All language subtitles for American.Conspiracy.The.Octopus.Murders.S01E02.NF.WEBRip-en-forced

I was talking
to Michael Riconosciuto the other day.

This guy clearly knew a lot about PROMIS.

And he had technical knowledge.

And I scoffed at it at first.

I just thought, "How the hell would
Riconosciuto know something like that?"

The Justice Department claims
this is just a glorified contract dispute.

Not quite the case.

Uh, I'm getting calls from this reporter,

Danny Casolaro.

And, uh,

he's nosing into things.

You have to understand
that the PROMIS scandal

started in the early '80s

with the Ronald Reagan election.

The real story here is
just nothing short of incredible,

and this has never come out.

They said, "We gotta do something."

And I had a lot
of personal connections in Iran.

Michael said that he went to Iran
in 1980 with Earl Brian.

Earl Brian,
he's a Farsi language specialist,

and he had the juice
with the Reagan administration.

He said the two of them transferred
in excess of $40 million.

This money was used
to buy off the new Iranian government.

And the hostages were kept
until after the election.

The hostages from the US embassy,

they were released within hours
after he was sworn in.

Earl Brian made the election happen,

and he wanted his payoff.

There was some kind of deal made
in the Justice Department.

And the source code for PROMIS

was awarded to Earl Brian.

That just sounds astounding,
though, right?

Why PROMIS?

No matter how wonderful the software is,

something doesn't make sense.

Bill Hamilton didn't understand
what he had.

This technology was cutting-edge.

When the PROMIS software was
initially brought to me by Earl Brian,

this was an intelligence operation.

Michael said it was part of a larger

classified and compartmentalized
arrangement

which can explain
why it's so damn sensitive.

They wanted to sell PROMIS
to other governments

and spy on what they were tracking.

So that's what I did.

I don't have the complete list.

I know of some of the countries
that it was sold to.

The first package went to Canada.

The Canadian government
obtained our PROMIS software

from illicit channels

and installed it in
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

and the Canadian Security
and Intelligence Service,

which is the CIA of Canada.

Fucking Riconosciuto is
telling the truth!

See, that makes this thing
unbelievably big.

It's so awful that none of us
wanted to believe it initially,

'cause it makes a mockery

of a lot of what we believe
about our country.

What you don't seem to understand is,

all my involvements were
under close, controlled situations.

We were working on
high-technology projects

on an Indian reservation

in Indio, California.

And PROMIS was one of the projects
that was brought to me.

Earl Brian brought it out to Cabazon.

John Philip Nichols.

He was the one who was in charge
of the Indian reservation.

You need to get a background
on John Philip Nichols

and the crew that hung around
the reservation.

And everything was running smoothly.

By 1980, they were talking about
an X amount of dollars

and a huge building complex
on the reservation.

Nichols said the casino
was making some money,

but it didn't seem to be
bringing any money to the tribe.

The doctor had his whole plan.

When we got into the cigarette business,
he said, "We'll make a lot of money."

After a year goes by they say,
"All we got is debts."

"As soon as we get into
the gambling business,

then that's where the real profits are."

So, a year later,
now we're $70,000 in debt.

"How long before we show any profit?"
"Well, it's gonna be another year..."

That is not an Indian casino,
Indian smoke shop, or Indian anything.

That is a Nichols family business

hiding under the umbrella
of an Indian Reservation.

So they're jeopardizing the whole tribe.

We're gonna do it.

Whatever it takes
to get back the reservation.

The Indians had, of course,
some significant land holdings out there.

And one of the things that we pursued

was setting up
an entity on their land out there

where we would be the producing source
for combustible cartridge cases.

These are primarily tank rounds.

John's a character,
I tell you. He, uh...

He's got a world of contacts
within and without the CIA.

He was the guy with the ideas.

We went by to pick him up
to go... to see the attorney

and divulge all of this.

We found them dead in the backyard.

Sheriff's Department, they came out,
did an investigation.

Didn't last very long.
They closed it all down.

They shut it up.

But they know.

They know.

But why they covered it up,
we'll never know.

When Alvarez got bumped off,
John had called.

He said, that helps our cause,

from the standpoint we don't have to worry
about Fred trying to cause dissent

within the tribe now.

Mike is a very key person
because of his brilliance.

Wackenhut wanted to work with Mike

because some of the ideas that he had
were quite commercially feasible.

Mike has been working on
several devices

which could be quite interesting.

One is a night vision,
which works with microprocessors.

And then he's been working on
a couple of power packs.

And then the third thing
is under security clearance,

so you really can't discuss that.

This was like a real dog and pony show.

Jimmy Hughes and I
showed up in a station wagon

loaded with fully automatic weapons.

We got some stuff from Michael.

It's so compelling that our lawyers
could use it to get us paid.

Shortly thereafter,
I began receiving threats.

I was told
if I did not desist from cooperating

that I was going to get put away forever.

And then, seven days later...

I have serious problems, okay?

Before I delivered that affidavit,

I got a threatening phone call
from somebody in the government

telling me to stand down.

And this was maybe two or three days
before I actually got arrested.

And I recorded that conversation.

So then I'm driving out,
and that's where the DEA took us down.

And they had us on the ground,

right on the side of the road.

And I had the cassette tapes
in my shirt pocket,

and I flipped them over the bank.

Uh, let's go.

Yeah, well, it's a mess.

Come on, Anita. We gotta jam.
We gotta get out of here.

No, no, we... we gotta get out of here.
We gotta get out of the area.

We gotta just get out of here.

Well, let's just get out of the area.

Something is really, really wrong.