Kitbag Conversations - Kitbag Conversations Episode 11: The Dark Depth (Part 1)

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

With Matt still gone Cody and Poseidon S2 go into the depths of Intelligence Agencies and Spooky stuff that happens in the world whether its Private Intelligence or Private military. *PART 2 ON PATREON*

Welcome to kitbag episode I think this is 11 12 13 I don't keep track that's Matt but he's off the space camp right now all your patreon money is being well spent the little guys having fun he's doing rocket training next week he did zero gravity training and like life support systems last week and then magic camp before that he's having a great time but today we've got Poseidon s2 and we can't we text back and forth about this stuff all the time but we don't we have nobody wants to talk like black ops right and so what do we want to start with do we want to start with the pond do we want to start with black water do we want to start with the Vatican intelligence service the Pinkerton's like what is what's

your fancy where do we start this I think I think we should start with the pond okay so to me because it's great okay so the pond it's a circle around the same time as OSS comes out but they're they're separate from the OSS civilian intelligence agency and like made up like by guys they're like you know private industry guys and there isn't a ton of information out on them there's there's a few podcasts that mention them there's um there's an article on wikipedia and there might be a one or two classified documents from the cia that mentioned them but um just just super interesting they they were active between 42 and 55 and um from what I understand the OSS could not stand them because they they were operating outside of their control

like so we me and another guy with uh what is formerly known as ass burgers but now is called autism so on the spectrum he's a big big black like he believes in UFO he's a doctor okay so like and a pilot but he believes in UFOs and he believes in all that superstitious shit and he went down the rabbit hole and he was fucking pissed when he's found like you said like only like two documents exist about this intelligence service that lasted longer than the OSS but has there's nothing on them and they had private funding like that that blows my mind that something like this like it lived that long and there's only two things on them and they received private funding over like back then it was like $100,000 from like the government but like what is that plus all their private

investments like what's $100,000 in 1950 money today is that probably like a cool couple million on top of like OSS training and like because for those who don't know the OSS became the cia and special forces like those that's where you went you either became a green beret or you became cia and then these guys that's my dog there's a thunderstorm he's a big baby but um these guys went off and just kind of did their own thing and were paid by private equity firms to do shit so like I that blows my mind that somebody let those guys just and that's the thing they were so secretive that Truman when he dismissed the OSS forgot like they didn't know they're like oh everybody in here's fired and then they are just like walking behind him like fuck he didn't point

at me like it's it blows my mind and so like I was saying those guys were doing it for like what 13 years they didn't hang it up they didn't they didn't yeah I wonder if I wonder if they got absorbed into the cia like I mean just in the same way that OSS did um or if they just sort of went off and kept doing their own thing under a different name because I think I was also reading about it they had a different I couldn't tell you what they were but I think they also went by a few different names as well but the pond I think is the one that's in is in the records like that's in the classified documents but I guess the founder um John Grombach yeah I guess I mean I guess he just wasn't well liked by the by the bureaucrats because he was very secretive

and and kind of did did what he wanted but he had I think during World War II it was like 150k they allocated to them and then it event I think that their height they were getting like 300 grand from the government which again I mean back then you know that's a lot of money yeah that's a shit ton of money like how do I I'm trying to pull it up to uh that's 3.7 million yeah and then that so they get 3.7 million from the government and then they get their private equity firms to give them money too and so it's like that's I could work with 3.7 million like I could I could work with that like I also wonder too like um like I don't know that they did like say covert action per se but maybe they it seems like for when I was reading it looks like they did just more like intelligence

collection and um yeah like I guess like the softer skills you know what I mean like they weren't I don't know that they maybe they were I mean who knows it's again it's all we're only speculating all right we're going up for like 3d classified documents in a Wikipedia article here because that's all there is that's all I need baby I'm not fucking I'll have to get the book but the I sent it to you there's they uh hold on let me just google it's like this I think it's called safe hold on it's called a safe haven series I think and they kind of allude um to a pond like organization and it's in modern it's it's set in modern day um I'll have to get it you can put it in the show notes or something like that but it's uh yeah well it's that yeah well I was talking to

you and I was like you know there's no way these guys hung it up but the thing is I was like if you had a private equity firm and you have basically what is a higher CIA agency you can hire you can change governments at that point and that's all that like when you think about what was post-war war two it was literally all governmental changes right like Africa South America all we did was government changes shit the banana wars we declared war to help I was just I was just gonna yeah like so like you don't even like soft skills are like 95 percent of the job market right like you don't given people guns and shooting people in the face is the easy part like doing the intel and finding out who to shoot in the face is the hard part and so it's like I I firmly believe those

guys are like a four higher CIA agency right like they probably helped the Rockefellers they probably helped the Rothschilds like after like how do you why does Africa not want American investment firms in Africa anymore probably because the pond helped uh you know the Rothschilds and the fucking bed of urgs and basically take advantage of all of Africa like yeah what is uh the book Confessions of an Economic Hitman right like yeah it's really how it is and so it's it's wild to think that we just like let that happen right like some dude just got to walk around and be like yeah give me money and I'm a spy like on the private side yeah I mean you gotta think they're obviously they're operating with some sort of consent from the from the US government you know I don't think

they're totally rogue but they're they're 100 off the books yeah yeah I mean it's a it's a fine line you just gotta ride it well right like in a way it reminds me like like the old so like in the James Bond series right so there's specter yeah yeah I just I just think it's fine I see like there's parallels there but that makes sense because maybe Ian Fleming at the time you know writing those books maybe he knew about him who knows you know so he was kind of like making this pseudo organization at it like based on them but I don't know it's like Tom Clancy you know like Tom Clancy had all those friends that were in the government and he just kind of like read a bunch of Wikipedia articles and then he did such a good job comparing his notes with talking to

people and Wikipedia that the FBI interrogated Tom Clancy they're like how the fuck do you know all this shit he's just like I have autism and I put it all together like Jesus like yeah no it's true I I was I found that out like a like a month ago like yeah he actually wasn't in the IC at all yeah Tom Clancy like dude he he scared the shit out of the I guess what that's like that the Tom Clancy all those Tom Clancy novels he scared the living shit out of the IC community because he could he's just be like how do you know I don't I just put it put two and two together like yeah um okay so that novel hold on because I remember and I remember because I like learned about the pond and I started reading this I I think there's a connection there so I must have

heard a podcast where JT Patton was interviewed and that's that's the author of this of these of this series of novels and I think that's where I heard it this was during COVID so my my memory is a little bit fuzzy but I remember going through the book and I can show you I highlighted all the references I highlighted all the references that I could find to the pond but I thought it was pretty cool and yeah I'm pretty sure that's the uh I'm pretty sure that's the series if anyone wants to check it out that is awesome dude that because there's that there's that right and then there's like like I said the Tom Clancy novels um are there any other books out there that you read during COVID that you're just like this was an eye opener or this uh yes hold on I'll be good I'm

going on my shelf oh you're gonna be like that yeah I'm gonna go to my shelf because why not let me see the safe haven series was good you know I liked I liked the jet car I started reading jet car at that time too and I thought there was a lot of a lot of cool stuff in there um you know relentless strike uh Sean Naylor I don't know if you're with that one that one's pretty good that's about JSOC um in the GWOT and that's what's actually the history of JSOC that's super super super super super super super interesting and um yeah that one that one's a good one to read uh there's a lot of cool stuff in there I'll leave it at that oh like that right dude JSOC is because that's a like I've that's how actually like I tell everybody like that's how me and Matt met like Matt was

Marine Recon and I was supporting like he was Marine Recon until I was special forces and tell nerd and so like JSOC is funny because like all the operators they kind of have their beef right like they're like oh seals versus rangers and but like the intel guys who are in the background we have our own beef too like the Marines in the army like we get along just because the Air Force and the Navy suck so much like and and if I had to say like the Navy has their winners they do it's not it's just because the Marines hate them but out of everybody in JSOC it's like we have Marines we have Navy intel we have Army intel and then there's the Air Force guy who keeps copying slides and slapping his name on it like I don't know why I'm here like

like uh because and the problem with that is is that uh Air Force guys they uh they're sectioned off right like there's not like a platoon of JTACS or a platoon of TACPs so they don't have like dedicated intel because those PJs those TACPs they get put on to teams and so the intel guys are like well what do I do and shut up that's what you fucking do and so when they show up to the the community when we all get together to play and it's like you know Army Navy Marine Corps Air First like somebody get him out of here like and if you feel so bad you're like it oh man just go get donuts like they're all studs in my book they're all studs in my book not me I'm willing to fight them I'm making no friend I'd rather have an enemy than a friend I need to fight I need to

I need to constantly be working out and thinking that some Air Force kid is gonna jump me yeah not posting not posting shit in a discord um yeah so you also mentioned there was a guy who did uh who was and this was this was weird he was a banking guy who was killed yeah okay explain this one this one's weird too this one's super this is where Poseidon S2 loses all his credibility this is this is the one okay yeah so so the guy's name this was like in the late 70s early 80s I want to say Roberto Calvi so he worked he was a Italian banker right and the bank was Banco and Rossiano and they did they had a lot of clients but primarily the Vatican was their client um and he had ties to he had ties to the Masonic Lodge in Rome called Propaganda Due

and that so that was super weird too so like that was so that's kind of interesting like don't the Vatican and the Messiah like they don't yeah it's it's weird yeah it's I agree because that is it is a bit of a paradox there um but what's interesting is I mean so like that like the 70s and the 80s for Italy was a weird time like there was just a lot going on um because you have the fall of fascism obviously but you also have the mob there like the mob is going across the pond and then also communism yeah and then like and so a lot of communists like you know there's communist stuff going on um and then this is so all this is going on and then there is the post-war operation called Glad Operation Gladio which the United States and I think MI6 did

and it was sort of like this not quite a stay-behind force but it was sort of you know it was it was just kind of a covert action program yeah that's kind of what I read into it as but the false flags you know but it could be like a car bomb on a judge or whatever and they they blame it on like a left-wing extremist group or whatever and yeah it it was interesting it's interesting but so he's tied to all these people and then there's this masonic lodge that's like staunchly anti-communist and and and it's tied to like Italian like intelligentsia and and different you know different politicians and people of influence and so they kind of the weird thing so he's he eventually like gets in trouble he's laundering all kinds of money through

the bank he said the shell companies he's doing all kinds of stuff and you could speculate like who's he who he was laundering the money for but he was and eventually gets in trouble for all this and um travels to England travels to London on a assumed like an assumed name passport and um he turns up dead he's hanging from a bridge um Blackfire Bridge and he's got he's got he's got like bricks in his pocket and and his stuff with cash like the US dollars like Italian lira and pounds maybe I could be wrong it's super weird and um originally it was ruled a uh suicide but just recently I and recently I last decade or so right um they went back and I think they they re-ruled it as like like unknown death or like probable like murder

it was something to that effect which is really interesting but so what's the weird thing is so they found him hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London and in within the the propaganda do a like masonic lodge I guess there was another name that we've got thrown around it was called Fratinelli which in Italian means Blackfriars so it was like okay there's maybe this there's a connection here like it's a like was a warning or there's some sort of obviously some sort of significance because they like really wanted you know they I don't know there's there's that um I'm just trying to think so that there were there's speculation that so like through through that bank he was laundering money for during the the war so like with the Contras in Nicaragua Jesus and

and also during the Falklands war there's suspicion that he was providing he was that broker in the deal for the Exocets for the Argentinian which would make sense why he might turn up dead uh in in London but then why go to London anyway you know like you're you know yeah if you have the enemy number one right yeah like there's there's a lot of there's a lot of holes in that story but if you yeah if you're if you're not doing anything one day you just just that's a fun rabbit hole to go down and there's a couple of podcasts today that talk about it so what's after after hearing all of it what do you think it was I think I think the Brits killed him yeah I think my six killed him I buy the I think the Exocets story is is what happened but at the same time

at the same time there's like I don't know there's probably like no shortage of dudes that wanted to kill that guy mm-hmm he had ties to the mob it ties to the you know he had ties to all different governments and intelligence services who know who knows we pissed off you know plus the money laundering I don't know there's a lot of there's a lot there you know so it's I don't think I mean you're never gonna unpack it but I mean that oh man that because I remember you saying also that he had a fake passport on him like yeah and that was the the the thing for me was like it's all fun and games to like have a bunch of different money but like a fake a quality fake passport even that's huge like that's like who the fuck gave you this right yeah well I think also what's at

that time he was I'm not mistaken he wasn't even allowed he snuck out of Italy because he was yeah yeah so at this time like at a time where he turned up dead he was he was under investigation or was just like for this for all this money laundering stuff with the bank so yeah so like that that's that's I think where that comes from but at the same time he had you know he's got access to I don't know it could have just been general criminal stuff but well we can so if he's we can eliminate the Italians then right because he's he's effectively no I don't think you can I don't I don't think you can either because of the mob stuff well that's that's the thing right so like the Vatican we know is a separate entity and they didn't try to save him it's right there down the

street right like if the Vatican's not like shit get your dumb ass in here inside the walls and we can protect you then they didn't want him yeah and then the Italians are like park your ass right there because you're you know doing illegal shit so we know it wasn't the Italian government and then he so somebody in Italy probably wanted him dead for sure like the mob like you said like we can't write them off but he got a fake passport so probably the Vatican or someone he knew in the Italian government got him out of there but if if he was tied to the arch like I don't think he because why would he go to England right like why would you go to London why would he why would he go that's that's the thing yeah especially if the exocet theory is true well what if it was true

right and he he's working with the Argentinians he's fucked in Italy because he's about to squeal like a pig and so he goes I'm gonna flee to mi fought that's probably why they maybe the the Argentinians killed them not mi6 maybe I'll try to defend yeah he's like trying to defect to England mi6 is like get your little happy ass over here show us this information and we'll we'll do this thing and we'll give you amnesty here in England and like so like maybe but I there's what do you make it okay do you so do you do you find any significance and where on the bridge that he was hung on that's the other like you said like there there is there is that significance yeah it's it's a it just seems like it's so on the nose right yeah it's just like

okay like yeah unfortunately it's just one of those things you could talk like I you'll just never know you know you'll you'll never ever I don't think you want to know uh you know I think anybody who knows his dad it were uh is definitely not well I like okay so like this one was actually talking to somebody this morning because like there were 51 intelligence personnel who signed like the the hunter biden laptop memo and like it just came out that like the c i h e for whatever his name was was the one who coerced them all and it's like he coerced them all to sign this document saying you know the hunter biden laptop's bogus and I was sitting there and I was like these intelligence officials in quotes I was like how the fuck do I get in that group like I want to make

$100,000 to sign a memo away like oh yeah like that laptop's fake whatever give me my money like same thing with like the guy getting hang hung on the bridge like do you want do I want to know shit yeah then somebody's gonna have to pay me to shut up like yeah I'm that guy like fucking and and a lot of people like people surround it was interesting again again it's a weird time in Italy right all the mobs up all the corruption and people were turning up dead all the time but so like a lot of associates that were surrounded him have connection to this masonic wash too and they were also turning up dead around the same time so it's it's just you know falling out of windows like his like the day he traveled to um the day he traveled to London his secretary

fell out of a window or committed suicide she committed suicide she jumped from the bank yeah she jumped okay so that all right hold up so that that makes me I took notes on it hold on I think this is the Italians now because like that's a key you can't leave that piece of information out right yeah yeah yeah this is so much that's it that's the yeah so the day before he died the secretary died yeah so she was definitely tortured and asked to have the like where is he type thing yeah so I'm willing to bet it was the Italians um final answer pop Italy I think it was the Italians I think it I think it was the Italians and I don't know but I don't know I mean he's got the bank he's got the he's got the books is the

thing right like he knows where all the money is and who's moving it and so if he knew what the Argentines were doing and he went to the UK to tell them like hey this is where it all is I'm sure my six would have been like yeah get your happy ass over here we'll take that info for uh you know living in England and being safe but I mean it's the mob in the 50 in the 60s and 70s like this is the mob in the 60s and 70s was beating the shit out of the FBI like they are they were no joke at that time and like that's a that's a whole nother thing we could go down to is like the Sicilian mob no we don't have to do that no I was in I was in um I was in Paris last summer and like this guy was talking about the we're like a little

bistro right and we're talking to the later and he's talking about going to um Corsica for like vacation but I mentioned the Corsican mob and he went you know my favorite thing is when they say there's no such thing as the mob and then they have uh it's uh La Cosa Nostra this thing ours it's like it's it's not the mob it's just this thing we do it's like and so there's um I I like this movie uh if you can if you can stand some titles it's called La Scorta and it's um almost probably from the early 80s an Italian film and it's about the guy it's about the um the security details that like would protect the judges and stuff and in in in Sicily like in Palermo and uh it's pretty good it's a it's a good uh it's a good film I mean I like it but uh

yeah that's a good one I mean it's it's funny that you mentioned that there's like these operatives going around in Italy post post war right because you got the communists you got the fat the remnants of the fascist government and they're we're trying to turn it into a democracy but we already fucked up in Italy when we were like hey we need the mob's help I was gonna say yeah like how do you occupation so like when the Americans like so when we liberated when we liberated like Sicily like when the United States came in Italy I want to say I want to say that we were we were using those guys yep we were 100 we gave it uh one dude was in prison and he showed us where all the ports were in Sicily and then another dude uh they went into a town and this dude who was part of the Sicilian

mob was just on a tank with a bullhorn shouting like hey you're fucking done surrender and they did like the Italian soldiers were like is that Jimmy the guy who's in charge of this town like fuck like he's gonna kill my mom like and they did and like they brought this Italian dude who just told them shut the fuck up sit down and the entire Italian army did like how do you because like I've mentioned this before like with Ukraine and other things like there's a there's an aftermath to this right like after we're done in Ukraine um how do we how do we deal with this right and so like because there's gonna be all these power groups moving around same thing in Italy after World War II is we literally gave the mob a a podium to stand on to tell the Italians to

shut the fuck up sit down and kill Castro and then when we're done we're like all right hold on you need to get off that podium and they're like no fuck you like yeah you put me up here dumbass like like yeah yeah the post war post war Ukraine gonna post war you the whole region is gonna be pretty wild um especially if I'm I'm sort of in the camp that the Russia that went into this war it's not gonna I mean no duh it's not going to be the same Russia that comes out of it but what I mean is I I seem to I tend to think that it's gonna be like the Russian Federation is gonna be it's gonna be like Moscow St. Petersburg let's get it it's gonna be like a few major cities it's gonna shrink and then everything else is gonna break up and be like

I guess I mean they already have autonomous regions but I I think I just think that's what's gonna happen if if Russia doesn't pull it off I don't know how he can hold on a power like we'll be able to hold on a power after that we can oh we can talk about I love this yeah sorry that was not that was a good job no it's not it's the uh because uh that's kind of like my one of my favorites is the uh it's called the Vori but the Russian mob yeah and like they are a favorite of mine because like it's really weird when you talk about uh because we we talk you read the uh what book was it fuck the the IL-76 book where they have the uh yes outlaws outlaw zinc yeah outlaw zinc where they talk about the black market supply chain that is run by the Russian

mafia yes and it's like holy like they have basically uh c7's is what they have and you're like hold up wait up hold and back the phone up like the the Russian mob has IL-76's which have a secret compartment bay underneath and so it's so that the the compartment so on the IL-76 sorry to cut you off so that was like so that's so that was all um that's like rescue equipment so I didn't I didn't know this so all those I mean obviously given the the expanse that Russia is they're built that's they're built to have all this all this survival equipment so that's what they were stripping out they were stripping all the survival equipment on the under the under the deck of the of the fuselage and then that's where they were they were padding everything

and I remember reading um in that book they talk about a story where they they flew and I they bought an IL-76 they couldn't the altitude that the airport was at I think it was in Afghanistan somewhere I remember they wouldn't they wouldn't be able they could fly it in but they couldn't fly it back it was they the runway was too short yeah there's just no way yeah so it that was actually where I was um okay uh so it's in Kandahar it's not too high but the problem was is Kandahar is a shit hole when I mean shit like there is nothing there and so like my wand which is right around the corner it's like just west of Kandahar that's where like an entire British regiment died and so it's it's hilarious to me because like these the story goes we in the U.S. Army needed

air conditioning units and power generators huge fucking things but if you fly in there there's no parts there's no nothing you could do the money wasn't good and so these fucking idiots were like we're gonna piece together an IL-76 and they did just it this thing is like that like uh the fucking the ship from Star Wars like she she can't fly Mark too but she can land and it did they undid everything they got all the generators off and these Russian mafia dudes just literally they're like the captain's like all right you can turn around and leave and he's like no fuck that that the plane stays and they got on a bunch of trucks with some like Taliban middlemen and left like they just left the plane there because it was cheaper to just collect the cash and then just

leave that hunk of shit there and it was like yeah holy shit and like some some captain just had to like sit there and like yeah that plane's yours now buddy it was a plane was it when you were there was the plane there no um so i actually went into it because i was like that exactly like you said like holy shit like that was 19 years after it and so i wondered i was like what the fuck ever happened to that plane they stripped it they stripped it sold it for parts and they just gave it to the afghan government and they stripped it and they said that's that scene from that scene from lord of war comes to mind exactly if he lands the uh yeah fire sale let's go come on baby but so yeah like you were saying like you're like because Putin has his hate like that's kind of like

what's the black ups have to do with this is like behind the scenes Putin runs Russia by using the mob he holds them under control and they have like disciplined like a way of saying like they take apart tanks in the tank yard they sell pieces they do this but they don't do it how they used to in the 90s where it was like you could buy a nuclear submarine what was that one show oh jeez that was on Netflix uh Tarzan what was that was his name oh i'll google it absolutely necessary but uh it was like Operation Odessa i think it was i think that's it yeah uh but that's how bad it was yep Operation Odessa and they were selling nuclear subs and that literally on the phone about selling submarines and they're like do you want

nukes or no nukes and it's like that that shouldn't be an option yeah i remember vice okay so when vice was when vice was cool they there was a piece that they did where they went to Odessa and they claimed they saw a black market nuke like a black like a warhead and the guy had it like buried in his grip and like his mother's like backyard or something like that jeez i'll have to i'll have to find that out well there was there was some of those were like they went out and they got like uh they were like in moldova or ukraine and they're like hey we're buying stuff and they were buying rpgs like if i'm not mistaken moldova is is known for like it's known for like the smuggling of nuclear material i'm not mistaken

that's that's that's like a yeah that's like a i guess a well-known thing it's it's it's bade it's real bade yeah yeah no it's not good um well they were talking about i think it was it's the book the fory but it's like uh people don't understand that the russian mafia is more like the slavic mafia and and that uh not every georgian is a russian mobster but 83% of high level russian mobsters are georgian and so it's like the idea is that like if you're talking to a georgian there's a good chance not only is he in the mob or an extended family member so it it runs deep over there and so when you talk about like what's post uh for russia look like it's like bro fire sale everything's gonna be on sale again yeah um yeah i know absolutely and when people talk

about i've i've heard i've heard this like people on the bbc like talking about like oh you have get any pregosion right yeah like he he can he can i i got a lot of thoughts about him after this week um because i remember i remember like i remember like reading about him when nobody knew his name like like in the very beginning like in syria like like all that and and when those reporters turn up dead in the in the congo for the yeah the car um so like like i remember like following this like from the beginning and then it's it's cool to come full circle now you know this guy that you never saw on tv like here he is you know but i i don't like to me i watch him on tv and i'm like he knows there's no way he's getting out of this a lot either way either way he's dead

and i think he knows it that's a good point and i and i wonder because he gets pretty spicy in his videos i mean he does but and correct me if i'm wrong he always holds short of talking about he always holds short of getting spicy with putin he only he only embarrasses the general he doesn't talk about daddy no he doesn't he doesn't talk about putin but i think and so i was thinking about this i was like okay how's that allowed but it makes sense in that for two reasons one like his guys are getting i mean they're getting schwacked right so in in essence i think it's permitted because he needs to maintain order he can't like have they can't have his guys have a mutant yeah so he's gotta so he's he's gotta be seen sticking up for them so he's doing that and

then he's calling out these generals this makes the generals look stupid and the generals don't want to look stupid in front of putin and i i think it's so it's like this it's this dual it's that's why it's permitted that's why he gets away with it we interrupt this program to bring you hey guys this is cody so when presideness two and i were recording this episode it was actually during a thunderstorm and we lost power like three times and it corrupted some files and it broke it all up and it was just a mess it ruined the podcast and i saved what i could but we recorded today which is 5 11 2020 2023 and we're going to post the rest of this episode on the patreon for free so go ahead go over there check it out finish the episode and see if you like anything on

the patreon but like i said the rest of the episodes on there and it's free