrick felt emboldened,
Speaker 1: even obliged, to use his protected status to speak out,
Speaker 1: to force a conversation that would go way above local
Speaker 1: officials and catch the attention of Mexico's federal government. In
Speaker 1: other words, to generate the kind of political pressure that
Speaker 1: went beyond even what activists like Estra Chavezcano and mothers
Speaker 1: like Paula Flores could achieve alone. There appears to be
Speaker 1: no meaningful effort to solve the disappearances. Hardrick was consciously
Speaker 1: stoking international media attention on the femicides. For someone in
Speaker 1: Huirez like Dante or Mario Escobado, this was fatal, but
Speaker 1: especial agents in charge of El Paso Herdrick didn't believe
Speaker 1: he had as much to fear from La Ligne. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: after his interview, he did receive a warning, but it
Speaker 1: came from the last place he expected. There was no
Speaker 1: question it annoyed and infuriated some. I'm sure I do
Speaker 1: recall some suggesting that I might temper my words, because
Speaker 1: big businesses involved, and I'm going would you meet big
Speaker 1: businesses involved? Well, the Miquela Doors are American companies, and
Speaker 1: if the Mikuela Door are getting bad press because of
Speaker 1: the murderer of women it were as many of them
Speaker 1: mar Machueladora workers, it looks bad for American companies who
Speaker 1: are doing business down there. And you might wind up
Speaker 1: making enemies of people on this side of the border
Speaker 1: without being aware that you are who gave me that morning.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't remember, but it was seventeen years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not remembering it, but I was being told to
Speaker 1: knock it off, leave it alone, it's not your problem.
Speaker 1: In his interview with ABC News, Herdrich didn't make any
Speaker 1: explicit connection between the victims and Immaculadoras, but elsewhere in
Speaker 1: the broadcast, the journalist John Quinonez did. Prominent in the
Speaker 1: piece was an account of the last day of Cloudier
Speaker 1: Veet Gonzalez, who was turned away from her job at
Speaker 1: the Leakop factory for being a few minutes late. Her
Speaker 1: body was subsequently discovered in the cotton fields. The inherent
Speaker 1: vulnerability of these young women because of their work was clear.
Speaker 1: And then there was an interview with Roberto Urea, the
Speaker 1: spokesman for the Maquila Association in Juarez. He was asked
Speaker 1: what responsibility the factories had for the murder of so
Speaker 1: many young female employees. This was his response, Where were
Speaker 1: these young ladies, where they were seen last? Were they drinking? Right?
Speaker 1: Were their parting? Were they in a dark street? Victim
Speaker 1: blaming just as Huire's authorities had done before broadcast on
Speaker 1: national television in the US. It was not a good
Speaker 1: look for the industry, and it was unfortunate that Hardrick
Speaker 1: didn't remember the key detail of who had warned him
Speaker 1: against bringing more bad press to the maquilas, because it
Speaker 1: was reminiscent of the warnings Alfredo had received in Mexico
Speaker 1: when he started asking questions about La Ligna. Thank with
Speaker 1: Allo careful. We've already established how the drug traffickers used
Speaker 1: the murder of women to create bonds of loyalty, and
Speaker 1: how they had local police on their payroll. But the
Speaker 1: idea that quires is legitimate businesses which will often run
Speaker 1: with American partners, might also want to hush up the
Speaker 1: murders of women. This was opening up a whole new
Speaker 1: web of potential responsibility for these women's deaths. So, up
Speaker 1: until this point, the Maculadoras the factories have been looming
Speaker 1: in the background of our reporting. But his Hardrick Monica
Speaker 1: saying that his activism basically led to him getting a
Speaker 1: warning to leave the maquilas alone. And I'm frankly surprised
Speaker 1: they would have enough influence to deliver that kind of
Speaker 1: warning to a senior FBI agent. How powerful are these
Speaker 1: economic interests. The marquila industry is the back bone of
Speaker 1: the Wattas economy, and trade between the US and Mexico
Speaker 1: generates more than half a trillion dollars every year. Millions
Speaker 1: of jobs in the US are tied to trade, and
Speaker 1: in Wattas you'll find companies like Boeing, like Dell, General Electric,
Speaker 1: Johnson and Johnson manufacturing things. There's probably something you use
Speaker 1: in your everyday life that was made in Hoattas. Whether
Speaker 1: it's the seat cover in your forward or maybe your
Speaker 1: Mercedes Benz, the inside of your washing machine, your laptop computer,
Speaker 1: or your dog's chew toy. It doesn't matter if you
Speaker 1: live hundreds of miles away, you touch something that came
Speaker 1: from Hottas. Every day, And why have all these factory
Speaker 1: set up shopping houarres. The short answer is because it's cheaper.
Speaker 1: These companies go to hottas to cut costs, and the
Speaker 1: number one cost they cut is labor. I'll give you
Speaker 1: an example. The La Times did an excellent article looking
Speaker 1: at Delphi, which is an American company that makes car parts.
Speaker 1: It was once owned by General Motors. Delphi used to
Speaker 1: have a plant in Warren, Ohio, where one of its
Speaker 1: workers got paid thirty dollars an hour. He was able
Speaker 1: to buy a house with a swimming pool and drove
Speaker 1: a good car. Then Delphi moved that factory to Hottis,
Speaker 1: where it paid its workers just one dollar an hour.
Speaker 1: One dollar an hour. That's not a wage you can
Speaker 1: live on, not in Hoattas, not anywhere. That low of
Speaker 1: a wage is a form of exploitation, and it leaves
Speaker 1: a whole group of people vulnerable, unable to defend themselves,
Speaker 1: and so they're preyed upon. Whether it's an adolescent boy
Speaker 1: like Manualio who gets recruited by gangs or a young
Speaker 1: woman like Sagrario who gets kidnapped and brutally murdered, they
Speaker 1: both become easy prey. Hendrick believed that the best way
Speaker 1: to stop people praying on the women in Juarez was
Speaker 1: to get powerful interests in Mexico to take the crime seriously,
Speaker 1: and he was trying to use the press to achieve
Speaker 1: that goal. That's not a crime that's going to be
Speaker 1: solved in a day. It takes money invested in women
Speaker 1: who don't mean anything to the people that are in
Speaker 1: the upper class. They're throwaway humans. They're unimportant. If it
Speaker 1: was their daughters, it would be different, but it was
Speaker 1: poor people, and to throw their bodies away like they
Speaker 1: were garbage, that shocks the conscience type crime as far
Speaker 1: as Hardrick was concerned. When he gave that interview to
Speaker 1: ABC News, the pressure he was exerting was directed towards
Speaker 1: government officials in Mexico, But in light of the warning
Speaker 1: he received, he started to worry he may have accidentally
Speaker 1: kicked an even bigger hornet's nest. No, it didn't scare me,
Speaker 1: but it made me passe. It did. It made me pass,
Speaker 1: But Hardrick didn't pause for long. In a two thousand
Speaker 1: and three interview with a Mexican newspaper, he described the
Speaker 1: women's murders as quote crimes against humanity, and for a
Speaker 1: while it looked like he was right on the cusp
Speaker 1: of interrupting the status quo and achieving his mission. A
Speaker 1: few months after Hardrick's appearance on ABC News, the FBI
Speaker 1: office in El Paso received a facts inviting him to
Speaker 1: a meeting in Juarez concerning the women's murders. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't just any meeting. The Federal Drugs are who Alfredo
Speaker 1: Corcado met in Mexico City. Vasconcellos was in attendance, and
Speaker 1: after the meeting, the President of Mexico, Vicente Fox, spoke
Speaker 1: in public about the possibility of working with the FBI
Speaker 1: to solve the murders of women in Juarez once and
Speaker 1: for all. This was everything that Hardrick had been working
Speaker 1: so hard towards, and finally it felt like his efforts
Speaker 1: were bearing fruit. But that feeling wouldn't last long. Head
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Speaker 1: we'll hear about living a fulfilling life with chronic cart failure,
Speaker 1: a condition that doesn't have to be as scary as
Speaker 1: it sounds. I was outside shoveling snow and I noticed
Speaker 1: I was coughing up flim unbeknownst to me, I left
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Speaker 1: I had issues breathing, sleep apnia, I had a lot
Speaker 1: of those classic signs. My legs were beginning to retain fluid,
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Speaker 1: Listen to Help Discovered on the iHeartRadio app or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. It was early two thousand and
Speaker 1: three and Handrick was using the media to pressure a
Speaker 1: foreign government. He was meeting with high level officials on
Speaker 1: foreign soil, and he was getting around his lack of
Speaker 1: jurisdiction in Mexico by focusing on the lack of effort
Speaker 1: to solve the murders. Meanwhile, his relationship with Jose Maria Aguardia,
Speaker 1: the racetrack owner, was already straining the definition of official
Speaker 1: liaison when it crossed a definitive line. Gordia offered my
Speaker 1: wife a job as the public relations person at the
Speaker 1: Warrior's racetrack to Lura Americans over there to gamble. My
Speaker 1: wife has always been at my shadow from my whole life,
Speaker 1: and I said, oh, man, she'd have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: be an executive. Hardrick's career had taken him and his
Speaker 1: wife Linda to Nairobi, Miami, and now El Paso when
Speaker 1: they both wanted to move home to Cleveland. A job
Speaker 1: at the racetrack could give Linda her own professional satisfaction,
Speaker 1: and it also came with a salary of sixty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year and plenty of perks. But as far
Speaker 1: as Hardrick's former partner, Frank Evans was concerned, the job
Speaker 1: offer should have been a clear red flag. I was
Speaker 1: brief that of the things that would probably occur is
Speaker 1: that I would be approached officially from the Mexican side
Speaker 1: in a gesture of friendship. And that's precisely what happened.
Speaker 1: My wife and I were invited to the Mexican consulate
Speaker 1: here in El Paso, and while we were there, you know,
Speaker 1: several Mexican businessmen from Juarez were also there, and they
Speaker 1: came up and you know, it was the oh, we're
Speaker 1: so glad to have you here. You know, the FBI
Speaker 1: can correct all these wrongs that are happening in Uarez.
Speaker 1: And then subtly it was you know, is your wife
Speaker 1: planning to work? You know, if someone with her talent could,
Speaker 1: we could certainly find a spot for I always remember
Speaker 1: David Albo who brought me to El Paso. Dave was
Speaker 1: born in Mexico. I can always remember Dave telling me
Speaker 1: you always have to remember that a snake will smile
Speaker 1: before it bites. Frank was describing more or less exactly
Speaker 1: what Hendrick could experienced the flash followed by the offer,
Speaker 1: and according to Frank, Hodrick should have recognized what was happening,
Speaker 1: especially considering a big part of his mandate was public
Speaker 1: corruption and the slippery slope was a well known tactic
Speaker 1: for the cartels. You have a concept on the border
Speaker 1: called mordita. Mordita is a bite. It's where people pay
Speaker 1: policemen not to get a ticket. All the way up
Speaker 1: the line. When you're dealing with the folks in Mexico,
Speaker 1: nothing is as it seems. Everybody over there has an agenda.
Speaker 1: And even you know, your most prominent businessmen, if they're
Speaker 1: going to conduct business, they're going to have to deal
Speaker 1: with the cartel. From their perspective, they may not be
Speaker 1: doing anything wrong. However, from our perspective, you know a
Speaker 1: bribe as a bribe. Frank and his wife kept that
Speaker 1: distance from the Mexican businessman, but Hardrick and Linda accepted
Speaker 1: Guadia's offer, and word of his decision reached Frank, who
Speaker 1: was still living in El Paso after retiring in two thousand.
Speaker 1: When I first heard that his wife was working for
Speaker 1: the war as racetrack, my first thought was, now, that
Speaker 1: cannot be true. It is not true. Frank had known
Speaker 1: Hardrick for more than a decade. They'd come through FBI
Speaker 1: training at the same time, and then she had a
Speaker 1: car afterwards. They even responded to their first bank robbery
Speaker 1: together on a snowy day in Cleveland. Right after graduating
Speaker 1: from the FBI academy, Frank had worked on mafia busts
Speaker 1: in Ohio, while Hardrick had attacked Columbian cartels in Florida.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety six, Frank responded to the Olympic Park
Speaker 1: bombing in Atlanta, and in nineteen ninety eight, Hardrick responded
Speaker 1: to the US embassy bombing in Nairobi. And Frank had
Speaker 1: been the number two in the FBI's El Paso office
Speaker 1: before Hardrick was assigned to lead it. Haudrey cooled Frank
Speaker 1: before moving to al Passo to us for advice. So
Speaker 1: when Frank heard about Linda taking the job at the racetrack,
Speaker 1: he felt he had to intervene. He jumped in his
Speaker 1: car and drove to Haudrey's house, expecting his old partner
Speaker 1: to hear him out. I pulled up when he was
Speaker 1: pulling weeds, and I got out and say, hey, how's
Speaker 1: it going now? And I started talking. I said, what's
Speaker 1: going on? What are you thinking? Is this true? If
Speaker 1: it's true, don't you realize what it looks like. Never
Speaker 1: went inside his house. We talked in the front yard.
Speaker 1: He just let me know he was in charge and
Speaker 1: he knew what he was doing. And basically I was
Speaker 1: retired and no longer had any official input into, you know,
Speaker 1: what the FBI was doing, which was absolutely correct. It
Speaker 1: was kind of a slap in the face. I kept thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, after all this time and the guy that
Speaker 1: you know, both of us stood in the snow at
Speaker 1: that first bank robbery, and I thought time has changed,
Speaker 1: you know, on fort he's taken a path that is
Speaker 1: going to lead to us destruction. Within months of Linda
Speaker 1: taking the job at the racetrack, Frank's concerns about Hardrick's
Speaker 1: friendships were realized in spectacular fashion. Mister Warrior and the
Speaker 1: Cardinal were accused of collusion with cartels. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, moment, and so what did I do.
Speaker 1: I send a communication immediately the FBI headquarters. Two men
Speaker 1: who I associate with very closely have been accused of
Speaker 1: being implicated in organized crime. So I self reported immediately
Speaker 1: that same day, specifically, Guardia and Sandoval were accused of
Speaker 1: colluding with the cartel to laund the money at the racetrack.
Speaker 1: And although Hardrick did self report, he didn't believe his
Speaker 1: friends had done anything wrong. In fact, the official in
Speaker 1: Mexico City who accused them had himself previously been accused
Speaker 1: of being on the cartel payroll by Santoval. His unceasing
Speaker 1: pressure on the Mexican government cost him once one good
Speaker 1: way to neutralize somebody make a counter accusation. He's a member,
Speaker 1: He's operating with the cartail. At the request of his
Speaker 1: two friends, Hardrick made the extraordinary decision of speaking at
Speaker 1: a press conference in Juarez to defend them, and when
Speaker 1: he was asked if he was speaking as a private
Speaker 1: citizen or the head of the FBI and al Passo,
Speaker 1: he answered both. I believe, I said, if they are
Speaker 1: involved with the organized crying, shame on them. I said,
Speaker 1: I have no knowledge that they are, but if they are,
Speaker 1: a shame on them. I know him to be a man,
Speaker 1: a guy at him to be a good man. Santoval
Speaker 1: and Guardia was subsequently both cleared of any wrongdoing, but
Speaker 1: for an FBI agent who'd been sent to the border
Speaker 1: to avoid by national entanglements and conflicts of interest, Hardrick's
Speaker 1: actions were unacceptable. A representative of the Mexican foreign ministry
Speaker 1: who was close to the government official who had originally
Speaker 1: accused Guardia and Sandoval, complained about Hardrick to the US ambassador.
Speaker 1: The ambassador revoked Hardrick's travel privilege in two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: and that same year, Hardrick abruptly resigned from the FBI.
Speaker 1: By two thousand and six, he was indicted by a
Speaker 1: grand jury for false statements regarding his relationship with Guardia
Speaker 1: and his wife's employment at the racetrack. One of the
Speaker 1: things I was charged with was I've misled and I
Speaker 1: feeled to report to headquarters that mister Guardia and the
Speaker 1: cardinal were accused of serious crimes. Now I self reported myself,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? The Justice Department was digging
Speaker 1: into Hardrick's financial relationship with the racetrack owner. FBI policy
Speaker 1: prohibits employees from quote engaging in private business and financial
Speaker 1: relationships with subjects, witnesses, or individuals furnishing information to the
Speaker 1: FBI without prior FBI headquarters approval. Hardrick maintains that he
Speaker 1: himself was not employed by Guardia and that he never
Speaker 1: tried to disguise the fact that his wife was, but
Speaker 1: they did accept perks like a country club membership and
Speaker 1: a trip Las Vegas. But on Hardrick's financial disclosure form
Speaker 1: in the gifts and reimbursement section, he listed none. It's
Speaker 1: almost laughable. It wasn't soul. Depressing her income in her
Speaker 1: job was in my tax return. The charges that I'm
Speaker 1: accused of are things normally that are handled internally by
Speaker 1: internal affairs. Noah indictment. In January two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: Hardrick was found guilty on two of the five counts
Speaker 1: relating to full statements around financial disclosures. He was fined
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars and sentenced to six months at the
Speaker 1: Louisbow Prison camp in central Pennsylvania. Yeah, it's a prison
Speaker 1: known for holding drug offenders and members of organized crime.
Speaker 1: The implication was huge, without a doubt. They've clearly believed
Speaker 1: that I had been seduced and stepped over the line
Speaker 1: or was acting to aid. And I bet those who
Speaker 1: were on the dark side, the dark side, the powerful
Speaker 1: men who were raping and murdering the women in Juarez
Speaker 1: with impunity. Was it possible that Hardrick, wittingly or not,
Speaker 1: had allied himself with the very people who were responsible
Speaker 1: for the crimes he was outspoken about preventing. To this day,
Speaker 1: Hardrick maintains his innocence. My brother said directly, did you
Speaker 1: ever think about eating your gun? I said, I did.
Speaker 1: I did seriously consider and killing myself. Why because I've
Speaker 1: just been dishonored. I'm a knight now I'm a tarnished knight.
Speaker 1: And I thought about stick and mcnai millimeter in my
Speaker 1: mova and then I said no. Then that just says that, yeah,
Speaker 1: he did it because he was guilty. So that's why
Speaker 1: I didn't I do talk to my Lord about it
Speaker 1: and say, yeah, I understand prior go off before the fall,
Speaker 1: and you lured me a little bit on this one, didn't,
Speaker 1: your lord. But still the bottom line is those women
Speaker 1: were as nobody seems to be caring about them. The
Speaker 1: timing of Hardrick's downfall was uncanny and tragic. Just as
Speaker 1: his activism was forcing the President of Mexico to acknowledge
Speaker 1: the unsolved murders of women and promise action, Hardrick's wife
Speaker 1: took a job at the racetrack, and that began a
Speaker 1: series of events that culminated with the release of the
Speaker 1: pressure that had been building to finally take action on
Speaker 1: behalf of the women. Diana told us she still angry
Speaker 1: with Hardrick, but in her book she does entertain the
Speaker 1: possibility that he was set up. She writes a confidential
Speaker 1: intelligence source in Mexico City claimed Guardia was a US
Speaker 1: intelligence asset, Crawford's wife was clean, and the quote unquote
Speaker 1: mafia wanted to get rid of the FBI official. The
Speaker 1: tip was impossible to corroborate, and in the end, Diana
Speaker 1: simply says that Hardrick's behavior was inexplicable. We asked Frank
Speaker 1: Evans how he understood his former partner's story. Here's a
Speaker 1: guy Crawford who's charismatic, successful, on track for all these promotions,
Speaker 1: seemingly with the world at his feet in one of
Speaker 1: the most exciting field officers of the FBI. You're telling
Speaker 1: me for sixty thousand dollars a year. He throws all
Speaker 1: that away. You know, sixty thousand is what we are
Speaker 1: looking at hypothetically. Could there have been something else? Yes,
Speaker 1: I do not know that there was. But you know,
Speaker 1: you got to remember, even Adam took a bite of
Speaker 1: the apple. Is it a character flaw? Like I said,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I still have a hard time sometimes
Speaker 1: wrapping my hands around it and thinking about it. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, what the heck happened? Crawford could have had
Speaker 1: any door opened he wanted. In Washington, DC, Crowford mentioned
Speaker 1: he felt a high emission, like a mission from God
Speaker 1: to intervene in his case, he was out in front
Speaker 1: on TV criticizing the Mexican government, quoting this a crime
Speaker 1: against humanity? Why did he got out in front on
Speaker 1: this particular issue. You're dealing with the lives of hundreds
Speaker 1: of women. But frequently when you work organized crime, you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily want to call the Godfather an soob to
Speaker 1: his face. You want to kind of keep it on
Speaker 1: the sportsman like footing, and then you continue to put
Speaker 1: the sob in jail. It's the same way with who's
Speaker 1: ever killing those women. You may go home and cry
Speaker 1: at night, especially when you see some of those girls
Speaker 1: or the remains, but you cry in your home alone
Speaker 1: or with your family calling the governor of Chihuahua a
Speaker 1: murderer when you need to be able to perhaps operate
Speaker 1: inside of the state of Chihuahua. That's not going to
Speaker 1: get anybody helping you. So was Hardrick undone by his ego?
Speaker 1: Was he actually corrupted or was it possible that there
Speaker 1: was some kind of conspiracy against him? I was curious
Speaker 1: how Hardrick himself interpreted what had happened to him, first
Speaker 1: his country clearance being revoked, then his indictment, and ultimately
Speaker 1: his conviction and imprisonment. To my surprise, he returned to
Speaker 1: that warning he received after his appearance on ABC News.
Speaker 1: It occurred to me, I mean enemies, and now this
Speaker 1: is the cost. This is the cost. I'm not stupid,
Speaker 1: I'm above average intelligence. I could see the connection. Okay,
Speaker 1: big business, some US ambassador Mexicans. Okay, I get it.
Speaker 1: You know, if I was a conspiracy theorist, I you know,
Speaker 1: I would say that, Yes, the State Department and the
Speaker 1: US corporations, who were incensed that all his attention being
Speaker 1: directed to the Michela Doras, you know, went to the
Speaker 1: administration and said, look, this guy is harming the Michela
Speaker 1: Dora industry, and Mexico is upset, so we're going to
Speaker 1: have to make a sacrifice out of him. The moment
Speaker 1: that Padrick dropped this explosive hint that he was silenced
Speaker 1: by the US government who wants to hush up the
Speaker 1: murders of women in order to protect business interests, he
Speaker 1: WoT it back. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I
Speaker 1: would think things like that. But in the end I
Speaker 1: just chalk it up to over zealous Department of Justice
Speaker 1: OYG said, oh, look, we can get a high rank
Speaker 1: and FBI official. In the end, that's what my mind
Speaker 1: is settled on. So Diana as usual, Monica is right.
Speaker 1: This saga is weird and inexplicable, and is tempting to
Speaker 1: dismiss it entirely, except we know what happened to so
Speaker 1: many other people who investigated the women's murders and how
Speaker 1: one way or another they met unpleasant fates of their own.
Speaker 1: And it's also true that these business interests are very,
Speaker 1: very significant and they profit by keeping people vulnerable. So
Speaker 1: what do you make of Hardrick's story? Like Diana, I
Speaker 1: would say it's ambiguous. As an outsider, Hardrick was supposed
Speaker 1: to be immune from becoming midido or involved, and you
Speaker 1: might say he did so naively because he was an outsider.
Speaker 1: But you could also say, yeah, right, I don't buy
Speaker 1: that an FBI supervisor with his level of experience couldn't
Speaker 1: see that the path he was going down would get
Speaker 1: him into trouble. But no matter what, you had this
Speaker 1: outspoken head of the FBI in al Passo highlighting the
Speaker 1: most controversial crimes on the US Mexico border, and that
Speaker 1: no doubt would disturb the authors of those crimes, and
Speaker 1: more than likely they would want to get rid of
Speaker 1: someone like Hardrick. But they can't get rid of him
Speaker 1: in the same way they got rid of Mario Escovedo
Speaker 1: or Dante al Maras. So it's plausible that the powers
Speaker 1: that be in Mexico could have used Hardrick's relationship with
Speaker 1: Guadia and the cardinal to push him out. Mexico is
Speaker 1: the land of smoke and mirrors. You don't know who
Speaker 1: you're dealing with, who they're allied with, whether you can
Speaker 1: trust them, who their friends are, whether or not they
Speaker 1: have ties to the dark side. It makes it very
Speaker 1: difficult to navigate and do your job. I couldn't stop
Speaker 1: thinking about Hardrick's quote conspiracy theory, which went all the
Speaker 1: way from murdered women to Mexican business interests to his
Speaker 1: downfall to the State Department. So we called the US
Speaker 1: ambassador who withdrew Hardrick's country clearance in two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: to ask him what happened next time. I've forgotten that conversation.
Speaker 1: Antonio Rza, formerly the United States Ambassador to Mexico from
Speaker 1: the period November two thousand and two through January two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, And we returned to Dinah Washington Valdes,
Speaker 1: who suggests that powerful businessmen in Huirez who profited from
Speaker 1: immaculadora industry were also involved in the murders of women.
Speaker 1: These are people that are well known not just as
Speaker 1: border but in Mexico nationally. You know they have global
Speaker 1: business interests. It was scary when you sit down and
Speaker 1: think about who may be involved in the names. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. It's like, oh my god, I'm as Velosen
Speaker 1: and I'm Monique will be