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Man Rescued Nearly A Week After Wreck; Protesters May Disrupt Festivities; Criminal Gangs Force People to Scam Americans; Travel Delays from Storms. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired December 27, 2023 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[09:32:15]
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Police in Indiana are calling this a miracle. Two fishermen saved a driver from his mangled truck. He had been stuck there for nearly a week after he'd crashed when they found him. Police say the driver may not have survived another night had they not been able to locate him at that moment.
CNN's Danny Freeman is following this. He has more on this.
Danny, how is the driver doing, and what happened?
DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I mean, listen, you know, this story is truly incredible. And, frankly, I think the word "miracle" is thrown around a lot. This actually -
BOLDUAN: Yes, haphazardly, right.
FREEMAN: Right. Right. This actually is a miracle and could have gone completely differently had this not happened.
It all started yesterday, OK, around 3:45 in the afternoon. These two men, Mario Garcia, and his son-in-law, Nivardo Delatorre, they were in Portage, Indiana, about 40 miles southeast of Chicago. They were looking to fish. You know, post-Christmas, cast a line, trying to get a fish out there.
BOLDUAN: Yes, it's warm enough. It's not frozen. They can get -
FREEMAN: Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly.
BOLDUAN: Yes.
FREEMAN: And Mario, the older gentleman, he sees something shiny under a bridge. He doesn't see a truck initially. So, he and his son-in-law, they go down to investigate. They see a truck. Mario then moves back an air bag on the truck and see what he thinks is a lifeless body.
BOLDUAN: Oh, my God.
FREEMAN: Then reaches out, touches the man, and at that point he wakes up, turns around -
BOLDUAN: Oh, my God.
FREEMAN: And they realize they have a lot more of a problem here.
So, it turns out the man had been in his car. He crashed his car last Wednesday. So, six days prior. And just take a listen to Mario, how he describes that moment of finding this gentleman.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARIO GARCIA, FISHERMAN: We were getting to the fishing hole and the truck was a little distance, but it was more like a mangled -- you couldn't tell it was a truck or not. But it caught our curiosity. And I walked over there first and he followed me and we went up to it. And I looked inside and moved the white air bag and he -- there was a body in there. And I went to touch it, and he turned around. And that just -- it almost killed me there because it was kind of shocking. But he was alive and he was very happy to see us. Like he was really, like - I never seen a relief like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FREEMAN: Never seen relief like that. I mean just an incredible, incredible story.
The man who was pulled out was 27-year-old Matthew Reum. First responders were able to take him out of there. It's unclear still what caused the crash last Wednesday, but first responders say that he survived for six days by drinking rain water. Incredible story.
BOLDUAN: And he's recovering now.
FREEMAN: He's recovering. He was taken to the hospital. He was able to talk a little bit, as I understand, to first responders.
BOLDUAN: Oh, my God.
FREEMAN: But, again, the luck that it has not been that cold, as you mentioned.
BOLDUAN: Exactly.
FREEMAN: Truly incredible.
BOLDUAN: Wow.
SIDNER: And it rained and that probably saved him.
FREEMAN: Yes.
BOLDUAN: I know. Just amazing.
SIDNER: Yes. That story is - it's the best -
BOLDUAN: Great humans. Yay. SIDNER: Yes, best story of the week.
BOLDUAN: Yay for great humans. And great people in Indiana.
SIDNER: Thank you.
BOLDUAN: Danny, thank you for bringing us that.
[09:35:01]
FREEMAN: Thank you both.
SIDNER: All right, this morning New York authorities boosting security as the city prepares for the big New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square, the one and only. Mayor Eric Adams saying that protests over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza have officials concerned about potential disruptions on New Year's Eve. The city is putting new strategies in place, including limiting how many officers are going to be staying on the scene at an incident.
CNN law enforcement reporter Mark Morales joins us now live with more details.
Are there specific threats that are causing concern because every single year there is the concern of terrorism, every single year there is a concern of a security breach there.
MARK MORALES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT REPORTER: Right. And, Sara, as you mentioned, naturally because it's New Year's Eve, there's always a heightened sense of threat. But specifically for this, the concern are those demonstrations. As you mentioned, those protests have started in the city ever since the Israel-Hamas war started back in October. And they released some numbers yesterday and I just wanted to go through some of these with you. They have almost 500 protests that have happened in the city since the beginning of the war. They estimate just over 160,000 demonstrators have attended these protests. So, there's obviously a lot of deployment, a lot of manpower done by the NYPD. And there is precedent for this concern. If you remember, police had to make numerous arrests during the Rockefeller Center tree lighting ceremony because demonstrators had gone there to disrupt that event as well.
And I asked Mayor Adams about this yesterday during a briefing and he told me that there were two main ways that they were going to really combat this. It was -- one was going to be technology and the other was going to be deployment of officers. The idea being that they were going to deploy the right amount of officers, no more and no less, but just enough so that they can address the situation without creating a vulnerability elsewhere.
Take a listen.
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MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D), NEW YORK: There's something that's known in policing, particularly when there's some type of terrorist action, of secondary devices and things like that. They want to draw attention from one area to go to a specific target area. We are really exercising our mental muscles to make sure that that does not happen. People have to maintain their locations and use minimum deployment from where a particular incident is happening so that we do not allow people to take us off our goal.
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MORALES: And as far as technology is concerned, there's going to be some that we see and some that we don't. We'll see a lot of drones. They've been really pushing how many drones that they've acquired over the last several months. But we're also going to see vehicle scanning devices and radiation detection devices, both of which have had seen technology really advance over the last couple years.
Sara.
SIDNER: Wow. Yes, we know that it gets real crowded down there at Times Square. So, we will be waiting and watching. I know you'll be all over this.
Mark Morales, thank you so much.
BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, lives destroyed, billions of dollars stolen. CNN investigates a sophisticated scam known as pig butchering. The victims losing their lives savings to fake promises of love.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got a Russian girl. With using a Russian girl fake profile I need to scam the people. Seventy to 80 percent fall for fake love.
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[09:42:51]
BOLDUAN: Billions of dollars scammed and stolen from Americans. A sophisticated crypto scam run by people on the other side of the globe forced into labor camps. It's a new CNN investigation into the scheme that has earned the name pig butchering.
CNN's Ivan Watson reports.
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CY (ph) (voice over): Please help me, Jessica! Please help me!
CY: It's been a living hell.
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In northern California, CY is piecing together his life after losing more than a million dollars in a crypto scam.
CY: I can never forget or forgive myself losing that kind of money.
WATSON (voice over): CY is one of tens of thousands of victims of a fast-growing new form of financial fraud called "pig butchering." He asks to remain anonymous to protect his family.
It started in October 2021 with a text message from a stranger.
WATSON: What was the name of the person you were communicating with?
CY: She claims her name is Jessica.
WATSON (voice over): The two quickly became friends. She shared photos and CY talked about the pain of caring for his dying father. After nearly a month, the conversation turned to money.
CY: She started to introduce me into cryptocurrency. Trading gold using cryptocurrency.
WATSON (voice over): Jessica showed CY how to invest by installing a trading app on his phone that he says looked legit. Little did he know he was a victim pumping money into a sophisticated con. For the scammers, a pig fattened up for the slaughter.
CY: I logged back in. The account is gone. What did I do? That's 30 years of my wife and my life building up this wealth.
WATSON (voice over): Wealth that had suddenly disappeared. Panicking, CY begged Jessica for help.
CY (voice over): Please help me! I don't know what else I can do! I don't have anymore money. I cannot borrow (ph) anything else. I lost everything!
WATSON (voice over): But Jessica disappeared and probably never even existed.
[09:45:04]
JAMES BARNACLE, FBI SPECIAL AGENT: This is the professionalization of fraud services.
WATSON (voice over): The FBI says it's seen exponential growth in losses due to the pig butchering scams.
BARNACLE: The bad guys are getting good and they're getting better.
WATSON (voice over): An organization representing scam victims tracked their crypto transfers halfway around the world to this border region in Myanmar.
WATSON: U.S. scam victims say they've been able to trace their money to places like this. This walled compound across the river is just inside the territory of Myanmar. And that is where we're learning about the conditions inside, that some people who worked there, they say that they were forced against their will to try to scam Americans out of their hard-earned money in conditions that they describe as amounting to modern day slavery.
WATSON (voice over): This compound is where an Indian man named Rakesh (ph) says he was forced to work for more than 11 months without pay for a Chinese criminal gang.
WATSON: The guards have spotted us.
WATSON (voice over): Until they recently released him back to Thailand.
WATSON: Where was the job supposed to be?
RAKESH: They told me it was for Bangkok.
WATSON (voice over): He too was the victim of a scam. Rakesh, who doesn't want to be identified, says he first flew to Thailand for what he thought was an IT job. Instead, he says he was tricked into crossing the border to Myanmar where a Chinese gangster told him to work or else.
WATSON: He threatened to kill you?
RAKESH: Yes. He warned me like that.
WATSON (voice over): And the job? Spend 16 hours a day on social media targeting Americans with a fake profile.
RAKESH: They provided us. I got a Russian girl. With using a Russian girl fake profile I need to scam people.
WATSON (voice over): Posing as a Salt Lake City based investor named Clara Simoniv (ph), Rakesh flirted online with potential targets.
RAKESH: Seventy to 80 percent fall for fake love.
WATSON (voice over): Rakesh shows secretly filmed images of what at first glance seems to be an ordinary office, but he says the bosses routinely punished workers, forcing them to do hundreds of squats, and beating them if they didn't produce.
WATSON: And you've helped rescue people who were trapped inside behind the barbed wire of that very compound.
MECHELLE MOORE, GLOBAL ALMS: Yes. Yes.
WATSON (voice over): Mechelle Moore is one of a group of aid workers based in Thailand who have helped rescue hundreds of victims of trafficking, like Rakesh, over the last 18 months. She drives me along the border.
MOORE: There - there's the guard tower just there, green roof.
WATSON (voice over): Showing compounds only a stone's throw away where she says trafficked victims are forced to work as online scammers.
MOORE: This is why this is modern slavery. And it's right under everybody's nose.
WATSON (voice over): Satellite images show rapid construction of these compounds on the border territory of Myanmar over just three years. Thailand's minister of justice labels these facilities as hubs for criminal scamming activity.
TAWEE SODSONG, THAI JUSTICE MINISTER (through translator): These scammers have to use telephone signals to communicate. That's why they base themselves near the Thai border so they can use Thailand's telephone network.
WATSON (voice over): But he says Thailand has no jurisdiction to crack down on suspected criminals operating across the border in Myanmar. CNN asked the military government in Myanmar why it hasn't taken action against alleged criminal gangs operating on its territory and did not receive an answer. So, for now, it looks like no one is going to stop this poisonous cycle of exploitation.
Ivan Watson, CNN, on the Thai border with Myanmar.
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BOLDUAN: Wow. Ivan, thank you so much. Ivan Watson bringing us that report and that investigation. Thank you.
SIDNER: All right, drivers are stranded after blizzard-like conditions shut down parts of I-80 across Nebraska. The latest on a winter storm now moving east that could make for some really unpleasant travels.
And, why the flight carrying migrants from Texas to New York ended up in Philadelphia. We'll discuss coming up.
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[09:53:05]
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BOLDUAN: A Christmas record for "The Color Purple." The film took in $18 million on Monday, making it the biggest Christmas Day box office opening in 14 years and the second highest grossing Christmas Day release ever. This musical adaptation of Alice Walker's 1982 Pulitzer Prize winning novel - this is the musical adaptation. The first film version was released in 1985. This one was produced by Warner Brothers and Warner Brothers Discovery is the parent company of CNN.
Also on our radar this hour, a federal appeals court has thrown out the 2022 conviction of former Congressman Jeff Fortenberry, saying that the charge - that he was charged in the wrong jurisdiction. The Nebraska Republican was convicted of lying to the FBI about a illegal campaign contributions. Now the court has concluded that prosecutors erroneously charged Fortenberry in Los Angeles where the campaign finance investigation was based instead of in Nebraska or D.C., where he met and allegedly lied to agents. No word yet on whether he will be retried. A flight carrying migrants from Texas to New York was diverted to Philadelphia last night due to weather. According to CNN affiliate WPVI an estimated 200 migrants were onboard. The flight left from El Paso. Hours after landing in Philadelphia, the group was then put on busses and continued on to New York.
SIDNER: This morning, the FAA warning of possible flight delays. This massive winter storm systems blanket the East Coast. And that's not the only area to watch out for. Sorry, guys. You're looking at video now out of South Dakota. Yikes. Blizzard conditions that hit the central U.S. over Christmas are beginning to end, but only after dumping heavy snow and lots of ice.
[09:55:04]
In Nebraska, the storm closed about 270 miles of roads in that state and caused dozens of crashes.
CNN's Derek Van Dam is joining us now from the Weather Center.
Boy, that was bleak look at it. But I mean it's South Dakota. Like, they do - they're hearty people. They get used to the -- sort of the ice and the snow. That's a part of Christmas.
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS CERTIFIED METEOROLOGIST: Any given Tuesday.
SIDNER: Yes.
VAN DAM: It's still dangerous, right, but their -- that same storm system is wreaking havoc along the East Coast, but a completely different manner. This time it's fog and rain. And, of course, that can have trouble -- travel trouble concerns at the airports and on the roadways as well.
I've been watching this web cam. This is an Earth Cam from New York City. Obviously, you can see the East River. There's the Brooklyn Bridge. And we've seen raindrops now just spattering on the lens and this lowering of the cloud, aka fog, that has settled into the city. It's been fluctuating in and out of the big apple all morning. But across the northeast we have had areas of fog that have dropped the visibility levels below a quarter of a mile. Look at Farmingdale, Islip. I mean this is just incredible to see what's going on. Very difficult travel conditions across the area as we continue with fog and rain across the northeast.
Sara.
SIDNER: All right, Derek, you've got to do better for us in the coming year.
VAN DAM: I will try.
SIDNER: But, I guess I'll take it.
VAN DAM: Just keep the salary coming.
SIDNER: Thank you so much.
BOLDUAN: The weatherman shaming has just been epic this week.
Derek, we love you, we hate you, we still need you, love you and we can't quit you. That's how we're going to leave it. You've been amazing.
SIDNER: Can't quit you.
BOLDUAN: You're relentless. Relentless.
All right, coming up for us, Secretary of State Tony Blinken is on his way to Mexico right now to meet with top officials about the crisis at the U.S. border. The ask that Tony Blinken and other top U.S. officials are bringing down there with them.
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