Danny Jones Podcast - #218 - Mexican Cartels Just Hijacked Military Spy Technology | Luis Chaparro
Aired: 2024-01-08
Duration: 02:57:55


=== Felix and the Hidden Truth (09:22) ===

[00:00:07]  Luis, welcome back, bro.
[00:00:09]  Hey, man.
[00:00:09]  How are you doing?
[00:00:10]  Great to be here.
[00:00:11]  Good, man.
[00:00:11]  I'm excited to have you back to talk about some of the shit that's going on.
[00:00:14]  Oh, yeah.
[00:00:14]  All around Mexico and South America.
[00:00:16]  And it seems like no one's paying attention to it right now, but you have had, you've been balls deep in the cartel world.
[00:00:24]  Yeah, dude.
[00:00:25]  I mean, I don't know if luckily or what, but it's just the way things go, you know.
[00:00:30]  I'm supposed to be reporting the whole region, like Latin America.
[00:00:33]  But Mexico is keeping me so busy right now.
[00:00:35]  It's so wild what is happening in Mexico and what is about to happen.
[00:00:40]  Yeah.
[00:00:41]  And like I was showing you last night, we got the tridents from my boy Manny, whose godfather is Felix Rodriguez, who we're going to be going to talk to soon, hopefully.
[00:00:50]  Dude, that will be massive, dude.
[00:00:52]  I mean, I've been after Felix Rodriguez for a while.
[00:00:55]  I published this story about the involvement of the CIA in the murder of Kiki Camarena back in 1987.
[00:01:02]  The first time I published that story was in 2013 in a Mexican magazine called Proceso.
[00:01:08]  Several years before the documentary that it's now showing on Amazon.
[00:01:12]  And I try to get a hold of Felix, but he's a shadowy man.
[00:01:16]  I mean, it's hard to get a hold of him, right?
[00:01:19]  You've seen him like once every now, like on interviews regarding the killing of Che Guevara and his operations in Cuba and Bolivia and South America.
[00:01:31]  But he's never really talked about Mexico, right?
[00:01:35]  And what he did in Mexico back in the 80s.
[00:01:37]  It would be.
[00:01:39]  Massive.
[00:01:39]  Right.
[00:01:40]  If we can get a hold of them, like, you know?
[00:01:42]  Yeah.
[00:01:42]  One of the first documentaries you pointed out to me before you first came on the show was that documentary called, I think it was The Last Narc.
[00:01:48]  Yeah.
[00:01:49]  Was it?
[00:01:49]  With, I forget who the other guy was, but he basically found out somehow that there was a Cuban guy in the room when they were torturing Kiki, and the Cuban guy was most likely Felix.
[00:02:03]  Yeah.
[00:02:03]  I mean, that's what sources say all the time, right?
[00:02:06]  And there is like available transcripts of that recording where they're torturing.
[00:02:11]  Kiki Camarena, but I don't know.
[00:02:14]  For some reason, the audio files have never been out.
[00:02:19]  Several officials also say that they don't exist, those tapes are fake.
[00:02:24]  They don't really exist, and there's a fucking rumor.
[00:02:27]  But there are transcripts of the whole call.
[00:02:30]  The thing is, the transcripts don't identify anyone on the room.
[00:02:34]  They kind of identify Caro Quintero allegedly, but then again, Caro Quintero, he's an old man.
[00:02:39]  He's always denied that he actually did something to hurt Kiki Camarena.
[00:02:44]  Everybody's denying their involvement in the whole Kiki Kamareka case.
[00:02:49]  Right, right.
[00:02:50]  And Felix, so Felix was brought into the CIA, I think, leading up to the Bay of Pigs, right?
[00:02:58]  When they were training a bunch of the Cubans or the Cuban Americans to basically go over there and invade and fight.
[00:03:04]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:03:05]  He was a massive operator, right?
[00:03:07]  He's a Cuban that used to know his country so well, but he was actually working for the US government.
[00:03:15]  With the CIA as an asset because he knew the region, he knew the language, and he was extremely, I mean, skilled for what he had to do.
[00:03:25]  I mean, he found El Che Guevara, right, in Bolivia.
[00:03:28]  So he was like, he was like skilled, man.
[00:03:31]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:03:31]  Hey guys, just wanted to drop in real quick to let you know that on the back end of this YouTube channel, it says that 70% of the viewers have not yet hit the subscribe button.
[00:03:40]  So if you enjoyed this podcast and you want to see more underground investigative episodes like this one, I want to ask you a favor, and that's to simply hit the subscribe button below this video.
[00:03:50]  By doing this, you're enabling the podcast to get in front of and reach more people, which allows this thing to sustain itself and helps us to get more strange and interesting guests on the show.
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[00:04:08]  Thank you all.
[00:04:09]  I love you.
[00:04:10]  I'm back to the show.
[00:04:11]  Yeah.
[00:04:11]  He was training the people in Mexico, the guerrillas, right?
[00:04:14]  To go fight over in Nicaragua.
[00:04:16]  Yeah.
[00:04:16]  So, what was happening there is that they, The US government through the CIA had this arrangement with Mexican criminal organizations.
[00:04:24]  They weren't still called cartels back then, back in the 80s.
[00:04:27]  The deal was you train our people in the use of arms and fire weapons, all that stuff.
[00:04:34]  So they go and fight in Central America against communism.
[00:04:40]  And we'll let you a free pass for airplanes packed with cocaine into the US.
[00:04:46]  That was the deal.
[00:04:48]  The first time I reported this story, I met Tosh Plumbley.
[00:04:52]  A great pilot out of New Mexico.
[00:04:55]  And he showed me a lot of his paperwork for all the stuff he did with the CIA.
[00:05:00]  He was in charge of bringing these loads of cocaine on private small planes.
[00:05:05]  Sometimes there were small Cessnas across the border from a ranch in Veracruz and several other places in Mexico back to the U.S.
[00:05:15]  And at the same time, Caro Quintero, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, and Ernesto Fonseca, those guys were the head.
[00:05:23]  Of what was called the Guadalajara Federation, right?
[00:05:27]  And they were training people.
[00:05:28]  They were training all these Mexican henchmen to go and fight in Central America.
[00:05:34]  I don't think they actually knew what was really happening in the broader scope, you know, that like they were fighting the Contras.
[00:05:42]  I think they knew that they needed to train armed people to go and fight in Central America.
[00:05:49]  But probably they didn't understand who was behind the whole thing because that was one of the main things that Felix was known for.
[00:05:56]  Right, for keeping a low profile on the CIA, you know, like no paper trail, no money trail, all that kind of stuff.
[00:06:06]  So, Felix probably went to these guys, like Carl Quintero and Felix, and basically said, We want to train our guy.
[00:06:14]  He didn't say he was CIA, he probably just said, We want to train your guys to fight for.
[00:06:19]  Yeah, what I think is.
[00:06:20]  Yeah, I mean, it's probably Felix just sold the version that he had a way to.
[00:06:27]  Keep bringing cocaine into the US as a free pass.
[00:06:30]  He's probably, he probably said, like, you know what, I'm a huge trafficker, son trafficante cubano, whatever, and I can help you out because I have connections.
[00:06:39]  So we can bring a lot of airplanes.
[00:06:41]  So when the Mexican criminal organizations are like, okay, this is a free pass, it's actually working, they don't give a shit what they have to pay or what they have to do in order to do that.
[00:06:49]  Their eyes are on the target.
[00:06:51]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:06:52]  So they're probably saying, just train these people.
[00:06:55]  I need an army.
[00:06:56]  I need a personal army, whatever.
[00:06:58]  I'm fighting another criminal organization, whatever, in Central America.
[00:07:01]  So, just train a lot of my people.
[00:07:03]  So, they're like, yes, we'll train your people, the use of arms, whatever, if you keep letting us, you know.
[00:07:10]  And that's where Kiki Camarena, this former DA agent, showed up.
[00:07:16]  He found first this huge property where they were harvesting weed, marijuana, in Chihuahua, the biggest plantation they've ever found, ever.
[00:07:29]  But also, he found these ranches where they were training disarmed people.
[00:07:35]  And he was about to call on his boss.
[00:07:37]  He had asked for a meeting with this DEA supervisor called Cookendall.
[00:07:43]  He's the only one who has never done any interviews when it comes to that story.
[00:07:48]  He was the supervisor.
[00:07:49]  He was Kiki Kamarena's supervisor.
[00:07:51]  So, if someone knows what really happened, it's Kukendall.
[00:07:55]  But he even sued the production company of The Last Narc for how they portrayed his role in the whole thing.
[00:08:02]  Really?
[00:08:03]  So, he's been out of it.
[00:08:05]  Like, he's been out of every story.
[00:08:07]  He's mentioned, because he's the main guy.
[00:08:08]  He was the supervisor.
[00:08:09]  He knows what happened.
[00:08:13]  But he's never talked about it.
[00:08:15]  So, I don't know.
[00:08:16]  That's also kind of like sketchy, right?
[00:08:18]  Because you would come out and say, like, yeah, my agents were working.
[00:08:22]  Good, whatever.
[00:08:23]  Kiki Camarena requested a meeting to tell me something before he was kidnapped and eventually killed.
[00:08:31]  This guy, his supervisor, he was in the office when Kiki got kidnapped?
[00:08:36]  He was in the office and Kiki Camarena was kidnapped right in front of the headquarters.
[00:08:41]  Going to lunch, right?
[00:08:42]  Waiting for his wife.
[00:08:45]  Is this guy still alive?
[00:08:46]  Kukendol?
[00:08:47]  Yeah.
[00:08:47]  I think he is.
[00:08:48]  Really?
[00:08:49]  Yeah.
[00:08:51]  Probably between him and Felix, they have the whole fucking truth, you know, of what happened.
[00:08:56]  If they're going to.
[00:08:57]  Tell the truth.
[00:08:58]  Like, sometimes I don't know.
[00:08:59]  Like, they're probably going to die before they actually tell.
[00:09:02]  Felix is getting old, man.
[00:09:03]  Felix is what, like 80 something, right?
[00:09:05]  Yeah, he's in his late 80s and he can either walk around with a cane apparently and gets around very slow.
[00:09:11]  Dude, he needs to come clean before he leaves this world, dude.
[00:09:16]  Just to know.
[00:09:17]  I mean, he's probably, he was probably, I mean, it's probably true that he could say, like, I wasn't even there.
[00:09:24]  I swear to God, whatever.
[00:09:25]  We'll take a Bible to swear on it.
[00:09:27]  Dude, it's crazy.
[00:09:28]  It's like what we were saying last night.

=== Cartel Criminals Everywhere (15:31) ===

[00:09:30]  It's like the olden days of when the Guadalajara Federation controlled everything.
[00:09:35]  It seemed like it was a much more smooth operation, way less bloodshed than what it is now with all the factions that are competing for power down there in Mexico right now.
[00:09:46]  So, right now in Mexico, what is the dynamic and the power structure of the cartels?
[00:09:53]  Is it mainly just the Sinaloa cartel and the New Generation cartel?
[00:09:56]  Yeah, well, basically, those are the.
[00:09:59]  Changed through these years since the 80s, probably.
[00:10:04]  Back then, they were basically, or criminal organizations, they were cartels.
[00:10:07]  They were drug cartels.
[00:10:09]  I don't think it's accurate to call them drug cartels anymore.
[00:10:12]  We keep hearing the same thing over the news, right?
[00:10:14]  Like, drug cartels is probably the easiest way to make people oversimplify what these criminal organizations are.
[00:10:23]  But I don't think it's accurate at all because they're not just drug cartels.
[00:10:26]  Back then, Felix Gallardo and all these dudes, they were trafficking.
[00:10:30]  Drugs, and that was their whole business, right?
[00:10:33]  They didn't have any other business.
[00:10:35]  But these criminal organizations, right now, that we're dealing with today, they're everything but drug cartels.
[00:10:41]  Drug is just one revenue stream from a huge array of different revenues they get.
[00:10:51]  Like, they're involved in extortion, they're involved in kidnapping, they're involved in monopolizing, they're involved in basically the sites of corruption, right?
[00:11:02]  Like, let's say.
[00:11:06]  You're running to be a local president for a municipality in Mexico.
[00:11:10]  You want to win.
[00:11:11]  So the cartel shows up with you, say, like, okay, you want to win this thing?
[00:11:15]  We can put a lot of money and get you a lot of votes.
[00:11:19]  So you win the election.
[00:11:20]  But in order, after you get elected, what you're going to do with us is you're going to give us all the contracts for construction, for constructing hospitals, roads, schools, new developments, all that stuff.
[00:11:34]  Because that's the way they're going to make money out of it on these semi legal.
[00:11:39]  Things, right?
[00:11:40]  They're monopolizing water.
[00:11:41]  They're monopolizing gold mines.
[00:11:43]  They're monopolizing a lot of natural resources all over Mexico.
[00:11:48]  Now they're all over with the immigration.
[00:11:51]  They're basically handling the whole illegal immigration path and networks in Mexico and Central America.
[00:12:00]  So they're everywhere where there is money to be made.
[00:12:04]  But cocaine is still like 80% of the revenue, right?
[00:12:07]  Yeah, cocaine is pretty large still.
[00:12:09]  But I'm not sure if I will call cocaine.
[00:12:13]  It's still a main revenue for them.
[00:12:15]  I think it's a steady revenue.
[00:12:15]  We wouldn't even call it a main revenue.
[00:12:17]  No, I think it's a steady revenue, probably the most steady revenue they have.
[00:12:21]  But when you have things like fentanyl, which is huge revenue for them, I think that that's displacing the revenue from cocaine.
[00:12:30]  Cocaine right now, it's at its lowest price per kilo in the U.S.
[00:12:35]  I thought I saw a story.
[00:12:37]  I've talked about it on this podcast recently, actually.
[00:12:40]  I thought I saw a story somewhere where one of the bosses of the Sinaloa cartel put out some sort of.
[00:12:48]  Message to all of the other bosses or people that were working in the cartel saying that if they caught anybody mixing fentanyl into cocaine, they'd be executed or something like that.
[00:12:57]  And there were like signs or something they put out.
[00:12:59]  Yeah.
[00:13:01]  If you take into account that they make public these announcements, it's not for their henchmen, right?
[00:13:09]  Because they have private communication, they have private ways to communicate with the other organizations and stuff without making it public.
[00:13:16]  They have walkies, they have means to.
[00:13:19]  Reach every other member of the organization to tell them there is a ban, right?
[00:13:24]  But the fact that they make it public says that they're talking to us, right?
[00:13:29]  To people, to media.
[00:13:30]  It's propaganda, exactly.
[00:13:32]  That's what they leave banners and that's what they leave like bodies with a small mountain of fentanyl pills.
[00:13:37]  So that's literally to unmark themselves from the whole industry, saying, like, no, we're the good guys.
[00:13:43]  We're enforcing side by side with you guys, US and Mexico government.
[00:13:46]  We're working all together to stop the fentanyl production.
[00:13:49]  But that's bullshit.
[00:13:50]  They're just moving kitchens to other places.
[00:13:52]  Right now, if you go to Sinaloa, it's really hard to find a laugh, a fentanyl laugh in Sinaloa, right?
[00:14:00]  Because there's a lot of operations.
[00:14:02]  They don't want to be on the spot and that stuff.
[00:14:06]  This is the article Sinaloa Cartel's message to members stop making fentanyl or die.
[00:14:13]  Crime group yields to intensifying U.S. law enforcement pressure and is kidnapping or killing producers who defy the man.
[00:14:19]  Is there a picture of the banners that they're posting?
[00:14:21]  Oh, no, it's a paywall.
[00:14:23]  Yeah, but this is all propaganda.
[00:14:25]  This is just to get the media attention.
[00:14:27]  That's what it was intended for, right?
[00:14:29]  For articles like this.
[00:14:30]  So everybody says, like, okay, they want the U.S. media attention.
[00:14:35]  That's what they want, right?
[00:14:37]  They reach out to journalists, they reach out to Mexican officials, they put out banners that they think is going to make flashy news headlines the next day.
[00:14:51]  And we all fall for it.
[00:14:53]  I mean, of course, my editor asked me, like, hey, do you want to write a story on that?
[00:14:56]  And I'm like, okay, let me just call some of these contacts I have in Sinaloa to see what they say, what they feel.
[00:15:01]  And of course, everybody said, like, dude, it's bullshit.
[00:15:04]  Where, I mean, everybody's still, you know, cooking fentanyl.
[00:15:07]  It's just a way to make it look like the organization is not involved anymore.
[00:15:14]  Because even rivals like the guys in Tijuana, right?
[00:15:18]  The Arellano Felix organization, they've been rivals forever with a Chapitos faction, with a Sinaloa cartel.
[00:15:25]  Are they still legitimate?
[00:15:26]  They're still around.
[00:15:27]  I mean, it's not handled by the main.
[00:15:29]  Family members, but they're still around.
[00:15:32]  The organization kept the name, but it's just new players, right?
[00:15:37]  Leftovers of probably the leftovers.
[00:15:41]  But even so, they also set up banners all over Tijuana saying, like, yeah, we support our rivals' initiative of banning fentanyl also on our territory in Tijuana.
[00:15:53]  So if we find fentanyl, whatever.
[00:15:55]  But if you go to Tijuana, dude, it's so easy to get a hold of these M30 fake oxys or fake pills, you know, which are all laced with fentanyl.
[00:16:06]  So it hasn't stopped.
[00:16:08]  I mean, the fentanyl trade hasn't stopped, it hasn't even wind down.
[00:16:13]  It's huge.
[00:16:14]  They just moved the kitchens.
[00:16:15]  I wrote a story about the kitchens being moved to Bogota in Colombia.
[00:16:21]  They started moving the whole thing to small apartments in Bogota, to San Luis Potosi.
[00:16:26]  So they're different Mexican states.
[00:16:29]  That's really what's happening.
[00:16:31]  So, where the cartels are at now, like you just mentioned, they're not just drug cartels anymore.
[00:16:36]  They are multinational empires.
[00:16:39]  Exactly.
[00:16:41]  Yes.
[00:16:43]  Many states or countries in South America, Mexico, how many total countries are they?
[00:16:49]  Dude, I mean, I guess, I don't know, dude.
[00:16:52]  I mean, it's going to be hard because, again, you have to understand these are like criminal enterprises or criminal insurgencies, right?
[00:16:59]  They're huge and they're not vertical.
[00:17:02]  There's not like a single boss and then a bunch of people.
[00:17:04]  They're like more horizontal organizations with smaller verticals, tiers.
[00:17:11]  You know, you have a boss and then probably four guys and then below, you know, but for the most part, they're horizontal.
[00:17:17]  Organizations very dynamic.
[00:17:19]  So, you kill one, they move another one.
[00:17:22]  If you arrest one, just the next one pops up, right?
[00:17:25]  But the organization keeps at it, right?
[00:17:27]  So, that means when you try to identify what is and/or who is a member of a cartel, it's kind of hard because the old lady who is a lookout on a corner for the cartel is she part of the cartel or is she just getting you know 20 bucks a month to make a call whenever she sees something strange?
[00:17:48]  Uh, what they call a cartel, they themselves.
[00:17:52]  The people who call themselves cartel are just the henchmen, the armed people.
[00:17:57]  When you go to Sinaloa or to with the guys of the Jalisco, New Generation, whatever, what we see as the armed branch of an organization, that's what they call cartel.
[00:18:07]  So if you say, like, if you like, exactly, basically, sicarios.
[00:18:11]  And when I interview people that are managing the organization, that are in charge of money or attorneys or making decisions, they hate it when you call them cartel members.
[00:18:24]  Like, right.
[00:18:25]  So, so you're a cartel member.
[00:18:26]  They're like, no, no, no.
[00:18:27]  I'm part of the organization, right?
[00:18:29]  The Sinaloa organization.
[00:18:31]  The cartel is just the armed branch of our organization.
[00:18:36]  That's how they see it.
[00:18:37]  And I think that's probably when we were having a hard time to identify what is a cartel, who represents a cartel.
[00:18:43]  Again, the buyers of the whole thing, of the drugs, even if they pay with money or they're paying with arms, are on this part of the border, right?
[00:18:52]  Or on the U.S. side?
[00:18:52]  On the U.S. side.
[00:18:53]  I mean, that's where the drugs are intended to come.
[00:18:56]  So most of the buyers are on the U.S. side of the border.
[00:18:59]  So, are they cartel members or are they part of the organization or are they just clients?
[00:19:05]  It's hard to tell the boundaries of what we call a criminal enterprise, right?
[00:19:12]  Because when you think about it, let's think about a proper enterprise.
[00:19:16]  Let's think about Coca Cola, right?
[00:19:17]  You have employees and then you have a buyer on a large scale.
[00:19:22]  So they say, okay, I'm a distributor for you.
[00:19:26]  Do they work for Coca Cola or are they just distributors?
[00:19:30]  How does that play out in the criminal world?
[00:19:34]  The whole thing is to get arms and money from the US and drugs into the US.
[00:19:40]  So you need a buyer.
[00:19:41]  Even before you start cooking or buying, if you want to get into it, like as an independent, what you first need is a client, right?
[00:19:48]  Someone who's already buying your shit.
[00:19:52]  So you will go to LA or Miami or whatever and find a buyer.
[00:19:57]  And you say, like, hey man, I have the capability to bring you 10 kilos of cocaine, purest quality, whatever.
[00:20:04]  And when that person agrees, And it says, like, okay, yes, let's do it.
[00:20:09]  Then you go to your source and then source yourself and make money within that transaction.
[00:20:15]  But then that's literally how the whole world of drug trafficking works, right?
[00:20:21]  So there's a bunch of them representing the cartel or the criminal organization on this side of the border.
[00:20:27]  Usual buyers, usual distributors, people that know what arms they need back in Mexico, you know, where to source them.
[00:20:37]  And they're also making money out of it or collecting the whole money for the.
[00:20:41]  For the criminal organizations, laundering money through hotels, through real estate, through a bunch of different industries.
[00:20:50]  And they are part of the organization, right?
[00:20:52]  They are probably the most important part of the fucking organization.
[00:20:55]  They're not.
[00:20:56]  Right.
[00:20:57]  Right.
[00:20:57]  They're not counting the shots, but they're handling the money.
[00:21:00]  They're handling the whole part of the operation that makes a criminal organization work.
[00:21:05]  They're like the sales team.
[00:21:06]  Exactly.
[00:21:07]  Yeah.
[00:21:08]  Yeah.
[00:21:10]  So, right now, basically, what we have in Mexico is this dynamic.
[00:21:14]  Very dynamic operation between criminal enterprises or criminal insurgencies that they work side by side with the Mexican government as well in terms of corruption, in terms of getting rid of rivalry or even political rivals.
[00:21:34]  These past federal elections, we have the most violent election process in Mexico's history.
[00:21:43]  There were over 19.
[00:21:45]  Candidates killed all over Mexico.
[00:21:47]  What?
[00:21:48]  Wait.
[00:21:48]  It was fucking wild.
[00:21:49]  It was, I think, two years ago, two or three years ago.
[00:21:53]  Actual presidential candidates.
[00:21:56]  Not all presidential candidates.
[00:21:57]  Political candidates.
[00:21:58]  Yeah.
[00:21:58]  Like state governors, local municipal mayors, presidential candidates.
[00:22:07]  It was wild, dude.
[00:22:09]  And that only shows you that the political aspect of Mexico is not only political anymore.
[00:22:17]  It's also criminal.
[00:22:18]  They're embedded, right?
[00:22:19]  Because they order these hits.
[00:22:21]  Why else will a cartel or a criminal organization go and kill a politician if they don't have stakes in politics, right?
[00:22:30]  So that means they work side by side.
[00:22:32]  And right now there are two main factions the Sinaloa cartel, with the Sinaloa organization, with a bunch of different factions, and the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, which is now breaking, starting to break into little factions as well.
[00:22:48]  Those are the main ones.
[00:22:50]  Not the only ones.
[00:22:51]  There are still the Cetas Vieja Escuela, which is a branch of the old Cetas cartel, right?
[00:22:59]  You have the Cartel del Golfo, Cartel del Noreste.
[00:23:05]  You even have.
[00:23:06]  The worst ones are on the East Coast, right?
[00:23:10]  Yeah, I mean, I don't think they are like on the East Coast because they really operate in whole Mexico, but they have stronger stakes on the East Coast because that's where you have the biggest international ports, seaports.
[00:23:25]  Where the precursors, arms, money are coming in, right?
[00:23:28]  They're coming in from the Gulf?
[00:23:30]  They're coming from the west coast.
[00:23:34]  So you have all the coast of Sinaloa and all the coast of Michoacán.
[00:23:41]  So that's where the two main cartels are based or operating probably more strongly.
[00:23:48]  And then you have the northeast part of Mexico, in Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, you have the Cartel del Noreste, which is a strong cartel, also a branch.
[00:24:01]  Of the Zetas.
[00:24:03]  And then on the southern part of Mexico, you have these really interesting new developments, which is an indigenous cartel.
[00:24:12]  They're called Cartel Chamula.
[00:24:13]  Chamula is an indigenous community from southern Mexico, Maya descendant.
[00:24:19]  And they formed their own cartel, like their own criminal organization to fight against the Jalisco, fight against the Sinaloa cartel, and to handle their own shit.
[00:24:30]  And they communicate on these Mayan.
[00:24:33]  Language between each other, and you have to be a chamula in order to be part of the chamula cartel.
[00:24:38]  So, the dynamics of the criminal organizations in Mexico are wild and are ever changing.
[00:24:45]  So, it's really hard to put a black and white thing on them.
[00:24:49]  Like, these are the good guys, the bad guys, these are the most violent, these are the main ones, because there's a bunch of them.
[00:24:56]  Even if you talk about just a single organization like the Sinaloa cartel, there's a bunch of factions.

=== The Wild Dynamics of Mexico (04:17) ===

[00:25:01]  You have Mayo Zambada's faction, you have Los Chapitos's faction.
[00:25:06]  You used to have the Mini League or the Damasos faction.
[00:25:11]  You used to have the Rusos faction, right?
[00:25:14]  So you have different smaller families like Los Salazar, Los Casares, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:25:22]  So you have a bunch of different families.
[00:25:24]  And when you talk of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, for the most part, they are a single brand.
[00:25:30]  But right now, it's breaking down into the Jardineros and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:25:36]  Like different other smaller players that are.
[00:25:39]  Trying to break their own branch of the same organization.
[00:25:43]  That's interesting what you said about the indigenous cartel in southern Mexico.
[00:25:47]  We just had a guy on here a couple months ago, or maybe two months ago, this guy named Luke, who explores southern Mexico and south, like Mesoamerica, Central America.
[00:25:57]  And he basically explores all these hidden cities.
[00:26:01]  And there is like millions of miles of uncharted cities in the jungle down there in southern Mexico and Central America.
[00:26:11]  And he says, like, Sometimes when you go out to like these temples, he's like, they're guarded by armed cartel members because these guys will loot those places looking for gold and shit and looking for treasure and artifacts and pottery and artwork and they'll sell it on the black market for tons of money.
[00:26:30]  A hundred percent true, man.
[00:26:32]  Yeah, that's what I was telling.
[00:26:33]  Like, these guys are not dealing with drugs.
[00:26:35]  They have a branch that is looking for gold, that are looking for gold or silver or ancient artifacts, you know, to sell, like to traffic and all that stuff.
[00:26:45]  And that's literally how it works.
[00:26:47]  The thing is, these criminal organizations are going to be around like flies around shit when there's money to be made, right?
[00:26:55]  When you go to places like the Sea of Cortez in Baja California, beautiful sea, and you have a huge season where a lot of jellyfish come up, right?
[00:27:10]  So that's not working for tourism and shit.
[00:27:14]  So the local fishermen, they start like fishing all these jellyfish.
[00:27:19]  And there was interest by a couple of companies in Taiwan to buy all the jellyfish from them because they eventually dehydrate them, treat them with salt, and sell it to China because it's a luxury food in China.
[00:27:38]  So when the cartel learned about that, they're like, okay, so you're making literally millions of dollars out of jellyfish that we don't use in Mexico?
[00:27:47]  Okay, we're in.
[00:27:49]  So they started going in, the Sinaloa cartel, particularly.
[00:27:53]  By threatening local fishermen, they killed one and they burned a couple of the trailers where they moved the jellyfish just to make a statement and say, Hey, you're not going to deal directly with these Taiwanese companies.
[00:28:09]  We are going to be in the middle.
[00:28:10]  We're going to buy from you super cheap.
[00:28:13]  There is no permission for anyone to go out into the sea without our permission.
[00:28:16]  You need to ask us for permission to go and fish jellyfish before you do.
[00:28:21]  So we know how many exactly you got out of the sea.
[00:28:25]  And we have control of the whole operation.
[00:28:26]  We're going to make money out of it.
[00:28:28]  So they monopolize the whole jellyfish business now.
[00:28:31]  They're literally like a parasite to any sort of fucking money making operation that exists down there.
[00:28:36]  Like it's a communism.
[00:28:37]  Yeah.
[00:28:38]  Yeah.
[00:28:39]  Literally.
[00:28:40]  What the?
[00:28:40]  I wonder what China uses the jellyfish for.
[00:28:43]  They eat it.
[00:28:43]  They eat jellyfish?
[00:28:44]  Yeah.
[00:28:45]  Yeah.
[00:28:46]  They hydrate the jellyfish.
[00:28:47]  They treat it with salt and they eat it.
[00:28:50]  Like.
[00:28:51]  It's like a delicacy?
[00:28:52]  Yeah.
[00:28:52]  It's like a delicacy.
[00:28:53]  Yeah.
[00:28:53]  It's like.
[00:28:54]  You can see photos.
[00:28:54]  I wonder if it tastes good.
[00:28:56]  I, uh, uh, these peanut butter and jellyfish sandwich.
[00:29:01]  It seems to be like super salty.
[00:29:03]  I mean, that's what I've been told, that it's super, extremely salty.
[00:29:07]  Probably not tasting good for us, but, um.
[00:29:10]  Jellyfish is eaten in China and other Asian countries.
[00:29:12]  And China, jellyfish is eaten as a delicacy in many ways, including in salads, a part of cold appetizers, and marinated dish.
[00:29:18]  Oh.

=== Monopolizing the Jellyfish Business (03:20) ===

[00:29:19]  It doesn't look bad.
[00:29:19]  I bet you it was some soy sauce.
[00:29:22]  I bet you it was pretty good.
[00:29:23]  I'm not sure, man, because if it's already salty, could you imagine that even with like soy sauce?
[00:29:28]  Oh, yeah, that might be too salty.
[00:29:29]  Dehydrated and pickled.
[00:29:30]  With sesame oil and salads.
[00:29:32]  I want to try some now.
[00:29:34]  Yeah, I don't feel so inclined to.
[00:29:37]  The fishermen were making millions of dollars harvesting these jellyfish.
[00:29:41]  Yeah.
[00:29:42]  And now they're being taxed by the cartels.
[00:29:44]  Exactly.
[00:29:45]  Just as what happened with the.
[00:29:47]  I mean, is it a fair tax or is it a tax that literally cripples their business?
[00:29:51]  Literally, this past season, they lost the whole season because they couldn't pay the.
[00:29:56]  I'm saying, is it a fair tax?
[00:29:58]  Yeah, like a fair.
[00:29:58]  Is it fair?
[00:29:59]  20% is fair.
[00:30:01]  50 would be unfair.
[00:30:03]  There's no fair game, you know?
[00:30:06]  Yeah, dude.
[00:30:06]  Yeah, so it's wild.
[00:30:07]  They had to stop the whole season because they didn't want to deal with cartels, right?
[00:30:11]  They were too afraid.
[00:30:13]  It was wild.
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[00:32:25]  I spoke with one of these fishermen and he's like, dude, I'm too scared to go out and ask for who's going to ask for permission and how is that going to work?
[00:32:32]  And if you're in the middle and they think that you're ripping them off and so, like, no, you got more yellowfish than what you're telling me, whatever.

=== Promo Code for Keto Brains (15:14) ===

[00:32:40]  So he was like, too afraid.
[00:32:41]  Well, didn't you just do a story about some farmers who were getting extorted?
[00:32:45]  They were basically taxing them so much and the farmers got to a point where it's like they're not making enough money on harvesting whatever it was they were.
[00:32:54]  Avocados.
[00:32:54]  The avocados.
[00:32:55]  They weren't making enough money.
[00:32:56]  So where they either had to.
[00:32:58]  Die fighting against the cartel or die of starvation because they weren't going to make any money.
[00:33:01]  Yeah.
[00:33:02]  This has been happening in Mexico for a while.
[00:33:05]  Every Super Bowl season, the U.S. consumes so many avocados and guacamole?
[00:33:10]  Yeah, dude.
[00:33:11]  Yes.
[00:33:11]  Holy fuck.
[00:33:12]  That it makes a war in Mexico.
[00:33:15]  We love guac.
[00:33:16]  Dude, every Super Bowl season is war season in Mexico.
[00:33:21]  So now there is a police called the Avocado Police, La Policia del Aguacate in Michoacán.
[00:33:27]  It's basically civilians geared up on their own resources to look over.
[00:33:32]  Michoacan, that's in Sinaloa?
[00:33:34]  That's in.
[00:33:34]  Or that's Sinaloa and Michoacan?
[00:33:36]  No, no, Michoacan's a different state.
[00:33:38]  Okay, okay.
[00:33:38]  But it's central Mexico.
[00:33:40]  Okay.
[00:33:42]  So that's where the self defense groups came up 10 years ago with the Politomora, right?
[00:33:47]  The first time they basically armed themselves and said, like, we're going to fight against cartel, we're going to fucking die.
[00:33:55]  Eventually, they won their first fight, which was a great precedent for, I mean, a great background for Mexico.
[00:34:04]  So there started, like, a lot of people started forming their own.
[00:34:07]  Guerrillas or their own self defense groups until cartels said, like, you know what, fuck it.
[00:34:13]  We had enough.
[00:34:15]  So last, no, this year, I was in Michoacán because they killed the founder of the self defense groups, a man, a very fucking brave man, a farmer called Hipólito Mora.
[00:34:28]  He was the leader.
[00:34:29]  He was kind of like the central figure for every other self defense groups in Mexico, right?
[00:34:36]  And they killed him on his way back to his house from his farm and they burned him alive.
[00:34:41]  Inside his pickup truck.
[00:34:43]  He had a guard by the Mexican state officials.
[00:34:47]  They put him guards to protect his life because he has been receiving threats.
[00:34:52]  Even they all got killed and burned inside the vehicles.
[00:34:56]  It was sad and alarming.
[00:34:59]  I visited his house.
[00:35:00]  I visited the place where he was burned, where his body was burned.
[00:35:03]  Dude, everybody was like quiet, like in a fucking funeral.
[00:35:08]  No one was like saying anything.
[00:35:10]  The town looked deserted.
[00:35:11]  It was really.
[00:35:13]  I don't know, dude.
[00:35:14]  It was like, yeah, kind of like sad and scary at the same time.
[00:35:19]  so what's going to happen with this farm well they kept it Who kept it?
[00:35:23]  The fucking cartels.
[00:35:24]  The cartels kept all of his land.
[00:35:26]  So, they killed him and they got away with stealing his fucking farm.
[00:35:28]  Yeah, dude.
[00:35:29]  And very recently, probably the story you were talking about, probably like two weeks ago in Mexico State, these farmers also got extorted.
[00:35:39]  They've been extorted forever by La Familia Michoacana, another cartel in central Mexico.
[00:35:45]  They asked for twice what they were getting.
[00:35:50]  They were paying one peso per square foot on whatever they were harvesting.
[00:35:55]  A peso, right now it's 18 pesos per dollar.
[00:36:00]  So it's probably a peso, it's not significant in U.S. currency, but for a Mexican, one peso per square foot of what they were harvesting, right?
[00:36:12]  A lot of corn, beans, whatever they're harvesting.
[00:36:15]  So if you have, I don't know, 10,000 square feet, Meters of whatever you're harvesting, you need to pay a peso for every square foot, right?
[00:36:27]  Of that.
[00:36:27]  And they asked them for twice that.
[00:36:29]  They're like, okay, so this year you're going to have to pay, starting this year, double, two pesos per square foot.
[00:36:34]  They had a really bad season because it didn't rain in that part of Mexico this season.
[00:36:41]  So they were like, dude, there's no way we can pay that.
[00:36:45]  So they're like, well, you either pay or you die.
[00:36:47]  They said yes, but they met a night before.
[00:36:50]  They had to meet these guys to pay their taxing, right?
[00:36:53]  And they met at a soccer field in this little town in Mexico.
[00:37:00]  The cartel members showed up, all geared up as usual, dressed as military members, whatever.
[00:37:06]  And then the whole community showed up.
[00:37:09]  But they showed up with shotguns, machetes, sticks, and stones.
[00:37:16]  And they were like, We're not paying shit, man.
[00:37:19]  And fucking hell broke loose.
[00:37:22]  You see the videos, there's people getting killed.
[00:37:25]  Cold kill like that.
[00:37:27]  Like, boom, right in the fucking head.
[00:37:29]  And then another guy in the back is like, boom, you killed my friend.
[00:37:31]  Everybody started killing everyone.
[00:37:33]  In total, there were 14 murders.
[00:37:35]  11 of those murders were cartel members.
[00:37:38]  So that was a big win for that community.
[00:37:42]  They were like, because they killed the leader of the La Familia Michoacana in that region.
[00:37:46]  Oh, no shit.
[00:37:46]  So they're like, fuck off.
[00:37:48]  Now, this past week, they came back.
[00:37:51]  La Familia Michoacana came back to that town and kidnapped.
[00:37:54]  A lot of young girls, a lot of babies, mothers, they're keeping them as ransom.
[00:38:01]  So they, because they're asking, like, turn over your leaders, the guys who started this fucking fight.
[00:38:08]  Turn them over to us, or we're not going to, we're going to kill all your family members.
[00:38:14]  And the situation is still tense.
[00:38:18]  I mean, they still have to release the kids, the women, because they want to, they want the community to turn over the leaders of who started that revolt against the cartel.
[00:38:29]  To teach them a lesson.
[00:38:30]  And what does the Mexican military do about this?
[00:38:33]  Are they asking them to help?
[00:38:35]  Nothing.
[00:38:35]  They've been asking for help for probably the last five years, this community.
[00:38:39]  And the Mexican army or the Mexican government has never showed up.
[00:38:43]  What the Mexican president said was just like, oh, yeah, yeah, we knew about those guys.
[00:38:48]  They were major targets for us.
[00:38:49]  We were just unable to find them before, but they're dead now.
[00:38:53]  So you guys are good.
[00:38:54]  And that's it.
[00:38:55]  That's literally it.
[00:38:57]  Yeah, dude, it's mind blowing what's happening right now in Mexico.
[00:39:01]  That's fucking insane, man.
[00:39:03]  Wild.
[00:39:03]  Insane man, wild now.
[00:39:06]  Who is so you just got done with a you did a really big interview with and I think did you partner with Grillo to release it?
[00:39:15]  Yeah, what was that interview?
[00:39:16]  That was with the guy who basically was Damaso Lopez, right?
[00:39:22]  He was partners with El Chapo, yeah, or he was his started out as his security.
[00:39:27]  El Chapo, like he gained his trust over the years, however long it was, and then eventually El Chapo made a deal with him saying, if I ever get pinched or if I ever get killed, he You're going to take my spot?
[00:39:37]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:39:38]  And this guy that you met with was his son.
[00:39:40]  His son.
[00:39:41]  Yes.
[00:39:41]  Got it.
[00:39:41]  So basically, the Damasos started off when El Chapo escaped for the first time from prison in Mexico, right?
[00:39:49]  His first.
[00:39:50]  He helped him escape.
[00:39:51]  He was the director of the prison, he was an attorney, and he was the director of that prison.
[00:39:59]  Right, right, right.
[00:39:59]  So he helped El Chapo escape.
[00:40:01]  So when El Chapo escaped, he knew they were going to come after him.
[00:40:04]  So El Chapo offered him a job.
[00:40:05]  He's like, okay, after I'm gone, come and look for me.
[00:40:08]  In Sinaloa, and I'll give you a job.
[00:40:11]  And he made this guy, Damaso Lopez Nunez, el licenciado, he made him his right hand in the cartel on his faction, right?
[00:40:20]  So he was dealing with, he was basically calling the shots.
[00:40:23]  Like, even though I'm going to get a lot of these comments saying, no, dude, he was never a shot cow or whatever.
[00:40:32]  He was the brains behind El Chapo, right?
[00:40:36]  El Chapo will consult everything to him.
[00:40:38]  It was like, what do we do?
[00:40:40]  We're facing these and that.
[00:40:41]  And he was a smart man.
[00:40:43]  He was an attorney.
[00:40:46]  So he will say, okay, let's not go into a fight.
[00:40:48]  Let's do these.
[00:40:49]  Or let's go into a fight.
[00:40:50]  Let's form a new group.
[00:40:51]  Let's move money here and there.
[00:40:54]  He was El Chapo's right hand, his most trusted man.
[00:40:58]  And they became compadres, basically.
[00:41:00]  He was the godfather to his sons, and Tamaso was godfather to Los Chapitos.
[00:41:06]  So they were family, basically.
[00:41:08]  They were embedded with them, they were family.
[00:41:09]  They grew up together.
[00:41:11]  The son of Damaso Lopez Nunez, Damaso Lopez Serrano, El Mini Leak, he was basically part of Los Chapitos.
[00:41:21]  They grew up together.
[00:41:22]  He was best friends with Alfredo.
[00:41:24]  He was best friends with Edgar, the youngest of Los Chapitos.
[00:41:30]  And eventually, when El Chapo got kitten, El Chapo got.
[00:41:34]  Was El Mini Leak good friends with.
[00:41:36]  Ovidio.
[00:41:37]  Ovidio.
[00:41:37]  And Ivan Archibaldo, all those guys.
[00:41:40]  They literally grew up together.
[00:41:43]  He was.
[00:41:43]  Best friends with El Mayo's son as well, El Mayo Gordo.
[00:41:47]  Wow.
[00:41:48]  So he was like, there was a pack of narco juniors, you know, basically owning the whole fucking state of Sinaloa.
[00:41:56]  And so what happened is when they arrested El Chapo and he got extradited, he sent a letter to Damaso, to a licenciado, saying that all of the money was for his four kids and his wife, Emma Coronel, right?
[00:42:11]  But the organization, he was going to leave that in the hand of the Damasos.
[00:42:17]  Right, the leak and the mini leak probably was a smart move.
[00:42:22]  Wait, wait, wait.
[00:42:23]  So, the money meaning the money that they already had, the cash or the income that the business was bringing in?
[00:42:29]  I guess both like the cash that he already had, the properties, all that shit.
[00:42:34]  Because on the letter, what he said, it was like, you already have enough money, just get out of this shit, live your life, do more than enough to his kids and his wife.
[00:42:46]  You live your life, you have more than enough to live a good life, and leave the organization in the hands of Damaso.
[00:42:53]  Right?
[00:42:53]  It was probably a smart move because El Chapo probably thought that these were coming, these war against Los Chapitos, and that they're going to end like him, extradited to the US, facing life sentences, that kind of shit.
[00:43:06]  So he didn't want that for his kids.
[00:43:07]  He's like, well, you don't want to let El Licenciado take the fucking heat and you guys retire and leave well.
[00:43:15]  Well, they didn't want to do that.
[00:43:17]  They were like, fuck no, the organization is ours.
[00:43:20]  We're the head of the organization right now.
[00:43:23]  They didn't listen to his dad and they started fighting against.
[00:43:25]  The Damasos against their godfather, basically, the one in charge.
[00:43:30]  For what I understand, Damaso, el licenciado, tried to negotiate, right?
[00:43:35]  Always tried to say, like, guys, this is what your dad wants to happen to the organization.
[00:43:41]  I don't want to fight with you.
[00:43:43]  But then they started, you know, killing his henchmen, killing his security people.
[00:43:49]  The Chipito started killing his?
[00:43:50]  Yeah, they started killing his for what Mindy Leek told me, his version of the story.
[00:43:57]  And every time they will come, After them saying, like, hey, why are you killing our people?
[00:44:02]  They're like, oh, it was a mistake.
[00:44:03]  Sorry.
[00:44:04]  My guys were like really high or really drunk, whatever, but I'm going to give them a lesson.
[00:44:09]  Sorry about that.
[00:44:10]  And they keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it.
[00:44:12]  Until Damaso Lopez Serrano, el mini leak, got fed up with it.
[00:44:18]  And he talked to his dad.
[00:44:19]  He's like, dude, I'm going to go all in against Los Chapitos.
[00:44:23]  Fuck it.
[00:44:25]  His dad was like, dude, we don't need a fight.
[00:44:27]  We don't want a fight between a family, within a single faction.
[00:44:30]  Let's just.
[00:44:31]  Solve this out.
[00:44:33]  He gathered a group of other cartel members from everywhere, even from like mafia people from Canada, like from everywhere that they hated on, was Chapitos, right?
[00:44:46]  So he gathered a group, made a WhatsApp group, and said, Hey, we need to get rid of these fuckers.
[00:44:51]  Like, they're just making too much waves here in Sinaloa.
[00:44:55]  We don't want them.
[00:44:56]  What do we do?
[00:44:58]  So they started planning.
[00:44:59]  And by the birthday of the oldest, Ivan Archibaldo Guzman, He was celebrating in Guadalajara, in San Popan, at this fancy restaurant.
[00:45:09]  And they kidnapped the four sons of El Chapo.
[00:45:12]  The order was to kill them, right?
[00:45:15]  But El Mayo got in the middle.
[00:45:17]  They tried to negotiate.
[00:45:19]  And then El Chapo was imprisoned in Ciudad Juarez, right at the border between El Paso, Texas, and Mexico.
[00:45:27]  And from there.
[00:45:28]  This is before he was extradited.
[00:45:29]  Before he was.
[00:45:30]  2017, probably a couple of months before he was extradited.
[00:45:34]  2016, I'm sorry.
[00:45:36]  So he called.
[00:45:37]  He managed to get the news from the guards there.
[00:45:43]  And he requested a call.
[00:45:44]  So he called a prison in Jalisco where El Cholo, his right hand, his henchman, El Cholo was arrested.
[00:45:51]  And he said, Hey, Cholo, I know you get along well.
[00:45:54]  We get along well with El Mancho's people, whatever.
[00:45:57]  I know that El Mancho's, the head of the Jalisco cartel, New Generation, I know that his son is in prison with you and your friends.
[00:46:05]  But you know what?
[00:46:05]  This is no time to make friends.
[00:46:07]  I need you to kidnap him inside prison to make him disappear until they let my kids go.
[00:46:13]  So El Cholo went after the son of El Mancho inside prison, kidnapped the kid, made the director of that prison call El Mancho and said, Hey, dude, your kid is nowhere to be found.
[00:46:25]  And this is a message to you.
[00:46:28]  As soon as you free my kids that are kidnapped, I'll free yours.
[00:46:34]  Meaning Los Chapitos.
[00:46:35]  Meaning Los Chapitos.
[00:46:37]  So.
[00:46:38]  So basically, El Mencho was like, I'm not part of this shed, but it's my turf, right?
[00:46:43]  It's Guadalajara, it's Jalisco, this is my turf.
[00:46:46]  So he ordered the Chapitos freed.
[00:46:49]  So, they had to free them, and then they freed his son inside prison, right?
[00:46:54]  And that's how they literally declared war against each other.
[00:46:58]  Wow.
[00:46:58]  Los Chapitos against Damaso.
[00:47:01]  Los Chapitos eventually managed to get a lot of more power and overpower the Damasos.
[00:47:07]  And Damaso was arrested in Mexico City.
[00:47:08]  Damaso's dad, a licenciado, was arrested in Mexico City.
[00:47:13]  What year was he arrested?
[00:47:14]  I think it was 2017.
[00:47:15]  Okay.
[00:47:16]  And then, months after, Minilik couldn't hold the, you know, the, His turf.
[00:47:23]  So he went for the border in Calexico and turned himself over to the DA.
[00:47:29]  He has been talking with the DA for a while now.
[00:47:31]  And he had been planning on turning himself over so he can give information against Los Chapitos.
[00:47:37]  And now he's the main guy behind the hunt against Los Chapitos.
[00:47:42]  Because he went, he served for five years, they released him, he's free.
[00:47:46]  He's not under WITSEC, he's not under witness protection or whatever.
[00:47:50]  He's just the main source of information.
[00:47:53]  He's not under witness protection at all?

=== Protecting Leads and Agendas (06:52) ===

[00:47:54]  No, he's not.
[00:47:55]  They're protecting the DEA is protecting the DEA is protecting him, but he's not, he never signed as a WITSEC.
[00:48:00]  He's not signed in as a how much protection could you possibly get from the DEA?
[00:48:06]  Not sure, man.
[00:48:07]  Not sure, but but when I met him, I could tell that there were a couple of agents around the place we met.
[00:48:16]  Oh, really?
[00:48:17]  So they're, yeah, they're putting an eye on him.
[00:48:19]  To so okay, explain to me how this interview came about.
[00:48:24]  Well, like, did he reach out to you out of the blue or how did this happen?
[00:48:28]  Yes, you reached out.
[00:48:29]  To me through Instagram first.
[00:48:32]  He sent me a DM.
[00:48:33]  And of course, I'm like, yeah, dude.
[00:48:35]  I mean, I get reached out by these amount of couriers.
[00:48:38]  Your DMs must be insane.
[00:48:40]  They're fucking wild, man.
[00:48:41]  They're fucking wild.
[00:48:43]  I mean, every, probably I get what, like five, 10 messages or requests every single hour of people saying everything from threats, from help me, I have a family disappear, whatever, to advice.
[00:49:00]  Hey, man, I'm traveling to Mexico.
[00:49:02]  Is it safe to go to these places?
[00:49:03]  Resort in Cancun, whatever.
[00:49:05]  Right.
[00:49:05]  To, hey, I'm El Mayo.
[00:49:07]  Hey, I'm talking to you on behalf of this crazy secret organization in the US that you never heard of and we're going to kill you.
[00:49:15]  To, there is a mountain on your head to watch out.
[00:49:18]  I'm a US official and I know that this is happening.
[00:49:22]  To, this is a new software criminals are using.
[00:49:25]  I'm part of it called Titan.
[00:49:27]  We'll get into it later.
[00:49:29]  These leads all come in through your channel?
[00:49:31]  Most of the leads come in.
[00:49:32]  Most of them, yes.
[00:49:33]  How do you filter out which ones are legit or not?
[00:49:36]  Do you actually go through them all?
[00:49:38]  No, I imagine it's got to be hard to understand.
[00:49:40]  Yeah, no, no, no.
[00:49:41]  I mean, there's no fucking way I can go through it all.
[00:49:44]  What I usually do is when I think there could be a story, I go and try to vet the information and the people behind it.
[00:49:55]  If that person is not willing to turn on his video camera, to share IDs, to share like kind of like that kind of shit, I just drop it.
[00:50:03]  I literally drop it.
[00:50:05]  If someone tells me, even if it sounds like good info, most of the guys with good info.
[00:50:10]  They will do.
[00:50:10]  They will follow.
[00:50:11]  They will like, I'll show you.
[00:50:12]  Yeah, dude.
[00:50:13]  Like, let's move to a secure app.
[00:50:15]  I have a couple of secure apps.
[00:50:17]  And let's move to that.
[00:50:18]  Open an account on these several secure apps, whatever.
[00:50:22]  And turn on your camera so I can know you.
[00:50:25]  So I can meet.
[00:50:26]  Because you know my face.
[00:50:26]  You know my name.
[00:50:27]  You know all about me.
[00:50:28]  But I don't know who's behind that account.
[00:50:30]  So it's only fair to be in a neutral space.
[00:50:33]  I know how to take care of your side of things so you don't get backlash or whatever.
[00:50:38]  I'm not going to record anything.
[00:50:39]  We're just going to talk first, right?
[00:50:41]  I need to understand who you are.
[00:50:42]  Why are you bringing this information to me?
[00:50:44]  What are your motivations?
[00:50:45]  What do you want for it?
[00:50:47]  What kind of information is this?
[00:50:49]  I waste a lot of time with kind of like fake, weak leads, right?
[00:50:54]  But sometimes it works because you get some strong fucking leads, you know?
[00:50:59]  So sometimes it's just nothing, old news, something that it's just rumors, something like, I know a guy who knows a guy who has a cousin that blah, blah, blah.
[00:51:09]  How do you vet or how do you, what like red flags do you look for when you're vetting some of these people that are messaging you to determine whether they have some sort of ulterior?
[00:51:19]  Ulterior agenda or motive, or might just be like one faction of one cartel that wants to attack another faction or paint another faction in a bad light?
[00:51:32]  First red flag is when they say it's just for the sake of truth, just for the sake of, you know, everybody has an agenda, too.
[00:51:40]  Like everyone, especially if they reach out to someone who's about to publish something.
[00:51:45]  So, yeah.
[00:51:46]  So, most of these guys are, because I speak.
[00:51:49]  With a lot of honesty.
[00:51:51]  Like, that's what I do.
[00:51:52]  I talk about my ways of doing it.
[00:51:55]  I'm very honest on saying, like, it's probably nothing.
[00:51:58]  I'm probably not even going to publish this shit or just stop and don't tell me shit because I don't want to know about that stuff.
[00:52:04]  Or just like, hey, dude, I'm going to have to, if you bring this information to me, I'm going to have to bet this through US and Mexican officials.
[00:52:12]  If you're good with it, I mean, I'm going to try to protect your identity and everything.
[00:52:17]  But with this info, I might have to bet it.
[00:52:20]  Through these people to see if they know something.
[00:52:23]  So I'm super honest about my process, right?
[00:52:26]  And when the person behind that account is honest as well, and it's like talking to me on video, whatever, and say, You know what?
[00:52:32]  You know why I'm bringing this to you?
[00:52:33]  Because I want to retire and I want to fuck these guys over, and that's it.
[00:52:37]  Or they did me wrong and I want to fuck them.
[00:52:40]  Or I just think this is overstepping my morals or my things.
[00:52:47]  And this is something that I don't want to be involved in, but I got this info.
[00:52:51]  So I'm just handing it over to you.
[00:52:53]  Do what you gotta do, or yes, I'm a member of the faction against those guys, so those guys are like the like Damaso himself.
[00:53:03]  When he reached town, he said, Hey man, I'm Damaso, Mini League.
[00:53:07]  Um, I had uploaded a couple of videos about him, and because he was uh recently freed, so I uploaded a video saying that he was free.
[00:53:15]  We have the video that he's originally sent you, no, the videos that I that I posted on my YouTube talking about him right first, like saying, Hey, so Damaso was freed, this is this guy, this is what he did, this is blah blah blah, this is what he was gonna say, like.
[00:53:28]  Debriefing what who it was, Damaso, right?
[00:53:31]  And then he, I got reached out.
[00:53:33]  He's like, I'm reaching out to you, first of all, because you talk a lot of bullshit, but most of that bullshit is not necessarily lies.
[00:53:44]  So I just want to set the record straight for you.
[00:53:47]  And I'm like, okay, I don't know if that's a compliment or what, but if you are really who you say you are, let's move towards your app and turn on your camera.
[00:53:57]  I'm pretty sure that I can recognize your face.
[00:53:59]  So he did.
[00:54:01]  He turned on his camera and he had this hat on and he was in selfie mode.
[00:54:05]  And I was like, Can you move your hat a bit up, you know, so I can see your face?
[00:54:10]  And I saw his face and it was him.
[00:54:13]  And I was like, Oh shit, so it's really you?
[00:54:14]  And he's like, Yeah.
[00:54:15]  And I'm like, Dude, you look older.
[00:54:18]  And he just laughed.
[00:54:18]  And he's like, Yeah, you look more fucked up too, camera.
[00:54:23]  So I'm like, Thank you, dude.
[00:54:24]  So, so yeah, I mean, can you show me your ID, passport, something that has your name?
[00:54:30]  Yeah.
[00:54:31]  I mean, I don't have.
[00:54:32]  Too, but I'll do it for you.
[00:54:33]  So he shows his idea, whatever.
[00:54:36]  And then we kept talking.
[00:54:37]  We turned off the camera, kept talking for a while.
[00:54:40]  So, I'm like, dude, I'm very interested in an interview with you, but I'm pretty sure that you're reaching out with an agenda, right?
[00:54:46]  Like, what is it?

=== Meeting Protocols and Trust (05:03) ===

[00:54:47]  And he was very clear about it.
[00:54:49]  He's like, I just want to fuck the Chapitos over.
[00:54:52]  So, I just want to talk a lot of shit I know about them and how things really went.
[00:54:57]  And yeah, that's, I mean, I'm being transparent on my intentions.
[00:55:02]  And I'm like, okay, so those are your intentions.
[00:55:04]  On my intentions, I don't want to fuck anyone.
[00:55:09]  I couldn't give a shit about fucking those Chapitos or whatever.
[00:55:12]  I just want to interview with you.
[00:55:13]  And that's the main thing I'm interested in.
[00:55:15]  Can we agree on the middle ground where I'm going to make an interview with you, but I'm not going to talk shit about these guys, any unproven shit?
[00:55:24]  And he's like, no, I have proof of what I'm going to tell you.
[00:55:27]  And okay, so perfect.
[00:55:29]  So we agreed on meeting, right?
[00:55:31]  In person.
[00:55:32]  In prison, yes.
[00:55:34]  So I flew to LA.
[00:55:36]  He was not living in LA.
[00:55:37]  He was living somewhere else.
[00:55:38]  So he traveled by land to LA.
[00:55:41]  You weren't really concerned about meeting with him because he'd already done his present time.
[00:55:44]  He was a free man.
[00:55:45]  Like he had no reason to fuck with you.
[00:55:48]  Even though.
[00:55:50]  I mean, you never know.
[00:55:51]  So, yeah.
[00:55:51]  You still never know.
[00:55:52]  Yeah.
[00:55:52]  So, I was absolutely, yeah.
[00:55:54]  I was kind of like concerned about that, but I was like, fuck it, dude.
[00:55:57]  I'll just do it, you know?
[00:55:59]  I flew to LA.
[00:56:00]  He asked me to be in Turner Hotel.
[00:56:03]  I have a whole protocol when I travel to meet people, you know, a whole protocol that I'm, of course, I'm not going to disclose in detail, but there's a whole protocol to.
[00:56:12]  Do you have people that go there for you in advance to scope out the location?
[00:56:16]  Yeah.
[00:56:16]  Like a lot of people, like, I know presidents when they go and visit places for meetings or presidential candidates, Candidates, they have what's called an advanced team where they go.
[00:56:24]  Like, if they're meeting in a hotel, they'll have a team of guys that like walk through the hotel, talk to people, and like, no, I don't.
[00:56:30]  Like, I work on a way more simple, you know, protocol.
[00:56:35]  Uh, part of it, I can say probably part of it, it's just either arriving way earlier, day or two days or three days or even a week earlier or a week later, you know, and say like, sorry, whatever, blah, blah, blah.
[00:56:48]  So, I, I, yeah, right, that's part of it.
[00:56:51]  Like, yeah, so, so it's a whole protocol I have that has worked for me to.
[00:56:55]  Make me feel safe.
[00:56:59]  Even choosing the place, I just asked because he set the place, but I asked to choose my own room and book my own things.
[00:57:07]  I'm like, okay, you want me to be in this hotel, particularly?
[00:57:11]  I'll be there, but let me handle the whole fucking thing of my arrangement of flights, transport, hotel room, all that shit.
[00:57:19]  Because he's like, I can put you in that hotel, whatever.
[00:57:21]  I'm like, no, I don't need you to do that for me.
[00:57:23]  Just set a place and I'll handle the whole fucking thing.
[00:57:27]  Right.
[00:57:27]  So he set the place, set the date, and I.
[00:57:30]  So, I requested a certain room where I feel safe, where it has like certain, you know, ways of exit and security protocols on a room.
[00:57:44]  And yeah, I waited and he showed up at the agreed time.
[00:57:50]  And he was very normal.
[00:57:52]  He was like, just like a regular dude you meet and say, Hey, what's up, dude?
[00:57:55]  Are you armed when you go do this?
[00:57:58]  On the US side of the border, most of the times I'm not, but sometimes I am.
[00:58:03]  Sometimes I am.
[00:58:04]  In Mexico, no.
[00:58:06]  But in Mexico, when I feel.
[00:58:09]  This is the thing.
[00:58:12]  The simplest thing about a security protocol is that if you feel you have a chance to die, like a real chance, like a real threat, just don't fucking go.
[00:58:21]  Right?
[00:58:21]  So it doesn't work.
[00:58:23]  So that's the simplest thing.
[00:58:25]  It's like, okay, so I feel a real threat.
[00:58:28]  Something is off.
[00:58:29]  They're asking me to travel to these places, to meet these guys, to ba Nah, I'll just pass on it.
[00:58:34]  Even if it's.
[00:58:37]  You hear that?
[00:58:37]  Yeah.
[00:58:39]  Sounds, Steve?
[00:58:40]  It's the coyotes.
[00:58:41]  It's the coyotes.
[00:58:42]  Oh, it's that.
[00:58:42]  Okay.
[00:58:42]  Sorry.
[00:58:44]  So that's what I do.
[00:58:45]  When I feel like, okay, I might go in Mexico, depending on who I'm meeting, if it's like a middleman, middle range, whatever, I do have a bunch of contacts in Mexico that I just ask them, like, hey, can you watch over me?
[00:59:03]  That's a good question.
[00:59:04]  Yeah.
[00:59:04]  They're like super, super legit in terms of they won't say shit.
[00:59:09]  Right.
[00:59:09]  Right.
[00:59:09]  They won't say who I meet, where I meet, nothing.
[00:59:12]  I trust them enough and they trust me enough.
[00:59:14]  But they are heavily armed and trained people, you know, like good, good, like heavyweight guys.
[00:59:20]  Yeah, like a paramilitary guy or, yeah, like a fucking Navy SEAL or something.
[00:59:24]  Yeah, they're super discreet.
[00:59:26]  They're around like regular people, whatever.
[00:59:28]  But I'm like, yeah, can you help me out on this one?
[00:59:30]  Boom.
[00:59:31]  If I need them to show up like, you know, like proper geared up or whatever, then I ask them, yeah, you can show up like geared up and whatever.
[00:59:37]  They will show like, basically secure the escorts and, you know, like that kind of shit.
[00:59:41]  Especially when it's a bar, when it's a public bar, crowded with people.
[00:59:46]  People and you know, like a club or whatever, and they someone wants to meet there for a reason.

=== Verso Sponsorship Break (02:51) ===

[00:59:51]  I ask him to go like fully, you know, like, hey, really?
[00:59:55]  Yeah, like, can you help me out?
[00:59:56]  And why at a bar would you want him to look like that?
[00:59:59]  Because you show you show that you're with people, right?
[01:00:03]  You show you that you were with security, and so they're basically bodyguards, and you want them to know that you have bodyguards.
[01:00:11]  Because when you put into the mix alcohol and shit, right?
[01:00:17]  Fast.
[01:00:18]  That's the other thing.
[01:00:19]  Like, I've been reached out recently by a source that he's slow, dude.
[01:00:21]  Like, probably one of the biggest interviews I could ever do eventually, if.
[01:00:27]  But this dude is always wasted, dude.
[01:00:29]  Like, shit faced.
[01:00:31]  So I'm always trying to let him know, like, dude, okay, call me tomorrow when you feel better, right?
[01:00:36]  Because I don't deal with people that are under the influence of anything.
[01:00:41]  Because, yeah, you need a clear mind.
[01:00:43]  And also, I need respect, you know, for like, dude, I'm giving you respect.
[01:00:47]  I'm a journalist.
[01:00:48]  This is my job.
[01:00:48]  I'm being a professional.
[01:00:49]  We're not friends.
[01:00:50]  We're not, you know, this is not a social gathering.
[01:00:53]  This is work for me.
[01:00:55]  And I'm taking time from my family, from whatever, my work, whatever, to give you time.
[01:01:00]  And I appreciate you giving me time for this, but I need also respect from your end.
[01:01:05]  You can call me all shit-facing, like, hey, I'm this and that, blah, blah, blah.
[01:01:09]  Even if your info is great, I'll rather pass on it because that's not the way I work.
[01:01:14]  Right.
[01:01:14]  Pardon this brief interruption, but I want to take a second to talk about our sponsor, Verso.
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=== Autophagy and Cellular Health (14:25) ===

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[01:02:54]  Back to the show.
[01:02:55]  Damas was very serious, right?
[01:02:57]  He was like cleaned, serious.
[01:03:00]  He agreed with me.
[01:03:00]  How old is he?
[01:03:01]  He's 37.
[01:03:02]  37.
[01:03:03]  Yeah.
[01:03:04]  Yeah, if I would have met with him in the hotel, I would imagine like my first reaction would be like, we got to meet in the lobby or like at the restaurant at the hotel or something.
[01:03:11]  This is the thing.
[01:03:13]  I requested for a room with a window to the street where I knew he was coming.
[01:03:19]  I asked him to show up, right, at a certain time.
[01:03:23]  Well, he asked me to meet him at a certain time.
[01:03:26]  And I'm like, I'm going to meet you upstairs.
[01:03:28]  I'm going to meet you in this room.
[01:03:30]  But I changed the plan.
[01:03:32]  So I met him.
[01:03:34]  On the street, right?
[01:03:36]  When I was looking over the room, I saw a couple of DEA agents around because you can tell they're like, you know, in cargo pants, these Oakley glasses.
[01:03:48]  Really?
[01:03:49]  So they kind of like scouted the place, blah, blah, blah.
[01:03:51]  And then he showed up.
[01:03:52]  He pulled over on the blackest.
[01:03:54]  So he had the DEA as like an advanced team for himself.
[01:03:58]  I think he didn't have the DEA.
[01:04:00]  I think the DEA was like, just following him.
[01:04:02]  Yeah, following him.
[01:04:03]  So I'm like, okay, he's moving.
[01:04:04]  Apparently, he's going to go into this hotel for some reason.
[01:04:08]  So, boom, they kind of like went and say, like, okay, let's see what happens.
[01:04:11]  You're doing like legitimate spy craft when you're preparing for these explosives.
[01:04:14]  It's fucking shit.
[01:04:17]  And then I saw him arrive.
[01:04:19]  And before he pulled out, I was already in the street, right?
[01:04:23]  I was already out in the street.
[01:04:24]  So I greeted him.
[01:04:25]  He kind of like surprised him.
[01:04:26]  Like, I opened his door, he came out, and he was like, hey, como estás, compadre?
[01:04:31]  Hey, dude, how are you doing?
[01:04:33]  And I'm like, hey, dude, all good.
[01:04:34]  So, what's up?
[01:04:35]  He's like, hey, you want to jump in and probably have a drive and grab something to eat, whatever, before we're going to.
[01:04:41]  Um, and first I was like, ah, probably not the best idea, but I kind of like felt that he was pushing a bit for it, so I was like, okay, okay, so okay, I'll follow through.
[01:04:56]  Yes, let's let's let's let's go.
[01:04:58]  So I jumped into the back of his car, black car, tinted windows.
[01:05:02]  Who was driving one of his guys?
[01:05:05]  I didn't, I didn't have a lot of money, dude.
[01:05:08]  Yeah, man, like, yes, like a lot of money, yeah, like.
[01:05:14]  His own driver, full time driver, kind of money.
[01:05:16]  This guy from the Sinaloan accent, young kid.
[01:05:21]  I thought he was a family member or something like that.
[01:05:23]  He was like quiet with a bunch of cash money on his fanny backpack, you know, and a cap driving around.
[01:05:34]  What?
[01:05:34]  What are you laughing at?
[01:05:36]  He had a fanny pack full of cash.
[01:05:40]  Yeah, yeah, bro.
[01:05:40]  Because this guy, Minelik, was not able, because of the legal condition, he's not able to meet journalists.
[01:05:48]  Family members, criminal members, or former criminals, or handle money, right?
[01:05:55]  He needs to use a pre approved debit card where the DEA, you know, allows him to keep some of his money.
[01:06:03]  But of course, what else is going to do?
[01:06:06]  So he has a bunch of cash, right?
[01:06:08]  But he's not handling.
[01:06:09]  His other guy is handling the cash.
[01:06:12]  What kind of car is he driving?
[01:06:14]  I can say.
[01:06:14]  I mean, probably, yeah, I can say.
[01:06:17]  And we want, I can say that we want to have pancakes.
[01:06:22]  It was.
[01:06:22]  Handcakes.
[01:06:23]  Surreal, dude.
[01:06:24]  Do a Waffle House or our IHOP?
[01:06:26]  Waffle House sitting with fucking this former leader of the Sinaloa cartel and his henchman or whatever who was he called him secretary.
[01:06:36]  So he's with his secretary and a fucking Waffle House having blueberry pancakes.
[01:06:42]  Oh my God.
[01:06:42]  Well, it wasn't pancakes.
[01:06:44]  Waffle House doesn't have pancakes, I don't think.
[01:06:46]  It's only Waffles.
[01:06:47]  Waffles, yes.
[01:06:48]  No fucking way, dude.
[01:06:50]  And yeah, yeah.
[01:06:51]  And then, yes, I mean, some other people showed up and said, hey, whatever.
[01:06:57]  And then we went back into the hotel room.
[01:06:59]  I was like, So you're ready?
[01:07:01]  Like, do you feel cute to go back into the hotel and then start an interview?
[01:07:04]  And he's like, Yes.
[01:07:05]  Did you feel pretty good about.
[01:07:07]  Did you have, like, build a rapport with him during when you guys were eating waffles?
[01:07:10]  Yes, yes, yes.
[01:07:11]  You feel pretty confident.
[01:07:12]  Yeah, dude.
[01:07:13]  What I want to do with every single source is first that they know that they have my respect, that I'm not judging, that I'm not, you know, anyone to judge whatever they do, whatever they want to say.
[01:07:24]  I don't give a shit.
[01:07:26]  They're fucking humans.
[01:07:28]  So I try to find a common.
[01:07:31]  And relatable ground, right?
[01:07:33]  Some something, even if it's a sport or a color or music or something we have in common, so we can start like doing small talk and relate to each other, right?
[01:07:45]  So we can find common ground, right?
[01:07:47]  Right before going into full.
[01:07:49]  A lot of the journalists, what they do is they go into full journalist mode and just dump a bunch of questions, right?
[01:07:56]  They're like, So, how do you start it?
[01:07:58]  Blah This and that, tell me these, tell me that, tell me boom.
[01:08:02]  I'm not easy on them because I questioned Damaso really hard and the accusations of him killing a journalist, probably the last brave journalist in Mexico, Javier Valdez.
[01:08:11]  He was a fucking legend, dude.
[01:08:13]  He was an inspiration for all of us.
[01:08:14]  And he is accused, formally accused of killing Javier Valdez.
[01:08:18]  Who accused him?
[01:08:19]  The Mexican government.
[01:08:21]  The Mexican government is asking the U.S. government to deport Damaso so he can face jail in Mexico for the killing of Javier Valdez.
[01:08:32]  Mm hmm.
[01:08:33]  So, this is not only an issue of cartels, this is a binational political issue between the two countries.
[01:08:41]  Does the Mexican government really care?
[01:08:43]  Or do you think it's the fucking proxy cartel within the government trying to get him whacked?
[01:08:48]  Exactly.
[01:08:48]  That is what it is.
[01:08:50]  That's exactly what it is.
[01:08:52]  Anyways, I questioned his version of him not killing Javier Valdez, and he said it was Los Chatos.
[01:08:58]  So, how long?
[01:08:59]  Okay, so let's go.
[01:09:00]  Let's do it.
[01:09:01]  So, after you guys had breakfast or dinner, we went back to the hotel.
[01:09:05]  And then, what?
[01:09:06]  And then we sat.
[01:09:07]  How did it go?
[01:09:07]  Did the guy come with you?
[01:09:08]  Did you guys go alone?
[01:09:10]  No, no, we came all together.
[01:09:12]  I had the room already set up, you know, no personal.
[01:09:17]  Like, my backpack was literally ready to go right next to the door in case something, you know, whatever.
[01:09:26]  We came up.
[01:09:27]  He sat on a chair, and his other dude sat on the other side of looking towards the door.
[01:09:35]  And I literally sat on the floor.
[01:09:36]  He was like, You want to.
[01:09:38]  There was another chair, whatever.
[01:09:39]  No, I'm like, I feel comfortable sitting on the floor just to make a statement that I'm cool.
[01:09:44]  You know, I'm not feeling threatened.
[01:09:46]  So we can all relax and be cool.
[01:09:49]  And I signed the floor and I started talking.
[01:09:52]  So, like, so dude, like, this is probably the first and last time I'm going to talk to you.
[01:09:59]  So, do you have enough time?
[01:10:01]  And it's like, dude, I don't have anything else to do but sit in my fucking house.
[01:10:06]  So, by all means.
[01:10:08]  So, this interview lasts like four.
[01:10:12]  Probably, probably like 12 hours, less than 12 hours.
[01:10:17]  We kept talking, we ordered food, kept talking and talking and talking.
[01:10:21]  I first wanted to get out of the fucking room, the whole journalist thing, right?
[01:10:25]  Javier Valdez.
[01:10:26]  So, one of the first questions was like, How do you feel?
[01:10:31]  What are you doing now?
[01:10:33]  What is your legal situation right now?
[01:10:36]  What is happening with your dad?
[01:10:37]  He's still behind bars.
[01:10:39]  Are you comfortable saying, openly saying, that you are cooperating with the US authorities to go against Los Chapitos?
[01:10:50]  I explained what my plans were to publish, right?
[01:10:53]  It's like, This is not going to be a biography or some shit like that.
[01:10:57]  I'm going to push back into what you say and lay out what I. Feel is the truth in your impressions.
[01:11:02]  He only said, I hope you're not too harsh on me.
[01:11:04]  And I'm like, Well, let's see, man.
[01:11:06]  Let's see how the text goes.
[01:11:07]  I'm not going to be particularly harsh on you.
[01:11:10]  It's just the way I write.
[01:11:12]  I'm trying to be as objective as I can.
[01:11:16]  So I want to get rid of the white elephant in the room, Javier Valdez.
[01:11:25]  And he's like, Okay, let me tell you.
[01:11:27]  And I'm like, Okay, before you tell me, I shouldn't tell you that one of my biggest.
[01:11:31]  Fears right now is to be sitting across someone who killed a journalist.
[01:11:36]  Right.
[01:11:36]  Because if you killed a journalist, then you're basically a direct threat to me as a journalist as well.
[01:11:45]  So I don't want to be in the middle of that.
[01:11:47]  So if you come true and you say the truth and you say, you know what, yes, I was involved, I'm not going to be judgy, but I'm probably going to call this interview off and just leave, man.
[01:11:59]  I can't do this like that.
[01:12:02]  And even if I feel you're not telling the truth, I also might take.
[01:12:05]  Everything else you say for untrue, right?
[01:12:09]  So let's get rid of that shit.
[01:12:11]  I'm being honest with you.
[01:12:12]  I'm being clear.
[01:12:13]  I'm risking myself a bit too to be here.
[01:12:16]  I'm being like good to you.
[01:12:20]  So let's talk con los huevos, no?
[01:12:23]  Let's talk like with balls.
[01:12:28]  And yeah, I mean, he started laying out his version that is out on the story.
[01:12:32]  He said basically that he wasn't him, that it was Los Chapitos because of an interview Javier Valdez published with Amazon.
[01:12:41]  He published an interview.
[01:12:42]  Yeah, when they were at war, Damaso reached out to Javier Valdez, to this journalist.
[01:12:47]  And he said, Hey, man, I want to give you an exclusive interview with me and my dad, telling you what is happening right now in Sinaloa within the Sinaloa cartel.
[01:12:56]  Javier Valdez said, Okay, let's do it.
[01:12:59]  He did an interview with both of them and he published the interview.
[01:13:04]  And when he was about to publish the interview, Los Chapitos somehow learned that he had interviewed Damaso.
[01:13:11]  So they asked him, Hey, man, how much money do you want?
[01:13:13]  For not to publish that story.
[01:13:16]  He said, This is not a money thing.
[01:13:18]  We're going to run the story.
[01:13:20]  And then he called the director, the owner of the newspaper, and said, Hey, I want to buy you that interview.
[01:13:26]  How much money do you guys want?
[01:13:27]  And I said, Nope, we're going to run the story.
[01:13:30]  So they published the story, and Los Chapitos sent all of their henchmen to basically get all the newspapers distributed in the whole state so no one could read that story.
[01:13:41]  So they burned the whole fucking thing.
[01:13:45]  They stopped the delivery, pickup trucks, whatever, and then they burned the whole fucking thing.
[01:13:50]  Then they published the story again.
[01:13:52]  Is this verifiable?
[01:13:53]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:13:55]  Everything is a verifiable version of that happening.
[01:13:59]  Even the director of the newspaper published this version on the website, right?
[01:14:06]  So before that, I mean, after that, they published the story again on the next printed version, right?
[01:14:15]  And they posted it online.
[01:14:19]  That's when they killed Javier Valdez.
[01:14:22]  But right after the interview, Javier Valdes also published an OPD calling Damaso a shitty fucking henchman for the Sinaloa cartel, that he had no decision making capabilities and he was like dumb and, you know, kind of like trashing Mini Leak.
[01:14:42]  So after that, after they published those couple stories, he got killed right in front of the newspaper.
[01:14:49]  Damaso says he was killed by Los Chapitos because he.
[01:14:53]  He published that interview.
[01:14:55]  But Los Chapitos said it was Damaso because he kind of like insulted him.
[01:15:00]  What Damaso says is like, imagine if I go killing every guy who was insulting me.
[01:15:04]  I mean, it was going to be fucking blah shit all over.
[01:15:08]  I can't take an insult, you know.
[01:15:09]  What does your gut tell you?
[01:15:11]  My gut tells me that it was Los Chapitos, man.
[01:15:15]  I mean, it kind of makes sense.
[01:15:17]  It kind of makes sense that.
[01:15:20]  You know what?
[01:15:21]  What I think is what really killed Javier Valdez.
[01:15:25]  Is the impunity that is in Mexico?
[01:15:29]  A journalist in the US will never face that faith.
[01:15:32]  Even if you're giving an interview here, getting into there, you publish some shit, you're like, ba ba ba.
[01:15:38]  A journalist should never face the questioning on who was, who was the one who killed me.
[01:15:44]  What got him at the end is that he got in the middle of a fucking war of factions and that he didn't have any protection by the authorities, right?
[01:15:53]  That the whole fucking state is run over by these guys.
[01:15:56]  So whoever killed him, Whoever of these two factions killed him, they shouldn't have been able to reach out to him in that way, right?
[01:16:04]  To threaten him, to kill him, if the Mexican government will do his job, right?
[01:16:12]  So, either way, my gut says it was probably them because they didn't, they show that they didn't want that story published.
[01:16:22]  But I'm not putting my hands for Damaso because he cooled.
[01:16:28]  Easily be damaged.
[01:16:29]  He had a lot of power.
[01:16:31]  He, of course, is a man capable of killing people, right?
[01:16:35]  So I'm not putting my hands together for his version.
[01:16:39]  This is what he says.
[01:16:40]  I still haven't had an interview with any of those chapitos to hear their version, right?
[01:16:48]  Hopefully, one day I can bring the other version, their version.
[01:16:52]  More journalists die in Mexico than anywhere in the world.
[01:16:55]  Than anywhere in the world outside of a war zone, yeah.
[01:16:58]  Outside of what?
[01:16:59]  A war zone.
[01:16:59]  A war zone, right.
[01:17:00]  Yeah.
[01:17:01]  So what else did you get out of that interview with him during that 12 hours?
[01:17:04]  So basically, we got rid of that shit.

=== Journalists Die in War Zones (05:27) ===

[01:17:07]  And then he started telling me how he became part of the organization, his whole dad story, how he grew up and how he didn't want to be part of the cartel.
[01:17:17]  He's like, dude, I wanted to be a pilot.
[01:17:19]  So I want to study for a pilot.
[01:17:21]  I started like my school, whatever.
[01:17:23]  But in order to be a pilot in Mexico, you need to go to, at the end, you need to go through the Mexican military to get a permit to fly.
[01:17:35]  So he's like, okay, I approve all my tests and exams, whatever.
[01:17:39]  I showed up to my dad.
[01:17:40]  It was about 18.
[01:17:41]  And he's like, dude, I need my credentials from the Mexican military.
[01:17:45]  I'm going to show up to the military zone here in Tinaloa, whatever, to ask for my card.
[01:17:51]  And he's like, the fuck, you're not going to do that, dude.
[01:17:53]  Like, that's too risky.
[01:17:54]  No, find another fucking thing to do.
[01:17:55]  And he's like, what do you mean?
[01:17:56]  He's like, dude, you have my same name.
[01:17:59]  The government is all after me.
[01:18:00]  They're going to be after you or they're going to take you in order to get me.
[01:18:03]  So, no.
[01:18:04]  Find another thing to do.
[01:18:06]  So he's like, What else?
[01:18:07]  And he's like, Just set up a business.
[01:18:08]  And he's like, Okay.
[01:18:09]  So I started setting up a business.
[01:18:11]  And then my dad said, Okay, but you're not going to run that business, right?
[01:18:14]  You're going to have a frontman running that business for you.
[01:18:16]  And he's like, No, dude, the whole fucking thing of doing a business is to run a business.
[01:18:19]  He wanted to get his hands dirty.
[01:18:21]  Yeah.
[01:18:21]  And no, he was like, no, dude, like if you do that, you're risking yourself.
[01:18:25]  You're putting yourself out there too much.
[01:18:28]  Don't.
[01:18:28]  If you want to have a business, I can give you the money, put the business, but have a frontman run from you for you.
[01:18:34]  And it's like, nah, it doesn't make sense.
[01:18:35]  He doesn't want to just be an investor.
[01:18:37]  He wants to actually do something.
[01:18:38]  Do something.
[01:18:39]  And then his thought was like, then he was like, okay, so then you want me basically to become a fucking trafficker.
[01:18:45]  And he's like, fuck no.
[01:18:46]  And he's like, dude, you don't let me do anything.
[01:18:49]  I want to do something.
[01:18:49]  So yeah, let me move some bricks.
[01:18:52]  And he was like, all right, if you want to do that, that's how you do it.
[01:18:55]  So he gave him a couple of bricks.
[01:18:57]  He told me that he sold the bricks, came back home, and his dad asked him, like, how much money did you make on them?
[01:19:04]  And he was like, I don't know, let's say he paid $10,000 for the bricks, sold them, came back.
[01:19:09]  How much money did you make on it?
[01:19:11]  And he was like, $10,000.
[01:19:12]  He was like, what do you mean $10,000?
[01:19:13]  $10,000 on top of the $10,000?
[01:19:15]  He was like, no, $10,000.
[01:19:16]  And he's like, dude, the whole fucking business is supposed to be made for you to make money, dude.
[01:19:20]  That's how they do it.
[01:19:21]  No one explained to him how the economics of buying and selling works.
[01:19:24]  Exactly, dude.
[01:19:27]  So he's like, okay.
[01:19:28]  So then he started learning how to do that shit, right?
[01:19:30]  How to sell bricks and how to, yeah.
[01:19:33]  He was eventually in charge of moving large quantities of cocaine and shit in Sinaloa and then handling the money and then blah, blah, blah.
[01:19:41]  And then he kind of kept stepping up until the war between the factions broke loose.
[01:19:52]  What is Domaso's relation?
[01:19:53]  Does he have a relationship or does he have any communication lines open with El Chapo?
[01:19:59]  No, he said.
[01:20:00]  Not anymore.
[01:20:00]  Not anymore.
[01:20:01]  He said, he was.
[01:20:02]  He said, like, at the beginning, of course, I felt bad, but because El Chapo was my godfather.
[01:20:08]  And when he escaped, we gave him.
[01:20:10]  We lent him our houses and we were in charge of his security.
[01:20:14]  So he was around.
[01:20:15]  And when they killed El Chapo's son in 2016, I think.
[01:20:20]  They killed his son?
[01:20:21]  They killed his son, dude.
[01:20:22]  Which one of his sons?
[01:20:23]  Edgar.
[01:20:24]  He was the youngest.
[01:20:25]  Oh, fuck.
[01:20:25]  I didn't even realize that.
[01:20:26]  Edgar Guzman.
[01:20:27]  He was killed allegedly by mistake because.
[01:20:31]  The same by the by another guy, but by this by his same organization, they thought there was they thought he was part of the Beltran Leivas, a rival faction of the Cintrón Cartel, but it was allegedly his own same organization who killed him by mistake.
[01:20:47]  And he was best friends with Damaso, they were they were best friends like since kids.
[01:20:53]  Um, Damaso says that he's still very heartfelt for what happened.
[01:20:56]  He's like, I was supposed to be with him that night, but I got a call from a girl, so I went into her house.
[01:21:03]  And when I'm taking a shower to go to him, They called me and say, like, hey, dude, they killed Edgar.
[01:21:10]  Um, and he's like, dude, that broke my heart.
[01:21:12]  He was my best friend in the world.
[01:21:15]  So, whenever I met El Chapo, El Chapo would ask me, like, how was Edgar?
[01:21:21]  What kind of girls he liked?
[01:21:22]  And he, he was, he kind of like replaced Edgar with me.
[01:21:28]  So, when I got married, when every birthday and stuff, El Chapo would show up to my parties, but he wouldn't show up to his son's parties, his son's own.
[01:21:38]  Own weddings or birthday parties or whatever.
[01:21:41]  Like Ovidio?
[01:21:41]  Like Ovidio, Ivan Archibaldo, Alfredo.
[01:21:43]  He wouldn't show up to them, but he will show up for Damasos, right?
[01:21:48]  So they started getting jealous.
[01:21:50]  Like, why the fuck are you, is our dad showing up to every single one of your fucking parties?
[01:21:57]  It's not showing up to us.
[01:21:58]  Yeah.
[01:22:00]  So he was, he felt like he was in the head of Old Chapo, he was like another kid.
[01:22:07]  But then he was like, I asked him, like, was it hard to testify against El Chapo on his trial?
[01:22:12]  Like, to point him and say, like, yeah, this is the man.
[01:22:15]  And it's like, no, dude, because at the end, he sent a letter to his sons saying that I'm going to find the fucking rat who's riding on you guys and I'm going to have him killed.
[01:22:25]  So he's like, okay, so he's after me.
[01:22:29]  I'm just going to go after him.
[01:22:30]  Fuck it.
[01:22:31]  So he went, yeah, he's like, I don't feel bad about it.

=== Pitching Stories to Vice (15:38) ===

[01:22:34]  Like, fuck it.
[01:22:34]  This is the name of the game.
[01:22:36]  It's either his life or mine.
[01:22:37]  So it's going to be his, right?
[01:22:40]  And I'm like, dude, how comfortable do you feel telling that you are sharing all the information the US has against Los Chapitos?
[01:22:49]  And he's like, dude, that's my fucking plan.
[01:22:52]  That's my goal in life right now to have him either killed or arrested.
[01:22:57]  And he told me, I swear to you that I'm going to see the four of them here, the three of them here, the four of them, sorry, here in the US.
[01:23:05]  That was before Ovidi was expedited, right?
[01:23:07]  Right.
[01:23:10]  And after this interview got published, who reached out to you?
[01:23:16]  So this is the thing the interview got published on.
[01:23:19]  On crashoutmedia.com.
[01:23:22]  Sorry for the advertisement.
[01:23:23]  No, it's Softstack.
[01:23:25]  We're managing Ioan Grillo and myself.
[01:23:28]  We're kind of like partnering to publish exclusive stories there.
[01:23:33]  And the story went huge, right?
[01:23:36]  Especially in Mexico.
[01:23:37]  Before, quick aside, before you published it or before you even interviewed him, did you reach out to some of the big media outlets that you typically work with?
[01:23:47]  Not before interviewing him.
[01:23:49]  After interviewing him, after I recorded the whole fucking interview, Um, with proper podcast microphones and shit, like I got a gear and I have a full, it's not, it's not the whole hours, of course.
[01:24:01]  It's, uh, it's about a three hour interview.
[01:24:04]  Wow.
[01:24:05]  You edited 12 into three.
[01:24:07]  I didn't record everything.
[01:24:08]  Okay.
[01:24:09]  I, yeah, there was no fucking way I could have enough space to record everything, right?
[01:24:14]  So I, I did take notes on everything, on everything, everything.
[01:24:18]  I have like huge notepad on notes, and I, but I have three good, um, Hours of audio of that interview.
[01:24:27]  But then, okay, so I didn't reach out to anyone probably after a month after the interview.
[01:24:34]  So I was planning on how I'm going to publish it.
[01:24:37]  Is it worth it?
[01:24:39]  What scenarios I'm going to face?
[01:24:41]  What backlash can I get from that?
[01:24:44]  The legal side of it as well, you know, like the whole fucking thing.
[01:24:47]  So it took me a month.
[01:24:48]  Before traveling, I also was dealing with another set of stories, hard reported stories, you know, so.
[01:24:55]  Complicated, so I need like free space.
[01:24:58]  Um, when I have some stories like these, sometimes like that, for probably two weeks, I went out of my home to my parents to live on one of the rooms and to just stay there and think, right?
[01:25:11]  Try to focus and think what I'm about, what am I about to do, and is it worth it, and how to package this story, and who I'm gonna pitch it to, right?
[01:25:20]  And and and just dumb the whole thing, you know.
[01:25:23]  Yeah, and then when I had something together.
[01:25:27]  I reached out to Rolling Stone first.
[01:25:31]  They said they were interested.
[01:25:34]  They were like, yeah, fuck yes, we're definitely interested.
[01:25:36]  This is the godson of El Chapo speaking for the first time ever.
[01:25:40]  So this is massive during a hunt for Los Chapitos, right?
[01:25:44]  So this is a great exclusive shit.
[01:25:47]  Then they took a fucking week or two weeks to get back at me with something.
[01:25:53]  I asked them, like, okay, so what's the rate and how many words and, you know, like the details usually you ask after a pitch.
[01:26:02]  Do you have a deadline?
[01:26:03]  Whatever.
[01:26:04]  They didn't answer for two full weeks.
[01:26:07]  They got back to me with a question, saying like how competitive this is, and I was like dude, if you're asking me that question, then I'm just probably gonna waste my fucking exclusive story on a magazine that it's just gonna put it on the back end of a magazine and it's not gonna package it well right.
[01:26:26]  I was really disappointed at Rolling Stone, because I have high regards for that magazine.
[01:26:32]  I mean, it's a great fucking magazine, they publish great fucking stories.
[01:26:36]  But I didn't feel comfortable After that, I was like, nah.
[01:26:40]  They also have another huge story of mine that has been sitting there for over a year.
[01:26:43]  And it's a huge, also exclusive shit.
[01:26:46]  And this was an assignment they did to me in February.
[01:26:51]  And it's almost a fucking year.
[01:26:52]  And I haven't heard back.
[01:26:53]  Not even about a kill fee, not even about edits, nothing.
[01:26:57]  They just let my story sit there and they stopped answering.
[01:27:01]  They did a couple of, like three months ago, they did reach the back.
[01:27:05]  No, when I reached with that story, with that pitch, I also asked for that other story.
[01:27:09]  Like, hey, but what happened with that other story?
[01:27:11]  You were sitting on it.
[01:27:12]  And they're like, no, no, we're going to actually pay you better because this is going to be in the print magazine.
[01:27:17]  So we're trying to find the right moment to publish it.
[01:27:19]  But it's like, yeah, dude, for a freelancer to sit on a fucking story for a year and then you get paid 30 days net later, like after publishing it, you can kill journalists like that.
[01:27:33]  This is the problem with these legacy media outlets and these big publications.
[01:27:38]  This is the reason for the uprise of independent journalism.
[01:27:42]  And that's why people like you.
[01:27:44]  Everyone that's watching needs to go to Luis's channel, subscribe.
[01:27:46]  You guys, you have Substack, you have a YouTube channel.
[01:27:50]  What else do you have?
[01:27:51]  And my Instagram, which is the Instagram.
[01:27:54]  Do you have Patreon or anything?
[01:27:56]  No, I don't.
[01:27:57]  I'm trying to keep everything on YouTube and Substack.
[01:28:00]  YouTube and Substack.
[01:28:01]  And it'll obviously be linked below.
[01:28:02]  Yeah, dude.
[01:28:03]  So, yeah, I was really disappointed because that can kill a fucking career.
[01:28:06]  And I was like, dude, why do I feel kind of like mistreated by a magazine with this information, with these.
[01:28:15]  Fucking story I have in my hands, right?
[01:28:18]  I shouldn't feel like that.
[01:28:19]  So I decided just to move it and to pitch it to the guys who I work more regularly for.
[01:28:26]  I actually have a retainer with them with Vice News.
[01:28:28]  Oh, yeah.
[01:28:28]  So I posted my store to my editor.
[01:28:30]  But at the moment, Vice was going through the whole bankruptcy thing.
[01:28:34]  So they didn't have the capability to move it into.
[01:28:37]  I was like, these guys are not.
[01:28:39]  When did they go bankrupt?
[01:28:43]  January this year.
[01:28:44]  Really?
[01:28:45]  Can you find that, Steve?
[01:28:47]  I didn't even hear about this.
[01:28:48]  Yeah, I mean, I think that's when the whole conversation started.
[01:28:51]  But then, probably like three, four months ago, five months ago, they publicly went bankrupt.
[01:28:59]  So it was, oh, in May.
[01:29:01]  May 19th, 2023, Vice Media Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Southern District of Texas.
[01:29:07]  The company's bankruptcy cases are jointly administered at.
[01:29:11]  Whoa.
[01:29:11]  Dude, they've been.
[01:29:13]  I remember like fucking eight years ago, seven years ago, you would see articles coming out.
[01:29:21]  Every month, about how Vice is worth upwards of $2 billion.
[01:29:25]  What does that say?
[01:29:28]  Consortium led by Fortress Investment Group for $350 million.
[01:29:33]  Oh, Vice agreed to be acquired by.
[01:29:36]  According to Vice, the bankruptcy process will strengthen the company and position for.
[01:29:40]  It was basically acquired by the main money lenders, right?
[01:29:43]  They were the main investors.
[01:29:46]  So they basically just owned the company.
[01:29:48]  They own it now, yeah.
[01:29:51]  Rupert Murdoch and Disney.
[01:29:54]  Disney, they all had stocks.
[01:29:56]  They all owned a significant portion of that.
[01:30:01]  Yeah.
[01:30:01]  You actually hung out with Shane Smith.
[01:30:03]  Yeah, dude.
[01:30:04]  I started writing for Vice News as a freelance 10 years ago.
[01:30:08]  So, I mean, I met.
[01:30:11]  That's when it was really Vice.
[01:30:12]  Dude, yes.
[01:30:13]  I mean, when it started, dude, it was wild.
[01:30:18]  They were great at packaging shit and doing stories that you can't publish anywhere.
[01:30:24]  They were good, but they lacked the proper journalistic ethics and, yeah, the proper journalistic view of it, right?
[01:30:34]  Like, what is news and what is just not news and how to.
[01:30:38]  Handle a news story, right?
[01:30:42]  Ethically, how to handle it ethically and professionally.
[01:30:46]  In the beginning, it wasn't news, though.
[01:30:47]  It wasn't news.
[01:30:48]  It was just like they would go into fucking war zones or go into some crazy fucking place and just turn their cameras on and start fucking talking to people.
[01:30:57]  Yeah.
[01:30:57]  And then they'd come out, you know, like heavy metal in Baghdad, the fucking documentary is insane.
[01:31:02]  And Chirac, the noisy thing where they're in Chicago and they're fucking in the inner cities of Chicago.
[01:31:09]  Like with all the musicians and shit, like that's fucking insane what they would do.
[01:31:13]  That was the great fucking thing about Vice.
[01:31:15]  That was news because there was like unreported stories, right?
[01:31:22]  And they had, we had meetings before reporting on all that shit.
[01:31:25]  Like it was, it was like, it wasn't, there was an editorial thing behind it, but there were not like proper editors and shit back then.
[01:31:34]  When they came out with Vice News, they hired, for what I think, it's the best of the best in the fucking industry, right?
[01:31:41]  The best fucking editors, the best fucking directors, a lot of like great, great fucking journalists, video journalists, and you know, like they had like a great fucking team where they put together Vice News.
[01:31:54]  Still to this day, dude, like I mean, they've been letting go hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of journalists in Vice News, sadly.
[01:32:00]  Great people.
[01:32:02]  Like my good friend Keegan Hamilton, he's fucking a badass man.
[01:32:07]  David Noriega, dude, covering Latin America, who's like great.
[01:32:10]  Emily Green, she's like, The top fucking reporter when it comes to immigration stories.
[01:32:17]  Solid fucking people.
[01:32:19]  So they're letting everyone go, right?
[01:32:23]  And don't get me wrong, I mean, Vice still has like some of the greatest fucking editors and editorial directors within Vice that they're like holding positions even through the whole fucking mess right now.
[01:32:38]  So when I pitched this story, Vice was going through the whole thing, right?
[01:32:43]  So it was hard.
[01:32:45]  To think that they will have the mind to take and properly wrap this story, right?
[01:32:51]  I was like, I don't know, dude.
[01:32:53]  Like, am I going to pitch this story and I'm going to sit this forever?
[01:32:57]  Or am I going to pitch this story and then they're going to fucking kick me in the ass because they're bankrupt right now?
[01:33:02]  And I'm not going to even get paid.
[01:33:04]  I'm just going to get fired.
[01:33:06]  And then I'm going to feel like shit afterwards.
[01:33:09]  They're really honest people and I really appreciate that advice, at least on my editorial.
[01:33:15]  Team like my editors and shit.
[01:33:18]  So I spoke to my editor, Deb Rabanello, about this.
[01:33:23]  And she's like, dude, I mean, we would love to have your story and we're probably gonna try to make it work and look good, but it's your call, right?
[01:33:31]  So I understand where you're coming from and how you feel about Vice right now.
[01:33:35]  So it's your call.
[01:33:37]  I decided to make a statement and say, call Griel and say, hey, dude, why don't we fucking join forces and publish this on our own fucking thing?
[01:33:48]  On your Soft Tech account, link to my Soft Tech account, and we'll do an interview.
[01:33:55]  Like, you interviewed me on my YouTube channel about the behind the scenes of the whole fucking thing of Damaso's story, right?
[01:34:02]  And of course, it was like extremely cool with this.
[01:34:05]  Like, fuck yes, dude.
[01:34:06]  I'm going to treat this with respect and shit.
[01:34:09]  Let's see if we make money out of it.
[01:34:11]  I did.
[01:34:12]  I mean, of course, nothing huge, but something.
[01:34:17]  Is it comparable to what you would get paid by Rolling Stone or Vice?
[01:34:21]  It really depends on the story.
[01:34:22]  But let's say the range for a simple 600 word tapping story, right?
[01:34:29]  Like, one of these stories you can tap.
[01:34:32]  Within an hour, you make a couple of calls, 600 words.
[01:34:36]  I'll get between 600 and 800 bucks per one of these stories, right?
[01:34:42]  If it's a more complex, complicated, whatever, you can get 2,000, 2,500, probably not more than that.
[01:34:48]  It's hard to make more than that, right?
[01:34:50]  So it's kind of shitty, you know?
[01:34:52]  It's really shitty, actually.
[01:34:55]  So yeah, basically what I did is like, okay, so do you, I asked, you want to like, can we get something, can I get something similar?
[01:35:04]  To this, the closest to what I get paid by the industry right now, if we go there, they're like, I'm definitely going to try.
[01:35:12]  We're going to put half of the fucking store on the paywall and let's fucking give it a shot.
[01:35:18]  I did that, but I also said, you know what?
[01:35:22]  This story needs to be written in Spanish for a Spanish publication that was my home back then, which is the main or major investigative magazine, journalism magazine in Mexico, which is Proceso.
[01:35:35]  The director and founder of Proceso.
[01:35:37]  Is the only interview Elmayo Zambada has given to someone.
[01:35:42]  He died, Julio Shedder.
[01:35:45]  We founded this magazine with that kind of like strong fucking critical reporting, right?
[01:35:52]  And trusted enough by Subcomandante Marcos, presidents, and Elmayo Zambada to give interviews exclusively to Proceso.
[01:35:59]  The story I broke in 2013 about the CIA being involved was my first cover on that magazine, right?
[01:36:07]  It was the cover of that magazine.
[01:36:08]  So they invited me to collaborate a lot.
[01:36:12]  With Processo Magazine back then when I was like 10 years ago, probably 15 years ago.
[01:36:16]  So I was like, fuck it.
[01:36:18]  You know what?
[01:36:18]  I love that.
[01:36:19]  Those dudes.
[01:36:20]  They're having a bad time.
[01:36:21]  They're fighting everyone.
[01:36:23]  They're losing money by the minute.
[01:36:24]  They're about to implode.
[01:36:26]  So probably this is going to be my last chance to feel again that I'm contributing to that fucking magazine, you know?
[01:36:32]  So I called the editor.
[01:36:34]  He was super fucking excited.
[01:36:35]  He was like, no, dude, wait.
[01:36:37]  Do you have proof of the?
[01:36:38]  I was like, I have the audios, I have photos, I have exclusive photos, I have photos with him.
[01:36:43]  And he was like, Sadly, dude, I don't think we have enough money to pay you for something like this.
[01:36:49]  We're going through shitty fucking years right now.
[01:36:54]  We're actually about to close the print magazine.
[01:36:57]  And I was like, how much can you pay?
[01:37:00]  And he's like, we can probably, let's probably pay a thousand bucks.
[01:37:05]  Let's fucking do it.
[01:37:08]  Send me the money, send me a wire, and I'll tell you the story.
[01:37:11]  And he's like, fuck yes, let's do it.
[01:37:14]  And they treat the story with a lot of respect.
[01:37:17]  As well as Grillo.
[01:37:19]  With Grillo, I published the story in English and in Spanish, with Proceso, right?
[01:37:23]  Okay.
[01:37:24]  Grillo treated the story with the utmost respect.
[01:37:27]  You know, he really packaged it well.
[01:37:28]  He served as my editor for this one.
[01:37:31]  So it was great working with Grillo.
[01:37:33]  And I was like, dude, we might be up to something here, dude.
[01:37:37]  Like, we're breaking exclusives in English and in Spanish as well.
[01:37:41]  Exclusive photos, exclusive footage, and then wrapping it with social, you know, with a YouTube interview, with magazines, that kind of shit.
[01:37:48]  So that's, Kind of like what we're trying to do right now.
[01:37:53]  And after it got published, first, the first thing is I got a call by Damaso's people.
[01:38:03]  That was, dude, that's just cool stuff.
[01:38:08]  Are you advertising this shit?
[01:38:09]  Yeah, I do it on the podcast.
[01:38:10]  I get everyone to do it.
[01:38:11]  It's like a become a gag now.

=== Calls After Article Publication (02:38) ===

[01:38:13]  Oh, shit, dude.
[01:38:14]  Every time.
[01:38:19]  So I get a call by his people telling me that.
[01:38:21]  By whose people?
[01:38:22]  By Damaso's, by the leaks people.
[01:38:24]  Okay.
[01:38:25]  Saying, like, hey, dude.
[01:38:26]  So, we might have a problem here.
[01:38:29]  Damaso was not allowed to talk to the press, right?
[01:38:35]  And he might get deported because of this interview.
[01:38:40]  And I was like, dude, but this is probably something you knew, right?
[01:38:45]  And he's like, no, all good.
[01:38:46]  I'm just letting you know what's it.
[01:38:48]  This is after the article's out.
[01:38:49]  After the article's out.
[01:38:50]  Because he went here.
[01:38:51]  I think probably Damaso kind of like knew that it was going to go big, but he probably didn't.
[01:38:57]  Know that it was going to be that big, right?
[01:39:00]  Right.
[01:39:01]  Because, of course, it made the Mexican government push back again for his extradition back to Mexico, right?
[01:39:11]  AKA the cartel.
[01:39:12]  Exactly.
[01:39:13]  I left a lot of the interview out, a lot of the things he set out.
[01:39:19]  Everything I couldn't get approval of, and that wasn't first things he actually lived through, I left it out.
[01:39:27]  He, Talk a lot of shit about Los Chapitos, a lot of like shit about El Chapo, personal shit.
[01:39:33]  Really?
[01:39:34]  Crazy stuff.
[01:39:35]  But I, again, I'm not in the middle of that war.
[01:39:38]  That's not my war to fight, right?
[01:39:39]  So why would I publish shit like that, that it's unproved, right?
[01:39:44]  So I left all that out on purpose and I made a disclaimer about the Javier Valdes version, right?
[01:39:51]  I published the version that his colleagues and family members.
[01:39:59]  Uh, set the his colleagues and family members, his wife and kids, they are sure it was him, right?
[01:40:07]  So, I published that thing.
[01:40:09]  I published, like, okay, so his family, they're sure it was, they're sure it was Minelik, right?
[01:40:13]  And the authorities, whatever.
[01:40:14]  Although, he says this, I yeah, anyways.
[01:40:20]  Um, so that was that.
[01:40:22]  Um, and um, and then after that, Los Chapitos, through one of their cousins, which is another.
[01:40:32]  Wild fucking story reached out to me by another Guzman, a man who I can't say his name right now, probably in the future, but he's supposed to be dead.
[01:40:44]  He was, they allegedly killed him.
[01:40:46]  He made the news.
[01:40:46]  Like they killed him.
[01:40:47]  They killed this guy.
[01:40:49]  And he was like, nope, I'm actually alive.

=== Threats and Clean Names (04:15) ===

[01:40:52]  I mean, I'm injured, right?
[01:40:53]  But I'm alive.
[01:40:55]  And I was like, dude, I mean, again, the vetting process, like turn on your camera, blah, You did all this with him.
[01:41:00]  All this with him.
[01:41:01]  And he was a Guzman.
[01:41:02]  Yeah, he's a cousin of.
[01:41:04]  Of Los Chapitos.
[01:41:05]  Wow.
[01:41:06]  And he was like, the first thing he told me was this.
[01:41:10]  He's like, and I'm going to lay it out in Spanish and then I'm going to translate.
[01:41:14]  Okay.
[01:41:14]  So they're like, Compa, yo sé que todos tenemos un precio.
[01:41:17]  ¿Cuál es el suyo por entregarme aquella rata?
[01:41:21]  He's like, dude, I know every one of us has a price.
[01:41:25]  What's your price to let me know the whereabouts of that fucking rat?
[01:41:30]  Right?
[01:41:31]  They wanted to find Damaso.
[01:41:34]  Dude, I saw that fucking message for days.
[01:41:38]  Just, it was a message request.
[01:41:41]  I didn't open that.
[01:41:43]  So I was just like, shit, what do I do?
[01:41:45]  What do I do?
[01:41:46]  What do I do?
[01:41:47]  Is it real?
[01:41:48]  Is it not real?
[01:41:49]  Is this a threat?
[01:41:51]  Or is this just like a friendly?
[01:41:54]  How do you answer this fucking message?
[01:41:56]  If I answer it, I might be untangled in something I don't want to be in the middle of.
[01:42:03]  Even if I had the location of that muscle, I'm not sure I want to share that shit, right?
[01:42:09]  But I don't want to get killed for it, also.
[01:42:13]  The thing is, I don't have it.
[01:42:15]  So what?
[01:42:16]  I mean, if I say I don't have it, they're not going to believe me, right?
[01:42:19]  Because they might think, of course you fucking have it, but I don't.
[01:42:22]  Right.
[01:42:24]  So I was like, and so I sat on it for days.
[01:42:28]  I had to go to Mexico to give a conference about what we face as journalists, right?
[01:42:37]  I'm trying to do more of that, more like public speaking for college.
[01:42:41]  This was for a group of attorneys from Canada that they were trying to find inspiration into how they can keep being working.
[01:42:55]  In a world where there is a cancel, like strong cancel culture, right?
[01:42:59]  Without being afraid of speaking, of using their right to free speech, right?
[01:43:04]  So I was like, dude, if I get threats, if my life has been threatened several fucking times, you can do this too.
[01:43:12]  You're only facing consolation.
[01:43:13]  You're not facing, you know, death threats.
[01:43:16]  So that's basically the whole thing I do when I go and say, like, talk public speaking.
[01:43:24]  And then I went, they had a dinner, but I didn't feel like, Going to a dinner, I was like, No, I need to go back to my room and think and sit about like what am I going to answer to this DM that you have to deal with?
[01:43:35]  Yeah, exactly.
[01:43:36]  So I opened it and I replied with a lot of respect.
[01:43:40]  This was after, of course, like betting this guy, right?
[01:43:42]  Like I asked him to move to a to move to a.
[01:43:46]  Oh, so you so I opened them.
[01:43:48]  So he sent me this message saying, Hey, Luis, I'm this and that.
[01:43:53]  So I'm like, Okay, ah, okay, got it.
[01:43:54]  Send him my secured app, and then he moved there.
[01:44:00]  And then he sent that message.
[01:44:02]  But it was a message request.
[01:44:03]  So I was just, okay, shit.
[01:44:06]  If this is real, I might be into something, in the middle of something that I don't want to be.
[01:44:10]  Anyways, at the end, I just replied, you know what, man?
[01:44:14]  Like, I'm going to give you the respect I give to everyone.
[01:44:21]  I'm going to be honest with you.
[01:44:23]  If I were to do my job for money, I will have.
[01:44:29]  I'm doing a shitty job, right?
[01:44:30]  Because I'm not doing it for money.
[01:44:33]  I'm a.
[01:44:34]  Broadcast journalist trying to make a living, enjoying what I do because I enjoy doing what I do.
[01:44:42]  Thanks for your offering.
[01:44:44]  Even if I had his location, I probably wouldn't share it.
[01:44:47]  And I hope you understand it, right?
[01:44:50]  But I understand that every story has two versions.
[01:44:55]  If you and your family have a different version, my ears are absolutely open to actually hear you and tell your side of the story.
[01:45:04]  And that's it.

=== Siding with Cartels (14:55) ===

[01:45:07]  And he was really respectful.
[01:45:08]  He was like, dude, I just want to let you know that that fucking rat is a murderer as well.
[01:45:13]  And you're not dealing with a good man as he's trying to clean up his name, whatever.
[01:45:16]  And I'm like, I completely understand what you say.
[01:45:19]  I'm not trying to clean up his name.
[01:45:22]  So, whenever you feel good to talk about it, like in me doing an interview with you, your story and your side of things, of your family, whatever, if Ivan or Alfredo want to talk, I'm all ears.
[01:45:35]  And he's like, okay, let me get back to you on that.
[01:45:39]  And thanks for your honesty.
[01:45:41]  And wow.
[01:45:43]  That was it.
[01:45:44]  And that's where I got my Rolex and my Bentley outside.
[01:45:48]  I fucking knew it.
[01:45:52]  Rolling on a fucking Bentley.
[01:45:56]  That's why I had to pick you up at the private airport instead of like Tampa International.
[01:45:59]  I'm not fucking flying United anymore, dude.
[01:46:01]  That's so fishy, man.
[01:46:03]  Good lord.
[01:46:05]  How much money do you think they have?
[01:46:07]  I mean, they do have more than enough money, you know?
[01:46:10]  They have billions of dollars?
[01:46:11]  Yeah, easily, dude.
[01:46:12]  Like, I mean, if you think about the fact that.
[01:46:18]  That they're laundering money through major, major artists in the US.
[01:46:29]  You know that they have a lot of money.
[01:46:31]  What do you mean, laundering money through major artists?
[01:46:33]  Through events.
[01:46:34]  I mean, I can't say because I'm not the type that says just things out of saying I'm working on something.
[01:46:41]  Okay.
[01:46:41]  But they launder money.
[01:46:42]  They launder money through major artists.
[01:46:44]  Like musical artists?
[01:46:45]  Musical artists, sportsmen, you know.
[01:46:50]  They do have a whole fucking machinery.
[01:46:53]  On laundering money, and we're talking millions and millions of dollars of money.
[01:46:58]  Oh, so they're acting like record labels, and basically, I'm guessing this is how they could do it, but they could act like a record label and they could give a musician or a singer a ton of money in advance to produce a record and pay for their tour, pay for everything events, marketing, all this stuff.
[01:47:20]  You could dump millions of dollars into that to build up an artist and free cocaine.
[01:47:26]  And free coke.
[01:47:26]  And free coke, yeah.
[01:47:28]  Best quality.
[01:47:29]  Whoa.
[01:47:30]  That's a great fucking way to launder money.
[01:47:32]  Yeah, dude.
[01:47:33]  And that's just part of it.
[01:47:34]  So, yeah, I mean, when you think about that, like, it's okay.
[01:47:36]  So, it's millions of fucking dollars.
[01:47:38]  It's not like you put $100,000 to produce something like that, you know?
[01:47:42]  Right.
[01:47:43]  So, yeah, that was that.
[01:47:45]  The conversation ended right there.
[01:47:48]  And I'm still, you know, trying to see if there's something else to be, like, hopefully a good interview with one of these guys.
[01:47:55]  I haven't heard of him because after that, A lot of shit happened, right?
[01:48:00]  Like they extradited Ovidio.
[01:48:03]  Yeah.
[01:48:03]  So last time you were here, we basically, I think it was right after you went and went through Ovidio's house after it was raided by the military, I believe.
[01:48:13]  And it was all shot up, looted.
[01:48:15]  They stole all his watches, all of his clothing, and everything.
[01:48:18]  And it was insane.
[01:48:20]  And he had still been in custody by the Mexican government when you were in his house.
[01:48:26]  Yes.
[01:48:26]  But since then, I don't know how long ago it was, a couple months ago, he got extradited.
[01:48:31]  Exodited, yes.
[01:48:31]  Exodited.
[01:48:32]  I mean, it was.
[01:48:33]  It was due, right?
[01:48:34]  And you met with his lawyer that day.
[01:48:36]  You were at his house, right?
[01:48:36]  Yes, yes, yes, yes.
[01:48:38]  I met him with two of his attorneys and his mom.
[01:48:42]  They were pretty pissed, right?
[01:48:43]  About journalists being there, trying to go into that house.
[01:48:49]  But, anyways, I think I faced a lot of backlash, a lot of shitty comments on that video I have on YouTube from a lot of fanboys, right?
[01:48:58]  That they feel they are part of whatever.
[01:49:01]  And they're just fucking fanboys of the chapel and say, like, oh, that was disrespectful.
[01:49:06]  I hope you'll.
[01:49:07]  Get fucking popped for doing that.
[01:49:09]  If you come into my house like that, I will definitely kill you, whatever.
[01:49:12]  And it's like, dude, this is a house of a criminal that was doing a lot of crazy fucking shit, but he's behind bars.
[01:49:19]  And this is, from a point of view, a public interest of what happened.
[01:49:24]  Not only for the sake of what happened to that town, but probably for the sake of also what did the military do during that operation that was illegal.
[01:49:36]  Yeah, they fucking looted his house.
[01:49:38]  So it's like, dude, I'm pretty sure that you fucking fanboys are the most upset about this.
[01:49:44]  And probably the family was like, okay, this is proven off as well that they fucking looted the fucking house and they shot a place where there were kids inside.
[01:49:53]  Right.
[01:49:53]  Right?
[01:49:55]  It's about the truth.
[01:49:56]  I'm not siding with the Mexican military.
[01:49:58]  I'm not siding with criminals.
[01:50:00]  They pulled up in fucking Hummers and shit, shot up a whole town, killed innocent people.
[01:50:04]  Exactly, dude.
[01:50:05]  I mean, Wrongdoing by the Mexican government, wrongdoing by these cartel members.
[01:50:10]  In the fucking middle, it's a town of innocent people, old men, and two kids that are daughters of a criminal, but they didn't willingly, you know, were there, right?
[01:50:26]  They could probably be killed.
[01:50:27]  They could have been way more surgical in doing that.
[01:50:31]  Now, again, this is a criminal, and that's the way he makes his money to buy these cars.
[01:50:37]  Rolex watches, whatever, that gives no reason for an authority to go and fucking loot his house and steal everything, right?
[01:50:48]  It's wrongdoing all over.
[01:50:49]  It's wrongdoing all over.
[01:50:51]  And that's my main fucking goal on what I do.
[01:50:55]  People say, like, okay, you're siding with the Mexican government.
[01:50:58]  And then people say, okay, you're siding with fucking cartels.
[01:51:00]  And when I have like sources on both sides of the spectrum, sometimes I get reached by people.
[01:51:07]  Elite fucking Mexican military, you know, that are my sources.
[01:51:11]  I'm like, dude, why are you siding with these fucking shit people?
[01:51:17]  And I'm like, what do you mean?
[01:51:18]  Your fucking story, man, is making us look ugly.
[01:51:21]  It's making us look like we don't have enough, you know, power or brains to do an operation.
[01:51:27]  So you're siding with these fucking rats.
[01:51:29]  And I'm like, dude, no, don't get me wrong.
[01:51:31]  What your colleagues did was also wrong.
[01:51:33]  And then I get calls by these guys saying, like, hey, dude, why the fuck would you do that?
[01:51:37]  Like, I mean, I know you work for the Mexican government or the U.S. government and you were siding with them because that's what a journalist does.
[01:51:45]  I'm like, fuck no, dude.
[01:51:46]  I'm not siding with anyone.
[01:51:47]  Who is saying this?
[01:51:48]  Cartel people.
[01:51:49]  You know, some of my sources in Sinaloa.
[01:51:50]  You have people like high up Mexican military reached out to you?
[01:51:53]  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:51:55]  I have really strong sources also on the Mexican military.
[01:51:59]  Really?
[01:52:00]  How high are we talking?
[01:52:01]  How high up?
[01:52:03]  High up enough to let me know several hours before Ovidio was extradited that he was going to be extradited.
[01:52:09]  Whoa.
[01:52:10]  And that was.
[01:52:11]  That was secret even for them, but because they were there, they just didn't tell them that it was Ovidio, right?
[01:52:19]  They tell them, hey, we're going to extradite a person.
[01:52:23]  I need you guys to show up at this prison, blah, blah, blah.
[01:52:27]  Take out this guy, boom, take him out within an hour.
[01:52:30]  They went and they're like, oh shit, the guy they're going to fucking extradite is Ovidio Guzman.
[01:52:35]  And one of them is my source, right?
[01:52:37]  One of these, several of these guys are my sources.
[01:52:41]  I heard rumors.
[01:52:42]  I heard rumors that there was movement from lower tier people in the military.
[01:52:46]  It was like, hey, dude, there is unusual movement on this prison.
[01:52:50]  They're taking out someone.
[01:52:52]  And I was like, hmm, let me ask these other guys who are higher up.
[01:52:55]  Hey, dude, I'm hearing of movement on this prison.
[01:52:57]  Do you know anything that's happening?
[01:52:59]  It's like, dude, yes.
[01:53:00]  Let me reach back to you in an hour.
[01:53:02]  Okay, boom.
[01:53:02]  They reached back.
[01:53:03]  So I'm like, okay, now that this person is in the air heading towards the US, I can tell you it's Ovidio Guzman.
[01:53:10]  So boom, I tweeted it first.
[01:53:12]  Like, boom, Ovidio Guzman, I got an extra item.
[01:53:14]  That was hours before it was like making headlines or whatever.
[01:53:19]  And then when he arrived in the US, I also have good sourcing in the US on law enforcement, and they sent me the first picture of a video with the orange jumpsuit, right?
[01:53:31]  A former DA agent published on his Twitter the photo of a video sitting on the jet on his way to the US.
[01:53:39]  And then a couple of hours later, these other sources I have in the US sent me the photo of a video, his mugshot, basically, right?
[01:53:48]  He leaked his orange jumpsuit.
[01:53:52]  You have it on the photos I sent you.
[01:53:54]  Oh, Stephen has it.
[01:53:55]  On his orange jumpsuit.
[01:53:58]  That one.
[01:53:59]  Yes.
[01:53:59]  I had to put a watermark because he went huge on Twitter.
[01:54:02]  Look at the jaw on that guy.
[01:54:03]  Yeah, dude.
[01:54:05]  He's got the crimson chin.
[01:54:07]  Look at his eyes, dude.
[01:54:08]  I don't know if he's.
[01:54:10]  There's a lot of people saying he wasn't scared.
[01:54:11]  He's probably just dealing with drugs or whatever.
[01:54:14]  He is on.
[01:54:16]  He looks high on coke.
[01:54:17]  I mean, he is on anxiety medication, so I don't know what that is.
[01:54:21]  He is?
[01:54:21]  Depression and anxiety.
[01:54:23]  He's getting medicated for that.
[01:54:24]  Oh, wow.
[01:54:26]  Where is he in the U.S.?
[01:54:27]  Chicago.
[01:54:28]  Chicago UMC.
[01:54:29]  One of the worst.
[01:54:30]  Not because of the tight security or whatever, but because of the treatment they get.
[01:54:35]  Mm hmm.
[01:54:36]  He is on the 11th floor all by himself.
[01:54:39]  And the water either comes out freezing cold in Chicago during winter or hot enough to burn your skin.
[01:54:49]  And he doesn't have any, yeah, like, suntime, no windows.
[01:54:55]  It's a shitty fucking place.
[01:54:56]  It's a shitty fucking place.
[01:54:58]  So, did you get the story from his lawyer on how they got to extradite him?
[01:55:03]  Like, was.
[01:55:05]  Was there any pushback from the Mexican government side to the U.S. State Department on the extradition?
[01:55:13]  Or was this in what was the U.S. and the Mexico and the Mexican government working together to get him extradited?
[01:55:20]  Yeah, basically just fighting the lawyer.
[01:55:21]  Yeah, exactly.
[01:55:22]  The attorneys had set a bunch of what we call in Mexico amparos, right?
[01:55:27]  Like legal resources to stop his extradition, one after another, after another, after another.
[01:55:32]  So legally, lawfully, both governments will have to go.
[01:55:40]  And dismiss one by one of these legal resources, right?
[01:55:46]  It will take years, years, years, years.
[01:55:50]  And still, he will have a lot of other resources to stay in Mexico.
[01:55:55]  Both governments basically said, fuck the law, let's get this fucker out of it.
[01:56:01]  And they didn't, again, I'm not siding with anyone.
[01:56:05]  This is just the way things are.
[01:56:08]  The Mexican and US governments broke the law.
[01:56:10]  In order to extradite, he was illegally, unlawfully extradited to the US.
[01:56:15]  He had resources and not resources in place to stay in Mexico to avoid extradition.
[01:56:21]  You can't expedite an extradition of a Mexican like that, especially when you have a lot of legal resources in place.
[01:56:31]  The thing is, the US legal agencies are pretty smart.
[01:56:37]  So, right now, even Ivan Archibaldo, he's not arrested, but he has an extradition order in place.
[01:56:44]  Right?
[01:56:45]  Who?
[01:56:46]  The oldest of the Chapitos, Ivan Archibaldo Guzman.
[01:56:49]  He has an extradition order, even though he's not arrested.
[01:56:52]  But that extradition order is in place in the U.S.
[01:56:55]  So when he gets arrested, that order enters before he can set up a legal resource, right?
[01:57:01]  That's what happened with Ovidio.
[01:57:03]  He had an extradition order since 2019 that was still in place, just got to be renewed every, I don't know, months or years.
[01:57:12]  I can't remember.
[01:57:13]  But the U.S. has just to ratify, right?
[01:57:15]  Like, renew.
[01:57:17]  The extradition request.
[01:57:18]  Boom, boom, boom.
[01:57:20]  So when he gets arrested, even if he starts a legal resource, they're like, hey, I have a legal resource.
[01:57:25]  Yeah, but the extradition is prior to that legal resource.
[01:57:29]  He should still have a lot of other legal resources, like he had.
[01:57:33]  One of his legal resources was saying that that wasn't him.
[01:57:36]  One of his legal resources, he stood up before a judge in Mexico, a federal judge, to say.
[01:57:42]  Ovidio?
[01:57:43]  Yes.
[01:57:43]  They asked him directly Are you Ovidio Guzman?
[01:57:46]  Yes.
[01:57:46]  Are you Ovidio Guzman Lopez?
[01:57:48]  Yes.
[01:57:49]  Are you the person on this photo?
[01:57:51]  No.
[01:57:52]  Are you the person of this address?
[01:57:55]  No.
[01:57:56]  Are you the son of Joaquin Guzman Loera?
[01:57:59]  No.
[01:58:00]  So, you're not Ovidio, yes.
[01:58:03]  It was a legal resource to say, like, yes, I am Ovidio Guzman Lopez.
[01:58:08]  I have no clue who Guzman is.
[01:58:11]  Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, I have no clue who that is.
[01:58:14]  And I'm not the person you're looking for, right?
[01:58:17]  That was a legal resource.
[01:58:20]  What is the government's.
[01:58:21]  Does the U.S. have a plan in place for all these extraditions?
[01:58:26]  Why do they want to extradite these people to the U.S.?
[01:58:29]  And why aren't they happy with them just sitting in prison in Mexico?
[01:58:33]  I think because, first of all, the alleged damage they've done to the U.S. by trafficking drugs and that the target country was the U.S., it was harmful for the U.S., right?
[01:58:48]  Mexico is just a transition country when it comes to drug trafficking charges, right?
[01:58:57]  So that is why most of them are extradited into the U.S. If the traffic or the crimes will be the other way around, they will have to be in Mexico first.
[01:59:07]  For starters, right?
[01:59:08]  For starters, the crime is committed against the U.S. because the drugs are being trafficked into the U.S., not trafficked into Mexico.
[01:59:14]  Second of all, the fact that the Mexican authorities didn't have any charges against most of them, they don't hold charges against many of these guys because they haven't set up a proper paperwork, a proper investigation by Mexican prosecutors, makes them basically.
[01:59:40]  To say, well, we don't have charges in Mexico.
[01:59:42]  We only have an extradition order to face justice in the US.
[01:59:45]  But, like, or other friend of Plaga, he had no charges in Mexico.
[01:59:51]  El Nini had no charges in Mexico.
[01:59:54]  All his charges are in the US.
[01:59:56]  But when you look for his criminal charges in Mexico, there's none, not a single one.

=== Extradition Orders vs Local Charges (16:04) ===

[02:00:02]  It's fucking wild.
[02:00:03]  Where is El Nini right now?
[02:00:05]  He is in Mexico City, sitting in a prison.
[02:00:08]  Does he have an extradition?
[02:00:09]  He has an extradition order.
[02:00:11]  Yes, he's definitely most definitely going to be extradited as well pretty soon.
[02:00:16]  Dude, it's just so bizarre.
[02:00:20]  You know, it's even just looking at the war on drugs and what the plan was there.
[02:00:25]  Like, extraditing these people is crazy.
[02:00:27]  They don't understand what's going to happen when they get extradited.
[02:00:30]  They, I mean, do or do they?
[02:00:32]  Do they see that, look, these cartels are just going to be broken down into smaller factions and become more violent?
[02:00:37]  Yeah, exactly.
[02:00:38]  Like, let's think about, let's talk about like the Sinaloa cartel, right?
[02:00:42]  Like, let's say they nav all the Chapitos.
[02:00:45]  They dismember the whole faction.
[02:00:48]  It becomes a power vacuum.
[02:00:50]  There's a power vacuum.
[02:00:51]  And not only that, who's going to be the next one up?
[02:00:54]  Right.
[02:00:54]  Who's going to be the next target?
[02:00:56]  Right.
[02:00:56]  It's immediately and automatically El Mayo.
[02:00:59]  Right?
[02:01:00]  He's the only one left on that faction, on the Sinaloa cartel.
[02:01:04]  And he's the one that nobody talks about.
[02:01:07]  He's never been arrested.
[02:01:09]  He's about 80 years old now, diabetic, and he's out there.
[02:01:16]  All of his sons, but one, have been arrested in the US.
[02:01:20]  All of them except one.
[02:01:22]  How many sons?
[02:01:24]  I think four.
[02:01:26]  El Mallito Gordo, Serafín, and Vicentillo.
[02:01:34]  Three.
[02:01:35]  He has four.
[02:01:36]  Three of them have been arrested and three now.
[02:01:37]  Free men in the U.S.
[02:01:39]  And so the one son that is still living in Mexico is running the organization.
[02:01:43]  El Mallito Flaco.
[02:01:44]  El Mallito Flaco.
[02:01:45]  He's the only one.
[02:01:47]  He's the only one still in the loose.
[02:01:49]  Sharawaya, his dad, there's only probably two available photos of him.
[02:01:56]  No, it's actually one and very old photo of him that was published by the DA on his warrant.
[02:02:04]  No one knows where he is.
[02:02:06]  I mean, but he's basically handling the operation with his dad.
[02:02:11]  And didn't you break that story about him getting into how he got into the Sinaloa cartel with he was friends with somebody in the CIA or something?
[02:02:25]  Brother was in the CIA.
[02:02:27]  Oh, yeah.
[02:02:28]  I did a story that is on my YouTube channel explaining the probable, possible connection with Elmayo Zambada and the CIA.
[02:02:35]  His oldest sister got married to this guy called, I should have forgot his name, but he's a Cuban.
[02:02:47]  And he started doing intelligence for the CIA during the Cuban Revolution.
[02:02:52]  So he got papers to be legal in the US.
[02:02:55]  And when he traveled to the US, he started trafficking shit tons of drugs.
[02:03:00]  Through Florida, actually.
[02:03:02]  And then he moved to Las Vegas, where he became even a bigger trafficker there.
[02:03:08]  And then he got arrested twice for drugs trafficking because he was being just too flashy in Las Vegas, right?
[02:03:15]  And then he moved to LA.
[02:03:16]  And in LA, he was like looking for a new source, someone who can source him first weed and then cocaine.
[02:03:27]  So he traveled to Sinaloa to meet with people sourcing, like, say, okay, I want to find who could help me out source.
[02:03:33]  Drugs to the U.S., and in the meantime, he met Modesta Zambada, the oldest sister of El Mayo.
[02:03:41]  And who I think, in my opinion, if you ask me, she's the real, real deal behind this drug cartel, she's the real one behind the organization.
[02:03:51]  And no one talks about her because he's a lady, and Mexico is so machista, dude.
[02:03:56]  Like, Mexico's like, no, there's no way LA is gonna be behind the cartel, dude.
[02:04:01]  She's the oldest, she's the one who met this trafficker with ties to the CIA first.
[02:04:06]  El Mayo was like, what?
[02:04:07]  11, 12 years old.
[02:04:08]  So, we're going to believe that a 12 year old kid started this emporium.
[02:04:12]  She started it, dude, along with this guy.
[02:04:15]  And then they brought El Mayo.
[02:04:17]  And then El Mayo brought his brother, El Rey Zambada, who's free also right now.
[02:04:21]  He was also arrested, extradited, and he's a free man.
[02:04:24]  He's now a corrido singer in the streets of LA.
[02:04:28]  All of the Zambadas, dude, but El Mayo Modesta and El Mayito Flaco, all of them are free men, have been arrested, complied, cooperated, and are free.
[02:04:41]  In the US.
[02:04:42]  Didn't the son write some crazy fucking book?
[02:04:45]  Yes.
[02:04:45]  You were telling me about it last time you were here.
[02:04:47]  The cover of it is like, wow.
[02:04:48]  Yeah.
[02:04:50]  It is a book written by journalist Anabel Hernandez.
[02:04:55]  And it's called El Traidor, The Traitor.
[02:05:00]  The Traitor.
[02:05:01]  And it's an autobiography, like saying, laying out his whole fucking story of Vicente Zambada.
[02:05:09]  Niebla.
[02:05:10]  I showed you photos of his arrest.
[02:05:12]  He's like this handsome.
[02:05:14]  Yeah.
[02:05:14]  You know, and I'll next publish a couple of exclusive photos of Vicente that I caught.
[02:05:23]  Now, so El Nini is arrested.
[02:05:28]  He's in Mexico City.
[02:05:29]  And what about El Plaga?
[02:05:31]  And El Plaga.
[02:05:32]  Well, El Plaga is.
[02:05:33]  And for people who don't know who El Plaga is.
[02:05:35]  Yeah.
[02:05:35]  So El Plaga is basically, he's not a head of the cartel.
[02:05:38]  He's a henchman.
[02:05:40]  He's basically the equivalent of El Nini for a former Sinaloa cartel faction called Los Russos.
[02:05:47]  The Russians.
[02:05:48]  The Russians.
[02:05:49]  And El Nini was basically in charge of the Sicarios, right?
[02:05:52]  Yeah.
[02:05:53]  He was in charge of the killers, of the henchmen.
[02:05:54]  Exactly.
[02:05:55]  Of the whole security for Los Chapitos, right?
[02:05:57]  He was the security hat for Los Chapitos.
[02:06:01]  And the Plaga is the security hat for Los Russos.
[02:06:04]  Right.
[02:06:04]  Los Russos used to work for El Mayo Zambada, not long ago.
[02:06:08]  They were the most loyal people for El Mayo, because El Ruso is a dude that has been out for a while, dude.
[02:06:18]  Since he was like 17.
[02:06:20]  He's a fucking murderer and he knows how to traffic drugs, how to move around.
[02:06:26]  So El Mayo trusted him a lot, trusted El Russo a lot.
[02:06:30]  Short story long, I mean, long story short, El Russo got into an argument with Los Chapitos.
[02:06:41]  Everybody fucking hates Los Chapitos too.
[02:06:43]  Like every other single faction, they hate on them.
[02:06:46]  Why do you think that is?
[02:06:47]  Probably because they're the inheritance of El Chapo and they're young.
[02:06:51]  Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's probably part of that, you know?
[02:06:53]  Yeah.
[02:06:55]  Rich kids.
[02:06:56]  So this guy started fighting with the Chapitos.
[02:07:00]  El Mayo gets in the middle and says, Hey, dudes, this is not good for any one of us.
[02:07:04]  So he asks El Russo to go to the border of Mexico with the U.S. to Mexicali, right across Calexico, California.
[02:07:13]  He's like, Okay, that's going to be your turf.
[02:07:15]  That's been the turf of mine forever.
[02:07:17]  That's going to be your turf.
[02:07:18]  Get there.
[02:07:19]  Get your men over there.
[02:07:20]  Don't come back to Sinaloa so we can avoid infighting.
[02:07:25]  So he He did.
[02:07:26]  He left.
[02:07:27]  He promised El Russo that he's going to take care of his properties, of his ranch, his houses, all that stuff.
[02:07:32]  So, Los Chapitas aren't going to touch your shit, right?
[02:07:35]  Because we're good now.
[02:07:36]  So he's like, okay.
[02:07:38]  And then two years after, a year after, Los Chapitas went into one of his ranch and started burning his properties, taking his cars, whatever.
[02:07:46]  So, El Russo is like, no, you want to fuck it?
[02:07:47]  I'm going to go back down there.
[02:07:49]  And they started this massive fighting that was all over the news.
[02:07:52]  It lasted like, they kept fighting for over like three weeks.
[02:07:55]  Massive shootouts, a lot of killings.
[02:07:58]  Even the Mexican Marine was involved.
[02:08:01]  Allegedly, per what El Plaga told me, the Mexican Marine was operating on behalf of Los Chapitos.
[02:08:07]  That's what he says.
[02:08:09]  And so El Mayo kind of like got angry at El Russo and said, Dude, I ask you to never come back, especially not to fight.
[02:08:16]  He's like, Yeah, but you made me a promise and you couldn't comply.
[02:08:19]  So fuck it.
[02:08:19]  I'm not going to leave my fucking ranch and properties to be taken over by these guys.
[02:08:25]  So El Mayo decided to not back him up anymore.
[02:08:28]  So it's like, Okay, I'm not going to fight against you.
[02:08:30]  But I'm not going to back you up anymore.
[02:08:32]  So we don't work together.
[02:08:34]  That happened probably last year.
[02:08:35]  So he became an independent.
[02:08:37]  Okay.
[02:08:37]  Right?
[02:08:37]  Former Cinelo cartel.
[02:08:40]  And they operate hugely in Mexicalis and Luis Rio Colorado across California, part of Arizona.
[02:08:50]  And yeah.
[02:08:52]  And then El Plaga reached out.
[02:08:54]  I had reached out.
[02:08:55]  He reached out.
[02:08:56]  The thing is, El Plaga has a huge following on Instagram.
[02:09:00]  He has this massive account where he posts a lot of like his.
[02:09:04]  Rolex watches.
[02:09:05]  Do you know his username?
[02:09:06]  We could pull it up.
[02:09:07]  I don't want to publicize his, you know, because I mean.
[02:09:10]  You don't want to give him any clout.
[02:09:11]  Yeah, exactly.
[02:09:12]  Like they, they all are all up for it, right?
[02:09:15]  They love the attention, they will love it.
[02:09:17]  And I'm not gonna give it okay.
[02:09:20]  So, anyways, he has this huge following on Instagram.
[02:09:24]  He posts his luxury cars, watches, traveling guns.
[02:09:29]  He even posted another Narco monkey, you know, he had with a scar, he had a scar and a Narco monkey on top of it.
[02:09:37]  So, like, oh, yeah, I saw a photo, I saw that photo in the uh, in the article, right?
[02:09:41]  Um, and so I reached out like two years ago.
[02:09:44]  To him to see if he wanted to give me an interview because I was about to go to Mejicalia and all the area.
[02:09:50]  He never applied.
[02:09:52]  And then, probably a month after the interview with Damaso came out, he reached out and he's like, Hey, dude, what's up?
[02:09:59]  And I'm like, Boom, again, secure app.
[02:10:02]  Reach out to me on this one.
[02:10:03]  So he reached out, vetted him.
[02:10:06]  I was on camera asking for his ID, show his ID.
[02:10:09]  He was driving a pickup truck and he kind of like stopped in the middle of the night.
[02:10:13]  How old is this guy?
[02:10:14]  Dude, he's like 24, 26.
[02:10:16]  Like he's young, man.
[02:10:17]  And he's the head of Alpine.
[02:10:19]  Huge army.
[02:10:21]  So we talked about a lot about like Chapitos.
[02:10:24]  He asked me, Hey, dude, did you really meet with Amazon?
[02:10:28]  And I was like, Yeah, dude, yeah, yeah.
[02:10:31]  And he's like, Well, I don't like those kind of guys, but an enemy of my enemy is my friend.
[02:10:38]  So, like, okay, it's like, kind of get a hold of him.
[02:10:41]  And I'm like, Dude, I don't have any contact, any way to contact him.
[02:10:44]  He contacted me and then lost connection with him, right?
[02:10:49]  I don't have any means to get back to him.
[02:10:51]  Right.
[02:10:53]  So he's like, okay, dude, so I'll get.
[02:10:56]  So what's up?
[02:10:57]  And I'm like, dude, can you give me a proper interview?
[02:10:58]  I was like, no, let's do it.
[02:11:00]  In person?
[02:11:02]  I wanted to be in person, but he's like, dude, I can't promise you that I'm going to be around because my boss, he calls El Jefe R, El Ruso.
[02:11:12]  He moves me around a lot.
[02:11:14]  So I can't promise you that I can be, you know?
[02:11:18]  I was like, okay, so let's do a video.
[02:11:20]  Call an interview.
[02:11:22]  And if eventually you have the time, I'll travel and meet you in person.
[02:11:28]  And, like, by any means.
[02:11:29]  So he laid out all this story about the fight, the infighting between the chapitres and the Russo.
[02:11:34]  He told me about, he was two years ago arrested because he got into a gunfight with Mexican state police officers and they killed one of his henchmen when it was his right hand, El Tio, or something like that.
[02:11:48]  They killed him and they arrested him.
[02:11:50]  And there's a mugshot that you have also on the files where he's, that's his Mexican mugshot, and he's all beaten up with a, you can see.
[02:11:59]  That's El Plaga?
[02:12:00]  Yeah, that's El Plaga.
[02:12:02]  Look at that haircut.
[02:12:03]  Yeah, dude.
[02:12:05]  The cough.
[02:12:05]  Can you punch in on that a little bit, Steve?
[02:12:09]  And you have his mouth all.
[02:12:10]  Oh, shit.
[02:12:11]  He got beat up, huh?
[02:12:12]  Really beat up, dude.
[02:12:13]  And his nose all broken.
[02:12:15]  Look at that Louis Vuitton jacket.
[02:12:18]  He was, he told me that they were partying at a club in Mexicali.
[02:12:23]  And then they went out of the club like at seven in the morning.
[02:12:26]  They were driving back to his whatever, and they got stopped by state police officers.
[02:12:32]  And he's like, his friend was like, Don't fucking stop, dude.
[02:12:35]  Fuck him.
[02:12:35]  He's like, No, dude, I don't want to start anything.
[02:12:38]  I mean, but he's like, But why are they stopping us if they know who you are, who we work for?
[02:12:42]  And he's like, I don't know.
[02:12:44]  Let's just stop and see what's up.
[02:12:45]  Yeah.
[02:12:46]  So he's like, When I pull over, this guy, the Tio, whatever, jumps out of the vehicle with his fucking gun.
[02:12:53]  And start shooting at the police.
[02:12:56]  And then these guys start shooting as well.
[02:12:58]  And there's a couple of killings.
[02:13:01]  And then they killed Altillo.
[02:13:03]  He tried to run, got arrested, got beat up.
[02:13:07]  And allegedly, he was moved to a Maximus Curry prison and whatever.
[02:13:12]  But when he called me, I was like, dude, aren't you supposed to be behind bars?
[02:13:16]  I was like, dude, I was free three days after.
[02:13:19]  Like, El CFR negotiated for me and they let me out.
[02:13:24]  And I'm like, dude, are you fucking sure?
[02:13:27]  Yeah, 100%, whatever.
[02:13:30]  I vetted that info also through other sources and other means.
[02:13:34]  And he was fucking out.
[02:13:35]  He was out.
[02:13:36]  And I was like, okay, so this guy's really out.
[02:13:39]  So when I published this story, I faced hard pushback by the Mexican government saying, no, he is behind bars.
[02:13:47]  The chief of police of Baja California told me, like, I personally put him on a plane and sent him out to Oaxaca.
[02:13:54]  She told you this?
[02:13:55]  I put him out to Oaxaca.
[02:13:57]  So he's behind bars.
[02:13:58]  I know for sure.
[02:13:59]  And I'm like, well, check again because he's out.
[02:14:01]  I just FaceTimed him.
[02:14:02]  He's driving his truck down the street.
[02:14:04]  I don't know who you talk to, but he's behind bars.
[02:14:06]  That's for sure.
[02:14:07]  So then he had to show up for a hearing.
[02:14:11]  He didn't show up.
[02:14:12]  And the federal church declared non present.
[02:14:16]  They couldn't find him.
[02:14:17]  And I was like, of course, they couldn't fucking find him because he's out.
[02:14:19]  Right.
[02:14:20]  That's proof that he's out.
[02:14:22]  And they're like, no.
[02:14:23]  And then they put out a presser saying that my story was bullshit.
[02:14:27]  And then they were going to publish his photo behind bars.
[02:14:31]  So now we have him and we're going to publish his photo.
[02:14:33]  Did they publish it?
[02:14:34]  Of course not, dude.
[02:14:35]  They haven't said anything after that.
[02:14:38]  They just didn't want to be.
[02:14:40]  You know, left like fucking idiots.
[02:14:42]  So he's just like Caro Quintero after he got arrested.
[02:14:46]  He's like, You fuckers, I'll be fucking out of here in 24 hours.
[02:14:51]  And he's out.
[02:14:51]  He's out, dude.
[02:14:52]  And there is a search website where you can search for people arrested.
[02:14:57]  So when you look for El Nini, it says where he was arrested, by who, at what time, and who is responsible for his arrest, whatever, and where he is right now.
[02:15:06]  Right.
[02:15:07]  El Ovidio as well.
[02:15:08]  For this guy, it only says arrested, no time, no place.
[02:15:12]  No agency responsible for his arrest, nowhere to be found.
[02:15:16]  He's not in the system.
[02:15:17]  Why do you think he was able to get out, but not El Nini?
[02:15:22]  Aren't they kind of like the same?
[02:15:24]  Don't they have the same kind of power?
[02:15:26]  In their organization, they have the kind of like same power, but their organizations are definitely not at the same level.
[02:15:32]  No.
[02:15:33]  The Chapitos faction, I mean, Los Rusos are by far not even close to what Los Chapitos are right now for people.
[02:15:40]  Right.
[02:15:40]  So you would think El Nini would be able to get out easier than him, right?
[02:15:44]  Not really.
[02:15:45]  Because when you are requested, when you are looked after the US government, especially for those charges.
[02:15:50]  I see what you're saying, right?
[02:15:51]  It's too hot.
[02:15:52]  Yeah.
[02:15:53]  They arrested another day.
[02:15:54]  They don't have as much heat on them as El Chapito's do, right?
[02:15:57]  Exactly.
[02:15:57]  Yeah.
[02:15:58]  Yeah.
[02:15:59]  So, yeah, that was another cool interview published again with Grillo, with Ewan Grillo.

=== Corridos and Pedestals (10:21) ===

[02:16:07]  Crash out.
[02:16:07]  It's crazy the mindset of kids like this, this 24 year old kid.
[02:16:11]  And he thinks it's cool to be called the plague.
[02:16:14]  Dude, yes.
[02:16:15]  I mean, this is the thing on the interview.
[02:16:16]  I asked him like, why did they call you?
[02:16:18]  Why do they call you the plague?
[02:16:20]  La plaga, el plaga.
[02:16:22]  And he's like, because I leave no one alive like a plague.
[02:16:27]  I kill everyone.
[02:16:28]  When I go into fight, there's no one left alive.
[02:16:31]  And that's why I got the trust of my jefe R because he knows that I don't back up and I kill.
[02:16:38]  And I'm, yeah.
[02:16:40]  So I was like, shit, dude.
[02:16:41]  And I was like, what made you interested in this shit?
[02:16:45]  And he's like, the narco corridos, dude.
[02:16:48]  Like, there's Mexican corridos.
[02:16:51]  This is like, when I was growing up, there was this group, the most elite sicario group for El Mayo Zambada, Los Anthrax.
[02:17:00]  Los what?
[02:17:01]  Anthrax.
[02:17:02]  Los Anthrax.
[02:17:02]  Uh huh.
[02:17:03]  Like the Anthrax.
[02:17:04]  Mm hmm.
[02:17:05]  They were huge, dude.
[02:17:06]  I mean, El Chino Anthrax has this mythical story because he was arrested in the Netherlands when he was arrested for being part of the Anthrax, right?
[02:17:16]  He was put in jail in the US, whatever.
[02:17:18]  Before that, he was one of the first sicarios that was super flashy and huge on socials, right?
[02:17:24]  He was post watches, Lambos, whatever.
[02:17:27]  He even posted a photo with Paris Hilton.
[02:17:30]  There is a photo of Paris Hilton with El Chino Anthrax, the head of sicarios for El Mayo Zambada.
[02:17:36]  Like, he was huge.
[02:17:38]  Um, And he was arrested.
[02:17:41]  He started cooperating.
[02:17:42]  He was in a halfway house and then he vanished.
[02:17:45]  And then his body appeared into like shopping to pieces in Sinaloa.
[02:17:50]  Some say he was kidnapped by the same organization.
[02:17:53]  Some others say he escaped, went back.
[02:17:55]  Hell, Mario said, like, now you're a snitch, cut him into pieces.
[02:17:59]  So that was the story of so, so, so these anthrax group, because they were fucking elite and flashy as fuck, a lot of people started like making corridos about them.
[02:18:11]  So El Plaga got enticed by the corridos.
[02:18:13]  He was like, dude, I want to be in Anthrax.
[02:18:15]  So he met someone in Tijuana, because this guy's from Tijuana.
[02:18:18]  He met someone in Tijuana that had a connection to Sinaloa.
[02:18:21]  He went to travel to Sinaloa, introduced himself to these guys, to one of these Sinaloa cartel members.
[02:18:27]  That's where he met El Nini.
[02:18:29]  They were friends before, because they were starting together, trying to be henchmen, you know?
[02:18:33]  Oh, wow.
[02:18:35]  And this guy is another, like, Big player in the Sinaloa cartel told him, You know what?
[02:18:45]  You're not going to make a lot of money with the Anthrax.
[02:18:47]  I mean, they have respect, but they don't make a lot of money.
[02:18:50]  You're from Tijuana, dude.
[02:18:51]  I know a couple of guys that work for us in Tijuana La Rana and Aquiles, two brothers working for Mayo Zamada right there.
[02:18:59]  Go out with them, work for them, and that's where you're going to make money.
[02:19:03]  And he's like, Fuck yes.
[02:19:04]  He introduced me to those guys.
[02:19:05]  I stayed loyal to them, and I started making shit tons of fucking money by helping trafficking drugs and being.
[02:19:11]  Part of their security team.
[02:19:13]  Started growing up.
[02:19:15]  El Nini started growing up with those chapitos.
[02:19:19]  And then he went to work for El Russo, right?
[02:19:21]  Because El Russo called for backup to Aquiles and La Rana.
[02:19:24]  They're like, hey, I'm going to go fight back my turf in Sinaloa.
[02:19:28]  He went with them.
[02:19:29]  El Russo is like, hey, come work with me.
[02:19:32]  And then Nini and him started like fighting.
[02:19:35]  So, like this culture of these corrillos, like these corrillos, it's basically like songs, right?
[02:19:40]  They're like famous songs about legendary.
[02:19:43]  Drug traffickers, dead or alive, right?
[02:19:45]  So, like, there's this culture of the allure, the allure of being this big cartel member or this person with power in Mexico, driving these big lifted trucks, driving Lambos, having guns.
[02:20:01]  And they market it almost to the youth of Mexico, the really young kids.
[02:20:06]  It's like, wow, look at these people.
[02:20:07]  They have this power, they have these great cars.
[02:20:10]  And then the barrier to entry is like, you have to become a killer.
[02:20:14]  Like, you have.
[02:20:15]  A young 12, 13, 14 year old, like, if you want to be in the cartel, you have to show us that you can kill.
[02:20:20]  Is that sort of like how they bring them in?
[02:20:23]  Yeah, you don't want to like.
[02:20:25]  I didn't want to believe that the music has the power to bring someone to try to be part of a drug deal.
[02:20:34]  I felt like it was almost like when the whole Columbine massacre happened and everyone.
[02:20:40]  They blamed it on Marilyn Manson.
[02:20:41]  Marilyn Manson.
[02:20:42]  I was like, dude, that's fucking dumb, which it is.
[02:20:46]  God, dude.
[02:20:47]  The story of El Plaga, particularly in Mexico with Narco Corridos, kind of tells me otherwise, right?
[02:20:54]  Because he got enticed by the music, by the anthrax.
[02:20:57]  He's like, I want to be one of those fucking guys.
[02:21:00]  And he even uses a name that has to do with a viral infection, right?
[02:21:04]  The anthrax and plague.
[02:21:07]  So, a lot of these kids, they work for that.
[02:21:10]  It's not even money.
[02:21:11]  It's not even power.
[02:21:13]  It's for being famed and having their own corridos.
[02:21:17]  And look at what Peso Pluma is doing right now.
[02:21:21]  No one really knew El Nini, right?
[02:21:24]  Until Peso Pluma started singing about him.
[02:21:27]  Everybody wants to be El Nini now.
[02:21:29]  If you go into my Instagram account, I have a photo of his arrest and the comments, it's like free El Nini.
[02:21:36]  Yeah, man, Alini's a real dude, and blah blah blah.
[02:21:38]  And these like everybody's like, you know, super excited about that man, and they're like vouching for him.
[02:21:45]  Yeah, but like the difference between those guys and the Columbine shooters, there's a stark difference.
[02:21:49]  These guys are trying to make a name for themselves, they want fame, they want money, they want a life.
[02:21:53]  They're coming from nothing, yeah, they're coming from poverty, definitely.
[02:21:55]  Yeah, these shooters at these schools, like Columbine, whatever, these guys were complete antisocial, had no friends, who knows what kind of like, I don't know if they were on depressants or whatever, and they're.
[02:22:07]  These religious fanatics want to come after them, blaming that Marilyn Manson is the Antichrist, they listen to these goth music.
[02:22:13]  These guys knew they were going to die.
[02:22:14]  Exactly.
[02:22:15]  It was a suicide.
[02:22:16]  Absolutely.
[02:22:17]  Yeah.
[02:22:17]  Not saying it is the same at all.
[02:22:19]  It's absolutely different, different motivation.
[02:22:21]  And Marilyn Manson's interview with the guy who made the Bowling for Columbine movie, Michael Moore.
[02:22:27]  He asked Marilyn Manson, he goes, If you could talk to these kids, if you could say one thing to these two guys who killed everybody, what would you say to them?
[02:22:34]  And Marilyn Manson's response was, I wouldn't say a word to them.
[02:22:37]  He's like, I would ask them questions.
[02:22:38]  Yeah.
[02:22:39]  And that's what nobody did.
[02:22:40]  Exactly.
[02:22:41]  So basically, saying like these kids were unheard for most part of his life.
[02:22:45]  Right.
[02:22:45]  They were not hurt.
[02:22:46]  Yeah, they had no problem.
[02:22:47]  And that's probably the same shit.
[02:22:48]  I mean, I don't know, dude, but probably a kid, because again, this whole story about these kids not having a chance and being impoverished and saying like this is the only way they could, you know, that probably happened with a different generation.
[02:23:06]  That happened with El Chapo, with El Mayo, that they grew up in extreme poverty in the Woods, whatever, and El Chapo started by killing people, right?
[02:23:13]  He was originally like a fucking Sicari, yeah, yeah.
[02:23:16]  But these guys, these are city kids, they're not rich, right?
[02:23:20]  They're middle class, they live well, they can go to school.
[02:23:23]  Like El Nini, El Plaga.
[02:23:25]  These kids are not like that was my only option, they actually were looking for that option, they were looking for that, right?
[02:23:33]  And it's again, it's like, why, why?
[02:23:36]  Probably because how we all put these guys on a pedestal, right.
[02:23:42]  We talk about these guys like they're major players.
[02:23:46]  We kind of like look up for them and say, like, oh, these guys, you know.
[02:23:49]  And that is exactly why I try to interview all these people because I'm like, dude, I want to bring him down to humans, right?
[02:23:57]  To what they face, to what they are.
[02:23:59]  Because otherwise, you only listen to the corridos about them.
[02:24:03]  And what does the corridos of El Plaga say?
[02:24:05]  He's a badass killer.
[02:24:07]  He's a good man.
[02:24:08]  He has a good heart, but he takes no shit.
[02:24:09]  That's why he kills a lot of men.
[02:24:12]  And if you cross his path, he's going to chop your fucking head, whatever.
[02:24:16]  Makes him look like this bravado macho man that is cool and is fine.
[02:24:22]  But if you cross my way, I'm not going to have mercy.
[02:24:26]  And it's like, dude, no.
[02:24:27]  These people are bad in the fucking head, right?
[02:24:31]  They're fucking killers.
[02:24:33]  They don't give a shit.
[02:24:34]  They move fucking drugs.
[02:24:38]  They're doing a lot of crimes that are affecting us, all of us.
[02:24:44]  And they face ugly lives.
[02:24:46]  They face living like rats.
[02:24:48]  They face living without, like these two.
[02:24:51]  I asked him, Why would you be open to share a lot of shit on your Instagram?
[02:24:56]  And he told me, Well, I don't share the beheadings I do, I don't share that kind of stuff that's going to get me in trouble.
[02:25:02]  What I share is my luxury life, right?
[02:25:04]  My watches, whatever.
[02:25:06]  Because that's why I do these for, right?
[02:25:07]  For money.
[02:25:08]  And if I can show it, then what's the goal?
[02:25:11]  That lets you understand.
[02:25:13]  It's like, okay, so this dude beheads people.
[02:25:17]  He chops people's heads off.
[02:25:20]  But he doesn't show that.
[02:25:21]  What he shows is his luxury life.
[02:25:24]  And he does that because on his head, he's doing what he does for the money to show, right?
[02:25:32]  So if he can't show, then there is no sense in what he's doing.
[02:25:37]  Yeah.
[02:25:39]  Yeah.
[02:25:40]  It's like it's making a name for themselves and like sort of symbolic immortality, trying to, you know, they get corrillos made after them and they live on beyond.
[02:25:51]  Like if they die tomorrow, there's going to be a corrillo or, you know, some of these graveyards that have like these crazy memorials to these guys.
[02:25:59]  People go there and party and it's insane.
[02:26:01]  Yeah, dude.
[02:26:03]  I mean, it's wild how they leave.
[02:26:05]  And I don't know what's going to happen with the black guys who are going to get.
[02:26:08]  Behind because after the interview came out, it went huge in Mexico because the Mexican government actually kind of pushed back.
[02:26:14]  So that made this story even amplified more.
[02:26:16]  Yeah.
[02:26:18]  And he closed his Instagram for a couple of weeks or months.
[02:26:23]  He recently opened it back up, but he caught all connections, you know.

=== WhatsApp Groups and Exploits (14:38) ===

[02:26:28]  So one of your stories that you've most recently done that terrifies me the most is the story of this Titan software.
[02:26:36]  Yes.
[02:26:36]  How did you first come to learn about this software?
[02:26:40]  And explain what it is.
[02:26:42]  Again, it was an anonymous tip first.
[02:26:46]  One of the sources reached out again on Instagram.
[02:26:49]  They said, Hey, dude, you need to know about this software that Mexican and cartels are using.
[02:26:55]  And I'm only sharing this with you because I think you are the one to publish this story, whatever, to find out more about it.
[02:27:02]  And I can't tell you a lot of stuff about this guy, so for his security, right?
[02:27:07]  But basically, Titan, what this is, is a Mexican development, a software.
[02:27:14]  That is like a mega database for a lot of Mexican databases, right?
[02:27:19]  It gets Mexican border ID, database, phone companies, different mobile and land phone companies, databases, banks, most of the banks, probably all of them, credit scores, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, criminal backgrounds,
[02:27:36]  et cetera, et cet, Or a phone number.
[02:27:52]  And by doing that, well, these sources offered me a login to go in and try the platform.
[02:28:00]  It was mind blowing how fucking easy it is to just enter.
[02:28:06]  I asked permission to a friend of mine in Mexico if I could enter his name or phone number to track him, right?
[02:28:13]  Enter his info, and it gave me several.
[02:28:20]  Sheets of personal data, like his most recent calls, like a list of logs.
[02:28:26]  And then these databases make like this call crossing to try to identify how close the people he's talking to are to him.
[02:28:37]  Like you can tell probably that he called his mom or he calls, there are like a hundred calls in the last month to this number, right?
[02:28:46]  So the circle is.
[02:28:47]  Who he talks to the most.
[02:28:49]  Exactly.
[02:28:49]  Who talks to the most and whatever, like most recent calls, whatever.
[02:28:52]  It gives you a sheet about his credit score, security background check, his license plates, the cars he owns, addresses, different addresses through the years, Mexican border ID, license, what else?
[02:29:11]  It was like a bunch of shit, dude, like his different phone numbers, and a list of the last hour.
[02:29:24]  Location every 15 minutes, a pinpoint where every 15 minutes he was for the last hour or the last two hours.
[02:29:31]  So you can track where he was, where he's been the last 15 per 15 minutes, dropping point, like bop, bop, bop on a map.
[02:29:38]  And then you can access this live location.
[02:29:43]  What this live location uses is a protocol called SS7, which is a mobile protocol used by mobile companies all over the world.
[02:29:54]  So they can communicate between each other.
[02:29:56]  Without this protocol, If I have Verizon, you have ATT, we wouldn't be able to communicate with each other.
[02:30:01]  That's why you can't communicate with people in China or Mexico, whatever.
[02:30:06]  But these protocols have been widely criticized for a while because of its vulnerabilities.
[02:30:11]  It's super easy to access this protocol without any malware, whatever.
[02:30:15]  And Mexico, a few years back, made this anti monopoly law that basically bans a single mobile phone company to own the whole registry or the biggest spectrum.
[02:30:31]  For the use of mobile technology, right?
[02:30:34]  For mobile communication waves.
[02:30:37]  Right.
[02:30:38]  And what this does is that you and I can set up a mobile company in Mexico, right?
[02:30:42]  We can show up with paperwork and say, like, we want to start our own Danny Jones mobile phone company.
[02:30:52]  It's super easy to get approved, and you will have to pay the rent for access to this protocol, right?
[02:30:59]  You pay that to the biggest companies because it's cheaper than to get one of your own.
[02:31:04]  Right, your own protocol.
[02:31:05]  So, like, no, okay.
[02:31:06]  Pay for a license.
[02:31:07]  Yeah, you pay for the license that ATT is using, and you can use that for your own small company.
[02:31:12]  So, a lot of criminals and a lot of like these security software shady companies are accessing this SS7 protocol.
[02:31:20]  And through that SS7 protocol, they can pinpoint where you're at live without even sending you a malware, whatever.
[02:31:27]  It's just legal because that's access to a protocol that every legal mobile phone company has.
[02:31:34]  And that's where they're accessing your shit.
[02:31:36]  And live tracking you all over the world.
[02:31:38]  On my article, my story on Vice News, for legal reasons, I didn't want to face the US government asking questions, whatever.
[02:31:48]  It was just too messy to say that it works all over the world.
[02:31:52]  So I proved that in Mexico, but I proved on my own devices in the US, in Texas, and it worked.
[02:32:00]  Because it works through SS7, or it also works through a different, Way of doing things, which is basically the GPS, which is the triangle between the nearest phone and the pass, right?
[02:32:13]  Kind of like triangles at three points your location.
[02:32:17]  So they can take the software, enter your name or your phone number or your social security number, and they can pinpoint where you are anywhere in the fucking world.
[02:32:24]  Find your credit score, find your recent call list, read your text messages.
[02:32:29]  I'm assuming.
[02:32:30]  I didn't access the.
[02:32:31]  Okay, no text messages.
[02:32:32]  No, I don't think so.
[02:32:34]  Or probably I didn't because I didn't work on the platform enough.
[02:32:38]  Like, I just.
[02:32:39]  Went through there because it gives you a huge document, you know, with a lot of different pages and a lot of like Excel and maps and blah blah blah blah.
[02:32:51]  And then you have to go.
[02:32:52]  And interpret it out, what is everything right?
[02:32:55]  I sent you a video.
[02:32:56]  I think you can put up a video of like how the screener uh goes when how it how does it look like, but dude, it's so easy.
[02:33:05]  And the most terrifying thing, it's like a lot of people's gonna say, like, well, there was Pegasus right back then, it's known Pegasus, yes, developed by the Israeli cyber arm, it was a cyber arms basically weapon, you could call it, but it was marketed by the Israelis as a tool to weed out criminals and terrorists, but obviously was not used by that, it was used by.
[02:33:26]  Governments to weed out dissidents or journalists.
[02:33:32]  So the thing is, Pegasus, look at all the information you have about Pegasus, right?
[02:33:37]  Because it's available.
[02:33:38]  It's information easily available.
[02:33:41]  Well, that's one of the sheets it sends out.
[02:33:45]  Okay, so this is the information that you get.
[02:33:48]  Yeah, that's a brief.
[02:33:52]  I wouldn't zoom on any phone in case there is, you know, but.
[02:33:57]  Most of the four numbers are not working anymore, so it's all good.
[02:34:02]  Okay.
[02:34:03]  Yeah, that's how it looks.
[02:34:04]  Whoa.
[02:34:05]  Gives you a lot of fucking info, dude.
[02:34:07]  Gives you a lot of stuff.
[02:34:09]  So now, Pegasus, the thing is, it was developed by a proper known company developing software and acquired by official means by the governments, right?
[02:34:22]  It wasn't acquired under the table, it was officially acquired by governments.
[02:34:27]  Yeah.
[02:34:28]  Yeah, it's like 200 grand you can pay for a license for Pegasus.
[02:34:31]  The thing is, they have the zero day exploit with that.
[02:34:34]  So, like, you don't need to click on a link.
[02:34:36]  You can just basically send it to somebody and it automatically infects their phone.
[02:34:39]  They don't need to click shit.
[02:34:40]  Definitely more aggressive, definitely more access.
[02:34:42]  I mean, it gives you more access to a device, right?
[02:34:45]  Because you can turn on and off cameras, microphones, whatever.
[02:34:48]  This shit is nothing like that.
[02:34:49]  Right.
[02:34:50]  But the thing I find more dangerous about this thing is that it is not acquired officially by governments.
[02:34:57]  This is highly overlooked, highly shady.
[02:35:01]  The login, there's no information who's behind this shit.
[02:35:05]  You don't know because it's a single developer in Mexico that gets a hand of people say, like, okay, but the Mexican INE, the Mexican border ID, they have a lot of like firewalls.
[02:35:19]  So it's almost impossible to access that shit without strong malware.
[02:35:23]  Well, the thing is, you don't need it because your malware is corruption, right?
[02:35:27]  You pay someone in to give you the whole access to an updated database of that shit.
[02:35:35]  Same with phone companies, banks, blah, That's how this shit is working.
[02:35:40]  Now, this is, I spoke to the developer and he said, my intention to this was to provide governments all over the world access to track criminals.
[02:35:53]  But I know that it's been used by, you know, having a bad use, whatever.
[02:35:59]  And this is not acquired on official capability, right?
[02:36:02]  It's been acquired by a single state commander that says, okay, the license is super cheap.
[02:36:07]  It's about $100,000.
[02:36:10]  Give me 500 licenses.
[02:36:11]  I'll pay it on my own pocket and I'll give access to my agents, you know, so we can work this properly, this platform.
[02:36:19]  But I'll sub rent it.
[02:36:21]  I'm going to rent this out to criminals as well, to people on the Cartel Jalisco, Cartel de Sinaloa.
[02:36:27]  So they track rivals or day to day citizens.
[02:36:31]  And that's how this shit is working.
[02:36:34]  That's how they find people that they want to disappear, to kidnap, to kill.
[02:36:40]  They use this kind of.
[02:36:41]  And people within the Mexican.
[02:36:43]  Law enforcement or military are knowingly licensing this software out to the cartels.
[02:36:49]  Dude, this is the biggest proof that Mexico is a fucking narco state.
[02:36:51]  They're working side by side.
[02:36:53]  You only have access to this kind of shit by invitation to a WhatsApp group.
[02:37:00]  These WhatsApp group admins are either four or five different admins.
[02:37:07]  It's a mix between state police commanders and cartel members, high ranking cartel members.
[02:37:13]  This is the council that'll give you access to these WhatsApp groups where you have access to this technology, to signal blockers, to exotic animals.
[02:37:22]  To a bunch of shit.
[02:37:24]  Like passport, I'll show you photos of like fake US passports, but they're like, because they're coming out of the consulate.
[02:37:31]  A lot of crazy shit, dude.
[02:37:32]  Like, if you need a different identity in Mexico, you can easily get it.
[02:37:37]  Easily.
[02:37:39]  It's wild, dude.
[02:37:40]  It's fucking wild.
[02:37:41]  Yeah, that's what that dude was telling me, the guy you introduced me to who came in here.
[02:37:46]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[02:37:47]  Fernando.
[02:37:47]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[02:37:48]  Fernando.
[02:37:49]  Fernando Puente.
[02:37:50]  He was telling me how when he was a coyote, they basically would bring you into a house, they would have a whole change of clothes.
[02:37:55]  For you to make you look like a fucking worker.
[02:37:57]  Yeah.
[02:37:58]  They'd create you a brand new passport and get you across the border.
[02:38:01]  Yeah, dude.
[02:38:01]  I mean, they're even selling.
[02:38:05]  Yo, Steve, pull up that tweet I sent you earlier.
[02:38:09]  They're even selling.
[02:38:11]  What is this, bro?
[02:38:12]  This is bombs that they hang into drones.
[02:38:17]  It even, one of the selling points is like, it has a hanger for your drone.
[02:38:21]  So you can drop it.
[02:38:22]  Oh, my God.
[02:38:24]  So the DJI little consumer drones that you buy on Amazon and Best Buy, they can carry these things?
[02:38:29]  Uh huh.
[02:38:30]  And they just drop them.
[02:38:31]  And they just drop them.
[02:38:32]  A drone bomb?
[02:38:33]  Yeah, dude.
[02:38:34]  This is the kind of shit they're selling on these WhatsApp groups.
[02:38:39]  Oh, my God.
[02:38:39]  Bombs, dude.
[02:38:41]  22,000 pesos, which is a thousand bucks.
[02:38:44]  And who is getting these bombs?
[02:38:47]  These consul in these WhatsApp groups.
[02:38:49]  Well, these bombs.
[02:38:50]  So the Mexican military is getting them and selling them on the black market to the cartels.
[02:38:53]  Yes, exactly.
[02:38:54]  Yes.
[02:38:56]  These kind of like high level weapons as car.
[02:39:01]  It's a people who know about guns.
[02:39:04]  A score is pretty expensive.
[02:39:06]  A score, yeah.
[02:39:06]  And this is a score all covered in gold, right?
[02:39:10]  With a scope and a lot of gold magazine, gold handle, gold barrel.
[02:39:14]  It's ridiculous.
[02:39:15]  I mean, but what was that thing you were showing us earlier with that fucking thing that looked like a laser gun?
[02:39:21]  Oh, well, that gun, that's a single signal jammer.
[02:39:26]  A signal jammer.
[02:39:27]  They use that against their own technology, right?
[02:39:30]  Because if the Jalisco cartel has drones, Bombing, you know, with bombs, well, you need protection against that.
[02:39:38]  And you also need protection against the government drones that are looking over your turf.
[02:39:42]  So they will, on the same group, they will sell this kind of shit so you can block.
[02:39:49]  And how does this thing right here work?
[02:39:51]  It's basically a shotgun that blocks the signal of your drone.
[02:39:56]  So if you have a drone that is communicating through GPS to find its way, whatever, as soon as you fire this shit, it blocks the signal of that, basically shuts off your drone.
[02:40:06]  So it drops.
[02:40:08]  Oh my God, bro.
[02:40:10]  Dude, it's so wild that a lot of like police don't even know that this is happening on these WhatsApp groups because this world is so small.
[02:40:23]  The criminal world is so small that one time I was at a bar with one of my sources.
[02:40:31]  He works for the Mexican military.
[02:40:35]  So I was at a bar with them.
[02:40:37]  And we're talking this and that.
[02:40:38]  And on the WhatsApp group I had access back then, I'm not part of the WhatsApp group anymore, but someone posted a pair of binoculars, but they look like super high-tech binoculars, not your regular night vision shit.
[02:40:53]  They look like really something, and they were really expensive.
[02:40:56]  They were selling those shit for 200,000 pesos, which is like 10 grand.
[02:41:02]  And I was like, dude, this looks like something really geared up, not your regular binoculars.

=== Smuggling Through Checkpoints (08:32) ===

[02:41:07]  So I showed him to him.
[02:41:08]  So I was like, do you have any clue what this is?
[02:41:10]  Like, what kind of binoculars are these?
[02:41:12]  He looks at it and he goes pale.
[02:41:16]  He's like, Where do you get this?
[02:41:18]  And I'm like, Source is telling them, Dude, no, no, no, can I use your phone, please?
[02:41:22]  And I'm like, No, no, wait, wait, wait, what happened?
[02:41:24]  He's like, No, just send me a photo, like a screenshot of that shit.
[02:41:27]  And I was like, All right, yeah, by all means.
[02:41:30]  What happened?
[02:41:30]  He's like, Just give me a second.
[02:41:32]  Picks up his phone.
[02:41:34]  He calls someone.
[02:41:35]  He's like, Hey, remember that fucking pair of binoculars you bought for me?
[02:41:41]  Well, guess where they are?
[02:41:43]  And then he's like, Exactly, dude.
[02:41:46]  Is with a Jalisco hotel.
[02:41:48]  Why?
[02:41:49]  Why are these binoculars in the hands of the Jalisco?
[02:41:52]  He's like, okay, just think about that.
[02:41:53]  Boom, he hangs his phone.
[02:41:54]  He's like, dude, I sold this pair of binoculars, this exact pair, because he's like, I'm pretty sure they zoom in, they have a mark where I erase the seat, whatever, to a guy who works on the military as well.
[02:42:08]  And turns out he's selling this shit to the Jalisco.
[02:42:11]  So I was like, fuck, okay, dude.
[02:42:13]  Sorry about that.
[02:42:15]  Yeah, dude, like this world is, so there's a, They're sourcing from official, unofficial, military, police, U.S. military.
[02:42:26]  They're sourcing from everywhere and they have access to a lot of fucking shit, dude.
[02:42:30]  This was a major, major leak that these sources granted me access to.
[02:42:37]  He granted me access to.
[02:42:39]  Look at this shit.
[02:42:42]  What, these are all IDs and passports?
[02:42:44]  Yeah, U.S. U.S. permanent resident cards and passports.
[02:42:48]  They are not fake.
[02:42:50]  They have all the ceilings, all the markings, because they're coming out of properly from a U.S. consulate in Mexico.
[02:43:00]  How much money, what percentage of the revenue that these cartels are bringing in is from smuggling people over the border?
[02:43:10]  Right now, dude, that is huge money.
[02:43:13]  That is huge money.
[02:43:15]  This smuggler in Ciudad Juarez, he recently told me for a story.
[02:43:20]  That they are making more money from smuggling people than from smuggling coke.
[02:43:26]  So he's like, dude, we're kind of like dropping that.
[02:43:28]  We're now huge on the human smuggling side of it.
[02:43:31]  Because for a single male, just to get him across the border, literally over and down the wall, they're charging $1,800 US dollars for a single man.
[02:43:44]  If you're moving a whole family and they ask you to go to, I don't know, New York.
[02:43:50]  Yeah.
[02:43:51]  Then you arrange the whole fucking thing from.
[02:43:53]  They'll even drive you to fucking New York?
[02:43:54]  Yeah, dude.
[02:43:55]  I mean, they get you passed through checkpoints.
[02:43:59]  And then they'd say you end up on a bus, right?
[02:44:01]  Because then there's no more checkpoints.
[02:44:02]  After 20 miles from the border, there are no more checkpoints.
[02:44:06]  Wow.
[02:44:07]  There's only one.
[02:44:08]  Well, like, there are checkpoints in a circular round 20 miles from the border.
[02:44:14]  And they get passed through that using different tricks and different.
[02:44:18]  Play this video, Steve.
[02:44:19]  This video is wild.
[02:44:20]  I just saw this on Twitter this morning.
[02:44:22]  It looks like these guys are somehow like they're tying this shit around those.
[02:44:28]  Oh, that's clever.
[02:44:29]  And they're making them, what is it?
[02:44:32]  They're widening the bars or breaking them.
[02:44:35]  They're cutting off the.
[02:44:37]  They're sawing those bars off.
[02:44:39]  Oh.
[02:44:39]  You'll see it.
[02:44:41]  There it is.
[02:44:44]  Is this the Trump wall?
[02:44:45]  Yeah.
[02:44:49]  They're just waving at the cameraman.
[02:44:51]  Yeah, dude.
[02:44:51]  They're loud.
[02:44:52]  Look at him.
[02:44:53]  That dude is recording.
[02:44:57]  It's a joke.
[02:44:58]  They don't give a shit, man.
[02:45:00]  Look at this.
[02:45:01]  And again, are they really a threat?
[02:45:02]  I mean, look at these kids and this woman.
[02:45:05]  They're not the fucking threat, man.
[02:45:07]  They are not.
[02:45:15]  These guys are making money.
[02:45:18]  So, these guys are coyotes?
[02:45:20]  These guys are coyotes, yeah.
[02:45:23]  That's exactly what happens with most of the deterrence policies.
[02:45:27]  How recent was this?
[02:45:29]  Can you look at the tweet and see when this was or where this was?
[02:45:32]  Like, where specifically on the border was this?
[02:45:35]  December 11th.
[02:45:36]  This was posted.
[02:45:37]  Okay, this was just posted a week ago.
[02:45:39]  Mm hmm.
[02:45:41]  The cartels run the border now.
[02:45:46]  Yeah.
[02:45:46]  And it's pretty obvious.
[02:45:48]  I mean, what was happening before the whole deterrence, right?
[02:45:53]  Nothing really.
[02:45:54]  I mean, a lot of Mexicans were coming in and back out.
[02:45:58]  They were getting across to work and then back to Mexico and then back the next day.
[02:46:02]  But when you put in place deterrence policies, when you put crocodiles and crazy shit, cartels are going to bank on that shit.
[02:46:11]  They're going to make money on it.
[02:46:11]  They're going to make a lot of fucking money on it.
[02:46:13]  And you make them powerful.
[02:46:15]  By trying to stop migrants from reaching the border and not having a system in place, you're making them reach.
[02:46:24]  If the borders were open, as people say, like they're wide open, well, who's going to charge for a wide open border, right?
[02:46:30]  No one will be making money.
[02:46:33]  You will face a lot of like a mess of migrants coming over illegally to the U.S., right?
[02:46:42]  That's a different thing.
[02:46:43]  But no one will be making money.
[02:46:44]  No criminal organization will be banking on it.
[02:46:46]  But when you close the borders, when you really close the borders and make it harder and harder and push people to more remote places in the desert, through the sea, across a huge wall, under tunnels, that's where they're going to cash in.
[02:47:00]  And they're going to become more and more and more powerful because of the money they are amassing.
[02:47:03]  The harder it is to do it, the more money they can make.
[02:47:06]  Absolutely, dude.
[02:47:07]  And when you can just shove a couple kilos in a backpack and walk across the border legally, it's not that hard to do.
[02:47:14]  Again, the migrants are not breaking drugs.
[02:47:16]  The cartels don't work like that.
[02:47:18]  They don't put two eggs in the same basket.
[02:47:22]  If you go into CVP, and I really ask all the people to do that because it's open information go to cvp.gov and look for the stats, statistics on seizures, right?
[02:47:36]  How much drug is being seized through ports of entry and in between ports of entry.
[02:47:42]  I mean, through the desert, through the wall, whatever.
[02:47:44]  99.8% is getting seized on ports of entry.
[02:47:49]  On proper ports of entry.
[02:47:51]  Like shipping ports?
[02:47:53]  No, like the regular bridges.
[02:47:55]  Oh, oh, oh, gotcha.
[02:47:56]  Yeah, vehicles, commercial, personal vehicles, whatever, like what we use, like 99.8.
[02:48:03]  Very little drugs are being smuggled in between walls because it's riskier and you don't need that shit.
[02:48:12]  Right.
[02:48:12]  What you need is a full border packed, like when the CVP officers are taking a long time checking on you.
[02:48:20]  And that's making a huge fucking line on the bridge.
[02:48:24]  That's when they're like.
[02:48:26]  So, these holiday seasons, like December, a lot of Mexicans go to the US to buy gifts for Christmas, right?
[02:48:33]  So, the border waiting times are like fucking three, four, five hours.
[02:48:38]  You have to stand in line to get across into the U.S. and shit.
[02:48:41]  That's when they guys take advantage of that shit.
[02:48:44]  There's a lot of cars.
[02:48:45]  We have more chances of pulling one car packed with fentanyl in 100,000 cars.
[02:48:53]  Fernando was telling me that there was a system in place.
[02:48:55]  I'm not sure if it's still in place where people, citizens of Tijuana, actually have programs where they can cross the border every day to go to work in the U.S., in San Diego or somewhere.
[02:49:05]  Yeah.
[02:49:06]  It's a border crossing card.
[02:49:07]  Is that still in place?
[02:49:08]  Do you still do that?
[02:49:09]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[02:49:09]  That's still in place.
[02:49:10]  Which, I mean, again, it's for border crossers, right?
[02:49:13]  Like, you're perfectly legal to go.
[02:49:16]  You're a Mexican citizen, but you work in the U.S., you go back and forth.
[02:49:20]  I heard a guy, this guy, John Mearsheimer, was doing a podcast on Lex Friedman, and they were talking about immigration.
[02:49:28]  And basically, John Mearsheimer was making the point that the two main things for a country to become powerful are.
[02:49:38]  There's two proxies.

=== Immigrants in Corporate America (04:56) ===

[02:49:39]  One is GDP, and the second one is population.
[02:49:42]  And he was making the argument that, like, people in the US, Americans, young Americans, aren't having babies, they aren't making babies like they used to.
[02:49:51]  And he's saying that the immigration of people from South America and Mexico is a good thing because they're still making babies and they're still crossing the US.
[02:50:00]  We want more people.
[02:50:01]  More people is good, and more people equals a higher GDP.
[02:50:05]  Yeah, definitely.
[02:50:07]  If you actually have a program to make these people, Enter the workforce legally, right?
[02:50:12]  Yes, if you make these people enter the workforce, then yeah, you have a lot of people working, making money, moving money, and you have a larger population, right?
[02:50:22]  When you remove the whole race about it, you know, when you if you want a country just of white people and you don't take into account immigrants and say, like, well, they don't count, let's just count for the white people because this is America, whatever that doesn't work, right?
[02:50:40]  If you take into account a lot of like immigrants, say, like, okay, let's let's.
[02:50:44]  Make these people work and make them get into the workforce, then you definitely have a stronger workforce, right?
[02:50:54]  Well paid, paying taxes, buying shit, buying houses, all this stuff.
[02:50:59]  Well, the crazy thing is, like, they don't punish.
[02:51:03]  I don't know exactly what the system is, but I don't.
[02:51:08]  The people who run big companies that hire these illegal immigrants, they know they have tons of legal immigrants working for them.
[02:51:14]  Yeah.
[02:51:14]  And they.
[02:51:15]  Pay them cash and they don't pay them a lot of money.
[02:51:17]  Exactly, dude.
[02:51:18]  They're fucking.
[02:51:18]  So they're fucking.
[02:51:19]  They're benefiting on it.
[02:51:21]  Yeah.
[02:51:21]  That's why Mexico is our biggest trading partner because we do what we put 90% of our manufacturing in Mexico and we get it dirt cheap.
[02:51:28]  Yeah, dude.
[02:51:28]  I mean, again, this country is not in the hands of bad politicians, it's in the hands of fucking robbers that are owning huge companies.
[02:51:43]  They're stealing from the country.
[02:51:45]  They're doing all this crazy fucking shit.
[02:51:47]  Like, Outsourcing for cheapest fucking labor, benefiting everyone but only their own pocket.
[02:51:52]  So, whose fault is that?
[02:51:53]  Is that the guy who's trying to work to pay his family and he's not a citizen, so he has to get paid cash, but he's providing all this labor?
[02:51:59]  He's working harder than any fucking other person on the job site or whatever it may be.
[02:52:03]  Is it their fault or is the fucking guy who owns the company who knows he's getting this shit for 50 cents on the dollar?
[02:52:07]  It's corporate America, dude.
[02:52:09]  Who's fucking up?
[02:52:11]  They own the fucking country.
[02:52:12]  They're doing all these crazy, shitty policies for their own fucking benefit, but for the demise of the whole country.
[02:52:18]  I, I, I. I'm pretty sure that any politician, call it Biden or call it Trump, they're well educated enough to know what's better for our country.
[02:52:28]  But they are in the fucking hands or the paws of corporate America.
[02:52:32]  But they don't give a shit.
[02:52:34]  They're going to tell you, like, no, you know what's best for our country?
[02:52:37]  Let's outsource everything to China.
[02:52:38]  Let's outsource everything to Mexico.
[02:52:40]  And let's let these illegal immigrants work illegally and get paid cash instead of actually put them on the workforce and make them pay taxes like everyone was for the benefit of the country, right?
[02:52:52]  And them, because they're going to be legal.
[02:52:54]  So it's a win win.
[02:52:56]  The only ones losing is the owners of that company.
[02:52:59]  They're going to have to pay taxes and employees.
[02:53:03]  All that they don't want to do that, yeah, because they want to earn these extra penny, yeah.
[02:53:08]  And the politicians, all they want to do is they're going to do whatever it takes to stay in power, the same power, yeah, yeah.
[02:53:14]  And if these guys, corporate America, call it corporate cartels, American corporate cartels, whatever they work as cartels, exactly the same, right?
[02:53:25]  And they own it's just it's just it's within legal boundaries.
[02:53:28]  There's a machine, there's a mechanism in America that allows this stuff to work legally, and I mean.
[02:53:35]  Senators and politicians, they're basically prostitutes to big organizations, pharmaceutical or whatever it might be.
[02:53:42]  Exactly, dude.
[02:53:43]  Yes.
[02:53:44]  That's what's happening with this country, which is, we talked about this yesterday.
[02:53:48]  Like, this is still like, this is a country that manages to every 80, 70, 50, 100 years to renew itself, and it's fucking great.
[02:53:57]  And it's because of its people, right?
[02:53:58]  Because of the benefits that people have.
[02:54:00]  They kind of like take everything for granted.
[02:54:02]  But when these countries feel That their level of comfortable is being threatened, that's when it steps up.
[02:54:11]  And it's great.
[02:54:12]  And it's something that it's not happening in Mexico.
[02:54:15]  Places like Mexico, we're optimistic about it.
[02:54:17]  We say, like, no, this year we're doing great.
[02:54:20]  We're doing better every year.
[02:54:21]  But in reality, we're going to shit.
[02:54:23]  It's just our opinion that it's naturally optimistic.
[02:54:26]  And we're feeling that we're doing better every administration, every year.
[02:54:32]  We now have a train.
[02:54:33]  We now have electricity.
[02:54:34]  We now have whatever.

=== New Players on the Border (02:43) ===

[02:54:36]  Fucking country is going to shit.
[02:54:37]  While this country, the opinion usually, Goes like that.
[02:54:41]  But the country goes like this.
[02:54:43]  It always comes up first, right?
[02:54:46]  Cyclical.
[02:54:47]  And it's because people still have the capability to turn the country over, right?
[02:54:52]  To say, like, okay, it's not Biden, it's not Trump, it's not the migrants, it's the fucking corporations.
[02:54:57]  Let's fucking switch that up.
[02:55:00]  And it gets a lot of sacrifices for the people, right?
[02:55:03]  Like economical depressions and all that shit.
[02:55:06]  But it works at the end.
[02:55:08]  And this country renews itself.
[02:55:09]  And that's pitiful about it.
[02:55:11]  That's cool.
[02:55:13]  Well, bro, I always enjoy these conversations with you.
[02:55:17]  Same, bro.
[02:55:17]  Your flight is coming soon.
[02:55:20]  We got to get you out of here.
[02:55:21]  I'd like to catch.
[02:55:22]  But I really enjoyed that.
[02:55:27]  Where do you envision the dynamic playing ground of the cartels in Mexico going and the factions?
[02:55:35]  Where do you think this is going in the next five years?
[02:55:39]  The next five years are going to be definitely interesting because the whole playground is going to be on this side of the border.
[02:55:45]  This is where everybody's going to be either arrested or free or snitching or talking or on trials.
[02:55:53]  And this is going to become really interesting to watch all these legal developments.
[02:55:58]  I'm pretty sure that we're going to start seeing also killings in the streets of the US from these players, right?
[02:56:04]  It is not the first time.
[02:56:05]  It happened before in Miami, it happened before when all the Colombian cartels were arrested and brought to justice into the US after Pablo Escobar.
[02:56:18]  They all were here in the US snitching, talking, playing their cards on this side and killing each other on this side of the border.
[02:56:28]  And this is what is going to happen eventually here with the Cinelo Cartel.
[02:56:32]  Probably most on the West Coast and LA and all those places.
[02:56:37]  But the next playground for these guys for the next five years, because you're going to have the trial of Opidio.
[02:56:43]  Probably one or two other Chapitos, probably some of them are going to get killed in Mexico.
[02:56:47]  Then you're going to have the Mayos.
[02:56:49]  Then you're going to have new players in the Cinelo Cartel.
[02:56:52]  You're going to have El Nini, Damasos, you know, all these people that are already on this side of the border.
[02:56:58]  Three out of the four kids of El Mayo are on this side of the border.
[02:57:03]  Juan Chapito and his security chief is probably going to be soon on this side of the border.
[02:57:10]  Damaso is on this side of the border.
[02:57:12]  So everybody's going to be on this side of the border cooperating with authorities, and that's going to play out really interesting.

=== Relaunching the YouTube Channel (00:35) ===

[02:57:19]  Well, I'll be following you closely.
[02:57:21]  Again, tell everybody where to watch your videos and read your sub stack and all that.
[02:57:26]  Subscribe to my YouTube channel.
[02:57:28]  I'm going to rebump my YouTube channel, hopefully, make it more consistent.
[02:57:31]  Breaking news there before on Legacy Media.
[02:57:34]  I'm trying to make the leap of.
[02:57:35]  Faith, you know, with your help, of course.
[02:57:38]  Uh, when I relaunch with some good stuff, um, I'm gonna be back and asking for a solid from you to help me rebump my YouTube channel, man.
[02:57:47]  Hell yeah, man.
[02:57:48]  I'm psyched.
[02:57:48]  Um, I'll link it below, yeah.
[02:57:50]  And uh, thanks again, man.
[02:57:51]  We'll get you back in here sometime next year.
[02:57:54]  Fuck yes.
[02:57:54]  All right, goodbye, world.