The Alphabet Boys

True Spies, Episode 179: The Alphabet Boys

NARRATOR: This is True Spies, the podcast that takes you deep inside the greatest secret missions of all time. Week by week, you’ll hear the true stories behind the operations that have shaped the world we live in. You’ll meet the people who live life undercover. What do they know? What are their skills? And what would you do in their position? I’m Daisy Ridley, and this is True Spies, from SPYSCAPE Studios.

TREVOR AARONSON: And what's interesting about the Flaviu case, is that prior to engaging in the arms deal to arm the FARC, he calls the CIA and he offers his services to provide information about that very arms deal. And so the question that ultimately is raised in his case, and that really is one that's hard to answer, is whether he was truly working for the CIA.

NARRATOR: The Alphabet Boys. It’s 2014. And we’re inside a hotel room in Montenegro, a Balkan country that shares a border with Croatia. A group of men are huddled together. They’re there to make a deal - an arms deal. Some of the men represent a Colombian guerilla organization named FARC. Another man - a Romanian named Flaviu - is the arms dealer. He’s going to set the rebels up with everything they want: AK-47s, M4 carbines, sniper rifles, ground-to-air missiles and more. In total, the rebels want $17 million worth of weapons. And here, inside this hotel room, the deal is about to be done. But all is not what it seems because none of these men are who they say they are. And that’s about to become clear when Juan, the man in charge of the rebels, doesn't sign the deal immediately.

TREVOR AARONSON: He says, “Well, wait, I need to call my people back in Colombia just to confirm, to make sure the money could get transferred before I sign this document.” And so Juan leaves the hotel room. 

NARRATOR: Things are tense. There’s a lot of money on the line. And it goes without saying that this is all very illegal. The supposed arms dealer, Flaviu, is left anxiously waiting for Juan to return and for this $17 million deal to close. But Juan never does return because Juan is not really a Colombian rebel. He’s a DEA informant. And this happens…

TREVOR AARONSON: Immediately after the DEA storms in, guns are drawn, and [they] arrest Flaviu. Flaviu handcuffed, kind of makes a motion with his head to one of the DEA agents and he says, “I have to use the bathroom.” And so the DEA agent escorts Flaviu into the hotel bathroom. He closes the door and Flaviu nods and begins to come closer. 

NARRATOR: And then an already strange situation takes another bizarre turn because it turns out that Flaviu isn’t who he says he is either. No. He tells the agents that he’s undercover too.

TREVOR AARONSON: And that's when he tells the DEA agent, “I work for the CIA. I'm collecting information for the CIA. This is all part of a CIA operation.” And the DEA agent just practically laughs at this and says, “There's no way that's true. We know who you are. You're an arms dealer. You’re busted. That’s all there is.”

NARRATOR: Flaviu Georgescu is the full name of the alleged arms dealer and, taken at face value, his story doesn’t sound very believable. In fact, it sounds like a terrible excuse. But if you really dig deep into Flaviu’s story, you’ll start to wonder whether he might be telling the truth. And you’ll also start to wonder: Is it possible that Flaviu was never really a serious arms dealer and was set up by law enforcement and that maybe he’s not a criminal but a victim of entrapment? Trevor Aaronson is an investigative journalist and he’ll take us inside the topsy-turvy world of arms dealers and informants. Trevor specializes in telling complicated stories like this, stories that focus on US law enforcement. He hosts a podcast called Alphabet Boys that looks inside the shadowy world of agencies like the FBI, the CIA, and the DEA.

TREVOR AARONSON: So for the last 15 or so years, I've covered the FBI, and I'm particularly interested in federal law enforcement's use of sting operations where a federal agency will use an undercover agent or an informant and pose as some sort of criminal actor like a terrorist or an organized crime figure, and then create the trappings that allow someone to commit a crime. And a focus of my work is the question of whether, through the FBI and other federal law enforcement's sting operations, these federal agencies are creating criminals rather than catching them. 

NARRATOR: Trevor first heard about Flaviu’s case when he saw a press release about it. He says that he didn’t think too deeply about the story, but remembers that the deal was for a large amount of money. But Flaviu was about to come back into his life:

TREVOR AARONSON: And about a year after receiving that press release, I ended up getting a call from Andrea Georgescu, who was Flaviu’s wife at the time. And she found some of my previous work and reached out to me and basically told me from her perspective and from Flaviu’s what had happened in the case.

NARRATOR: Trevor was intrigued and decided to hear Andrea out. 

TREVOR AARONSON: And what Andrea tells me is that, “Look, Flaviu was arrested for brokering this arms deal for the FARC, and he wasn't actually doing that. He was working for the CIA.” 

NARRATOR: Initially, Trevor was skeptical. The whole story just seemed so far-fetched. But Andrea had his attention and he decided to look into it further. Trevor needed to find out who this man really was and that meant going back to the beginning, to his childhood.

TREVOR AARONSON: Flaviu lived in Romania during the communist era when Nicolae Ceaușescu was the president and dictator of Romania. 

NARRATOR: Ceaușescu was Romania’s president from the 1960s up to 1989 and, in that period, he led an oppressive regime that was upheld by a network of spies. 

TREVOR AARONSON: He had created this secret, secret internal security force called the Security. And they had amassed at the time - and it may still be among the largest - but at the time it was the largest human intelligence network ever to exist. Basically your neighbors were spies. Your boss might be a spy. The whole culture of Romania under Ceaușescu was that you didn't want to oppose the government in any way for fear that your neighbor might say something to the Securitate, and then you're whisked off and thrown into this horrible dungeon of a prison. And so Flaviu grew up at this time under this secret surveillance state. 

NARRATOR: According to Flaviu, because his father was a prominent engineer, the security forces were regular visitors to their childhood home. Flaviu says they even went as far as policing how much alcohol his father drank. Romania wasn’t technically part of the Soviet Union, but they were closely aligned with their Eastern Bloc allies. So the same anti-American sentiments were an intrinsic part of Ceaușescu’s regime. Growing up behind the Iron Curtain, Flaviu got a few glimpses into life in the West. Everything that the West represented was at odds with Ceaușescu’s regime but what Flaviu was able to discover fascinated him.

TREVOR AARONSON: He describes a friend showing him how to listen to Radio Free Europe and Voice of America on his radio. And so he would go into his room and listen and hear about the West. And he was intrigued by America. 

NARRATOR: Nicolae Ceaușescu was overthrown in 1989. After a short trial, he was found guilty of genocide. On Christmas Day, he was executed by a firing squad. After that, things began to change in Romania. The network of secret spies dissolved and the country began to open up to the West. Which meant that, when he was in his 20s, Flaviu headed straight for America. By now it’s the early 2000s. Flaviu’s cousin owned a gym in Las Vegas so he was able to secure a visa. 

TREVOR AARONSON: And here he gets to Las Vegas, this bright, shiny city that only has been built in recent decades. He describes taking jet skis on the Hoover Dam and just being amazed at this place and seeing it as this kind of carnivalesque atmosphere in the sense that I think one of the lines he told me is, “What I loved about Las Vegas was that everybody was happy in Las Vegas. If you lost money, you were happy. If you won money, you were happy.” And to him, that was really an enormous contrast from the Romania he grew up in where life was hard and people weren't happy, and they were fearful of their neighbors and the government.

NARRATOR: And so in Las Vegas, Flaviu started to build a new life for himself. And to do this, he had to rely on his biggest talent: his gift of the gab.

TREVOR AARONSON: He's someone who can meet someone. And right off the bat talk to them for hours and in an engaging way. 

NARRATOR: Flaviu was able to talk to anyone about almost anything which was perfect for his new career as a fixer. He knew a lot of people, and made a lot of connections. And so when wealthy Eastern Europeans came to Las Vegas, Flaviu could get them whatever they needed.

TREVOR AARONSON: So if they wanted to buy an expensive car Flaviu knew the contacts. If they wanted to get into an exclusive club Flaviu knew who to call. 

NARRATOR: Flaviu was finally living the dream: the American dream. It was all such a far cry from the paranoia and dread of living under the oppressive regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Flaviu was proud of his new country and he wanted to help to protect it - even if that meant turning on his fellow Romanians.

TREVOR AARONSON: One of the things he was seeing was that the Romanian community, through organized crime, was committing fraud, committing crime. And to Flaviu, this was something that he just couldn't tolerate. 

NARRATOR: Through his connections in Las Vegas, Flavui became aware of a Romanian crime ring that was operating a credit card scam. The gang would steal credit card information from gym lockers, then send people into casinos to pick up cash advances. The operation was slick and effective and could rack up tens of thousands of dollars in a matter of hours. In that kind of situation, a lot of people would probably turn a blind eye, and look the other way. These gangs are dangerous after all. But not Flaviu. He wanted to protect his new country. And he’d internalized the “see something, say something” mantra that was popularized after 9/11. Flaviu had seen something. And he was going to say something to the FBI. So, in the early 2000s, Flaviu approaches the FBI and tells them he had information on these Romanian crime gangs. And, when his information checks out, he becomes an informant.

TREVOR AARONSON: And so the FBI effectively signs him up and the paperwork confirms this. We have FBI documents showing that around 2002 he had become an FBI informant, registered informant, in the FBI parlance, a confidential human source.

NARRATOR: But it turns out that Flaviu had a problem with that parlance. Because he hated the word ‘informant’. When Flaviu was growing up in Romania, informants were the lowest of the low. They were upholding a brutal communist regime. Keeping a dictator in power. Flaviu saw himself as the opposite: He wasn’t harming his new country, he was helping it.

TREVOR AARONSON: And so what Flaviu would tell me and tell the FBI agents was: “I'm not an informant. I'm a friend.” And he insisted on this use of the term ‘friend’. When the FBI agents would talk to him, they wouldn't refer to him as a CHS or an informant. He was a friend. And that was an important kind of distinction for Flaviu. 

NARRATOR: Friend or informant, Flaviu was now working with the FBI. His role was to bring sources who were hesitant to come forward to meet with law enforcement. Just as he made money as a fixer, he was performing a similar role here: bringing people together. But it turns out that some FBI agents were a little thrown off when they started working with Flaviu the fixer. Flaviu was not the typical informant. In many cases, informants are providing information in exchange for leniency on a prison sentence so they tend to be criminals. Flaviu was different. He wasn’t trying to get out of jail. He was doing this of his own volition. Those differences became clear when, at one of his first meetings, Flaviu presented an FBI agent with a case of wine. The agent refused. It’s against the rules to accept gifts from informants. And that upset Flaviu. 

TREVOR AARONSON: And Flaviu is just insistent. He's not going to go forward with any more conversation “unless you take this wine because I'm your friend. Here's some wine.” And it turns into this argument, and the other agent in the room calls downstairs where this FBI agent named Mark Pinto is waiting.

NARRATOR: Mark Pinto was - according to Trevor - the kind of agent who was willing to bend the rules a little to get the job done. He accepted Flaviu’s wine and the pair formed a close friendship.

TREVOR AARONSON: The relationship that Mark and Flaviu end up developing isn't just, “Hey, let's meet in this parking lot and exchange information.” They're going out to dinner. They're getting together for drinks and getting to know each other to the point that a kind of friendship is created between them.

NARRATOR: Together, Mark and Flaviu successfully infiltrate the Romanian crime ring and start to build a case against them. Flaviu is doing what he set out to do. He’s protecting his new country. He's a friend to law enforcement. But these actions had consequences. The Romanians discovered it was Flaviu who was providing information to the FBI and they put out a hit.

TREVOR AARONSON: And Flaviu is concerned about his safety and, as a result, flees.

NARRATOR: After all of his efforts to protect America, Flaviu ends up having to leave the country he loves. Ultimately, Flaviu was successful. The Romanian crime ring was brought to justice. But Flaviu, due to his role as a confidential informant, was never credited for his part in taking it down. He’d have to start all over again in Romania, for fear of reprisals. But Flaviu is resourceful. He’s still got the gift of the gab. So he starts to spin up various new businesses. He sells food rations. He sells ankle bracelet monitors. He hustles and he finds ways to make money.

TREVOR AARONSON: And so he was going back and forth as a bit of an international businessman. He lives part of the time in London, part of the time in Romania, and would return from time to time to the United States as part of his business work.

NARRATOR: According to Flaviu, he continues to work as an informant during this time period. There’s no paperwork to confirm that, but it’s what he says. Around the same time, Flaviu got started as an informant, someone else was getting their start but he wasn’t with the FBI. He’s connected to another agency, the DEA - the Drug Enforcement Agency. He’s known as Juan, but his real name is Alex Diaz. And, as we saw in the arms deal that opened this story, he’s on a collision course with Flaviu Georgescu.

TREVOR AARONSON: So Juan was born in Colombia and came to the US as a young man. Among his first jobs was working in New York at Sky Chef. Sky Chef is the division of American Airlines that provides catering and food on airplanes. And so, Juan eventually transfers to Miami International Airport, where American Airlines has this enormous hub that's a gateway to Latin America. 

NARRATOR: During his time in Miami, Juan starts to develop a sideline for himself: smuggling drugs into Miami airport. He’s arrested by the DEA and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

TREVOR AARONSON: And after he's done about two, Juan decides he's had enough. And so he goes to the DEA and says, “I need to get out of here and I can offer something.” And so what Juan offers is to be an informant for the DEA. 

NARRATOR: After Juan gets himself out of prison, he starts infiltrating smuggling rings operating out of Miami airport. He’s part of a large sting, codenamed Operation Ramp Rats that leads to almost 60 arrests and the seizure of heroin, cocaine, and weapons. Juan, like Flaviu, had proven himself a valuable asset.

TREVOR AARONSON: He ends up getting leniency on his prison sentence. He doesn't do the final eight years of his term and instead becomes a career informant. 

NARRATOR: A career informant. What Trevor means here is that, after working off his sentence, Juan began to take on assignments for money. And it turned out to be very lucrative for him. Juan would later estimate that he’d been paid more than $4 million by the DEA and other law enforcement agencies. It sounds astonishing, doesn’t it? The amount of cash someone can make as an informant. And this is a good place to pause and think about how law enforcement agencies operate because, as Trevor explains, the DEA is under immense pressure to seek funding and keep money flowing into their offices. 

TREVOR AARONSON: And I don't think we often think of it that way that Congress allocates X amount of money every year and divides it up how it sees fit. And so these various agencies are competing for that money and they're going to Congress and saying, “We need money for X. We need money for Y.” And they're making a case for why they need more and more money because that's just the way of government, right? 

NARRATOR: Back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the DEA was flush with cash. The war on drugs was at its peak. But after the September 11 terror attacks, things shifted. The war on terror was now the priority, and so the DEA - which traditionally focused on drugs - needed new ways to get funding.

TREVOR AARONSON: And they said that, basically, there's this issue called narco-terrorism. And there are these groups that fund their activity through the sale of drugs, and then they use the proceeds from those drugs to commit terrorism. And we want to travel the world and investigate this. And it worked. 

NARRATOR: And that’s how Juan and Flaviu’s paths collide. Because Juan transitions from infiltrating drug rings to setting up arms dealers. But before we circle back to where we began - to Montenegro, the hotel room and Flaviu’s bust - a few things have to happen. First, around 2012, Juan starts posing as a member of FARC. FARC is a Colombian anti-imperialist group that supports the redistribution of wealth from rich to poor. They were classified as a narco-terrorist group because FARC used the sale of drugs to fund their activities. That’s why they were on the DEA’s radar. Once he’s established his FARC cover, Juan needs to find an arms dealer to set up. That’s where Andy Georgescu comes in. Andy is a good friend of Flaviu. He’s also Romanian, and the pair met when Flaviu lived in Las Vegas. Andy is, by all accounts, a dubious character. He operates a shipping company and has a reputation for not asking many questions about the cargo he transports. Turns out that Juan has a connection to Andy.

TREVOR AARONSON: And so Juan goes to Andy and says, hey, I represent this group in Colombia, the FARC, and we are looking to buy millions of dollars in weapons. Do you think you can make that happen? And Andy calls Flaviu because Flaviu, as far as Andy is concerned, is a guy who knows people. He's a fixer. Maybe Flaviu can make this happen.

NARRATOR: So Andy goes to Flaviu the fixer to make this arms deal happen even though Flaviu is usually the kind of guy who sets up luxury cars and jewelry, not rocket launchers. But on that fateful call with Andy, Flaviu says he’s on board. And this is what happens next. Flaviu picks up the phone and he calls the CIA.

TREVOR AARONSON: Flaviu goes online and, as absurd as that sounds, he goes to CIA.gov, and he finds that there's a phone number that you can call. And so he picks up the phone in Bucharest and calls the CIA in Virginia and says, “Hey,” quite literally, “I have some information for you.” 

NARRATOR: As absurd as it sounds, it’s not that far away from how Flaviu first connected with the FBI all those years ago. But this time, things don’t go as smoothly for Flaviu. And the CIA doesn’t appear to want to be friends.

TREVOR AARONSON: It quite literally is an operator who essentially answers first. And it's a woman who is quite disinterested initially in Flaviu. And Flaviu says, “My name is Flaviu Georgescu.” I'm a US citizen. I'm in Romania and I have some information for you.” And he's claiming that he knows this guy who wants to buy all these weapons and that this could be a national security concern for the US, and “Do you want more information?” And the CIA [woman] who's on the phone is deeply skeptical of Flaviu, almost kind of annoyed by him. And she says, “You need to go to the US Embassy in Bucharest.”

NARRATOR: That first call ends with Flaviu frustrated. It doesn’t seem like the operator is taking him seriously. But a short while later, Flaviu’s phone rings. On the other end of the line? A CIA officer.

TREVOR AARONSON: And this agent, a man, is a little more interested in what Flaviu is telling him. And in this conversation, Flaviu basically lays out the entire arms deal that he will later put together. He tells them pretty much everything. He says that his friend Andy put him in touch with this guy named Juan. Juan's with the FARC. Juan wants to buy surface-to-air missiles, AK-47s, all sorts of very powerful military-grade hardware. “And do you want this information?” This seems like something the CIA would be interested in. And he mentions, almost in passing, that. “I've worked with you guys before. I'm a known person to the US government.”

NARRATOR: From Flaviu’s perspective, this second call is going much better. He’s being taken seriously. And it looks like he’s going to be able to again prove himself to be a good friend to law enforcement, just like he was for the FBI.

TREVOR AARONSON: And so the agent asked a number of questions and says, effectively, “If what you're telling me is true, this is something that we should look into.”... Flaviu claims that when he heard, “This is something we should look into” that wasn't just like the royal “we”. This is something the CIA should look into. [But] to him, this included him. This was something we should look into including Flaviu. And so Flaviu takes this as a bit of a mandate and thinks, “Okay, I need to find more information about this arms deal and provide it back to the CIA.” 

NARRATOR: And this is where the story gets ambiguous because two distinct, competing realities emerge. One where Flaviu is acting in good faith, and trying to infiltrate an arms deal, and help the CIA. But there’s another perspective. One that casts doubt on Flaviu’s noble intentions because there are some in law enforcement who believe that Flaviu only placed this call so that he could have a Get Out of Jail Free card if anything went wrong. According to that version of events: Flaviu isn’t an informant. He’s a criminal. There’s a long time between those calls between Flaviu and the CIA and the bust. Two full years. In that time Juan keeps pestering Andy, pushing for this arms deal to happen.

TREVOR AARONSON: And so, two years pass until finally in 2014, Flaviu is put in touch with Juan. And I think most people in that situation might assume that, given the passage of time - the past two years - Flaviu would call back the CIA and say, “Hey, remember me? We talked two years ago about that arms deal. It's going forward.” But Flaviu doesn't do that. He never calls the CIA back and the CIA never calls him back. 

NARRATOR: The way Flaviu tells it, the long wait didn’t matter. He was still on the case. But when it came time to make the deal happen, Flaviu had a few obstacles to overcome.

TREVOR AARONSON: Flaviu has a couple of problems and they're significant if you're a supposed arms dealer. One is that he doesn't have any connections to actual arms factories. He has no one who can provide weapons. And the second one is that he doesn't have what's known as an “end-user certificate”. 

NARRATOR: An end-user certificate is the paperwork that needs to be completed to transfer weapons. Even in shady circumstances like this, there’s still bureaucracy. And there’s still admin to be done. Feeling way out of his depth, Flaviu needs to bring in two men to help him get this deal done. The first is Christian Vintila.

TREVOR AARONSON: And Christian is a government minister in Romania whose job is essentially to liaise between the Romanian government and the Nato alliance based in Brussels. And so Christian knows weapons and Flaviu brings Christian into the deal as a contact who can help them facilitate the contact with arms manufacturers.

NARRATOR: The next person Flaviu loops in is an Italian politician named Massimo Romagnoli. Massimo was a former member of Italy’s parliament and was also very well-connected.

TREVOR AARONSON: Massimo has a contact in Germany who can effectively provide a fake end-user certificate. It would be an end-user certificate for the nation of Ethiopia but would allow the weapons to be diverted to Colombia under that certificate. And so these are the two kinds of key people that Flaviu needs to make this deal happen.

NARRATOR: It’s important to clarify here: everyone involved knew that this was an illegal arms deal and that they were committing a crime. Between Flaviu, Massimo, and Christian, the group had all the connections they needed to make the deal happen. But they were not a slick criminal organization. Far from it. In fact, it’s reported that Flaviu was a particularly flaky arms dealer. He missed meetings, he wasn’t communicative, and he didn’t really seem to know what he was doing.

TREVOR AARONSON: And so, in many ways, this whole arms deal is not in any way kind of a well-oiled machine. It’s not something that you think of as how international arms brokers work. It's a bit of a clown show at times but they're kind of ‘fake it till you make it’, right?

NARRATOR: When the deal finally starts to progress, the group thinks they have secured the weapons that Juan - posing as FARC - has asked for. They’re in a factory in Albania. But when Flaviu & Co. travel there to see the goods, it’s a complete failure:

TREVOR AARONSON: It turns out it's bare. It's empty. The only weapons they have are rifles that aren't even the type that the Colombians want. And so Flaviu, Christian, and Massimo essentially told the Colombians they'd be back in touch within two weeks and have all the weapons ready to go. And here they are in this factory in Albania with no weapons to buy.

NARRATOR: Flaviu and the group feared that the deal was over and that they’d have to deal with a disappointed Colombian terrorist organization. However, their luck seemed to change when Massimo got a lead on a new source of weapons. 

TREVOR AARONSON: Massimo gets this tip that this factory in Bulgaria has weapons that they can buy. It's run by an oligarch named Peter Mankoff. And so they, on a whim - kind of desperate - drive eight hours from the Albanian capital to the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, to meet with this man.

NARRATOR: With the sale of the weapons agreed, Flaviu has succeeded. Succeeded no matter what his intentions are - either he’s cracked the case and set up a terrorist group for the CIA to bust or he’s a criminal who stands to make a lot of money from a successful arms deal.

TREVOR AARONSON: And Flaviu is holding this contract that he has from the Bulgarian manufacturer. And Flaviu is [saying] he feels like he's at the end of the line, like he's figured out the entire supply network that he promised to deliver back to the CIA. If he can get Juan to sign this contract, he can go back to the CIA and present, gift-wrapped, the entire conspiracy. And so, in Flaviu’s mind - and Flaviu is telling - he's waiting for Juan to sign this. And that's the end of the deal. Everything's good. He'll be able to go back to the CIA. 

NARRATOR: With everything in place, Flaviu goes to Montenegro to meet with Juan and FARC. All that’s left to do is sign the paperwork and get the money. We’re finally back inside that hotel room where our story began. Remember, Juan takes the contract and exits the hotel room, and the DEA bursts in and arrests everyone. Which is when Flaviu tells the agent who arrested him...

TREVOR AARONSON: I work for the CIA. I'm collecting information for the CIA. This is all part of a CIA operation. And the DEA agent just practically laughs at this and says, “There's no way that's true.” What Flaviu claims is that the DEA agent told him, “You watch way too many James Bond movies. There's no way you work for the CIA. We know who you are. You're an arms dealer.”

NARRATOR: According to the DEA, Flaviu is a crook. He set up this arms deal to make money, nothing more. But according to Flaviu, he was just being a good ‘friend’ to law enforcement. He pointed to his long association with the FBI as proof of that. And there was someone who could vouch for him. Remember Mark Pinto - the FBI agent who, along with Flaviu, brought down the Romanian credit card ring? Mark was asked to meet with the DEA to give his opinion on Flaviu’s story.

TREVOR AARONSON: And they lay out the whole case for him, the calls to the CIA, what Flaviu did in orchestrating the arms deal for Juan. And at the end of the meeting, Mark was kind of like, “I don't know for sure, but unless Flaviu has fundamentally changed since when I knew him, he's getting screwed here.” Mark seemed to believe that however strange the story was, he didn't think Flaviu was capable of committing this crime and that Flaviu was a true believer. He was a true believer in the American promise and that he really thought he was helping America in this way. That was the only way Mark could explain it.

NARRATOR: In 2016, Flaviu Georgescu stood trial accused of being an arms dealer. While his case was complicated and convoluted and full of different characters, law enforcement agencies, and terrorist organizations, it all hinged on a very simple question.

TREVOR AARONSON: Who do you believe? Do you believe that Flaviu made these calls to the CIA as an insurance policy? Or do you believe that Flaviu earnestly thought he was working for the CIA in some capacity?

NARRATOR: In his favor, Flaviu had the recordings of his calls with the CIA - the calls where he made contact with an operator, and an officer and told them about the deal - all of which were released and entered into evidence. When that happened, it seemed that Flaviu might have a shot at beating the case. But those hopes were soon dashed when Flaviu’s partners in the deal - the Romanian government minister and Massimo the Italian politician - turned against him.

TREVOR AARONSON: So the prosecutor's answer for that is to cut a deal with Christian. Christian becomes a cooperating witness for the government and then approaches Massimo, who is ultimately assigned to the same jail cell as Christian, and says, “You need to cooperate too. You should cooperate.” And Massimo eventually agrees as well. 

NARRATOR: Massimo and Christian’s testimony sunk Flaviu. And ultimately, the jury didn’t buy Flaviu’s story. He was found guilty. The man who was so proud of his past as a friend of law enforcement was now a convicted felon. Flaviu was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his crimes, which included conspiring to kill officers and employees of the United States. At the verdict, he said to the judge, “It’s hard to believe I am standing before you for sentencing. It’s embarrassing to be in this situation.” Perhaps no one understands Flaviu’s case better than Trevor Aaronson. Trevor completed a 10-part podcast about Flaviu called Alphabet Boys: Up In Arms. It’s out now, and you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. But when asked what the truth of the situation is, Trevor isn’t sure either.

TREVOR AARONSON: There are times, I think it's quite possible that Flaviu really thought he was doing good and got [in] too deep and he's paying the price. And then there's the part of me that's like, “Is Flaviu just a really great actor?” And he Intended for this arms deal to go through. He intended to make millions and millions of dollars. And when it didn't go through, he had this kind of elaborate cover story and a cover story so elaborate that its ambiguities are the stuff of stories that we tell now. 

NARRATOR: Earlier this year, Flaviu Georgescu was released on probation. He still maintains his innocence. I’m Daisy Ridley. Join us next week for more crucial contact with True Spies.