When he was 8 years old, Alfred Anaya destroyed his mother's vacuum cleaner in the pursuit of knowledge. Maldanado and Montiel, key players in a smuggling ring that was sending large quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine to the Midwest, were eager to use his services again. Ksenia Coffmans fellow editors have called her a vandal and a McCarthyist. Seances were wildly popular, as were vaudeville acts that embraced the bizarre. Anaya can attest to the great sorrows of becoming such an example. He was initially denied bail, in part because an illegal assault rifle and a bulletproof vest had been discovered in his house during a police search. But that is a duty that is written nowhere in the law.". Early drug traffickers stashed their loads in obvious places: wheel wells, spare tires, the nooks of engine blocks. In fact, this is a pleasure. Anaya ached to build similarly ingenious compartments that would dazzle his fellow gearheads, who adore innovations that seem plucked from the world of James Bond. He was sentenced to five years in prison. Once he cajoled Super Sound's owner into taking him on as an apprentice, Anaya quickly established himself as the shop's rising star. If there was a law that says these compartments are illegal to build, I would not build them. Shortly after that tap went live on January 30, 2009, agents heard Anaya tell Esteban Magallon Maldanado that he had finished repairing the Ford F-150the truck with the trap that had been jammed with cash. The beginning of Bernards story, however, is less exotic. Esteban assured him that he needn't worry. "I had a feeling that no matter what decision I made, something bad was going to happen," Anaya says. Today, his prison locker overflows with spare parts. Over the next several weeks, Maldanado and Montiel paid Anaya to build traps in three more vehicles: the Honda Ridgeline that they had dropped off while getting the F-150 fixed, a 2007 Toyota Camry, and a 2008 Toyota Sequoia. The limousine cost $16,000 when new, the equivalent of a quarter-million dollars today.
Gravity Could Solve Clean Energys One Major Drawback. On December 10, Anaya was arrested and subsequently charged in Los Angeles Superior Court for "false compartment activity." Finding green energy when the winds are calm and the skies are cloudy has been a challenge. He was a genius at installing stash spots. Anaya stumbled back from the truck's cab, livid. He wasone of the most successful charlatans of the 20th century. ("Y'know, hey, I like to shoot guns," Anaya says unapologetically; he has two large pistols tattooed on his chest.) To be far, Bernard appears to have had a good understanding of hatha yoga. The forefather of modern trap making was a French mechanic who went by the name of Claude Marceau (possibly a pseudonym). The interior didnt disappoint, either. Excited by the opportunity, Anaya spent a month making the new shop's centerpiece, a 12-foot-long fiberglass display case fashioned to resemble an alien's spine. Starting in the early 1980s, however, they switched to what the Drug Enforcement Administration refers to as "urban traps": medium-size compartments concealed behind electronically controlled facades. The maximum penalty is three years in prison. It's pretty badass.". "I wanted my compartments to be more sophisticated than anybody else's.". '", This was the only evidence that directly linked Anaya to drugs. Close all doors. Bernard specified a baby-blue body trimmed with a darker shade on the running boards, fenders, and the window sills. The whole compartment was overflowing with such bundles, several of which spilled onto the truck's floor. When I visited him at the Victorville Federal Correctional Complex, on the sun-cooked edge of California's Mojave Desert, he was still coming to grips with the desolation of prison life. He heard the hydraulics whirr to life, but the seat stayed firmly in place. But Alfred Anaya's case makes clear that the government rejects that permissive worldview. Sit in driver's seat. He's part of this secret society, I guess. The coachbuilt creation remains now one of the largest cars ever built. But he hides his background as a Dalit and fears he can never reveal his true self. This particular customer was the target of a DEA investigation, and agents had eavesdropped on their conversation. His customers, who gambled hundreds of thousands of dollars every time they put a shipment on the road, greatly appreciated his attention to detail. And when you speak, you complete a circuit and activate the compartment. Sometime in late 2008, Anaya received a call from a customer who lived in the San Diego area. The epiphany he had while kneeling by the headstone wasn't comforting. If I had known this was going to happen to me, I wouldn't have done it. Ordinarily itd be on display, but the limousine is currently plagued by few starter and engine issues. (One of the boys was from a relationship prior to his marriage to Basham.). Esteban Magallon Maldanado and Cesar Bonilla Montiel scrambled to haul armfuls of money from the F-150 to the Ridgeline's trunk. Many rig the electronics so that the compartment won't open unless all of the vehicle's doors are closedsomething that is rarely the case during a roadside search. A pair of hydraulic cylinders open the hatch for the secret compartment, which is located in the void where the passenger-side airbag should be. They told him to take a few days to mull over the offer, then they released him from custody. Stressed by the burdens of business ownership, he began to drink too much, downing beer after beer as he struggled to finish cars that were weeks behind schedule. Anaya was scared to venture across the border; as much as he hated to renege on his warranty, he refused to go to Mexico. Anaya didn't advertise this service, but satisfied customers referred their friends. Those trips brought Crow another 9 kilograms of cocaine and 9 pounds of meth. She spoke of his "expensive motorcycles and four-wheel bikes to go on the sand," his collection of guns, and his vast array of Snap-on tools. Though his stereo installation business, Valley Custom Audio Fanatics, was just a one-man operation based out of his San Fernando, California, home, he offered all of his clients a lifetime warranty: If there was ever any problem with his handiwork, he would fix it for the cost of parts aloneno questions asked. But Anaya's troubles persisted: Shady customers stiffed him for thousands, yet he kept buying the finest Rockford Fosgate subwoofers and Snap-on tools with his overburdened credit cards. "What's troubling a lot of people is that this conviction seems to impose a new sort of liability on people that create state-of-the-art technology," says Branden Bell, an attorney in Olathe, Kansas, who is handling Anaya's appeal. He saved up $500 to buy a wrecked 1963 Volkswagen Beetle, which he lovingly restored by hand. Turn on defroster. Minervas were powerful and quiet enough to serve as some of the first armored cars used in hit-and-run attacks on the Western Frontin WWI. Though Bernard appears to have weathered the Great Depression, at least through 1933, the success he found in his 30s and 40s began to erode. But for trap makers who are particularly adept with relays, the complexity of the unlocking sequence is limited only by their imaginations. A cop may never be able to guess the event sequence that opens a trap's door, but that obstacle is irrelevant if the compartment's existence is betrayed by faulty craftsmanshipa stray wire poking out from under a seat cushion or a haphazard bead of metal bonding. (Anaya points outcorrectlythat his San Fernando home contains no brick. His lawyer advised him that, given his totally clean criminal record, he was unlikely to spend much time behind bars for such a minor offense. Mobile Electronics honored him as one of the top 100 installers in the nation, and his systems were later featured in the bikini-laden pages of magazines like Lowrider and Lug. Bernard eventually become a banker, selling off bits of his property to stay solvent. The primary evidence against Anaya was the testimony of Montiel, who had agreed to cooperate with the government. Years ago his childhood junk drawer was filled with circuit boards. Anaya spoke freely about his traps, estimating that he had built 15 over the past year. 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He knew full well that he was flirting with dangerhe could certainly guess how some of his traps might be used. 119, before he went into business with Henry Royce, Rare Baur BMW 2002 is just the thing to cool you off, Tom Hocker 40 Ford is making a comeback, The Levis AMC Gremlin wasnt just quirkyit fashioned a movement, The Fertile Turtle, a 39 Willys gasser, calls from eBay. A friend of his, who introduced himself as Cesar, followed right behind in a black Honda Ridgeline truck. Take, for example, a manufacturer of robot kits for hobbyists. When Anaya told the DEA that he was too frightened to become an informant, the agents made a new, more enticing proposition: They would set up Valley Custom Audio in a deluxe storefront, complete with every piece of equipment that Anaya desired. He even boasted about his perfectionism, stressing that he was always careful to conceal his wire harnesses. If Anaya was less diligent about understanding the legal nuances of his business, that wasn't their problem. They wanted to stay in Anaya's good graces, because men with his skills are extremely valuable in the narcotics trade. Alfred was forever disassembling Sony Walkmans or clock radios so he could fill his favorite junk drawer with circuit boards, which thrilled him with their intricacy. As long as a customer was discreet, Anaya saw no problem with taking their money. They cut off all contact with the trap maker and got rid of any vehicles he had touched. In 2007, Anaya was forced to move the failing business to his homemuch to the annoyance of Basham, who hated the constant din of generators out by the garage. His dad, Gabriel, who was suffering from terminal colon cancer, visited the store shortly before its grand opening. When the trial started on January 25, 2011, the lead prosecutor, an assistant US attorney named Sheri McCracken, argued that Anaya was one of the main reasons the smuggling ring had evolved into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. This particular compartment was located behind the truck's backseat, which Anaya had rigged with a set of hydraulic cylinders linked to the vehicle's electrical system. The agents told Anaya that he could avoid any potential legal complications by doing them a big favor: They wanted him to outfit his clients' cars with GPS trackers and miniature cameras, so the DEA could build cases against suspected traffickers. However, yoga and its practice became mainstream in the U.S. thanks in large part to a maverick figure: Pierre Bernard, one of the most eccentric characters America has ever produced. Montiel also shared a potentially damning anecdote regarding the negotiations over the Honda Ridgeline's trap. Sign up for the latest automotive news and videosin short, everything for people who love cars. Anaya capitalized on his fame to open his own shop, Valley Custom Audio Fanatics, in a San Fernando storefront. Legging-clad yoga students clutching rolled mats and water bottles are a familiar and unremarkable sight on sidewalks, studios, and coffee shops from Los Angeles to Atlanta. After the DEA traced a phone call that Montiel had made to the house where Crow stored his drugs, it was only a matter of time before the organization was crushed. They thought their payments were untraceable. On the witness stand, Montiel vividly described the incident with the F-150's broken trap, when Anaya had glimpsed more than $800,000 in cash. So Anaya adopted a policy similar to the one used by shops that sell bongs: He would turn away anyone who used drug-related lingo when ordering a trap. I remember I saw a brick on the ground, and I said, 'It's a little bit bigger than this. To distribute product from wholesalers to retailers, drug-trafficking organizations need vehicles equipped with well-disguised traps so that loads aren't routinely seized while in transit. Our best hope the next time Earth is in the crosshairs? By 2002, Anaya had become one of the most sought-after installers in Southern California, with a client list that included rappers, pro basketball players, and porn stars. His investments faltered. "He makes the drug world work," she told the judge. When he finally managed to remove the backseat, he saw what he had hit: a wad of cash about 4 inches thick. Anaya excelled at fabricating candy-colored subwoofer enclosures with voluptuous curves; he often achieved his desired shape by stretching fleece pajamas atop wooden frames, then pouring on molten resin that stiffened as it cooled. To cater to clients who preferred stealth over flash, Anaya taught himself to build speaker boxes that fit into the irregularly shaped voids behind door panels and back seats. 4. The first trap he ever saw, designed by one of his Super Sound mentors, was carved into a dashboard, with a door hinged on a power antenna that could be extended or retracted via remote control. "You know why we're here," one agent said to Anaya, who was bewildered to be in handcuffs for the first time in his life. The artisans who build hidden compartments in cars are secretive about their work. He pleaded with Anaya to take a look. Maldanado and his partner, Cesar Bonilla Montiel, picked up the vehicle at once, for they had an important delivery to make: Their associates in Kansas City, Kansas, were expecting a shipment of 6 kilos of cocaine and 5 pounds of methamphetamine. He hadn't totally forgiven Maldanado for failing to warn him about the money jammed in the trap, but he figured that he was still adhering to the letter of the law. In a WIRED exclusive, the human behind the wheel finally speaks. His devoted followers called him Doctor Bernard, but he wasnt board-certified. That Bernard could afford such a bauble was a measure of his vast wealth, but again, this was a man who, when he commissioned the car in the late 1920s, owned three pet elephants. He was now busy dealing with two personal crises: a mounting pile of debt that totaled nearly $55,000, not including his underwater mortgage, and the dissolution of his marriage to Basham, who had become fed up with his workaholism and carousing and filed for divorce. Early on, Minerva licensed a double-sleeve engine designed in the U.S., one that was noted for its silent operation, and the design helped build the Belgian firms reputation for smooth-running, luxurious motor cars. Though he seems to have refuted the most salacious stories concerning his practices, he evidently let the rumors swill just enough to do his advertising work for him. So the DEA Put Him in Prison. According to a 1973 Justice Department report, Marceau personally welded 160 pounds of heroin into the frame of a Lancia limousine that was shipped to the US in 1970a key triumph for the fabled French Connection, the international smuggling ring immortalized in film. "The Dominicans started doing voice activation about six years ago," says Lewis, who teaches classes in trap recognition to law-enforcement agencies nationwide. The fact was that he hadn't seen any drugs, and there had been no discussion of how Maldanado had earned his small fortune. He thought the car might belong to friends. Another tactic is to link a trap with the pressure sensor beneath the driver's seat, so that the compartment can't be opened unless someone is sitting behind the wheel. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. On April 5, for example, the California Highway Patrol stopped the Sequoia and found the trap with ease, seizing more than $106,000 in cash. If someone uses those robots to patrol a smuggling route or help protect a meth lab so that traffickers can better evade law enforcement, how will prosecutors determine whether the company acted criminally? The only way to load and unload one of these "dumb" compartments is by taking a car apart, piece by piece. Anaya also learned that sometimes the best approach was to conceal his work. The hot new tool for physicists is sound, DALL-E Mini is the internet's favorite meme machine, The ghost of Internet Explorer still haunts the web, Explore AI like never before with our new database, Upgrade your work game with our Gear teams favorite laptops, keyboards, typing alternatives, and noise-canceling headphones, 2022 Cond Nast. If there is any visual hint that a car contains a trap, police can often get a warrant to tear it apart. The man wanted him to fix a malfunctioning trap located in Tijuana. "I remember we had problems because he asked, 'Well, what's a kilo like?' But Anaya resisted his court-appointed lawyer's advice to plead guilty; he still couldn't fathom how building traps made him a drug trafficker, and he was confident that a jury would sympathize with his plight. But the ultimate measure of a compartment's worth is not how hard it is to open but how hard it is to find. Over time, the magnets gave way to hydraulic cylinders, which made the doors harder to dislodge during police inspections. Thanks to huge infusions of cash from an heiress to the Vanderbilt fortune, in 1918 he created a large compound on the Hudson River. "I took it apart because I wanted to find the motor inside," he recalls. (Nearly a century later, Sting would make headlines for mentioning the practice.) "Maybe the greatest memory I have," Anaya says. But the activity runs afoul of California law if an installer knows for certain that his compartment will be used to transport drugs. By the early 1990s, however, drug traffickers had discovered that these compartments had two major design flaws. But try as he might, he could not locate the trap behind the backseat. "Get it out of here," he growled at Esteban. I don't feel bad at all today. "Sound always sounds best when you have no idea where it's coming from," he says. The dog indicated the possible presence of drugs, so a trooper went over every inch of the truck by hand. McCracken took no pity on him. The door pulls and window cranks are made of ivory, and the trim is burnished mahogany. Best of all, these customers paid on time, and they paid in cash. Anaya was never caught on tape discussing drugs. Over the years, these secret stash spotsor traps, as they're known in automotive slanghave become a popular luxury item among the wealthy and shady alike. On November 18, as Anaya drove his Ford F-350 through a Home Depot parking lot, he noticed a dark sedan that seemed to be shadowing him in an adjacent aisle. Even though he had never seen or touched any drugs and had been shunned as an informant after building just four traps in exchange for less than $20,000, Anaya faced the exact same charge as Maldanado, Montiel, and Crow. At 9000 pounds, Bernards Minerva is nearly a ton heavier than a Royale, requiring dual rear wheels to support its (literally) elephantine weight. Anaya punched a precise hole through the upholstery with his 24-volt Makita drill, probing for the screws that anchored the seat to the hydraulics. Anaya's finances were a mess, thanks to a crushing mortgage and his splurges on motorcycles and strip clubs. Crow, in particular, was wildly incautious: He robbed fellow dealers, hired friends with drug habits, and got high on his own supply. If the customer picked up the merchandise in an overly flashy car? Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. In 2018, an Uber autonomous vehicle fatally struck a pedestrian. He would have to use brute force. Anaya was unsettled by this request, for he had suspicions about the nature of Esteban's work. Ad Choices, Alfred Anaya Put Secret Compartments in Cars. The first was that the buttons and switches that controlled the traps' doors were aftermarket additions to the cars. His preaching of Far-Eastern philosophy and mysticismnot to mention the vaguely contortionist yoga practices that he taught alongside themearned him a measure of notoriety among civil authorities. After a few moments he heard a loud pop as the drill seemed to puncture something soft. But the jury bought into McCracken's narrative; it convicted Anaya on all counts. Esteban said the seat was no longer responding to the switch combination and that no amount of jiggling could make it budge.
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