Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
this episode contains stories that some people may find distressing listener discretion is advised
Chapter 2: What is the violent environment like in the Panamanian prison?
William Holbert, also known as Wild Bill, currently resides in prison in Panama, a prison that is overcrowded and violence that is on another level. In fact, on December 17th of 2019, a gunfight erupted inside the prison walls with 15 inmates being killed as prisoners wielded assault rifles and handguns and began executing one another.
The prison is also flooded with contraband, which arrives by drone. The drones regularly fly across the prison walls to drop things like drugs to the prisoners below. Inmates have moved to use these drones as, well, they're more reliable than the old-fashioned way of using prison guards, who not only ask for more money on regular occasions, but also would turn you in.
Although Bill says this new technology creates an entire other issue.
A ball of drug was dropped by a drone, but it missed and it hit our shell block instead of somebody else's. The drug ball wasn't ours. The police found it and then the police thought that it was ours because the boys are trying to recover it, fish it. It was like lines and hooks trying to fish it into the building. They come down really fast with a search and I got my phone hidden in time.
I purposely have chosen the cell that has really good cell phone signal and far away from the door. So it took them longer to get to me, to get the door open. I was hanging in the hammock and they come down for a search and so I fell and busted my ass.
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Chapter 3: How did Wild Bill become involved in human trafficking?
And they took everybody outside and most guys, I don't, but most guys hide their phone in the door. It's a metal door. You cut a hole in it. You put the phone in it. It's hard to fish back out. The cops don't know how to get them out. So this time, they just came with a side cutter and a welder and cut every one of the doors. There were 16 phones in here, 16 men, 16 phones, and now there's three.
That's really problematic. I woke up at 4 o'clock this morning, and the guys were already fighting. over who gets to use what phone and so on and so forth. I ain't letting nobody use my phone. If somebody drops it on accident and breaks it, you know, I'm screwed. So nobody's using my phone. And a lot of times in prison, also, you'll get guys who will break your shit on purpose.
Chapter 4: What was Wild Bill's experience during a dangerous boat journey?
You'll loan it to them. They'll break it on purpose because they don't have one. They don't want you to have one either. So nobody's getting my phone. That may be a problem for me today because here's a big thing about envy. Anyway, that's what's happening here in hell. Now it's the first morning. It's 618.
they put they installed yesterday they installed a cell phone blocker on the roof of the building so very problematic
But of course, before Bill found himself incarcerated in one of the Western Hemisphere's most dangerous prisons, he was a wanted man.
They were America's most wanted fugitives, that is, until Monday. A couple who lived in Asheville is being detained in Nicaragua, accused in a string of killings in three different countries.
My name is Jack Lawrence. Welcome to Wanted.
I'm a wanderer of the soul Before the end I plan to behold But I know I'll lose myself along the way. What's gone is gone. What's past is past. Let me leave what belongs in the past.
So as we know from our previous episode, Bill has left the US and is living in Costa Rica with three Italian bank robbers. When he meets a man who runs a trafficking business or a coyote smuggling operation and gives Bill a job.
Yeah, coyote refers to a man who helps people cross borders illegally. And that's basically what the operation was. This was boatloads of Asian, particularly Chinese people, who were trafficked into the United States. And I don't know much of the legs of the journey.
The only leg I know about is the one that I was on, and that was from picking people up in a very remote bay in the Bocas del Toro province of Panama, taking them to about 20 miles outside of Jamaica and dropping them off onto another boat, doing an at-sea exchange of between 60 and 80 people on each trip. I was making about $4,000.
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Chapter 5: How did Bill's first kill impact his life?
Others will pay to be taken over the border by guides, while some will come by boat. But don't underestimate just how dangerous and ruthless it can be trying to enter a country this way, as Bill talks us through one of the worst things he ever witnessed while being the captain of one of these boats.
On those journeys, the organization would give me a security. So it would be me and the other person. I had like a loaded six-shot Smith & Wesson revolver and so did he. And between 60 and 80 people. And then I would take them just outside of Jamaica and tie up on the open ocean to another boat where they would jump across and the Jamaicans would count them and then carry them on.
That's all I know about the leg. Now, I assume that from Jamaica, they would either go to Florida or Texas or maybe even Alabama. But somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, I'm sure, is the way that they would go from there and then on. One thing that happened... Remember, these are like clients.
They're not exactly treated as well as like if you're flying US Air or going on a Carnival cruise, but they're still clients. There's still people who have paid money to be smuggled in, and so they're not to be mistreated. And even though they're not to be mistreated, oftentimes they were mistreated.
Anyway, I tried to run my operation very professionally and run it as if I was a captain of a tourism boat. I was nice to everybody, tried to make sure. Because the trip was about a 350-mile one-way, 700-mile round trip, and it took about four days. Because you're in a boat that runs about 11 or 12 knots, nautical miles, which is like 14 miles an hour.
So it takes a long time to get there and get back.
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Chapter 6: What led Wild Bill to become a hitman for hire?
We go to sea two days, you know, day and night later, we're there in Jamaica dropping people off. We pull up beside the Jamaican boat, but the seas are very heavy on the Caribbean that day. They were about 15 foot seas, which isn't very high for the Atlantic, but for the Caribbean that's really high, it's really high seas. The swells are about 15 feet.
And so we tied up together, but when we tie up together, we put little bumpers in between the boats. But in this case, when the boat, when there's so much swells, you have to give a little leeway with the rope. If you don't, the boats will capsize. So you have to give them a little leeway and they bump together.
So when we were doing the count, the Jamaicans are counting the people as they jump across. The beautiful little girl jumped up. There was like maybe 30 passengers left. And maybe she was like number, let's say number 50 going across. And when she jumped up on the gunwheel of the boat, she slipped. And one of her feet fell in between the boats and they closed on it and it broke her leg.
But when I say it broke her leg, I mean it broke it so damn bad that the bones were sticking out. of the skin below the knee. And she's screaming bloody murder, and the Jamaicans just pull her up into the boat, blood everywhere, you know, and I was like, oh my God. So we finished the count, and I didn't really know what to do, so we left, and left her with the Jamaicans.
And I was trolling, or I was trolling the boat around, turning the boat around, trolling it around, and I heard a gunshot. Then I looked over, and then I saw them throw her into the water. So they shot her, killed her, and threw her in the water because there's no doctor. I mean, to be perfectly honest with you, that wound would have been fatal for her anyway.
And in a way, they saved her a long period of time because there's no doctor on the open. What we're doing, there's no doctor on the open ocean. And by the time that she got to, you know, 10 hours, 12 hours later, she would have bled out.
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Chapter 7: How did Bill transition from a hitman to a life in the Costa Rican elite?
And I'm not relieving guilt of the Jamaicans because I remember feeling so, I mean, or my own either. Even today when I tell this story, I feel so guilty about it. You know, I feel terrible about it, but
But it's something that happened, and it sticks in my mind, and I think to myself, you know, even after she broke her leg, if I had just, like, took her back on the boat and took her back with me, she probably would have had her leg amputated, but she probably lived. But even then, what would I have done?
But in Panama, I could have probably got that done without the police being called, you know? And I certainly didn't expect, you know, Jamaicans to shoot her and throw her overboard, but I didn't. I didn't take any responsibility for that action and let the Jamaicans handle it. And that's how the Jamaicans handled it. They just shot her and threw her into the water for sharks.
It would be while working this job that Bill says he would take a man's life for the very first time in self-defense.
As I mentioned earlier, they give you a security. The organization gives us a security because, you know, 80 people are too much for a captain to manage by himself. And so I got a deckhand who's also dealt with security. But they gave me this humongous man, American man, who was a fugitive from the United States. And I won't say his name.
and he was just terrible to deal with i mean he was about i was a big guy i still am a big guy i was i am about six foot one and i in that time period i weighed about 275 pounds i was kind of about 30 or 40 pounds overweight but i boxed a lot and i lifted weights a lot and i was you know fairly athletic and the other man was about six foot six and probably 350 pounds and he was kind of just a blob you know
but he was a huge man and he would do terrible things like he would like i said he would touch the girls he would fight with the passengers he was like the opposite of keeping order he was like creating problems all the time and so we've been on a particularly different difficult trip and when i got back he was we were floating in the harbor waiting on the bus man to come and pay us and take charge of the boat and i was floating in in the harbor on boca del toro on the on the east harbor and
And it's like three o'clock in the morning and the guy's like drinking beer and doing cocaine. And I'm like, man, we're working, dude. There are harbor cops all over the place. What are you doing? And he's like, what? And I'm like, you know, and I just snapped. And I told him the truth.
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Chapter 8: What challenges did Bill face after his new job in Costa Rica?
I said, you're the most unprofessional idiot that I've ever worked with in my life. And this is the last time I'm going to work with you. If they try to send me back out with you, I'm just not going to go. He became offended and started to scream at me. And I said, well, this is why. Look at you. You're a slob. You're fucking worthless. So he became really offended and came to try to hit me.
And I wore him out. I gave him, you know... about a four punch combination and set him on his big fat ass. And, and I thought, well, good, that's handled, but it wasn't handled at all. And he began to do cocaine and to begin to speak to himself. And he said things like, I can't believe that I let that fucking idiot treat me like that. And so then I started trying to like, Hey man, just be cool.
We're getting ready to get paid. Forgive me. I was stressed out. I said things I shouldn't say, but he was like going now. So he comes back and and tries to tackle me, and I moved to step out of the way, but I slipped, and the deck was wet, and I slipped, and I fell back on my back, and he fell on top of me, and he's trying to hit me, but I'm covering well.
He's not hitting me at all, but, like, I got 350 pounds of lord-ass land on me, and, you know, I'm like, I can't get out from under the sky. So I reached back with my right hand, and I found something on the deck. I don't know. It was something in my hand, and I grabbed it, and I smashed it over his head.
And what it was was a boat anchor, and when I hit him with it, it just opened his head like a can of tuna. And all these brains and blood and shit comes pouring out, and he's dead. He don't even move. He don't even flop. He's dead. Dead as shit.
Bill's now floating just off the harbour at three o'clock in the morning on a people smuggling boat with a dead man. To say he was in a really bad spot is an understatement. He says he was terrified. He just killed a guy and had no intention of doing so. But he stays put until he would see the flashing lights of a vehicle at the dock. It's the boss.
I pull up to the dock and I covered up the body with a blue tarp that it was in the boat. And I was just covered in brains and blood and shit, you know. So the boss man walks out with a flashlight and he's like, what the hell? What happened to you? Are you shot? He asked me. And I said, no. I said, but we have a problem. I said, we have a problem. And he said, what? What? And I showed him.
I opened up the tarp and he's like, no, no, no, no, no. We don't have a problem. You got a problem. And he hands me my money and the money of the other guy, too, wrapped up. And he said... I came here. I saw both of you. I paid both of you. I'm going home. I don't know anything else about nothing and left and left me there with a body. So I disposed of the body. Let's just leave it there.
So you might be thinking that while you're listening to the life and times of a cartel hitman, that stories such as the one Bill just told us will be littered throughout these episodes. Details on just how he would carry out his work as a killer for hire. But you'd be wrong. Not only would I just not broadcast those types of details, but Bill, in fact, will not give them.
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