Secrets Declassified with David Duchovny 1x6

1. - Throughout time, governments and the people

2. who work for them have done strange and even

3. terrible things in the name of national interest.

4. And sometimes, they recruit undercover agents to help.

5. Tonight, the head of a rogue U.S. agency

6. hires a dangerous French doctor to gain Nazi secrets.

7. - He's also a literal serial killer.

8. - An ingenious cover story is deployed to extract

9. six Iranian hostages.

10. - Pretending to be a film unit in a country being

11. torn apart by revolution?

12. - And a deep cover agent confronts an impossible goal—

13. take down the Hell's Angels.

14. - The leader of the Hell's Angels

15. tells Jay to expect blood and to expect violence.

16. - Now it's time to bring these secret missions to light.

17. It's 1979, and the U.S. embassy in Iran

18. is overrun by militants who seized dozens of hostages.

19. Somehow, six managed to hide.

20. To get them out, the CIA create a web of lies so convincing,

21. it will go down as one of the most daring

22. undercover escapes in history.

23. - In 1979, the world is rocked by events in Iran.

24. The country erupts in chaos as the pro-U.S. government

25. is toppled in the Islamic Revolution.

26. And in the capital, Tehran, the U.S. embassy

27. is stormed by a group of armed Iranians,

28. who capture 66 American hostages.

29. Miraculously though, six of them

30. managed to escape undetected, to the nearby Canadian

31. diplomatic residence, where they seek refuge,

32. fearing for their lives.

33. - The U.S. has no room to maneuver.

34. We can't just go in, guns blazing.

35. - Failure of that mission would not only

36. mean certain death for the rescue team,

37. but compromise the safety of the hostages, as well.

38. - The CIA call on a master of deception.

39. His name is Tony Mendez.

40. - I worked with Tony almost my whole career.

41. And he just brought a new way of thinking

42. to a lot of those operational problems.

43. He was the right guy to send in.

44. - Tony's facing a real challenge.

45. It's not going to work to take people in

46. and then try to rescue them.

47. Instead, it might be easier to change

48. their identity from within Iran, and then just leave.

49. - And so he's got to figure out some believable

50. cover story that will make it possible for him to take

51. those six people to the Tehran airport

52. and put them on a civilian commercial flight out of town.

53. - The six need new identities, neutral,

54. free from suspicion, Canadian.

55. - Canada, at this point, is not really

56. on the radar of the Iranian revolutionaries.

57. - So the question is, who are they?

58. Could they be school teachers?

59. Well, the schools are all closed.

60. Could they be technicians from the oil field?

61. And he had this thing, this flash, like, huh.

62. - He comes up with this idea that they are going

63. to be a Canadian film crew.

64. - The cover story,

65. the production needs exotic locations.

66. So the Canadians are scouting for a desert picture in Iran.

67. - It is kind of wild.

68. I mean, pretending to be a film unit in a country being

69. torn apart by revolution?

70. - The stakes are high.

71. - This is a true nightmare scenario for CIA,

72. because the one option that they have, if it fails,

73. results in the hostages potentially being killed,

74. as well as the international smear campaign of CIA

75. not being able to keep its own people safe.

76. - The longer that that clock ticks,

77. the more and more likelihood that the Iranians

78. could realize that six people are unaccounted for.

79. - No one's getting out unless they were really scrutinized.

80. And these Americans had no training, whatsoever,

81. in assuming new identities.

82. - President Jimmy Carter approves the mission.

83. Tony Mendez is director and scriptwriter.

84. The movie's name is Argo.

85. Tony's wife, Jonna,

86. remembers the team's attention to detail.

87. - They went to great lengths

88. to legitimatize it in Hollywood.

89. They got signs made for the doors—

90. Studio 6.

91. Tony did the artwork for a piece

92. that appeared "in Variety."

93. - Tony Mendez jets into Iran as this movie producer,

94. producing the movie Argo.

95. At the same time, Canada diplomatically ships

96. six Canadian passports to the six hostages

97. as golden tickets to get them across the border.

98. - Tony got into Tehran, was down at the U.S. embassy site.

99. Death to America, that was the chant of the day.

100. So it was scary.

101. - It's one thing to get actors to play hostages.

102. It's another to turn hostages into actors.

103. - They all have characters that they are playing in this game—

104. the director, the director of photography,

105. the production designer.

106. He told them that if I don't believe you're a film crew,

107. the guards at the airport are not going to believe

108. that you're a film crew.

109. - And they had to study scripts.

110. They had to study backgrounds.

111. They had to sound like they could

112. convincingly carry out the role

113. they were supposed to carry out.

114. - Tony called in the security guard

115. from the Canadian embassy.

116. Tony tried to make him look like an Iranian officer.

117. Take them in another room and interrogate

118. the hell out of them.

119. And then come back and report to Tony, did they pass?

120. Oh, no? They didn't pass?

121. They have to go study some more.

122. - They found different clothes.

123. They darkened their beards with mascara.

124. They turned curly hair straight and straight hair curly,

125. long hair short.

126. They had to own a completely new identity.

127. - After a hectic 48 hours, Tony cables the final exfiltration

128. plan to Washington and Ottawa.

129. His bosses are satisfied.

130. And they respond with a sign off.

131. See you later, exfiltrator.

132. - It's sunup on the morning of the rescue.

133. And Tony and his six "colleagues"

134. leave the residence.

135. And finally, after this white-knuckle ride,

136. they can see the airport in sight.

137. - Now they have to live the story.

138. They have to live their disguise.

139. - And they have to walk in the door like they own the place.

140. And they have to present all of the attitude of a film crew.

141. - Mendez chooses an early morning departure

142. because he assumes the Iranian border guards

143. will be less alert right at dawn.

144. - They all know that at Passport Control,

145. the whole thing can go wrong.

146. So this hodgepodge group approach the Border Patrol,

147. waiting on bated breath for somebody to make a mistake,

148. for one person to screw up, for one thing to go wrong,

149. and the whole house of cards to come crumbling down.

150. - But then eventually, they're waved through.

151. - It was OK until they announced

152. they were having a mechanical delay.

153. The flight would not be boarding.

154. This is not how it's supposed to go.

155. - Put yourself in the shoes of these hostages,

156. the amount of stress that they must have been under.

157. - Finally, the plane is fixed,

158. and the undercover producers can leave.

159. - Even though they're on the airplane,

160. they're still the concern that somebody might come on

161. at the last moment, right before they

162. close the cabin door, and put us in front of a firing squad.

163. And eventually, the pilot comes on

164. and makes the announcement that we have left Iranian airspace.

165. And it's only then that they know that they are safe.

166. And so they all order drinks.

167. And that must have been the best tasting beer

168. that any of them ever had.

169. - The escape of the hostages is greeted in the United States

170. with euphoria.

171. - No one outside the CIA knows the truth.

172. - The official story is that the Canadian government

173. got these six escapees out of Iran

174. and then turned them back over to the United States.

175. And the U.S. government and the CIA

176. were happy to let that story stand because they didn't want

177. to jeopardize the lives of the people

178. who were still being held in captivity.

179. - Tony and Jonna are married shortly after

180. he retires from the CIA in 1991.

181. Then, in 1997, the incredible story comes out,

182. leaked by the CIA themselves.

183. - When the CIA turned 50, Tony was directed

184. to tell the story to "The New York Times."

185. He became the Argo guy.

186. It changed our lives.

187. - In 2012, Hollywood makes a real movie

188. based on the fake movie.

189. Inevitably, it's called "Argo."

190. Tony Mendez is played by Ben Affleck.

191. And when the film wins an Oscar, he's there.

192. Tony Mendez made a decision to go deep cover.

193. Not everyone gets to choose.

194. In 1939, just before the U.S. joins the Second World War,

195. one man is told, spy for us or your family dies.

196. - A German American named William Sebold

197. lands in Cologne to visit his mom.

198. He's grown up in Germany, but emigrated to the United States

199. in 1922 and became an aviation engineer.

200. - On his trip back to Germany, he's stopped by the Gestapo

201. and offered a deal that he can't refuse—

202. become a spy for the Nazis or his family will be in danger.

203. - They tell him that unless he agrees to work with them,

204. they can't guarantee the safety of his poor mother,

205. still living in Germany.

206. - Mr. Sebold doesn't really have a choice.

207. He accepts this position that's been forced upon him.

208. - In Germany, Sebold undergoes espionage training.

209. The Nazis are satisfied and assign him a job—

210. work to advance Germany's war effort by joining a spy ring

211. operating in New York City.

212. While Sebold was born in Germany,

213. he is now a naturalized U.S. citizen,

214. which makes him the perfect recruit for the Nazis.

215. His mission is to gather intel on U.S. military preparations

216. and feed it back to Germany via shortwave radio.

217. But before he leaves, Sebold goes to the U.S. consulate.

218. - He manages to inform officials of the predicament

219. that he finds himself in.

220. The American government can work with that.

221. They inform Mr. Sebold, who has no interest

222. in being a spy to begin with,

223. that he will now be a double agent.

224. - This was supposed to be a simple trip home to see

225. his mother, and instead,

226. he ends up being swept into the complicated world

227. of international espionage.

228. - Just before the U.S. joins World War II,

229. William Sebold is coerced to join a Nazi spy ring

230. in New York City, run by a German named Fritz Duquesne.

231. What the Nazis don't know is that Sebold

232. is really a U.S. double agent.

233. - Sebold's now going to work with the FBI, who set him up

234. with an office in Midtown, New York,

235. that has all the works to make sure he can record and capture

236. his meetings with the Duquesne spy ring.

237. We're talking secret microphones,

238. two-way mirrors, the works.

239. All of this is getting captured by this amateur,

240. unintentional double agent.

241. - They have motion-picture film footage of these subjects

242. shot through a two-way mirror.

243. And it's all names, dates,

244. even the material that they collected.

245. This is one of the best sting operations in history.

246. - The footage reveals the spy ring's secret.

247. - The goal of these several dozen men

248. is to commit acts of sabotage, to disrupt

249. the U.S. war machine before it can even get off the ground.

250. - The FBI runs Sebold for as long as they dare.

251. But he's close to cracking under pressure.

252. So they swoop in.

253. - In June of 1941, the FBI arrests,

254. essentially, the entire ring,

255. over 30 of these Nazi sleeper agents.

256. - The trial begins in September of 1941

257. and makes headlines everywhere.

258. - The photos and conversations captured in Sebold's office

259. become the overwhelming evidence

260. to bust up one of the most important German spy rings

261. on the eve of the U.S. entry to World War II.

262. - 33 Nazi agents are convicted and sentenced

263. to a total of 300 years in prison.

264. - But the news coverage doesn't just

265. expose the Duquesne spy ring.

266. It also reveals William Sebold's role.

267. - As soon as the trial is over, Sebold disappears.

268. He's whisked away into Witness Protection.

269. But the Nazis in Germany want their revenge for the betrayal.

270. So Sebold ends up living in hiding and in fear

271. for the rest of his life.

272. - Sebold risked his life to protect American interests.

273. But thanks to technology invented by a Swedish refugee

274. in 1940, U.S. spymasters find a safer way

275. to learn the enemy's secrets.

276. - It's 1940.

277. World War II is just seizing Europe.

278. And Boris Hagelin, a Swedish-descent Russian,

279. is looking to get out of Dodge.

280. He wants to make his way to the United States as a refugee.

281. But with him, he's bringing a new invention of his.

282. It's an encryption device,

283. a tool that can be used to code a message

284. and deliver it secretly.

285. And given the war that's just breaking out,

286. it could have huge ramifications

287. for the years ahead.

288. - It's called the M-209.

289. It uses coding wheels to scramble the content

290. of a message, which is then transmitted by Morse code

291. to a recipient with their own M-209,

292. who can then rearrange the text on their end.

293. It's light, it's easy to carry,

294. and better yet, it doesn't require any electricity.

295. - The highest ranks of the American military recognized

296. that there's a new potential

297. for the M-209 encryption device.

298. And so they pump out hundreds of thousands

299. of new examples of them.

300. - Hagelin's encryption device is, of course,

301. crucial during World War II.

302. But he continues to see success, even after the war.

303. His company, Crypto AG, creates encryption devices

304. that are sold to nations all around the globe.

305. Hagelin is selling to nations friendly to the United States

306. and nations that aren't so friendly to the U.S.

307. - At first, the CIA is unsure about Hagelin's

308. commercial arrangements.

309. But soon they see opportunity.

310. - In 1951, Boris Hagelin strikes a deal

311. with U.S. intelligence, where he will

312. only sell his most advanced machines to friendly nations.

313. And America's adversaries will get older, weaker machines

314. that the U.S. can easily break.

315. - It's a system that works brilliantly

316. until Hagelin decides to sell the company.

317. The CIA cannot let its asset fall into the wrong hands.

318. - The CIA then recognizes an opportunity

319. to purchase Crypto AG and operate it

320. under covert circumstances.

321. The CIA ultimately realized, like, hey,

322. if we buy the company and then

323. we own the means of production of this device,

324. we can spy on everybody.

325. - It's one of the most closely-guarded

326. secrets of the Cold War.

327. And it pays huge dividends.

328. The crypto machine allows the U.S. to decode crucial intel.

329. - In 1979, during the Iranian hostage crisis,

330. President Jimmy Carter monitors all of

331. the coded conversation between the mullahs

332. as they discuss negotiations.

333. Even the Vatican gets involved and buys crypto devices.

334. And in 1988, their communications

335. prove crucial in the American manhunt for Panamanian leader

336. Manuel Antonio Noriega.

337. - But one incident threatens to expose the CIA's secret.

338. - In 1986, there is a bombing in Berlin.

339. It's a terrible event.

340. And it kills an American serviceman.

341. - President Ronald Reagan, in announcing retaliatory strikes,

342. says that he has evidence that is direct—

343. - It is precise.

344. It is irrefutable.

345. - Libya and their ally, Iran, can't figure out

346. how Reagan knows the plans.

347. Their communications must have been hacked.

348. Suspicion falls onto Crypto AG.

349. - The Iranians arrest one of Crypto AG's salesmen

350. because they believe that Crypto AG is leaking the codes.

351. - He's only freed after nine months,

352. when Crypto AG pays a million dollars in ransom.

353. - U.S. officials continue to deny

354. any involvement with Crypto AG.

355. - Rumors persist, but no concrete evidence

356. emerges that there's anything suspicious about Crypto AG's

357. relationship with the West.

358. - Then, in 2020, a "Washington Post" reporter

359. obtains a leaked CIA document and discovers

360. the CIA's 70-year-long hack.

361. - What this report exposes is that the CIA, essentially,

362. has had a back door to all the crypto machines for decades,

363. and they've been reading the messages

364. from both their enemies and their friends.

365. - The CIA itself calls this "the coup of the century."

366. This is winning the World Series of spying.

367. - They got foreign governments to pay good money

368. for the privilege of having their most

369. secret communications read.

370. And Crypto AG continues operating until 2018,

371. when the CIA sells off the company, and it's liquidated.

372. - In 1985, U.S. spy agencies face a problem.

373. One by one, their deep-cover assets in the Soviet Union

374. are being unmasked.

375. Is there a mole in the ranks?

376. - In 1985, FBI receives a disturbing report

377. that two of their informants in the Soviet embassy

378. in Washington were actually recalled

379. back to Moscow, where they were arrested and suddenly executed.

380. It turns out that the problem is not just isolated to FBI.

381. CIA is also reporting the loss of highly-placed Soviet assets

382. from within Moscow.

383. And they don't know why.

384. Creating informants like these takes years.

385. You gain their trust, and you promise them protection.

386. So then to lose them is a really crushing

387. and unsettling blow.

388. With FBI losing Soviet informants and CIA losing

389. Soviet assets, the two organizations

390. realized that they may have a shared problem.

391. - In December 1990, America loses

392. yet another asset inside the KGB.

393. A mole is clearly at work.

394. The CIA and FBI joined forces

395. to root out the traitor.

396. - The two organizations have to compare

397. Soviet operations at FBI against Soviet operations

398. at CIA.

399. And they have to compare those operations against assets

400. and those assets against handlers

401. and those handlers against leaders.

402. And this is a huge process.

403. Every minute that they take is one more minute

404. that they risk losing another asset from either FBI or CIA.

405. The whole process takes four months

406. and the review of thousands of documents.

407. - And there was this one name that

408. appeared on multiple lists.

409. And that was Aldrich Ames.

410. - It's astounding that Ames could be the mole.

411. He's been in the CIA for decades.

412. He's had a prestigious career, steeped in positions of trust.

413. He's ascended all the way to the rank of chief

414. of Soviet counterintelligence.

415. - As CIA and FBI look closer at Aldrich Ames,

416. they start to see some irregularities

417. that are very suspicious.

418. He makes $70,000 a year,

419. and yet he was able to buy a half-million dollar house

420. in cash.

421. He's also driving a brand new Jaguar

422. and coming to work in finely-tailored

423. Italian clothing.

424. - But suspicion isn't evidence.

425. They need proof.

426. Time to ramp things up.

427. - They actually wiretap his phone at home.

428. And they find out that he's actually

429. planning a trip to Caracas, Venezuela,

430. to meet with a Russian handler.

431. - FBI actually got his trash can.

432. And they found a note.

433. He was going to meet with his handlers in Bogota.

434. - They have the evidence they need.

435. And the FBI moves in.

436. - Back here.

437. OK, right here, right down here, please.

438. - Sir?

439. Mr. Ames? - Back up.

440. Back up.

441. - Ames is arrested on February 21 of 1994.

442. And he's charged with espionage for having

443. spied on behalf of the USSR.

444. - The FBI released details of the case against Aldrich Ames,

445. revealing his treachery and its fatal consequences.

446. - Pleads guilty to all charges, is sentenced to life,

447. and has zero possibility of parole.

448. - The public is gripped as the devastating story unfolds.

449. Why did Ames risk so much?

450. Was it political conviction or misplaced ideals?

451. The answer is none of the above.

452. - The man is reported to have made between

453. $2.7 and $4.2 million working with the Soviets.

454. I have spent my career chasing down

455. villains like Aldrich Ames.

456. And it's such a high-stakes environment,

457. because every day you don't find them,

458. they do that much more damage.

459. - It's estimated that Ames burned over

460. a hundred covert operations.

461. He blew the cover on over 30 operatives,

462. some of whom were executed as a result.

463. He's a traitor who allowed people to die

464. so that he could get wealthy.

465. - Aldrich Ames always will be the most hated villain

466. in CIA history, and he's still in jail

467. for the rest of his life.

468. - In World War II, America's struggle

469. to uncover Nazi secrets leads to the creation

470. of two new spy agencies.

471. The boss of one of them will do anything to win,

472. including making deals with gangsters, or worse.

473. - Pearl Harbor shocks the United States

474. and makes people realize that we have a really

475. profound capabilities gap.

476. We should have been able to anticipate

477. this surprise attack, but we didn't.

478. - So the U.S. is now at war.

479. But privately, the government realizes

480. that to even stand a chance of victory,

481. they need to seriously up their spy game.

482. So the government sets up

483. the Office of Strategic Services,

484. a.k.a. the OSS, under the leadership

485. of someone named Wild Bill Donovan.

486. Now, a lot of people in the military

487. view Bill Donovan with suspicion at best

488. and contempt at worst.

489. He's a former corporate lawyer and a failed politician.

490. And he left the army after World War I

491. and is widely seen as unqualified.

492. To make matters worse, he's viewed as a publicity seeker,

493. which is everything that a secret intelligence leader

494. should not be.

495. - The military want their own agency,

496. headed up by their own man.

497. In 1942, they create The Pond.

498. - The idea behind The Pond is that it's

499. more competent, more secure,

500. and more secret than the wartime OSS.

501. It will report directly to its supporters,

502. high up in the military.

503. And it'll operate without restraint.

504. - It's so secret, in fact, that the OSS,

505. the very organization that will evolve into the CIA,

506. doesn't know that it exists.

507. - But this new agency needs a leader,

508. and not just any leader, but someone prepared to do

509. anything to get the job done.

510. - Military leaders turned to John Grombach

511. to lead The Pond.

512. Grombach is a Olympian.

513. He's a boxer. He's an Army captain.

514. But above all, Grombach is a fierce patriot.

515. He's ready to do whatever it takes

516. to give America the upper hand.

517. - Grombach hates the OSS.

518. In fact, he was a previous employee of Donovan.

519. And their relationship did not end well.

520. So now, Grombach will stop at nothing

521. to outdo his OSS rival.

522. And in 1942, the top-secret Pond becomes active.

523. - The Pond is intended to collect secret intelligence

524. via a global network of deep undercover informants

525. who might not be willing to deal with the OSS.

526. - These could be international companies, societies,

527. religious organizations, and well-placed,

528. high-profile individuals.

529. - A true underground organization like The Pond

530. doesn't care who it deals with.

531. It just gets the job done.

532. - One of John Grombach's early plots in the war

533. was working with the Italian mafia.

534. Grombach approached Lucky Luciano in prison

535. and pitched him on the idea that perhaps,

536. he could have some of his mafia associates

537. assassinate Mussolini,

538. and in exchange, Luciano would be pardoned

539. and released from prison.

540. - The idea dies, rather than Mussolini.

541. - The Pond's focus shifts to two new priorities,

542. gathering vital data on Nazi armaments

543. and German spy networks in allied countries.

544. - So first, they need to recruit someone

545. that's already on the inside.

546. - In the early 1940s, Grombach finds a French doctor

547. working in Nazi-occupied France.

548. His name is Marcel Petiot,

549. - And among his patients are Nazi officials.

550. He's able to glean all sorts of vital information,

551. the location of missile bases,

552. Nazi spies operating in the U.S..

553. Where are they? What are they up to?

554. The sort of information that can really help swing the war.

555. Ultimately, it all goes back to Grombach.

556. - Doctor Petiot is a mine of Nazi information.

557. But he has his own dark secrets.

558. - He's happy to be an informant for The Pond.

559. And yet, he's also a literal serial killer.

560. A very compromising figure to work with,

561. and yet, The Pond feels that the ends justify the means.

562. But once the war is over, the doctor is arrested.

563. He's convicted of 26 murders.

564. And he pays for his crime in the most French of ways.

565. He's whisked off to the guillotine.

566. - After the war is won, the Pond loses

567. its clear purpose and is shut down in 1955.

568. Its existence is never officially acknowledged.

569. Then, in 1982, a remarkable series of events

570. exposes its dubious history.

571. - Toward the end of his life, John Grombach gives

572. his dossiers from The Pond to a private library.

573. So they hand those over to the CIA.

574. These papers, they then stay with the CIA

575. for about another decade, at which point,

576. the CIA begins to declassify them.

577. And that is when we start to become aware

578. that The Pond ever even existed.

579. - And to this day, much of what The Pond did

580. is shrouded in secrecy,

581. especially since the CIA are still withholding

582. thousands of Grombach's papers.

583. - In 2001, notorious biker gang, the Hell's Angels,

584. are deeply involved in criminal activity,

585. and willing to do anything to protect

586. their profits, even murder.

587. There's only one way to stop the group.

588. Go deep undercover.

589. - In October 2001, Hell's Angels bikers

590. were responsible for the death of a mother of six

591. in Mesa, Arizona.

592. In the following year, they were involved in a shootout

593. at a Casino in Nevada that produced three killed.

594. So these are dangerous criminals.

595. - In order to really take down

596. a group like the Hell's Angels,

597. you have to have evidence, right?

598. You have to have a lot of it.

599. And the best way to do that is from the inside.

600. But that is pretty close to impossible.

601. And if they find out that you are not who you say you are,

602. you will be tortured and you will be killed.

603. - In 2002, a nomad biker gang in Tijuana,

604. called The Solo Angeles,

605. applies to join the Arizona Hell's Angels.

606. - A nomad biker gang is unique because these

607. are gangs that are not tied to any specific territory.

608. They're kind of on their own

609. and can apply to join larger chapters.

610. - The Solo Angeles are headed up by a gun runner

611. and debt collector named Jaybird Davis.

612. - About a year after being introduced

613. to the Hell's Angels, Jaybird is invited to roll

614. with the gang to Las Vegas, where they have to rumble

615. with another biker gang called the Bandidos.

616. The leader of the Hell's Angels tells Jay

617. to expect blood and to expect violence.

618. So this is the first opportunity

619. that Jaybird has to prove himself to the Hell's Angels.

620. - This is far from easy for Jaybird.

621. He's no criminal and no killer.

622. In fact, he's a government agent.

623. He's been undercover with the Federal Bureau

624. of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms for 15 years.

625. And he's never been involved in anything like this.

626. - Jay is at the crossroads during this journey to Vegas.

627. He runs the risk of having to kill someone,

628. or this entire gang finding out who he is.

629. - He could blow his cover and cost himself his life,

630. all in one trip to Las Vegas.

631. - He actually finds a point in time where

632. he can pull over and use his phone

633. and let the ATF know what the plan is—

634. —so that the ATF can round up The Bandidos.

635. As a result of all of this, the Hell's Angels

636. arrive in Vegas fully expecting this rumble with The Bandidos.

637. And there's no Bandidos there.

638. This has been a success for him.

639. He's been able to maintain his cover

640. without having to kill anyone.

641. - In Vegas, Jay's quick thinking saves him,

642. but it's not over yet.

643. - There's a lot of rumors going around.

644. And the Hell's Angels is starting

645. to really question who Jay is.

646. - Jay has made incredible progress

647. to gain the trust of the Hell's Angels,

648. but he's still not being accepted as an insider.

649. So he has to do something significant.

650. - Hey, how are you? - Good, good.

651. - To earn the respect of the Hell's Angels,

652. Jay presents a photo.

653. - It's a photo of a dead biker with his brains blown out.

654. And that biker is wearing the colors

655. of The Mongols, the arch rival to the Hell's Angels.

656. - And Jay claims to have been the one who

657. murdered this biker in order to earn his right

658. into the Hell's Angels.

659. - But Jay does not really have blood on his hands,

660. at least not human blood.

661. - This picture is a staged picture.

662. - We're creating the illusion that the victim of our hit

663. was hit over the head with a baseball bat with his hands

664. behind his back, shots to the head.

665. - This is actually a local police officer dressed up

666. in the clothing, with pig organs and fake blood,

667. to make it seem that he had been killed.

668. - The photograph of the fake dead biker

669. gives him street credibility.

670. That brings him into their inner circle.

671. And that gives him access to what he needs,

672. so that the government can build

673. an airtight case against them.

674. - The ATF Bureau calls a halt to the operation in 2003.

675. But the final reckoning does not go to plan.

676. - Jay's work against the Hell's Angels

677. led to one of the largest takedowns ever

678. by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

679. They collected a hundred thousand phone calls,

680. 800 hours of bugged conversation,

681. 8,500 incriminating documents.

682. - But the prosecution's case suffers over worries

683. that presenting all the evidence

684. could jeopardize other ATF investigations.

685. - Some of those members plead to lesser charges,

686. which resulted in jail time.

687. But other charges were dismissed altogether,

688. which put those members back on the street with the

689. Hell's Angels, with an opportunity to look

690. for the very same person who had put them

691. in court in the first place.

692. - Jay survived his time in the gang.

693. But now, both he and his family are in danger.

694. - After the trial, Dobyns and his family

695. were given new identities.

696. But then the ATF revoked that, five years later.

697. So he lives in the open.

698. There have been two attempts against his life.

699. And to this day, he lives in fear.

700. - One of the most feared and respected spy

701. agencies operating today is Israel's Mossad.

702. It's known for taking on daring missions,

703. including one that took place in Sudan in the 1980s.

704. - As a result of the Ethiopian Civil War

705. and the famine that was produced as a consequence

706. of it, Ethiopian Jews by the thousands

707. fled Ethiopia into Sudan.

708. - Some 600,000 Ethiopian refugees flee to Sudan,

709. including at least 16,000 Jews.

710. - Sudan is still a third-world country.

711. So the refugee camps, they've got disease.

712. They're overcrowded.

713. - The Israelis believe that the Ethiopian Jews were

714. actually one of the lost tribes of Israel

715. that were exiled from the Holy Land thousands of years before,

716. and were now ripe to return back to Israel

717. and reconnect with their people.

718. But Sudan is an Islamist country

719. and hostile to Judaism.

720. So the problem for the Ethiopian Jewish refugees

721. is that in Sudan, they're not safe.

722. They are actively being hunted

723. and they are a target for killing.

724. - So Israel has to find a way to exfiltrate

725. their Jews out of the refugee camps in Sudan

726. and smuggle them to Israel.

727. - The Sudanese government won't help.

728. Time for Mossad to come up with a plan.

729. - Mossad identifies an officer, Dani Limor,

730. to go to Sudan, to try to find a way

731. to bring these Ethiopian Jews back to Israel.

732. - Well, he knew from the start that he needed something

733. on the sea because these evacuations would have

734. to start on the coastline.

735. The ratline would lead them over water, directly to Israel.

736. So he starts shopping for a location,

737. when he finds the perfect cover story

738. in the form of this abandoned Italian dive resort,

739. right on the water's edge.

740. It was almost a turnkey project for him

741. because he could move in and occupy the existing structures,

742. and people would be attracted to that resort,

743. and he could use it as a cover story

744. to evacuate Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

745. - So he does a deal where he's able to lease

746. the resort for a quarter million dollars,

747. using Mossad's funds.

748. - Mossad rebuilt the resort at Arous

749. to turn it into a functioning vacation destination

750. that Europeans would want to go to

751. and that the Sudanese government

752. would not want to interfere with.

753. - Mossad would use the resort as a cover story

754. to slowly and secretly

755. exfiltrate Ethiopian Jews.

756. During the day, the plan is for Mossad to host guests.

757. Then at night, they will drive

758. over 500 miles to collect the refugees.

759. A two-night truck convoy will then take them

760. to the coast, where Israeli special forces will ferry them

761. via Zodiac dinghies to a Naval ship offshore,

762. bound for Israel.

763. - The mission is highly classified.

764. All involved are well aware of the mortal danger

765. that they face, not only to themselves,

766. but all the fleeing refugees.

767. - Mossad agents are convinced that anyone

768. who's uncovered participating in the operation

769. could be hanged in Khartoum.

770. - By day, Arous is a luxury resort.

771. By night, it's a Mossad escape route.

772. - The refugee camps that were holding the Ethiopian Jews

773. were about 500 miles from the coastline.

774. But under cover of darkness, the actual agents on the resort

775. would go to the refugee camps,

776. and literally wake up the Ethiopian Jews

777. to smuggle them by truck.

778. - And then by night, they take the refugees out,

779. and deliver them to the Israeli Navy,

780. who then takes them back to Israel.

781. - The rescue resort operates for more than two years.

782. A thousand refugees escape to a new future in Israel

783. until political chaos in Sudan

784. makes it impossible to continue the mission.

785. - The scuba diving tourists wake one morning

786. to find that the entire senior staff have deserted them.

787. - The mission stays secret for more than 20 years,

788. until a British journalist hears rumors

789. that lead to Dani Limor.

790. And Limor, feeling comfortable that enough time had passed,

791. reveals details about the way that the Mossad

792. operated a fake dive resort.

793. - This is why Mossad has the reputation that it has,

794. because it is willing to rebuild a resort,

795. to smuggle Jews across 500 miles of desert,

796. to take them back to Israel.

797. The scale of this operation is absolutely mind boggling.

798. - Going deep undercover brings with it terrible risks.

799. No surprise that the people in the shadows

800. often choose to stay there.

801. But when secret files are opened,

802. they can reveal stories of incredible ingenuity

803. and courage.

804. I'm David Duchovny.

805. Thanks for watching "Secrets Declassified."