Narco Mennonites (2026) s01e01 Episode Script

1
♪
Producer: You guys recording?
Rolling?
- Yeah.
(long nervous exhale)
(tense music) ♪
Johan Harms:
My name is Johan Harms,
and I'm here to set
the record straight.
- Mennonites are
beautiful people.
- When the regular citizen
thinks the word Mennonite,
they think of a quiet,
very religious group of people.
Bernie Leblanc:
I would see them going by
in the horse and buggies.
I thought they were just
religious people.
Bernie Leblanc/Andrew Mitrovica:
God fearing,
Andrew Mitrovica: Law abiding.
Bernie Leblanc: Go to church.
Andrew Mitrovica: Hard working.
Bernie Leblanc: Don't swear.
Andrew Mitrovica:
Who worked an honest life.
Bernie Leblanc:
Don't do anything wrong.
Boy, was I wrong.
(dramatic music) ♪
- Beneath the surface,
there is something
much more sinister taking place.
♪
Frank Klassen: There's a lot of
good Mennonites,
but there's a lot of
bad Mennonites, too.
Sam Quinones: A lot of them got
excommunicated from the Church
for violating
certain prohibitions.
So you get this very, very
enforced separation.
That then becomes the reason
why so many rebel.
- A very small fraction
who commit crimes,
a lot of that crime
is drug smuggling.
- There's a lot more money
to be made at selling drugs,
than there is picking
tomatoes and tobacco.
- And you begin to unearth
the descent into
narcotics trafficking,
and all that entails
in terms of danger,
threat, harm, killing,
extortion, coercion,
intimidation
Bernie Leblanc: Oh, my God!
This Mexican Mennonite
is a drug dealer.
Frank Klassen: I just know
it's not a Godly thing.
Andrew Mitrovica:
There is no honor.
The only thing
that matters is money.
Sam Quinones:
They had this public image
of like, harmless peasants.
Johan Harms: We're so trusted
like at borders.
You were just good to go.
- These blind mules were driving
these drug-laden vehicles
all across the country.
Helen Wiebe: The big trucks,
they were mainly coming in
around about two and three
in the morning,
because that was not a
daytime job. (laughter)
David Giesbrecht Fehr:
Mennonites got killed,
because they were starting
doing jobs for cartels.
- This was the biggest thing
I'd seen.
Andrew Mitrovica:
This is a major drug operation
with links to some of
the most lethal, ruthless,
Mexican cartels in the world.
Fehr: There are a lot Mennonites
with problems, like me.
Johan Harms: Being in
drug business isn't easy.
It's a tough life.
Oscar Hagelsieb: The Harms
drug family has been
untouchable for so long.
They've been offered
this sort of immunity for years
by the Mexican government.
H. Gartner: Mister Harms? They
told me that you are involved
in the drug business here,
in Cuauhtémoc.
Andrew Mitrovica: We knew
that the Harms are running
the Mennonite Mafia.
My understanding is
that Abe enlisted
the help of his sons,
particularly Enrique.
- He's comparable to
El Chapo Guzman
of the Sinaloa Cartel.
He's at the top
of the food chain.
Sam Quinones:
First it's marijuana,
but then eventually,
comes cocaine.
Andrew Mitrovica:
He's prepared to do anything
to protect his interests,
even if that means
abducting, torturing,
and beating to death
with baseball bats,
members of the
Mennonite community.
- Right now, as we speak,
there is a
full-scale war occurring
just miles south of us,
in Chihuahua, Mexico.
Frank Klassen:
So many have disappeared.
Johan Harms:
You get used to it and then
you don't see it
as a sin anymore.
Andrew Mitrovica:
The community is imploding.
Helen Wiebe:
I knew the enemy was,
was very, very close to me.
Andrew Mitrovica: They became
more ruthless, more greedy,
more interested in
making more money.
Johan Harms: Defend
your business, you gotta
defend yourself because like,
if you're not going to be
standing up for yourself,
the people, they will
eat you alive.
Sam Quinones: This is
the most bizarre story.
Andrew Mitrovica:
What is a Mennonite
doing with drugs?
How is that possible?
How did this happen?
Fehr: No more questions.
(low dramatic music) ♪
Bernie Leblanc:
My name's Bernie Leblanc.
I joined the Provincial Police
in 1985.
1987, I became part of the
Ontario Provincial Police
Drug Enforcement section.
A lot of the smaller towns,
even some of the bigger towns,
their officers are all known.
So, it's not easy for them
to infiltrate the drug dealers.
So what they would do
is take Provincial Police,
undercover operators,
take us to a town.
I always said, it was one of
my favorite things were
going into these old bars.
And when you first open
that door, and you smell the,
you know the sweat and blood
and the stale booze
and cigarettes, it was just-
(inhales/exhales)
Let's get to work!
(police siren wailing)
Retired Police Officer: It's
about the mid-'80s in Ontario.
We're making stops and
getting marijuana.
And it wasn't like marijuana
we usually see,
the home grown would be
loose stuff and all that.
Now we're seeing this
compressed stuff,
and it's got seeds in it and
it's obviously not from here.
It's being smuggled,
but it's extremely hard.
And people are using coffee
grinders to grind it up,
to be able to use it.
But apparently it's extremely
cheap, so it's becoming a hit.
And we had no idea
where it was coming from.
Bernie Leblanc:
In 1989, I was contacted by
the drug enforcement section,
from Windsor of the OPP.
What do you think about coming
to work in Leamington?
I said, "Leamington?
Where in the hell
is Leamington?"
A civilian came forward,
and was concerned about
narcotics trafficking
in the Leamington area.
His brother had died from,
from a drug overdose,
and he was looking
for payback, for sure.
We're in the undercover car,
and we were trying
to come up with a plan
on where we were gonna go
buy some more drugs.
He said,
"I've heard about this Mennonite
that's dealing drugs."
And I said, "Bull.
They don't sell drugs."
Honest, I had never really
knew very much about Mennonites.
I thought they were just
religious people,
go to church,
don't swear,
don't drink.
Boy, was I wrong!
(low dramatic music) ♪
When we pull up to the house,
it just looked like your typical
what you would think
of a Mennonite home.
There's a clothesline
at the back,
and I can still remember this.
There was work clothes,
and then it just kind of
went down the line
to baby diapers.
There was no way I was going
in there to buy drugs.
We go up and I knock on the door
and this Mexican Mennonite
comes to the door.
And that's Abraham Harms.
(low dramatic music) ♪
I said, "How're you doin'"?
He said, "Good."
And I said, "I'm looking
to buy some weed."
He invites me in.
"Yeah. What do you want?"
"Well, I'll take a quarter."
I was thinking quarter ounce,
'cause I really didn't think
they were dealing
large quantity of drugs.
So I see him go to the cupboard.
He takes out a brick that
I recognize as a kilo of weed.
He cuts a quarter off
the key weed,
and puts it on the scales.
And, "Here you go."
♪
Well I
you could have knocked me
over with a feather.
Oh, my God!
This Mexican Mennonite
is a drug dealer!
(dramatic music) ♪
♪
Retired Officer: Abraham Harms
originally came up
into Leamington area,
to work on a farm
that harvested tomatoes.
And then, we find out
he's had a side job.
Sam Quinones: Along the way,
someone convinced him
that maybe he should
start transporting
loads of marijuana
up there, too.
Retired Officer: There's a lot
more money to be made at
selling drugs than there is
picking tomatoes and tobacco.
Bernie Leblanc: Abe Harms
thought I was gonna be
a connection for 'em to
distribute drugs in Ontario.
And he actually wanted me to go
with him, to Mexico.
I go back to my boss and said,
"Look, I wanna go to Mexico."
He goes, "You idiot,
you're not going to Mexico."
We got no way of covering you.
You can do what you can do,
here in Ontario,
but you're not going
anywhere else."
I said, "Okay."
Harms said that he would
be able to get me
four or five kilos of weed.
I made the deal with Harms to
meet on the dock in Wheatley and
it was all set.
We ended up meeting
on the dock at Wheatley.
I seen the five kilos of weed.
After a bit of a struggle
getting the signal out to
my arrest team,
it was quite the feeling
being on the end of this dock,
waiting for the cavalry
to show up
and no one's coming yet.
I was counting the money
and I'd go,
"Ah no, I got that wrong!"
And I start over again.
I was just trying to buy time.
♪
All of a sudden, all these
sirens and policemen
are runnin' down the dock
with shotguns and
throwing bodies on the ground,
arresting everyone.
Abraham Harms and his partner
were taken off to jail.
The next day,
I introduced myself as
Detective Constable Leblanc.
He wasn't too happy when he
seen my face.
Not like the other times
I had met him.
Retired Officer: A large group
of policemen get called in
at 4 o'clock
in the morning to meet
at a police station
in Leamington.
And we see two Mexican
Mennonite guys in the cells,
which, at that time
was a rarity.
You might get the odd one for
you know,
drunk driving or whatever.
They bring in these
two garbage bags,
and they set them on the desk
and they say,
"Today we're here to wrap up
an undercover project."
And then they open up
the bag and we see
50, 60 pounds.
There was a lot of pot
there compressed.
Then they say something
about the Mennonites.
We're like,
"The guys in the back?!"
You could just hear a pin drop.
And everybody was kind of
dumbfounded.
Mystery of the
brick weed solved.
I think everybody was
flabbergasted,
and it was Bernie's work
that identified
this organization.
Bernie Leblanc:
From what I understand,
I was the first officer
to purchase drugs off of
a Mexican Mennonite.
The light bulb went on
with law enforcement that
these Mexican Mennonites
just aren't these
God-fearing people anymore.
They're in the business.
From the sounds of it,
it was a good business.
Sam Quinones: Abraham Harms
was arrested in Ontario,
and somehow, they let
this guy out on bail.
Retired Officer: Our judges
aren't always the best
of lawyers and the
best decision makers.
Abe was smart enough to realize,
'Let's get out of here.'
Bernie Leblanc: He skipped town.
He went to Mexico.
♪
Retired Officer: He never
came back. But he also had
his ties here that he could
still sell narcotics
through other Mennonites,
through his contacts he made
in organized crime.
The narcotics don't slow down.
They keep coming into
Canada and the States.
With so many families,
they needed money.
They weren't getting it
from the farm.
They'd been in the drought
at that time,
and they saw an easy way
to come up to Canada,
two-day drive,
bring a load of drugs,
and you can make what you can
make in a year as a farm hand.
♪
♪
Andrew Mitrovica: In 1991,
I was kind of goofing off.
I went down to the CBC library.
This is pre-internet.
I happened upon
the Windsor Star.
I see this
what we call a three-inch story,
a small little story.
And it makes mention of
the fact that a fellow
by the name of Cornelius Banman
had been arrested at the border,
with a false-bottom sofa,
packed with dope!
Cornelius Banman.
Cornelius Banman?
That's aennonite name.
And the first question was,
'what is a Mennonite
doing with dope,
in the false bottom of a sofa?!'
I recognized he was just a mule.
He was getting paid to ship
the dope from Cuauhtémoc,
through the United States,
into southwestern Ontario
and southern Manitoba.
So the question was,
'who's Banman a mule for?'
I discovered that Corny
was in the pay
of Abraham Harms.
Well, who was Harms working for?
Canadian law enforcement,
they had these
jurisdictional issues
that they had to deal with.
They couldn't travel to Mexico.
As a journalist,
I didn't face those obstacles.
I could go to Cuauhtémoc.
♪
(soft dramatic music) ♪
♪
Andrew Mitrovica:
We went down to Cuauhtémoc.
We descend upon the houses.
We arrive at his homestead.
Hannah Gartner:
Hello, Mr. Harms?
Abraham Harms: Yeah?
Gartner: Hello, I'm Hannah
Gartner, Canadian Television.
I was-
- Interviewing in english.
Gartner: Yes, I was talking to,
I was-
Abraham Harms: Don't speak
to me too much English.
Gartner: I'll talk slowly. I was
speaking to Canadian police,
and they told me that
you are involved in
the drug business,
here in Cuauhtémoc.
♪
Abraham Harms: No, not to me.
Gartner: No?
Abraham Harms: No.
Gartner: Are you retired?
Abraham Harms:
No, I never do hear that.
Gartner: Well, that's not true
at all, Mister Harms,
you're a fugitive from Canada,
on narcotics charges,
possession and trafficking
of marijuana.
The customs official
and the police
are very anxious to have you-
Can I ask you one question?
Just as a parent?
How can you make your
children act as mules
and smuggle narcotics
across the border?
As a parent, I would
like to know this.
Abraham Harms:
I don't understand you.
Gartner: Are you going back
to Canada to face charges?
Abraham Harms: No. I don't
know, maybe next year.
Gartner: So you admit that
you are in the drug business.
You're staring at me, sir,
but you're not answering.
Is that your son, behind us
in the purple cap?
Is this the boy?
Abraham Harms: Yeah.
Gartner: I thought you said
he's not home.
I think you do understand
that you have made criminals
out of your children.
I think you do understand that.
(translator speaks Spanish)
Abraham Harms: (speaks Spanish)
Translator: (English)
Yes, I do understand.
(keys jangling)
Andrew Mitrovica:
Really telling moment,
when he starts
dangling the keys,
the nervousness
begins to overtake him.
(keys jangling)
Abe, he had children.
♪
And had enlisted
the help of his sons,
particularly Enrique.
(low dramatic music) ♪
There's a son there.
Johan is there, baseball cap, sheepish.
Johan realizes what's happening.
He makes a hasty exit.
(low dramatic music) ♪
And the critical question was,
I think that
singed his sense of
self was
how could you
enlist your children?
And I think Abe,
at that point recognized
what he had done,
that he, for money,
had converted his children,
into criminals.
♪
Enrique was in jail in Juárez,
on heroin charges.
♪
I remember his hair being
cropped here.
It was that very bad haircut.
♪
It was as we were
confronting a little boy.
Gartner: I would like to know
what you're going to
tell your father,
when you get out of here?
I want to clear up why there
were drugs in the trunk.
Gartner: And he still
hasn't told you that?
Enrique: No.
♪
Producer: What happened to
Abraham Harms?
Andrew Mitrovica: Well, what
happened to Abraham Harms is,
is, is still a bit of a mystery,
I think.
Shortly after,
we discovered that
Abe met a sudden
and violent death.
Sam Quinones:
He is killed in a car wreck
on the highway
between Cuauhtémoc
and the town of Rubio, which is
22 miles of straight highway.
Bernie Leblanc: From what
I was told,
he drove off the road,
hit a tree,
crawled up out of the ditch,
onto the road,
and got hit by a second car.
Andrew Mitrovica: It's very
difficult to determine
what the truth is.
The other story,
which has developed
some credence
within law enforcement is that
perhaps it wasn't
as innocent as that,
that he may have been killed.
That the so-called accident
was not an accident,
but he died,
and he died going to church
with a Bible in hand!
The contradictions!
He still believed,
to his last breath, apparently.
Sam Quinones:
Enrique Harms, Johan Harms,
begin to develop the drug
business that their father
bequeathed them,
first as marijuana.
But then eventually
comes cocaine.
Because the supplies
coming from Colombia
are just catastrophic.
♪
(tense dramatic music) ♪
♪
♪
Helen Wiebe: I was 18,
I started dating Abraham Wiebe.
Oh, my gosh. I was feeling
so many butterflies
in my stomach.
When we started
wanting to get married,
we had confess
our sins to everyone.
What we had done wrong.
For the biggest stuff,
we had to go to the Bishop.
And like Abraham, he had
stolen money from a place
where he worked before.
And then the Bishop said,
"Oh, you have way too much sin,
we cannot forgive you."
What kind of person he is.
What he has done,
you are damned,
we cannot forgive you.
♪
Abraham had a
very hard time with it.
He lost all his faith.
And then I got
kicked out of the Church
and the community too.
I was only about
three months with Abraham,
and he already start hitting me.
I didn't expect that,
that I would have to
deal with that more.
But that's what I ended up with.
♪
When I grew up in Mexico,
we never had electricity.
That was a sin.
Mennonites, they have so many
rules their own gosh!
You cannot imagine.
They expect a Mennonite woman is
supposed to be in church
every Sunday.
Some Sundays, they all
dressed the same color,
dark brown or black.
Mostly, all had
the same hairstyle.
One day, when I was
almost ten years old,
my mom died.
That was hurting in my heart.
I was never the same again.
I was lost.
♪
My dad, I got spankings
pretty bad from him.
Sometimes, I had to run
after a booster cable
that he was trying to hit me
with and stuff like that.
That was not easy on me.
♪
I was feeling like I was,
I was lost.
I didn't get any
love from anybody.
Is
amazing sometimes
to think about it that
you still can be alive
after all that.
We decided to
leave Mexico because
Mennonites would have
eaten us alive.
Frank Klassen: Abe Wiebe,
he was my brother-in-law.
I knew him on, um-
in Mexico for years,
after I got married
to his sister.
Helen Wiebe: One day we decided
to move to Oklahoma.
Frank Klassen: Abe and Helen,
they showed up in Thomas
in the mid-'90s.
And they stayed with us
for a week or two,
and then they moved into
an apartment at the motel.
Abe started working
here and there, some.
You just never knew,
one day to the next,
if he was going to be
around or not.
He did drink a lot.
Nobody could tell him nothing.
Helen Wiebe: When we were
living in Oklahoma,
Abraham, he always had
a bunch of Mexican friends.
Javier Morales,
that was the top one.
Former Agent: Javier Morales
lived in Lookeba, Oklahoma,
and Javier connected Abraham
Wiebe with Rene Cisneros.
The contact to the source
in Mexico,
the local wholesaler.
Helen Wiebe: Abraham and
Javier Morales,
they a lot of times, they went
to a cantina.
Abraham, he knew of drug
trafficking from the area,
where he was hanging around
with his friends.
Several years of having
friends like that
and so, that's how
he got involved in it.
He said always, 'I have to go
and get the truck.'
Abraham, he was in that
drug trafficking
and all that stuff.
I knew the drugs were
coming from Mexico,
but I didn't know
who was sending it,
or this or that.
I didn't know any about it.
♪
Frank Klassen: Abe called me up
one night and he said,
'I'm having trouble with a tire
to take it off.'
I went over there
and I had a rough time
at my business at that time.
He just got in his pocket and
he had a big roll of money.
Abe told me that he
took these wheels apart,
took the rims out,
cut them all open,
packaged it up,
all into the city.
He just said,
'If you work like this,
you just work a little bit.
Just a couple hours a day.'
And he said, 'You got
all the money you need
to do whatever you want to do.'
He asked me, he said,
'Why wouldn't you
do this instead
freezing your butt off
in the shop?
And just hardly making it?'
And, I mean there was
a temptation.
He didn't do nothing. He had
big roll of money in his pocket.
Just
At that time, I couldn't,
I mean, I couldn't
afford to have nothing.
And that's it.
No. It's not what
I want for my family and
that's not what I'm gonna do.
I walked away from it.
There's so many
Mennonite people, so poor,
that'd be tempted to do it,
because that's easy money.
And when they got
an offer like that,
they took it.
But Abe, he thought
he was in control.
(dramatic music) ♪
♪
♪
Helen Wiebe:
Abraham always told me
that he would one day tell
the police,
that he knows something,
where police would be very
suspicious over.
And I told him, that's not
good for you if you do that.
But he didn't care.
One day he got pulled over,
for drinking and driving
and he always had to talk.
Former Agent: Abraham Wiebe was
stopped in Thomas.
I got a call from a Chief
up there,
and he has a guy stop,
and the guy is saying
some silly things
about Mennonites,
making the secretion methods
for the cartels.
Do you want to go talk to him?
And I go, "Sure, why not?"
When I first met Abraham Wiebe,
the Chief had this secluded
building away from town,
he didn't want anybody
seeing us interviewing him.
(laughs)
I remember walking in
to interview him, and uh,
a farm boy,
he looked like a farm kid.
Like,
he stood out, he greeted me
and he was really docile.
How are you doing?
Kind of slow about
his movements,
I guess that's
what Mennonites are.
I guess, that's kind of
their make up.
They're very nice, very calm.
But it was a surprise.
So I was like, 'Does he know?
How does he know?'
It was very weird.
I don't think this guy's
gonna give me anything.
I had my list of questions and
I started talking to him
about them.
He goes, "But that's not
what you want to know."
And he started
telling me about
this top piece.
Wholesaling.
Mass transportation,
Secretion methods.
Smuggling, locations, trucks.
I'm like, 'This guy knows.'
Stuff that we caught
with top-level
conspirators that
we intercepted.
Nobody gets to know that stuff
unless you're in it.
Abraham had to be involved
in some way or fashion,
to know those details.
And he start talking about him
being a Mennonite and I'm like,
"I thought you guys
stay away from this stuff.
This is nothing
in your culture."
He goes, "Oh, no, no, no.
If you go down to Mexico,
we ran out of land.
That's all we do.'
Most of the people have
moved to moving drugs
for the cartels.
And I posed a question to him.
I said, "What if
we put you in a house,
and had the 18 wheelers
come to you?
What do you think?"
And this guy
wasn't nervous, calm.
He was like, "Yeah,
I could do that. Yeah."
♪
Thomas is northwest Oklahoma.
It's pretty rural.
And this farmhouse and barn
we get from the Mayor,
the Mayor offered it to us,
to use it.
It was probably four miles
from in town.
There is nothing around.
Maybe a another house a couple
miles down the road,
but you can't see nothin' much
out there.
So it's a setting where
nobody's gonna suspect anything.
This barn, you could pull
an 18 wheeler in it.
I told Abraham
to tell Javier Morales,
"I have a farmhouse.
I have a barn.
Come look at it.
I want to make some money.
This is not gonna be for free.'
Abraham told Javier, which
in turn told Rene Cisneros.
Rene Cisneros had connections
to every city in Oklahoma
and other states.
He had all these
wholesalers in small towns
that he was connected to.
They believe it's his farmhouse,
his place that he's renting out.
They just saw a way to avoid
bringing it to the city
and stashing it in Thomas.
It was an immediate sell.
We had to wire up the
farmhouse with cameras.
We had to have two surveillance
teams for the inner city,
for the wholesalers
that were picking up,
and a night team.
They were running day and night.
Helen Wiebe: The big truck
were mainly coming in around
2 and 3 in the morning
because that was not
a daytime job.
(laughs)
When the truck would come in,
Abraham was outside
helping the people there,
and I was write down
license plate and phone numbers,
if I could, and all that stuff.
Former Agent: We're getting
a call from Abraham saying,
"Hey, I got somebody from
the city coming right now."
These were times from
2 o'clock in the morning,
to 5 o'clock in the morning.
So we would have to scurry up,
take off to Thomas,
which, get there
in a high rate of speed,
so we would try to
beat him to the punch,
to see them pick it up,
load it up.
The most drugs was hidden
in the semi truck frame.
And the tires they had
a pipe around the rim,
so that it would stay on there
and all four tires,
it was packed.
The drug was packed
with plastic,
and then they had
a bunch of baby powder.
And then it was foil,
and then it was baby powder.
And then there were
several layers of foil
in this flat package,
like pack are a kilo,
that was like a pound ties each.
My house had a
very old basement.
They carried it
in there and they,
they came to and
put it in black bags.
We had to deliver it from there.
Sometimes I like to be sneaky,
because I'm a Mennonite too.
(laughing)
Former Agent: The 18-wheelers,
the beams of the trailer,
that spread from the back
of the trailer to the front,
were hollow,
and they'd stuff the dope
all the way up
through the beams.
So when they would get to
our location, Abraham would use
this painter's pole,
to fish out the dope.
Sam Quinones:
Within Mennonite culture,
there is almost
an innate ingenuity,
innovative kind of sense of,
we can make do
with whatever we got.
They're really good at
making false walls,
really good at mechanics
and finding spaces
in carburetors
and engines for dope.
Former Agent: Try to surveil
something from a mile away,
we had surveillance binoculars
and we're seeing this happen.
This is a year-long
investigation.
Retired Officer: In 1999,
I get contacted by the
Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics.
We start discussing
their investigation
a little bit in detail,
and they said,
"Well, we'd like you
to come down because
we really haven't dealt
with Mennonites.
So, we're going to fly up to
Detroit and meet up with you."
Talking about Mennonites,
what to expect,
how to deal with them,
how the hierarchy works.
Former Agent:
It was golden to have him
connect the dots for us.
'Cause I mean, we're not Mexico,
we did not know
they were in Canada.
He was able to name the people,
because he knew 'em
historically.
Retired Officer: Like a month
later, I get the call
they did the first buy.
They sent me the pictures.
Oh, that's more
than we've ever saw.
♪
Former Agent: We learned
it was going to Florida,
Chicago, Mississippi, Seattle,
Colorado, New Mexico.
Retired Officer: That's when
they realized, 'Holy cow,
this is going everywhere.
This is bigger than
we all thought.'
♪
♪
As the case was ending,
we had been doing this
for almost nine months.
I know I'm physically tired.
I'm working during the day,
getting up at
2 or 3 in the morning,
working for 3 hours,
sleeping 2 hours.
Abraham's protecting
the dope, calling me,
so I'm sure he's exhausted.
He has to drink with these guys
when they're hanging around,
and he's forming a friendship.
The only friend
he's developing is Javier,
getting closer to him.
Abraham would approach me about,
"Hey, when are you going
to do the arrest?
Are you going to take down
Javier Morales?"
At that moment,
when he asked me, I knew
there's something there.
He's trying to protect Javier.
If I would have said,
'Yeah, I'm going to tell you
when I arrest everybody.'
He would have told Javier.
And the case, we would never
arrested anybody.
So, I was never gonna tell
Abraham or Helen.
Even though Abraham
was consistent about asking.
Helen: In the very last month,
Abraham was getting so depressed
then he didn't want to
deliver the stuff anymore.
He didn't wanna
talk to them anymore.
Not to Javier Morales,
not to the agents.
I guess he didn't know
which way to go.
(dramatic drum beat) ♪
♪
Former Agent: Towards
the end of the wire,
as you're identifying
everybody in town,
and collecting the evidence,
you reach a point where
there's nobody else to identify.
My admin, and all the case
agents made the decision
to make a,
completing a target date,
to round everybody up.
♪
- This was a joint
investigation.
We've been working
hand-in-hand with OBN,
trying to get the dope
off the street.
This tonight is a major step,
'cause this is a major,
major load that's
been taken out.
♪
Former Agent: 22,000 pounds
in the total of the case.
We had 2,300 pounds of cocaine.
There was a little bit
of heroin,
28 arrests of all wholesalers,
18 search warrants of locations.
♪
♪
Abraham and his wife Helen,
I met with them and I told them,
"We're gonna put you in
a protection program."
Helen Wiebe:
We were living at that point,
in a hotel in Oklahoma City,
right beside Oklahoma
Bureau of Narcotics.
And then we didn't know
what to do until Abraham
got to the point that
he wanted to go to Mexico.
But I said, "No, it's not
a safe place for you."
He was just getting
so mad at me.
"Okay," he said,
"I will leave you here
and I will go by myself."
He didn't care about me
or anything at that point.
♪
Frank Klassen: After the arrest,
Abe showed up at the shop
and he said he was going
to Mexico.
And I told him,
"If they see you down there,"
I said, "You know that
they know what happened."
♪
"You're tying the rope on here."
And I said, "They're going
to finish you off down there."
And he said, "Nobody
is going to do that to me."
Then he was kind of upset,
and he just
got in his vehicle and left.
♪
♪
Helen: We went back to the
compo where he grew up.
Former Agent: He called, he was
in Mexico. It's an argument.
'What are you doing down there?
Why would you go down there?'
This is your family.
Now, Mexico is big.
♪
In his mind,
I could live somewhere,
not saying a word. He'd be fine.
♪
But I don't know if you've been
in a Mennonite community.
They all gossip.
They're all close knit.
They all share information.
♪
So I'm sure somebody told
somebody where they were going,
and that's how they learned
they were in Mexico.
Frank Klassen: There's a lot of
good Mennonite people
down there, but there's
a lot of bad ones, too.
A lot of 'em.
(low tense music) ♪
♪
Helen: We had a car,
it was a Dodge Dynasty.
It was a beautiful car.
I loved it.
And then when we got to Mexico,
he wanted to sell it.
Came a guy, supposedly
he was from Rubio.
He came by and wanted to buy it.
And the guy supposedly
was buying the car,
he was going with him
to the border,
♪
But, they never got there.
We were calling
to the United States.
We had to go to a different
compo to make the phone call,
because we didn't had no phones
at that point still.
We were trying to communicate
with his aunts and uncle
and sister and brother,
and there was nothing.
♪
Six days after
Abraham left the house,
my mother-in-law
got up that day,
she was so surprised.
She was screaming so badly,
that the window was broken.
And then she came into
my room screaming,
"Girl, get up, just come
and see what had happened."
And then we found a rock.
There was that letter
attached to a rock.
And then that's what made
the window broken,
that was laying there under
the pew, close to the table.
♪
November 22nd, of '99
"Mrs Wiebe, we are just
letting you know
that Abraham is okay.
He sends you many greetings.
But if you speak again
with anyone in the USA,
we will kill Abraham and You -
along with your whole family.
Because we're watching
you closely.
Both here and over there.
You know what happens
if you talk.
We'll be in touch."
Former Agent: Anyway,
I told her, "Get your stuff.
I don't care what you have
in your pocket money wise.
Get your kids, come to
the border.
Cross the border.
Just get out now."
♪
I had a source in Cuauhtémoc
and that source told me that
they had kidnapped Abe,
beat him, tortured him,
over cooperating,
went over what he gave,
hit him on top of the
head with a bat,
threw him in the lake.
Abe was killed and
thrown in the lake.
♪
(low ominous music) ♪
Andrew Mitrovica:
This is an organization
run by ruthless people,
who will kill
in order to protect
their operation, and the money
that is generated
by that operation.
Abe Wiebe, he was
working with somebody,
and the person
he was working for,
was working for someone else.
And then, of course,
it goes back to Harms.
♪
Producer: Do you hold
Enrique Harms responsible
for Abraham Wiebe disappearing?
Former Agent:
I was told by the source
and Rene Cisneros that
he had him killed.
And I had the other
reporter telling me that.
So, yes, I believe he did it.
Producer: How dangerous
is Enrique Harms?
Former Agent:
Enrique Harms is dangerous
like every other cartel member.
They have resources, they can
harm anybody they want.
Andrew Mitrovica: Enrique was
emerging as the kind of
the heir apparent to his dad.
But unlike his father,
wasn't sheepish
about his wealth.
He wanted to show others
that he was a powerful man.
What was the source
of his power? Money!
How did he arrive at that money?
Through narcotics.
He was the stereotypical
godfather,
in that he was a dangerous man.
♪
Enrique was a visionary.
They made a strategic decision
to diversify into
heroin, cocaine
And of course, that meant
that they needed to establish
even deeper links
to Mexican cartels
and other criminal
organizations,
operating both in Canada,
and the United States.
♪
They diversified,
they became more ruthless.
And it didn't matter
who they harmed,
and what they had to do,
to satisfy their thirst.
♪
- You guys recording? Rolling?
- Yeah!
- Calling mark!
- Yeah.
Johan Harms:
(long exhale)
♪
My name is Johan Harms,
and my dad name is
Abraham Harms,
and I'm here to set
the record straight.
♪