Thank you for your comments
As much as I'd love to accept any award for being the first to "break" this story, readers will find in the detailed reference notes that the first major media venue to investigate and confirm Bannon's account was National Public Radio (NPR) last July in an exhaustive 30-min report on The Todd Mundt Show. Since then, the story has been investigated and confirmed by two newspapers (Charlotte Observer [31st largest metro in the U.S.] and a story I wrote for a much smaller paper, The Lake Norman Times) and most recently by Fox News Channel in a report that aired on March 24.
I have been researching this article, and other similar works, for over a year in preparation for my new book on the world's intelligence special forces, coming from Random House in 2005. My father is a retired DEA special agent in charge, so I've been around some pretty astounding things, although not from personal experience. My dad vouched for Bannon and Defferre; and then he vouched for me when I pursued all the interviews.
The heart of the article, "Kungfu Secret Agent," is the volume of interviews. I spoke in person and via phone with law officers, intelligence officers and Interpol agents, all of whom worked with Bannon. I interviewed Bannon's Interpol supervisor, Jacques Defferre, in person before the gentleman's death. Some of the interviewees didn't care for Bannon, others spoke of him with long years between them, but all confirmed the existence of Team Archangel and that they had worked with Bannon and Defferre. Bannon's book, "Race Against Evil," has been confirmed as accurate and credible by intelligence and law officers with whom he worked. The interviews are detailed in the article and speak for themselves.
Bannon himself wrote his first account for Kungfu Magazine in 2001, as Gene has noted, and then told the full story in his book from New Horizon, which was fully vetted by the attorneys of the book's distributor, Penguin-Putnam (no relation, darnit). My own publisher is repeating the vetting process, checking all of my tapes, transcripts, contact information and support documentation -- as would be required by any major media venue. As with all journalism, the interview tapes and transcripts, as well as full contact information, are held by my book publisher.
Bannon currently serves as an expert witness on global human trafficking for federal appellate courts in Florida, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. I confirmed this with two law firms that have hired him as an expert consultant - both of whom have independently verified his credentials and background with Interpol before putting him on the stand to testify. This corroboration is hard to refute or deny.
If my writing style isn't up to Kungfu standards, or if I have dramatized in a way that readers find distracting, I accept full blame. It should not reflect poorly on the hundreds of Interpol officers who shed blood and sweat and years defending children. The sacrifices of Team Archangel were too dear to be dismissed because of my flaws as a writer.
When I interviewed Bannon and Defferre together, I was struck by their normalcy - so remarkably normal that it was almost abnormal - it was easy to miss them, to let your eyes slide over them and onto someone else in the coffee shop. Only after talking with them in detail did I begin to sense the remarkable depths of quiet violence in both men. After Defferre was killed, and with much investigation, I have concluded that Bannon revealed his story as a safety measure that has little to do with book sales. Going public, but retaining support docs, he has been able to leave what Defferre (with characteristic panache) called "the secret world."
Bannon himself has a much deeper motivation and when he discusses it, his demeanor is one of unwavering resolve and dignity. Bannon is a child advocate and his book is secondary to spreading the world about what he calls "this most horrific atrocity," child sex trafficking. After talking with these men in person, all of the subsequent support docs and confirming interviews served to increase my own horror at the sheer volume of children abused in sex trafficking -- and to begin to understand in part the immense frustration of men like Defferre that ultimately led to a Team Archangel.
Much of my research was assisted by Professor Chiu Hse Yu of Singapore University, with whom I co-wrote "Interpol's Secret Army" for The Western Libertartian Alliance political journal. Bannon also has an article in the same issue, "The Hidden Slavery: Global Sex Trafficking," which - true to his character - mentions nothing about his own book. The issue in question can be downloaded in entirety (1.9 M) as a PDF file at
http://www.westernlibertarian.org/pa...0low%20res.pdf
or got to http://www.westernlibertarian.org/paper and choose "WLA Complete".
Professor Chiu's web site (and contact address) is: http://www.geocities.com/chiuhse_yu
I am pleased to correspond with anyone who has read Bannon's book and done the hard research needed to qualify their findings--including, of course, the year I've spent gathering interviews, photos, and support documentation that confirm undeniably the facts of this article.
Thank you for reading the article and offering your comments. I hope I have addressed your concerns.
Jason Putman
http://www.geocities.com/JasonPutmanwrites
JasonPutmanwrites@yahoo.com
Well, that seems to solve that.