01x06 - Deep Cover

[bunniefuu]

Throughout time,

governments and the people

who work for them have

done strange and even

terrible things in the

name of national interest.

And sometimes, they recruit

undercover agents to help.

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

hires a dangerous French

doctor to gain n*zi secrets.

He's also a literal serial k*ller.

An ingenious cover

story is deployed to extract

six Iranian hostages.

Pretending to be a film

unit in a country being

torn apart by revolution?

And a deep cover agent

confronts an impossible goal

take down the hell's angels.

The leader of the hell's angels

tells Jay to expect blood

and to expect violence.

Now it's time to bring these

secret missions to light.

Support us and become VIP member

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

is overrun by militants who

seized dozens of hostages.

Somehow, six managed to hide.

To get them out, the CIA

create a web of lies so convincing,

it will go down as one of the most daring

undercover escapes in history.

In 1979, the world is

rocked by events in Iran.

The country erupts in chaos

as the pro-U.S. government

is toppled in the islamic revolution.

And in the capital,

Tehran, the U.S. embassy

is stormed by a group of armed Iranians,

who capture 66 American hostages.

Miraculously though, six of them

managed to escape undetected,

to the nearby Canadian

diplomatic residence,

where they seek refuge,

fearing for their lives.

The U.S. has no room to maneuver.

We can't just go in, g*ns blazing.

Failure of that mission would not only

mean certain death for the rescue team,

but compromise the safety

of the hostages, as well.

The CIA call on a master of deception.

His name is Tony Mendez.

I worked with Tony

almost my whole career.

And he just brought

a new way of thinking

to a lot of those operational problems.

He was the right guy to send in.

Tony's facing a real challenge.

It's not going to work to take people in

and then try to rescue them.

Instead, it might be easier to change

their identity from within

Iran, and then just leave.

And so he's got to

figure out some believable

cover story that will make

it possible for him to take

those six people to the Tehran airport

and put them on a civilian

commercial flight out of town.

The six need new identities, neutral,

free from suspicion, Canadian.

Canada, at this point, is not really

on the radar of the

Iranian revolutionaries.

So the question is, who are they?

Could they be school teachers?

Well, the schools are all closed.

Could they be technicians

from the oil field?

And he had this thing, this flash, like.

He comes up with this

idea that they are going

to be a Canadian film crew.

The cover story,

the production needs exotic locations.

So the Canadians are scouting

for a desert picture in Iran.

It is kind of wild.

I mean, pretending to be a

film unit in a country being

torn apart by revolution?

The stakes are high.

This is a true nightmare

scenario for CIA,

because the one option

that they have, if it fails,

results in the hostages

potentially being k*lled,

as well as the international

smear campaign of CIA

not being able to keep

its own people safe.

The longer that that clock ticks,

the more and more

likelihood that the Iranians

could realize that six

people are unaccounted for.

No one's getting out unless

they were really scrutinized.

And these Americans had

no training, whatsoever,

in assuming new identities.

President Jimmy Carter

approves the mission.

Tony Mendez is director and scriptwriter.

The movie's name is argo.

Tony's wife, jonna,

remembers the team's attention to detail.

They went to great lengths

to legitimatize it in Hollywood.

They got signs made

for the doors studio 6.

Tony did the artwork for a piece

that appeared "in variety."

Tony Mendez jets into

Iran as this movie producer,

producing the movie argo.

At the same time,

Canada diplomatically ships

six Canadian passports

to the six hostages

as golden tickets to get

them across the border.

Tony got into Tehran, was

down at the U.S. embassy site.

Death to america, that

was the chant of the day.

So it was scary.

It's one thing to get

actors to play hostages.

It's another to turn hostages into actors.

They all have characters that

they are playing in this game

the director, the director of photography,

the production designer.

He told them that if I don't

believe you're a film crew,

the guards at the airport

are not going to believe

that you're a film crew.

And they had to study scripts.

They had to study backgrounds.

They had to sound like they could

convincingly carry out the role

they were supposed to carry out.

Tony called in the security guard

from the Canadian embassy.

Tony tried to make him

look like an Iranian officer.

Take them in another

room and interrogate

the hell out of them.

And then come back and

report to Tony, did they pass?

No? They didn't pass?

They have to go study some more.

They found different clothes.

They darkened their

beards with mascara.

They turned curly hair

straight and straight hair curly,

long hair short.

They had to own a

completely new identity.

After a hectic 48 hours, Tony

cables the final exfiltration

plan to Washington and Ottawa.

His bosses are satisfied.

And they respond with a sign off.

See you later, exfiltrator.

It's sunup on the morning of the rescue.

And Tony and his six "colleagues"

leave the residence.

And finally, after this white-knuckle ride,

they can see the airport in sight.

Now they have to live the story.

They have to live their disguise.

And they have to walk in the

door like they own the place.

And they have to present all

of the attitude of a film crew.

Mendez chooses an

early morning departure

because he assumes

the Iranian border guards

will be less alert right at dawn.

They all know that at passport control,

the whole thing can go wrong.

So this hodgepodge group

approach the border patrol,

waiting on bated breath for

somebody to make a mistake,

for one person to screw

up, for one thing to go wrong,

and the whole house of

cards to come crumbling down.

But then eventually,

they're waved through.

It was ok until they announced

they were having a mechanical delay.

The flight would not be boarding.

This is not how it's supposed to go.

Put yourself in the

shoes of these hostages,

the amount of stress that

they must have been under.

Finally, the plane is fixed,

and the undercover producers can leave.

Even though they're on the airplane,

they're still the concern that

somebody might come on

at the last moment, right before they

close the cabin door, and

put us in front of a firing squad.

And eventually, the pilot comes on

and makes the announcement

that we have left Iranian airspace.

And it's only then that

they know that they are safe.

And so they all order drinks.

And that must have

been the best tasting beer

that any of them ever had.

The escape of the hostages

is greeted in the United States

with euphoria.

No one outside the CIA knows the truth.

The official story is that

the Canadian government

got these six escapees out of Iran

and then turned them back

over to the United States.

And the U.S. government and the CIA

were happy to let that story

stand because they didn't want

to jeopardize the lives of the people

who were still being held in captivity.

Tony and jonna are married shortly after

he retires from the CIA in 1991.

Then, in 1997, the

incredible story comes out,

leaked by the CIA themselves.

When the CIA turned

50, Tony was directed

to tell the story to "the New York times."

He became the argo guy.

It changed our lives.

In 2012, Hollywood makes a real movie

based on the fake movie.

Inevitably, it's called "argo."

Tony Mendez is played by Ben Affleck.

And when the film wins

an Oscar, he's there.

Tony Mendez made a

decision to go deep cover.

Not everyone gets to choose.

In 1939, just before the U.S.

joins the second world w*r,

one man is told, spy

for us or your family dies.

A German American

named William sebold

lands in Cologne to visit his mom.

He's grown up in Germany, but

emigrated to the United States

in 1922 and became

an aviation engineer.

On his trip back to Germany,

he's stopped by the gestapo

and offered a deal that he can't refuse

become a spy for the Nazis

or his family will be in danger.

They tell him that unless

he agrees to work with them,

they can't guarantee the

safety of his poor mother,

still living in Germany.

Mr. Sebold doesn't really have a choice.

He accepts this position

that's been forced upon him.

In Germany, sebold

undergoes espionage training.

The Nazis are satisfied

and assign him a job

work to advance Germany's

w*r effort by joining a spy ring

operating in New York City.

While sebold was born in Germany,

he is now a naturalized U.S. citizen,

which makes him the

perfect recruit for the Nazis.

His mission is to gather intel

on U.S. military preparations

and feed it back to

Germany via shortwave radio.

But before he leaves, sebold

goes to the U.S. consulate.

He manages to inform

officials of the predicament

that he finds himself in.

The American government

can work with that.

They inform Mr. Sebold,

who has no interest

in being a spy to begin with,

that he will now be a double agent.

This was supposed to be

a simple trip home to see

his mother, and instead,

he ends up being swept

into the complicated world

of international espionage.

Just before the U.S. joins world w*r ii,

William sebold is coerced

to join a n*zi spy ring

in New York City, run by a

German named Fritz Duquesne.

What the Nazis don't know is that sebold

is really a U.S. double agent.

Sebold's now going to work

with the FBI, who set him up

with an office in midtown, New York,

that has all the works to make

sure he can record and capture

his meetings with the

Duquesne spy ring.

We're talking secret microphones,

two-way mirrors, the works.

All of this is getting

captured by this amateur,

unintentional double agent.

They have motion-picture

film footage of these subjects

shot through a two-way mirror.

And it's all names, dates,

even the material that they collected.

This is one of the best

sting operations in history.

The footage reveals the spy ring's secret.

The goal of these several dozen men

is to commit acts of sabotage, to disrupt

the U.S. w*r machine before

it can even get off the ground.

The FBI runs sebold

for as long as they dare.

But he's close to

cracking under pressure.

So they swoop in.

In June of 1941, the FBI arrests,

essentially, the entire ring,

over 30 of these n*zi sleeper agents.

The trial begins in September of 1941

and makes headlines everywhere.

The photos and conversations

captured in sebold's office

become the overwhelming evidence

to bust up one of the most

important German spy rings

on the Eve of the U.S.

entry to world w*r ii.

33 n*zi agents are

convicted and sentenced

to a total of 300 years in prison.

But the news coverage doesn't just

expose the Duquesne spy ring.

It also reveals William sebold's role.

As soon as the trial is

over, sebold disappears.

He's whisked away

into witness protection.

But the Nazis in Germany want

their revenge for the betrayal.

So sebold ends up

living in hiding and in fear

for the rest of his life.

Sebold risked his life to

protect American interests.

But thanks to technology

invented by a Swedish refugee

in 1940, U.S. spymasters

find a safer way

to learn the enemy's secrets.

It's 1940.

World w*r ii is just seizing Europe.

And Boris hagelin, a

Swedish-descent Russian,

is looking to get out of dodge.

He wants to make his way to

the United States as a refugee.

But with him, he's bringing

a new invention of his.

It's an encryption device,

a tool that can be

used to code a message

and deliver it secretly.

And given the w*r

that's just breaking out,

it could have huge

ramifications for the years ahead.

It's called the m-209.

It uses coding wheels

to scramble the content

of a message, which is then

transmitted by morse code

to a recipient with their own m-209,

who can then rearrange

the text on their end.

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

and better yet, it doesn't

require any electricity.

The highest ranks of the

American military recognized

that there's a new potential

for the m-209 encryption device.

And so they pump out

hundreds of thousands

of new examples of them.

Hagelin's encryption device is, of course,

crucial during world w*r ii.

But he continues to see

success, even after the w*r.

His company, crypto ag,

creates encryption devices

that are sold to nations

all around the globe.

Hagelin is selling to nations

friendly to the United States

and nations that aren't

so friendly to the U.S.

At first, the CIA is unsure about hagelin's

commercial arrangements.

But soon they see opportunity.

In 1951, Boris hagelin strikes a deal

with U.S. intelligence, where he will

only sell his most advanced

machines to friendly nations.

And america's adversaries

will get older, weaker machines

that the U.S. can easily break.

It's a system that works brilliantly

until hagelin decides to sell the company.

The CIA cannot let its asset

fall into the wrong hands.

The CIA then recognizes an opportunity

to purchase crypto ag and operate it

under covert circumstances.

The CIA ultimately realized, like, hey,

if we buy the company and then

we own the means of

production of this device,

we can spy on everybody.

It's one of the most closely-guarded

secrets of the cold w*r.

And it pays huge dividends.

The crypto machine allows

the U.S. to decode crucial intel.

In 1979, during the

Iranian hostage crisis,

president Jimmy Carter monitors all of

the coded conversation

between the mullahs

as they discuss negotiations.

Even the Vatican gets involved

and buys crypto devices.

And in 1988, their communications

prove crucial in the American

manhunt for Panamanian leader

Manuel Antonio noriega.

But one incident threatens

to expose the CIA's secret.

In 1986, there is a bombing in Berlin.

It's a terrible event.

And it kills an American serviceman.

President Ronald Reagan, in

announcing retaliatory strikes,

says that he has evidence that is direct

it is precise.

It is irrefutable.

Libya and their ally,

Iran, can't figure out

how Reagan knows the plans.

Their communications

must have been hacked.

Suspicion falls onto crypto ag.

The Iranians arrest one

of crypto ag's salesmen

because they believe that

crypto ag is leaking the codes.

He's only freed after nine months,

when crypto ag pays a

million dollars in ransom.

U.S. officials continue to deny

any involvement with crypto ag.

Rumors persist, but

no concrete evidence

emerges that there's anything

suspicious about crypto ag's

relationship with the west.

Then, in 2020, a

"Washington post" reporter

obtains a leaked CIA

document and discovers

the CIA's 70-year-long hack.

What this report exposes

is that the CIA, essentially,

has had a back door to all the

crypto machines for decades,

and they've been reading the messages

from both their enemies

and their friends.

The CIA itself calls this

"the coup of the century."

This is winning the

world series of spying.

They got foreign governments

to pay good money

for the privilege of having their most

secret communications read.

And crypto ag continues

operating until 2018,

when the CIA sells off the

company, and it's liquidated.

In 1985, U.S. spy

agencies face a problem.

One by one, their deep-cover

assets in the Soviet union

are being unmasked.

Is there a mole in the ranks?

In 1985, FBI receives a disturbing report

that two of their informants

in the Soviet embassy

in Washington were actually recalled

back to Moscow, where they were

arrested and suddenly ex*cuted.

It turns out that the problem

is not just isolated to FBI.

CIA is also reporting the loss

of highly-placed Soviet assets

from within Moscow.

And they don't know why.

Creating informants

like these takes years.

You gain their trust, and

you promise them protection.

So then to lose them is a really crushing

and unsettling blow.

With FBI losing Soviet

informants and CIA losing

Soviet assets, the two organizations

realized that they may

have a shared problem.

In December 1990, america loses

yet another asset inside the kgb.

A mole is clearly at work.

The CIA and FBI joined

forces to root out the traitor.

The two organizations have to compare

Soviet operations at FBI

against Soviet operations

at CIA.

And they have to compare

those operations against assets

and those assets against handlers

and those handlers against leaders.

And this is a huge process.

Every minute that they

take is one more minute

that they risk losing another

asset from either FBI or CIA.

The whole process takes four months

and the review of

thousands of documents.

And there was this one name that

appeared on multiple lists.

And that was aldrich ames.

It's astounding that

ames could be the mole.

He's been in the CIA for decades.

He's had a prestigious career,

steeped in positions of trust.

He's ascended all the

way to the rank of chief

of Soviet counterintelligence.

As CIA and FBI look

closer at aldrich ames,

they start to see some irregularities

that are very suspicious.

He makes $70,000 a year,

and yet he was able to buy

a half-million dollar house

in cash.

He's also driving a brand new Jaguar

and coming to work in finely-tailored

Italian clothing.

But suspicion isn't evidence.

They need proof.

Time to ramp things up.

They actually wiretap his phone at home.

And they find out that he's actually

planning a trip to Caracas, Venezuela,

to meet with a Russian handler.

FBI actually got his trash can.

And they found a note.

He was going to meet

with his handlers in Bogota.

They have the evidence they need.

And the FBI moves in.

Back here.

Ok, right here, right down here, please.

Sir?

- Mr. Ames?

- Back up.

Back up.

Ames is arrested on

February 21 of 1994.

And he's charged with

espionage for having

spied on behalf of the ussr.

The FBI released details of

the case against aldrich ames,

revealing his treachery

and its fatal consequences.

Pleads guilty to all

charges, is sentenced to life,

and has zero possibility of parole.

The public is gripped as

the devastating story unfolds.

Why did ames risk so much?

Was it political conviction

or misplaced ideals?

The answer is none of the above.

The man is reported

to have made between

$2.7 and $4.2 million

working with the Soviets.

I have spent my career chasing down

villains like aldrich ames.

And it's such a high-stakes environment,

because every day you don't find them,

they do that much more damage.

It's estimated that ames burned over

a hundred covert operations.

He blew the cover on over 30 operatives,

some of whom were

ex*cuted as a result.

He's a traitor who allowed people to die

so that he could get wealthy.

Aldrich ames always will

be the most hated villain

in CIA history, and he's still in jail

for the rest of his life.

In world w*r ii, america's struggle

to uncover n*zi secrets

leads to the creation

of two new spy agencies.

The boss of one of them

will do anything to win,

including making deals

with gangsters, or worse.

Pearl harbor shocks the United States

and makes people

realize that we have a really

profound capabilities gap.

We should have been able to anticipate

this surprise attack, but we didn't.

So the U.S. is now at w*r.

But privately, the government realizes

that to even stand a chance of victory,

they need to seriously up their spy game.

So the government sets up

the office of strategic services,

a.k.a. The oss, under the leadership

of someone named wild bill Donovan.

Now, a lot of people in the military

view bill Donovan with suspicion at best

and contempt at worst.

He's a former corporate

lawyer and a failed politician.

And he left the army after world w*r I

and is widely seen as unqualified.

To make matters worse, he's

viewed as a publicity seeker,

which is everything that a

secret intelligence leader

should not be.

The military want their own agency,

headed up by their own man.

In 1942, they create the pond.

The idea behind the pond is that it's

more competent, more secure,

and more secret than the wartime oss.

It will report directly to its supporters,

high up in the military.

And it'll operate without restraint.

It's so secret, in fact, that the oss,

the very organization

that will evolve into the CIA,

doesn't know that it exists.

But this new agency needs a leader,

and not just any leader,

but someone prepared to do

anything to get the job done.

Military leaders turned to John grombach

to lead the pond.

Grombach is a olympian.

He's a boxer. He's an army captain.

But above all, grombach

is a fierce patriot.

He's ready to do whatever it takes

to give america the upper hand.

Grombach hates the oss.

In fact, he was a previous

employee of Donovan.

And their relationship did not end well.

So now, grombach will stop at nothing

to outdo his oss rival.

And in 1942, the top-secret

pond becomes active.

The pond is intended to

collect secret intelligence

via a global network of

deep undercover informants

who might not be willing

to deal with the oss.

These could be international

companies, societies,

religious organizations, and well-placed,

high-profile individuals.

A true underground

organization like the pond

doesn't care who it deals with.

It just gets the job done.

One of John grombach's

early plots in the w*r

was working with the Italian mafia.

Grombach approached

lucky Luciano in prison

and pitched him on

the idea that perhaps,

he could have some

of his mafia associates

assassinate Mussolini,

and in exchange,

Luciano would be pardoned

and released from prison.

The idea dies, rather than Mussolini.

The pond's focus shifts

to two new priorities,

gathering vital data on n*zi armaments

and German spy

networks in allied countries.

So first, they need to recruit someone

that's already on the inside.

In the early 1940s, grombach

finds a French doctor

working in n*zi-occupied France.

His name is Marcel petiot,

and among his patients are n*zi officials.

He's able to glean all

sorts of vital information,

the location of m*ssile bases,

n*zi spies operating in the U.S..

Where are they? What are they up to?

The sort of information that

can really help swing the w*r.

Ultimately, it all goes back to grombach.

Doctor petiot is a mine

of n*zi information.

But he has his own dark secrets.

He's happy to be an

informant for the pond.

And yet, he's also a literal serial k*ller.

A very compromising figure to work with,

and yet, the pond feels that

the ends justify the means.

But once the w*r is over,

the doctor is arrested.

He's convicted of 26 murders.

And he pays for his crime

in the most French of ways.

He's whisked off to the guillotine.

After the w*r is won, the pond loses

its clear purpose and

is shut down in 1955.

Its existence is never

officially acknowledged.

Then, in 1982, a

remarkable series of events

exposes its dubious history.

Toward the end of his

life, John grombach gives

his dossiers from the

pond to a private library.

So they hand those over to the CIA.

These papers, they

then stay with the CIA

for about another decade, at which point,

the CIA begins to declassify them.

And that is when we

start to become aware

that the pond ever even existed.

And to this day, much

of what the pond did

is shrouded in secrecy,

especially since the

CIA are still withholding

thousands of grombach's papers.

In 2001, notorious biker

g*ng, the hell's angels,

are deeply involved in criminal activity,

and willing to do anything to protect

their profits, even m*rder.

There's only one way to stop the group.

Go deep undercover.

In October 2001, hell's angels bikers

were responsible for the

death of a mother of six

in mesa, Arizona.

In the following year, they

were involved in a shootout

at a casino in Nevada

that produced three k*lled.

So these are dangerous criminals.

In order to really take down

a group like the hell's angels,

you have to have evidence, right?

You have to have a lot of it.

And the best way to do

that is from the inside.

But that is pretty close to impossible.

And if they find out that you

are not who you say you are,

you will be tortured

and you will be k*lled.

In 2002, a nomad biker g*ng in Tijuana,

called the solo Angeles,

applies to join the Arizona hell's angels.

A nomad biker g*ng is

unique because these

are gangs that are not

tied to any specific territory.

They're kind of on their own

and can apply to join larger chapters.

The solo Angeles are

headed up by a g*n runner

and debt collector named jaybird Davis.

About a year after being introduced

to the hell's angels,

jaybird is invited to roll

with the g*ng to Las Vegas,

where they have to Rumble

with another biker g*ng

called the bandidos.

The leader of the hell's angels tells Jay

to expect blood and to expect violence.

So this is the first opportunity

that jaybird has to prove

himself to the hell's angels.

This is far from easy for jaybird.

He's no criminal and no k*ller.

In fact, he's a government agent.

He's been undercover

with the federal bureau

of alcohol, tobacco,

and firearms for 15 years.

And he's never been

involved in anything like this.

Jay is at the crossroads

during this journey to Vegas.

He runs the risk of

having to k*ll someone,

or this entire g*ng finding out who he is.

He could blow his cover

and cost himself his life,

all in one trip to Las Vegas.

He actually finds a point in time where

he can pull over and use his phone

and let the A*F know what the plan is

so that the A*F can

round up the bandidos.

As a result of all of

this, the hell's angels

arrive in Vegas fully expecting

this Rumble with the bandidos.

And there's no bandidos there.

This has been a success for him.

He's been able to maintain his cover

without having to k*ll anyone.

In Vegas, Jay's quick thinking saves him,

but it's not over yet.

There's a lot of rumors going around.

And the hell's angels is starting

to really question who Jay is.

Jay has made incredible progress

to gain the trust of the hell's angels,

but he's still not being

accepted as an insider.

So he has to do something significant.

- Hey, how are you?

- Good, good.

To earn the respect of the hell's angels,

Jay presents a photo.

It's a photo of a dead biker

with his brains blown out.

And that biker is wearing the colors

of the mongols, the arch

rival to the hell's angels.

And Jay claims to

have been the one who

m*rder*d this biker in

order to earn his right

into the hell's angels.

But Jay does not really

have blood on his hands,

at least not human blood.

This picture is a staged picture.

We're creating the illusion

that the victim of our hit

was hit over the head with

a baseball bat with his hands

behind his back, shots to the head.

This is actually a local

police officer dressed up

in the clothing, with pig

organs and fake blood,

to make it seem that he had been k*lled.

The photograph of the fake dead biker

gives him street credibility.

That brings him into their inner circle.

And that gives him

access to what he needs,

so that the government can build

an airtight case against them.

The A*F bureau calls a halt

to the operation in 2003.

But the final reckoning

does not go to plan.

Jay's work against the hell's angels

led to one of the largest take downs ever

by the bureau of alcohol,

tobacco, and firearms.

They collected a hundred

thousand phone calls,

800 hours of bugged conversation,

8,500 incriminating documents.

But the prosecution's

case suffers over worries

that presenting all the evidence

could jeopardize other A*F investigations.

Some of those members

plead to lesser charges,

which resulted in jail time.

But other charges were

dismissed altogether,

which put those members

back on the street with the

hell's angels, with an opportunity to look

for the very same

person who had put them

in court in the first place.

Jay survived his time in the g*ng.

But now, both he and

his family are in danger.

After the trial, dobyns and his family

were given new identities.

But then the A*F revoked

that, five years later.

So he lives in the open.

There have been two

attempts against his life.

And to this day, he lives in fear.

One of the most feared

and respected spy

agencies operating

today is Israel's Mossad.

It's known for taking on daring missions,

including one that took

place in Sudan in the 1980s.

As a result of the Ethiopian civil w*r

and the famine that was

produced as a consequence

of it, Ethiopian Jews by the thousands

fled Ethiopia into Sudan.

Some 600,000 Ethiopian

refugees flee to Sudan,

including at least 16,000 Jews.

Sudan is still a third-world country.

So the refugee camps,

they've got disease.

They're overcrowded.

The Israelis believe that

the Ethiopian Jews were

actually one of the lost tribes of Israel

that were exiled from the holy

land thousands of years before,

and were now ripe

to return back to Israel

and reconnect with their people.

But Sudan is an islamist country

and hostile to judaism.

So the problem for the

Ethiopian Jewish refugees

is that in Sudan, they're not safe.

They are actively being hunted

and they are a target for k*lling.

So Israel has to find a way to exfiltrate

their Jews out of the

refugee camps in Sudan

and smuggle them to Israel.

The Sudanese government won't help.

Time for Mossad to come up with a plan.

Mossad identifies an officer, Dani limor,

to go to Sudan, to try to find a way

to bring these Ethiopian

Jews back to Israel.

Well, he knew from the start

that he needed something

on the sea because these

evacuations would have

to start on the coastline.

The ratline would lead them

over water, directly to Israel.

So he starts shopping for a location,

when he finds the perfect cover story

in the form of this

abandoned Italian dive resort,

right on the water's edge.

It was almost a turnkey project for him

because he could move in and

occupy the existing structures,

and people would be

attracted to that resort,

and he could use it as a cover story

to evacuate Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

So he does a deal

where he's able to lease

the resort for a quarter million dollars,

using Mossad's funds.

Mossad rebuilt the resort at arous

to turn it into a functioning

vacation destination

that Europeans would want to go to

and that the Sudanese government

would not want to interfere with.

Mossad would use the

resort as a cover story

to slowly and secretly

exfiltrate Ethiopian Jews.

During the day, the plan is

for Mossad to host guests.

Then at night, they will drive

over 500 miles to collect the refugees.

A two-night truck

convoy will then take them

to the coast, where Israeli

special forces will ferry them

via zodiac dinghies to

a naval ship offshore,

bound for Israel.

The mission is highly classified.

All involved are well

aware of the mortal danger

that they face, not only to themselves,

but all the fleeing refugees.

Mossad agents are

convinced that anyone

who's uncovered

participating in the operation

could be hanged in Khartoum.

By day, arous is a luxury resort.

By night, it's a Mossad escape route.

The refugee camps that were

holding the Ethiopian Jews

were about 500 miles from the coastline.

But under cover of darkness,

the actual agents on the resort

would go to the refugee camps,

and literally wake up the Ethiopian Jews

to smuggle them by truck.

And then by night, they

take the refugees out,

and deliver them to the Israeli Navy,

who then takes them back to Israel.

The rescue resort operates

for more than two years.

A thousand refugees

escape to a new future in Israel

until political chaos in Sudan

makes it impossible

to continue the mission.

The scuba diving

tourists wake one morning

to find that the entire senior

staff have deserted them.

The mission stays secret

for more than 20 years,

until a British journalist hears rumors

that lead to Dani limor.

And limor, feeling comfortable

that enough time had passed,

reveals details about

the way that the Mossad

operated a fake dive resort.

This is why Mossad has

the reputation that it has,

because it is willing to rebuild a resort,

to smuggle Jews across

500 miles of desert,

to take them back to Israel.

The scale of this operation

is absolutely mind boggling.

Going deep undercover

brings with it terrible risks.

No surprise that the

people in the shadows

often choose to stay there.

But when secret files are opened,

they can reveal stories

of incredible ingenuity

and courage.