Luis Chaparro reveals the Sinaloa Cartel's dominance over Mexican state authority, fueled by US-trained defectors and corruption. He exposes how US aid backfires, enabling cartels to profit from human trafficking and launder money through global networks while China potentially weaponizes fentanyl shipments as geopolitical leverage. The discussion highlights the blurred lines between government and criminal power, suggesting Mexico has become a proxy battleground where cartels offer stability absent in failing states, ultimately challenging traditional narratives of drug war efficacy. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Dangerous Cartel Journalism00:05:34
One of the main reasons I wanted to get you in here is not only because your work is incredible, but the cartels in Mexico and Central and South America are, you know better than anybody, one of the most misunderstood topics.
And being a journalist in Mexico covering the cartels has got to be one of the most dangerous jobs on earth.
Definitely, man.
It really is.
It really is.
The hell is going on in Mexico?
Well, man, in Mexico it's always something going on and it's been crazy for some years now, but I think it's just in recent years, maybe the last decade, things are really going off rails.
Cartels are overpassing the power of even politicians or the government.
And they've been receiving so much support by the US.
A lot of US trained police officers or Mexican military are going to work with the cartel.
You can sort of like guess what's that like.
You know, like those guys are properly equipped, properly trained, hard to fight on.
And in Mexico, as you know, there's a lot of, well, I think all Latin America, corruption is ramping.
You know, it's crazy the levels of corruption.
What made you want to like get into this world and cover all this stuff and document these things going on and embed yourself with these cartels?
Like, what made you want to do?
I mean, it's a fucking dangerous thing to do.
Like, what was it that got you into it?
It is, man.
I mean, I think what got me in was the fact that I grew up in Ciudad Juarez.
I was born and raised in Ciudad Juarez, in this border city just across El Paso, Texas.
And back then, I grew up in the 90s.
And in the 90s, everybody was talking about narcos, you know, like about Amado Carrillo, El Señor de los Cielos, El Lord of the Sky, and all of those guys.
But they weren't talking as we're talking right now, you know, like they're like dangerous people and they can be ruthless and violent.
They were talking like if you're talking about.
Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, you know, like everybody was like, wow, Amado Carrillo is cool, man.
He has like three wives on the same school, the same school, his kids to where I went to school with two of his kids.
So it was some glamour, I guess, around his, around like all narcos.
But to me, it was really confusing because I grew up in that.
And then when I came like to, I don't know, maybe a secondary school, middle school, I was so confused because then everybody started talking about how.
They were being violent, and my parents, they're sort of like wealthy in the city, so they've always lived in a well neighborhood.
And all of a sudden, they started expelling narcos from the neighborhoods.
Because before, you will have a neighborhood, and Amado Carrillo and all those guys were living on the house next to yours.
But all of a sudden, they were like, okay, we don't want these guys because they're violent and they're bad and they're doing bad shit.
So they started basically outcasting them.
So that shift made me, I don't know, confused.
Made me like, what is going on in my city?
What's going on in my country?
I grew up with those guys.
I know some of his kids and everything.
And now they're like sort of like outcasts.
And then when I started growing up also, like in 2010, I was, I guess, 18 or something like that.
The whole violence broke loose in my city.
Ciudad Juarez, as you know, was once called the murder capital of the world because we had so many killings.
The rate was like 13 killings a day.
How many a day?
13.
Holy shit.
It was fucking crazy, man.
And I remember that I was, that every time I went out, I had a motorcycle.
So every time I went out and then we'll go back into the gated community where my parents live, I was like, fuck, man, I made it another day, you know?
I got five of my friends killed in the same event, in the same place.
So five of your friends were killed at one place at one time?
Yeah, at a bar.
What?
Yeah.
How did that happen?
I'm not sure if they confused them for someone else or.
It was uh, because another guy told me that they got into a fight in a different bar over a girl and apparently she was with one of these bad guys, so he had them followed and he just shut up the bar and killed everybody.
So but that was, that was crazy, because I mean, I was supposed to be at that bar that night.
You know, we're supposed to go all together, but I overslept in my, in my, in my house, so I woke up at three in the morning and getting all these calls from my editors about five young kids being killed in a bar, because I was already writing for news.
So I showed up there and it's all my friends.
So yeah, that was fucking crazy, man.
That changed my life a lot.
And since then I started wondering what happened to them.
And then I realized that it doesn't really matter what happened to them because it keeps happening to everyone.
But the thing that matters is it's like, why?
Who's moving this issue?
Who's really behind the whole thing and how this shit works?
Yeah, so I think that's how I got to jump into this.
Breaking Deals in the Shadows00:14:38
Is the CIA working with the cartels?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, short answer is yes.
They are.
Yeah, man.
Not only the CIA, also, I guess, every other agency in the U.S. or every three lettered agency in the U.S. DDA, CIA, FBI, you know, like most of those guys are collaborating with narcos, not only in Mexico, but all through Latin America, man.
And I mean, it's not like they're.
You know, like smuggling drugs themselves, but it's like they're breaking deals.
You know, narco, the drug traffickers in Mexico, the issue has gotten so big right now that it is easily, it's very easy to unstabilize a country through el narco, you know, through violence, through drug trafficking, and all of that shit.
And I know for a fact that some of these narcos, they don't even know they're being played. by US agencies to destabilize the Mexican government or Mexican forces.
So what specifically is the US's involvement with these cartels?
You told me to watch that documentary on Amazon Prime, I think it's called The Last Narc.
The Last Narc.
Who was the guy's name?
It was the Mexican DEA agent who was basically murdered by a couple drug lords and there was a Famous or a very well known CIA, clandestine CIA agent there, Felix Rodriguez.
Exactly.
And they murdered this guy, this guy who worked for the DEA.
What is their specific involvement and what is the incentive to work together?
I think the involvement has a lot of layers.
So, one of the main layers is supplying aircrafts or legal entrance under their radar.
To drug into the U.S., I guess that's something that the U.S. has offered before, but um, there are a lot of uh, there is a lot of collaboration out in the open.
Um, talking about El Mayo, you know, El Mayo Zambada, it's basically like the biggest narco now in Mexico.
He has always been El Mayo, El Mayo.
He started before El Chapo Guzman, and El Chapo Guzman was actually working under Amayo Zambada.
The thing is, he's too shadowy.
No one really knows where he is.
There's only one photo of him on the internet.
Really?
So no one has really.
And that photo, it's like from the 80s or 90s, some shit like that.
Dude must be old.
So he's old now.
He's old now, and he's always been around.
He has his people.
I was personally at a party recently in Culiacan with his.
People.
He's basically his Sicarios, his hitman group.
And he's still in the mountains controlling the whole fucking business from Sinaloa.
No one really knows where he is, how he looks right now.
He's been too, too shadowy.
But the thing is, most two or three of his sons were arrested in the US in different occasions, right?
So, in 2013, one of his sons was arrested in Nogales, and then another one in San Diego, something like that.
And that family keeps.
Deucing both governments.
They're keeping out of trouble like El Chapo, right?
El Chapo got a life sentence.
And these three kids of him, knowingly by the US that they were trafficking and working under the biggest organization in Latin America, which is the Sinaloa Cardell, they're breaking deals with everybody.
So they're in the US.
One of them is actually free to go back and forth to Mexico as a legal permanent resident of the US.
The other guy just got his sentence reduced, so I think he's going to go out next month from Yale.
And the other guy received, he got, I think they changed his old identity and he got like legal status to stay in the U.S. with his family and everything.
And no one really knows where he is.
And El Mayo is still free.
So when you see that, there has to be some involvement, right?
I mean, it's not like they hired super fucking great lawyers that they can, you know, do whatever they want.
It's because they're breaking deals with the U.S.
Yeah.
I have a really good friend who's actually a lawyer who has represented some big drug lords in, I don't think Mexico, but definitely Colombia.
And the way he describes the whole war on drugs to me is this he says, These guys who are hiring him to represent him, they'll fly him first class to Colombia and they'll meet in, like, he'll be instructed to go to a lobby of a hotel and they call him up whenever they're ready.
And these guys do not get in trouble.
These guys stay out of.
Out of jail, they stay out of trouble completely.
The guys who get in trouble are like the low level pawns, yeah, like the guys who are captaining the boats or picking up cargo or making shipments or moving around.
Like it's the poor people, yeah, who are like the foot soldiers are the ones that are getting in trouble and getting busted, exactly, definitely.
Man, and that's that's that, and that's like let's let's call it like the simplest collaboration, right?
Now, talking about all the um, I don't know if you if you know this um operation called Iniciativa Merida, Initiative Merida Initiative.
Whereas basically the U.S. funding millions and millions of dollars to Mexican security forces so they can fight against the narcos, right?
And all of that stuff is ending up working for the narcos, right?
Because Mexico is so corrupt as well.
And the U.S. has done nothing but just wash their hands and say, like, okay, we're just going to train you and give you a lot of money and good luck with fighting the fucking cartels.
A whole fucking town was killed by an elite group that was actually trained with the U.S. Marines.
And so they were initially Mexican military elite group.
They got like the best training with the best of the best in the U.S., like from Navy SEALs and all that shit.
Oh, so these guys were these guys actually were like born in Mexico, moved to the U.S. and were recruited by the army or the Marines?
They were officially trained by both countries, right?
Like, so Mexico said, like, okay, I need these people trained because they're like.
Mexican top elite military.
So they trained them, and after training and giving them equipment and everything, they started fleeing the Mexican military and jumping and going to work with a cartel, with Los Zetas.
But they still got a lot of links and contacts inside the Mexican government.
So there was a time when the Zeta had a snitch inside them.
So the snitch was giving information to the U.S. authorities, to the DEA specifically, about the movement of these guys, where these guys were.
Um shipping drugs from cargo.
So they started like busting a lot of cargoes from Los Setas, right.
The thing is the DA called um the Mexican ARMY and said like hey, we got a snitch on on your side and I think you should talk to him.
He's a pretty good contact.
He's inside LOS Setas, not that?
And of course that that group in the in the army leaked the information to LOS Setas right because they were getting money.
So they're like, hey guys, watch out, you got us, you got a snitch on your side and i'm getting this information from the DA directly.
That's why you're getting a lot of drug busts.
And what they did, because they didn't know who the rat was, so what they did is they killed a whole fucking town in one night, one day.
We're talking about like whole families, a whole fucking town.
How many people?
It was by the hundreds.
Jesus.
So they killed a whole fucking town.
How long ago was this?
I think it was in 2011 or something.
2011.
Something like that.
There is a Netflix show, a series.
Called Somos.
Somos.
Yeah, I've heard of that.
Exactly.
And it's about that massacre, man.
And that was fucking crazy.
And that's another proof of the involvement of the U.S., right?
Sharing information with people that is not properly vetted, not taking care of their informants, all that shit.
And they're breaking deals with everyone.
Right now, just coming here, I was a bit late, a few minutes late, because I got a call from a guy who works with a criminal organization in Sonora State at the border with Arizona.
And he was, I've been in touch with him recently talking about Fentanyl and all that shit.
Yeah.
And he was like, hey, man, you know what?
I want, I really want out and I really need out from the cartel because things are getting crazier and crazier for me and my family.
Yeah.
So I don't know if you know someone in the US government that wants information and that I can share info with, but if they can relocate me to the US, I will share the whole fucking shit like who's dealing with Fentanyl and all that stuff.
And I'm like, dude, I don't know if I can do that.
I mean, That's pretty fucking tricky, you know.
That's something I've never done, and I don't know if it actually works like that, but good luck, you know.
So he wants out of the cartel and he wants protection from the US, from the DA or the CIA or something like that.
And we're talking that happening a lot, you know, and the US playing along those lines as well.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a crazy thing because, I mean, I feel like even if you did do that, you would still, they still, the cartel can still find ways in the US to kill somebody, right?
Yeah, for sure.
Oh, yeah.
What is it like?
How do you embed yourself with these groups of people?
And how do you get them to trust you when you're filming shit, or do you just like what do you document and how do you document it when you meet up with these people and you stay with them?
I have a lot of years working on the same beat and doing the same and learning the bad way.
I've had two guns to my head before that I thought I was going to die right there.
And I learned.
You got kidnapped, right?
I got kidnapped, yeah.
So in Ciudad Juarez by the local police.
By the way, it was not even, you know, who all clearly worked for the cartels.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I got kidnapped by the local police once and I got locked up in a warehouse by another fucking guy who was a cartel member.
So I learned the bad way, but what I learned is to be completely honest and clear about my intentions with these people, right?
Not faking that I'm friends, not faking that I'm on their side, not faking that anything.
And also, letting them know that some of my sources also are on the other side of the of the of the spectrum right, that I have sources in the DA, in the FBI and inside CIA, and that i'm not, and that i'm talking to them in the same way that i'm talking to to to these other bad guys.
You know that i'm making them super clear that I don't believe in good guys and bad guys, that I I understand that everything is a grayscale and and there is good guys that do bad and bad guys that does the good and all that stuff.
So I guess that's how they, that's how they feel comfortable sharing a lot of their stuff with me.
And because i've never betrayed um betrayed um anyone right, i've never had to call you know authorities or someone and say like hey, here is a huge bust of a huge load of whatever drug or something like that, or the other way around right, a US agent tell, telling them to those guys, like you know, this agent is investigating you, is after you, whatever.
Yeah, I keep all that to myself because it's not worth it.
It's a, it's a, it's a game that no one's gonna win and I don't want to be in the middle right.
I'm just there to to tell stories, to bring light into what's happening, trying to educate um readers in Mexico and the U.s about what really is going on and and why is uh and who's playing behind these forces right um, and I think that's uh, that and and time gave me the access that I have inside some of the Organizations.
Many people are pretty scared to go and to embed with narcos, and I'm not saying I'm not.
But I don't know, I guess to me it's like there's an opportunity.
These guys say like, hey man, I've been reading and watching your reports, and somehow I feel like I trust you, that I can trust you for the way you protect your sources, for the way you don't share specifics on any information.
Do you want access to this or do you want access to that?
And I'm like, fuck yes.
And I take every single opportunity I can get.
Of course, if it's worth it and if I feel safe enough, if you can call it that.
What's in it for them, for you to report and write this shit about them, make documentaries about them?
What do they think about that shit?
You have to know that the way social media is playing now is making everybody wanting to show what they do for a living.
You have car sellers, you have, I don't know, water sellers.
have drug sellers, drug traffickers, killers.
And many are attracted by the fact that they and their work can be out there without actually no one really knowing who is who.
And that's something that attracts them, that I find that they want to share.
If you will look at my WhatsApp or Signal or Telegram right now, it's fucking loaded with a lot of shit, a lot of cargoes, a lot of guns, a lot of stuff that they keep sending me.
Because they're like, hey, watch this.
Because they want like the, it's like anonymous clout.
Exactly.
It's weird.
I know it sounds weird, but they're just like that.
They want to show what they do.
They want to feel important.
Youngest Hicarios of CJNG00:14:30
Remember that by the time you are inside the narco and you have a narco corrido in your name, that's huge.
You have a song, someone's singing about you.
That's fucking huge for them.
That's when they feel they made it.
That's like, okay, I have my own clout.
Do you think these guys aspire to be like El Chapo or Pablo Escobar?
I think so.
I think so, pretty much.
Those guys, I mean, those guys pretty much think that they're going to be the next one up, right?
Especially because most of them, they start early.
They start very young.
So they start looking up to Old Chapo or to El Mayo right now.
They call him El Señor del Sombrero, the man of the hat.
And that's a key word to talk about the real boss of the Sinaloa cartel, right?
If you see someone with a vaquero hat, you know, a cowboy hat on the cap.
Or who has a hat hanging from their mirror, you will know that those guys praise or work for El Señor del Sombrero, right?
So they want to be El Señor del Sombrero.
They want to be that.
And they're super young.
I mean, of course, if they last enough to turn 30, 40 years inside the cartel, that's when they start getting disappointed and saying, like, shit, man, it's not like that.
Yeah, bro, the life expectancy of somebody that starts working for the cartel at a young age must not be that high.
Because you got it like even El Chapo, like I didn't was that something I didn't realize about El Chapo that I learned from that documentary was that he was fucking slaying and butchering people at a super young age.
Yeah, yeah, I don't know if you if you um saw the um a story I posted on my Instagram recently, I think it was like two days ago about one of the youngest hicarios for the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, which is a ruthless cartel.
Um, and he was like what maybe nine years old.
I mean, the the the the weapon he had on himself was.
Bigger than than him.
He had like a huge I don't know if it was like an AK or kind of fucking weapon, but it was huge and you can.
You can watch his face and he's a kid.
I, of course I posted that and I covered his eyes to sort of like protect his identity.
Yeah, but he's a worker for the cartel.
He's a worker for the cartel man and he's like super, super young.
Let me see if I still have the photo of him, because he really looks like.
I mean, if he's on your Instagram, it's on my Instagram.
I think we got it right here, so if you can pull it up, I think it was in one of my stories.
I don't know if it's a story.
I don't know if it expired.
Okay.
But yeah, man.
I mean, he looked like if he was 12 years.
Look, there he is.
Jesus Christ, man.
How old does he look like?
He's like a toddler.
Just barely a toddler.
Yeah, exactly, man.
And I know that there's you took that photo?
No, one of the one of the guys working under Cartel Jalisco sent it to me, sent it over, and said, like, look at the soldiers of the Cartel Jalisco.
And then I posted that and then I covered his face and everything.
And then another guy from another cartel fighting the Cartel Jalisco sent me a DM and said, like, something like, Poor kid, he's dead now.
He's dead already?
And I asked him, like, Is he dead?
He's like, No, but we're after him.
I mean, he's going to die young.
I'm like, Shit, man, but he's a kid, you know?
Can you fucking leave him alone?
Just scare him and have him out?
You know?
And he's like, No, it's not like that.
Dude, that's so fucked up, man.
So scary.
Yeah, man.
Yeah, it's a different fucking world there.
How does a kid end up in the fucking cartel at nine years old?
Is it just like is his Parents in the cartel or like is it just that way?
Is this like you're born and you if you if you're poor and you grow up on the streets you it's hard to not get into the heart cartel You know, it's I know I I know like the Sort of like the story of that guy of that kid.
He doesn't have a dad.
He has a mom that she knows what he's doing, but still she treats him like a kid.
I mean, he had a birthday cake on his, I think it was like 10th birthday or some shit like that, like a kid.
So they're just normalizing.
Mexico, it's normalizing violence.
Like everything, it's getting to a level where a new incident that happens, like younger kids.
At the first, we are like super scared and alarmed about that, right?
We're like, fuck, man, they're super young.
But then you have another news where a nine-year-old kid was shot dead and this and that.
And then you start normalizing the whole fucking violence.
And that's happening in Mexico a lot.
And that's what is worrying me.
It's like, dude, this is not normal.
This is everything but fucking normal what's happening in Mexico.
And to answer your question on how these kids end up working with the cartel, a lot of rural Mexico is super poor.
There's no help from anyone.
Basically, you will have to do a lot of shit to get food to your table.
It's really like that.
Or education, roads.
No work at all.
So that's a gap by the government and every gap that the government has the narco steps in and covers for that gap, right?
You need schools.
I'm gonna bring it in right you need food.
I'm gonna bring it in you need work.
I have work for you So that's why I say everything is a grayscale because it's like all right, what what are they supposed to do right to to die of hunger To leave their parents to die at the town and go to the city to work, which was what well chapel did What are they supposed to do if the government is not taking care of them or anyone, you know, like citizens like myself or no one is really taking care of them and their needs?
There's only one group that is actually taking care of them and it's the narco.
And what do they get in return?
The loyalty of a whole fucking town.
Right.
So when militaries come in, they start bloking, fighting, or snitching on them and say, like, hey, the military is coming.
Be careful, right?
Right.
It's like, what am I going to do?
Am I going to bust my ass and struggle and try to, you know, Whatever, work in a fucking cornfield or do some other fucking manual labor for pennies.
Yeah.
Or do this, get a fucking gun and kill some people and make tens of thousands of dollars.
Yeah, exactly.
And it's not like, for my experience, it's not like the cartel is enticing them or, you know, like forcing them to work.
Just everybody knows about it, right?
They're just around all the time.
But they are the only ones with the huge pickup trucks, you know, with the blings and the grills and everything.
So they're like, Dude, I want to be like them.
They have like cool fucking pickup trucks.
And my neighbor is 15 years old and he has already an Atb and and a pickup, you know.
So they're like hey dude, where do you get that pickup from?
And it's like from I don't know.
They usually have a name right from from El Tilin, or from El Cholo, or from whatever.
And it's like dude, can you tell him if uh if, I can go into?
And it's like for sure.
And those guys are like yeah, why not?
How did and why do you think El Chapo got busted And how did he end up in prison in the U.S?
Because you'd think that he would be somebody who would remain fucking untouched like El Mayo.
El Chapo was never the boss of the Sinaloa cartel.
He was never the no, he was never the boss of the Sinaloa cartel.
Not at all.
You know, most of the people don't know or don't grasp the idea that the Sinaloa cartel was not born in Sinaloa.
It was born in L.A. That's where the Sinaloa cartel actually grew and was born.
In Los Angeles?
In Los Angeles.
That's the basically, the cradle of the Sinaloa cartel.
El Mayo Zambada was one of the founders, along with a Cuban man that I forget his name right now, that was like the father in law or something like that for El Mayo.
And they both were immigrants living in LA.
And they started because the first thing you need to be a successful trafficker is a buyer, right?
You can have all the products you want, but if you don't have a buyer, You have nowhere to go, no money to make.
So, these two guys made a whole network of buyers in LA and they started moving the money.
They knew the place, they knew Sinaloa, they had family there.
So, they started making the strings.
The first time the Sinaloa cartel became a cartel, it was established in LA from buyers in LA.
And what were they selling?
Cocaine?
Weed?
Weed.
Weed, okay.
Yeah, exactly.
It was weed at the very beginning.
But also, like the first.
Established connection to bring huge loads for the Sinaloa cartel of cocaine were as well buyers in LA.
Wait, was that in the 80s?
That was in the 80s, yeah.
Okay, so that was like Roger Reeves era.
Yeah, exactly.
So that's the first thing, right?
And the thing El Chapo grew up in Badirahuato, a very small town in Sinaloa.
Someone gave him a job, right?
Wash the cars, you know, like to actually clean the cars and the shit and got like more involvement.
But what he had was a huge fucking ego and a huge fucking necessity to be recognized other than a little indio from the mountains, right?
He wanted to be someone else.
And I guess that served its purpose for the cartel.
It's like, oh, so you want to be important, right?
You want to be someone.
So why aren't you the face of the cartel, you know?
Go out there, have the money, have everything you want.
You're the fucking face while we.
Run the cartel from behind, talking about El Mayo and talking about white collar people, right?
Like lawyers, politicians, business owners, and all that stuff.
They were like, as soon as he's willing to put his fucking face out there, like, we're good, man.
Habit it.
And he did.
He wanted to make a fucking film.
He wanted to make documentaries.
So, what was he doing?
What was his role at the peak of his involvement?
I guess he was like a manager for the whole thing.
It's like.
If you had, I don't know, a store in this place, and I'm the real owner, I'm the one with the money, with the hooks, with everything, but I'm like, okay, I'm getting the money, the big bucks.
Do you want to take care of this and be the face to our clients?
He's like the Ronald McDonald.
Yes, exactly.
Chopper's like the Ronald McDonald for the Sinoda cartel.
And once his purpose stopped serving the real owners, they deliver him.
They were like, fuck it.
It's not.
We'll give you Chopper.
Exactly.
Because he was too flashy by then, right?
Every fucking body knew his face, his whereabouts.
Everybody knew his whole family.
I have most of his family on my Instagram account.
Still have a lot of money.
Man, what do you mean on your instagram account?
They have instagram accounts and they're following you.
They're following me, not following them man yeah yeah, and they're they.
Most of them are living in the Us.
They don't even.
Many don't even speak Spanish man really, he's um, he has a a two or three year old um, granddaughter living in La and her gift for this birthday was uh, I think it was a Raptor, a Raptor Ford, or Ford Raptor, but like the fucking, The 2022 Ford Raptor, or something like that.
So he was just a manager and he had that kind of money.
He has that kind of money.
Exactly.
How does he have that money still?
How is he doing it from prison?
I think, I mean, you don't need to be there for every deal, right?
You just need to have the contacts and the sources and keep everybody at play and playing their role.
Go kill that guy.
Go do this.
Go do that.
And he's doing that?
And he used to do that.
Right now, he's not able to even talk to anyone.
He only has three calls.
A month and to vetted people, right?
So it's basically his granddaughter, one of his daughters, also, and his mom.
And he can only speak 15 minutes a month to speak to whichever of those three person he can talk to, and his lawyers, his attorneys.
I had an exclusive interview with his main attorney posted on my Instagram as well last week, where she tells a lot of details about how El Chapo is, really.
She says he's funny.
He has a good sense of humor.
He's very respectful.
And that he knows that if the U.S. wants to stop the cartels, you'll have to go against politicians.
And so that's an interesting thing.
Against what politicians?
Against the U.S. politicians?
And Mexico, both.
U.S. and Mexican politicians.
That's how you stop the cartel.
And I'm like, wow, that's a fucking interesting thing.
Have you ever met El Chapo?
Never met, but I saw him on his last.
Arrest before being extradited.
He was arrested in Mexico City and he was presented to the press from the Mexico hangar, from the military base where he was being held before being transported to Ciudad Juarez, actually.
I tried to go into the prison in Ciudad Juarez to try and see if I could speak to someone, but now he was like completely on the shoe, you know, like he was not able to.
I mean, the guys who delivered food for him were.
They couldn't even look him in the eye.
They had to be looking somewhere else and then give him the food.
It's so crazy how, at least from my perspective, it seems like the media has portrayed him as like the kingpin bot, like the number one jefe of the Sinaloa cartel.
Illegal Money and Smugglers00:05:31
It's also a purpose, man.
When you work in the news, and I'm telling you because I work in the fucking news, it's super difficult to tell a story right because you would need to write so many words and enter in so many details.
That your articles will have to be extra fucking long and complicated articles explaining how everything works, right?
So, the easiest way is, let's just say, El Chapo, right?
I mean, he's sort of like the manager and the head, and everybody says he's the head.
So, just put El Chapo because people know his name.
People know who we're talking about.
It serves a purpose, especially for getting clicks and views and clickbait type shit.
Yeah.
Totally.
You're talking about El Chapo, people are going to click on it.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And I mean, I've written stories, obviously, trying to set things straight and say, like, okay, he was just a fucking manager.
Because how comes.
If he was responsible for all this shit, he's in jail.
He's not even to speak to anyone right now.
How comes his family keeps getting a lot of fucking money?
How comes his organization, the Sinaloa Cartel, has never shipped so many cocaine than when he was in jail, right?
They're shipping more since he's been in prison?
Exactly.
More.
Yeah.
So it's like, dude, I mean, it's obviously not working, right?
That kingpin strategy, it's not fucking working.
It's just a waste of the taxpayers' money.
How much money are they spending on keeping El Chapo locked, on paying agents to go into Mexico to try to capture a kingpin, to put him behind jail, behind bars, to transport him, extradite him, and all that shit.
And at the end, it doesn't really make nothing on the real business, right?
On the coke trade, on the drug trade.
Why don't we if America wanted to, they could completely take out the cartels.
But how would they do that?
I think first of all, you have to go after the money and not after the guys, right?
If you stop the flow on money, however it is, by freezing their accounts, seizing bank accounts, because we're talking about these guys are laundering money in U.S. companies.
They're laundering money through U.S. banks, through U.S. established companies.
So you have to go after all of that fucking shit.
I mean, the remittances.
That go to Mexico and Mexico is super proud of that, saying like wow, or people in the US, hardworking people has never sent more money to their families in Mexico.
The 80% of those fucking remittances are going to of the what of the remittances?
Remittances it's, it's the money the immigrant an immigrant in the US working sends back to his family.
Okay, you know, like through MoneyGram and all that stuff, all this, all this kind of stuff, And they say it's to support their families in Mexico, right?
That's why they're working here.
But the reality is most of that money is going to smugglers to keep their business going and keep their family trying to bring their family into the U.S.
But that money ends up in the smugglers' pocket.
And that's the reality.
And people don't grasp it because when they say like, oh, so they're not so poor because if they're paying eight fucking grand to get across the border illegally, I mean, you can establish a business in Mexico where they grant easily, right?
A small restaurant, something like that.
But it's not the money of the people in Mexico.
That's money from the people working in the US.
And that's basically payment for smugglers.
That's not remittances.
That's payment for bringing illegally people into the US.
So, I mean, this world works like that.
It's all on our noses, working under established companies.
Established money being sent into Mexico, but behind that, it's a whole fucking criminal world operating right in front of us.
So these cartels are also making money by trafficking people across the border?
Yeah.
They've never made more money out of that than what they're doing right now after the pandemic.
Really?
And they're charging $8,000 a person?
Yes.
On the best case scenario, this guy who works, I was telling you, in Sonora, a border state with Arizona, was telling me they're raising their rates to $15,000 per person.
They're making shit tons of money, man.
Imagine a trailer like what we saw in San Antonio full of, I don't know, 60 migrants and each one paying at least 10 grand, 8 grand.
That's a shit ton of money.
Yeah.
Right?
That's fucking wild, man.
Yeah.
I had no idea that that was going on.
Yeah, man.
I mean, for cartels, we have to understand that everything that it's illegal, they're going to bank on that.
They're going to bank on everything that you make illegal, right?
Or everything that has a good fucking profit.
I'm talking about avocado from Michoacan.
They're banking a lot of fucking money from avocados.
They're banking on everything they can, on everything they can right now.
Yeah, it's interesting.
Banking on Everything Illegal00:02:19
One of the things that Roger Rees was also telling me was that George or Choa, he was like, Yeah, he's like, I know exactly where he lives.
I know where his house is.
I could fly you there right now.
He's like, He's sitting there probably drinking a glass of whiskey, smoking a cigar.
He's like, He has a horse ranch.
I was like, How the fuck is he doing?
Like, how does he.
This guy is completely immune to everything after everything he's done all the People that he's killed.
Like he's completely just living free, riding his horses in Mexico.
That's what struck me also about the sons of El Mayo, right?
When I learned that one of his sons was free to go back and forth from the US and Mexico, I called his lawyer.
No, his lawyer called me first because he was, he called me to tell me that his client was sort of like angry at me about an article I published where I had.
The name of his client, the son of El Mayo um, because I said that he was still working with the organization of his of his dad.
Uh, the lawyer called you and the lawyer called me a Us Based lawyer.
And he called me and told me that his client was not happy about my story and that I should leave that part out of my story or change it.
And i'm like dude i'm, i'm backing up my sources.
They're pretty strong sources um, inside the Sinalo organization and they know for a fact that your client is still Taking decisions for the organization.
And he's like, My client is a family man.
He's working legally on a corn farm in Mexico, in Sonora, in Caborca.
And Caborca is like one of the hottest places in Mexico for the family hotel.
And I'm like, Is he able to go back and forth then?
And he's like, No, he's established his life in the U.S.
But then, like, two or three weeks later, he got involved in an accident where his wife died in Caborca.
And I'm like, I mean, he wasn't really supposed to be in Mexico.
And it's like, no comment.
And I'm like, so he's able to go back and forth because he got into an accident in Mexico, in Caborca.
But why would you, fuck man, I can't imagine if one of El Mayo's kids, lawyers, called me and said, don't publish this shit.
I'm not going to lie, I would be hesitant to publish it.
A Wife's Death in Caborca00:15:36
I mean, it was already published.
And second of all, I told him, like, all right, so if you have something to say, I can't publish your version of what you say as a lawyer.
And it's like, no, don't quote me.
And then I'm like, okay, so then tell your client that he can openly talk to me and go on record.
And I can definitely write a whole story about his version of things.
And he's like, no, he's not talking.
And I'm like, so what am I supposed to do?
And then he basically hung up the phone and then sent me a text message with a paragraph and say, like, this is what you should write.
And I'm like, well, this is not how it works, right?
I need to quote what you're telling me.
I need to make it attributable to someone.
Right.
I can't just say that because you're asking me to, right?
So, my phone is open, you know where to find me.
And if you want to go on the record or tell me who I'm gonna attribute this quote to, by all means.
And he never answered back.
So, explain the story how you got kidnapped.
I was basically starting to write, right?
I started working on a local newspaper in Ciudad Juarez by not by chance because I was already looking, but I was too young.
I was, I was.
In my first year of college, and I went into this local newspaper, the main local newspaper in Ciudad Juarez, which is called El Diario de Juarez.
And I went basically to apply for a job to be a delivery boy, right?
So I'm like, I can work during the night delivering the paper, being the first one to read it, and actually just, you know, like sneaking to the newsroom to start finding how this works and figure out if I really want to be a journalist or not.
So I went there.
And the editor of the paper got confused and he thought I was there applying for a copy editor position.
So he um, he came down from the stairs and told me, oh, you're here for that copy editor, uh position, right.
And i'm like yes, come on up.
And he showed me around, he put me in front of a computer and said, like okay, so that's uh, your first, your first job, right?
And I had no clue on what the to do, you know.
So I asked around, like what should I do?
How do I turn on this machine and everything.
Of course, after I don't know, maybe three months, they learned that I faked my position.
But I was already in and I was already working and doing some good jobs.
So we were like, ah, fuck it, man.
We're going to give you the job on the longer term.
So I started very young without actually college education, right?
So I started learning while I was working and going to college.
That's incredible.
And it was pretty cool to me.
How old are you now?
I'm 35.
Okay.
And so that was pretty cool to me.
But at the same time, I didn't have the proper tools, right?
And not to say we have never seen anything like that fucking war on drugs in Mexico before.
That was the first time in the whole country that we started seeing people honking from the beaches, that amount of murders in the city, talking about a fight between cartels that ruthless, talking about You know, like bazookas in the middle of a fucking gunfight, you know, like grenades.
So it was full-on war.
We didn't know when to do it.
Not even like experienced journalists had experienced that before.
So I was in the battleground learning at school, at a newspaper, and at the same time in the streets of the fucking epicenter of a drug war.
So in the middle of all of that, I started like publishing some investigations like how cartels were recruiting people over Metroflog.
Back then, before MySpace and before Facebook.
What was it called?
It was called Metroflog.
Okay.
And it was huge in Mexico.
It was like a social network.
And they started recruiting people, young sicarios over Metroflock, right?
And I published that, and that gained a lot of attention for that story from everywhere, from other journalists, but also from sources in the cartel, but also in law enforcement.
So I had this guy who told me that he was an informant for the DEA and that he had a lot of information about what's going on in Mexico.
And we kept writing back and forth for at least a year before I actually met him in Ciudad Juarez.
And he gave me these papers with a lot of phone numbers and audio files from a woman working for the local police in Ciudad Juarez.
She was a police officer, but she was literally fucking a military commandante, federal police commander as well, and a local police chief.
So she was in bed with the three of them and an arco.
So she was sharing information all over.
You know, like she was getting paid by all over those guys, but to share information about each other.
So she was like in the middle of of everything uh, he gave me her name, her phone number, a lot of uh recordings he had on on her and how she was operating and of course, I published a story.
Right, this is a local police woman in bed with all these people sharing information.
On one of the calls that I got, I got to listen how she's dealing information between each other.
She said this and that, so I had the whole story.
It went to um, to the cover of the newspaper on both sides, in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez.
So it was a huge story.
I was super happy because I was like, wow, finally my stories are making the front page, right?
And that was that my editor told me, are you sure you want to have your byline, your name on the byline?
We can have a different name or a nickname or something.
And I'm like, of course I need my name, man.
It's a huge fucking investigation.
And that was my mistake.
After, I don't know, two or three nights, I left my girlfriend at the time at her house, was driving back to my parents' house.
And two police officers and different pickup trucks stopped me in the middle of the night.
They started hitting my window with their guns like, get the fuck out of the car.
And I was pretty sure that they were taking me by mistake, right?
I was like, they're looking for someone else.
It's a fucking mess in the city.
And I'm the only.
Dude that it's out one in the morning in the streets, but I had my my newspaper badge and everything so I went down from my car They started like kicking me and pushing me around I was like hey dude, I think you're mistaken.
It's like we're not mistaken man.
You know what you did they keep kicking me and and beating me and I Never I never understood like until that point.
I was like why are they that these guys are just fucking confusing I mean like what did I do and they're like you know what you did after a while of that They took my car keys.
One of those guys jumped into my car and started driving and they tied my hands and my ankles and put me in the back of a pickup truck and they put their foot on top of my on the back of your pickup truck?
No, a different one.
On their pickup, on the official police pickup truck, right?
And they put their feet on my back so I will stay down while they were driving.
They started driving for about, I don't know, like 20, 25 minutes.
And then I felt they went like into a dirt road.
And I was like, fuck, man, I'm fucked.
And they stopped, they untied me.
And one of those guys told me, like the commander told me, I'm going to give you a chance to run.
So start fucking running.
And I immediately knew that he was going to fucking shoot me in the back if I started running and said he got me there by mistake or that I had a gun on me or some shit like that.
So I was like, I'm not going to run, man.
It's like, are you stupid or what?
I'm giving you a fucking chance to run and you're not taking it.
And I'm like, nah, man.
I know what's inside.
These guys were straight up playing on executing you.
Yeah, yeah, totally.
Because he told me, he told me, like, they're going to find you.
He used this word.
He told me they will find you in the back of your car as a cattle, as dead cattle.
Right, come Una Vaca Muerta.
That's what he told me.
So they, they were up to me like they were really trying to kill me and I remember that I got in my knees and I don't remember being yelling or screaming.
But the commander told me, stop fucking yelling.
And I'm like I'm not yelling, I'm just asking you for a favor.
And it's like you're not in no position of asking a favor.
And he started like beating me again with this fucking gun and I'm like I'm not, I'm not yelling, I'm just asking you for 10 minutes.
10 minutes, give me a number and I can have the money, someone to bring the money here and just give me 10 minutes.
How much money will 10 minutes cost me?
And he's like it's not like that man, you fucked up with the wrong person, so you're fucked.
And then another guy stepped in and said like what if we?
And then they just used code numbers right, that I sort of like understood that they were talking about that deal, that if, what if we get money?
And let him go for a few minutes.
And then we go after him.
And then we fucking kill him and get the killed and the money.
Right.
Because I remember, I think it was 25 on the radio thing.
They used to have radios, right?
Like two-way radio communications to talk between the police.
And I think 25 was referring to a male dead, to a deceased male.
And 24 was deceased woman and stuff like that.
So I remember that he said something like, what if we, 19, first, and then we 25 them?
And I was like shit, they're planning something and then they're gonna kill me, right.
So I was like that's my chance.
And I'm like yeah, I mean, just let me know, keep my fucking car, let me know how much money you need, and just give me 10 fucking minutes, because I knew I'm a dual, I'm a dual citizen, right.
So I was like I'm gonna fucking run to the US, to El Paso, and stay there forever and fuck them, right.
And then they started like fighting between each other and then the commander said like, all right Uh, you know what, bring me.
I had two cards at the time a Mexican debit card and a U.S. debit card where I was paid by the news organization I work with.
Um, but the limit, uh, to the to um withdraw from the ATM was uh six grand pesos, which is like around 300 bucks on each card.
So I bring back 600 bucks and I was like, that's the limit that I could get from the ATM.
I was walking, so they let you leave, they let me leave, and I ran by yourself, yeah.
And I'm walking though because they kept my wallet and they kept my car.
And I remember when I started walking, I was like, hey, just give me your man's word that you're not going to shoot me on the back while I walk out.
And he's like, you can't ask me for a man's word, man.
But he's like, but you give me yours.
You're not going to fucking run because we're going to find you and your family.
We have your IDs and everything.
I'm like, dude, I'm not trying to run.
And he's like, all right.
So I started walking instead of running because in my head I was like, If they shoot me, it's going to look different.
And my colleagues at the newspapers, they're going to investigate and they're going to know that I was not running, that I was actually walking and someone shot me in the back.
Because I was fucking sure that they were gonna fucking shoot me in the back.
So I started walking down this dark alley, went up to an ATM down the street, down one of the main streets, took money from both of my cards, and then came back and gave him the money.
Told him, like, just count the money.
And I was like, now there's no need.
There you go.
That's your car.
Make sure you're not missing anything from your car.
That's your wallet.
Make sure you're not missing anything from your wallet.
And we'll see you in 10 minutes.
And I'm like, all right.
And I started fucking driving like crazy.
By then it was like maybe three in the morning.
They'll see you in 10 minutes.
They were going to find me.
They were going to look for me again from the IDs that I had and from everything they gathered on me.
But the thing is, I haven't updated my ID from Mexico.
So I had an old fucking address on my Mexican ID, not the address where I was living with my parents, right?
And that address was, I mean, where I was living with my parents was a gated community, super fucking protected, where most of the owners of Ciudad Juarez live, right?
Like the main business owners, lawyers, doctors, all this stuff.
So it's very fucking protected.
It's impossible that they go in without getting into trouble.
So yeah, that's how I left.
I went home.
I remember one thing.
I had two phones on me.
I had my personal phone and the phone from the newspaper, right?
And they asked me to turn off the phones.
So when I was turning off I turned off the work phone and when I was about to turn off my personal phone, my girlfriend called me to see if everything was good.
And instead of turning off the phone, I answered.
So she started listening everything and she called my parents.
And both of them were listening when these guys told me that they were going to find me dead on the back of my car, that they were going to kill me, when they started beating me, all that shit.
So when I got home, my parents were fucking hysterical.
Oh my.
They were like, what the f- fuck is going on.
My dad was fucking crazy and I was like I just need to need need to go, I need to go, I need to go.
And I packed a fucking backpack, you know, with clothes.
I remember I only packed, um, I only packed uh, jeans and no fucking shirts because I was not thinking straight.
What did you do?
Straight to El Paso.
And I went straight to El Paso to to a hotel, and then I started renting a department in El Paso and I remember it was fucking dark times.
I was.
I was crying almost every fucking night because I was looking at my city and looking at the, You know, I was like, I want to go back.
That's my fucking city, man.
That's where I want to leave.
And I lived in an apartment.
It's like in a small hill.
And I would look over to Ciudad Juarez, to the whole fucking city.
And just thinking about how many people were being killed and what happened to me and that traumatic event and all this shit.
And the fact that I couldn't just go there.
And the fact that I had to change my beat of writing from writing from security and investigation to fucking sports and cultural shit in El Paso.
It was just too much, and I remember I used to drink a lot and cry a lot like every night, you know, because I was feeling so bad about that.
Uh, and then like nine months later, a source of mine, a guy who I went to in middle school, he uh he was he started working later eventually, he started working with a Korean organization in Juarez, right?
He started like growing up because his dad used to be a Narco, and then he started like playing the same path.
Moving Back to Juarez00:02:37
Uh, and he called me.
And he told me, he asked me like, hey, what happened to you?
And I'm like, nothing.
And he's like, where are you?
And I'm like, I might work at El Diario.
And he's like, and what happened?
And I'm like, what do you mean?
Because I didn't tell anyone, like anyone.
I didn't want anyone to fucking know what happened to me because I was so fucking scared for my family that was still living in Juarez.
I did a report to human rights to leave it as background for something happened to me.
I had a file on human rights, the International Commission of Human Rights, and that was fucking it.
And he told me, no, I know that something happened.
And I'm like, no, man.
He's like, well, I don't know why are you not trusting me if I have always trusted you with my sources and my information.
And now you're not trusting me.
I know something happened to you.
Anyways, you have your reason not to tell me.
But if you want to turn on the tv tonight, i'm gonna leave you a present to make you feel better and i'm like whatever turned on the news at.
It was.
I think it was like at 9 p.m and in the same spot where these uh first two pickup trucks stopped me before taking me, that in that same place those both pickup trucks were shot dead.
They killed the police officers and i'm pretty sure it was The same police officers that stopped me that night.
So I think it was him.
I think it was my contact who actually got them killed, got the police killed and shit.
And I called him back.
So he knew about all this.
He knew about you.
So that means he must have known about you getting kidnapped and the plan for you to get executed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I asked him, crying, angry, and told him that to never call me again.
I was like, dude, I don't want to carry those fucking buddies with me.
You know, like, that's not my fault.
I'm a fucking journalist.
I'm not a fucking murderer.
I never asked you for anything.
You up, that's on you, that's on your hands, not mine.
And he was like, aren't you happy you can actually go back to Juarez now and feel safe?
And i'm like dude, it's not how it works man, i'm not in that world.
Stop calling me.
Um, i'm telling you, from today on, we're not friends, we're I don't know you man, bye.
And I stopped communicating with him.
Up until today, i've never have a word again with him.
This is a guy that you know since since uh, since kids.
He used to be my nerve neighbor and then we went to school together and all that.
So it was a very mixed feeling, right?
Because at the same time, I was like, that's not who I am.
But at the same time, I was like, wow, does that mean that I can go back to my city and feel safe again?
Living with Adrenaline Rush00:02:02
Right.
And I started going day by day and feeling more comfortable and more comfortable.
And then I moved back into Juarez.
So I fucking love living in Juarez, man.
Really?
What is it about Juarez that's so much better?
What do you love about it?
I don't know, man.
I don't know.
I mean, of course, I have family now.
So that's why we have a house in El Paso, but we rent a.
apartment in Juarez.
But, and of course my family stays the longest time in El Paso.
We don't really spend much time in Juarez.
But every time I can, I stay there.
I just fucking love the path to the city.
It's a dangerous animal, you know, like so.
And I like that about Juarez.
I mean.
Is it like the adrenaline rush being there?
I guess it's the mix of I compare it to like, imagine you are the owner of a super fucking dangerous lion.
It's a lion and he can kill you anytime.
But you've known him for fucking ever and you know he's not going to kill you.
So you go in the jail and you enjoy, you know, like playing with a fucking killing animal that you know he's not going to kill you, but he might.
You know, and you know him so fucking well.
Have you ever heard of that theory people have talked?
I've heard it talked many times before where people talk about that they're supposedly A set time and place where everybody's going to die.
Yeah.
Have you heard that talked about before?
And it's like a peep.
They try to attribute it to people who are just like do crazy daredevil stunts, like that guy, Alex Holland, who climbs the mountains with no gear or anything.
He just has a bag of chalk in his hands and he climbs these giant like hundred foot cliffs.
And they try to figure out why these people just do these incredibly death defying feats with all the time and they're still alive and they seem to have no fear of it.
Like, how are you not afraid of dying?
Fear vs Curiosity in Jail00:03:23
No, I am.
The thing is, that's what I get a lot.
Of wrong from people.
They, they always assume that i'm not afraid.
You know, like that I that i'm not afraid when I go into these places where all that but I am, I am, I am afraid and i've been afraid most of my life and and I am afraid every time I have to go in bed I have i'm afraid everything, every time I get a call.
All this, but you were born in it, so you understand it better than 99.9 of people, I guess.
I guess i'm more curious than afraid.
You know i'm, i'm cute.
I mean, When the lawyer of El Mayo's son called me, I knew that something, because I was like, this is an Arizona area code phone number.
Not good news are coming from this shed.
I knew it.
So I had a choice.
I had like, I can either don't answer the call or answer the call.
If I answer the call, I'm going to engage in a conversation that I might not want to hear, you know, that I might be better, well off.
But at the same time, it's like, Fuck it.
I mean, I'm so curious to know who it is and why.
The call I just got before getting here, that guy talking about, and I know his number and I have him registered under codes as most of those sources.
And I know who he was.
And my phone started ringing.
And I'm like, oops, I'm about to leave.
I'm about to request my Uber drive to here.
But I'm like, fuck it.
Let's see what he wants.
And because I'm more curious about that, you know.
Don't you?
Do you feel like that?
You are these guys like.
You're the same.
You like you and these guys that are in these, that are working in the cartels whether, no matter what level they might be at do you feel like that you guys are like the same.
It's just that you kind of you took one different turn at one point, but you guys are still like.
Everything about you is the same, like you could easily have been him.
He could have easily been you.
More than that.
I feel like I'm the same as every other fucking human in in the world, and that's I think that's my advantage, right?
Like, we are all a grayscale.
There's no bad guy that is fully bad.
There's no good guy that is fully good.
When you see someone that is portrayed as 100% a bad person, there's something wrong about that.
It's like there's something off.
There's something that it's not right and it's not completely true.
The same as if you feel that one guy is so fucking good and he's 100% a good person, there has to be something super fucking off on that dude, you know?
Yeah, because we're.
That doesn't exist, man and I'm, and I know that for a fucking fact there is no black or white right.
We are all a fucking grayscale.
Some of us are a little more on on the on the darker side of that grayscale, some of us more on the whiter, wider you know like scale, But we are.
And then that's how I feel about everyone, every single fucking human, and I guess that's.
I guess they see the humanity in these people that no one else does, and I think they perceive that that I treat them yeah, as I will treat everybody fucking else.
A president, You as older, my friend, you know, like they're not my friend, so I don't talk to them like, hey, amigo, you know.
Pitching Gray Scale Stories00:08:02
I talk to them with respect, respecting that they're a fucking human and that I'm not especially afraid of them for any particular reason.
That's what they do for fucking leaving.
They're adults.
That's what they chose.
And I have nothing to do with that.
I'm not pushing them or asking them out of that.
I'm just taking them for what they are.
It's like, okay, that was your fucking choice.
I'm not judging.
And by showing fear, you're judging someone.
You're judging that you're dangerous.
You're violent.
You are a bad guy, and I'm the good guy because I'm the one afraid of you.
And by not having or showing the fear you have, it's like equals.
It's like, yeah, I can be bad too, man, and you can be good too, and whatever.
I don't care about that.
Let's talk business.
Let's talk what you want to talk about.
Does that not frustrate the shit out of you when you see the main news organizations, especially on TV, talk about everything?
Because they talk about everything in black and white.
That's the narrative.
You got to paint it one.
This news organization paints it black.
This news organization paints it white and they all try to just like like, generalize everything.
Yeah, I mean it's.
It's frustrating because i'm part of that.
You know, like i'm, I right, that's what i'm saying must be so frustrating.
I, I work for news outlets and every time I pitch something it's not interesting, and every time I know that i'm gonna pitch something that it's interesting, it's because it's over simplistic, right?
I mean, I got used to it, i'm used to it and that's why i'm uh, being more active and on my social accounts on, like my instagram account, to To talk about how I really feel about issues, how am I really finding these particular issues or people or stuff, right?
Because, I mean, one thing is to put up a news where you say, oh, Chapo was the biggest trafficker in the world, whatever.
But when I go on my Instagram or my Twitter, I go and say, like, well, he's not really the boss.
And I try to explain what's behind that news, right?
And I try to have, I don't know, like live streams, every month at least, where I. Talk about that and and I talk about like the latest news and try to go more in depth about about all that stuff.
That's why I guess I come to shows like like, like yours, like the one, the other channel trying to to set the record straight.
Right, because the, the news, are not the place to do that.
I mean, they they are supposed to, but they're not.
So does that, does the process work?
Where you're you're pitching stories to, Just like your contacts in the media, like you have different relationships with different like publications like Vice or Business Insider, and you kind of come up with stories, or did they ever reach out to you and ask you to do reporting?
Both.
I guess at the beginning it was more of me pitching a lot.
Okay.
I used to, I used to, um, had a like a record of pitching, and I was like, okay, how many stories did I pitch on this week?
And I was pitching about 200 stories a month.
So I was like pitching a show.
Wow.
And getting 10% of those approved.
How the fuck do you find 200 stories to pay?
There's a lot of fucking stories all over Latin America happening at the same time.
And so it's just a matter of being aware and how you look that same news that everybody's reporting on and finding a new angle, you know?
And as a freelancer, you have to be way better than their staffers.
Not better in the sense of better journalists, but with a different perspective than their staffers.
Something their staffers are not tapping, right?
Because otherwise they will go like, nah, I'm already having this guy on a payroll, so I'm going to go with his story.
So, you have to bring something new, something different about that story.
And it's about how you look at the world.
And I think I've always had that look into the world in a different manner than most of the people.
And it's just a matter of how I see it and how I perceive stories and how I perceive the world.
And so I used to pitch like a shit ton of fucking stories.
Of course, some of the editors were fed up with my pitching.
They were like, fuck, man, this is too many fucking stories.
Really?
So I had to come up with different outlets, right?
Like, okay, I'm not going to pitch 50 stories to Business Insider and 50 to Buys and 50, you know?
I was like, I'm going to find 20 different news outlets and pitch everyone a story that is more catered to their needs, right?
So I know that Buys has a certain style and certain.
They like certain type of stories.
Business Insider is different um, the Daily Beast is different, CBS is different, NEW um tv like Netflix shows and everything like that it's different.
So so I started like catering for everyone and i'm a workaholic, so i'm working almost 20 hours a day and do they ever like with your stories at all?
Like the editors like try to get you to change stuff and make it a lot like sway it like, make it weird a lot, and I used to and I Somewhere along the way, I lost my willing to push to the right story.
You mean willing to push back against some shit?
But very recently, I recovered that will to push back and say, like, hey, I'm not liking that.
I'm not happy with this or I'm not happy with that or the way you're saying this because it's not necessarily true.
You have Substack, right?
Yeah, I have a Substack account where I post most of the.
Stuff that goes out from my editors, right?
Like that interview with Chap's attorney.
With who?
With El Chapo's attorney.
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
I think the main thing was to paint a different picture about El Chapo, about Emma Coronel, his wife, and about how the attorney ended up being the attorney of the fucking most notorious drug cartel boss, you know, and about how he felt that the U.S. needs to go against politicians of both sides of the wall, of the border.
But when I pitched that, I didn't ring the editors.
The editors needed something more simplistic, right?
They wanted to talk about the role of women in the narco world.
And if I could speak to the attorney about that the role of women in the narco world, like how women are stepping in more and more, getting more involved in better places, better places, well, more high up above in the organization, which is pretty cool.
But to me, it was like a waste of time talking about that with El Chapo's attorney, right?
Right.
So, yeah, I mean.
They wanted to fit.
Yeah.
They wanted to fit into certain things that they think work for them.
And I think it's cool.
I mean, that's their job.
And most of my editors are really respectable people and really respectable journalists.
But at the same time, some stories are not their feet, right?
And instead of sending them straight to the trash bin, I started a Substack account where I post most of those stories that don't really make it or didn't make it like.
The way I was receiving that news and maybe going raw, you know, like putting.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm sure that's the goal, right?
Is to be a completely independent publishing your own shit.
Because if I can think about any of the most notable journalists or reporters that I actually think are interesting or pay attention to, they're completely independent.
They're not staffers for fucking Business Insider or some revise.
You know what I mean?
These guys are completely doing their own thing.
They're rogue in a sense.
Yeah.
Which is fucking hard on the financial side of it, you know?
You need to fucking work a lot to make a decent living out of that.
And the thing is, the whole thing about how payments go, because they pay you 30 days later after publication, and you have to submit an invoice and pay your own taxes.
And sometimes they're late.
You're talking about Substack?
You're talking about like the publications?
Fentanyl Labs in Sinaloa00:12:18
Publications.
Oh, yeah.
So, yeah.
So you have to be a fucking mastermind of the accounting, you know, to have your accounting on check and not face money gaps.
You know.
So, at the beginning, when I started freelancing, like 10 years ago uh, I I faced a lot of money gaps where I did my.
My money flow was not well organized and sometimes I was like what the I have zero money for the whole month.
That's crazy.
And and then I started like working on that right, working on on setting better prices for my stories, saying no to publications that want a low volume um, and being more smart about invoicing and, you know, like Having a fucking whole thing organized when this is the day that I shall invoice because I'm getting paid up until the next month.
Right.
Right.
So I need to put more stories to the next month to make up for that.
So it's a hard thing to balance when you just want to go do the fun shit.
Yeah.
I just want to be creative and do cool shit.
I don't want to fucking worry about it.
Totally.
Because you're, I mean, you're tied up enough with talking with these people, trying to set up interviews, traveling on your own money, all this shit.
Right.
And then after that, you're still going to have to go to all of your financial stuff, you know, like getting paid and the invoices.
Paying your taxes, all that shit.
So it's, it's, it's, it's a lot of grind work.
Yeah man, so it's a lot of work.
Yes um, when did fentanyl become first come on the scene in Mexico?
I mean, I know it's been going on for since, at least since since 2015, but over the last two years especially, I feel like the fentanyl thing with the opioid and the overdoses with fentanyl have been just skyrocketing.
Yeah, the thing is, the crazy thing is uh, fentanyl it's a story in the Us, but it's not a story in Mexico, Because fentanyl is not saying in Mexico.
No one is doing fentanyl in Mexico.
No one is consuming fentanyl in Mexico.
If you go to any city like Ciudad Juarez or Culiacán or Monterrey or whichever city you go, Cancun or whatever, and try to get a pill, you're not going to get anything.
You can't find it, not even in Monterey?
No.
Dude, funny story about Monterey.
I have a bunch of Mexican friends and they taught me, I used to know Spanish very well.
I could speak it, I could hold a conversation, like somewhat at least.
And I would try to convince, like, I'd bet my buddies be like, I bet you I could convince him I'm Mexican.
And he would just, I would get little tips, like, how could I convince this dude I'm Mexican?
He goes, just say soy de Monterrey.
All the white Mexicans are from Monterrey.
Of course.
You could easily play that out.
That's funny.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, it's impossible to get pills because the same criminal organizations have it prohibited, right?
You can't sell fentanyl in Mexico to Mexicans.
It's all for export.
Well, the fentanyl in the U.S. is like hidden, though, right?
Like, it's not, you're not actually buying fentanyl.
People who are Dying are trying to buy other shit that's cut with fentanyl.
Yes, exactly.
But there's two ways fentanyl is getting into the U.S. One, it's pure fentanyl, where they ship pure fentanyl so people in the U.S. can cut their own shit.
They're manufacturing here.
They're manufacturing, well, they're getting it from China.
Well, they're manufacturing the pills and shit.
Exactly, yeah.
And the other is the actual pills or heroin or coke laced with fentanyl and shipped into the U.S. Here's one thing I don't fucking get.
How is.
There's no way people are intentionally cutting Coke with fentanyl.
I don't think so.
Because it's the complete polar opposite drug.
If you want to keep selling your Coke and you're giving people Coke with fentanyl, I mean, you're not going to keep your clients for very long.
No, I don't think so.
I don't think so.
At some point, I was convinced that that was a myth that Coke mixed with fentanyl because I found no proof.
But then I found proof in the U.S. of U.S. law enforcement who started sending me results from analysis, drug tests, where Coke was being mixed with fentanyl.
But I think, and I'm guessing, that has to be unintentional.
Yeah, exactly.
I read an article and I saw, I found, A guy was basically, I guess he was just going around doing coke in different cities andor asking coke dealer testing coke from different cities.
And I think what the analysis was is the people who are buying like shit from the street, like the shitty stuff from like low level drug dealers who are selling you have low level drug dealers who are selling cheap shit to poor people, and these guys are selling coke and heroin to the same people and they're cutting it on the same fucking table.
So they're accidentally getting a little bit of fentanyl in the coke.
But the people who are like the rich people who are buying it from high level, people who don't mix the, these guys aren't selling heroin, they're just selling coke.
So you're not going to get it cut with exactly that's.
That's exactly what I think it's happening, because there's no.
I mean, it wouldn't really make sense to cut your coke with fent right, right.
But I mean on, on my own experience, i've never found someone who was actually telling me like we're cutting coke with fentanyl.
I have never.
And then there's these craziest stories about weed laced with fentanyl.
Weed laced with fentanyl right, and it's like how and why.
You know it's, I don't know man, it's uh, it might be happening, but not that i'm aware of.
You know, I keep reading stories, but it's always from sketchy news outlets that they're putting out these super fucking, you know, like so the people in the U.S. that are dying, the large majority of people who are dying from fentanyl, what is it?
How is that happening?
Are they intentionally taking fentanyl or is it just the vast majority, it's an intentional overdose of taking something that it's laced, usually this fucking pale fake Perco, the fake Percocet pills.
Percocets.
The fake blue pills.
Yeah, those that shit.
I went into a laboratory in Sinaloa of fake Percocets and dude, it's I mean, it's it's crazy how how that shit is how they're manufacturing those pills in a small fucking apartment I was I was in one of those biggest labs two years ago I think or three years ago in Sinaloa as well and the thing used to be very different.
It was huge lab in the in the outskirts of Culiacan Um, so it was like outdoors lav, you know, like what you think with huge barrels of precursors and shit.
And they will do huge batches of fentanyl laced, um, like paste that they will turn into pills, press into pills later.
Um, but then apparently this year, El Mayo ordered the whole industry to make smaller labs all over the city, more labs, but smaller, the smaller quantities.
So if they will get busted.
They will just find a lab and they won't lose that small amount.
Exactly.
Right.
So I went there last year to one of these small new labs.
And I mean, they don't even know what they're fucking getting, right?
They just got a Chinese man, a Chinese chemist, straight from China to teach them how to fucking cook pills, mixed fentanyl, because everything, all the precursors and fentanyl is coming straight from China to the Sinaloa cartel.
So who's sending the Chinese chemist?
The Chinese triads, which pretty sure the fucking government.
Holy shit.
And who's paying this fucking chemist?
The Sinaloa cartel.
The cartels paying.
Both cartels, Sinaloa and Cartel Jalisco, are paying like the same group in China, right?
And this Chinese chemist came here while coming to Mexico and they teach both on different places and different dates and everything, like by separately.
But it's the same guys that are showing both how to do shit, you know?
Whoa.
And it's crazy.
So I went into one of these labs.
Is this one of the labs you went to?
Yeah, exactly.
That's the lab I was.
I think last year.
Wow.
And that's one of the Sinaloa chemists that was recently, you know, shown by this Chinese chemist on how to cook those pills.
So this was a Chinese guy?
No, that was a Mexican guy, but he learned straight from this Chinese guy.
And he told me how, he basically said, like, the Chinese came here and he was like, I'm going to be here for three months and you're just going to watch how I do shit.
Every single time I do a new batch, you're just going to watch.
And after three months, you're going to be on test.
You're going to make a test for me.
And if you're ready and it will ship that shit to the U.S. and the shit sells and the customers are happy with it and everything, then you're ready to go.
Otherwise, I'm going to have to stay here another three months and stuff.
So that's how that guy learned how to make pills.
He's like, okay, at the three months, he stopped and he said, like, okay, you're flying solo.
I started cooking.
He just watched and watched and watched.
I made a whole batch.
We shipped it over.
And the shit was good.
They have a test that I show on the video how they test the pills for quality.
And apparently, they use a foil paper, aluminum paper, and then they put the peel and they start burning the paper.
And if the peel slides, that means it's a good quality peel.
And if the peel gets stuck, that means it's a shitty batch and you have to do all over again.
Now, is this because the fentanyl is cheaper than what they used to use?
Yeah, man.
What do they used to use?
Just opium?
Yeah, they used to do heroin, basically.
Heroin.
But fentanyl, it's not that it's cheaper, but you have to use less of a quantity to make it super fucking strong.
They have addicts in the city that they test pills with as well.
They give them a pill or two.
That's got to be a crazy thing when you're making a giant batch of those things.
If you put a little bit too much fentanyl in there.
Actually, one of his helpers, one of the helpers of this, look, he's testing the pill for quality.
Oh, is this what he said when it slides?
To make sure it slides.
If you see the pill slide, the pill will stalk.
That means that's not a good pill.
Wow.
But that was not the proper laboratory.
Later that night, that other guy on the yellow thing.
I've got the echoing again.
No, we're good.
That guy on the yellow thing.
He was just out of the hospital because they fucked up over a pack of fentanyl, of pure fentanyl.
What they do is, when I was there and when they were gonna throw the fentanyl into the mix, they asked me to go as far as I could from them.
And I was wearing a fucking mask, like a, you know, like a power mask, not like a face mask from COVID or whatever.
It was like these gas masks I was wearing.
Like breaking bad.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And they were like, can you get away as far as back as you can?
Because.
And they closed windows.
They sealed everything because they were like if we pour the fentanyl, the potter, and you inhale some of this shit, you're fucking done.
The guy in yellow was still shaking because he was just out of the hospital because he fucked up and he nailed, like, basically, he threw too fast the potter.
So the dust came up, you know, it lifted some dust.
He nailed that seven days in coma.
Oh my God.
And that was the day that he was just out.
So he was like, when they put the fucking fentanyl into the mix, they opened it like super slowly and they threw it like, and he was like, Like super fucking scared, you know, to do that shit.
And then they started like mixing the whole shit and the pressing the peels.
The only thing that they didn't let me record was the pressing of the peels.
They were like super sketchy about the machine, about the presser.
I was like, that's in fucking Amazon.
Guerrillas Fighting the Government00:15:29
It's super cheap and easy to find.
Why?
It's like, I don't know, man.
My boss told me specifically, you're not going to record the presser.
Really?
All right.
I mean, they allowed me to record the whole fucking precursor, the whole fucking thing, the whole apps and everything, but the presser.
So, all but all of the actual like raw, like raw fentanyl, all of it, 100% comes from China.
Yeah, 100%.
Yeah.
All of it comes from China.
Sometimes it comes from Germany, but coming from China.
So it went out from China, stopped in Germany to some organization in Germany, and that was shipped over to Mexico coast called Montanillo.
Now, has anyone ever tried to figure out who, like, who specifically in China they're getting it from?
I mean, I'm getting a lot of stuff from there, but most of them are saying triads, and then they keep sending me names of the triads and stuff.
But then I'm talking with a guy that he used to be like an undercover working for some U.S. sketchy organization in China.
He was recently blacklisted, so he had to go out from China, and he's living in Taiwan right now because he was looking into that shit.
And he told me that it's the government, the Chinese government.
It's like it's a Chinese Communist Party that it's allowing these shipments.
So is this like, I guess, the big conspiratorial question?
Is this like China trying to get revenge for the opium war that happened between the British?
The British sold tons of opium to China way, way, way back in the day and really fucked up China.
I don't know if it's revenge, but honestly, it looks like.
It seems like a conspiracy theory, you know.
Like, when you talk about that, everybody's like, Well, that sounds a little bit of a conspiracy theory, but also sort of like racist, right?
And I'm not trying to be either both, I'm trying to be very objective for what I've seen with my own eyes and reported with my own sources.
And if you were China, yeah, and wouldn't that be a great way to attack your opponent?
That's the only way they're diminishing the power of the U.S. That's their only way in the U.S., right?
Mexico is having this new or renewed diplomatic relationship with China, commercial relationship with China.
China is opening more to Mexico financially and economically.
We have more diplomatic relationship with China than before with this new government.
China is sending diplomatic people to greet.
Governments like Nicaragua that are openly socialist and blacklisted by the US, Venezuela.
So they're making their moves everywhere the U.S. is fucking up, right?
And that includes Mexico.
The relationship between Mexico and the U.S. has never been at the lowest, you know, as it is today.
Really?
Yeah, man, it's awful.
It's never been that bad.
I mean, not even during the Trump administration that was pretty hard on immigration and Mexicans and everything.
I mean, this time around with this administration, that relationship is going south super fucking quick in every single.
Issue, you know, but specifically on security, the cooperation between both countries is shitty.
I can't say it's not for the best, maybe for Mexico.
I understand what the Mexican administration is trying to do, which is gain independence and say, like, okay, my issues, I'm going to take care of my issues and you take care of yours because your help has not helped very much, right?
Funding the fucking drug cartels, shipping drugs in exchange for fighting the guerrillas back then and all that shit.
It's not working for us.
Right for Mexico and I understand that.
But at the same time you have to keep certain diplomacy right, certain relationships, especially because we're so tied together and this administration is closing.
They just closed this special UM unit in Mexico, handled by the DA that has been going for forever and that was the unit that uh captured El Chapo and several other main kingpins, and the Mexican government just closed that out of the Fucking blue.
They're just like, nah, this is a fucking corrupt organization.
It's closed.
And that was a main issue for the U.S. government.
It's like, how the fuck are you closing?
The DEA had forever, for years, had these operational planes installed in Mexico, in the Mexican airport.
And the Mexican government just asked them to take that plane out of Mexico.
So it's like, okay, take your fucking DEA plane out of Mexican soil.
Get it back to the U.S.
So they had to.
And that was pretty hard, a hard fucking act against the U.S., right?
Corporation.
The U.S. arrested.
One of the main army, top army guys in Mexico.
And Mexico had to go in and rescue that guy and set him free in Mexico.
So Mexico got in full on government to say, we need you to give us back Cienfuegos, which is like the baddest motherfucker arrested at a U.S. airport for helping the Sinaloa cartel openly.
And he was arrested under DEA custody.
And Mexico went up to say, okay, I'm going to.
Kick out every single one of your agents and diplomats in Mexico.
Because we were holding him?
If you don't release him back to us.
So that's the extent Mexico is going against their relationship to the U.S.
And China is watching all of that shit, right?
They're like, oh, you're fighting with the U.S., so let's be friends, right?
Dude, that's fucking scary.
That's crazy, man.
So essentially, the entire Mexican government is controlled by the cartels.
Yes.
I think right now it's really hard.
How much influence do they have on the.
The very top, like the president, like how much influence is there?
I think a lot.
I think a lot.
More than everybody thinks, really.
I'm not saying that it's as if they call the president and say what to do, but they definitely have the means to pressure his agenda, right?
By taking out armed people into certain strategic places.
Like, let's say the Mexican government is trying to open a new oil refinery or processing center or whatever, or a new hospital in some city.
So the bad guys will go and, I don't know, kill a couple of doctors or, you know, shoot the whole fucking scene or kill a family around the area where they were supposed to set up a new school.
Stuff like that to pressure the government to do their will, right?
To hand them contracts for the construction of a street or a hospital or of a new, I don't know, department complex or whatever.
They're making a lot of money out of legal money, legal contracts of construction specifically for roads that they need to transport drugs, right?
So they're like, we need this road.
And the Mexican government was like, well, there's no fucking money to do that road.
I was like, all right, so let's pressure your fucking government one way or another.
So you.
Feel like you have to build that fucking road.
Right.
And that we're going to get that contract also.
So they own the construction company that's building the road?
Are they somehow getting a percentage or extorting them somehow?
I guess a good percentage of the whole construction around Mexico is handed by cartel members, right?
Wow.
That's fucking bananas, bro.
It's crazy, man.
I mean, it's up to the point where it's really hard.
To say that there is a government and that there is a cartel or cartels.
It's the same, it's the the work like.
So what do you do like?
What do you like?
How do you handle that?
How does the?
U.s handle that like?
Especially when not only is it a narco state, but when you have China siphoning fentanyl through there.
It's like a.
It's like a, it's like a proxy or just like a trojan horse to get fentanyl into the United States, which is fucking up young people and like killing a lot of people in the country.
I don't know, Man.
I don't know.
That's a fucking question I make myself like every time.
But I guess the U.S. does better to a country when it stays out of it.
When they don't involve actively in trying to help a country.
Right, right, right.
When they stay away from that country, that's better for that country, right?
Unlike Ukraine.
Because they're in war, full-on war, right?
That's actually a war.
It's not a threat, a civil threat or something like that.
Right.
And what would it be if the U.S. hadn't put billions of dollars of weapons and shit into it?
Into that country, you know, exactly would it be a war?
Yeah, yeah, who knows?
But how did Afghanistan end up, right?
Didn't end up well for either.
Um, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador, Panama, Venezuela, Cuba, every single one of the Haiti, every single one of those countries has had a lot of intervention by the U.S. trying to help, and all of those countries are devastated.
Devastated.
And it's becoming an issue and it's backlashing into the US because a lot of the migrants are from those specific countries where the US had stepped in, right?
A lot of the migrants from those countries are from.
What do you mean?
Yeah, like basically the US trying to help those countries and fucking them up more than actually help is backlashing into the US because most of the migrants getting into the US are actually from those countries.
Right, right, right, right.
Yeah, that makes sense.
A lot of people from Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico.
Salvador, Guatemala.
Is anyone else talking about this thing about how all this stuff is coming in from China?
Is anyone reporting on that mainstream?
Because I haven't seen that anywhere until I really started digging into it.
The thing is, it looks very conspiranoic, right?
The thing is, that narrative for editors, it's a conspiracy theory, even though you hand out proof, right?
Even though if you are bringing interviews and all that stuff, it's still.
For most editors, it feels like I think we're more on the conspiracy theory right there, right?
And I'm like, well, because there's no there's no definitive proof obviously because that that's their intention exactly But if it was their intention, that's what they would do.
Yeah, right exactly because of course, I mean if you're when you're an editor what you need is proof, right?
And you will need a proof of the Chinese government saying yeah, let's fucking kill a lot of US citizens with fentanyl going through Mexico.
No one's gonna fucking say that, right?
But you can have a proof by showing where all this fentanyl is coming from and why it is not affecting Mexico.
Right.
Right.
It's affecting specifically the US.
It's not drug.
I mean, Mexico and it's shipping drugs all over, right?
They're shipping shit to Europe, Middle East, Asia, Africa.
They're shipping fucking drugs to every single other fucking country.
The US, of course.
But fentanyl, it's only being shipped to the US.
It's not shipped to Europe.
It's not shipped to Asia.
It's not shipped to Middle East.
It's shipped specifically to the U.S.
And that's because that's what the bosses in the cartels are asking, right?
This is only for the U.S.
This will not why only for the U.S.?
Is it because there's only people taking that shit in the U.S.?
I guess that's what makes it fucking suspicious, right?
Is it because there is only a demand in the U.S., which is fucking weird that the demand will be only in the U.S.?
Didn't happen with coke.
Didn't happen with heroin.
Didn't happen with weed.
That goes everywhere.
Everywhere.
And math, you know?
That demand is worldwide.
It's the same fucking drug worldwide, right?
Has the amount of coke gone down?
Has the amount of money and the volume of cocaine being trafficked gone down since?
No, it's actually going up as well.
The U.S. also has funding a lot of the drug war in Colombia against drug traffickers.
And they just nabbed this narco called Otoniel, right?
Who are they funding?
The Colombian government.
They're funding the Colombian government to fight the drug cartels.
They just arrested this guy.
Who was like El Chapo for Colombia, right?
It was called Antoniel.
But when you look again at the figures of coke being shipped from Colombia into the US, it's an all time high.
And it's again, it's like it's not working.
Your strategy is obviously not working.
Colombia has never produced more cocaine in the whole fucking history as of right now.
Wow.
That's crazy.
So they're getting all the big bosses and their organizations keep shipping.
Shit, tons of money.
Maybe it's because of COVID.
Maybe people are just sort of lonely.
They want to do more fucking drugs.
They want to do more COVID, eat more pills.
COVID definitely skyrocketed the drug business.
And that's for sure, yes.
And it's the same.
Is it as violent?
Have you ever been to Colombia?
Yeah.
Is it the same?
What's the main differences between the cartels in Colombia and the cartels in Mexico?
I think Colombia is.
I think Mexico, it's Colombia 15 years back, right?
I think we're moving into that direction straight.
Straightforward.
Meaning it's more.
Meaning Colombia got so mixed the drug trafficking problem and politics so fucking intersected.
You know, Pablo Escobar, he used to be like a congressman.
He wanted to be a president.
So he mixed the whole fucking organization with politicians and politicians on his organization.
So that changed the whole fucking thing.
Also, the guerrillas that used to be guerrillas and not traffickers, but now they're traffickers saying they're guerrillas, right?
There's this.
Group called Clan del Golfo, which is basically Cartel del Golfo.
But they say they're called the Autodefensa, Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia, right?
So they are a guerrilla or a self defense group.
But they're not.
They're fucking traffickers.
The FARC, the main guerrilla group in Colombia, they used to be a guerrilla, right?
Fighting against the government and trying to.
Gain autonomous territories and all that shit.
They are the ones cooking more cocaine than every other single organization in Colombia, dealing in Venezuela, Colombia, Panama.
Former Guerrillas as Traffickers00:15:21
They're fucking everywhere.
They're huge.
And they used to be guerrillas, right?
So, Mexico, we don't have guerrillas, but we're about to.
All of those groups from Autodefensa.
What does guerrilla mean?
Guerrilla?
Guerrilla.
Okay.
Sorry.
You said it the proper way, didn't I?
Yeah.
Going right over my head.
Yeah, yeah, guerrillas.
Yeah, exactly.
So, all of these guerrilla groups.
I mean, they're not.
They're traffickers.
These guys, that's guerrillas, right?
We're not.
Mexico is still not at that point in time right now.
But we're going to.
We're going to.
I mean, these guys.
I don't know if you've read this manual.
There's a U.S. Army manual on insurgencies and counterinsurgencies movements.
And there's established like a one by one point on how does an insurgency group build up, right?
And they start basically by.
Unstabilizing governments doing certain actions and and if you look at that guide and you look at what's happening in Mexico, it was like dude, we're on the final fucking face of these guys becoming an armed or mixed insurgency, which is like a drug trafficking slash, insurgency groups operating in Mexico.
They're not only cartels right now that's why I usually refuse to call them cartels or drug cartels and it's more like organized uh insurgencies.
Right, because it's it's, it's it's totally different now.
It's not the same.
They're wearing military vests, military dress.
Yeah, they have.
Uh, they have their armed groups, which is one of the requirements of the insurgency.
Right, you have leadership and then you have a circle of uh, an armed group that is going to protect you or attack or you know, and then outside you have what it's called social basis, which is basically the people supporting you on certain region you want to get control of, And they're getting a lot of social basis around Mexico.
All of those gaps we were talking earlier, that's how they are gaining social basis all through Mexico.
So people today respect more a drug trafficker than a politician.
If they say, who's giving you more?
Whose side are you going to be of?
And they're like, of course I'm going to be on the side of El Mayo instead of the fucking governor of my state.
Because they feel they're giving more.
And that's how they're gaining social.
Basis, and that's fucking crazy because that means when the time comes, they can't ask people to go out against the government and throw a fucking government out, and they will step in, right?
So, and you'll have a fucking mess.
One of the articles that you wrote was about their problem with getting guns, dealing with the gun manufacturers in the US.
Like, there wasn't some sort of law that had to get passed to sort of like restrict the amount of guns being trafficked because, like, the NRA had something going on.
The NRA had some sort of thing going on with the gun manufacturers where they were able to illegally ship guns into Mexico.
Yeah, well, the thing is, in Mexico, it's almost impossible to get a gun legally, right?
To get a gun.
By the way, you want a drink?
Yeah, of course.
I offered you this earlier.
It's whiskey.
It's actually not bad.
It's pretty good.
Looks good.
It's like single malt whiskey.
Awesome.
Let's go for it.
So, yeah, in Mexico, it's really hard to.
Do you like it straight or do you want ice?
I'll do straight, man.
Straight.
Very cool.
To get a gun, right?
The legal way.
They're like, that looks super good.
It is good.
But if you try to get a gun illegally, you'll have it like.
Cheers.
Cheers, man.
Let's get fucked up and talk about narcos.
Let's do that.
That's why I'm here.
Not to drink water and talk about narcos.
Yeah, for real.
Should have offered it earlier.
I'm just kidding, man.
Wow, this is good.
Pretty good.
So, yeah, I mean, and again, Only the bad guys are having guns in Mexico.
They are the only ones with guns in Mexico, right?
If I want to get a gun in Juarez to protect myself, that's fucking impossible.
There's no way.
They say there is a way, the proper way, and you can apply for a fucking license or whatever, but it's impossible.
They're never going to get approved, right?
And if you get approved, it's just going to be like a small handgun, whatever.
And these guys are dealing with fucking AKs and a lot of other big stuff.
50 calls and all that shit.
And it's like, what am I going to do with a fucking.
Handguns, yeah, that video that you sent me with those kids, those foot soldiers wearing 50 caliber snipers, exactly.
Man, what the are you gonna do if the Mexican government is allowing you to carry a handgun against all those guys, right?
So, that's that's that's that's for one side, and the other side, it's Mexico is pushing a law to sue most U.S. um gun manufacturers trying to blame them because for the whole that's going on in Mexico, right?
So, the Mexican government, what it's saying is you are as responsible.
As the criminals for what is happening in Mexico, because you know that you have to bet better the people that is buying guns from you.
Of course, the U.S. companies are saying, like, that's not our fucking fault.
We're just selling and producing guns for a U.S. market.
And if they end up in Mexico or whatever else, that's not our problem.
I honestly think that's a political stunt from this politician that wants to be president next after this administration.
And he's doing good.
Because he's getting a lot of legitimacy in Mexico, right?
Everybody's like, wow, he's the only one stepping up against the fucking U.S. manufacturers, which I don't really think it's going to do something.
Are the U.S. manufacturers selling directly to the cartels?
No, directly.
Well, not like that.
Not like they're shipping shit tons of guns directly to cartels and shit.
But they're getting like massive fucking orders of shit, lots of guns to organizations or companies in Mexico.
Yeah, exactly.
And that's the thing.
Uh, not only in Mexico, but also in the?
U.s.
Because they are allowed to right.
But but if they are, if they were to really vet who are, who is getting their guns, especially very specific shipments of a ton of Ak's, a ton of Ar 15s, a ton of 50 calls that's, that should be enough to raise the alarms and say like okay let's let's, let's have a look.
And who's buying all this from us?
Right, maybe we should look, I mean, and when check their id or something, their background?
Yeah, because when you look at them And I had looked at the fucking list and said, like, okay, so this is supposed to be a company that is selling guns out of Whatever.
Then you go, and it's a small house in El Paso, in East El Paso, from a single fucking guy just sitting outside his Porsche and just sitting like that and telling guns to every fucking guy.
They would have to do the least amount of work possible to actually do any sort of like research to find out that this is like a 500 square foot shack in Mexico.
Easy.
I know, they're probably, it's like a fucking billion dollar gun order.
Exactly.
And when I met that guy, he's a Mexican guy called Luis as well.
And I was like, so here's the.
I don't know.
I can't remember the name of the store, but let's say, I don't know.
Guns Company.
And it's like, yeah.
It's like, but this is a house.
And it's like, yeah, man, I'm allowed.
And I'm like, so you have a permit?
He's like, yeah, I just need to send the list of buyers to the ATF every month.
And I'm like, dude, but what if I come here and ask you to get two-way case, 550 calls?
Are you allowed to sell that?
And I'm like, yeah, I mean, as long as you give me your ID.
And I'm like, dude, but are you aware that?
Most of those guns are going to end up in Mexico.
And it's like dude, I have clients from whatever.
I don't ask questions, I just give me your id and i'll send them to ATF if there's an issue.
ATF will reach out to me and say like hey, someone bought this gun from you or whatever.
And I ask him like, has it happened?
It's like yeah, and then what happened?
Nothing.
I mean i'm just selling guns right, but see well, I understand what you're saying, but still so, how long?
I mean the question is how long until they're start buying nukes from the Us?
I don't, I don't even think the cartels ever buy nukes, I don't know, But I don't think they need to, man.
I think they have more than fucking enough to get us all on our knees, you know?
I mean, it's super fucking.
Even a small nuke.
Yeah.
Like, we'll take out your state or we'll take out your city, you know, if you fuck with us.
They don't fucking need to.
That's the thing.
They can't take the whole fucking city if they want.
Only by the amount of people.
Look at what happened when they tried to capture El Chapo's son in Culiacán, right?
The Mexican government went full fucking on with a lot of fucking army.
Guys, helicopters, everything, tanks, like on war, to capture one guy that is actually like 30 years old, some shit like that.
And when they got him in his house, he just made a call, and hundreds of fucking soldiers came out from nowhere, from the fucking sewers, from houses around, and they made a, they paralyzed the whole fucking city for the whole entire day.
They started killing people.
They went into the maximum security prison to free hundreds of fucking people and arm all of them.
All of them started getting armed and went against the army.
They went into the army.
There is an army base in Culiacan.
They went there and tied a lot of grenades and how do you call it?
Like the fucking proximity mines, landmines, to the gas tanks where the families of the soldiers were living and said, Okay, man, if you don't let our guy go, we're going to blow the whole fucking military base where your family is staying, right?
They paralyzed the whole fucking city, and that happened in like what three hours?
They had to let that guy go, so they set him free and they just went back into hiding.
So, if they want, they can take a whole fucking city without the use of anything else but the amount of people working under their instructions, right?
God damn, bro, that is so crazy.
Where is El Chapo's son now in Culiacan?
Uh, yeah, he's living in the outskirts of Culiacan.
Um, a lot, of course, if I knew, I would be.
I will be getting myself $5 million.
If you knew where?
Yeah, because that's the $5 million question.
Yeah, that's the.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What if you had the opportunity to go meet him and interview him?
Well, dude, I've been trying that for a fucking while.
But if they were like, we got to fucking put a bag over your head, we got to tie you up and throw you in the fucking bottom of a truck.
Wouldn't be the first time I went to a place like that, like, although, you know, like with shit in my head.
I mean, I've been in places like that in Sonora.
You've been to places where they had to, like, literally blindfold you to take you there?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
By yourself?
Yeah, by myself.
Jesus Christ.
Wouldn't be the first time.
So I will be like, yeah, for sure, man.
Let's do it.
I mean, if he offers me a fucking interview, that will be.
You just said that you would take the $5 million.
So where is that?
No.
Hey, if you're watching this, I'm not taking the $5 million.
I'm taking your interview.
He definitely watches this podcast.
What was the story?
There was a story about you were in a safe house or somewhere, and they ordered tacos.
Yes.
So that's the time where they blank phoned me and stuff.
Okay.
I went to meet one of the Caro Quintero's family, right, operating in Sonora.
Caro Quintero is this Sinaloa cartel founder as well that got arrested and he is accused of killing Kiki Camarena, the DEA agent in Mexico.
Although most of my sources said that it was not.
Caro Quintero was actually the CIA who killed this DEA agent, but that's a whole other story.
That's the story of Narcos, right?
Oh, the last Narcos.
Last Narcos, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So this guy, how do you say his name again?
Caro Quintero.
El Caro Quintero.
Uh huh.
So he's still running around and he's still pretty active.
He was in jail for.
Several years after the.
Yeah, he got busted after the Kiki exactly exactly murder and then he was in jail and then he was set free for two hours because the judge said he he made a mistake on the ruling, right.
So the attorneys submitted a motion and the judge was like, yeah, you're totally right.
Um, Kiki Camarena was not um a federal official, um person in Mexico, because that was the.
That that's why he got so many years.
He was not operating as a federal, he was undercover, he was from the U.s, So, which is like a Citizen.
So, you just killed a regular citizen, a foreign citizen in Mexico.
I thought he worked for the DEA.
He worked for the DEA.
But under the Mexican law, he was not officially a federal agent in Mexico or a Mexican federal agent.
Oh, because that's what he needed that status to stay undercover.
Exactly.
So, you just basically killed a foreigner in Mexico and you served that time for that crime, right?
They set him free.
Two hours later, he's like, oh shit, no, my bad.
We need him back.
Of course, he was already hiding.
Well, protector, right?
Right.
And, um, yeah, during those, when they showed that footage and they were interviewing him, and he was just like nonchalant, smiling, kind of like laughing and giggling, and like he was very, like, matter of fact answering the questions, like he knew what the fuck he was doing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he seemed young back then.
Back then.
What year was that?
It was 87.
Exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
And, um, there was a recent interview, I think it was like three or four years ago, when he was just recently out.
A Mexican journalist, uh, found him and he gave her an interview, and he is, He's like in a shitty place, I guess in the mountains.
You can hear a lot of fucking rain and stuff.
And he's saying like, I'm just a farmer.
And I did what I did, but I paid for it.
And I was not involved in anything.
I never even knew that guy, Camarena, whatever, that they're accusing me of, right?
Who knows?
So that, we're getting a little bit off track, but that audio, they recorded the audio of torturing and interrogating that DEA agent, Kiki Camarena.
Is that audio available?
To the public, so no one's ever heard it.
No, I've been described the audio by Hector Berrellas, who is the last dark, by Hector.
So, Hector has heard it.
Yeah, Hector has heard it.
So, did they have the actual full audio version of that when they made the documentary?
No.
They didn't even have the full.
No, no.
Okay.
They just had people's memory of it.
Exactly.
Yes, exactly.
Torture Audio of Kiki Camarena00:03:55
And so, yeah, anyways, I went to visit.
A source of mine told me that they can get me to talk with one of Caro Quintero's family, a nephew from Caro Quintero's working and leading the organization in Sonora.
Mm hmm.
So I went there.
I was staying in Nogales, and he called me to meet him up in a place called Caborca, which is like two hours, I think, two hours or something like that from Nogales.
But it was like 11 p.m., right?
When they called me and said, Hey, you need to show up here.
And I'm like, I'm two hours away.
And I was like, Okay, so if you want, we'll be here.
And I drove in the middle of the fucking night alone, all through fucking Sonora to go to that shitty place.
And of course, he had left.
Already, so I was like, Shit.
So, I'm like, Can you call him back?
Tell him I'm sorry, I'm two hours away, I'll stay here.
Stayed there for until like three in the morning, and then I drove all the way back to fucking Nogales to my hotel.
The next night, again, the same shit.
Call me up to meet him there again.
There I am again in the middle of fucking night, going back and then back because nothing happened.
It was like four times that that happened.
And the fifth night, he actually showed up.
Shot up with a you know, you went back for five fucking nights, yeah.
It's like driving back and forth in the fucking.
Middle of nowhere um, and then on the fifth night he showed up in this beautiful Tacoma you know uh, and and he was like a regular person with a shirt um, a white guy.
He sort of like looked like you, but fatter, he was American.
Yeah, he is American, but I mean well, he's a Mexican, but he's a U.s citizen okay, but he happened to be completely white okay, so she was from Monterey, basically.
Yes um, And we started talking, and I had an interview with him, a full interview, on what he was doing and how he got involved with the cartel and Carlos Quintero's organization, all That.
And then he told me, Well, so you want to go and look at the warehouse?
And I'm like, Yeah, of course.
So he blindfolded me, put me in another car, one of his security guys.
We started driving.
I knew exactly where we were because I had fucking driven that road five nights in a row.
So I knew every single bump, every single turn, right?
So we were.
Into a small town called Pitiquito, which is in between where I was staying and that city, Caborca.
But not, I don't know exactly where, but I knew we were like somewhere deep into Pitiquito.
And then he showed me like this small house, and he's like, That's the warehouse.
So I entered the house, and there was nothing, just like an old man having a tecate, right?
And I'm like, But where's the, you have no drugs here?
Like, and he's like, It's fucking full of drugs.
And I'm like, But where?
On the roof?
And it's like open the open the warehouse.
So this guy started like sweeping the it was a dirt road started like sweeping the dirt road And then he he pulled like a like a like a I don't know like a thing like a door Yeah, like a hatch like double hatch and then they had a stairs And then back down back there inside that that thing underground It was like full of fucking weed.
It was only weed, but it was like completely packed.
It was a place.
I think it was bigger than this place Twice this place, I guess, and it was like completely packed with bricks of weed.
And they had the whole accounting notes there, so I could take a look at everything.
They allowed me to get a look of everything.
So we recorded the whole fucking thing.
It was for a show called Dope on Netflix.
So you're filming?
Yes, I was producing that documentary for Netflix.
And so we filmed the whole fucking thing.
Filming for Netflix Dope00:04:12
And then we went out.
I don't smoke weed, but the two guys that I was with, the cameraman and another cameraman as well, they both do smoke.
They're from the UK.
And they were like, this fucking weed smells good.
And I told him, like, hey, my guy said, your weed smells pretty, pretty good.
And he's like, yeah, have it.
So he grabbed a bunch of fucking weed and he's like, to a tuya.
That's all yours.
No way.
So these guys started like rolling and smoking.
And we're like having fun.
And we're like, that's pretty cool.
And he's like, usted no fuma?
And I'm like, no, I didn't smoke.
He's like, no, me either.
You know, I was like, oh, that's good.
He's DEA.
Exactly.
So yeah, we're just like waiting for them to finish their fucking joints.
And I was having at the kate and small talking.
And then he got a call on his radio.
They usually use like encrypted communication.
So someone talked to him on his walkie and said a couple of code words, you know, something.
And he was like, okay.
We kept talking.
And then like five minutes later, 10 minutes later, someone let the call again.
And then he started like getting tense.
And I'm like, is everything okay?
He's like, sort of.
Can you guys please give me your IDs?
And I'm like, is it all good?
Just give me your IDs.
And I'm like, all right.
So I handed my wait, did these cameramen you're with, they speak Spanish?
No, they didn't.
So you were the other person?
Yeah, I had to tell them, like, hey, guys, we need to hand out all these guys.
Oh, these guys are like, why?
And I'm like, not really sure.
Let's just play by his rules and let's see what happens, right?
And they're like, okay.
And they just gave me their passports.
And I handed over their passports and my Texan ID.
And he's like, aren't you from Juarez?
And I'm like, yeah, I was born in Juarez, but I have the dual citizenship.
And I'm like, so why don't you have an ID from Juarez?
And I'm like, I don't have an ID from Juarez.
I have a U.S. a Texas ID.
All right.
Okay.
And I'm like, is everything fine?
And then he got a call again.
And then he talked and then he told me, you know what, Luis?
I'm trusting you.
So the first guy who's going to go out tonight, it's going to be you.
Because if something happens to me right now, it's going to be on you.
Because I'm not going to go after those guys.
Those guys are from the UK.
And I'm going to get into a fucking mess if I go after those guys.
Although they're going to get what they deserve.
But I'm going to go after you because you brought them here.
And I'm like, yeah, I know.
And after your source, which was called Luis also.
And it's like, and after Luis Durtocayo, right?
So that is your source.
My source.
The guy who introduced me to this guy.
And I was like, but what happened?
It's like, I have three rings of security.
And there is a convoy of federal, of federales.
And they already crossed the second ring of security.
The third ring of security, it's just right here in this block.
So if we see them here getting across that, we're going to engage into a shootout.
And that means they're following you.
I'm going to assume that they're following you.
And I'm like, dude, I mean, I don't even have my phone, and, you know, well, not on, though.
It's off.
And he's like, whatever, man.
So let's pray for them to stop at the last checkpoint.
And I'm like, all right.
We stayed there.
I was fucking shitting myself.
I was like, please, Because he didn't even, we weren't even talking anymore.
We were just like sitting there all quiet.
Before small talking and laughing and having a beer, Alphazon was like, silence.
And I was like, fuck, fuck.
And I would look around and say, like, there's nothing but fucking mountains around here.
So there's no fucking way I can run to anywhere.
And so we stayed there.
And then they called him again.
And I was like, fuck.
And then I called here.
They told him, no, they were coming to eat some tacos to the corner with an old lady that sells tacos in the corner.
And I was like, motherfucker.
Couldn't you fucking pick a different place to go for tacos?
It's Uber Eats.
So, yeah, he was like, No, they're eating tacos, so you're good.
There you go, let's go.
Bro, we drove straight back.
That kind of shit is terrifying.
That was fucking crazy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I got scared that time.
Fuck.
Russian Gangs and Bacanora00:14:18
One of the things I would ask you I was in a couple years ago, I think two years ago, I stayed in Puerto Vallarta for a couple weeks and Sayelita.
Yeah.
And.
I read a couple articles saying that those areas, including places like Cancun, are really highly sought after turf for the cartels because, or not for the cartels, but mainly for like the smaller drug gangs because they want to sell to the tourists.
Are those areas, those places like Cancun and Puerto Vallarta, are those places becoming more and more dangerous?
Yeah, definitely.
The thing is, you're not only dealing with straight dealing, which is a lot of fucking money for tourists, right?
I mean, the tourism industry buying drugs in tourist areas leaves a lot of money because they overprice every single fucking bag of cocaine and shit.
So they make a big buck out of that.
But also, most of their resorts, if you look at the owners of their resorts, don't Mexican.
It's a lot of Italian people from Romania, Russian.
It's a lot of fucking mafia from, we're talking mafia from Korea, Korea, Italy, Russia.
Romania, all over the fucking world.
Mostly those four places.
They own a lot of the real estate in those high tourist traffic areas?
Because they're laundering money from their own organizations through those resorts, right?
Holy fuck.
And not only laundering money, but also it's private land.
So it's private beaches.
So by night, you will see a lot of fucking small boats, the three in the morning, getting there and going out from there, right?
Drugs also from there out from Mexico, Mexican drug to Europe, right?
To a lot of like Europe destinations or Asia destinations.
Wow.
So they're making a big buck out of there.
So Mexican cartels are trying, we're not trying, but they're looking to break a bigger deal with them, right?
To make the biggest part, not only asking them for what they call uso de suelo, which is basically.
I'm charging you for operating on my turf.
You're giving me a percentage of what you're doing on whatever the fuck is that you're doing.
Anything.
Because they're on human trafficking, sex trafficking, selling drugs, shipping drugs, laundering money.
Those places are hot spots for fucking crime.
All of that shit.
Prostitutes, cocaine.
Yeah.
So the Mexican cartels are like, well, we don't want just a piece of your business now.
We want in.
And they started like fighting, killing, moving, and the whole fucking dynamic started changing around those places.
So, right now, they're becoming dangerous places, not because they're targeting tourists, but because there's a fucking war between the two.
Tourists are just like collateral damage.
Collateral damage, yeah.
And when you heard that they're killing, they killed a Canadian, they killed an Asian, like almost all of them were targeted because they were part of the organization, right?
These two Canadian, Asian Canadian.
I think they were like Korean or Vietnamese Canadian.
What's the deal with that fucking monkey that got shot?
Yeah.
The narco monkey.
What is the story behind that fucking thing?
That story is like, I don't know if to actually laugh or cry because, I mean, why would you kill a fucking monkey, right?
First of all, why would you have a monkey.
Completely, oh, there you go.
Tactical dressed, right?
Rest in peace.
Rest in peace.
Bro, those things are fucking can be ruthless when they want to be.
Really?
I mean, I know I had a friend that had one, but I was so fucking scared of him.
Bro, I've seen videos of those things like ripping people's scalps off and shit, ripping their faces off.
I mean, I was completely scared.
Their balls off.
That's what they do, bro.
Yeah, for sure.
I don't know if they were actually using him as a weapon, you know, like attacking people or protection or whatever.
Or they just find it cool because he was properly dressed right.
He had his, his tactical vest and the and the camo sweat like sweatshirt.
Yeah, I mean, he was all dressed up what.
What was going on like, why did he get shot?
Uh, he was.
Uh, apparently he was the pet of one of the uh, one of the guys from LA Familia Michoacana, which is uh, which is a cartel in central Mexico, in Michoacan and Mexico state.
They are, they're huge.
So apparently what happened is that a few, a couple of members of the LA Familia Michoacana went to the um police station, the state police station, to to shoot the the police station, to actually shoot on the, the police officers.
So they started into a gunfight, they started chasing them, they went into a uh, they tried to hide in one of their branches uh, in Mexico state, and one of the bosses had a spider monkey with him and so he was like a casualty of the gunfight.
But i'm not sure.
I'm not so sure about that because there's that photo of that monkey laying on the side of a man Allegedly, his owner, but there's another photo.
I think it was not as popular as that one.
There was another photo where he was actually on top of him.
Oh, really?
So I don't know, uh huh, like on his chest.
Wait, go up, scroll up.
There's one with like a red circle.
Yeah, click that one.
No, he's on his, yeah, on his like shoulders.
And I think that's a different, different photo that was around, but was not from him.
Um, yeah, I mean, so he was just essentially a pet of one of the big narco guys, yeah, exactly.
So I don't know if.
If during the shootout they kill him or they actually execute the monkey, right?
It's, I mean, it's weird to even be wording those, saying those words.
That's so fucking weird, bro.
Execute a monkey?
Yeah, man.
What if they put like a fucking suicide vest on him or something?
They have the monkey like run out.
And now he has his own corrido, right?
His own songs.
They're called narco corridos, which are songs that tell the story of big narcos, right?
So, El Chapo has the narco corrido, El Mayo has his own several corridos.
And now the spider monkey has his own narco corrido.
Narco song.
Someone composed the narco song for El Changuito saying that it was not his time to go.
And then he left a legacy.
Click on that one with him in the clouds and the cross.
Yeah, that one.
Shit, man.
Wow.
Yeah, I mean, Mexico, right?
You don't know if to actually to laugh or to cry.
This is crazy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pobre Chandito.
So, the Russian mafia is just specifically there just basically because they're shipping, they're there to control stuff that they're trying to ship back to Russia.
Or they're just trying to make money on, there's like small Russian gangs that are in there that are just trying to make money selling drugs.
Both.
I mean, the Oprah and both.
There was a recent arrest and a guy called, let me find his name because I have it here recently.
He was not Russian, he was Romanian.
Oh, Romanian.
I thought the Russian mafia was down there.
Yeah, also.
Yeah, it's the Russians.
And the Romanian mafias down there.
I can't remember his name, but anyways, he was recently arrested in Cancun because Tudor, his last name was Tudor.
T-U-D-O-R.
And everybody knew that he controlled most of the hotels operating in Cancun.
He operated street drug selling, a sex trafficking ring, and he was laundering money for Romanian and Russian organizations out of.
out of Cancun.
So, I mean, he was pretty fucking huge because he even got, there's photos and video of him on a public meeting he had with Mexico top security chief, Rosa Isela, whatever.
She's the top security chief for Mexican government.
He got together with her to ask her for more protection in Cancun because it was getting dangerous and whatever and offering also his services to, yeah. if she needed something in Cancun and all that shit because he was allegedly a business owner, right?
But the Interpol had an international investigation out of him, so he got arrested.
His organization is still going.
A lot of call centers also where he's laundering money and making a lot of fucking frauds.
And it's U.S. call centers established in Mexico because outsourcing is cheaper, but he's controlling those call centers in Cancun.
Aren't a lot of the fucking U.S. car manufacturers have manufacturing plants set up in Mexico?
Yeah, there are a lot of them.
Like GM and Ford, don't they manufacture a shitload of cars in Mexico?
Are those controlled by the cartel at all?
No, not really.
How the fuck do they stay away from the cartel down there?
I think they're just not a huge target.
I think they're more problematic than a target for the cartels, right?
Because they're bringing more attention.
Imagine what would happen if. if you will have a cartel threatening or kidnapping or try to get into one of the fucking Ford plants, right?
So I guess what they do is they deal, they're not a good deal with government and government ask them like, just don't fucking mess with these guys because it's a whole lot of inversion of investment that they have in Mexico.
So don't fuck it up, right?
I guess that's what they do.
Different from what they do with mining.
Mining companies before establishing, when they're on the exploration phase of a mine, What are they mining?
A lot of silver, copper, a lot of minerals, and now lithium.
There's a huge fucking lithium deposit.
In what parts of Mexico are they mining that shit?
In the border of Sonora and Chihuahua.
Imagine that.
Really?
Sinaloa cartel controlled place.
Fuck.
So the mining operations.
And guess who has the contract for that?
Who?
China.
Of course.
No.
The Chinese company has the contract for exploiting that lithium.
And the cartel doesn't touch that.
Yes, of course.
Oh, they do touch it.
They're in.
I mean, they're not touching it.
They're in on it.
Yeah.
They're partners with China.
Well, they're giving protection to the Chinese company that is mining there.
So they made a deal with the government and with the Chinese mining company that is the biggest supplier for Tesla cars, for Tesla batteries.
Whoa, dude.
I mean, I've been working on that fucking story.
It's still not out because I still need a lot of more sources and papers and untangle the fucking story.
But I pitched it like a year ago.
They said yes.
And I'm still working on it, slowly but surely.
But yeah, that company.
This is the biggest, this is one of the biggest mining operations in Mexico.
It's the biggest in Mexico and one of the biggest in Latin America.
And it's owned by China in partnership with the Sinaloa cartel.
Well, right now, it's only the contract for exploration, right?
To explore how much lithium there is or whatever.
But there are studies already proved that it's the biggest deposit of lithium.
So they're just setting up.
They say on paper, they say they're just setting up and exploring if there is.
But they could very easily be already taking it.
But when you go there and talk to the residents around the area, to the local residents, it's a very small town in the outskirts of the middle of fucking nowhere.
They are actually now working on setting up the whole fucking plant, right?
So I'm like, but aren't they just exploring?
And they're like, no, no, we're setting up.
We have contracts to work on construction and we're setting up to start exploding the mine, right?
Mexico.
Is threatening to nationalize all lithium because they say it belongs to the Mexican government.
But it's still.
I barely got out of public high school, so you got to explain to me what nationalized means.
That means that the whole lithium will belong to Mexico.
So they will give a permit for you to, or for China, or for whoever, to exploit and do the job.
But the actual mineral.
It's Mexico's property.
Got it.
Right.
So that's what they're trying to do.
The Mexican government is threatening companies and doing that.
And of course, it's making a lot of fucking people nervous about that.
Right.
So, but for the time being, they handed the contract of exploration to a China company.
It's under a subsidiary, like it's under a smaller company, a partner company, Mexican company that didn't exist until like two or three years ago.
It's called Bacanora Lithium.
Bacanora Lithium.
Bacanora Lithium.
So that's supposed to be the Mexican company.
But that Bacanora Lithium, when you go on their webpage and see who's the owner of Bacanora Lithium, is this biggest China company that is the main supplier for lithium for Tesla, right?
Holy shit.
So there's an interesting thing going on there.
And when I spoke with some of the Sinaloa cartel members around that area, I was like, how's that playing out with you guys?
Because I know that's your territory.
And they told me, no, we got hired to give out protection while they do the work.
China Controls Lithium Future00:06:09
And I'm like, by who?
It's like by the Chinese company, by Bacanora, right?
By Bacanora Lithium, the Mexican company, but it's owned by this Chinese.
Right.
The biggest company.
So they're protecting the area.
That means they are threatening, kidnapping, and killing families that don't want to sell their land they owned to the company, right?
They're setting prices for the Chinese company.
So if the Chinese company wants to pay them, I don't know, one buck.
For a mile of land or whatever, and they don't want to sell, then the Sinaloa cartel jumps in and starts threatening those guys or killing them until they sell the land for what the Chinese company wants.
So it's a big fucking shit going on with lithium.
And it's under the radar, of course, because on paper, and then on the news, it's still on exploration.
We're not even sure there is lithium there.
Oh my God.
Where else is this company in China getting the lithium from where they're selling it?
They're the Tesla's biggest supplier, I think Bolivia.
Uh huh.
Um, and I don't know if you if you go into that company, if you go to Bacano Lithium and then you find the I have all the fucking documents and they're getting from from a lot of places, bro.
China is balls deep in Mexico and not only Mexico, man.
I mean, they're the biggest, they have Tesla by the balls, they have Elon Musk, the bigger, the biggest fucking, I guess, the biggest fucking um businessman in the US, yeah, by the fucking balls, richest guy in the world, yeah.
If they have lithium, they're gonna control the fucking future of cars.
Uh, Ford is gonna start.
Making a lot of fucking.
I think every car making, right?
Every call here.
I think somebody said that.
I think it was somebody in the Biden administration said that by 2025, 90% of cars in the US will be electric.
So, I mean, if they control one of the biggest or the biggest lithium deposit in Mexico or in Latin America, China is going to have.
Are there any Teslas in Mexico?
Yeah.
People drive Teslas?
Yeah.
Somebody showed me a video yesterday of in California, there was like fucking.
A line around two blocks, wrapped around two blocks twice, waiting in line to get the charge.
That was a Teslas.
That's an old video from 2019, I think.
Oh, is it?
On Thanksgiving.
Fucking hell.
It was like.
Yeah, it was called something like the Tesla something, whatever.
But it was like there was no electricity or something happened, but whatever.
People on Thanksgiving had to go into that specific place to charge their Teslas.
But it's an old video.
It's crazy.
The only thing I worry about it with Tesla is electric cars is that in Florida, we get a lot of fucking hurricanes.
Yeah.
And we lose power for multiple days on end.
Yeah.
At least once or twice a year during hurricane season.
I think that's going to be an issue, right?
So I think that that's the one reason.
I don't think that one little thing makes me fearful of it.
But think about it.
It's weird when you compare it to all the benefits.
I'm sure the benefits way farther outweigh the when you really think about it, those fucking benefits are not really benefits.
I mean supposedly, the benefit is for the environment, right?
Right.
They're not going to be.
Emissions.
Right.
But what are you going to do with all those fucking batteries?
What are you doing with your iPhone, right?
Right.
With your phones and iPads and tablets?
What do we do with all that shit?
It's become.
It's waste that it's going to be there for fucking years, contaminating the fucking house.
What do they do with it?
You know?
Do they bury it?
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, many of us.
We just your cameras or whatever the batteries, yeah.
Many of us just throw it in the trash and that's contaminating a lot, right?
If you do it properly, you're going to a deposit, right?
To to to leave your batteries and iPhones and all that, but but what are they?
Well, Elon's whole thing is like we're eventually it's it's inevitable that we're going to run out of fossil fuels at one point.
That's what he says, so it's we might as well start now because we're going to run out of fossil fuels.
But I think even he said he said that the um.
The batteries, the lithium that we're using to make these batteries is not the best option.
He's like, we eventually got to move past that and figure out how to get into nuclear powered cars.
Like, he talks about getting into nuclear.
I mean, I don't know.
But honestly, with with the lithium, it's like okay, the batteries are gonna start piling up on your backyard every time they they don't work right right, contaminating maybe more than the emissions of a gas car.
And the other thing is like, the mining for lithium it's uh, it's called open mining, which is the worst thing that ever happened.
Yeah, it's not, it's not underground mining.
They just basically blow up full uh, mountains and and the and the and the mining it's it's, It's open, it's at the open, right?
It's not closed or underground, right?
And that contaminates like a hundred percent more than any other type of mining that it's saying too much, right?
Like, underground mining contaminates a lot because it's exploiting the land, open line mining, it's like a hundred percent worse.
So, in order to get lithium, it's open mining.
What kind of damage does the open lithium mining do?
Like, what is it?
It contaminates the atmosphere, like, I think the atmosphere, yeah, exactly.
Goes straight to the atmosphere.
And I think the whole explosions that you need to do in order to get to the lithium also are very harmful for the environment.
I think apparently it also has a lot of emissions.
Yeah, so I think it's like when we talk about lithium, I think it's just a trend.
You know, like saying it's cool cars and it's a cool trend, but not necessarily better than what we're doing right now, right?
Right.
Yeah, I had one for a while and we sold it because I had so many problems.
And I think we're looking at getting one of the diesel cars.
Exploiting Mexico's Middle Ground00:07:35
Yeah.
One of the big SUVs that come with diesel because it's way better.
Yeah.
You know, diesel is worse for the environment.
I mean, going from fucking electric to diesel.
To diesel, yeah.
I mean, it's crazy.
But I think one of the solutions wouldn't it be to actually have maybe lithium-driven public transportation?
Like, instead of using a fucking car, you're using.
Railroad or a bus, and then we're using a collective car, right?
We're using a bus, we're using a train, or some shit like that.
And that's electric and that's not making emissions.
So using batteries, but not a single two or three batteries per home, right?
And less traffic, less of that shit.
Yeah, I mean, there's already less of it because this is the way the economy is, or the way that people have been working since COVID.
Everyone works fucking from home now.
Exactly.
And that too, yeah.
That measure, I mean, it's helping, right?
Yeah.
And I'm sure, even especially in your industry, in journalism and then publishing and stuff like that, I'm sure 99% of fucking reporters and journalists are working just straight from home and reporting on stuff from home.
And that's pretty cool.
I mean, that's a big push for the environment, right?
Stay fucking home.
Don't move.
Yeah.
Don't commute.
Do you ever think about the idea if in the future this whole America, Mexico, China thing turned into like.
What's going on right now with Russia, Ukraine, and the US?
Do you think that could ever fucking happen?
Like a sort of like a war?
Sort of how, like, Ukraine is just like this proxy area that the US is using to push against Russia and to fight against Russia.
And it's like this middle ground.
It's like this turf that they're using to wage the war between the US and Russia.
Because, you know, it's Russia's main.
Border between the rest of the EU, the rest of Europe.
And half of Ukraine is divided.
Half of it's pro Russia, half of it's pro EU.
And it just, from what I'm like understanding from this, it seems like it's almost the same thing with China and the US and Mexico kind of just being that fucking middle ground where they're using exploiting Mexico to fucking hurt the US.
And I'm sure it goes the other way as well.
But like it seems like it's kind of the same thing.
It might be, man.
I mean, I don't know if a proper like high intensity war is what is happening in Ukraine, but maybe like a low intensity war, right?
Where you don't have.
Right.
Missiles and you know, right, all that stuff like a proper fight, but you're using it as a proxy.
What I'm not sure of is if, um, I'm sure that China is using Mexico as a proxy, and I think that's gonna be happening more and more intense through the years.
But, um, but I'm not sure that the U.S. can use Mexico as a proxy to China, right?
No, I think the U.S. is gonna go, what, Taiwan, maybe?
Taiwan, yeah, there's a deal where they legally have to defend Taiwan, right?
Yeah.
So I think Taiwan is going to become more like, I think Taiwan is more on the verge of being a proxy.
I think it's, I've heard people say that it's basically inevitable that China is going to try to take over Taiwan.
And I think that's where that shit is going to happen.
And we're legally obligated to defend them.
Exactly.
Or turn them into a porcupine or whatever and try to keep them safe.
Yeah.
So maybe, maybe Mexico just becomes like leverage or something for China.
Yeah, exactly.
It's so weird, this whole geopolitical balance.
Yeah.
Yeah, man.
So crazy.
And it's crazy for the middle ground countries, right?
Like Mexico.
Especially the middle ground countries.
We're not fucking with anyone.
Why are you guys fighting here over whatever the shit you're doing, right?
Because, I mean, fentanyl is indirectly hurting Mexico as well.
I mean, we're not having an issue on people using fentanyl.
But it's being cooked in Mexico.
It's being shipped over from Mexico.
So that means the army, the U.S. is.
Pressuring Mexico to go and fight a fucking undeclared war on our cities, you know, that's affecting us and our families and everybody who lives there.
So, I mean, it's fucking bullshit.
Well, what do you think it would take to get Mexico out of the state that it's in?
And, like, what would it theoretically take to fucking get rid of these cartels without the U.S.?
I'm saying, like, independent of the U.S., like, what would it really take?
To fucking turn Mexico into a sovereign country that is not fucking corrupt and overrun by all these criminal organizations.
I think it will take a lot of fucking people to lose a lot of fucking money.
So I think that will change the situation in Mexico.
It will have, and not necessarily like, not straight, like, okay, let's take all the money from these people and then now Mexico's good.
But I'm talking about like if you legalize drugs, if you actually work, Other countries would have to legalize drugs, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And Mexico, including Mexico, because I mean, it's a huge consumer as well, but not as the U.S. U.S. definitely main consumer, Europe right now, Antwerp, and Netherlands.
It's a huge port for the Netherlands, are like huge.
It's the biggest port right now getting drugs almost as high as the U.S.
I thought there were countries over there that had legalized drugs, like fully, but but I think that's why they're using that port to get drugs.
That's why it's convenient.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, and the corruption in that port is called Antwerp.
It's huge.
Like, everybody's fucking working for the cartels right there.
So, yeah, I guess.
So, it's the fucking, it's the goddamn fucking churches.
It's the Christian churches that are fighting against keeping drugs illegal that are fueling all these fucking deaths, bro.
Yeah, man.
I mean, it's that and that conservative thinking that drugs are necessarily bad.
And, you know, I mean, it's so fucking crazy because you think if you legalized all drugs, like deaths would 100% go down.
Exactly.
And I know what some people believe that so everybody's going to use it, but that's going to be a way different, easier problem to solve, the problem of addictions.
It's not going to be a health issue, right?
Right.
It's not going to be a security issue.
You're fighting only the people who are abusing stuff and getting addicted, and you're not fucking fighting tons of criminal organizations who are straight up fucking slaughtering people every day.
It will definitely need years and years of education and of helping addicts and all that shit, right?
But it's going to be a different fucking fight than actually having cartels controlling full territories and killing people and killing monkeys and killing kids, murdering innocent monkeys, spider monkeys.
Yeah, there's a country, I forget which country it is, but they have.
They have a special program there where heroin is legalized.
And if you're a heroin addict, you can actually go and get like supervised doses of heroin from a doctor.
And where you're not on the street fucking suffering, like using dirty needles and stuff like that.
Exactly, man.
I mean, the whole fucking world is we got to a ridiculous point of hypocritical thinking.
Hypocritical Rapper Attention00:02:35
I mean, in every single fucking sense, right?
The governments are against these helpers that go and deliver clean meals.
to addicts in the streets and they go hard against them and they arrest them and put it behind Yelp if there were like drug dealers.
They're like, dude, those guys are trying to stop AIDS from spreading from the use of fucking syringes, right?
You should be helping those guys.
And that's the same thinking where I don't know what happened in this recent shootout in Chicago, right?
In Highland Park.
And if you think about that, and it's like, dude, it's the same.
You're talking about the parade, the 4th of July parade?
Exactly.
And what I'm talking about is like the hypocritical thinking.
That guy was posting videos online.
He had like millions of listeners on his Spotify, whatever, because he was a rapper.
The shooter kid?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Are you serious?
Yeah, he was a rapper.
He was a fucking rapper.
You gotta find this, bro.
Yeah, he was a fucking rapper, and he had like millions of listeners.
And he was talking about like massive shootouts.
He posted videos of how he was gonna go and shoot into like people.
Like he was all there, right?
And you say like, okay, the U.S. is looking all over fucking phones or apps they have all over fucking information, but they can't get a guy that it's openly saying that it's gonna fucking kill people It's like talking about like reproduction Right Rights right right They are on their apps of every girl tracking their fucking tracking their periods right my wife just fucking deleted that app off her phone because they're there They're sneaking upon those fucking apps,
but they can't fucking sneak upon a guy openly talking to million of people.
This kid's really a rapper.
Yeah Robert Cremo.
It was called Awake the Something.
Dude, I saw something where he put.
Wow, he really did have a Spotify.
Yeah.
Awake the Rapper.
Awake the Rapper, yeah.
I saw some sort of post where he said that he was a product.
He was part of MKUltra.
Man.
The CIA's fucking mind control.
I mean, he might.
I don't know if he was, but that's a screenshot of.
All of those photos are a screenshot of a video he posted that it's very fucking disturbing.
This video wearing the smiley face shirt.
Yeah, well, what are you doing in this video?
Can we watch it?
I think I think it's a video.
Can you find the video?
Can we watch it?
Just click on, if you click on the picture, it should pull up the video.
Yeah.
It pulls up the article.
Legalizing Heroin Debate00:11:40
Yeah, right there.
Where it says visit.
Don't put this on the screen, though, because I don't want to have to get fucking banned by YouTube.
Yeah.
Yeah, the video should be, it's on his, I can't remember what's the name of his beat meal account.
See, this is the problem, too.
We're fucking talking about it on a podcast and, like, giving this guy more attention.
This is exactly what he wanted.
Exactly.
Yeah, but it is a problem though because we have, and I mean, the fucking with the all of the surveillance that the fucking NSA does on their phones and our the way that the government regulates Facebook and controls social media and tries to track people's information.
So they're tracking people, women trying to get health, right?
Productive services, but they're not tracking those fuckers, right?
It's like, dude, we are all thinking wrong.
We are so fucking hypocritical.
We need to set that fucking straight.
How is that gonna affect?
Texas, that abortion law.
I heard that it's gonna be like, the day one you find out you're pregnant it's completely illegal to have an abortion.
I'm I'm not sure, but I'm I. That's what I'm hearing too.
I don't know man, I mean that's your state yeah, and I mean that fucking statement.
Honestly, I'm fed up with that state.
I mean, I like Texas as a, as a land, but their laws are just so fuck hypocritical again right, and gun laws you, what?
What are the?
How is hard is it to get a gun in Texas?
It's nothing, it's nothing.
What do you have to do nothing?
Just go and just go and get one literally.
Just show up with all fucking face tattoos and neck tattoos and they'll give you one literally.
Man no, for sure, I mean for real, that's, that's what's going on, and I mean I'm not, I'm not up.
I think the whole debate between the gone law, if we should be able to or not able to, I think it doesn't really matters, because if you look then again to Mexico right, and if you say like, let's prohibit everyone from having, Nobody is shooting up schools in Mexico.
That's not happening in Mexico, but still, there's a lot of fucking people getting killed in Mexico, right?
I mean, how did that work for Mexico to being so strict, right?
But the other way around is also, what I'm trying to say is like, it doesn't really matter.
It's a wrong debate.
It's a wrong conversation we're having about like gun laws.
It doesn't really matter.
It has no effect into what's happening in the US with the shootings and all that shit, right?
It's not about guns.
If you want a gun, if it's illegal, you're going to get one.
It's going to happen what happened in Mexico, right?
It's easier to get an illegal gun than a legal gun.
If it's legal, you're going to get it as well.
I think it's a matter of education.
Those guys are a product of something that's wrong on their houses, on their schools, right?
Which guys?
The school shooters?
Yeah.
The guys like the Highland.
There's something fucking wrong.
I don't know if it has ever crossed your mind doing some shit like that, right?
And in most of us that grew up, I don't know, you always got a bully on your school, you always got bad times or whatever, but you never think about, I'm going to bring a fucking AK and shoot the whole fucking school, right?
Right.
Something has happened to those guys and they're not getting enough attention.
Something really fucking bad is happening.
Exactly.
And it's not gone laws.
Those guys aren't saying like, oh, I can get a gun, let me go shoot.
I mean, it's easier for them, of course.
But it's harder in Mexico, but we're still having certain people fucking kill the day.
Different problem, but life's gone as well.
If you want something, you're going to get it.
If it's illegal, it's just going to cost you more.
If it's legal, it's just going to cost you less.
You're going to get it.
If you want to kill someone and have a gun and make a fucking massive shootout, the problem is not how easy it is for you to get a gun.
The problem is why are you fucking even thinking about that, right?
That's the main issue.
Another part of the problem is the fact that the media and politicians in the U.S. specifically, they just use this as political ammunition just to get more power.
Exactly.
They don't give a fuck whether it's illegal or not.
It's just a matter of what's going to get them more votes or what's going to get them elected.
Yeah.
Now, again, I'm not one of these guys that's saying, like, let's all have weapons or whatever.
I don't own and I don't plan to own.
I just don't like weapons.
You don't like weapons at all?
I don't.
Really?
I mean, no.
I mean, I've seen just too much out of them that I. That's interesting coming from a guy who's been around.
Yeah, I've been around too much to like them, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah, so I'm not against them, but I'm not super fucking fond of guns, right?
Right.
But at the same time, I think if you make them harder to get, what you're going to do is you're only going to create a black market.
A few ones, a couple of people that's going to make tons of fucking money out of that fucking industry.
You don't want a black market of guns in the US, right?
That's.
I mean that's gonna add up to the problematic.
Yeah, so prohibition, whatever it is, it never works, never works.
It only creates black markets, it only puts more people in danger and it only feeds the pockets of a few.
So yeah, it's a.
It's a weird thing, like the difference between Mexico and America is, in Mexico, the violence stems from an industry right, a black market industry.
It's like life or death, like trying to put food on the table, and a greed Like greed, like making more money and turf, ego, businesses and stuff like that, control.
And here, like when you're talking about school shootings, even though it probably adds up to way fewer deaths than the deaths that come from the cartels in Mexico, it's almost like it's from like things are too good here.
Yeah.
And you have people who are just isolated and fucking ostracized from their fucking groups or their.
Their school groups, or whatever it is, they have fucked up parents, and just like the culture here in general is so much different than there because it's like it's almost too good here, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly, man, exactly.
That's what I've been talking with a lot of people leaving the U.S., and they feel like things are just too easy in the U.S., that it makes people sick, you know, it makes people feeling lonely, and and they and the other countries, like the big fucking Russia's.
And the Chinas will exploit that to work for Russia.
You'll see it with propaganda and the media, trying to manipulate that kind of stuff, or trying to manipulate the mind, rather, at least in history, throughout history.
And then when you have things like what we're talking about with China and fentanyl, allegedly, if that's what their intentions are, trying to manipulate the weaknesses of America that way.
Yeah.
I mean, and again, The media, it's not helping, right?
Because every single one of those fuckers, they always leave something like a manifesto or a video or something.
They want the fucking attention.
And they keep getting the attention.
They keep getting their names all over the fucking news, their faces, their videos, their rap songs, their manifestos.
It's like, let's just fucking keep ignoring those motherfuckers.
So when they go out and think about, like, I'm going to shoot a lot of people for nothing because no one's going to fucking remember me anyways.
I think that's going to keep them, probably.
It's going to keep them from doing that because they're not going to feel important, right?
They're not going to feel like they're going to change something.
Right.
Yeah, it's more of a public suicide than anything.
Just like, How can I commit suicide and create the most attention?
Yeah, it's like the kid that's calling for attention by harming, I don't know, the cat, his cat or his pet or whatever.
Yeah.
And he's like, just fucking throw him in.
Fucking bro, I don't know, man.
It's a hard thing to have an answer to.
But I'm pretty sure that guns have nothing to do with it.
Yeah, no, I agree.
Bro, thank you for coming all the way from Mexico and doing this.
I think we're almost at like three hours, three and a half, three, two hours, 45 minutes like that.
My fucking eye, which went out of battery.
Bro, it's been awesome.
Tell people watching and listening where they can find out more of your work, your sub stack, everything, where they can follow you.
For sure, man.
If you go to my website, lchaparro.com, you'll find my YouTube channel where I'm trying to be as active as I can, but I mean, I'm fucking swamped and work.
But every time I find some interesting clips when I'm embedding with cartels or with U.S. authorities, or I did an embedding also with the Border Patrol along the border.
To find out how they are arresting and who they are arresting along the border and that stuff.
So, every time I do something like that, I will post it in YouTube.
Also, you'll find there every single one of my stories regarding crime and immigration, drugs.
And if you go there where it says one detail insights on security, click here.
That's my SoftTick account where I post more of like the raw information.
It's called confidential.
And what I try to think of confidential is like where I post the raw stuff that it's not curated or edited, you know, like raw interviews, raw audio interviews, a raw article without being properly spell checked.
Yeah, spell checked, and you know, like all that shit.
Or, yeah, exactly.
More like raw shit and a lot of stuff.
Something you can get out.
I like that better because it's more raw.
You can get it out when people are being more raw and trying to just get stuff out rather than sitting on it for too long.
Yeah.
Exactly.
I enjoy that shit more.
Because I used to be the same way.
I used to create a lot of documentary style stuff and spend months on one project.
And when I transitioned to doing this stuff, it's more authentic because you can basically just get right to it.
You can fucking like me, fumbling through my word, trying to learn as I go.
Exactly.
But you're able to put out a lot more content that way.
Exactly.
I enjoy that shit more.
And sometimes in the news, you can't post the names, who is controlling Sonora and who is controlling Chihuahua and who gives a fuck, right?
But I do give a fuck.
And sometimes I just post.
Photos of, like this is the cartel boss for Chihuahua and this state and this region, and I will post, like their names and photos and, you know, like more detailed information that it's not really making the news because it might not be newsworthy, but it will.
It will keep you um, aware and informed and educated on what's going on in in the whole crime world in America.
So yeah, I guess that's the that's the way to go, and and, of course my, my instagram account.
Sometimes I will be also embedding talking with someone uh, sharing stuff that I get shared by Your Instagram's.