captioning funded by cbs and ford-- built for the road ahead. >> pelley: dr. ecklund, i'm scott pelley with "60 minutes." >> oh, great. >> pelley: dr. ecklund was surprised to see us. we had hidden our cameras, something we rarely do at "60 minutes," so we could uncover his plan to inject stem cells from a questionable source into this 11-year-old boy with cerebral palsy. how does that work exactly? >> well, stem cells contain,

uh... >> he's saying they don't want you guys going through there. >> logan: we've covered a lot of stories on the war in afghanistan for "60 minutes," but this is not a story about war and battle. it's a story about brothers, and believe it or not, we found five sets of them serving side by side in the same battalion. in all your years -- you've been in the marines 17 years -- have you ever seen this many brothers together serving at the same time, same place? >> no, not at all. it's history in the making if you ask me. >> stahl: in the beautiful italian province of perugia, men roam the hills with their trained dogs, hunting for the most expensive food in the world. so this is $1,000, just right there is $1,000? but as we found out, anything this rare and expensive can attract a dangerous clientele.

>> ( translated ): everybody is a danger in this business. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm lara logan. >> i'm byron pitts. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories tonight on "60 minutes." >> good evening. for the first time in 25 years, cadillac is rolling out a compact car, this one called the a.t.system. gas prices jumped nine cents this week to an average of $3.37 a gallon, and "the devil inside" won the weekend box office with $34.5 million. i'm jeff glor, cbs news.

>> pelley: there's no greater desperation than to be told that you, or your child, has a disease for which there is no hope. many people with incurable illness look forward to the promise of stem cells. stem cells have the potential to turn into any kind of cell and, in theory, they could repair damaged cells, though, scientists tell us that we're years away from realizing that dream. there is no stem cell miracle today, so conmen, have moved in to offer the hope that science cannot. just look online and you will find hundreds of credible looking web sites offering stem cell cures in overseas clinics. two years ago, we began investigating stem cell charlatans.

we worked with patients suffering from incurable diseases, and we discovered con men, posing as doctors, conducting dangerous medical experiments. you know, mr. stowe, the trouble is that you're a con man. our report started a federal investigation. since that story, we have been digging into the rapidly growing trade in fake stem cell cures. and we've found something even more alarming-- illegal stem cell transplants that are dangerous and delivered to your doorstep. they're scams that often bilk the desperate out of their last dollar of savings and their last ounce of hope. >> i know you're tired. >> pelley: adam and brandon susser are 11-year-old twins. adam has cerebral palsy, his brain was damaged by a lack of oxygen before he and his brother were born. >> susser: he's confined to a wheelchair. he needs assistance with all his daily living activities from cleanliness to feeding, to clothing.

>> pelley: gary and judy susser have searched for anything that might improve on the judgement handed down by adam's doctors. >> susser: the sentence of being a quadriplegic, the sentence of being totally blind, the pronouncement by physicians that we should put him away. >> pelley: those were the things that his regular doctors were telling you? >> susser: correct. we were being advised literally, "put him away. he's going to destroy your life." >> pelley: so back in 2003, the sussers took a chance on the theory of stem cells. adam was three. they brought him to a doctor in mexico who injected stem cells with no idea whether they would work. >> judy susser: we both decided that in the severity of his condition that we'd have to try it. >> pelley: apparently there was no harm and no miracle. >> susser: the progress that he made after that was minimal at best, and therefore we didn't see any good coming out of it. >> pelley: today, people like

the sussers can find hundreds of sophisticated web sites offering stem cell treatments for every hopeless disease. >> susser: i see how people are preyed upon by hucksters and charlatans. and people who have a special child don't need any more expense, don't need any more heartache, and don't need any more false promises. they need the truth and they need hope. >> pelley: to help us learn the truth about the illicit stem cell industry, the susser's agreed to work with us in an investigation of one stem cell laboratory. we focused on stem tech labs of ecuador because it offers cures for cerebral palsy and a long list of 70 incurable diseases. the web site claims a "modern day medical miracle," and says "we are f.d.a. registered," apparent approval from the food and drug administration. the founder and director of stem tech labs is an alabama doctor

named dan ecklund. we've been tracking dr. ecklund for months. >> susser: hello, is dan ecklund there please? >> pelley: in october, we asked the sussers to contact dr. ecklund. ecklund sent them a letter which offered the blind and paralyzed adam the possibility of an improved level of consciousness, improved ability to see, to speak, to stand and walk. what can stem cells really do today? we asked a scientist who's doing some of the world's most advanced studies in stem cells, dr. joanne kurtzberg. >> kurtzberg: i believe stem cells have a lot of promise. but we are way at the infancy. because real stem cells are very difficult to control as therapy. i personally think we're ten years away from seeing real cell therapies that are working and are safe, but i do believe it will come. >> pelley: dr. kurtzberg is a physician and the chief scientific officer of a stem

cell research program at duke university. she advises the federal government and is the co- director of this multimillion- dollar laboratory which works with stem cells harvested from umbilical cord blood. dr. kurtzberg told us there is no evidence yet that stem cells can treat cerebral palsy. some of the diseases that we see stem cell cures offered for on the internet include multiple sclerosis. >> kurtzberg: there are no stem cell cures yet for multiple sclerosis. >> pelley: lou gehrig's disease? >> kurtzberg: i wish there were but there are not. >> pelley: you know, i wonder how often it happens that you have to tell a patient, "i'm sorry. there's nothing we can do." and then they come back to you two days later and say, "well, i see all these cures on the internet." >> kurtzberg: i get many of those calls and emails and see many of those patients. but it's very dishonest to mislead people when there's nothing you can do. >> pelley: but there's a lot that can be done for adam

susser, at least according to dr. ecklund who spoke to the sussers from his lab in ecuador. >> susser: say hello to dr. dan, adam. >> dr. dan ecklund: hello, adam. >> susser: can you see him, doc? >> pelley: dr. ecklund's only examination of adam came by teleconference. ecklund didn't know we were watching. >> susser: do you think it would help him, you know, make him improve? >> ecklund: i think it's likely to help him, yes. i would say 75% chance that he would have a noticeable improvement. >> pelley: ecklund proposed four treatments costing a total of $20,000. the sussers asked ecklund to treat adam near their florida home. >> ecklund: again, my concern would be the legalities of it. >> pelley: he's right to be concerned. it would be a felony to use stem cells in an unapproved therapy or to sell them for export to the u.s. that's why we were surprised to

see this on many web sites: a shopping cart. we clicked on ecklund's stem tech labs cart and with no medical or scientific credentials, we bought 20 million umbilical cord stem cells for $5,000 shipped to america. we had the cells sent by the highest medical standard. duke university suggested we use something called a dry shipper, cooled with liquid nitrogen. we sent the dry shipper to stem tech. stem tech sent the frozen cells to us, and we forwarded them to joanne kurtzberg. a computer chip inside our package, verified that the cells were properly frozen all the way. dr. kurtzberg analyzed the cells. for comparison, look under the microscope. healthy umbilical cord stem cells look like this. the cells we got from stem tech had disintegrated. >> kurtzberg: so these are the cells you purchased.

and they are dying, or dead. >> pelley: we see all of these dead and disintegrating cells, and essentially cellular debris. are there dangers of injecting that into someone? >> kurtzberg: there are huge dangers if you injected that into someone's blood or spinal fluid because all these little fragments and debris would get trapped somewhere in the blood stream and could cause a stroke, or in the brain could cause an inflammatory reaction. >> pelley: this could actually do harm? >> kurtzberg: yes. this could do a great deal of harm. >> pelley: remember, the sussers asked dr. ecklund to treat adam in the u.s. and last month, he got out of a van to meet gary susser at a florida hotel where ecklund planned to do the transplant. we dug into dr. ecklund's background and we found things that he hadn't told the sussers. this is the document in which the state of alabama revoked his medical license in 2005. the state medical commission

said dr. ecklund admitted that he prescribed controlled substances to a patient with whom he was having sex; prescribed controlled substances to a patient who he knew was a drug addict; and had sexual experiences with young female children. we also tracked down his laboratory in ecuador, not exactly the state-of-the-art facility claimed in his web site. the hotel room gary susser and dan ecklund headed for was set up with a number of cameras that were tucked out of sight. susser excused himself. ecklund was expecting to meet judy and adam-- the blind and paralyzed 11-year-old in whom he intended to transplant stem cells-- cells from his lab that sold us the dangerous biomedical junk. instead, we came in. dr. ecklund, i'm scott pelley with "60 minutes." >> ecklund: oh, great. >> pelley: how are you today?

>> ecklund: i am, uh, surprised. >> pelley: we've been working with the sussers on a story, and i want you to know that we're being recorded. and i wanted to ask you about the treatment that you propose for adam. what would that be? >> ecklund: the treatment that he asked about was for stem cells. human stem cells. >> pelley: and you think they're applicable for cerebral palsy? >> ecklund: yes. i have seen them be effective in cases of cerebral palsy. >> pelley: how does that work, exactly? >> ecklund: well, stem cells contain-- excuse me, here. no one knows exactly. okay? but stem... stem cells do contain and give off chemicals which cause other cells to repair themselves. >> pelley: in the letter that you sent the sussers, you

described possible effects for adam. which could include improved ability to see, improved ability to speak, improved ability to move arms and legs. you believe those things are possible? >> ecklund: i do. >> pelley: what is your training in stem cells? >> ecklund: my training in stem cells was i studied for about six years going over the literature. and then i started producing stem... stem cells, in my lab. >> pelley: you're self-educated, self-taught? >> ecklund: uh-huh. >> pelley: have you published any research? >> ecklund: no. >> pelley: frankly, dr. ecklund, you have nothing to base your results on. there's no clinical trial, there's no... there's no blind study. there are no medical papers published. >> ecklund: that doesn't make any difference. >> pelley: you know, you say you-- it doesn't make any difference, that you haven't done these studies. i would imagine... >> ecklund: the studies have been done in other countries. >> pelley: i would imagine it would make a big difference to

the sussers. >> ecklund: the studies have been done in other countries. these are not published in the united states, because they cannot be published in the united states. >> pelley: where is this seen in the medical literature, anywhere in the world? if you did the things that you describe in this paper, you would win the nobel prize. >> ecklund: no, if i did the things that are described in that paper, it would not be published, it would be suppressed. and you wouldn't see-- you wouldn't hear about it. >> pelley: ecklund told us breakthroughs with stem cells aren't published in scientific journals because of a conspiracy of drug companies and governments that he had trouble defining. that's when we told him we bought cells from his lab. when your cells are delivered, they're functioning, living stem cells? >> ecklund: yes. >> pelley: we purchased some stem cells from stem tech labs six months, or so, ago. and had them delivered to duke university, which did tests on the stem cells.

and they determined that the stem cells were dead. >> ecklund: well, they must not have handled them appropriately, then. >> pelley: you're thinking that you handled them appropriately, but the stem cell laboratories at duke university did not? >> ecklund: that would be my assumption, yeah. >> kurtzberg: i don't think that there's any chance they were damaged in shipment. >> pelley: we asked dr. kurtzberg to listen to ecklund's theories. >> ecklund: yes. i have seen them be effective in cases of cerebral palsy. >> kurtzberg: this is pretty scary actually that he would be saying these things, that he would be leading them on this way because what he's talking about is very dangerous. >> pelley: is this a con, dr. ecklund? >> ecklund: no, it's not a con. i have taken the stem cells myself. would i take the stem cells if i thought that they were a con? no.

>> pelley: putting them in an 11-year-old boy is entirely a different matter. >> ecklund: that's why i took care to explain the remotest possible difficulties, which have never been reported. >> pelley: without any medical studies that have been published in major journals, that have suggested that stem cells have any efficacy in cerebral palsy. >> ecklund: you keep going back to this point. that they're not published in... in major... in major medical journals. i'm telling you... >> pelley: it is the standard of the world. i do keep going to that point. >> ecklund: i'm telling you that they are not going to be published in this country. because when someone does try to do it, then they have "60 minutes" come and visit them. and i think that's enough for me, thank you. >> pelley: we don't know where dan ecklund went, but we do know the whereabouts of the two con men who were the subjects of our first stem cell story two years

ago. in that investigation, we worked with patients steven watters and michael martin, who suffered with a.l.s., also known as lou gehrig's disease. they were promised miracles from lawrence stowe and frank morales, who offered a $125,000 stem cell therapy. >> steven watters: will it keep me out of a wheelchair? >> lawrence stowe: oh, yeah, absolutely. >> pelley: our story launched a federal investigation. and last week, morales and stowe were indicted. the indictment alleges they made $1.5 million with stem cell fraud. if convicted, they could face 20 years in prison. the patients who helped us, steven watters and michael martin, lost their lives to a.l.s. last spring. we will continue our reporting on the stem cell fraud tomorrow on our brand-new morning broadcast, "cbs this morning."

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>> logan: in world war ii, there were five brothers serving on a battleship in the pacific that was attacked by the japanese. their name was sullivan, the sullivan brothers, and their story has become part of american folklore because they all died. that was more than 60 years ago, but their deaths cast a shadow that still hangs over military commanders today, and they do everything they can to prevent siblings from going to war together. there's no official military policy, but it's an unwritten rule. which is why it may surprise you, as it did us, to find five sets of brothers-- all marines-- serving together in the same battalion in afghanistan. we tracked them down to the edge of an unforgiving desert in the

south of the country, where we met the beans brothers, two fourth-generation marines who went to extraordinary lengths to go to war together. we have covered a lot of stories on the war in afghanistan on "60 minutes," but this is not a story about war and battle. it's a story about brothers. >> daniel beans: we... we kind of felt like we had something to give back to our country. you know, we saw the legacy that we were handed down. and we kind of realized but... without being pushed, but we just kind of realized that, you know, there... there's so many other people that have given so much more than we did that we can enjoy the life that we enjoy. >> logan: this is not the first time the beans brother's have served together. daniel, or "big beans," as he's called, and his younger brother joshua, known as "little beans," were in iraq three years ago. >> daniel beans: it was like being with your best friend, you

know. we literally... we slept right next to each other. you know, we had... we lived in a little... little mud hut. but, you know, we had a little plywood wall, and... and i lived on one side and he lived on the other. and that was, you know, pretty much how we lived for seven months. >> logan: did you talk to each other through that wall? >> joshua beans: sometimes, i would... sometimes, i would knock really softly and wake him up in the mornings. >> logan: you were like his live alarm clock? >> joshua beans: no. i just... every once in a while, i'd knock and make sure he was still there. >> logan: the beans brothers weren't home from iraq very long when they decided they wanted to go to afghanistan together. president obama had just announced he was sending 30,000 more troops to fight there, but the brothers' marine reserve unit in florida wasn't scheduled to deploy. so they spent the next two years searching for one that was, and found the lone star battalion in texas. the problem was, to serve with that unit, they had to come up with a story and an address in texas. >> daniel beans: ( laughs ) we... we were opening up a lawn care business in plano, texas. that was our reasoning for... for making the move. >> joshua beans: we had to... we had to have a reason to move to texas and join that unit, so... >> daniel beans: he worked the weed whacker. >> joshua beans: so i... that's what we decided we were going to

do is we moved to plano, texas, which i still to this day don't know where that is. >> daniel beans: no idea. >> logan: that's a lot of trouble to go to to go and fight in a war that... that not many americans believe is worth fighting these days? >> daniel beans: that's the great thing about america-- everybody's entitled to their opinion. >> logan: lieutenant colonel todd zink had an opinion, and it wasn't one the brothers would like. as their new commanding officer, he did not think they should serve together and decided immediately to separate them. >> todd zink: everyone brings up the sullivan brothers from... >> logan: ...from the second world war. >> zink: world war ii, yeah, yeah. and so i thought it was my responsibility to try to minimize what harm could possibly come to any two sets of brothers. >> logan: the story of the sullivan brothers was turned into this movie called "the fighting sullivans," a heartbreaking account of how all five brothers died in 1942 after a japanese submarine torpedoed their ship.

there's just something about that bond of family and the idea that, you know, two brothers might not come back that kind of kicks you in the gut. >> zink: yeah, it does. i could see my own brother and i almost wanting the same thing, though, i think if we found ourselves in the same unit, we're that close. so, as hard as it is, i can... i can kind of understand them, to some extent. >> joshua beans: they have to look at from the other side of the table and say, "well, if... if they were to both die while they were over there, then it'd look really bad on us, and family would hate us." >> zink: you know, they were very eloquent in front of me, but i still wasn't convinced that this... you know, having them together would be the right thing. >> logan: but colonel zink had no idea what he was up against-- the beans brothers' family is steeped in marine history. their grandfather and great- grandfather both rose to brigadier general, and the boys' father, mark, was also a marine. >> zink: i told them i couldn't face their mother if they were both lost, you know. and almost on cue, they presented a letter from their parents.

>> logan: in the letter, mark and his wife, crystal, wrote: "we understand that both our sons could be lost or injured at the same time, but we would rather know that the two of them are together, regardless of what happens." was that incredible to you, that the mother and father of these two young men were prepared to go to such great lengths to see them risk their lives together? >> zink: it is kind of incredible. but it may be it's indicative that they really know their sons and maybe what their sons really desired. >> logan: colonel zink and the brothers' company commander, major mark wood, struggled for weeks to come up with a way they, as commanders, could go against convention and support sending the brothers into combat together. you decided what? >> mark wood: they would not be in the same squad-- different squads-- and they would not be on the same mission. >> logan: so those were the only restrictions? >> wood: yes. >> logan: some would call that a brave decision, considering the risk. >> wood: it's my decision. i would have to live with it.

>> logan: the beans brothers had won, but the victory was not theirs alone. there were four other sets of brothers in the lone star battalion, and all of them would now be allowed to serve together. >> zink: i've never heard of five sets in one battalion. that's truly extraordinary. >> logan: unprecedented? >> zink: unprecedented, yes. >> logan: we managed to get eight of the brothers together at a remote u.s. base in southern afghanistan. the youngest of the group are the henrichsens, 20-year-old bobby, and his older brother, cody, who's 23. gunnery sergeant hector vega looks out for both of them, and for his younger brother, sergeant francisco vega, who couldn't make it to the interview. lance corporal matthew faseler was the only one serving without his brother-- jonathan faseler was injured during training. raul hernandez and his older brother will are both lance corporals, and they also come from a family of marines. do you worry about your brother out here? >> will hernandez: i worry about

him a lot. when he first got to the unit, i was like a mother hen. you know, he was a marine, but i still feel like, you know, we're little kids again. you know, my mom's telling me, "take care of your brother." >> logan: what did your parents think about you joining the marines? >> will hernandez: my mother actually went into the recruiting office and chewed out the recruiters. so she went in there, you know, raising... raising hell. >> logan: so she must have been thrilled when your brother joined. >> will hernandez: oh, yeah. when... when he joined, yeah, she was... she just didn't know what to do. we made the best of it. we... we comforted her as much as we could. we don't tell her certain things, you know. ( laughs ) or we, we sugarcoat it, you know. we... we church it up a lot whenever we call home. >> logan: you church it up a lot? >> will hernandez: we church it up a lot and make things sound like, "oh, it's... it's fine. everything's good," you know. >> logan: this miserable stretch of desert road is where daniel and joshua beans spend most of their time out here.

highway one is the lifeblood of the u.s. war effort, pumping supplies and fuel to every u.s. base across the country. convoys like this stretch for miles, up to a thousand tankers long, and the hired guns who guard them rarely wear uniforms. >> daniel beans: it makes it a little bit nerve wracking, you know, when... when you're seeing guns, you're seeing weapons, and you're assuming, you know, based on the indicators that you've got, that these are, in fact, private contractors. but at the end of the day, you never know-- all you're doing is walking up to a truckload of people with guns. >> logan: and the last thing you want to do is kill an innocent person? >> daniel beans: correct. >> logan: but you also don't want it to be you? >> daniel beans: it's a double- edged sword, yes, ma'am. >> logan: in this part of afghanistan, the taliban still has strong support, in spite of the surge of u.s. troops. but they've changed their tactics. instead of taking the marines on in a closeup fight, they're concentrating now on a weapon that costs them little-- bigger, deadlier roadside bombs. this is the scene of a massive attack on the brothers' battalion.

five marines were trapped inside this burning vehicle. the roadside bomb they hit was so powerful, it sent their 17- ton m-rap flying through the air. >> wood: you just don't flip an m-rap. it doesn't happen. it has to be a massive amount of explosives. >> logan: did you think they could all be dead? >> wood: of course. of course. >> logan: what are you telling yourself? >> wood: bargaining. >> logan: bargaining? >> wood: bargaining. i was praying a little bit and asking for it not to be all of them, and maybe two, not three, not four, not... not all five. just... just let them... let a couple survive, please. >> logan: for major wood, it was nothing short of a miracle that all five men inside the vehicle survived.

one of them was crippled for life. >> wood: god was looking after us that day. we were hoping for the best, but we were preparing ourselves for the worst. >> logan: there was another event in the brothers' deployment that took a heavier toll. two of their marines were killed by a u.s. drone that mistakenly targeted them in the midst of an intense firefight, the first incident of its kind since drone strikes began. it was gunnery sergeant vega's job to help the men get through it. at 33, he's like the elder statesman and big brother of this group. and even though he's one of four marines in his family, this was the first time he had been allowed to deploy with one of his brothers. >> hector vega: knowing that your brother's here, you almost have to put yourself at a different state of mind, if you will, to where, if something does happen, how are you going to react? what are you going to say? what are you going to do? i role play, psychologically,

prepare myself. >> logan: do you have a speech? something you would say to his wife? something prepared? >> hector vega: no. how can you prepare, lara, for things like that? how can... what... what can you possibly say? >> logan: in all your years you've been in the marines, 17 years, have you ever seen this many brothers together serving at the same time? >> hector vega: no, not at all. it's history in the making, if you ask me. i think it's phenomenal. i think it's good. >> logan: there's an ending to this story, and it's a happy one. all of the brothers made it home alive. the beans brothers said the experience brought them closer. but for their parents, who wrote that letter that helped send their sons to war together, the worrying didn't stop until both their boys got home to florida safely. we're the wassman family from skagway, alaska.

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>> stahl: just a couple of

shavings of black truffles from france, known as black diamonds, can cost hundreds of dollars in a restaurant in paris. white truffles from italy can cost more than three times as much. truffles are a fancy, delicious delicacy, some say an aphrodisiac, and, ounce for ounce, the most expensive food in the world. if you go to frnce and italy, as we did, you learn quickly that truffles are under siege. because they're becoming scarce, they're being trafficked like drugs, stolen by thugs, and threatened by inferior imports from china. he found one already? where, where, where? he found one? oh, my god. oh, smell that. in the beautiful italian province of perugia, truffle hunters roam the frosty hills, with their trained dogs, who sniff out these lumpy mushrooms when they're ripe, one at a time, as they have for centuries.

wow. truffles grow wild, underground, usually at the base of an oak tree. they used to use pigs, but they ate the truffles. >> olga urbani: very rich american people, they only see truffles on the table of a very elegant restaurant. they don't see this. now, you know why they are expensive, right? >> stahl: olga urbani may be the only person in the world who goes truffle hunting in a full- length fur coat and a caribbean tan. but in the truffle business, she can pretty much do what she wants. her company, urbani, controls 70% of the world's truffle trade. >> urbani: when you find the truffles, it's like to have a miracle. >> stahl: another one. other countries, including the u.s., have tried cultivating truffles, with only limited success. it's the combination of european red soil and rainy summers that produce an especially rich,

earthy flavor. the price these truffles command makes hunters act like they're mining for gold. >> stahl: so this is $1,000? just right there is $1,000? and it's why the hunters value their dogs more than just about anything. >> urbani: he said, "i really love my wife, but i... the dog, i like much better." >> stahl: these truffles will go right to the urbani factory, where they're washed, sorted, and either frozen or canned, or flown fresh to fancy restaurants like new york's db bistro moderne, home of the $150 hamburger, smothered with truffles. a few shavings on pasta can run you even more. in 2010, at an auction in macao, this two-pound white truffle sold for $330,000, a record amount. it's not like agriculture.

people don't put a seed in the ground. and they're a fungus. >> urbani: yes, they're underground fungus, yes. >> stahl: so the farmer really can't make it happen. >> urbani: no, they can't do anything. we can't do anything. you're always on the phone, many telephones, saying, "sorry, sorry, i don't have, i don't have." i wish i had 100 tons a day to make everybody happy. ♪ ♪ >> stahl: in france, the truffle is so revered that, in the village of uzès, a special mass is held in its honor. churchgoers not only put money in the collection plate, they also add truffles. there's a reason for the special prayers-- because of climate change, the harvests are down from an annual haul of 2,000 tons of truffles 100 years ago to just 30 tons today. the scarcity and high prices have attracted elements of organized crime, who've turned the truffle trade into something

resembling the drug trade. >> bruno: the reality is, behind the popularity of the truffle lies a dangerous world. my house is your house. >> stahl: one of europe's most famous truffle connoisseurs is the larger-than-life french chef and restaurateur known simply as bruno. is it like the mafia? >> bruno: yes. >> stahl: really? >> bruno: yes, it's a good name? yes, the mafia, yes. you understand? it's very dangerous for me. >> stahl: at bruno's restaurant in the heart of provence, wealthy europeans helicopter in from paris and monaco just to eat lunch. bruno goes through about five tons of truffles a year, which his chefs shave on everything from potatoes to this amazing lobster dish. but bruno says the growing black market has led to people coming

to his place not just to eat truffles, but to steal them. the robbers came and got your truffles? >> bruno: yes, they stole 200 kilos of truffles. >> stahl: 200 kilos from you? >> bruno: they didn't steal my money, they stole my truffles. >> stahl: some of the stolen truffles, we were told, are brought to markets like this one in richerenches, where middle men sell out of the backs of cars or trucks. but large quantities change hands in back alleys. we witnessed this transaction where the buyers and sellers wanted their identities hidden. in less than a minute, 50 pounds of truffles were exchanged for 30,000 euros-- about $40,000-- with no questions asked about where the truffles came from. >> michel tournaye: there's a problem of confidentiality and secrecy. and that encourages a mafia-like attitude. >> stahl: michel tournaye, a third-generation truffle farmer, says that local trufflers have been car-jacked, beaten with baseball bats, and even killed.

thieves came and stole his truffles, his trees, and worse, his dogs. when they took your dogs, what did you do? >> tournaye: i looked for them all over europe. i found a world i didn't know about. it's a world that's rotten to the core. >> stahl: did you find your dogs? >> tournaye: never. >> stahl: but it's not criminals or climate change that worry the trufflers the most, it's china. for years, chinese farmers used truffles as feed for their pigs. that was until a businessman supposedly said, "the hell with the pigs. let's feed the french." even if the taste of a chinese truffle leaves something to be desired. let's talk about the chinese truffles. >> bruno: catastrophe. >> stahl: catastrophic? why? >> bruno: the chinese truffle is worthless-- no taste and no smell. >> stahl: no perfume, you couldn't smell it. nothing. >> stahl: no taste?

if i went to china and took it out of the ground, it still wouldn't taste as good? >> olga: it's the truffle itself. it's like eating a piece of wood. >> stahl: she says that's because of the way truffles in china are farmed, unlike in france, where dogs smell when a truffle is ripe. the chinese rake at the earth with no dogs-- as a cbs news producer in china discovered-- and harvest the truffles the minute they find them. which explains why, while the two truffles look the same, the price is drastically different. >> urbani: prices of winter truffles is about $1,000 a pound; a pound of chinese, maybe $20, $30. there are many people, bad people, who mix them. so maybe they put 30% of chinese, 70% of... >> stahl: and they think you won't see it? on the day we were at the urbani

factory, sorters found a number of chinese truffles mixed in with that day's purchases. they were separated out into specially marked red baskets. more and more, chinese truffles are slipped in with the good french or italian strains. experts say it's like cutting flour into cocaine. but look, your own farmers or middle men are putting the chinese in with your truffles. >> urbani: yes. >> stahl: you're telling us you have to be on guard, not from the chinese, but from your own people. >> urbani: yeah, i know. >> stahl: and then, you're selling them. >> urbani: i know. >> stahl: food importers and middle men are bringing 28 tons of chinese truffles into france a year. and many are being passed off as the real thing in some french restaurants. michel tournaye says he's brought home some slices from his dinners out, and studied them under a microscope in his lab at home to check their origin. tournaye has tried to blow the

whistle on the restaurants that sell chinese truffles at french prices, but the police have more important matters on their plate and rarely do anything about it. 28 tons of chinese truffles come into france every year. where do they go? >> bruno: i think i know where they go, but i'm not going to tell you. >> stahl: if you tell me, you're in trouble-- is what you're saying? they'll hurt you? >> bruno: everybody is in danger in this business. >> stahl: so we began to look for chinese truffles ourselves. we found this product that is exported to the u-s. on the front of the can, it says "black winter truffles; product of france," while on the back, in small print, it says "tuber indicum," the latin name for chinese truffles. ♪ ♪ when we showed one of the cans

to the urbanis at a kitchen at their headquarters, it seemed to ruin their lunch. >> urbani: this makes us crazy. this destroys all the tradition of the truffle. it's an entire life that goes in the garbage. it's unbelievable. >> stahl: american law doesn't require a distinction between varieties of truffles, and this product does sell for considerably less than the best of france. but american consumers are being deceived into thinking they're getting the finest quality at a bargain price. the owner of this brand is pierre jean pebyre. >> stahl: this is your company, right? >> pierre jean pebyre: yes. >> stahl: okay, so we found this in the united states. >> pebyre: yes. >> stahl: okay, so this says, "black winter truffles." >> pebyre: yes. >> stahl: but it's chinese. >> pebyre: it's chinese, yes. this is... tin, a french product. the truffles... if i make the

tin in china, it's a chinese truffle. >> stahl: i'm stunned. he was saying that, since the truffles are packaged here, he can legally write "product of france" on the label. it feels like i'm being tricked into thinking i'm buying french truffles, you know? >> pebyre: yes, i understand. >> stahl: and there's another problem-- spores from the chinese truffles are infecting the european soil and taking it over the way the kudzu weed has taken over parts of our own southeast. it began to happen in italy, so the italians made importing chinese truffles illegal, and there's a move in france to do the same. >> tournaye: they are putting into danger the crown jewel of french gastronomy. if one day, by accident, our plantation starts producing chinese truffles, we are dead. >> stahl: the great fear for michel tournaye and the other

trufflers in france is that the chinese will do to their precious delicacy what they have done to louis vuitton bags, produce a knock-off that looks the same, but is of lower quality. but in this case, it could just put them out of business. >> and welcome to the cbs sports update. i'm james brown with a look at next weekend's divisional playoffs, beginning in the a.f.c. where denver defeated pittsburgh in overtime to advance to a saturday night showdown with new england. on sunday houston will challenge number-two baltimore. earlier in the n.f.c., the new york giants crushed atlanta to earn a sunday matchup in green bay. new orleans will face san francisco on saturday. for more sports news and information, go to cbssports.com. follow the wings.

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>> pelley: our stem cell investigation revealed something surprising about the source in the united states of some illegal stem cells. we'll report on that tomorrow on cbs this morning. that's the name of our new morning broadcast here at cbs. it's an important development

for all of us at cbs news and for you. here's a preview from charlie rose, gayle king and erica hill. roeser welcome to studio 57 here at the cbs broadcast center where each morning we will bring you the power of cbs news, original reporting from all over the globe and conversations with people who can make sense of the world around us. >> and here in our studio, the biggest names from the world of politics, business and entertainment, maybe even a "60 minutes" correspondent in a way that you may not be used to seeing them. >> we hope you'll tune in tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. for cbs this morning right here on this cbs station. >> pelley: i'm scott pelley. we'll be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes." this is mary...

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