Calling Señor Castro...

[moki]

heh... guess being the dictator of a Caribbean island nation doesn't make you immune from prank calls.

.....

Fla. Station Fined $4,000 for Castro Prank Sat Apr 24,

MIAMI - A radio station that crank-called Cuban President Fidel Castro and broadcast the recording should be fined $4,000, the Federal Communications Commission said.

The Spanish-speaking hosts of "The Morning High Jinks" used snippets of an earlier prank involving Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to move the call from a receptionist up the chain to Castro in a five-minute broadcast June 17.

The hosts of the show on WXDJ-FM, Joe Ferrero and Enrique Santos, fed pleasantries to Castro before breaking in and calling him an assassin. The conversation ended after Castro denounced the callers with a stream of vulgarities.

The FCC (news - web sites) concluded Friday that the station should be fined for the broadcast. It rejected the station's claim that a rule requiring people to be notified before their voices are used does not apply to people in Cuba.

Payment of the fine or a request for cancellation or reduction is required within 30 days.

It was unclear whether the station had been fined for the prank involving Chavez five months before.

There was no answer at the station's business line Saturday, and a call to the station's Washington attorney was not immediately returned.

.....

Fidel Castro prank call transcript.

The translated transcript of an audiotape made of a prank phone call placed by Miami radio announcers Enrique Santos and Joe Ferrero on WXDJ-FM/Miami:


Olga: "One moment. It seems that they are establishing a communication through another line. Maybe we can establish a bridge. Explain this to the president."

The DJs pretend to explain this to Chavez.

Recorded Chavez: "Yes, yes. Correct."

Olga: "We've just made a communication. One moment President. You will hear some music but it's only for a few seconds. It's just to transfer you. One moment. I'm transferring you."

Chavez: "Yes, yes. Of course."


Voice identified by the DJs as Castro: "Hello."

Ferrero, pretending to be a Chavez aide: "Lt. Camil is speaking."

Another person named Balenciaga comes on the line in Havana.

Balenciaga: "Ah, Camilo. Do you have president Chavez on line?"

Ferrero: "Yes, yes."

Castro: "Hello."

Chavez: "Fidel, good morning. Do you hear me? Hello. I thank you. I spoke to German yesterday."

Castro: "Tell me. I'm listening. Oh, yes."

Chavez: "Yes."

Castro: "Yes, yes."

Castro: "There are a lot of issues."

Castro: "I am listening."

Chavez: "Yes."

Castro: "I am listening."

Ferrero: "We have a third person on the line and it's my duty to let you know. Do you understand?"

Castro: "Yes."

Chavez: "Yes, brother. How are you?"

Castro: "Tell me and let me see if I hear you. Tell me you haven't returned yet."

Ferrero: "We have a problem with the line."

Castro: "I can't hear him. I hear certain words. I hear him say Fidel. And then I don't hear anything else. What do you think we should do?"

Ferrero explains to Castro that there was an issue with one of Hugo Chavez's suitcases that got lost when he went to Argentina last month. Castro was there, too.

Ferrero: "Do you know about the lost luggage? It has sensitive material. President Chavez is extremely worried because of that. Now in Venezuela the situation is grave and it has something to do with this. Do you understand?"

Castro: "Correct."

Chavez: "Correct."

Ferrero: "Fidel, we have to investigate this."

Castro: "Correct. I understand. We have to investigate into that."

Chavez: "Good."

Ferrero: "Your agents that were with you in Argentina must make an extensive search. And the people that are responsible for this must be told. Are you informed that this is a number one issue?"

Castro: "I am informed and absolutely in agreement."

Ferrero: "So you agree with the (expletive) that you have done to the island, assassin?"

Castro: "What?"

Ferrero: "Enrique Santos and Joe Ferrero from Miami, El Zol 95.7 You fell just like Hugo Chavez."

Castro: "What did I fall for you (expletive)? What did I fall for (expletive)?"

Ferrero: "All of Miami is listening to you."

Castro: "What did I fall for, you big (expletive)?"

Ferrero: "What do you have to say?"

Castro: "(expletive)"

Castro: "I won't say anything.... shove it in your mother's (expletive)."

Ferrero: "Miami is listening to you Fidel Castro."

Source: Radio station WXDJ-FM.

 

[AVB]

I haven't had a crank call yet :0

 

[gkpk]

Hey guys we should be careful not to piss him off.
Who knows what hell put in our isom. :0

 

[cigarsarge]

Anyone seen the HBO special on Castro? Pretty interesting.

 

[gawntrail]

I'll be in Nassau in June. Does anyone know his Nextel handle? I'll make sure to put in a good word for us. Maybe he could courier some ISOMs to us in a diplomatic pouch or something

Phrase to live by: You don't ask - you don't get!

M. Gipson

 

[MiamiCubano]

I was listening to this call the day it happened as I was driving to a golf course here in Miami. It was beautiful. It simply serves to reveal just the tip of the iceberg of the assassin, dictator and terrorist that our family and friends in Cuba have known for 43 years. The fine is a small price to pay - by the way, the FCC fine was simply for transmitting the voice of an individual across airwaves without disclosing that they (the individual) were "on the air."

CUBA LIBRE!!!

 

[Lumberg]

They enticed him into cursing a blue streak.

The bigger coup would be to get that on the air in Cuba.

 

[PuroBrat]

Castro crank callers paying in pennies
Wednesday, April 28, 2004 Posted: 8:21 AM EDT (1221 GMT)

MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) -- Two Miami radio hosts who duped Cuban President Fidel Castro with a prank call are soliciting pennies from their fans to pay a $4,000 fine proposed by U.S. regulators because of the on-air stunt.

Talk radio host Enrique Santos said the fine made no sense, so he and co-host Joe Ferrero plan to pay it with 400,000 cents, delivered in person to the Federal Communications Commission in Washington.

"We prank-called a head of state in a country that is considered hostile to the United States. He's a violator of human rights and they're fining us $4,000," Santos said on Tuesday. "We just find it absurd."

Santos and Ferrero host "El Vacilon de la Manana," or "The Morning Joker," show on Spanish-language radio station WXDJ-FM in Miami.

On June 17 they phoned Cuba's foreign relations ministry and pretended to be aides to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, an admirer of Castro. They said Chavez needed to speak urgently to Castro because he had lost a suitcase full of sensitive documents during a recent trip both leaders made to Argentina.

The call was transferred through several government officials and when Castro came on the line, the pranksters used recorded snippets from a Chavez speech to make it seem the Venezuelan leader was calling -- phrases like "Fidel," and "How are you?"

After getting Castro to agree to hunt for the suitcase, they called him a killer and told him he was on a Miami radio show. Castro replied with a string of curses and hung up.

The call was broadcast five times over two days, to the delight of Miami's Castro-loathing Cuban exiles.

But the FCC ruled last week that the station violated a regulation requiring that participants in phone conversations be told in advance if the call is being broadcast.

"It was in fact the intention and result of WXDJ's actions to fool and surprise the recipients of the call," the FCC said.

The commission proposed a $4,000 fine against WXDJ and gave it 30 days to pay it or contest it. Santos said station managers had not decided which to do, but that he and Ferrero would hold an on-air penny drive outside a furniture store on Thursday to raise money for the fine.

"The listeners are just outraged," he said. "We're asking people to just go through their drawers and cars for any old pennies and drop them off."

The FCC said it acted because it received an informal complaint about the call, but did not say who complained.