Original subtitles

In this episode of American Greed, a near -perfect insider trading scheme.

As long as Mr. G keeps his mouth shut and I keep mine and you keep yours.

I don't think they're going to find enough of anything.

Stealing merger secrets and turning them into millions. If you play it right and

you're careful about covering your tracks, you have access to some of the

important deals on Wall Street, and that's a goldmine. Until it was all

on tape.

You have to get all the things that cost that money.

In stunning detail.

Why don't you just run it through a washing machine?

Shocking revelations of greed that stun even Wall Street.

They allegedly stole some $32 million worth of inside information.

The rise and fall of the longest known insider trading case in American

And later, Gary Saffron appears to be an immigrant family's success story.

He's a Boca Raton, Florida firefighter, a minister, and real estate broker.

As a neighbor, you would think this gentleman was living the all -American

dream. So why do police see connections between this suburban dad, and some of

Miami's most vicious drug dealers.

There were definitely two Garys. The chief of Boca Raton Fire Department knew

the good Gary. There was, however, a bad Gary.

Early 90s, New York City.

This is where ambitious young men come to launch their careers.

Men like Kenneth T. Robinson from Long Island.

Ken Robinson kind of floated around a lot of different jobs.

Ultimately, he kind of settled in the mortgage brokerage business.

And his friend, car salesman turned law student, Matthew Kluger.

After graduating from New York University Law School, Kluger lands at

prestigious law firm Cravat, Swain & Moore.

and starts to work on Wall Street and realizes what there is there,

what information he has access to. The firm specializes in mergers and

acquisitions of publicly traded companies, and Matthew Kluger has access

crucial details about upcoming deals.

Almost from the very beginning, you know, he discovered that he had this

information that was valuable.

So that's how he called Ken Robinson and said, I've got something.

That something is an edge they could use to make money on the stock market ahead

of a deal. It's illegal, but the men don't care.

These guys clearly knew from the get -go what they had in terms of information

and what they had to do to go around the system.

To launch their plan, the two men will need a stock trader.

Ken Robinson knows just the right person, his friend Garrett Bauer.

They talked all the time on the phone. They spent New Year's together. They

watched the Super Bowl together.

They were just really good friends.

Ken Robinson brings attorney Matt Kluger and trader Garrett Bauer together.

This is a guy who sees a couple of friends that he can bring together and

into gold.

The three reportedly meet on a Manhattan street corner close to where both

Kluger and Bauer are living.

I think it was a meeting really to size each other up. I think Kluger wanted to

size up Bauer to make sure that the way they were going to set up this scheme

was one that they could rely on to remain secret. They all need each other.

can't really do this without one another. And so it is, in a way, the

setup.

They sign off on a plan.

Ken Robinson will pass Kluger's secrets to Garrett Bauer in advance of a major

merger. Bauer will trade with that information before the deal goes public.

When the company's stock rises, Bauer will cash out the profit, and the trio

will split the money.

It was shocking how brazen and how deliberate the scheme was. This was an

that they had hatched deliberately to take advantage of Mr. Kluger's access to

information. From here on out, Matthew Kluger and Garrett Bauer will have

minimal contact.

Separation between the man who steals the secrets and the man who trades with

them is crucial.

In 1994, the scheme gets underway.

Murder deals are popping up left and right.

Johnson & Johnson is poised to acquire skin care company Neutrogena.

Matthew Kluger is working on the deal.

Johnson & Johnson offered $35 .25 for Neutrogena. That's 70 % higher than that

stock was trading at just two weeks ago. The company that's being acquired, all

of a sudden, they're in play.

They're of value.

If you can buy stock in the company that's being acquired before the stock

up, you're going to make a fortune.

Using Kluger's inside knowledge, Bauer buys Neutrogena stock before the deal

goes public.

It's like playing the horses, knowing who's going to win.

Kluger claims the men each make $8 ,000 on the tip.

In 1995, the trio scores with a major technology deal.

Lotus has agreed to a buyout by IBM.

Final price is about $220 million more than IBM offered last week. It

Once you do it once, it's kind of like, you know, it just gets bigger and bigger

and bigger.

They realize they can do it. They try for the next bigger hit.

And it keeps on going.

In 1997, two of America's most significant banks merge into one.

These were the kinds of deals that were making front -page news.

Kluger claims that he and his accomplices make their biggest payday

,000. The trio is on a roll.

As time goes by, they become experts at avoiding attention.

They structured their relationships and communications in order to avoid

detection by criminal law enforcement authorities.

The men make it a rule to stop using home telephones to trade secrets.

Ken Robinson would call Matthew Kluger, the source of the information, on

payphones using quarters.

They used payphones so that there wouldn't be a way to connect them to

other.

When it comes to distributing the profits, they take every precaution.

Bauer withdraws the money from neighborhood ATMs in amounts that won't

detected.

For minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, he would stand at ATMs taking

out thousands of dollars, but because the ATMs had limits on the amount of

he could take out per transaction, he would sit there and do withdrawal,

withdrawal, withdrawal for one account and move on to the next account.

Bauer passes the cash off to Robinson, who shares it with Kluger.

Robinson and Bauer even have a ready -made alibi in case the feds come

They make sure to spend time gambling in Atlantic City.

They went there to use it as cover to wash the illicit cash that they had come

in possession with so that they could justify it.

That, no, no, no, that wasn't cash from insider trading. That was cash that we

got from gambling in Atlantic City.

By the late 90s, the scheme is working smoothly and the men are stashing their

illicit cash.

But despite the trio's attempts to hide their activity, federal authorities at

the Securities and Exchange Commission are beginning to notice that something

wrong. Big profits are being made ahead of certain mergers.

If there's unusual trading, unusual activity in a stock ahead of a merger,

they're going to look into that, they're going to drill down, they're going to

try and figure out who knew.

The reason for that is so that we can try to connect the dots between the

who worked on the deal and the people who traded.

SEC officials set their sights on Garrett Bauer for the profits he is

So they start investigating, trying to track down an inside source.

Is it someone from the company? Is it someone from the company that's being

acquired? Or is it someone from the law firms that are working on putting this

deal together?

And that's what would lead them to Matt Kluger.

Next on American Greed, the insider traders work to stay ahead of federal

agents. These were sophisticated guys that knew what they were doing. And keep

the money flowing.

In the mid -90s, Ken Robinson, Matthew Kluger, and Garrett Bauer are using

stolen secrets to make a fortune.

The deals get bigger, the stakes get bigger, the potential profits get

Officials at the Securities and Exchange Commission have their suspicions about

Garrett Bauer's huge profits.

But the federal agent can't make the connection to his source of information,

Matthew Kluger.

If Kluger is not contacting the trader directly and they're using all these

cloak -and -dagger ways of communicating with one another, it's very difficult

for them to follow that trail, and the trail runs cold.

The group's triangular configuration, with Ken Robinson as the middleman

the secrets from Kluger to Bauer, is watertight.

Ultimately, the connection was not put together such that the investigations

were able to move forward.

By 2002, Matthew Kluger has stolen inside information from jobs at three

different law firms.

After eight years as partners in crime, he and his accomplices need a break.

For a period of three years, the men stopped cheating.

They were just living their lives. Kluger met his partner and was in a

relationship, and Robinson got married and had kids. They just were three

regular guys, really, with us.

just this kind of secret connection together.

They continue to work at their normal jobs. Here are guys who are making a

at that point in time, apparently honest living. They are making the kind of

money that allows them to have a typical American dream life, house, family,

kids.

That might well have been the end of the story, but ultimately it won't turn out

that way.

In 2005, Kluger gets a new job at Wilson Sonsini, a firm that specializes in

high -tech deals.

Wilson Sonsini is one of the preeminent firms in the mergers and acquisitions

world. He was one of the law firms that is dialed into the most interesting

technology deals. And what a time it is for technology companies.

The era of automated trading, Google and Facebook is at hand.

There's almost no better place to be around this time than a firm like Wilson

Suncini. And if you know when the deal's going to hit, you know when to strike

gold in the market.

It's crucial information that Matthew Kluger can't resist.

It's like a short thing. When you have information, it can just be too tempting

to pass up for some people. It's grief.

Here is access to money that we can get for doing nothing.

Illegal money, but easy money. And so they jump in with both feet, and they

start stealing secrets and trading on it again.

Only this time, the three men raise the stakes.

Not only did they return to their previous ways, they went in bigger, and

got more sophisticated in their efforts to hide it.

Kluger becomes so adept at searching through computer files that Wilson's

unseemly, he doesn't even need to open them.

He would just look at the titles of the documents so that there wouldn't be a

trace of him.

actually viewing them if law enforcement were ever to come.

And with phone technology advancing, the men changed the way they communicate.

Cell phones that didn't exist in 1994 now became so cheap that people can buy

new cell phone prepaid and use it for however long they want and get rid of

And so they would buy these throwaway cell phones, consciously making that

decision to get more sophisticated.

Now, the men pursue some of the era's biggest tech mergers.

But the deal over here at the NASDAQ today up 17%. In April 2006,

Quantum buys Advanced Digital Information, and the profit for the trio

million. From then on, the team rakes in cash on deal after deal.

Bain Capital Partners is acquiring 3Com for $2 .2 billion in cash.

Hewlett Packard, Sun Microsystems, 3Com, Intel, all these big name companies.

Some of these stocks shot up 30%. Huge amount of money. Oracle out with a

surprise deal to buy Sun for $9 .50 a share.

When Oracle purchased its Sun Microsystems in 2009, the payoff is the

yet, a staggering $11 .4 million.

That was a scale unlike they were doing in Act I of the scheme.

What Robinson and Kluger don't know is that Garrett Bauer is playing them.

Instead of trading the number of shares requested by his partners, he trades

many more.

And pockets the enormous profits. On a deal where Kluger and Robinson would

$50 ,000 or $80 ,000, Bauer would make many multiples of that.

They have no idea how much money Bauer is making.

Bauer is making trades that they never dreamed of.

In August 2009, Bauer buys a $6 .7 million condominium on Manhattan's Upper

Side.

One of these apartments that the elevator goes up, opens, and it opens

into his apartment, a beautiful place that most people would dream to live in.

And now that he's made many millions by executing trades without his friend's

consent, Garrett Bauer says he's ready to retire.

Garrett advises Robinson that he no longer wants to participate in the

activity and bows out.

As he exits the scheme, Bauer reminds Robinson not to trade on Kluger's tips

without him.

If he trades for himself in these same stocks, now there's a trail. Now you can

start to link the three of them together.

Next on American Greed, Ken Robinson can't resist the lure of easy money.

He's seen this go on for such a long time. Maybe I'll see if I can do a

bit on the side. It's a fatal mistake.

It's 2009, and the insider trading scheme of Ken Robinson, Matthew Kluger,

Garrett Bauer has racked up almost $30 million.

It is mind -boggling. It certainly shows the confidence in these individuals

that they wouldn't be caught.

What Kluger and Robinson don't know is how much more Bauer has pocketed than

them. While the two men have made less than $1 million each, Bauer has bought

expensive condo and now has several million dollars in the bank.

Later that year, Bauer stops trading on Kluger's inside information.

But Kluger and Robinson are not ready to give up the scheme.

They haven't made anywhere near as much money as Bauer.

Kluger kept calling him and saying, we have to trade.

So after Bauer agreed, we're not going to do this anymore, Kluger then calls

Robinson again and says, hey, I've got a new tip.

In October 2009, Ken Robinson trades on Kruger's information using his own name.

He was the middleman. He was the linchpin. He doesn't realize how big of

mistake he's making. It was human weakness. He didn't think anyone would

So he figured, oh, let me just make this little trade. He couldn't help himself.

But somebody does notice.

In 2009, the SEC has new weapons aimed at detecting insider trading.

As the technology has grown on Wall Street, so has the technology with the

enforcement, the SEC.

They have tools that they didn't have.

The server capacity, the framework in which the data was stored, enabled us to

search across large volumes of data very quickly.

In fact, SEC investigators already have traitor Garrett Bauer in their sights.

With their new technology, they have mapped a connection between Bauer and

tech deals at Wilson Sonsini, the firm where Matthew Kruger works.

The timing of Mr.

Bauer's trades were immediately in front of... Mergers and acquisitions in which

the law firm was involved.

That caused great concern that we identify where he was getting his inside

information from.

Using a high -tech method called pattern analysis, the SEC also has tracked a

trading relationship between Bauer and Ken Robinson.

They frequently trade the same stocks at the same time.

What that trading analysis did was it told us that...

At a minimum, they likely knew each other. Once we knew that Mr. Robinson

Mr. Bauer knew each other, then we surveilled very closely the securities

they were both trading in. But Robinson isn't trading on the Wilson -Sonsini

deals. For months, the SEC is unable to pin illicit trading on the two men.

All that changes in 2009 when Robinson finally breaks the rules of the scheme.

He trades without Bauer on a Wilson -Sonsini tip from Kluger.

Once he trades on the deal, that indicates that Robinson likely has

from the same source as Bauer. Now the line is complete. The line is solid.

They have a link. This was a huge event in the course of our investigation.

But authorities don't yet know the source inside the law firm is Matthew

In the summer of 2010, the SEC alerts the FBI.

Special Agent Michael Doyle takes the case.

We really didn't know if Robinson was a source, if he had access to the source,

or if Bauer was a source or had access to the source.

They need to find the weak link. They have an idea of what the conspiracy is.

They need somebody to flip.

And the obvious person to go to first is Robinson.

If you're objectively looking at who potentially would cooperate, is it the

person who benefited the lion's share or is it the other person who didn't

benefit as much but really had the access to the source?

On March 8, 2011, FBI agents surprised Ken Robinson at his home on Long Island.

They're searching his house. They're saying, you know, we've got you for

trading. We know about your bank accounts.

Robinson quickly understands what he is up against.

The middleman has a choice.

Cooperate with the FBI and betray his friends or face going to prison for

That is a moment of truth for any human being when they've engaged in criminal

wrongdoing. In that moment, you have to make a decision.

Robinson soon tells the FBI everything about the scheme, about Garrett Bauer,

and about their source, lawyer Matthew Klug.

He agrees to help the FBI secretly record his friends.

We knew what we wanted from him. We wanted him to see if he could gain

the individuals, Bauer and Kluger, and if he could kind of recreate their

on tape.

When Robinson calls Kluger and Bauer, the FBI is listening.

As long as Mr. G keeps his mouth shut and I keep mine and you keep yours.

I don't think they're going to find enough of anything.

They've coached Ken Robinson on what to say to get his friends to admit what

they did on tape.

This is where it comes out that Kluger never opened documents on his computer.

They really get the nuts and bolts of how this scheme worked.

Like how the trio plotted to destroy evidence from a recent trade.

There was really no level of activity that they weren't willing to do to cover

up their crime and make sure they weren't exposed.

From a prosecutor's perspective, this evidence was as good as

it gets, and we knew at that moment that we had a...

a prosecutable and a very strong case. Two men were charged with making more

than $32 million in illegal profits from trades based on information stolen from

a prominent Silicon Valley law firm.

Within days of the secretly recorded phone calls, FBI agents arrest Kluger

Bauer at their homes and place them in custody.

After 17 years, the scheme is over.

Over the next few months, all three men plead guilty.

Garrett Bauer forfeits his Manhattan home and $25 million in profits.

In the months before his sentencing, the beleaguered trader attempts to make

amends by giving talks at colleges about the ethics of insider trading.

But truthfully, even if I did need the money, it's just not even close to being

worth facing 10 years in prison.

Putting my family what I put them through and putting my friends what I

through. Garrett went out and on his own spoke at every major university,

including Harvard and MIT and Columbia.

And New York University to Professor Mark Brennan's business and ethics

He said, well, I came here to make sure that none of you do the same thing that

I did and screw up your life.

Half the class was crying, saying, how did this happen to this guy? And the

other half of the class wanted to choke him because they were so upset that he'd

done this so brazenly for 17 years.

On June 4, 2012, a judge sentences Garrett Bauer to nine years in federal

for his role in the trading scheme, which he reserves the harshest

for Matthew Kluger, 12 years behind bars.

It's the longest jail sentence in insider trading history.

Because he did have a choice. He could have done his job, been a lawyer,

represented his clients, been loyal to his firm and his firm's clients.

But instead, he took that information and he sold it, essentially.

He profited off of it.

For his role in helping authorities bring down the scheme, Ken Robinson gets

just two years.

But he has to live with the knowledge that his own greed helped bring down the

scheme and with his betrayal of two close friends.

He was extremely conflicted about what he had done. He felt extremely guilty.

said, I wished that this all would have ended and we could have remained

friends.

Next on American Greed.

How could a family man, minister, and Boca Raton firefighter scam millions?

from some of Miami's most notorious drug dealers.

Miami, 2005.

Inside a downtown office building, a task force of local and federal law

enforcement is taking on some of Miami's vices.

They killed those guys. They killed the one officer. Real estate fraud.

Cocaine trafficking.

Murder. And every time we looked under a rock, we had more leads.

The task force is investigating 20 unsolved murders in Miami -Dade County.

Special Agent Hector Ortiz of the FBI says they fit a pattern.

Basically, all these homicides were what we'd call whodunits.

There was a shooting.

There was a body. There was no eyewitnesses. There's one more common

denominator. They're all casualties stemming from Miami's multibillion

drug trade.

Terry Goldston is a detective with the Miami -Dade Police.

We established that, number one, that the victims are male, that, number two,

that they're of Haitian nationals or either Haitian -Americans, and that they

have some ties to either the drug industry or the music industry.

They named the task force Operation Compa, a nod to the victim's connection

popular Haitian dance music.

They began to launder their narcotics proceeds through the Compa bands, and

had record labels in South Florida.

Operation Compa is an unusual task force. It combines street -savvy cops

white -collar crime investigators, like IRS Special Agent David Keyes.

It was kind of the merging of these different viewpoints, all focused with

same goal.

of taking down these drug traffickers, the guys like Ali Adam, and then taking

down their support structure.

Ali Adam is a fledgling music producer and one of Miami's most notorious drug

dealers. In March 2002, there's a shootout where Adam and two friends are

targeted while driving on Miami's northwest side.

There was a drug dispute. There was a shootout where two of Ali Adam's

were shot inside of a car.

Allie Adam escapes with minor injuries, but his two friends are hit.

One suffers disabling injuries.

Miami Herald reporter Jay Weaver covers drug trafficking.

These guys don't care.

You know, life is cheap, and they will take a shot at anybody who's believed to

have betrayed them or stolen money or stolen drugs.

There are no suspects, no arrests.

But police notice the victim's car is owned by a man named Gary Soufrant.

He's a member in good standing with the fire department in nearby Boca Raton.

He had a stellar career. He had a good reputation.

Obviously because he was a firefighter. At that time, it didn't raise a lot of

flags. But years later, Operation Compa has a different point of view.

And as they pour through these unsolved cases, they discover a surprise.

The suburban firefighter's name surfaces again.

On June 17, 2004, music producer Rommel Barlartier leaves his

Hialeah recording studio after a session with a band.

Barlartier runs another business, trafficking cocaine from Haiti.

He's made plenty of enemies, and they want him dead.

Tonight, Barlartier is not the only one working late.

There was a white van seen circling around the parking lot.

A security camera catches what happens next.

The second pass by, the side door of the van opened.

The van's passenger has a gun, and Barlartier is in his sights.

He was subsequently shot through the windshield.

The gunman gets out of the van to finish the job.

The gunman then exits the van and proceeds to run up to the driver's side

vehicle and fire additional gunshots.

The passenger flees, but Berlantier is dead on the scene.

Police investigating his murder have very few leads, save this.

Berlantier has connections to a nightclub called The Hideout. The

nightclub that was opened in Hollywood, Florida. Basically a hideout location

for people that were doing illegal things.

Several people own the hideout, and most are known or suspected drug

traffickers. But one owner doesn't seem to fit in with that crowd, Gary

Soufrant. And that's what we found very peculiar, that we have a fireman who

owns a business and is a pastor that was involved with these very violent drug

traffickers here in South Florida.

How could a firefighter and respected businessman have his fingers in the

lucrative drug trade?

The more Operation Compa digs, the more it sees.

Gary Soufrant's name is on car leases and real estate deals involving known

dealers. Things just didn't make sense.

If there's smoke, there's probably fire.

Just who is Gary Soufrant?

He seems to live out his immigrant parents' dream.

Demonstrators chanted slogans today, calling for an end to the Duvalier

government. His parents flee chaos in Haiti and come to Miami looking for a

safer life.

He came from an immigrant family who worked hard and who pushed education on

kids. Attorney Omar Malone represented Gary Suffrant.

Clearly, Mr. Suffrant was a bright individual and a very smart individual.

In 2002, Saffron opens a real estate company called Progressive Real Estate

Broward. It's a residential firm, and Saffron's timing is perfect.

The homes and condos keep going up, sky high.

The prices went through the roof in a way that Miami had never seen before.

Saffron also has a more glamorous sideline.

Sometimes he rents out high -end condos and cars to celebrities visiting Miami.

Saffron moves his family to suburban Broward County.

It's a family -oriented community, a safe, quiet place with comfortable

And Saffron treats himself to luxury cars.

There's no doubt that Mr. Saffron liked nice cars. He liked cars from the very

beginning as a kid.

As a neighbor, you would think this gentleman was living the all -American

dream.

Next on American Greed, the preacher sets his sights on drug dealers.

All the values that he ever had, he betrayed it for the love of money. He

the mean green, and that's what he wanted to do.

See where Gary Saffron's clients hid their cocaine at AmericanGreed .CNBC

Feeling greedy?

Want more than your share of behind -the -scenes dirt?

Follow at AmericanGreedTV on Twitter.

We'll be right back.

The financial connections between Miami's most notorious drug traffickers

Gary Souffrant intrigue a multi -agency task force.

Operation Compa dives deep into this suburban family man's real estate

Several times, agents visit progressive real estate of Broward. For a business

that's supposedly thriving, the investigators think the office is eerily

The FBI says Soufran's office assistant agrees.

This lady that we interviewed said, you know, I thought he was a drug trafficker

because who runs a business like that?

As investigators will later learn, Soufran's most important clients are

drug traffickers and suspected murderers. People like Ali Adam, the

producer and cocaine trafficker who survived the attack in Soufran's car.

We estimated that Ali Adam moved over 5 ,000 kilos of cocaine.

through South Florida to Atlanta to New York, California.

He made millions of dollars in the drug trafficking trade.

He was rolling in money. I mean, he lived a high life. He had a condo on

Beach and a high -rise right on the tip of South Beach.

At South Beach nightclubs, his cash seems to fall from midair, says

.S. Attorney Todd Mestope.

What does it say? Making it rain at a club, basically just throwing cash in

air. But the thug life has its challenges.

Dealers like Adam find it hard to spend their dirty millions. He was a drug

trafficker. He couldn't go.

and lease a car or buy a car.

He couldn't go to a bank and deposit $100 ,000 in cash.

You can't spend it and hide it simultaneously because it'll eventually

attention of law enforcement.

And that's where the money launderers come in. They provide the camouflage for

the drug dealers.

A notorious dealer like Adam needs someone not on the radar of police.

Someone who lives a clean life and who is smart enough to turn Adam's dirty

into fancy cars and big houses.

Someone exactly like Gary Soufrant.

Gary, to those drug traffickers, was a blessing, which is bizarre to say, was a

perfect fit.

And Gary had the bona fides that they were looking for, meaning he was not a

drug trafficker. He was a pillar of the community. They never thought that law

enforcement would ever uncover this conspiracy.

Ali Adam meets Gary Soufran through a mutual friend, as Ali Adam explains in

email exchange with American Greed. He writes, I've been hearing about this guy

who at the moment had no office or even a business card offer, but walks around

with a firefighter uniform on. He was a good, trustable Haitian.

The suburban minister and the South Beach drug dealer make an unlikely

Basically, Gary Soufran became a bank.

For these drug traffickers.

First, Adam gives Saffron his dirty cash.

Then Saffron deposits it into the bank account of his real estate business.

Gary was the individual where all his drug money went to. And Gary took care

Ali Adam. He almost used him as an ATM.

If Adam needs pocket money, Saffron returns the cash.

If Adam wants a new car, he goes to Saffron.

Valley Adam, he would tell him, oh, Gary, I want the new Mercedes that just

out. And he'd give him a model number.

They went to purchase a car, and they actually took cash inside a diaper bag

the car dealership.

BMWs, a Rolls Royce Phantom, and other high -end cars are leased by Saffron's

company, which...

Of course, he hid Allie Adams' true ownership, except that Allie Adams was

driving around town and getting traffic tickets galore on these automobiles. And

that was where the paper trail led right back to Gary Souffrant.

And Adam wants nice houses, places for his girlfriends and their children to

live. But buying a house is complicated, especially for a criminal.

With no legitimate income, banks won't give Adam a mortgage.

So he calls on Gary Sufrant to work his magic.

Gary Sufrant pretty much had control of the whole mortgage application process.

Central to the scheme are straw buyers, people with clean records who sign for

the loans.

He would put them on the uniform residential loan application. So as far

bank is concerned, this is the person that's going to buy the house.

People like Gary's wife, Yvonne, or Adam's girlfriends.

Saffron's accountant phonies up their W -2s. There was at least one occasion

where Yvonne Saffron put down, I think, $21 ,000 as a monthly income.

Not bad for a stay -at -home mom.

After the corrupt mortgage broker and two real estate lawyers each take a cut,

they make the transaction look official.

Adam or his girlfriends move in. The homes that Gary would put people in were

very nice townhouses up to mansions. But unlike many cases of mortgage fraud

where criminals simply walk away and never make a payment, Gary Soufran

services the debt.

After all, his scheme depends on him looking legit.

But it also depends on lots of new money coming in. Adam brings Sufran new

clients. Another drug traffickers begin to deposit or give Gary drug money. Gary

had the gift. He was able to speak.

He had a personality.

He was able to catch your attention.

He used that.

Sufran pays Adam a finder's fee, as much as $20 ,000 a deal.

Ali Adam writes, I got a 50 -50 split on whoever I brought to him.

We estimated that anywhere between $15 and $20 million that Gary could get his

hands on. And in turn, he would basically take care of all these drug

traffickers. Sopran also takes care of himself by taking exorbitant

Gary took advantage of the fact that guys like Ali didn't really know what

services should cost.

And he would keep a greater and greater percentage.

of each transaction.

Gary Saffron was stealing money from the most violent, most egregious drug

traffickers in South Florida.

There were definitely two Garys. The chief of Boca Raton Fire Department knew

the good Gary. There was, however, a bad Gary.

Next on American Greed, with the crackdown on the dealers and the

meltdown, Firefighter's scheme goes up in flames.

He's in a catch -22.

Not only does he have these houses, But he can't get rid of them.

Investigators in Miami begin rounding up the city's toughest drug traffickers

and aim for the financial structure behind them.

The suburban firefighter, Gary Suffrant. As we began to look at the wheel, you

know, all the spokes were pointing back at Gary Suffrant.

Our process was to convict the drug traffickers, have them sentenced to

sufficient time that they'd cooperate with us. Plus, the drug traffickers were

violent. We wanted to get them off the streets.

Early 2007, West Hollywood.

Ali Adam follows his long -held dream of being a full -time music producer and

moves to Southern California.

That summer, investigators fly out to his new home, armed with an arrest

warrant. We arrested Ali initially for continuing criminal enterprise, what's

called the CCE.

Basically, he was in charge of a drug trafficking organization that had five

more people under his control.

Adam pleads guilty to money laundering conspiracy and a lesser drug charge.

He gets 30 years.

But the music producer wants out faster, so he sings about Gary Saffron.

Allie could tell us what houses had been bought. He took the agents around and

they found all these different houses.

And then it was a matter of finding all the mortgage loan documents.

Dealers go down one by one.

It means bad things for Gary because at this point his cash flow starts to slow

down. If he doesn't have the drug traffickers putting money into his

he can't pay for all the homes and he can't pay for his own lifestyle.

As if having all his clients in jail isn't bad enough.

The worst economic downturn since the Great Depression hits.

And destroyed the economy of South Florida.

I mean, it pummeled it. It wasn't just the fact that there were all these

fraudulent loans that were made to everyday people, but it was that there

much fraudulent loan activity.

period, and it was going to people who were drug traffickers or people fronting

for drug traffickers. It's money that matters to Gary Saffron, and it's all

going away.

Gary Saffron had the perfect storm.

All these 30 -plus homes that was under his control for these drug traffickers,

all their valleys deflated. They're underwater.

Buyers disappear.

Banks crack down on mortgage applications.

Properties stop moving.

Saffron is stuck.

He's in a catch -22.

Not only does he have these houses, but he can't get rid of them.

The task force keeps the pressure on.

They talk to Sufran's lawyers and mortgage broker and Adam's girlfriends.

None are willing to take the fall for Sufran, a man who profited handsomely at

their expense.

Ali Adam writes, I never looked to see how much percentage I was due till I got

locked up and did the numbers.

$4 .5 million.

He beat me bad.

You talk to different individuals and the stories start to line up.

You know, they're telling the truth.

May 15, 2009.

The home on a private drive where Gary Zufran and his wife Yvonne live faces

foreclosure. He had not been paying the mortgage on it for many, many months.

So it was in serious arrears.

But things are about to get worse.

The multi -agency government task force knocks on the money launderer's front

door. He's got a pool, multiple rooms, multiple stories,

three or four car garage, two beautiful residents.

In the garage, high -end cars.

One of the cars that they had, which was a Rolls -Royce Phantom, a $400 ,000

-plus car.

Gary Sifrant is arrested in the morning. And later, after their three kids leave

for school, Yvonne is brought in.

October 26, 2009.

The Saffron case hits federal court.

Allie Adam is among the first of 75 witnesses called in this money

and mortgage fraud case.

Allie Adam was probably the most important witnesses of the drug

that were testified at trial because he did the most business with Gary.

After his cooperation, Adam's sentence is reduced to just over 18 years.

Gary Sifrant is found guilty on 46 counts, including mortgage fraud.

He is sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Yvonne is found guilty of two counts and is sentenced to four and a half years.

Sifrant's case serves as a cautionary tale.

You had a gentleman who had everything.

He had the American dream. Gary Sifrant, a supposedly fine, upstanding citizen.

Capable of as much greed as violent drug dealers.

Gary Saffron was a con man. All the values that he ever had, he betrayed it

the love of money. He betrayed his family. He betrayed his friends.

He betrayed his fire department buddies and his own parishioners just for the

love of money. The inside story of the woman who took down the mob and took

the cocaine biz.

She's the baddest bitch to ever take a breath of life.

Cocaine Cowboys 2, Hustlin' with the Godmother.

Next on CNBC.

Restaurant Startup premieres Tuesday, July 8th on CNBC.