When does someone turn into a super villain? Let's talk about Carlos the Jackal - part serial killer, part terrorist, full guy who just wants to make a mess. We'll walk through his childhood in South America and his adulthood in literally any organization that needed a murderer.
When does someone turn into a super villain? Let's talk about Carlos the Jackal - part serial killer, part terrorist, full guy who just wants to make a mess.
We'll walk through his childhood in South America and his adulthood in literally any organization that needed a murderer.
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
NFL trying to expand globally with exhibition games in Europe
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA096.
>> Farz: And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you.
>> Taylor: Boom.
>> Farz: We are back. Can you believe the Patriots won?
>> Taylor: I was gonna say that. Or something similar to that, which is fine. I think next year, the Bears are gonna play in Madrid, and my dad wants to go, and that'd be fun because they. A lot of the teams play exhibition games in Europe. That'd be dope.
>> Farz: I don't think those are exhibition games. I think they're actual.
>> Taylor: Are they real games?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: I can't wait.
>> Farz: Yeah. Yeah. The NFL's attempt to, like, expand globally. They're like, listen, we're gonna. We're gonna turn this thing around, and we're gonna overtake soccer in England. It's like, I don't think that's gonna happen.
>> Taylor: No, they're absolutely not going to do that. But it's. It is fun. Like, I saw the super bowl when I lived in. When I was studying Brad in Italy, like, in the middle of the night at a bar, and that was super fun.
>> Farz: That's fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Doomed to Fail brings you historical disasters and failures like the Patriots
Into it. Well, why don't you go ahead and introduce us?
>> Taylor: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Doomed to Fail. We bring you historical disasters and failures like the Patriots. And my name is Taylor, joined by fars.
>> Farz: We just said the Patriots won.
>> Taylor: I know, but I. But I. I feel like. I don't. I don't feel like the Patriots deserve, like, a comeback kid story now that I've gone through your, like, oh, they have a nice coach now. I don't know.
>> Farz: You don't want to see Ted Lasso win?
>> Taylor: I guess. I don't know. I stopped watching Ted Lasso for, like, the second season because I was like, this is a little much.
>> Farz: I only have seen, like, three episodes, and I thought it was cute, but that's as far as I got. You know me.
>> Taylor: I can't.
>> Farz: I can't keep up with things. Like, it's. My mind just doesn't do that very well.
>> Taylor: All six episodes of Heat of Rivalry are available for you right now.
>> Farz: I'm not gonna watch it.
>> Taylor: Oh, God, it's so good. Did Rachel.
>> Farz: I don't want to. No, no. I don't want to see a love story. Like, that's not interesting to me.
>> Taylor: It's so good. Oh, my God. So much more than that. Keep going. You go.
This story touches on your story from last week
>> Farz: Okay. I have a very, very fun story today. This is the. I was. I started going, like, picking this topic or I started thinking about this topic, and the more I went into, the more I was like, this. This is, like, in. So insane. And, like, you can't believe this guy's real. Like, it actually touches a little bit on your. Like, it touches on your story from last week, only in the sense that this person lived, like, an insane, insane life in. In this case, in a pretty short period of time. So I'm gonna cover this individual. Very interesting, very confusing.
Two movies are based on a book about a freelance serial killer
And I'm gonna start by telling you where, you know, I got the inspiration, which was two movies that are based on a book. The book is called the Day of the Jackal. The movie is called the Day of the Jackal from 1973. And then you have the movie the Jackal that came out in 1997, which is kind of like a rough remake of the original starring Bruce Willis and Richard Gere. Have you seen any of these?
>> Taylor: No.
>> Farz: My dad showed me the Day of the Jackal back when I was a kid, and it scared me because the guy was an absolute sociopath. And I was like, why'd you show this fame.
>> Taylor: Ah, parents. It's our. It's their. It's our job to have your kids watch a movie that ruins our life. Yeah.
>> Farz: So the movies basically focus on a freelance serial killer, like a mercenary serial killer type person. He's kind of like a black ops operational guy, but one that does it for money rather than country, basically. And for the longest time, I thought the movies were based on a real guy. I thought, like, there was an inspiration for, because I heard there were some true story elements to it. Then I got deeper into the research here, and then I realized that the real guy got the name the Jackal because some journalists, after there was, like, a raid in his place, his house or whatever, they found the book the Day of the Jackal, and they gave him the nickname the Jackal. So that's how that kind of came about. So it was, like a little bit inverse, but, like, he's basically this guy. He's basically the guy from the movies.
>> Taylor: So under covering the book, the book isn't about him.
>> Farz: It's not about him, but he basically, like, he was doing what he was doing. And then the book came out in the middle of his exploits, but it wasn't really about him, but he basically became this guy.
>> Taylor: He was really inspired by it. He was already doing it.
>> Farz: He was already doing it? Yeah, he was already doing it. Yeah, he was already doing it, and nobody knew who he really was. When this book came out again, this guy Was underground, undercovered all that stuff. Somebody just wrote this political serial killer mercenary book, and then somebody found it in his possession. Like, oh, oh, wait, this guy is literally this Jackal guy.
>> Taylor: Got it. So, like, if I was reading a Batman comic while also being vigilante, you might call me Batman.
>> Farz: Exactly.
>> Taylor: Got it.
>> Farz: I would. I definitely would. So I'm gonna cover this guy. His name's Carlos the Jackal. And I'm gonna do it in a little bit of a weird fashion, so stay tuned for that. And this one was hard for me to cover, to research for several reasons. One is that his real life activities are just so preposterously insane. The amount of carnage this guy caused, it's kind of hard to comprehend it in, like, a modern context. And this guy just, like, was able to do what he was doing because we're surveilled everywhere, right? We're tracked everywhere. We're surveilled everywhere. It's like, it's almost impossible. Like, wait, how. How did this happen? And nobody seemed to care for a long time. And after I did all my research, I still don't totally know, like, what he was all about, like, what drove him to do the things that he did. It's kind of confusing in terms, like the steps that he would take to. To go through. Go through his activities. I started out this research thinking this guy was kind of like a badass, fighting for his beliefs and his values. And by the end of it, I was asking Chad GPT to figure out what this guy actually believed in and why he did the things he did.
>> Taylor: So, like, maybe. Maybe he was just crazy.
>> Farz: Maybe he was just crazy. Maybe he was, like, incredibly talented in this one thing, which was blowing up a shitload of people all the time and killing a bunch of others with guns. Like, I don't know. I. I don't know. It's hard. It's hard to figure this out. The last part that made this hard is, again, I've talked about this before. I kind of hate covering, like, murder stories at this point because it's always the exact same thing. It's like, and then he broke in, then he strangled her, and then he killed her, and then he buried her body. It's like this exact same thing over over again. And the repetition at the point where it, like, loses meaning and parts of the story feel like that. So I'm going to, like, gloss over some stuff because I can't. How many times can I say, and then he killed someone or blow. Blew up, whatever. Like, I. I'LL hit the high notes, but I'm not going to go into, like, the repetition of it.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: So it's just story after story of violent terrorist acts and eventually, you know, they just kind of bleed into each other. So we're just going to dive straight into it. One other thing I want to do that's kind of unique about this one is I'm going to tell a story within the framework of my own, like, understanding of when I think that, like, his reason for doing things is shifting and changing. I'm going to punctuate those in my narrative as a narrative shift. I'm going to call those out and I'll be telling part of the story that involves his activities, which I don't understand in the context of his previous activities. So, like, we can kind of like, all align in terms of, like, why, why would you do this? Why would you go about this action? Like, are you just a crazy serial killer or are you an ideologue? I can't tell.
Carlos the Jackal was born in Venezuela in 1949
So let's get into it. Who was Carlos the Jackal? So Carlos was born in Venezuela in 1949. He was born to parents who came up during a chaotic time in Venezuela's history, which, like, has always been chaotic.
>> Taylor: I know, I'm like, when? When was it? Not know.
>> Farz: I know. So real quick history lesson, just super briefly, just because I'm trying to paint a picture of, like, his ideology that might help us understand why he was the person he was. So from 1908 to 1935, Venezuela was ruled by this military dictator and that guy, his name's Juan Gomez, he led a bunch of US oil companies come in and extract oil and generate a ton of wealth for basically Juan Gomez, like, it was. That was it. Like all the oil that was the main thing from, for Venezuela went into his pockets and his coffers. None of that went down to, like, everyday people. So obviously I researched a lot around, like, when Marxist Marxism in general comes into play within cultures. And like, this tends to be it. This tends to be like, where like 90 of your population is like, starving and can't feed their kids. And then like, you're super fine and you're doing great up there. From here on, I just want to be like, super deliberate about the terminology I use. So just so everybody knows I'm not throwing out around language willy nilly. I actually went super into the weeds about this because it's super confusing. There are actual distinctions between Marxism, socialism and communism. So, like, we use those words so interchangeably in, in modern life. But like, to understand what drives somebody to this kind of ideology, like, it's important to, like, actually understand, like, what the conditions were and then what the ideology was offering. So we'll start on the Marxism front. So it comes in many different stripes. And the fact that a huge class disparity results in Marxist rule is mostly what's relevant about what was going on in Venezuela during this time and basically provided the grounds for socialism, which is the implementation of Marxism, to take place in Venezuela because of this disparity between the wealth. In this case, the version that came out of it was called. It was democratic socialism under the political. Under the political party known as Democratic Action. That's the actual political party that rose up after Juan Gomez. Gomez stepped down in power. Actually, he died. This was like a tame version of Marxism. And it was in. In power until 1949 in Venezuela when the Communist Party, which was the radical version of Marxism, took over the country. So democratic socialism is kind of like the. What we see today. That's kind of just like, hey, let's. Like, it's what you've said before, which is like, what was your framing of it? It's like, nobody should be poor or something.
>> Taylor: Like I was saying, the capitalism is like, anyone can be rich. And then like, democrat socialism is. Anyone can be rich, but nobody should be poor.
>> Farz: That's what it was.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: That in this context was like the initial stepping stone to the Communist Party, which, like, it's. It's not that. It's like snitch on your neighbors, kill them, you know, like, it's. It's whatever, like, you get it. And those people were just absolutely nuts. Those are the version of Marxists that were saying if somebody has a different belief in us as a collective, we should just off them and kill them. And that's a lot of what was going on. This was like the Stalinization of. Of Marxism, basically.
>> Taylor: Right. It's not like Soviet. We're not talking like Soviet Russia, you know? Yeah. Like you are now.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
>> Taylor: That.
>> Farz: That. That is Soviet. That is actually like, that. That's the end state that they would get to.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Farz: So here's the narrative shift part. Carlos's dad was one of these guys. Carlos's dad wasn't like the democratic socialist side. He was the Communist Party side of this. For context, Carlos isn't even Carlos Jackal real name. His real name is Elich Ramirez Sanchez. Do you have any idea where the name Elich came from? Okay. It came from a guy named Vladimir Elite Lenin.
>> Taylor: Oh, there you go, can you guess what?
>> Farz: Carlos is good.
>> Taylor: Sorry, his dad named him that. Well, obviously they didn't name him Carlos the Jekyll, but like, they.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, they named him Elite. Yeah, yeah. Can you guess what their. The dad also named his two siblings Marks and Stalin, Lenin and Vladimir. So the family. The siblings were Vladimir Elich Lennon of.
>> Taylor: A little Venezuelan Vladimir.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah. So apparently his poor mother was like, can we please name these kids something normal? And dad was like, no, h*** no. We gotta. We gotta build cartoon character villains here. Like, it's like, it's insane.
>> Taylor: For real.
>> Farz: And also, I'm just going to call him Carlos because, I mean, it's a Nick. It's a nickname that he was given later on in life, but it's just easier to remember.
Carlos was basically brought up by his father to be a revolutionary
>> Taylor: What was his first name when he was born?
>> Farz: Elich.
>> Taylor: His first name was Elise.
>> Farz: Okay, yeah, yeah. So Carlos was basically brought up by his father to be a revolutionary. Like, that's basically. Again, think about the timelines. He was born in 40, 48, 49, and his dad came up in this time period where. Where you had the huge class disparities that led to democratic socialism. And then someone like him are like, this isn't enough. We need to go further into it. And there was enough time there to kind of build up into the Communist Party. So he literally raised his kid to be like a revolutionary. He would join the Communist Party, he would attend events aligned with his dad's political beliefs. And for summer camp, he was sent to Havana to a place called Camp Matanas, whatever, which was literally a training camp for guerrilla warfare. They taught them how to rig IUDs and like, like insane. Like they said, a kid there.
>> Taylor: Typical kid stuff. I know there's so many. Like, whenever I see an. I very, very obviously don't know a lot about what's going on, like in Africa and in Ever. But like, you know, there's all those videos of like, kids with like, machine guns, like, being trained to do these things. And you're like, geez, just. I wish every kid could just be a kid for like four seconds, you know, Calm down.
>> Farz: Yeah, for real.
>> Taylor: Very good. Is he done, like a lot of notches?
>> Farz: So during this time, during all this, as all this is going on, Carlos's poor mother was like, can we please raise these kids to be normal? But that was obviously, h*** no. Of course not. And so she ends up divorcing the dad and trying to take Carlos. So sorry. The mom divorces the dad and tries to take Carlos and the siblings to London to study at a normal college and get a normal education. Then the dad somehow wrenched his way in there and sent him to university in Moscow.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: So, yeah, still, that's interesting that they. So whatever he was doing in Venice.
>> Farz: The mom was undoing.
>> Taylor: Well, the mom was undoing, but also the dad was like making enough money and like on that side of it to be able to do these things, you know, like a lot of we hear these stories, you know, like Bin Laden going to school in Europe. You know, like went to school in Europe. Like, that's just stuff like that as.
>> Farz: Yeah. So regardless, Carlos didn't last this university very long. He was expelled in 1970. I tried to research it. I have no idea why he got expelled.
>> Taylor: Did he speak Russian?
>> Farz: I don't know. I don't know. You'd presume he would, but I don't know. So here's a little bit of a narrative shift. So after he was expelled, he went to Beirut, Lebanon to take part in training for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and took up arms fighting Israel.
>> Taylor: And those are the people that did the. The Olympic.
>> Farz: I think so. I think they were. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is, it's. It's going to be called the P. It's the pflp. That's what I'm going to refer to it from here on out. Like, again, narrative shift. Like, why this it. In my mind, I'm like, it's dovetailing with something that's like anti imperial or something. It has nothing to do with like farmers not having food. Like, yeah, disconnect.
>> Taylor: I'm imagining that he was just taught all this violence and then with like the right person it'd be like, well, I want to do all this, like violence or other things, not. Not just because you were saying, like you're trying to find an ideological thread and you can't find one. You know, so just like I imagine that like his, his childhood was, you know, drilled into him to be violent. And it was like.
>> Farz: It was kind of reminds me of Rambo where they were like. It was kind of like he was looking for the fight.
>> Taylor: Reminds me of Peacemaker. Have you watching. Are you watching Peacemaker? No, with John Cena. It's good. The second season is out now we're watching it and there is like a alternate universe scenario, but in his universe, the one that you watch, like, he is like very much like abused by his dad and like made to be like a very violent character. And he's like. His character is Like, I want peace and I don't care who I have to kill to be able to do it. You know, you're like, okay, that feels, you know, it's supposed to be a thing.
>> Farz: Well, it introduces or like actually like punctuates the fact that like there's so many layers to what people do and why they do them.
The Palestinian Liberation Party was considered a Marxist Leninist organization
But so a little bit of context about the pflp. Because again, this kind of breaks our modern understanding of like a Palestinian cause it wasn't a Muslim organization, we would see it in modern times. It's not related to the liberation of Palestine specifically. It was considered a Marxist Leninist organization. And again, just be super clear about terminology here. Marxist Leninism is basically the only version of communism that we've ever experienced in the world. It's been the practical application of Marxism. And like, it's kind of the reason why communism has never worked out is because by the time you get the implementation of Marxism, you're Marxist Leninism. And at that point human greed gets in the way and you can never actually realize it. Basically. Yeah, but that's, that's the, that's kind of the underlying ideology. The PFLP operated all over the globe with many different cells who were constantly battling between being caught and doing like this insane stuff that they were planning. They basically like operated kind of like a mini version of like a, I don't know, like it was like an intelligence community, almost like a spy agency with no country essentially. As an example of that, Carlos had his own PFL handler. So there was a guy named Michel Mobile. And the whole point of that was that rank and file people wouldn't know who Carlos was or who the other high level operators within the PFLP were, or that he even existed. He just dealt with Michelle on logistics and to facilitate connections to various cells when they were trying to plan to do some insane thing. That was the entire idea behind it. In that sense, it kind of operates the way like the CIA would operate where it's like they just had a handler. You go there, you get some information, you move on, that kind of thing.
>> Taylor: I think sometimes someone just shows up and they're like, can I help?
>> Farz: And they're like, okay, yeah, yeah, 100%. So in 1973, he attempted his first targeted assassination by going to the London home of the leader of the British Zionist Federation. He found him in his bathtub and shot him in the face. Apparently the shot went between his nose and his mouth, so it like knocked out the front of his mouth. And yeah, and it knocked him unconscious and the gun jammed and he thought he was dead anyways. He shot him in the face and the gun jammed anyway, so he just fled. The guy survived. He was knocked unconscious. He just like. Yeah, like crazy. I can't believe you. He actually lived through that. And what kind of a life did he live after that?
>> Taylor: Yikes. Yeah, it seems easy to kill someone in a bathtub. I want to be a dad.
>> Farz: You would think so.
>> Taylor: I don't know. Named differently.
>> Farz: Yeah. So that same year, he was responsible for car bombing several newspapers who the PFLP deemed as having pro Israel positions. And then we get to 1973. This is insane. I can't, like. So he took part in a coordinated effort with other groups to attack France's embassy in the Hague. Whoa. Yeah. So one takeaway from my research here. Anyone who thinks that the world was topsy tur is topsy turvy. Now. Could you imagine that?
>> Taylor: You.
>> Farz: You walk into an embassy and just start firing machine. I'm going to end the story. Like, this isn't.
>> Taylor: No, I mean, it's never. What we are learning is that it's never been okay. And it's oftentimes been worse than we ever thought. I don't know what to do with that.
>> Farz: So much worse.
>> Taylor: But, like, that's what. That's our, like, thesis statement. I think when this is all over.
>> Farz: Dude, literally from the. Again, if I were to go through every one of these, which I'm not going to, it's like 1970s, 1980s there. I'm gonna. I'm gonna stop. You're not gonna totally get what I'm saying here until I go to the story. You're gonna see this. So basically, this was a coordinated effort between the pflp, which Carlos had organized, and the Japanese Red army militant troop attempting to overthrow the Japanese government and start a world revolution. This is where the story kind of turns into Air Force One with Harrison Ford. Remember that?
>> Taylor: Remember there was a learned question that was like, what does he say? Like, get off my plane or something? And that was the answer.
>> Farz: Yeah. So the Japanese army was basically p***** because years earlier, France had arrested one of their leaders, this guy named Yataka, on attempted murder and weapon charges. They, in collaboration with the pflp, launched an attack on the embassy and took hostages in exchange for the release of this guy and a bunch of money. That was basically the deal. So that's where it's like Air Force One, where they're like. They're like, we're gonna. They just did that because they're trying to release their one leader or whatever. This siege and the ensuing negotiations would end up lasting about three days, in the middle of which Carlos went to a cafe in Paris, which was a symbolic location in this case, because with the heart of France was right on the Champs Elysees. It was full of journalists and elites and glitterati people and all that stuff. And then he threw a grenade inside of this cafe. By the way, the hostage situation is happening in the Hague, right? He's doing this in Paris.
>> Taylor: Like, do you remember a couple, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago, but they're. Someone shot up that cafe in Paris, like, similarly, like a terrorist.
>> Farz: There's so many of those that went on in Paris that time. I can't. It's hard. They kind of blended in together also.
The Hague is where the International Court of Criminal justice is based
>> Taylor: Can you just pause and tell me what the Hague is again? It's like. It's like. It feels like a mythical place.
>> Farz: The Hague is a city. I had to research this because I was like, I thought the Hague was a building, right? It's not a building. It is a city. It is called capital T. The Hague.
>> Taylor: And it is in what country it's in.
>> Farz: I think it's the Netherlands.
>> Taylor: That's okay. That's what I thought too. So it's in the Netherlands, but it's also like a neutral place where things.
>> Farz: Happen, where the International Court of Criminal justice is based and all that. Yeah.
>> Taylor: Okay. Thank you.
>> Farz: Yeah. So in this attack on this cafe, none of these people had anything to do with the Japanese Red army, the Hague? Nothing. They're just like random people who are probably on vacation, having a coffee, croissant and croissant.
>> Taylor: God d*** it.
>> Farz: This action killed two people and maimed 34 others, many of which were children. And the point of all this was to show France mid negotiation that the Japanese. That with the Japanese army, that this attack on the. In the Hague at their embassy doesn't have to be an isolated attack. So as you're negotiating, don't overplay your hand, because there's cells operating everywhere that can do other things. So give these guys what they're looking for. And this is kind of the point, like, the narrative shift wise, where I don't see him as like an ideological freedom fighter. He's just like, kind of indiscriminately killing random people. Like, he's not like.
>> Taylor: He's like, who will let me do this? Who will let me do this thing that I want to do?
>> Farz: Right. I trained for this when I was 13 at a summer camp. Like, come on.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I need to go and do this. I don't care where who is. So who's financing him? At this point, it's the Palestinian liberation folks.
>> Farz: Yeah. So all of that is a crazy tank. We're going to talk about that because it is coming again. The world was insane. So France agreed to release this Japanese Red army leader along with about $300,000 in cash, and provide a flight out of the country for the terrorists involved in this. In the end, the Japanese Red army folks were mostly captured. Some of them were captured 20 years later like it wasn't like a quick thing. And some of them are still large, so probably dead at this point, but still large. A year later, Carlos would attempt to shoot down an Israeli commercial airplane at a Paris airport. It's not Charles de Gaulle, it's another one. I can't remember the name of it exactly. He was using a rocker propelled grenade launcher to take this plane down. He failed at that. But he did take down a random Yugoslavian passenger plane. It's just like. It's insane.
>> Taylor: It's like I feel like it was his personal grenade launcher, you know?
>> Farz: Anyways, yeah, unbelievable.
Carlos killed Michelle in 1975 after being approached by French intelligence agents
Little bit of a narrative shift here. So we're four months after this fact. Carlos is at a house party in Paris where he is approached by two guys who are not in any sort of uniform. And they were just. They just started kind of asking him very specific questions. We don't know the exact conversation they had. I dug a lot into trying to figure out what the conversation was, but by all implications, they were implying knowing about some of his associations, his movements, where he's been and generally got. He got the impression they were trying to probe and verify who he was. Essentially, to make matters worse, Carlos. To make matters worse. Worse for Carlos, Michelle, his handler, the guy I mentioned earlier, he was also at this party. Just before this party had happened, Michelle was arrested by what's called the dst, which is a French version of the CIA. And nobody knows what Michelle did or didn't say about Carlos, but Carlos, together, from the line of question these two guys were doing in Michelle's presence, that these guys were DST and that Michelle had talked and given him up, essentially. And he's right. The guys were dst. They actually were. They were from this intelligence agency from France. Again for this next part, remember, he's at a house party in someone's apartment in the middle of France. What ended up happening was in that moment, he immediately drew his firearm, shot both of the officers, no hesitation, and then turned and killed Michelle as well. And then fled. Left the apartment on a presumably a pre planned escape route from Paris to Brussels, eventually to Beirut. It's kind of a super villain territory.
>> Taylor: That was wild and like to. How to. I feel like some of it you feel especially desensitized because of movies where it's so easy to kill someone, you know, but like that is a lot. And a very quick decision to be like, I'm gonna pull up my gun, kill these two people who I think who are coming to get me and then kill Michelle, someone who I trusted yesterday because I think that they told on me. And then leave, like you said in the preplanic sleep route. Like that's a lot of work and a lot of like, you have to. You have to. You can not. Not anyone could do that.
>> Farz: This is like James Bond s***. If James Bond was like a villain.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: It's incredible. So in retrospect, history looks at the killing of Michelle as basically like an operational cleanup by Carlos. The most likely thing is that Michelle didn't actually betray Carlos. The DSC and French authorities already knew who he was. By all accounts, he was just killed because Carlos couldn't afford to be uncertain in this moment.
>> Taylor: Right. Because if. If I understand what you're saying, he did it like really fast.
>> Farz: Yeah. Immediately like these guys are asking questions. Michelle's here. Michelle got arrested. I'm gone nuts.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Farz: So from this point on, he knows several things. One is that he's known and that he is therefore wanted. And he just doubles down. And this next part is unbelievable.
>> Taylor: He.
>> Farz: In December of 1975. Dude, these are all happening within the course of like two years. Like this is not like a decade of a life.
>> Taylor: And how old is he?
>> Farz: So 75. He was born in 48. So what is that, 27? Yeah, 27 years old.
>> Taylor: But is the guy the first guy he killed or probably not, or the first guy he tried to kill?
>> Farz: Yeah, probably not. I mean, you don't think that at that camp, that summer camp, they. They strapped a bunch of people who said we should all have food and killed them like they ab.
>> Taylor: They absolutely did. You're 100% right. Yes.
>> Farz: So do you know what OPEC is?
>> Taylor: No.
>> Farz: Okay, so it is, it is. It stands for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. It's basically like an association of these countries that get together and decide on major infrastructure level things and how oil moves and pricing and all that stuff. That's. That's the whole point of it. In 1973. In December of 1975, they're holding their annual meeting at their headquarters in Vienna. Okay, Picture this. You have the financial leaders from Saudi Arabia, uae, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Venezuela, all the oil producing countries, all their most important financial people are in this building. It's basically like Davos. It's like Davos, except if you only focus on oil side of things is what it is. So everybody's every dress, the nines. There's probably, you know, 80 plates of lobster sitting around and caviar and stuff like that.
>> Taylor: Humans.
>> Farz: Humans, yeah. They're using. They're using maids as tables. Yeah, it's one of those. One of those deals.
>> Taylor: Everyone's wearing a mask for some reason.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah. Somehow becomes Eyes Wide Shut. We don't know why. So Carlos and his team of six break in to the headquarters in Vienna immediately. Kill the guards, walk into the conference room where the meeting is being held, start firing their guns into the air. They strap explosives to one side.
Carlos is convinced by the president of Algeria to release hostages
That is where the exit is. And they segment out the people that they consider, like, neutrals or semi friendlies versus enemies. And the enemies, the guys that are from those countries, they have to sit next to the bomb. And then everybody was kind of like a friendly or neutral gets to sit.
>> Taylor: On the other side of the room, the farther away. I was telling my nail lady this. Like, obviously, I'm not cut out for the spy business, but, like, when you get your nails done like I do, you put them underneath a UV lamp. And sometimes it hurts, like, a lot. Like, it burns. Like, it feels like your fingers on fire. And I have to take it out and, like, blow on it and put it back in. But I was telling my nilly, like, I. If someone was torturing me, and they're like, we're gonna pull off your fingernails. I'd be like, I will tell you everything. Do not touch.
>> Farz: Oh, God. Yeah, yeah.
>> Taylor: In like, two seconds. I'd be like, you guys are the best. Can I sit the furthest away from the bomb? That'd be great.
>> Farz: You know what I was thinking? I was watching. You know, I watched a lot of UFC fights. I was watching the one last night. One thing these guys do is they'll stomp on the other guy's feet when they're, like, held up against the cage. And I was sitting there thinking. I was like, my big toe curls up a little bit, and I was like, oh, my God. What if someone did that to me? And then just like, oh, God.
>> Taylor: Oh, my God. That's. That'd be terrible. Be like, if someone just stepped on your feet once, you'd be like, I will tell you literally everything, Anything, anything.
>> Farz: I just start tapping on him. Be like, please stop smashing my feet. So all these people are kind of like, in this room, they're now officially hostages. Carlos demands a bus to take him in the hostages to the airport, where he planned to kidnap most of the hostages, except for the leaders that were Iranian and Saudi Arabian. He told them that he's gonna kill them. Like, that was his. His thing. He was like, you guys gotta go. Everybody else, we're gonna get money for you.
>> Taylor: I wonder if like. Like, we obviously, like, we're are nervous about applying for, like, other reasons, but, like, I should. I told you I watched that one Mayday air disaster recently where it was like, an Ethiopian pilot who'd been, like, hijacked three times.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: You know, like, it was just, like, happening all the time in, like, crazy. Depending on, like, where you are. Like, what part of, like, the world is like, I feel like in this, the time period, like, there's always something happening at an airport where someone's trying to escape with a plane. Like, has it ever worked? Like, what is that? Like, what exactly does that even mean?
>> Farz: Yeah, it's worse. Yeah, it's works a lot. Yeah. The Japanese Red army got away with it. And I'm going to tell you how these guys get away with it too. Like, it definitely worked. So eventually he actually does do this. So they actually do bring a bus. The bus takes him to the airport, he loads up all the hostages onto this airplane, and he actually lands in Tripoli, and then he's on his way to Algeria. He is convinced by the president of Algeria to release the hostages. And he does that about two days later after the hospital, which is when the hostage situation had started. Apparently part of the negotiation was that he couldn't kill the Iranian and Saudi delegation. And Carlos, after he accepted this deal with this, the president of Algeria, he. He apparently had banter. Like, he went up to the delegations that he was supposed to kill and, like, was like, expressed forlorn. Meant that, like, unfortunately, I won't be able to kill you. So. Yeah, like, it was. It was a whole scene. It sounded like on the plane.
>> Taylor: I'm so sorry to tell you that you have. I'm not allowed to kill you.
>> Farz: Well, apparently him killing these guys was like a. Like a directive of the pflp. Like, there was a. You have to.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: So the fact that he didn't. Wasn't able to. That he made this Other deal was like a really bad thing for him and nobody knows for sure why he was so agreeable about releasing these, what the President Algeria really said to him. So there's been some speculation that he was compensated to the tune of $20 million to release the people. So like that was, that's where what the assumptions are, the trade, the bargaining was going on there. So because he failed his mission, the PFL was p***** at him and they were like, you didn't do what you're supposed to do. And we also think he took a bunch of money which is like the most anti Marxist London this thing in the world. $20 million, like not good. Yeah, yeah.
Carlos was expelled from PFLP in 1976
So. So he's basically expelled from PFLP in 1976. So shortly after this he settles in Yemen and set about finding his own organization. And I don't totally know what founding an organization in this context means. It's just like you're looking for a bunch of other maniacs who want a reason to carry a grenade launcher around. I don't. I think, yes, sometimes, yeah, maybe, maybe that, maybe that. So, so he called it the Organization of Armed Struggle and started recruiting rebels. It was around this time he formed a partnership with the Stasi, which was the intelligence arm in East Germany. So this is before the Berlin Wall came down. It was basically, it was KG KGB light. Like it was basically kbgb but just for East Germany. And so ideologically there was some alignment there with Carlos and his past march and Slumist beliefs, all that stuff. So I think that's where that came about. It was also around this time that he met his future wife, a very unfor unfortunate woman named Magdalena Cope. Magdalena was a West German photographer and also the founder of another terrorist cell named the Revolutionary Cell.
>> Taylor: Oh well, they had some stuff in common.
>> Farz: They had some stuff in common. I could do a whole side quest on the. Again, just this story about this one guy. I've named like four or five random terrorist cells that are completely different from organizations that are totally different from each other. Just blowing s*** up and off all the countries.
>> Taylor: Like, you know what was in my local paper the other day is they caught like four people making bombs in a tent in like the middle of the desert. And they like got caught because they like were talking to an FBI person of course, and that that person like was an undercover agent and got them. But I'm like, they came from LA out into the desert to build bombs. I don't even know why, but you're like, they're just like hipsters in their 30s. I'm like, what? What? But like, that's. Yeah, I guess that is always happening again.
>> Farz: Whole side quest on this thing that. That Magdalena Cope founded, Revolutionary Cell. It was just a bunch of bombings, hijackings, like killing. It was. That's basically it. Little bit of narrative shift here. I think this is the point. He basically became a mercenary. I think this is like the point that. That flip is switched. So, for example, in 1981, the President of Romania, who was the one who led Romania through their communist transition, a guy named Nicola Ceausescu, Terrible, terrible human being. Like, he's a whole other thing. The. The torture, cancer that guy was responsible for is obscene. And the fact that nobody seems to care is insane. He paid Carlos to bomb the headquarters in Munich of Radio Free Europe. So that was basically. So it. That. That's basically like an American propaganda thing. So what they were doing was talking about, like freedom and capitalism and anti communist things, and they were trying to funnel that into radios in communist countries. One of the. One of them being Romania. Right. And so that's where the alignment was. And when you asked me earlier about money, like, this is how this stuff happens. Like the president of a country is paying your organization to do these actions. Like, that's where the money comes from. That's how the. The cash flows. But it's like insane to think about today. But, like, that's probably still happening today. Like, I. I don't know, but it definitely is insane. I mean, especially with things like. I mean, with like crypto, like, why wouldn't you do it that way? Like, it's untraceable. Like.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah.
Carlos committed five mass bombings to get his wife released from prison
>> Farz: So after all, after this happened, Magdalena was arrested for very stupid reasons. I'm not going to go into the weeds with. We're already kind of. I've already taken a long time with this.
>> Taylor: What was she a citizen of? Russia?
>> Farz: Germany.
>> Taylor: Germany. Okay. East Germany?
>> Farz: No, West Germany.
>> Taylor: West Germany, okay.
>> Farz: Dude, that is the thing. Nobody. Nobody. The only people who are throwing up arms and complaining are the ones who don't have to live on this s***.
>> Taylor: Like.
>> Farz: Like nobody in East Germany is throwing up arms and saying, let's go fight the West Germans. It's always someone in the West Germany who read some book about poetry and Western philosophy or Eastern philosophy was like, you know what? We should all be communists. Like, that's exactly how this starts.
>> Taylor: I mean, I'm sure there are people in East Germany trying to fight what was going on. But yes, it's not exclusive to that. You're right.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah. They were trying to fight what was happening in East Germany. Germany, yeah. Right, yeah. So, long story short, she gets arrested for again, stupid reasons related to all the terrorist activity that she'd been a part of. And Carlos basically undertook a bombing siege to pressure the government to release her. She ended up getting like a four year prison sentence in total. While she was in prison, he committed fat five mass bombings, killed 12 people, main 207 others. And it worked. They released you after seven months. So good on him. Mission accomplished.
>> Taylor: I guess that's one way to get your wife out of jail.
>> Farz: They also had a little baby. They also a little baby named Elba Rosa Ramirez Cope. So, you know, there you go. At this point, Carlos is getting to the point where like he's not really welcome many places because intelligence communities are kind of like onto him. So they bounced around for a little bit trying to find a country to accept him and his family. They eventually settled in Syria until 1990 when they were expelled from, from Syria and went to Libya. Eventually Libya grew tired of Carlos and he was also expelled from there. At this point, him and Magdalena decided to split and she and their daughter went to live in Venezuela. That's where Magdalena story kind of ends. She basically hung around Venezuela for a little bit until the media figured out who she was married to. At which point her and her daughter fled back to Germany where they basically just lived a quiet life. That, that's her, that's her story.
CIA and French DST joined forces to try to capture Carlos
Carlos, on the other hand, would look around for a country to accept him for another two years. He'd eventually get a limited time exemption to live in Sudan, which is also where the CIA and the French DST joined forces to try and capture him once and for all. They would approach the Sudan Sudanese government with an offer for government and military equipment in exchange for Carlos. When I say the government, it's weird. Sudan's weird. It's like a chieftain tribe thing going on there where like it was this one specific guy who was responsible for this one region who was like this, you're safe here, just paying you a bunch of money until this, until these guys showed up and asked for him. And that was basically it. The government offered all this equipment and this guy accepted. And so they, they let him, let them know where Carlos was so they can go, go and capture him. Carlos would wake up at 3am on August 14, 1994, surrounded by men who would shackle into the bed, tranquilize him and fly him via private jet to Paris. He was tried for various murders and bombings. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Later on, he'd get two more life sentences tacked onto him. He's been. I think he's been in solitary confinement the entire time where. And then, like, he's in. He's in France.
>> Taylor: Okay.
>> Farz: Yeah. And. And like, again, this is the yada yada part of the story where it's like. And then they figured out he killed this person, then they figured out he killed that person, then he bombed this thing, and then he took down this plane. And so he just. He started getting things racked on top of each other in terms of sentences, but he's never getting out of jail.
>> Taylor: And.
>> Farz: Yeah, he's basically been in jail this whole time. He's 76 years old. And again, kind of a narrative shift here. He's also, like, was really into and, like, extolled praise on the Islamic revolution in Iran and also on the September 11 attacks, which I'm like, what ideology is that?
>> Taylor: Right. He just, like, wants to be violent, I feel like.
>> Farz: Yeah. He just wants violence. Like, whatever it is. It's something about, like, bringing down the world order by any means necessary with no consideration of what that means afterwards.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Anyways. Yeah. 76 years old, sitting in prison. Magdalena died. I think I. I didn't mention this. He was actually married two more times while he was still married. Like, his life is, like, insane. Yeah, his life is so insane.
>> Taylor: You don't have to do that.
>> Farz: He was like, 48 years old when he got arrested. He still. Still got. He's been in jail for, I guess, 30 years now.
>> Taylor: It really is wild that, like, there are people just, like, carrying around bombs, you know, I'm, like, doing the stuff somewhere in the world.
>> Farz: Yeah. That was one thing I realized. Researching this, I was like. For something was going on in that 60s to, like, 80s time frame. There were so many of these organizations. Every, every. Everybody I would research connected to this guy. Oh, yeah, he founded this organization that was just bombing the shadow of Germany. And this guy found this organization was bombing the shot of Italy. And this guy, like, it's all, like. It's wild.
>> Taylor: And I wonder if a lot of that has changed into cyber and like, data crimes, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Like now. Now, like, when we were Talking about the FBI's most wanted list, like, a lot of those people are like, Russians wanted for cyber crimes, you know, like, so I wonder if a lot of it is. Because that can technically cause a ton of damage as well. You know what I mean? Like, if you can it depends on.
>> Farz: What it is that you think you're trying to accomplish. Like this, like. Yeah. None of them achieve their real end goals.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Like the Red army, the Japanese group. Like, they were trying to start, like, a worldwide revolution. Like, they were, like, going all in, like. Yeah. Wild stuff.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: So anyways, good, good punctuation point. The love of God, people, stop radicalizing yourselves. Left, right, center. Stop doing it. Just calm down. As bad as you think everything is in your moment in time, you're not a snowflake. It was. It's always chaotic because people are chaotic and things go nuts, I think.
>> Taylor: Yes. And also, it's okay to be freaking out right now because I don't know how you're supposed to do normal stuff and also be aware of what's going on.
>> Farz: Put it within the framework of human history.
>> Taylor: I know, I know. No, I know. And I know that's kind of like what we're trying to do, too, but it still. It feels like a lot. And, like.
The fact that there hasn't been an actual movie made about Carlos the Jackal
I guess. Yeah. That the answer is, like, it's always been a lot. Yeah.
>> Farz: Yeah. If it's not, this is something else. And if it wasn't this, it's always. Yeah. Across the board. Across the board. The fact that there hasn't been an actual movie made about this guy. There was one made. I think it was, like, Venezuela. It was, like, s******* reviews. Like. Like, this is one guy. There's probably, like, thousands of guys like this all across the world that are doing these kinds of things and living these kinds of lives, and we're so centric to our part of the world, and it's like, there's a whole bigger world out there that, like, is also dealing with a lot of stuff, so.
>> Taylor: I know. I mean. Yeah. Like, you. I don't know. Like, I guess at this. This one. Like, there's so much stuff going on that I don't know about. That is terrible. So, so many bad things.
>> Farz: Yeah, there's. And also so many good things. The world is always like that.
>> Taylor: That's true. That's true.
>> Farz: That's my story. Carlos the Jackal. Wild guy. Very, very wild guy.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I hadn't. I hadn't heard about that.
>> Farz: Also, parents don't put your kids in summer camps where they learn how to make grenades. Like, just don't do it.
>> Taylor: Just let kids be kids for, like, a little while, you know? Like, they're gonna find out about this stuff. It's hard. Like, I talk to my kids about hard stuff, you know, But I'm like. But we're but we're very lucky, you know, we. We have a very good everything. So it's hard. Like I was telling my husband, like, it's hard because I have everything I've ever wanted right now. I love my house, I love my friends, I love my family, I love my job. I. Everything. And it's hard to be like, some people don't have everything they ever wanted, so you have to use your privilege to try to help.
>> Farz: Most people don't have everything I ever wanted. The ones who choose gratitude have everything they want. It's a. It's a. I think it's a decision.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Yeah.
Justin emailed him that he really liked it and then wanted to hear more
>> Farz: That being said, Taylor, do we have anything to read off?
>> Taylor: We've got a couple fun. Just people who enjoyed our episode that we did with Juan Carlos and his remind decks. Justin emailed him that he really liked it and then wanted to hear more. And my friend Nicole's listening to it last night and was texting us about it as well. And she said that when she was in elementary school, they put their addresses in balloons and they let them go and, like, hope someone would write back. And no one did, which is like a very 80s thing to do.
>> Farz: I know, I know. It's taking place.
>> Taylor: She was like, oh, hey, I'm a child. Here's my home address. You know, like, what are you doing schools in the 80s also? Did I ever tell you this one? This is just a similar stupid 80s story that when I was in elementary school, they had like a little tiny house and they would bring it to the school parking lot and they would fill it with smoke and you had to get out.
>> Farz: I feel like we did something like that.
>> Taylor: Like, they just would never do that these days. What were they doing?
>> Farz: I know we were more hardy and then the generation before us is more hardy than, you know. It is what it is.
>> Taylor: Yeah. And then, you know, we leave this world to everyone to f*** it up again.
>> Farz: The positivity coming from you is just like, absolutely.
>> Taylor: I had it for a second. You said that really nice thing about gratitude, and then I just, like, remembered the world. Try our best.
>> Farz: Taylor, you gotta turn off social media.
>> Taylor: I mean, you can't. You can't ignore it, but it's. You have to try to survive during it. It's a bit of both.
>> Farz: Cool.
>> Taylor: Well, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. If you have any ideas or want to talk to us, we're@doomedtufflepodmail.com Instagram all the socials @doomedtofellpod and let us know what you think.
>> Farz: Sweet. Thanks. Taylor.
>> Taylor: Thank you.