The Mormon Peanut Butter Assassin

November 9, 2004 9:51 AM

The Mormon Peanut Butter Assassin David Race Bannon was serving as a Mormon missionary in Korea when he was caught up in a peanut butter smuggling ring that led to his imprisonment and eventual recruiting by Interpol for project "Archangel," a team of assassins trained to hunt down and terminate the leaders of child sex rings. Whew. Oh, and he has a book out. Is it just me, or does this sound a little . . . odd?
posted by mecran01 (35 comments total)

Race Bannon?

Go Team Venture!
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 9:59 AM on November 9, 2004

I thought Race Bannon was a part of the Jonny Quest Action Force?

And how strong could his beliefs have been if he dumped them to become an assassin of child pornographers? And what ever happened to due process, innocent until proven guilty, trial by peers, blah, blah?

Screw it, lets save a few bucks and hire a Mormon to bore them to death!
posted by fenriq at 10:05 AM on November 9, 2004

Go Johnny Quest!
posted by mecran01 at 10:05 AM on November 9, 2004

If you say the word Mormon 3 times fast, a google text add appears informing you of:
Reform Mormonism
A new approach to Mormonism. It's OK to be a Mormon again.
www.reformmormonism.org
posted by rough ashlar at 10:07 AM on November 9, 2004

Apparently his martial arts credentials are in question too:

Bullshido.net

I'm still amazed that nobody is calling him on any of this.
posted by mecran01 at 10:16 AM on November 9, 2004

Side note, I'm not positive but I've long held that the pejorative "moron" is a bastardization of "mormon".

Same thing for "cretin" and "Christian".

Two words that always make me smile.
posted by fenriq at 10:23 AM on November 9, 2004

In the language of Archangel, Bannon was a “cleaner.” It was his job to get close to the worst perpetrators of child trafficking and child sexual exploitation, to extract information from them by force and to kill them. He was an assassin.

Sounds like an episode of "la Femme Nikita". I know the child sex slave trade is real, but Interpol assisinating people? Sounds fishy to me.
posted by gd779 at 10:23 AM on November 9, 2004

I'm actually curious about the peanut butter smuggling ring.
posted by troutfishing at 10:27 AM on November 9, 2004

I'm also fairly sure that Thailand makes it just as illegal to chain to a bed a native Thai child prostitute as a trafficked non-Thai child prostitute.
posted by MattD at 10:27 AM on November 9, 2004

And Interpol doesn't have dedicated undercover agents that I know of. It's a police agency information clearing house and occasional organizer of collaborative training and cross-border investigations.
posted by MattD at 10:29 AM on November 9, 2004

Charlotte Observer:


Best Action Figure Wanna-Be
David Race Bannon

This 40-year-old Charlotte husband, father and computer programmer wrote a book in which he claimed to be a former spy and hitman for Interpol, the international police agency. The book, Race Against Evil: The Secret Missions of the Interpol Agent Who Tracked the World's Most Sinister Criminals – A True Story was filled with spy/action movie type melodrama, and was swallowed whole by most local media, including the Observer. He can't prove what he claims, and we can't prove he's wrong, but we suspect there's more Chuck Barris than James Bond here.

There are 114 reviews on Amazon and almost without exception they're 5 stars. The reviews on his site are mostly from, errr, lesser known sources like the "Lake Norman Times". This whole thing looks like Christian porn to me, but like the Charlotte Observer, I can't prove he's wrong.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 10:29 AM on November 9, 2004

This article is great.

"On a hillside in rural Japan, Bannon was in a vicious fight with a rice farmer. The baseball bat Bannon had been using as a weapon broke in half during the struggle, but he managed to take the blunt end and ram it into his opponent's throat, bringing him to the ground."

Reminds me of the guy I met at a party that claimed to have been pit fighter throughout Asia and Ireland.
posted by Tenuki at 10:30 AM on November 9, 2004

Just wait...this is all viral marketing for some new Charlie Kaufman flick. Where's the stolen peanut butter bitch?!?!?!
posted by junkbox at 10:42 AM on November 9, 2004

I bet he had it "keistered". Hey, you got your poop in my peanut butter! You got your peanut butter in my poop! Maybe its a new sensational snack?

Maybe not.

I think Tenuki's got the right tack on this, utter fantasy but told well enough to dupe some.
posted by fenriq at 10:48 AM on November 9, 2004

The poor man would have never been pulled into this world of intrigue and danger if he'd only had the GoogleAds on this very page. He never would have started down that slippery slope from smuggled-in peanut butter and snackies to the shadowy world of child slavery and internet sin:

"Send Hot, Fresh Krispy Kremes or other treats to your LDS Missionary
www.supportyourmissionary.com"
posted by freebird at 10:50 AM on November 9, 2004

“he was serving time in a Korean prison for smuggling peanut butter and Jack Daniels. He’d been serving as a Christian missionary when his quest for American munchies got him tangled with a smuggling operation”

I’ve known a few former missionaries and not many of them would consider Jack Daniels a ‘munchie’, at least not until after they left the church.
posted by Tenuki at 10:56 AM on November 9, 2004

I have a number of friends within law enforcement and the military*, we shall share many giggles regarding this. Thank you very much for the link mecran01.


*that would be real friends and not imaginary ones like Mr Bannon has.
posted by longbaugh at 11:12 AM on November 9, 2004

And Interpol doesn't have dedicated undercover agents that I know of. It's a police agency information clearing house and occasional organizer of collaborative training and cross-border investigations.

Pfft. That's what they want you to think...
posted by mkultra at 11:12 AM on November 9, 2004

While the idea of a Interpol assasination team targeting pedophiles seems like a tall tale, I have no hard time believing that at least some of this is true. I've worked with children whose crackhead parents had pimped them at the age of 5 or 6 for drugs. It's hard to believe but there are people out there who are just that evil.
posted by echolalia67 at 11:16 AM on November 9, 2004

What utter nonsense. There are no facts in the article except for this nutjob's apparently un-fact-checked delusions and some references to an NYT magazine article that was savaged for containing almost no verifiable information.

See this link for a debunking.
posted by Mid at 11:31 AM on November 9, 2004

It sounds like someone forgot to take their crazy pills.
posted by bshort at 11:44 AM on November 9, 2004

Just wait...this is all viral marketing for some new Charlie Kaufman flick.

He does have a 'blog, you know...

Oh, sorry. I thought you said 'Andy'.
posted by wah at 12:10 PM on November 9, 2004

I will (belatedly) call bullshit on this one for one reason and one reason alone.

David Bruce Banner + Race Bannon ______________ David Race Bannon

Bullshit!
posted by mikrophon at 12:18 PM on November 9, 2004

One more thing...The beating heart of the 'Red States' is the New Zion (Utah), if you hadn't noticed. This is re: reformmormonism threadjack.



General explanation (SSP).

Pretty pictures (As required by CC license).

Pretty equations (As required by reality).
posted by wah at 12:24 PM on November 9, 2004

While the idea of a Interpol assasination team targeting pedophiles seems like a tall tale, I have no hard time believing that at least some of this is true.

I'm sure that there are child-sex rings. It's just unfortunate that this individual is attaching himself to legitimate organizations to push his book.

Maybe David Mamet's Spartan was based on him?
posted by mecran01 at 12:25 PM on November 9, 2004

Wah: I wouldn't go pissing off legions of Mormon assassins if I were you.

Disclaimer: I am Mormon. This guy (Bannon) is embarassing. Especially to those of us who served full two-year missions before becoming government assassins. Pansy.
posted by mecran01 at 12:29 PM on November 9, 2004

Disclaimer: I was also baptized a Mormon. I know about their grand tradition. I know about the massacres. I know about the assassins.

Disclaimer: I also worked at Enron. I know about their lies. I know about the thefts. I know about the assassins.

Also, my mother, father, and brother all went on Missions.

Conclusion: I'm kinda clear about what I'm dealing with here...
posted by wah at 12:36 PM on November 9, 2004

You're a brave man. If I get called to take you out, it's nothing personal.
posted by mecran01 at 2:05 PM on November 9, 2004

MetaFilter: If I get called to take you out, it's nothing personal!

Thanks mecran01!
posted by fenriq at 2:30 PM on November 9, 2004

BTW, I love Mormons.

I should probably make that clear.

I guess, I'm kinda what could be called a "Mormon Mystic".

Sorry for not telling y'all earlier.

peace, yo.
posted by wah at 3:12 PM on November 9, 2004

[A dark room. COLONEL KURTZ is eating peanut butter out of a jar. He dips two fat fingers at a time, removes a dollop, then sucks the brown marrow off with an obscene slurp. Enter DAVID RACE BANNON, aiming at him with an Interpol-issued sidearm.]

BANNON
They told me that you had gone totally insane and that your methods were unsound.

KURTZ
Are my methods unsound?

BANNON
I don't see any method at all, sir.

KURTZ
Are you an assassin?

BANNON
I'm a soldier.

KURTZ
You're neither. You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill.
posted by Hildago at 5:59 PM on November 9, 2004

It's porn from the Boulder Weekly. I mean, really:

Certainly, no one wants to hear about... [MMM~g nc bd tort alien true]

It reads almost as if Pamela were writing to alt.sex.stories.

As for the freak himself, it sounds to me like he is well-experienced as a customer of the child trafficking trade, and is trying to create a defense that might hoodwink a jury when he gets prosecuted for kiddy-diddling.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:39 PM on November 9, 2004

According to the Central Intelligence Agency, more than 50,000 people are trafficked into the United States as slaves annually. Many serve in the sex trade. In addition, an estimated 10 percent of the 800,000 American children who go missing each year end up being sold internationally for as much as $30,000 each. And not all of them are young girls. -- Pamela White

How many missing children are there?
Answer: The problem of missing children is complex and multifaceted. There are different types of missing children including family abductions; endangered runaways; nonfamily abductions; and lost, injured, or otherwise missing children. The best national estimates for the number of missing children are from incidence studies conducted by the [US DOJ ... who found in] 1999, an estimated 797,500 children were reported missing; 58,200 children were abducted by nonfamily members; 115 children were the victims of the most serious, long-term nonfamily abductions called "stereotypical kidnappings"; and 203,900 children were the victims of family abductions.

And
In 1998, the U.S. Government estimated that 700,000 people are trafficked annually worldwide and 45,000 to 50,000 people, predominantly women and children, are trafficked each year into the United States for sexual exploitation or forced labor.... Since then, the statistic has been cited in a variety of contexts ... as a measure of how many victims end up in the United States every year. The numbers have recently been updated.

As of May 2003, the U.S. Government estimates that 18,000 to 20,000 people are trafficked annually into the United States.... This estimate is a weighted average of U.S. Government data, other published estimates, and a census of known and suspected trafficking cases. This estimate is not comparable to the original U.S. Government estimate in 1997. Differences in the two estimates reflect improvements in data collection and methodology rather than trends in trafficking.

Some research regarding trafficking in persons has been conducted or funded by the U.S. Government, although little research has been done on trafficking into the United States.... None of these ... studies will provide a nation-wide estimate of the scope or magnitude of trafficking of persons into the United States or comprehensively address trafficking trends to and within the United States. Such analysis would be useful to understanding the scope and magnitude of trafficking in the United States.

The bullshit is slippery here. Tread carefully.
posted by dhartung at 9:05 PM on November 9, 2004

Ummm, the article in the SL Weekly says that this goofball was a "Christian" missionary, not an Mormon one. Sure, it's in a Utah paper, but the guy lives in Colorado. So... where's the Mormon link?

Full disclosure: Yes, I am a Mormon. Yes, I served a mission. Yes, I currently live in Utah. No, I've never been an assassin. No, I didn't vote for Bush.
posted by terceiro at 9:52 AM on November 10, 2004

It's a pleasure to hear from the other Utah Mormon who didn't vote for Bush. You're right, the article, which originally appeared in Colorado, does not call him a Mormon.


Interpol recruited Bannon at age 19 while he was serving time in a Korean prison for smuggling peanut butter and Jack Daniels. He’d been serving as a Christian missionary when his quest for American munchies got him tangled with a smuggling operation that, on one end, traded in harmless Yankee foodstuffs and, on the other, trafficked in children and child pornography. While Bannon believes a number of his traits led Interpol to approach him, the fact that he spoke fluent Korean–and was a third-degree black belt in the martial art of hapkido–didn’t hurt.

All we know is:

• He was 19
• Knew the language in Korea
• Had a fondness for peanut butter
• Bragged about his expertise with martial arts.

Certainly not enough to convict.
posted by mecran01 at 12:45 PM on November 10, 2004