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00:01An audacious robbery in the Antwerp Diamonds Center in Belgium leaves authorities stunned.
00:07Somebody had done the impossible, robbed one of the most sophisticated vaults ever created.
00:13A raid in a cartel warehouse in Guadalajara, Mexico, uncovers a shocking cache of automatic weapons.
00:20A closer look revealed that these assault rifles were built right there in a tiny warehouse from scratch.
00:25In southern Italy, mafia bosses built a series of underground hideouts to evade police.
00:32In villages like Chittanova or Platte, there was an entire maze of underground tunnels and bunkers.
00:40The world's most inventive criminal minds.
00:45Lawless ingenuity, born out of greed.
00:48From back alleys to the high seas.
00:51Secret structures, custom-built vehicles, high-tech innovation.
00:59What happens when engineering genies ends up on the wrong side of the law and starts building bad?
01:07On the morning of February 17, 2003, a concierge of the Antwerp Diamonds Center in Belgium
01:27descended two floors leading to an underground vault, widely considered one of the world's
01:33most secure spaces.
01:35What he discovered left him speechless.
01:40All the lights were on, and the massive vault door was wide open.
01:45109 of 189 safe deposit boxes had been broken into, and the floor was littered with millions
01:51of dollars worth of loose jewels, gold, and cash.
01:55Somebody had done the impossible.
01:57Robbed one of the most sophisticated vaults ever created.
02:00The Diamond Center is a 14-story building located within Antwerp's Diamond District, a roughly
02:09one kilometer square area through which 80% of the world's diamonds pass.
02:14It's only three city blocks, but contains 1,700 registered diamond companies providing income
02:22to over 10,000 people.
02:25Antwerp's history with the diamond business dates back to the 15th century, when gems from
02:30India began arriving in great quantity.
02:33The city developed into a renowned trading hub and gained a reputation as the prominent center
02:39in Europe for cutting and polishing diamonds.
02:41In 2003, $3 billion worth of jewel sales were conducted in the district, which would explain
02:48why it was one of the most heavily policed and surveilled areas on the planet.
02:5363 video cameras were watching every move, and there was around-the-clock police presence.
02:59So how did someone manage to break into the vault below the Diamond Center?
03:03Three years before the robbery, a charming Italian thief named Leonardo Notar Bartolo rented an
03:11office and safe deposit box in the Diamond Center and began masquerading as a jewel dealer.
03:18Notar Bartolo was a career criminal with ties to organized crime in Italy.
03:23He would later claim that he began stealing at the age of six, and whether or not that was
03:28true, by his 30s, there is no question he had become exceptionally good at pulling off
03:33these daring heists.
03:35He surrounded himself with this small gang of mostly Italian specialists, and they called
03:40themselves the School of Turin.
03:43Once he had established himself as a fixture in Antwerp's diamond community, Notar Bartolo
03:49set about robbing it blind.
03:51He would come to town a couple times a month, set up meetings with other dealers, and make
03:56minor purchases.
03:57But the real purpose of these meetings was to gain entry to their vault rooms, offices,
04:03and workshops to gather information.
04:06He'd then return in the middle of the night and help himself to their entire stash of jewels.
04:12Notar Bartolo's grift was providing him with a steady income, and he seemed to be going
04:17unnoticed by the authorities and fellow dealers.
04:20But an alleged meeting in a coffee shop proved that somebody had been paying attention.
04:25Notar Bartolo would later claim that he was approached by an acquaintance in the diamond
04:31business who asked them this very direct question.
04:33Is it possible to rob the vault below the diamond center?
04:38His immediate instinct was to say no.
04:42It was one of the most secure vaults in the world, after all.
04:45But the dealer offered him 100,000 euros just to do some surveillance, and it was too good
04:50an offer to refuse.
04:53Notar Bartolo went to work taking pictures in and around the diamond center vault using a camera
05:00capable of storing 100 high-resolution images disguised as a pen tucked into his breast pocket.
05:08Now, this might seem unimpressive by today's standards, but at that time, this was a James
05:14Bond-level, high-tech spy gadget.
05:18Using the pictures as evidence, Notar Bartolo told the man that robbing the vault simply wasn't
05:24possible, given the layers of security.
05:26The vault door was three tons of steel, a foot thick, designed to endure 12 hours of
05:34constant drilling.
05:35On top of that, any vibrations from a power tool would trip an embedded alarm.
05:41To open it, four numbers between 0 and 99 had to be dialed into a combination wheel, and
05:47the digits were only visible through this lens mounted on top, so that no one could peek over
05:52the guard's shoulder and see what numbers they were putting in.
05:54Now, it might seem like that's a pretty simple safe to crack.
05:58It's just four numbers, but 100 possible first numbers times 100 possible second numbers,
06:03that's 10,000 possible combinations.
06:05And by the time you have four numbers, we're talking about 100 million possible combinations,
06:11so you're never just going to guess this one.
06:13Two metal plates, one mounted on the door and one on the wall beside it, created a magnetic
06:19field that would set off an alarm when broken.
06:23It could only be disabled by entering a digital code into an adjacent keypad.
06:28Last but not least, a custom-made foot-long key that was virtually impossible to copy was
06:34needed to unlock the door.
06:35And of course, there was a video camera trained in the antechamber outside the vault, recording
06:4224-7.
06:44As if breaching the vault wasn't difficult enough, several other security measures awaited
06:50any potential intruders once inside.
06:53The interior was equipped with light, heat, motion detectors, and another video camera.
07:00Opening the safe deposit boxes presented another significant challenge.
07:05They were constructed with heavy-duty copper and steel and required a combination and key
07:10to open.
07:11There were over 17,000 possible combinations for each box.
07:18Noder Bertolo didn't hear from the dealer for five months after declaring the heist impossible.
07:23He went about his business thinking the notion of robbing the Diamond Center was dead and
07:28buried.
07:29He was wrong.
07:31One night, Noder Bertolo gets summoned to this abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of
07:35Antwerp, where he is shocked and quite impressed to find that the dealer and their team have
07:41built a replica of the Diamond Center's vault and the antechamber based only on the surveillance
07:48pictures.
07:49It was startlingly accurate, with no detail left out.
07:53Apparently, they had every intention of trying to pull this robbery off.
07:58And if they were going to do it, every detail had to be executed properly.
08:02Team members were introduced using nicknames straight out of a movie.
08:07There was the genius, who was the alarm expert.
08:10The monster, the expert lock picker and giant of a man.
08:15And the king of keys, a locksmith who was one of the best key replicators around.
08:22Noder Bertolo would later add his jumpy childhood friend, Speedy, to the crew against the wishes
08:29of the others.
08:30In the following months, the team memorized the layout of the vault and practiced in the
08:37dark, choreographing the movements and actions that would be required on the day of the robbery.
08:44Some time before the heist, Noder Bertolo accessed the vault in his usual guise as a diamond dealer.
08:50The staff were familiar with him, so his visit didn't arouse any suspicion.
08:55But he was there with a singular purpose, to solve the first major problem facing the crew,
09:01opening the vault door.
09:02Noder Bertolo set up a tiny camera in a recessed light on the ceiling above the combination
09:10wheel on the vault door.
09:11That camera had a small antenna that sent the images to a receiver, which was hidden inside
09:17a fire extinguisher in a storage room next to the vault.
09:22When the guard came to open the vault the next morning, the camera above him captured the
09:28four-number combination in all its glory.
09:30It also recorded images of the foot-long key for the King of Keys to use as a reference
09:37point to build a replica.
09:39So far, so good.
09:41But there were still major hurdles standing in the way that needed to be addressed by Noder
09:46Bertolo and his team.
09:48One of them involved circumventing the heat and motion sensor inside the vault.
09:54The day before the robbery, Noder Bertolo was buzzed into the vault as part of his usual
10:00routine.
10:01Again, the guards were not paying attention to the video feed, but the police would later
10:06review the footage and it showed him removing a small aerosol can from his pocket and spraying
10:11it on the heat and motion sensor.
10:13It was hairspray.
10:15In an ingenious low-tech hack, they somehow figured out that the oily residue would prevent
10:21the sensor from detecting body heat.
10:23And since the alarm would only go off if both heat and motion were detected, it rendered the
10:29entire system useless.
10:30Gaining access to the Diamond Center was surprisingly simple.
10:36The crew broke into a deserted office building with a garden area that backed onto the rear
10:42of the Diamond Center.
10:43Using a ladder tucked away in the days prior, they climbed onto a second-story balcony, bypassed
10:50an alarm, and slipped in through a window.
10:52In complete darkness, the men then made their way down two flights to the vault's antechamble.
10:59They knew the combination to the door, and they had built a replica of the foot-long key,
11:04but there was still the matter of the magnetic sensors guarding the doorframe.
11:09The genius pulled a piece of pre-cut aluminum out of his duffel bag and stuck double-sided tape
11:15to one side.
11:16He then attached it to the two magnetic plates on the door and wall and loosened their bolts.
11:22The plates were loose, but the slab of aluminum was holding them together, allowing the genius
11:28to swing them out of the way of the doorframe and stick them to the wall, maintaining the
11:32magnetic field between them.
11:34The police would later be amazed at this display of resourcefulness.
11:39With the sensors successfully bypassed, it was time for the king of keys to spring into action.
11:45Now, he had come prepared with his replica key that he'd built, but in another shocking
11:50security lapse, he wouldn't even need it, because the original was just hanging there in a storage
11:56room nearby.
11:58And just like that, they were in.
11:59But before entering, they had to turn off the lights so that they didn't trip the light
12:03detection sensor in the vault.
12:06Then, in total darkness, the monster took 11 steps into the center of the room, just like
12:12he practiced at the replica at the warehouse.
12:14Using a pre-cut copper wire, the monster began the delicate task of rerouting the light sensor's
12:20electrical circuit in the pitch black.
12:23One false move, and he could cut a wire, tripping the alarm.
12:27All the practice paid off, and the monster successfully disabled the sensor.
12:33The crew rushed into the vault, leaving the lights off just to be cautious.
12:37But they still faced the challenge of breaking into the heavily fortified safe deposit boxes.
12:44The king of keys pulled out a custom-built hand-powered drill and inserted a long, narrow
12:50piece of metal into it.
12:52He then plunged it into the lock of one of the safe deposit boxes and began furiously
12:57cranking.
12:58After a few minutes, the lock gave way, and the box broke open.
13:03They had done it.
13:05For the next several hours, the crew worked in the dark, emptying the contents of the
13:09safe deposit boxes, only occasionally turning on their flashlights for just a few seconds
13:14at a time.
13:15The loot was transported out through the rundown building that they had entered from.
13:20Notar Bartolo waiting in the getaway car.
13:23Neither he nor Speedy had participated in the actual robbery.
13:27Speedy had acted as a lookout.
13:30Reconvening back at Notar Bartolo's apartment after what they thought was the heist of the
13:34century, the crew had no time to celebrate.
13:37They had to hightail it out of Antwerp before the robbery was discovered when the Diamond Center
13:42opened for business the following morning.
13:44Notar Bartolo and Speedy fled town with a garbage bag full of incriminating evidence in the
13:52backseat of the rental car.
13:53Their plan was to burn the contents of that bag somewhere in France on their way back to
13:58Turin, but they made a fatal mistake.
14:02Speedy was a nervous type, and he didn't want to risk driving to France with the evidence in
14:07this car, so he insisted on dumping it as soon as possible.
14:11They scattered the bag's contents in a forest off of a dirt road not that far from Antwerp.
14:18What they didn't know was that the land was privately owned by a man who liked to spend time
14:24there enjoying nature.
14:25The debris contained so much incriminating evidence that it didn't take the authorities
14:40very long to round up most of the crew.
14:42Notar Bartolo's name appeared on an invoice for a video surveillance system.
14:48A business card with the name Elio Donorio, a.k.a. the genius, was also discovered.
14:54The monster was identified through security footage from a grocery store in Antwerp that
15:00connected him to salami packaging.
15:03After that, the dominoes fell pretty quickly.
15:07Leonardo Norbertola was found guilty of masterminding the Antwerp Diamond Center heist and sentenced to
15:1310 years in a Belgian prison.
15:15Police estimated the value of the robbery to be around $100 million.
15:21No money or diamonds were ever recovered.
15:34On October 7, 2014, a warehouse in Guadalajara, Mexico, was raided by the authorities under the
15:41cover of night.
15:42Four suspects from a violent drug cartel were arrested, and the cops seized a large cache
15:50of automatic weapons.
15:51But it wasn't the arsenal of AR-15s that stunned police.
15:56They also found a massive industrial mill.
15:59That's a machine that's used to create custom-made items out of metal.
16:03Authorities also found hundreds of aluminum gun parts all around the mill.
16:07A closer look revealed that these assault rifles were built right there in the tiny warehouse
16:14from scratch.
16:15The inventiveness and skill required are pretty impressive, not to mention the technical and
16:19industrial knowledge.
16:21This was no fly-by-night operation.
16:22The raid was the first evidence of a drug cartel making their own firearms.
16:32But it was just a small window into what police would soon discover was an enormous network of
16:38illegal gun manufacturing that was confounding lawmakers and contributing to the body count
16:44between rival gangs.
16:46Four men arrested at the warehouse were all members of the JNGC, or the Jalisco New Generation
16:53Cartel, which first emerged around 2010, which, not coincidentally, is exactly when the state
17:00of Jalisco experienced this massive spike in violent crime.
17:05The JNGC's brand of violence wasn't limited to inter-gang warfare.
17:11They routinely terrorized police and government institutions with coordinated attacks.
17:16On one occasion, they downed a military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade, killing six
17:23soldiers.
17:25The main goal of any cartel is control of the entire illegal drug trade, by any means necessary,
17:31including intimidation and terror.
17:32But as the Jalisco crew grew, so did their influence over other criminal activity, like
17:38oil theft, extortion, and human trafficking.
17:40Think of it as diversifying your portfolio.
17:43But the main determinant of which drug cartel ends up on top is firepower.
17:48It's always been firepower.
17:52It all comes down to who can get their hands on the most guns, most efficiently.
17:58The weapon of choice for most cartels is the AR-15.
18:01That's an automatic, machine-fed rifle that's relatively lightweight and can take a beaning.
18:07The majority of those weapons are manufactured in the United States.
18:11One of the main challenges to accessing AR-15s was the increasingly strict firearm laws and
18:18regulations in both the U.S. and Mexico.
18:21Some U.S. states have more permissive policies around gun ownership than others.
18:27Dozens of cartels began to exploit this by setting up secret networks of gunrunners.
18:32It worked just like a terrorist cell.
18:36When the cartels needed guns, they activated a phone tree, and they contacted accomplices
18:41living in lax states, like Kentucky or Wisconsin.
18:45They'd pay these contacts, known as straws, to buy weapons from stores and dealers across
18:50the country.
18:51The straws would then hand them off to brokers and couriers who would ship themselves to
18:57the Mexican border.
18:58And if all went well, across that border, without detection, into the hands of the drug lords.
19:04The main problem with the pipeline method of smuggling off-the-shelf guns is that they
19:11can be tracked and traced back to their place of origin.
19:16All firearms officially registered at the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
19:21have a serial number embedded right into the machinery, revealing where it was manufactured
19:26and sold.
19:28So a seized weapon can tell police a lot about how it got into the hands of the bad guys.
19:32Acquiring guns was no longer the problem, but finding weapons without any incriminating
19:38identification still presented a challenge.
19:43To solve the issue, the cartels once again looked for weak links in the U.S. system of
19:48regulation.
19:49But this time, the solution hinged on a seeming technicality.
19:53What officially counted as a firearm?
19:57According to the ATF, a gun isn't really a firearm while it's still in a state of
20:02manufacture.
20:02That is, if it has less than 80% of all the working parts it needs.
20:08A gun legally becomes a firearm only when the gun's main cavity, called a lower receiver,
20:15is properly machined to house a working firing mechanism.
20:19This distinction provided the cartels all they needed to know to adapt their existing gun
20:24pipeline from the U.S.
20:26Instead of smuggling completed, functioning weapons, several cartels started to import the
20:32parts separately and assemble them in secret warehouses around Mexico.
20:38The result was called a ghost gun, a powerful replica of a rifle or gun that was put together
20:45from separate parts, none of which had a proper firing mechanism when purchased.
20:49So they were not actually firearms in the eyes of the law and had no serial number, totally
20:57untraceable.
21:00For a brief period, these ghost guns became the go-to weapon of choice.
21:04But while it was fairly easy to assemble them one at a time, building hundreds of rifles on
21:09a mass-produced schedule quickly and cheaply, and without raising suspicion, that was going
21:13to take a lot more work.
21:15The cartels needed to invent a more efficient way to mass-produce untraceable weapons.
21:21So while they were building ghost guns from parts smuggled into Mexico, they began to wonder
21:26if they could produce the guns themselves from scratch.
21:30To fashion an intricate gun part like the lower receiver, they would need computer technology
21:36and industrial-sized engineering tools.
21:38The authorities would later reveal that the industrial mill discovered in the warehouse
21:44in Guadalajara was a CNC, or Computer Numerical Control.
21:51A CNC mill is an industrial tool that rotates on one or more axes while extracting intricate
21:58objects from large pieces of base metal, such as aluminum.
22:03It's an extremely precise and exacting process.
22:07In this case, the aluminum block is mounted to a table, and the table rotates on different
22:13planes so the tool can work at many angles.
22:17Some CNC mills have five or more axes of motion for complex shapes, like the parts of an AR-15,
22:25and also to avoid having to move the workpiece to a separate machine.
22:30The CNC is entirely programmable, too.
22:33It reads digital files, which can be entered by hand.
22:35That means the object you're creating can be tweaked and altered as you go until you get
22:39the perfect model.
22:40Then it's just a matter of rinse and repeat.
22:43The CNC mill didn't come cheap.
22:45One unit costs about $25,000 US dollars, but that is chump change to a drug cartel.
22:51And besides, it didn't take long for the JMGC to get a nice return on their investment.
22:55By the time the warehouse was fully operational, they had the capacity to produce 200 untraceable
23:02AR-15s every month.
23:06Most of the weapons were then slipped out of the warehouse and into the hands of JNGC members
23:12as quickly as possible.
23:14Unfortunately for the cartel, the Mexican authorities eventually put an end to that
23:19after just two months.
23:21While the authorities continue to look for ways to crack down even further, like putting
23:28serial numbers on all gun parts, gangs like the JGNC will likely continue churning out
23:34homemade, untraceable automatic weapons.
23:37In March of 2024, almost a decade after the raid, Mexico launched a $10 billion lawsuit against
23:46six American gun manufacturers for negligent regulation practices.
23:51Win or lose, it's unlikely to do anything to stem the tide of cartel violence.
23:56April 2006.
24:14In a small West Bengal village near Kolkata, India, police acting on a tip raided a small
24:20processing plant.
24:21What they found confirmed the shocking rumors from the community.
24:26Hundreds of human bones and skulls were scattered on the floor in an organized ordering system.
24:33The police conducting the raid had said they could smell the stench of rotting flesh from
24:38over a mile away.
24:40When they arrived, there were sections of human spine hanging from the rafters strung together
24:45with twine.
24:46It was like something from a horror movie.
24:49In addition to the skeletal body parts, police also discovered buckets of hydrochloric acid
24:55as well as two barrels of a corrosive chemical that they couldn't identify.
25:00The tip to the police involved reports of two men drinking at a bar, boasting that they had
25:06been hired to dig up bodies.
25:09Villagers who heard the rumor dragged the two men to the police, where the grave robbers confessed
25:15to the crime.
25:15In their confession, the two men shared the name of the man who'd hired them, Mukti Biswas.
25:21Biswas was the owner of the processing plant, which had been in an operation as a family business
25:27for over a hundred years, as a bone factory.
25:29The harvesting, processing, and selling of human skeletons was, in fact, a massive industry
25:37going back generations.
25:39But the practice had been illegal in India for over 20 years, which meant those profiting
25:44from the lucrative trade had to come up with ingenious, covert methods to escape detection.
25:49The history of Indian bone factories is basically the history of Western countries needing skeletons
25:57for their medical schools and for their medical supply companies.
25:59You can't study anatomy without access to anatomy.
26:04You need real skeletons that are clean, that are intact, and that are accurate.
26:08A plastic or synthetic copy just won't cut it.
26:11India emerged as the leading exporter of bones in the 1800s, mostly because of the high demand
26:19of England's medical schools.
26:21And since India was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, the area around Calcutta
26:27became the bone exporting capital of the world.
26:29Over time, it wasn't just England that relied on India.
26:35The United States, Canada, and most of the European medical schools all had to look outside
26:42their own borders.
26:44And this is because, generally speaking, the cremation and burial customs of Western cultures
26:49made it difficult to access high numbers of fully formed skeletons.
26:54Exactly how the thousands of Indian skeletons were harvested has always been fraught with
27:00unrest and community outrage.
27:02No one wants to learn their deceased relative has been exhumed or pulled from a funeral pyre
27:06for profit.
27:08But the critical point is that the export of unclaimed bodies and skeletons in India was
27:13entirely legal until the mid-80s.
27:16In March of 1985, a bone trader was caught and arrested for exporting over a thousand child
27:23skeletons.
27:24When the press learned of the crime, massive public outcry forced the Indian government
27:29to change the existing laws.
27:32There were reports at the time that the trader and his associates had kidnapped and killed
27:36those children since child skeletons were much more difficult to come by and worth more
27:41money.
27:43While the Indian laws around the export of human tissue changed, the demand for skeletons
27:49continued.
27:49Suddenly, a lucrative industry based in rural parts of India was wiped out.
27:57The question of how to acquire thousands of bodies was answered by the age-old method
28:02of grave robbing.
28:05Cemeteries and grave sites were not monitored or under surveillance by the police.
28:09And once the body was removed from the grave, who was going to report it?
28:13Only a relative who happened to notice a physical change in the grave site would be in a position
28:18to go to the police.
28:20Even then, most local police didn't have the resources to pursue those complaints, or they
28:25just looked the other way and let the matter drop.
28:27And some police were even paid off by their grave robbers themselves to keep quiet.
28:32Bribery was rampant in the illegal bone trade industry.
28:37Many grave robbers actually paid morgue owners to harvest bodies without the family's permission.
28:45Other practices included faking cremation permits to conceal the movement and storage of bodies,
28:52or pulling a corpse from a burning funeral pyre just minutes after the grieving family had left the site.
29:01The next challenge facing bone thieves was how to process the high number of corpses quickly,
29:07efficiently, and discreetly.
29:10It's not easy to remove flesh from bone on any life form.
29:14To do so on a scale of mass production without attracting attention is next to impossible.
29:19Before the laws changed, India was exporting up to 60,000 skeletons a year.
29:25India had established itself as a supplier of high-quality, medical-grade skeletons.
29:31And in practical terms, that means those bones are immaculate.
29:34They're bleached white, and there is not an ounce of flesh on them.
29:39Skeletons that could be exported intact, so a complete skeleton with all of its original bones still connected,
29:46were worth more money than composites.
29:49The bone factory workers devised ingenious methods to speed up the natural process of human decomposition.
29:56Most of the so-called processing plants were little more than bamboo huts covered with tarps close to the river.
30:04So the first step was to wrap the corpse in netting and anchor it under the water of the river,
30:11where bacteria and fish would eat away at most of the human flesh.
30:16After that, the factory workers collected the bones, took them back to the plant, and scrubbed them down.
30:23Then, they boiled them in a cauldron filled with water and caustic soda, which dissolved any remaining flesh.
30:29At this stage, the bones are still tinted yellow.
30:32To make the calcium surfaces white, the bones are left in the sunlight for a week,
30:36and then they're soaked in hydrochloric acid.
30:41The owners of India's bone factories did not export the finished product themselves.
30:46To complete the process, the owners sold the bones to black market vendors and distributors in West Bengal.
30:52Increased law enforcement plus growing scrutiny from the local community made it much more difficult to ship the bones to their final destination overseas.
31:03So these distributors had to stay underground, either with a fake cover or by bribing the authorities.
31:10One of the largest and busiest distributors was a company called Young Brothers.
31:16They started their business when it was entirely legal.
31:19But after the 1985 ban, they simply continued to trade in a disheveled, rusted-out warehouse.
31:25To prepare the skeletons for the medical market, distributors wire all the bone pieces together,
31:30they paint on medical labels, and sometimes they saw a way at sections of the skull to reveal the internal structure.
31:38Distributors like the Young Brothers sold their finished skeletons around the world,
31:44bringing in sales of roughly $15,000 per month.
31:47Since India's ban only extended to exporting human tissue,
31:51it was and continues to be entirely legal for countries like Canada and the United States
31:58to import the bones for their medical schools.
32:02The fact remains, there is a need for skeletons to train doctors and dentists
32:07and other medical professionals.
32:08So where should those skeletons come from?
32:12Should families of the deceased get paid for those skeletons?
32:15Or would that create perverse incentives with other ethical repercussions?
32:20It's a tricky question, but clearly the answer cannot be to have a warehouse
32:24full of rotting corpses that you can smell from a mile away.
32:28As for Mukti Biswas, the owner of the processing plant that was raided in 2006,
32:35although he was arrested, he was released after two days in jail.
32:40The owner of Young Brothers, Vinesh Iran, was also arrested after the Kolkata Health Department
32:47found two rooms worth of human bones in his warehouse.
32:52As long as there is a profit to be made, the export of rare skeletons for educational purposes
33:04will continue to thrive, so long as the owners of India's bone factories
33:09keep inventing ways to skirt the authorities.
33:22In October of 2008, Italian police apprehended fugitive Antonio Pelle
33:28in a sophisticated, custom-built underground bunker in the countryside.
33:33The high-tech hideout was accessed through a trap door that opened by remote control.
33:40Pelle was connected to a notorious incident that took place a year earlier
33:44when six men were gunned down in cold blood in the streets of Duisburg, Germany.
33:49German authorities were stunned by the brazen martyrs,
33:53but what they found in the jacket of one of the victims
33:55left them even more baffled.
33:59The police reached into the pocket of the dead man
34:02and found a picture of the Roman Catholic saint, St. Michael.
34:07In the center of the picture had a small hole burnt through it
34:11as if someone had stubbed out a cigarette.
34:14The picture turned out to be a major clue
34:18that helped police make sense of the crime scene.
34:21It was a signature calling card left by the killers.
34:28Police learned that the killers were members of a mysterious crime ring
34:31called Inderangueta, a powerful faction based in Italy's southern tip.
34:35Little Laos was known since the Inderangueta had eluded Italian police
34:39through sheer inventiveness and cunning for generations.
34:41The Inderangueta first emerged in the 19th century
34:47when southern Italy's feudal economy was giving way to capitalism.
34:52The growing free market extended to crime
34:55and the Inderangueta established themselves
34:58as one of the most effective and deadly of the mafia families
35:01to come out of that period.
35:03A big part of their success was a result of geography.
35:07Calabria was an isolated, mountainous part of the country
35:10and the Inderangueta leveraged that
35:13by embedding themselves in an area called
35:16Aspermonte, meaning Harsh Mountain.
35:20By the turn of the century,
35:21the Inderangueta was involved in a wide range
35:24of criminal activities
35:25including smuggling, extortion and abduction.
35:30Their campaign of kidnappings was also successful
35:33since it was easy to hide the victims
35:35in the isolated mountain range
35:37where police couldn't find them.
35:40The most famous example
35:42was the abduction of multi-millionaire
35:44J. Paul Getty in 1973.
35:48The Gettys paid a ransom of $3 million
35:50after the Inderangueta sent the Getty family
35:54a severed part of Paul's ear.
35:56These guys were not to be trifled with.
35:59In the 1980s, the Inderangueta expanded
36:03into the lucrative illegal drug trade.
36:06Unlike the Cosa Nostra family
36:08who cornered the market on heroin,
36:10the Inderangueta's drug of choice was cocaine.
36:14All across Italy,
36:15law enforcement increased resources and manpower
36:18to locate and arrest not just members of the mafia,
36:21but specifically the mafia bosses themselves
36:23who controlled all of the operations.
36:25Many mafia bosses were forced to flee
36:29the central location of their headquarters,
36:31which meant being on the run as a fugitive
36:34while still running the business.
36:36But the Inderangueta were different.
36:39It was a matter of pride and honor
36:40for the bosses to stay put,
36:42even as wanted men.
36:44So the challenge became how to stay put
36:47while staying out of sight.
36:50Just as they had leveraged
36:51the isolated and hostile terrain
36:53to hide abductees,
36:55the Inderangueta adopted the same approach
36:57for concealing their own kingpins.
37:00They started by using the dense vegetation
37:02of the Aspromonte Mountains
37:04to conceal remote huts and dens
37:06up and down the range.
37:08Most of these spaces were only reachable by foot,
37:11following a complex hiking path
37:12marked by strategic signposts.
37:15These initial huts and dens
37:17were fairly rudimentary.
37:19They had simple furniture
37:19and cooking implements
37:21and basic plumbing.
37:22There were some creative attempts
37:23at self-sufficiency, too,
37:25like DIY solar panels
37:26and rainwater collection drains.
37:29One mafia don,
37:31Girolamo Facarini,
37:33had a makeshift alarm
37:34and communication system
37:36installed in his hut
37:37and security measures
37:38like night vision binoculars.
37:41But even then,
37:42police eventually discovered
37:43and arrested him
37:44after a year and a half in hiding.
37:46The Italian authorities
37:49were starting to catch up
37:50with the crime bosses.
37:52Leading the hunt
37:53was an elite helicopter squadron
37:56called the Cacciatore.
37:58The Cacciatore were initially created
38:00for the sole purpose
38:01of rescuing kidnapping victims.
38:03But with the growth
38:04of the massive cocaine trade,
38:06their mandate grew
38:06to catching the leaders
38:07of the Androgeta.
38:08The red beret-wearing Cacciatore
38:12quickly earned the nickname
38:13of the Hunters.
38:14Many of the squadron
38:15were from the south,
38:16Calabria in particular.
38:18So they knew the local customs
38:19and the mountain topography
38:20just as well as the Androgeta.
38:23And as the mafiosos
38:25were improving
38:25their technical capabilities,
38:27so too were the Cacciatore.
38:29They developed sophisticated
38:31tracking techniques
38:32and surveillance devices
38:33like long-range,
38:35high-definition cameras.
38:38To stay one step ahead
38:40of the Cacciatore,
38:41crime bosses
38:42had to continually innovate
38:43and improve the design
38:45of their hiding spots.
38:47The next step
38:48involved going underground
38:50by building bunkers.
38:52The initial bunkers
38:54were basically
38:54shipping containers
38:55buried into the mountains
38:57with a single
38:58concealed entrance.
39:00The build required
39:00careful site planning
39:02and construction,
39:03which was not easy to do
39:05on the slopes
39:05of a harsh mountain range.
39:08While some of the
39:09shipping containers
39:10had a second exit
39:11which served as
39:12an escape hatch,
39:14most only had
39:15one exit point.
39:16That oversight
39:17would prove costly
39:19for many of the
39:20powerful bosses.
39:23Once a remote
39:24hidden bunker
39:24was discovered
39:25by police,
39:26the mob boss
39:27was effectively
39:28trapped inside.
39:30Cornered
39:31and outnumbered,
39:32most of them
39:32surrendered
39:33without a struggle.
39:35So there were
39:36limitations to the
39:37underground bunkers
39:38being so isolated.
39:39But, as always,
39:41the resourceful
39:41Endrangheta
39:42found ways
39:43to work around
39:44the issue.
39:45They continued
39:45to build bunkers,
39:46but instead of
39:47shipping containers
39:48in the mountains,
39:49the new bunkers
39:50were connected
39:50directly to existing
39:51buildings in the
39:52small towns
39:52and villages
39:53of Calabria.
39:54In many cases,
39:55the fugitives
39:55built bunkers
39:56directly below
39:57their own houses
39:58where their families
39:59still lived.
39:59The main challenge
40:02for the new bunkers
40:03was concealment.
40:04The Endrangheta
40:05bosses had to
40:06come up with
40:07convincing and
40:07reliable covers
40:08for the hidden
40:09entrances.
40:10A surprise police
40:11raid meant they
40:12only had seconds
40:13to escape.
40:16This is where
40:16the builders
40:17of these bunkers
40:17got really clever
40:19and creative.
40:20They came up
40:20with automated
40:21trap doors,
40:22hidden tunnels,
40:23and decoy furniture.
40:24Just like a detective
40:24novel where a
40:26fake bookcase
40:26is really a sliding
40:27door leading to
40:28a secret hiding
40:29place.
40:30To initiate
40:31the trap doors,
40:33a remote control
40:33device was
40:34frequently used.
40:35This required
40:36a complex
40:37electrical mechanism
40:38to trigger
40:38the escape route.
40:40Once inside
40:40the bunker,
40:41the kingpin
40:42would hit the
40:43same switch
40:43and the door
40:44would close.
40:46One renowned
40:47fugitive,
40:48a Calabrian
40:48named Cosimo Galache,
40:50had a bunker
40:51hidden behind
40:52a false wall
40:53in his bedroom.
40:54The entrance
40:54was behind a mirror.
40:57All he had to do
40:58was push a button
40:59on a coat rack's
41:00central knob
41:01and the mirror
41:03would slide open.
41:04That's genius.
41:07Despite the
41:08advancements,
41:09any malfunctions
41:10or technical
41:11mishaps could
41:12spell trouble
41:12for the leaders
41:13of the Andrangheta.
41:15To add another
41:16layer of protection,
41:18the bunker builders
41:18created a second
41:19hidden exit point
41:20for a quick escape
41:22through a tunnel.
41:23In any police
41:24raid scenario,
41:25a fugitive quickly
41:26hid inside the bunker,
41:27which could only
41:28be activated by him
41:29and they just hoped
41:30the police
41:31wouldn't catch on.
41:32But if they did
41:32manage to penetrate
41:33the bunker,
41:34he'd be long gone
41:35through the second
41:36trap door.
41:37The escape tunnels
41:38were extremely narrow,
41:40just two or three
41:40feet in diameter.
41:41So the fugitive mobster
41:43would snake
41:43and squirm along
41:44away from the
41:45original bunker
41:45and towards
41:46a second destination,
41:47either an exterior
41:48sewer system
41:49or the brush
41:50or to another bunker
41:51belonging to
41:52an associate crime boss.
41:53What evolved
41:56was an elaborate
41:57and sophisticated
41:58network of tunnels
41:59connecting both
42:00the bunkers
42:01and the Andrangheta
42:02mobsters.
42:03They all knew
42:04the routes.
42:05They knew which way
42:06likely led to more
42:07police and which way
42:08led to freedom.
42:09It was a literal
42:10gangster underworld.
42:13In villages
42:14like Chitanova
42:15or Platy,
42:16there was an entire
42:17maze of underground
42:18tunnels and bunkers.
42:20The Andrangheta
42:21continued to innovate
42:22and improve the network
42:23until it was like
42:24a mirror city.
42:26Platy had almost
42:27two miles of tunnels
42:29below ground.
42:32Most of the citizens
42:33of Platy
42:34and other Calabrian villages
42:36knew about the secret
42:37bunkers and tunnels
42:38and the mobsters
42:39who created them.
42:41But they said nothing
42:42to the police,
42:43fearing potentially
42:44violent repercussions.
42:45This made catching
42:46the Mafiadans
42:47even more difficult.
42:50You certainly can't blame
42:51the citizens of Calabria
42:52for keeping silent.
42:54They were likely
42:54being threatened
42:55with death
42:55if anyone spoke
42:56to the police.
42:58Despite this,
42:58the Italian authorities
42:59were able to catch up
43:01to the hidden Andrangheta.
43:02The police on the ground
43:04surveillance and tracking
43:05systems got more
43:06sophisticated and precise.
43:08Plus, the government
43:10invested millions of dollars
43:11in state-of-the-art
43:13spy planes
43:14with long-range cameras
43:15that could identify faces
43:17and license plates
43:18while traveling
43:19at 150 miles per hour.
43:23The Italian police
43:24were also getting
43:24assistance and intelligence
43:26from their international partners.
43:28In the case of the multiple murders
43:29in Duisburg, Germany,
43:31the German police
43:31arrested the killers
43:32who had ties
43:33to the Andrangheta.
43:36Over the past three decades,
43:38more than 300 Italian fugitives
43:40have been apprehended
43:41in bunkers and tunnels,
43:42some multiple times.
43:44In 2017,
43:46Antonio Pele
43:47was arrested once again
43:48after five years
43:49on the run,
43:50this time
43:51in a simple hideout
43:52built between a bathroom
43:53and his son's bedroom
43:55in his home,
43:56a step down
43:57from his high-tech bunker
43:58in the countryside,
43:59but a place to hide
44:00nonetheless.
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