(audience applauding)
(soft music)
(tense music)
(liquid sloshing)
- It was my belief that the dea was not going to stop
Until they found out who had done this
And how they had gone about it
Because of the simple fact
That they would have to face this problem in the future.
(tense music)
- [reporter] fentanyl usage is skyrocketing
Across the country.
More than 77,000 overdoses last year alone.
(sirens blaring)
- There's a lot of gold at the end of this rainbow
And I knew that if indeed we stop,
Someone else would pursue it.
(bomb booms) - a vast fentanyl
Distribution network, part of an unnamed
International drug cartel.
Many of the chemicals coming from china.
- They're manufacturing fentanyl 24/7.
- It's gonna continue to get worse
As long as the demand is there.
- [george erik] so,
We might as well make hay while the sun shines.
(tense upbeat music)
(car door thuds)
(tense music)
- I'm john roberts
And this is,
"the godfather of fentanyl."
(liquid sloshing)
(tense music)
(numbers rolling)
(liquid sloshing)
- [george] towards the fall of '92,
Not too long after we moved into the industrial park
And set up prairie lab,
We saturated the market.
(tense music)
Moscatiello and martier were actually uncertain
That they could sell more fentanyl.
Moscatiello was distraught,
Apparently under quite a lot of pressure
And claimed to be of course, running way low on money.
I was pissed off.
Shit, you know.
It requires a continuous investment of funds
To keep an operation like this going.
(tense music)
- By late November 1992, more than a year and a half
Since fentanyl first hit the streets of new york city,
Law enforcement has finally identified
The three key players in the drug operation.
Boston mobster, christopher moscatiello, joseph martier,
And george erik marquardt, aka, squeak.
They flipped another boston mobster, michael murray,
As an informant
And they're using his friendship with moscatiello
To try to find the location
Of the fentanyl lab.
(tense music)
- These guys were dangerous.
We know moscatiello's motivation was greed.
Remember, this is the same individual
Who callously calculated
That he made $6,000 on each of the overdose deaths.
- [reporter] emergency rooms are seeing more overdoses
Than ever before.
- [reporter] officials fear an epidemic of drug overdoses.
- So with money being the primary motivating factor,
The opportunity presented itself
To introduce an undercover agent to moscatiello,
To pretend to help them distribute
Whatever product they had on hand
Or would they be interested in a swap,
Maybe some fentanyl for cocaine.
(intense music)
So we get an undercover agent
For the sole purpose of meeting moscatiello.
(intense music)
- My name is german blanco.
I was a special agent
With the drug enforcement administration
And I was the undercover agent in the investigation
Of christopher moscatiello.
I grew up in the city of medellin in columbia
At the time when pablo escobar came to power
With the medellin cartel.
- [reporter] colombia's drug lords declared war
On the government.
- [reporter] with medellin, judges who rule against
The drug cartel usually turn up dead.
- Just growing up in that atmosphere,
It made me sick how the drug affected the community.
- [reporter] a bomb attack on a police bus
In medellin killed five officers and wounded 16 others.
- Luckily, my mother who's able to get a visa
And brought us into new york city and that's where I landed.
I landed in new york city in brooklyn.
(intense music)
I was the first colombian-born agent to be hired by dea
And my primary role was to investigate
Cartels coming out of colombia.
(guns firing)
So I was working with dea about two years.
One day I get a call from my supervisor
And he said, "there's a case in boston
That I want you to go out, fly up there and go help out."
I asked him, "what type of drug am I dealing with?"
And he said, "fentanyl."
And I said, "let's do it."
(tense music)
- We've had 18 months
Of distributing fentanyl successfully,
But after a while I really wanted to phase out
The fentanyl business.
I was just dissatisfied by the difficulties
In getting paid.
But, by that time,
I also thought it was the least of my concerns.
(tense music)
(liquid sloshing)
I found out martier had been using fentanyl recreationally.
I thought it was none of my business whether he did or not,
But I guess I should have known better.
(tense music)
Anyway, martier had come down
To pick up another batch of fentanyl.
I found him in the bathroom of the prairie lab.
He was sitting upright right next to the bowl,
Eyes wide open, nobody home.
Goddamn dirty, fucking low-life sub-human
Shit-eating dog junkie.
(tense music)
I could have let him just die.
Those thoughts all went through my mind,
But his family knew where he was...
And he doesn't come back?
Policemen are not stupid.
Homicide investigators are very determined
And you know, of course, I've got this big laboratory.
(tense music)
I tried to revive him,
That wasn't working,
So I called the emergency medical people.
(sirens blaring)
Later, he asked me, "what do you think's gonna happen?"
And I said, "I think we're gonna get busted."
(sirens blaring)
I think that this incident will be noted by the authorities
And they'll come for us,
But it really doesn't make any difference now,
It's all out of our hands,
So we might as well make hay while the sun shines
And prepare for your own funeral because it's coming.
(tense music)
- When I got to boston,
They brought me into the boston field division,
My first time there,
And then I was introduced to gerry graves.
- [john] agent graves fills agent blanco in on the details
Of the fentanyl case.
He explains that they have an informant,
Mafioso, michael murray,
Who will take agent blanco to meet
With fentanyl distributor, christopher moscatiello.
For this meeting,
Blanco will pose as a colombian cocaine trafficker.
His goal is to win moscatiello's trust
And set up further meetings
So agents can hopefully find the location of the lab.
- Before an undercover operation,
Like half an hour before the time that we were gonna go.
I always just basically walked away from everybody.
(tense music)
I just try to meditate.
(tense music)
You just gotta stop thinking
That you work for the government.
You gotta really believe
That you are a drug trafficker, a criminal.
And so with that mindset,
I went with the informant to the meeting with moscatiello.
The meeting was arranged in a bar
Near the water by the seaport.
(tense music)
When we got there,
Mike made the introduction to moscatiello.
When I started doing undercover,
I decided to take out on a name
That obviously is easy to remember
And I used to enjoy watching the sitcom,
"I love lucy," ricky ricardo.
So for my undercover name,
I called myself ricardo rodriguez.
(intense music)
The instructions that were given to the informant was that
He would make the introduction and then he would leave.
- That's because what I always had in my back of my mind is
How much was murray implicated
In the fentanyl laboratory case overall?
Did he provide any money that he is not admitted to?
Was he part of the financing with moscatiello?
- After mike left the bar,
We just started having like a normal conversation.
Like, okay, how you doing, where you from.
I had a boston chowder,
Then moscatiello order something.
And then we did some more small talk.
It's funny because when I met moscatiello,
I was taken back because he just looked like a yuppie
And not necessarily a criminal,
But you never know how the mind of a sociopath works.
(tense music)
- The initial meeting between an undercover agent
And a suspect of the caliber
Of moscatiello is extremely delicate
And extremely sensitive.
- In the past, we had issues and incidents
Where agents brought an informant into a negotiation
And then something went bad, something went wrong,
And then somebody would take out a gun.
(fist thuds) (glass shattering)
(gun fires)
- [john] to provide backup for agent blanco,
Additional undercover agents are stationed around the bar.
- Anything out of the ordinary
Would raise agent's attention.
- But then,
Before we actually started talking about fentanyl,
Moscatiello got up and he said,
"come and follow me."
And I said, "where are we going?"
He said, "don't worry, just follow me."
So I had to make a split decision.
My gut feeling said I needed to accomplish the mission.
So I got up and then I started following him.
(intense music)
We went into the kitchen
And then we went down the stairs
Like going towards the basement.
Now my heart starts racing, okay, what,
What's in the basement?
My mind started going off.
Red flags, red flags.
Everything is kind of like in slow motion.
It was the unknown, it was like the twilight zone.
I didn't have a cellular phone like we have nowadays.
(tense music)
If this guy wanted to kidnap me or wanted to shoot me
Or whatever he wanted to do, nobody's gonna back me up.
So him trying to slow down my breath, trying to calm,
And then he starts walking through a tunnel
And then he keeps walking and he keeps walking
And all of a sudden,
He came out the other side of another building.
Then we went upstairs.
It was like coming up for fresh air.
I can see windows, I can see the bay.
And we ended up in a different restaurant.
(intense music)
The place was almost empty.
There was hardly anybody there.
I felt like this guy has definitely got some power.
This guy is somebody
That can control his surroundings around here.
It was just moscatiello, me, and his goons
And there was nobody else,
But thank god nothing happened.
And you know, we sit down and we talk.
(intense music)
Moscatiello was very eager
And I could tell that he was very happy.
He mentioned that he had a partner who was a chemist
And that they were producing this new drug
That it was like heroin and it was very pure.
And then we talked about the deal
That I was gonna give him kilograms of cocaine
In exchanged for the fentanyl.
And he said, "can you move it? Can you sell it?"
I said, "sure, sure, I can sell it,
But I, first, I have to test it out."
I told him, "give me a sample of drugs
And I'll put it on the street
And I'll come back and I'll let you know."
So he gave me a sample.
Then we parted.
I make sure that I wasn't being followed.
And then I called somebody to come and pick me up.
I came back to the office and then I met with gerry.
- They ultimately agreed to swap cocaine for fentanyl.
And with that, we felt that the meeting went very well.
(tense music)
- [george] at one point,
Moscatiello offered 50 kilograms of cocaine
For a kilogram of fentanyl.
I didn't give a shit, just sell it,
Get us some money, you know?
But, because of the strangeness of the situation,
I wasn't 100% convinced he was being entirely candid.
I thought he was playing some kind of a bullshit game.
At that point, I decided I was gonna make about
Another 10 or 15 pounds of fentanyl and shut down.
You know, I could disappear.
(tense music)
Go somewhere else.
- He knew sooner or later he was going down,
But you're a criminal.
Squeak would say,
"and that's part of the deal, it's part the deal."
And so he started getting all his ducks in a row
'cause he knew ultimately you're gonna get caught
Or you're going to die in the process.
(tense music)
- [george] I wanted to make sure I did it,
If I did get caught,
When I got out, I'd make my life as comfortable
And as convenient as possible.
(tense music)
Because, you know, I'm a criminal.
- Back in boston,
Dea agents prepared a close in
On fentanyl distributor, christopher moscatiello,
But they must be careful not to raise his suspicions.
- Moscatiello is waiting for me to get back to him
To let him know if what he gave me was a good quality.
But as a drug dealer, you're not pressed for time.
It's not like you have to meet deadlines or demands
Or quotas or anything like that.
So it wasn't like I was gonna call him next day.
- [john] and so they are carefully biding their time,
Unaware that they are now in a race against the clock
To find the location of the lab
And marquardt before he disappears.
- Probably a week or two later, I called moscatiello back
And I say, "hey listen, we're good to go.
Let's set up the next meeting."
(intense music)
We went back to the seaport
And we went through the same routine.
But what was interesting was this time I did notice
That he was carrying a long tube
Like that you put in the posters
And then when we sat down,
He just laid the tube against the bar.
(intense music)
During that second meeting, he was more open,
Obviously, he felt more comfortable with me.
We started to talk and I told him,
"this would turn out to be good.
My only concern was that this was very strong, very potent.
So how do I deal with this?"
That's when he opened up.
He said, "we had an incident in the lab,
One of the assistants to the chemist overdosed
From the product."
I said, "wow, really?
Where was this?"
And that's when he mentioned wichita.
(tense music)
When he mentioned wichita,
Inside of me I just wanted to jump up and down with joy
Because the objective that I was given was to try
To figure out where this lab was.
And he just told me the city.
But of course, I just ignore like
This doesn't mean anything to me.
I don't even know, what do I care about somebody
Who's overdosing because I don't wanna seem
Like I'm asking too many questions.
So I just basically let him talk.
(tense music)
And then at the end I said, "okay,
I'll have my people move some packages,"
Meaning some kilos of cocaine,
"and then I'll give it to you."
And he said, "okay, there's your product.
Go ahead and take it."
I just saw the tube there.
I just picked it up and then I left the bar.
I went back to the payphone in another corner
And called one of the guys to come and pick me up.
(intense music)
- [john] agent blanco brings the fentanyl-filled tube
Back to the dea office
And meets with agent graves
To deliver the stunning piece of information
He's just gleaned from moscatiello.
- Gerry graves goes, "so what happened?"
And I said, "he did mention that
One of the guys overdose in wichita."
And when I said wichita,
There was silence.
Everybody was like, "huh?"
And nobody said anything for a couple seconds.
(intense music)
And then somebody said, "what did you just said?"
I said, "yeah, that somebody overdosed in wichita."
"you're kidding me?"
I go, "no, that's exactly what he said."
- So off to the races, we go to wichita.
(intense music)
- Wichita is more than a thousand miles
From the east coast city's plagued by street fentanyl.
Not a single fentanyl related death has been reported
In the state of kansas,
But now it seems it could be ground zero for the crisis.
(car engine revving)
- This was a fast-moving game, right?
Because everything could be alright
And the next thing you know,
Somebody did something over here,
And sooner or later you're hot.
Especially with doing something like this,
The enormous risk involved,
But, doing what you want to do comes with some risk.
There's no aspect of life that's not fraught with risk.
And I enjoyed playing the game.
(tense music)
You know?
(airplane engine buzzing)
- I flew down literally the next day
And arrived at the wichita office.
The wichita office is a very small office.
They're in a private office park
Because that's a local task force office
In which there are local police officers
Along with a couple of dea agents
Who do drug operations.
So I go up and I meet barry jamison.
(intense music)
- My name is barry jamison.
I was the agent in charge
Of the drug enforcement administration's office
In wichita, kansas.
(intense music)
- Immediately he says,
"I don't know what the heck you guys are doing here,
But there's no way there's a laboratory here in wichita."
- We were aware
That this was a national priority drug investigation,
But fentanyl certainly wasn't a problem in wichita.
We weren't seeing any fentanyl on the streets at the time.
(soft music)
But then we learned that
Someone had overdosed in a lab in wichita
While they were making fentanyl.
They had actually been taken from the lab
To a hospital via ambulance.
- We knew it was recent.
So we got all the drug calls from the emergency services.
- And we began scouring
Through all the ambulance records trying to figure out
Who this might have been and where this might have been.
Sure enough, we found one of our persons
Of interest had overdosed
At a nondescript building in a little industrial park.
(tense music)
(sirens blaring)
- According to the report,
Joseph martier was picked up in what was thought to be
A legitimate chemical company laboratory.
- It was indeed revived at a location in goddard, kansas.
- Goddard, kansas is a little town
That sits 15, 20 miles west of wichita.
That's a sleepy little town, nice town.
I don't think you would ever think
Of goddard, kansas playing a major role
In drug investigation,
Certainly, not a national priority drug investigation.
- But if you know marquardt's criminal background,
You know it makes perfect sense.
Marquardt's made a career out of hiding in plain sight,
Using small town america is the perfect cover
For his crimes.
(tense music)
First, heroin in waukesha, wisconsin,
Then methamphetamine in beggs, oklahoma,
And now, fentanyl in goddard, kansas.
- I went out and I checked out the address
For prairie lab.
I was able to peek through the windows
And see the laboratory equipment for processing drugs.
And we saw the waste left behind
That indicated that it was being used
For drug manufacturing.
- Investigators immediately put prairie lab
Under round the clock surveillance.
- We threw just about every resource we had at it,
Agents, electronic surveillance.
- [john] within a short time,
The agent spot marquardt.
- He was wearing his overalls, his flannel shirt,
And he had his pittsburgh knit cap on.
To me, he looked like a good old boy
Who was just in from the country.
I would not recognize marquardt,
And say, "oh yeah, that guy's a laboratory chemist
Or a drug dealer."
From there, he went to his home,
(car door thuds)
And we kept surveillance on him at that point on.
(intense music)
- Law enforcement has finally put eyes on the chemist
And the laboratory responsible for producing
The deadly street fentanyl for the past two years.
Incredibly, it is at the time, the only known source
Of street fentanyl in the entire united states.
But as this national investigation now closes in
On small town kansas,
The agent's next moves will be critical.
- Your first instinct is to run in and seize the lab,
But the ideal solution is to get them
When they're manufacturing the product.
You wanna catch them red handed.
- Based on the last meeting between fentanyl distributor,
Christopher moscatiello and undercover agent, german blanco.
The agents believe marquardt will be cooking a new batch
Of drugs within a few weeks.
- So we wait.
- [george] saying but true fact about the drug business is
You tend to get mad at people
When they don't deliver the money
And you're quite forgiving of their bad habits if they do.
Again, it was all about paying me.
Martier and moscatiello came up with the money.
So I began to prepare to make another batch of fentanyl.
- According to our intelligence,
We thought that we now reached a point
Where we could finally shut down the fentanyl laboratory.
(soft music)
But we knew martier and moscatiello were not
In the wichita area.
It was only marquardt himself.
- [john] to ensure the criminals cannot alert one another.
Agents formulated a plan to arrest marquardt in wichita,
Martier in pittsburgh,
And moscatiello in boston,
All at the same time.
- This was gonna be a coordinated effort.
(tense music)
(car door clangs)
We had to make sure that we all move forward together.
- There were a lot of balls in the air, so to speak,
(intense music)
- [john] but ensuring the arrests unfold
In tandem is only part of the agent's concerns.
They must also prepare for how to safely seize
And dismantle the fentanyl lab
While marquardt is in the process
Of actually cooking the lethal drug.
(tense music)
- A paramount concern to us was what are the ramifications
For everyone else involved,
Whether they be businesses close by
Or people that are just walking down the streets.
(intense music)
I remember one conference call,
The purpose of that particular phone call was coordinating
How we would take this lab down
And dea's expert on fentanyl, jack fasanello weighed in.
Fasanello specifically mentioned
That when they were cooking this fentanyl,
If it got in the airstream,
It could do serious harm to people even causing death.
- I said, listen, dangerous chemicals
And final product were being produced at this place
That can let vapors out into the air.
And if the winds go in the wrong way,
It could be a recipe for disaster
Because of the chemicals and the fumes.
- I just remember interrupting
And saying, "jack, you know, this is kansas.
The wind blows every single day in kansas.
There's never a day the wind doesn't blow in kansas."
And jack says, "well, that could be a huge, huge concern."
And then I interjected again and said,
"just a couple hundred feet away is a daycare center."
And when I said that,
There was just dead silence
Despite having six, seven offices on the conference call,
A word wasn't said for four or five, six seconds.
It seemed like half an hour, everyone's priorities changed
Because of that daycare center.
- At that point, it was necessitated that we seized the lab
As soon as possible.
(intense music)
- On the morning of February 3rd, 1993,
The dea agents put their plan into action.
(intense music)
In wichita, kansas,
Agents close in on prairie lab and marquardt's home.
Soon they will take down the only known source
Of illicit fentanyl in the entire country.
- We all gathered together very early that morning.
There was a lot of pressure
Because we had a lot riding on them.
- Well, that effort that went into this case,
I mean, no one does these cases alone.
(intense music)
- I was at the home of george marquardt that morning.
(intense music)
George ended up driving to right where my car was parked.
So I activated my emergency lights and I got out
And informed him that he was under arrest.
George got out of the car with his hands up
And his first comment was,
"I can't believe it took you guys this long."
(sirens blaring)
- I was looking at astonishment at a huge number
Of people out there, all looking directly at me.
Barry jamison introduced himself to me and that was it.
And they hold me off in a big old limousine
To the drug enforcement administration.
(recorder clicking)
- So it's approximately 3:25 pm,
Wednesday, February the third, 1993.
Present in the room is mr. George erik marquardt.
We are interviewing mr. Marquardt
Relative to the fentanyl trafficking.
(tense music)
Mr. Marquardt, you're waiving your rights to talk to us,
Is that correct?
- [george] I am indeed waiving them.
- Okay.
- After we arrested him,
He just sat there and had a conversation with us.
He's very matter of fact.
He's just, "well, I'm under arrest.
Okay, what do you wanna know?"
- [agent] what was your role?
- [george] to manufacture the drug.
- [agent] okay, and what was moscatiello's role?
- [george] sell drugs.
- [agent] how about martier?
- [george] act as the go-between
Between myself and moscatiello.
It didn't really matter if I cooperated or not.
I was going to get a ton of time, I knew that.
Have you ever seen a drug dealer
That will tell all the truth?
You might be seeing one right now,
But this might be your last time. (laughs)
- What really surprised us was
He's got this infectious personality.
He's very charismatic.
- I imagine you guys are gonna find me,
A crossbar room at the crossbar hotel. (laughs)
- You gotta keep reminding yourself.
Wait a minute, this guy's a death merchant.
Death and destruction, follow him everywhere he goes.
He knows he's killing people
And he has no problem with that.
- [agent] what was the total price for the pure fentanyl?
- [george] I managed to bring in
Slightly over $100,000 a year.
(tense music)
- George made a lot of money,
But I don't think george was ever in this for the money.
I think george was doing this
Because nobody else could do it.
- [agent] who's ed loibl?
- [george] he's my next-door neighbor.
- [agent] did he know what was going on?
- [george] no, no, no.
- The morning the dea showed up,
There was more trucks than you can imagine seeing,
Hazmat, everybody.
- [reporter] federal agents raided several sites
In sedgwick county,
Including this warehouse in goddard.
- Hazardous as far as- - news channel showed up.
And that's when I found out that he was getting arrested
For making drugs.
(tense music)
Said he's had a real high iq,
Maybe his smarter than we all know.
- [reporter] the dea also found another lab
And more chemicals at this west wichita hole.
The raids have shut down the only known source
Of the deadly drug, fentanyl.
47-year-old george marquardt is being charged
With manufacturing the drug.
- People started calling us on the phone for interviews.
I didn't talk to them because it was rough.
I remember one of the first things I thought is, you know,
I'm so glad my parents are gone.
I, that would've just killed them.
It was really bad.
- As far as the dea's concerned,
I don't know if there's gonna be a more significant
Investigation that we worked.
- It just goes to show you
That these things are closer than you think.
(tense music)
- News of the kansas' fentanyl lab bust is reported
Across the country.
(soft music)
In pittsburgh, the arrest of fentanyl middleman,
Joseph martier goes off without a hitch.
But the planned arrest of boston-based fentanyl distributor,
Christopher moscatiello never happens.
(tense music)
- [reporter] all of this may be connected
To a murder in boston.
(tense music)
- I was in wichita when the boston office calls me up
Telling me that they went to arrest moscatiello,
They executed a search warrant on his house,
But he was not there.
- I was known at the county jail.
A fellow came by, he said, "you have a partner in boston?"
"hmm, how would you know?"
And I laughed and he says, "he's dead."
"he was assassinated."
- Moscatiello was found dead by a roadway,
Driving a rental car.
He was found shot twice in the back
And then a closeup shot to the back of his head.
- After chris was murdered,
I drove up to massachusetts,
(car engine buzzing)
I went to the funeral home
And I walked in and there were two men.
I didn't know them, I'd never met them.
One of them was the funeral director
And the other one was michael murray.
I only knew him by name.
And only on a couple of occasions had I heard his name,
Just that he was chris' best friend.
I looked at michael murray and we locked eyes,
And immediately, I just had this overwhelming feeling
That he had killed chris.
(intense music)
- According to the state troopers at the scene,
The footprints leading up to moscatiello's body were made
By a particular sneaker,
The saucony brand of sneakers,
(intense music)
Which I happen to know michael murray wore
(intense music)
All the time.
(soft music)
- I think the organized crime types up in boston
Got rid of moscatiello because they felt
That he would be a future danger to them.
I don't know about bulger,
But he certainly would've been linked to murray
And moscatiello might retaliate by supplying information
That would allow the federal people
To file further indictments.
They decided to terminate
(gun firing)
The problem.
- But there was no evidence, no witnesses,
Nobody who could
Say that he'd done it.
- Michael murray was never linked formally
To this, the defensible investigation.
But I always wondered whether or not
He indeed might have been part of the financing
With christopher moscatiello with regard to the laboratory
And whether he was benefiting himself financially from that.
(intense music)
But don't know.
We won't know because murray at that point
Just stopped cooperating.
- But he shouldn't be out walking the streets.
He shouldn't be free.
He should be behind bars for the rest of his life.
Well, I know chris was trafficking drugs,
But he was a human being.
And I would want people to know the human side of chris
And that he was my brother and I loved him.
(soft music)
- At the time, 126 deaths are directly traced
To the street fentanyl, produced by george erik marquardt.
It is suspected the true total is closer to a thousand.
If not for the incredible efforts of law enforcement,
That number would be even higher.
- Fentanyl is just really becoming a new or,
Or the ending in,
In the drug community.
It is extremely hazardous as far-
We seized the first known fentanyl lab
In the united states.
One day there was fentanyl popping up in cities
All across the east coast.
There were people dying.
We take the lab down and the fentanyl problem is solved.
There is no more fentanyl problem.
- At the time, this lab was the only lab that was used
To manufacture fentanyl.
- So I think we really prevented the deaths
Of a lot of people.
- I felt very proud that I was part of that investigation,
That I was able to contribute to fighting evil, if you will.
- The shutdown of the kansas lab keeps fentanyl
Off the streets of america for the next 20 years.
(intense music)
But marquardt's operation also proves to be an inspiration
For future fentanyl manufacturers.
(intense music)
- I think law enforcement did a great job with this case,
But I think as time has gone by,
The real winner in this was fentanyl.
Fentanyl being popular, fentanyl being a money maker.
Fentanyl itself all came onto the scene
Because of george marquardt.
- It's my opinion that prairie labs and tango & cash,
Or tx screen, whatever you want to call it,
Was the forerunner
For these mexican cartels getting involved
Because it allowed them to realize
How valuable fentanyl is
And how they wouldn't have to deal with
Opium-producing countries.
- Only now, newer, better technology allows
Clandestine chemists around the world to easily replicate
Marquardt's formula for street fentanyl.
And so driven by the immense profits,
The demand created by the opioid epidemic
And the crackdown on prescription pills
That began in the 2010s, the current fentanyl crisis begins.
(intense music)
- It all started with george.
He's the godfather of fentanyl.
(tense music)
- For creating the lethal drug,
George erik marquardt is sentenced
To 25 years in federal prison.
(intense music)
Middleman, joseph martier is sentenced to 30 years.
To this day, the murder of the operations financier,
Christopher moscatiello remains officially unsolved,
Leaving the question of the boston mobs association
With the fentanyl lab and their true intentions unanswered.
(intense music)
- [george] remember I told him that
Moscatiello wanted me to make him some 3-methylfentanyl?
(liquid sloshing)
And I thought maybe the organized crime types up
In boston wanted to weaponize this stuff.
(tense music)
- When I interviewed him,
He never really understood why they wanted 3-methylfentanyl.
It was so powerful.
The weight of a fingerprint is enough to kill two people.
- Well, I did find out ways
That I could crystallize
Enormous amounts of 3-methylfentanyl.
I had to construct a special piece of equipment,
Which I don't think we need describe here.
It was a big, big project
That I messed with for probably close to a year.
- At one point about the time marquardt was arrested,
I got a call to come to boston
Because in a storage locker
There was something like 30 pounds of fentanyl.
They wanted to transport it to new york
And have me analyze it.
So back in my lab, I opened the garbage can
And there are ziploc baggies.
And I read on the top of one in pen 3-mf.
(tense music)
It was 3-methylfentanyl.
3-methylfentanyl, don't forget,
Could be much more powerful than fentanyl itself
And could be a terrorist weapon for sure.
But this 3-methylfentanyl wasn't pure.
It had byproducts in it.
(tense music)
I was surprised
Because george was the good clandestine chemist.
I think if george was into it,
He could have manufactured relatively pure 3-methylfentanyl.
But I don't think he was into it.
His heart wasn't in it,
If he had a heart.
(intense music)
- Yeah, I'm a drug manufacturer and a career criminal,
But I'm not a terrorist.
So I messed with it.
- He told me later that he was very concerned about
The potential use of this as a chemical weapon.
He knew that the murray brothers had these connections
To the irish republican army.
(tense music)
So he made a lower potency version
That wasn't quite as deadly as the one they had in mind.
- [george] I just gave the junk
3-methylfentanyl to moscatiello,
Told him to do what they wanted with it.
What became of it after that,
I knew nothing about.
(intense music)
- He never shared his suspicions
About the chemical weapon aspect of this thing
With dea or fbi, they both interviewed him after his arrest,
Mostly because he didn't want
The boston mob people doing to him
What they had just done to chris moscatiello.
But if there was this terrorist plot,
It was probably at the impetus of joe murray,
Who was the big ira supporter.
Well, his wife had killed him in self-defense up in maine
In September of '92,
A few months before the fentanyl bust in wichita.
If there was that possibility,
I think it died with joe murray.
And I think that was what happened.
It could be that we just got lucky.
- [george] his wife shot him.
Good for susan. (laughs)
(intense music)
- I was introduced to george marquardt's week in 1995.
Some of my friends told me,
"well, there's a guy you gotta meet.
There's a guy you gotta meet.
He's a chemist like you."
And we became best friends.
He would walk around and people would complain to him
And he would say, "I love prison."
'cause you know, he had more time than almost anybody.
So that was his thing, "I love prison.
What are you complaining about?"
And they would ask him, "why did you do it?"
And he would say, "I'm a criminal."
And he was so smart that you,
You could almost breathe in his intelligence
When you talk to the man,
It's something I'll never forget.
(soft music)
- In may of 2015,
After serving 22 years of his sentence,
Marquardt is given compassionate release from prison,
Following a cancer diagnosis.
- We picked him up from the halfway house in kansas
And he came to live with me in waukesha, wisconsin,
Which is the town where we grew up.
(soft music)
- It's not like he ever pretended to be a good person.
- [mary] he always admitted what he did.
- He never said he was sorry 'cause he wasn't.
- But yet, I think it was important for him not to think
He was as evil as some people he'd met.
He always said everybody made their own decisions.
You know, there are limitations to that so-
- Yeah.
- [gini] but he had to live with himself.
(soft music)
- After revealing his story to retired
Oklahoma bureau of narcotics agent turned author,
John madinger,
Marquardt passes away from cancer in August, 2017.
Ironically, he dies with a fentanyl drip in his arm
And he takes one final secret with him to the grave.
(tense music)
- [george] my secret laboratory?
I don't really feel comfortable discussing it.
(keyboard clanking)
- He had one secret that he took with him.
That's the missing lab.
Where's the lab?
We know in '93, dea got one lab in goddard, kansas.
And we know they got the lab
That he had at his house in wichita,
But they never found any assets in his name.
They never found where the money went.
And they know there was a lot of money made.
- Supposedly, they had not found the majority of his lab
Because according to him,
He was only like maybe a few days
From being gone from prairie labs.
And so the majority
Of his stuff he said was already gone and hidden.
(intense music)
- One of his plans for the future before he got arrested,
Was to actually take the whole operation
And put it in one of these old abandoned missile silos
That are in kansas
'cause it had everything you needed,
It had the ventilation systems, it had electricity.
(clock ticking)
- I guess it's not inconceivable
He'd want something to start life out on
If he ever got out again.
But he never told us, the location of the secret lab.
(tense music)
- It could be just a story,
But I certainly believed it
And I certainly wouldn't put it past him.
(intense music)
- I absolutely think it's possible
Because once a clandestine chemist,
Always a clandestine chemist.
(tense music)
- If marquardt's secret lab is still out there,
It's thought to be hidden somewhere
In the middle of the country,
Protected by deadly booby traps
And filled with his most valuable equipment,
At least a quarter of a million dollars in cash
And up to 30 pounds of fentanyl.
One final act of defiance
By the man who is still to this day,
The deadliest clandestine chemist
In american history.
(tense upbeat music)
(tense music)
(tense music continues)
(tense upbeat music)
(tense upbeat music continues)