Episode 4: You Should Be Thankful

Summary

Cool Mules | Canadaland Investigates

Episode 4: You Should Be Thankful

Release Date: June 25, 2025
Host: Kasia Mihailovic

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Overview

In the fourth episode of Cool Mules, Canadaland delves deep into a harrowing true-crime story set within the corridors of Vice Media. This episode unpacks how Vice editor Slava P orchestrated an elaborate $20 million cocaine smuggling operation, leveraging his position to recruit young journalists unsuspectingly into international crime. The investigation reveals the intricate web of deceit, the subsequent fallout within Vice, and raises critical questions about corporate responsibility and journalistic integrity.

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The Smuggling Scheme Unfolds

The story begins with the recruitment tactics employed by Slava P, a Vice editor who approached young journalists with enticing job offers. Instead of freelance writing opportunities, these offers were a front for recruiting individuals to transport cocaine into Australia.

Notable Quote:

"Before any of the smugglers even got to Las Vegas to pick up the cocaine... It was decided that he'd hand one off to Robert Wang."
— Justin Ling, [02:00]

Slava's plan involved multiple participants, each handling portions of the transport. However, the operation was fraught with complications from the start. A key recruit failed to cross the Canadian-American border, leaving Slava to manage the bulk of the transport alone, which made the operation highly conspicuous.

Notable Quote:

"When the remaining five got to Las Vegas, they picked up the luggage from strangers in the parking lots of their hot hotels."
— Justin Ling, [02:00]

Despite meticulous planning with brand-new Samsonite suitcases equipped with secret compartments, the operation unraveled at customs in Australia. Border guards detected 81 bricks of high-purity cocaine, leading to the arrest and sentencing of all five smugglers just before Christmas 2015.

Notable Quote:

"All five had their bags X-rayed and then the linings cut open. This revealed a total of 81 bricks of high purity cocaine."
— Justin Ling, [02:00]

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Slava’s Evasion Tactics

Following the bust, Slava quickly realized the scheme was compromised. Faced with imminent repercussions, he entered a survival mode, concerned about both legal consequences and his career at Vice.

Notable Quote:

"When you don't get that text, you know that shit has hit the fan... I'm just survival mode."
— Slava, [05:19]

To divert suspicion, Slava orchestrated anonymous emails implicating other Vice employees, including his colleague Justin Ling. This tactic successfully deflected immediate scrutiny from Vice's management, allowing him to temporarily retain his position despite the scandal.

Notable Quote:

"If somebody puts a gun to your head and says, if you don't take this to fucking Sydney, I'm gonna kill your family, you're taking it to Sydney."
— Jordan Gardner, [03:24]

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Internal Fallout at Vice

As rumors and anonymous accusations spread within Vice, the company's management responded inadequately. Initial internal investigations by Vice did not thoroughly address the depth of the criminal activities, leading to persistent skepticism among employees and external observers.

Notable Quote:

"Vice was wanted its employees and the public to have their sole statement about this entire affair provided to the National Post."
— Justin Ling, [22:30]

Jake Kavash, a Vice intern who had declined involvement in the smuggling, became a pivotal source in exposing the truth. His efforts to reveal the scandal were met with hostility and professional isolation, highlighting a toxic corporate culture that prioritized reputation over transparency.

Notable Quote:

"I guess I quit, because I'm not going to stay working here for $15 an hour and feel like everyone in the office doesn't like me because I exposed what was happening."
— Paige Deserva, [34:31]

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Media and Public Reaction

The investigation by Justin Ling and Adrian Humphries at the National Post brought the Vice scandal to national attention. Their persistent reporting, despite internal pushback, underscored significant lapses in Vice's handling of internal crimes and their reluctance to engage in self-scrutiny.

Vice's official statement claimed swift action and cooperation with authorities, but inconsistencies and lack of evidence, such as the absence of police reports, fueled doubts about their internal processes and commitment to ethical journalism.

Notable Quote:

"None of the people we spoke to... could tell us that they had been asked whether they had been approached or even accepted."
— Jake Kavash, [23:17]

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Conclusion and Reflections

Cool Mules wraps up by reflecting on the broader implications of the Vice scandal. It questions the susceptibility of media organizations to internal corruption and the challenges in maintaining journalistic integrity amidst corporate pressures. The episode serves as a cautionary tale about the complexities of power dynamics within media institutions and the dire consequences of betrayal and deceit.

Notable Quote:

"The only way we are able to do that is because our listeners support us."
— Jesse Brown, [08:17]

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Key Takeaways

• Corporate Responsibility: Vice's inadequate response to internal criminal activities raises critical concerns about accountability within media organizations.

• Journalistic Integrity: The bravery of individuals like Jake Kavash in exposing the truth underscores the importance of investigative journalism in holding powerful entities accountable.

• Power Dynamics: Slava's manipulation of Vice's system illustrates how internal power structures can be exploited for personal gain, leading to severe legal and ethical breaches.

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Notable Moments with Timestamps

• 02:00 – Justin Ling outlines the initial phases of the smuggling operation and its eventual fallout.

• 03:24 – Jordan Gardner describes the coercive tactics used to enforce participation in the smuggling scheme.

• 05:19 – Slava discusses his realization that the operation has been compromised and his ensuing panic.

• 22:30 – Justin Ling critiques Vice's handling of internal accusations and their impact on the investigation.

• 34:31 – Paige Deserva shares her experience of professional isolation and retaliation after exposing the scandal.

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Cool Mules not only unravels a gripping tale of crime within a prestigious media company but also prompts listeners to ponder the ethical obligations of organizations in safeguarding their integrity. Through meticulous reporting and compelling narratives, Canadaland sheds light on the dark underbelly of Vice Media, offering a sobering reminder of the fragility of trust and the paramount importance of accountability.

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For more detailed insights and to support our investigative journalism, visit coolmules.ca and join our community.

Transcript

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[Kasia Mihailovic]

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[Justin Ling]

Free data before any of the smugglers even got to Las Vegas to pick up the cocaine line suitcases, there was trouble. They were supposed to travel in pairs, but the person who was brought in last minute to go with Katiba Senussi didn't make it across the Canadian American border. So Katiba carried on alone. When the remaining five got to Las Vegas, they picked up the luggage from strangers in the parking lots of their hot hotels. As planned, Katiba was given four suitcases to somehow transport solo to Australia. Too much to handle and pretty conspicuous. It was Decided that he'd hand one off to Robert Wang. When Nate Carty and Jordan Gardner met two guys in the parking lot of their hotel to get their new bags, which they had been promised would be expertly outfitted with undetectable secret compartments, they said the bag smelled like fresh glue. That's when Jordan says he told the two guys he wasn't going through with it. And they put a gun to his head and forced him. Here's Jordan's lawyer, Idan Havas, telling it from his client's perspective. The next thing you know, these Mexicans pull out a gun, point it to my head and tell me, if I don't take this, we're going to kill your family. Now if somebody puts a gun to your head and says, if you don't take this to fucking Sydney, I'm gonna.

[Slava]

Fucking kill your family, you're taking it to Sydney.

[Justin Ling]

And so he did. They all did. And yeah, they got caught. We still don't know for sure what did them in. It could have been a lot of things. Maybe it had something to do with that sixth person who didn't make it over the American border. Maybe they looked nervous at the airport and gave themselves away. Maybe someone noticed when Nate tried to take the wrong bags off the carousel in Sydney. Twice. Bags that belonged to Robert and Katieba, two people he wasn't supposed to even know. Maybe it was the suitcases themselves that got them caught. Each smuggler had brand new Samsonite bags and they had a lot of them. 12 suitcases between five people. They made it to customs, their last obstacle before the airport exit. That's where a border guard asked Robert and Portia Wade why they were traveling with five suitcases to spend only about a week in Australia in the middle of the summer. Katiba was also stopped at customs. Nate and Jordan too. They were taken to separate rooms. All five had their bags X rayed and then the linings cut open. This revealed a total of 81 bricks of high purity cocaine neatly wrapped in plastic and stamped Z8. All five of them went to jail in Australia just before Christmas 2015. They were charged with attempt to import a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug. They would all plead guilty. I'm Kasia Mihailovic and this is Cool Mules. Slava knew right away that the scheme was busted.

[Slava]

You just know that when you don't get that text, you know that shit has hit the fan. Like the worst possible thing that could have happened has probably happened. And at that point it's really just survival mode. Like I had no. I wasn't even thinking about Vice at that point.

[Justin Ling]

What were you thinking about?

[Slava]

Am I going to jail? Because I didn't know the full. The full scope of it. We didn't know if Jordan didn't make it and other people did. We didn't know anything at that point.

[Justin Ling]

There was no immediate news coverage of the arrest arrests back here in Canada, as far as I could tell. But you can imagine that after the smugglers had a chance to call their families and stop dancewing their friends, it all started to leak out.

[Slava]

So after my roommate was confirmed captured in Australia and I was incredibly stressed out, I told two people advice, one of whom was Ben McCoo. We were at the bar, we were having drinks, it was after work, and I just like, I was visibly stressed out. And he asked me what was wrong, and I told him that, you know, my roommate just got caught in Australia smuggling drugs. And he goes, holy shit. Well, at least it's not going to get back to Vice because you didn't go right.

[Justin Ling]

Slava generally describes a tense time during which he was basically just waiting to see if anything would happen to him. He was worried about the cops and he was worried about his job.

[Slava]

So there's the whole month of January where it's really just like looking over your shoulder. Every meeting that they're having, you're assuming is about you.

[Justin Ling]

He was right to be worried. It didn't take long for someone to tip off Vice management.

[Slava]

Someone had sent a series of anonymous emails to Vice, someone I believe from Jordan's friends or family group. Like I said, Jordan was a pretty well liked guy. And that's when Patrick pulled me into a room and said, like, these things are coming out about you. Do you know anything about that?

[Justin Ling]

Patrick McGuire was the head of content at Vice Canada and Slava's boss at the time. Slava says he never liked Patrick, but others tell us that the two were friends.

[Slava]

I lied. I said no, because at this point, it would have been fruitless to admit, like, yes, I didn't know that. Like, just, I couldn't see any way of it working out for me, so I just lied.

[Justin Ling]

Miraculously, it worked. Patrick allowed Slava to return to his duties as Vice Canada's music editor. And if he had any lingering doubts about Slava's guilt, another anonymous email seemed to put them to rest.

[Slava]

And then about a week after, they pulled me in again and they said, hey, don't worry about that thing we talked you about, because we got other weird emails about other people in the company.

[Justin Ling]

Patrick, who now works for Red Bull, didn't answer our questions about this, but I was able to confirm the existence of one such email from another person who was targeted.

[Jesse Brown]

My bosses brought me into the president's office, told me there had been an anonymous email sent suggesting that I was running a cocaine trafficking ring out of the office. And the anonymous email, of course, came a day after someone sent an anonymous email accusing Slava of doing the same thing.

[Justin Ling]

This, again, is Justin Ling, former vice staffer, current vice contributor, and my former colleague at Canadaland.

[Jesse Brown]

I told them pointedly that not only was there zero basis behind the idea that I was secretly some it's a mafia don, but that I had no idea what the fuck they were talking about. And they took that at face value and said, thank you. We didn't think you were involved, but we had to check.

[Justin Ling]

Justin is pretty sure he knows who sent that email.

[Jesse Brown]

This was very transparency, Slava's attempt to try to shift blame from himself. And I'm sure on this podcast he denies everything, but of course, he is also a convicted criminal, so take that with a grain of salt.

[Justin Ling]

Maybe Justin's right and Slava did send the email in order to ship the blame from himself to Justin. Or maybe the point was just to muddy the waters. If Vice management was thinking of firing Slava because an anonymous email accused him of running a drug ring, while now they had two anonymous emails accusing two employees of doing that, would they have to fire both of them? What if more emails came accusing yet more employees? It seems reasonable and even kind of clever to think that the more anonymous accusations Vice received, the more likely they would be to ignore them all. For the record, Slava denies sending the email, but whoever did it worked in Slava's favor. If it didn't throw Vice management off the trail, it at least stopped the questioning for Slava. I asked Vice about all this. They have not replied. So Slava got away with it for a while. Things went back to normal. Slava kept coming into work every day as if nothing had happened.

[Slava]

It was also this weird Sword of Damocles thing where this story is out. There are clearly other repercussions coming, but I don't know what they are.

[Justin Ling]

That sword turned out to be Jake Kavash.

[Adrian Humphries]

Greetings, my fellow Americans. I'm just joking. I'm not an American. I'm the editor and publisher of Canadaland. My name is Jesse Brown, and I don't even know if we're friends anymore. I'm told that we're in some Sort of a war, a trade war with Americans. But you just listened to one of our podcasts to the Copernic Affair. Thank you for listening to our stuff. I'm going to try to do something very difficult here. I'm going to try to convince Americans to support a Canadian podcast company during a trade war. And I think I'm going to do that. I think I'm going to accomplish that. If you listen to this message, I think you're going to want to support Canadaland. Who are we even? We are the first podcast company in Canada. We've been doing this for 12 years. And we do investigations, long form, deep dive journalistic investigations like the one you're listening to now. This story of Hassan Diab, this story, the Kopernik Affair. Dana and Alex pitched it to a bunch of American podcast companies and international podcast companies. But the industry is not looking for deep dive investigations right now. They are expensive, they are difficult, and they were turned down by people who loved the story but didn't have the budgets for it. Canadaland supported them for this 18 month investigation. We've been doing it again and again. This is how we made our reputation. We began over a decade ago by doing what you would call a MeToo investigation of a very famous sexual predator here in Canada, a guy named Jean Ghomeshi. We did that story before, years before the MeToo movement happened. We did that here and we're threatened with a lawsuit for it. We've been threatened with lawsuits again and again and again. Jordan Peterson threatened us with a lawsuit. Hollywood director Bryan Singer threatened, threatened us with a lawsuit. I have been surveyed by people who we reported on. My family has been under surveillance. A Republican combat PR firm was enlisted to discredit us. And nevertheless we persist. And we have never been successfully sued for libel or defamation because we care about getting it right. And we take these risks to bring you stories that nobody else is looking at. We take on really big stories and we take on really, really big and powerful people. And the only way we are able to do that is because our listeners support us. But we have never asked American listeners to support us before because we're called Canadaland. And the idea that Americans would support a Canadian podcast company, to a lot of people I've been told it's just a joke. They won't do it. I don't think that's true. Our stories are not just for Canadians. The majority of people who listen to the Kopernick affairs are American. We are going to be publishing more investigations on this feed. On Canadaland Investigates. And by becoming a supporter, you are funding those investigations. And we will give you all the things. We'll give you ad free podcasts, and you'll get to hear it before everybody else. And you'll get bonus content. You'll actually be paying for Dana and Alex to keep reporting on what happens next to Hassan Diab, because this story is not over. It's3.99amonth. We want it to be like a coffee to support Canadaland. We want it to be like, set it and forget it. You're never gonna regret the price of a coffee to fund this scrappy team of like 15 journalists who want nothing but to tell you an amazing story that would otherwise never be told. I will level with you. It is just a surprise to us that you're even here. We're Canada land. We never thought we'd have 100,000 regular American listeners. We are so proud to have you. But we need you to support us the same way we ask our Canadian listeners to support us. And unlike the Canadian listeners, we don't really make much ad money off of our American listeners because we sell mostly Canadian ads. We kind of need this to work. So to get the ball rolling, we have a special offer for the first hundred American listeners to come to canadaland.com investigates and sign up for a year's worth of support. And there's a big discount on that as well. We will ship to you, to your home in America, tariffs be damned. A free Canadaland T shirt. Wear it proudly and defiantly. And by the way, though we give our supporters every perk we can imagine, our podcasts are free. We do not paywall this content. So what you're really paying for when you support us is you're paying for everybody else to get this stuff. And that's how journalism has impacted, because it has reach. We're hoping that just some of you will Support us for $3.99 a month at canadaland.com investigates. Please go do it right now. And thank you.

[Kasia Mihailovic]

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[Adrian Humphries]

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[Justin Ling]

Remember Jake? He was the vice intern who had turned down Slava's proposition. When Jake found out that he wasn't the only person Saiba had solicited, he and a few others decided to do something about it.

[Paige Deserva]

Things became more intense. We were at a friend's apartment and I should say we. It was like me and a few of the people who had had this conversation and realized we'd been approached. There's probably maybe like three of us there were like, we'd been approached by Slava. One of the people there who was not aware of the situation heard us and was like, you need to tell the company. I ended up messaging my editor and was like, hey, I need to meet with you privately. So we went and had a coffee. I told him the situation and then he was like, I know. Apparently back in December when I guess Jordan Gardner and that were originally like arrested, someone had sent an email to vice executives and was like, this guy is responsible for this. And he had been questioned and they were just like, couldn't put anything on him, so they let him go.

[Justin Ling]

When it was just an anonymous email accusing Slava, Vice did nothing but then that email was confirmed by their own employee, and he said that he wasn't the only one. Now, there was no excuse. Vice now knew that Slava was involved, and they knew that he had been targeting their own people. There are a lot of things Vice could have done once they knew this. They could have filed a report with the police. They could have conducted a thorough internal investigation of current and past employees to find out everything they could about the criminal enterprise that had been conducted partly out of their own office. They could have let their news department know that it had the independence and authority to report on Vice as it would any other media company caught up in a drug scheme. But we have no reason to believe that they did any of that. Instead, their first move was to converge a team of lawyers.

[Paige Deserva]

They called us in really early. We had to get there at like 6am we all had to give testimonies to their corporate lawyers.

[Justin Ling]

Later that same day, Slava walked into work with a black eye. But he says it didn't have anything to do with the botched drug smuggling. He says it was actually guys affiliated with xo, the hip hop crew led by the pop singer the Weeknd.

[Slava]

In that specific black eye case, it was over a tweet. It wasn't even an article. But I had written negatively about people in the past.

[Justin Ling]

A year earlier, Slava had written about human trafficking charges against Derek Wise, who is now signed to XO's record label. All charges against him were dropped. We asked Derrick Wise and XO for comment on this, but received no response.

[Slava]

I was at a party and they sent a group of guys to jump. Well, there was one guy. He and I got into an altercation. I knocked him out. He came back with seven guys. I ran because I'm not going to fight seven guys. I ran to the back room, the green room. Win Butler was there. Win Butler was, like, looking at me and he goes, I'm not doing this shit again. He's talking to promoter and he's like, I'm not doing this shit again. This happened in Dallas, and I'm not going to be around this beef again.

[Justin Ling]

That's Wynn Butler from Arcade Fire, which is just so random that I can't tell what's more likely, that Slava made up this whole scenario to cover the more likely explanation for his black eye, that he was beaten for messing up the drug smuggling, or that it's real. It seems Slava's juggling act between the hip hop, his criminal conspiracy and his job advice all came crashing down at the same time, back at work, the game was up.

[Slava]

The next thing I know, I'm brought into an office where Patrick's not there. It's just HR people and these two old guys in a suit.

[Paige Deserva]

He disappeared for about an hour, came back, disappeared again, came back, packed his stuff up, left.

[Slava]

They gave me my termination papers and they escorted me out of the building.

[Paige Deserva]

By about 1pm 2pm that day, we were notified that the situation had been dealt with. But that was it.

[Slava]

It was like, okay, the repercussions of this are going to start to kick in now.

[Justin Ling]

The job that Slava had built his life around was gone. On the other hand, he walked out a vice of free man. Vice was now rid of Slava. So what was their next move? Here's Justin Ling.

[Jesse Brown]

My understanding is, you know, is that when management found out about this whole operation, it went to the people who were solicited by Slava, as many as they could find and took their statements and investigated what is alleged to have happened and dealt with it pretty quickly.

[Justin Ling]

That's the understanding. Vice was wanted its employees and the public to have their sole statement about this entire affair provided to the National Post when this story broke included the following. Upon learning of these allegations in early 2016, Vice Canada took immediate and swift action to address these claims through our human resources department, enlisting an employment law specialist to consult throughout and engaging an outside criminal law firm to conduct an investigation on our behalf and contact the Toronto Police Service. Based on the results of the internal investigation, the employee was promptly terminated. The National Post had reasons to be skeptical about that statement.

[Jake Kavash]

We had some concerns about the thoroughness of their investigation.

[Justin Ling]

That's Adrian Humphries, a senior investigative reporter with the National Post. He and his then colleague Sean Craig were the reporters who first broke this whole story. Before working for the Post, Shawn worked here as a reporter at Canadaland. This is Adrienne talking to us in 2017.

[Jake Kavash]

None of the people we spoke to, both the people that told us they had been solicited and people that told us they had not been solicited. None of the current or former employees advice that we spoke to, except for one, could tell us that they had been made aware of the situation by management. None of them were able to told us that they had been asked whether they had been approached or even accepted. I mean, stop to think for a minute. If the people we know about are the people that are most likely to speak to the press, are people that said no to the offer, how do we know that some people didn't say yes. How do we know some people in the Vice office didn't say yes.

[Justin Ling]

We don't know. We don't know if any other former or even current Vice employees smuggled cocaine for Slava. And it doesn't seem like Vice knows either, because it doesn't seem like they ever tried to find out. Weisz didn't seem curious to learn about how Slava used his position and their brand to help him with his crimes. For example, they never asked former staffer Tynera Yelland, and Slava had asked her to take the trip. Did Vice ever reach out to you and ask you if you had been asked by Sliva to traffic drugs internationally? No, I never heard from Vice. And while Vice insists that they did phone the police, Adrian Humphries was unable to find any record that Vice reported the crime.

[Jake Kavash]

I'm not going to call anyone a liar. I suggest there was contact with police, but there had not been a report made to police. And that's a keen distinction. The Toronto police made it very clear to us they searched under various names of people who might report. They searched under the name of the alleged accused and the employee. And it is quite clear from what Toronto police says to us that a report had not been made to them about this incident.

[Justin Ling]

If Vice was strategizing to put the whole thing behind them as quickly and with as little attention as possible, it seems like they did an excellent job. And it's worth noting that while Vice, as a news organization, prides itself on its coverage of drugs, this is one drug story they knew a lot about but did not report. And that really bothered Jake.

[Paige Deserva]

There was no way this guy was ever going to go to justice if, like, there was nothing written about him because there was nothing happening. There was no, you know, how could.

[Justin Ling]

Slava be walking free while the others were in prison?

[Paige Deserva]

Like, again, the people who were approached for this opportunity were the people who were likely to not be there for very long and were definitely people who were the least secure in their position and in their life. So it's easy for you to go. Oh, you know what? This internship, once it's over, I'm just going to go take this trip because that's my next paycheck. I don't have something after this.

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[Justin Ling]

Jake knew the story had to be told, but he didn't trust Vice with it, even though he was back working there after a short internship at another newsroom.

[Paige Deserva]

So I started working at the National Post as a source.

[Jake Kavash]

Basically, we had very believable allegations that a senior member of staff who was working as an editor in the Canadian headquarters of Vice Media was recruiting young journalists and young musical and other artists in the Toronto area. Well, actually and beyond, believe it or not, for a what the Australian police refer to as a transnational criminal organization and an organized crime gang.

[Justin Ling]

Adrian and Sean worked on Slava's story for months with several sources, including Jake, who wanted their names kept out of it. Some were afraid of Slava and whoever he was working with, and some were afraid for their jobs.

[Jake Kavash]

Vice Media is a very desirous location for young journalists to land. They're the hip, millennial viewed media conglomerate. They're a $4 billion enterprise that seems to be able to attract eyeballs that the mainstream media or the legacy media jealously want. So it's a good gig.

[Justin Ling]

Slava wouldn't talk to the reporters, so finally they physically handed him a copy of their questions and took pictures of him reading them. He looks caught. The National Post ran the story in February 2017. It got picked up all over the world in Spin Magazine, the Hollywood Reporter, the New York Post, and the Daily Mail.

[Slava]

At this point I haven't said anything to anyone about anything and my parents are calling me because I'm on E. Talk that Night talking about this massive drug conspiracy app Vice.

[Justin Ling]

Unsurprisingly, Slava hated the story.

[Slava]

And another thing I want to correct is that people keep especially in the stories since that Adrian keeps bringing up. He calls them young Canadians, like me and Jordan are a week apart in birthdays, and yet he's a young Canadian, and I'm a ruthless vice villain.

[Justin Ling]

Slava hated being cast as a ruthless vice villain. But at the time, you'd think he might have been more worried about fallout from the Mexican cartel who he says provided the cocaine, or the two men he calls Tweedledum and Tweedledee who he worked for, or one other person he says conspired in the crime. The bodybuilder he calls Trey, but who we know is actually named Michael Ford.

[Slava]

Trey got in touch with me and essentially just told me to keep my mouth shut. So after the National Post story broke, I got a series of phone calls, and Trey actually came to visit me in person. And again with the National Post story, there were no legal repercussions. So in my mind, I'm like, this is the worst of it. Like, yeah, I'm going to be shamed online. But ultimately, who cares if I can still have my freedom and start over in Montreal?

[Justin Ling]

And that's just what Slava did. He moved to Montreal and changed his name to Jari Farrow. He says he started a company doing business to business marketing.

[Slava]

It was good work. It was fulfilling work. I love Montreal and I got to do a lot of stuff for myself and learned a lot of stuff in my field. It was a little bit like a rebirth in a lot of ways, but it was always weird to think that something was coming.

[Justin Ling]

It took nearly two years. On January 31, 2019, Slava and Ali Taki Lalji were arrested in separate cities and charged with conspiracy to traffic cocaine.

[Slava]

So the day that they catch me, they caught me in Montreal going into my condo. They detained me there for the day, and then the next day, they put me on a private jet to fly me down to the downtown Toronto courthouse.

[Justin Ling]

After the National Post story broke, things went badly for Jake. He was meant to be a confidential source. He still worked at Vice, after all. And now the whole company was dealing with the scandal. The National Post even asked Vice's CEO and co founder Shane Smith about it. Shane had previously boasted about slinging coke in his youth before launching Vice, a claim that no journalist looking into it has ever been able to verify. When the Post asked Shane about this for their story, he replied, and I quote, wtf? So Stupid. Vice knew that its own employees had provided information to the Post, but did they know which ones?

[Paige Deserva]

If you get called out as a snitch in the company, your value there has just dropped exponentially.

[Justin Ling]

It was now Jake's turn to go to work, worried that management might find out what he had been up to.

[Paige Deserva]

The article came out, I think, on like, a Thursday or a Friday, and I was flying to Montreal for, like, a small photo gig that I had. And when I landed in Montreal, people had messaged me, being like, yo, I know what you did.

[Justin Ling]

Jake says it would have been easy for the Vice higher ups to piece together that he was a source for the story.

[Paige Deserva]

They had left it identifying detail. It was a text message. The text message that I received from Slava. I had provided that to the company as evidence, and they included it in the article verbatim.

[Justin Ling]

I asked Adrian and Sean if they accidentally exposed one of their sources. They told us that they asked for a copy of relevant text messages and for permission to use them, which was granted. They also said, we greatly respect and appreciate Jake and the strength of character he showed in sharing his experience with us.

[Paige Deserva]

Some people were like, yo, I know what you did. Respect.

[Justin Ling]

But other journalists were openly hostile to him at work.

[Paige Deserva]

A lot of people at the company were not happy with me. A lot of employees, like, people just started, like, treating me like shit.

[Justin Ling]

Jake says his job changed immediately.

[Paige Deserva]

My last month advice was like, it was like a separate reality. Like, I wasn't working. I was just in rooms with lawyers arguing with the heads of the company. They would basically ask me, why didn't you come to the company before going to the press? And I said, well, we did come to you before, and you guys fired him, but then you had no discussion about it afterwards. And I'm curious as to how a media company that prides itself on being on the forefront of honesty, integrity, social justice, all these sort of things can't look a story like that in the face and go, we should report on this before someone else does.

[Justin Ling]

Jake felt like he was in limbo, surrounded by hostile colleagues.

[Paige Deserva]

Some people became very cold and dejected and, like, just not interested. Ultimately, I asked, I said, look, I either need to be moved out of this department because I can't work with people around me anymore because they don't trust me and they don't seem to like having me around, or I'd like to go to Noisy.

[Justin Ling]

They didn't transfer him, but they didn't fire him either. It would have looked terrible for Vice to fire Jake, but he feels like they did freeze him out.

[Paige Deserva]

I just said, okay, I quit, because I'm not going to stay working here for $15 an hour and feel like everyone in the office doesn't like me because I exposed what was happening. They kind of, like, were like, are you sure you want to do this? But they had no interest in keeping me. They offered nothing to keep me. They knew. They were like, well, we're not firing you. And they told me, though, you should be thankful for that. You should be thankful we're not firing you.

[Justin Ling]

It was a low point for Jake. He had hoped that by blowing the whistle, he could change the place.

[Paige Deserva]

But the culture, whatever I was hoping that would have happened, didn't. I thought there would have been a great opening where it was sort of like, okay, you know, let's talk about this. And it wasn't that. It was just this. It was further resistance. It was further like, shh. And I just couldn't participate in that.

[Justin Ling]

We asked Vice about Jake's time there, about the circumstances under which he left all of it, but they didn't respond. So even though Jake and Slava are coming from completely different angles here, they both suggest something about the culture at Vice contributed to the crime. On its face, it's preposterous to me as a journalist that any newsroom culture could lead someone to enter into an international criminal conspiracy like Slava claims happened at Vice. But Vice's culture isn't like any other newsrooms, and it began a long time ago when Vice was founded in 1994.

[Hannah Berner]

And I always used to say, like.

[Slava]

If you're looking at Vice for being news and the truth, then you're in trouble.

[Justin Ling]

That's next time. Cool Mules is hosted and reported by me, Kasia Mihailovi, and is written and produced by me and Jesse Brown, research assistance from Jonathan Goldsby. Kevin Sexton is our managing editor and also helped produce this episode. Music by Nathan Burley. Sound design and mix by Chandra Bulacan. The next episode of Cool Mules will be released in one week, but you can hear the entire series right now ad free by clicking the link in the episode notes and signing up to support our reporting with $5 a month. You can also support us at coolmules.ca join.

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