CULTURE AT VICE BLAMED FOR PUSHING EDITOR DRUG RING
GONZO JOURNALISM MEDIA ENCOURAGED ITS EMPLOYEES TO EMBED THEMSELVES IN STORIES, LAWYER SAYS
Aformer editor at Vice Media blames a gonzo journalism culture at the youth-oriented media outlet for pushing him into an international cocaine smuggling ring that will now send him to prison.
Yaroslav Pastukhov, 29, personally smuggled cocaine hidden in his luggage from Las Vegas to Australia and then recruited and arranged for young musicians, models and a former Vice intern to make similar trips while he was a high-profile music editor for Vice Canada, headquartered in Toronto.
Best known under his pen name Slava Pastuk, he worked at Vice from 2014 until he was fired in February 2016.
Vice specialized in “immersionism,” where “its journalists are encouraged to become embedded within the cultures and with the people they are writing about,” Pastukhov’s lawyer, Dan Kirby, told court at Pastukhov’s sentencing hearing, Thursday.
“The company prides itself on pushing the limits of legality in pursuit of a good story,” Kirby said, speaking on Pastukhov’s behalf. This form of journalism is also called gonzo journalism.
Pastukhov said “the company was famous for its volatility, with numerous employees being fired at anytime on the whim of the higher ups,” Kirby said.
“The only path to rise up within the organization was to independently source a story and hope your efforts were recognized by the New York office,” he told court. Pastukhov saw the profile of a colleague, Ben Makuch, “skyrocket” at Vice when Makuch contacted a Canadian ISIS fighter for a story. Shane Smith, the founder of Vice, then interviewed the fighter on television for Vice.
Pastukhov wanted to replicate Makuch’s success.
In social media, Pastukhov boasts of his triumphs as a journalist — claiming to be “the most prolific and notorious music journalist Toronto will ever see” — but statements he provided for court tell a story of insecurity and unfulfilled desire.
Pastukhov “enjoyed the perks” of being the music editor — nightlife, meeting famous people and exposure in the music industry, according to an account he gave for a pre-sentence report.
But he realized this wouldn’t make him a star at Vice.
“When he finally got his job at Vice, he was over the moon,” his mother, Iryna, wrote in a letter to the judge. It required long hours, much of it at night and on weekends, which he did because “he was fearful that he may be fired, as would regularly happen to his coworkers.”
She said Pastukhov told her there was a limit to what he could achieve at Vice as a music editor. “He felt the best way to (advance) would be to become a crime reporter.”
When Pastukhov heard through a friend about a drug smuggling enterprise in Canada, he decided to pursue it further for a story, court was told.
Pastukhov said he and another man he met at Vice, who was not a journalist, had dinner with two people in Toronto involved in the ring, Kirby told court.
The two men told Pastukhov how the ring worked, claiming multiple trips for drug mules were organized each month and “they had people working with them in various airports and in customs who would assure everyone’s safety,” Kirby said.
Pastukhov agreed to do a drug run for them.
He later tried to back out but “was told this was impossible,” Kirby said. “There were suggestions that these men were violent and he feared for his personal safety.”
Pastukhov successfully returned from the trip, passing luggage with bricks of cocaine hidden in the lining, to men in Australia.
“He was very excited,” Kirby said, “because he was on the verge of writing an exposé on an international drug pipeline to Australia.”
Pastukhov never wrote that story.
Through Vice Canada’s communications manager, Britt Aharoni, Vice declined to comment about Pastukhov’s version of his time at the company.
A source within Vice, who did not wish to be named, told the Post that editors or managers at Vice knew nothing of Pastukhov’s interest in or pursuit of such a story.
What Pastukhov did do when he got back was to aggressively recruit or arrange for others to make the same trip.
Many of those who flew to Australia for the drug ring were connected to Pastukhov through his role at Vice. And the recruiting of people like Robert Wang, who was arrested in Australia on Dec. 22, 2015, was done by Pastukhov inside the Vice office, court heard.
A Dec. 3, 2015, text from Wang, who was an intern at Vice the previous summer, to Ali Taki Lalji, a former Vice employee who Pastukhov said he met there, said: “Cool, just met with Slava at Vice. Let me know when you want to start the paperwork and what not,” according to documents filed in court.
Lalji, 30, was arrested along with Pastukhov for drug conspiracy in January. Allegations against Lalji have not been proven in court. Lalji has not agreed to the statements of fact accepted in court when Pastukhov pleaded guilty.
“My client maintains his innocence and disputes any allegations of any illegal conduct on his part,” said Lalji’s lawyer, Deepak Paradkar.
Some of Pastukhov’s recruits completed the trip, but in December 2015, five were caught at Sydney airport and sentenced to prison in Australia, including Wang.
Faiyaz Alibhai, prosecutor with the federal Anti-organized Crime Team, told court he neither accepts not refutes the background story Pastukhov presented.
Alibhai said he relies on the Agreed Statement of Facts that Pastukhov signed when he pleaded guilty to a drug conspiracy.
The Crown is seeking a 12-year prison term. Kirby is asking for a sentence in the six- to eight-year range.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 3.