Judge Juan Nuñez was getting up to leave the Holiday Inn conference room in Quito, Ecuador. It was June 5, 2009, and he was meeting with an American who wanted information. Specifically, Wayne Hansen wanted to know if Núñez was going to hold Chevron Corporation liable for $27 billion for polluting the Amazon Basin. Hansen was posing as a contractor who stood to receive large sums for cleaning up the jungle. The judge probably did not know that Hansen had once been convicted of conspiring to sell 137 tons of marijuana. He certainly did not know that Hansen was capturing their conversation with a Spy Pen video camera, which retails online for $149.99.
"Any other questions for me as a judge?" asked Núñez in Spanish.
