Ioan Grillo - Cartel Wars & The Fentanyl Crisis | SRS #046

hey everybody this week we have yoan. gillo on the show a cartel investigative. reporter he reports on the caloa cartel. we cover all kinds of cartel stuff in. this one to include the exchange that. just went down between the caloa cartel. and El Chapo's son The Mexican. government gave up El Chapo son to the. caloa cartel because the caloa cartel. over powered the Mexican Government we.

talk all about it hey guys thank you all. for being here I love you. all if you haven't noticed last week we. hit 1 million subscribers and I just. want to say thank you to all of you that. means the world to us I never thought I. would have a million people that want to. watch the content I'm producing but we. do so thank you and if feeling.

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[Music]. y gorillo welcome to the show man good. to be here Sean been tracking you for a. long time it's really really it's just. awesome to have you sitting across from. me and uh with all this stuff going on. in Mexico right now we have a ton to. cover so. award-winning investigative journalist. you produced.

directed several documentaries docu. series you're an. author very well established in the. cartel Mexico space and uh yeah it's. just an honor to have you here so I'm. super excited thanks much for the invite. yeah great to talk my pleasure uh. everybody starts off with a gift and I'm. out of boxes so those are the best gummy. bears in the. world vigilance League gummy bears in. out they don't they don't even have any.

THC in it believe it or not okay but so. I can take these on the plane when I fly. back to Mexico you can take those on the. plane when you go back to Mexico and you. won't have to worry about getting. arrested so yeah but um man tons of. stuff going on in Mexico right now so if. you don't mind I'm just going to get the. audience up to date on some of the stuff. that's going on and then uh I figure. this is a great place to start. so and 0400 hours on January 5th 35.

miles north of the capital near a rural. fishing Community called Jesus Maria. Security Forces claimed they had spotted. a convoy of around 25 cartel vehicles in. which their target AKA L Raton does that. mean the rat the mouse the mouse was. believed to be. traveling defense secretary Lis. croso sandavol said cartel gunmen open.

fire on troops with half a dozen 50 Gall. machine gun trucks the Army responded. with uh60 gunships on the cartel Convoy. the cartel open fire forcing two. aircraft to land with significant damage. but somehow Guzman was captured the. cartel then closed in on kakan. International Airport to prevent his. transport to Mexico City and a civilian. airliner was struck by gunfire.

but nobody was hurt in all 10 military. personnel 19 cartel members were killed. and the initial Clash the running. shootouts also killed one kakan. policeman and wounded 17 police officers. and 35 military. personnel you know so then let's fast. forward a minute and this is I want to. ask you your opinion on this on January. 9th President Joe Biden arrives in. Mexico head.

of bilateral meetings with mexx Mexican. president Andreas Manuel. Lopez arador and Canadian Prime Minister. Justin Trudeau as well as a joint. Gathering of the three North American. leaders dubbed the three Amigo Summit. the first time Mexico has hosted a US. president since. 2014 what strikes me a little odd about. this is in. 2019 they captured El Ron.

again. and after hundreds of AR of cartel. henchmen overwhelmed security corpses in. kakan they released him so do you think. what one why would they go after the guy. again knowing that the caloa cartel is. obviously going to show some type of. military force and take action knowing. what they did last time which is just. release them back to the caloa cartel. that's exactly what they did this time.

again what 3 years 3 years later do you. think that was a distraction by chance. for the for the Three Amigos Summit that. just happened down there with Biden. Trudeau and the prime minister of uh. Mexico this episode is sponsored by hvmn. and hvmn is one of those supplements. that I wish I would have had back when I. was in active duty seal is it's like. taking a shot energy before you need to.

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betterhelp.com. shaay and get 10% off your first month. that's betterhelp. hp.com. Shan yeah so it's a lot to unpacking. it's a big story in a whole bunch of. ways so in. 2019 you had this military anti. narcotics unit go for B igles man son of. O Chapo and one of four brothers four of.

the sons of El Chapo he's got a whole. bunch of kids but there's four Sons. known as Los chapitos who run a faction. of this in the lower cartel which is. very big very effective in trafficking. fenil uh to the United States crystal. meth you know big. players so in 2019 you have on based on. a US extradition order a US indictment. from New. York you have a military anti narcotics. unit goes in there into a luxury house.

in the city of kakan and they make the. arrest then around or they go in there. around midday now at that point you. start to have uh these uh reactions from. the cigaros the Hitmen of the S La. cartel of the brothers and the military. unit is pinned down in the house so then. you get it escalates and you get. 700 cartel gunmen against about 350.

soldiers wow and they they also they. they they go into the barracks where the. military families are start where the. wives and children are and they're like. running and they're actually taking fire. they start picking up some officers they. we're going to kill them uh the you know. people are civilians are like you know. like terrified people are stuck inside. schools where they went to pick up their. kids they're like sheltered in the. schools while this stuff's taking place. so then the government at 6 p.m. gave. the order to release or be the man under.

pressure. now it was interesting that you know he. took a lot of obviously a lot of flack. for that uh people always CED this as. the reason why he's weak or corrupt or. both president Lopez. orador um in one personal meeting with. him I I I heard about from a witness. there he said the thing he most. regretted was most kind of annoyed about. in his presidency was in fact releasing. OB man on that day so I see this as.

being like an attempt to kill the Demons. of what happened in 2019 it's known in. Mexico ASAS this whole event so this. time it was a much more sleekly planned. military. operation they didn't get him in kak. they got him in this Village of Jus. Maria now what you read out was the. government's official version okay but. there's definitely holes in. that it wasn't it looks like they just. kind of ran into this guy you know. driving in a vehicle they said that.

maybe for certain judicial reasons they. didn't have the full judicial clearance. for the operation for certain reasons. might be the the why but they went in. there um went into this Village Jesus. media where he had a house went in there. took him out in the early hours of the. morning got him on the plane to Mexico. City now when the cartel. reacted and they reacted again uh and. started blockading the street but then.

this the military much more prepared it. wasn't 350 soldiers this time it was 3. and a half thousand soldiers against. them so they 10 times the amount of. soldiers were ready to react to this wow. so they outnumbered the cartel Saros. that number of dead 17 Cartel cardos. Cartel hit men dead it might be a lot. higher really because often the cartel. would take away the bodies of those who. are killed they don't want them being. taken by the military okay they take. away their own bodies many cases so it. could be a lot higher and they got him.

on a plane to Mexico City and then they. got him now the timing of the Biden. visit I mean I don't think this it's. hard to believe it's a. coincidence when Biden goes down there. and Biden is under pressure to ask. president of Mexico why are we capturing. so much fenel on the US Mexico border. why is this happening so now you know. president lope oor can say well at least. we're fighting these guys at least you.

know we got this guy byles man um we. lost 10 soldiers in this fight so he's. got an answer so as soon as you know he. knows this President visit is happening. they're like make this capture before. then funny enough The Village. jusia he had a house there they say that. there the military like looking at this. for 6 months or something kind of. building up this operation so maybe he. was kind. of but funny enough there's a song. called so Raton it was called a narco.

Coro or drug ballad about this guy and. it mentions the name of the village in. the song and he says that's where he. grew up so it's kind of like as soon as. I heard like when in in the morning when. I heard like okay there's military. operation in h media I was like I'll be. the man and Ron that's from the song you. know so right away was getting ready. okay maybe they've caught this guy now. wow do you uh um so you don't think this.

was necessarily a distraction you think. this was just to get give Trudeau and. Biden an answer saying look this is what. we're doing about it we just did this. operation 4 days before you guys got. here yeah I I I think I think it's like. when you sit down is if you look. historically this happens when Mexican. presidents meet American. presidents and Drug issue comes up they. like give me something to answer okay. why do you think.

is is is a capture kill. not is that not something they do in. Mexico I'm just curious why they. wouldn't have had a capture kill Mission. or just a kill Mission knowing what. happened you know 3 years prior to this. so during the presidency of Felipe. galeron you saw a lot of kills the. Mexican military would go in there both. the Marines and the military. so you see some of the big drug.

traffickers there now some of them would. be themselves be answering with gunfire. but it's a guy called Arturo Beltran L. very interesting case if you want to. look up this guy uro Beltran. L massive drug trafficker he was shot. dead by Mexican. Marines I tell you a crazy story about. that but other other ones NAA Cornell. huge trafficker Tony tormenta and there. was big gunfights there was one gunfight. in Tam leas State when they could out. Atty. tormenta six marines died 300 grenades.

thrown in that gun battle journalist was. killed in the. fire in when Arturo btran level was. taken down on da information so DA got. the information gave it to the Marines. paid apparently $5 million for this. information where they got the house. where he's going to be in. quaka and Marines went in there. uh a bunch of.

gunfire a baby was killed civilians were. killed in the crossfire one of the. marines. died and Felipe Kon the president gave. him this Hero's funeral to the Marine. who. died. afterwards some gunmen went to the wake. of the Marine in his. hometown and. murdered the mother the sister and the. aunt. like massacred family members in Revenge.

so you see sometimes these kill missions. what the stakes can be with these kill. missions. um you saw afterwards after the Philipe. Calon you started to see the Pena. Administration you saw more captures. less. kills and more more captures so I think. I think it was kind of a a a strategy to. try and dial it down a bit now you still. got 10 soldiers being killed this mhm so.

uh but it's the Rules of Engagement in. in Mexico I think are very unclear and. you know you've got a situation where. the Mexican Government is not. declaring we've got an armed conflict. here we've got like an Insurgency on. armed conflict for various reasons you. know they don't it's not good for. tourism that's not good I think cat's. out of the bag by now but yeah yeah even. so but like like if you say if you you. say like I mean this gets into like you.

know International legal grounds but if. they start saying we're actually dealing. with an. Insurgency like um you know like Syria. or. something um what rights does that give. the people you capture does that you. know what rights does that give like. certain there a specific arm you're. naming them as spe specific arm. group um what does that tell you about. foreign investment so the Mexican. Government plays a game where they're. like a bit like because I you know I. wrote my the subtitle of my first book.

was uh inside Mexico's criminal. Insurgency H KN him so and so I you know. I started looking at this you know. they're acting like a gorilla group you. know they're shooting down um I mean. this happened after that that first book. came out but then they shot down a. military helicopter with an. rpg7 um they're you know put putting up. 700 gunmen against 350 soldiers this is. acting like an Insurgent group but. they're. gangsters you know just it. just I understand what you're saying. about you know they don't want the.

family members to be killed but to me. there's a very simple solution and. that's use a special operations surgical. team to do the hit and then don't hand. out any awards at least publicly and. then they wouldn't know who to go after. or or they would I'm sure they would. pick somebody but it wouldn't be you. know the operational team that that made. the hit so I mean again going back to. where they where Mexican government. stands legally.

if they if they say declare we've got an. Insurgency and soldiers have got the. right to go and shoot down the. enemy because that's what you know you. can do in an Insurgency you can say. we're fighting a war we're fighting a. military. war um but Mexican government's not. doing that they're saying we've got a. problem of gangsters and criminals MH so. the government can't. legally. give a going to shoot you know Target. order to I mean the soldiers are car in. out a police operation still of.

arresting a gangster so if you look so. again like that's why I mean it's all. it's all a mess so this situation is a. mess I'm not uh saying they should or. shouldn't do this I'm just saying like. the kind of legal [ __ ] show this. isad um that's why they kind of started. lying about some of this oh we just ran. into this guy in a jeep Convoy because. they hadn't really got the whole. judicial clearance for exactly for this. whole operation during the Philipa gaon. Administration some of this stuff looked. like they had gone in there just to. Assassin these guys they kind of gone in.

there we're going to go in there we're. going to shoot them all these guys start. you know as soon as these guys start. responding with fire obviously they can. go in there and shoot. them but they can't just legally say. we're going to go in there and have an. assassination operation of these guys. now you know like obviously there. Mexico's living a hellish cartel problem. mhm and you know would that make a you. know are you eventually going to get a. govern that does that you know you get.

government says we're going to just. declare these guys as terrorists or. insurgents and just take them out you. know who knows in the future do do you. think that might. happen uh do you think that they are an. Insurgency and not just street gangs. right at this point so I think obviously. they're beyond street. gangs uh I think in some ways we don't. have. like the clear language to describe them.

so like I you know I said criminal. Insurgency I made this comparison in my. first book I use the word gangster. Warlords and and and and you know. Analyze This looking at all these. different groups around Latin. America um they're yeah they're clearly. Beyond criminals and what we can. understand as a criminal problem and. clearly more comparable to like insuring. groups but there are differences between. Mexico and say. alqaeda say Islamic State and these kind.

of. things when you go to these. territories get the cel's. control it's not like say the Islamic. State controls a territory and they're. interested in things like uh changing. the schools and having Islamic. indoctrination and they're like. controlling really the the whole. territory no one can come in and out of. that territory in Mexico it's different. even in the most cartel areas and I've. been to the Village of chaples man I've. been to every state in Mexico over the.

years and been to you know the the. countryside in. mitan in Tam lias in the cies in huarez. in all these places over and seen them. involved over the last 20. years in the placees even the most. cartel places they still allow the. government to operate and do certain. things they still allow School teachers. to come in I don't care what the school. teachers are teaching you know they're. not interested in like indoctrinating. people with some new ideology like the. Islamic State or The Shining path in.

Peru which is a communist a Marxist. Insurgency there um they want the. government to provide electricity they. want the government to send garbage. trucks to clear garbage but they want to. control certain aspects of that. territory so they. control security and control the. territory in that sense now you get. what's called honness or like. Lookouts some areas they're really. obvious like when you go to that area of. Chapel go man's Village you drive in and. you see these guys there give him a nod.

this guy there with a gun and the radio. you know give him give him a nod you. know you know these guys are R riding. around you know funny story I was riding. around one of this is more in the May. zambada territory in the south of kokan. I SP a lot of time there the last uh. year filming a documentary. series and one time I was stuck in the. mud in a car there I was. like stuck in the. mud this. kind of minivan drives up behind me I.

think oh someone can help me out I look. in it's a bunch of guys with. AK-47s camo gear a bunch of these. cigaros I was like oh sorry I'm in your. way I like we'll drive past the guy. drives to drive. past and they get stuck as well because. like you know the the vehicles are too. tightly stuck. together and I'm like kind of you know. laughing trying to trying to you know. play this one out and the guy the there. kind of laughing as well the head of. these this little crew of sakar about 23.

years old sakar are like 18. 19 and then he said I said like I'm from. England I'm filming a documentary here. it's a it's a music theme about the. local drug ballards the guy gets his. Radio Calls a pickup truck and gets gets. me pulled out of the. mud it shows a bit the way to operate in. these areas they're kind of like the. local Authority local police in these. areas and they're not necessarily going. to mess with. everybody um but they're kind of.

parallel so they're like they'll they'll. parallel to to the police forces and the. local mayor they'll have the police. forces on their payroll often basically. be ordering the local police around have. the local May on their payroll or the. local mayor these days it can be. basically a cartel. member um so they have control of these. areas but you know entwined with the. government and it's not as simple as you. know like you know you know there are. you know some ways and you see the you. know these times when they when they. react to a government operation and.

they'll bring out 700 government to. confront the. military um but it's a complicated weird. situation that it's like it's a weird. 21st. century uh form of of hybrid armed. conflict which is quite different from. many things we've seen before. interesting so how how. much how much of the federal government. does the cartel. control they it sounds like they have a. really good handle and local government. yeah you know and and it sounds like you.

know maybe they don't overtly control. everything but it sounds like they're. just allowing things to happen like they. allow school to have session they allow. people to come in you know uh to work. these other government jobs but they. shut down all the anything that could. possibly get in their. way yeah so it's a very good question. and again it gets to a weird complicated. at uh level of corruption you have there.

and a way that the cartel power interact. with the government in the state in. Mexico. so you. see these cartels which which are kind. of changing and breaking up and moving. all the. time um but you also have corrupt. officials and like corrupt generals who. are like who can be working for the. cartel or they can be making their own. money and kind of in a way they they're. kind of so you get a struggle between.

them trying to operate and shake down. the cartels for money okay as well now. if you go back to the Felipe Kon. Administration which say was very. confrontational with drug. cartels the public security secretary so. the kind of top security official one of. the top security officials in the. country who was you know in some ways. the public face the kind of or the kind. of architect of of the anti of the drug. war he is going to be in trial in the. United States on drug trafficking.

charges working with a cartel so from. that point of view you got very high up. now presidents themselves there's. accusations um of presidents themselves. um going back to the 90s the president's. brother R Salinas accused of running the. cartel. operations so from that b you got you. got high up now nowadays though you can. see you know in accusation particularly. after 2019 well this President you know.

why did he order the release of this. drug cartel guys that the federal. government. captured but then they capture him at. the same. time they're. still and get into the fenal you know I. went to I went to the uh the port of. maneno which is the biggest Pacific port. biggest port in Mexico and it's the port. which sits on the Pacific Ocean where. the chemicals come in from China they. are coming in from China from China. and from India with the Chinese chemists.

are now also running labs in India as. well what are they doing in India I mean. because you know it's a way that the. same operations the same groups can just. go and set up a lab in India and it's. less controlled in India than China. although Chinese government isn't isn't. properly cracking down on this. stuff but anyway talking about this port. so I went to this port to look at this. talk to people who work in the port. people who import stuff export stuff. that that Port is now run by the Mexican.

Marines supposedly less. corrupt but the chemicals are still. coming through there there's bribes. taking. place so again so I mean you know you've. got a very questionable to be Pol very. questionable Federal apparatus as well. but there's also been this power. struggle in Mexico for some years I. think between the like people trying to. create a federal government that's above. the cartels the cartels literally kind. of trying you know literally bossing.

around Federal officials and you seen I. mean youve seen Federal officials. assassinated I remember when the the. same guy Beltran. Laver they. ordered after the the guy's brother was. taken was arrested guy called el Mao was. arrested and is now in prison in the. United States. here the acting head of the federal. police was assassinated in his. house in Mexico City in his. home but was he assassin ass at for. being an honest cup or assassinated.

because he broke a deal that he' taken. money from this drug. cartel and then was like you know you. went back on this deal that's often the. kind of thing you know you took some. money from us and then you went back on. this deal so we took you out damn do do. you know that for a fact with this. guy uh it looks very likely but you in. terms of that like that's a common thing. you see by cartels in they have these. these banners out mhm and a common thing.

they'll say is like they'll have an. official accus and they'll say you took. money from oura you took and and you. went back on his deal that's like a. common complaint and argument they have. in those. banners man I don't see how they're. going to get a handle on this they're so. intertwined with every piece of. government in Mexico I. mean is there anything that's that's.

that they're not tapped into is there. any anything are they are they tapped. into the president you see are they. tapped into the elections are they so I. mean like I mean Mexico is a big and. complicated country so it's a country. still of like uh you know trillion. dollar economy 130 million people 32. states so you still find states that are. not cartel controlled you know I live in. Mexico City and the Mexico City does not. have cartel control in the same way that.

shoa has or the you know harees has or. the Tijuana has in Mexico City um you. have one of the biggest police forces in. Latin. America uh more than you know more than. 100,000 officers believe in Mexico City. police force okay um they have this huge. amount of cameras on the street. now there's the guy who's running the. Mexico City Police Department who.

survived an attack by the halisco new. generation. cartel Garcia hauch Omar Garcia. hauch and and and they you know been. been covering and following some of the. stuff there and I went to where there. was there was some gangsters in in a. place called toito L. deito and I went down there and and. checked out and they had very constant. kind of police operations there you I. don't know you know toally these guys. totally honest but like they are hitting.

certain mobs hard but interestingly the. murder raid in Mexico City. hared between 2018 and. 2022 and Mexico City which all the all. what called the cdmx part of Mexico. City um which is the kind of federal. district the kind of inner part now has. a lower murder rate than many US cities. and even Portland Oregon you had. mentioned that last night yeah yeah Port.

of Oregon because it had a sudden. increase in murders in Port of Oregon. yeah so Mexico City and and like you. tell me Well actually it's kind of crazy. like Portland Oregon you think has got. to be real safe but definitely I mean. quite substantially lower than some US. cities like Houston and Dallas and some. of these US cities not as low as New. York which is fairly low so you get some. things we think okay well that's. something's working there in Mexico City. at least whatever's exactly is going on. and cartels in Mexico City are there you. know that you you get arrested these. cartel operatives in Mexico City but.

they don't operate and control the city. in the same way that they control caloa. or tamas or. harees in Mexico City they're kind of. there and they're making deals and. moving around but they're not. controlling the. neighborhoods so bico is mixed you've. got some states um like yukatan the. state of. yukatan has a murder rate which. is comparable to European countries. okay it's a fairly peaceful area so you.

got this but then you then you have got. zakas right now which is a full-on war. and Zas between the helis new generation. cartel and the C. cartel and it's just that's full on. crazy stuff um so you got this weird. thing I was down in another one of the. other PLS of the confrontations the kind. of C confrontations is the border of. maakan and. halisco there's a big fight there. between the halisco new generation. cartel very violent organization and a.

group of local gangsters known as. cartels United called themselves one of. the groups there called Los viagras okay. Vagas um kind of that's crazy that looks. more like kind of weird hybrid Warfare. uh and I went down there and they laid a. bunch of. landmines make kind of makeshift. landmines and they they they'd hit one. military um carrier there like a Jeep. and they'd hit some farmers and killed a.

farmers and stuff they laid they appar. the military had deactivated more than. 250 landmines there were they getting. this where are they getting the. landmines where are they getting the. RPGs yeah so so different different. sources so in terms of the. Weaponry um a lot of the. grenades and the RPG 7s come from. Central. America now they come from military. stock powers in Central. America the American government gave the. Salvadoran government a lot of grenades.

back in the80s fighting the the wars. then against some gillers leftwing. gillers communist gillers in in uh in Al. Salvador there was huge stock piles of. grenades and they started leaking and. going to these criminal black. markets in Honduras you had these a. bunch of these RPG. 7s rocket Pro grenade launchers stolen. from uh the hondura military now the.

regular AK-47s or AR-15s they're buying. in the United States and the 50 Cals. they're generally buying those and the. amount they'll pay or they were paying. the biggest method is through straw. buyers through paying people with clean. records to buy the guns and they'll pay. things like $50 for pistols to straw. bars $100 for AK-47s or AR-15s and $500. for the 50 Cals and that's a lot of the.

rates they'll pay here for buying them. here and and and that's where the. biggest amount of those guns are coming. down do do you think these people that. are buying them the guns know where. they're going I think some of them do. yeah I think some of them do I think uh. I mean some of them are are like I mean. they're cartel Affiliates you look at. some of these. cases friends if you don't trust the. government to protect you then you. probably already have an emergency food. supply but if you don't or want to. bigger stockpile now is the time to get.

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think a lot of people will be aware of. the case of Fast and. Furious uh going back from 2009 to. 2011 when there was cartel operatives. buying they bought more than 2,000 guns. in. Arizona and the ATF was watching them. and not acting. mhm um what's interesting that case is. now very very documented so you got a. lot of files on that uh and I looked at. that talked to one of the uh uh. confidential informants gun seller in.

the pre-operation called wide. receiver guy from Arizona um was even. before they did The Fast and Furious and. and looked heavily at that case um which. is yeah which is a mess I interviewed. phip the former president of Mexico. Filipe Calderon specifically about that. case as. well and and that's you know it's you. know you know very messy case which but. uh but you look at that you look at that. you know you had cartel operatives. they knew they were I mean you one guy.

went around different gun shops and. spent half a million dollars on. different guns for the cartels he knew. what do now there's some cases that. people you know they can get acquire. guns in many places across the country. there was a case of a guy who was an. Iraq war. veteran who bought 10. AK-47s for the setus. cartel in uh before and one of those. guns was used used in by the mob who.

shot and killed an American agent oh man. in. Mexico ha. sapata it was they bought 10 and they. were Romanian. AK-47s I went to the factory K Factory. in Romania where they was made to trace. this this whole process. there uh but they went into a porn shop. and he was paid. $600 for the 10 guns so 600 bucks and. one of those guns was used to kill. American agent for ice Hae sapata who.

was shot dead in 2011 and his uh. colleague his partner there Victor Avila. survived that shooting he's now very. active speaker about these issues uh and. about yeah Victor. yeah would did anything happen to the. warvet that bought the AK probation. probation that's it probation yeah. because the crime that was lying on the. for. now if you look at some of the the.

interesting politics around this stuff. if you were to declare cartel's. terrorist groups which some people want. to do in the United States and there's. an argument for. this but if you were to declare the. cartel's terrorist groups that crime. would have gone from lying on the. form to acquiring material for a. terrorist. organization yeah that could have gone. from probation to 25. years but obviously certain people in. this in the gun industry that don't want. that as well because then if you run a.

gun. store and you sell a gun store you sell. gun to a straw purchaser you know could. you suddenly be caught up in that in. that sting as well the other thing about. declar and cartels as terrorist. groups and there's you know there's. certainly an argument for this for these. tactics they're using to declare them as. terrorist. organizations um was if then if the. people are applying for asylum in the. United States and saying I'm fleeing. this cartel. they threaten me and then they're. declared by the US government as a.

terrorist organization that would. increase their case in going Court in. the United States that makes a lot of. sense you think they they could hit him. very hard in certain ways you know them. terrorist groups yeah what do you think. they should do do you think they should. label him a terrorist. group uh um look in the United. States. um you know I've been covering this. stuff for 21 years uh or 22 years I've.

been in Mexico now uh and I used to have. so many kind of easy answers for this. stuff and say this this is this is what. we do three. things. um right now I don't see easy solutions. to this I I would say I I don't know if. if labeling I mean I there's different. aspects if you label them terrorist if. if the United States label these groups. terrorist organizations but still if the. United States you know could go in there. with with drone strikes or you know.

military raids it's still not going to. solve this because these groups are so. powerful and so many people so You'. basically got there kind of three things. that I look at of you know whether they. do or not I'm not saying it's it's an. outrageous thing to do to neighbor them. as terrorist groups but there's three. things um that I look at as kind of a. solution to this as kind of long. term so one of them is. is you have to build up some law.

enforcement which works in. Mexico uh. now when you're dealing with cartels. that this heavily armed it's extremely. hard but it's got to be I I don't see. any other way you've got to have law. enforcement bodies and like you know. like trying to push this back and there. some of this is like like we do in. Mexico City trying to say we've got a. load of H murderate in these areas we. can't allow armed groups to operate we. can't allow com blatant impunity so. zombies about building some body of law. enforcement now they have to maybe you.

know like say well we've got to accept. that we're dealing with heavily armed. groups and you got to have a certain. rule of Engagement for that but you need. some law enforcement in Mexico the. second thing and I you know I believe. this does really work I've spent a lot. of time interviewing cartel members over. the last 22 years a lot of the Hitmen. some of the higher. ups if you look at the. Hitman then they're often recruited into. the cartels when they're about 12 years.

old there's different stories you know. you find a bunch of different stories. these are kind of typical. stories you have some of these. neighborhoods say harees Tam Bass the. kids will be on the Block and the. cartels will approach them and recruit. them 12 years old 13 years old and start. off like okay you're going to be a. lookout for. us and we're going to pay 30 bucks a. week and we're going to give you a.

radio uh or or or a cell phone you're. going to send a message every time. whatever comes past and you hear you. hear these guys honest you hear these. guys signal where they're talking one. time I was with with the with the police. in monter and we were listening in to. the HC oners and they were talking about. us we were listening to them spying on. us Communications you know you you've. done plenty of that stuff but anyway so. these kids uh the 12 years old get. recruited Lookouts start taking money. from the cartel and they start getting.

trained to become Hitman some of them. will carry. out murders 14 15 years. old there was one guy who. was a police officer who was also. working with with. cartels and he was describing how he. would get the kids to cut the bodies to. start making them you know lose their. fear become brutal interviewed another. guy for the bar aska which is a faction. of the hes.

cartel who described how he looked for. the kids he want to find kids who are. like got some hate in their heart I. don't want kids who are like got nice. families it's kind of the opposite of. the you know I'm not sure exactly. military recruitment but like these guys. are are like looking how do we they they. need constant recruitment we want to. find guys who are messed up and and you. interview some of these scaros you know. one guy I talked to who was abandoned as. a kid his parents um you know left him. with nothing and he was like I got hate. for the world so like for me the cartel.

gives me something and and I don't I. want to I want to hurt other people I. don't care I want something for. myself but then you get kids in like. carrying out multiple murders so now. once you get somebody who's you know 18. they car out multiple murders they cut. up bodies they've done. decapitations you can't do much for that. but you do need help and strategies to. reach some of these kids before they get. recruited by the. cartel very specific focused programs M. I mean not just throwing money out there.

but like very specific folks in the. neighborhoods where the kids are being. recruited and you know one guy's talking. to he's like yeah we know on the Block. who are the kids who are going to be. recruited by the cartel we know who the. 10 kids are you know it's just waiting. for it to happen why is the government. doing nothing to try and do that so. that's another thing Ian it's kind of. crime prevention or like changing this. so you you're talking about implementing. some kind of an educational service for. for kids in these these states. territories yeah I mean more focused I. mean it's it's like about like.

say look very strategically where's the. high recruitment for this. cartels and then who specifically are. the kids and they're like saying talking. to the. parents you know your kids's going to. get it's going to be in a cartel the. next you know we can offer something. keep them in school. like um offer something to try and like. improve learn a trade learn something to. have a living think you know your kid's. going to be dead can well be dead I.

mean how many of these kids have parents. who are generational cartel members. though this isn't a new problem yeah. you've been down there for 22 years if. somebody got recruited at 12 they could. have they you know I mean it's it's the. sad thing like. um remember I was covering the stuff in. 2004 big when it kind of kind of started. escalating Turf War there and and the. kids there were not even born who are. now.

Hitman there's there's a grave there's a. graveyard in Sinar called the omaya. cemetery amazing if you get a chance to. go down there it's one of the most. surreal crazy graveyards in the world. massive Mass Liams for these big. traffickers but there's loads of graves. of Hitmen and you see loads of graves of. kids 189. 2021 and you know you see um some of. Young Fathers and you'll see like on. like Father's Day I I was on their.

father's day one time all these big. balloons and blankets and everything. like cuz but also like U sometimes. mothers will go down there and have. photographs you know how many of these. kids are going to die not young I mean. think about it in Mexico has been over. the last 10 years more than 300,000. bodies like you know and it's going. going on 20 years it's you know half a. million is like you know there's a lot. of know these people going to die so so. how can you reach and try and stop say. like the new generation. I mean yeah you say like some of them. are like mul generation cartel members.

but then you talk to some of the even. the cartel members one of the one things. that I approach when I when I meet a lot. of these guys and you give a picture I. want to talk to you and I often say well. like you know and this is you know. partly journalistic spill or you're. trying to meet somebody and you want to. get talk to them but it's just you know. I say this from my heart you know I know. you don't necessarily want this for your. kids you don't want your kids to live a. life you like you know you have the kind. of Glamour of of like seeing like Naros. TV series and beautiful women and these.

big mansions but most of them are not. living like that you know that's you. know the bosses MH but most of them you. know they're living violent brutal lives. and they're going to be dead or in. prison they're going to be committing. murders you talk to them like okay you. know how do you feel about you know they. can these guys one guy interviewed him. in prison in. sarees in the prison in sares where is. in fact also a they they did a raid on. it the January as well and they bust out. a bunch of guys and killed 10.

Gods one of my craziest prisons in the. world it's in there some years back and. they have the basically These Wings. which are segregated by Cartel. groups so they have thees cartel which. has the Bas in one part and they have. the CH cartel which has these groups. called Los Mikes and the artist. assassins in our part and they have this. weird Evangelical Christian part H and I. was in there spend and I the the the. time that the prison director and it was. it was open and he let me keep on going.

back and forth in they spend time spend. days in his in his prison and they have. these like weird Evangelical ceremonies. in the prison they were like dancing. getting rid of their demons and stuff it. was kind of crazy. scenes and I talked to one guy who was. quite a heavy cartel guy um who' been. aead of Assassins and and and pretty. brutal. stuff and I was there it was me and a. cameraman we were there in the cell and. we started talking to him. and he started kind of going on this. fullon you know confession how he.

decapitated people they're still alive. and stuff and all this kind of. stuff and uh we were there and the. prison guy was there and he said to the. guy you know you're saying it's on. camera you know what the implications. they can see your face. here and I know you can't show my. face okay we black out and go oh my. voice is also like people people will. know my voice cuz I've done a lot of. phone phone calls and people going to. hear my voice and stuff phone calls. threatening people and stuff and then we. said like you know we're not going to.

show the video by using material the. written material of what he. said but it's it's not you know a nice. story these guys not L don't have nice. life not like a nice and a happy ending. this guy's got like I I hacked all these. people up I got all this it's not you. know not necessarily ending ending nice. for these guys so there is ways to reach. them so I think that's that's one thing. is like how do you you try and approach. this but the third thing is like the. drug. profits now it's the economic motive is.

driving this MH so we got. this multi-billion dollar industry the. United Nations few years ago used to say. it was worth $300 billion globally drug. trade there's a the Rand do a study that. they estimate the US illegal drug Market. is $150. billion 150 billion dollars per year. wow okay you see these you talked to. drug. africas you know they.

buy okay where do you went to cocaine. look at cocaine $2,000 a kilo in. Columbia uh what. $122,000 in. Mexico. um $20,000 at the border $30,000 $40,000. New York. $100,000 break it up you know you can. suddenly make it worth $200,000. $200,000 these profits going so fast so.

this is what drug traffickers are doing. you put money in you're taking money out. you're making huge huge Returns on your. Investments so that's why like I mean. know you see anybody know people want we. we're in a capitalist world people want. to make money you know what you know the. kind of business we're in. media not not a lot of bucks in this you. know we struggle to make a buck out of. this imagine that you can you know I'm. going to put in I'm going to put in. $100,000 to this and I'm going to turn. you know take away half a million in a. couple of months or more so this is like.

why like this is so much money with this. and you know anyone can do it so like. then people fight and the most violent. people take. over now at the same time it's still not. an easy solution say like you know um I. do believe that you know legalize. marijuana um might as well legalize. marijuana I think at this. point but now we got fentin. now fenil is the profits are even bigger.

than cocaine because fentanyl you you. know you got these tiny little chemical. you know chemical stuff it's extremely. potent less bulk you don't have to worry. about the whole harvesting process of. like growing cocoa leaves and crop. spraying labs in China the Mexican. cartels want to even create their own. precursors so maybe even some point. china could be outside the equation but. right now China's part of. this and you've got Americans dying now. I mean this is horrific numbers 107,000. overdose deaths in 2021 in the United.

States about 70,000 involve. fenal another 30,000 Evol crystal. meth I mean they're using it as Weapons. now too I'm seeing over and over again. it's becoming more and more common you. know we're seeing police officers go. down from fentanyl exposure before we. get into the fentanyl yeah crisis I want. to rewind and I I do want to say I think. that. the educational program that you're. speaking of is that is that is that just.

your idea or is somebody not looking at. maybe implementing that because that. could really work you know in in my. initial thought was there's no way. that's going to work because there's. going to be multi-generational cartel. members but then when you talk about how. their life is one of the questions I ask. a lot of the Special Operations guys you. know that I interview on here is would. you want your kid. to have the life that you had knowing. what you know now.

and I don't know the exact number but. it's got to be 90% say no I don't want. my kid to have to live through that well. that that's like you know working ESP. special operations with with a. government salary and and people. consider you a hero let alone being you. know a cartel figure I mean I said. there's different people and some of. them are unrepentant some of them have. made it worth for them there's. traffickers who've made the stuff work. for them have ended up stashing their. assets and making deals with the.

government and and they end up being. kind of clean with it but a lot of. people that they don't want their kids. um and and it's this you. know it's it's bizarre like I've been. with gang members cartel members and. they're like on one side they know they. killed 27 people on the other side. they're talking about they go to their. parents evening at their their kids. school. and they're like they kind of some of. these people it's a weird bizarre world.

you get into them like a lot of them um. they kind of struggle and want to you. know get a normal life out of this and. stuff um they kind of live through this. this area of brutal violence I think you. know yeah a lot of very good point I. think a lot of the kind of special. forces military people you can you can. sit down and probably sit in a room with. these guys and kind understand and share. a beer or have a cup of coffee because. you both had you know you've seen. extreme violence you know what it's like. you see dead bodies you know what it. like okay how do I process killing this.

guy um how do I deal with that now. um some of the these Saros I think they. simply say well I'm taking. orders and they are it's killing. machines you recruited in it's like well. I've got orders to go and kill these. guys that's what I'm doing but if you. look at like why does the real severe. violence come about like why you know. you know and ask this question why why. why do they leave um the worst atrocity. one of the worst atro in Mexico which I. covered was 49 bodies dumped on a road.

all. decapitated all with their hands cut off. and their feet cut. off dumped on a. road I got a call it was Sunday morning. it's 2012 got a call something's. happening up in Monteray oh I jump. jumped on the plane flew up there when I. got up there they' taken the bodies. and put them in the morg so went in the. morg and the smell.

of 49 bodies that they couldn't identify. they had no heads no hands and no feet. just 49 lumps of. meat and it's like why why do they do. that what are they doing stuff I. actually recently got a met one of the. guys in the cartel in prison in the. United States who was involved in in. that cartel and gave me a bit of an. explanation for for for what they were. doing with that there but one of the.

things you see is you. have combatants people with you know. with with. structures irregular armed armed. organizations and they control they're. told to control Terr that boss you got. to control territory so how do we. control territory we use Terror mhm so. in that sense they are using Terror or. terrorists but the same way that the. military groups have have done this for. forever how do we control this territory. we got make people scared of. us I mean it makes sense you know as.

brutal as it is it does make a hell of a. lot of sense and when you're recruiting. you know kids that are 12 13 years old I. mean by the time I mean they have to be. desensitized like that yeah so you so. you they're training up these kids now I. tell you a horror story of what of of on. that on that same investigation same. time I went up there so I was in the. morg. 49 bodies and making sense of. this and I came out of the morg and.

there was a bunch of of like family. members. looking and like I was like you know. what's going on I talked to to one woman. we're trying to find if our loved ones. who have disappeared are among these. victims so we want to do DNA. tests and there one woman I talked to. was a school. teacher and she described how her son. was dragged out of their.

home on one evening 18y old son. philosophy. student what happened was they were s. she was sitting there she had her two. sons there one 18yar old one 15y. old and suddenly the door bang 15 guys. come in with. guns start because once you get these. armed groups they can start you know. ravaging attacking the local population. storm in the. house start grabbing stuff and then they.

say to her which your sons is the. oldest and she's. like can't even answer can't even speak. like how to answer that and the Elder. son raised his hand and said I'm the. eldest you know you're not going to take. my little brother they took. him she got a phone call the next day. okay give us this amount of money we'll. give you a son back she got money you. know can what you do as a parent at that. moment got the money wherever she could.

relatives went up handed it in phoned up. no. response that was it her son was gone. she was wandering around these events. these morgs trying to find him other. mothers I've talked to same very similar. stories who eventually found and. identified the bodies of their kids. after like 3 years. one of. them in verac Cruz and I talked to her.

and she was looking for a kid who was. taken away by our men whose guy worked. at Customs 24 years. old and eventually she identified his. body they she was she she become with a. group of mothers searching for you know. you've just got thousands of. disappearances that have come out of. this. conflict so she was searching uh for his. you know for him with his various. mothers they were like.

marching and a guy pulled up in a car. and said. um check out this place and he had like. a handdrawn map you might find some. bodies here so they went there to first. they said to told the government oh we. got this information of a government. like. whatever so they went there themselves. and started digging up in this. field and started finding bones skulls. bodies. turned out to be the Mig biggest Mass. grave in Mexico in in the modern times.

297. 297 remains I mean and this is like but. I mean 297 sculls I mean this is a mess. cuz like it's even hard these like bones. 5 years old 8 years old Oney old 2year. old remains they started pulling them. out eventually after several years her. son was identified in this Mass. grave while they were pulling them out. so you start getting that smell against. again that smell of of kind of you know. bodies being pulled out right in front.

of it was a housing. area attempts at middle class homes to. kind of you know kites bikes basketball. hoops and and the families right think. saying you know we're getting this stink. of this coming in into our. housing and that's that's how how like. bizarre and messed up this conflict is. you know that makes me just rethink the. what is the what are they trying to. achieve. by storing people's houses and just. pulling their kids out and killing.

telling them that they're going to take. a ransom for it then killing them so I. think what happens a lot I mean there's. you every every case has got different. stories but in that case what you can. happen I mean. like you've got the you know brutal. soldiers you know you can relate to. this um being a. soldier imagine the most kind of brutal. soldiers but so haven't gone through. like good recruitment they've kind of. recruited the kind of. meanest um hateful people they can find.

mhm from the. streets but in a sense they're they you. know you know victims and victimizers to. an extent but yeah still you know. hateful brutal people train them up make. them blood and tell you guys got to. control these territories give them guns. make them commit Terror then once you. got an armed group out there committing. Terror okay uh we want some money it's. just going to raid a house just going to. raid a store just going to steal a car. do we like raid someone's house steal. some stuff okay we'll take this sun.

let's get some get a pair of. Ransom kill him. anyway mudwater is a coffee alternative. with four adaptogenic mushrooms and adic. herbs with only a fraction of caffeine. is a cup of coffee mud water can help. you get energy without Jitters or the. crash of coffee each ingredient was. added for a purpose cacao and chai for. mood and a micro do of caffeine lies man. to help with alertness craps to help. support physical performance chaga and.

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FDA these products are not intended to. diagnose treat cure or prevent any. disease or. condition maybe we killed him. already maybe we beat the crap out of. his kid and killed him already or maybe. we. recruit these people and you you get you. know people who recruited and forced to. do stuff. you know recruit and force them put. themselves give you know give these. people we recruit give them a gun and.

tell them to do some stuff yeah or or or. hack up bodies or do this or do that um. it's it's it's brutal it's it's kind of. one of the one of the crazy things about. this um is this I mean that kind of. level of almost like medieval kind of. warfare kind of medieval you know. Morality In this stuff um and and in. some ways you can't look at Medieval. stuff the way these cartels operate it's. like filty you know you've got like one. powerful drug boss and then a guy below. who's like swearing filty to him and a.

guy below swearing filty to him but. that's happening at the same time you. got like say a trillion dollar economy. you got um you go to Mexico City you can. sit in a Starbucks and you know sit. there on your laptop and you can go to a. trendy bar um you can go to Cancun and. go to some you know beautiful beaches. and that's happening as well at the same. time mhm so it's kind of weird how this. kind of normality is around this like. very harsh conflict. you know back to the back to the. education program that you had is how.

many of these kids even have a choice I. mean if they're going into residents. yanking them out and forcing them to go. pack bodies up or or become a sakario. hitman or or whatever even if it's just. a lookout what is there even an option. to say no yeah so say that's the thing. so so like yeah what you asked before. about like is this my idea like I've. interviewed and I've met plenty of. social workers out there in Mexico and. other places in Jamaica in El Salvador.

and you know different places around. place in in Hues uh there was a woman I. interviewed a bunch of times you know. knew I still F her up for a real smart. woman she used to work in a factory. herself in the city and she was doing. social work stuff like this and she was. you know she was she taught me a lot of. this stuff um this is what's happening. here um for a time they were getting. money for a time when huis uis became. the most murderous city in the world. world around 2010. 111 and then you know you would get some.

of the US money going to these programs. USA would start going some of these. social work programs and. stuff and it help did help get the. violence down for a while but it kind of. Peters out this stuff um and and the. Mexican Government you know they have. you know the problem is you know it's. corruption you get the Mexican. Government you know some top level oh. we'll give out money for crime. prevention then you get like middle men. who are not really good players just. stealing money and then you get people. like distracted and and and doing stuff. like these really bad prevention. programs rather than getting to the.

really good people who are and there are. good people there who are on the ground. who know and like say it's kind of you. got to reach these kids young a more. difficult question I mean you know I. think we can all of us can can probably. agree that trying to steer 12y old kids. away from this lifestyle is a good. thing more difficult is what you do with. the kids who are 18 who have. committed multiple murders already I. mean you know there's not much help I. mean you can you create you know but how. can you find any any way of them out of.

these cartels is it only prison or death. for these guys mhm um and they're. committing a bunch of you know horrible. crimes so is you know can you have kind. of any armist any kind of peace deal um. dis you know like uh you know you know. disarmament disbanding these forces you. know maybe you can't they kind of tried. a bit in certain places they hav haven't. really worked in Colombia they've kind. of done that a bit more it's like with. the gorilla group in Colombia they're. like okay we can try and disarm them and. TR create a program to try and.

demobilize these people you know I just. I uh reached out to somebody I'm trying. to get on the show actually his name is. Rick doblin he's uh he runs Maps which. is a psychedelic uh nonprofit out of. Canada they do a ton of research and he. said he's actually in Iceland right now. doing a uh some type of a of some type. of a convention big meeting. with. um police officers and and actually the.

person I'm going to butcher this but. he's in charge of the prison system in. Iceland and they're thinking about. implementing some type of a psychedelic. program it sounds like may possibly with. MDMA um in in doing this therapy for. people coming out of the prison systems. hoping that it's going to help um help. them transition back into you know a. normal life and and and increase the. probability that they will not you know.

commit the same type of crime again do. you think do you think there's any. possibility of that happening down there. well see one of the problems there is. like you know you you if it's your. family who Who had who had a kid you. know butchered you know you want no. forgiveness for these people that's true. um I mean some of the there was a case. of some some they actually use one of. the re they use young kids as well to. commit murders as young kids in the. Mexican justice system in some states. they can only get 5 years in prison.

okay um so there's kids who commit I. mean there was there a case with Al. ponchis a few years ago he was actually. a US citizen really he might be back. here in the United States but he was. this was going back a few years and he. was there was videos of him where they. had guys hanging up and he was part of. the crew and he was like a little mascot. with the crew like beating and torturing. these guys and then when the military. caught him and there was journalists. around there when the military caught.

him and I know one of the guys who was. there and he asked him this then they. put the cameras up and this guy's got. three sons and was kind of knew how to. talk to him was like kind of St you know. what have you. done like decapitated four people it's. like 14y old kid said. that I had it on camera was on TV became. kind a big. Scandal and the guy did five years or so. he's out released probably up here in. the United States. now.

um you know are cases with people older. and they can give them give them longer. sentences but it's like how much you. know you know if. you're the mother whose some was dragged. away and. murdered you know you you want you're. going to want them in prison much as you. can there's no death penalty in. Mexico even even a country where you. have you know you have 35,000 murders in. a year and no death penalty that's. ironic isn't it yeah yeah and another. thing is that they call a lot of the. time they call the hits.

executions really they call them in. Spanish like executions they used to use. the word like executed so it's there. like you know from them it's like well. from the cartel point of view we have a. kind of process here we we know we made. a judgment the guys got to go we're. going to execute. them so ex you know have all these ex. the rules they set the rules yeah but. but yeah I on the flip side so I mean. you know on the one side you've got you. know I really do believe in in in in the.

social programs particularly say for the. the younger kids I mean you know 12. years old and Below before they've been. recruited but you know you've got to. have uh crate law enforcement you got to. you can't have impunity you can't have. now in in Mexico. overall um about 90% of murders go. unpunished. now it's really a bit more than that. that figure is like based on saying for.

every 100 murders in 10 in 10 of those. cases somebody has been sent to prison. or given you know sentenced for those. murders the other 90 nobody. has sometimes really though they only. caught one person but there's several. people. involved sometimes they caught the wrong. person in some states it's like 98%. impunity so for every 50 murders only. one of those. cases has somebody been sentenced to it.

imagine if you you know you could be a. Hitman but also just a regular guy you. want to kill somebody think well I got. one and 50 chance of being caught not. exactly a. deterrent so it's like you've got to. have you got to fight impunity but to do. that when the situation is so bad right. like right now you've got to have pretty. hard enforcement and to try and bring. things down kind of set some rules s and. kind of like you know push this down. from where it's at right now which is. like on you know you know on the edge on.

on the cliff the Cliff of the Abes. interesting rewind him real quick all. the way back about to what we talked. about declaring them a terrorist. organization or some type of Insurgency. what would the what would the downfall. be the downside be of of that I mean so. we talking about from the US policy. point of view yeah we can talk about it. from any or from the the Mexican I mean. in Mexican they do use sometimes.

terrorist charges against them I'm I'm. asking because I I feel like the minute. that that happens that they get declared. a terrorist organization or an. Insurgency. funding is going to. come extremely fast and there's going to. be a ton of it so that's that's why I. don't understand why they don't just. okay so so so like say say we look we. look at this like us says let's look at.

the SAR cartel or the helisa new. generation cartel particularly been. mentioned look at SAR cartel so say if. you declare okay the SAR cartel is a. terrorist. organization then it's not like say with. alqaeda you know you have these kind of. certain tar members you're going to. Target going to find out these networks. MH um and go around and get them we're.

talking about. Ina this is an organization or it's a. network really more than an. organization. with hundreds of thousands of people. only involved in this I mean this is. like you you go to these Villages you go. to town go to the city this is just a. huge huge thing. so you get drawn into so so saying okay. we can just Target anybody's involved.

and a lot of it's lot of the time it's a. a loose Network in these places or you. know you've got like a it's kind of. medieval in some way you have powerful. people and people who swear loyalty to. them in these. areas um you're going to go in you know. we going to go in Mexico with with us. drones even if you take. out 50 of these guys 100 of these guys. it's going to keep on coming back you're. kind of drawn into a. real swamp there um you know and you.

know you start flying those kind of. missions into Mexico you know is that. you know it's it's not like there's a. quick going in there and take it it's. not like there's like a thousand guys. you can take out the problem's over in. the country of Mexico we're talking. about millions of people it's more like. I mean because these are so sprawling. organizations and and you know you say. they're involved in a bunch of stuff. it's not only drugs anymore drugs are. huge huge and drugs Finance them and. make them so powerful because when you. don't make billions and billions from.

drugs you buy so many guns you train so. many. sarios you buy so much corruption. protection you become a very very. powerful Group which then allows you to. do a bunch of other stuff so then okay. human. smuggling into the United. States uh I was down in in Tijuana um. and I I found a human Smuggler there. you know initially he was like went I. asked around who who's this is this guy.

here is you know there's been they call. him poos who like chicken. herders and the first was like you know. you could be anything you're a white guy. there's there's ukrainians you know. Russians there there's anybody around. the world they're looking for money all. the. time and I went there and I very quickly. said I was a journalist because I didn't. want to like string him along too much. cuz he was like changed but like he. confirmed numbers with me and I. confirmed them with a guy who ran an. American uh ice agent who who ran uh and.

had a task force looking at these uh. immigrant smuggling groups and he had a. lot of sources inside as well the. numbers pretty much there like then now. the numbers have shot right up so it's. like 12 to. $15,000 head now going. in more like they would take them on. boats around the coast like $18,000. um they got.

like some other stuff that through worst. desert it's a bit cheaper and this thing. now of of Asylum claim where they just. flip them over the wall to hand. themselves in like for $500 just like. just jump you over the wall and you hand. yourself into into the border patrol and. and try and claim Asylum but anyway. people actually smuggling sneaking into. the United States you've got millions of. people paying for this services do the. maths I mean the the Mexican foreign. secretary said they reckon like over 10.

billion a year on human smuggling where. where where are they getting this money. the Smugglers the migrants paying mhm. well you think about that um you just. said 12 to $5,000 ahead yeah these. people are coming from nothing making. you know I I think you threw the number. out 300 bucks a month you know to to to. to be a lookout for a cartel where do. they come up with 122 $15,000 yeah so. say if you got F I mean you might have. family members in the United States. already um think about the investment I.

mean you know you might you know even if. you're paying even if you pay $115,000. to get to the United. States how much could you work make here. over 10 years no I I completely. understand I'm saying where do they get. the money physically get the money I. would say over 50% of the population in. the US probably doesn't have $115,000 in. their bank account yeah yeah I mean you. know you got you know family. networks um you know a lot of the. time families you might have a family.

who's you know now Salvador they they. lot more living through remittances in. lot villages in Mexico you go to these. Villages and like everything's built. through money sent back from United. States and So you you're building up a. family Network and you're saving up. money and putting the another thing that. happens you say I haven't got. $15,000 I can come up with five. okay you pay me. off then I got something over you then I.

can. hold one of these guys prisoner until. you pay the money back and and so forth. so then you get like these things where. you get like uh stashes of you know in. in had a bunch of these in Phoenix for a. while these big you know people held up. and it was like it's cuz people were. like they had they didn't have the money. they pay half up front and then half. when they were delivered and they W they. couldn't get the family members to pay. them so they up kind of kidnapping these. people in the United States for that. kind of money but I just saying so like. you got human smuggling huge.

business um mining now mining lot of. gold being mined in. Mexico lot of foreign companies. particularly Canadian going in there for. the. mining cartel's control the areas. cartels have now realized there's a big. amount of cash in Gold Mining and they. want a piece of that there's also a lot. of lithium mining going on in Mexico. correct there's lithium it's not really. happening yet moneyways okay um there.

was a massive lithium deposits found in. Sonora uh the you know they initially. said oh this is the biggest in the world. it's a bit more complicated I talked to. some somebody involved in the mind it's. bit more comp it's like lithium. everywhere it's like verified they were. investing a bunch of money before they. got a real return and the Mexican. Government said oh we want that and they. they said we'll nationalize lithium like. oil and then then companies were like oh. we can't make any money out of this then. so it's not really happening yet but. there's a lot of lithium in Mexico a lot.

of potential there but gold silver. there's a lot of lot of money being made. out of that right now and a lot of these. companies I mean at the end of the day. will we'll settle for you know we got to. pay a certain percentage of of what we. make here to the community the local. community mhm who's running and. controlling the local. community um so that's another industry. and then you've got oil. theft which is you know drilling into.

pipelines and taking out. oil and that's worth billions a year I. that's I had no idea that was happening. yeah yeah huge they call it in Spanish. call it. wolos waol is stolen oil been a big deal. for for a lot of years so you got you. know Mexico's a huge oil. producer and these. these groups who are now taken over by. cartels are working with cartels but.

there's a tradition of these oil. thieves they often drill two holes. they're drill in one hole to take out. oil and drill in another hole to put. in uh another liquid to try and equalize. the. pressure there was one incident there. was like a really bad drill just the oil. was spreading out and a bunch of people. from the local Town came and filling up. all their gas cans and then it exploded. and it killed like over 100 people it's. like.

brutal um but yeah I mean huge um I mean. an incredible loss for for government. and This president's tried to crack down. on oil theft but it still goes on I've. been to a place in cower where they're. selling stolen gasoline and and and and. you drive in there and it's not even. that I mean you know it's cheap but it's. like. say 35 40% cheaper than it is at the. pumps so it's cheaper but it's not like. you know Dirt Cheap considering it's. stolen gasoline and I went in there with. a guy I worked with in.

caloa and we went in there went in there. drove in there and they had a bunch of. these just just big old uh like plastic. cans of of plastic containers of of. gasoline they were doing this spraying. this stuff all the time cuz the smell. thing and they went in there and he fill. up his car and there's other cars there. nice cars different stuff they going. there paying cash by stolen gasoline. that's refi gasoline so you got that. business as well um you know you've got.

uh product piracy um you know pirated. goods truck theft I mean there's a huge. amount of cargo theft in Mexico and then. markets which sell stolen. goods and. um yeah so you've got you know enormous. they have a lot of verticals yeah yeah. you've got they're diverse I. ified organized crime networks is really. what they are now but drugs are still.

huge and selling drugs locally and. trafficking. drugs so yeah I mean yeah there's got to. be something done about this um you know. societies shouldn't live with this and. you're seeing I think the last couple of. years more of a lean. towards harder approaches would you like. to see them be labeled a terrorist. organization. personally uh. it doesn't it like it doesn't upset me a. lot what they do is is Terrorism I just.

don't think it's a silver bullet okay uh. I mean I can see you know you know I. could you know can hear arguments about. this uh from I can see from certain. American law enforcement perspective you. can just say go after these guys you. have to go through like like the DEA. when they go after these guys they do a. lot of paperwork they build up files on. these guys and it takes them like two. years sometimes to like they build up. and they got all this have his. performance and these wir Taps and all. this stuff and they're building up this. paperwork paperwork paperwork go before. a grand jeury and get these indictments.

get them out and then get you know like. years bogged down in this stuff and then. by that time that the guy's already. being killed into someone else is like. running stuff so you can see like it's. an argument you know that that you know. heard somebody make it's like we got to. you know just change the game now this. is different game now they're terrorists. right away anybody we can kind of prove. any kind of link to this we can just. take them. out uh. but still it's like you know there you. know say there's so many of these people. it's like what you you know you're not.

going to go in there and take out you. know like you're going to go in there. and start shooting up Villages like in. Afghanistan or or or like you know doing. drone strikes like in Afghanistan or. whatever um we know what reaction would. that create from from from the Mexican. population a lot of people not even. involved so so I don't see as a silver. bullet um but you know I'm not I'm not. and I don't think it's it's outrageous. yeah well let's take a quick break yeah. we'll come back we'll uh we'll get into.

the fent and all yeah yeah sure thing.

[Music]. so you're going out every day get in a. gunfight outside of your fob then you. come home and then you got to deal with.

the base getting hit how many. engagements would you. say you were a part of in that 8 months. do you have any idea I lost count who's. that many just to put that in. perspective for you cuz most guys don't. think about this that's 180 [ __ ]. [Music]. engagements our very first op the Hilo. crashed oh [ __ ] killed everybody one guy. survived I want to take a call I have. your dad on the line Jim hey Jim how's. it going this is Sean.

Ryan how he really felt like he actually. landed in Afghanistan with the team for. that first appointment I kind of just in. the back of my mind hope that you. understood or at least somewhat. understood what I was actually going to. do yeah it was definitely emotional day. for me I didn't like I still remember. that call clearly I didn't want to on to. him how emotional it was [ __ ] every. night right when Sundown these dudes are. just smash us with small arms and they. would it would be effective a lot of. times when you lose guys in a combat. zone and you know them it'll create a.

type of ritual did I do anything I'm. going to take another call we got a. mutual friend on the line who was there. that whole second employment with you. Jeff Reed dude I am doing great how are. you doing and there's a picture of you. and Jeff and another guy's face that's. blurred out do you remember shooting the. goose nuts off on that mount up at the. mountain. hell yeah I. [Music].

do all right we're back from the break. that was a fantastic lunch by the way um. so since we're kind of on the subject of. structure of the cartels how they. recruit I've never really gotten into. how how prevalent are the cartels. outside of Mexico's borders are they. setting up shop here in the us are they. setting up shop in places like Honduras. El Salvador Colombia Peru.

Venezuela you know Guatemala Panama or. or are they staying in. Mexico yeah so uh I mean they they're. huge in the United States I mean they're. massive uh they operate in the United. States very differently than. Mexico so it's like kind of attack and. defense that kind of difference okay but. they're all over I mean they're pretty. much in every I would say they're. probably in every state in the United. States uh in some way operating.

connecting so so what does that mean. like whereas in. Mexico uh you know you have you know K. you know hundreds of gunmen on standby. all the time ready to jump on stuff. policing things policing labs in a bunch. of businesses um ready to kidnap people. shake people down kill people at will. hear the very different or traditionally. they have been so there's been a few. times if you look over the years when.

they started dropping boders in the. United. States one was over in Texas when the. setas started killing a bunch of people. in South Texas in the 2000s one was over. in California around the San Diego area. when a break off from the arianaa Felix. cartel started killing a bunch of people. group called lospalos. both times law enforcement hit them very. hard so they kind of learned this lesson. okay in the United States we can make.

billions of. dollars but there certain things we. don't want to do we don't want to kill. too many people sometimes even they're. better off kidnapping somebody in the. United States it might be it might be a. Mexican national anyway or it could be. somebody from here driving them into. Mexico and committing the murder over. there really yeah abely particularly on. the AL Paso huarez board you got this. group called. theka who are a crossboard organization. working with Theus cartel began as a.

prison gang in Texas and grew and. basically became a paramilitary. organization but they're also very. active in Texas and they kidnapped. people drive into Mexico and kill them. in Mexico drop you know n body in in. huarez because you know look think about. the investigation in in huarez in. 2010 there was 3,000 murders in El Paso. there was like 12. wow so like you're going to dump it in. hus and it becomes one of 3,000 you know. murders not investigated or have it in.

El Paso or it can be like investig so. they they learned a lesson over the. years of okay we don't kill people in. the same we don't we're not going to do. all these crazy kind of beheadings but. they're all here and unless they're. going to be killing police officers like. they do in Mexico every day in Mexico. they can kill police officers if they're. not on their. payroll here in the United States it's. more difficult now I'll give a butt to. that historically that's been the case.

with the way law enforcement in the. United States is right now. demoralized. losing uh. officers is that always going to be the. case yeah I see where you're you're. talking about the defund the police. movement how that shaked out yeah what's. happening in the United States I mean I. talk to officers here in the United. States talk to agencies in the United. States they're pretty much demoralized. not only the police departments and. anti-narcotics office are pretty de. demoralized in many cases also a lot the. federal agencies a lot of these these da.

agen like is there just a general malays. a lot people are fed up with their. organizations in many cases now will. they have the same way of hitting these. cartels very hard with they always last. I don't know I would say cartels are. only getting stronger here over the. years now what does it really mean how. they're operating here say if you look. at. um um the the Drive drugs in from Mexico. into the United States and have hubs Hub. cities Los Angeles Phoenix Houston up in.

Chicago these can be hubs they drive a. bunch of drugs up there then they move. them around and they go down the chain. to smaller. towns what's happened over the years. you've seen a change like first you had. the Colombians trafficking a lot of. drugs into the United States. cocaine then the Colombians were paying. Mexican to traffic the drugs themselves. like say the Colombians were bringing. the cocaine in back in the 1980s flying.

it right into Florida then that was shut. down with the uh Miami task. force um Florida task you know anti-drug. Task Force Navy ships all that kind of. stuff they kind of made it more. difficult to bring drugs fly them right. over the Caribbean from Colombia into. Florida so the Colombians turned to. Mexico and the Mexican cartels who are. already moving weed and heroin. and they said okay we're going to pay. you to traffic cocaine for us we give it. to you in Colombia or we give it to you.

in Panama someone Central. America and you move that up and deliver. it to us in the United States and we we. sell it and the Colombians a lot of the. time were wholesalers the wholesale. United St wholesale cocaine in the. United States then it goes down and all. different you know different people get. involved then they start paying the. Mexicans and then the Mexicans say we. want a piece of this so for a while it. was like we own this cocaine between us. 50/50 then the Mexicans in the end just. started buying the cocaine from the. Colombians just buy off you in Colombia.

for a couple of thousand bucks a key and. we can move it ourselves and make the. profits ourselves so you had the. Mexicans becoming the cartels that will. move the cocaine and be the wholesalers. but then you see another change you. start seeing and you saw this first with. a group called ailia M and then the. helis new generation cartel you saw a. whole other groups of immigrant. communities in the. 2000s Mitch KH and helisa particularly. large numbers of immigrants across the.

whole United States so where before the. you know Mexicans would bring into Los. Angeles you know bunch of cocaine bunch. of drugs sell it to people it get to. these small towns gradually they start. creating networks in these small towns. so suddenly all these places you. know you know it's sad to say because. the vast majority of Mexicans are very. hardworking. migrants in these places but within and. kind of piggybacking off these migrant. communities you got dealers setting up.

shots in the shoers in these. places uh so suddenly you got a spread. of networks all over the place all over. the. country and then you know you have. dealers in you know the Midwest in in. you know in small towns in the midwest. with direct lines to the helis cartel. okay now still they're like okay they. they're moving drugs so they the main. activities moving drugs around the. country Distributing them still often.

they'll go right down to kind of kilo. level and then like the street dealers. can be can be a mix of. people moving the money and collecting. the money laundering the money or moving. the money back to. Mexico and acquiring firearms and taking. them to Mexico as well some of the key. operations of what the cartels are doing. here now they're not they're like in. Mexico involved in you know like you. know and the human smuggling and. bringing people to the United States and.

the networks as well because they not. only bring them into crossing the border. of the United States when you pay that. money that will allow you to go to any. you know any City you want you could be. going to your family in Atlanta to work. and you're paying your ticket there so. they got very significant. operations. now you know what does that mean in the. future I'd be concerned mhm M um seeing. Mexico seeing how how these organized. crime in Mexico you know really tears it.

apart I'd be concerned about what this. means in the future I mean to me I think. the biggest. concern would be them intermingling in. our in our. politics. and infiltrating the police departments. the military the border patrol DEA FBI. all of them you know do you think. because I have heard. that they. are specifically sending guys into the. military to get trained then come back. come out and then train the cartel's US.

military. tactics I don't see why that wouldn't be. true yeah so so first in terms of. infiltrating stuff you you've already. got we've already got a track record of. certain police officers certain uh. officials working with the. cartels uh and it mean it can be. different things I got got one interview. I did with a guy who was working for the. cartel an american guy here working for. the.

cartel who. was working for actually a cable company. laying cable be had a government. ID and he had a government idea to go. back and forth over the. border now he. was shifted guns for them shifted. firearms from the United States to Tex. to from the United States to Mexico. using a government. ID and also he then got involved in he.

was like driving around laying cables he. had. scanners and he was following the border. patrol and giving all this information. to the. cartel and he was he said I mean he was. doing it for the money but also kind of. doing it for a thrill as well. mhm and he was like surprised how clumsy. the border patrol he was he was said it. was like a clumsy they kind of giving. away a lot of stuff it's very easy for. me to locate Stu giving that to the. cartel so the cartel knows and operates.

this stuff now you also got cases. of cops um in some of the Border towns. in the US side and some border patrol. agents who have been been caught working. with with a cartel and there's. cases um out. there I think it's obviously a far. smaller level than Mexico. but it's it's still out there and it's. something to be concerned. about in terms of getting military.

instruction for the. cartels you've. seen um US Vets recruited by the. cartels uh how are they recruiting them. like how how are they they getting to. them how are they finding them for. recruitment. um some some of them some of the cases. that I've seen of solid cases have. been Mexican Mexican.

Americans who have. been in some cases even deported for any. other reasons even they've been in the. military they've messed up or something. papers commit some crime afterwards and. end up being the poist they're backing. those kind of networks in Mexico and. they're like you know obviously got very. accable. skills but there have been there also. some cases of. kind of us you know American Military. guys I'm not sure exactly how how what.

the Outreach would be like exactly who. the connections I mean. um a lot you know it may be in some of. the kind of mercenary security. circles uh there's there there's. definitely like a lot of cartels are. hungry for ex-military people from. whatever so you. used a few years ago they would actually. advertise and they had like like um.

actually they' hang up blankets writing. like you know are you military or. ex-military you know we'll hire in. Mexico we'll hire you you know don't. ride to the bus you know don't ride you. know ride bus the bus to the. work um you know we'll hire you we're. looking have a have a better life for. you and your children um you get. Colombian some Colombian exmilitary gu a. my next. military um you know when people find. out you know get away you know you know. we'll pay for that.

expertise wow do you think they're. intermingling in our politics. yet uh I haven't seen that in terms of. us. politicians like uh like yeah I mean in. Mexico you know there there's a huge. capture of of politics by drug cartels. so we could talk about Narco politics. politicians I mean it would be I'm not. going to say it would be simple but. China is definitely involved in American.

politics I don't see why the cartels I. mean they're obviously intertwined you. know. somewhat yeah yeah so I mean the way is. in I mean in. Mexico. um so in Mexico that's also evolved the. way they're running politics in Mexico. so for a long time it was like. the. cartel bribes you know a mayor bribes a. police chief to move then the cartels.

get stronger and they start to get more. powerful at a local level than than. Mayors and police Chiefs and they start. say you have to work for us and we're. going to take 10% of your. budget so like 10% of the city budget. has to go to the cartel he is a bunch of. towns across. Mexico and then you. see cases where they start working with. the bigger party at a federal level then. they start saying okay we'll deliver.

votes for. you so we'll use our armed groups to be. intimidating people to vote for you and. you know and and then you have also kind. of cutting out the middle man and. actually have cartel guys themselves who. are really the politicians so really. they're kind of gangsters who get into. politics I mean famously obviously Pablo. Escobar you know around for Congress and. um so you see you see that that reach. and that power and that.

influence now at a US level. and I haven't seen it um it's it's. possible in the long term definitely. it's something to watch out for uh and. you got to watch out for this stuff you. can start at like local. levels and then but you know it's yeah I. mean I mean in terms of so in terms of. China you know they they're they're. they're working together but. like you know to to think about. strategically about like how you you.

know like how you'd actually start. taking over politicians or or bribing or. paying money to that campaigns I mean. it's possible these guys are moving a. lot of money they obviously buying some. them buying a lot of real estate in the. United States I mean I would think it. would actually you know now that we're. on the subject I would think it would be. very simple for them to breach into. American politics with the amount of. money. that they have the billions and bli I. mean they got to have trillions by now. right well to pump that into if they.

were to. move whether it's an American or a Latin. American running for office they can. pump so much money into that into a. local. campaign you know I I would think it. would be relatively simple to to to take. it yeah I guess I guess like when when. they're like running like a in in in. Mexico you got very clear objectives of. what you can get from that from from. that may from from that Governor so you.

want. to. control or influence that state so. they're going to allow you know you know. all kinds of things from you know from. from turning a blind eye on all your all. your drug loads and all your stuff going. through to actually the police working. for you as as Hitman picking people up. you know you want somebody picked up use. the local police the police look out and. they become Incorporated with the. cartel I guess like I mean you know.

there there have been cases or say some. of these small towns some I want to. watch out for like where there's like. some of the small towns in like on the. border um where you start to see people. with on on cartel payrolls there what. would your next step be if you if you. were a cartel looking to infiltrate the. US where would you start um um I would. say yeah I mean you know some of the. some of the some of these small towns. where they're moving stuff through they. have operations well I mean so we can. see some cases there some of the towns.

you know little towns where there's. there was. um uh say some police officers police. Chiefs some some of these small. towns. um there because that gives you actually. operational stuff operational useful. stuff border patrol officers at lower. levels um um can you start you know. infiltrating higher. ups moving up the chains there yeah um.

federal agents I mean there have been. you know federal agents taking taking. bribes obviously but again it's still. nothing compared to to I mean there. there still I guess hard to break the. kind of the kind of federal agents in. the same way they manag to do in. Mexico well that's that's good at least. we have that cone for us you know. but well. let's get into some of the fentol stuff. you've been talking about so at the. beginning of this interview you said you. went to a port and all the fentol was.

coming in through one of these ports on. the on the Pacific side I believe you. said from. China. H yeah so so to talk about I was say to. talk about the the revolution I'd say to. understand what's happening now we can. look at a revolution that's happening. Mexican drug. trafficking the last 15 years but. particularly the last 5 years and it's. accelerating the last 3 years so for a. long time we had plant-based drugs being.

the way that drug trafficers move their. product so they you know you get farmers. in Colombia growing cocoa leaves farmers. in Mexico Guerero calar mokan growing. marijuana and gr opan poppers which they. make to heroin so you got a a chain you. can look at the chain the right there. the chain is quite long and quite un. vulnerable but you know the money keeps. on coming in there's always there. attempt to do.

this. so. Pharmaceuticals revolutionized this do. you know they didn't have this chain. anymore now there's a guy very. interesting guy to look at in this. Evolution Chinese guy called Shenley Yun. what's his name Shenley. Yun now sheny. Yun was a CH a guy born in. China who moved to Mexico and was a. pharmaceutical.

entrepreneur the accusation was that he. was bringing in that time the precursors. for crystal. meth sing the precursors to caloa cartel. traffickers from the belan LA. organization and That Was Then being. made into crystal meth and traff to the. United States this grew particularly in. 200 5 after in the United States they. started clamping down on crystal meth. which bikers have been making and stuff. with a thing called the combat.

methamphetamine act so it goes down to. Mexico and this guy starts bringing it. in and sending the the drug cartels and. it's a big boom now they bust his house. in Mexico City in 2007 and they found in. cash. $27. million in cash $25 million in dollars a. couple of million in pesos Euros Hong. Kong dollars other stuff the biggest. drug cash bust in world history you know. like imagine that much cash being.

found so kind of crazy thing they. bustled his. cash he then you know ran was up in Las. Vegas where he was bringing money to. Vegas he was going up to Vegas with. suitcases full of cash and like gambling. in in. Vegas kind of crazy stuff I was working. with the agency AP at the time this. happened and we actually ended up. through a. reporter doing an interview with him. while he's in the United.

States which was kind of crazy interview. we sent we sent people who spoke Spanish. English and Chinese and he spoke all. three with an accent and had this kind. of crazy thing and made it threw his. accusations bit of a crazy story of in. but he was eventually expedited to. Mexico China's government wouldn't. cooperate with a bunch of documents and. stuff they were going to charge him in. the US as well China's government. cooperated mov to Mexico he's still. prison Mexico hasn't been fully. sentenced yet this is caught you know. this is guy back you know 15 years this. case and he still hasn't been fully. sentenced yet but he was a.

Pioneer he saw the. opportunities bring in chemicals forget. about. growing weed in the mountains growing. opium poppers growing cocoa leaves. bringing chemicals cook them up in the. labs do it that way profits are enormous. the profits can be massive. got less links in the chain you can just. make unlimited amounts of this stuff. okay fast forward you start. getting the recipes for fentel now.

problems with fenel as well look into. this fenel it's not like one formula. there's like this is like on a thousand. different formulas different types of. fenol all the different formulas around. it yeah so first of all you know you get. fenol again making it in China first. they just you know bring in full on. fenel then China starts to ban some. types they can switch around and they. ban more types under pressure from. Trump but it's still coming out of.

China and I me there was a report on. this Congressional report on this they. said okay it's still being made in China. and the Chinese chemists are going to. India and setting up labs in India and. making it. there now I went to maneno biggest. container port in in Mexico huge amounts. of containers coming in. some of the problems with this is first. of. all you got this like on on a a bill of. lading they got like some pharmaceutical.

coming in from China can say something. could be something else you don't know. it is what it says and you've got couple. of millions of crates coming through. this. port then if they stop and check and. stuff they do these kind of certain. things they have to stop it's like going. through the stuff and then finding then. identifying the stuff as being you know. if you know where to search. so you know there's other ways of. avoiding it they sometimes they bring a. ship over they can throw it off the. ship uh they call it like uh have a word.

for it uh like a sucker fish these kind. of fish that would grab onto a bigger. fish and take a ride with them so they. have like a separate containers on the. big ship and take it. out but the people told me there people. I talked to so there's intermediaries at. the Port who will take. $40,000 to pass containers through. intermediaries working with Customs. authorities $440,000 your container goes. through how much do you have any idea.

how much one. container. of whatever substances are in there to. make fentol how how much fenol could one. container make I mean you know it's got. to be I mean one that's thing about. another about fenol F's revolutionary in. this because the stuff is just so potent. like a tiny amount of this m is strong. so like before you know years back we. had marijuana these big old bales of. marijuana you know you know shipping. container of marijuana only so much weed.

and then we got like cocaine and heroin. which is stronger and then but now Fenty. fistal meth and then fentol is like you. know it's a tiny amount so you know one. container if you if you had a whole. container packed with fent that would. just be colossal amounts but it's it's. it's distributed around different. different containers stuff but the. amounts that are coming through now so. you look really. the big changes have been I mean this is. gradually building up and it's building. up and it's very close the build up of.

these amount of uh synthetics coming. through the Mexico is very closely. correlated to the drug overdose death in. the United States I mean look at the. numbers and and. this you know the overdose epidemic in. the United States is absolutely nuts I. think you know we know about this but. still I it's had the political impact. that it will have considering the scale. of it when I was first doing this you. know 2000 I first started covering this.

stuff it was like 15,000 overdose dets. in year in the United States between. legal and illegal drugs 2021. 107,000 so like Eightfold. increase you know like really you know. really it's it's it's completely. spiraled out of control and there's no. end in sight yeah yeah. um Sevenfold increase Eightfold increase. huge increase 15,000.

107,000 um and you can see this this. particularly it's accelerated. particularly really big figures the last. couple of years right as you've had the. increases in in the in the synthetic. coming through Mexico now the amount of. fenel you suddenly saw a shift so. you saw a change from more crystal meth. and cocaine and they're both like uppers. terms of drugs and more fenel than.

heroin which both kind of. Downers and. then I mean the numbers again I mean you. know. people when people do talk about terms. of like weapons of mass destruction I. can see you know you can see a truth to. that or or poison coming over the Border. because it is colossal amounts mhm of. feny coming over. and now The lethality is like how much. how much can they move it's so easy now. it's like it doesn't matter how many. know you don't need to worry about how. many fields you got and how many fields.

are being crop sprayed you can just. churn the stuff out churn the stuff out. churn the stuff. out um it seems like they've you know. saturated the market now or like what. you know you know what when you have. 107,000 dying a year does that kill off. addicts and there's less addicts left to. die um but you know we're we're we're in. the eye of the storm right. now I don't know know if they are I. don't know if it is just addicts anymore. cuz I mean the one thing that I don't. understand is.

why fentanyl why they're putting that in. every drug they're putting it in. marijuana they're putting in cocaine. they're putting it in meth they're. putting it. in ecstasy they're putting it in MDMA. they're they're it's you know I hate to. say it this way but you know as a kid. growing up kids are going to experiment. they are it's just going to happen you. know nowadays you can't you can there is. no experimenting with drugs cuz you. might there's a good possibility you're.

going to overdose because everything. seems to be laced with fentanyl you know. and so it's it's I don't think it's just. these uh addicts dying anymore I think. it's it's first time users it's people. experimenting for the first time with. particular drugs it's you know in in. like we talked about before too they're. weaponizing it they're I'm seeing more. and more cops being killed or overdosed.

um from fentol you know being used as a. weapon yeah I mean it's a very good. question about like why they putting it. in. cocaine you know they put in Heron. because people people want the Heron. they want the buzz you know you talk to. people who who use fentin know one guy. who was a guy who Fally described it was. kind of the high you're looking for if. you kind of you know if you're an opioid. addict if you got the addiction to that. rug that's the high you're looking. for you know and then they put it in. heroin and you know starts it's better.

more money for them and people are. wanting that high but then it turns up. in cocaine and then you get. cases of people who are kind of calling. up cocaine there case in New York case. in Texas people phing up lines to get. cocaine and they're like you know. musicians people with money you know. kind of yappies who are still like you. know buying some. cocaine and uh you know get it and they. dive overdoses fenal it's like why.

what's the incentive so I heard like you. know asking a lot of people this why are. they doing this you know um I hav got a. good answer you know one Theory somebody. put out was you're messing up Rivals. you're deliber delibery messing up. Rivals you know you know your Rivals. have got a load there and you're. throwing some some fenin in there. cocaine kind of made feeding them that. to mess them up possibly doesn't really. kind of really bite that much another. one is like cross. contamination that like you're in a lab.

It's Kind some messy lab and you got. some fenil kicking around and you got. some cocaine kicking around your cross. contaminate going don't really buy. that. um but like yeah I mean deliberately. poisoning people um you know who's doing. that and why I don't see the. cartels are interested in making money. on selling drugs mhm doesn't make a lot. of uh I. mean I asked that question of like you.

know would it stop them do they you know. is fenal bad for their business event. you killing off your user. base I think is just thinking short term. may make big. money uh but it doesn't seem like they. they obviously want to poison you know. like you know throw poison out there um. so yeah it's kind of it's kind of n. and we're kind of at a. pretty pretty crazy thing so we start to. look at how can you deal with this how. can you deal with the with the level of.

fenel now and is it going to force I. think I think this might become a hotter. political issue if it doesn't change are. people going to change their practice. and like you going to force people to. say we're going to stay away from these. these kind of pills now is there going. to be some kind of reaction in the. population um is you know they talk. about harder much harder punishments and. charging they started doing this now. charging drug dealers with. murder and and and start going back to. kind of big incarceration and maybe if. that happens we'll see if if that really. happens or not you know that but uh but.

yeah I mean what what are the options. there for for actually for changing it's. a pretty hard situation right now. yeah I mean I I would think you would. start with a border you know yeah yeah I. mean absolutely and like I mean look you. know this. is um you know it you know these guys. are committing horrific amount of murder. both in Mexico in terms of people. they're killing with bullets and in the. United States in terms people who dying. with overdoses and this stuff's this. stuff's horrific but would like how how.

do you the problems with the border is. in terms of enforcing and stopping drugs. come over the. border so like most of the drugs com. over the border the high value drugs. come over in. vehicles they used to do a lot of. walking marijuana you know walk. backpacks of marijuana like right over. particularly the Sonora Desert was a big. area you walk over with marijuana a lot. of that um but now marijuana kind of.

Mark is collapsed there still is some. marijuana coming over but now it's kind. of collapsed because you've legalized. marijuana in a bunch of US. states so the amount of marijuana now. moving a lot less than before cuz they. can grow. here but they don't really uh cuz like. walking people over the border with they. call them they call them buros like. donkeys it's just walk over used to be. like two different packs 25 kilo pack or. like a 50 kilo pack we like 25 Kil or. double 50 k you walk right over the.

border with. that um and you lose a lot but you don't. care cuz you're making money and you. know and it's weed mm but the high value. drugs go generally in vehicles there. other different way you got and tunnels. tunnels coming. under catapults you see seen the. catapults there like massive like. military Siege weapons like throw. catapults these trucks over the I've not. seen that one yet that's crazy but the. the big amount like Vehicles so you look.

at the vehicles. Crossing. and uh noo Ledo border it's about 10,000. trucks a day. Crossing uh you've got you knowes Tana. lines of cars all the time now fent. particular is like very very potent you. have a small. amount so how many cars can you. search you know you start looking at.

this stuff I mean you know they had this. this this F you've had the these border. agents there for years or or. customs and you know you talk to customs. guy who's good and who's got like a. human can spot people look at him and. he's got a good eye for seeing okay this. guy's nerveous he got some but then you. stop a vehicle now sometimes you know. they call them trap cars in in in Sp. they call them clavos. you have secret compartments be very. good secret compartments sometimes got a. lot of very complicated ways of opening. them so you got to find a car you got to. like tear the car.

apart now you tear a car apart it's the. wrong car but not just the the fact okay. you're tearing apart the wrong car it's. just like you got your agents doing that. spending like an hour two hours messing. around with a car other vehicles are. coming. through when you know you do find okay. you find you bust a load okay great you. bust a load someone they'll bust the. load and they'll say to the person okay. you want to do 20 years or do we follow. you to where you're dropping it off and. they we go and bust them kind of classic.

tactic but even when they bust a load. and they can bust them do the paperwor. whatever other loads are coming. through now I talked to one guy who's in. prison in the United States in North. Carolina trafficking. cocaine and he I said how much your Cod. did you. lose Miss A couple of years ago I. thought maybe they lost half of it they. could still make huge amounts of money.

it's like we lost about. 20% so for every one load that is. getting bed you got four loads coming. through so how much how much you going. to really stop this stuff and it's so. potent and there's so much money being. made and they can afford to lose it so. they're still busting a bunch of this. stuff now but you're really going to. stop it the only way to you really would. stop it is if you really wanted to kind. of just transform the Border completely. you got half a trillion dollars worth of.

legitimate trade going back and forth. over the Border yeah you know it almost. seems like it would be in their best. interest to just produce it here produ. it in the United States yeah I mean. I I don't know what compounds make fent. andol but you. know yeah I mean they might find a way. right now because I mean like there are. people who are bringing you know some. bits into into United States but right. now the easy it's easier for them to. bring it I mean the real big industrial. amounts they can make in Mexico and.

shift it over here and that's working. for them um now I mean maybe I mean if. you could have some new technology where. you could kind of like have something so. that like whenever you went over the. Border you could detect drugs in a. vehicle but it it's like practically to. try and be able to shut down the border. and stop the fental coming across I me. like how come they haven't been able to. stop drugs coming to unit States for the. last 40 years yeah um and unless you. want to search every single. vehicle you know like strip down and rip. up every single vehicle which means that.

nobody can get across and and trade. shuts. down I guess it's just not that bad yet. you. know yeah yeah I mean it is I mean it is. bad is terrible I mean ter it is. terrible 107,000 overdose deaths that is. that is nuts um that is nuts you know. it's I don't know what it's going to. take I don't know what the number is I. don't you know how bad it's going to be. but it's. it's they're going to have to do. something maybe that is shut the border. down completely who knows but or check.

every car I they're going to have to. hire a ton of border patrol agents for. that and do a major expansion but I mean. it's it just seems like nothing is being. done right now nothing you know and like. it it doesn't even seem like. it's it it just seems like it's ramping. up yeah yeah getting more and more and. more is coming and more it's becoming. more prevalent in the media and more and. more overdoses are happening over the.

years and it's just nothing is slowing. this down yeah look I would say this. look I mean we're we're the critical. situation here I I mean I've been kind. of shattering this for years you know I. mean 10 years ago um and I could see you. know when I start when I first started. doing working on drug cartels you know I. arrived in Mexico in 2000 started. reporting. 2001 and then I started reporting 20045. I started reporting this like Turf War. happened on the border with Texas I like. a young.

reporter um and then kind of crazy stuff. started happening I was like [ __ ] this. is a pretty pretty kind of kind of crazy. story uh I interviewed this this guy who. then became the police. chief and they asked him when he became. the police chief and said are you uh are. you. scared I'm not scared the corrupt people. are scared and he was shot 6 hours. afterwards damn and that was kind of at. a time it was in a story it was kind of. interesting story regionally it was a I. was working for the Houston Chronicle.

out of Houston Texas and it was like. okay well I'm like um you know this is. interesting this is you know this is a. kind of big story the Texas newspaper. started having a bit of a Turf battle. about that and then this spread and I. was covering Cur in 2008 2009 and I. remember in 2008 and I was covering this. this scene of a. massacre and there been two MERS in this. in this little village bullets are still. over. there and the residents of the village. was just leaving the village in a convoy.

of trucks I seen this scene of this like. Convoy of trucks and it was like wow. this is like Sur this is like refugees. you know something big is happening in. this country it's going to tear this. country apart when I wrote you know. pitched for the first book about this. and like you know couple years later. know things I was Wonder you know I'm. overstating this I'm kind of. exaggerating this thing just a bunch of. gangsters no no it is dest you know. destabilize the country so you kind of. see this stuff creeping up and kind of. getting. bigger um now I would say now and and.

and I I agree I mean I don't want to say. like say there's nothing you can do. about this stuff I mean human beings we. could do stuff you know we put men men. on the moon you know we build you know. we found you know hospitals and um you. know we can we can create and and do. amazing things so how come we can't deal. with these problems how come our. politics is broken yeah it's it's. it's when I say there's no effort I mean. it's we're not going to declare him a. terrorist organization we're not going.

to do anything about the Border we're. not going to unleash our border patrol. agents we're going to put all these. stipulations on them and pay them out to. be I don't know bad people Nothing is. happening yeah nothing's happening it. doesn't seem like there's any pressure. being put on the Mexican Government yeah. yeah it doesn't it doesn't there's a lot. of different angles that I I feel like. they could they could go with here that. you know other than just the Border.

but nobody has done anything no I agree. I agree I think I think I would say um. you know we have we have to try and come. together and work out now I would say. it's like it's a really horrible. situation and it's not an easy button. which going to make this go away MH but. we we have to kind of think about. long-term stuff we have to think about. our children. grandchildren you know you know people. who' have got like kids now who one. what's going to be like when they're 15.

20 um you know what's it like for for. for the people's grandchild grow out. with this so I would say um and look at. like I would say you have to you know. politics is kind of broken and also the. government you have a lot of these. different government departments with. different agendas it's like how do you. create a unified policy for dealing with. this how do you look at like and it is a. question I think of of the United States. security you know and being the neighbor. because you lot of these things tied.

together why do people flee Mexico flee. Central America because of the. violence um why do you know like you. suddenly get the Pentagon involved. because the Pentagon started seeing um. you know very very heavily armed groups. right over the. Border um you know so you you got the. different things I would say um you have. to look at the law enforcement point of. view uh you have to look at the kind of. crime prevention then you have to look.

at like stopping giving the. money so yeah looking at the law. enforcement point of view has to be yeah. I mean you got to take this seriously. um I I think I think in terms of of of. like how US law enforcement I think with. a lot of people a lot of skill people. that have come through the DEA and stuff. you need to think look at it more of. like this is organized crime and how. this organized crime is a risk to us in. the long term and how we got try to hit.

him hard and break him up now before. they start doing in the US what they're. doing in Mexico because in a few years. that could come I would worry about that. not just about the Border but about how. they're building up in cities I'm. talking to a guy from MS. 13 um uh in Honduras. and he was running he'd been running a. click up in. Maryland and they had uh these clicks. are like chapters what's a click a click.

is like a chapter of the game call them. a click or La. Clea so the the chapter might have uh 30. to 100. members in a in a. chapter but then they have what they. call sympathizers or sympath symp. sympath ANS. they have sympathizers who they like the. periphery. members and they'd have like 500. sympathizers and they got a lot of these.

things like schools up in. Maryland where they had a bunch of these. like recruited members and sympathizers. around booting up there and then started. doing things like. shakedowns inside the Immigrant. community so started doing shakedowns. but then they started recruiting people. the MS13 is a. Salvadoran gang originally then they. grew up you know Hondurans and then they. they got Dominicans and Cubans they had.

like Chinese. members Chinese immigrants are recruited. in his MS13 they have Chinese members. yeah like Chinese members the M13 clicks. up in like what become like growing up. in the in the um on the west coast sorry. in the east coast. there so you know I think I think. thinking hard about like um organized. crime um I mean United States. historically thought very hard about. organized crime and with Rico and this. kind of thing people the danger of. organized crime what it can mean and I I.

would concern I would put that as an. alert in terms of the uh in terms of. that in terms of like law enforcement. but in terms of. reducing um the. demand I mean may maybe you know it does. have to be very hard you know with. fenel I. mean I don't know the answer but maybe. it is true you need very hard sentences. for fenel dealers a local. level uh and but also the work on rehab.

why are so many people now like using. this stuff like what's happened to. society that so many people are now. becoming like you know have got you know. OPI. problems um I mean it's a mix of stuff. yeah you know you got to you know. sometimes there's people who have come. you know vets who come back and being. prescribed mhm drugs and then ended up. buying stuff in the black market and and. buying pills out there um there's some.

real deep problems there how like can we. get like fixed and have people's helps. so they don't have this like this like. wanting this this amount of. drugs it's a good point it's a it's. going to be a tough problem to solve if. it ever does get solved but let's take a. quick break. I want to give a big thank you out right. now to all the vigilance Elite patrons. out there that are watching the show. right now just want to say thank you.

guys you are our top supporters and. you're what makes this show actually. happen if you're not on vigilance lead. patreon I want to tell you a little bit. about what's going on in there so we do. a little bit of everything there's. plenty of behind the scenes content from. the actual Shawn Ryan Show on top of. that basically what I do is I take a lot. of the questions that I get from you. guys or the patrons and then I turn them. into videos so we get right now there's.

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there and if you don't want to and you. just want to continue to watch the show. that's fine too I appreciate it either. way love you all let's get back to the. show thank. you I'll say this the first thing that. comes to mind is I had no idea how many. people in this world live in fear all. the time all the. time tonight the sheriff here revealing.

the worsening toll at least 59 now. dead what's your opinion on why is this. happening the mass shooting in Buffalo. at least 10 people were killed he took. some kids who had just grown up and. never handled weapons but grew up on. first person shooter games mhm and they. were dead screen time stimulates the. release of the brain chemical dopamine. we're expecting people to look as. unhuman as.

possible I see a lot of my friends dying. because of suicide yeah cuz they're. unhappy and uh and now I see that. spilling out into the masses these. messages were released on social media. and he he felt just absolutely. humiliated and he couldn't face that. humiliation a school that was awaiting. him the next day that's a child this is. what everyone on Tik Tok you know what I. mean and he doesn't know what's. happening to his brain by watching that.

trash all day long when high schoolers. get phones that disrupt their sleep. subsequently they go on to have higher. rates of. depression the climate's going to kill. us in 25 years the Republicans are going. to kill us in 25 years China's going to. kill us in 14 years Russia's going to. kill us the the only news that makes it. way through our ecosystem is ends. [Music].

here all right we're back from the break. and uh you were just telling me about a. gunfight that happened along the was it. the Arizona border yeah yeah sure so to. get a uh an idea of what this cartel. control looks like and the way they're. controlling information on the side of. the Border you can look at this uh this. one. town on the Mexican side of the. Arizona Sonora.

border and there was a gunfight in. 2019 when a group of cartel uh Hitman. about 60 came into the city from Over. the Line over the state Mexican state. lines in chihuaha state and and came in. to try and attack and seize the. territory over this town it in. Mexico and the local cartel Saros. responded and it was this crazy. gunfight I mean it's impossible to know.

the true number of dead but it could. well have been over 30 according to. Witnesses I talked. to so to get a sense though what really. happened I mean the Border was shut down. on the night of this gunfight you know. this small Border Town they shut down. the. Border but the cartel was very concerned. about controlling that information and. then not going out there they' been such. a severe. gunfight why because they you go see. this small town on the border where. they're moving drugs through moving.

people. through and you can see a certain. neighborhood with a bunch of cartel. houses some quite obvious big houses. that stand out and kind of dirt streets. and some of these real big houses they. have various houses they use like safe. houses or cartel. properties now if there a big noise. about a gunfight on the border with 30. dead and it became a big story and like. Fox News and stuff that creates heat. okay so the Mexican govern is like okay.

what do we do send the Army in what. options do you have send in the military. so the military goes in and it has to. bust you know break down some doors. until you got some houses to bust so the. cartel is interested in trying to keep. things. down so what they did is they tell they. control the local journalists and they. tell the local journalists you're not. reporting on this or you're only. reporting two. dead um we want no information we're. even harassing social media operators in. these areas as.

well and this was basically hushed. up and uh you know went there we're. following this as part of an investive. series and I had to go into this town. and try and deal with the cartel members. in this. town who who you know first didn't want. us filming there and very aggressive and. we tried to try to talk to them tried to. sit down and talk to his cartel own his. film and document this is old now it's. happened now but still they're very very.

controlling of what can be filmed of. what can be said in this town and that. shows kind of some of the motivations. and why they're like on top of. journalists why they're harassing. journalists and you see there's one. journalist uh there in this town who uh. you know we were talking to him and we. actually got him to help us introduced. us to some of his cartel. members but he uh he was talking to us. about it and then he started broke out. in tears and said like you know we we we. can't can't tell the news here we got.

this you they breathing down our next. you know we got this they're ordering us. what we can say and we can't. say and you see that with the level of. murder of journalists yeah in Mexico the. last 20 years with more than 150. journalists have been murdered and it's. often for not for not doing the cartels. they want to have control of. the media especially in these small. towns in these places say what they can. say what they can't say you can say this. name of a cartel you can't say this. you've got to report this massacre you.

shouldn't report this and then and then. can lead to to murders if anything falls. out of line or if they see as the. reporters working with a different. cartel or responding to a different. cartel that can also put them in danger. man they're just controlling every. little aspect it's really what are some. of the we had talked a little ear I. think it was last night actually at. dinner we were talking and you were just. we were talking about some of the. brutality that these guys are doing we.

talked about it a little bit today you. know getting 12-year olds to cut up. bodies you were talking about a dog. yesterday. that ate a man's genitals off do you can. you what is the point of this and what. are what are some of the most horrific. things that you've seen or heard these. guys doing. yeah yeah sure reason I'm asking is I. want to paint a picture of just how. brutal these guys are to the audience. sure thing yeah so I think the kind of.

public displays of. violence um you saw this escalating and. and it began okay we go all the way back. to. 2004 and there was then that year was. the. decapitation in. Iraq of. um by. alawi alq in Iraq. mhm 2004 or. five I.

think4 and that was shown um fully on. Mexican TV seeing on Mexican. news and they show that fully that kind. of that video the Mexican newscast. saying oh show and it that that had an. impact and that was seen by the. cartels okay decapitation. and you start seeing that in in Iraq. kind of rising in in this kind of Terror. and violence and decapitation using it.

publicly MH then the first time you. start sing Mexico was. 2006 there was one incident the first. incident where there was some police. officers who shot up some cartel guys in. Acapulco and the cartel went and. decapitated two of these cops put their. heads on the. like you don't don't [ __ ] with our. guys so the idea is again you're kind of. copying and seeing this stuff on TV from. Iraq and stuff and like copying this.

Terror then there was a one of the first. splatter videos was around his time was. on the one of the first splatter videos. back then was on a VHS. tape and they they they they they they. interrogate a guy and at the end of the. inter ation they shoot the guy in the. head and they threw they sent it they. sent it by mail back then they it was a. video was done from AAP they sent it by. mail to to a newspaper in the United.

States they end up getting getting. getting reported and stuff it's kind of. showing it's kind of we we using kind of. recording stuff on video and doing this. stuff kind of copying this kind of. Terror tactics to try. and inight Terror in our. enemies now you then had in. mitan a guy called nasario Moreno M loo. the maddest. one and. he.

um they chopped off five. heads and they rolled him into a. disco and when this came out I was. working again the news agency AP at the. time U we got sent a video of this from. a local Stringer of the five. heads just sitting on his disco floor. five decapitated. heads and the TV like come look at this. like wow this kind of crazy and she's.

like oh we're not going to put out on. the wire we're not going to put out on. on our on our wire meaning our the news. agency feed that like TV you know it's a. bit too brutal but one Japanese funny. enough one Japanese TV company said oh. we want particularly that video we want. to have. that and it was this idea of tering it. started escalating so then it was like. two heads five heads then it became 12. heads then not 14 18 and got to that. episode of 49. bodies and he became competing for who.

could be you know the the the baddest C. the way of competing was was was having. this violence and having this these kind. of public displays of violence and stuff. on videos you started having this stuff. on the internet. now initially as journalist I say both. as as journalist working for. international media reporting on this. and the local Mexican media we didn't. know quite how to handle this. stuff it's like report it you know. reported this stuff out then you realize. okay are you speaking for the cartel are.

you only showing their propaganda by. doing this stuff they they've got a. message some they have like decapitated. heads in a message you know on a blanket. expressing this. stuff uh and then you you know you so. you start to get like a bit of a. kickback of a we shouldn't really report. on this should we try and and I remember. I remember but it's kind of sad I. remember one day at at the AP and they. said well we no longer report on. episodes of just decapitated heads. unless there's a very high number or.

something special because there's been. so many it's no longer news anymore so. now that it kind of loses that shock. value so nowadays you could hear oh. there's five to cap heads in Mexico. doesn't you know you're not going to. you're go all right at the time the. beginning this was something which is. really causing an. impact I would say it kind of reached. that public use of. violence reached a peak around that time. around like 2000 2012 was the 49 bodies.

maybe around that was the highest number. there was a massacre of 72 people but. that was a bit different that wasn't a. public you know the 49 was we're going. to cut K kill 49 people cut their heads. and hands and feet off and dump them in. one place and that was the kind of peak. I think of that of the brutality of that. very very public violence there's a. budget other into ents I mean like. they'd cut off a face and S it onto a a. soccer ball and and like you know just. cut up bodies and car them in all kinds. of different ways you can imagine but it. kind of reached a peak of public.

violence it started kind of lose lost. its shock value and the Press kind of St. kind of stopped reporting on it so much. so you had less of that public violence. now one thing I mentioned yesterday kind. of brutal incident was you have a change. and you have uh violence then it's a. different objective a kind of policing. of local communities and the cartels. because they're coming like becoming. like Warlords and imposing a placing on. the populations so then he saying like.

um okay you know the other carel say no. no one can steal from people's. houses no one can commit rape. H um people can't kidnap actually I went. to one crime scene where they they. killed some alleged kidnappers. and they had like a thing saying like. you know sign saying that kidnappers you. can't do that here get to work she in. the low style meaning it's like a. traffic drugs work don't kidnap people.

so they start because they kind of the. absence and the failure of the rule of. law they're becoming like the rule of. law like the Warlords and imposing that. now when we mentioned last night which. is a very brutal video was somebody's. accused of rape in in a town in the. state of. Mexico and they put a dog on on on on. his on his genitals and put something. and and and and ate his genitals and put. a video of that and put that video out. like you can't rape in our territory. kind of pretty pretty brutal again kind.

of medieval yeah kind of control did. they kill. him not as far as we know I mean the guy. was left maybe alive but alive but. mutilated he's not going to reproduce. yeah so. it it seems like you know I've. interviewed a couple of guys about this. stuff started with Ed Calderone then I. moved in to Louise he he actually.

recommended you and then and then now. you and it's it seems to be the common. theme that they're just. getting more brutal more ruthless more. graphic you know and in in and it seems. like they're really trying to you know. instill that fear into. everyone local population the police uh. us everybody yeah I mean I would say. like. um I me mean in some ways say that very.

very public displays of violence kind of. someone reached the peak and went down. and a lot of the videos you've seen more. recently have been these big shows of. Firepower you SE an escalation with that. so first of all you start off with a guy. you know have uh you know Five Guys with. ski masks and AK4 47's going you know. here we are you know with the cartel and. then you kind of have that you know make. it big on have you know 20 guys with. metal helmets and and then it becomes 50. guys and it's like a big like film of a.

convoy of armored vehicles and grenade. launchers and everything going ah and it. becomes bigger and bigger so like an. escalation in that show of force becomes. like a new thing in terms of the kind of. propaganda War there's also like the. carrot as well as the stick so there's. like handing out Goods to the population. as well for. control so like you have. um you you have like the beginning of. covid there was like suddenly they would.

you know suddenly it was like you a. pandemic. lockdown um they went and started. handing out packages to. people and I went to one Community where. they had a hand. out and it was a couple hours from. Mexico. City and they gone to this this one. Village and they just like you know. bunch of guys driv up in some pickup. trucks and they'd handed out everyone. bag of goods I talked to a family you.

know a couple of families who who who'. received you know some of these bags and. they were like oh they good stuff it was. like good you know it wasn't cheap sugar. it was good you know good labels of. sugar and eggs and flour and this kind. of thing kind of basic. Goods now they don't necess to give it. to that many people considering the. whole country and the level of. population. but it has an impact because then they. video that stuff and they put that out. on video as well put out on on on on on. the on the airwaves on the. internet and and then that creates a.

kind of reaction that creates a kind of. thing of like saying oh well we're kind. of you know we're good guys as well so. you have a control that way as well. you're buying supporting the. population um the same way that kind of. politicians do as well going of give. handouts and stuff in Mexico has been a. big tradition MH um and you're kind of. portraying yourself as as good guys and. have propaganda War how many cartels are. there in Mexico. estimation so you have in Mexico you.

have you you you've had this this. process of fragmentation so there's more. and more so now you could talk about at. least a dozen groups considering cartels. but like from the bigger ones to some of. the smaller ones and then below that a. bunch of different factions and groups. but there's different sizes scales so. there's two now the biggest ones which. are really the bigger size in the rest. which is the ca cartel and the helis new. generation cartel and they're the both.

they're both you know big International. organizations with you know with with. very very big Power mhm do they own. these little smaller. cartels are they like satellites or with. within that you have you have factions. of these cartel so they create like the. S cartel will have uh an armed faction. called lente NOA and there'll be like an. armed paramilitary Wing which operates. in certain areas okay then you'll have. like Lo salares which would be a certain. family with their own people who like.

operate and work for in cartel when in. cartel you got like Lo chapito Z and. these different factions within them. then the helisa new generation cartel. will take over these place and we and. take over these smaller kind of towns. and take over gangs and kind of create. them and make them part of their. organization then though you got below. the rung of those two as powerful. cartels you've got a bunch of still big. powerful Regional forces so going across. the border you have the golf cartel. which is still a powerful International.

Organization the golf cartel renosa. matam moros you know South Texas and. then they have people also in a bunch of. places around Mexico you go next you. have the Cartel de noreste the Northeast. cartel again a powerful organization. formerly the setus they were they kind. of became now the northe they rebr. themselves the Northeast cartel they got. a bunch of things a bunch of guns a. bunch of different stuff operating. around the place you move across you got. the white cartel stroke linia operating.

there then you got M cartel territory. and helco New Generation cartel fighting. but then you still got the remnants of. of the ARA Felix Tana cartel there and. then further south youve got some some. significant. organizations uh you've got laana which. is still operating and C are you've. still got um you these groups called. things like Los Roos Los gueros. unidos which are quite significant in. certain. areas then you know sometimes I call.

some of these groups kind of cartelitos. like like smaller they kind of operate. like cartels but in in an area you. sudden you have um this group called The. Independent cartel of akapulka so. they're they're not International yeah. they're more like localized but there. still some of these groups can control. several municipalities. but because one of the problems with. this fragmentation is so if you look at. the the the history of this and you see. you had these big efforts to kind of. break some of these.

cartels with mixed motivations from. above but they were taking out some of. these top guys ban l so you had you know. he was a break away from Cartel the ban. L cartel then he gets killed and you. start to fragment and break down so you. start to get like Los unidos Los Roo. and these breakdowns from that then you. get these kind of like local fights and. these little break. offs so then you had um the kind of.

fragments of the fragments of the. fragments the kind of break off the. break for the break off but then they. can be still be this kind of crazy crazy. little organizations there was a group. there one guy called ELO Palo was some. guy in in in Guero State he was like 20. early 20s maybe and he had like hundreds. of young you know kids teenagers and. young kids with AK-47s and stuff kind of. following him and he controlled his kind. of small bit of. territory some colleagues uh were. driving that his group was burning. Vehicles blockading Rose is one of their.

strategies one of their tactics well. when they wanted to kind of stop convoys. and stuff and and his joury I knew went. up there and they got stopped and it was. like hundred of these kind of young. teenagers you know these kind of crazy. kids basically suon with guns stuff and. they they took their cameras laptops one. of the vehicles cleaned them out um and. one colleague of mine he said he had he. had his camera and the guy goes give me. your.

ID give me your wallet so first of he. trying to try to show his ID and then he. was like and he was like one he's seeing. these K but like so you get what part of. the problem drives violence because then. you get this kind of crazy fragmented. groups and then they're like watching. roads and fighting each other and. fighting over like dumb very local [ __ ]. I I got a question yeah so it it sounds. like so you have the big entity you have. the caloa cartel and the what the new. generation cartel yeah and then you have.

all these basically sounds like. subsidiary companies of the cartel do. these subsidiary companies do they get. along or are they Rivals to this sounds. very tribal yeah yeah so you got a A. bunch of Shifting alliances do you know. what do you know what I'm saying so if. you have the caloa C here and then you. have all these subsidiary companies. underneath of it and then subsidiary. companies do these subsidiary companies. get along do they know like Hey we're.

both under the S umbrella so we don't. conduct violence with each other we. conduct violence with subsidiary. companies of the new generation cartel. or the Zetas or yeah yeah it's a very. very good point I see I see exactly. where you're coming from and the answer. is no they don't they can they can so. you get viol. among different like localized gangs who. are still working for a bigger. organization and some of these groups. are constantly fighting amongst. themselves so there can be so there can. be Rivals within yeah within yeah the.

entity intra cartel fighting so is is is. efficient and as effective they are they. still there's still a lot of yeah it's. very efficiencies in totally within the. organization a lot of yeah lot. disruptors I mean they're powerful. they're not all powerful and that. they're messy things um you know it's. very messy kind of Whirlwind of this. kind of world of organized crime and. these figures rising and fooling and. stuff I mean they they're exercising. immense power um but at the same time.

very unstable re reason I'm asking is. because in. Afghanistan what we found in the earlier. days um was tribes we would go in try to. get intelligence from a tribe and what. we found is they were given bad Intel. because so there was so many rivalries. going on you know for hundreds of years. between these different. tribes that us would. bomb Villages or or or or targets or.

whatever it whatever it is you know. Vehicles because simply because this. tribe who had a rivalry with this tribe. which we didn't know but they're. basically saying hey this is who you're. looking for they're responsible for x Y. and Z but the only reason they're. telling us that is because of the. 200-year right rivalry that's been going. on and then they just had the US take.

care of their enemy I could see that. exact problem say we did declare the. cartels a a terrorist organization I. could I can see us falling into that. trap again where it's it's not it's not. solid intelligence that we're Gathering. we're basically just finishing these. guys as you know yeah some the violence. going back a couple of generations it. was like about. feuds um and are you talking some of the.

older guys what the vience was like in. his in the 60s and 70s and he often. feuds family against family stuff um Los. Sanchez Los Hernandez these like. families in these valleys and it's like. you know one of them um robbed the woman. it's a classic one they robbed the girl. from another family and then then then. so they went there and they killed a. bunch of the other family because of. that and so they went back and there was. like Feud going on back and forth. between them and some of these feuds are. still around so then now there these. people becomeing like part of these.

cartels and stuff but they're still like. you know hate each other going back for. some time but another kind of weird. thing with the violence. is um you had so in that Port of. maneno you got both the ca cartel and. the hel New Generation cartel operating. and they're both the biggest producers. of fenel of synthetic. drugs but a guy told. me that actually the ca cartel is paying.

the new generation cartel for passage of. its synthetics through. H at a high level they're working. together to smuggle drugs even though. the same cartels are fighting a full- on. War. over in. zakas and even though their lower down. guys are fighting over like selling. crystal meth at these like little.

selling points around the. area and it's kind of hard to get you. know you know your head around it it's. like you think about something for a. long time how come but it's like they're. working in kind of weird ways they can. be conducting a war in one place and. then they can be like some guys can just. sit down and do business okay I want to. transport a bunch of uh a bunch of. ingredients bunch of fentin through your. territory okay this much going to cost. and they can make. money I mean another like another weird. example of how this this stuff goes on I.

was talking to I went to see the tri. about Chapel in New. York and here's the mortal enemy of. Chapo being Bel TR L is this guy I. mentioned before El Chapo Bel TR l a. real hard. rivalry and I got to know the lawyers of. el. chappa and I said how did you get your. case and he said uh one of the Beltran L. Brothers introduced us to our. Jappa thought these guys may be mortal.

enemies but they're recommending lawyers. to each. other so there's a just it's just a. weird thing when you try and get into. this like how it's really working at top. levels and and how is money uh being. changed hands and and people can still. get on incorporate and so even when they. kid each other and have Wes each other I. don't understand it at all it's it's you. know when you look at the fentanyl. crisis in the US and all of the stuff.

that these guys control and then you. hear. about I mean that sounds like a complete. disaster you know to be honest with you. but when you when you when you. see that it just it shows you how. inefficient The Mexican government is it. shows how inefficient that that the US. border is yeah and and how in efficient. the US is at fighting this even Canada. you know what I mean you have you have. organizations that are working together. who hate each other who are killing each.

other nobody seems to get along and. they're still that successful they're. still making yeah you know trillions of. dollars by human trafficking fent andol. and and. and dozens of cartels you know and it. it's it's I like the amount of it's like. making all this money and at the same. time you know you kill you know 35,000. murders in a year officially in. Mexico um and of those we don't know.

exactly it could be 70% 75% uh cartel. related in some. way so that many murders that many of. these guys being. killed um all the time and yet they keep. keeps on going so yeah it's it's kind of. crazy how this this come this comes. about and and how things have got this. messed. up uh and yeah I'm say he's got to. rethink it's got to try and kind of. figure. out um you know this comes well the time.

when politics is broken so it's kind of. frustrating because politicians are not. really solving anything they're not. pragmatic about how do we try and this. is a problem how do we try and deal with. it now one thing um it's a different. country and something I just went down. to report on was in El salv. with the gang situation it might give a. sense of how things might be in the. future in Latin American countries H so. in El Salvador they've had a real. problem with gangs for decades basically.

since the Civil War of El Salvador which. was 1980 to. 1992 after that you had a gang problem. it went from Civil War to gangs and it. was connected so you had guys coming. back from the Civil War who were like. veterans and you know you know either. they fought in the gorillas or they. fought in the military and what we do. now we just join the gangs and you had. refugees who join gangs up in Los. Angeles and got deported and went down. there so you other crazy gangs. incredible extortion crazy murder. they're not powerful not the Mexican.

cartels they don't have this kind of. level of control they're generally these. kind of small neighborhood gangs but. they still managed to make most people. pay extortion. payments and they're still carrying out. a horrific level of. murder now you got this president called. na buelli. who I interviewed in. 2017 he became president. 2019 2019 he became president um uh and. then.

he last. year he he's accused and and I believe. it's accusation he first made a truce. with the gangs to bring the murder right. down with plausible deniability over. that. truce so you kind of had these kind of. gangs were still operating but the. murder level was down and they were kind. of still around there and at the same. time he's moving the military in and. bolstering the military and so forth. then in March 27th. 2021 he declared a state of emergency.

following the kind of breakdown of the. truce likely a sudden explosion of. violence he ordered a state of. emergency and he sent the military and. the police into the neighborhoods and. just did Mass. arrests between March and now they. arrested 64,000 people in a country of 6. million it's about 1% of the population. it' be like in the United States in 9. months detaining more than 3 million.

people 3.3 million people you imagine. that United. States and he locked them up talked to. family members there were like no. communication with their with their sons. husbands who were in prison didn't know. if they were still alive you know mass. incarceration. very very harsh there's no way about no. two ways about it very very harsh. however the majority of people support. it the gangs have being. decimated now can they sustain that uh I.

mean obviously there's there's people. crying out Human Rights Watch Amnesty. International US Congress you know. Congress Representatives you know human. rights disaster. there but it's been it's decimated the. gang. structure so that might be the shape of. the way things will go in Latin America. maybe in Mexico in the future you will. get you are seeing a bolstering of the. military like bigger the military now. Mexico is a messed up situation and the.

Cel are so strong corruption is so deep. that might be the way whether we like it. or not that might be the future we're. looking at interesting more. authoritarian governments yeah that is. uh that's that's that's interesting when. going back to the beheadings you know. they took a thing out of isis's you know. Playbook or Al-Qaeda or whoever they saw. behead um and then it's and then it uh. you made it sound like it turned into a. competition yeah between is it what's.

the point of the competition is it. really. just I I would say cartel leaders yeah. chess pounding wanting to be the most. ruthless or is there is there a point to. it other than ego or is it just ego yeah. no I would say there is I would say. there's a logic to it so like. if you're if you're a. cartel you know you know you understand. war and conflict MH let's just say you. know sha Ryan you're given the job of.

being a cartel leader controlling a. chunk of Mexico okay and you've got 50. guys under you in your particular. territory and you've got a rival cartel. who's also trying to compete for that. territory and you've got civilian. population and you've got military you. got to deal with a bunch of. stuff so you're attacking their people. now you got to send a message out to. different people you got to send like. Terror out to anybody who betrays you or.

anyone is opposing you you know we're. going to not only kill you we're going. to we're going to we're going to terrify. you MH but also you're speaking to the. young recruits who's the toughest cartel. here who's going to win this Turf battle. do you want to join them or join us and. look at us we're on top okay and you're. sending a message out to. informance to like um the population. like I'm not going to I'm not going to. snitch on these.

people now if you look at Again The. Logical War um you know you had in. guaran Civil. War trying to control like. counterinsurgency. tactics how do we control our. population and you know you had is there. was uh some I I looked at some of the. counil Insurgency manuals in the school. of the Americas some of the stuff taught. by the United States to officers in. these militaries who ended up defecting. and joining.

cartels it's like how do we control. population to get rid of insury so you. okay a village you've got insurgence in. a. village um in guat okay go in there it. was like we got to make sure none of you. in the village will join the gorillas so. we're going to behead. people you know look at this hang up. leave bodies mhm terrorize the. population to try and stop them joining. the gr. force and those tactics kind of some of. those tactics kind of bled through kind.

of led into this weird hybrid conflict. that we see today are they are you. seeing them cuz You' also said they do. kind of humanitarian work where they've. hand out free stuff you know are you. seeing this stuff happen simultaneously. where they instill fear and yeah try to. win over the population with hearts and. Minds type operations Sim happening. simultaneously absolutely how does how. does the civilian population respond to. that it it's it's a mixed it's a mixed.

bag um you've got. like you know there's areas of Mexico. where the where the these gangers are. more Dee rooted like in country in law. where people have basically being kind. of um considered themselves in a way. kind of more kind of and it type. territories for for for Generations who. don't really have much respect for the. government in all the government in. Mexico City or Washington it's all like. far away governments for them they're.

kind of broken off and the cartels are. like local power people so some for some. of these people especially if you're a. young man in these places it's like okay. it's like I'm actually responding to the. power and the government and I'm going. to join that local. militia but then sometimes the cartels. with taking over new. territories um particularly urban areas. they'll go to urban areas and then some. of them will they'll vary some of them. will be more. predatory and go in and be like okay. we're going to go through and just start.

kidnapping get a list of everyone who's. got money in this. town B kidnap kidnap kidnap kidnap you. know make sure they all got p and then. you know everyone's going to hate them. but then a rival cartel will come in and. say okay you know you've been terrorized. by this these. scumbags we're going to come in and save. you. and so then you see this kind of back. and forth where these kind of like some. of these they called like self-defense. squads out to Defense US who then. convert into cartels as well kind of. back and forth over these.

areas um so yeah it's been that shifting. you youve seen about the out the. self-defense forces you seen some images. of them you had a bunch of you know. sometimes we like legitimate guys lime. farmers who like we we don't want to pay. shake down to these cartels anymore and. we kind of rise up and you know a bunch. of us with guns and we're going to fight. the cartels eles and then they kind of. rise up and it's kind of a nice story. then you realize that some of these guys. who meant be the good guys were. also Dam traffic so so but I mean. Afghanistan's an interesting um.

comparison I mean very very different. but I think it's in some ways that kind. of 21st century weird hybrid arm. conflict uh and you see elements that. you can compare it is I I do. think there's a high probability of that. happening if if we ever did declare that. terorist organization and foreign forces. went in there I could. totally. seeing us fall for that again yeah yeah. it's it's it's.

yeah well what's what do you got coming. up. next um I got a bunch of I got a bunch. of projects um we got a uh a trial you. know very interesting trial. of the former one of the former top. officials in Mexico and trial for drug. trafficking in the United States so that. I really look at the kind of official. corruption we had the tri of El. Chapo and that was like you know. building up to the El Chapo trial um it.

was kind of building up for years to. kind of go off for the ultimate Kingpin. and then now we're going to go they kind. of going after actually a corrupt. official um so that's going to be very. interesting to see what comes out of. that um I've been looking at a a TV. series based on one of the biggest US. operations on a cartel over decades and. kind of breaking it down um kind of. getting with some of the. players um both in the law enforcement. side and in the cartel side and seeing.

really how that kind of played out oh. that'll be back and forth when's that. coming out yeah we're still building. that one up now like developing the. sources and developing that series but. that's something I'm working on hard you. think it'll be out this year I mean God. willing that' be great if it is all. right we see it's a big project it's a. big project it's like a like basically. operation like a task force a US task. force okay and and we're kind of getting. in with you know the big players they. had and the whole judicial process the.

protected Witnesses and really kind of. drilling down on that. operation and and still looking at stuff. I've been up on the The Border a lot. recently uh looking at some of the uh I. mean the Asylum. Seekers uh the smuggling gangs you know. so we obviously had a had a kind of. uh a lot of back and forth big hot. political issue over the Asylum Seekers. which now it looks like the Biden. Administration is now going back to the. the Trump ideas of like uh kicking.

Asylum Seekers. back um because the Asylum system is. basically collapsing because of the. numbers interesting um so basically what. you have with that is you have uh I mean. you've seen you've seen this increase. over the years so like what what it is. is you. have um people arriving at the border. and saying I'm going to claim political. asylum in the United. States. and more and more people have understood. over the years that they can do this you. know 20 years ago people didn't really.

understand that you could go from a. conflict in you know from violence in in. whatever your country you know lot they. can be quite poor uneducated. people um do this kind of run run from. that conflict they're going to just come. to the United States and just try and. sneak over the Border but they realiz. there kind of a lot of efforts by things. like the uh un Refugee agency different. groups to say you can ask for a. political. Asylum so people start to realize they. can do this and they come and arrive at.

the US border and make an asylum claim. now IAL to a lot of these people on an. individual basis and I'm sympathetic to. their their life stories I they got. brutal life stories you know many of. them they've been you know they they. they've run from violence in Mexico run. from violence in Honduras El Salvador. Brazil Jamaica uh Venezuela much of. these. countries but because more and more. people have been asking the Asylum. system itself was basically. collapsed you got 2 million back cases. wow 2 million yeah like n on 2 million.

back cases a lot a lot of them has. really escalated the last couple of. years so then you start getting pushing. back to like fiveyear waiting list to. even see the. case so what a lot of what Trump was. really doing if you look at a lot of. what Trump was doing on the border a lot. of the policy was really about trying to. stop. this rising Rising as Asylum cases so he. was trying to do this and was like and. then he get kick back from the. courts to say you know he'd say oh you. know I I um want to say you can't um I'm.

going to I'm going to kick you out uh. via I'm going to use a pandemic measure. to kick you out or I'm going to say you. can't apply for summer in the United. States because you fled Honduras so why. didn't you apply for Solomon Guatemala. or Mexico. me while you're playing. here or you know trying to make trying. to change president to do this and you. have kind of kick back from the courts. and Biden came in was like oh I'm going. to I'm going to I'm I'm I'm going to.

roll this back and we're not going going. to get rid of all the what trumps On the. Border the. reality and I think Biden is very. evasive talking about this because Biden. doesn't want to um offend a base or. offend the people who saying we we want. Asylum. claims but like what the. uh what the uh Biden is doing really now. is kind of going back to these same. Trump trump measures looking for ways. just to stop this without really. changing the fundamentals just looking. for way to stop people applying for.

Asylum because the numbers are so big. wow I had no idea it was that yeah that. big yeah and a lot of what the back and. forth I think is about right now I mean. you've got you still got the. undocumented migrants coming over or or. or the you know the uh undocumented. migrants illegal immigrants you know. talk about the language but like um we. still got a lot of people going over who. want to just you know pay Smugglers get. through the Border work but what's. really changed in the real big crisis I.

think a lot of this back and forth is. about that it's kind of a it's kind of. an a complicated issue I don't think. really the um it's come across clearly. what that debate's about maybe in a lot. of the reports particularly because um. the language like you know Biden they. don't want to really explain explain. that mhm um. because they they want to kind of don't. want to but they they I think they. understand practically that the the US. is not going to receive this amount of. Asylum. claims wellow what.

yeah oh man. what what else do you got coming that's. a lot yeah yeah yeah yeah no uh plenty. more stuff so I've been I've been um. working a lot on a on a on a substack on. doing a lot of my own stories over the. years I've been working a lot for for. big meter Outlets Time magazine New York. Times um but I've got a lot on uh doing. a lot of my own own material on this on. this substack I'm going to link your.

substack in the in the description so. appreciate also be in the newsletter and. all the other media that we have so yeah. I got out I got a bunch more stories in. that coming i' I've already done like a. bunch of stories then on on all this. fenel um migrant Smugglers Asylum. um the OB the o man the the C cartel. stuff I got some more stories coming up. I got some stories about pirates in the. Gulf of Mexico in the Gulf of Mexico. yeah I just I've already done the.

research on that story I going to write. that up basically it's um uh. um a bunch of I mean it's kind of one of. these crazy SI saw is a bunch of uh um. oil installations. there um there's there's Pirates robbing. oil installations. what they'll do is they'll often go onto. these oil rigs oil. platforms and there only be like six of. these guys but you know six guys with. AK-47s and they'll steal a bunch of the.

oxygen gear which is this like quite. High expensive highend oxygen gear which. are worth you know several thousand each. one is kind of they call them autonomous. oxygen equipment. mhm and they'll they'll still like 100. packs of this. um and make way and I talked to one guy. who was who was on one of these oil rigs. when it happened and they started having. a there was a couple of Marines there on. the oil rig but most of the Marines. would take 45 minutes to get there from. a different place so these guys knew.

they had like 20 minutes basically um so. they did it did the robbery got away and. they've been doing that a bunch of times. they also been robbing the. fisherman and The Mexican government is. basically hushing a lot of this up. because it's kind of bad publicity so. the Mexican company as well was kind of. you know wouldn't let the the workers. talk about. this um so that's one one crazy story um. another one uh about to publish which I. was mentioning to you about was about a.

bunch of um healers with with. psychedelics uh iot Napa have been. arrested in Mexico you know why all. these fenel coming through they're. arresting these guys with psychedelic. side in iasa put on aaska they arresting. with aaska. and uh and uh threaten them with hard. prison. time um and looking at that I went to. visit a guy in prison A A Healer from. Peru in prison with.

aaska what a shame all this is going on. and and they're going to arrest somebody. for uh for healing with iasa what a. shame. but. well I just want to say I really. appreciate you coming here all your. links all your social media everything. will be linked in the description and um. man thank you for coming out I hope to. see you again thanks for taking the time. great to be here and yeah great to talk. to you and your and your audience great.

to see this great uh great operation and. talk about these issues thank you cheers. cheers man take care you too. hey everybody I'm Shawn Ryan click here. to subscribe to the Shawn Ryan Show. YouTube channel for the hottest and most. compelling interviews that you will not. see anywhere else I've also made a. playlist of all the previous SRS.

episodes so they're easy to find you can. find that right here.